Sam's L33t Journal

Tragic News for Cleveland and the Nation

2008-08-20T19:35:50Z

Apparently Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (one of my representatives in congress, when I lived back in Cleveland) is in the hospital in critical condition. I have a lot of respect for her, especially after seeing her hold her own in this interview.

Update: Rumors of her death are no longer exaggerated.

Boo, I Say

2008-08-20T03:11:25Z

I'm not the biggest fan of cell phones. I use Virgin Mobile for their cheap, no commitment, no frills service. The battery life on my phone has dwindled to almost nothing, and I called them to order a replacement, but they were out of stock. They apparently have no method of recording back-orders for out of stock items, so I have to check their site again or call back in a few days and maybe they'll have it, maybe not. This after spending 10 minutes on hold with outsourced call center guy. Their customer service has evidently gone way downhill in the past few years.

Good Times, Good Links

2008-08-19T04:33:57Z

This weekend was great. Saturday evening went to the Sunset Catina with DJ for some excellent food and drink. Sunday I went to Tropic Thunder with film club, which was good dumb fun.

A variety of things to comment on:

I've heard some people suggest John McCain secretly wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade. That's simply not the case; it can hardly be secret when it's on his website. Not worried though, as Obama continues a solid campaign while McCain continues to kick himself in the mouth repeatedly.
sabotabby presents a parable about US healthcare. Also interesting is this libertarian essay on how the government created this healthcare crisis by "solving" the last one. While I'm on a libertarian bent, here's another interesting one on fiat money and why it seems to work. Really interesting history.
Bill Nye has a new TV show. Bill Nye. The Science Guy. I'm excited.
Two blog posts on ampersands. Seriously.
A post on why the SAT is still useless crap that colleges should drop like a bad habit.
United Airlines bumps a family from a flight, ruining a $10k+ vacation (to visit a dying relative, among other things), lies about it, finally gives the family a refund, but refuses to write a letter allowing the family to claim the insurance on their trip.
An immigrant dies in US custody with undiagnosed spinal cancer, deported because papers were sent to the wrong address.
A recipe for Avocado Lime Pie with Coconut Cream.
A bunch of MIT students ended up in a legal controversy for revealing security vulnerabilities of the MBTA payment system. The MBTA management is showing their usual preference for security theater over real security.
A court ruled that violating copyleft licenses is copyright infringement, not contract violation. Good decision, to be applauded. Copyleft licenses are not contracts, the are unilateral statements by the copyright holder of which copyright rights they relinquish under which conditions.

Updated Numbers

2008-08-15T05:03:53Z

Updated fitness test scores, as of last week:

Weight: 195 lbs. (unchanged)
BMI: 31.5 (unchanged)

Measurements indicate some improvement, lost some on waist, hips, thighs, gained on shoulder, bicep, forearm. Lifting strength gains continue.

Fitness Scores
Overall: 21 -> 29
(1-100, 50 is average, higher is better, compared to other males my age)
Bodyfat (3-Pinch Measure): 20 (22.6%) (previous measure was done incorrectly)
Bodyfat (Impedance Measure): 10 (26% -> 26.8%) (no significant change)
Resting Heart Rate: 28 (74 BPM) (unchanged)
Active Heart Rate: 5 -> 26 (143 BPM -> 117 BPM) (promising)
60-Second Situps: 12 -> 40 (25 reps -> 34 reps) (also a good sign)
Maximum Pushups: 10 (10 reps -> 11 reps) (no significant change, but my form is better)
Sit-Reach Flexion: 55 -> 72 (17.5 in. -> 19.25 in.) (good, my form was imperfect, though, so this may be a bit higher than accurate)

Harbor Cruise

2008-08-14T05:28:11Z

I went on a dinner cruise in Boston Harbor this evening (a company event). The food was great, the weather was good, there was live music, and it was relaxing. I spent most of my time reading and taking photos. Probably should have been more social, but a lot of people were more interested in socializing with their families and guests than their coworkers, and I needed some time to unwind.

I wonder why I don't spend more time near the ocean despite living so close. I really like the ocean.

Death of a Hard Drive

2008-08-14T04:13:03Z

My first external hard drive seems to be on it's last legs. I ran chkdsk to fix some file system faults, then had to crack open the case and plug it in directly to get it to detect properly (literally crack open, the thing isn't meant to be opened by users even though that's the first way to deal with failures). I've retrieved the little bit of data that wasn't backed up elsewhere, deleted my backups, and wiped deleted files (ensuring no personal data is on the drive when I get rid of it).

I bought a replacement drive so that I can continue to have redundant backups, twice as big as the old one and about two-thirds the price. I'm always impressed at just how fast the price of storage continues to fall.

Ow

2008-08-12T01:59:53Z

I have a pain in my shoulder as of this morning. I hope it heals quickly; while it's not intense, it's that sort of specific, persistent pain that is very annoying.

I started adding running / jogging / power walking to my training today. I did incline intervals on the treadmill this morning (starting easy, 3 mph; 2 min. at 3 degrees, 1 min at 15 degrees (max incline) for half an hour), and I jogged on and off on the way home. My running endurance is still awful, but just good enough that I have hope of improving it. The new shoes don't perfectly shield my flat feet from pain, but they're a huge step up from any previous pair.

Saturday Sunshine, Sunday Rain

2008-08-10T21:25:51Z

I got new shoes yesterday (Brooks running shoes, to be specific). I've been wanting to improve my lifting form and add a bit of running (at least some jogging intervals and treadmill incline intervals) to my workout routine, so I needed new shoes, as my old ones were basically falling apart. On the recommendation of some marathon-running coworkers, I went to Marathon Sports. Having been there, I second their recommendation, it's the place to go for those who want to do more with their shoes than sit and walk. They do a proper fitting based on how you stand / walk / run and what you want to do, not just the length and width of your feet.

There was also a sale of overstock books for $2 each in Harvard Square. Not that I need more books, but I can't resist.

I had a surprising moment of parenting win at the bus station near Harvard Square. A passing mom was dealing with a frustrated toddler, the kid was on the verge of throwing a tantrum because she'd wanted to climb in the stroller by herself and wasn't able to adequately communicate that desire, and I diffused the situation with a focused expression and a few carefully chosen words. (On a somewhat related note: While I'm not surprised that children, no matter how young, love their small measures of independence, I'm surprised that kids that young understand sentences with reflexive pronouns.)

Today has been a quiet day, though. I've been fighting a bit of a stomach bug and feeling blue. I was going to go to Sunday Night Film Club, but it started pouring so I decided to stick closer to home. It's been raining a lot lately.

Job Retrospection

2008-08-09T19:41:52Z

One of the side benefits of getting the job is that you can look back at the notes for your own hiring process. When it came to getting that interview at ITA, my programming puzzle just barely made the cut (which I more or less expected). The factors working for me:
1. I knew some of the more advanced idioms and data structure of Python
2. I went to Olin (well, at least one commenter on the ticket viewed that as a positive)
3. Some of the more negative commenters deferred judgment because they didn't know Python that well
4. People thought I could have gotten a more optimal solution if not under time pressure (maybe so)
Go figure. I haven't seen the notes from my actual interviewing, don't know if those are kept anywhere (internally) public.

That aside, work progresses apace, my adjustments to my fitness routine seem to be on the right track, and life is good.

A Little Better

2008-08-07T04:50:26Z

I just got back from seeing Gnarls Barkley (Cee-Lo Green + Danger Mouse + band) live. The acoustics at the venue weren't great, but the concert was awesome. They did the slow ballad version of "Transformer", "Crazy" (obviously, but it's much more impressive in person), and "Smiley Faces" (as a final encore) among other favorites. Will probably be a while before I can hear properly again, though.

Climate Change and Mass Extinction

2008-08-05T03:34:17Z

From peristaltor comes this excellent entry on Dennis M. Bushnell of NASA, Peter Ward's Under a Green Sky, and the implications of rising atmospheric CO₂ beyond the greenhouse effect.

More books for my list.

The Fitness Blues

2008-08-05T02:54:17Z

Retook the fitness test today, with somewhat disappointing results. Weight is steady, body-fat percentage is also unchanged according to impedance measurement, although changes in my physical dimensions indicate some improvement. Resting heart rate is unchanged, unfortunately. Exerted heart rate is down, though, which means my cardiovascular endurance is up. Strength and endurance are up moderately. Numbers to follow.

Adjustments to make: Watch my diet more carefully (I'm going all out and keeping a journal now, which is a pain but hopefully effective), and add more protein. I've been spending too much money lately, too, so I'm killing two birds with one stone by rediscovering the joy of canned tuna fish.

One option: Add one can of tuna in water to bowl (drain first), break egg over it, season to taste (I used garlic, basil, and pepper tonight, which worked well), heat in microwave until egg is sufficiently cooked, add yogurt if too dry or too hot, eat. Quick and delicious. Presumably scallions or celery could be added after heating to increase flavor and vegetable content.

(I've also discovered that lowfat yogurt is a perfectly acceptable replacement for mayonnaise in tuna salad, a welcome discovery since I don't like mayo.)

Need more fresh vegetables, too, preferably ones I can eat raw. Got home after grocery store close tonight, so that will have to wait.

The Election Campaign

2008-08-02T04:59:22Z

The 2008 election campaign keeps getting weirder. Obama is running as if unopposed. McCain has little good to say about himself, so the Obama campaign has nothing to do but make surprised remarks about just how pathetic McCain's attacks are. The usual Republican tack of turning opponents' strength into weakness (which worked well against Kerry's military experience and Gore's intelligence) seems a bit absurd when the strength in question is popularity.

Meanwhile, I'm more curious than ever who Obama and McCain will choose as running mates. Obama has a lot of interesting choices (Clinton and Richardson make obvious choices, but I've heard other names thrown around, including Kucinich, Feingold, Gravel, Gore, Powell, Sebelius, Strickland, Webb, Rendell, Hagel, Clark, Nunn, Bayh, Biden, Napolitano, Edwards, and Brown). McCain seems to have fewer good options, although I was intrigued to read someone suggest that Condoleezza Rice would guarantee a McCain win (I'm not sure that would be a good move at all, much less so great a move as to reverse that train wreck).

Script Kids These Days

2008-07-30T03:38:57Z

I just read an article titled The "Anti-Java" Professor and the Jobless Programmers". The article seems to be a pretty typical piece about declining standards in CS education, and I won't address the main thrust of the argument. Rather, I'm interested in the bit where in which Robert Dewar, the professor in question, suggests these interview questions to separate the wheat from the chaff:

1.) You begin to suspect that a problem you are having is due to the compiler generating incorrect code. How would you track this down? How would you prepare a bug report for the compiler vendor? How would you work around the problem?

2.) You begin to suspect that a problem you are having is due to a hardware problem, where the processor is not conforming to its specification. How would you track this down? How would you prepare a bug report for the chip manufacturer, and how would you work around the problem?

"I am afraid I would be met by blank stares from most recent CS graduates, many of whom have never seen assembly or machine language!" he says.

I'm a bit bothered by the fact that I would indeed be stumped by these questions. I might be able to make some suggestions as how I'd begin to learn how to debug such problems, but I've never really worked on such a low level (although it isn't quite true that I've never seen assembly), and I've never been in a situation where I couldn't trust my compiler or CPU (although I am aware of various high-level issues with runtime environments I've worked in, the faulty garbage collector in SBCL, for example).

On the other hand, such issues are rare, in general modern compilers and hardware are well tested. It seems to me that in most of the cases where a programmer would "begin to suspect" such things they'd be suspecting incorrectly.

So, my programmer friends, what do you think? Am I (or "kids these days" in general) underqualified? Is this evidence why I should have pursued a proper CS degree instead of engineering? Or is Dewar just shaking his proverbial cane and shouting "get off my lawn!"?

Back to Business

2008-07-29T01:58:31Z

Recent photos are up now.

Work went well today, I'm back into my training routine at full power, and I have far too many books to read. Life is good!

And Yet...

2008-07-28T00:56:24Z

The con went well, and yet now that all is done my mind seems to drift to the impression that things could have gone better. I don't feel quite ready to return to work.

Doesn't help that my flight is delayed, although I am grateful that the Pittsburgh Airport has free wi-fi.

Confluence Conclusion

2008-07-27T17:03:17Z

Confluence has been a lot of fun. Hanging with Ade and Co., eating good food, interesting panel discussions, good conversations, and probably the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in (the accommodations at the Doubletree are high quality, and the service is top-notch).

I ate at the hotel restaurant last night, and while it was expensive, the food was on par with the expense. I wasn't with friends that time, and fine dining alone is always an odd experience. It seemed the staff were going out of their way to accommodate the more eccentric convention-goers, since they didn't object to a guy in a fursuit chatting with his friends at the bar. (The animal in question was a horse (I think), which I found rather funny on account of the old joke.)

I bought a bunch of books (not necessarily a good idea, but I can't resist) and a piece of art to hang in my room.

Like Clockwork

2008-07-25T15:46:07Z

I've just arrived at the Doubletree Hotel, the venue for this year's Confluence. The trip here was incredibly smooth: Up at 6 AM, out the door at 6:40, airport at 7:20 (without a minute waiting for a bus or train), through security by 7:40, breakfast (surprisingly affordable, apparently Logan Airport is now enforcing their long-standing no-gouging policy?), board plane at 8:30. Comfortable flight, no delays, shuttle from airport to hotel (called GOOG-411 for the hotel's number, which I had forgotten to write down), warm cookie at check-in, great accommodations. Con registration was (apparently) supposed to be from 11, but they don't seem to have set up quite yet.

Late Links

2008-07-25T04:20:34Z

Real life proceeds apace, but as usual. Confluence starts tomorrow. So, for your enjoyment, I present these few select bits from the internet:

You've probably seen street performers disguising themselves as "living sculptures". This nifty piece of installation art puts a twist on that, with a statue that depicts (disguises itself as?) a street performer disguised as a statue.
This piece from Slate presents a Venn diagram illustration of Bush administration scandals.
Google has added walking directions to maps, a boon to those in cities with pedestrian bridges and one-way streets. They also improved the contacts manager in Gmail.
This paper proves the hexagonal honeycomb conjecture, that honeycomb represents an optimal tiling of a flat surface with uniform regular geometric shapes.
Chess boxing is clearly the ultimate competition.
Here's an exhaustive proof of a vital life lesson you probably already knew.

Con Decisions

2008-07-19T14:32:04Z

I've decided to go to Pi-Con in August.

On the professional side, I was considering attending the Business of Software Conference, which seems interesting and is in Boston, until I saw the $1.5k price tag. (That's for two days, and doesn't include food or accommodations. Guess the speakers are making some huge profits on this one.) I guess I could ask ITA about it, but it's probably too expensive to be a good value for them...

Plans and Progression

2008-07-18T02:30:25Z

I just heard about Pi-Con (Springfield, MA in late August), and I must say the line-up of guests and programs makes me awfully tempted to go. Unfortunately, I'd have to nail down that plan in the next few days or so. Going so soon after Confluence seems perhaps overly expensive, but I had planned to explore the con scene more now that I can afford to do so.

That aside, things have been same-old, same-old. Exercising heavily, adding highly engineered meal substitute to my diet (protein powder shakes don't taste great, but make me feel a bit like a spaceman), being super-confused at work and worried that this stuff will remain perpetually over my head, trying to get more sleep, trying to get more hours in at work, trying to make the most of my free time. Going on dates with people who are nice and cute, but where things never quite "click". Finding new activities to explore. Etc.

Computer Woes

2008-07-12T23:57:38Z

I'm recovering from a Windows-related mishap that started with my user profile corrupted and wound up with my entire user directory (including settings and documents) deleted. I was able to create a new account and mostly restore with a combination of backup (several months old) and an undelete utility. I didn't lose a huge amount of work, but I need to remember to keep my backups more current...

Not So Eventful

2008-07-10T04:33:35Z

I've been watching my diet this week and exercising a lot. My weight is fluctuating heavily (sometimes up and down several pounds in less than a day), so it's hard to tell if that's trending downward or not. My strength and endurance are gradually improving, though.

I'm still trying to meet new people. I'm going to a movie with someone who suddenly acquired a boyfriend after we first exchanged emails but before we had to chance to meet. It's like a first date where I come pre-rejected.

It's my birthday.

Unwinding

2008-07-06T17:03:08Z

I'm back from camp, and back online. Camp was much as I remembered it, with the exception of the food, which wasn't as good (trying to cut expenses, I guess). There was more rain than usual, but when it wasn't raining, the weather was amazing. I got in some kayaking, a bit of swimming, some quality time with my family (including some exciting chess games with Solomon), and a lot of reading. Took quite a few photos, too, which I'll post later. Not extremely eventful, but very relaxing.

Reading list, for the interested:
Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization by W. Hodding Carter
Sundiver by David Brin
Zanesville by Kris Saknussemm
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

Saturday evening I spent with friends in town: DJ, Ginneh (back from California), and Aasted. We went to see Hancock (better than expected, with parts of the plot genuinely surprising, a sort of meta-surprise), then to the Sunset Grill and Tap. I was hungry enough to look at the food menu this time, and the selection there is as impressive as their selection of drinks. At Aasted's suggestion, I tried their peanut butter and jelly sandwich (billed as the peanut butter and jelly "experience", on Texas toast with honeyed fresh-ground peanut butter and strawberry preserves). It is indeed quite something, taste-wise, although I would have preferred the toast crisper; the sandwich seems ideally calibrated for those who like their peanut butter sandwiches soft and messy. I also had a "flight" of beer, four different choices from their interesting selection in five-ounce tasting glasses. Was a wonderful evening.

Technology On and Off

2008-06-27T03:54:14Z

I went to the Boston Lisp Meetup on Wednesday, which was pretty good. The main talk was on implementing run-time contracts (type-checking or otherwise) in Scheme, a necessary component in a system that uses partially typed Scheme (PDF). In particular, it covered the tricky problem of implementing run-time type contracts for parametric polymorphic functions.

On a diametrically opposed note, I'm going to Sandy Island Camp on Lake Winnipesaukee (map) with my family all of next week (Saturday to Saturday), which means I'll be without phone, computer, and internet. That bit makes me grimace, but I'm still very much looking forward to it, and I'm sure the periodic detox is good for me in the long run.