SoL 20: The Last One

Well here we are, the last slice of life. Throughout the entire course of writing these blogs, I realized that blogging can be about many things. You could, on one hand, write about in-depth articles with detailed analysis of various topics, or you could make frequent posts about your life and what’s going on in your life. I prefer to write a bit of both, where I posted some informative articles, but also blogs about my general day and life.

I went from blogging every other week to blogging multiple times per week. I found that when I’m not expected to write long posts and make them formal, it comes to be easier to write in general. I can write about whatever I might be feeling at that moment, and I think that that freedom allows for more writing to occur, and thus overall better quality writing.

SoL 18: Watches

I’ve had my watch for a while now, some 2 years or so. However, even though it is functionally rich, I feel like I need a new watch that isn’t so, ugly, per say. The watch I have is designed to be a hunting watch, which is why it has a camo band and a brown face. Even though its not TERRIBLE looking, I feel like it’s a bit dated. In addition, the watch band uses Velcro as an attachment tool, so the Velcro is starting to become less sticky and failing to stay on my arm.

My current watch

I’m thinking about getting a more expensive and nicer watch, since my current one is, as said above, old.

SoL 19: AP Bio

aMy main goal over the spring break is to work on and study for the AP bio exam. For those that don’t, know, the AP is a test that you take in May on a specific subject area. For me, that is Bio. Although many people find Bio to be an easy subject, memorizing all the content for the AP bio is a bit overwhelming. Stuff like human physiology is extremely annoying as you must memorize all the various tissues and parts of the system and then remember how these systems work together.

AP stands for "Advanced Placement" even though many colleges don't accept credit from AP's anymore :(

Overall, the multiple choice on the AP seems to be relatively easy, but what I’m really nervous about is the essay section. They might ask questions about things I don’t know a lot about, and that would be difficult to answer. Anyway, I’m hoping I can get a 5 so I don’t have to worry about bio in the future :D

SoL 17: Braces

Ugh, I think this is the first time I’ve written about my braces or even generally thought of them as a bother in a while. Yesterday, my braces broke apart, as in the bracket box thingy that stays glued to your tooth fell off, and that was quite an odd feeling. The box was still attached to the wire, so it just kept sliding around and generally being a bother. In addition to this, today, my bottom wire also detached itself from the base bracket at the back of the tooth. At first, I didn’t feel anything, but now, it starting to get sore. I don’t really know why, but I assume it’s because there is an odd pressure on the tooth, and its pulling or pushing on it (even though it fell off?) Not sure.  However, I’m lucky because I’m going to the orthodontist tomorrow, so hopefully it can be all fixed up :D

SoL 16: SPRING BREAK!

Because of evil Hurricane Sandy, we got 2 weeks off, but that break was demolished by downed power lines and no internet (OH NOES). In addition, to make up for the missed days, the school was forced to remove all the holidays in-between that time and spring break. It was tiring, stressful, and its finally over. Now that we are on spring break, it’s like all those worries about tests are gone! However, I feel like the week before spring break was one of the most stressful I’ve had in a while. Firstly, all the teachers starting giving lots of homework and taught new chapters in an attempt to finish a section before the break. This resulted in late nights doing homework and somewhat procrastinating. Next, near the end of the week, all the teachers thought it would be FUN to assign tests, so we had 3 days of just tests in various subjects. FINALLY on Thursday and Friday, we got a break since half/half of the freshmen class got to go to MJSS, which was a reasonably fun experience. Oh well, now that’s it’s over, I guess there’s no point in complaining. Only one thing to do now, TAKE A BREAK!

Its amazing how long it took to find an appropriate image

SoL 14: The snow that other day… and the sunshine today

So as most of you have probably noticed, New Jersey didn’t get a lot of snow this winter. Yet now, in March, we get 2 relatively large snow falls that managed to cover the ground with a bit of snow. How??? If only we could get that snow in the winter, that would be awesome. Even though snow days would probably be bad news, as spring break would have been cut short  :\ However, it is quite peculiar for us to get somewhat frequent snow this time of the year. Mayb--- Climate change is almost definitely a factor in this, along with global warming. I feel like you can’t deny global warming anymore, its effects are already upon us. Saying that the climate isn’t changing for the worse is like saying the earth is flat. (I’m looking at you flatearthsociety.com) No matter what, I think we as humans need to do much more than we are doing right now. If you watch Bill Gate’s TED talk, Innovating to Zero, it’s funny how a few years ago, we were working hard to stop global warming, yet it’s like we forgot about it now.

Spring flowers with snow? OH NOES!

SoL 15: MJSS

Today, I went to MJSS to watch all the amazing presentations. They were all really good, and I learned a lot, EXCEPT for the invited speaker. I don’t know if it was on purpose or something, but he somehow ended up being the most boring and non-informative speaker, even if he was from NASA and had a somewhat interesting topic. Starting off, his presentation was plain black and white, nothing to keep your attention. After that, there were barely any pictures to understand what he was saying, in addition to the fact that each one of his slides had about 1billion words on it. It was unbearable. He also talked for an hour, which was no help, as it was all about the same thing. The sad part is he may have spent an hour talking about it, while the other students spent 30 min, but I remember more about the student presentations than the invited speaker.  After this tedious talk, we got to go to lunch, where it was discovered that there wasn’t any food. It ended up being ok because we went back to Brookdale for food, and it was reasonably good and well-priced. After that, we just ran around outside for a bit before returning to High Tech and then SPRING BREAK!

SoL 13: My Birthday!

So yea March 21^st is my birthday, and I thank everyone who made it awesome! Brandon and Andrew decorated my locker (even if it was just 4 sheets of paper) IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS! So that was fun. Even though half the freshman class was at the MJSS presentation, I had a great day. In IED, since there were only 10 people, Mrs. G  let us play music and it was fun. I made this really cool torus ball thing, with some 10 layers and 10000 inches in diameter… hehe. Anyway this is a short SoL because I don’t have much to say…. Oh right I had pit band that day too so although it is quite tedious and time consuming, I had a relatively good time and had fun with it. :D

SoL 12: Photoshop

On my home computer, I use Photoshop CS6 Extended edition. Until recently, I never knew the difference between the Extended and the standard edition. However, I went and used the same installer on my mom’s computer, and somehow managed to install the regular version instead of the extended version. Thus, when I went and tried to make a 3D extrusion on the regular edition, the feature was missing. Personally, I think for such an expensive piece of software, that 3D feature should be on the regular version regardless. Perhaps they could cut some of the more advanced lighting and effects, but to cut the entire feature is pretty crazy.

Considering how that seems to be the only major feature  content wise in the upgrade from CS5 to CS6, cutting it on the regular version of Photoshop is like cheating their customers out of a major feature. If we are paying upwards of400 dollars, don’t we deserve a skinned version of 3D at least?

SoL 11: Printers

At my Chinese School, they use a non-commercial MFC Brother printer to handle all their printing needs. However, since it is not designed for high volume printing, the various parts are all in disrepair. The Drum is at 0% life, yet the administrators don’t seem to notice and thus the part has gone un-replaced for a year. I don’t remember why it’s bad or what the drum does, but I’m pretty sure that its somewhat important in the functioning of quality printing.

It’s funny how some people can be so technologically illiterate. When the other TA’s tried ot replace the toner cartridge because it was empty, they were so errr silly as to throughout the tray that held the cartridge. Thus prompting a bunch of questions as to why the toner was refusing to stay put, and why the printer kept saying that it was “out of toner.” Ah the good old printer, a hassle-full device that is quickly losing popularity…

SoL 10: Half-way there!

Well THIS is the 10^th blog that I’ve done for Slice of life! For those that don’t know, slice of life is a competition/challenge in March to create a blog post every day about something that happened in your life that day. Even though I haven’t met that challenge, I have been doing my best to blog more. This is the 10^th one : D I actually realized a few days ago that if I made a blog post a day, I would only just make the deadline of March 31^st.

I don’t really know what to talk about, but I was listening to this song called Halfway Gone by Lifehouse, and it was really good. Lifehouse is a pretty good band, but I don’t listen to them a lot, I don’t know why. They have a few really good songs, as well as some good remixes. I guess I just got caught up listening with my favorite artists that I forgot about them. Anyway, the Demolition Crew remix of Halfway Gone is awesome, brb listening to music.

SoL 9: Those cheesy classroom mottos

Yea you know what I’m talking about, the big posters with some “deep thought” quote from some guy.  For example: “For Success, Attitude is as important as Ability.” Who’s coming up with these cheesy things? I mean I get that they are so supposed to inspire kids to work harder, but who really reads them and takes them seriously? I’ve only looked at them when I’m really bored after finishing a test and have nothing else to do.

It’s actually kind of funny to read them, because they are like the same things that everyone tells you, but you almost never follow them. As much as I understand I need to “manage time” or have “a good attitude,” these are like common things that I really don’t need to be reminded of. Ugh, this blog is sort of turning into a rant; then again, most of my blogs are… hehe. I guess a real question is probably, who’s the person is writing these. Are they just made up by people that are trying to make a profit? I mean if it was a truly inspirational quote from a famous person, they would probably mean more. :/ Hopefully it’s that, though these posters don’t seem to have any author…

SoL 8: Radio Waves

How come we are still using a radio? When I tried to listen to the radio, all I got was poor quality audio that was unsatisfactory to my ears. My question is, after all these years, how come the radio hasn’t been forced to follow the same pattern as the other tech companies, which is innovate or die? I mean, I feel like radio technology is the same as it was when it came out, only with more channels. The quality of it is just as bad where there are spots of interference. How come we can’t figure out a way to fix these problems? I mean, as humans, we have sent a freaking rover to mars in search of alien life, but we can’t figure out a way to improve a staple technology?

My other question is, if the radio is so poor quality, why are we still listening to it? With the outbreak of online streaming services, we can listen to almost any song we want too with no interference or static. With the smartphone influenza that has recently broke out, nearly everyone has some sort of personal music device, yet we are still the old-fashioned radio in cars and other vehicles. My only question is, why?

Sol 7: Wobble Wobble Wobble

Today I was working on a desk and the most annoying thing happened. ONE OF THE LEGS WAS SHORTER THAN THE OTHERS! It was one of the most annoying things I had ever experienced. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked on wobbly desks and chairs for a lifetime. Yet the annoying part was that I am trying to write and concentrate and it just KEPT WOBBLING. Like a bobble head or something. The best solution I have found to this problem is to take a piece of paper and fold it 6 times or so and just shove it under that corner. HOWEVER, it’s even worse when that makes the problem worse. Sometimes, when I shove the paper underneath the leg, it makes one of the other legs unbalanced and I have to repeat the process until the legs are perfectly aligned and approximately all the same height. >:O Sigh, why does life have so many annoyances?

SoL 6: Chinese School

Every Saturday, (well almost every Saturday) for the past 10 years, I’ve be going to Chinese school. For the first 9 years, it was to learn Chinese from first to 9^th grades. Now, I work as a TA. From 9 in the morning to 12, I was learning about various bits of Chinese culture and Chinese words. Ugh how I had hated it before when I was a younger student. I found it tremendously boring and felt like I was just wasting time doing learning stupid things. As I got older, I started to see the value in it, (even if I still felt it was boring).

Now that I’m a TA though, and I don’t actually have to LEARN (GASP!), I find it a lot better as I can see my old friends from Middle school while also volunteering and helping. I have a lot more fun than I used to :D

SoL 5:Pit Band

Yesterday I had to go to Pit band. It was annoying. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing the saxophone and going to band, but practices just tire me out. Since each practice runs utnil 4:30, it gets really tiring playing the sax for 2 hours. In addition, the practices are 2-3 a week, which is just a huge time chunk that i have to take to go to these practices instead of possibly doing hw or procrastinating. (hehe). Combined with activities like Bio League and FFF, its like i just don't have enough time. Maybe i have to learn to manage my time better? Not sure. Next week will be hectic, what with 3 pit practices and who knows what else.

THIS IS ME

Eh I guess this is all a result of being unable to manage time well, but still. I'd like to keep my relaxing time thank you.

SoL 4: IMMA FIRING MAH LAZOR

I recently attempted to build a burning laser out of scrap parts from a DVD burner and some components I found online.  After some research, the general online consensus was that a 6 volt power source with a voltage regulating circuit would adequately drive and protect an 180mw laser taking from said burner. Unfortunately, throughout the course of the build, I ran into multiple problems First, the DVD diode I extracted was rimmed with extra solder, which made it nearly impossible to fit into the aixiz laser housing that I had purchased. After a lot of scraping and sanding, I managed to get it into the housing using a vice. After that ordeal that took about 2 weeks, I screwed up and broke off the negative pin of the diode. Spending another hour soldering it on, I finally got everything seemingly ready. The components started to come in, but I am still missing a couple 47uf 37 volt capacitors to finish the driver circuit.

The point of the driver circuit is to control the voltage going into the diode. If I put 6 volts directly into the diode, it would burn out almost immediately due to the fact that even DC currents have voltage spikes. The main component would be a LM317 voltage regulator and a 100ohm potentiometer. The potentiometer serves as a variable resistor for the circuit, adjusting brightness of the laser (and also the current going into it). Unfortunately I now hit my final bug, which was not being allowed to use the laser, as it could potentially harm my eyes. Hmpf, maybe I’ll find some other use for it in the future.

SoL 3: (Vector) Graphics

Working on the poster for free form Friday, I was stuck with trying to find an image large enough to fill a 17 by 22 inch poster, yet I couldn’t find any that were that size and free for download. Eventually, I did some research and found that vector graphics would be the way to go. Vector graphics are images that can be scaled to any size without any resolution loss. Similar to text, however, these are full images. I downloaded a couple in the .eps format, and scaled them up to 22 by 32 inches, at 1k ppi. Clearly enough to use in my poster.

Hopefully, all goes as planned as I’m actually facing a few problems with saving, as the files get to be really large. (Like really really large, over 2 gb) But I think the effort is worth it since it looks really good, and since it’s a, as I previously mentioned, vector graphic, there is no blurriness.

SoL 2: IRL

So recently, i had to make a frame for my FFF project. Alot of us at HTHS find IED to be a difficult subject since you have to learn how to make all the extrusions and rotations and revolutions, etc. However, I learned that making things IRL is sooo much harder. For one, I had to cut all the wood I needed, and the simple act of measuring the dimensions took almost 30 minutes to perfect. Actually cutting the wood was simple, but then putting together a frame is much harder then it looks. After an hour of swapping drill bits and precisely measuring holes, i managed to put together the basic frame.

Overall it took me about 3 hours to get the wooden frame together, and the fact that it took me so long made me realize that the computer =/= IRL. :(

A picture of the finished product:

SoL 1

Silence rises as the Judge moves on past his prey. I recently watched the movie “Dredd 3D” which is an extremely gory movie based on the events in a popular English cartoon. However although the movie had a lot of violence, its special effects and plot line were exceptionally good. I was surprised that the company had managed to incorporate so much action into a single movie with a good plot and many suspenseful plot twists.



The movie is about a future society, where police act as a judge, jury, and executioner. A famous judge, Dredd, is assigned to take a rookie out on a practice run, but they end up having to fight an entire 200 floor buildings worth of a gang, and take out the leader. There are multiple plot twists and other sorts of suspenseful moments. After a week of long projects and tests and quizzes and more projects and more quizzes and more tests, I was finally able to relax and watch a good movie, which I haven’t done in a while. So if you are in search of a thriller/action movie, then Dredd is definitely a movie that would be worth checking out.