Hiking Mount Rainier

Pirates Ahoy!

American Gluttony

Two different lovely views of my lunch today. Enjoy!

Gasworks, a Seattle Nightview

Cinema on the Lawn

Outdoor movies are great fun.

(link)

Hilarious IM

them: OHMYGOSH
me: wut?

them: i just swallowed a cherry pit!!

(Ah how I love IM; also note the gratuitous txtspk here to save myself a letter)

Inkscape Rocks

Hard to believe something so good could be free. Go check it out yourself here.

Advisor Stickers

I'm about 1 month behind here, which is about par for the course, but I should mention that my former advisor has a posse (indexical reference to maintain searchbot anonymity--wouldn't want to fan the flames now would we?).

Gnarls Barkley

Crazy. That is all.

Canoeing Lake Washington

The present participle of canoe is "canoeing"--which just looks wrong to me. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of o + e + i. I'm sure 'u' feels left out. Photos by Danyel Fisher.

Iowa State's Cave

It's fully immersive you know. 6-sided even. And it's only getting better. (link)

Orcas Island

Where are my creative inventions?

An imaginative (yet utilitarian take) on USB flash drives. Yet another clever idea I wish I'd thought of:

http://www.plusminus.ru/flashbag.html

Robbie Cordry = H-A-T-E Monger

I saw Mr. Cordry perform at a show last month at UW. He recently taped a segment for the Daily Show on Comedy Central about tolerance in America--his finding, that Americans on the whole are quite tolerant people, except when it comes to their views on racists. The segment ends with a list of 200+ groups that he hates scrolling quickly across the screen. Someone took the time to transcribe these and post them on the web (here).

The best part is the continued reference to TiVo list pausers scattered about:
1. TiVo List Pauser
2. Seriously Stop Pausing This
3. What do you think this is Lost?
4. listpauser@yahoo.com

Others: first "Korea (North)" and then later "Korea (South)", suggested lottery number picks, Lebanese Christians as well as Lesbian Christians, Circumsized, Mohawk Indian, and Mary Kate and Ashley.

Update: someone more clever than me sent an e-mail to listpauser@yahoo.com and received this response.

Clever Girlfriend Picked'em

A Froehlich Recently Auctioned

Dartmouth just auctioned off a date with my cousin for their Asian Relief fund. Note the young lady in front with her hand held high and proud--they can't get enough of him. (link)

My Girlfriend Represents

This past weekend my clever girlfriend competed in the New England Regionals for the National Trial Competition. Her law school, Suffolk Law in Boston, sent two teams, each made up of three law students. The top 2 teams (out of 22) advance to Nationals, which takes place at the end of March in Dallas, Texas. As a testament to their court room prowess, both Suffolk teams advanced beating out, among others, Harvard Law, UConn, and Boston College. My girlfriend's team did the "near impossible" and finished with a perfect 5-0 record.

“The National Trial Competition (NTC) is one of the oldest and most prestigious mock trial competitions in the United States. Every ABA-accredited law school in the country is invited to compete... The competition will rely on more than 25 judges from the federal and state court systems, over 100 lawyers from the New Hampshire bar and 150 students from Pierce Law to act as judges, jurors and witnesses,” says Professor Albert ‘Buzz’ Scherr, director of the Pierce Law’s Trial Advocacy Program.

According to the Texas Young Lawyers Association homepage, "In addition to the prestige of competing at the top levels of one of the oldest, most respected trial competitions in the country, winning treams are provided many prize incentives. Customarily the Best Oral Advocate (and, if not on the same team, a member of the championship team) is invited to the ACTL annual meeting, at which the winning team is presented with a silver bowl and the $10,000 Kraft W. Eidman Award sponsored by Fulbright & Jaworski. The Best Oral Advocate receives the George A. Spielberg Award sponsored by Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobsen. The $5,000 award to the second-place team is sponsored by the firm of Beck, Redden & Secrest. "

Google Quote of the Day

You know your day is going well when your personalized Google quote of the day is "Information is temporarily unavailable." Hmm, I wonder who said that.

Also, in other Google news, my clever girlfriend found out today that if you search for "search" in Google, Google is actually the 5th result from the top behind MSN Search and Lycos of all things.

10 Ways Cheney Can Kill You

In light of the recent man-hunt conducted by Dick Cheney in which he shot and injured a 78 year-old man in the face, neck and upper torso (link), here's a celebratory picture memorializing Cheney's brutality.

Frail

Frail is a .NET visualization toolkit that I'm working on (which I jokingly refer to as a "robust visualization toolkit"). Basically, it's an incorporation of all my visualization work into a generic package. It's based on my own experiences using really good Java vis toolkits like JUNG and JFreeChart. For the most part, though, it closely resembles Jeffrey Heer's Prefuse toolkit (also in Java) -- which is a really phenomenal interactive graphics toolkit that supports layout animations, distortions, graph filtering, color interpolation, etc. Here's a low res screen shot -- click on it to see a slightly bigger version. I implemented panning and zooming last night.

Black Sabbath + Madeleine Peyroux

I was browsing the iTunes music store tonight and happened across Geezer Butler's celebrity playlist. He's the longtime bassist of Black Sabbath -- a band famous for ushering in a new era of hard rock, with a macabre subtext :) In contrast to the dark sound Sabbath is known for, Geezer has quite an ecclectic mix of blues (e.g. madeleine peyroux, etta james), country (e.g. alison krauss), electronica (e.g. lamb), and, of course, slayer.

UDub, (cough), Top of List, (cough)

http://vcmike.blogspot.com/2006/01/ranking-colleges-using-google-and-oss.html

Pretty cool use of Google regardless of the findings.

Update September 13, 10:17PM: Not that it makes much of a difference here, but I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek with this post. You see, I got to the University of Washington so I like any ranking in which it tops the list (well, any positively connoted ranking). Regardless, it's a great university.

video.google.com, worse than previously thought

I attempted to purchase and download the "Kobe vs. Raptors" video on Google last night. It was a frustratingly bad experience and, in the end, resulted in three failed downloads of the video. It gets worse...

Let's start at the beginning. Upon trying to purchase a Google video, you must create an account and submit credit card information. There is no visible information about whether Google will store the credit card data or not for future purchases; in addition, there is no checkbox to control whether my credit card data persists on Google's servers. This is of particular concern because my Google Video Store account is the same account that I use for GMail and "personalized Google."

Once you enter this information, Google prompts you to "login and complete your purchase." The login requirement here might seem a bit redundant here but is typical of online stores attempting to protect their customers. However, what's not typical is after you submit your login/password, the next screen asks you to "login and complete your purchase." Um, OK, so I thought I just did that. I try again. Same result. And again.... argh! OK, well, luckily I had actually expected this as a friend had IM'd me earlier in the day and said he had the same problem. I asked "Are you using FireFox?" He replies, "Yes." I say, "Switch to IE." Unfortunately, I was already using IE -- so, what to do? I decide to close all of my IE windows, restart IE, and reopen the video store - which, of course, requires that I go through Google Video's horrible interface once again to find the video.

Finally, I get through the "login and complete your purchase" screen and then Google notifies me that I must download their "Google Video Player." I'm also informed that once the video player downloads, my video will begin downloading automatically. Sadly, Google uses a pop-up window to download the video player and Google Toolbar blocks such things. Now, the "download" screen has dissapeared and I'm left with no video player or video (though I just received my e-mail receipt so I know the transaction has gone through). Hmm, I must go back up through the interface to get to a screen with a download button.

Eventually, I get to a "manual download" area and am able to download the video player. I install it and click on "download video." This link opens the video player which begins to presumably download the video. Of course, this doesn't work either. The first attempt fails after like 13 retries. The second attempt downloads 45 megs of the video in 2 hours (note that I've downloaded every episode of the Office via the iTunes Music Store -- each episode is about 250 megs, which takes 5 minutes or so to download). The third attempt, which I start before going to bed, downloads 63 megs but then prompts me for my login information again -- however, I am now sound asleep and unaware that the download stopped. I wake up and note that the video is only up to 63 megs (around 12:33AM -- ironically went to bed at 12:15) and that a modal dialog in the Google video player is waiting for my login information. After filling out the dialog, the download does not restart.

I started my fourth attempt before I left for work -- let's hope that it will be completed by the time I return home.

video.google.com: Worst Interface Ever

http://video.google.com has some of the absolute worst interfaces I've ever used -- which is quite startling given that it's google and their product/interface design follows Apple: less is more and minimalism is beautiful. However, they are clearly working on it as last night I spent like an hour exploring the interface and looking for the Kobe Bryant 81 point game vs. the Toronto Raptors. This afternoon I checked again and noted that, first, the interface was much different from last night (though still very lacking) and, second, the Kobe Bryant game is now online. At the very least, the NBA games are somewhat organized -- there exists a bit of a hierarchical structure rather than straight search.

Link to Kobe vs. Toronto.

Where does XML Data Belong?

"This raises the question of when and whether one should use child elements or attributes to hold information. This is a subject of heated debate. Some informaticians maintain that attributes are for metadata about the element while elements are for the information itself. Others point out that it's not always so obvious of what's data and what's metadata. Indeed the answer may depend on where the information is put to use.

What's undisputed is that each element may have no more than one attribute with a given name. That's unlikely to be a problem for a birth date or death date; it would be an issue for profession, name, address, or anything else of which an element might plausibly have more than one. Furthermore, attributes are quite limited in structure. The value of the attribute is simply undifferentiated text. An element-based structure is a lot more flexible and extensible. Nonetheless, attributes are certainly more convenient in some applicaitons. Ultimately, if you're designing your own XML-vocabulary, it's up to you to decide which to use."

from O'Reilly's XML in a Nutshell

A Capella Pop Songs

Mr. Brightside, A Capella performed by the MIT a capella troupe, "resonance."

String C# Formatting

http://blog.stevex.net/index.php/string-formatting-in-csharp/

which replaces his old link at

http://www.stevex.org/CS/blogs/dottext/articles/158.aspx

Target > Walmart, Some Differentiation

Lately, I've been thinking about the importance of branding and consumer perception to a business's success -- from the company name and logo to the quality of the service rendered. Robyn Waters, former vice-president of trend, design and product development at Target was interviewed by businessweek here back in Oct. 2005. A few snippets,

You worked at Target during its crucial transformation into a design powerhouse. How was the decision made to adopt design?
Our ads were always hip. When I came in to Target, 12 years ago, the merchandise was half as cool as the ads. We needed to differentiate ourselves from Wal-Mart, which was becoming very big. We didn't want to compete on price -- it wouldn't work. Target was at a crossroads, deciding whether it would be a regional discounter or if it would go national.
Top management decided on a strategy of growth based on a three-legged stool -- to be trend-right, to be completely customer-focused, and finally to be design-driven. Everybody was on board -- the chairman, the president.
We soon developed a healthy respect for what design could do for the bottom line. We had started to see what the iMac computer did to Apple's stock or the [impact of] Volkswagen's redesign of the Beetle. Everyone at Target heartily and unanimously accepted that design can drive business growth.

What other brands have captured the concept of design for business?
P&G, Apple. Coach is one of my favorite examples of a great brand. The name always stood for quality. But now it's a design powerhouse, leveraging design in a forward-thinking and innovative way that's reflected by its phenomenal sales every quarter.

Any businesses that haven't figured it out?
Sony has stumbled and struggled.

What are the trends today?
Finding luxury in everyday basic goods is a big trend. To do that, companies are leveraging design to turn everyday products into unique and special experiences. Whirlpool's latest washers and dryers are a good example. Combining beauty and functionality, they sold at three times the price of the ones in the market.

So, what are tomorrow trends?
Mass customization is the next big wave. The Coldstone Creamery ice cream chain is a great example. You can make your own flavor of ice cream by choosing candy or other topping that the server will mix in right there on a cold marble slab. Or the Mini Cooper, which offers customization online.

DirectXmas

Just because they said "DirectXmas" on their frontpage, I must link to remind myself of:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/

C# Static Classes

Static classes are meant to replace the design pattern of creating a sealed class with a private constructor that contains only static methods. A static class is denoted by placing the static modifier on the class declaration. For example: public sealed class Environment
{
// Keep class from being created
private Environment() { }
}
can now be written as: public static sealed class Environment
{
}
The benefit of using a static class instead of the design pattern above is that the compiler can now report an error if any instance methods are accidentally declared.

(from link)

C# SSH/SFTP Libraries

SFTP
http://www.tamirgal.com/home/dev.aspx?Item=sharpSsh (free, but perhaps not open source)
http://www.jscape.com/articles/sftp_using_csharp.html ($299)
http://www.eldos.com/sbb/desc-sftp2.php ($559.00)
http://www.sshtools.com/showMaverickDotNet.do ($530.00)

SSH
http://www.routrek.co.jp/en/product/varaterm/granados.html (opensource)
http://www.nsoftware.com/ipworks/ssh/ ($449)
http://www.weonlydo.com/index.asp?showform=SSH.NET ($199)

updated: Thursday, Jan 12, 2006

C# Using Statement

C#, though the .NET Framework common language runtime (CLR) automatically releases the memory used to store objects that are no longer required. The release of memory is non-deterministic; memory is released whenever the CLR decides to perform garbage collection. However, it is usually best to release limited resources such as file handles and network connections as quickly as possible.

The using statement allows the programmer to specify when objects that use resources should release them. The object provided to the using statement must implement the IDisposable interface. This interface provides the Dispose method, which should release the object's resources.

(from MSDN VS20005 documentation)

Windows ISO Mounting Tool

http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/faq/default.asp#iso: http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/b/6/7b6abd84-7841-4978-96f5-bd58df02efa2/winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel_21.exe

Erasures in Java 1.5

..., the generics implementation uses a technique known as erasure. The easiest way to understand erasure is to think of the compiler as performing two distinct tasks. First, it does type checking at compile time using all the type information it has (including the type parameters). Then it transforms the code, using a set of rules that remove all of the type parameters (e.g. all of the parameterized types are mapped to raw types), and inserts a set of casting operations. The complete list of transformations is beyond the scope of this article. However, to give you an idea of what erasure does, here are some of the rules:

• If a class doesn't use type parameters in its definition, erasure doesn't change the class definition.
• Parameterized types "drop" their type parameters.
• Every type parameter is mapped to the appropriate bound. By this, I mean: the type parameter is erased and replaced with the strongest type the compiler can reasonably assert. Thus, in the case of , T is mapped to Object. In the case of , T is mapped to Rentable, and so on.
• Casts are inserted wherever necessary, to ensure that the code compiles.

(from link)

Structs vs. Classes in C#

From the MSDN Structs Tutorial:

Structs vs. Classes
Structs may seem similar to classes, but there are important differences that you should be aware of. First of all, classes are reference types and structs are value types. By using structs, you can create objects that behave like the built-in types and enjoy their benefits as well.

Heap or Stack?
When you call the New operator on a class, it will be allocated on the heap. However, when you instantiate a struct, it gets created on the stack. This will yield performance gains. Also, you will not be dealing with references to an instance of a struct as you would with classes. You will be working directly with the struct instance. Because of this, when passing a struct to a method, it's passed by value instead of as a reference.

LoudNetworks in the Hizouse

The LoudNetworks team in full force:


Phase 1: Design and implement (efficient) reliable communication between two PCs using a microphone and speaker. CHECK
Phase 2: Design and implement robust ad hoc routing between a set of PCs using sound as their only means of communication. CHECK
Phase 3: Design and implement (efficient, fair, etc.) resource control (that is, sound control) among a set of PCs using sound as their only means of communication. CHECK

Understanding C# Timers

All of this information is taken from VS2005 RC2 MSDN Documentation unless otherwise specified; unfortunately information about Timers is littered about the docs and not all in one place. So, in trying to make sense of it all, I made this compilation:

There are three timer controls in Visual Studio and the .NET Framework — the server-based timer you can see on the Components tab of the Toolbox, the standard Windows-based timer you can see on the Windows Forms tab of the Toolbox, and the thread timer that is only available programmatically.

1. The Windows-based timer is optimized for use in Windows Forms applications.
2. The server-based timer is an update of the traditional timer that has been optimized to run in a server environment.
3. The thread timer is a simple, lightweight timer that uses callback methods instead of events and is served by thread-pool threads.

There are two types of threads in Win32 architecture: UI threads, and worker threads. UI threads sit idle most of the time and wait for messages to arrive in their message loops. Once they receive a message, they handle it and then wait for the next message to arrive. Alternatively, worker threads are used to perform background processing and do not use message loops. Both the Windows timer and the server-based timer run using an Interval property. The interval of the thread timer is set in the Timer constructor. The timers are designed for different purposes, as evidenced by their handling of threads:

• The Windows timer is designed for a single-threaded environment where UI threads are used to perform processing. The accuracy of Windows timers is limited to 55 milliseconds. These traditional timers require that the user code have a UI message pump available and always operate from the same thread, or marshal the call onto another thread. For a COM component, this would be detrimental to performance.
• The server-based timer is designed for use with worker threads in a multi-threaded environment. Because they use a different architecture, server-based timers have the potential to be much more accurate than Windows timers. Server timers can move among threads to handle the raised events.
• The thread timer is useful in scenarios where messages are not pumped on the thread. For example, the Windows-based timer relies on operating-system timer support, and if you are not pumping messages on the thread, the event associated with your timer will not occur. The thread timer is more useful in this case.

Windows Form Timer
This class wraps the counters we had in Win32 based on Windows messages. Use this class only if you do not plan to develop a multithreaded application. The Windows Forms Timer component has an Interval property that specifies the number of milliseconds that pass between one timer event and the next. Unless the component is disabled, a timer continues to receive the Tick event at roughly equal intervals of time. This component is designed for a Windows Forms environment. If you need a timer that is suitable for a server environment, see Introduction to Server-Based Timers.

The Interval Property
The Interval property has a few limitations to consider when you are programming a Timer component:

• If your application or another application is making heavy demands on the system — such as long loops, intensive calculations, or drive, network, or port access — your application may not get timer events as often as the Interval property specifies.
• The interval can be between 1 and 64,767, inclusive, which means that even the longest interval will not be much longer than one minute (about 64.8 seconds).
• The interval is not guaranteed to elapse exactly on time. To ensure accuracy, the timer should check the system clock as needed, rather than try to keep track of accumulated time internally.
• The system generates 18 clock ticks per second — so even though the Interval property is measured in milliseconds, the true precision of an interval is no more than one-eighteenth of a second.

Thread safety: Any public static members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

Server-Based Timers (System.Timers)
The Timer component is a server-based timer, which allows you to specify a recurring interval at which the Elapsed event is raised in your application. You can then handle this event to provide regular processing. For example, suppose you have a critical server that must be kept running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You could create a service that uses a Timer to periodically check the server and ensure that the system is up and running. If the system is not responding, the service could attempt to restart the server or notify an administrator. The server-based Timer is designed for use with worker threads in a multithreaded environment.

Server timers can move among threads to handle the raised Elapsed event, resulting in more accuracy than Windows timers in raising the event on time. For more information on server-based timers, see Introduction to Server-Based Timers.

Key Programming Elements of Server-Based Timers
The Timer component raises an event called Elapsed. You can create handlers for this event to perform whatever processing needs to occur. Some of the more important properties and methods of a Timer component include the following:

• The Interval property is used to set the time span, in milliseconds, at which events should be raised. For example, an interval of 1000 will raise an event once a second.
• The AutoReset property determines whether the timer continues raising events after the given interval elapses. If set to true, the timer continues to recount the interval and raise events. If false, it raises one event after the interval elapses and then stops.
• The Start method sets the timer's Enabled property to true, which allows the timer to begin raising events. If the timer is already enabled, calling the Start method resets the timer.
• The Stop method sets the timer's Enabled property to false, preventing the timer from raising any more events.

Thread safety: any public static members of this type are safe for multithreaded operations. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

Thread-timer (System.Threading.Timer)
Use a TimerCallback delegate to specify the method you want the Timer to execute. The timer delegate is specified when the timer is constructed, and cannot be changed. The method does not execute on the thread that created the timer; it executes on a ThreadPool thread supplied by the system. The callback method executed by the timer should be reentrant, because it is called on ThreadPool threads. The callback can be executed simultaneously on two thread pool threads if the timer interval is less than the time required to execute the callback, or if all thread pool threads are in use and the callback is queued multiple times.

When you create a timer, you can specify an amount of time to wait before the first execution of the method (due time), and an amount of time to wait between subsequent executions (period). You can change these values, or disable the timer, using the Change method.

As long as you are using a Timer, you must keep a reference to it. As with any managed object, a Timer is subject to garbage collection when there are no references to it. The fact that a Timer is still active does not prevent it from being collected.

Note: System.Threading.Timer is a simple, lightweight timer that uses callback methods and is served by threadpool threads. You might also consider System.Windows.Forms.Timer for use with Windows forms, and System.Timers.Timer for server-based timer functionality. These timers use events and have additional features.

Thread safety: This type is safe for multithreaded operations.

Other Timers
1. timeGetTime() : This Windows.DLL call can give you up to 1 microsecond of accuracy on some operating systems; however it can be up to 5 microseconds on Windows NT.
2. System.Tickcount (Environment.TickCount): Gets the number of milliseconds elapsed since the system started.
3. DateTime.Ticks: The value of this property represents the number of 100-nanosecond intervals that have elapsed since 12:00:00 midnight, January 1, 0001.
4. QueryPerformanceCounter: often used in C++ Windows games. Provides a high resolution timer of less than 1 microsecond. Not exposed in managed code, so you would have to write a wrapper for it.

References
Programming the Thread Pool in the .NET Framework
System.Timers Namespace
Introduction to Server-Based Timers
Timer Programming Architecture
Introduction to the Windows Forms Timer Component

Other C# Timer Resources
Comparing the Timer Classes in the .NET Framework Class Library (added 12/15/05 5:37PM)
http://www.mvps.org/directx/articles/selecting_timer_functions.htm (added 12/20/05 2:20)
The mvps link is very revealing; it discusses timers in the context of high performance games and evaluates them via benchmarking.

Redick vs. Morrison

My officemate saw Adam Morrison of Gonzaga sink a last second three-point shot over two defenders with 2.5 seconds left yesterday at Key Arena (where the Seattle Supersonics play). We also watched Morrison dominate the game vs. U. of Washington last week (43 points, which ties his career high) -- Morrison is a spectacle, his shot is perfect and he always seems to be in the right place to get a much-needed steal or pick up an offensive rebound. I also observed that he tends to "power dribble" immediately after receiving a pass, which is particularly difficult to guard given that he is 6'9".

J. J. Redick of Duke also had an amazing performance yesterday, scoring a career-high 41 points vs. the #2 team in the country (Texas). He shot 9/16 from the three-point line.

Katz compares the two on espn for a preliminary investigation of NCAA player of the year.

(link)

Painting Techniques in .NET

http://windowsforms.net/articles/windowsformspainting.aspx

Nash a Professional Soccer Player

You cannot escape the "grass-is-always-greener" syndrome:

"'How good are you?', I asked him after his team won. 'I guess I could have played professionally,' he said. 'If I’d focused on it. Sometimes I wish I had. But that’s probably just a grass-is-always-greener kind of thing.' " [Steve Nash talking about playing soccer professionally]

(from link)

CFP: mobilehci

The 8th International Conference on
Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
Dates: 12-15 September, 2006
Location: Espoo, Finland
Website: www.mobilehci.org
Deadlines:
* Papers, Workshops and Tutorials: 1 March 2006
* Short Papers, Posters, Demos, Panels, Industry Cases: 7 May 2006

Thanksgiving 2005 in Nebraska

For those not in "the know," Nebraska is one of those fine "great plains" states centered around Iowa, South Dakota and other spectacles of fun.

My Mother, the Sweater Model

My mother is now a professional model at http://www.familyknitwear.com/! Buy all the clothes she is modeling for so she gets more modeling work!

Ah, Minnesota Pride

Yet it's safe to say the Jazz are looking for Humphries, who left the University of Minnesota for the NBA after his freshman season, to develop much more of an all-around game. "I told him, 'I don't want a confrontation every time. (But) how are you going to make a living in this league? Shooting it every time you touch it? Or, I say, you can make a living in this league if you defend, rebound, run the floor and do some of those things,' " Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said when discussing Humphries' play after Utah's Saturday-night loss to Memphis "I don't have a problem with a guy shooting," Sloan added. "But every time he touches it? He's got to learn to pass it. To me, that's one of the simple things to learn how to do. Once you do that, then your teammates accept you a lot more and it makes the game easier for you." Desert Morning News

And

"Another day, another lesson for Kris Humphries. The Jazz's second-year forward checked into the game at the start of the second quarter Saturday against Memphis. So he was obviously shocked when Robert Whaley subbed in for him just 2 1/2 minutes later. As Humphries approached the bench, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan stopped him with a blunt message. "I can't put you out there," Sloan said as Humphries passed by, "if you're not going to compete." Salt Lake Tribune

(from link)

College Graduation Rates

Unfortunately I did not see any references to the source of data for this article -- it's a pretty startling statistic.

Just 54 percent of students entering four-year colleges in 1997 had a degree six years later -- and even fewer Hispanics and blacks did, according to some of the latest government figures. After borrowing for school but failing to graduate, many of those students may be worse off than if they had never attended college at all.

(from link)

Informal Awareness in a Hallway

Just saw a very insightful "hidden" camera view of a workplace hallway taken by Saul Greenberg back in the early 90s (at least that's what the presenter said). Essentially, a hidden camera was placed at an end of a office hallway allowing the viewer to see how people casually peered into offices as they walked by to create an informal awareness of the people in their immediate surroundings.

What the Public Deserves

From the Washington Post:

"In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal but what is right, not just what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves," Bush said Oct. 26, 2000.

(link)

Sunday Lament

Since grade school, I have suffered from a perpetual dislike of Sundays. Like so many students before me, the thought of Sunday evokes a certain anxiety which can only be attributed to the dread of school. As a 20th grader (not counting kindgarten or preschool), I feel apt to assert that it is not Sunday's fault. I am certain, now more than ever, that I dislike Sundays only because of the impending Monday. Which leads me to conclude that a Sunday without a Monday is not so bad.

Fakes Words in Your Dictionary

Originally in the New Yorker (the following stolen from boingboing):

This piece from last August's New Yorker documents the fascinating hunt for the fake word inserted into the New Oxford American Dictionary. These fake words are inserted by dictionary editors as a kind of watermark to catch competitors who copy their dictionaries wholesale. The process of figuring out which of the words in the NOAD was the fake was quite involved, with six candidates sent around to a panel of distinguished language-scholars who had a vigorous debate about whether each word was a fake

I believe that phone companies used to do something like this with their phone indexes. They would insert fake names and business (complete with phone numbers and addresses) to catch unsuspecting plagirists who would just copy the book wholesale.

Mind Blowing

http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

Give it a try -- it really worked for me (both perceiving the green dot and the disappearance of all the pink dots).

Gloria Mark, Mary Czerwinski, Eric Horvitz, Linda Stone

Gloria Mark and other HCI researchers are written up in this New York Times article. I received my Master's degree from UCI where Gloria Mark is a professor (her office was adjacent to my advisor's).

The article, titled Meet the Life Hackers, begins with highlighting Mark's research with Victor Gonzalez on how human's "multitask" in the workplace.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/magazine/16guru.html

Pumpkin Carving Party

I made the Scooby one (not yet complete).

Apple in New Yorker

"Tidal" was uneven. Apple was nineteen when she recorded it and had a teen-ager's sense of drama, which sees the world ending whenever a relationship does; she did not yet know that "invade your demeanor" is a phrase that God never intended anyone to say out loud.

-Sasha Frere-Jones in the 10/10/05 New Yorker on Fiona Apple's new album

The Sky Really is Falling

An article written about security in IT cites Ed Lazowska, a faculty member in my department at UW, and begins:

Ed Lazowska, cochairman of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, says that there is a looming security crisis, and the government, vendors and CIOs aren’t doing enough to stop it.

http://www.cio.com/archive/100105/qa_lazowska.html

How Dare You Compare Me To Cheney

Like Vice President Dick Cheney, who led the search for a vice presidential nominee before choosing himself, Miers headed the team searching for O'Connor's replacement and ended up choosing herself.

Ack. There's something fundamentally suspicious about heading a search committee that ends up choosing you. Also note to self, attempt not to follow in Cheney's footsteps in anyway such that comparisons like these could be made.

CSE Rainbow

Taken on my camera phone (SMT 5600 SmartPhone) from the top floor of the UW CSE building.

Absolute, Relative, Mixed Formulas in Excel

Here is a quick review of absolute, relative, and mixed formulas. Normally if you enter a formula like =SUM(A2:A4403) in D1 and then copy the formula to E2, your formula in E2 will change to =SUM(B3:C4403). This is a cool feature of worksheets called "relative addressing", but sometimes we do not want that to happen. In this case, we want every formula to refer to the range A2:B4403. As we copy the formula from cell to cell, it should always point to A2:B4403. While entering the formula, hit F4 once after entering the range, and your formula will change to =SUM($A$2:$A$4403). The dollar sign indicates that that portion of the reference will not change as you copy the formula. This is called absolute addressing. It is possible to lock only the column with the $ and allow the row to be relative. This is called a mixed reference and would be entered as =$A4406. To lock the row but allow the column to be relative, use =B$4405. As you enter a formula, use F4 to toggle among the four flavors of relative, absolute and mixed references.

(from link)

Mayer forms John Mayer Trio

Signed into the iTunes Music Store tonight and saw that John Mayer has a new band called the John Mayer Trio. Since I'm essentially TVless, I did not see him perform at the Grammys where, I guess, the John Mayer Trio sort of debuted their stuff with a new take on Mayer's grammy award winning number, Daughters.

The John Mayer Trio represents a different, harder-edged sound for the singer, songwriter and guitarist. Those fortunate enough to have tickets to the sold-out Fillmore gigs will witness a different side to the pop tunesmith known for slick hits such as ``Your Body Is a Wonderland.''
``I wouldn't just change just for the sake of changing, but I've always had another agenda,'' Mayer explains. ``That other agenda is a whole different set of heroes and hues and colors and textures. I've just decided to go to my next place. . . .
``It's a very thought-out process of taking what excites me about Eric Clapton and B.B. King and Buddy Guy and Blind Faith and Derek & the Dominos and the Band and Cream . . . and placing it in my thing. I love pop music. I love guitar playing. I love blues. I love jazz. And I love the idea even more that I could put my own stamp on all those things and roll them into one sound.''

...

``He's really serious about his guitar playing,'' Palladino says from his home in London. ``Some guitarists have a special touch, and you know the guys I'm talking about, and John is one of those guys. It's the way he strikes a note. He just has something.''
The same could be said for both Jordan and Palladino, two stellar players who have performed with rock legends.


(from link)

Well, at least we have sports...

Headline story on espn.com this morning:

Moment of Relief
Two weeks of suffering. A city, and region, in mourning. The mayor's pregame plea. Did New Orleans really need the Saints' 23-20 win Sunday? Len Pasquarelli says yes.

I have to remind myself why I check this page everyday? It certainly can't be for the insightful and worldly perspective.

Vancouver, Canada

Incredible Idea

Such an incredible idea. Wishing I would have thought of it.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000430055701/

Cool Discovery Photos

An online picture journal of the Space Shuttle Discovery Mission. Amazing what a group of engineers can accomplish.

More Adobe Premiere Problems

I made sure that when I finished my "wedding video" project in late June, I left the files in a perfectly archived state so that I could come back to it at anytime. Unfortunately, Adobe Premiere had yet another unfortunate surprise in mind for me.

I loaded the .prproj file tonight to give my friend Scott a short tutorial on Adobe Premiere. I was showing him the ins and outs of cross fades and video transitions when I noticed that one of the primary video source files was missing! Ack, what happened? I had not changed this project (or any of its dependencies) since archiving it months ago. What's the problem?

Ironically (long story) I received the lovely "red screen of death" faced me which said "media missing!." I double checked to make sure the video file was in the same place in my file system. I then tried linking, then unlinking the media through Premiere's pop-up menu. Nothing worked. Finally, I found a link on Adobe Premiere's "Support Knowledge" base which said to,

Rename the .AVI file to use the .MPG extension (for example, rename movie.avi to movie.mpg), and then import it into Adobe Premiere or Adobe Premiere Pro.

I did this and sure enough, the problem was resolved. Now what I don't understand is what caused this error? Why now? I hadn't done a thing between the last time I had used this .prprof file. Ah, yet another sad revelation of how bad Adobe Premiere really is.

Sky Diving Accident

My clever girlfriend went skydiving for the first time in Australia a few weeks ago. Then I found this story on CNN about a woman who died on her first tandem skydive jump.

Intel IRCON 2005 in Portland, OR

Some pictures from Intel's IRCON 2005 in Portland, OR.

Intel's Placelab in the news...

Microsoft's Virtual Earth project has recently debuted. It provides real-time location services by either (1) looking at your ip address and making an estimate on your position based on your dns entry or (2) by using Wi-Fi technology. This second method is said to be more accurate and is based on research by Intel Research Labs, Seattle pioneered through the PlaceLab project. Of course, one of the main tenents of PlaceLab is to try and preserve privacy by conducting the localization algorithms "on-device" rather than "on-server" so that no information is exchanged with an outside source that might compromise privacy. Privacy is certainly a critical issue in many domains of CS right now, from e-mail to peer2peer apps, but it's arguably more important when dealing with location as it opens the possibility of endangering someone's physical health.

Two recent articles about PlaceLab. They both specifically mention my research :)
1. The Future of Mobile Computing
2. Intel experiments with Wi-Fi as GPS substitute.

You take your car to work

I'll take my board.

All along the undertows, strengthening its hold.
I never thought it would come to this, now I can never go home.

Best part is when they break it down boys choir style 2 minutes in and then proceed to rock out.

Ack, I need to stop listening to the same music I listened to in high school.

My name is Steve Vaught and I walk

Very cool, inspirational story from a fat man born Stephen James Liller in Youngston, Ohio.

http://www.thefatmanwalking.com/

K's Choice, More than an Addict

K's Choice is popularly known for their song "Not an Addict" about the dark, unrelenting temptations of heroin. Launchcast served me up another song by them called "Believe" and before I could hit the next button, I was hooked. K's Choice, not just a one hit wonder. Who knew?

They are now an official member of my "purchased music" playlist in iTunes.

Hot or Not Google Maps Integration

Ahem.

http://apps.hotornot.com/jeff/

Can't wait until they add this to:

http://www.meowmix.com/playtime/hotnot.asp

Eclipse Ruins Then Saves

I love Eclipse. I even use Eclipse when I don't really need to. Right now, Eclipse is my glorified CVS client -- I'm using VS2005 b2 for my C# IDE.

Imagine, if you will, the following frightening developer horror story:

I open Eclipse. I select some dirs to check-in. I try to commit them but I get an error. I look into a folder and think perhaps the cause is an object folder that has been bothersome (and should never be in CVS anyway). I think I select such a folder but really I select a folder containing new source code. I press delete and reflexively hit the enter button on the delete confirmation dialog.
I notice my error and panic, but only slightly. I search on Google for recovery software. I download two such tools PC Inspector File Recovery, which seemed OK but didn't find my newly deleted C# code and Restoration, which really blew and didn't find my source code files either.

Ack, now I'm getting more panicky.

I remember that Eclipse saves a local history of files. I wonder to self if Eclipse could be written such that, upon file/folder deletion through its interface, it would do one last local history backup. To calm my expectations, I figure that, nah that's probably not possible particularly when I only open the Eclipse IDE momentarily to checkin my files and not as a development environment.

I was wrong.

Eclipse saves the day. I open the local history browser and wahlah, my files! Again, stay calm. I make sure that these files are, in fact, the newly modified files and not some old, worthless version... ah, I see a new method, I see two new methods, I see all my new methods.*

Relief!

*I am a big geek.

XML Newbie

I am a relative newbie when it comes to XML. For work, I created an XML file and a corresponding parser in C#. For whatever reason the text "Cajun & Creole" kept throwing an XmlArgumentException. I thought perhaps it had something to do with the ampersand and... I was right. To include the "&" character in XML text, you must use "&"

This link from XML.com explains it all.

Prescription for a Queasy Stomach

A friend of a friend told me about the King County online restaurant inspection reporting system and how it, for a while anyway, completely affected the restaurants she would patronize.

Here is a listing of health inspection reports for restaurants on University Ave. in the University District at UW (note that the listing spans multiple pages). Be forewarned, however, that such listing could impact your desire to eat on the Ave. ever again. Below, I will review some of my favorite restaurants on the Ave. and their records of inspection.

But first, a briefing on the way these inspection reports supposedly work.

Inspections Overview
Inspections are based on regulations to eliminate risk factors for food borne disease. Every violation of these regulations is color coded and has a numerical value based on the amount of risk they create.

The red violations are the highest risk and pertain to things that cause food borne diseas, and the blue violations relate to maintenance and cleanliness of the restaurant. Most importantly, there is a scoring system (note that the lower the score the better).

• 35 or more red critical violation points require a re-inspection within 14 days.
• 75 or more red critical violation points require the establishment be closed.
• 101 or more total (red & blue) points also requires the establishment be closed.

Those restaurants that are forced closed are allowed to reopen when they "have remedied the conditions that have led to closure" -- Whew, that's a relief!

Interesting Finds
What I've noticed from my brief investigations is that American food places tend to do very well (e.g. Schultzy's, Big Time Brewery, even Jack in the Box), each maintaing a near perfect health inspection report (no score over 10). Schultzy's is one of my favorite places on the Ave. so I am fairly relieved there and many of my fellow Grad students hang out/eat at Big Time Brewery. Cheers to them as well.

The most common citation among all restaurants was "Food worker cards not available or current," which presumably means that (a) the restaurant is not keeping good records of their employees or (b) restaurants are hiring illegal immigrants. Admittedly (b) would be more likely in California.

Disgusting Finds (e.g. Point Winners)

• Honeybee's Cafe back in February '04 was cited with "Ineffective measures to control pests," a 13 point penalty (apparently). I'm not sure what this means exactly, but it cannot be good. It sort of has this implication that there is a pest problem to control.
• Ichiro Teriyaki scored a resounding 49 points on their last routine inspection. Cited for, among other things, improper refrigeration of food, poor handwashing facilities, unclean food contact surfaces, and, our favorite, ineffective measures to control pests.
• Never one to be out done, Aladdin Gyro-cery & Deli one-upped Ichiro Teriyaki by 7 points, scoring 56 points in 02/11/2004 for inadequate toilet facilities, unsanitary wiping clothes, improper refrigeration, inaccurate thermometers in refrigerators (the latter point here perhaps the cause of the former?). Of course, Aladdin really didn't learn much from that inspection given that one year later (02/10/2005), the restaurant scored 46 points. I hate to say it, but anyone who has eaten at Aladdin's (I have multiple times) probably isn't surprised by such a record. I'm not being perfidious, just honest.
• China Express has scored above 37 three times (see Worst Restaurants Section)
• Batavia just opened on the Ave and already received a 48 (see Worst Restaurants Section).
• Tokyo Garden. One of the few places mentioned in this blog post that I have never eaten at and perhaps for good reason. Tokyo Garden received a score of 58 points on 02/18/2005 for not storing utensils properly, poor handwashing facilities, food storage.

Favorite Restaurants and how They Fared
My all time favorite restaurant on the Ave is actually on Brooklyn Ave. Cedars offers a fantastic selection of Indian and Mediterranean food -- a seemingly strange mix, but works quite well. I really like Indian food and this is the place to do it in the U. District. The only bad part about Cedars is the table wait on weekend evenings... and their apparent "presence of pests" which are "not controlled." Cedars consistently scores in the 10-20 range in their health inspection report, most recently because of said pest issue and because of separation of living quarters/employee area, inaccurate refrigerator thermometers, etc.

My two favorite Mexican places on the Ave are, Pepes and Chipotle (yes, I know it's owned by McDonalds, shhhhh I like to eat corporate food sometimes, ok?), both of which have flawless health inspection reports never scoring even one point.

Thai food on the Ave. is fairly popular only second in prominence to Teriyaki places. I like, in order of preference: Thai 65 (just opened in early 2005), Thai Tom, Thai Spice, Thaiger Room. Overall, I am not a huge fan of Thai food (it tends to be too sweet and I don't like peanut sauce) but it's hard to avoid on the Ave.

IMO, Worst Restaurants on the Ave. (and how they fared)
The worst restaurant on the Ave is a relatively new addition to the U. District and goes by the name Batavia, which tries to pass as an authentic Indonesian restaurant. Now, I've never been to Indonesia but I hope for their sake that Batavia's version of authentic is a bit skewed. The portions are incredibly small but the food is so bad, that's actually a blessing. I went there one time and that was more than enough. Batavia received a score of a 48, which is, imo, 27 points too small. It would seem that there is some people who disagree with me on Citysearch. My guess would be, however, that those reviews were written by the owners themselves (or their kin).

The second worst restaurant on the Ave goes to Hawaii BBQ Restaurant, which managed to give myself and two others digestion problems for an entire afternoon. I went to Hawaii BBQ for the benefit of a friend who wanted to try it out and when I saw the pictures of their food on the menu posted by the door, I had difficulty staying. But I did and soon regreted it. I'm not sure what Hawaii BBQ is supposed to mean but they appeared to only have three or four authentic Hawaiin dishes -- the rest was your standard Teriyaki offering found at a dime a dozen on the Ave. But I digress, they scored a 39 at their worst inspection and an 18 (most recent) at their best.

The third worst restaurant on the Ave goes to China First, which offers a $3.50 lunch making it almost worth it suffering through their cuisine. The food here is standard Americanized Chinese food, not necessarily bad but just not good. China First has quite the health inspection report though receiving 50, 43, 38 respectively for such things as: food stored on floor, floors not properly cleaned (maybe because there was food in the way?), room temperature storage dangerous (at highest bacteria breeding temperature)

Conclusion
I feel a slight sense of guilt actually typing up these health inspection reports and publishing them on my blog. I realize that many of the restaurants on the Ave are owned and operated by families and that they are doing the best they can. It is a difficult environment, lot's of competition and little pricing flexibility. An overwhelming portion of patrons are students and, therefore, there is only so many foods and preparations that can be offered at the $6-10 range.

Fremont Outdoor Movies

I went to the "Scene It Fremont Outdoor Movies" night in Fremont tonight and saw, for the first time and perhaps only time, a Monty Python movie: Monty Python and the Holy Grail*. Sadly, I am not blessed with a British sense of humor and, for the most part, found the movie utterly boring and sinfully edited. Mostly, it felt like a high school improv class video gone bad (with slightly higher budget, say, $5,000 rather than a nickel). Sole funny parts: flesh wound scene, monsterous rabit, John Cleese. Everything else, I could have more than lived without. I do not think this opinion to be unique. One person I was with fell asleep and I heard plenty of "when does this thing end" chatter behind me.

My apologies to the geeks I've offended everywhere. This is yet more mounting evidence that I do not have what it takes to be a true computer scientist (dare I admit to not liking Star Trek or seeing any of those movies).

I will say, though, that I thoroughly enjoy the idea of outdoor movies. I wish that it were in a park in Fremont (perhaps a grassy knoll) rather than a parking lot. But I suppose we can't have everything -- especially when the price of admission is a suggested donation (ala The Art Institute of Chicago Museum)

* I cannot believe that Monty Python and the Holy Grail received 8.4/10 votes, beating out Braveheart, The Deer Hunter, Sixth Sense, The Graduate, Saving Private Ryan, Hotel Rwanda, The Sting, and even the Wizard of Oz (to name a few). That is blashemy and a testament of the influence that geeks have on imdb.com.

Update: Australian Calling Rates

Last week, I blogged about the large pricing disparity in calling Australian land lines versus Australian cell phones with American calling cards. I also mentioned using SkypeOut as another possible cheap way to call my g/f overseas.

Well, I tried SkypeOut as well as another calling card company called Pincity, which came highly recommended to me from a friend who uses it to call Asia.

Although SkypeOut offers the cheapest calling rates of any other technology I looked into (other than computer-to-computer of course), my experience with SkypeOut was absolutely horrible. SkypeOut from Seattle, WA to an Australian cell phone costs 2 cents a minute but it is hardly worth it (rates). The audio quality was bad but the delay (over 5 seconds) was worse -- paired together, SkypeOut to Australia was unusuable. *Given that SkypeOut is essentially Voice over IP, I imagine that they will improve.

My Sprint International Calling Card that I got from Sam's club was out of minutes, so rather than recharging it I decided to try Pincity. Pincity offers incredible global calling rates to nearly everywhere in the world (rates). Calling an Australian land line costs an incredibly low $0.05 a minute; however, calling an Australian cell phone is nearly 5 times as much ($0.23 a minute). Nonetheless, I opted to try out Pincity and purchased a 10 dollar card online. Unfortunately, not only is the Australian mobile phone rate twice as high as Sprint's, the sound quality was diminished by that digitized feedback and a 2 second delay.

As soon as my Pincity account runs out (I have roughly 35 minutes left), I'm back to Sprint.

* If you're curious, SkypeOut is able to provide insanely low call rates because it uses the internet to carry most of the call to its destination and then there is only a local charge to make the call to a regular phone (link).

Independence Day @ Gasworks

A few photos from my meager SMT5600 phone camera (I biked and didn't want the extra pocket load of my S200 -- particularly since it has been so unreliable lately, see this post).

Australia in Pictures

Images courtesy of my clever girlfriend

You Have a Right to Scream

You have a right to protect yourself. Traveling alone as a female has always been difficult (though I can't say from experience) and if a conflict arises, protecting yourself in anyway possible (including screaming) is imperative. Read this blog post of a woman taking a train to Chennai - a very poignant account of the vulnerability of travel and the ambivalence of law enforcement in India.

Canon S200 on Last Legs?

I've taken approximately 11,000 (11,173 to be exact) pictures with my Canon PowerShot S200 Digital Elph, which I received for Christmas from my beloved father in 2002. Lately, though, I've been having some difficulties with the quality of photographs the S200 snaps. The autofocus has ceased to work on two occassions -- most recently when I was on vacation in Minnesota. Luckily, on both occassions this problem went away on its own but it makes me a bit worried, what if I am trying to capture a once in a lifetime moment and it turns out like this:

Which fortunately is just a picture of my Dad and not, say, an expose of Brad kissing Angelina... but you get the idea. For like a week, every picture I took with my S200 looked basically like this. Here's another one of my cousins and I at at my grandfather's house.

In some ways, I can understand why my camera would be a bit tired -- 11,173 is a lot of pictures. BEyond that it has survived two falls off a countertop onto the floor, being carried for 2 years in the front pocket of my backpack, camping trips, etc. Overall, it's been a wonderful camera - I can't really criticize it - definitely one of the best pieces of technology I've ever owned (robust, easy to use, and typically did exactly what I wanted when I wanted).

Candy Ambivalence

I just finished off a box of:

My girlfriend left them here so I ate them. I've never particularly liked Charleston Chews, yet I consumed them contently. I gravitated to them only because they were in my room staring at me and because I felt like something sweet; now I feel guilty (one serving is 19% of my daily saturated fat and 23 grams of sugar). I may have had three or four servings -- hard to tell given how voraciously I swallowed them down.

Data Loss Paranoia

I have been using computers since the Commodore 64 days and I have never experienced hard drive failure (knock on wood). At this point, however, it seems prudent to begin exploring automated backup approaches for my data. I have over 60 gigs of music files, thousands of pictures, not to mention the countless number of school papers, projects, and other documents. Most of this data is sentimental and invaluable; it deserves backup.

Ideally my backup solution would be at some offsite location so that in the case of a fire or robbery, I would still have my data. Since I'm not a business or even a working professional, I don't have the cash to purchase a backup service over the internet. However, I'm thinking I might be able to do this on my own. Right now I'm looking at the following external USB hard drives on amazon.com:

1. $189.88 Maxtor OneTouch II Hard Drive 250 GB Hi-Speed USB (1.31 GB/dollar)
2. $189.99 SimpleTech SimpleDrive 250 GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive (1.31 GB/dollar)
3. $220.99 LaCie 250 GB d2 External Hard Drive Extreme w/USB 2.0 (1.13 GB/dollar)
4. $244.99 Maxtor OneTouch II 300 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (1.22 GB/dollar)

My plan right now is to purchase one of the above hard drives, attach it to my home computer and make an initial backup (which would be quite large), unattach the drive and then hook it up to my office computer at school. A twice a week backup would hopefully then only be incremental and therefore require little bandwidth to synchronize over the internet (e.g. from my home machine to school). I'm not sure, however, that the backup software that ships with any of these computers is capable of such an effort. I could probably use some 3rd party application like rsync...