Ranok's Ramblings » Clarkson

Long Time No Post

ranok — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:56:33 +0000

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here, and to my devout readers I apoligize. As many of you know, this has been my last semester of my undergraduate studies, so I have been very busy over the past few months. This post will hopefully act as a dump of what I’ve been up to and what I will be doing until my next post.

Things I did:

Developed a method for calling parts of functions to minimize/obfuscate programs
Worked with Ryan on OSP to get a web based cluster management system integrated into the cluster administration page
Played with return-to-libc attacks and got them working on the latest version of Ubuntu Linux

Things on the horizon:

Working full-time for AIS
Traveling to Iceland for 3 weeks
Working on a computer security textbook
Running a marathon in August

It is very weird to me to think that today is the last day of classes for me as a traditional full-time student. I’ve been going to school since I was 5 and it is very weird to think that come August I will not be returning to the classroom as my primary past-time. I am excited to travel and get away from the normal swing of things for a while to reflect on the new changes in my life, and excited to begin working, especially due to the extra leisure time after work.

Peace and chow,

Ranok

Hurry Up and Slow Down

ranok — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:38:05 +0000

Now that I’ve had a chance to settle into my new apartment above Misty Hollow on Market Street, and I have all the needed utilities, I thoughts I take a break and reflect on my first two weeks of my senior year. My schedule this semester has me in class for 11 hours Monday and Wednesday, and practically without class the other week days (I do have class every few Saturdays). This schedule is requiring some work to get used to, either I’m feeling rushed to make it to my next class and keep everything straight (philosophy to statistics) or I’m wondering what to do with all my spare time. I have however found a few things to keep myself occupied on my off days, I’m working for Clarkson as a campus photographer, shooting lots around the area for brochures, the website or mailings. This is a great way for me to practice and improve my photography skills and work with a professional! I will update my Flickr when I have some great shots, so keep checking it out! Of course I’m also still the co-director of COSI, which has a large amount of interest this year, and I’m hoping for good things to turn up. naturally I’m still working on my baby, OSP (a post on that soon). Lastly, I’ve joined the Potsdam Rescue Squad, and am enrolled in the NY state EMT course, which I am enjoying, and excited to become a more useful member as my knowledge grows.

Well, I think that about covers all in my life for the time being.

Peace and chow,

Ranok

End of Semester Wrap-Up

ranok — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:05:07 +0000

With less than two weeks until I depart from Clarkson for winter break, it’s crunch time for my friends and I. Below is a list of the things I need to finish before I can pack my things and head home for some much deserved rest before my co-op:

Final paper for ANTH330 due Monday
CS350 final group project & presentation due Thursday
Two CS456 assignments to polish up and turn in
Final paper for CS456 due next Friday

After that is all taken care of, I have three finals next week to study for and take.

Peace and chow,

Ranok

Next Semester Co-op

ranok — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:02:04 +0000

After an early morning interview on Tuesday, I accepted an offer to go on a co-op to Assured Information Security! Even though it will be tough to leave my friends (especially the seniors) as I move 2.5 hours away, and disrupt my class schedule (pushing things back a semester), I think the hands-on work experience of applying the things I’ve learned, and learning more will be worth it. I now have the frantic task of trying to find a place to live, and thinking about what I need to take with me over winter break. I will be sure to visit Clarkson pretty regularly over the weekends so I won’t become a distant memory to those at Clarkson.

Peace and Chow,

Ranok

OIT: Omitting Intelligent Technology

ranok — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:28:16 +0000

As many of you may or may not know, recently Clarkson’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) implemented a firewall that blocks all incoming traffic to most machines. Being a Linux junkie, I have a number of machines in my dorm that act as servers of many types, from web servers for my projects and web development server, SVN/DARCS repositories for my code, a number of OSP servlets that I’ve been testing and having to connect to distant OSP instanced to test latency. However, OIT seems to want to stop me from being able to experiment and play around with networking and servers. Perhaps there is a psychological flaw for all IT administrators that makes them all be control freaks. I emailed OIT to have my servers removed from the firewall 2 weeks ago, and heard no reply. I re-emailed on Monday, and finally I heard back, that I need to fill out this form (for each machine), and get it signed by a professor before they will unblock me.

I find this absurd, do we now need professor’s permission to use our computers? Is OIT going to implement a list of acceptable websites we can visit? Do we need an academic reason to think certain thoughts? I find this completely off par with Clarkson’s condoning of partying, however, we need a professor’s consent to open a port on our computer to the outside world?

I hope that OIT will rethink their firewall policies, and see how it affects students. Also, when they make network wide changes, they should notify the students, and also update their website which still shows that only a few ports are being filtered.

Peace and no packets,

Ranok

My Classes For Next Semester

ranok — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:14:46 +0000

Assuming I’m not going on a co-op next semester, I will be taking the following classes next semester:

CS 653 – Automated Reasoning
HIST 350 – History of Nazi Germany
LW 270 – Law and Society I
MA 314 – Number Theory and Applications
MP 551 – Open Source Software
PY 310 – Human Sexuality
STAT 383 – Applied Statistics I
HLTH 108 – Basic EMT

Looks like I have a busy semester ahead of me :)

Peace and chow,

Ranok

Scraping the Ceiling

ranok — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:27:11 +0000

One of the reasons I fell in love with Clarkson when I first came to the Clarkson School was because it offered a challenge that I couldn’t find at my high school. When I came into high school (after skipping 8th grade), it was great, I was surrounded by older classmates and there were 4 years of classes ahead of me that I hadn’t taken. However, even though starting out in the junior and senior classes as a freshman made my first two years a blast, once I reached my junior year, I had exhausted all the challenging classes, and could no longer talk with upperclassmen in a learning role. This is when I began looking for alternatives, and the Clarkson School seemed to be perfect, my first year was fantastic, even though there were some easy classes (CS142 and UNIV190), I knew they’d get more exciting after I finished the pre-reqs.

Last year was probably my best year ever, taking some of my favorite classes to date: automata theory, compilers, and formal methods. They were my favorites because for once in my life, I was in a position where I actually had to work for a good grade, and I was inspired to do so both because the professors were excellent, but also I could see the value in excelling in these classes.

Now fast forward to now, while I’m taking a few interesting classes: CS547, CS456 and CS659, I’m worried that I’ve reached that ceiling and I won’t be able to find a challenging class that inspires me to put in the effort to succeed. I’ve been taking some classes (ANTH330 & COMM310) this semester that remind me of my high school days which I find very worrisome, they require next to no effort to skate by and get an A, yet I am required to go through the formality of taking them.

So, now that everyone is getting sick on my whining, I’m going to list some options to resolve my problem, if people could comment giving their input or feedback, it’d make this decision quite a bit easier.

Transfer to another school, which should provide more challenging classes and more peers to learn from.
Stick it out at Clarkson, doing directed studies for the next 2 years or trying to find classes outside the realm of computer science
Go on co-op to hopefully see how my knowledge is useful in the real world, and interact with some of the brightest minds in the industry

Just for people’s information, I have started working on my masters and should be done with it in May ‘10, which is when I was going to graduate with my B.S. To fufill this goal, I’ve been taking graduate classes along side of my undergraduate requirements. My tentitive thesis topic is: “Quorum Sensing and Cellular Automaton in Game Playing Systems”, which is going to look at game theory from a systems biology/alife standpoint to see if a more biological system can play better than a more algorithmical one.

Peace and chow,

Ranok

How dare I be here?

ranok — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:54:27 +0000

That’s the reaction I’ve gotten from Clarkson for, wait for it, staying more than 24 hours past my last final. My final ended at 11:45 yesterday, and I’m hopefully going to be gone by 1:30 today. I say hopefully because everytime the maintainence people come knocking on my door (starting at 6AM this morning) they just can’t wait for me to leave. While I understand they need to clean the room, there are other rooms to be cleaned which will be rented out for senior week, and ours is not one of them as the attached room is occupied until after then.

Oh well, I guess I’ll survive.

Peace and chow,

Ranok