Strange Loops

New Blog

2011-03-21T00:00:00-07:00

Not a new blog per se, The blog is in a new location. It’s hosted in the “cloud” with the use of Amazon S3 static website hosting.

Also I’m using Jekyll to render the various pages on the website. If I wanted various features on my website, I’m going to have to code it up myself. WordPress was an option but this is a simpler approach and potentially more fun.

Here is a nice new feature (that came at almost zero cost): Syntax highlighting!

Some ruby code….

1 def foo
2     puts 'foo'
3 endhighlight

Some haskell code….

1 -- This is a super elegant solution to the question found on the wiki. I got it after
2 -- tracing through it for awhile. My head hurts.
3 combinations1 :: Int -> [a] -> [[a]]
4 combinations1 0 _ = [ [] ]
5 combinations1 n xs = [ y:ys | y:xs' <- tails xs, ys <- combinations1 (n - 1) xs' ]

All the blog posts were migrated over. Comments didn’t get migrated over. Some images link will be dead going forward. This blog doesn’t have a large audience so it’s not a major concern.

New Beginnings

2011-03-19T00:00:00-07:00

There have been a bunch of changes in my life the last couple of weeks. Here is another one that has
been in the works for a while. My blog is being moved to a new platform. More details to come.

Talking to Dad

2010-12-14T00:00:00-08:00

Having a discussion with my Dad about website, hosting and blogs.

Installing Haskell Platform on Ubuntu Lucid

2010-10-18T00:00:00-07:00

After a fairly vanilla install of Ubuntu Lucid 10.04, I wanted to install the Haskell Platform but the base Ubuntu install is missing some dependencies.

These were the packages I installed to complete the dependencies:

libzlib1g-dev
libgmp3-dev
freeglut3
freeglut3-dev
libglew1.5
libglew1.5-dev
libglu1-mesa
libglu1-mesa-dev
libgl1-mesa-glx
libgl1-mesa-dev

Rather than installing GHC from the Ubuntu repositories, I used the GHC 6.12.3 generic binary from haskell.org

Afterwards, I downloaded the source for the Haskell platform (see here) and followed the instructions for installing it.

New Machine

2010-10-13T00:00:00-07:00

These last couple of weeks I've been assembling a new desktop machine. It's a fairly hefty machine, core i7, Nvidia GTX 470, 12gigs of RAM.

The biggest annoyance right now is that the Nvidia GTX 470 graphics card is not 100% compatible with Linux (Ubunutu specifically). I can get Linux running but the resolution under X is hideous without the Nvidia driver and with the Nvidia driver I get random system freezes.

So for now, I'm living with Windows 7. It's not the most pleasant experience. However combined with VM player I'm able to get some of my Linux development environment goodness.

Hopefully the graphics issue gets resolved before or early in the new year.

Quick Thoughts on CUFP 2010

2010-10-06T00:00:00-07:00

I went to CUFP this year. I've been diving into Haskell the last year and I thought it would be interesting to see how Haskell (and functional programming in general) were being used.

A couple of quick thoughts:

1. Enjoyed the tutorial on "High Performance Haskell" (slides here). I've spent the last year learning about Haskell but I'm not completely comfortable with it yet. The level of this tutorial was just about right. None of the stuff was over my head.

2. F# shows a lot of promise. I don't use any MS developer products but I'm considering getting Visual Studio to try out F#. It looks like a functional programming language with the fit and polish of the mainstream programming languages e.g. Java, C#

3. Side effects, imperative style are not optimal but sometimes they are very useful. This was a comment that was made in different forms over various talks. It surprised me a little but it shouldn't have. Haskell has affected my day to day work by making me more mindful about side effects. Perhaps that is the biggest thing functional programming can teach working programmers, to understand the various trade offs you make when you apply the different programming language paradigms (functional, imperative, oo).

4. Lots of people appear to be using Scala, Erlang and Ocaml to do serious work even if they're not blogging about it.

5. Not much was said about Clojure. This was a little surprising.

Overall, it was a worthwhile two days and I learnt a lot. Still digesting the conference material and will be doing that for awhile.

iPad + Kindle Love

2010-06-26T00:00:00-07:00

It's a great time to be a computer technologist. The last 12 months feel like a new dawn in mobile computing technology.

I recently picked up an iPad. Surfing the web and checking email has made my daily bus commute way more enjoyable. Rather than doing the morning email and web surfing from home, I can do it on the bus. This is a real time saver.

The iPad, like the smaller iPhone, is a fantastic device for taking on the move. The iPad may just be a bigger iPod Touch but the bigger screen, to me at least, makes the difference between night and day. I admit in the beginning I didn't see how the iPad could replace my Lenovo IdeaPad which was a portable device that I took almost everywhere. I could write code on my IdeaPad and it ran Linux after all!

It came down to 2 things:

1. 95% of what I did was surfing the web, writing and capturing ideas.

2. Have you tried using a keyboard while standing? This makes difference when you're moving and want to check something. (I got used to the virtual keyboard. It's not the optimal solution for typing)

I still like my IdeaPad but all technology gets outdated by something newer and sleeker. I don't like it but I have no qualms about the engine of progress and a newer shinier version of the iPad in the future.

Aside, I'm surprised by how much the Kindle gets dissed on though, that e-ink display is still the closest thing to paper I've seen on a display. I can use the iPad in hourly bursts but when I want to unwind for a couple of hours with a good story my first choice is still the kindle. Winnie and Alice are flashy but really distract me from reading the book. It's not new, sleek and shiny I guess and that makes sense.

Sent from my iPad but edited on my desktop.

Quick Clojure: Understanding Dot Dot Macro

2010-03-26T00:00:00-07:00

user> (. "hello " trim)
"hello"
user> (. (. "hello " trim) toUpperCase)
"HELLO"
user> (.. "hello " trim toUpperCase)
"HELLO"
user> (.. "hello " trim toUpperCase length)
5
user> (.. "hello " trim toUpperCase (concat " world"))
"HELLO world"

Inside Smarty Pants

2010-03-14T00:00:00-08:00

Posted via email from Daniel's posterous

Brunch @ Smarty Pants

2010-03-14T00:00:00-08:00

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Daniel's posterous

Simple but Useful Script

2010-03-13T00:00:00-08:00

Over the course of my career, I've written a variety of scripts to do the same thing over and over again. This particular script here takes a list of files and combines the files together for use in a CLASSPATH environment variable. It can be used for other things but I use it a lot for constructing CLASSPATH.

bash$ export CLASSPATH=`join.pl ~/.swank-clojure/*`

bash$ echo $CLASSPATH

/Users/dc/.swank-clojure/clojure-1.1.0-master-20091202.150145-1.jar:/Users/dc/.swank-clojure/clojure-contrib-1.1.0-master-20091212.205045-1.jar:/Users/dc/.swank-clojure/swank-clojure-1.1.0.jar

This script gave me to the chance to try out my perl 5.10.1 distribution and a new perl 5.10 features e.g. say and Modern::Perl

Controlling the Mac with Java (and a little AppleScript)

2010-03-07T00:00:00-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, a friend forwarded me this presentation about Scripting in the Java Platform. I didn't get the chance to read through and try out some ideas from the presentation until this weekend.

My main takeaway from the presentation is developing applications on the Java platform with the right language for the problem. For example, my core business logic (representing the "hard" parts of my architecture) might be built with Java / Scala to provide the additional guarantee of type safety and then utilizing a dynamic language like JRuby, Jython, Groovy et al for scripting, writing unit tests.

From the presentation I was introduced to a new CLI tool available in Java 6: jrunscript

The -q option shows all the scripting engines available. When I run it on my Mac,

dc@feynman:jrunscript$ jrunscript -q

Language ECMAScript 1.6 implemention "Mozilla Rhino" 1.6 release 2

Language AppleScript 2.0.1 implemention "AppleScriptEngine" 1.0

ECMAScript was not surprising. I had known that a Javascript interpreter had been embedded in Java 6 for awhile but I found the AppleScript engine interesting. I've always thought that AppleScript was a weird language. Weird but useful on the Mac. If I could use AppleScript to extract data out of applications running on my Mac, I could process the data with Java (or another JVM based language like clojure).

For a first pass, I wanted to make a Java + AppleScript program put up a Growl message. After a quick crash course with AppleScript and Script Editor, I had this:

and on the Java side:

There were a couple of gotchas which I'll summarize.

1) You can't appear to set arbitrary variables with the various Binding/ScriptContext methods.

2) To pass values, you have to define a "main" function for the script. That's what this line was doing

applescript.put("javax_script_function", "growlNotification");

It set growlNotification as the "main" function for the script.

3) growlNotification has 2 parameters. To pass arguments, I needed to define a List interface and add my two arguments there. This sort of made sense since the key we use to set the binding says "ARGV". When I initially passed my 2 arguments via an array, I received an error message. After a little bit of trial and error, I found that using a List interface worked. The documentation around this is spotty but the use of a List is somewhat intuitive.

What's next? Possibly doing this with Clojure and learning more about the various application APIs (aka dictionaries in AppleScript parlance).

Hell Fire for Lunch

2010-03-07T00:00:00-08:00

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Daniel's posterous

MacPherson Market

2010-03-02T00:00:00-08:00

An open air market located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Daniel's posterous

Anyone know a good cactus recipe?

2010-03-02T00:00:00-08:00

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Daniel's posterous

Seen at Whole Foods

2010-02-19T00:00:00-08:00

Posted via email from Daniel's posterous

How a Clojure pet project turned into a full-blown cloud-computing web-app

2010-02-19T00:00:00-08:00

via slideshare.net

Very cool presentation!

Posted via web from Daniel's posterous

First, care. | 43 Folders

2010-02-18T00:00:00-08:00

So, ﬁrst, care. Then, as you’ll happily and unavoidably discover, all that “focus” business has a peculiar way of taking care of itself.

link

Posted via email from Daniel's posterous

Seattle

2010-02-16T00:00:00-08:00

Posted via web from Daniel's posterous

Moving to Clojure 1.1

2010-02-15T00:00:00-08:00

I'm not using the 1.1 features yet but I was planning on it. During the upgrade to clojure 1.1, I broke my emacs, slime and clojure setup. That's a good thing since the process has simplified since the last time I did it.

Here's what I did on my Mac (running Leopard). Git is a requirement. I installed mine through MacPorts.

First, I got myself an emacs starter kit. Since I'm using aquamacs, I went with an aquamacs variant of the starter kit. Aquamacs Emacs Starter Kit vs Emacs Starter Kit . Follow the instructions for installing the appropriate emacs starter kit. It should look something like this:

In this process I learnt a little about Aquamacs. The dot emacs file aka ~/.emacs are read after the preferences that are under ~/Library/Preferences/Aquamacs Emacs. Since I mostly used Aquamacs for hacking clojure, I didn't care and nuked all my emacs preferences. Your mileage may vary. Afterward your Preferences.el file should look like this:

Restart Aquamacs to ensure the new preferences get taken.

One of the important things the Emacs Starter Kit installs is the package manager for emacs (aka elpa). I used elpa to install the swank-clojure package. The starter kit also defaults Aquamacs to green text on a black background (changing that is left as an exercise to the reader).

You don't need to but I wanted to check out the packages available to be installed. The M key below is the meta key which on my Mac is bound to the Option and Esc key. Your key bindings might be set up differently but I would try the Option or Esc key to start with.

This is what the package list looks like.

To install a package, I used the package-install command.

You'll be prompted for the package to install.

You'll see some text scrolling by in a buffer. It looks like various emacs lisp files are being compiled. I got some errors. I ignored them. It seemed alright.

Once swank-clojure is installed, it's time to install clojure. To do this, I started up slime.

You'll get prompted about clojure not being installed. You want to say yes here.

You'll see some status messages about clojure getting installed. For reference purposes, this process installs clojure, contrib and swank clojure jars in ~/.swank-clojure

Once that's completed, restart Aquamacs and type 'M-x slime' . You should now be ready to hack clojure code.

If you need a custom classpath, you'll need to set the swank-clojure-classpath variable. I created a directory containing all my jar files (in ~/.emacs.d/clojure ) and have all the jar files there available in my slime session. To do this, my ~/.emacs file contains the following lines:

(setq swank-clojure-classpath

(append

(directory-files "~/.swank-clojure" t ".jar$")

(directory-files "~/.emacs.d/clojure" t ".jar$")))

This approach of globbing jar files together is simple and pretty effective. Alternatively, leiningren appears to be the new hotness in terms of managing clojure dependancies. It's something I'll look at in the future.

Homemade CCTV System

2010-02-15T00:00:00-08:00

A couple of months ago, I started researching putting a homemade CCTV system on the cheap. I picked up a D-Link DCS920 Wireless-G Internet Camera to use as the initial prototype camera since it was the cheapest wireless camera I found.

The first approach I took was to setup an Ubuntu 9.10 box and install ZoneMinder. Ubuntu 9.10 has the ZoneMinder packages in the repository so installing it was not hard. There were some additional steps that I found here to get it up and running. On a scale of 1-10, getting ZoneMinder to run was a 6.5.

The trouble I faced was configuring cameras once ZoneMinder was running. ZoneMinder is a full featured application and multitude of configuration options was intimidating. I got it to run in a motion detection mode (where it will capture moving objects in the video stream) but was not satisfied with how fast it was capturing video. This was probably no fault of the software. The Ubuntu box was older box and may not have been able to keep up.

At this point, I was going to put this project on the backburner until I read a post on lifehacker. The Mac Mini that we use as our media server sits idle for parts of the day when we want a CCTV system in place. Thus there was no additional hardware costs. The resultant performance of the video capture with the Mac Mini was also leads me to believe that the Ubuntu box was too slow. The AMD CPU on the Ubuntu box is a couple of generations old where the Mac Mini has a more modern Core 2 Duo.

One nice feature of Vitamin D was the streamlined camera configuration process. It was able to auto detect the DCS920 wireless camera on our network and after clicking the "Continue" button a couple of times, we were ready to go.

By default, it records everything to the hard disk. It was straightforward to configure sending images of people to my email account.

The starter edition is free and so it fits perfectly into our budget. In the future, we might add additional cameras to our system (they have a compatibility list!) and upgrade to one of their more full featured editions.

Test Page

2010-02-07T00:00:00-08:00

This is a test page.

ActiveMQ Gotcha!

2010-02-05T00:00:00-08:00

We were doing a trial deploy of our brand new java service to the production host yesterday. The service had started up everywhere else so far

Of course it didn't start up on this production host. In the logs was a stack trace that included this error message:

cvc-complex-type.2.4.c: The matching wildcard is strict, but no declaration can be found for element 'amq:broker'.

What caused this problem? This production host was firewalling off connections to activemq.apache.org. This host was serving a XSD file which was required to validate the XML namespace we have used.

I'm thinking WTF! Seriously? Why wasn't the XSD file deployed with jars?

The simplest solution/workaround was to take http://activemq.apache.org/schema/core/activemq-core-5.2.0.xsd and make it http://activemq.apache.org/schema/core/activemq-core.xsd in our XML file. When validating the XML file, it'll use a version of the file available within the activemq jars.

Dropping the version causes Eclipse to complain but that's another problem (and another google search).

Compiling Jython Scripts to Java Class Files

2010-02-02T00:00:00-08:00

Had this little snippet of code lying around my directory.

Didn't know what to do with it. It was somewhat useful. We were trying to compile unit tests written in jython for our java code. The jythonc tool had gone away in jython 2.5 but an ant task (JythoncAntTask) in 2.5 still did that. I did a little bit of code spelunking and extracted the code snippet seen above. I don't know the reasons for removal of jythonc but I suspect this usage is not generally supported by the jython maintainers. Please don't complain if this doesn't work for you. We went with another approach for getting our jython unit test to run.

One should be able to compile it from the command line. You'll need the jython.jar to compile it. To run this against a jython script, I threw together a little shell script.

This post was also a little experiment in embedding code samples into my blog posts. The trick is the script tags provided by gist do not work with the preview/rich text mode provided by typepad. They only work after the blog entry has been published. Other than this little gotcha, Gist is a nice tool for collecting code snippets.

Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

2010-02-01T00:00:00-08:00

Published: February 1, 2010 Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It’s SpentRectangles in the chart are sized according to the amount of spending for that category. Color shows the change in spending from 2010.

via www.nytimes.com

Nice visualization of the budget. No surprise what makes up the biggest amount.

Netbook Part Deux

2010-01-31T00:00:00-08:00

Over the holidays, I got myself a Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2. Initially the plan was to make it into a Hackintosh but since I got the machine working well I've decided to not go that route. Right now, I'm very pleased dual booting Windows XP with the Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix.

I was an early Netbook early adopter. I purchased an Asus EEE in Feb 2008. One of the first entries into the Netbook market. We were going to Maui for a week and the EEE seemed like a great travelling companion. The small form factor made it easy to pack and the low cost made the potential lost on the trip more acceptable.

However after the trip, I'm promptly sold it. The Asus EEE and Lenovo IdeaPad have roughly the same dimensions but the deal breaker for the Asus EEE was the tiny keyboard. There were fairly large speakers (in relation to the rest of the EEE) to the left and right of the keyboard. This made the keyboard even smaller than it had to be. The IdeaPad does not have the same issue. Though smallish, I'm fairly comfortable touch typing this entry on the IdeaPad's keyboard.

By default, Windows XP is installed and required for any future servicing or restoring to factory condition. I'm more of a Mac and Linux person so I had to find tools/applications to make Windows acceptable and integrate with my other equipment. I'm pleased with what I've found and actually find the experience relatively painless.

1. Removed the antivirus program

I should not do this but after uninstalling the Norton antivirus program, the IdeaPad experienced a fairly nice performance boost. I don't use IE or Outlook so most infection vectors are closed off. I still have to be extra careful about what I install on this machine though.

2. Chrome and Firefox

I was impressed with my brief usage of Chrome in early 2009, it was fast and I liked its sandboxing architecture that made it resistant to attacks (see this). On the IdeaPad, it's my default browser.

Firefox is also installed because they are too many useful Firefox add ons. I have to say the 3.6 version has been pretty good on my Mac. For day to day browsing, Safari used to be noticeably faster but I don't notice a difference anymore.

3. xmarks

xmarks is a bookmark synchronization tool. It synchronizes my bookmarks across my browsers on all my machines. When I had one machine, I never understood the use of xmarks. With multiple browsers and machines, I love having the ability to manage all my bookmarks from one central location.

4. Dropbox

I use dropbox for sharing and synchronizing files across my multiple machines. It also version files that you put into it (effectively serving as a backup). Any documents I'm working can be accessed from any of my machines.

5. Evernote

I use evernote for managing my notes across all my devices.

6. Notepad++

notepad++ is a huge improvement over the regular notepad. Has a bunch of useful programming specific features (e.g. line numbering, syntax coloring) and does not have a problem with unix style line endings (where the regular notepad puts the entire file on a single line)

7. Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix

Used Wubi to install Ubuntu. Sometimes I just need access to Linux. No repartitioning of the hard drive is necessary. Wubi installs Ubuntu on the windows partition of the hard drive (at the cost of slower disk performance which doesn't really matter in this situation).

8. Python

It's what I use these days for small projects. In the past, I liked Strawberry Perl and I would used it again if the need arises.

You'll also want easy_install to get new libraries.

9. Git, Putty

I need access to my git repositories since that's where my code is. Used TortoiseGIT (and it's dependency msysgit) for that. Works great for my simple usage. No major complaints.

putty is the only game on windows for ssh'ing into my remote hosts.

3 + 4 + 5 + 9 form a common theme, they are tools I use for managing information/code I collect.

10. miro, songbird

For listening to podcasts and other digital media. This is one area I need to work on more. Figuring out how to access the digital media stored on my other computers.

11. External mouse

I've never liked trackpads so an external mouse eases that frustration. Nothing complicated. Just got myself a cheap (< $20), wireless optical mouse. This one fits the bill pretty well.

My new IPad

2010-01-31T00:00:00-08:00

The Lenovo I dea Pad S10-2 that I picked up on my trip to Singapore at the beginning of December. This one is a wifi only version. There is a 3G option available (based on what the user manual tells me). I've regularly taken this handy little device to the coffee shop whenever I want to catch up on my RSS feeds. The 10 inch display and regular keyboard make web browsing easier than on the iPhone. It evens come with a cute little pink carrying case.

This IPad is not be confused with this . :)

Reflection

2010-01-18T00:00:00-08:00

On my long run yesterday, I was able to reflect on the events from the last seven days. I was trying to understand what this experience would teach me. This has been a major wake up call.

I thought through a lot but I kept coming back to 3 main ideas:

1. Life is too short to be anything but happy.

2. Someday might never come.

3. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived.

It's not clear how I'll use these ideas since my mind is still in a fog of sadness, anger and fatigue. Hopefully the next couple of days will help to make things clearer.

Numb

2010-01-12T00:00:00-08:00

I'm numb tonight. I keep thinking about what has happened in the last day. I kept coming back to this quote spoken by one of my favorite fictional characters:

Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives, but I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. - Jean Luc Picard, Generations

Happy New Year!

2010-01-09T00:00:00-08:00

Happy New Year! I know it's 10 days into the new year but I have not gotten around to posting on my blog yet. One of my resolutions for the new year is to post more consistently. Hopefully I hit that goal this year.

2010 is going to be the year of awesomeness! I can feel it.

New Project: CCTV

2009-10-27T00:00:00-07:00

One little project I'm undertaking is to build a CCTV system for the house. A little background, last Christmas our place got broken into. Among other measures, a CCTV/camera system was something we wanted to install. The requirements are basically to be relatively cheap and preferably with motion detection so the cameras don't need to be turned on constantly.

The biggest cost to the system is likely to be the cameras. For prototyping, I will use an old Ubuntu box and getting one camera to start with. ZoneMinder is the software that will be running on the Ubuntu box.

After doing some research, the D-Link DCS-920 will be the initial camera for prototyping with. It seems to be the best compromise between cost and features. It's wireless and appears to have fairly decent image quality.

Building ØMQ on my Mac

2009-10-10T00:00:00-07:00

In my plans for world domination, I need messaging software. I wanted to try out ZeroMQ (trying out RabbitMQ is for another weekend). I'm skipping ActiveMQ since we use it at work and I mostly understand what it provides.

Downloaded the tarball and it compiled right out of the box. However when I tried to get it to run with a simple java program I've written, I kept getting this error (this is on Leopard).

dc@feynman:dist$ java -Djava.library.path=/opt/personal/pkg/zmq/lib -classpath lib/Zmq.jar -jar ZmqTest.jar 
Creating ZMQ
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /opt/personal/pkg/zmq/lib/libjzmq.1.0.0.dylib: no suitable image found. Did find: /opt/personal/pkg/zmq/lib/libjzmq.1.0.0.dylib: mach-o, but wrong architecture /opt/personal/pkg/zmq/lib/libjzmq.1.0.0.dylib: mach-o, but wrong architecture
 at java.lang.ClassLoader$NativeLibrary.load(Native Method)
 at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1881)
 at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1805)
 at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:823)
 at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1045)
 at org.zmq.Zmq.(Zmq.java:25)
 at zmqtest.Main.main(Main.java:15)

As far as I can guess, the JVM I'm using is 64bit so the libraries it loads also need to be compiled as 64bits. To fix this, I had to set the CXXFLAGS environment variable to build 64 bits. This set of steps worked for me.

export CXXFLAGS="-arch x86_64" 
./configure --prefix=/opt/personal/pkg/zmq -with-java
make clean
make
make install

Here's my small java program

package zmqtest;
import org.zmq.Zmq;

public class Main {
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  System.out.println("Creating ZMQ");
  Zmq zmq = new Zmq("localhost");
  System.out.println("Done creating ZMQ");
 }
}

Great quote

2009-10-03T00:00:00-07:00

On the eve of the race, I found this great quote at cafe ladro.

Happiness is a by-product of function. Those who seek
happiness for itself seek victory without of war.
- Willam S Burroughs

Mapping "Caps Lock" to Control on my Mac

2009-09-29T00:00:00-07:00

Since I've been hacking Clojure with Slime on Emacs, I've found myself wanting the Caps Lock key to work as the Control key. This makes some of the key combinations with Emacs easier to hit. Leopard makes this easy (almost too easy!).

First open "System Preferences", and select the "Keyboard And Mouse" preference pane.

Then click on the "Modifier Keys" button.

Finally pick Control for the Caps Lock key. Note that I made Caps Locks and the Control keys work as Control. Initially I swapped the functionality of the keys and found that years of using Control in the old location made me hit it too often. Since I rarely used Caps Lock, I decided to just make both of them Control.

QED!

Setting up Clojure, Emacs and SLIME

2009-09-29T00:00:00-07:00

[Update: I redid these instructions when I moved to clojure 1.1 . Take a look if you're interested]

For the last couple of days, I've been enjoying the combination of Clojure + Emacs + SLIME . Getting it working on my Mac was relatively straightforward (although I hit one minor bump).

To get started, git and Java 6 need to be installed on your Mac. I used the Java 6 SDK supplied by Apple (Java 5 might also work but I'm not using that). git was installed through MacPorts .

1. Get clojure-mode

> mkdir ~/src
> cd ~/src
> git clone git://github.com/jochu/clojure-mode.git

2. Add these lines to your .emacs

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/src/clojure-mode")

(require 'clojure-mode)

Restart emacs (or evaluate the 2 lines above)

3. M-x clojure-install (inside emacs)

You'll be prompted with a default installation directory of ~/src. Note the M(eta) key here is mapped to my Alt and Esc key. YMMV.

I used the default.

4. When done, you'll see something like this.

5. If you do as the instruction suggest, you'll get an error about missing a file or directory.

6. Add the following lines to your .emacs

(setq swank-clojure-classpath '())
(add-to-list 'swank-clojure-classpath "~/src/clojure-contrib/clojure-contrib.jar")
(add-to-list 'swank-clojure-classpath "~/src/clojure/clojure-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT.jar")
(clojure-slime-config)

Restart emacs (or evaluate these lines). Note: you can use the swank-clojure-classpath variable to add jar files or directories to your classpath to work with in SLIME.

7. M-x slime

You're done! Have fun. To get started with clojure, I recommend this book:

P.S Some weirdness with the formatting. I was having trouble with the blog editor.

Vimperator

2009-09-27T00:00:00-07:00

Went old school this weekend setting up the old T41. old school = maximise keyboard usage, minimize mouse usage. I've been a vim person for a long time and vimperator has been on my todo for awhile. Vimperator is a firefox plugin to use vim key bindings. With my vim background, the experience of navigating the web has been pleasantly surprising. It's amazing how fast I was able to navigate the web with just the keyboard. I didn't run any tests with a stopwatch but it felt faster than just the mouse and keyboard.

There were some annoyances which I fixed by putting some config into my ~/.vimperatorrc

" disable the annoying audible beeping
set visualbell

" make a disable vimperator for gmail and google reader, activate by doing :disable and :enable. tip was from here
js function disable() { liberator.execute(':set guioptions=Tnbrm showtabline=1'); modes.passAllKeys = true; }
command disable javascript disable()
command enable set guioptions= showtabline=0

Preloaded Cruft

2009-08-21T00:00:00-07:00

Went through the exercise of removing unwanted stuff on a PC notebook today. Replaced crappy proprietary software with better open source alternatives. I can't help but wonder if the low cost of notebooks is forcing PC manufacturers to pursue other revenue streams to cover cost.

I was tempted to go the Ubuntu route then decided against it since the notebook was not for me.

Weekend

2009-08-02T00:00:00-07:00

Trying out the new TypePad. The differences are there but I'm not noticing anything major. This was the first weekend for the last couple of months where no running was done. Between recovering from the marathon(a month ago), the cougar mountain trail run, Ragnar and the twisted ankle, I was taking it really easy this weekend. It was a nice change of pace not to wake up early on Saturday or Sunday. That gave me sometime to play with technologies and write down some ideas.

Been meaning to try out Aptana Studio and Jaxer. Finally got a chance to do that this weekend. Like the concept for Jaxer bur was really impressed with Aptana Studio. It has a whole bunch of auto complete stuff I didn't expect. I've not been in the IDE world for too long (still preferring a good old text editor) but for new technology an IDE really helps with the learning curve. Might be hacking some rails code with Michael and looking to give Studio a try.

Didn't get too deeply into it but also mucked about with Hadoop, Cappuccino and picked up where I left off with Clojure from a couple of weeks back. Finally settling on Aquamacs + Swank to work with Clojure. Could not get textmate working with the REPL. Also downloaded the MPS language workbench but didn't install it. Also reminded me about the whole language workbench I want to look at and the little pyparsing project I have with Riley.

The two things I didn't get too was the Leksah Haskell IDE and the algorithms class form MIT OCW. Also still looking to build a website with Django, Drupal and SInatra.

Played with a couple of new apps from MacHeist and MacUpdate promo package. Checked out the Project Natal stuff from Microsoft, looks cool but I'll need to try it to be convinced.

Too much stuff. Not enough time.

Oracle to Mysql Gotcha

2009-06-20T00:00:00-07:00

At the new job, we use MySQL. I've mostly worked with Oracle before this and while not expecting everything to be the same, the transition has been smooth.

The one gotcha that threw me for a loop is MySQL's default transaction isolation level for. With Oracle, once data is committed, it's available to be read by all other connections. With MySQL, your view of data is determined by the first query made after the connection is open.

One rationale (I was given) is MySQL has fast connection setups and connections are setup and torn down between queries. I'm not sure I believe that though....

The solution was to change the isolation level for my session via the following incantation:

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED

(Taken from the mysql reference manual page)

virtualenv

2009-05-16T00:00:00-07:00

One recent change to my life has been more python. Lots of nice/bad things have been said about the language that I won't repeat here. I'm generally enjoying my time with it. One useful tool I've found is virtualenv and its bash wrapper functions.

virtualenv allows me to create an environment (python + versioned set of packages) for me to work in. For example I have two virtualenvs right now (temp and django). "temp" contains a myriad number of different libraries I want to experiment with and "django" contains (well) django and a more limited set of libraries. To use I do "activate temp" or "activate django" from my shell depending on what I want to use.

I have a similar problem with perl. I have 2 versions 5.8.9 and 5.10 that I want to use. To take care of this, I have both perls compiled into two different locations. To switch working between the both of, I borrowed some inspiration from virtualenv.

#!/bin/sh
# use-perl5.10.sh
path-to/cpanp 's program perlwrapper path-to/perl5.10/bin/cpanp-run-perl; s save'
PATH=path-to/perl5.10/bin:${PATH} PS1="(5.10) \h:\W \u\$ " /bin/bash

#!/bin/sh
# use-perl5.8.sh
cpanp 's program perlwrapper path-to/bin/cpanp-run-perl; s save'
PATH=path-to/bin:${PATH} PS1="(5.8) \h:\W \u\$ " /bin/bash

I call use-perl5.8.sh and use-perl5.10.sh as appropriate from my shell to setup a working environment from perl. This doesn't isolate the libraries like virtualenv but switching between the two perls is all I needed for now.

Rut Busting

2009-05-16T00:00:00-07:00

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now. As the infrequent posts might not indicate, this was a year of change. I was stuck in rut for the last couple of years. This was largely my fault. I had trapped myself into a situation that I was afraid to break out of. What was I afraid of? A number of small inconsequential things that loomed much larger during that period. Now that I'm on the other side of the situation I have greater clarity about that.

Being patient through the rut did have two nice side effects. However, I'm not going to put myself through that situation again though (if I can help it).

Week 11: Running Behind

2009-04-06T00:00:00-07:00

We're at week 11 in marathon training now. I'm running behind having started late and now coming down with a cold. I have to buckle down over the next 10 weeks to get into shape for the rock and roll marathon.

Wish me luck!

Under Construction

2009-03-03T00:00:00-08:00

February came and went without a blog post. I've been playing around with various options for this blog. I've been feeling "blah" for some time and not felt like writing. Lately I've been expressing myself via twitter and tumblr. They tend to encourage sniping of thoughts. I'm not saying that's a good thing but the built in constraints have squeezed out some creative thoughts. Writing is a good exercise to prevent my skills from atropying.

Lessons learnt

2009-01-26T00:00:00-08:00

Recently our place got broken into. One of the more important things that got taken was my personal laptop. Here are some lessons learnt from the resulting research.

1. Require a password to unlock your computer from sleep. (This would have prevented in my iTunes account from being violated.

2. If you’re extra paranoid, get a laptop lock/safe for your computer. They cost about $20-$30. The one I’ve bought has already paid itself off.

3. Local backups are good to do but doing a remote backup is handy. I used to do backups to an external hard drive. Sadly my external hard drive got stolen too. These are some solutions I’ve found for doing remote backups.

a) Mozy (mozy.com) You configure it with a set of files you want to backup. It backs up your files at pre-determined intervals. According to their documentation, the files are stored encrypted on their side. Cost: 2gig Free, Unlimited $4.95/month

b) Dropbox (getdropbox.com) Not really a backup solution but remote storage. You store your files on a remote server. Nice interface for getting access to your files (basically shows up as a folder on your computer). Another cool feature it possesses is versioning. It versions all updates you make to it so you can go back in time and retrieve an older version of the file. Cost: 2gig Free. 50gigs $9.95/month (Interestingly the backing store is hosted on S3). Bonus points for working on Mac and Linux.

c) Good ole S3. If you go this route, google for Jungle Disk. I have a friend who really likes it. I didn't go this route.

4. Password managers are extremely useful tools (considering the number of websites I mess around with). Free multiplatform ones are PasswordGorilla and PasswordSafe. If you’re on a mac, I recommend 1password (it even comes with a nifty iPhone version). Remember to backup the password file created by the manager.

5. The other thing I’ve learnt is getting your door kicked in is pretty common. Apparently most door jambs are made from wood moldings that are broken easily. To make it tougher for burglars when installing the door strike, make sure you get long screws that go all the way through the jamb and into the studs behind them.

iPhone blogging

2009-01-20T00:00:00-08:00

I'm typing this from my iPhone right now using the typepad client. I won't do this on a regular basis but I wanted the experience of blogging from a mobile device. It feels like Twitter is a better experience because it constrains you to a word limit. With a blog I naturally want to write to fill all that space. Ok typing this was hard and I'm unlikely to do this regularly. One nice thing with the mobile client is pictures. So how about a cat (blogs seem to do it all the time).

Tweaking the blog

2009-01-19T00:00:00-08:00

I spent the last couple of hours tweaking my blog. I probably broke all the links coming into this blog but the old links still seem to work. Not that many people read this blog anyway. It was mostly to clean up this blog when it had some other name. Thought to self, separating logical and physical representation of data is not just a useful programming practice.

I've also been playing with FriendFeed and found it a convenient method to integrate my other content into this blog. We'll see how long this will last but that's the goal for now.

This was a fairly eventful weekend with some long term personal changes. I also had time to play around with new tools. Nothing too exciting for now but hopefully I'll write something about them in the future. Not a bad weekend at all!

New Year Resolutions

2009-01-10T00:00:00-08:00

It's a new year. I know it's like 10 days into 2009 but the year has not aged that much yet. Heck I'm still having trouble dating my checks 2009. Like all new years, I've attached some resolutions to them.

Anyway this is the first post for the 2009. With any luck I'll keep up with my resolution to keep my blog updated regularly. If anybody was curious where I was in 2008, you should check out my twitter feed or my tumbleblog. URLs are below.

http://sigsegv.tumblr.com
http://twitter.com/sigsegv

Down the Language Rabbit Hole

2008-07-20T00:00:00-07:00

Once more into the breach.... Been going down the functional languages rabbit hole again, this time I've been more patient with it. The thing about self learning is that you can take your time with it. I rushed through the Little Schemer the first time, this time I'm taking my time going through it and trying to understand the various nuances to programming with recursion. Here we go again.

New iPhone

2008-07-16T00:00:00-07:00

Bit the bullet and picked up the new iPhone on Friday. This thing is amazing what it can do.

Blogging with MarsEdit

2008-07-06T00:00:00-07:00

I've been playing with a new blog tool. I'm going to experiment with MarsEdit (30 day trial) to see how I like it.

One thing I'm looking for is some form of WYSIWYG mode for when I'm not in the mood. ecto / typepad composer both have that feature. It's not a deal breaker though (it has other nice features).

A Manifesto

2008-07-06T00:00:00-07:00

Manifesto - a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization. source

Just took a week off to recover from the 2nd marathon but it's has also been time to reflect and take stock about life and where it's headed. I've needed to write this for awhile but haven't. Sometimes when you're in a hole, the answer is not to dig harder or faster but just stop and take a moment to see that you're in a ditch. The numerous longs runs I've taken this last 18 weeks and the solace I've found in them has given me time to reflect on things.

Work != Job. I see this more clearly now. For a brief period in the beginning, they overlapped. Lately that's not been happening. That's when I began to feel this way. Someone once told me that I needed to take charge of my own career. I haven't done that. I've felt this way for the last couple of years and I should have pulled the plug some time ago. For personal reasons, now is not the time for that. I'm stuck in a quagmire and the exit strategy has to be executed on a precise time line.

I'm happiest when my work allows me to learn new things and improve things. I'm depressed when it involves slinging shit around and trying to make sense of process upon process. I need to break out of this. Hopefully in the coming months, you'll see these changes emerging.

Seafair Marathon 2008

2008-07-03T00:00:00-07:00

It's been a couple of days since I finished the marathon. I needed a couple of days to remember what happened on Sunday. The entire day just blurred together for me.

We got up early. I was up by 3:45. Absent mindedly I put my oat meal into another bag and didn't discover it until I got home later that day. To compensate I ate some clif bars. I've been eating wih oatmeal this season but I have eaten clif bars in the past. This is something I need to work into my training routine, eating a variety of foods, to prepare me for when I'm in a hotel or an unfamiliar place.

We walked to downtown Bellevue park. At 5am, it felt just about right for a run. Cool but not too hot. This was going to be a hot day. Most of the team was at the TNT tent when we got there around 5:05. The team congregated outside the tent for the next 20 minutes, applying sunscreen, pinning things to jerseys and making casual talk. We huddled up around 5:20, Bonni and Jim gave us some advice and instructions and we did a big "Go Team!"

We caught the shuttle at 5:30 and arrived at the start line about an hour before the race start. I was definitely feeling the nerves. I just wanted to get it started. The sun was starting to get hotter. 7am rolled around and a 15 minute delay was announced. I was down in the corrals waiting for the race to get started. 7:15 came and the race was started.

I started off too fast. It felt like a nice easy pace but I had trouble slowing down for the 1st 3 miles. I ran the 1st mile in about 10:30 which is too fast for me. Mari ran up alongside me and told me to slow down. I guess too much ardrenalin was going through me. In the future, I might try taking more aggressive walk breaks, especially at the start. The first part was a good run. Running across 520 was a great experience. I wished I slowed down to enjoy it more.

I felt good until we hit Meydenbauer around mile 7.5. There was a crowd of supporters and I gave Kit a high 5. I started to feel the heat get to me. When I got to the top of the first big hill, Jim was there giving us all support. Thanks Jim! I ran all those hills in training but I walked up them this time. I tried to rest of the down hill stretches. I don't remember there being that many hills in training (ahh selective memory) but I also don't rememer it being that hot.

Running up that long stretch of Bellevue Way felt like being roasted in an oven. The sun was starting to become unrelenting at that point. I'm not a quitter but I had to make a decision at mile 11:
a) Go straight and quit. Just finish 13 miles.
b) Take that right turn onto 12th. Go the distance.

I was seriously tempted to go straight. Then I remembered the personal story Kit gave the night before. Remembered how it made me feel when she told her story. I took the left turn. I pulled level with Sam and we chatted until I made a restroom stop.

We hit bridle trails. It was shaded and I walked a lot! I probably walked bridle trails the entire way. I also started to cramp. Jim pulled up to give some words of encouragement.

D: So is this hot?
J: I've been in hotter. But this is pretty hot.

I'm going to miss than man!

Jim gave me two salt pills and told me to take them. He handed me two more and told me to take one every 45 minutes. They helped. My cramping definitely eased up after that.

We got done with Bridle trails around mile 15. I caught up with Sam at that point. After that point, we were inseperable. The next 5 miles were not memorable. There was this really nasty hill in there. And lots of downhills.

I was just trying to get it done at this point. It was awesome to run with Sam. Having her to chat with made everything go a lot easier. We basically ran under the sun and walked under the shade to recover our strength. Glen gave me that invaluable advice around mile 11.

At mile 20, we shouted at a photographer to not take our photos. We were taking a walk break and we didn't want to look bad. :) A moment later, I recognized the photographer as my good friend Riley. I was ecstatic to see him. We had planned this for a while but seeing him out there was a great feeling. Riley ran with us for the next half mile, snapping photos of us with his new camera. Having Riley there gave me a little shot of energy.

Mile 21 - 23 was brutal. It was a pretty stretch of Kirkland running along the water. Being completely exposed to the sun and having the exhaust from cars driving by made it less than optimal though. We kept moving though. We met Diana, this incredibly cool 60 year old who was going to run 12 marathons this year. She told us about the Chicago marathon that was called off because of the heat. Thankfully it was not as bad at this one.

We hit mile ~24 and we see a familiar figure in this green coaching jersey. Jim! I was so glad to see him I gave him a big hug. I told Jim I could "smell the barn". Jim and I had talked about that during our training runs and I latched onto the phase now. We fast walked up that hill where we met Kathy, another coach. We ran some more and met Jeffery, another coach. We were close and nothing was going to stop us at this point. We walked up 2 hills around mile 25. With the finish line in sight, we busted down that last downhill. My friends Riley and Bob were waiting on 100th just before the finish line. They ran with me that last quarter mile. It was great to have them there. We took a left turn and I used my last ounce of energy to finish strong.

Finally it was done. Definitely a different experience from the first one. I have many thanks to give.

Thanks to Riley and Bob for being there at the finish.

Thanks to all the people who supported me by contributing to my fund raising campaign all season.

Thanks to the TNT coaches, staff, volunteers, team mates and everyone else who got me to the start line and cheered me throughout the race.

Thanks to Sam for keeping my spirits up those last couple of miles. I'll miss running with her and all my other great team mates every Saturday.

Thanks to Mari, Glen, Jeffery and Kathy for being out there with us.

Thanks to Jim, our coach and fearless leader, for getting us well prepared to run this marathon and helping me to realize that I might have a touch of crazy.

Thanks to Kit for being my inspiration, helping me to appreciate what I have and being the reason we're out there.

Thanks to Bonni without whom none of this would never have happened.

Thanks to my sweetheart, Sheila, for waking up every Saturday morning and listening to my endless whining about training, nutrition, hydration and aches.

T - 1

2008-06-28T00:00:00-07:00

It's almost time. I was struggling to come up with words to describe how I feel at this moment. The last marathon I was oncall right up until the day before. I was stressed out about the high severity ticket that had come in Thursday. I handed it off to another person (pre-arranged) Saturday morning and did not have time to collect my thoughts before the race. That might have been a good thing or bad thing. I don't know.

I worry of course. It's my nature. The Seattle PI reports the weather is going to be hot on Sunday. We've been training in unusually cold weather. I worry that I'll melt under the heat. I worry that I don't have the strength to finish. It's best not to worry about the things that I can't control. Training with Jim has taught me that. All I need to focus on is the right pace. Getting into a groove and feeling right about being out there. Sharing the course with my team mates and coach for one last time. Being grateful for being able to do this.

Training is done.

**Rocky Balboa - Training Montage**

That's how the season felt. With the up and downs of training. I find the Rocky movies the best expression of how I feel sometimes. I just have one final round left this season:

Rocky Balboa - Final Round

T - 7 and counting

2008-06-22T00:00:00-07:00

Seven days until the marathon.

We've been tapering for the last two weeks after the 20 miler. The previous weekend was spent on Tiger mountain running 12 miles.

Yesterday was our last team practice as we ran 8 miles around the Greenlake area. This has been a great training season for me, I've been extremely privileged to work with Jim (coach) and a core group of team mates. I felt a touch of melancholy at the thought of not seeing Jim, Kit, and the team every Saturday. When you start out marathon training, it's uncomfortable. Going outside when its dark, wet, cold (or a combination) is hard. It's hard to motivate yourself sometimes. When you do it with a group, that you bond with over the course of the season, going out to run no longer becomes uncomfortable. It becomes something you get done.

On our very last Thursday run, me and Jim chatted while we warmed up around the park. He talked about how a marathon is a training exercise, how that when I got it done I would miss waking up early on those Saturday mornings. For him, the greatest pleasure was the discipline of setting a plan and executing on it. The main event is in many ways a victory lap for those months and months of preparation that was required.

Throughout the season, Kit has been an incredible source of inspiration for me. The ability to do what she has done and live with CLL. She's always shown up at our Saturday practices even though it drains her energy deeply. Having her at the coldest days of the season handing out hand warmers was a great motivator for me to keep moving. Like her, many CLL patients fight constant challenges to keep a sense of normalcy.

Unlike them, I have one final challenge left this season. One long run to get done.

No more frenzy

2008-04-27T00:00:00-07:00

Alas I'm done with script frenzy. Having done NaNoWrimo before,Script Frenzy felt like an easier challenge. Sadly I didn't have thetime to devote to it this month.

For people interested, the page count ended at 57 pages.

It was fun though. If I do it again, I would like to do more prepwork around formatting a screen play. I kinda of jumped into it withoutthinking through the ramifications.

have not blogged in awhile

2008-01-19T00:00:00-08:00

coming back soon. been busy with a ton of other stuff.

Testing

2007-11-19T00:00:00-08:00

Testing

Sent from my iPhone

Blogging

2007-11-19T00:00:00-08:00

I can blog from my iphone!!!

Sent from my iPhone

2006 Season Recap

2007-06-24T00:00:00-07:00

MVP: Nashty!
Best Trade: Boozer,AI2 for EB
Best Waiver Wire Pickup: Pau Gasol
Best Free Agent Pickup: Al Jefferson
Worst Pick: Diaw
Best Pick: TJ Ford/GDub
My Sleeper Pick for 2007: David Lee

Champions!

2007-04-22T00:00:00-07:00

Champions!
Originally uploaded by signal11.

The results on the final day of the season. The Grill made a run during the last two weeks of the season to emerge as co-champion with Smack Train.

A Championship Season

2007-04-22T00:00:00-07:00

The Grill proved me wrong. We didn’t come in 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th. We came in as co-champions with Smack Train coached by fantasy basketball enthusiast and friend Zack.

The only thing that separated the two teams was 3 treys, 4 points and 6 blocks. The margin of victory was that small. 3 more treys, 4 more points or 6 more blocks either way would have won the championship for either one of us. I’m glad that we drew. Both teams came on strongly during the last few weeks of the season that it would have been unfair for either team to end up second.

In my previous post, I thought the Grill was primed to challenged. I just didn’t think that we had enough firepower to scrape out a championship. I guess the players decided to prove me wrong. During the final run, Kobe, EB, GDub and Gasol went on a tear. Looking through the Yahoo average ranks, they came in 3rd, 6th, 1st and 7th during the last month of play. GDub and Kobe in particular went on this incredible tear.

Hibachi Grill started of the season as Killer Rabbits Deux. The Killer Rabbits had come in second in this highly competitive league last season. It was a successful rookie season for me and I was determined to do better this year. We got off to an inauspicious start due to a bad draft. My third round pick Diaw, who had a phenomenal season last year, never reached the same heights this year. RJ was injured for most of the season. Troy Murphy never developed the way I expected under Nellie. We slowly fall our way down the rankings.

Changes had to made to keep us in contention. We made a 2-for-1 trade to help us in the blocks category. My Boozer and AI2 for his EB. On hindsight I could have gotten better value for AI2 but who knew that AI was on his way out. EB though provided massive statistical help. Then an owner decided to drop Gasol. With the 2-for-1, I had the roster space to pick up and stash Gasol. Soon after, we became known as Hibachi Grill (in honor of Agent 0). I was hoping the name change and major trade move would mark a turning point for the team.

January came around and the Grill started to show signs of life. We were near the bottom but were no longer in the cellar. The core of EB, Nash and Dirk helped the team stay around but the supporting cast was about to emerge for the Grill. TJ Ford started becoming a viable fantasy point guard. Gasol recovered from his injury and started putting up the numbers we were expecting from him. GDub started the season slowly but was rounding into form. Bell was finding his shot and efficient overall. Big Al and Tony Allen excited me with the numbers they were putting up. They were two of my best free agent signings for the year. When Allen went down, JChill was a more than adequate replacement.

In February, Dirk and Nash went on a tear. The Grill surged up the ranks mirroring the play of the two stars.

In March, a timely trade for Maggette (Big Al going the other way) and the blockbuster Kobe for Dirk trade proved to be fortuitous. Maggette got put back into the starting lineup and rediscovered his form. Kobe, what can I say about Kobe? He carried my team like he carried the Lakers. Not to be ignored, GDub started playing like the player I was expecting. EB (with his new center eligibility) and Gasol started to hold down the middle freeing up my forward slots for versatile forwards like Childress and Gay (in addition to GDub!).

In April, it looked like I could gain points in a number of categories. Smack Train had a huge lead at that time but I felt that I could strike. With Kobe and Maggette, we were surging up the FT% category. One point there. Points and Rebounds fall next with GDub providing an unexpected assist in both those categories. Two points there. We got luck with threes because the owner ahead of me started coasting. One more point. Finally with a week and half left, we were within striking distance of blocks. A multitude of big man went in and out (Aldridge, Etan Thomas, Diop, Milicic, Perkins). A point there and we were now tied with Smack Train with just 5 days to go. If I had realized that there was another point to gain in blocks I would have left those big men in a little longer (we ended up 6 blocks short of the next team).

Up till the end, the Hasslehoff Allstars and the Oklahoma City Sonics kept playing and it proved pivotal on that final day when it prevented Smack Train from taking an extra point (that’s where the 3 treys and 4 points came from).

It was a great season. The excitement and stress never let up but I would not have it any other way. I learnt a lot. A good draft is only part of it. Good pickups, timely trades and staying active cane overcome a bad draft. I have one more entry to write about the players I want to watch out for next season and then I can put this to rest.

On Vox: The Journey

2007-04-17T00:00:00-07:00

Exercise from week 4 of writing class....

» Read more on Vox

On Vox: The Pager

2007-04-05T00:00:00-07:00

Exercise from the third week of writing class....

» Read more on Vox

On Vox: Darkness

2007-04-05T00:00:00-07:00

Exercise from the second week of writing class....

» Read more on Vox

On Vox: The Window

2007-03-22T00:00:00-07:00

Exercise from the first week of writing class....

» Read more on Vox

Hibachi Grill Number One!

2007-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

Hibachi Grill Number One!
Originally uploaded by signal11.

The first time this season I've lead the league. I don't think it will last but it's always nice to say you've lead the league.

The Final Run

2007-03-05T00:00:00-08:00

Looks like the final stretch of the fantasy NBA season is here. From where Hibachi Grill sits, we look primed to challenge.

A couple of trades went down for the Grill just before the trade deadline.
Big Al for Maggette
Dirk for Kobe

Dirk for Kobe was a major trade between me and DL. Though we were mostly having fun with it, I did have a minor strategic intent for making that trade. Dirk and the Mavs are cruising right now. It would not surprise me if they started reducing Dirk’s minutes. Kobe and the Lakers are still in a fight for the 4,5 seed. They have the 6 seed right now and would play the Spurs if the playoffs started today. I think they are going to make a push for that 5 spot.

The roster now looks something like this:
PG Nash
SG Kobe
G TJ Ford
SF G’Dub
PG EB42
F JChill
C Gasol
C CWebb
Bench: Gay, Bargnani, L Aldridge, Korver, E Watson, Maggette, Bell

Hibachi Grill has been a power team for most of the season and it was time to soften things up and (hopefully) balance things out. I might have overdone it since I traded away Dirk and BIg Al. Ouch!…. only time will tell

I don’t think Hibachi Grill will win this league. I drafted poorly and spent most of the year scrambling to fill in pieces. I’m proud that I’ve managed to piece together a team that is even challenging. My goal is to come in 3rd (out of 9 teams) but I’ll be happy with a 5th or better place finish.

More stuff

2007-02-27T00:00:00-08:00

Various thoughts dripping through the holes in my head!

Top Gear Season 9 Episode 3
Funny. Surreal. Serious. This episode of Top Gear will go down as a classic. You don’t need an interest in cars to watch this episode of Top Gear. You’ll probably laugh. You might be offended. You’ll mutter to yourself, “that cannot happen here”. You’ll sigh, “I can’t believe it was that bad”. You don’t need an interest in cars to watch this. It was just that good. Top Gear has always been one of my favorite TV shows but with this episode they’ve gone up a level in my book. Do a search on youtube for the various clips. It’s even better if you catch the complete show.

2nd Life
I heard about 2nd Life a couple of years back but I finally took a peek last week. This is my first foray into a MMORPG. Is Second Life a MMORPG? It does not have the fantasy aspect of a WoW or Eve but I would argue that it is. It’s a “Snow Crash” MMORPG. We don’t have the VR equipment to fully immerse ourselves in 2nd Life but it’s not too hard to imagine. Land is a commodity and there is a real demand for it. That requires protection. With protection comes government or at least a political structure. With a political structure they have a currency (it even has an exchange rate with the USD). 2nd Life has all these aspects and that makes it seem more real…. There is an economy and political system in place even if it’s just bits and bytes living on the servers of Linden Labs. It’s going to be an interesting experiment.
What drew me to 2nd Life? They had a scripting language and it looked interesting to build stuff on the platform. Have not really built anything yet, more a case of me just poking around to see how things worked.
Anway meet my alter ego, Zed Qunhua (this is a default male character)

relax!
Need the swiss bank account of IP addresses? Check this out. Googling for it gives links to other websites with the same business model.

On Vox: Vox Hunt: Almost Makes Me Want To Buy It

2007-02-19T00:00:00-08:00

Video: Show us your favorite commercial of all time. Submitted by Jane of Art.

» Read more on Vox

Ultimate Fantasy

2007-02-18T00:00:00-08:00

I watched the NBA All Star Game tonight and that got me thinking. Whatwould my ultimate fantasy team from the current NBA roster look like?

I could choose any player from any team. But that would be pretty boring…. The main restriction is to pick a head coach and then pick a team that would fit that style of play. For the purpose of this exercise, D’Antoni is my head coach.

This would be my starting five:

PG Nash
SG Kobe
PF Dirk
SF Marion
C Amare

When I came up with that list, I was pretty surprised. 3 of the 5 are already starters for the Suns. The other two are huge upgrades over the current starters (Kobe for Bell, Dirk for Diaw). Imagine what Dirk would do with Nash as the PG again and D’Antoni as the head coach. I struggled with Amare as the starting center for a couple of minutes…. Played around with the idea of Timmy, Dwight, CB4, JON, Okur as the starting center instead. Amare just seems perfect for D’Antoni’s system. Gasol was the other likely choice. It’s a tradeoff between what either of those guys give you.

Who would be in the second unit? Since I’m playing fantasy, the second unit would be pretty stacked too.

PG Agent 0
SG Ray Allen
PF KG
SF Gerald Wallace
C Gasol

It would raining treys if Ray had Nash as his point guard. I see Ray playing the open court with Nash and hitting those long range bombs on the break. It was hard to take Marion over KG but I had to go with the incumbent. Wallace and Marion are such similar players though Marion is better overall. JSmoove might also have worked out. Arenas would do the Hibachi thing all day if he played for D’Antoni.

Lots of big names missing from the list. The head coach restriction forces you to think of players that would fit into a system.

The First Week

2007-02-18T00:00:00-08:00

My first complete week at work has just ended (the actual first weekback only consisted of two days so it doesn’t count). Other thanperformance reviews, it was a moderately busy week filled with theusual.

Reviews were due at the end of the week and I tried all week to get started on them. Despite my best attempts I could not motivate myself past the apathy. Only the pressing deadline spurred me into action. Why do I hate working on reviews? It’s a basis for why working on them is hard.

To be honest, I didn’t have a good year at work. Not by my standards. I am a self critical person. The thought of going through every single thing I did wrong just brought out the chill within me. To be fair, my feelings about where I’ve worked have gone from mostly positive to pretty negative. Last year, I almost hit rock bottom…. I actually don’t know….. I might even have touched bottom ever so briefly.

The vacation made me take a step back. Helped me to think and put things within a larger perspective.

I have another home to return to. I’ll miss people around here deeply but it’s not The End. It means I can quit my job. I understand that now. A sense of calmness has followed.

I need challenges in my life. It is a personal limitation. Without challenges, I’m lost. Work used to be a challenge but it rarely feels that way anymore. I was in the middle of nowhere. Stuck in purgatory. The Marathon and NaNoWriMo (heck even fantasy sports!) helped fill in those painful gaps. It was not enough because I was used, addicted even, to the challenges I had at work. That’s what all my resentment, all my anger was about. It’s why I constantly felt bored, unappreciated, neglected, overlooked. The fundamental problem is I used work as my centre. I need to shift that focus.

What happens now? What will change? Small things… Small things….

Back home lonesome Johnny
Prays for his baby's parole
He waits on the hillside
Where the Wyomie waters roll
At his feet and almost grown now
A blue-eyed daughter and a handsome son
Well from small things, mama
Big things one day come
Well from small things, mama
Big things one day come
- From Small Things, Bruce Springsteen

[I started writing this last weekend but didn’t finished it. It now includes my feelings about the second week]

On Vox: Stargate: Macgyver

2007-02-18T00:00:00-08:00

Finally someone did it. Two of my favorite TV shows linked by the same lead actor.

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On Vox: Ghost Rider

2007-02-18T00:00:00-08:00

Caught Ghost Rider with GJ and TJ last night. This movie was exactly what I expected. A super hero based B-movie. This movie is a fun watch if you go in with the right expectations. There was some funny bits...

» Read more on Vox

On Vox: Funny!

2007-02-17T00:00:00-08:00

Found this off reddit. Pretty darn funny. The only thing I'm curious about is what will happen when he gets to the end of the book.

» Read more on Vox

On Vox: Great Movie Monologues

2007-02-14T00:00:00-08:00

A couple of days ago, I was browsing Youtube. Not looking at anything in particular when I chanced upon this monologue given by Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting (one of my favorite movies and one that I have not...

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On Vox: Date Movies

2007-02-14T00:00:00-08:00

While I was looking for movie monologues, I also came up with a list of date movies. Consider this my sentimental offering for Valentine’s. The surprising thing was how many of my favorite movies showed up on this list. No…....

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Just Stuff

2007-02-12T00:00:00-08:00

Various random stuff that I wanted to write down.

Cool Apps I saw this week
The pipes are clogged I tell you. That’s what I was thinking when I heard Yahoo had launched something called Pipes. Tubes might have been a better name : )

As a programming language enthusiast it made me happy to see a mass market implementation of a visual dataflow oriented programming language. A very slick Javascript UI. For awhile, JD thought that they had done it with some Macromedia technology.

Speaking of Macromedia technologies, JD showed me www.etsy.com

That’s definitely very slick.

Fantasy Sports
The “Influential Fantasy Sport Observer” phenomenon is one that I experienced for a while. It has to do with my controlling nature. But it doesn’t help my team. I have gotten better at it. No matter how many times I observe my fantasy team within the course of a game, my fantasy players will not magically improve their performance. The best you can do is to start a team with the belief that you have set the optimal lineup and leave it till the next day. I’ve noticed that the phenomenon is more pronounced when the team is doing badly than when it is doing relatively well. Grrrrr…. it might explain why I was obsessively watching the team earlier in the year. It’s better now. Seriously it’s better now. I only check the teams like 3 - 4 times a day.

Writing
I’ve been doing a lot of my recent writing with Scrivener. RL used it for NaNoWriMo 2005 I think and he mostly enjoyed the experience. I’ve been playing around with a number of applications for writing. For NaNoWriMo 2005, I used Tinderbox to write a novel. That didn’t turn out badly since I finished the novel. Last year, I experimented with a number of other writing tools, WriteRoom, Avenir, Jers. I didn’t seem to enjoy any of them. WriteRoom showed that full screen editing works well for me. WriteRoom was good for that but it was too limited. Plus it used to be free but now costs money. For NaNoWriMo 2006, I finally settled on Smultron. Not a bad editor, it had full screen editing but I never felt comfortable with it.

I can hear Mic saying “why don’t you use Emacs?”. I don’t know why. Emacs would fulfill the primary purpose of a writing tool i.e. a tool for editing text. I have a hard time getting my thoughts focused on writing when I’m in that environment. My thoughts feel more logical, more constrained by my technical training. It’s not Emacs fault that I cannot switch my mental context.

Enter Scrivener. It’s an application that is growing on me. I want to see how much writing I do with it this month before I’m completely sold on it. The early going appears promising. I’ve written my most recent blog entries and my performance reviews with it. It has a nice full screen editing mode with some added amenities. It reminds me of Avenir which I was almost sold on. The key difference for me was Avenir is a novel writing tool while Scrivener is a writing tool. I’ll get a lot more use out of Scrivener than I will Avenir.

On Vox: Pan's Labyrinth

2007-02-11T00:00:00-08:00

Watched Pan’s Labyrinth up at the Egyptian with Mic and Jay Saturday night. Went into the movie theater with very little idea about the movie. AD had told me earlier that it was a visceral experience and I might need a...

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What's Next?

2007-02-09T00:00:00-08:00

Tuesday Night
Me: I just went running
AD: I feel like running a half marathon
Me: There is Vancouver in May. JD said I should run it
AD: My knees are shot and I need to train but if you run it, I’ll tag along
Me: More like you zipping ahead
AD: No I’m serious
Me: How about I tell you this weekend after I complete a week of running?
AD: Offer stands for the next 45 minutes
Me: Oh alright
(walks to computer and checks the date for the vancouver half marathon)

I’ve registered for the event. 85 days til Race day. The website has a nice countdown clock: http://www.bmovanmarathon.ca/hm/index.php (I'm also procrastinating from doing my performance review. They're due later today)

It’s a good motivator for me to start working myself back into shape. Hopefully it won’t take me too long to get into shape (due to the leftover fitness levels from December) I’ve also heard nice things about the course so I’m semi-excited. No particular time goal. It would be nice to just finish. I would not be too upset if I did better than 2:20 (my only half marathon time) though.

I won't register for the SF Marathon until after the Vancouver half marathon. I'll use Vancouver to decide if I want to run any marathons (or which) this year.

NSFW but oh so funny!

2007-02-07T00:00:00-08:00

Via: VideoSift

Found off reddit

In The Hunt

2007-02-03T00:00:00-08:00

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about Hibachi Grill. We’re still in the hunt for a trophy. I’m currently in 5th but the point spread among the top 5 teams is pretty close.

The team now looks like this:
Dirk, Nash, Brand, Gasol, G Wallace
Big Al, J Chill, Diaw, Bell, TJ
CWebb, Turkoglu, Millsap, Head, JR

Compared with last year, the team is made up of more players acquired via trade and waiver wire acquisitions.

Drafted: Dirk, Nash, Diaw, G Wallace, Bell, TJ
Acquired Via Trade: Brand, CWebb
Waiver Wire Pickups: Gasol, Big Al, J Chill, Turkoglu, Millsap, Head, JR

One notable waiver wire pickup who was dropped because of injury is Tony Allen. He was playing like a beast at the time and it hurt to have to drop him.

The other notable waiver wire pick ups are Big Al and Gasol who are doing a more than adequate job of filling my 2 center positions. Gasol was not a surprise but Big Al has definitely been a revelation (I think of him as Dwight Lite).

The early season trade of Boozer & Iguodala for Brand is starting to pay off. Brand appears to be playing well again. If Brand doesn’t get injured, I might have gotten the better end of the deal. The 2 for 1 trade also help open up a roster spot (which was filled by Gasol). In our 9 team league, available roster spots are incredibly valuable as there is a lot of talent to go around.

G Wallace has shaken off his early season morass and has started posting some monster lines. He is a huge injury risk but I’m trying to be optimistic. I’m hoping for a big second half. Diaw has not justified his high draft position but is still a very serviceable player. I’m mildly optimistic for a 2nd half turnaround but it appears unlikely.

At it’s core with Dirk and Brand (along with Gasol and Big Al), Hibachi Grill is primarily a power team. However we seem to be do well in 2 guard oriented categories (Assists, A/T), fairly in FT% and poorly in Steals. The team is light on guards and it’s a tribute to Nash that we’re doing well in assists.

The team looks good and I’m optimistic for a second half charge.

Day 1: The Return

2007-02-01T00:00:00-08:00

Just got back into the office today. The vacation has left me in a noticeably relaxed state.

The reorganization that started when I left is completed. People are more or less the same but things feel slightly different.

Not quite sure what to make of it yet. I still have the same uneasethat sat with me for all of the last year. I’m not sure if it is the typical unease of getting back to work after a long break.

I’m hoping for better things this year.

2007

2006-12-31T00:00:00-08:00

I'm not sure what 2007 will bring but I'm hopeful. Hopeful that I'll behappier in general. For reasons I cannot understand, 2006 was adepressing year for me.

Yet it was also filled with days where I accomplished things I've wanted to do for a long time. I finished a half marathon in September. I finished a marathon in November. Running a marathon has finally sunk in. It's part of me now. It feels like a whole world of adventure is just awaiting me.

I've not trained in about 5 weeks but the aches and pains have mostly faded with time. It might be time to start up again. The goal is to finish my second marathon.

What do I want to do in 2007?
1. Be more social
2. Get in better shape
3. Run a second marathon
4. Donate $X
5. Save $Y
6. Travel More
7. Get more sleep

I suspect 5 & 6 may not be mutually compatible but I'm willing to to give it a chance.

The butler did it

2006-12-23T00:00:00-08:00

There were a whole bunch of injuries in the NBA this week. I had an injury scare or two....

Dirk sprained his ankle against the Sonics and Nash rolled his ankle against the Wizards. Dirk's injury looked really bad on the replay but he was playing against the Clippers on Friday. I hope he doesn't aggravate it. Nash has been the best player for my team this season.

To boost my 3pt shooting, I picked up R Butler did week. With Peja out, he is going to get time to hit the 3ball. He's hit 6 this week, so that helps. He also looks good for a couple of steals but I'm hoping he heats up and knocks down more treys.

Bell has been on a cold streak this week. He'll heat up again and make up for it. I noticed he has a tendency to be a streaky shooter.

Diaw continues his strong play for the team. After a slow start to the season, he is turning into the Diaw of old. G Wallace has also started turning it around. I'm hoping they start making up for the slow start.

TJ Ford has been on a tear without C Bosh around. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Bosh gets back.

L Head has been playing well for me. It'll be interesting to see what happens when TMac and Bonzi start to get it going again. I'm contemplating selling high on him or just riding his threes for the season.

Big Al has been on a tear. With Pierce out, I hope he takes his play to the next level. I dropped T Allen to pick up D Wilkins again. With the injury to Rashard Lewis, I'm hoping Wilkins gets more playing time.

Gasol continues to gain playing time. Once he starts getting more than 30 minutes a game, he'll start for sure. Even now, I think he's worth playing already.

The team now looks like this:
Guards: Nash, Bell, Ford
Forwards: Nowitzki, Brand, Wallace
Centers: Diaw, Gasol
Bench: A Jefferson, R Jefferson, Webber, Head, R Butler, D Wilkins

What's up Speedy?

2006-12-18T00:00:00-08:00

Made another waiver wire move to help heat up the grill.

Dumped Nenad Krstic for Speedy Claxton.

Speedy has not played well this season but I'm a "buy low, sell high" kind of guy. Even if it's a waiver wire pickup. I spent the day looking at Krstic numbers and he wasn't helping my team out that much. He scored a decent number of points but not much else. His rebounding avg is around 7 (pretty bad for a fantasy center). With Gasol back, I didn't really need Krstic that much.

If Speedy turns it around, he'll help me out in assist and steals. His percentages are really bad around right now but I think they'll come back up. He doesn't shoot the three which is another category I have concerns about.

My weakest position right now is SF. RJ and Crash have not been playing well so far. I picked up and dropped Walton a couple of weeks back. I should have held onto him though the Odom injury was unexpected. He gets me treys and steals which is what I need out of my SF now.

I've made a slew of waiver wire pickups and drops this season.
A Jefferson
L Head
J Garbajosa
P Gasol
T Allen
S Claxton

I'm going to keep 2 of my bench spots dedicated to upside guys. (I read it in someone's fantasy basketball blog). Right now T Allen and S Claxton are those guys. J Farmar and D West are two guys who I could potentially pickup in the future.

Wii!

2006-12-17T00:00:00-08:00

The Wii arrived on Thursday and I've spent the weekend playing around with it. If I had to pick one word to describe it: fun.

Including Wii Sports with the console was a stroke of genius. I've been having so much fun with just that one game. The bundle came with a stack of other games but my Wii time has mostly been spent on Wii Sports.

I'm in decent shape but my arms were slightly sore after playing with the Wii on Thursday night. It does not need to be a great workout but it could be. You can play with minimal effort but if you put your entire body into it you'll get a decent workout. Baseball, Bowling and Tennis have the most appeal for me. Golf is too hard and the controls in Boxing just seem too random.

What I really want

2006-12-17T00:00:00-08:00

Lord of the Rings video game for the Wii.

Can you tell I'm in the middle of watching "The Return of the King?"

The grill is warming up

2006-12-16T00:00:00-08:00

Team Hibachi Grill is starting to warm up. I hope the trend continues.

The core of the team if the trend continues is pretty solid:
Guards: Nash, Bell, TJ Ford
Forwards: Nowitzki, Brand, Wallace
Centers: Diaw, Gasol
Bench: Krstic, R Jefferson, Webber, Garbajosa, Wilkins, Head, A Jefferson,

The biggest reason for my surge appears to be the inspired play of the much maligned Diaw. He's putting in some awesome lines for me during the last six games. I hope he continues to do this and recapture the form that he had last year.

G Wallace continues to be a disappointment on my fantasy team. He continues to rack up steals at a pretty good rate but it's still down from last year. His blocks and FG% are down from last year which is worrisome. I hope he gets it going soon.

Gasol started last night. His first NBA game in awhile. If he recaptures some of his form from last year I'll be in good shape. Webber has been up and down but his statline has shown glimpses of the fantasy stud he once was. With AI out, I'm hoping he becomes the main guy for that team. The last 4 games, he's contributed quite a bit to my team. Only his FG% has been scary. If he picks that up I'll be in good shape.

I've been boosted slightly by a number of waiver wire injury pickups: Head, A Jefferson, Wilkins.
A Jefferson, in particular has been amazing. The way he plays I hope he continues to start. I picked up Head to boost my treys but since TMac got injured, Head has stepped it up. Wilkins has played well but I've been nervous about starting him. Ray Ray is back soon so I'm considering dumping him to pick up T Allen.

Hibachi Grill is a power team. My core players are primarily forwards and centers. I need to balance the team up with some guards and wing players. Hopefully I can get some trades and waiver wire pickups to help with that.

Welcome to the hibachi

2006-12-09T00:00:00-08:00

Gilbert Arenas is one funny dude. Check out his blog and this little snippet from wikipedia:

During the 2006 National Basketball Association season, Washington Wizards point guard Gilbert Arenasbegan to shout the word as he took field goal attempts in games,explaining, "You know, a hibachi grill gets real hot. That's what myshot's like, so I've been calling it that: 'Welcome to the hibachi'."

In honor of the man, the Killer Rabbits are now Hibachi Grill.

This has been a fairly decent week for Hibachi Grill with lots of interesting news in the horizon.

- Tied for 5th in the league
- AI is out in Philly. I wonder if my Iguodala trade was premature. Webber did have a good game last night. I hope he continues that trend
- Diaw is showing signs of life.
- Wallace registered a block last week.
- Brand had 2 good games for me followed by a bad one in SA
- Gasol starts full contact drills soon
- Oh yeah! Nash is frigging amazing. I just wished they showed that duel with Kidd on TNT. I have Dirk and Sheed on various fantasy teams but that game was boooriing.

Dying Rabbits

2006-12-05T00:00:00-08:00

Looks like the Rabbits are on life support right now. The team is not doing well in too many categories and it is going to be hard to catch up anymore.

The core of the problem is that Diaw and G Wallace are underperformingand tanking the team. I'll keep them around because I drafted them toohigh for me to drop them or sell them cheaply.

I also made a value trade. Gooden for Webber. I'm not sure if that helps but I think Webber has more upside that Gooden.

The roster now looks like:
Nash
Bell
Ford
G Wallace
Nowitzki
Brand
Murphy
Diaw
RJ
Krstic
Webber
Garbajosa
Gasol
JWill
Outlaw

I'm in the process of trying to find undervalued players and buying them on the cheap. I think that's the only strategy for my team to make a comeback. I'm going to try and look at the team less often because it's a little frustrating and looking at the team is not going to help.

Weee!

2006-12-04T00:00:00-08:00

I thought I was past being juvenile i.e. making impulse buys

Oh well 3 steps forward, 1 step backwards.....

It's on preorder so I have a 2 week wait for it.

Sprint to the finish

2006-12-02T00:00:00-08:00

Sprint to the finish
Originally uploaded by signal11.

What's next

2006-11-30T00:00:00-08:00

I'm still sore but I'm already plotting.... I'm not sure if this is normal.

If I keep the running up over the winter and spring, I would be ingreat shape to do SF in July or Portland in October. Possibly both ifI'm ambitious but that would be pushing it.

Maybe.........

Seattle Marathon 2006

2006-11-27T00:00:00-08:00

I want to get this all down before the feeling goes away.

Roughly seven months of training, punctuated by six hours of being out in the most miserable Seattle weather in my memory. 5 hours 59 minutes and 52 seconds to be precise.

Not only was it miserable. It was unusual for Seattle.

I woke up yesterday morning and thought to myself,
"It's quiet outside. No pitter patter of the rain. I think it's going to be a nice day"

Imagine my surprise when I opened the front door to find a snow storm going on outside. Not a Toronto or an East Coast like snow storm but a snow storm by Seattle standards. It was still snowing when we got to the Seattle Center but the snow changed into rain as the 8:15 start time approached.

I can deal with the rain. Even if it's of the non-standard Seattle variety.

I remember as we went down 5th avenue through downtown Seattle. I kept telling myself, "Slow down!". I had learnt that lesson the hard way during the half marathon.

We got to I-90. We ran on the express lanes as cars whizzed by on the regular lanes. It was the oddest sensation. People using the slowest, most old fashioned form of transportation on the lanes usually moving the most amount of people in the fastest possible time.

We got into the tunnels and it was welcomed refuge from the cold and rain outside.

By the time we got out of the tunnel, the weather was starting to calm down. The wind was dying down and the rain was letting up.

The run across the I-90 bridge across the weather might have been the best running I did that morning. As we doubled backed over I-90 bridge, I was looking forward towards Lake Washington Blvd. It was a long stretch of flat road I had trained on numerous times over the years. If anything, it's my favorite place to run.

The first couple of miles on Lake Washington were uneventful. Then we got to Seward Park. It was all going fine until about mile 12.5 of the marathon when my left hamstring cramped and just locked up on me. I stood around for a couple of minutes waiting for that hamstring to loosen up. It did loosen up but standing around like that made my entire body stiffened up.

I don't know if my legs have ever cramped that way before. Both calves starting cramping up at that point. They would never both cramp at the same time but alternate turns. The hamstrings did not cramp up after the first cramp but they threatened to every turn. My left quad cramped up at one point but who needs quad muscles to run. It might have been the cold. Not enough salt. Not enough water. I'm not sure.

I consider myself a tempo runner. I need to be able to get in rhythm to run well. With all the starting, stopping and walking I had to do to deal with the cramps, I lost my rhythm.

At some point during the race, the cramp gave way to massive fatigue. The cramps had their part in causing fatigue. It forced me out of rhythm. I was forced to use muscles I don't normally tire out during running.

I finally got done with the main part of Lake Washington Blvd around the 4:20 mark. I think there was about 7 miles to go.

I don't really remember the rest of the race in any details. All I remember are moments.

I remember Rose, one of the TNT mentors, encouraging me to keep pushing myself a little bit past mile 19. The only reason I remember is that Rose, in typical Rose fashion, came dressed in a costume. I think she came as a bear. She was carrying a umbrella. I remember this because it struck me as slightly odd.

I vaguely remember that the rain was returning with a vengeance at this point.

I remember the hill up Galer St around mile 21. Everyone who runs the Seattle Marathon seems to talk about it.

I remember running through the Arboretum and reading the signs the organizers had put up for participants to tell them the finish line was close.
The only I can remember was about how even if dinosaurs had come back and were in the way, that we could still finish.

I remember meeting Coach Katie as I was starting Interlaken Blvd. I was tired. I was in pain. I was cold. I was soaked. She was a godsend. For the next four miles, she ran and walked with me until I was just outside Memorial stadium.

I remember the water stop at about mile 23.5. There was a volunteer there giving out pretzels. I grabbed a handful of pretzels. I ate the pretzels. I don't ever remember when pretzels tasted so good. The taste of real solid food into my body seemed to recharge me slightly. I ate a Gu too and then went back to the volunteer to ask for more pretzels.

We ran parallel and underneath to I-5. I remember Katie telling me to run away from I-5 and me getting splashed by water from the overheard cars just as she was saying it. I was soaked at that point so it didn't really matter.

I remember Katie telling me that I had gone too far to give up. That I was almost all the way there. I remember us taking a right at the Harvard exit and running across I-5. I looked at my watch, it read like "41:??". I remember telling Katie that I had a new goal, that my goal was now to do a time goal marathon. My time goal was 6 hrs. We had a mile and a half to go at that point. Katie told me to go for it.

I remember my body and mind responding to the challenge now posed to them. We ran and walked hard to mile 25. I told myself that I was going to run to the corner past mile 25 before I would start walking again. We did that and walked down the slope. We went down Broad Street. I remember running the flats and walking down the slopes. There was a cold headwind that tried to slow me down but I pushed against it with everything I had left.

I remember as we turned the corner, just as we were about to make the turn left under Aurora Ave. I ran with my head down as we were peppered by sleet and stiff headwind. It's chill cut into my body.

If this was a novel, I'm sure the author would written the paragraph this way,

"Daniel turned the corner and was greeted with the rush of sleet. The cold wind rose up with an unearthly fury as the ice hard particles came pounding down unrelentingly. It was as if the Fates didn't want Daniel to succeed. Daniel ignored the weather around him, put his head down like a battering ram and charged forward."

We turned the corner and went underneath Aurora Ave. I walked down the slope and charged up the slope with a resounding grunt. 3 quarters of the way up, my muscles gave up on me and I had to slow to a walk. I looked at my watch and told Katie that I was done with my time goal. Katie told me that was nonsense, to keep trying and it was all about guts now.

I don't remember passing mile 26. I remember running and my left calf cramping just outside the stadium. I remember Katie pointing me at the stadium and telling me that I was almost done. I shook off the cramp and started my final push towards the finish line. I ran through the tunnel. I remember someone shouting my name. I saw Jeffrey through my rain covered glasses.

I ran hard through the tunnel. When I got onto the stadium's field, instinct took over. Whatever else happened during the race, I was going to finish with strength. That last part, I sprinted with everything I had left. I saw the clock ticking down towards six hours. It read 5:59:48. I gave myself one last push.

I remember standing numbly around the finish line. For one of the few times in my life, my mind was a complete blank. I walked towards the volunteers who helped me remove the chip around the ankle and put the finisher's medal around my neck.
To the side, I saw my friends and I was really glad that they were there. I'm not sure I could have made it out of the stadium without their help.

I think that last mile might have been the best I've ever run. I don't think I've been so tired or cold or wet in my life.

It still has not quite sunk it yet that I did a marathon. I'm sure at some point, it'll sink it.

Thanks to Johnny, Noelia, Michael, Jeffrey, Amer, Bob and Grame for being there and getting food into me afterwards. That was the best steak ever!

Thanks to Margaret for giving me a lift to the marathon.

Thanks to all the people who supported me by contributing to my fund raising campaign all season.

Thanks to the TNT Coaches, Staff, Volunteers, Team mates and everyone else who got me to the start line and cheered me throughout the race.

Special Thanks to Alice and Kuang for convincing me to do this.

Special Thanks to Katie for being there those last four miles.

Race day!

2006-11-26T00:00:00-08:00

Time to run!

Fantasy Basketball Update!

2006-11-21T00:00:00-08:00

The first month of the season is not going well. The rabbits currently stand next to last. Drastic measures had to be taken.

Out with Boozer and Iguodala.
In with Brand.

I think that was a gutsy move by me because Boozer has been playing well. Brand has not been performing but has a lot of upside as evidenced by him being a first round pick. Another interesting event happened today with Pau Gasol being dropped today. Due to the 2 for 1 trade, I now have 1 open spot on my roster. I'll pick up Gasol and stash him onto my roster. He is supposed to be back in December which is not too far away.

I think Boozer or Iguodala must have been bad karma because the day the trade happened, Diaw and Wallace had good games. They have been causing my team to lag this season. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping they keep it up

Hopefully my starting lineup at the end of the week will look like this:

PG S Nash
SG R Bell
G TJ Ford
PF D Nowitzki
SF G Wallace
F E Brand
C N Krstic
C B Diaw

The remainder of the team: D Gooden, T Murphy, K Korver, R Gay, R Jefferson, P Gasol, J Garbajosa.

8 days to race

2006-11-18T00:00:00-08:00

Had the last long training run for the season. Starting tomorrow, it'll just be light runs for the week. The leg will hold up I think. It's mainly a confidence thing with it right now. I bought an IT band wrap which appears to help a little and I'm going to use it during the marathon.

The game plan for the marathon is a 9/1 run/walk ratio. It makes the math a lot easier to do during the latter stages of the marathon. I start walking every ninth minute and I start running every tenth minute. For the first 15 miles, I want to do a 11:20 - 12:00 mile pace. That's about 30 second slower pace than I can run over a half marathon. We'll see how I feel at 15, 18, 20, 21, 23 miles before I'll push it during the race. I'm also going to eat a gu at regular intervals, starting at about 49 minutes and one every 30 minutes after that.

Locked out of my garage

2006-11-04T00:00:00-08:00

I might be a spazz but I think the lock to the garage is jammed. I can't get my key all the way in. Of course I had to leave my cell phone in the car too. If you need to get a hold of me, drop me an email/im or call my home phone.

It's a new tradition

2006-11-01T00:00:00-08:00

Stay up on till the witching hour on Halloween and start working on the novel when the clock hits midnight.

Hopefully this is the last time I stay up this late to work on the novel.

A 468 word start to the 2006 campaign. Edited a little bit which I need to stop doing for the other 49532 words

See more progress on: win nanowrimo 2006

Story Overview

2006-10-30T00:00:00-08:00

This is not meant to the final story overview. At this point, I have a vague sense of what the story is. I'm trying to sketch out some ideas. It's my stream of consciousness at this point in time.

I've been playing with a couple of titles for the novel. I have 3possible titles, "Life on the Run", "Running out of Lifetimes" and "Manon the Run". All 3 appeal to me and all 3 do a somewhat decent job ofhinting what the superficial and deeper story is about.

We begin with the prologue. It introduces us to the main character,Matthew. It is early in the morning and the alarm clock is ringing.Matthew wakes up and begins his preparation for the day. He is going torun a marathon in the next couple of hours. He mulls around hisapartment getting ready for the event (eating breakfast, psychinghimself up). We also get a sense of the life that Matthew has led. It'sa fairly successful life but we sense a tinge of regret in Matthew(hence the regretful protagonist). One of things I also need toestablish is why Matthew has decided to do a marathon.

I've been playing around with the idea of having Marco (an oldfriend) dying in a tragic accident. In all likelihood, I'm not going todo this. Marco and Matthew used to be the best of friends but have asomewhat estranged friendship now. This estrangement is mostlyperceived by Matthew. Marco still cares for his friend deeply.

At some point, I'll take the reader back to the point of greatestregrets in Matthew's life. The greatest regret of Matthew is hisfailure in a sporting event from his late youth. I'm not sure where Ishould introduce this. It's sort of critical to the plot. It's key tothe plot because Matthew cannot find his redemption and move on untilhe accepts the past and let it go.

Another of Matthew's regrets is his inability to tell Marianne hisfeelings. Marianne is Marco's younger sister. She is also Matthew'slove interest. Another factor in his perceived estranged friendshipwith Marco.

The marathon serves as a metaphor for Matthew's life. I'm not sure how large parts of the marathon are going to get written yet.

One idea is that Matthew has lost the ability to finish things.Along the marathon, Matthew meets external and internal mentors to helphim face up to his regrets and help him regain his ability to finish.One internal mentor could be his younger self. Other internal mentorscould include fear, uncertainty and doubt. The marathon ends by Matthewconquering his regrets and finish the race. At the finish line, we seeMatthew reunited with Marco and Marianne. Matthew comes to terms withhis regret and is ready to move on with life.

In the epilogue, we get complete resolution of the story. Perhapswhere he first had to deal with his regrets or a place symbolic of it.But rather than being a place of despair, it is now a place of triumph.We see him, Marianne and Marco together. The story ends.

Killer Rabbits - Part 2

2006-10-30T00:00:00-08:00

Some friends pulled me into a fantasy basketball league last year. In my rookie season, I placed second in my league. I attribute that success to pure dumb luck. There is an element of skill involved but pure dumb luck can be an equal factor in success.

I had some good fantasy players on my team last year. My 1st pick, DWade, carried my team for most of the year and my 2nd pick, Y Ming,helped my team surge to the top during the second half of the season.The rest of my team was fairly unbalanced. I've been told that's wherefantasy success lies. Everybody picks studs during the first 2 - 4rounds. It's the middle rounds where a season can be won or lost. Theproblem with the Rabbit's last year was an early season deficiency inrebounds and steals (we were playing a fairly standard yahoo rotisserieleague). A midseason trade for D Howard and R Artest proved to semidisaster with Artest being on the bench for large parts of the season.D Howard helped in rebounds but caused other categories to startdropping e.g. FT%. With the return of Y Ming from injury and himplaying the best basketball of his career helped propel the Rabbits towithin striking distance of the championship.

This year the Rabbits have re-drafted a new team. I have one seasonunder my belt but that won't necessarily translate to same amount ofsuccess (remember the blurb about pure dumb luck!)

The care I took with who I drafted this year had some thoughtfulanalysis put into it. In fantasy sports, thoughtful analysis can beyour own worst enemy. My strategy was to put together a team withplayers that I liked and had decent fantasy value. Enough of thisrhetorical thinking, time to dissect my draft results.

My starting five will look somewhat like this:
PF Nowitzki
SF R Jefferson
C Diaw
SG G Wallace
PG Nash

After not watching basketball for a couple of years and starting upagain last year (because of fantasy basketball), the 3 players I reallyliked and hoped to draft this year was Nowitzki, Nash and Diaw. Ididn't like them in that order but that was how they fell to me in mydraft. After the draft, I felt I might have taken Diaw a round earlybut I don't think he would have been available in the 4th round. Ishould have balanced that thinking out with who was still available...TMac, Carter, AK47 and D Howard. This is definitely a pick I hope Idon't regret. On the other hand, Diaw is center eligible. Howard mightget center eligibility but I didn't want his FT% tanking my team thoughhis FG%, rebounds and blocks sure are nice. We'll see how it turns out.

I was happy with G Wallace in the 4th and got lucky with R Jefferson beingavailable in the sixth round. That's my starting five. Other players onmy team: Boozer, Iguodala, Bell, TJ Ford, T Murphy, D Gooden, Krstic,Delonte West, R Gay and Korver.

On first impression, my team might come up a little short on points andblocks during the season. I don't think we'll do badly but that looksto be my weakest categories statistically. I think we'll be strong inFG%, 3ptm, assists, steals and assist to turnover ratio and we'llcompete fairly well in rebounds.

I think the sleepers for my team are going to be Diaw, Wallace andIguodala. Diaw emerged last season and seems to have great chemistrywith Nash. I hope with Amare back that doesn't cut too deeply intoDiaw's development. Having Diaw is also sort of an insurance policy forNash, I envision him being the secondary playmaker for the Suns if Nashis injured (knock on wood) or resting. Wallace might have a breakout yearif he doesn't get injured (knock on wood). Iguodala might also have abreakout year depending on how well Webber plays.

Anyway there you have it, the Killer Rabbits Deux!

Warm Up

2006-10-21T00:00:00-07:00

NaNoWriMo starts in about 10 days. It's about time I started warming up for it. I'm putting in a little more preparation time this year. Not that much preparation is needed but I want to do it a little differently this year.

For this warm up, I want to reflect on the story, "Conflict OverAgamemnon", I wrote last year. I've always wanted to come back andwrite up my thoughts on it but I've never found the time. This is asgood a time as any.

David was the main character from last year. David is the classicreluctant hero. He has a dark past and is tortured by the misdeeds hehas performed. His apprehension towards the current conflict is drivenby it. He was (and still is skill-wise) a very efficient assassin. Theconflict gives him to opportunity to once again apply his deadly skillsbut ..... in the intervening years David has started to develop aconscience. The untold back story has David raised from a young age tobe the ultimate killing machine. However with the world at peace, he isquietly reassigned to a location where his deadly skills would not beneeded. During this time, like any intelligent person he has startedquestioning what he done. When the conflict starts, his training kicksin and his instinct starts taking over. David emerges victorious at theend when he overcomes this training (his script as Victor Frankl wouldsay) at the end and does opposite to what he has been trained to do.When he does that, the cycle of conflict that exists within him isbroken and his true self is able to emerge.

For some unknown reason, the reluctant hero archetype appealsgreatly to me. Why? I don't know for sure. Maybe it has something to dowith the reluctant hero having to make the difficult choices to dosomething rather than nothing. It's the Edmund Burke quote "Eviltriumphs when good men do nothing " rewritten as a novel.

The main character for this year will have elements of the reluctanthero but won't be one. For this year 'm going with a close relative,the regretful protagonist.

Signups have started

2006-10-02T00:00:00-07:00

Begin NaNoWriMo 2006….

See more progress on: win nanowrimo 2006

This goal should really be "minimize carbon emissions"

2006-08-27T00:00:00-07:00

It’s hard to say whether you’re completely carbon neutral. Our normal day to day activities may have an unknown hidden impact on the environment (we live in a complex world). All we can hope is that we have tried our best.

As a resident of Seattle, I signed up for the Green Up program to get a higher percentage of my power consumption from renewable energy sources.

I also signed up for a terra pass to offset my travel via car and plane.

All I can do now is hope that this enough….

See more progress on: Become carbon neutral

Good summary of the media vs the scientific community

2006-08-27T00:00:00-07:00

WSJ vs The Scientific Consensus

See more progress on: Become carbon neutral

I'm thankful for days like these

2006-08-26T00:00:00-07:00

This was a good day.

comic life is the reason I own a mac

2006-08-17T00:00:00-07:00

http://homepage.mac.com/dancheah/comiclife/

2nd greatest application after youtube.

See more progress on: write fund raising comic

The next step

2006-07-29T00:00:00-07:00

My apartment is always messy. I’ve never been able to keep it clean for any extended period of time. There is a simple reason:

I have too much stuff!

When a good friend left town, he got rid of his clutter. Even though I’m not doing that, it feels like my material possessions are weighing my soul down with emotional attachments. Yes I think that sounds absurd! But somehow it rings true.

Here’s a short list I’ve made this week to help me get started:

Get rid of old shoes – recycle them at niketown
Get rid of old computer parts – recycle them at repc
Organize closet space, get rid of old clothes, consolidate!
Have one bookshelf of core book collection
Minimize comic book collection

I’m hoping to have a crack at it this weekend!

See more progress on: minimize my material possessions

Finally

2006-07-29T00:00:00-07:00

After having a blog for the last couple of years, I have finally started using the category feature.

Yeah I know it's lame!

On Vox: Test test

2006-07-26T00:00:00-07:00

This should show up on my typepad blog.

» Read more on Vox

Mark Bernstein: Tinderbox 3.5 for MacOS X

2006-06-28T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Mark Bernstein: Tinderbox 3.5 for MacOS X.

A new version on Tinderbox is out and looks like it's chocked full of new features. Tinderbox is one of the apps I wished I had in the office whenever I have to sort and organize a large number of ideas.

Hilarious!

2006-06-28T00:00:00-07:00

Funny SNL skit by Al Gore

http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/45688/

World Cup Game Theory - What economics tells us about penalty kicks. By Tim Harford

2006-06-26T00:00:00-07:00

Link: World Cup Game Theory - What economics tells us about penalty kicks. By Tim Harford.

Interesting little article about taking penalties...

Wake up call

2006-06-25T00:00:00-07:00

I think the events over the last couple of weeks have served as a wake up call for me. I've been too comfortable for the last couple of years and maybe that is something that needs to change. I don't know if a key part of my life needs changing or if the complimentary parts need changing.

I've never thought of myself as a smart person but over the last year I started to believe that. It was overconfidence, even arrogance on my part. It was just plain stupid by me. At least I've come out of this experience a little more humble.

Another week

2006-06-25T00:00:00-07:00

Add another 10 miles. At 95 miles now.

See more progress on: walk/run 500 miles by the end of Summer 2006

More progress

2006-06-18T00:00:00-07:00

Another 15 miles this week. Brings me up to 85 miles. On the cusp of the century mark now.

See more progress on: walk/run 500 miles by the end of Summer 2006

Coming Attractions

2006-06-17T00:00:00-07:00

NaMoWriMo???

Every journey begins with a single step...

Every hero has a beginning...

Every story needs a screenplay...

Coming to Theater Near You! Jul 2007

test post

2006-06-15T00:00:00-07:00

Trying out flock. It looks very polished compared to six months ago. It might even be usuable by me I dare say....

technorati tags:flock

Blogged with Flock

Choosing Boot Camp or Parallels to Run Windows on an Apple MacBook

2006-06-15T00:00:00-07:00

This article is an overview and comparison of two alternatives for running Windows on an Intel based Apple MacBook: Parallels or Boot Camp, which to choose? Pictures, benchmarks and video are included to demonstrate each Windows on a Mac solution.

Me testing out the blog this functionality from digg. Finally figured out how to get it to post to typepad this morning.

Got off track for the last couple of weeks

2006-06-13T00:00:00-07:00

Conservative estimate is 20 more miles. Let’s bring the total up to 70 miles.

See more progress on: walk/run 500 miles by the end of Summer 2006

I feel bad

2006-06-12T00:00:00-07:00

Especially when I had this terrible sinking feeling all weekend...

Captain Morgan

2006-06-12T00:00:00-07:00

Captain Morgan
Originally uploaded by -JohnnyB-.

On a happier note.... Here is my impersonation of Captain Morgan.

Guess who?

2006-06-05T00:00:00-07:00

Link: 2006 Commencement Address.

Commencement address given by guess who?

Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes.”
And that’s The Word.

Turning friends into obligations

2006-06-04T00:00:00-07:00

It’s the first draft but that’s good enough. It’s nothing great, just something to give to friends.

This is the url for it. Once I get the proof copy and look through it I can make it public.
http://www.lulu.com/content/325486

See more progress on: write a book

Foreward to the novel

2006-06-04T00:00:00-07:00

This is a bad science fiction novel.

This 50000+ word monstrosity was written in November 2005 to accomplish one thing: Win NaNoWriMo 2005. Contained within are unresolved plots and subplots, two dimensional characters, egregious grammar, numerous spelling mistakes, extensive usage of deus ex machina and and just plain bad writing. The editing process is meant to fix those problems (a process which I intended to do for NaNoEdMo 2006 but never began). It is not a work of literary genius nor did I intend it to be. It is bad science fiction novel after all.

What is bad science fiction you might ask? I could not begin to even define the genre for you. But you know what it is. Stay home on a Saturday night and view the movies made especially for the Sci-Fi channel. That is bad science fiction. Clumsy plots, bad characters, bad dialogue and typically not grounded in science fact. If it has any redeeming quality, bad science fiction is mostly laughably bad
and always pokes fun at itself. Battlefield Earth notwithstanding. That was bad bad science fiction.

If it's bad science fiction, why write bad science fiction then? My only answer is that it was fun to write. Trying to think up the most insane, outrageous things fueled myself past the 50000 word finishing line.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if it is a fun read. I've not read this novel in it's entirety. I hope it's a fun read because it was a fun write.

I leave this work in your hands, brave reader. I apologize ahead of time for any pain I might have caused your sensibilities. Just to be on the safe side, I hope you don't mind and please sign the indemnity waiver before proceeding. :-)

Here we go again....

2006-05-24T00:00:00-07:00

After some gentle persuasion from pixie-bebe and kkchen, I decided to sign up for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society: Team in Training program. Our goal is to run the Seattle Marathon at the end of November.

I've seen the brochures in various coffee houses over the years, I've even picked up the brochures and thumbed through it. I've never thought about doing it before because either:
a) I always seem to miss the information sessions
OR
b) I can train for a marathon by myself

This year pixie-bebe and kkchen made sure I didn't miss an information session. In fact they gave me a lift to the kick off meeting. I thought the kick off meeting may have been a bit too rah! rah! but I guess having more enthusiasm at the beginning is not a bad thing. I know I'll be needing it towards November.

As for training by myself that's never quite worked out so well. Why I'm taking this route this year? How is this attempt to finish a marathon going to be any better than my two previous failed attempts? My problem has never been the technical aspects of running. I do a decent job of running within my ability, pacing myself, not over-striding, wearing good shoes, eating well. The part I always fail at is the follow through. September, October, November rolls about.... the days start getting noticeably shorter, the rain starts failing, the weather starts getting colder, the work starts piling up.... and Daniel can no longer pull himself out of bed to keep training.

A piece of advice I was given really early on (which I promptly ignored) was to train with people and not to train by myself. It took awhile for this sink in. It didn't really connect until I did NaNoWriMo with RL and MN last year, and didn't do NaNoEdMo by myself this year. Marathons (whether literary or physical) always seem to go easier when you have a friend or two writing/running along side you. The other thing that kkchen pointed out to me was imagine not running the marathon after asking people to donate money. I don't think my highly developed guilt complex would let me live that down.

My own flippant reasons aside, one of my new year resolutions was to be more charitable. Although fund raising is not exactly in I had in mind, it's in the right spirit. I don't say it often but cancer (especially in children) is pretty close to my heart. Leukemia and Lymphoma are common childhood cancers (according to this, Leukemia occurs in 25% of cases and Lymphoma is the third most common childhood cancer). It's depressing to see children undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The side effects of chemotherapy can be brutal on adults but is much worse on children. Really quite depressing...

Writing this blog entry reminded me of fey. Funny how the aches, pains and gripes of the daily grind don't seem so bad now...

first donation!

2006-05-24T00:00:00-07:00

AL donated to my cause without me even posting my donation link. I guess that's because we are in cahoots for the Seattle Marathon.

Please support me:

http://www.active.com/donate/tntwaak/daniel42

Read on to learn about the exciting gifts your generous contribution will get you!

I guess I was inspired by the pledge drives I see regularly on KBTC / KCTS or hear over on KEXP.

Host A: Well B why don't we tell our audience at home the fa-bu-lous gifts they will receive for their generous contributions.

Host B: At $25 level, you'll be emailed a copy of "Conflct over Agamemnon". A delightful little 50000 word novella. Full of drama and excitement! It's about a ninja, a barista and a ship captains entangled in an intergalactic battle spanning the galaxy. It's completely unedited and has never been released to the public.

Host A: That's so exciting. I've read some excerpts and it made me want to hurl but in a good way. What other exciting gifts do our contributers get?

Host B: At $50 level, we'll email you a copy of the novella and burn it on a CDR for you. Yes yes it's all very exciting. At $100 level, we'll get Daniel to autograph hard copies of the manuscript for our contributors. Each copy is individually numbered and sure to be a collector's item sometime between now to infinity.

Host A: How about gifts for people who contribute above that level?

Host B: I'm so glad you asked that question.
At the $250 level, you'll get a autographed copy of the EP that Daniel is about to start working on with his collaborators. You'll get to hear the fine electric bass playing and rhythm that Daniel is infamous for. Along with the EP, you'll also get an autographed hard copy of the manuscript.
At the $500 level, you'll get to attend a party hosted by Daniel where he'll drink 4 beers and proceed to read select excepts from the manuscript. If you've never seen Daniel in person with lots of alcohol in him, it's one of the funniest things around. Unfortunately as Daniel is training for a marathon, he won't be able to do this until after the marathon on Nov 26.
At the $1000 level, Daniel will be giving away the ipod nano and the collection of songs on it he used while training for the marathon. Yes yes this is a very exclusive offer and stock is definitely going to be limited!

Host A: Thank you B for the rundown on the fa-bu-lous gifts. If these gifts are not sufficiently enticing, don't forget all the altruistic reasons for donating, it's both good karma and tax deductible.

another year, another try

2006-05-20T00:00:00-07:00

Here we go again. I signed up for another one.

See more progress on: run a marathon

3rd week

2006-05-19T00:00:00-07:00

This is the 3rd week I’m keeping count. Another 13.5 miles walked this week. I also played a pretty tough game of pick up basketball so I’m going to round up the mileage to 14 miles. That makes my total a nice round 50 miles.

Woo Hoo! One tenth of the way there….

See more progress on: walk/run 500 miles by the end of Summer 2006

ZK - Simply Rich

2006-05-18T00:00:00-07:00

Link: ZK - Simply Rich.

Lots of interesting things out. So little time...

jsScheme - Scheme interpreter in JavaScript

2006-05-10T00:00:00-07:00

Link: jsScheme - Scheme interpreter in JavaScript.

This is kind of cool.

Characterizing People as Non-Linear, First-Order Components in Software Development

2006-05-10T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Characterizing People as Non-Linear, First-Order Components in Software Development.

Interesting. Very Interesting.

first post

2006-05-05T00:00:00-07:00

After a long dark wet winter, we’re starting to get these gorgeous rays of sunshine streaking down on my fair city.
With all this weather, I cannot resist the approximately
2.25 mile walk to work each day. Conservatively I walked about 25 miles the last two weeks. With any luck I’ll get to 500 miles by the end of september which is when it starts getting dark and wet.

All I need to do now is start running again…

See more progress on: walk/run 500 miles by the end of Summer 2006

Note to self

2006-05-03T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Successful Selling Tips for the Technically Gifted > onstartups.com > OnStartups.com - Practical Advice for Software Startups.

Note to self

2006-04-30T00:00:00-07:00

This looks interesting: SISCweb

Note to self

2006-04-19T00:00:00-07:00

I attended a farewell party today. It's sad to see A leave but he and H appear happy. It's probably better anyway. Perhaps I'm just feeling nostalgic....

Work has been busy for the last couple of weeks. I've been frustrated by the systems I'm working with. The question I constantly ask myself: "If given the chance to build the same system under similar time pressures, would I have done it any differently?" I worry that my criticisms are a case of hindsight and monday morning quarterbacking. I wonder if I'm also frustrated by how static my life has become. Things change around me but my life seems to stay static.

I've thought and talked briefly about designing a programming language. I have enough books on the subject to last a lifetime. I'm pretty sure the world does not need yet another half-assed crappy programming language (YAHCPL). If that's true, what is the point of all my study? Why not be happy, stick with a language like Java and learn the inside out of it. Why do I constantly feel the desire to experiment? Why can't I just settle down?

An old friend and mentor seems to be making waves with his blog writing. He claims that he isn't a good writer but I think it might be a case of false modesty. People wouldn't care as much if he didn't write so well. I don't agree with all his points but I have to agree with the kernel of his arguments.

Notes to self:
1) I'm really liking fastcgi. It's nice not having to build mod_* for apache. Ooops yeah I don't use apache anymore for personal use. lighttpd with fastcgi works really well for me on my notebook and desktop systems. Why lighttpd? Read the C10K Problem. A long time ago, I worked on a research project with very similar goals.

2) I'm not sure about newlisp. Being able to connect to a mysql instance in under 10 minutes was a nice change. The documentation looks complete. It's lisp with some peculiarities but nothing particularly onerous. I want to like it..... Something about it bugs me... I cannot put my finger on it.

3) Try and understand fscript again.

4) Rails is nice. I should use it to prototype more of the ideas I have.

5) Play with Spring more. From my initial 30 minute review, it looked like a nice enough framework. Hibernate is okay but I think iBatis might be a better fit for me.

Restless

2006-04-03T00:00:00-07:00

Having trouble sleeping again. It must be my lack of exercise. As I get older, exercise and diet are going to become more important. I've stopped running for the last five months and I need to get going again. Maybe this year I'll combine running and the gym.

Lots of things changing around me right now. I guess I've fallen into a predictable pattern and now that things are changing around me I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it.

Ajax Scaffold Generator : Demo

2006-03-30T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Ajax Scaffold Generator : Demo.

This is pretty damn cool. I said this while asking why my stuff is so crappy.

oh boy!

2006-02-19T00:00:00-08:00

Here we go again.... If you've been asking to read my novel, this is the event you've been waiting for. April 1st 2006, I will release my novel "Conflict over Agamemnon" (that's the working title) to the world.

NaNoEdMo 2006

Just for the fun of it

2006-02-07T00:00:00-08:00

Go to your iTunes playlist and put it all on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and after each one, press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

Taken from http://irving.livejournal.com/160111.html

1. What do you think of me, iTunes?
Voodoo Chile - SRV & Double Trouble

2. Will I have a happy life?
Solea - Miles Davis

3. What do my friends really think of me?
Naughty Girl - Beyonce

4. Do people secretly lust after me?
Back Biters & Syndicators - John Lee Hooker

5. What does [insert significant other] think of me?
Dance Me to the End of Love - Madeleine Peyroux

6. How can I make myself happiest?
I Want To Be Loved - Muddy Waters

7. What should I do with my life?
Resolution - Victor Wooten

8. Why must life be so full of pain?
Scrapper's Blues - Jag

9. How can I maximise my pleasure during sex?
The Game Changed - Terra Naomi

10. Will I ever have children?
Black and Blue - Louis Armstrong

11. Will I die happy?
Last Dance - Sarah McLachlan

12. Can you give me some good advice?
Pretty Girl Blues - Jag

13. Do you know where your [insert significant other] is?
Come Around - Marc Broussard

14. What do you think happiness is?
Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

One_of_the_best

2006-01-31T00:00:00-08:00

One of the best pizza places in Seattle!

See more progress on: Tutta Bella

Good italian food

2006-01-31T00:00:00-08:00

I brought my 2 italian food connoisseurs (aka J and R) and they really enjoyed the food. I think we were a little underwhelmed by the decor of the place but the food was excellent. It was a tad on the pricey side for my liking but sooo good.

See more progress on: Cafe Lago

Table for the kitchen

2006-01-30T00:00:00-08:00

Just got myself a new nice used table (and chairs) for my kitchen. It only took me 18 months to get a table for the kitchen and it was only the impending departure of a close friend that finally pushed me to get one (I bought it from him). It was a great bargain.

So here I'm sitting in my kitchen, typing away at the keyboard, sipping away at a cup of chocolate soy milk. I definitely have too much junk in my apartment right now. The kitchen area without the table used to be a good place for me to store stuff but it's getting a little crowded now.

ONLamp.com: Simplify PHP Development with WASP

2006-01-25T00:00:00-08:00

Link: ONLamp.com: Simplify PHP Development with WASP.

Looks interesting. At first glance, it looked rails-like in what it offered.

I installed php5 on my box this weekend to get phpMyAdmin up and running. I think phpMyAdmin is pretty slick. Played around with php5 (since I had it installed). I always thought that php was well suited to writing quick and dirty dynamically generated webpages. The article makes it sound like that php5 might be going beyond that legacy.

Can't get to sleep

2006-01-23T00:00:00-08:00

I'm having really trouble sleeping tonight. I guess I didn't do enough this weekend to feel sleepy. Worked on some programming challenges on Saturday. Mucked about with various programs on my PowerBook on Sunday while watching the NFC Championships (Go Hawks!).

Me and RL were coding solutions to some programming challenges. Though we didn't pair program, we reviewed our solutions via the collaborative features of SubEthaEdit. I've never had an opportunity to use this definitive feature. I think it is an enabling technology, allowing people over geographically distant places to work together on code and documents. Pretty darn cool if you ask me.

I've been playing with PathFinder4 for the last couple of days. It's slowly growing on me. I still got another 2 weeks of the free trial before I decide to pick it up. A couple of niggling faults bother me 1) Doesn't allow me to authenticate myself with Administrator rights like the regular finder does when installing applications. 2) No progress bar when mounting drives. Other than that the improvements over the regular finder are pretty cool. I especially like being able to open up directories in my terminal window with a click of a mouse button.

Managed to attend a talk given by DHH this last week. I thought it was interesting. There is a lot of buzz surrounding Rails these days. Reading through all the numerous articles out there on the
web, sometimes I think people are missing the point. DHH made it clear in his presentation that Rails was a framework designed to solve his problems. It's not a generic "solve all" framework. That focus helps Rails solve the problems it was designed to solve. It's not going to solve every problem. The specific problem it tries to solve (I think) is creating a single database backed website that can scale by adding additional hardware. I don't think it will solve the problems faced by a pathological website but it'll will probably do an outstanding job on the other 80% of websites out there. The important things I took away from the talk were three points:
1) Motivation is a silver bullet
2) Optimize for happiness (which is similar to the pugs philosophy "optimize for fun")
3) Make the right thing easy to do
Of the three points, (3) struck me as perhaps the more profound point. Thinking about the languages and systems I've worked with, it's always struck me as odd that most system designers make the wrong thing easy to do. Why is that? I'm as guilty as that as anyone. I'm just wondering why we do that. It reminds me of the Einstein attributed quote "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

I've been suffering a malaise of sorts the last week and I hope to be able to shake it off this week.

Fond memories

2006-01-18T00:00:00-08:00

http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2006/01/a_little_antiantihype.html

Too bad stevey's not around for me to talk to these days.

bits and bytes

2006-01-18T00:00:00-08:00

I've not blogged much in the last couple of weeks. I've been distracted with work and life. Tonight I was able to sit down to read various blog entries via bloglines.

Interesting bits I found:
1) http://functionalj.sourceforge.net/
Not nearly as succint or as elegant as it's equivalent in haskell, lisp, ruby or even perl but nice enough I think. I'm going to have to play around with it this weekend.

2) PG has a new article: How To Do What You Love?

3) Version 2 of the Scala Programming Language

4) JoelOnSoftware wrote this entry about the Perils of JavaSchools. Lots of discussion about it.
I found this forum quite entertaining. I'll reserve my thoughts for later.

5) For my personal Java projects, I wonder if iBatis might be better for me.

New Year Resolutions for 2006

2005-12-31T00:00:00-08:00

They said to be specific......

1) Read six novels in the next year (at least!)
I've always enjoyed reading but in the last couple of years I've struggled to finish books. Writing my novel has made me realize that I've not finished reading a book in a long long time. Most of my ideas came from material I read as a teenager. As a novelist, I think we get ideas from other people's writing. We use those ideas as fuel for our own great ideas. I'm a little low on fuel right now. I'm going to start with novels that people have given me over the last couple of years that I've started but not really finished. I think I have 3 of them on my book shelf right now: The Sparrow, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age.

2) (Re)Watch three movies a month
All I can say is that I'm a great customer for netflix. I pay for their service but rarely watch the DVDs they send me.

3) Run the Portland marathon in October 2006
I need to do this and I need to start way earlier this time. I always have good momentum coming out of Summer. This year I want to be ready for a marathon at the end of September. Portland is ideally positioned for that and it's not too far from where I live. Jan, Feb and Mar are pretty depressing months but it's better I get my low mileage training done in those months and use the nicer spring and summer months for the mid to high mileage training.
3.1) Be doing 6 - 8 mile long runs by March. I'll plan somemore after that.

4) Save $X
Be frugal is what all those books say. I need to be less haphazard about it.

5) Tithe $X
Life has been good to me. Time I start returning the favor.

There are a number of less specific things I want to explore. Economics, Game Theory and Personal Finance are three areas I want to learn more about.

Of course there is the novelling thing. Hopefully I can do and win NaNoEdMo 2006. The novel has potential but it needs a lot of cleaning up. I also want to do NaNoWriMo 2006. They say the sophomore effort is always the hardest.

On top of that I have my career development work. 2006 is going to be more focused. Less breadth but more depth. My main goal is to be a JavaScript wizard. The subgoals are to utilize AJAX techniques and GreaseMonkey. My secondary goal is to become a Ruby wizard. The subgoal is to use Watir more in my work.

2005 In Review

2005-12-31T00:00:00-08:00

It's the last day of the year. Time for me to review the year. Let me start with my failures.
1) I didn't run a half marathon.
2) I didn't run a marathon.
That six years I've talked about it but never done it. Oh well....
3) I still have a large stack of books I need to read.

Next would be my list of successes:
1) I've picked up new programming languages and tools
The ones that come to mind are Haskell, Ruby, Rails and SVK
2) I wrote a 50000 word novel
3) I went on 2 dates

It's funny looking at the list I've made I've not done very much in the last year. That's untrue. I've done lots of things this year but none that are easy to quantify.

Starting with the 500 pound gorilla in the room, I'm not sure where I'm headed with my career. I have about 6 years of experience working in the industry under my belt now. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was just starting out on my career. Somehow I don't see myself doing this for the next 30 - 40 years. Maybe the next decade but not much more than that. I need to start planning my career for that next step. In a way, that process has already started with more junior people coming in and more senior people moving up. A fairly sizable void has been left for me to work in. People's perceptions and expectations of me over the last year have changed. Comments from an old manager these last two weeks have made my role even more clear.

I don't think I'm going to change the way I do things. I've never liked the "firing from the hip, cavalier" attitude we take towards certain things. I can definitely do those things but I like thinking things through with more information. I guess it is going to be the case of being more prepared for things. Changing the way I do things in public but not how I do things in private.

Life would be nothing without friends. I've always be lucky in that department. People always like to say "I have many acquaintances, but very few friends". The opposite is true of me I guess. I've always had many friends but very few acquaintances. Unfortunately I've not done a good job of keeping in touch with old friends something I hope to rectify in the next year.

The question of money has been in my thoughts recently. The issue is not so much money but retirement. Will I be able to retire comfortably? When I started working, I told myself that this was not going to be an issue until I hit this point in my life. Well "this point in my life" is here and I've dived head first into it. They say it's never to late to start but I have my doubts about it. I fear that it may already be too late. But I've always been a natural pessimist so maybe I'm just overreacting to all the material I've been reading.

Another career? I've toyed with the idea of finding another career. I'm not sure if I'm ready to do that yet. What would I do? I actually have a fairly limited skill set. I'm a one trick pony. That worries me.

It looks like 2006 is going to begin the same way 2005 began; I'm a little older but none the wiser.

Done and done!

2005-11-27T00:00:00-08:00

I’ve done it! I’ve crossed the magic number. 50000. I’ve won NaNoWriMo! On my first try no less.

I had my doubts in the beginning. 50K seemed like such a big number at the beginning of the November. Bit by bit, me and my comrade in writing, shunpiker, have clawed ourselves closer and closer.

With a massive 16k push over the last three days, my biggest push this entire month, I’ve punched a hole through to the other side. 50066 words to be precise.

I was a little nervous at the beginning of the day. Today was a struggle. A fight for those last five thousand words. Plots needed to be resolved. Characters needed to be redeemed.

At 7:15, I ended a 45 minute writing sprint at 49977. That number stood there mocking me. I knew I had one last sprint in me. The finishing line was in front of me. Tantalizing close. That last final desperate sprint for victory I knew I had clinched it. I’ve marked it with a statement that was applicable to me and my main character.

“His mind crossed a chasm he never thought he would be able to cross.”

I’ve done and won NaNoWriMo but the tale is still unfinished. Some minor editing and wrapping up needs to be done. Reflections on the month, nanowrimo, the story cannot be properly made in my euphoric state. That is for a later time when I can think more clearly.

For now, I revel in the glory, the celebration. I’m pumping my fists in victory. Stay the course, my fellow novelists victory is upon each of you.

See more progress on: Do NaNoWriMo

Nanowrimo helped!

2005-11-26T00:00:00-08:00

I don't think I could completely not watch TV. There is some solid stuff (yay! jon stewart) out there but with tivo I've made my TV watching time so much more productive. No sitting in front of the TV and blindly flipping through channels.

Now with Nanowrimo over, I hope I continue to keep this up.

See more progress on: only watch tivo'ed shows or dvds for a month

A sprint to the finish

2005-11-26T00:00:00-08:00

Another sweet thing consumed. This time it was the 45k chocolate covered donut with sprinkles. Mmmmm….

Getting sick at the beginning of the month forced me out of the Seattle half marathon I wanted to run. It’s ironic that my push to 50K tomorrow is the same day as the Seattle half marathon.

The best part is that I’m not sure how it’s going to end. I played with the plot today so that I’ll finish at around 52 – 53k. The last 20k words the characters have taken a life of their own that I’m not sure where it is going to go. I’m just a conduit for them at this point.

All I know is that it ends with a character making a choice. I’ve stolen from all my favorite science fiction tv shows and I’m going to steal this one last idea from them.

See more progress on: Do NaNoWriMo

A glass of port to celebrate milestones

2005-11-26T00:00:00-08:00

With a six thousand word Friday, I’ve passed another milestone and made another big step towards winning nanowrimo.

The weekends are where I’ve caught up to the pack and this weekend I’m going to push through that magical 50k mark in the sky and celebrate the victory.

For now, I raise my 40k sweet thing, a glass of port, and cheer my fellow participants on!

See more progress on: Do NaNoWriMo

Big steps forward

2005-11-21T00:00:00-08:00

I’ve tried to write a little every day but that hasn’t quite worked out that well for me.

Instead I’ve relied on the momentous weekends and the occasional big weekday to reach my current word count. I’m at 30,224, thanks to a ~13K weekend.

Only 20k left to go.

See more progress on: Do NaNoWriMo

free stuff!

2005-11-10T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Announcing the release of Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions - MSDN.

Anybody has a windows machine they don't mind loarning to me?

Rules for "Cho Tai Tee"

2005-10-30T00:00:00-07:00

Also known as "Tai Tee", "Chor Tai Tee"

Last night, my usual card playing buddies (and great friends) got a little sick of playing texas hold-em. I was reminded of "Cho Tai Tee" after playing this German card game that we had played last month. I thought it might be a fun game to play among the 3 of us. I knew what it was called and roughly what the romanized version of the name might look like. We got a couple of hits off google but none that stated what the rules where. RL and me speculated that perhaps the rules of the game are passed down by oral tradition. Anyway I thought it might be nice to write down the rules of the game (or at least how I remembered the rules) as a warmup to NaNoWriMo.

Objective:
First player to get rid of all the cards in their hand wins.

Equipment:
For 2 - 4 players, a standard 52 card deck. For more than that, you might want to use a second deck of cards and it changes the dynamics of the game somewhat (this is ideal if it's late at night and everyone is drunk). Joker(s) may be played if everybody so desires.

Rank of Cards:
Suits matter in this game. The highest suit is Spades, followed by Hearts, Clubs and Diamonds. The biggest face value in the game is Two ("Cho Tai Tee" roughly translated is Big Two). The smallest card in the game is Three of Diamonds.

How to play:
1) Deal cards to each player. (An optional rule is that any player dealt 4 Twos is declared the immediate winner)
2) Player with the Three of Diamonds starts the game by putting that card down. Play begins to the left of that player.
3) The next player places a card on top of the Three of Diamonds. You want to use a bigger card to gain you control of the stack of cards. Being in control of the stack is an important element of the game.
4) If you are unable (or unwilling) to place a bigger card than the one on top of the stack, you can choose to pass. If play passes to the player who placed the card on the top of the stack, he gains control of the stack.
5) When a player gains control of the stack, he can choose to play any of the following hands:
- Single Card
- Pair
- Three of a Kind
- Four of a Kind
- 5 Card Straight, Flush or Straight Flush
(Here's where my memory of the game gets a little iffy, I can't remember whether any 5 card poker hand is valid. The ones that would be missing are a Full House and a Four of a Kind with a fifth card. The other rule I'm fuzzy about is whether the Two high straight/flush is the highest possible straight/flush in the game)
Subsequent players must now play a hand with the same number of cards as the hand at the top of the stack. You must put down a bigger hand in order to wrest control of the stack.
6) The first player to get rid of all his/her cards is declared the winner.

Scoring the game:
You'll typical play a number of rounds of Cho Tai Tee. To score the rounds and determine the winner, the number of cards you have at the end of each round is your score for the round. The person with the lowest score is the overall winner. Poker chips or Pencil&Paper are a good way for keeping score.

General Strategy:
Gaining and retaining control of the stack is key to the game. Being overly aggressive at the start of the game and using up all your big cards may leave you stranded towards the end of the game. Being overly conservative means that you won't get a chance to play. As with most games, the right strategy is somewhere in between.

Mmm Comfort Food

2005-10-30T00:00:00-07:00

This is one of my favorite places in Seattle for Sunday brunch. There is something to be said for rich, tasty, fatty comfort food even if it's bad for you. Parking is relatively easy to find in this area (unusual for Capitol Hill) and waiting time for a table is decent. Service isn't fantastic but it's decent.

See more progress on: Kingfish Cafe

Mostly done this the last week

2005-10-28T00:00:00-07:00

Weekends don’t count!It seems to have reenergized and refocused me. I’m glad because NaNoWriMo is coming up fast.

See more progress on: Go to sleep at 11 for a week

Is that a pager beeping in the background?

2005-10-27T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Six Apart - Mena's Corner: The Ups & Downs of a Successful Service.

For whatever reason, I'm incredibly sympathetic to what Six Apart is going through right now. I think they will prevail because they do have incredibly kick ass software.

The MINIX 3 Operating System

2005-10-26T00:00:00-07:00

Link: The MINIX 3 Operating System.

For the last couple of days, I've been reading the Minix source code. I'm really enjoying it. The code looks like it was clearly written for pedagogical purposes. The Linux kernel source is also a worthwhile but a much harder read. I might even be getting off my programming languages kick at the moment. Might being the operative word. Let's see how I feel in a week or so.

Departure

2005-10-26T00:00:00-07:00

A number of significant departures in the current year have made me think. Is this still a place where I want to be? The bureaucracy and mundaneness have made me think about this seriously.
I've been here awhile and I'm not quite sure what I'm doing anymore. A couple of things are keeping me around:
1) The people I work with.
2) Promise of a new role with bigger responsibilities
3) A nice equity payoff next August

This one is public news but a number of people are seriously thinking about it.

The Code

2005-10-25T00:00:00-07:00

Link: The Code.

A hilarious read for insecure men everywhere. I've rented both Chocolat and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I've also bought an issue of Cosmo (a review is coming). So there!

EPIC 2014

2005-10-25T00:00:00-07:00

Link: EPIC 2014.

I don't think that would be such a bad world. In fact, it might be kind of nice not to have all the big media players. Small independent voices might start wielding real power.

Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?

2005-10-25T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?.

This is VIM, an elegant tool from a more civilized time [to paraphrase a certain jedi knight]

Tadpole

2005-10-24T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Tadpole.

BULLFROG Dual Processor notebooks from Tadpole are the most powerful Solaris notebooks money can buy. Ideal as a mobile workstation or as a portable server for rapid deployment in military and disaster recovery applications.

Papa wants one of these bad boys!

Had brunch here

2005-10-24T00:00:00-07:00

Decent brunch food. Decent wait on a Sunday morning. The complimentary pastries was good. Service was decent (despite the negative reviews I read on citysearch). My omelette was solid, nothing spectacular. Need to come back and try the dinner sometime.

See more progress on: Crave

flock

2005-10-20T00:00:00-07:00

A flock of seagulls flew overhead!

Incoming! Incoming!

I ducked the oncoming barrage!

But a white chunk hit me square!

Square on my head!

Stop badgering me!

2005-10-13T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Ubuntu - Linux for Human Beings.

http://www.ubuntu.com/newsitems/release510
Breezy Badger is out!

Please stop badgering me with all this excellent software. There is only so much good software I can take. My bittorrent client is overheating right now from the hundreds of people downloading it. Go ahead make my download faster yet! See if I care!

http://us.releases.ubuntu.com/releases/5.10/ubuntu-5.10-install-amd64.iso.torrent
http://us.releases.ubuntu.com/releases/5.10/ubuntu-5.10-install-i386.iso.torrent

Once upon a time....

2005-10-12T00:00:00-07:00

I'm all signed up. Psyched and ready to start writing the first of my 50000 words. I have a couple of ideas: one is a space western ala serenity and the other is a parody/satire. I should probably start sketching out the skeleton of my novel.

poker as a metaphor for life

2005-10-11T00:00:00-07:00

You might be good. You might do all the right things. You might think something better is out there. You're probably right. You have to play the hand to figure that out.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it's not about winning or losing. Sometimes it's just about the people you play with.

2nd and 8

2005-10-06T00:00:00-07:00

It's 2nd and 8. For some reason, my confidence levels seem to be on the uptick. Or maybe it's just desperation. I have lots of work that needs to get done but more than ever I seem to have a good handle on the material. Perhaps I might have a good idea or two.

I had a cup of coffee with my good friend RL today and I bounced a number of idea off him. I've had these ideas mulling in my head for months now and it was finally good to tell someone about it.

Why I Hate Frameworks

2005-10-04T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Joel on Software - Why I Hate Frameworks.

I sympathize with the poster...

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

2005-10-03T00:00:00-07:00

Link: 'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says.

Funny how all commencement addresses say the same thing. Sometimes I wonder....

what sound does a snake make? sssssssss

2005-10-03T00:00:00-07:00

Python is my first scripting language. In 1999, I picked up the 1st edition of “Programming Python” and learnt the language during my summer vacation. Of course, since I haven’t used it in the last six years (Java, C++ and Perl have filled my work life) I’ve forgotten most of the details. I’m getting back into it and I’m remembering what I enjoyed about it. There are more online resources for learning Python than there used to be. I want to give a shout out to http://diveintopython.org. It’s an excellent python resource and a well written book at that. Another useful tool I’ve discovered is ipython. When I started Python in 1999, having a REPL rocked my world. ipython is a Python REPL on crack!

See more progress on: learn python

interesting language

2005-10-03T00:00:00-07:00

I think there is a lot to like about REBOL. The native datatypes are interesting. Lots of things like email@adddress.com or http://www.slashdot.org that would be represented as strings in other programming languages appear to be their own types in REBOL. Combined with REBOL blocks this makes creating a domain specific language much simpler.
It's a pity that REBOL is a proprietary language. The free core software doesn't have access to shell commands or databases. This makes it a little harder to compare with Perl,Python or Ruby which is what REBOL is stacked up against for competition.

See more progress on: Learn REBOL

some nice features

2005-10-02T00:00:00-07:00

Just got done with the "Getting Started With Erlang" tutorial. Erlangs language level support for message passing appears fairly straightforward to use (!, receive, after). My main concern is whether it can be hooked in with other communication protocols (e.g. xml, hessian, burlap) or are you bound to what erlang gives you.

See more progress on: learn erlang

simple but illuminating

2005-10-02T00:00:00-07:00

Continuations sound scary but at a basic level they are a simple construct. I've been thinking of them as closures that contain your entire execution context. I found the Ruby examples to be the most illuminating for me.

 def bar 3.times do |i|  callcc { |cont| return cont }  print "#{i}\n"  endend> a = foo> a.call0> a.call1> a.call2> a3

Everytime I invoked call on the returned continuation, it continued from where I had left off within the method bar. Continuations are a useful idea and it would be nice to see in more languages. Interestingly enough, the Java world seems to be warming up to the idea of continuations; Two I've read about recently Jetty and RIFECNT.

After understanding this concept, it's easy to see how something like Continuation Passing Style would work.

See more progress on: understand continuations

my working title shall be

2005-10-02T00:00:00-07:00

“Dark Danny: A Fictional Autobiography, Product of a Delusional Mind”

See more progress on: Do NaNoWriMo

1 more for the road!

2005-09-29T00:00:00-07:00

The last two nights I’ve been playing around with Erlang. I kinda of like it. The standard documentation supplied with erlang seems incredibly well written for a technical subject. The “Getting Started” guide got me picking up the language fairly quickly. I’m almost through the sequential programming chapter. Next is concurrent programming and I’m looking forward to that (I’ve cheated and looked ahead).I must have reached some tipping point with functional programming languages. It’s getting easier and easier for me to pick them up. I keep seeing the same concepts repeated over and over again, albeit with dissimilar syntax and semantics.

See more progress on: learn erlang

two camls diverged in a ...

2005-09-27T00:00:00-07:00

It turns out that Ocaml is a fairly simple language to learn. Very few keywords (let, type, match and function being the main ones) and the standard assortment of data structures (list, array, tuple, record). I think the best quick introduction to the language is Ocaml For Scientist Chapter 1 combined with Ocaml for Experienced Programmers. Overall I was impressed with Ocaml. Although it sells itself as a functional programming language, the language does have imperative constructs (when you absolutely positively need a for loop). It also has a good number of libraries available online (Ocaml can also use CPAN, yes CPAN! as in perl. Perl4Caml. I haven't tried it though YMMV). Between Haskell and Ocaml, Haskell definitely felt like the more challenging of the two languages to learn. I would still start with Haskell if I did it over again. But definitely learn both languages!

See more progress on: Learn OCaml

1 step forward, 2 step backwards

2005-09-26T00:00:00-07:00

Link: dating advice for men from women | MetaFilter.

Sometimes I wonder how the human race has managed to procreate.

guess what this ad is for?

2005-09-24T00:00:00-07:00

Here's to the Crazy Ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing that you can't do, is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or, sit in silence and hear a song that hasn't been written?
Or, gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world,

are the ones who do.

View this ad here.

This myth is busted!

2005-09-23T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Encyclopedia: MythBusters Episodes.

I love this show. It's one of the cooler shows on TV right now.
Did I mention I saw Jamie Hyneman when I was in San Francisco? E had to help me contain my excitement. IT WAS SO FRIGGING COOL! Probably the most interesting thing that happened to me while I was down there.

See I told you slashdot was useful!

2005-09-23T00:00:00-07:00

A nifty little trick I learned while reading slashdot .

Oh Haskell! I can see you too

2005-09-22T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Visual Haskell.

When I said Haskell felt more academic.... Forget what I said. I fully expect the Haskell Enterprise Edition out any day now. It'll probably have a cheesy quote to go along with it like: "Haskell - The purely lazily strongly statically typed choice for the monadic enterprise".

I've wanted to learn this for awhile

2005-09-22T00:00:00-07:00

Tried to learn this back in 2000-2001 but didn’t get very far. Ocaml has a lot of similarities to Haskell. The learning resources available on the web are better now (http://www.ocaml-tutorial.org is excellent). I also spent time looking at the ocaml website and the OReilly Ocaml book (available on line, google for it!) Conceptually similar, both are strong statically typed functional programming languages. I actually prefer the Ocaml syntax after mucking with it for awhile. Haskell has this idea of a layout which makes the program sensitive to indentation ala Python. It’s not so bad once you get used to it but I got bit by it when I started out with Haskell. Ocaml appears to be a more pragmatic, working language (it has imperative features, better libraries) where Haskell tends to be more academic (though Pugs and Darcs are written in Haskell). It’s worthwhile to learn both languages as each bends and twists your mind in different ways.

See more progress on: Learn OCaml

It's 1 am. Do you know where your sleep is?

2005-09-22T00:00:00-07:00

I’m still up. I should have been Zzzzing 2 hours ago.

See more progress on: Go to sleep at 11 for a week

a little camel said to me, "are you being objective?"

2005-09-22T00:00:00-07:00

1. Write a function merge_i which takes as input two integer lists sorted inincreasing order and returns a new sorted list containing the elements ofthe first two.

This is one of the exercises in chapter 2 of Developing Applications with Objective Caml. Took me a little while since I don't use a lot of recursion in my day job. On my first pass, I nailed the base case but the recursive case I messed up. I discovered this handy little trick when using the interpreter.

Objective Caml version 3.08.3

# use "test.ml"
val merge_i : int list -> int list -> int list = <fun>
# #trace merge_i;;
merge_i is now traced.
# merge_i [1;2] [3;4];;
merge_i <-- [1; 2]
merge_i --> <fun>
merge_i* <-- [3; 4]
merge_i <-- [2]
merge_i --> <fun>
merge_i* <-- [3; 4]
merge_i <-- []
merge_i --> <fun>
merge_i* <-- [3; 4]
merge_i* --> [3; 4]
merge_i* --> [2; 3; 4]
merge_i* --> [1; 2; 3; 4]
- : int list = [1; 2; 3; 4]
#

Aha! Initiallly, I was only passing the tail of the two lists on the recursive call. I needed to modify it to pass the tail of the list which I had used and pass the other list untouched. That trace feature in theinterpreter sure is handy (I believe lisp and ruby also have this in their REPL).

The solution came to this:

let rec merge_i (x:int list) (y:int list) =    if x = [] && y = [] then []    else if x = [] then y    else if y = [] then x    else let a = List.hd x         and b = List.hd y         in if a > b             then b :: merge_i x (List.tl y)            else a :: merge_i (List.tl x) y  ;;

(* in the last else, I had done (if a > b then b else a) :: merge_i (List.tl x) (List.tl y) initially *)
(* the if x = [] && y = [] then [] is probably superfluous but it's late and I'm going to sleep *)

P.S (* *) is an OCaml comment. Very /* */ if you ask me.

O'Reilly Network: Painless Merging with SVK: An Interview with Chia-liang Kao

2005-09-21T00:00:00-07:00

Link: O'Reilly Network: Painless Merging with SVK: An Interview with Chia-liang Kao.

SVK is currently my version control system of choice.

haskell QuickCheck

2005-09-21T00:00:00-07:00

Had some problems with the ghc I built from darwinports. Initially when I tried it with the QuickCheck module, it failed with a missing symbol (from a shared object I think). Downloaded the prebuilt binary package for my mac off the haskell website. QuickCheck is pretty cool and I think it would be a nice tool to have in the testing toolkit of most mainstream languages.

From the example below, floating point addition isn't associative and QuickCheck figured that out after 2 tests. Haskell language features seem well suited to this sort of specification type testing, strongly statically typed and purely functional. Not a substitute for unit testing but a very handy tool. I think of it as assertions on steroids.

-- GHCI session
*Main> :load "Test3.hs"
Compiling Main ( Test3.hs, interpreted )
Ok, modules loaded: Main.
*Main> quickCheck prop_Foo
OK, passed 100 tests.
*Main> quickCheck prop_FloatAddition
OK, passed 100 tests.
*Main> quickCheck prop_IntAddition
OK, passed 100 tests.
*Main> quickCheck prop_FloatAssociativeAddition
Falsifiable, after 2 tests:
3.5
-3.3333333
-1.25

-- Testing out QuickCheck on GHC6.4
module Main where

import Test.QuickCheck

prop_IntAddition :: Integer -> Integer -> Bool
prop_IntAddition x y = x + y == y + x

prop_FloatAddition :: Float -> Float -> Bool
prop_FloatAddition x y = x + y == y + x

prop_FloatAssociativeAddition :: Float -> Float -> Float -> Bool
prop_FloatAssociativeAddition x y z = (x + y) + z == x + (y + z)

prop_Foo :: Bool
prop_Foo = foo == 1

foo :: Integer
foo = 1

early to bed, early to ....

2005-09-21T00:00:00-07:00

Whilst bunking with E and S down in San Francisco, I slept early every night because both of them are early sleepers. Sleeping early meant waking up early and I felt more energetic and focused. Since getting back, I've been going to bed later and later (on average around 1am). If I slept earlier, I believe my days will be more productive.

See more progress on: Go to sleep at 11 for a week

ruby monads

2005-09-20T00:00:00-07:00

Inspired by this moonbase entry...

It would have been nice to just specify bind(f) but that didn't seem to work as ruby parameters appear to be strictly evaluated.

irb(main):001:0> require 'monad'=> trueirb(main):002:0> def f(x); x + 1; end => nilirb(main):003:0> IdentityMonad.wrap(1).bind(method(:f)).bind{|x| x + 2}.value=> 4irb(main):004:0> class IdentityMonad
   attr_reader :value
   def initialize(value)
      @value = value
   end
   def IdentityMonad::wrap(value)
      new(value)
   end
   def pass
      yield @value
   end
   def bind(p=nil,&blk)
      if block_given?
         IdentityMonad::wrap(blk.call(@value))
      else
         IdentityMonad::wrap(p.call(@value))
      end
   end
end

feeling bored...

2005-09-20T00:00:00-07:00

I can't shake off the feeling. I'm bored. No longer interested in what I do. I came to this (not so) sudden realization this Monday afternoon at about 3:14 pm. It reminds of the line from the kurt vonnegut graduation speech hoax,

"The real troubles in your life are apt to be things
that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you
at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday."

Cleaning up the html mockup made me realize that I've just become a very underutilized engineer. To put it bluntly, any monkey can do my work at the moment. It just requires me to grind through it and it is neither an interesting problem or intellectually stimulating. I've trained myself to deal with mind-numbing work but only for a limited period of time. I'm now past due. When that happens, I'm become both belligerent and unhappy. It's taking me a greater amount of energy to put up my mask.

This boredom is causing me insomnia. I'm up late playing with little things that catch my interest (right now it's ruby! go ruby!). I'm trying to go to bed by 11 but without any success.

I keep going through the different scenarios in my head. Quit or stay. There are some reasons for me to stay but ............. There are some tricks I can use to keep me moving but it's getting harder to get up everyday. What are my options? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. <sigh>

Arrrr!

2005-09-20T00:00:00-07:00

Your pirate name is: Red Davy Kidd

Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate.Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, yoursteadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

(Formatting got messed up, this is the best I could do. Take the quiz here)

talking about a revolution...

2005-09-16T00:00:00-07:00

With the dominance of XBox and PS2 over the GameCube, most people have counted Nintendo out. With the hype of the XBox 360 and PS3, the Nintendo Revolution might just surprise more than a few people. Check out this video of what the Revolution's controller is supposed to do. I think it's pretty frigging cool. Hopefully Nintendo will have the right games to take advantage of it.

I know I'm excited by this development.

a tale of two apples...

2005-09-16T00:00:00-07:00

iPod Nano
Originally uploaded by signal11.

I brought the nano into the office this week and people have just been stunned by it. It's hard to get a sense of the proportions when looking at photographs of it (even when it's held next to the regular iPod). An amazing piece of engineering by the apple team. A bold gutsy business decision on their part to get rid of their best selling mini line in favor of a brand new product line.

I'm saddened by apple's unstated policy of pushing it's independent resellers out of business though. It's depressing to see this happening from a company with great products. Is this what it takes to survive in business today?

9rules network - A content network that happens to have blogs in it

2005-09-16T00:00:00-07:00

Link: 9rules network - A content network that happens to have blogs in it.

Looks interesting. The goal is to have high quality content (via blogs they like I believe) in it. As a litmus test for me, they included the very cool Creating passionate users blog which I read anyway.

impulsive impulsive!

2005-09-15T00:00:00-07:00

I may have been overly impulsive getting textdrive to do my hosting. After talking to a colleague today, I discovered nearlyfreespeech. If you're looking for extremely low cost hosting that will ramp up with your needs, they have a pricing model that might suit your needs. You only pay for as much bandwidth and space as you need. There is also dreamhost which appears extremely generous with bandwidth and space (especially if you sign up for their two year plan).

Whatever: Being Poor

2005-09-14T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Whatever: Being Poor.

Poignantly made points.

textdriven...

2005-09-14T00:00:00-07:00

Looks like TextDrive has made a couple of lifetime hosting plans available. It's a little pricey but they offer pretty decent features and it should pay for itself in a little over a year. They had a similar deal last year but I was too late to sign up for one then. I didn't miss my opportunity this time: sigsegv.textdriven.com. Nothing much there yet but I'm working on it.

San Francisco was a blast!

2005-09-13T00:00:00-07:00

Well I fly back into Seattle later today. I've had a real blast in SF. My two hosts E and S (with their friend A) have been incredibly warm and generous letting me interrupt their lives for the past week. The last couple of days I've lived in San Francisco (rather than being a tourist). I've done some "touristy" things but to a large extent I've gotten to see a large part of the city I wouldn't normally see. I wish I could take the best parts of SF back to Seattle with me.

I've forgotten what a vacation can feel like... I feel more relaxed, more ready to face the world again. I've forgotten what a carefree me feels like. It feels good and I wish I could hold on to that feeling a little longer.

I'm dreading the thought of going back into the office with its demands, its pressures. Hopefully this time off has given me the spark to get over my current slump.

seattle half marathon

2005-09-11T00:00:00-07:00

The Seattle half marathon is in two months and counting. I’ve managed to run some half marathon like distances (12-13miles) this summer. Throwing in walking breaks have definitely made the long distances more bearable to me. I’ve also mixed in a fairly tough hill workout into my regular running routine. I’m still too heavy to be an efficient runnner though but that’s something I’m going to work on after the half marathon.

See more progress on: run a half marathon

same thing i said last year

2005-09-11T00:00:00-07:00

I’ll do it next year. I get closer and closer every year. I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing a half marathon this year. If I work during the winter and spring to stay in shape, I should be able to tackle one next year.

See more progress on: run a marathon

Babylon 5

2005-09-05T00:00:00-07:00

I've forgotten how good "Babylon 5" was. Watching parts of Season 3 and 4 over the last couple of days has reminded me of that fact. Interesting multi-faceted characters, intricately tied together plots and sub plots make it one of the best sci-fi series. It's so good that you almost need to read the lurker's episode guide for each episode to completely understand everything.

Alas...

2005-09-04T00:00:00-07:00

We didn’t do very much this. But like red sox fans used to say, “there’s always next year”

See more progress on: plan great summer weekends

This is an editor test. Please Ignore!

2005-09-02T00:00:00-07:00

Trying out a feature of TextMate which gives me the option of editing text fields in my browser with it.

Seems to work.

Six Apart - Mena's Corner: Praise for Movable Type 3.2

2005-09-02T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Six Apart - Mena's Corner: Praise for Movable Type 3.2.

I'm obviously biased, but like I said in an earlier post, it's really an awesome release. It's hard to articulate the feeling I have about it. Ben and I are obviously MT's parents but it's like we sent our baby to school and trusted a group of people (teachers, peers and friends) to bring her to the next level in life.

I think all programmers feel software they've written is their baby. I wonder why that is so and I wonder if it's true for all kinds of creative jobs.

The Escapist - Death to the Games Industry, Part I

2005-09-01T00:00:00-07:00

Link: The Escapist - Death to the Games Industry, Part I.

Really good article discussing the woes of the gaming industry. Made me look at GarageGames and contemplate (very briefly!) games I would write.

ArticleS.MichaelFeathers.WorkingClean

2005-09-01T00:00:00-07:00

Link: ArticleS.MichaelFeathers.WorkingClean.

Interesting read, cooking and programming.

a year older

2005-08-29T00:00:00-07:00

Yikes! another year older ...

Omniscient Debugging

2005-08-21T00:00:00-07:00

http://www.lambdacs.com/debugger/debugger.html

Interesting debugging tool. I should give it a spin one of these days.

Everything old is new again

2005-08-19T00:00:00-07:00

It's kind of funny but video games haven't gotten any better over the last decade. The production values have gotten better (sound, graphics ...) but gameplay remains about the same. In fact, it's almost a cliche that older games had better gameplay while all the modern games are rehashes of a genre (how is doom 3/halo different from castle wolfenstein?)

Anyway I discovered that two "classics" from when I was growing up are now available.
One is the open sourced version of Star Control 2 called the Ur-Quan Masters and the
other is Pirates. Made me think about other classic video games I've played:
wing commander
syndicate
championship manager
civilization
....

They don't make games like they used to...

perf goals - white paper

2005-08-10T00:00:00-07:00

One of my performance goals for the year was to write a white paper based on some framework software that I built this year (found this useful page http://www.stelzner.com/copy-g-HowTo-whitepapers.php discussing what that will involve). I think the paper will center around our stack, the java stack (jsf,shale,tile,sitemesh/spring-mvc + spring/hibernate) the ruby on rails framework and how each of those compares to one another.

Most awesome use of google maps yet!

2005-08-10T00:00:00-07:00

Introducing the google maps pedometer....

Where I run

2005-08-10T00:00:00-07:00

Running route from yesterday.

A new look

2005-08-08T00:00:00-07:00

I decided to try a new look. Plus I wanted to muck about with the advanced template feature supplied by typepad. The new look borrows from one of their pre-designed themes and used that to start my advanced template. It's a little darker, the fonts are a little smaller (though they are still readable on my tiny 12in screen). I managed to get content from flickr, allconsuming and 43things on the sidebar with the javascript they supplied. It kind of neat I wonder how they did that with their javascript.

what can I say?

2005-08-07T00:00:00-07:00

Thanks Mom!

See more progress on: get rid of my clutter

Does it need saying?

2005-08-07T00:00:00-07:00

Thanks Mom!

See more progress on: host a dinner

sent in my application

2005-07-31T00:00:00-07:00

submitted my application…

See more progress on: get new passport

Mom's Powerbook

2005-07-15T00:00:00-07:00

I've started the Mom's visit countdown clock to T - 13 days and counting. I've spent the last week getting her new powerbook ready when she visits. Yup, she's getting a new 12in powerbook. She'll be one hip old lady. It's running Tiger right now and it has a full development environment installed (xcode, gcc, ruby, darwinports). The development environment is really for me to use while I shakedown her new Mac (I'm typing on it as we speak, getting the battery to drain down so that it will be calibrated correctly). I'm not sure what she'll need though... At a minimum, she'll need a web browser for her browsing and webmail needs. I'll try to get her a nice easy book about Macs so that she learn how to use it better.

In other news, I've been on Ruby and C++ template metaprogramming kick lately. But those are entries for another time.

Also tonight, season 2 of BSG begins. I wasn't sure about watching BSG when it started. I grew up with the old series and I wasn't sure how I would handle some of the changes. But that's all in the past, after watching a couple of episodes from season 1. Right now, BSG is the best sci-fi series out there. In fact, it's as good as TNG seasons 4 - 7.

Programming as Performance Art

2005-07-13T00:00:00-07:00

A couple of videos I found showing people programming....

Developing DSLs in Lisp

Rails Academy

WTFV?

Text Editing

2005-07-11T00:00:00-07:00

It's rare that I pay for a text editor. Emacs/Vim have been my steady workhorse editors for the last decade. They are pretty darn good but they've been locked into their text editing paradigm. Vim is not an editor for a newbie. Neither is emacs though it probably has a lower barrier to entry. Learn to use them well and you'll be wielding your keyboard like a jedi master wields his light saber. But like I said, it's rare that I pay for a text editor. But I did. Check it out, it's called Textmate. It's new. It's raw. But it has some incredibly nice ideas that made my jaw drop. It worked really well for writing ruby code which is what I spent the weekend doing. I wish Emacs/Vim implemented snippets (that is the best idea for a text editor I've seen in awhile). Pithy about its lack of customization options and foreign (to me) key bindings...

Slow_and_steady

2005-07-06T00:00:00-07:00

Slow and Steady

Your friends see you as painstaking and fussy. They see you as very cautious, extremely careful, a slow and steady plodder.It'd really surprise them if you ever did something impulsively or on the spur of the moment.They expect you to examine everything carefully from every angle and then usually decide against it.

How Do People See You?

Powerbooks

2005-07-05T00:00:00-07:00

I've just finished setting up my older powerbook over the weekend. I bought it over 3 years ago and it is still running solid. With Tiger installed, it seems to run as good as ever. If I had to upgrade any part, it would be the hard drive. installed darwinports, ruby, perl, pugs, sbcl, various C++ and Java libraries. Xcode2 seems to be faster than the previous version and I'm might get the hang of programming in it. Eclipse runs like a dog which is unfortunate because I wanted to try it out a lot more.

Right now I'm trying out some of the boost libraries which lets me do wicked cool stuff like:

std::for_each(v.begin(), v.end(), std::cout << _1);

I want to find out how they got the _1 to appear as a anonymous variable.

Httpwwwnotfrisc

2005-07-05T00:00:00-07:00

The True You

You want your girlfriend or boyfriend to be more open with you.

With respect to money, you spend carefully and save your pennies.

You think good luck doesn't exist - reality is built on practicalities.

The hidden side of your personality tends to be satisfied to care for things with a minimal amount of effort.

You are tend to think about others' feelings a lot, perhaps because you are so eager to be liked.

When it comes to finding a romantic partner, you make opportunities to interact with many people through club activities or a hobby, then select someone you like.

Who's the True You?

malevole - Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer?

2005-07-03T00:00:00-07:00

Link: malevole - Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer?.

A Bevy of C++ Knowledge

2005-06-26T00:00:00-07:00

"Effective C++ is one of those C++ books you should reread every couple of years. I remember little C++ rules but always forget where they came from. Most of the time I read them in Effective C++. A new edition of Effective C++ has just been released and I'm working through all 55 items. It's a good read. It's a quick read. It's a must read.

Another good book that has recently come out is C++ Common Knowledge. A little in the vein of Effective C++ but geared towards making yourself an intermediate C++ programmer.

And because you should always refresh your C++ every so often, a new edition of the "C++ Primer is out. It reads better than ever and I recommend it to every new C++ programmer out there. I think Bjarne's book has merit but definitely start off with the primer.

C++. A semester to learn. A lifetime spent blowing your leg off. :-)

An elegant universe

2005-06-25T00:00:00-07:00

Check out Brian Greene’s book The Elegant Universe. He does a great job of explaining general relativity, special relativity and quantum mechanics which form the basis of modern physics. His discussion on string/M theory doesn’t seem as strong though my suspicion is an 11 dimensional universe is too unintuitive for most people to grasp. There is also a PBS special based on the book out on DVD. Check it out too I’ve heard good things about it.

See more progress on: understand modern physics

the most important thing is to have fun

2005-06-24T00:00:00-07:00

The sun is slowing rising over Seattle once again. It took awhilefor it to come out and banish those winter blues. Running ingreat weather is one of the best experiences you can have in life. The sky is blue. The birds are the chirping. The warmth glow of the yellow sun supercharging my kryptonian metabolism :-)

I’ve been doing this for the last month with a caveat. I’m 2 or more miles (on average) 3 times a week. My runs on weekdays are a mile and half. My runs on weekends are now at the 6 mile mark. I go for 7 miles tomorrow.

See more progress on: run two or more miles three times a week

I'm back

2005-06-22T00:00:00-07:00

I realized that my blog writing has been less than regular for the last couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll get back to a more regular schedule now, posting a couple of times a week rather than sporadically. So what have I been up to that has distracted me from my regular reading, writing, playing and coding?

I've tried my hand at online dating. Rather than posting my regular entries to the blog, I've been busy sending emails to random women (okay not so random, I do have my standards). As I expected, most emails go unreplied. Of the ones whom replied, I've gotten a 50/50 positive negative split. Not too bad, but I don't think I can justify the time spent on the endeavor. I met one nice girl, unfortunately we didn't hit it off, pithy..... but I like having more friends.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not giving up or anything. I'm just going to spend less time on it. The idea has merit and it suits the sort of lifestyle I live where I don't have a lot of time to go out and meet people. It works pretty well as a prescreening process. Maybe a little too well. It's hard to convey sentiments and nuances virtually than it is physically. Plus some people aren't very photogenic and may not even get a chance at bat. Oh well... that's the luck of the draw.

INTJ Profile

2005-06-12T00:00:00-07:00

Link: INTJ Profile.

Turns out my myer-briggs profile is this.

Pacific Coast Highway

2005-06-10T00:00:00-07:00

I figure I’ll write down the plan we’ve made so far.

1) Leave on a Friday night
2) Rent a convertible
3) Drive as far as we can

See more progress on: plan great summer weekends

Warm_intelligen

2005-06-08T00:00:00-07:00

warm, intelligent, down-to-earth. I really enjoyed talking to her. Said some stupid things. Was a littlenervous. I hope I can have coffee with her again. Perhaps next time even grab some food.

See more progress on: date

darn

2005-05-30T00:00:00-07:00

Wish dating was more like programming...

Not in the technical sense but in the competence sense.

See more progress on: date

Animal Advice -- Images and Sayings to Brighten Your Day

2005-05-19T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Animal Advice -- Images and Sayings to Brighten Your Day.

Of all the things my mom decides to email me this. Enjoy!

3 - 2

2005-05-17T00:00:00-07:00

Darn! The next game is a must win situation for us.

Sonics Spurs Tied

2005-05-16T00:00:00-07:00

Good win for the Sonics. I didn't think they had it in them to beat the Spurs so convincingly in the playoffs. I'm not sure we can beat them in San Antonio. I think if we can keep it close in Game 5 and not get blown out like in Game 1 & 2, we have a chance. It's a big IF though. Here's crossing my fingers.

2 - 1

2005-05-12T00:00:00-07:00

Link: ESPN.com - NBA - Recap - Spurs at SuperSonics.

We kept it close. But we got one back. Crossing my fingers for Sunday.

THE REALITY SHOW

2005-05-11T00:00:00-07:00

Link: THE REALITY SHOW.

I can see a scene from the hit reality tv show "Dumping Core"

computer> You dereferenced the null pointer. segmentation violation. core dumped. You lose.

sigsegv> *arrggghhh* *sigh*

NBA Playoffs 2005

2005-05-10T00:00:00-07:00

The Sonics are back in the playoffs. I've watched them on and off throughout the year and they looked good. In the first round, they were impressive against the Kings. Against the Spurs going on right now, they've looked second rate. I've thought the threat would come from Timmy Duncan but Manu Ginobili has been the rock of that team. Manu just makes the rest of his team better with his cutting, slashing, shooting and competitive spirit. A Suns-Spurs conference final will be interesting with Ginobili matching up against Steve Nash. I think if the Sonics can contain him, we have a chance. We're 2 - 0 down right now but if we can hold serve when the series comes back to Seattle we have a chance.

Whatever happens to the Sonics though, this appears to be a good playoff year. The first tier teams (Suns, Spurs, Heat and Pistons) look to be equally matched which always makes for exciting basketball.

The assault on software giant Microsoft

2005-05-09T00:00:00-07:00

Link: BBC NEWS | Business | The assault on software giant Microsoft.

The next two years will be crucial for software giant Microsoft. Under attack on numerous fronts, it could falter - or fight back to become even more dominant.

A good read

2005-05-08T00:00:00-07:00

If you're interested in the material. Chapters 1 - 4 can be easily read by someone with a CS background. Chapters 5 - 7 require more of a Physics background (they gave me the most difficulty). All through the book, Feynman displays his love of the subject and his approach of looking at problems from many different angles.

Also worth reading is his Nobel Prize Lecture. A little snippet from that lecture, taken completely out of context but still a beautiful paragraph.

That was the beginning, and the idea seemed so obvious to me and so elegant that I fell deeply in love with it. And, like falling in love with a woman, it is only possible if you do not know much about her, so you cannot see her faults. The faults will become apparent later, but after the love is strong enough to hold you to her. So, I was held to this theory, in spite of all difficulties, by my youthful enthusiasm.

See more progress on: finish feynman lectures on computation

zaptastic: blueprint for a widget of mass destruction

2005-05-08T00:00:00-07:00

Link: zaptastic: blueprint for a widget of mass destruction.

If you are using Safari on Tiger, thanks to the magic of widget autoinstall, combined with the <meta> tag, a slightly evil widget has been installed in your dashboard.

Looks like OS X has taken on some Window tendencies. I'm hoping Apple fixes this problem real soon rather than letting it linger.

a little grammer

2005-05-07T00:00:00-07:00

I spent the day playing around with ANTLR getting a little expression grammer working and trying to remember parsing theory from a very long time ago.

I modified the expression grammer found here to evaluate expressions like:
1 + 1
[1 + 1] + [3 + 3];

I haven't got the unary negative/positive signs working yet but it doesn't look too hard.

The square brackets are weird but I used them instead of the regular parenthesis '(' ')' because that was used by the generated code to delimit the abstract syntax tree.

Here's the grammer I came up with.

expr      : sumExpr  END! ;sumExpr   : prodExpr ( (PLUS^ | MINUS^) prodExpr)* ; prodExpr  : powExpr ( (MUL^ | DIV^ | MOD^) powExpr)* ;powExpr   : atom (POW^ atom)? ;atom      : LPAREN^ sumExpr RPAREN! | INT;

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out what the lexical analysis part looked like.

Pat Robertson, in Context and Other Culture War Stories : Wonkette

2005-05-06T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Wal-Mart Loves Springsteen's Fudge Tunnel of Love : Wonkette.

Starbucks won't stock Bruce Springsteen's new album, because the track "Reno" contains explicit references to making more than $8 an hour.

The Boss still raising hell after 30 rocking years.

Cool Lightsaber Sound Effect

2005-05-05T00:00:00-07:00

How Lightsabers Work

Great for slicing bagels, reheating coffee, trimming hedges.

Not that great for shaving though, the razor burns are pretty bad. Remember to read the warning label before using....

Eclipse + Antlr

2005-05-04T00:00:00-07:00

Playing around with these two things right now.

See more progress on: improve my java-fu

Dilbert.com - The Official Dilbert Website by Scott Adams - Dilbert, Dogbert and Coworkers!

2005-05-04T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Dilbert.com - The Official Dilbert Website by Scott Adams - Dilbert, Dogbert and Coworkers!.

An appropriate dilbert cartoon for my current situation.

been a while

2005-05-03T00:00:00-07:00

I crashed and burned a couple of years back. My ego took a real bruising and I haven’t really recovered. It does seem to be a healthy choice for me to engage in rather than getting comfortable with a nice book. Maybe I’ll do more of it.

See more progress on: date

Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It...

2005-05-02T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It....

5.) They’ve got brains. Come on now, how can intelligence be a bad thing?

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

2005-05-01T00:00:00-07:00

Your birthdate modifies your life by increasing your capability to function and succeed in the business world.
In this environment you have the skills to work very well with others thanks to the 2 and 6 energies combining in this date.
There is a marked increase in organizational, managerial, and administrative abilities.
You are efficient and handle money very well.
You're ambitious and energetic, while generally remaining cooperative and adaptable.
You are conscientious and not afraid of responsibility.
Generally sociable and diplomatic, you tend to use persuasion rather than force.
You have a wonderful combination of being good at both the broad strokes and the fine detail; good at starting and continuing. This birthday is practical and realistic, often seeking material satisfaction.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Finished with Chapter 6

2005-05-01T00:00:00-07:00

A short chapter but completely over my head. A footnote at the start of the chapter indicated that elementary quantum mechanics was necessary. I had problems following some parts where RPF talked about hamiltonians, hermitian matrices and wave functions. The regular matrix math didn’t throw me off so that was good. Only chapter 7 left. Longest chapter in the book but doesn’t look too bad.

See more progress on: finish feynman lectures on computation

The Wired 40

2005-04-30T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Wired 13.05: The Wired 40.

If you're into that sort of thing.

I'm a survivor!

2005-04-30T00:00:00-07:00

Official Survivor
Congratulations! You scored 70%!

Whether through ferocity or quickness, you made it out. You made the right choice most of the time, but you probably screwed up somewhere. Nobody's perfect, at least you're alive.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 33% on survivalpoints

Link: The Zombie Scenario Survivor Test written by ci8db4uok on Ok Cupid

Creating Passionate Users

2005-04-30T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Creating Passionate Users.

The secret, of course, is to keep learning, keep changing and stay open to new ideas, even if they don't fit in with the way you've always done things. Besides making your life more interesting, it can also save your life or at the very least, save your brain. You are less likely to be senile in your old age if you keep forcing yourself to learn new things, and forge new pathways in the brain. It's exercise for the brain.

50,000,000

2005-04-29T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Firefox: Blazing a Trail to 50,000,000

At 8:58 AM PST, we rolled over the 50,000,000 downloads

50 million Firefox downloads!!!

Tiger Shipped!

2005-04-28T00:00:00-07:00

"Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger [DVD]" (Apple)

20 minutes ago. Estimated delivery date is Monday.

The View Askewniverse - Kevin Smith geeks out on 'Sith'

2005-04-28T00:00:00-07:00

Link: The View Askewniverse - Kevin Smith geeks out on 'Sith'.

"SITH" SPOILERS
You've been warned...
- "Revenge of the Sith" is, quite simply, fucking awesome. This is the "Star Wars" prequel the haters have been bitching for since "Menace" came out, and if they don't cop to that when they finally see it, they're lying.

That's all I need to know. I'm going to see Episode 3 when it comes out.

The Fortress Language Spec v0.618

2005-04-28T00:00:00-07:00

Link: The Fortress Language Spec v0.618 | Lambda the Ultimate.

Looks like the first publicly available version of the Fortress language spec is out there.

Mentioned in another blog entry.

Batman Begins June 15th

2005-04-28T00:00:00-07:00

The new trailer is available here.

Having O'Reilly on board the Rails (Loud Thinking)

2005-04-27T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Having O'Reilly on board the Rails (Loud Thinking).

Add to that, Tim O'Reilly himself picked up on another Rails philosophy the other day with Frameworks are Extractions:
For example, basecamp wasn't built on top of Ruby on Rails. Rather, Ruby on Rails was extracted from basecamp. This approach seems obvious and commonsense — but hardly common in this era of heavy web services standards-ware designed by technical committees far in advance of actual implementation.

My emphasis in italics....

You and Your Research

2005-04-26T00:00:00-07:00

Link: You and Your Research.

Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?

Financial sensibility... in America? Wow! | MetaFilter

2005-04-25T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Financial sensibility... in America? Wow! | MetaFilter.

Complexity

2005-04-24T00:00:00-07:00

J was talking today about complexity and it made me think of an Einstein quote that has always stuck in my head.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

I like to think I approach things from that opposite direction, but truthfully I'm so far away from that.

HRW report | MetaFilter

2005-04-23T00:00:00-07:00

Link: HRW report | MetaFilter.

A tale of two lists

2005-04-22T00:00:00-07:00

Two lists worth looking at and thinking about. List 1 List 2

Jesus Christ, SuperCop

2005-04-21T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Jesus Christ, SuperCop | MetaFilter.

WWJD

Neocon quiz results

2005-04-20T00:00:00-07:00

Link: csmonitor.com.

Based on your answers, you are most likely a realist. Read below to learn more about each foreign policy perspective.

Realist

Realists…

Are guided more by practical considerations than ideological vision
Believe US power is crucial to successful diplomacy - and vice versa
Don't want US policy options unduly limited by world opinion or ethical considerations
Believe strong alliances are important to US interests
Weigh the political costs of foreign action
Believe foreign intervention must be dictated by compelling national interest

Historical realist: President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Modern realist: Secretary of State Colin Powell

Edge: THE MATHEMATICS OF LOVE: A Talk with John Gottman

2005-04-19T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Edge: THE MATHEMATICS OF LOVE: A Talk with John Gottman.

Metafilter has a bunch of interesting articles posted during the last week.

A walk down memory lane

2005-04-18T00:00:00-07:00

The past couple of weeks, I've been watching and enjoying the cartoon "Justice League Unlimited". It doesn't completely feel like a cartoon for kids as some of it's themes are fairly mature. Made me think of the cartoons from my childhood. I grew up in the heyday of cartoons and toy merchandizing (the 80s!!!!) which makes this trip down memory lane doubly nostalgic.

This is the extent of the cartoons I remember:
Robotech
- Veritechs, SDF, Invid, Zentradi, MinMei's irritating songs
Transformers
- Canonical giant transforming robots
He Man
- Superman-like hero with a big sword
MASK
- Transforming vehicles but no giant robots
Centurions
- Cool exoskeletally enhanced counter terrorism force
Silverhawks
- Space variant of the Thundercats
Visionaries
- Knights of the round table with magical technology
BraveStarr
- A sheriff with animal powers on the frontier in outer space
Galaxy Rangers
- Super human cowboys defending humanity in the future
Thunderbirds 2086
- Variant of the original Thunderbirds but with cooler vehicles
Saber Rider
- Space cowboys on the frontier with Giant combining robot
Star Com
- GI Joe in Space
Bionic Six
- The Bionic Family
Gobots
- More transforming robots

A mouse is no substitute

2005-04-18T00:00:00-07:00

Link: A mouse is no substitute | MetaFilter.

Interesting article and better commentary.

Y'all take this quiz now

2005-04-17T00:00:00-07:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

20% Yankee

15% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

I wonder where the Yankee and Dixie snuck in from?

Update: Forgot the URL American Dialect English

What type are you?

2005-04-17T00:00:00-07:00

Typing and programming languages, a brief synopsis from the ever excellent C2 wiki: TypingQuadrant

The four quadrants:
StaticTyping vs DynamicTyping
StronglyTyped vs WeaklyTyped

As always what puts a language into one quadrant or another seems to be a fine line that is very much a matter of debate. It appears to be more degrees of "typeness" than anything else.

Interestingly enough, it is unclear what implicit type conversions do to "typeness" of a language.

Of course this this form of typing is very clear cut.

Done with chapter 5

2005-04-17T00:00:00-07:00

The last two chapters look to be the toughest yet.

See more progress on: finish feynman lectures on computation

A fun audiobook

2005-04-16T00:00:00-07:00

"Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly" (Anthony Bourdain)

I just finished listening to this a couple of minutes ago. It does have foul language but worth a listen if you're interested in how the restaurant business works. After listening to it, I realized that all creative industries follow similar patterns. The only difference is the palates we serve.

New books

2005-04-15T00:00:00-07:00

A new stack of books arrived today. Since I started on “Feynman’s Lectures on Computation”, I’ve been wanting to know more physics. The math isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. If I take it slow, I can follow along. As long as I don’t have to take midterms or finals on the material, I think I’m going to enjoy it just fine.

See more progress on: understand modern physics

f**k for forest

2005-04-14T00:00:00-07:00

Link: f**k for forest.

I guess it true what they say about porn. It pays. I guess that is one way to raise money for the environment. (I wonder if this counts as a charitable donation).

BTW. Not Safe for Work.

Working through YAHT

2005-04-13T00:00:00-07:00

Some solutions as I work through Yet Another Haskell Tutorial:

filter isLower "AbCdE"

length $ filter isLower "AbCdE"

foldl max 0 [5,10,2,8,1]

fst $ head $ tail [(5,1),(2,3),(4,1)]

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: A Realistic Assessment of How Many 12-Year-Olds I Could Beat Up Before They Overtook Me.

2005-04-13T00:00:00-07:00

Link: McSweeney's Internet Tendency: A Realistic Assessment of How Many 12-Year-Olds I Could Beat Up Before They Overtook Me..

Being a wrestling entertainment watcher, I figure I can take 2 dozen easy. A combination of clothelines, DDTs and powerbombs should do the trick.

Done with the Gentle Introduction

2005-04-13T00:00:00-07:00

Not so gentle but not too bad. On to Yet Another Haskell Tutorial.

See more progress on: learn haskell

Amazing but true

2005-04-13T00:00:00-07:00

I was able to get through YAHT this evening. Most of it was review from the other material I’ve worked through.

At this point, I would say I’ve learnt haskell. I know the syntax. I’m comfortable with the tools and standard libraries. Monads are still iffy. Not the using part but more the building brand new ones part. According to YAHT, that is “super haskell guru” territory.

At this point, I should go forth and produce haskell code. That is the one true way to master a language.

See more progress on: learn haskell

What's The Matter With Kansas?

2005-04-12T00:00:00-07:00

Link: What's The Matter With Kansas? | MetaFilter.

This past week, the residents of the small town of Atwood, Kansas voted 984 to 113 to deny gay couples any rights for their relationships (including hospital visitation). Now, the man who set up the town's newspaper website has not only left Atwood, but taken down the website and posted a (mostly) measured response to the town in place of it. Will putting a human face on those being discriminated against ever change the minds of some people, or is one passage in the bible enough for some people to keep justifying their bigoted ways?

The MeFi link doesn't appear to work. Here's the google cache of the article.

Pugs 1st Major Milestone

2005-04-12T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Journal of autrijus (1505).

I am delighted to report that the first major milestone of Pugs, version 6.2.0, has been released to CPAN:

I've been tracking Pugs for the last month and they've made incredible progress. I'm downloading and playing with it again this weekend (it counts towards my Haskell education interestingly enough).

A cautionary tale

2005-04-12T00:00:00-07:00

A very close personal friend told me a cautionary tale about the company. I won't be repeating that mistake. What happened seem a little excessive, but it doesn't surprise me. That's what happens when companies grow beyond a certain size and become a bureaucracy.

In the spirit of Supes vs Bats

2005-04-11T00:00:00-07:00

Courtesy of Applegeeks

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That...

2005-04-10T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Not That There's Anything Wrong With That... | MetaFilter.

I thought it was called "hanging out".

Monad along now

2005-04-10T00:00:00-07:00

Spent most of yesterday reading up on Monads. I understand how they’re used in Haskell for IO but I wanted to understand more of the theory behind them.

At the highest level, Monads are used to sequence operations and simulate side effects. This allows an imperative programming style to be used. However this only takes place within the context of a Monad. Monads are useful for more than this but I’ve not gotten that far yet.

These were some of the material I worked through (though not all completed except for the 1st one):

In addition to IO, working through the Parsec parser module documentation is also useful. It’s a real application of Monads and helps you connect the theory with the practicalities of working with Monads.

See more progress on: learn haskell

The Perl Review interviews Mark Jason Dominus

2005-04-09T00:00:00-07:00

Link: The Perl Review interviews Mark Jason Dominus.

That said, I do think that all programmers should learn as many different languages as they can, and I'm puzzled when they don't want to. It's like being a carpenter and saying that the hammer and the chisel are good enough for you, you don't need to learn to use a saw or a screwdriver.

The best thing about going to learn something new is that you never know what you're going to find out.

My copy of his book arrived yesterday. Yay!

On chapter 5

2005-04-09T00:00:00-07:00

It’s amazing but I’m slightly passed the halfway point now. Chapter 5 is intriguing because it deals with the thermodynamics of computation. The math in this section is tricky only because there are some derivation steps I don’t get. Luckily glossing over the math in this chapter is an acceptable course of action (vs Chapter 4). Feynman does a great job of describing the physical aspects of what is happening. In my mind, I was imagining little molecules bouncing around in a box and pistons pushing them about. The key material in this chapter is the relation of entropy and information. I’m still working on digesting and understanding their relationship with each other.

See more progress on: finish feynman lectures on computation

Dating Is Harder Than Programming

2005-04-09T00:00:00-07:00

Link: Dating Is Harder Than Programming.

Factors that make dating easier than programming:

Unlike the computer, your prospective date may be interested in dating you.
Perl.

LOL. I know what Johnny is going to say.

The coffee shop solution

2005-04-08T00:00:00-07:00

The solution I came up with at the coffee shop (Corrected so that it'll compile)

g :: Int -> Int -> Intg a m  | m == 1         = a  | m `mod` 2 == 1 = g (a + 1) (3 * m + 1)  | otherwise      = g (a + 1) (m `div` 2)

Think Higher Order

2005-04-07T00:00:00-07:00

A couple of weeks back I mentioned this book that I wanted to get:

"Higher-Order Perl: Transforming Programs with Programs" (Mark Jason Dominus)

A friend got their copy first and kindly loaned it to me (mine arrives Friday). The first 3 chapters covering recursion, dispatch tables and memoization respectively are kind of alright. Not particularly interesting to me because I've used these techniques in the part.

Chapter 4 is where it starts to get interesting for me.
This simple example has made me think about Perl a little differently:

sub upto { my ($m, $n) = @_; return sub {   $m <= $n ? $m++ : undef;  };}

I'm a quarter of the way through chapter 4. MJD's solution to permutation makes the normal interviewing solution to that question seem ugly in comparison [Here's a hint: it uses iterators! Read the book for the solution]

A solution to a question

2005-04-07T00:00:00-07:00

A solution to the 3n + 1 problem in Haskell. A different solution to the one I gave in the coffee shop. This one is a little more conventional. The coffee shop solution did work though.

module Main wheremain :: Int -> Int -> Intmain i j = maximum $ map (\x -> f 0 x) [i..j]f :: Int -> Int -> Intf a 1 = a + 1f a m =     if m `mod` 2 == 1       then f (a + 1) (3 * m + 1)       else f (a + 1) (m `div` 2)

Yet another dating quiz

2005-04-06T00:00:00-07:00

Your dating personality profile:

Wealthy/Ambitious - You know what your goals are and you pursue them vigourously. Achieving success is important to you.
Liberal - Politics matters to you, and you aren't afraid to share your left-leaning views. You would never be caught voting for a conservative candidate.
Stylish - You do not lack for fashion sense. Style matters. You wouldn't want to be seen with someone who doesn't care about her appearance.

Your date match profile:

Shy - You are put off by people who are open books. You are drawn to someone who is a bit more mysterious. You want to draw her out of her shell and get to know what she is all about.
Practical - You are drawn to people who are sensible and smart. Flashy, materialistic people turn you off. You appreciate the simpler side of living.
Intellectual - You seek out intelligence. Idle chit-chat is not what you are after. You prefer your date who can stimulate your mind.

Your Top Ten Traits

1. Wealthy/Ambitious
2. Liberal
3. Stylish
4. Adventurous
5. Sensual
6. Intellectual
7. Outgoing
8. Athletic
9. Religious
10. Traditional

Your Top Ten Match Traits

1. Shy
2. Practical
3. Intellectual
4. Traditional
5. Stylish
6. Religious
7. Adventurous
8. Athletic
9. Funny
10. Sensual

Take the Online Dating Personality Quiz at Dating Diversions

Really tired

2005-04-06T00:00:00-07:00

Got a chunk of stuff done today at work. For some reason though, I'm feeling really drained. I'm going to retire early tonight.

Halfway through the Gentle Introduction

2005-04-05T00:00:00-07:00

I’ve made pretty good progress through a Gentle Introduction to Haskell. Working through the literate Haskell code supplied with the introduction is really informative. Infinite data structures take some understanding to wrap your brain around.

I’m still having issues with the fibonacci example implemented with list comprehensions, lazy patterns and infinite lists. E.g.

fib@(1:tfib)
= 1 : 1 : [ a+b | (a,b) <- zip fib tfib ]

Recently I was pointed to two good supplements for Haskell. HaskellDemo and A Concise Introduction to Gofer/Haskell. Looking at these two articles, Haskell doesn’t seem like such an intimidating language after all.

See more progress on: learn haskell

Wrestlemania

2005-04-04T00:00:00-07:00

I admit it's a little bit of a guilty pleasure. But me and J hung out to watch Wrestlemania XXI yesterday. What are grown men like us doing watching wrestling? Don't I know it's fake? Yes. I know it's fake. Does it make difference though.... It's still fun to watch. Knowing it's fake just helps me realize the dangerous risk these people take to entertain the audience. The way those guys land isn't faked. One wrong move can be fatal or career ending. Like they said in the PSA "Don't try this at home".

In tribute to Wrestlemania, my top 7:
Bret Hart
HBK
Stone Cold Steve Austin
The Rock
HHH
Hulk Hogan
Undertaker

Wrote a little todo app

2005-04-03T00:00:00-08:00

Based very closely on Howto make a TODO List Application found off the Ruby on rails website. In fact, my code is exactly like the Howto. The differences I had was in my infrastructure:

lighttpd vs WEBrick
SQLite vs MySQL

Initial impressions: wow! damn! how did they… yeah! wow! damn!

Afterthoughts: I need to write some scripts to simulate parts of the framework for my day job (e.g. rails appname, generate controller name). I wished we used the rails framework at work…

Some cynics say Rails is just another overhyped framework, that Seaside and Wee are better solutions. That might be true but Rails is a clear win over everything mainstream right now.

Side thought: Groovy is very similar to Ruby. Rails takes advantage of Ruby to do the things it does. I wonder if anybody has taken a similar approach using Groovy for the Java world.

See more progress on: write an application on Rails

RFC4041: Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts

2005-04-02T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts.

A joke from yesterday but still fun to read.

Done with Chapter 4

2005-04-02T00:00:00-08:00

The last section discussing continuous values was the hardest part. Involved Fourier Analysis. I think it was 5 years ago last winter when I last looked at any math.

See more progress on: finish feynman lectures on computation

Buzz Game Arggh!!!!

2005-04-01T00:00:00-08:00

Looks like the Buzz Game was rollbacked yet another time. I don't have anything in my portfolio because as part of the rollback they sold everything.

The worst part: Most of the stock I've bought is worth something now. In fact at quick glance most of my picks have doubled or tripled in value. But of course I don't own anything anymore.

The best example: Wordpress 1854 shares purchased at a quarter, now worth $6.59. That's $12000 in pure profit right there. I'm fed up and I quit this game.

From the Buzz Game FAQ, they recommend me to try these ones now:
NewsFuture.com
Foresight Exchange
Fly on the Mac
HSX

I don't think I will. I'm playing with Ruby On Rails this weekend and writing something useful.

Airclick

2005-03-31T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Airclick.

Exactly what I've been looking for. A remote control for my iPod. I have one of the Altec Lansing iPod dock with speakers. The dock works and sounds great but it'll be nice to control it from the comfort of my sofa. The newer docks come with a remote control but I have a older model.

Lentil Soup

2005-03-30T00:00:00-08:00

Lentil Soup
Originally uploaded by signal11.

The Lentil Soup was a big success for me. A big reason for this success was a good ready made chicken broth. Most brands of chicken broth have too much sodium in them which tends to overwhelm the flavor of everything else in the dish.

Sigh.....

2005-03-30T00:00:00-08:00

Sigh.....

Easing back into it

2005-03-29T00:00:00-08:00

Felt a little better today. In other news, I've gone and done something. Something that I've dreaded doing because it felt like a betrayal. Still feels like it. For personal reasons, it might be the right thing for me to do. I'm not sure what the potential fallout and implications of this action will be. If carried to it's logical conclusion, I hope it's the right decision for me.

It appears that the Buzz game is up and running again. The virtual fortune I've amassed is now back to early Saturday morning level (meaning I have close to zilch dollars).

I'm feeling exhausted already

2005-03-28T00:00:00-08:00

Needed an extra cup of coffee in the afternoon to keep me going. Hopefully I'll get over this.

Back to Work

2005-03-27T00:00:00-08:00

I'm back to work tomorrow. The week off has been good for me. The weeks leading up to it I've been feeling rather rundown. The week off has allowed my batteries to recharge.

I'm not good as new but I'll survive.

Transparent Screen - BreizStone

2005-03-26T00:00:00-08:00

Transparent Screen - BreizStone
Originally uploaded by w00kie.

This is the latest hippest technology: Transparent LCD screens.

The screens are not actually transparent. Just some really good photograpy. It got me thinking though. Could I tape a camera to my powerbook and drive it to take photos every couple of minutes? With some math and calibration, could I post a "Transparent screen" perfect picture to my desktop every couple of minutes (say 10).

Buggy Buzz Game

2005-03-26T00:00:00-08:00

I saw Movable Type become a penny stock so I had to invest my last 38 dollars on it. I probably hit a boundary condition bug because it says my account now has 200 grand.

I'll wait a day before sending them an email about it. Perhaps it will rectify itself.

If only it were real money.....

Vacation Day 5

2005-03-25T00:00:00-08:00

Spent most of the day cleaning the apartment. Most of the week was spent organizing but today I did cleaning. Vacuumed the apartment sucking up little dust balls that had accumulated in the corners. Those dust balls are gone now! The apartment stills need to be organized some more but I now have a framework to build on. I've paid a large startup cost but the price of maintenance and improvements will be smaller (hopefully!).

I've made lots of progress with Haskell. Large parts of the "Gentle Introduction to Haskell" now make sense to me. Infinite Data Structures still throw me for a loop and it's something I need to revisit.

2 more new recipes under my belt. Marinara sauce and Polenta. That makes it 6 or 7 new recipies I've tried depending on the criteria. Polenta with Marinara sauce is really filling. I was going to make Lentil soup for dinner but was still full from the lunch I had. I'll try to make the Lentil soup with Lamb chops tomorrow. I figure I'll get to at least 8 new recipes. A little short of my goal of 10 but a good accomplishment for me.

Buzz Game

2005-03-25T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Buzz Game: Home.

The Tech Buzz Game is a fantasy prediction market for high-tech products, concepts, and trends

A fun little game where you pick technologies like stock.
My picks:
Javascript
Skype
Mac OS X Tiger
Wordpress
Mac Hardware
Podcasting
Lisp
REST
43 Things
FireFox
Ubuntu
Ruby On Rails
Ruby
Groovy

Vacation Day 4

2005-03-24T00:00:00-08:00

Spent most of the morning at University Village getting items to help me organize the apartment better. I finally picked up a confetti cut shredder. I'm going to spend tonight shredding away a bunch of old receipts, bank statements and other documents. Confetti cut is the best technology available to the consumer. But a determined attacker can still piece together the various bits of confetti. Ideally, I want my shredder to reduce what I feed to it into little pieces of nano particles. Then it burns the nano particles with a nuclear fusion powered incinerator. Afterward it ships my burnt nano particles to a nuclear waste facility. I like to see someone try to reassemble my documents after that process.

I'm going to try and make pasta with marinara sauce today. I've got the list of ingredients in my pocket and I'll make a run to the grocery store later.

I've spent the last 4 days at the Victrola with my PowerBook. The Caffe Ladro is a nicer place to read but the Victrola is better if you want to use your computer cos they have Wifi.

Hackers & Painters

2005-03-24T00:00:00-08:00

Link: O'Reilly Network Safari Bookshelf - Hackers & Painters.

What big companies do instead of implementing features is plan them.
- Paul Graham

All of us had been trained by Kelly Johnson and believed fanatically in his insistence that an airplane that looked beautiful would fly the same way.
- Ben Rich, Skunk Works

I just got done with "Hackers and Painters". If you have not read the essays on PG's website, then this would be a great purchase. There is a good mixture of essays ranging from lisp advocacy, programming language discussions to starting a startup. Most of the essays can be read on his website. There only seem to be minor tweaks in the book. Nothing major.

Two of the strongest essays I've enjoyed are "The Other Road Ahead" and "Taste for Makers". Although TORA starts talking about the web replacing the PC, it goes off to discussing how big companies don't get anything until much later. That notion rings true to me after events from the last couple of months. The PG quote from above was taken from this essay. TFM should be read by people who plan on designing and making things. The entire essay tries to drill various design heuristics into your brain. If you stop and think about it, they make sense especially if put into context of beautifully designed things (for me they were: SR-71, Porsche 911, Armani Suits, Lisp).

Sometimes I'm irked by his elitist attitude (LFM vs LFSP, Python Paradox) but I finally understand why I enjoy Paul Graham's writing. He is a programmer who can write. Or a writer who can program. When I'm reading his essays, there are numerous moments where I go "That's Exactly It!". He writes what I'm thinking subconsciously but not able to express consciously.

Before I forget

2005-03-24T00:00:00-08:00

Go Dawgs!

Update: Darn! The Huskies went down in the sweet 16.

A lean mean paper eating machine

2005-03-24T00:00:00-08:00

Got myself a confetti cut paper shredding machine to replace my old strip cut shredder. The new shredder has higher performance than my older strip cut (8 ppm vs 6ppm). Confetti cut means I’ll sleep better at night and I won’t need to empty the waste basket so often.

The only downside to the new shredder is oiling the machinery regularly.

See more progress on: buy a shredder

Vacation Day 3

2005-03-23T00:00:00-08:00

Woke up earlier even though I went to bed later last night. I browsed the web for a couple of minutes and then went running. Muscles are still a little sore. I don't usually get sore from running. My only explanation is that I don't normally run on concrete. I tend to run on asphalt and other softer surfaces. The concrete is something I need to get used to and be wary of injuries arising from running on it. I ran for the same amount of time but I had to tackle a uphill headwind route this morning. So my quick assessment is that I did better today. It's still too cold for me though. I found it hard to suck down oxygen especially towards the end.

Dinner last night didn't go so bad. Made something in between a stew and porridge with onion, garlic, rosemary, mushrooms, rice and beef stock. Fairly tasty and I have quite a bit leftover. Looks like I'm not cooking anything for dinner today. On the subject of cooking, I've been wondering what else to make this week. Here are some thoughts

Spaghetti with Marinara sauce
Penne with Vodka sauce
Tomatoes stuffed with rice
Lentil soup
Grilled lamb chops

The only one I'm unsure about is the tomatoes stuffed with rice. I'm a little oven phobic but the dish looks pretty straightforward. This is should get me close to my goal of 10 new dishes. I've made 4 new dishes. Another 6 to go. I'll come close to my goal if I don't accomplish it.

"Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age" (Paul Graham) is now available on Safari. I've read most of PG's essays online but there appear to be a few that are exclusive to the book. It should make for a quick enjoyable read over the next couple of days.

Starting hacking on haskell yesterday and today, didn't get too much into it. Fiddled around with the haskell mode on emacs because it wasn't indenting things to my liking.

Done with "Introduction to Haskell"

2005-03-23T00:00:00-08:00

Just got through Introduction to Haskell. It’s a short comprehensive intro to most of the details about Haskell. There are some things in it that messed up Emacs Haskell Mode. Emacs Haskell Mode prefers the “let foo in blah” syntax rather that just “let foo blah”. I didn’t figure this out till the end when I saw the Emacs status bar show me the syntax for let. Other than that, it was a good tutorial to work through. I’m moving on to a “Gentle Introduction to Haskell” which apparently isn’t so gentle but I think I’m adequately prepared now. From there I’ll move on to “Yet Another Haskell Tutorial”.

See more progress on: learn haskell

Vacation Day 2

2005-03-22T00:00:00-08:00

When I woke up this morning, I felt really good. Like an enormous weigh that had been on my chest had been lifted. It was the first time in ages I had slept that well. Interesting what a nice bit of rigorous cardiovascular exercise does to the body and soul. The hamstring and upper back feel a little sore though. Guess I'm not getting any younger. Oh well, we do what we can to fight back the ravages of time :)

I'm still well after the minor disaster in cooking yesterday. The chicken was burning but I wasn't sure the meat had been cooked completely. It looked alright and the fact I'm still standing must mean I didn't mess up too badly. Need to be careful with meat; sometimes it feels like a game of russian roulette. It didn't turn out too badly though. The chicken was only slightly charred but it tasted alright. I need to marinate the meat better to prevent it from burning up so quickly. The balsamic vinegar, olive oil, rosemary marinate (courtesy of the Rachael Ray book) worked well. Next time, instead of using a skillet I might use a grill instead and put some olive oil on the surface in case I didn't marinate properly again.

Watched an episode of "7 Days" and enjoyed it. Wondered why it got cancelled. Probably because it was science fiction. Pity! Spent an hour clearing up the clutter around the house and got rid of a small pile. Couple more piles to go....

Decided to head to the Victrola and get a cup of coffee. Brought the PowerBook to write this entry. The weather in Seattle has been a little schizo the last couple of days. Over the weekend, we been treated to strong winds and torrential rains. I woke up one morning last week and just lay in bed listening to the wind howl outside my window. I thought global climate change (ala Day After Tomorrow) had meant typhoons were coming to Seattle. But when I opened my eyes this morning, I was treated to a burst of sunshine coming through the blinds.

I'm definitely feeling carefree today. In part because I'm on vacation, the nice weather, and the endorphin rush from the run yesterday. I'm hoping it continues for the rest of the week.

The Eyes of Nye

2005-03-22T00:00:00-08:00

Link: The Eyes of Nye. (taken from slashdot)

We were just talking about him the other day when a colleague was firing his Nerf guns at me. My comment "Looks like something Bill Nye the science guy came up with. Wonder what happened to him?" Wonder no more! Looks like his coming back with a new show. KCTS April 5, 8 p.m. Remember to add to my Tivo recording schedule.

Vacation Day 1

2005-03-21T00:00:00-08:00

Today was the first day of my vacation. It's nice to get some breathing room. Didn't get anything done today. Spent too much of the morning lazing about. Got some papers organized and I have a bit more to do tomorrow. Made Rosemary Chicken Breast for dinner but it didn't turn out very well. It was edible though but I'll tell you how I feel tomorrow. The only good thing I did today was run. Pretty pathetic but the first week back is always the toughest.

Ravioli and Salad

2005-03-20T00:00:00-08:00

Ravioli and Salad
Originally uploaded by signal11.

Today's experiment: Brown Butter and Balsamic Ravioli. Tomato and Onion Salad. A couple of mishaps but it tasted alright. Taken from Rachael Ray's "30-Minute Meals Get Togethers".

The tomatoes needed to be seeded but I left the seeds in. Made the salad a little watery. I need to cut the tomatoes chunks a little smaller. The salad was easy to make and quite tasty, I can see myself making the salad on a regular basis. I put too much balsamic vinegar into the ravioli by mistake. I really should measure stuff out into a cup before pouring it into the dish. Buying prepared ravioli made this dish much easier.

I'm quite happy with today's results. There was a chicken dish that was supposed to go with the ravioli and salad. But I felt lazy. I'll try the chicken dish tomorrow.

Half Your Age Plus Seven

2005-03-20T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Lura.net - Half Your Age Plus Seven.

Finally some evidence for this rule of thumb!

Wild Mushroom Risotto with Peas

2005-03-19T00:00:00-08:00

Wild Mushroom Risotto with Peas
Originally uploaded by signal11.

The first recipe I tried from my new cookbook. Turned out well if I say so myself. I had to make a couple of modifications. I substituted the 1/2 stick of butter in the recipe for olive oil (I ran out of butter). That didn't seem to affect the dish at all. In fact, probably made the dish a little healthier. The next time I try this dish though, I need to find some reduced sodium chicken broth as the chicken broth I used made the dish a little salty.

Resume Updated!

2005-03-19T00:00:00-08:00

It’s one of those things you should do on a regular basis, say once every 6 months, even if you aren’t looking for a job.

Doing this has helped me take stock of my professional standing and where I’m in my career. The subject of which is another blog entry.

See more progress on: update my resume

Becoming an Evil Overlord

2005-03-19T00:00:00-08:00

Feeling like a career change? Want to rule the universe? Then learn what to do in Peter's Evil Overlord List.

In here, you'll receive helpful tips like:

9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.

As an Evil Overlord myself, my personal favorites include:

4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

At this point I should laugh manically, but that wouldn't be following the list. Hah!

Everyday Italian

2005-03-19T00:00:00-08:00

My new cookbook
Originally uploaded by signal11.

My copy of "Everyday Italian" arrived yesterday. I've looked through it and there are some recipes I'm going to try while I'm on vacation. Of course, the book has many shots of the beautiful Giada De Laurentiis. Some of the reviews on Amazon have complained about this, wishing that there were more photos of the finished dishes.

But I'm not complaining!

ArkLinux - Ark Linux 2005.1 released

2005-03-19T00:00:00-08:00

Link: ArkLinux - Ark Linux 2005.1 released.

Another brand new Linux distribution worth investigating. I'm really hurting for no longer having an X86 box to work with. It feels like we've reached a new age of Linux distributions (almost like the third generation from when I started). Almost all of these new generation Linux distributions offer LiveCDs, easier installations and more polished GUIs (for better or worse).

10 PL Challenges for 2005 (Revised)

2005-03-18T00:00:00-08:00

Decided to revise my PL challenges for 2005 considering that a quarter of the year is now gone. I've picked up bits and pieces of various programming languages over the last 3 months and now it's time to re-evaluate what I want to learn.

I'm dropping Self for now. IO and Self are very similar to each other. They are both prototype based languages. This class of language is new to me and I only have the bandwidth to process one of these languages. IO is being actively developed and that is my primary reason for sticking with it.

I'm dropping OCaml. I've found a nice set of material that I want to explore with Haskell (Darcs, Pugs, The Fun of Programming, GHC 6.4). Haskell also seems to be a better language to start understanding the strongly typed functional programming languages.

I'm dropping Groovy for the Java environment. The Java environment has a rich set of languages and tools I think is worthwhile exploring. I've discussed this in another blog entry.

I have a renewed interested in (re)learing Ruby after checking out 43Things and Basecamp. Both of these websites use the RubyOnRails framework which might be the killer app for the Ruby language. I want to (re)learn Python because I attended a talk by Guido this year and there are some cool new features in it that I want to explore (list comprehension and generators).

AppleScript is new to the list. This is closely tied to my goal for learning Objective C (but really the Cocoa framework). I want to program my PowerBook. For too long, I've depended on my knowledge of Unix to script my Mac. It's time I went to the next level of scripting my Mac. This means AppleScript. JavaScript could also work for this purpose. AppleScript is the standard on all Macs and that is the trumping factor over JavaScript.

C# is also new to the list. Java has the JCP but there are no open source implementations of the virtual machine or the compiler. This is not true for C#. Mono provides this open source implementation. For that, I'm putting it on the list.

Erlang is still on the list although I've not looked at it yet. There is a large amount of material dealing with concurrent programming using Erlang. It's this aspect I hope to explore more this year.

The list now stands as follows:
0. Ruby
1. Objective C
2. Java Environment
3. Haskell
4. Lisp
5. Io
6. Erlang
7. Python
8. AppleScript
9. C#

Just get it done

2005-03-17T00:00:00-08:00

I admit I took the easy way out and got somebody to do it for me. I still got it done though and I have a refund to show for it.

Remember 29 days till April 15.

See more progress on: do my taxes

Feather Linux

2005-03-17T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Feather Linux - About.

Feather Linux is a Linux distribution which runs completely off a CD or a USB pendrive and takes up under 115Mb of space. It is a Knoppix remaster (based on Debian), and tries to include software which most people would use every day on their desktop.

I guess the question for me is: "Would my iPod Shuffle be running Linux if I installed Feather on it?"

Sounds like an interesting project to pursue.... But it might be too geeky even for me.

The Semantic Web

2005-03-17T00:00:00-08:00

When I graduated from college a couple of years ago, there was this buzzing in academic circles of a semantic web. The world wide web had been about information exchange between people. The semantic web was going to take a step further and allow information exchange between machines.
From the wikipedia entry:

Semantic Web is a project that intends to create a universal medium for information exchange by giving meaning (semantics), in a manner understandable by machines, to the content of documents on the Web.

The interesting thing is for the last month or so, I've been using the semantic web. Flickr, del.icio.us and 43Things support the use of tags. Tags are really a loosely defined format for describing a piece of data (i.e. semantics!). RSS/Atom and Aggregators are another good example.

None of this really clicked in my head until I read this presentation eTech/2004/realworldsemantics. It's from last year's Emerging Tech Conference (Darn! Have I become that outdated? It only takes me a year to learn about these things). The 2005 Emerging Tech Conference (going on right now) seems to be continuing this thread. Maybe I'll go for the 2006 conference so I won't feel so out of date in 2007.

At the very least, I can say I've heard Rael's talk. It was a interesting presentation describing people "remixing" products to use in new and interesting ways. His weblog makes for pretty interesting reading too.

MSNBC - Photos for the Masses

2005-03-16T00:00:00-08:00

Link: MSNBC - Photos for the Masses .

An article featured on slashdot a couple of days ago talking about online photo-sharing sites. Photo sharing sites have been around for a couple of years. In the past, I've tried to use dotmac and
typepad to fulfill my need for publishing photos online. I wasn't entirely satisfied with either of those two solutions. The limited amount of space that they give you (~200MB) made you think about what you had to delete. Not good especially if you link to your photos off a weblog. That's what appealed to me about flickr.

1) They don't cap my storage space. Only your upload bandwidth is capped. With the pro account I purchased, my cap is at a gig. For me that's an infinite amount of space for a month. I might hit that limit when I'm on vacation and have lots of photos taken but most of the time "no way!"

2) They don't delete photos if I choose not to continue as a pro subscriber (with a slight catch). From their FAQ:

Imagine you have uploaded 350 photos in a free trial Pro Account frenzy! Your Pro Account expires...now you (and other viewers of your photostream) will only see the most recent 100 photos you published, even though all 350 of those photos will remain on our servers.

If you save the URLs of your previously-uploaded (before 100) photos and your extra photosets, you will be able to have access to these by plugging in the URL into your browser. The catch is that you need to login every 45 days.

Oh well free is free.

3) The photo viewing app is one of the best flash applications out there. It justifies the existence of flash. If you don't have flash enabled on your browser, you get a normal photo. But enabling flash on the browser is worth it for flickr.

The MSNBC article mentions some of the alternatives to flickr and try them if you're interested. I think flickr is the best one out there but don't take my word for it.

My flickr page is here.

博客中国：科技·新知·生活 Blog in China

2005-03-16T00:00:00-08:00

Link: 博客中国：科技·新知·生活 Blog in China.

I wish my mandarin was better. Pithy.... I'll struggle with a dictionary in my hand and read mandarin blogs. This should become a 43thing: "Improve mandarin by reading blogs".

Blogging is good for you

2005-03-15T00:00:00-08:00

Link: ongoing · It’s Not Dangerous.

One of the better articles highlighting the benefits of blogging. I thought while I'm at it I'll include a ole goody 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web.

There have been articles in the mainstream media lately talking about how blogging can get you fired from your job. Reading those articles, I thought the issue had been overblown. The people interviewed had done really stupid things. It's the reasonable person principle applied to blogging: Don't reveal more than is appropriate (literally and figuratively). Especially in the public forum of the world wide web where figuring out who you are is a google search away.

Knoppix 3.8 is out there

2005-03-15T00:00:00-08:00

Looks like the Knoppix 3.8 ISO is available now.

I downloaded my torrent file from here: BNBT Tracker Info

Enjoy!

Update: Looks like the ISO is the German language version. Not that useful for me since I don't know German although that is one of my 43things.

Update 2: From Rick and some googling, at the boot prompt, type "knoppix lang=us" i.e. "boot: knoppix lang=us". To get the = sign, you need to use "shift-0".

The Seattle Times: Dot-Con job

2005-03-14T00:00:00-08:00

Link: The Seattle Times: Dot-Con job.

A tragedy of the dot-com crash.

Shirky: In Praise of Evolvable Systems

2005-03-14T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Shirky: In Praise of Evolvable Systems.

Another essay in the spirit of Worse is Better.

Happy π Day!

2005-03-14T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Pi Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Darn! Almost forgot about it.

Update: Apparently today is also this.

A Perl6 Preview

2005-03-14T00:00:00-08:00

I’m excited about the impending Perl6 release (in 2007!) and Pugs has given me an opportunity to preview Perl6. I suspect that Pugs will take on a life of it’s own even with the release of a Perl6. I used Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials as my guide through this journey but on hindsight the synopses and example code were sufficient. In fact, the synopses were better than the book as they are more up to date and the Pugs people are coding to the synopses.

What in Perl6 appeals to me right now? (Or what I wish was in Perl today). Mostly it’s the way Perl6 is going to handle function arguments (coming from a C background, Perl’s argument passing has always weirded me out)

Formal parameters are the biggest win for me. I can now name the parameters I pass to my Perl6 subroutines. The use of @_ is now a special case.

Arrays and hashes won’t be flattened by default. Array/ArrayRefs are passed transparently to functions as arrays. Same with hashes. To get the Perl behaviour, I believe that is what the asterisk * operator is for. (And no, asterick doesn’t mean typeglob, it looks like typeglobs have been removed from the language). I read this in the book but haven’t tried it with Pugs yet.

multi subs are cool especially after you’ve worked with Haskell pattern matching. Pugs does something very similar (checkout the fp.p6 example file).

Lots of cool stuff to play with (“say”, junctions, Haskell implementation) but that’s all the time I have to try Pugs for now.

See more progress on: try pugs

Snolquamie Falls

2005-03-13T00:00:00-08:00

Snolquamie Falls

15 miles east of Bellevue. Not too far away. If the weather stays nice, this is something that can be done in April/May.

See more progress on: plan great summer weekends

Putting stuff into a system

2005-03-13T00:00:00-08:00

The one thing that put me off GTD initially, was the fact that there was a “system” that needs to be put into place. I’ve tried it yesterday, after buying the necessary equipment from office depot, and found that it wasn’t overly onerous. It was quite liberating actually. You point to a stack and say “be gone”. You grab a handful of manilla folders and your labeler and get to work on a stack. Within minutes, the stack is reduced to no more. Things are a little more organized in my apartment. There is a stack of things in my inbox but at least I know how to deal with it. In fact, it’s helping me unpack the last few boxes from the move.

I can’t say enough about getting a good labeler. I didn’t see the point of one at the start. Clarity of printed text is the only concrete advantage over hand written text. But having the labeler made it “fun” to organize things. Maybe it’s the novelty factor or maybe it’s the formality of typing text. I’m not sure. I got the Brother PT-1950. It was pricey but it came with an AC adapter (the main requirement). With other models, the AC adapter was an extra 20 dollars. Expect a good labeler (with an AC adapter) to cost you at least 70 dollars.

The file cabinet arrives Tuesday. For this weekend, I made do with some cardboard boxes and I’m transferring stuff to the file cabinet when it arrives. The book recommends manilla folders over hanging folders. I don’t see the advantage of one over the other (especially with the cardboard boxes). This may not be true with a proper file cabinet where manilla folders feel faster to work with. For archiving files, I think hanging folders are a big win if you want to use cheap bulk cardboard boxes. You want to keep them around but don’t need fast access to them. Like the memory hierarchy in computer organization.

I’m about a third of the way done. Hopefully I can keep up the pressure and have everything squared away by next weekend. Just in time to take my vacation too.

See more progress on: get things done

Northwest Trek

2005-03-13T00:00:00-08:00

Northwest Trek

This might be interesting. It’s slightly more than halfway between Seattle and Mt Rainier. The main attraction is the wildlife that you can see.

See more progress on: plan great summer weekends

In response to a question....

2005-03-12T00:00:00-08:00

I am Hannibal

Cool and dangerous Hannibal is a soldier for life. He was a well respected colonel in Vietnam who was forced to hide in the underground after being charged for a crime he didn't commit. The leader of the A-Team, Hannibal is a crafty tactician and as he always said "I love it when a plan comes together."

Which A-Team member are you???

Drop off

2005-03-12T00:00:00-08:00

I finally got around to dropping my form off at H&R block. They looked at it really quickly and said I need to bring in some additional statements.

That means I need to start organizing my various papers laying about in stacks around my apartment.

See more progress on: do my taxes

Getting started with "Getting Things Done"

2005-03-12T00:00:00-08:00

Link: 43 Folders: Getting started with "Getting Things Done".

I'm on my way. I picked up a hipster PDA yesterday. I'm headed to Office Despot again today to look at filing cabinets. Just browsing online, it looks like the Crate & Barrel one isn't that expensive. Most of the two drawer filing cabinets cost about ~$130.

A bunch of other supplies also need to be picked up today. An index card holder as a inbox, a labeller, manilla folders, a new file tote for archival storage.

ThermaPAK

2005-03-11T00:00:00-08:00

Link: ThermaPAK.

With CPUs getting hotter and hotter, I'm glad someone came out with this product. I don't want to get 3rd degree burns to vital parts because my CPU is hot enough to fry stuff with.

Sun Microsystems Contrarian Minds: Guy Steele

2005-03-11T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Sun Microsystems Contrarian Minds: Guy Steele.

"I'm now not convinced that a single programming language can serve everyone's needs, because the needs are so diverse."
- Guy Steele

I was reading this month DDJ and saw that they had awarded Guy Steele the 2005 Excellence In Programming Award. Guy has worked on many of languages I've used: C, Java, Scheme, Lisp. One of my favorite programming books has Steele as a coauthor:

"C: A Reference Manual (5th Edition)" (Samuel P. Harbison, Guy L. Steele)

I used an earlier version of this book to learn C 8 years ago favoring it over the universal favorite K&R. He is also the primary author of Common Lisp: The Language. He had a hand in R5RS (which is one of the nicest language definitions to read) and the Java Language Specification.

He is now working on a new language Fortress. I've googled for it but there isn't much available. I'm looking forward to seeing what new ideas it will have. I have a feeling it is a language I will use in the future.

Ubuntu Linux Screenshot

2005-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

Ubuntu Linux Screenshot
Originally uploaded by signal11.

Woo Hoo!!!

I got Ubuntu Linux running on my old powerbook. The only tricky bit was getting the ISO image I downloaded yesterday burnt onto a CD. From various comments I read on the forum, the standard Apple Disk Utility does not work with the Ubuntu Linux PPC LiveCD ISO image. Initially I thought it was a bad image. To get around this, I used the cdrecord package from fink to burn the ISO image.

sudo cdrecord dev=IODVDServices hoary-live-powerpc.iso

Once I burnt the image, the other interesting challenge I faced was booting the powerbook from the CDROM. I googled for it and found out that when you restart hold down on the "C" key. That is the letter C and NOT the Control key. I made the mistake the first time of holding down the Control key.

Finally I heard my CDROM rumbling away as it tried to boot from it. Lots of console messages went by until it started up X and dumped me in front of GNOME. Screen resolution was 640x480 which made it look terrible (I guess it didn't detect my LCD correctly) and I couldn't find any application that would allow me to reconfigure my display.

Network connectivity was available. I opened up Firefox and was able to browse the web. I even took a screenshot and uploaded the image to Flickr. I played around with the shell and poked at the various menu choices (games, OpenOffice ...)

Performance was spiffy. The system was much more responsive than when I'm running OS X. To be fair though, OS X does run more processes in the background.

Overall, it was a good first impression. I need to figure out how to get the screen resolution fixed but other than that no major issues. The new question I have is whether I can install Ubuntu onto a firewire drive and run Linux off that. Being able to dual boot Linux and Mac OS X would be awesome. It would allow me to start using Linux around the house again.

New Interesting Books

2005-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

Two new interesting books are now available. The shipping time for them seems a little long. Must be popular reading at the moment.

"Higher-Order Perl: Transforming Programs with Programs" (Mark Jason Dominus)

A friend mentioned that this was a Perl book he was looking forward to reading. I've not thought of Perl as a functional programming language. It's ugliness as a language tend to muddy those aspects of it. At some point, I'm reading this book to see how functional programming is colored through a pair of Perl colored glasses.

"Java In A Nutshell (In a Nutshell)" (David Flanagan)

The 5th edition of this classic book. I learnt to program Java using the 1st/2nd? edition of this book. Looks like I'll use this to learn the new language features in Java 1.5. Also, It's now 1000 friggin pages long. How bloated has Java gotten??? :) From Amazon's product description, it looks like the girth of the book is due to the coverage of the tools and frameworks supporting Java. That's the right thing to do because the tools and frameworks are the most important part of the platform. I hope they cover some of what I want to look at.

Looking forward to reading both of these books...

How to Start a Startup

2005-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

I just found Paul Graham's new essay: How to Start a Startup. As always, it makes for thought provoking reading.

I thought one of his footnotes was kind of interesting:

[3] Learning to hack is a lot cheaper than business school, because you can do it mostly on your own. For the price of a Linux box, a copy of K&R, and a few hours of advice from your neighbor's fifteen year old son, you'll be well on your way.

Huh? Who would have thought.... I guess those "Learn X in Y (Hours|Days|Weeks|Months)" books might be worth reading after all.

Top Corporate Hate Websites

2005-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Forbes.com - Top Corporate Hate Web Sites.

Found this off Metafilter.

Lots of justifiably crappy products and services out there. Personally UPS (and delivery companies in general) have garnered my personal ire with their inability to deliver packages on a schedule that works for me. The convenience of buying stuff online is offset by the inconvenience of waiting at home for a package.

Dos Pesos taking a bath

2005-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

Dos Pesos taking a bath
Originally uploaded by Stewart.

Awwwwww........

despair

2005-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

despair,
originally uploaded by kreet.

If you're thinking of getting a dog/cat, consider going to your local animal shelter and getting one there. Your local shelter will appreciate it and I'm sure your new pet will too.

There is something to be said about our own humanity when we treat animals kindly. (I'm paraphrasing someone badly)

Don't be cruel to animals!

arch is complex

2005-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

Just got done with the 1st half of this tutorial. Wow!

Arch might be the most sophisticated open source version control software out there. It definitely has an extra level of complexity to it (vs CVS, SVN, Darcs). The closest competitor to it might be Perforce. Arch supports branches, changesets, patches, distributed repositories plus loads of other features I'm not sure how to categorize. Arch definitely feels like the complexity is there to deal with large scale distributed development work e.g. Linux.

Where SVN is a natural evolution of CVS, Arch is the revolutionary branch in the world of open source version control. Of the three I've tried, Darcs feels the most usable for a single user/small group, SVN if you want CVS with less quirks and Arch is the super scalable version control software.

I'll keep playing with Arch using the repository I've setup. I have a feeling though that Darcs will be my choice for a personal version control system.

See more progress on: try arch

Idea Tools

2005-03-09T00:00:00-08:00

I've found another "idea development environment" yesterday. This one is called Curio. Another one I found a month back was Spring. The one I use personally is Tinderbox.

Though Spring and Tinderbox don't bill themselves as "idea development environments", they all essentially serve the same purpose. Applications that allow arbitrary data be stored and organized on some canvas.

Sadly the most useful place for any of these tools is in the office, where we don't use Macs. Eventually I hope to use these tools with "Getting Things Done". Curio, Spring and Tinderbox seem ready made for these purposes (in fact Tinderbox has a GTD template already).

The Hoary Hedgehog

2005-03-09T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog).

I wanted to try Linux at home on my PowerBook and was disappointed that Knoppix didn't have a Live PPC CD. Well I've discovered that Ubuntu does!

As we speak, I'm downloading it right now.... Another 450 megs to go!

I want this!

2005-03-09T00:00:00-08:00

I need to get a Hipster PDA.

Time to make a trip to Office Despot.

See more progress on: get things done

A Counting Problem

2005-03-09T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Movie 15.

Count the number of times the people in white t-shirts pass the ball to one another.

Read on for the answer.

Scroll Down 30 Lines For The Answer:

Did you notice the gorilla?

Bad Ubuntu Image

2005-03-09T00:00:00-08:00

I've tried burning the Ubuntu Linux image and it keeps killing DiskUtility. I guess I won't be trying out Linux on my PowerBook.

<sigh>

10 things to accomplish this goal

2005-03-09T00:00:00-08:00

1. Java gets Generics! Java 1.5
2. Learn to use an IDE Eclipse
3. More testing needed JUnit + MockObjects
4. AOP is cool AspectJ / Aspectwerkz
5. Yet another application framework Spring
6. O/R mapping tool Hibernate
7. Measuring with Hyades
8. Building languages for the JVM with ANTLR + BCEL
9. Building Java code with Ant + CruiseControl
10. Automating busy work with XDoclet
11. Scripting Java with BSF Languages

Whadda ya know! A one off error.

See more progress on: improve my java-fu

Mind if I haskell you?

2005-03-08T00:00:00-08:00

Something about Haskell has always appealed to me more than it’s cousin ML or OCaml. I’ve always wanted to learn a strongly typed functional programming language since we never covered that category in my programming language class. For the longest time, I couldn’t find a decent tutorial on the internet. Recently I’ve found two. A short introduction is Introduction to Haskell. It goes over one comprehensive example, covering the main points of the language (though it glosses over the issue of layout). Yet Another Haskell Tutorial by Hal Daume is the most comprehensive tutorial I’ve found online. It’s also fairly easy to read.

I’ve supplemented the online reading with some books. The Haskell School of Expression isn’t great but used ones are fairly cheap. A good one I’ve found is The Fun of Programming (on loan to me). This one isn’t an introductory book, it states that you already know the Haskell language. I’ve managed to work through it fairly well but I’m constantly look up Hal’s tutorial to understand things. The examples in this book are fun! fun! fun! covering a range of topics from esoteric to practical.

See more progress on: learn haskell

Giving a damn about customers...

2005-03-08T00:00:00-08:00

I found the Creating Passionate Users blog by way of this link: Giving a damn about customers...
Interesting reading considering I just finished doing my performance reviews.

I'm tempted to get a book of theirs.

They have a couple of other books (JSP,EJB, Java) but the Design Patterns one looked the most intriguing. My friend Alice recommends them highly. I just feel like buying it because they have a wickedly smart website that I like to read more of their stuff.

Impulse Buy! Canon SD110

2005-03-08T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Amazon.com: Electronics: Canon PowerShot SD110 3MP Digital Elph with 2x Optical Zoom.
A total impulse buy by me. We have to ask Amazon to stop selling such small electronic gadgets below my control threshold. They start to add up after awhile. <grrr>

Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple

2005-03-07T00:00:00-08:00

I think I’ll start with these 3 lectures given by Hans Bethe.

See more progress on: understand modern physics

Practical Common Lisp

2005-03-07T00:00:00-08:00

I’ve used ANSI Common Lisp in the past to learn lisp. It’s a great reference but the examples (except for the one where you build an OO language) never appealed to me.

I’ve started reading Peter Siebel’s new book online and the first example (a simple database) has made lots of stuff fall into place. I understood Lisp but never understood the context in which to apply stuff. I’m getting the hardcover version of Practical Common Lisp when it comes out in April. I still like ACL for a reference but PCL’s examples can’t be beat.

Kudos to SLIME too. A good, easy to install LISP IDE that I don’t have to shell cash out for. Plus it worked with all the CL implementations (SBCL, CLISP, OpenMCL) I’ve tried. Used it to try the example in PCL and it made things much more fun!

See more progress on: Learn Lisp

One week +/- a day with the Shuffle

2005-03-07T00:00:00-08:00

The shuffle is a nice little toy though it has a couple of quirks. The most annoying one is how it deals with audio books. The location of where it put bookmarks after you sync strikes me as slightly non-deterministic. Sometimes it remembers where I'm and other times it puts me in odd locations.

I found an apple knowledge base article describing how to play audio books but the behavior of the shuffle doesn't match what I read.

The back button on the shuffle is irritating especially if you have audio books. The back button is overloaded. 1 click = go to beginning of track. 2 clicks = go to start of the previous song. Don't double click in time = back to the beginning of the audio book for you.

I'll need a file cabinet

2005-03-07T00:00:00-08:00

For the home office, I'm thinking of getting the quartz rolling file cabinet. It is a little pricey but

it does what the book describes
i have the desk part of the set

There is also the quartz lateral file cabinet which is way over my budget even if it matches my desk set.

The rolling cabinet will be next to my desk where I do all my work. That's where most paperwork (99%) should go. I'll keep some cheaper plastic cabinets for storing archival stuff in my store room (since nobody ever sees those).

The other great thing about the rolling cabinet is that I'll finally have place to put stationary in my apartment. I've been lacking in that department since I've moved. Jars with stationary is cluttering up my desk.

See more progress on: get things done

Pugs = Perl6

2005-03-06T00:00:00-08:00

I attended a talk given by Damian Conway a couple of years ago where he talked about Perl 6. Everybody in the room was glued to his every word. He sketched out the really grand ideas for Perl 6 and lots of brilliant design ideas. It looked like they were stealing the very best programming language ideas out there and modifying it to fit into the Perl culture.

Since then things have quietened down. I gave it another look late last night and saw that there was this cool new project Pugs. Essentially a very talented Perl hacker has been working for the last month to implement the full Perl6 specifications in Haskell (Pugs is a play on Hugs).

I’m pretty excited to try it out. Perl is one of those languages I have a love/hate relationship with. You can do some amazing things with it but you have to deal with the ugliness it’s flexibility gives.

See more progress on: try pugs

gnu arch

2005-03-06T00:00:00-08:00

It appears that GNU arch has very similar goals to darcs. Might be worthwhile to give it a try. That way I’ve would have tried most of the next generation version control software, subversion, darcs and arch.

See more progress on: try arch

Chapter 4 is slow going

2005-03-06T00:00:00-08:00

Coding and communication theory is going slow. I’m about half way through the chapter (it’s a long chapter though) after having spent 2 – 3 hours on it (including rereading a section here and there). The first 3 chapters I just breezed by but chapter 4 is a challenging read. I need a notepad to read chapter 4 so that I can work out Feynman’s proofs for myself. Trying to read it on my couch is not going to work for this chapter.

See more progress on: finish feynman lectures on computation

installed it, using it and loving it

2005-03-05T00:00:00-08:00

Welcome to a revolution in version control!

Installation on my Mac was straightforward. I have a standard Panther installation with Fink and Xcode. To get darcs compiled, I used the ghc, ghc-dev fink packages. I got some error messages with gmp and readline which was promptly fixed by installing those fink packages. ./configure—prefix=~/root ; make ; make install ; and you’re done.

Why do I think it’s so great?

Straightforward to install

Distributed repositories rock for people whose primary machine is a notebook

Simple repository setup (just “darcs initialize” a directory baby!) makes it easy to version control anything

Free software GPL-ed

Written in Haskell and a Theory of Patches, just too geeky!

I’m not the only person with similar thoughts.

See more progress on: use darcs

good piece of software

2005-03-05T00:00:00-08:00

I’ve tried it and it’s a good piece of software. For $17.95 I wouldn’t be out too much. The alternative solution is using Firefox. You can post rich text to TypePad with Firefox but not with OmniWeb/Safari. That is 80% of what I want to do.

I’m leaning towards not paying for it and saving money for a RAM upgrade to run both Firefox and OmniWeb at the same time.

It is a good piece of software. I definitely understand why people like it. It just doesn’t suit my needs.

See more progress on: try ecto

Once more with Flickr

2005-03-04T00:00:00-08:00

Panorama Point
Originally uploaded by signal11.

Alright if you view the photo again, you'll see that I've added 2 notes to it. How do you add notes to a photo you might ask? The most obvious way: you highlight the region, type your note and click save. What does Flickr do? Exactly that.
When you view the photo and put your mouse over the photo, the regions I marked with notes will appear. When you mouse over the region, the note appears.

Update: I see how they did it. They used Flash to allow notes be added to photos. I thought they had used Javascript Ala Google Maps. Not nearly as cool but still useful nonetheless.

Linus and Alan

2005-03-04T00:00:00-08:00

Two great interviews I found this week.
One is with Linus Torvalds. The other is with Alan Cox.

Experimenting with Flickr

2005-03-04T00:00:00-08:00

Panorama Point
Originally uploaded by signal11.

Flickr is cool. I like TypePad but for posting photos Flickr seems to be the much better tool. With the paid Pro package, Flickr is extremely generous with storage *ahem*unlimited*ahem*. The trick is that you have a 1GB monthly cap of photos you can upload. I'm experimenting to see if I should upgrade to the paid service.

I'm sure Picassa is a nice tool but I prefer tools that can run in my browser.

WAL

2005-03-03T00:00:00-08:00

German Courses

WAL has a 5 week german class that I could take. Looks like a fairly intensive class but sufficient for my needs. It is in Pioneer Square, around the corner from my workplace.

Ask shunpiker about his experiences with WAL.

See more progress on: learn german

Posting with Ecto

2005-03-03T00:00:00-08:00

The 1st issue of Make mentions Ecto favorably. Decided to give it a try. The interface seems fairly complex but not overly so.

It comes with a 2 week trial so that's what I'll do.

PC of the Future

2005-03-03T00:00:00-08:00

For some reason, the PC of the Future looks oddly familiar (almost like I've seen it before).

<KeanuReevesVoice>
Woaaaa! Deja Vu
</KeanuReevesVoice>

Link: Intel shows off Mac Mini-like concept PC | CNET News.com.

Boo Scala

2005-03-03T00:00:00-08:00

I spent the last couple of days looking at Scala. They are developing some nice ideas with that language of theirs. It reminds me slightly of Haskell and OCaml with it’s typing system. Strangly it feels less restrictive than I imagined it would be. The other nice thing: well written documentation is available on the site. I’ve enjoyed working through the tutorial they’ve supplied (plus it’s only 14 pages long). Super cool….

Boo is another JVM language that has been on my horizon. Python syntax with some interesting extensions (i.e. static typing, type inference).

See more progress on: improve my java-fu

Donna Italiana Bella

2005-03-03T00:00:00-08:00

Link: Amazon.com : Ciao, Bella!.

The title is a translation of "beautiful italian woman" as given by translate.google.com. As the French would say, "pardone my italian!"

An interview with Giada De Laurentiis on Amazon.com promoting her new book, Everyday Italian. Coincidentally that is also the name of her show on the Food Network.

And because I can't get enough Giada, how bout another picture?

A beautiful woman who can cook! What are the odds of that? A guy can always dream :)

<sigh>

Can anyone tell that spring is in the air?

Update: According to a friend, "Donna Italiana" would have been sufficient. Google gave too literal a translation.

read german

2005-03-02T00:00:00-08:00

2 reasons for learning German

1) I can’t read the article about Knoppix I just posted to my blog. It’s in German.

2) I want to go to the world cup in germany next year. Having some knowledge of the language could be useful in navigating about the country.

See more progress on: learn german

my copy has arrived

2005-03-02T00:00:00-08:00

My copy of the book arrived yesterday. I spent five minutes flipping through it, trying to find “little tricks” I could use immediately. The overall system is nice, it fits nicely into a flowchart that Allen includes in the book. A lot of material is in support of the basic algorithm, which is very straight forward.

The little trick I found was project work. Projects are stuff that might take multiple actions to accomplish. Projects are too big to think about. Rather we should be thinking about next actions to bring us closer to finishing projects.

See more progress on: get things done

Knoppix 3.8 playing on a computer soon

2005-03-02T00:00:00-08:00

Link: heise online -
CeBIT special -
Knoppix 3.8 kommt zur CeBIT.

Saw this on slashdot this morning. Looks like the next version of Knoppix is going to be running a 2.6 kernel. My limited experience with knoppix has impressed me tremendously and I'm looking forward to trying out the new version.

Update: Article in English.

Darn It!

2005-03-02T00:00:00-08:00

The small little cap Apple provides to protect the iPod Shuffle USB port. I've lost it. Something that small was bound to go missing. At least I still have the cap with the attached lanyard. That one is less likely to go missing. I hope.

Apple doesn't sell either piece as a replacement part. Once you lost it, you've lost it.

can't be done

2005-03-02T00:00:00-08:00

There’s no 43 on the roulette wheel. :(

See more progress on: put 10 grand on 43 at the roulette wheel in Vegas

one less clutter pile

2005-03-01T00:00:00-08:00

I moved into my new place 5 months ago and got various pieces of new furniture. As it turned out, I didn’t get all my measurements right or the furniture required tools that I didn’t have. Needless to say there were some boxes containing parts. For the last 4 months, they’ve been blocking 20% of the door to the kitchen. Well I got that cleared out on Sunday. With the help of a friend, I moved all the boxes to my storage locker. The next action is to unpack the last 3 + 1? boxes. The kitchen stuff should be easy to do but I have a box of office supplies that has proved tricky to unpack because I have no place to put them anymore. Maybe I’ll put them in the kitchen… Hmmm….

See more progress on: get rid of my clutter

2nd thoughts about iPod Shuffle

2005-03-01T00:00:00-08:00

I used the Shuffle today and had more thoughts about it.

- I should have gotten the half gig version of the shuffle. 1 gig is more space than I need for the shuffle's intended purpose. Getting the half gig model + the USB power adapter + the sports case maybe a better deal.

- The USB power adapter might be unnecessary. I've just plugged in my shuffle and it is already fully charged. If you don't drain it down completely, it goes to full charge rather quickly.

- The software seems buggy especially with audio books. Twice over the weekend when I plugged in the shuffle without the external firewire drive (which holds my iTunes library) my shuffle wiped itself clean. This also happens with music files but some of them don't get deleted. I'm not entirely show why it does this. Also my spot in the audiobook keeps getting reset to the beginning or to the spot when I synced it with iTunes.

Optimus Prime Dies of Prostate Cancer

2005-02-28T00:00:00-08:00

Link: National Prostate Cancer Coalition (NPCC).

Darn! I guess I should take better care of myself... If a rock like Prime can bite the dust, we are all vunerable.

1st thoughts about the iPod Shuffle

2005-02-28T00:00:00-08:00

I finally broke down and bought the 1GB iPod Shuffle on Saturday. I went down to the apple store and picked it up. The store was just packed with people browsing and trying out the various apple products. The demand for the shuffle just seems amazing to me. Most of the people in line were waiting to pay for their shuffle. BTW both days I was at the Victrola last week, the number of apple notebook users dwarfed the pc notebook users 5 to 1. It's almost like in my little corner of the world, the greater than 90% marketshare of PCs doesn't seem to exist.

But onto talking about the iPod Shuffle.

Where does the iPod shuffle fit into my life? I have a regular 40GB iPod which works great when I'm at home or at the office. At home it drives my "home stereo system" which is just it and a set of Altec Lansing InMotion speakers. At work, I combine the iPod with pair of Bose QuietComfort 2. The noise cancelling Bose headphones are comfortable and do an excellent job of quieting down the office environment for me.

In most other situations, I find the regular iPod too cumbersome to bring around. The iPod is extremely portable but it doesn't fall into the category of "don't even think about" portable. I went to the Cafe Ladro this afternoon with my book and shuffle and was just able to use it. Perhaps my problem with the regular iPod is that I tend to fiddle around with the screen while the shuffle doesn't give me that flexibility. You just play it and go.

I've tried to bring the regular iPod to the gym or running and it's never worked out for me. This upcoming season, I hope to use it when I'm training.

Some thoughts I had on improving the use of the shuffle.
- If your primary computer is a notebook (hence not being on the whole day), the USB Power Adapter is a must have accessory. Otherwise you can't charge the shuffle while you're away at work and your notebook is at home sleeping. It would be nice if Apple added the capability for notebooks to charge peripherals whilst they are sleeping.
- The sports case may be useful depending on your weather patterns. The smaller size and supplied lanyard makes it more suitable for athletics than it's bigger cousins. But the sports case makes it weatherproof. Makes sense to have one in Seattle with our rainy weather.
- It takes about 8 - 10 minutes to "refill" the 1GB Shuffle. Keep that in mind when you want to leave the house and have a refilled shuffle with you. It's longer than I like especially for a device where you're supposed to "refill" it regularly. Plus the constant overwriting of the storage media, I'm concerned how that impacts the lifetime of the device (good thing they're priced fairly low, but still...)
- Enable the option in iTunes to show the shuffle on the sources list. iTunes will keeps a list of what is on the shuffle even when it is not plugged in. This allows you to work on the shuffle playlist when the shuffle is not plugged in. When you plug it in, the shuffle is updated with the new songs.

The one thing that irritates me about the Shuffle. I would like to have both audiobooks and music on it. More generally, having two playlists on the shuffle rather than 1 playlist. Clicking a switch on it would allow me to play playlist 1 or 2. Within the two playlists, I could choose to play them in normal or shuffle order. That way when I walk to work, I can pick my audiobook playlist. When I run, I can use the music playlist. Storage remains the same but you can use the shuffle for dual purposes without needing to remember that your audiobook are the 1st two tracks on the shuffle.

Do you have 43 things to do?

2005-02-27T00:00:00-08:00

If you haven't already, check out 43 Things. The guys over at the Robot Co-op have a pretty cool idea. At a very simple level, treat it like a web based todo list (with the ability to blog upon todo items and get comments!). At a more complex level, the ability to write blog entries associated with "things" you want to do seems especially motivating to get stuff done. You can accomplish something similar same with blog categories but a goal oriented interface just makes it easier to do.

My 43 things is located here.

Trying to be hip

2005-02-26T00:00:00-08:00

I always said that Capital Hill was too hip for me. Sitting at the Victrola coffee house blogging on my powerbook. The very act of being hip has made me unhip. Or at least the act of trying to be hip has made me unhip. :(

Well at least the scenery can't be beat...

Roll Theme Music....

2005-02-26T00:00:00-08:00

"In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. They promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team."

Apparently looking for the A-Team is as easy as posting a link on craigslist. It must be tough for a bunch of geriatrics to find work as soldiers of fortune.

Of course the obligatory amazon link to the team in their younger years.

Cue End Credits

Oh yeah!

2005-02-26T00:00:00-08:00

I didn’t think the superpower thing would be very useful but man oh man it’s an absolute power trip. I was late for work yesterday and I was thinking to myself, “I’ll just use my super speed”. It only took me two minutes to brush my teeth, eat breakfast and get to my workplace. On the down side there is this massive hole in my door. Gotta remember that I’m near invulerable and have to remember to open doors and shit. Of course, I see a cute girl and I also have to resist the urge to use my x-ray vision to check her out. Darn my morality! What’s a Kansas farm boy gotta to do to get some action in this town?. Do you know how hard it is for a superhero to get a date these days? Now my buddy Bruce, absolutely none of these problems though he has problems sleeping at night.

See more progress on: become a super hero

Java: Language Vs Environment

2005-02-26T00:00:00-08:00

I looked at Java in late 1995 – 1996. I had this terrible book that promised to teach java in a half hour. I had this other terrible book that was Java for C Programmers. In short, I didn’t have a very good intro to the language. I think the first decent book I used was O’Reilly Java in a Nutshell. The Java language has never appealed to me. I like that it was garbage collected but the language was too overly verbose for my liking. With CPlusPlus I was more succinct and the RAII idiom appeared more useful to me than GC. I’m starting to have second thoughts. I think the language is still bloody awful though it is getting better. Java 1.5 and the support for Generics are a step in the right direction. The impressive part about Java is the community that has formed around it. Trying to install a 3rd-party CPlusPlus library can often be a nightmare. The same thing cannot be said for 3rd-part Java libraries. I think this has helped the Java community to flourish. The Java community has also built tools around the Java language flaws. Eclipse and AspectJ are just two of the many great tools I’ve heard about. I want to spend more time exploring the Java environment. I think the Java environment rocks compared to the Java language which kinda sucks. My goal is to spend time looking at the various Java scripting languages e.g. Jython, JRuby, Groovy, Nice, Kawa, SISC. I’m also going to look at developments tools e.g. Eclipse, AspectJ, Hyades, JUnit, Ant. I see great potential in the various artifacts that have appeared in the Java environment.

See more progress on: improve my java-fu

Cute Krazy Kat!

2005-02-26T00:00:00-08:00

It's 3:30am. I'm being kept awake by a cat that has decided to sit outside my apartment and meow. It's a cat that is owned by somebody in my apartment building. I think it may have been locked out by mistake. Anyway part of me wants to let it in but I'm in no way prepared to take care of a cat. Even if it is for a night.

The crazy thing was that it sprinted past me just as I closed the door to the second floor. That gave me the shock of my life. Didn't think anything could move that fast.

Darn! Now it's scratching on my door....

A friend of a friend Bruno, an italian mafia enforcer/hitman, would say "Pazzo! Pazzo!".

Changed this goal slightly

2005-02-26T00:00:00-08:00

Initially this goal was “build beautiful software”. I gave that some thought and realized that building beautiful software wasn’t the challenge. I’ve seen lots of software that has been elegant in concept, brilliant in design or beautifully well written. The problem was that they didn’t anything useful. It’s all to easy to fall into the trap of building things for beauty’s sake (I’ve have been guilty of this in the past).

See more progress on: build beautiful useful software