glibberish.

I have successfully unclogged the bathroom sink and tub drains, thanks to some caustic chemical and a plunger.

I ROCK!!

I shouldn’t forget how to do this.

HOW TO MOUNT A NOKIA E70 FILESYSTEM ON MY LINUX BOX VIA BLUETOOTH

1. Set-up bluetooth parameters in /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf:
   

   # HCId options
options {
autoinit yes;
security auto;
pairing multi;
pin_helper /etc/bluetooth/pin-helper;
#pin_helper /etc/bluetooth/passkey-agent;
#pin_helper /usr/bin/bluez-pin;
#passkey "1234";
}

   # Default settings for HCI devices
device {
name "arroway";
class 0x3e0100;
iscan enable; pscan enable;
lm accept;
lp rswitch,hold,sniff,park;
}

   Set default PIN by editing /etc/bluetooth/pin-helper:
   

   #!/bin/sh
echo -n "PIN:1234"

   Run the passkey-agent app (Note: might only be necessary if the computer and phone haven’t been paired yet):
   $ passkey-agent --default /etc/bluetooth/pin-helper

   Open a new terminal session. Connect and mount! Remember, channel 11 is the OBEX ftp channel (I used sdptool browse [phone:bt:addr] to figure it out).
   $ obexfs -b [phone:bt:addr] -B 11 /mnt

   The entire phone filesystem is now accessible at /mnt. Enjoy!

Points to those who figured out where I got my laptop’s Linux hostname (arroway) ;)

..is today’s subject. Not particularly in my area of interest, but it is the most computer sciency subject so far. In other words, DIFFICULT. Earlier’s lecture was particularly abstract, which reminds me much of the Quantitative Mechanics class in college – not a very good sign. I imagine I will need to read up the assigned textbooks a lot.

Still, a topic involving hardcore theory is still engaging in its own right. I’d consider this my big challenge this semester (unless something more difficult comes up on the two more subjects that haven’t started yet). And the prof, while boasting very impressive academic credentials (he was an astrophysicist earlier in his life), is quite a hoot. Friendly as well.

Also, this is the day I discover I am the only person in the class who cannot speak any form of Chinese. Hou hou! (Great!)

Oh and I finally made a friend today, haha. He’s a native Hongkonger, but studied and worked in the states. He went back primarily to study – yep, just like me.

I’m in the school cafe drinking latte… uh huh uh huh

Sorry, just didn’t want to waste a good rhyme, heh. Anyway, I feel good today. Because

1. Well, I am consuming caffeine :P
2. I was able to configure this Linux desktop to connect to the campus’ pretty secure WPA-PEAP (MSCHAPv2 + certificates) wireless network.
3. The class today was also interesting (Multimedia Application Development) – almost as interesting as the network infrastructure from last Monday, but in a different way. Check out some of the nifty topics:
   • Weeks 5 and 6: MIDI and music composition
   • Week 10: Terrain generation (3D)
   • Week 11: Humanoid creation (3D)
   • Weeks 13 and 14: Game creation

   Why, this master’s degree course almost looks like it has been tailor-made to feed my interests! In fact, the lessons today (Signal Processing and Audio) was so familiar to me that I only needed to half-pay attention to understand them! (Er, not to boast or anything.)

   Hope this trend continues with the other subjects… Although I am not very much looking forward to the Project Management class, heheh.

4. I just signed up for an 11-week (every Tuesdays and Thursdays) class called Functional Cantonese I for English Speakers. I haven’t mentioned this before, but I am here very much Lost in Translation. Found that 90% of HK people do not really know how to speak English! With this class, I will soon conquer this temporary limitation of my comprehension skills. Mouwahahahahah! (NOTE: some space made for exaggeration)
5. I learned a little bit of Wiki syntax last night. Why? Because I chose to use TiddlyWiki to take notes during classes. I originally thought of using Google Notebook, but I can work offline with Tiddly so that’s always better. My online TiddlyWiki is here.)

Erf, it’s getting late. Time for home!

For some reason I travelled to Macau today – AND went to my first day of class promptly after.

I was not able to complete registration procedures last Saturday because, apparently, when I entered the airport a week ago the immigration officer marked me as a visitor instead of student. (I’m an idiot – I should have remembered to point to the visa sticker explicitly.) So this morning I visited the immigration office to have the status changed.

There are two options. One is to fill out forms and write letters and all that bureaucracy jazz, which, after everything, will take days to process. The other is Macau.

Well, the other is to leave Hong Kong and come back, making sure this time that the student visa is acknowledged. And leave Hong Kong I did. Today. Before first day of class.

Speaking of class, it went rather well. Subject was Internet Infrastructure: Switches and Routers which covers a broad amount of practical and research scenarios. Quite the head of the nail I was aiming for. On the other hand, I haven’t made friends yet – all my classmates are native Chinese speakers.