jmv.me » Academia

Distraction: Modular Exponentiation

Julia Van Cleve — Tue, 18 May 2010 05:07:35 +0000

While reviewing modular exponentiation, I got bored and decided to write this program instead. I have not yet finished writing my bigInt calculator I started working on a while back, so, my program only works for numbers smaller than 2^64 bits.

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Distraction: Euclid’s Algorithm

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:55:11 +0000

While studying for my Introduction to Algorithms final, I decided I wanted to take a break and write a simple program in C++ to calculate the GCD of two numbers using Euclid’s Algorithm.

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RPI student government elections 2010

Julia Van Cleve — Mon, 03 May 2010 08:09:46 +0000

In the past I haven’t particularly cared for the Grand Marshal elections that RPI has. However, the drama in this year’s election left me curious as to what all the hullabaloo was about. The fun wore off, though. Here’s a general time line of the main events (I won’t go into detail because that would require lots and lots of explaining).

Primary elections for GM and President of the Union are held (April 12, 2010)
Primary elections for PU completed, GM primaries are nullified. (April 13, 2010)
Final elections for PU are held, GM primaries are redone. (April 15, 2010)
PU final results are released, GM primary results are released (Michael Zwack ’11 and Ben Hunt ’10 move onto the final election). (April 17, 2010)
GM final elections commence. (April 22, 2010)
GM final elections are counted.
GM final elections are nullified.
Plans for another GM final elections are announced—scheduled for May 4.
Judicial Board states that the Rules and Elections Committee were wrong to nullify the election and that the results must be announced. (April 30, 2010)
Hunt is announced as the new GM (May 1, 2010)
RNE claims they don’t certify the results of this election.

It was interesting to be a part of all this, but, overall, it has brought back the apathy that I temporarily rid myself of. However, the cause of the apathy is different. It’s no longer caused by indifference. It’s now caused by shear frustration which led to me not wanting to care anymore. Perhaps it’ll change in a year when the next GM election rolls around. Till then, good luck to everyone involved.

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RPISEC pwns at NYU-Poly’s CSAW

Julia Van Cleve — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:50:15 +0000

RPI’s Computer Security Club, RPISEC, traveled to New York this past Friday to participate in NYU-Poly’s Cyber Security Awareness Week, placing second in Application Security Capture the Flag, and both first and second in the security quiz.

CSAW is a computer security competition where students from around the US participate in team challenges involving computer security. Cash prizes were bestowed upon those in first, second, and third place, scholarships were granted to NYU students, and travel grants were given to those who qualified.

Other events at CSAW included:

Cyber Forensics Challenge (for high school students only)
Embedded Systems Challenge
Research Award
Security Awareness Poster Competition

International students were also free to compete online, however, students were only eligible for final rounds and prizes if they were from the contiguous US.

Courtesy of CSAW NYU-Poly

In Photo:

Alex Rad ’11 and Ryan Govostes ’11 competed in the CSAW Quiz Tournament where they were asked about cryptography, security trivia, the history of security, and other topics.

More photos at: http://research.poly.edu/

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New knowledge base implemented at campus newspaper

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:57:59 +0000

Courtesy of Polytechnipedia

After working at The Polytechnic, I found that one of the main concerns of its members (besides the unnervingly late section closing times) is that once senior members of The Poly have graduated, layout, style, and other rules and guidelines will leave with them. Without a reliable and organized system in place, new members are constantly needing to “recreate” their role.

Ryan Govostes ’11, Spring 2009 Managing Editor of The Poly, has decided that it is time to change how The Poly manages its style guide. He has created Polytechnipedia, a Wiki-based web page, only available to Poly members, which will be the new archive for Poly-style rules.

Some progress has been made. A few members have started entering some style rules from The Great & Marvelous Book of Arbitrary Style and the Polytechnic Style Guide. So far it is working great, aside from a few Wiki-styling kinks that need to be ironed out. All that’s really needed now, is a workshop of some sort, to jumpstart all the Poly members into using Polytechnipedia.

Some other suggestions made, regarding the development of Polytechnipedia, are making the Wiki available to Poly members when outside of the Poly office. This would allow them to view the Wiki while they are writing their articles or laying out their sections, improving the quality of the article before it has even reached Copy.

Polytechnipedia has been needed for some time. Style rules and job duties will be accessible, and the time spent searching and questioning what needs to be done for a job will be dramatically reduced. Hopefully, everything works out, so the members of The Poly can finally get some sleep.

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Financial aid lacks reliability

Julia Van Cleve — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:57:06 +0000

It’s almost time to register for next semester and I have a hold on my account. Apparently I owe roughly $4,000 plus a $175 late fee. I do have Stafford Loans, which I thought I took care of last semester, but for some reason they are still “pending.” The Bursar will usually tell you to just deduct a pending loan from the total amount that you owe. Of course, after a while if the loan is still “pending,” they get all mean and start yelling at you.

About a week ago I got an e-mail saying, “Please be aware that you have a Bursar hold on your account. This hold will prevent you from accessing many things on [the Student Information System] but, most importantly, will prevent you from being able to register for Fall 2009.” That’s very nice of them, punishing me for their own incompetence.

I e-mailed and called Key Bank’s Education Resources (twice) and even paid a visit to RPI’s Financial Aid Office, after sending them a sweet but angry e-mail about the hold. Financial Aid told me that things were currently being taken care of and that it should all be settled by the end of the week. It’s now the end of the week and the hold is still there.

So, now I’m just waiting for RPI to send the loan certification to Key Bank (something they should have done a long time ago) to basically let Key Bank know that I wasn’t lying when I said I was a student. Once this is all fixed, I then plan to nicely ask the Bursar to give back the $175 they charged me.

I can’t wait till next semester, when I get to do this all again.

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