Beware, I Live!

[logomancer]

After being to my first week of classes, the breakdown is thus:

• Public Speaking with Emily Stallings: Relatively simple concepts. Should be easy to learn. The downsides are 1) the amount of work involved and 2) the condescending nature of the professor and her TAs. We were made to sit with our TAs like some middle school assembly. Near the end, the TA took me aside to talk to me about not asking so many questions, as I had questioned the sitting-with-TA policy as well as one other tedious and asinine activity. She, in effect, wanted me to censor myself to make her job easier. *snort* Fat chance.
• HCI with Scott McCrickard: An interesting course thus far. The material catches my interest, and McCrickard seems OK.
• DiffEQ with Mark Pierson: No complaints thus far. Pierson seems better than some of my previous math profs.
• Physics 2305 with Prof. Slawny: Standard intro professor, albeit with a thick Greek accent. The class is smaller, which suits me. The labs are pretty well-equipped, though I wonder what oscilloscopes and function generators are doing there instead of Whittemore where they belong. I prolly won't find out, as this is the mechanics course. Pity.

Outlook: Pretty good, all things considered. Here's hoping they turn out that way.

In other news: I got a judicial sanction on that damn extension cord over break. I'm officially on probation for the rest of the year, and they slapped me with another education course, this one in fire safety. Good news is, they get so many of these -- doubtless from the students that sleep in when the fire alarm gets pulled -- the course is limited to a PowerPoint presentation and an online quiz on Blackboard. I finished it in the 20 minutes before I had my Physics lab. I wish my upcoming ethics workshop was like that, instead of a 50-page reading, a quiz, a two-hour course, and a fracking reflective paper. How much judicial buckfuttery must I endure before VT considers their ass covered?

But it's not till the 4th, thank gods, so I can deal with more pressing issues -- like that girl speaking broken english who called at 2230 with a computer problem. Hoo boy...

Also, I now have a working server. I just need a nameserver to point to it. dyndns.org wants $25/yr for dynamic DNS to my own domain name. I am ignorant of possible alternatives to this. If someone could point them out to me, I'd appreciate it.

Comments

[nius.livejournal.com]

Do you have a domain name already? Get Vond to host your DNS, and chown the zone file over to you so you can make changes whenever necessary. Not as easy as dyndns, but free...

If you don't have a domain name, I can easily make andros.furry.ws point to you, but DNS is hosted on register.com (because I had that domain before I had access to vond.net), so updates are slower.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

Problem is that he needs Dynamic DNS since he doesn't have a static IP.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

DNSAlias.net is what I used for dynamic DNS.

If you want a plain jane DNS service.....then EveryDNS.net is your friend.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

Actually upon more investigation. EveryDNS will do what you want since they have a Dynamic DNS option now. (You install a small service on your machine that updates the record automatically whenever your IP changes.)

And it's Free (Though they really could use some donations).

[vond.livejournal.com]

Have you considered moving out of the damn dorms? In an apartment you can use whatever the hell kind of extension cords you like (within the limits of saftey of course).

I didn't think Slawny was Greek. I forget where Not-Matt said he was from.

What OS are you hosting on? I could probably cook up a script to do dynamic DNS for you using a SSH public key to update your zonefile.

[anterus.livejournal.com]

Slawney's Polish. From everything I've heard of other professors, though, I'd say that, for 2305, Piilonen's the best. Ah well. Plenty of folks get the others.

[anterus.livejournal.com]

I'd agree that the extension cord regs are silly, since I tend to use 50-amp, 12-guage cords, where possible (lost one of my two, somehow), but it's not really a big deal in a dorm. I mean, outlets are really everywhere, my problem is I don't have enough. Need another power strip if I'm to expand at all. Right about at the limit, what with two damned panels out and flakey.