Seemingly, my USB ports aren't 'high-power'

So, for the last number of days, the battery indicator on my iPod shuffle has been 'amber'. Personally I think its more of an orange colour. But I've been 'charging' it first of all using a USB extender cable (no effect), then directly into the USB port (none either!). Apple sell a dock for $30 (no doubt around €50 here in Ireland, what with markup & general 'we want to rip you off'-ism) but I assume that this is a USB extender in disguise.

I've google'd for a solution and found these results. There's also the 'USB-battery' version 2 from Hack-a-Day.

I'll be working tomorrow, which means I'll be in town & can find something there. No way am I going to let the shuffle run out of power & have no music to listen to on the DART. I mean, someone might talk to me or something... scary!

Other stuff that happened, the Maths test was on today. Five exam style questions to do in an hour. Got two of them but I totally blanked when it came to a proof I had supposedly learned off (thanks brain!) and couldn't explain another question well at all. Attempted all of them so hopefully I'll pick up some attempt marks too.

Thinking of resurrecting the Palm Pilot (m515) I have but haven't used in ages. That, and some of the other hardware I have lying about. I'll have to upgrade the main computer (legion) during the summer. And sort out the operating system situation, and save for an iBook (all the hackers have them now...), and get driving lessons, and get a driving license, and save for a car, and on and on and ariston...

Am I missing a day?

So all day today I've been marking the date on the upper right hand corner of my pad as the 6th of April. I don't recall the 6th being yesterday AT ALL! I think there's something going amiss here.

In other news, stress from studying for this darn maths test is giving me lovely big headaches. Fantastic!

Check this out: YaGoohoo!gle. Someone decided to get the best of both worlds by mixing Yahoo! and Google search results together. They appear in two frames, one either side of the screen like pages in a book. Pretty darn cool!

Well, back to the study...

I'm not on the Rich List this year either!

For those of you know may not know about The Rich List, it's a list of the richest 1,000 people in the UK & Ireland. You may or may not also know that again this year, I'm not on it. "Why?," I hear you ask. (The Rich List is published by The Sunday Times).

It's because I don't have an estimated net worth of €23million. That's the least amount of money you'd need to be worth to get onto the top 250 Irish millionaires, if you want to get into the rankings of the UK one you need to have a net worth of £31million. That's alot of dough.

Someday, though, be it because of a favour an editor owes me, or because I made it big-time with something or other, I'll be on that list. I wouldn't rule out the latter, but the former definitely seems more likely.

Another item to go on the list is to build myself a dry laboratory (one consisting of computers, a wet lab being a proper science dealy with chemicals and other stuff). I was reading an article in Wired Magazine recently about a guy that used a Midi-sequencer-like program to play around with DNA using Computers in a dry lab environment. Think of the possibilities if you had a computing cluster (possibly like a Beowulf one, or perhaps a Stone Souper Computer)...

Baby's got a temper

Not getting the sleep I need. Keep sitting up at night in front of the computer. Not good.

Was thinking about how I'm going to get a linux box running. I've got a feeling that I should leave it till after the exams to start messing around with the boxen. Probably going to write an article for linuxnetmag about resurrecting deadhead. (It's a headless thin-client I've been messing with). I need to decide whether I should put a graphics card in it or use the on-board graphics memory & stick something more useful inside...

Got the topics we covered last term in Maths. These are all potentially on the test on friday:
- Tree proofs
- Referential Transparency Proof
- Modelling Arithmetic
- Modelling boolean algebra
- the Substitution Lemma
- Existential Equality
- Consistancy & Completness

These are all Lambda-calculus topics. Not exciting.

Went to the gym today. First time since going back to college. I'm quite sore, but it's a good soreness. Last time I was in the gym was February 9th. That sucks. Thinking of changing over to the 2nd of the 10 workout plans I have.

To do:
- finish reading The Abs Diet
- start actually eating to that (what I've done so far is good, but not enough)
- sort out college stuff
- secure a job for the summer (that pays decently)

Oh yeah, the Trinity Ball was launched the other day. Lineup looks sucky enough, here's hoping for a good one next year.

Darn cats

So, as you may know, cat mating season starts round about now. I came home from college today to find a tomcat stalking the cat that lives with us. (notice i didn't say my cat, it's not mine...) I made a quick decision and decided to cockblock the tomcat, if he wants it, he can get it when I'm not around thank you very much.

First day back in college since March 5th. Last night I was thinking, "I'd much rather be going to work tomorrow than college." It's getting bad, 6 weeks of lectures, a week for study and then exams. If it were up to me, I'd find a job and not bother returning. But it's not. Only the belly-button fluff can tell me what to do now...

The shuffle is going really well. Really tempted to do some modification on the thing. That'll have to wait though. Needless to say, if I do start modding it, my first stop will be here.

The 'Next Blog' button rules!

In order to have a look at other people's blogger blogs I've been using the 'Next Blog' button on the topbar of my blog.

Just read the latest post on Murk's World and I had to quote from it:
"It reminds me of a little triffle my father spun off one time, when, reflecting upon the stark realities of the fairer sex, he was heard to remark: Never trust something that bleeds for a week and doesn't die."