The life of CPM

Stunned.

2009-08-03T17:52:00.003-06:00

This blog often focuses on linking to news stories and discussing the insanity that is occurring around us. This one takes it to a whole new level. CNN is reporting "Alumna sues college because she hasn't found a job".

Honestly, I'm not even sure where to begin with this one. But let's start here: Trina Thompson, any company that knows how to use Google should never, ever hire you now. You have proven to the world that you are an idiot. If I were looking to hire someone and came across this in their history I'd drop them faster than a mangy rat.

In my opinion, this sense of entitlement is one of the biggest problems facing our country right now. So many people seem to live under the idea that if their neighbor has something then they're entitled to have it to, regardless of any factor. Jim has a new big TV, well if he can have one then I can too, I still have a couple of credit cards that aren't maxed out, I'll pick one up on my way home from work.... I went to college and managed to not fail out, someone has to give me a job now; we'll just ignore the fact that US unemployment is at its highest in 20+ years. I woke up this morning and took a shower, why isn't someone handing me a medal and asking me to run their company?

She feels that her college is required to find her a job, because she paid them for her education. Trina seems to be suffering massive confusion over the meaning of "education", mainly in that it does not mean "guaranteed job placement services". Trina feels that she is obviously the best candidate for the jobs she's tried applying to so the failure of these companies to hire her must be the fault of her school's somehow. What with her stunningly impressive 2.7 GPA and "solid attendance record" how could she not be hired?

From the CNN report it would seem that her stance is something along the lines of "What does it matter what I did or did not learn? I paid the school money for four years, now they have to find me a job, and they haven't plopped a job offer in my lap yet, so my unemployment is their fault."

She suggests that their career placement services favor students with better GPAs. Hmmm..... perhaps companies just prefer to hire people with a higher GPA because it's one indication that perhaps they are more competent in the field?

I just find this situation insane. How can she possibly believe that this will go well for her in any way, shape, or form? She's going to lose the case, of course, and she's put a big "I'm a pain in the butt" sign on her for the entire world to see.

EFY is not Reform Camp

2009-06-09T13:40:00.001-06:00

From the Daily Universe Police Beat on June 9, 2009:

June 3: An EFY counselor thought he could smell marijuana in Gates Hall around 11 p.m. He found three EFY participants smoking marijuana in the stairwell. Police said the juveniles will be charged.

Mine is Better

2009-06-05T00:18:00.001-06:00

My spam is better than yours, mine is 1337!

Awkward

2009-06-01T10:05:00.003-06:00

The moving company is supposed to be getting in contact with me today. So I'm waiting for a call from S&M Moving Systems.... I can only guess which end of that expression we'll end up on by the time this move is over...

Sorry for the absence

2009-05-24T01:02:00.005-06:00

Hi all, sorry for the long absence. It's been almost a full month since my last post.

Let's see, what is there to update you all on. The Heartless Siren and I are still getting married, so that's good. Wedding plans have been coming along. We have some test announcements coming from the printing company within the next few days, so we'll be getting those out really soon. Waldorf and Sauron put it together for us, it looks awesome.

My thesis is coming along. The data is getting close to finished, so I'll be working on the actual text of the thesis now. I am happy to say that the results seem to indicate that my work performs better than random guessing. Honestly, that's all I was hoping for. My work is in a very young field doing something that has yet to be done well using a very specific technique which has never before been applied to this field. So, getting better-than-random results is actually quite awesome. Now someone else can pick up my work and improve upon it.

We're still working on finding a place to live when we move in July. I need to call the complexes and see if they know their availability yet. I'd like to get that sorted out sooner rather than later so that we can arrange things with the moving company.

I've spent my nights this past week creating a registry website using the Django web framework built on Python. Let me just say Django/Python allows you to get an incredible amount of work done in very little time. The site looks amazing, is fully XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.1 compliant, and only needs 2 little CSS hacks to make it work in Internet Explorer.

We were using ~~Ourregistry.com~~ myregistry.com, but they require guests to give them an email address in order to view your registry. And harvesting email addresses from my friends and family is not OK. So, now they don't get our pageviews at all. And, I can easily turn my system into a competing product (it's already 90% there). The moral of the story is: Don't annoy a nerd with silly things when you're a website, they just might make their own to spite you.

Sorry, but since including a link here would give away our identities so blatantly I'll forgo. I would guess that with some clever Googling a smart researcher could probably find my identity and the website. So, I leave that task to the reader.

Not a Bomb

2009-04-28T10:17:00.003-06:00

KSL is reporting a short blurb about a "Man accused of setting off mall bomb". I thought this would have made bigger news, someone setting off a bomb at the Provo Towne Centre Mall. But, upon reading the article, it turns out to be a stupid choice of words and rather the over reaction by police. The moron filled a water bottle with liquid nitrogen (so they claim, probably more likely to be dry ice, where would he get liquid nitrogren? you actually can't just walk into the Chemistry department and buy it willy-nilly).

A water bottled filled with something cold. That's apparently considered an "explosive device", gimme a friggin' break. We did that kind of stuff all the time when I was a kid. We didn't use dry ice, but an expanding chemical reaction from food heaters found in MREs. Guess someone better retroactively charge me with several counts of making an explosive device. The main difference being that we popped them in our yard and not in a public location filled with people.

The kid is obviously a moron to pop a bottle like that in a public location, but he probably should have been charged with criminal mischief and/or disturbing the peace. But no, we'd rather make it sound like he's a "terrorist" trying to blow people up. Being charged with "making an explosive device" is the same kind of charge you get if you make pipe bombs in your basement. I would consider this to be a wholly lesser offense.

Now I have a question though. The article says the police and fire department responded because the device set off the fire alarms. Why would it set off a fire alarm? It's just a loud noise. Are the alarms sensitive to sudden pressure changes? or have the alarms actually be redesigned to include microphones that trigger for loud sudden blasts, much like gunfire would produce? Hmmm...

Engagement Update

2009-04-22T14:08:00.002-06:00

Hey all, seems that it has been awhile since I've posted anything here.

The Not-quite-as-heartless-as-previously-supposed Siren and I are currently in California looking for a place to live. I've accepted a job with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and will begin in July after we get married. Since I have a Spring term course, this week (between semesters) was really the only chance we'd get to come out and look at places and let TNQAHAPSS see California (she's never been before).

LLNL is providing some nice relocation benefits, including paying for this trip (reimbursed after I start work), unfortunately since we're not married yet only my expenses would be covered. So we drove out rather than flying. They'll pay my mileage for driving here and back, and it really doesn't cost anymore to have a second person in the car. Chloe (my Honda Civic) is holding up well on the trip (though needs the bugs cleaned off the front end). The first tank of gas from Provo to Winnemucca, NV got 39+ mpg, and the second tank, from Winnemucca to Sunnyvale, got 42+ mpg.

We spent Monday looking at the two places that got the best reviews on apartmentratings.com. We got applications from them, filled them out and dropped them off on Tuesday. Neither place knows if they'll actually have any openings in July, but they took the applications, will process them, and put us on the waiting list. When they found out I'd be working for LLNL they were much more eager to accommodate our situation. It would seem that these Managers have understood that if your tenants can pass an FBI background check and are able to obtain a Top Secret level security clearance that they probably won't give you any trouble. So we're hoping that one or the other place will have an opening and let us know toward the end of May.

If neither has any spots, well... it gets trickier. All the other complexes that have reviews do not get great marks from the reviewers. We may end up renting a house or something. Our plan is to rent something for about 6 months, while we search for a house to buy. In those 6 months we'll be able to put together a down payment, research the area, become part of the LLNL credit union, and go through the entire process without getting stressed about needing a place to live quickly. There are quite a few foreclosures in the area which we will be able to pickup for cheap. The area we're looking at is called Mountain House, and has foreclosures listing in the low 200,000's which sold 4 years ago for 600,000+.

Hopefully we'll pick up something for "cheap" now, thing will recover, and in the future when we are re-evaluating our life situation we might be able to sell at a considerable profit if desired.

Oh, the wedding will be June 23. We're getting married in the Boston Temple. YAY!

That Old Saying...

2009-04-02T08:40:00.003-06:00

So, you know that old saying, "The family that prays together, stays together"? There's another, lesser known saying along the lines of, "The family that runs a prostitution ring together, goes to jail together."[ksl.com]

LINDON -- Police have busted a Utah County prostitution ring, complete with the names of more than 1,000 clients. The investigation began last month when a man went to the house for a legitimate massage and was offered much more.

...

Detectives are reviewing an extensive client list that goes back to 2007. The list details dates, sexual acts performed and fees paid by each client -- some of whom, police say, are prominent people.

Note: If you're going to keep a detailed ledger of your illegal activities, at least have the decency to encrypt it, or follow the mafia's example and use code words. Friggin' amateur criminals.

Whoops

2009-03-31T19:45:00.004-06:00

I was checking my old hotmail account today and when I log out it takes me to the MSN home page. I found it rather humorous that the main image on the screen was linking to this:

Microsoft prominently running an article about what free software you can use to replace expensive Microsoft software. HA!

Getting Married!

2009-03-21T19:05:00.004-06:00

This news just in:

Curious Physics Minor and The Heartless Siren to Wed!
Details are sketchy, but this engagement has been confirmed by multiple sources. Here are our exclusive pictures of the ring:

Teachers' Unions

2009-03-17T18:39:00.003-06:00

In the comments on that previous post about Teachers' Unions, Katya raised a point I'd like to give further justice than just a reply in the comments:

Do you think there's anything about teachers' unions that makes them particularly bad? Maybe the quality of a teacher is harder to measure . . . or it's easier to blame shortcomings on the students.

There are, of course, some unique challenges with determining the quality of a teacher. Their success will have some correlation with the success of the students they teach, however exactly what, or how strong, that correlation is would be difficult to determine. What bugs me is the Union's stance against merit based incentives of any kind. Their opinion seems to be "There's no perfect way of doing it, so we won't allow any merit based incentives". If you buy into this type of reasoning, then there's really no reason to ever do anything. You'll rarely, if ever, be able to do something perfectly. This is true of some very important things. Like voting: The Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem (in association with Arrow's Impossibility Theorem) proves that no voting system is fair. So, by the logic of the Union, we shouldn't bother with voting either, because we can't do it perfectly.

Obviously, such an approach to life is rather limiting. In pretty much every aspect of our lives we accept solutions which are less than optimal simply because perfect solutions are either impossible to find or the necessary effort required to find them outweighs the usefulness of having them.

But, how do you measure the quality of a teacher? Any such measurement will need to include a subjective evaluation from students, other teachers, and administrators. So you'll need a way of dealing with the subjectivity of these evaluations and prevent them from turning into political games and popularity contests. I'm not exactly sure how you go about doing this. I'm sure there are lots of people that work in subjective survey taking that have some good ideas on the matter though. All such evaluations would be anonymous, of course, to prevent retaliation and gaming the system.

Part of this, I think, could be to include "down-the-road" evaluations. Have students fill out a very simple evaluation of how good they think the teacher was a year after having had them. (In very controlled systems like public education I wouldn't think this would be too hard to organize). Then you can get some larger picture perspective from students, who otherwise might be bitter about a final grade or something.

You can't grade performance simply on students' grades. That would further increase the amount of GPA bloat already existing. Creating an outside exam creates the same problem we already have with standardized testing: teaching to the test. But you can include that as some part of the overall metric.

The most important thing, in my opinion, is to be sure that merit based incentives take a longer window than 1 year into account. A teacher may have a bad year, a bad group of students, or some other issue that comes up. However, if you take a 5 year span and see that student/peer/supervisor evaluations are consistently low, and student performance is consistently low, then you can probably start making a pretty good guess about the overall quality of that teacher. During those 5 years they can be encouraged to improve their teaching. If, however, they consistently show, during a 5 year span, that they just aren't cutting it, it's time to cut them loose.

This gives teachers plenty of time to get their act together, have a bad year, deal with a bad group of students, whatever, while still allowing school systems to reward teachers who consistently receive good evaluations.

If we really want to improve public education in this country the best thing we can do is remove the cruft from the teaching staff. I think we can all look back on our public education and remember teachers who were excellent as well as teachers that just sucked. Knowing that those excellent teachers will not be rewarded for their quality is frustrating and saddening.

Stupid People want to Continue to be Stupid

2009-03-13T16:02:00.004-06:00

KSL is reporting a blurb entitled: Not everyone happy about no texting-while-driving bill.

Some say they don't want all their driving time to be a waste. "You know, the text can wait. But it's just like, for me, pulling over would be just ridiculous," one man said.

It rather boggles my mind that it is even necessary to pass laws prevent typing up text messages while driving. Making phone calls while driving is one thing, if you let the call take precedence over the driving you will probably end up in an accident, however you at least still have your eyes available to watch the road, and hand(s) to do stuff. But texting? You are necessarily removing your eyes from the road and distracting your brain and fine motor skills to type out a stupid message, and using one or both your hands to do it! Getting caught doing this should already cause you to get your license suspended for reckless driving.

And apparently there are people who believe their text message is so important that it absolutely cannot wait until they reach their destination. Who do these people think they are exactly?

Several months ago some friends and I were driving up to Salt Lake City. We were in the car pool lane and came up along a car that was swerving back and forth about half a car's width into the lanes on either side of it. We saw the girl driving it looking down at a cell phone held in her lap, using both hands to mess with it. We laid on the horn which startled her into looking up and correcting her steering into a single lane. Once she noticed we weren't a cop she promptly looked back down and began swerving again. [sigh] Stupid people. We should've called UHP, but didn't have the number. So frakkin' dangerous. GET OFF THE ROAD!

Change. A little anyways.

2009-03-13T14:51:00.002-06:00

CNN is reporting: U.S. reverses policy, drops 'enemy combatant' term. The big defense of the Bush Administration about indefinite detainment and arbitrary treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay was that the prisoners were "enemy combatants" and therefore not subject to the Geneva Convention nor to U.S. criminal law.

This convenient classification meant (according to the Bush Administration) that the prisoners actually had no rights or privileges of any kind and could be held with or without evidence and didn't have to be allowed to speak to an attorney or allowed a trial. From a country that claims to stand for freedom, justice, and the rule of law, this whole treatment seemed rather hypocritical to me. I wrote about it several times on my blogs.

I'm pleased to see that something is changing. These people should either be tried for their crimes or released. There is no middle ground. If they're prisoners of war, then well, honestly, you have problems with that designation because what war are they prisoners of? Iraq? We've claimed that the war in Iraq was "Mission Accomplished" therefore the prisoners should be released. Is it the "war on terror"? Because that's something that's impossible to end and designating prisoners as a prisoner of war in a war which cannot end (because it's not a real war) is really rather unfair.

So, here's to promoting the rule of law again (at least some parts of it).

These days, unions often suck.

2009-03-10T08:28:00.002-06:00

First, don't get me wrong, unions had a very important place in forcing employers to provide safe and healthy work environments to employees. They were a critical part of the Industrial Revolution era of things. However, it sure seems like they've lived long past their original usefulness. It seems to me that oftentimes now unions are more an agent of stagnation and rot than good change. My impetus for writing this short post today comes from this article (which will be changing as the news conference in currently in progress): Obama urges special rewards for best teachers. The teachers' union has long opposed merit pay/bonuses for teachers. Why? Just WHY? Oh, you mean if we reward teachers for being good at teaching then the bad teachers might feel inferior somehow? Good! Having been through 12 years of public education I would be more than happy to put pressure on the crappy teachers to encourage them to either improve or find a new job. But, from my discussions with actual teachers, it seems that the teachers' union mainly exists to ensure that firing any teacher is difficult, and that no teacher gets rewarded in any substantial way for being better than others.

I've had an interest in possibly teaching at a high school level, however it is the nonsense included in things like the teachers' union that makes me think twice. I'd prefer to work in a field which rewards me for being good at what I do.

How many interviews does it take to get a job?

2009-03-09T15:12:00.003-06:00

Though cousin to the more popular "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Toosie Roll pop?" my question is probably more important.

I just completed my sixth, yes 6th interview with Lawrence Livermore National Labs. I've been told that I can probably expect a job offer, but anything official must come through HR, so I can't take that to mean I will be offered a job.

I think that is actually the last of the interviews though. To summarize them:

1 Preliminary screening interview after the Career Fair in January
3 On-site interviews in Livermore, California last week
1 Position placement phone interview last week after returning to Provo
1 Position placement phone interview today

These last two phone interviews are very good signs that I will be offered a job, but there's still the possibility of it not happening.

So, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that CPM will probably need to decide in the coming weeks if he'd like to live in California and work for LLNL for the next stage of his life.

What do you all think?

Life Update

2009-03-06T17:55:00.002-07:00

I realize that I have not been updating this blog very actively. Mainly it's because most of the things that I've been blogging about fit more aptly on my real-identity blog. So it has been getting a lot of updates.

But, I'll fill you in on some things that have been happening. I've been spending time working on the Board. The future of the Board lies in in the Django-Python web framework. If you happen to know it, or have any interest in learning Python/Django let me know, we can also use an extra coder.

As I will be finishing school in the coming months I've been looking for job opportunities. I've been off interviewing at places and sending out applications and resumes. I may be getting some offers in soon and I'll then have to decide what I want to do with the next stage of my life.

I also have the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Spring Research Conference coming up, and I need to finish revising the paper I had accepted into the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks. Hand in hand with all of that is collecting data for my Master's thesis work and trying to get something useful to happen with my program. Having realized that some of my data was bad, my hopes have risen for the results of the next batch of processing.

That's the bulk of what's been happening in my life without getting in to too many details.

Hold on, what?

2009-02-17T01:35:00.003-07:00

Troopers release driver after seizing thousands in cash on I-80

So, apparently, the Highway Patrol can confiscate all of your money because, "I believe that the money was going to California to purchase narcotics." And then, "The driver will now have to prove his story in court if he wants to get it back."

I may be new to the law enforcement thing, but I was under the impression that transporting a large amount of money was not illegal in and of itself. Even if you have a criminal record, and even if a drug dog says the money smells like drugs, it seems a bit unfair to take "nearly $200,000 in cash" away from someone and then make them go to court to prove that they weren't going to use it to buy drugs.

And even if they did intend to buy drugs with it, how does that make it illegal to have the money? If you suspect someone is going to buy drugs you can just take away their money and tell them "prove you weren't going to buy drugs"? How do you prove you weren't going to do something exactly?

I don't think I can agree with this type of preemptive, based-on-suspicion law enforcement.

St. Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T10:36:00.004-07:00

Those that know me probably also know that I've been fighting off a really strong infection of mononucleosis over the last 3+ weeks. I've had mono at least twice before, but this time was the worst of the three. Not only did it make me rather tired, but it also decided to make my tonsils and throat swell up to the point that I could hardly swallow my own spit. Thanks to a visit to the Student Health Center I was able to get a prescription of prednisone which, when combined with ibuprofen, was able to bring the swelling under control. So, I've spent the last 3 weeks tired and on steroids in order to be able to function. I had grown tired of this arrangement by about day 4.

I woke up on Saturday morning and my throat didn't hurt! There was still a small amount of swelling, but I could swallow and I felt like I had energy! I was really excited about this. Since the Heartless Siren has been recovering from her surgery and I was dealing with mono it was looking like Valentine's Day was going to be a bit underwhelming this year.

It still wasn't incredibly exciting, since I had had no energy to plan anything out ahead of time. I promised to cook dinner, figuring that would expend all my energy reserves. I also needed to do laundry. So the day started by me going shopping to buy ingredients for dinner. Then I swung by Campus Craft and Floral to pick up the roses I had ordered. I got to Heartless Siren's house and presented her with the flowers and then snuck off to the kitchen for a few minutes to put ingredients away for later. I also opened up a couple of boxes of Conversation Hearts and removed the white ones (HS thinks they're gross, but loves the other colors). After putting the meat in the fridge marinating I gave HS the bowl of conversation hearts and we headed back to my house so I could do laundry while we caught up on TV shows we had missed during January.

After enjoying episodes of Chuck, 30 Rock, and The Office my laundry was done and now it was time to head back to HS's house for dinner. I sent her to the living room to listen to music and read while I cooked dinner: New York cut steaks marinated for 6 hours in Italian dressing, garlic mashed potatoes, broccoli, freshly baked French bread rolls, 2 candles, and for dessert, hot-out-of-the-oven brownie pudding. I will congratulate myself on having all the food finish with perfect timing to put it on the table, and it tasted incredible, I was quite pleased.

Then I read a few chapters of Harry Potter to HS, and once my throat was dried out we watched Enchanted. Despite our recovering from surgery/illness it was a very nice day overall.

My New Toy, or N810 Unboxing

2009-02-07T10:23:00.008-07:00

Now that The Heartless Siren is out of the hospital and recovering I have things to post about on this blog that I haven't already posted in my personal blog. Since I spent 2 of the last 5 weeks with The Heartless Siren in the hospital I didn't have much to say about anything, and the week before that was spent taking care of her at home, and the past 2 weeks have been spent being sick with Mono and taking care of her at home again.

During those 2 weeks I found a really good deal on a new toy that I decided I needed. The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet (4 different links there). I was able to get it shipped for $210.

Here are some of the highlights about why I wanted it:
- 800x480 resolution screen with automatic brightness adjust according to ambient light
- Full web browser with Javascript and Flash 9 support (based on Mozilla)
- Open Source architecture with lots of completely free applications available and active development community
- Built off of Debian Linux = rock solid stable performance
- Includes a Xterm with download of OpenSSH (Now I can login to my servers and fix problem from almost anywhere!)
- Wireless G Network, GPS, Mic, Camera, Expandable Memory, VOIP
- This one I don't use yet, but probably when I get a new phone and plan: Bluetooth phone tethering for internet access via phone from anywhere
- Small: the device is the size of an index card and about a centimeter thick

Now, like any good nerd I documented the unboxing:

After some theme customizing, let's find The Board:

I got the N810 on Thursday and so far have very few (and very minor) complaints:

1. The main thing is that some of the built-in functionality (chat, email) I've replaced with community applications which are better designed with better options, and (thus far) I haven't found a good way of either removing the built-in apps or remapping their quick-link buttons to the 3rd party apps.
2. The bundled GPS software (Wayfinder) wants you to buy a subscription with them in order to get on-the-fly Routing and turn-by-turn navigation: 1-month: ~$14, 12-month: ~$110, 36-month: ~$120. Now, if you get the 3-year then it's like $3.33 a month, not too bad for updates on maps and lots of types of points-of-interest, but still. No navigation out-of-the-box (you do get a 7-day trial)? Sadly the really nice free app Maemo-mapper does not currently support on-the-fly routing (you can download routes into it, but can't calculate new ones on-the-fly, w/o internet connection, the above mentioned Bluetooth phone link could make this a non-issue).
3. The included car cradle is not ready-to-go, you still need to buy a mount either for your dashboard, cupholder, or windshield.

Other than those 3 minor annoyance I absolutely love it. Now I just need to go drive around and play with the GPS sometime. The bundled Wayfinder's most serious flaw, in my opinion, is address entering: In order to look up the address say: 551 N 200 W, Provo, UT You have to enter the Street field as: N 200 W, then the House Number field as 551, and then the city as Provo, and state Utah. Why can't I just type "551 N 200 W, Provo, UT"?! Maemo-mapper allows me to enter addresses in this manner. And it took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to get addresses in Utah to work properly because of that silliness. But that gripe is squarely directed at Wayfinder.

Cereal

2009-01-06T13:36:00.004-07:00

So... I browse through Snide Remarks every so often. I stumbled upon this hilarity today:
From Muckoo For Mocoa Muffs

Fruity Cheerios are little rings in several different colors. They look suspiciously familiar. The front of the box makes this declarative statement: "25% less sugar than the leading fruity cereal." And I'm thinking: Oh, SNAP, Froot Loops! They totally just called you out! What a passive-aggressive slogan! It's like, "We're not naming any names here, but, um, we have 25 percent less sugar than a certain other fruity cereal we could mention. We're just sayin'." And the people at Kellogg's are like, "B****es did NOT just diss us!" And General Mills is all, "Don't be hatin', we just keepin' it real," and Kellogg's is like, "Whateva. Maybe if you put MORE sugar if yo nasty-a** fruity cereal, people might be BUYIN' it," and then Post is totally on the floor laughing, and General Mills is like, "Whatchoo laughin' at, Fruity Pebbles? Ain't you got some Flintstones to go be watchin'?," and then Quaker Oats pulls out a gun.

In other news, Winter semester has begun. woo. Feel my lackluster enthusiasm there? Yah, me too. 6 more months and I'll be done though.

Programming Languages as Religions

2008-12-17T10:16:00.002-07:00

I greatly enjoyed this article: If programming languages were religions...

If you're familiar with several program languages you'll probably enjoy it also. Here are some highlights:

"Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity - it's theoretically based on C, but it voids so many of the old laws that it doesn't feel like the original at all. Instead, it adds its own set of rigid rules, which its followers believe to be far superior to the original. Not only are they certain that it's the best language in the world, but they're willing to burn those who disagree at the stake."

"C# would be Mormonism - At first glance, it's the same as Java, but at a closer look you realize that it's controlled by a single corporation (which many Java followers believe to be evil), and that many theological concepts are quite different. You suspect that it'd probably be nice, if only all the followers of Java wouldn't discriminate so much against you for following it."

"Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code." -- It's so true! I love programming in Python, it just does what I want without making me jump through hoops!

Sometimes, I Hate Americans

2008-12-12T10:37:00.003-07:00

Nintendo Slapped With Strap Lawsuit Once Again

It is completely outside my realm of comprehension how anyone can believe it is Nintendo's responsibility that morons LET GO of their Wii controller and break something. Honestly, can I sue a baseball bat manufacturer because I swung the bat really hard, let go, and it hit my window? It was nice of Nintendo to include wrist straps on the controllers and then to voluntarily make the wrist straps stronger. If you're letting go of the controller and then stressing the wrist strap enough to make it break then I have news for you and your playing skills: You're doing it wrong!

Denial of Service Attack

2008-12-08T18:32:00.003-07:00

The interesting things happening with the Board just keep on growing. For anyone trying to use the Board today (Monday) around 5:30 you may have seen the Board start serving up "Technical Difficulties" pages for a bit, and then go down. The part where it went down completely was me, trying to keep the server alive while I did troubleshooting.

The immediate problem was an incredible number of apache processes chewing up all the database connections. The cause of the issue was a certain IP address requesting the main page about 3 times a second for an hour or so. The server didn't really like that too much. Once I discovered this I blocked the IP address and brought the server back up. After another 15 minutes of getting HTTP 403 errors sent back to them the IP address stopped requesting pages. Now, whether intentional or not the result of this process is known as a Denial of Service (DOS) attack. So named because, as you may have discovered, when it's occurring the legitimate users, such as yourself, cannot access the content of the website.

I'll keep an eye on the situation and continue to slave away to make sure the Board stays alive for your viewing pleasure.

My current hypothesis on the matter is that the attackers that accessed the server last month are retaliating for me locking them out. But that's just a theory.

I Feel Special

2008-12-01T22:36:00.004-07:00

<sarcasm>I love personalized advertisements and junk mail. This one is particularly touching.</sarcasm>

Analysis of the Board Attack

2008-11-25T10:47:00.004-07:00

So, all the readers of the 100 Hour Board should know by now (assuming you check your email account) that the Board was attacked and compromised recently.

I was waiting for all the disclosure emails to go out before posting. So, now we can discuss what happened.

On Thursday November 13, 2008 I was asked by an editor to make a code change on part of the site. Well, wasn't I surprised that when I tried to login to the server the account password had been changed. So this was when the fun began. I used an alternative access method to get onto the machine with root privileges and regain control of the normal user account. Then, of course, it was time to start digging to find out what "they" had been up to, where they came from, and how they got in.

I quickly discovered from the log files that the attackers were clever enough to gain access to the machine, however apparently incredibly stupid at the same time. So, there's a good chance it was mostly a script-kiddie attack. They remembered to clear the bash_history for the normal user, but (having accessed the root account using "sudo su"; I've revoked sudo privileges now, since I'm the only one that should be executing commands as root, and I have the root password to use that account when needed) forgot to clear root's bash_history from their last session. So I got to see some of their stupid in action, line by line. For example they list out a directory and then try to change directories into a regular file. Or run "cat" on a compressed file (so you get a bunch of garbage sent to the screen). They were, however, properly paranoid, checking for other logins several times during what appeared to be a short session.

After locking down the user accounts to prevent further shell access I went digging through more logs to find out who they were. So, while they were smart enough to erase their bash_history (most of it) they were also dumb enough to leave behind all of their auth_logs (the ones that say when people log in and from where) as well as all the of the apache logs from their attacks. So it was trivial to discover that the attackers were hitting the machine from locations in Ukraine and Russia (of course these were just their last bounces before coming to our machine and they could be coming through any number of points before that).

Based on the Apache logs they found the Board by doing a Google search looking for any ".edu" addresses that contain "id" in the URL anywhere and are running PHP. So, they appeared to be trolling for sites that might be vulnerable to SQL Injection attacks. My first thought was that they exploited a vulnerability in the Board software and executed an SQL Injection; but further analysis of the events suggest that was not the case. The particular part of the Board they attempted to attack was actually immune. Which, of course, is to suggest that other areas were less immune. I say "were" because I've been spending many waking hours of my life the last couple of weeks doing a line-by-line code review patching up security holes. It's been a tedious and tiring process, but overall the Board is much safer now.

So, what were they doing with the machine they had gained access to? Hosting spam. They weren't sending spam from our machine, which is nice, fewer headaches for us to deal with (being blacklisted, etc). But they had been hosting a Cialis/Viagra spam website in a directory and they embedded a hidden link on our site to promote search engine traffic for that page. They also installed several web interface back-doors to the system, at least 5 if I recall correctly. They were not very smart about hiding those, however, since a PHP file in an "Images" directory sticks out pretty obviously. So I cleaned out all of that garbage as well. Initial reviews of the database suggest that no malicious content has been injected there either.

So, all in all we weren't hit too badly. And had they not been arrogant enough to change the account password there's a good chance I wouldn't know about it still.

The fun, from my end, begins again when they find out that they no longer have access to the machine. Keeping a close eye on the machine they discovered the next day that their shell access was no longer valid. Then in the Apache logs they quickly discovered that all of their web-interface back-doors were missing as well. (This actually helps me because all the ones they checked were ones I had removed, which suggests I got them all.) Then they found that their spam site was no longer running, and that their hidden link on our site was gone. Now the crucial step was about to happen, they would check their next point of access to see if we had completely locked down the machine.

Much to my surprise they quickly and easily accessed the database via our phpMyAdmin interface. This was to my surprise because I had also changed the MySQL account passwords to prevent this very thing. I was afraid they had used some exploit in the phpMyAdmin code, but doing some very fast digging and checking I was sad/happy to discover that I was at fault. In my haste to get our new machine running I had apparently forgotten to remove one of the default "nobody" accounts in MySQL. I now have found that Ubuntu MySQL installations come with a script "mysql_secure_installation" which steps you through a script to make MySQL secure by removing anonymous accounts, setting the root password, deleting default databases, etc. I highly recommend it, it's apparently not well known since none of the Ubuntu MySQL Installation Tutorials I've read through have ever mentioned it.

So, now MySQL is locked down tight, and to prevent further issues of any kind access to phpMyAdmin has been restricted to on-campus only. It appears that they either found out about this change on November 20, or not at all yet. That depends on if they have a machine available to launch attacks from inside an insurance company in Canada which tried to access phpMyAdmin.

It's now been a couple days since I was writing this post, so I've lost my train of thought. So, I think I'll just end it here. We've cleaned out the machine and everything seems to be pretty good. There doesn't appear to by any XSS attacks running or malicious content hiding in the database, but if you see anything suspicious please send us an email so we can check into it.

Overreaction

2008-11-20T14:08:00.001-07:00

This is what we call an "overreaction":

Man charged for firing gun at wife

A Holladay man faces charges for firing a gun at his wife multiple times during an argument. It happened Saturday around 8 p.m. at the Sandpiper Apartments at 1370 E. Spring Lane, which is about 5000 South.

Sheriff's deputies say Randolph Taylor Carley fired at least nine times at his wife as she tried to leave their home, hitting her once in the leg and grazing her side.

The woman's injuries were not life threatening.

Carley is now charged with second-degree felony attempted murder.

Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy

2008-11-19T07:38:00.002-07:00

I read this headline and assumed it was from The Onion, but when I noticed it wasn't I wanted a closer look.

It's actually an article written by Andy Borowitz, an award winning comedian and satirist. I find it hilarious: Huffington Post: Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy.

Reproduced here for your reading enjoyment:

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a president who speaks English as if it were his first language.

"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."

The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate -- we get it, stop showing off."

The president-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.

Comments I Wrote on Tests

2008-11-18T11:02:00.005-07:00

I've been grading tests. Here are some of the fun comments I made:

Student: "Consider the language L={a,b | a! = b} (factorial), this can obviously not be recognized in 2ⁿ steps."
Me: "Really? There is a O(n (log n log log n)²) algorithm for factorials. Ooooo. Burn!"

Student: "If the TM had only 1 state, and the size of the alphabet = 2 it would appear more like 2^|w|..."
Me: "That's crazy talk."

Student: Long answer...
Me: "So close, but then you went on a tangent instead of hitting the answer."

Student: "The answer is Yesssssss but only 7 s's because too many s's will mean less mercy points if I'm wrong."
Me: "Sorry, check your coin again."

Canada

2008-11-10T12:18:00.001-07:00

I was just catching up on some old Snide Remarks when I ran across this statement, I almost died:

Canada seems like France and England got together and had a baby, but they couldn't take care of it, so they sent it off to be raised by American parents, who abused it.

Democracy

2008-11-06T23:47:00.002-07:00

So, I've been thinking over some of the results of the election. If you look through the results you'll find that several anti-gay-marriage measures passed in several states. People that support gay-marriage are irate over those measures passing, and many are taking aim at the LDS church. Unfortunately for them, when it comes down to it, the people that live in those areas voted, it was their votes that decided the outcome. The LDS church, or any other organization, didn't force anyone to vote one way or the other, there was no voter intimidation. The will of the people allowed measured like Proposition 8 to pass. That's how Democracy works. Sorry you don't like it. Sometimes Democracy doesn't turn out the way you want, I direct you towards the 8 years of Bush that we had to put up with. But you don't get to agree with Democracy when it goes your way, and then argue against Democracy when things go the other way.

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the LDS church's role in the passing of Proposition 8. Yes, the church supported it. Yes, the church encouraged people to donate to the campaign to pass Prop 8. However, as always, individual members were allowed to decide the matter for themselves. You can oppose Proposition 8 and still be a temple worthy church member. Church members were not being "forced" or "coerced" into supporting, donating towards, or voting for Proposition 8.

I'm sorry if Democracy didn't work out for you this time. You can do what everyone else does, suck it up, and better luck next time. If the monetary contributions made by LDS church members was enough to swing the vote to pass Proposition 8 then next time your side will need to raise more money, that's how Democracy works. Deal with it.

Where You're From

2008-11-06T14:38:00.002-07:00

I enjoy looking over the Google Analytics information every so often. The current crop of data is rather interesting because of the diverse and international readership that I apparently have, on occasion at least.

Here's the stats on where my visitors come from (over the last 30 days):
United States ---- 365
Canada ----------- 6
United Kingdom --- 5
Germany ---------- 3
Malaysia --------- 2
Saudi Arabia ----- 2
Mexico ----------- 1
Iran ------------- 1
Finland ---------- 1
Chile ------------ 1
Pakistan --------- 1
Poland ----------- 1
India ------------ 1
Romania ---------- 1
France ----------- 1
South Korea ------ 1
Spain ------------ 1

That's a pretty cool list if you ask me.

Michael Crichton Died

2008-11-05T12:55:00.001-07:00

'Jurassic Park' author, 'ER' creator Crichton dies

I rather enjoyed most of Crichton's works. Too bad there will be no more to read now.

Hallelujah!

2008-11-04T22:59:00.003-07:00

Obama won! Best part is that it wasn't even close so the McCain supporters won't be able to go around for weeks complaining about this or that, he lost, and his supporters booed when he conceded; real classy.

Too bad it took 8 years of idiocracy for enough of this country to realize what was happening, but now we can finally start drifting back towards the middle and a President who doesn't say things like "One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see--I've forgot the name of the program--but you get the satellite, and you can like, I kinda like to look at the ranch."

Questions For Me

2008-11-04T01:24:00.003-07:00

Well, mainly just one question for me:

For someone so cynical about so much of life why do I allow myself to be so foolishly optimistic about dating?

Why do I let myself build up hopes and wishes when I know that it will only mean there will be further to fall when things don't work out, which they never do. So, I guess it's time to be done with all the nonsense of dating again for awhile. I've put myself out there several times in the last few months, and I'm tired of the results.

What Country Am I Living In?

2008-10-31T14:36:00.003-06:00

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/10/30/citizen.html

Counties can’t certify their election results until the challenges are resolved. If the voters can prove citizenship, Handel said, their ballots will be counted.

Any voter can challenge another’s qualifications to cast a ballot by notifying a precinct poll manager, Handel said. That voter then would be given a challenge ballot and would have to go before the election board.

So, we're going to allow anyone voting on Election Day to point fingers at other voters and say they're not a legal citizen, and the state will then put tell them to vote on a paper ballot which won't be counted until the citizenship dispute is resolved on Friday? Where am I? How does anyone think this is a good idea? The possibility of abusing this system to, if nothing other than cause mayhem, is incredible. What if I just sit at the polls all day and say I want every single voter to prove their citizenship before we count their vote? Would they remove me from the polls? What if I got a group of people together and we rotated in and out of polls all day long causing problems? What an incredible mess they've opened themselves up to.

Mysterious Apple

2008-10-31T13:08:00.001-06:00

MMMmmmmm... Mysteriously delivered candy-chocolate-caramel apple..... sooo tasty... wait a minute... isn't there a Disney movie about mysteriously obtained apples? Uh-oh.

A Very Horrible Halloween

2008-10-31T10:52:00.001-06:00

Now the nightmare’s real
Now Dr. Horrible is here to make you quake with fear
To make the whole world kneel

Happy Halloween!

Me

2008-10-31T00:55:00.001-06:00

:-D

That's all I have to say on the subject.

Five Love Languages

2008-10-29T14:47:00.001-06:00

I feel loved when...

The Five Love Languages

My Primary Love Language is Physical Touch

My Detailed Results:
Physical Touch:	10
Quality Time:	8
Acts of Service:	5
Words of Affirmation:	5
Receiving Gifts:	2

About this quiz

Unhappiness in relationships is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. It can be helpful to know what language you speak and what language those around you speak.

Tag 3 people so they can find out what their love language is.

Take the Quiz!
Check out the Book

Just Wow

2008-10-28T18:23:00.003-06:00

Police say teen [girl] driver hit 107 mph in a construction zone.

OSP Trooper Ryan Hockema tried to stop a red 1995 Ford Mustang he spotted going 87 mph near a construction site. According to the trooper, the vehicle then accelerated to speeds as high as 107 mph in the work zone while failing to maintain the travel lane, following other vehicles too closely and making unsafe lane changes.

The driver, Messer, allegedly told the trooper she had trouble seeing while talking on her cell phone before stopping for the officer, according to OSP.

Kimberly Messer of Springfield Oregon, you should have your license taken away for a very long time because of this. You are a hazard to everyone on the road. I hope your parents leave you in jail for a day or two before taking you home and grounding you for the rest of your life. How stupid do you have to be to drive like that and then mention anything about talking on your cell phone. She's incredibly lucky that she's 18, because Oregon has a ban on cell phone use for drivers under 18.

Bracelet FAIL

2008-10-28T08:50:00.002-06:00

If you're a company in the business of manufacturing bracelets a good way to make sure your customers never come back is to stamp the F-word on a handful of the bracelets for an order:
Obscene word stamped on some school bracelets

Apparently, Weber School District ordered 30,000 bracelets that were supposed to read "Color Me Drug Free", but some instead had F*** written on them. Whoops.

Methinks the bracelet company will not be getting a second order.

More Cool Google

2008-10-22T07:40:00.003-06:00

I just discovered an added feature to Google Maps that I find rather nifty. We all know and love that you can use Google Maps to look at current traffic conditions for highways in many major population areas. Apparently Google has been storing this data and now allows you to get a predicted traffic conditions for any time of day of any day of the week. So now you can find out what the roads will be like whenever you need to be traveling. For instance; it is a very, very good idea to avoid I-15 Southbound between Orem and Springville on Fridays around 3:30, otherwise it is predicted that you will be sitting in bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic for a good chunk of that distance.

[sigh]
I love Google.

No, The voters are not the problem

2008-10-19T08:58:00.002-06:00

The Charleston Gazette is running an article about early voters having their votes switch from Obama to McCain.

Two of the voters describe the problem like this:

"When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain." - Virginia Matheney

"When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again. The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican" - Calvin Thomas

That sounds like a pretty big problem. It sounds like the machine knew they were touching the screen to indicate a vote for Obama and after registering that information by marking the box it then changed the vote to McCain. That is not acceptable. Here was the response from the county election officials:

"[Jackson County Clerk Jeff] Waybright blamed the problem on voters."
"People make mistakes more than the machines," he [Waybright] said, "but I went in yesterday and recalibrated the machines. We are doing everything we can not to disenfranchise anybody."

No, wrong. This is not a voter problem. The software on the voting machines should absolutely prevent this from happening. I can think of two possible situation as to what the software may do to cause this behavior and either option is unacceptable in a voting machine and the software should be fixed. This is typical government type reaction to using a crappy product, rather than demand a product that is well designed they believe that training everyone to use a non-intuitive and crappily designed product is the solution.

Here's scenario 1: The boxes used to select a candidate are too close together and the software has a hard time determining which box the user actually touched. Solution. Vote for one office at a time, candidate choices are buttons that are 3 inch squares with 3 inches between them. Lots of room to do this.

Scenario 2: The software registers any touch that doesn't land in a box as a touch for the first box or last box on the screen. No, bad. Wrong. The software should be designed to ignore any click that doesn't clearly land inside a candidate box.

And, to add to that it should be really easy to allow the voter to verify their ballot. Once you made your selections you should get a Confirmation Page, like everything in the world gives you. It should say something like "For President you have selected:" and then in VERY BIG BOLD LETTERS the name of the candidate. "Is this correct?" Yes, No.

Software that randomly switches votes is absolutely unacceptable. I've been through this tirade before, so I won't go all the way into it. I will suffice it to say that the current crop of electronic voting machines could be the worst thing to happen to democracy in a long time. The ability to commit election fraud on a county and state level is incredibly simplified with insecure, poorly designed machines that provide no paper backup of what is happening.

Written on Student's Exam

2008-10-15T11:14:00.004-06:00

Here are two things written verbatim on student's exams that I graded last week:

"The Hell for more than 1 'B' -> NO ESCAPE!"

"If I see it I should be able to pop it, otherwise FREAK OUT"

Things the CS Dept. Wants to Know

2008-10-14T16:01:00.000-06:00

to: grads@cs.byu.edu, faculty@cs.byu.edu
subject: Is someone cooking fish in the building?

My Illness of Tuesday

2008-10-11T23:03:00.003-06:00

I said I'd discuss my illness and then never did. So, here's your update on that.

My family spent most of the weekend at my sister's house, watching Conference, eating meals, etc. Her ward apparently had some stomach bug going around, but her house had been symptom free for a week before. On Monday night we met there again and had dinner of 5 Buck Pizza. Now, whether it was the pizza or the stomach bug we'll never know, but regardless I'll probably avoid 5 Buck Pizza at this point; probably not their fault, but those are the breaks.

Anyways, that was the setup. Tuesday morning I got up, was still tired, turned off my alarm and went to sleep for another hour. I crawled out of bed around 10 and started my morning internet routine, check the news, email, weather, etc. After sitting there for about 10 minutes I started feeling not so great in the digestive area. Curious as to if I were an isolated case I called my mom to see if anyone else was not feeling well after the pizza. She was also ill.

I haven't had digestive illness for a long while now. I thought I'd try a small sip of water as I was thirsty. Mistake. Within 30 seconds of that cap full of water hitting my stomach I was in the bathroom undoing the process, unpleasant. I've managed to not vomit in several years. I don't enjoy the process. Since I had just woken up there wasn't really anything to throw up, so it was mostly dry heaving and stomach acid... gross. On top of that my nose was running. On top of _that_ tears were dripping onto my glasses, and then drying leaving salt spot so I couldn't even see. I was a very miserable mess.

That was not all of my problems though. The vomiting continued sporadically for ~6-8 hours. This was accompanied with other... unpleasant... digestive issues. I think that from Tuesday at 10am to 10pm I spent 6 hours in the bathroom being sick or feeling like I was about to be sick, and the other six hours sleeping. I was able to sleep through the night only waking up a few times until about 9 Wednesday morning. So when I got up Wednesday morning I hadn't eaten anything for 36 hours. Tuesday afternoon after the vomiting had died down I was able to keep down small amounts of 7-up coupled with Tums, and a little water. So I was able to avoid complete dehydration.

All in all it was an incredibly unpleasant 24 hours to endure through. I really, really hope I did not pass the problem on to any roommates or friends (assuming it wasn't the pizza). So far no one I know has gotten ill so I think we're safe.

"I Can Still Fix This"

2008-10-10T10:09:00.003-06:00

With the world around him disintegrating and the hordes of angry, misled citizens banging on the doors and windows President Bush was heard saying to a close aid, "I am the Commander in Chief! I can fix this, I can fix all of this." Also heard was "I do not need to explain why I say things. — That's the interesting thing about being the President. — Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

He then went on to explain that he built this economy on lies, bad business practices, and poor politics, so we should just continue with those 3 pillars of strength. There is no need for fiscal responsibility or accountability "This is an anxious time, but the American people can be confident in our economic future," he said. If we all just dream of rainbows and sunshine it will come true, because "I am the Commander in Chief" and that's what I want.

Please ignore the fact that I promised the economy would be okay after doling out the "economic stimulus checks". Turns out I was simply trying to stave off disaster until _after_ I left office so we could all blame someone else. Also ignore that I said everything would be OK after shelling out money to all sorts of corporations that I have friends in and things got worse. But, please, please, please, in 3 months, forget the fact that I said this: "the U.S. government's financial rescue plan was aggressive and big enough to work"

Also, from that same source:
"Bush says anxiety feeds market frenzy but U.S. rescue plan will work." He then went on to discuss how blood drives sharks crazy. Those loony creatures, just can't get enough after they smell the first drop.

Thanks Bush. As the world crumbles around you I'm sure standing there saying "Don't Panic! We can fix it!" will make a big difference.

Also, it looks like the DOW will drop below 8000 today. Note that this is ~2500 points below where the DOW was before the $700 Billion bailout that Bush "ordered" Congress to approve was passed.

Havoc

2008-10-08T09:28:00.002-06:00

Issued by The National Weather Service
Salt Lake City, UT
8:08 am MDT, Wed., Oct. 8, 2008

... WINTER-LIKE STORM TO HIT REGION THIS WEEKEND...

AN UNSEASONABLY COLD STORM SYSTEM IS TARGETED FOR UTAH THIS WEEKEND. ALTHOUGH THIS STORM SYSTEM WILL FILTER IN ACROSS THE REGION DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS THE BRUNT OF THE SYSTEM WILL AFFECT THE STATE SATURDAY INTO SUNDAY. SNOW LEVELS ARE EXPECTED TO COME DOWN TO THE VALLEY FLOORS FOR ALL OF UTAH EXCEPT DIXIE AND LAKE POWELL REGIONS BY SATURDAY NIGHT. ALTHOUGH SNOW AMOUNTS IN GENERAL MAY NOT BE SIGNIFICANT... EVEN MINOR AMOUNTS COULD CAUSE HAVOC WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT MOST TREES HAVE NOT LOST THEIR FOLIAGE. IN ADDITION... MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY WILL BE ABOUT 25 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL.

----

So apparently we're in for a cold weekend with a possibility of Havoc! I just found it amusing to find that word in an official statement issued by the government.

----

In other news I was deathly ill all day yesterday. I'll give an account of that later.

The Life of Pi

2008-10-05T22:24:00.003-06:00

I just finished reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I found it really interesting and can't wait to discuss it in depth with someone. Like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the back of the book contains some "Discussion Questions". Although they are supposed to be thought provoking I found the presented questions incredibly bland for such a richly filled story. So I hope to actually discuss the depths of the novel. I don't think I can even write any kind of summary here without spoiling the book, so I will simply state that it was interesting and I will thoroughly enjoy analyzing it. If you're into contemporary philosophical type reads I'd recommend it. Anyone that enjoys either Life of Pi or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance will likely enjoy the other as well (Zen isn't nearly as brutal, fyi).

So, if you've read it, let's talk. If you haven't read it, read it, and then let's talk. We can start with: What would you do for survival? --Discuss on multiple levels: physical, mental, moral, meta-physical, etc...

National Debt: A Graph

2008-10-03T16:32:00.003-06:00

Here's a graph of the National debt from December 30, 1994 through October 1, 2008. Guess when Bush entered the white house.

(All numbers from TreasuryDirect.gov: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway)

Things that Annoy me

2008-10-01T11:16:00.002-06:00

If I'm waiting in the turn lane to cross 3 lanes of traffic then don't come up behind me and start honking. I know why I'm there. I'm not confused about being in the turning lane with my turn signal on. I'm waiting for a safe chance to turn, which I realize must be a foreign concept to you. If you'd like to cut in front of 3 lanes of vehicles traveling 45-50mph be my guest, but I'm going to sit and wait until it's safe. Jerk.

How do you choose?

2008-09-29T00:14:00.003-06:00

I wrote this in Sacrament meeting today (I still paid attention, sort of, hey, inspiration struck, I couldn't turn it down, it's been over a year since I've written anything).

It's still rather raw, and needs polish, but I might as well put it up here anyways.

How do you Choose?
When two paths lay before you, with what methods do you choose your way?
It's not a matter of which has been traveled less or more.
There is no grass been trod nor underbrush grown by which to gauge the popularity of the trail.
Simply left or right with no whisper of what lays at either's end.
No notion of which may lead through rough terrain or which will lope downhill.

Will the first lead you through wooded hills?
The shade protect you from the sun.
And as life leads on from Spring to Fall reward you with its glowing colors?
Or will those peaceful woods turn to oppressive forest, enclosing dark and dreary?
Smothering your soul from the precious light of day.

Perhaps the other follows along the river bank, meandering on its way.
Clear, fresh water to quench your ample thirst.
Soothing your tired feet at the end of each long day.
But is the Spring filled with floods which consume your easy trail?
You fight your way through the brush to keep up with the raging stream.
With luck it calms and you can spend your Autumn years relaxing along the bank.

Alas, from where you stand there is no way to tell.
So as you stop at the forks of life, two paths from which to pick;
With what methods will you choose your way?

As for me, I shall follow my heart.

Copyright Czar

2008-09-27T08:44:00.002-06:00

Ok, so regardless of how we all feel about the $700 Billion bailout plan, we can probably agree that it's something that Congress should be spending their time on right now, deciding what to do with it. But, no, instead we spend our time on things like this:

The Senate has just passed a bill creating a new cabinet-level position for "Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator".

Yes, we now have a cabinet-level position in the government to monitor copyright infringement and patent violations. How ridiculous. We are tightening the screws on innovation in this country. I've been pushing the idea for a while now, and each week it seems to be even more obvious. The more Draconian we are about enforcing copyright and patent laws the harder it will be for people to invent and release interesting stuff.

It's becoming nigh unto impossible for small time individuals or companies to release new products or ideas for fear of being sued into the stone age. The only reason we still have most of our innovative new products being released is because they are being produced by gigantic corporations like Google who have the ability to guarantee Mutually Assured Destruction to anyone stupid enough to try to sue them. This is the same policy that IBM has employed for years as well, especially during their heyday. For the most part this companies will leave others alone, but if you try to sue them once about anything you'll be buried in so many counter-suits that it takes years to sort it all out (See SCO vs. IBM).

It is my opinion that if we keep up this insanity that the United States will be technologically irrelevant within 20 or 30 years. The rest of the world will continue on without us because they don't care about our stupid IP and Copyright laws, particularly China and India.

The purpose of copyright and patent laws is to promote creativity and innovation by rewarding people with monopolies over their work for short periods of time. Instead they are being used to allow people to create one piece of work and then sit on their butts for the rest of their lives collection checks.

Now, I'm ranting, but there was one, unexpectedly good thing that happened to this bill. The fact that the Senate did remove the clause that would force the DOJ to sue people on behalf of copyright holders, which was truly insane.

Awkward

2008-09-26T14:02:00.004-06:00

So, I have a water bottle here at work that I take the water fountain and fill up each day. While sitting at my desk I pour the water into a plastic cup and drink it. So throughout the day I usually drink a liter of water. I've known that sometime I'm going to knock over the bottle or the cup and spill water, but I hoped it wouldn't happen and that if it did there wouldn't be much water in the one to be too big of a problem.

Unfortunately, I went to grab a pen and knocked over the half full cup of water, which was conveniently angled directly at me, at the front of my pants to be specific. So now my shorts are soaked right at the crotch and all down my left leg. It looks bad. Like really bad. So bad that if I didn't have witnesses that I had knocked over the water you probably wouldn't believe that that's the truth. [sigh]. I was hoping to leave right now too. I wanted to go home to charge my phone and grade the homework at home. But alas, now I am confined to my office until my shorts dry.

Awkward.

The Big One: WaMu Seizure

2008-09-25T23:18:00.002-06:00

I don't remember who it was, and am too lazy to go look right now, but someone with an inside scoop was warning that within the coming weeks we'd see one of the biggest banks in the country fail. That day appears to have been today.

Washington Mutual was seized by federal regulators today. The nation's largest savings and loan operation and the largest bank failure in American history, according to the NY Times article. The assets of the company were immediately sold for $1.9 Billion to JPMorgan Chase which will absorb the $31 Billion in losses.

But don't worry, no will go hungry due to this failure, particularly not the CEO of WaMu. Alan H. Fishman who has been CEO for less than 3 weeks will still be able to receive $11.6 Million in severance, and keep his $7.5 Million signing bonus. Pssst, hey America, I think I know why your financial companies are in the toilet. You're paying people $19+ Million for 3 weeks of work. 3 weeks of work which ends with your company failing and being sold off for chicken feed. Seems like a bit of a problem to me.

Scams

2008-09-23T12:30:00.002-06:00

From Slashdot:

I was thinking to myself "God! My EMail account must be in problem, I didn't receive any spam since the weekend", then I got this really great offer, a guy who is going to give me 20% of 5 million US dollars to help him recover a lost bank account. Well that's perfect, I'm the one who's finally gonna be rich!

------

That's nothing. I got an offer this morning of $700B, with little oversight and no accountability. All I have to do is prove that I recklessly lost hundreds of billions of investor capital.

That is the sad truth about what Bush is trying to push through Congress right now, the sadder truth is that Congress will pass it because it's an election year and a vote against this insane bill would be construed as "abandoning the people" by their opponents or some such nonsense.

Science FAIL

2008-09-19T17:14:00.005-06:00

This is from the front page of cnn.com:

Do you see what's wrong with that paragraph?

I'll give you a hint, it's not currently possible to reach absolute zero. The LHC is very cold, but it does not operate at absolute zero, I promise.

Guarantee FAIL

2008-09-19T17:14:00.004-06:00

Ever have one of those times when you try to do something really nice and it doesn't work out because of some other entity's failure?

Today I learned that a friend was feeling down, so I found a place online that works with local florists to have them deliver a little bouquet to this person's place of work. They said they had guaranteed same-day delivery for orders received before 2:00 pm. My order was placed before 2:00 pm, and I waited to hear from this person and their excitement of flowers surprising them at work. It never happened. And finally at about 6:00 (in the timezone of the person) I get a phone call from the florist saying they didn't get a chance to deliver the flowers and would I like free upgrade and have them delivered tomorrow. No, I don't want them delivered tomorrow; if I did I wouldn't have specifically placed the order with someone guaranteeing same-day delivery. So, I tried to do something really nice, but was foiled.

Don't guarantee same-day delivery if you can't make good on that guarantee. If you're a real customer pleasing business you would have called me when you realized you weren't going to make it and offered something like: "We won't be able to do it, but we did guarantee to deliver today, would you like us to contact other florists and find someone who will be able to do something similar and arrange for that delivery on your behalf?" That would have been customer service. But no, instead I get, "We didn't do it, do you want us to do it tomorrow?"

Welfare Economy

2008-09-17T07:38:00.003-06:00

In the United States there is clearly no reason to be fiscally responsible.

If you're the government, you can spend trillions of dollars on illegal invasions of other countries, no one will stop you.

If you're a citizen you can live off of welfare checks and sit on your butt all day, because heaven forbid you be deprived of cable television, cigarettes and alcohol. If you happen to dig yourself under thousands of dollars in credit card debt the ads on the radio say that you can settle with the lending companies for pennies on the dollar.

And, if you happen to be a giant corporation or bank then the government will simply buy your company if you have money problems. Since when has it been the policy of our nation to simply nationalize companies that look like they'll go bankrupt? Fed loans AIG $85 Billion. This is a 80% stake in the mega-corporation. Does the federal government really need an 80% stake in a non-government corporation? Sure seems like if your company has over a TRILLION dollar in assets it should know how to handle its finances properly, especially a company that deals in finances (namely Insurance).

Growing up I was taught that if you mismanage your money then you eventually go bankrupt and life becomes very complicated and unpleasant while you try to get things fixed. And here I've been living like a sucker by working my butt off to stay out of debt. Little did I know that the real American way to live is to spend, spend, spend, and then cry to the government when you can't pay your bills. [Grumble, grumble...]

Olympus' Agent

2008-09-16T23:50:00.003-06:00

I've read a lot of spy/military novels, watched several movies, and spent time considering various tactical situations one might come across. Based on this history I've been able to build up some knowledge about avoiding ambushes, losing a tail, and otherwise being awesome. So it was no surprise to me that I was able to spot the amateur agent that Olympus seems to have assigned to my case.

In order to avoid possible ambush I alter my path to campus each morning as much as the roads allow. Today's drive also called for an unexpected stop at my part-time job to pick up a paycheck and an assignment. This stop caused the amateur agent to blunder, expecting me to go straight through the green light, rather than turn just before. Caught off guard he or she was forced to turn at the light and loop into the lot from the cross street. I now know who (one of) Olympus' agents is and will be able to setup a counter-ambush at anytime convenient for me, as well as lose the tail whenever necessary. I will not be your pawn in this evil game of destruction you're playing, Olympus. I warn you, keep your agents back or the body count on this relationship is going to go way up.

P.S.
I also know about the agent who was tailing me in Smith's the other day. You think I actually forgot to pickup deli meat after getting bread and walking down to the dairy case? How easy it is to spot a novice when they follow you back and forth across the store like a lost puppy. At least make this a challenge for me!

Teaching

2008-09-15T22:49:00.002-06:00

I TA a Computer Science class. This week I get to teach two sections for two days. I think it will be a lot of fun. This will be my first classroom teaching experience. How much I enjoy it will directly influence how much interest I will have in pursuing my idea of teaching high school. I hope it goes well, and I think it will.

But Happy

2008-09-10T21:47:00.002-06:00

My previous two posts would suggest that I am in a rather unpleasant mood. And, I was. But despite my lack of sleep and my cold, I am happy. I just got home from a date that went really well and I'm really looking forward to my next opportunity to spend time with the girl in question. So, yes, I am currently and honestly happy. Which hasn't been the case for a while. So I'm going to relish in this and go play so Guitar Hero to celebrate.

Sleep, please return

2008-09-09T11:46:00.002-06:00

I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of weeks. I don't know why. But, it's been incredibly annoying. Last night, I got in bed and laid there rolling back and forth trying to get comfortable for about 1.5 hours. Then I woke up about every hour during the night. It sucked. I need a switch on my brain that I can just turn off. Instead I lie there and my mind is wandering all over the place about random stuff going on in my life. I don't feel stressed about these things, but they seem to keep my brain worried. So all this with the cold previously mentioned has made me rather zombie-like. How lame.

Lame

2008-09-09T10:16:00.001-06:00

I have a cold, how lame.

Amen to That

2008-09-04T23:16:00.003-06:00

The Daily Kos has a post by "trenttsd" entitled "A Palin convert". I don't know anything about this trenttsd, but I felt the same way he did as I watched Palin's speech last night. I would recommend reading his little post and then re-read her speech and see that he is exactly right. The entire speech contained very little aside from a series of accusations and attacks upon the Democratic party and its candidates.

The worst part, which sickened me when I watched her say it, was about three-quarters through:

Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights? -- Sarah Palin Sept 3, 2008

And the most disturbing part was the wild shouts, cheers, and applause that followed that statement.

I am absolutely worried that someone won't read them their rights. I am absolutely concerned that they be allowed to speak with competent legal counsel and appear in a courtroom before a judge and jury. I am fully committed to requiring the government to produce a writ of habeas corpus detailing exactly what they are being charged with.

If we don't do these things then we have abandoned everything that makes this country different and great. We claim that we want liberty and justice for all, that explicitly means that we cannot tack on little caveats such as "except for the people we think don't deserve it".

Sarah Palin, by uttering such a ignorant statement you have proven to me that you understand nothing about what this country stands for. You understand nothing about why this country is loved by so many. And you understand nothing about leading the world to a better future.

The Crime Syndicate Codenamed "Olympus"

2008-09-04T10:44:00.008-06:00

I will admit that I accidentally stole a bike last week. However, the blame, lies squarely upon the crime syndicate known only as Olympus. I was merely a patsy, being played for a fool. Do not let the innocent "Board Writer" act fool you. Codename "Olympus", working heavily to appear as a single person, is behind every major accidental bicycle larceny to occur last week. For the sake of this expose we will use the feminine pronouns to refer to codename "Olympus", since they use a female persona as their disguise.

Her modus operandi is straight forward. A highly skilled confidence woman, codename "Olympus" will befriend you over the course of several weeks or months. Once she's gained your trust through casual conversation and friendship she will ask you to do a favor for her. In my case it was to retrieve her old bike. The story I was fed was that codename "Olympus" had left this bike in Provo when she left over a year ago. There was not room to bring it with her so it was left locked up at her old apartment complex. Having gained my trust I believed the story. Her problem was that the bike was locked and the combination she remembered for it didn't seem to work when she asked someone to get it for her. So she needed someone to cut off the lock.

The story continues that she spoke to some locksmiths who wanted more money than she wanted to spend, and also wanted proof of ownership which she was not going to be able to provide due to the age of the bike. So, as had been planned and anticipated, I offered to help. I could probably cut the lock off with my rotary tool. The correct location and description were furnished to me and I found the bike there as expected. I cut through the lock (turns out the plastic-sheathed cable locks really aren't that tough, only takes about 30 seconds to cut through with a rotary cutting tool), and took the bike. Codename "Olympus" is thrilled by my success and speed.

Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that this bike did not belong to codename "Olympus". I was lucky though, the bike I had taken had clearly not been used for more than 12 months. The tires were flat and the chain was heavily rusted and detached from the gears. So it wasn't likely that the bike would soon be missed. I returned the bike and informed codename "Olympus" that I wouldn't be doing anymore of her dirty work. I was done. I was getting out. To this response she threatened me and those I care about. So I write this as a warning to all. Codename "Olympus" is highly dangerous and organized. Do not get involved with this organization under any circumstances, once they have you there is no escape. Even I, a highly trained agent, have only been barely able to elude her operatives and I will probably not be able to avoid them much longer.

Spread my story, don't let this evil crime syndicate take over!

A Nation of Morals

2008-09-02T10:18:00.005-06:00

When my grandmother died I picked out some books from my grandfather's collection. One of the books I picked is "Thirteen Days - A memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis" by Robert F. Kennedy. I've only read through 57 pages so far, but I find some of the things absolutely fascinating about what the people in the "Ex Comm" group were going through during this time period. As I've thought about I kind of feel like the current mess our country is in is something akin to what might have happened if RFK and JFK had let themselves be drawn in by the military's insistence that a military invasion was the only acceptable solution.

Here are some enlightening excerpts:

The general feeling in the beginning was that some form of action was required. There were those, although they were a small minority, who felt the missiles did not alter the balance of power and therefore necessitated no action. Most felt, at that stage, that an air strike against the missile sites could be the only course. Listening to the proposals, I passed a note to the President: "I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor." --Tuesday October 16, 1962 (Day 1 of Cuban Missile Crisis) - pg 31

With some trepidation, I argued that, whatever validity the military and political arguments were for an attack in preference to a blockade, America's traditions and history would not permit such a course of action. Whatever military reasons he [former Secretary of State Dean Acheson] and others could marshal, they were nevertheless, in the last analysis, advocating a surprise attack by a very large nation against a very small one. This, I said, could not be undertaken by the U.S. if we were to maintain our moral position at home and around the globe. - pg 38

. . . Further, with the support of detailed photographs, Dean Acheson-- who obliged the President by once again being willing to help-- was able to quickly convince French President Charles de Gaulle of the correctness of our response... And in these days of strain it is well to remember that no country's leader supported the U.S. more forcefully than did France. General de Gaulle said, "It is exactly what I would have done," adding that it was not necessary to see the photographs, as "a great government such as yours does not act without evidence." -- pg 51

Would any country think that way about us now? To trust our government to not act without evidence? I don't. The current policies seem to be closer to "detain first, get evidence later." Which is really too bad, but the PATRIOT act allows the government to do this.

It's a Sign!

2008-09-01T21:59:00.002-06:00

I ate lunch at Panda Express today. It would seem that they wanted to encourage me to attend FHE this evening:

Wait. What?

2008-08-29T09:03:00.002-06:00

John McCain has chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice-presidential candidate on the Republican ticket for the White House, a senior McCain campaign official has told CNN. The 44-year-old Palin, now in her first term as governor, is a pioneering figure in Alaska, the first woman and the youngest person to hold the state's top political job. --CNN.com

Huh? Serious? I never had any intention of voting for McCain, but it sure seems like he just put the nails in his own coffin with this vice presidential pick. A first term governor woman? on the Republican ticket? Does he think that this will let him grab all the disgruntled uber-Feminist Clinton supporters? Seems more likely that this will only result in alienating his core uber-conservative, Bible-belt male demographic. I may be wrong, but I think the Bible-thumping group also tends to be a group that doesn't like the idea of women in office. She doesn't really seem to bring anything to the ticket, except being a woman, which, as I said, I don't think is a big help on the Republican side. I guess she counters McCains age with her youth? Guess we'll see how things go....

If I Could Do One Unskilled Labor Job

2008-08-27T14:58:00.002-06:00

This is from my 200th post comments, asking for topics to write about. I was all set to start a in depth discussion about The Dark Knight and how incredible it is as an insightful glimpse into the human psyche, but I think that will wait until another time.

Instead we have a much lighter post:

If I Could Do One Unskilled Labor Job, Regardless of Pay, It Would Be ...

I've actually thought about this one before. I think it's an interesting thing to think about to learn about yourself. If your field of expertise suddenly crumbled into nothingness, what would you do instead? -- At least, that's one way of looking at the question.

I think I would get into construction, specifically house construction. Perhaps it's only because I see the pasture from one side of the fence: Dustinland: Construction Worker Comic. But regardless It seems like it could be a rather rewarding profession. You get to build things, you have a concrete product in your hands and you can watch it grow from nothing to a ready-to-live-in house.

PhD in Horribleness

2008-08-25T23:30:00.002-06:00

I still really enjoy Dr. Horrible. As I've watched the show I've noticed things I have in common with Dr. Horrible. For instance, he owns an XBox, but it's not just that he owns an XBox, his XBox has a Logitech wireless control dongle connected to port 1 (same as mine), and it has the DVD remote dongle connected to port 4 (mine as well). He has a Linksys WRT54G router (I have a WRT54GL). Those are just two small things, but I enjoyed noticing them.

But anyways, this post draws from the comments to my earlier posts about the Anthology of Nonsense. Here are some of the course requirements for a PhD in Horribleness:

HOR 605: Monologuing - Speeches, Catch Phrases, Songs, etc.
HOR 608: Costume Selection and Design
HOR 611: Horribility Theory - What is the essence of being evil?
HOR 631: Mercy, Compassion, Empathy, How to Rid Yourself of These Emotions
HOR 654: Memorable Laugh Training
HOR 666: Don't Plan the Plan If You Can't Follow Through - Killing children, smothering old ladies, a man's got to do what a man's got to do.
HOR 670: Advanced Topics in Ray Gun Design - Freeze, Stun, Death, Transmatter, etc.
HOR 699R: Thesis Hours (12 hours required) - Successfully plan and carry out a Heinous Crime, Show of Force, or a Murder would be nice, of course.

Additional Requirements:
Must pass Qualification Exam for Henchman's Union

ggaaarrrRRRRGGGHHH!!!

2008-08-22T11:51:00.003-06:00

Diebold has just come out to say that indeed their machines and code were responsible for miscounting votes in Ohio.

First they assured the country that their machines were operating properly, every vote was being counted perfectly.

Then, when it was proved that the votes were NOT being counted properly, they blamed the installed Anti-Virus software for causing the problem. (Aside: Why the crap does your voting machine need anti-virus software?! It shouldn't ever be in a position that getting a virus is even possible. In the words of tech people everywhere: "You're Doing It Wrong.")

Now, they've fessed up and admitted that it is their stuff that is broken, but (they claim) there is no way to fix it before the elections this November.

Are you freaking kidding me?! You can't fix this software? and therefore expect everyone that has these machines to simply use known incorrect machines for the presidential elections?

In response to that, first let me say, this company is a disgrace to every programmer in the world. Tallying votes is NOT HARD!

Look here's code to do it:

button_Candidate1_click() {
Candidate1.votes++;
}
button_Candidate2_click() {
Candidate2.votes++;
}
button_Candidate3_click() {
Candidate3.votes++;
}

That is IT! Right there I've written the most essential part of the voting software for a three candidate election. If this is not exactly what the code on the Diebold machines look like for counting votes then it can only be because of deliberate and malicious design for these machines to not count each vote. Honestly, I'm not dumbing this down, that is how the code would look, in fact, it would look exactly like that in almost every single modern programming language.

This is why any type of voting machine MUST be Open Source and allow anyone in the world to look at the code, and allow a team of unaffiliated non-partisan experts to examine the physical machines to confirm that the machines act the way the code says they should.

On top of all this a separate system should print out a person's vote, and ask the voter to verify that the information on the paper matches the information on the screen. Once they verify the two the electronic vote is tallied, and the paper vote drops into a locked box automatically. Now we have a perfect paper trail of verified votes to support the electronic system.

It really isn't that hard. You could probably hire pretty much any single programmer to create this system in under a week.

Look into the Open Voting Consortium for more information about how to do voting right and for thousands less.

So when you go to vote this November, how will you know your vote is being counted properly? Do you trust some unaccountable company when they say "We won't show you the code, but we promise it works properly"? I don't.

200 Posts

2008-08-20T16:47:00.003-06:00

This is post number 200. I was trying to think of something exciting to do, but haven't been very creatively minded recently. I started this blog on August 13, 2006. So I'm averaging about 100 posts a year, not too bad. At some point I would like to start getting all of these printed out and bound nicely, by year, in to little books. I want to do this with my personal blog as well as my Board responses. I think it would be good, and fun, to have these in print format to save as little mementos. Maybe someday I'll get around to doing it.

Anyways, in honor of this being my 200th post, and because there actually are people that read this (and according to Google Reader I have 26 RSS subscribers) please submit topics as comments here that you would like to hear from me about. I may not get any responses I realize, in which case I'll simply continue to write about whatever I feel like.

But, if you want to hear me rant, or get some advice, or just learn about a topic please submit it and I'll see what I can do.

Crazy is as Crazy Does?

2008-08-17T19:41:00.005-06:00

I've had this thought process occur a few times and each time it becomes somewhat disconcerting until I decide to just not dwell on it any longer. There is no satisfactory conclusion to draw, thus one must simply give up in order to be satisfied.

Can a crazy person know that they are crazy? Really, think about it for a while. It would seem that if a crazy person could they would logically sit down and sort through their thoughts and realize that certain inconsistencies exist that provide evidence of their insanity. I have not done extensive research on the matter, and if the movie "A Beautiful Mind" holds any validity on this point (I'll ignore the fact they they totally botched the concept of a Nash Equilibrium) we can believe that certain people with certain disorders can discover these flaws in their psychosis and rationally conclude that certain parts of their "reality" are not, in fact, "real."

What about the many other individuals who, rather than manage to discover their mind's fallacies, instead spend their lives in a dream world? These types of individuals seem to weave incredible scenarios within their heads about who they are and what they do. Suppose for a minute that you are one of these people.

As I've wandered upon this thought process it doesn't lead anywhere reassuring. For example, when I was in Chicago in the middle of July I hypothesized to the people I was with this very notion. I suggested that perhaps my mind was weaving this intricate idea of us being there for a Computer Science conference. In "reality" I was being brought to Chicago to see a specialist about some mental disorder. My mind doesn't like this idea and so instead I attend meetings at this conference all day when in "reality" I'm actually in sessions with medical doctors (rather than CS doctorate holders). I don't have any way that I can think of to prove that this wasn't the case. My mind, being the interestingly powerful mediator between my thoughts and the world, could just as easily rewrite my other experiences to fit the world that it wants me to be in.

The only way out that I have been able to come up with is the same argument you have to make when dealing with certain philosophical stances. In fact the situation boils down to the same thing, so conveniently the same way out of the pit works. At some point you have to give up on trying to define "reality" based on your senses, since (as I've just gone through) you can argue all day about your senses lying to you. Instead you have to simply accept as reality whatever your senses report to you, there's not much else you can do. You may be trapped in the Matrix, but you still have to work within it, so you must accept the Matrix as your reality.

So I may be crazy for all I know, but there's nothing I can do about it from within my mind, since my sensory data doesn't lend any evidence to solidify any insanity that might be kicking about. So instead I simply go about my business with the data my mind provides and apologize to everyone if I actually am crazy and you all just put up with me. I have no way of telling.

The Olympics Falsified

2008-08-12T14:00:00.003-06:00

At ward FHE last night we were watching the Olympics. I began mentioning some of the many things happening that cause a distortion of reality involving the Olympics. One of the girls there was incredulous of my information and as more keeps popping up daily I thought I'd take this chance to inform you, my dear readers, about the lie that is the Olympics.

1. Fake Coverage. NBC's coverage of the opening ceremony was altered so as to show the various nations in a different order than they came out. At least the version they have posted on their website is different than the official order in which the teams were to appear. From the video on the NBC website you can see the US team on the infield waiting before the NBC video shows the US team enter the stadium. There doesn't seem to be any official news coverage of this, but see the slashdot story here: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/09/2231231

2. Fake Fireworks. Apparently the fireworks show that the world saw for the opening ceremony is not the fireworks the people in Beijing saw. The one broadcast to the world was computer generated. The official story is that the they thought it would be too dangerous to film the fireworks live using helicopters, so they faked it. See: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Beijing-Olympics-Opening-Ceremony-Faked-Firework-Footprints-Added-For-TV/Article/200808215075291?lpos=World%2BNews_3&lid=ARTICLE_15075291_Beijing%2BOlympics%2BOpening%2BCeremony%2BFaked%253A%2BFirework%2BFootprints%2BAdded%2BFor%2BTV

3. Fake Singing. The cute, "flawless" (quote from the man in charge) little 9 year old girl singing at the opening ceremony was lip-syncing to the voice of a 7 year old girl. The 7 year old girl does not look good enough to be displayed to the world. See: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/12/oly.kids/index.html

4. Fake Weather. The Chinese government fired 1104 rain dispersal rockets leading up to the opening ceremony to prevent rain from disrupting the festivities. Ok, so this one is actually kind of cool. See: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/09/content_9079637.htm

Dating is Against Church Standards

2008-08-11T12:25:00.003-06:00

I just proved that dating is against church standards. I am highly amused by this and thus would like to share.

So, everyone that has ever dated would probably agree that in the process of dating you expend a lot of time, energy, money, and emotions. These all amount to costs, you are "paying" in order to date. But, dating does not guarantee any return on investment. You're "paying" but not for sure going to get anything (except perhaps heartache). You're playing the game in hopes of hitting the jackpot, but most of the time you're simply going to lose your "cash". Sounds a lot like gambling to me. Which the church says is bad. Therefore, dating is like gambling. Gambling is bad, ergo dating is bad. QED.

Why am I up?

2008-08-06T01:09:00.002-06:00

At times like right now I wonder what compels me to stay up until after 1:00am writing code. I don't know, and I don't think I ever will. But at least I was finally successful in my endeavors. I guess technically I wasn't writing code, I was trying to craft the perfect SQL statement to get the data I needed without having to scrape through it in PHP. It took a while, but eventually worked, and I now know a fair bit more about mySQL than I did 24 hours ago.

Anyways-- time for sleep.

The Trouble with Context

2008-08-05T09:00:00.002-06:00

Sometimes Google doesn't take into account the context of keywords when serving ads. Attending BYU provides a lot of emails with the word 'cougar' in them. However that does not mean I would be interested in ads such as this:

Looking To Meet Cougars? - www.DateACougar.com - Meet Cougars Near You Today. 100% Free. Join Now.

Soap Approval

2008-08-02T19:09:00.003-06:00

I was buying various items at Smith's a little bit ago. There was a cashier open, so I went there rather than checking myself out (which is what I usually do). The convenience here is that there was also a bagger. Two, actually. Two girls probably 18-21 or so. Amongst my various purchases was soap. It's nothing too exciting, Tone with Cocoa Butter (it seems to do a decent job of not drying out my skin completely and is fairly cheap), but the girl bagging picks it up and smells it makes an approving nod and then tells the other girl to smell it. I ask, "You approve?" and they respond with, "Yup, smells good." I chuckled. So I now have two solid opinions that my soap smells good, so I guess that's a good thing. Just felt like sharing that random experience with you all.

Ditch iTunes - Use Amazon MP3

2008-07-25T09:59:00.007-06:00

So there are a lot of people out there who are simply unfamiliar with their options in online music purchasing. So I thought I'd write this little post to explain why you should stop using iTunes and start using Amazon MP3.

So, I've been a huge detester of iTunes ever since it started. The purchases were heavily DRM encumbered (until recently you can pay more for iTunes plus, non-DRM items), the software was hugely bloated, and Apple makes no attempt to support Linux with iTunes or iPod products. (In fact they have previously gone out of their way to make iPod products more difficult to support in Linux).

So for the longest time I got my music from such sites as mp3.com and all of its later reincarnations, like the current mp3fiesta.com. The three reasons being:

1. The music comes in whatever format I want (including FLAC, which is a lossless format).
2. The music is completely DRM free, I get to decide when, where, how, and what I do with my music, forever.
3. The interface is a simple web interface that does not require I download and use some gigantic bloated piece of software.

Until recently there was no way to get any of those three reasons satisfied by a US company. (I don't want to get into the legality of mp3*.com sites, which the RIAA seems to only dislike because the RIAA doesn't control it. The RIAA argues that mp3*.com doesn't pay royalties to the artists, however mp3*.com has always told the RIAA to simply sign the papers so that mp3*.com would be allowed to send the royalties, and the RIAA refuses to do so. So it's like me complaining that you owe me money, but every time you try to give it to me I say "I don't want it.")

Anyways, as I was saying, there was no US option to get any of those 3 requirements. The Amazon MP3 service, however, at least covers options 2 and 3. They offer all of their music (at often less than iTunes prices) in the simple MP3 format. There is zero, nil, nada, DRM attached to the files. You can do anything you want with them, forever. If you wonder why I add the clause of "forever" you should read up on what happens when a DRM-ed service goes out of business: for example: Yahoo! music.

Amazon also allows you to choose whether you want to download their program which provides a cleaner interface to the music system, but is not required. You can still download songs straight through your browser. Also, Amazon not only "supports Linux" with the downloader program, but they really support Linux. When you go to the download page, and their site identifies your OS as Linux they provide you with options for four different distributions to make sure things go smoothly for you. The four options currently are Ubuntu 7.10, Debian 4, Fedora 8, and OpenSuSe 10.3. Below the download links there are separate instructions for each distribution, and then complete uninstall instructions as well.

I've had mixed feelings about Amazon in general in the past. I still remember the days when they were a bookstore and that was it. However, having learned about their DRM-less MP3 service which gives me 2 out of 3 of my requirements they have jumped a few notches in my book.

Move your purchases to the DRM-free system and use your money to show the companies that you don't like being told what you can or can't do with the things you purchase. I've said it on here before, and I'll say it again. Voting only counts when you do it with your money.

100% Guaranteed Method to Never get a Speeding Ticket

2008-07-23T12:18:00.005-06:00

This revolutionary new idea has come straight from the think-tank to you at absolutely no cost! A radical new way of dealing with police officers that will guarantee that you never get another speeding ticket.

If you use our patented technique, described below, and get a ticket we will pay your ticket for you and any increase in your insurance premiums for up to one full year. You read that correctly, we will not only pay your ticket, but also any increase in your insurance premiums.

This method is approved and recommended by not only the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but also by every single Police Department in the country. We've been testing this incredible new tactic for over 5 years with a 100% success rate. And now we give it to you completely free.

Many people have been skeptical of our claims, as you should be. It sounds too good to be true, and most things that sound too good to be true, are too good to be true. But this is the absolute truth, it's 100% free, so try it out yourself and see that we're not lying. Then tell your friends.

So, are you ready to hear what it is?

This is it, this is our incredible new method: Drive at or below the speed limit. See, it's so simple, don't break the law, follow the posted speed limit and you will never get another speeding ticket again.

Ok, you weren't very excited to hear that were you? Well, that's too bad.

On second thought, I should have told people that they will receive this revolutionary new idea after sending me a small payment of $10 to cover publication and shipping costs... I probably could have made a fortune since people are so stupidly desperate to find ways to break the law and get away with it.

Random Poetry

2008-07-21T12:36:00.002-06:00

Here are some random lines I wrote at some point. I found them on a piece of paper that came out of my church stuff, so I must have written them while bored at church at some point. I usually like to keep track of the dates that I write stuff, but I have no idea on this, sometime between September 2007 and April 2008. The second one can certainly use some polish, but I like them both anyways:

Untitled 1:
A cold night
The white dust falls to the ground
Silence encompasses my soul
Here I am, alone

Untitled 2:
It doesn't matter where you are today
It only matters that you're far away
Why did it take so long to meet you?
I am here, but you are elsewhere
and so we talk from afar.
The words I say travel long to touch you
Can you feel my voice in their form?

Chicago

2008-07-17T11:06:00.002-06:00

I've been in Chicago all of this week.

Here are some random thoughts to consider.

When the counter at a fast-food restaurant is fitted from counter to ceiling with bullet-proof glass, should you be worried?

Chicagoans are actually fairly nice in general, you just have to realize that they have a Chicago attitude, and that attitude can be misinterpreted as being mean.

Conferences should not be held in areas that have little food available. Or in areas where the concierge recommends not walking around in the neighborhoods around the hotel/conference center.

Cute girls at CS conferences get a lot of attention regardless of what they're presenting or promoting.

I want to build automatic tour guides for BYU. You know the people that drive the golf carts around and talk about stuff? Those can be easily automated, and a computerized version would actually be much more helpful by providing inside views of buildings, localized overhead mapping, varying levels of details driven by the users, etc. I think it would be an incredibly fun project.

Ethiopian food is unique, but somewhat not the most exciting meal.

The nerd level of a CS conference is rather intense, but the interesting thing is the nerdiness involves people getting into in depth discussions about their cutting edge research. Most of the people here are either PhD's, or in the process of obtaining Master or Doctorate degrees.

Senses of Summer-- Tagged

2008-07-11T23:32:00.002-06:00

Alishka tagged me, so here goes:

List the things you love about summer for each of the five senses and tag five people at the end. I'm just going to keep each category to a single item, because I'm feeling lazy.

Taste: S'Mores

Touch: An Ultimate disc. (aka Frisbee®)

Sight: Sunlight in much larger quantities.

Smell: Campfires.

Auditory: Train whistles at night.

Attention to the following 5, you have been tagged: Enigmatic, Krishna, Lavish, Olympus, hmmm... I apparently don't know enough people that I think actually read my blog. So, feel free to add yourself as the fifth person if you're reading this.

Resolution

2008-07-08T22:02:00.004-06:00

The situation with the problem roommate has been (almost) entirely resolved. I would like to make one solid comment about something I discovered about myself in this process: If you screw with my ability to relax, feel comfortable, and feel safe in my home I will become very vindictive and wish harm upon you and your property. I'm fairly confident that most people that know me would consider me to be a nice guy, laid back, fairly easy going. But if you screw with my home I will become ruthless. I absolutely will not tolerate having my home ruined.

On Sunday afternoon I was sitting in my living room reading a book. My mom called me and I was thus talking to her. As I was in the process of relaying the events that had happened thus far his wife walks in the front door holding his key. Big no-no. The fact that he gave her his key is unacceptable, and then for her to just walk in is worse. She "just wants to come and use the laundry facilities" we have. I told her that I needed to leave (to go to ward break-the-fast) and that I wasn't comfortable with her being in our house alone. After telling me to just wait a few minutes, I told her that I couldn't because I needed to leave immediately (it was already 3:56 for 4:00 break-the-fast).
Then her disgusting, belligerent attitude comes pouring out. Basically telling me that I was out of line to ask her to leave my house. (Mind you my mom is listening to the whole exchange on the phone still). I get fed up with being polite and simply tell her to get out of my house. I tell her straight out that she is not welcome in my house and never has been and that her behavior with respect to my house has been unacceptable. She starts trying to talk back to me, multiple times, each time I cut her off and tell her to, "Leave. Now. Get. Out. Of. My. House".

Finally she steps out of the door and again begins trying to tell me off, to which I simply closed and locked the door. I had told her that she is not welcome, management says she's not allowed in the house, and that if I saw her in the house again I would call the police. Of course now I was afraid that if I left she would immediately let herself back in, but she apparently wasn't that stupid.

However, the next day Papa Funk came down stairs to find her standing in the kitchen! Apparently the roommate continues to think that he will be able to just sneak her into the house when he thinks we're not home. They left when they saw him. They have since come back a number of times, each time with her just coming in even when we're there. It's absolutely incredible the disrespect they have for our home. We spoke to management who told them they needed to have the rest of their stuff removed by Monday evening.
(See, he already has a contract somewhere else and has been moving stuff out for the past 5 days, but continues to use our stuff when it's convenient for him. For example, using our dishes and leaving them dirty on the counter, or pouring the remains of his cereal onto the counter. Or using the laundry stuff, including my dryer sheets and detergent, because it's more convenient apparently. Oh, and they took my Chili Powder! My Chili Powder! Come On! It's $4 worth of spices, was it really necessary to steal it?)

So today, after Papa Funk came home from work to find the front door left wide open (while the swamp cooler was running and they were nowhere to be found, possibly for hours) we decided to finish the job ourselves. We told management that we wanted the locks changed once they were moved out. They had left a vacuum cleaner and a piece of furniture in the house still. So we moved those items outside to the side of the house and changed the locks ourselves.

We were just sick and tired of having to worry about our stuff being gone every time we left the house, or not being able to sit in our own home and read a book without her coming in and arguing with us. So it's done now. They have nothing left inside the house and the locks have been changed, we'll simply give the new keys to management and call it finished. The more vindictive part of me really wanted to simply toss the vacuum and furniture in a dumpster and say, "Well, when we got home the door was left open, so I guess someone stole them, sorry, that's why we close and lock the doors when we leave the house." But Papa Funk told me that would be too vindictive, so we didn't.

The moral of the story is, as I said:
"Don't screw with my home, (fill_in_the_blank)!"

Well, Duh! FISA Bill

2008-07-08T08:14:00.002-06:00

Anyone that pays any attention to national news knows that Congress is in the process of passing a bill which will grant immunity to the telecom companies that helped the Bush administration run illegal wiretaps on US citizens. The purpose of the bill is to provide reforms to the FISA court system. Bush has, several times, proclaimed that the FISA reforms in this bill are absolutely vital to the security of this country and must be passed.

However, I read a very interesting point on this subject just now.

From user Smidge204 on Slashdot:

Bush is unwilling to sign FISA without telecom immunity and has actually pocket-vetoed the same bill before because it lacked that immunity.

And yet Bush and most Republicans cry out that FISA is absolutely vital to protecting our country.

This leads us to one of two possibilities:

1) Bush feels that protecting the telecoms are more important than protecting the country, since he is willing to let us go without a revised FISA bill unless we give the telecoms what thy want.

2) The FISA bill is not actually that important for national security, but is more or less a trojan horse for covering their collective asses.

I suppose both are possible, and not mutually exclusive, but faced with this choice I find it far to unsettling that Bush would literally put our whole country at risk (as he himself claims FISA is that important) for the sake of a few dozen CEOs.
=Smidge=

That thought process smacked me in the face as "Well, Duh!" If those FISA reforms really are that vital to the security of our country then the first bill that Congress passed should have become law as quickly as possible. Instead Bush pocket-vetoed it and demanded that immunity for the telecoms be added. As Smidge points out this means either that protecting the telecoms is more important than our national security or/and the FISA reforms aren't really that important.

That's just disgustingly sad.

If Headlines were more accurate and less sensational

2008-06-29T00:34:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I wish I could rewrite headlines to reduce the sensationalism and increase the accuracy.

For example:
Teen decapitated at Six Flags over Georgia
This should actually read: "Stupid kid ignores multiple warning signs while climbing over TWO six-foot fences and ends up dead"

Even ignoring the multiple warning and danger signs you should probably start to wonder if you're supposed to be in a location that required you to climb over two six-foot fences to get there.

Yes, it is sad that he is dead for such a stupid reason. But if the family tries to sue the park I am going to be really annoyed. What more could the park be expected to do?

Why do things like this happen to us?

2008-06-27T23:34:00.003-06:00

So that title may sound a little dire, but if anyone recalls in 2006 a bum moved into our apartment for about 40 hours. Now we have situation where we're currently living. Papa Funk and I were roommates at the time of the bum incident, and now we have to deal with this one. Management companies have got to do a better job of screening applicants.

For those not in the know I'll bring you up to speed on the state of our house. Fall/Winter there were 4 of us living here. One got married in March and hasn't been able to sell his contract. The other moved to Japan for the summer and didn't sell his contract. So since the end of April it has just been Papa Funk and I living here, and that has been quite nice.

Last Thursday Papa Funk and I were sitting at home doing whatever. I think he was watching TV I was cleaning the kitchen. It's about 11:00 pm. Someone knocks on the door to say that he's signed a contract and will be moving in and has some stuff to drop off. Ok, that's all well and good. There's a small problem to start with. He has a thick accent (he's Haitian) and some days we can only understand about 20% of what he's saying, so just figuring out the whole "has a contract" thing was kind of tricky. But that's fine, you know, people are allowed to have accents.

His contract didn't technically begin until this past Wednesday, so we told him that over the weekend we'd clear out the room (we'd been using it for storage). So over the next few days he brings over more and more stuff which starts piling up all over, and over the weekend we finally get a chance to pull all of our stuff out of the room and his stuff gets moved in.

Turns out that the reason he's moving in is because he's getting a divorce. Because his wife decided to start smoking and drinking again (she was a convert and they got married in the temple). She would also go out partying with her friends and overdraft their checking account all the time. He finally figured out that that wasn't a good situation to be in.

Also it turns out that Papa Funk knows them because they come to his work. And he knows that his wife is a little bit on the crazy side in terms of being socially/fiscally/generally responsible. He feels that she is not a person we can trust to have in our house, and since the guy is getting a divorce we figure he must feel the same way. So we tell him that we don't want her in our house, ever. And he says he's fine with that.

We help him move stuff in and get his computer set up and stuff and generally be nice to the guy. He's trying to get his life back on track and things are messy, but we're nice.

He officially moved in on Wednesday (got his key from management) and things are fine.

Thursday, (that's the very next day!) Josh and I are sitting at home in the evening and there's a knock at the door. It's his (crazy) wife saying that she's meeting him here and that she'll just wait for him in his room. Standing on our front steps with her bleached-blonde hair done up in the typical Utah Rat's Nest hairdo (gross). We tell her, No, she's not coming in if he's not here. Cause we have no way of knowing if she's coming in to steal his stuff or do something inappropriate, ya know? They're supposedly getting a divorce, which generally means people aren't on good terms with each other. So we tell her to come back when he's home.

Now remember, we told him we didn't want her in our house, to which he agreed. About thirty minutes later he gets home and brings her in, and Papa Funk and I are not happy about it. She's inside for about 30 seconds and starts demanding answers about why we wouldn't let her in; to which we tell her why and she starts talking back at us. We were getting pissed.

Unfortunately for Papa Funk, I had to leave at this point to pick my sister and brother-in-law up at the airport. I didn't get home until about 1:45, so I'll fill in that part of the story from what Papa Funk told me.

He stayed up until about 1:00 waiting for her to leave, because he didn't feel comfortable going to bed with her in the house. She and new-guy finally left and Papa Funk locked the door and went to bed. I got home about 1:45 (as I said) and brushed my teeth and went upstairs. I'm in my room reading and within 10 minutes I hear his bedroom door open (his room is on the ground floor) and then I hear the front door open. Curious, I get up and move towards the stairs to try and determine what's happening.

The way my house is laid out is that the stairs break halfway up and make a 180 degree turn. On that landing is a window. At night this window acts as a perfect mirror to the doorway downstairs between the living room and kitchen/bathroom/bedroom area. So from the top of the stairs I can see a perfect reflection as the front door closes and he walks back into his room, followed by his wife after which he closes his bedroom door. I was not happy about this, but since it was already 2 am and I had work in the morning I decided I wasn't going to go argue with them about it on the spot. I waited for about 10 minutes to see if she would leave before going to bed.

In the morning Papa Funk got up and went to work, and then I got up around 9. While I'm in the shower I can hear his bedroom door open, and then the front door open and close. When I get out of the shower he's up and walking around. So I'm about 99.9% certain that she stayed the night. He snuck her in when he thought we were asleep and then tried to sneak her out in the morning. After we very clearly expressed that we didn't even want her in the house at all, to which he agreed. Of course, since this is single housing, the fact that he brought her into his bedroom at all, regardless of marital status, means that he violated his contract.

I told him straight out when I got done changing that, "She is not allowed to be sleeping here.". To which he tried to tell me a story about her leaving and coming back this morning before I got up. Which would have fit with what Papa Funk observed, because he did not know that I witnessed her coming in and going to his bedroom at 2 am. So after he told his fabricated story, I told him, "I know she came over last night after I got home at 2. So I just want to be clear: She is NOT allowed to sleep here." So he's got to know that he's busted.

Papa Funk and I then spoke to management, because we really don't want to come home one day to find our stuff gone. She's crazy enough to do it, and she is able to manipulate him into doing whatever she wants. So if she manages to convince him to let her borrow his key, we are going to have problems. Management agrees with us (thank goodness) and spoke to him to tell him that she is not allowed to be over here. It makes us really uncomfortable to have her in our house. Then management spoke to us again and said to tell them if anything else happens and he'll be gone instantly (it's nice to have management that loves you as tenants). Luckily, since he brought her into his bedroom, he violated the housing contract and getting rid of him will be rather easy, if need be.

So, now he knows that she cannot be in our house. So if he's stupid enough to bring her over here again thinking we won't find out [shakes head slowly] he's just asking for trouble.

He's a nice guy and all, but he doesn't seem to be in the top ranks of intelligence and allows this woman to manipulate him so much. And we hate worrying if our stuff will be gone when we get home. Or coming home and not feeling comfortable because we don't know if she's going to show up or not. Your home should be a sanctuary. And for Papa Funk and I it has been for months. That peace and security has been destroyed and we don't like it. We get enough stress at work every day, and want to be able to relax at home.

Now we feel like we have to play guard duty on the house day and night to make sure she's not there. I feel like I need to stay up late to listen for the front door, because he's already tried to sneak her in once. I don't like feeling this uncomfortable in my own home. So part of me and Papa Funk almost wishes for her to show up so that he'll be gone and we can get the locks changed and not feel like this. But if he does shape up and keep her away from here, then it's only four and a half weeks before his contract ends and we'll survive.

Sorry for the long post, but that needed to get out.

Crime and Punishment

2008-06-22T22:18:00.002-06:00

I finished reading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. A few years ago I tried to read "The Idiot" but got distracted about a third of the way in, and never finished it. So this is my first successful foray into 19th century Russian literature.

I must say, I actually rather enjoyed it. It was somewhat of a tough read that took some energy, but it was rewarding. I probably would have more enjoyed a better translation, but this one (the 1914 Constance Garnett) was mostly intelligible. There were passages every so often that wouldn't make any sense, which I'm not sure if it was just due to poor translating, or if the phrases used made more sense in 1914 than they do now. I will admit, Svidrigailov's suicide was a bit of a surprise to me, perhaps I wasn't picking up on all the nuances of his character or something. I had to do some online reading to fully understand why he did it.

I'm not really sure what it was about the book, but I just liked it. Perhaps it was brutal honesty of Raskolnikov's character, or maybe it was something completely different. Either way, I enjoyed it. Just thought I'd say that.

Ahhh, poor IT management is my gain

2008-06-17T22:16:00.002-06:00

I'm sitting in a hotel (hotel to remain unnamed) room in Rexburg (I'm here for a wedding) and the hotel is supposed to have wireless internet. The connection was working for about 10 minutes and then crapped out. So I started doing some troubleshooting. Luckily the access points are mounted outside on the balcony completely accessible. So the first step was to try connecting to another of the access points they have, no luck. So I disconnected one of them and plugged in my own ethernet cord, that worked beautifully, so the problem was with the access point itself. So I came back inside and re-associated with the access point. Then I pinged the broadcast to see what IP address would respond, just one. Good, that must be the access point. So I do a port scan on it and discover it indeed has port 80 open (web page access).

I point my browser at the IP address and I get the expected login prompt. I quickly try a few default passwords (usually Linksys devices are setup with no username and the default password is 'admin') this, and a couple of variations didn't work. However, on like my fifth try I got in. Username: 'admin' Password: 'admin'. [shakes head slowly]. If I were a jerk I could simply go around and reprogram each of their access points and cause all sorts of mayhem. But since my goal was to get internet access I moved ahead with that in mind.

Note: First of all, allowing admin logins over the wireless connection is a very stupid idea. Second, leaving the default name and password on access point which allows wireless admin logins is a very bad idea.

But in this case, it worked quite nicely. I then did a wireless scan to find the least cluttered channel (guessing that the connection issues were due to channel congestion). I then switched the access point to run on channel 8, and low and behold everything is working marvelously.

So the moral of the story is: Don't leave admin accounts to your wireless access points using the default information especially if you allow wireless admin logins--- unless, of course, you want to allow a friendly guest hacker to fix your poorly configured network.

Maybe the country can still be saved

2008-06-13T10:33:00.002-06:00

Finally some order and respect is returning to the treatment of the Constitution in this country. It turns out that the Supreme Court feels that a US controlled military base, like Guantanamo Bay, still has to abide by the Constitution despite the strongest wishes of Bush and his administration. Finally, the people being held here will be able to demand that our government tell them why and present evidence supporting that reason. If our government doesn't have the proper evidence, the people will be released. This is the first step in restoring our country to what it claims to be, a beacon of freedom and the rule of law. The fact that anyone believes it is OK to keep people imprisoned indefinitely without needing to explain why is disturbing. The fact that the Bush administration has been doing so for years is despicable.

This quote from the right-wing Justice Scalia is rather disturbing: Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority "warps our Constitution." [http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/12/scotus/index.html]

I wouldn't consider applying the Constitution in the way it was meant to be applied a "warping", more like saying that anyone the government decides doesn't get to benefit from the Constitution is a warping. Especially since we've also declared those same people to not be prisoners of war, and therefore the Geneva Conventions don't apply either. So the Bush Administration (through Bush's direct consent) declared that the people being held at Guantanamo Bay were neither Prisoners of War (military prisoners) nor civilian prisoners, therefore their treatment could not be defined by either the Geneva Conventions or the Constitution.

I'm glad something is finally being done about it. Hopefully Kucinich's articles of impeachment against Bush will make some progress and we can show the rest of the world that we actually don't like having lying, war-mongering tyrants leading our country.

Too Smart to be a Cop?

2008-06-12T08:05:00.002-06:00

According to the NY Times a man attempting to join the New London, CT police force was denied employment because he scored too high on the intelligence test. A judge decided this wasn't discrimination because they deny anyone scoring that high a job. I'm not really clear on how that makes sense, in my opinion that's kind of like saying "well they deny everyone who's black a job, so it's not discrimination." Sadly police officers tend to get a reputation for being not-incredibly-smart bullies; this doesn't help that. Now, I understand that there is very likely a minimum allowed score for the test as well. Someone does need to be smart enough to perform the job properly; it just seems kind of stupid to say that someone is too smart to be a police officer.

I have a theory as to why people don't like police very much. When is the only time most people ever interact with a police officer? When they get pulled over. So the majority of people's experiences with officers is when they are getting in trouble. That's not going to produce good feelings. I think Provo could help improve the relationship between the police officers and the public by creating a couple of foot patrols. Have a pair of officers that walk up and down Center Street (where there seems to always be at least 2 patrol cars). They can speak to people and be friendly, improving the public opinion of the officers. Have one or two officers that walk the neighborhoods around campus saying, "Hi" to students walking to/from class. Let people know that the police are good, friendly people (I hope they actually are).

Just some random thoughts.

My Birthday

2008-06-10T10:49:00.004-06:00

My mom has incredible luck in finding unavailable Wii items. I got my Wii last Christmas because she happened to be in Wal-Mart walking by the electronics department and saw them bring their entire shipment of 3 out to the cabinet. She was able to get this Wii Fit because she was in the electronics department at Wal-Mart planning to buy something else, but asked if they had any just in case. The person went in back and brought one back from their entire shipment of 2.

Thanks Mom!

[Addendum]
Oh, after I set it all up, when I played again after everyone left it wished me a Happy Birthday, and the little dancing Wii Balancing Board cartoon thingy was wearing a party hat. It's the little things like that that Nintendo does right that make their stuff awesome.

Friends

2008-06-07T23:46:00.001-06:00

I just wanted to take a minute and say that I have awesome friends. Some of them might not be the most on-top-of things so far as planning is concerned, but they are genuine people who have a lot of heart. I appreciate everything they do for me.

The Second Interview: Are you legit?

2008-06-06T12:03:00.002-06:00

So earlier this week (Wednesday) I had my second interview with the company previously mentioned. Not that I mean to criticize, but they probably should have planned ahead as to what they wanted to ask me questions about. It mostly ended up being a general information gathering type session. The developer I spoke with mostly just asked me if I knew things like, have I used X before, how much work have done in X, how familiar am I with X, do I feel confident programming in X, why do you want to work with us, what do you plan to do when you graduate, what do you want this job to do for you and your future plans... those kinds of things. I was never actually asked to exhibit any of my programming skills or system design skills. Towards the end of the interview I actually offered to show him some of my work, which he let me do. He seemed pretty excited with what I'm able to do in my various non-pay capacities.

On Thursday morning the HR guy called me to see if I wanted the position. So I accepted and headed into the office to sign all sorts of papers about Non-Disclosure Agreements, company policies, At-Will employment, etc. Then we were waiting for one of the developers to come in so he could setup an account for me, during which waiting time I was sent to play the Wii, which I did. I played about 10 bouts of boxing without losing, taking a guest account from 0 to ~800 skill level. I also played some tennis, then I was starting to get tired so I turned it off and went to chat some. The developer showed up and got me an account setup. Due to the startup nature of the company, I'll be using my own laptop to work on, not a big deal, but a little silly. So I spent a few hours that evening installing software and setting up the SVN connections on my laptop. Not a bad way to spend the day getting paid at a pretty decent rate.

So, assuming this position continues as anticipated, I will have gratefully solved my financial problems which would have come to a head next March. And I can start feeling like I can buy groceries again without worrying if I really really want something or if I can live off of a cheaper cheaper set of food products.

Things I've noticed that involve the church

2008-06-05T16:16:00.002-06:00

1:
So lots of people have been following the trouble in Texas involving the polygamist sect and all. What I found interesting was that at the beginning the news reports all referred to the people involved as the FLDS church. Lately, however, they're always referred to as the "polygamist sect". I thought that was interesting and would not be surprised at all if the LDS church PR department requested that the term FLDS not be used because the LDS church doesn't like the suggestion that there is an active association there.

2:
The church has a rule that your not supposed to have red punch in the meeting halls to prevent stains on the carpet/chairs/etc. I've thought about this as I was watching an X-Files about a cult. I think part of that rule might be to avoid the appearance of having people "drink the Kool-Aid" which is often associated with the suicide ritual of cults. Where the participants drink the red Kool-Aid which has been poisoned. It would certainly not look good to have visitors come to an activity where people are all standing around drinking red punch. Just a thought on the subject.

Why I will not be voting for McCain

2008-06-04T15:57:00.003-06:00

This is one reason why I will not be voting for McCain:

[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. [...]

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.

--- McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking for the campaign

Supporting the Bush Administration's policy of running illegal warrant-less wiretaps on US citizens is stupid, coming straight out and saying you'll do the same thing is unacceptable. You will receive no vote from me if your plan is to continue dismantling the Constitution in the same way the Bush Administration has for the last 8 years.

Moving On: Fighting the (Housing) Man

2008-06-02T13:06:00.002-06:00

Phew, I haven't got that riled up in a while now. That, my friends, is why it is impolite to discuss politics at the dinner table.

Let's find something less controversial to write about.

Being the end of the month I knew I would be seeing the utility bill from management soon. I had allotted $50 in my budget to cover any electrical and gas expenses for May. I was hoping that this $50 would have plenty of extra room since May was fairly warm and we only needed the heat on for about 7-12 days.

When I saw the bill located on the door reading $115 I was a little enraged. That was more than double what we'd paid any previous month. It was ridiculous. So on Friday we went to the management office to tell them we would not be paying that amount, and asking to see the bills from the utility companies. Turns out their workers are just incompetent and their management unfamiliar with legal contracts.

The worker dividing up the bill did it incorrectly, so when it read $115 it should have said $76. The second part was that one of the managers decided that since two of the people with contracts weren't actually living here that they'd just charge the two of us for all the utilities. Now, from their perspective I can follow that thought process. But, we must also consider two other points of view:

1. In order to heat a house there is a baseline amount of gas that will be used regardless of how many people are actually living there, and since we only kept the heat at 65 F it wasn't like we were being excessive. So doubling our utilities bills is not fair to us simply because the other contract holders don't live in the unit.

2. The contract holders signed a contract stating that they would pay for utilities. They still hold the contracts (despite not living in the unit due to being unable to sell them) ergo they are still legally obligated to help pay for utilities.

To top it off, if they were suddenly to decide to change the distribution of the utility bill they should have had the courtesy of discussing it with us first.

Having taken care of the matter the $115 bill has returned to a more anticipated bill of $38.

Why do you have to fight with people just to get things done the way they're supposed to be in the first place? Why do the people that are too nice or perhaps not as savvy about things like this have to get screwed out of their money? We're the best tenants this company has ever had and they recognize us as such. We take care of the property, make it a million times better than it was when we moved in; just treat us with respect.

Lies, Lies, Lies

2008-05-30T11:58:00.003-06:00

We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories ... And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.

-- George W. Bush. May 30, 2003

No manipulation of intelligence reports would account for saying we found "weapons of mass destruction" when none existed. President Bush must have known these were lies when he was saying them. The American public continues to be misled by him and his administration.

When will we wake up? He has lied to us for 8 years straight about everything he's been doing involving the Middle East. The result? The United States of America is either ignored or despised by the majority of the world. Our former allies want nothing to do with us and our sinking ship of a nation. If we don't turn this country around soon we will be left behind by a world that is beginning to realize that it doesn't revolve around our country.

Interview Number 1: Are you a weirdo?

2008-05-29T14:34:00.004-06:00

I started looking for some part-time work about a week ago. I sent my resume out to some places that had advertised on the CS department job board. Yesterday one of them contacted me to setup an interview. So I went and interviewed with them today. This interview was (in my words) simply to determine whether or not I was a weirdo.

The interviewer is essentially the head of HR as well as other sections (it's a small startup company), and he was nice enough to tell me up front that this interview was mostly for him to gauge my personality. So he asked some general HR type questions. I think I did a pretty good job of showing some character and being pleasant and avoiding the appearance of a mal-adjusted nerd.

I got to meet some of the other workers who seemed like cool people who would be fun to work with. The interviewer said he'd probably call me early next week to setup a technical interview. So I'm looking forward to that. I think I'd really enjoy working there, maybe if I get the part-time job it would become a full-time position when I (hopefully) graduate next year. We'll see what happens.