After one day of downtime, I'm back up again...on a spiffing new host. So first things first:
Cheers to Keita for offering to host this on the E-mpyrean network. The speed is awesome, and there won't be anymore downtime. Beautiful!

I'm going to be really busy studying for tomorrow's Chem test...so more later.

Actually, I got some really good news the other day that I forgot to mention. Some people may know that I had applied to a bunch of univs. in Canada as well...not because I really wanted to go there, but because of some concerns regarding the visa/green card in the U.S. etc.
So anyways, I receieved this big packet from the University of Waterloo (which incidently is considered to be THE top school for Engg. and CS in Canada). I already knew I had been accepted some time ago. So I opened the packet, and the first letter inside said that I have received the Nortel Networks Undergraduate National Scholarship for $15,000, and that I can TA from my second year for $500/month. Whoa! The advantage of being a permanent resident...
There is no way I'm going to get squat from UCLA until I actually become a permanent resident here, which might be around 2 years from now probably.

My admission to UWaterloo is conditional and I HAVE TO to get a 5 on the AP Calc BC test to be finally accepted.
Now I'm confused again. I thought all the decision-making was over. What should I do now? My advantage/disadvantages list:

UCLA:
- U.S. school
- Close to home
- Perfect weather
- possibly easier to enter the UC system again for grad school
- Zero funding, zero scholarships - pretty much have to fund the whole thing ourselves. The only advantage I (thankfully) get is resident tuition.
- No outside work (internships) until I get my permanent resident status
- A formal bachelors in Engineering
- AP credit for all my courses

UWaterloo:
- Pretty much funding my entire education with the Nortel Networks award.
- Undoubtedly, THE top school in the nation for my major
- Co-op program: I'm supposed to work in the industry for part of the school year as internships: get both univ. credits and money. Program includes massive companies like Microsoft, Nortel Networks, IBM etc.
- REALLY far away from home
- Canadian weather...enough said.
- A formal bachelors in Math
- I become a Citizen of Canada in a short time, and since my parents are still here, I become a permanent resident of the U.S. as well. Double blessing.
- No AP credits for most of my subjects.

Academically, both of them are very strong, so I don't know how I can compare that aspect of it. And although the degree seems different, both are Computer Science majors.
I have until mid-June to decide. I'm still relatively more inclined towards LA, but I don't know if I should let such an opportunity go. This is going to be one tough choice...

Yes! I knew I wasn't crazy. :D

Looks like I wasn't the only one who noticed that Link and Trinity use a UNIX-based OS in Reloaded, and that the scene in which Trinity hacks into the power grid is actually much more realistic compared to most other tech or sci-fi movies.

When we were watching the movie on Thursday, I noticed that Link was using SSH, and that Trinity used nmap when she was hacking. I actually told Ankoor about it after we got home too. nmap is a real port scanner that can be used to determine what services are running on a remote machine. :)

Since the scene went by so fast, I wasn't able to notice anymore than that, but I found the realism to be pretty interesting, so I looked around and I ended up finding this screenshot on the net.



Something really interesting in there - after she uses nmap, Trinity uses a vulnerability in SSH to gain remote access to the power-grid mainframe. Did a little more looking around to find that SSH CRC32 that you see in the picture is an actual bug that was discovered in Feb, 2001! Even better, notice that she changes the root password to Z10N1010 - there's Zion in l33t 5p34k! :D

Pretty darn cool, huh?

Yikes! Did I eat a whole box of licorice twists?! I was studying Bio in the afternoon, and a box of RedVines was lying next to me. 5:00 PM, and all of it is over. I just realized I ate it all in a single afternoon!

Jay's response to that (typos corrected...haha):
AcUrA NsX 33 (5:47:04 PM): if someone heard u say that
AcUrA NsX 33 (5:47:12 PM): and didnt know how u looked like
AcUrA NsX 33 (5:47:18 PM): they would think u were a fat ass
AcUrA NsX 33 (5:47:22 PM): with a eating disorder



Oh, and it seems like today's e-piphany's one month anniversary. I started the blog exactly on April 10th.

Random Bio Insult (props to Rohan for this one):
Yo mama's so fat, she needs an integral protein to cross through a semi-permeable membrane!
LOL!!

Thanks to all those who remembered today!

Really busy with all the work...AP weeks coming up
Not much time to write today, so....