Checksum Arcanius

I got to spend the day at school and the night reading and writing. In other news, the Lincoln Square Tower is a great place to study Organic Chemistry:

I hate Gmail’s new hover box with a passion. I am one who likes to hover my mouse over the text I’m reading, such as the sender and subject of a message recently recieved. However, when I do this on gmail, a big, ugly box appears right over the test I’m trying to read, ruining the whole experience.

The addition of chat I could also care less about, but at least it can be minimized down to about a 100×30 pixel sub-window on the left side of my screen. The boxes, however, are nasty and don’t seem to go away.

What do the rest of you think?

UPDATE — RETRACTION
Adorama has agreed to refund the $15 for shipping, and pointed out to me that the auction does mention that the item pcitured may not be the same as the item shipped. As a result, I feel strongly that a retraction of my accusation and an apology is in order. While I looked again at the page for anything like this before writing, I managed to miss that clause. Adorama has truly impressed me with their willingness to refund the money — I had truly given up and was just going through the “due dilligence” motions before filing negative feedback. However, they responded productively and I have to give them a lot of credit for that.

I will keep the post below, just to remind me that I shouldn’t judge too quickly (wasn’t I supposed to learn that during the Super Bowl?)

I have had bad luck with my online purchases recently. A couple months ago, I made the mistake of purchasing some laptop power adapters from Priority Electronics. Last month, I made the mistake of purchasing a camera from Adorama over Ebay.

Now, the Adorama Camera Company (ebay id adorwin) has a hugely positive feedback score — over 5000 positive, with a low percentage of negative feedbacks. I thought I was safe. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

“Take a look, good condition and works fine. Please see photos and place a bid. Has eye control. Good luck, no reserve. ” the ad boldly stated. I had been flirting with the idea of purchasing the same camera without eye control from a local seller for aout $100. On Ebay, I was able to get it for $80, shipped. I thought I would be happy. The camera arrived, bare bones as expected, and I began using it the next day after picking up (expensive) batteries at Radio Shack.

In attempting to become familar with the camera, I noticed that some of the icons below the left dial were rubbed off. Since the camera came with no manual, I would have to surf the net to find out exactly what those icons were. I was, however, undeterred. After all, everything went fine… until that first evening, then I turned the camera on and it reported “no battery.”

Strange, I thought. On the other hand, ocasionally on my Rebel G, a low battery icon will show up when the camera is cold. However, the camera wasn’t cold, and this was showing No battery left. I cycled power a few times, and then the camera came back to life. That left me undaunted, but I soon ran into another problem: after taking a picture, the viewfinder remained blank. Upon further investiagtion, it became clear that the mirror was not returning after the picture. Cycling the camera’s power resolved this issue. However, at this point it was clear to me that I had a defective camera.

So I began a little more in-depth research. I double checked the ebay listing to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything. Sure enough, the ad said that the camera worked fine. And it included this photo:

I quickly compared that photo to my camera, and came to the unhappy realization that I had just become the victim a bait-and-switch routine. Here are some pictures I took of the camera sent to me before I sent it back:

If you look closely at the left dial, you will see that the icons that are missing in the pictures I took are very much present in Adorama’s photo. They had cheated me. The images below highlight the area in question:

Had I simply recieved a intermittently broken camera, I would hae been very understanding. Adorama has, after all (about three weeks later), returned my money, except for shipping costs. I understand that they can’t catch every intermittent problem, so I am willing to deal with that. However, the icon business convinced me that they had intentionally shipped me a camera other than the one advertised. So now the shipping costs kinda piss me off, a lot. I’m out $21 bucks — $15 to get it here, $6 to get it back — and Adorama gets that $15, and the camera, and a lot of my time and energy is wasted.

Thus this blog, and thus the fact that I am about to leave Adorama a hugely negative feedback. Likely, it will hurt me more than it hurts them — they have a +5000 rating and I have a +2 rating. However, I would be remiss in my Ebay duties were I to let this fraud go unchallenged. So I will take the hit and let the world know what Adorama can do to you.

Application Certification and Submission

Your application for the College of Engineering has been successfully submitted and is now complete and closed.

The deadline is February 1, 2006, 5pm. All I am really looking for at this point is grammar and spelling checks. Thanks.

Read the rest of this entry »

While I haven’t spent every waking hour studying recently, the percentage of my life devoted to school is definitely a lot higher this quarter than last, despite what I suspected when I signed up for one less credit.

When I first applied to the University of Washington in 2001, I listed my major of choice as Computer Science. I was accepted and even offered early admission to the CS program. Instead, I took a different path before ending up, in many ways, right where I had started – but with much more experience, motivation, and dedication, not to mention many more credits. I learned something very important about myself along the way as well. I discovered that I would not be happy as a pure “computer scientist.” Programming, in and of itself, did not resonate with me. Computer Science was not my calling. However, I also realized that computers and technology were far too interesting for me to not study them.

Along with my experiences working at Microvision and mentoring the Titan Robotics Club, I uncovered a truer passion – namely, embedded systems. Though similar in all the good ways to Computer Science, Computer Engineering struck me as the perfect blend of hardware and software, of theory and application. Though it’s a bit dramatic, as a computer scientist I always imagined myself trapped forever in a dark cubicle in front of a glowing monitor tapping away late into the night. As a computer engineer, I see myself in a somewhat brighter cubicle working not quite as late into the night, and enjoying myself a lot more. In short, I think that Computer Engineering is about balance – the right balance for me.

I believe that my unique experiences and accomplishments will bring a lot to the Computer Engineering program. For example, I am an active mentor with a FIRST Robotics team, the Titan Robotics Club (TRC), which I co-founded during my senior year in high school. The TRC had such an important impact on my life that when I returned to the area, I began working with the team again so that I could help other high school students have an experience similar to mine. Since I rejoined the TRC, the club has won back-to-back regional competitions and placed highly at The Championship (5th and 9th out of 300 teams). I say this not to boast (though I do like to brag about the kids on the team), but to show that I understand the motivation and dedication it takes to build a winning team.

Another example is my work experience at Microvision. Originally slated as a three to six month position, I have now been at it for nearly two years, and I have worked projects that I would never associate with an intern’s normal role – including business trips to meet with important clients and the development of mission-critical applications delivered to partners and consumers. The arrangement has been mutually beneficial – they provide flexibility and experience and I deliver high-quality work and timely results.

Finally, Computer Engineering is not my only interest. From my transcripts, you will see that I have chosen to take a wider variety of science and engineering classes than is necessary to apply to the department. This is because I genuinely enjoy learning about and understanding how our universe works and because, if I am so lucky as to be accepted to both Computer Engineering and Bioengineering, I plan to major in both. In my ideal future world, I would like to use this “Biocomputer Engineering” degree to facilitate the fusion of biological and computer systems to develop devices such as artificial eyes that could restore vision to the blind and enhance visual capabilities of normal human beings. I would also be quite happy to study Computer Engineering alone and concentrate on developing the types of embedded devices I currently work with at Microvision.