● يه هم كاري تو مدرسه دارم كه اتفاقآ ايراني هم هست‏‏،‌يه مدت رفته بود تو خط ماشين خريدن. اون هم چي: بنز ML320 . بعد از يه مدت به تويوتا 4Runner رضايت داده بود. نمي دونم چرا SUV اين جا اين همه خاطرخواه داره. باز پاتزول هاي ايران يه چيزي. يه خورده قيافه ي جدي داشت. به بنز توهين نشه، ولي ML320 اون قدر گرد ه كه وقتي عكس اش رو مي بيني فكر مي كني تبليغ Body by Victoria است: All you see is the curves
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 7:21 PM توسط Alireza

● Kevin Smith کارگردان فيلم های Clerks و Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back يه فيلم کوتاه خيلی باحال ساخته به اسم Flying Cars که ديشب تو شوی Jay Leno برای اولين بار نشون داده شد. اين بشر ديوونه است!! :) mpeg فيلم روبا کيفيت خوب می تونيد از اينجا برداريد. فرمت های ديگه اش هم رو سايت www.newsaskew.com هست ولی بايد بگرديد و پيدا کنيد. اين هم يه streaming real video ی کم حجم.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 6:57 PM توسط Alireza

● Thursday, February 28.
Law of Annoyance:
When working on a project, if you put away a tool that you're certain you're finished with, you will need it again.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 6:49 PM توسط Alireza

● اهه! چه باحال! تازه متوجه شدم كه فوريه 28 روزي ه. يه خوبي داره كه فردا دوره ي كوتاه پول داري شروع مي شه. از طرف ديگه صورت حساب ها رو زودتر بايد رسيدگي كنم، علي الخصوص چندرغاز ISP مدرسه.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 1:19 AM توسط Alireza

● اين وب لاگ ها ظاهرا” كار هم مي كنند :)) يه همكلاسي قديمي (اگه بشه 2-3 سال رو قديم حساب كرد) كه يه وب لاگ باحال به اسم لامپ داره، به ام ايميل زده بود كه احيانا” در شرق آمريكا نيستم(نه!)، چون اون هم شنبه جيمز باند ه رو كه نوشته بودم ديده بود. قسمت خنده دارش اين بود كه نشناخته بود و تازه ازجواب من متوجه شده بود كه يه زمان سر يه امتحان تحليل مو ها مون رو مي كنديم.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 12:52 AM توسط Alireza

● Wednesday, February 27:
Cotner's Law for Salespeople:
Your call-back is never there when you call back.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 12:27 AM توسط Alireza

● اينجاقرار نبود چيزي باشه.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 11:50 PM توسط Alireza

● بعضي اوقات فراموش كردن چيزي كه آدم حتمآ مي خواد شركت كنه، به نفع آدم تموم مي شه. نمي خوام بگم عدو شود... ، چون فراموشي يكي از بزرگ ترين نعمات اي ه كه گير آدم اومده. منظورم اين ه كه بعضي اوقات فراموشي توفيق اجباري ه. مثلآ من امروز امتحان ميان ترم داشتم،‌ و واقعآ اوضاع خيلي خطري بود. ولي ديروز يه سمينار بود كه خيلي مي خواستم شركت كنم و حتي مجبور هم بودم. منتها كاملآ يادم رفت و عوضش كلي خر زدم.لازم بود ولي اگه يادم مي موند، مي رفتم و امروز به جاي يه دست با دو تا دست تو سر خودم مي زدم.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 11:43 PM توسط Alireza

● Tuesday, Februaru 26.
Langer's Law of Waiting in Line:
If the line moves quickly, you're in the wrong line.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 11:08 PM توسط Alireza

● اما سهميه ی بدبينی امروز. فکر کنم بهتر باشه اين ها رو به همون انگليسی بنويسم:

Monday, Febrauray 25.
Wolter's Law:
If you have the time, you won't have the money.
If you have the money, you won't have the time.

□ نوشته شده در ساعت 7:13 PM توسط Alireza

● از ديشب windows شروع به اعصاب زدن كرده بود. ماوس رو desktop كار مي كرد، ولي رو هيچ پنجره اي يا حتي start menu كار نمي كرد. اول فكر كردم ويروسي شدم، ولي خيلي عجيب مي بود. رو هر پنجره ي اكتيو ي كه كليك مي كردم،inactive مي شد. آخر مثل ابله ها دوباره windows رو install كردم. واقعآ هيچ كاري نمي شد كرد، حتي به ضرب و زور keyboard هم تو control panel رفتم و باهاش ور رفتم، ولي هيچ فرقي نكرد.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 12:20 AM توسط Alireza

● امشب فيلم You only live twice جيمز باند رو تلويزيون گذاشته بود.واقعاً كه آخر خنده بود. آدم رو به فكر مي اندازه كه 30 سال ديگه وقتي فيلم هايي رو كه ما امروز مي بينيم و حال مي- كنيم ببينند چي فكر مي كنند.راستي كه فيلم هاي Austin Powers به اين خنده داري نيستند :).
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 1:05 AM توسط Alireza

● از اول هم می خواستم اينجا فارسی بنويسم، منتها تنبلی ام می اومد. وقتی تايپ فارسی ام حداقل 10 بار کند تر از تايپ انگليسی ام ه، عقل سليم هم اين حکم رو می کنه. ولی از طرفی هم اگه به انگليسی نوشتن ادامه بدم حدود 0.5+/-0.5 خواننده خواهم داشت.؛-) فکر کنم مجبورم از اين به بعد اين مشقت رو تحمل کنم.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 6:47 PM توسط Alireza

● Saturday/Sunday, February 23/24.
Kagel's Law:
Anything adjustable will eventually need adjustment.

□ نوشته شده در ساعت 11:28 AM توسط Alireza

● New great news :( The Russian skating federation has filed a protest on the judging of the women's long program. The stupidest thing I've ever read is on msn website, from the head of Russian delegation to Salt lake city. It is getting really bad and disappointing.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 11:13 AM توسط Alireza

● Friday, February 22.
Lovka's Political Principle:
There is no sincerity like a politician telling a lie.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 11:09 AM توسط Alireza

● Tonight was the final of women's figure skating in winter Olympics. It was amazing, and kind of sad. I personally rooted for Sasha Cohen.(Why? Honestly because of not having enough stupid things to do at home and office!) Well he ended up in 4th place, but quite amazingly, her one year younger teammate, 16 year old Sara Hughes who ended at 4th place in the short program won the gold medal quite rightfully. She made a great and flawless (of course to my totally dull eye) performance. Michelle Kwan, the favorite American skater ended up for bronze medal. The sad thing was that the gold medal has, as people say, eluded her 4 years in Nagano, and she had dedicated her life to this sport to get the gold medal. It was great watching a 16 year old winning the Olympic championship, and sad to watch 4 years of dedication to become nothing in just one bad slip. And of course the Russian champion to beat Michelle Kwan just enough for the Sara Hughes to grab the gold, but bringing herself just the silver.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 12:51 AM توسط Alireza

● Tomorrow is the Jacobs School of Engineering research review. A major part of it is a poster session done by grad students. The funny thing about it is that they extended the deadline to submit the titles (basically meaning to make a commitment) at least twice and sending several emails to us. Well I guess they did not get enough responses to their emails. All of a sudden our advisor became interested in the thing, and asked us all to prepare posters. What do you think? I would say that they have asked the faculty to save the prestige of UCSD/JSOE.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 3:39 PM توسط Alireza

● Thursday, February 21.
Robert Anthony's Law of Equal Opportunity Employment:
The one most qualified is not the first hired.

□ نوشته شده در ساعت 3:38 PM توسط Alireza

● Wednesday, February 20:
Mary's Rule of Workplace Lunches:
An office potluck luncheon for fifteen people given no specific directions on what to bring
will result in a potluck of potato chips and dip for fifteen.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 7:02 PM توسط Alireza

● Check out these intriguing stats here.

Well basically I wanted to check how a link looks like here, and I have read those stuff already, but the flash presentation worths it.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 12:48 AM توسط Alireza

● The word coupon has a totally differenet meaning here. In Iran it was a symbol of shortage of essential goods, especially basic food. Here it is a stupid piece of paper that the reatilers sometimes give you as a "prize" to make you buy the stuff they want to sell. I had two coupons for one thing that I did not want and one coupon for something I needed, but not the amount that I had to buy to use the coupon. I thought I could test the first one and buy more of the second and store it at home. However at the counter, I totally forgot I had the coupons, I remembered too late when the cashier presented me with my "gift": Another coupon of the second kind.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 12:40 AM توسط Alireza

● I was going to write about the weather of San Diego getting cold, but I realized I don't have a lot to say about that. The winter Olympic is going full power, and much to my satisfaction, no one talks about the so called "judging scandal" in paris ice skating. Tonight the short program of ladies single competition was on. Alternatively they showed aerial ski jumping. Honestly both sports are extremely hillarious. I always enjoyed watching figure skating, but recently I had the chance to try it, and if you haven't tried it yet, believe me, these people who do this are unbelievable for me. It is much harder than one expects, to stand still on the blades on clear smooth ice.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 12:25 AM توسط Alireza

● Tuesday, February 19
Law of the Workshop:
You can always find three nuts to fit the four screws you need.

□ نوشته شده در ساعت 8:20 AM توسط Alireza

● Monday, February 18:
Principal Rule of Politcis:
It matters not what you do,
but what you say you'll do and what you say you've already done.

□ نوشته شده در ساعت 10:19 AM توسط Alireza

● Well after a delay:
Saturday/Sunday, February 16/17:
Arnold's Law of Documentation:
1. If it should exist, it doesn't.
2. If it does exist, it's out of date.
3. Only useless documentation transcends the first two laws.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 10:18 AM توسط Alireza

● Sometimes it really feels good to come back home with the last bus at night. It may sound crazy, but when you've been enjoying what you were doing, especially if it has not been entertainment, but some kind of manual or mental work, it fills you with a sweet sense of satisfying tire. It happended to me tonight, although there was another bus after mine. I came home last night around the same time too, but I was so tired that I slept this morning untill around 11. That has helped me to stay awake no, but it is running out. Of course you would not enjoy it if you were scared of being out after midnight. :)
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 2:06 AM توسط Alireza

● Friday, February 15:
Horwood's Law:
If you have the right data, you have the wrong problem.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 8:55 PM توسط Alireza

● The controversy on the ice skating judgement in the Olympics has ended today, they decided to give another gold medal to the Canadian team. I did not watch the cometition and even if I did, I could not be sure. They say, and especially the hungry for stupid hoax American media, that since the Russian athlete has stumbled once, and on the same move the Canadians did a perfect job, then they have cheated and pressurized the French judge. As a matter of fact I have seen the moment of this incidence 2000000 times, but never the whole performance. Last night an American women's ski sliver medalist was in one of the late night shows, and she ruthlessly gives herself the right to insult the Russian team. This morning, they had invited the russian girl and their coach to the NBC's morning show. Obviously the two poor ladies, could not complete an acceptable english sentence, so their self-defence was far more destructive than any harm the news could have done. The hostess asked the girl, how she would feel if the Canadians be awarded with another gold medal. I was missing my bus, so I turned off the TV and rushed out. However, think about it, how would you feel. She could not say that she would be upset, which is the case, because her gold medal has become equal to nothing right now. God, it was a mess.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 8:54 PM توسط Alireza

● Long day and yet not finished. The first thing in the morning was a very bad disappointment. I came this morning and first thing I saw was that the license of the software that I hoped would be running all the night and give me very urgent results this morning has expired, probably at the midnight. I had thought of any other problem except this last one. Now, they have a new version and it take sometime to send it to us (Of course, don't think this has the same meaning as in Iran, it means 2 working days, not eternity ;) ) So I have to go to another building tomorrow to work things out.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 8:46 PM توسط Alireza

● Nothing is good enough. Better to say nothing is complete. I have to do some simulations and I am using this very good and flexible software, which produces its own parametric scripts, you really don't need to do much. However there is one parameter which is almost external, however in nature of programming does not differ from others. They did not put the possibility to script this one, probably because they could not think of something like my stupid situation, where I have to change it for any run, or inefficiently run it for the days to come. :(
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 2:10 PM توسط Alireza

● Thursday, February 14:
Jana's Law of Love:
A dandelion from a lover means more than an orchid from a friend.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 10:18 AM توسط Alireza

● Ever noticed the difference between the professors educated (at least for undergraduate) in Europe and the ones in US? I really feel it. The first group are always arrogant, not that they show it, but they think they are superior in what they're doing or whatever they have hade some exposure to. They are usually very good at what they do. And so if you can bear this arrogance you can do really good research with them. However, they feel that everything else in science is also that simple that they think. So usually they are really narrow-minded. Those who are not like this, are usually in the top scientist in the world. But these are usually more like top Americans (US-educated). They are open to other ideas, methods and techniques, than what they master. On the other hand, the Americans that are not on the top, in my opinon, are more efficient than their European counterparts.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 7:47 PM توسط Alireza

● Wednesday, February 13: Robert's Observation:
Love is disorganized knowledge.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 7:33 PM توسط Alireza

● OK, long day here at school, and still not finished. I have to make some simulations. When I was setting up my office computer, I was planning to use e Linux OS. So I partiotioned the hard-drive based on that, and I made 4 different partiotions. It is kinda good to have different partiotions for different purposes when you are running Linux, although you will have similar performance problem that I am dealing with right now. When I realized that I need to run a certain simulation software (the one that I am working with tonight) which is windows based, I had to install Win2K. I partiotioned the hard again with the same idea. However when you have different partiotions under windows which is constantly playing with hard, you will get a very bad performance, since it has to play with the heads and other stuff that I don't know. So it really bothers you to hear the sound of the damn hard drive all the time. I have a lot of RAM (used to be 512M, recently added another 256M module), so it almost never uses hard as virtual memory, but all the same, the hard is always working :(. Now I am considering 2 options. One is to use a partition magic-like software, to make it only one partition. The other is to buy another hard and use a Norton like software to move everything over there.

By the way in the ancient times when FAT was still alive, it was wise to use small partiotions, because making a big partiotion would have meant that your sectors and tracks should have been large. At the same time you had a lot of very short files, which would have used to whole track, which was a waste of the capacity. But hey, we are talking about NTSF and 40G of hard, which is still not huge compared with today's hard drive capacities.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 7:28 PM توسط Alireza

● I usually don't sleep early. I mean for example it is 12:15 right now and I don't really feel drowsy. So the TV is on and the stupidest show is going on. Thanks God, now that I am thinking, I can change the channel. There are a whole bunch of dating shows on the TV, especially late night. This one is called The Fifth Wheel. They gather 4 stupid strnagers and let them try to attract eachother, then "throw in the fifth wheel". Does it really have any meaning? I was wondering once, where the hell do they find these fools, but calculated and realized that there are enough of them only in LA (the showbiz capital of the world) to let the show go on for years to come. It is so gross.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 12:17 AM توسط Alireza

● O God :( I just wrote a whole bunch of things on how at last I got to see my own weblog, and tried to publish it, but since I have left the room in the middle for something, it turned out that my session was timed out, and I just lost the whole thing.

Anyway, I summarize it. I have a Linux virtual machine on my Win2K host. It uses a very interesting software, called VMware, which basically allows you to do this. It is quite powerful and even can become an independent node on the network. So I have this right here, and I resumed it (Yes, you can suspend the virtual machine and even turn off the host and anytime you like resume it and you will be exactly where you suspended it, you basically don't need to shut down the virtual machine.) Opened the Mozilla Navigator and bingo, I could view it :). I still can't do it on IE, though I upgraded form 5 to 6, and fooled around with the DNS configurations. I have to remember how to view and set the network configurations on Linux and try these settings for windows too, to solve the problem if it is indeed due to the DNS configurations, which I doubt.

By the way, a friend reminded me that I havn't published my email address here. I don't know how to make a permanant link, but anyway here it is:
alireza_va@yahoo.com.

;) waiting for any kind of feedback!
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 6:26 PM توسط Alireza

● I got this very cool Murphy's Law calender. You know that :" If anything can go wrong, it will." This is the original Murphy's Law which folks have made a variation of it for every day of the year. I send each day's quote to one of my friends regularly. Now that I am doing this I wil post it here too. So get today's dose of pessimism:

Meyer's Law:
It is a simple task to make things complex,
but a complex task to make them simple.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 3:33 PM توسط Alireza

● Yeah baby! 13 Oscar nomination for the best of them all. I just read that the academy has announced the Oscar 2002 nominations and sure enough, The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring has gotten 13, including best picture, best director, best adapted screen play, best supporting actor and best score. The sweetest of them all was Sir Ian's who has not gotten his due respect in previous award shows this year. Way to go and let's cross our fingers for March's bigger news!

Now that the excitement has subsided a little bit (and the webspot is still not working :( ), for those who happen to live in solitary confinement last weeks, LOTR:FOTR is the first installment of the fantastic fantasy trilogy of the same name by the great british author: J.R.R Tolkien. It is a masterpiece in its kind and (I think) the second mostly read book after the bible. The movie adaptation is spectacular however couldnot get close to the true joy of the book. I have watched the movie 3 times so far. And I am planning for at least one more after the Oscar results, when they will add some footage from the second installment, The Two Towers, which is scheduled to release in Dec. 2002.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 10:49 AM توسط Alireza

● Oops, it seems that it's not working properly, I can't view my weblog. What's going on. It worked this morning, and it doesn't give me any error when I try to publish stuff. But the webpage can not be resolved :(.
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 10:03 AM توسط Alireza

● Now, last night I was officially asleep when I created this. However it seems that it still works, even today from the office. I have to find the Win2K CD to install Farsi on this machine too, although I am not very able to type in Farsi. Anyway.

I guess to publish a good weblog you have to go into the deep of the news. How interesting it is to let the people know that Tom and othes have returned from LA and their trip to meet Wudl and discuss this new, supposedly, self-healing polymer has been satisfactory.Yet I have not had a chance to check the news. Stay tuned fellows :).
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 9:58 AM توسط Alireza

● Well, at last I started to publish my weblogs. Kinda fun!
□ نوشته شده در ساعت 2:53 AM توسط Alireza