Just learned from a YouTuber that one of my favourite singer-songwriters, Andrea Martin, passed away in 2021. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of her before, but her passing is to me as Kobe Bryant’s death was to a Lakers fan.

What makes me sadder is that her only album can’t be found on any music streaming platforms. Fortunately I bought a copy of her CD back in 2000 and will load it into my iCloud Music Library soon.

Her songwriting skills were amazing; her singing voice was underrated.

These two tracks are among my favourites on this album.

I spent three hours designing and coding, and then seven hours debugging. This is what my weekend was like.

The professor asked us to write a Python program to remove all comments from a C++ source file. It may sound like duck soup at first, but the number of niche cases to consider is not really small, not to mention the conflicts between those cases. My classmates provided a few outrageous test cases with which I caught and fixed some bugs. I’m happy that I completed it just minutes before the deadline.

Lately I’ve been watching a YouTube channel on compiler design, which one of our compulsory courses this term is all about. The YouTuber is an assistant teacher at an Indian college. I hope she won’t become a professor, though, because even Ivy League professors can never explain stuff as clearly.

the icon for the BuildingBuddy app
App developers: Team 14 at Western University
Icon designer: Jason Shew

Our group project (codenamed BuildingBuddy, or BB for short), a very heavyweight component of the course CompSci 2212B, has been launched officially on January 25, 2023, marked by the first group meeting held at 5:30 pm on this day at Middlesex College. To simply put, this project requires us, a team of five guys, to build a full-stack application that shows the floor plans of several buildings on campus. This application is expected to feature some required and extra functionalities.

a strange app that never got opened

the Cycle Tracking app

Sitting on the toilet, I was intrigued by this little strange icon on my Apple Watch app grid. I had never opened this app. After thinking for a minute, I still had no clue what it was.

Curiosity got the better of me. Voilà! It turned out to be Cycle Tracking: an Apple-designed app that claims to track my menstrual cycle.

I believe I have “told” my Apple Watch that I am actually a cisgender male by setting up an exhaustive health profile, which includes my gender and even sexual activity.

Dear Apple: as the next step to making your smartwatch smarter, try removing Cycle Tracking from every male user’s device.

For someone born in the 1980s, I have to admit I had a little hard time distinguishing between Atlantic Starr and Midnight Star — probably because both are American bands, both have/had multiple members, both had R&B hits, both were formed in the exact year of 1976, and both have “Star(r)” in their names.

But is it really important to tell one “star” from another? As far as I know, many people outside of the Anglosphere still think Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley were the same person or mistake Marilyn Monroe for Madonna. (Beyoncé vs. Rihanna might be even more challenging for them.) On hearing the first eight bars of Billie Jean, however, they can sing and dance to it with total abandon.

Perhaps I’m among the guys on earth who have the least patience to wait. If your new service has hit the market but runs on an invite-only basis, you’ve lost my interest. I opted for Fastmail over HEY.com and felt happy. I ditched Clubhouse in the end and had zero enthusiasm for going back. Should I mention Dribbble, Pinterest, and Quora, where I do not have an account to date because they were once invite-only? Now Post finally gave me the nod, and I slammed the door on them there and then.

Have you ever realized that, when you’re washing a carrot and two black plums in a kitchen sink filled with water, you’re actually messing up a snowman at room temperature?

I didn’t sleep in this morning. I had to get up early for work and later head to the nearby Costco warehouse to get my flu shot. After work I was told the location had run out of vaccines, so I grabbed a quick lunch and went back to bed, in hopes of tacking on some hours of sleep.

I’ve always loved dozing off to some music. The moment I opened Apple Music Cuco’s new single popped up. It was released today, fresh from the oven. I should’ve ignored it and picked out some Max Richter track good for a nap. Now it’s become an earworm precluding me from snoozing. (But I am still sleepy.)

The cold covered in the recent news not only made living creatures suffer. I accidentally left a 24-pack case of Diet Coke (355 mL per can) in the back seats of my car days before Christmas. When I took out the garbage tonight, I found that most of them had burst open due to the extreme cold.

coke cans burst open

coke cans burst open

We rescued 11 survivors from the wreckage. Meanwhile, I cut my index finger on a broken can.

the survivors

my cut finger

There is still some dark brown ice on top of the car seats. Fortunately, thanks to its sugar-free nature, it won’t leave any disgusting sticky stains when it dries.

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It’s Christmas again. Here we have almost everything one would expect of a “traditional Christmas” — snow, gatherings, foods, wines, Christmas songs, gifts under the Christmas tree, etc. I can’t be bothered to mention Santa because we don’t really have a fireplace in this house. Despite that, some elements even got an “upgrade.” Instead of snow flurries, for example, many people are travelling against a province-wide blizzard warning. We chose to stay in because none of us would love to get stuck on 401 or at YYZ for eight or more hours straight.

Derek Sivers offered a bundle of four books before Christmas

Today I received the Derek Sivers Christmas bundle, which I thought would have been delivered to my doorstep but had actually been dropped into the mailbox two days ago. Thank him so much for the generous offerings as well as emails helping clear things up. It’s nice to have something really meaningful to read during the winter break. ☕️📖🎄❄️

The following block of text is from Mark, an intelligent, philosophical friend of mine:

One thing that suddenly struck me several years ago is this: ALL negative emotions all stem from one single one: fear.

Grief comes from having lost something or someone, and the fear that you know they will never come back.

Hatred comes from when someone does something bad to you, that you fear can never be fixed.

Envy comes from someone else having something you want, and the fear that you will never be able to get it yourself.

Jealousy comes from the fear that someone that you love will leave you.

When there’s no fear, there’s no negativity. If you have a partner that you trust implicitly, there’s no fear of them leaving, hence no need for jealousy.

Today marked the end of the fall semester, as the last final exam was written earlier in the afternoon. I had kept myself busy for a prolonged period of time, with quite a lot on my plate. Some professors were either disorganized or lacking in proper approaches to delivering content, meaning that I had to be self-reliant.

That said, it is not necessarily a bad thing because people working in computer science often find it needful to acquire new knowledge on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis.

Finally, iOS 16.2 got installed on my phone. This means I have one more collaboration tool (Freeform, only available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone — not yet on an Android device nor in a web browser), can sing along with millions of songs (Apple Music Sing), have my iCloud data better protected (end-to-end encryption expanded to 23 data categories) ¹, but can only receive files from Everyone through AirDrop for a 10-minute window, after which it automatically reverts to Contacts Only.

AirDrop now allows a 10-minute window for file transfer between strangers

Some fun facts about me: I can read analog clocks. I can use rotary phones. I can read printed maps. I can repair broken cassette tapes and duplicate them as well. However, I can’t drive at ease without Apple CarPlay. And I pin my faith on Google Maps, even for the grocery stores I’ve frequented hundreds of times. 🙂

Just sold my Nintendo Switch and games since I’ve been too busy with schoolwork to game. The ladies didn’t check my stuff but sent money my way outright. I let them go even though the money wasn’t really getting to me (due to a rare but huge delay in eTransfer).

I’m not encouraging this practice by any means but just wanted to say this is so Canadian. 🤣

Done the last big-ass assignments and all the necessary ¹ labs. Now it’s time for a little unwinding: swapping tires, sending out Christmas cards, shopping groceries, etc. The first final will hit us December 12th, so I’m not really going to gear down.

While I was burying myself in the fifth and last assignment of data structures and algorithms, Alexa streamed this song, making me want to pogo in the face of the deadline.

Hooray for this new babe: iPhone 14 Pro Max (512 GB, silver)!

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After nearly 4.5 years, my iPhone Xs Max (512GB, gold) is on the verge of a breakdown. A maximum battery capacity of 74%, smashed back glass, and constantly degrading performance have led to this belated upgrade. Why the word “belated”? I used to snap up the latest iPhone model on an annual or biennial basis, thanks to the iPhone Upgrade Program. Since the onset of the pandemic, however, my interest in buying a new iPhone has plunged. It’s not that the new iPhones are unexciting but that smartphones as a whole are no longer my focus of attention.

Last night I published the post below.

You might have wondered why Olivia Rodrigo’s songs crossed my mind.

Here’s the reason:

DriveTest Clinton

DriveTest Check-in

Temporary G Licence

I PASSED THE G ROAD TEST TODAY AND BECAME A FULLY LICENSED DRIVER!

✌️🎉

I don’t mean to brag, but I passed each of the G1 (in Burlington), G2 (in Brantford), and G (in Clinton) tests on my first attempt, thanks to the wonderful instructors I had: Miki (based in Hamilton, ON, for the G2) and Sid (based in London, ON, for the G). I prepared for my G1 written test alone on the plane.