< Collaboration Collective >

Jumping Ship

2007-04-05T16:17:00.000-05:00

Well, it's official. I'm switching my blog over to WordPress, hosted on my own website (mccambridge.org).

Follow me to my blog's new home! I've got a nice little Welcome post to greet you and give you all the details.

Don't forget to update your bookmarks and RSS or Atom feeds!

April ice brings... uh, broken fountain?

2007-04-04T21:10:00.000-05:00

Not sure if you can see it, but those are icicles on the vertical caliper:

And that is bad. Fortunately Chris & Justin are in Madison shutting things down as I write this, so that the above-ground pipes don't freeze and burst tonight and tomorrow in the freak freezing temperatures.

How to lose a pound in 10 minutes

2007-04-03T16:05:00.000-05:00

Forget fad dieting. I'm pretty sure I just lost at least a pound by getting my haircut. As many of you are probably aware, it's about friggin' time.

Anyhow, back to my guitar and books for a spring break blissfully low on internet utilization :)

The timeless joys of childhood

2007-04-03T12:04:00.001-05:00

The timeless joys of childhood
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Life always seems so much simpler at Gramma's house.

No Foolin'

2007-04-01T15:44:00.000-05:00

True story: the fountain lives again.

Those not currently located in Madison can take this for April Foolery all they want, but I swear to you it's true :) Wait until you get back and check it out, or go look at the FountainCam!

David & I did a whole bunch of cleanup work Thursday afternoon getting all the leaves and dirt and crud out of the South (caliper) end. Filled three 80-lb salt bags to the brim with decaying leaf matter. Yuck. Then somehow Jared & Jeni convinced me I looked fine afterward and needn't change before going to supper?

Anyway, before leaving we started the 10,000 gallon reservoir filling, a process which Tim estimated at 24-36 hours. Checking back at 8pm confirmed that it took in excess of 3 hours ;-)

I stopped the PLC to prevent it from starting up at what it thought would be 7am, so that we wouldn't burn out the pumps with too little water. Then this afternoon I finally had a chance to remote in, set the clock, bypass the switch I accidentally left off down in the tunnel, and away we go! Apparently, the PLC holds its clock stopped at 00:00 01/01/1988 until you program it for the first time. Clever trick to make sure you don't screw things up like I almost did: it held itself "in reset" waiting for the clock to be correctly programmed. Very handy. (I say "for the first time", because we just installed our newly-repaired power supply module on Thursday, and the clock truly had never been run before!)
Now on to spring break!

You want me to what?

2007-03-28T15:17:00.000-05:00

Trusted Computing Awareness

2007-03-27T23:25:00.000-05:00

This is something even the non-nerds should be aware of. For 3 minutes of your time, you can catch up on an interesting and disturbing trend in industry, where the companies that develop your computer are working together to develop technology which does not trust you, the owner & user of the machine...

The animation is rather well done except for a couple typos and odd uses of English, and presents its message in a very non-technical manner. Please take a minute and watch it.

Kudos to Scott for finding this originally.

Weekend

2007-03-26T12:09:00.000-05:00

Friday
Kaisa came to visit!
Supper at Atlanta Bread Co
Dave came to visit!
UW MadHatters concert: Me, Kaisa, Stefanie, Dave, and Jared. Overture Center (gorgeous.) by the Capitol. Parking way too far away and making the girls walk in the mist :( (Sorry! I hear that is bad for the hair, and Kaisa's shoes...). Opening act magician and juggler; both good, the latter hilarious. Awesome concert, that I will definitely be getting the DVD recording of. Wow was it great. I'm sad that they have so many amazingly talented seniors leaving this year, especially the guy that sang "I'll Be" (Edwin McCain) and I think "Hey Girl" (O.A.R.) and their phenomenally talented vocal instrumentalist, who sings an amazing trumpet and trombone.
Guitar "practice" after the show. Three guitars, four people (though one of you, and I'm not going to name names, needs to play with us some more... it's the only way to learn :) ) Basically involved playing around and talking, and then being amazed by the musical aptitude of one David G. Dreyer, who can pick up a song by hearing it for just a few minutes. Why do you have to live so far away Dave??

Saturday
Going to bed at 3am. Oops. Hope you were ok for work, Stef!
Dave leaves to visit parents.
Pancake breakfast with Kaisa.
Some cleaning, not much productivity.
Kaisa goes home.
Hang out with Jared, out for a burger at the Nitty
Buy my first 6-pack
Cards with Dave, Pat, Jared, and Jon. Jared claims his Guinness from a bottle (brilliant!) makes him play better.
Stay up til 3 for no particularly good reason, watch some ATHF at Jon's suggestion

Sunday
Wake up and call Dave to make sure he comes back and gets his ID badge, apartment keys, guitar pick, guitar tuner, guitar chord book, and shirt that he forgot Saturday night
Some work around the apartment
Head in to campus at 1, talk to parents en route
Mail in first contribution to Roth IRA
Enter 3605 EH at 1:30pm
Leave 3605 EH for 1.5 hours to have supper at Ian's with Jared
Back in 3605 EH until 11:00, when Josh and Jeni bring me some late-night snacks. Nearly lock myself out of EH, except for a fortunate pressure pocket in the wheelchair ramp that holds the door open.
Back in 3605 EH until 2:45am.
Home to finish last problem from book that I forgot to bring 13 hours ago
Pass out at 4:30am

Except for the last part there on Sunday, it was an Excellent weekend!

Uggh...

2007-03-26T02:54:00.001-05:00

Uggh...
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

We'll just say it's been a long day in 3605 Engineering. I got there at 1:30 and only left for about an hour and a half to grab supper with Jared. Thank God for Jared's supper interlude and Josh and Jeni randomly bringing me some late-night sustenance in the form of Doritos, or I would long-since be insane. Now back to the apartment to finish up the last problem and type up some calculations for another project. Good morning everyone.

21 in Review

2007-03-22T00:45:00.001-05:00

On second thought, I should not draft a post with that title this late at night. Too much happens in 21 years to condense over a sleep- and C#-fogged brain.

The short story is: I turned 21 on Tuesday. I don't feel radically different, but it is nice to not have any outdated, age-delimited legal requirements in the way of life any more. Thanks a bunch to those friends who took me out Tuesday night! I owe you all one :) If you're not up to anything else, how does Saturday sound? Dave- you're sticking around 'til Sunday, right? Oh, and btw, do you read this blog? lol

A good night to all... I'll try to post some sort of inspirational 21-year review tomorrow, but given the amount of work & meetings I have scheduled, that might not work out... I'll do my best.

Spending class time wisely...

2007-03-20T14:15:00.001-05:00

Spending class time wisely...
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

All but two. Anyone know a Swahili honorific B-INAS?

Birthday morning

2007-03-20T08:19:00.001-05:00

Birthday morning
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Aww, Nate made me breakfast!

Dear Nathan

2007-03-19T21:33:00.001-05:00

Dear Nathan
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

THIS is how we DON'T store the lasagna.

Much love, Colin

Birthday Supper: Episode 2

2007-03-17T23:26:00.001-05:00

Birthday Supper: Episode 2
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Featuring grilled salmon, asparagus, wild rice, strawberries and fresh bread. Scrumptious. This is that salmon recipe of my dad's that I've told some of you about- if you like salmon at all, you HAVE to try this!

Birthday dinner at Prime Quarter

2007-03-17T15:38:00.001-05:00

Birthday dinner at Prime Quarter
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

I'm sorry to all my vegetarian or no-meat-in-Lent eating friends, but this was a great steak! Add in unlimited Texas Toast and salad bar and you've got all the fixings for a quality American meal. What a great restaurant!

NCAA Bracket

2007-03-16T00:38:00.000-05:00

I told a couple people I'd put my bracket up here, so here it is.

The picks were determined by the highly scientific process of "I've heard good things about this team," "I like the name of this team," and "Ohio State is going down." (Sorry Paul, nothing personal... but your university's basketball team did just beat us, soundly...)

Without further ado, here it is: Colin's Bracket [PDF], it's half a meg. Blame Facebook. Oh, and sorry about the Geico ads. Again, blame Facebook. In fact, I don't really recommend downloading this at all: Just go look at my bracket on facebook.

Or read this summary:

Elite Eight

Kansas over UCLA, UNC over Georgetown (my two "I have no clue" picks)
Texas A&M over Ohio State (my "Down with Ohio State" pick)
Florida over Wisconsin (my "I love this school, but I hear more good things about Florida, plus Wisconsin wasn't playing so hot in their last several games" pick)

Final Four

Florida over Kansas (my "Continuation of I've heard good stuff about Florida, and they have some Noah guy" pick)
Texas A&M over UNC (my "Why not?" pick)

Championship

Texas A&M over Florida (my "That's who was left in my bracket, and Florida probably can't win twice" pick)

New Study Finds Sleeping on Floor Uncomfortable

2007-03-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

(MADISON) -- Results from a recent scientific study demonstrate a correlation between sleeping on the floor and assorted transient aches and pains, reports one scientist from Madison, WI. After an extensive one-night study and detailed introspection the following morning, it was determined that sleeping on the floor overnight was directly correlated with the experience of miscellaneous aches and pains, e.g., a "throbbing sensation" in the region of the right patella.

McCambridge, the lead scientist in the study, suggests that perhaps the awkward positioning of limbs while sleeping on a rigid surface is partly to blame for the observed effects. "It felt like I had slept with my leg twisted around weird," the primary subject of the experiment reports.

The study was originally intended to determine if sleeping on the floor was an effective means of avoiding the excess heat trapped in a room with an unopenable window and an Intel Prescott processor. Results for this original phase of the study are inconclusive, however, as the subject fell asleep too quickly to make the requisite objective observations. McCambridge suggests that in the future, the study be repeated at a more reasonable hour, as the subject reported feeling "drowsy" at 0200 when the experiment began.

Further research into methods of avoiding undesired thermal characteristics of the Prescott series of processors are planned for the future.

That's new

2007-03-13T13:58:00.001-05:00

That's new
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

School bus at the bus stop.

You're the tertiary storage; I'm the L1 cache

2007-03-13T08:42:00.000-05:00

I'm a web crawling spider; you an Internet mosquito;
You thought the 7-layer model referred to a burrito.
...
fs sa rlidwka
I'll chown your home and take your access away
...
You're outside your scope, son, close them curly brackets
'Cause I drop punk-a** b****es like a modem drops packets

Awesome. Even the non-computer geeks can appreciate the rhymes, though you'll need a bit of UNIX background to appreciate the awesomeness: "Kill Dash Nine" - Monzy

Sorry for the censoring... don't want my blog getting blocked by content filters. I'm sure you understand. -Ed

Update: To answer Craig's question: props to Scott for pointing me to that! [/Update]

Or Better Yet:

Desktop Revitalization: Episode 2 "Gigabit Makes People Happy"

2007-03-11T01:31:00.000-06:00

I like gigabit.

And by the time I got this screenshot up here, it's done. So nice.

Desktop Revitalization: Episode 1 "Impressed"

2007-03-11T00:10:00.001-06:00

Well, over the past month my frustration with my former desktop PC setup was building to a breaking point. I last installed Windows XP SP2 in approximately July 2006. Early on, I messed around with a bunch of drivers for reading Ext2 partitions and for getting my Netgear WG311v3 wifi PCI card working. Ultimately I found something that was "good enough," but had a couple nasty bugs like: When you turn the PC on, it loads XP up to the point of displaying my wallpaper, and then freezes for about 30 seconds. If you pressed [Enter] on the keyboard, it immediately resumed loading and everything was happy. If you did not (for example, if you instead walked away), then Windows felt attention-deprived, and there was about a 50% chance the machine would hang completely requiring a hard reboot.

Annoying, to say the least.

So, after putting up with that for over a semester, my frustration finally built to the point that I spent the last week copying off all of my data, and last night wiped my drives clean. I also spent some time rolling a custom XP install CD using the amazing nLite utility, which allows you to slipstream hotfixes, PnP drivers, and text-mode drivers, so no more "F6 to install a third-party driver" from floppy disk (who even has those? I mean, besides nerds like me?), and no more "Windows Update found 68 critical updates for your computer." Very nice.

So, I set up about 35 gigs for Windows XP, popped in the nLite disk, and went to bed. Oh, did I mention that it also fills in all those language/localization settings, network options, display resolutions, default passwords, etc, automatically? When I woke up, my fresh, clean Windows XP desktop was sitting there waiting for me. No more "Oh, just one quick question" in the middle of a 30+ minute installation. Also nice.

The main event, though, was Vista. I haven't run Vista on this machine since Beta 2 testing for a Microsoft Install Fest this past summer, which I ultimately abandoned in favor of XP due to lack of drivers. So today, I gave Vista another go, using the Ultimate edition. Installation went without a hitch:

Now I'm starting to dig into Vista, and get some software, like Office 2007, up and running. One really cool feature that I didn't understand the point of when I saw the beta, but kindof surprised me this time around: The Network Map that Vista displays in the Network and Internet Control Panel. For kicks, I set up my PCI wifi card (which Vista already had drivers for, btw), and then was digging around to try and figure out if Vista was using the wireless network or the wired to reach the internet. Here's what I found:

Isn't that sweet? I don't have any idea how it identifies the presence of the switch in there, but that is exactly my setup: DHCP served by the router, cross-overed into a gigabit wired switch as the backbone for all wired communication (e.g., between Myth box and my desktop).

I guess most people probably wouldn't see that as cool, but man, that was neat. How does it work?? I don't think switches decrement TTL, do they? Hopefully by the end of CS640 I'll know!

Live at 'Club 770'

2007-03-09T23:25:00.001-06:00

Live at 'Club 770'
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Not sure if you will be able to see it in this pic, but there's definitely a tenor sax on stage with this rock band. Awesome! They've also got everything from a bell kit to a flugel (sp?) horn. It's pretty sweet.

HOT.

2007-03-08T14:57:00.001-06:00

HOT.
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

New power supply: check.

Date changed from 1988 to 2007: check.

Software reloaded and executing: check.

This fountain-controlling masterpiece of a machine is looking /Good!/

Lessons from the Daily Cardinal Crossword

2007-03-05T12:25:00.000-06:00

I've taken to working on the Daily Cardinal crossword puzzles during ECE 342 (MWF) and ECE 551 (TR) recently. Why during class? Well, believe it or not, because it actually helps me learn better! I'm somewhat interested in both classes, and for ECE 342, I actually have a really good professor, but the material for both is awfully dry. If I try to just pay attention to the lecture, especially 551 power lectures, my attention wanders, there's nothing to do, and so I fall asleep :(

On the other hand, when I bring the crossword puzzle along, I have something intellectually stimulating to do when the lecture gets too slow, so I stay awake :)

Plus it has the added benefit of increasing my knowledge, as opposed to my other stand-by: pulling out my laptop, which tends to just waste my time :D

For instance, in the midst of discussing p-channel MOSFET differential amplifiers and improving their gain by means of a current mirror active load configuration, I learned this today:

Latin name for Troy: Ilium
Capital of Togo: Lome
Tea serving, in Britain: Cuppa <-- wtf is that?
Cockamamy: Inane

I didn't know any of those clues, but was able to fill in the cross words for all but Ilium. Two boxes there I had to look up, with a few more for a total of 4 today. Not bad.
And just for grins, here were this author's "clever" clues:

Tasty zoo: Animal Crackers
Carrot patch, e.g.: Vegetable Garden
What a geologist makes at the bank?: Mineral Deposit

The sad part is that I actually got all three of those with only about 4 letters each, but I was stuck on "Rim holder" --> Backboard for like 20 minutes, when I had _ _ C K B _ A _ _.

Remember Being 16?

2007-03-03T00:50:00.000-06:00

'Cause man, I sure don't.

On the other hand, I did receive some beautiful PIC16F's today from Microchip.

Unfortunately, Travis also informed us on the bus back from Plexus that there is no C compiler for the 16F series, only for the 18F and 24F's. Probably because the 16F series uses an accumulator architecture with a limited 8-level stack, I guess.

But seriously. Damn. Why couldn't we have paid more attention when ordering the things? Now we're either going to have to program in assembly or sample new parts and wait another week. Crap.

On the upshot, the PICs came in this awesome ESD bag with a ziplock-esque zipper!

More Red Hot Chili Peppers

2007-03-01T00:44:00.001-06:00

More Red Hot Chili Peppers
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Oh yeah- there was a band there too, not just awesome sound and lighting equipment. Actually, the band was fricking amazing. If you're at all a Chili Peppers fan, you should definitely see them live!

Red Hot Chili Peppers

2007-02-28T19:35:00.001-06:00

Red Hot Chili Peppers
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

I just want to sit behind THAT!

Goo Goo Dolls

2007-02-27T22:47:00.001-06:00

Goo Goo Dolls
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Pretty sure my cellphone's camera hates dark rooms with bright lights... Also pretty sure the average age here was like 18. But it was a great concert regardless!

Random Quotes

2007-02-25T01:56:00.000-06:00

I was looking through an old file of quotes on my laptop this evening. I'm not entirely sure what I was in search of, nor that I found it, but it did bring to mind some quotes I really like, and some things I need to think about again these days. Mostly so I don't forget them, but also to set them out for you to ponder as well, here are a few:

There are many degrees of sight and many degrees of blindness. What senses do we lack that we cannot see another world all around us? -Frank Herbert

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up. Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. - James Baldwin

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and techology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." - Carl Sagan

Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. - Jon Stewart

Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself. -J. B. Priestley

Ow... Priestley, that was a little close to home.

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Why Nerds

2007-02-20T21:52:00.000-06:00

I don't often go for Craigslist, but Scott sent me this link: Why Geeks and Nerds are Worth It", and it is awesome, so I'm copying it here, with props to the original poster (note that the original poster was female).

I really like numbers 1, 3, 11, 12, and especially 15. Props to all my fellow nerds, as well!

Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It...

Date: 2005-04-03, 9:30PM PDT

In the wide world of dating, there are many options. Do you go for the flashy guy with the smooth smile, or the dude in the corner typing away on his laptop? The following are reasons why I think my fellow females should pay more attention to the quiet geeks and nerds, and less attention to the flashy boys.

1.) While geeks and nerds may be awkward, they’re well-meaning 9 out of 10 times. That smooth dude with the sly grin and the spider hands? Wonder what HIS intentions are... plus, I’ve never had a geek guy not call me when he said he would. Score major points THERE.

2.) They’re useful. In this tech-savvy world, it’s great to have a b/f who can make your laptop, desktop, and just about anything else that plugs into a wall behave itself.

3.) They’re more romantic than they’re given credit for. Ok true, their idea of romance might be to make up a spiffy web-page with all the reasons why they love you, with links to pics of you and sonnets and such... but hey. It lasts longer than flowers, plus you can show your friends.

4.) Due to their neglected status, there are plenty to choose from. You like ‘em tall and slender? There are plenty of geeks/nerds who are. You like ‘em smaller with more meat on their bones? Got that too.

5.) They’ve got brains. Come on now, how can intelligence be a bad thing?

6.) Most are quite good at remembering dates. Like birthdates and such, especially if they know it’ll make you happy. Due again to their neglected status, they’re more attentive than guys who “have more options”. Plus, with all that down time without a steady girlfriend, they’ll likely have mental lists of all the things they’d love to do once they GOT a girlfriend.

7.) Sex. Yep. Sex. I’m not really familiar with this myself, but I’ve friends who’ve been intimate with geek guys and it’s raves all around. They say a virgin wrote the Kama Sutra... all that time thinking about sex, imagining sex, dreaming about sex, (they are male after all) coupled with a desire to make you happy? Use your imagination.

8.) They’re relatively low-maintenance. Most can be fueled on pizza, Twinkies and Mt Dew. No complicated dinners needed here, so if you’re not the best cook, eh. Can you order a pizza?

9.) Most frequent bars as often as slugs frequent salt mines. You won’t have to worry much about your geek guy getting his “groove” on with club hotties because, frankly, he’ll be too busy rooting around under his computer wondering where that spare cable went. You won’t have to worry about him flirting with other women because, 9 out of 10 times, he’ll zip right by them in a perfect b-line towards the nearest electronics store. I’ve seen this happen.
Me: “Eww. Victoria Secret’s Models... They’re so skinny. How is that feminine? You can see her ribs!”
Geek Guy: “ooooooo...”
Me: “Hey!” *notices he is staring lustfully towards the computer store*
Geek Guy: “What?”
Me: “Never mind...”

10.) Although he may not want to go to every outing with you, you can arrange swaps, as in, you’ll go to his Gamer Con dressed as an elf princess if he’ll take you to the ballet. Plus, if he doesn’t want to go someplace with you, you won’t have to worry much about what he’s up to. You’ll probably come home to find him asleep on his keyboard in a sea of Mt. Dew cans with code blinking from the screen. It’s ok. He’s used to this. Just toss a blanket over him and turn out the light.

11.) His friends aren’t jerks. I can’t stress this enough. You’ll more likely get “Omg! A GIRL!! Can I see?!” than “Hey hot stuff back that ass up here and let me get some grub on...” They’re awkward geeks too and will, 9 times out of 10, treat you with the utmost respect and, more than likely, a note of awe. A cute girl picked one of their clan to date? It could happen to them! Hope! Drag some of your single girlfriends over, open up a pack of Mt. Dew, crack open the DnD set and get working. Nothing impresses geek guys more than a girl who can hack-n-slash (well ok maybe if she can code... a geek can dream).

12.) They’re rarely if ever possessive. They trust you, so you can be yourself around them. You like to walk around the house in a ratty t-shirt for comfort? He won’t care. He does too! They won’t get pissy if you don’t wear make-up or don’t want to bother primping your hair. If you gain a few pounds, they won’t try their best to make you feel like crap.

13.) They’re usually very well educated. Physics majors and the like. See #5. You won’t have to listen to him blathering on about his car (ok maybe a little), he’ll have loads of other interesting things to talk about. Politics, world events, how much the chicken burgers down at the local place rock, so long as you douse them in hot sauce...

14.) You’ll almost never have to hear, “Yaw dawg whazzap!!” plop out of their mouths. Unless it’s in jest. They spell properly, use correct punctuation, and are able to tell the difference between the toilet and the floor. They almost never get “wasted”, so you won’t have to worry about coming home to find him and his friends passed out on the floor amidst a pile of beer bottles. Mt. Dew cans, perhaps...

15.) And the final reason why geeks and nerds make great boyfriends: They actually give a damn about you. Not how you look (though that’s a plus), not how skinny you are, not how much make-up you primp yourself up with, but they like you for you. That kind of thing lasts longer than “DaMN baby you got a fine ass!!!” Believe me.

It's the scrollbar, idiot!

2007-02-18T12:36:00.000-06:00

Update: As Craig pointed out, the original version of my page flashed blue before changing orange. That was my bad. Here's what was wrong, as an FYI:
Original Stylesheets:


<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="csdeptb.css" title="Blue Layout" />

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="csdepta.css" title="Orange Layout" />

...

<body onload="setActiveStyleSheet('Orange Layout');">

The problem? Both stylesheets were loaded by default as preferred stylesheets, and since the blue sheet is listed first, it took precedence, rendering the page blue. Then on page load, I fired off a javascript call to set the orange sheet as active. This was to work around a weird IE glitch where it didn't always load the second style sheet. BUT, this resulted in the page being blue until it fully loaded, and then changing orange. The solution? List orange first, and make the blue an alternate stylesheet, like so:


<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="csdepta.css" title="Orange Layout" />

<link rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" href="csdeptb.css" title="Blue Layout" />

...

<body onload="setActiveStyleSheet('Orange Layout');">

[/Update]

So I've been having fun over the past couple days playing with HTML and CSS for a CS 640 (Intro to Computer Networks) assignment. The assignment is pretty trivial: basically, create the homepage for a fictitious Computer Science department. The home page should include 3 HTML documents (a home page, a faculty page, and a course listing), and two interchangible Cascading Stylesheets to play with colors. I put the shell of the page together pretty quickly, and then I've been spending some time playing with fancy CSS effects instead of doing my circuits homework :)

The page, for any who are interested, is located here: CCM University's Computer Science Department

One annoying "bug" I kept running into was that my nicely-centered TABLE (yeah, I know... <TABLE>s are SO Web 1.0. Get over it.) kept shifting slightly to the right on the main page (index.html), and then back slightly to the left on the other two pages. I looked into this for probably 30 minutes, trying to find some extraneous tags or something that were screwing up the spacing.
(It's a little hard to see on the thumbnails, but note the scrollbar appearing. The motion is easy to see in the fullsize pics.)

Main page (shifted right):

Faculty page (shifted left):

Then on one refresh, I noticed that the scrollbar appeared, and I slapped myself in the face. DUH. Longer pages (faculty.html and courses.html) --> don't fit on one screen --> Need a vertical scrollbar --> Need to shrink the size of the content pane --> A centered element shifts to the left by half the distance of the scrollbar's width.

My forehead hurts in shame.

To attempt to redeem myself, here's a 30-second code snippet for centering stuff in CSS:

index.html

...

<LINK REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" HREF="style.css" />

<BODY>

<TABLE class=framework>    <!-- Desire to center this table -->

...

style.css

...

body { text-align: center; } // Center for IE

.framework {

     margin: 0px auto; // Center for Mozilla

     width: 800px;

     text-align: left; // Prevent IE hack from inheriting

}

...

Free Energy

2007-02-12T12:31:00.000-06:00

So I'm fairly upset with myself for not working on my latest Circuits assignment a lot earlier...

I turned it in at the end of class today, but I'm not hoping for much. Why not, you ask? Well, let's just say I had to start fudging calculations when I found an input resistance of -5002.14 ohms. (I arbitrarily dropped the negative...)

Non-nerdy explanation of why that's bad: Short answer: It's impossible.

Long answer: You can imagine the circuit I was looking at like a water pipe with a filter/funnel in it. The filter is designed so that for just a small amount of water going through, it's not too hard and the water pretty much goes right through. But, the more water you try to send down the pipe, the more "clogged" the filter gets, and the harder each molecule of water has to work to get past the filter. How "hard" a molecule has to "work" is like the resistance number I calculated for my circuit: Maybe the filter is designed so that each molecule needs 500 Joules of energy to get past the filter, per gallon of water that flows through. So, if 1 gallon flows, each molecule needs 500 Joules. If 2 gallons flow, each needs 1000 Joules, and so on. The more water flowing, the more energy needed. This is basically how resistors in electronic circuits work.

Now imagine what it would mean if that number was negative... i.e., you get energy back by pushing your way through a filter. And you get more back the more water there is. It doesn't make any sense, which is why I know my homework is wrong. :(

To quote Wikipedia, "Absolute negative resistances without an external energy source cannot exist as they would violate the law of conservation of energy."

:sad face:

Another Firedrill...

2007-02-10T16:11:00.001-06:00

Another Firedrill...
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Fire drill at 1:40 pm in Engineering Hall- annoying. Fire drill at 4:37

am in Houghton, MI- NOT COOL. And now we're being herded across the

street to some other dorm. omg...

Update: Alltel sucks. Why can't I send PIX messages in the U.P.??

Road Trip!

2007-02-09T12:34:00.000-06:00

I'm off to Michigan Tech. University in Houghton, MI to visit Scott this weekend. Ashley, Jared, and I will be driving up this afternoon and back down Sunday. Should be a pretty awesome time: I haven't been up there in two years. Have a good weekend, everyone else!

Light-dependent LED reverse-bias voltage discharge times (my 453 design project)

2007-02-09T11:36:00.001-06:00

Light-dependent LED reverse-bias voltage discharge times (my 453 design project)
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Measuring the light-sensitive fall time of the voltage across a reverse-biased LED. The LED essentially acts like a variable capacitor, so the RC constant of the exponential decay depends on the intensity of light hitting it. We observed significant variations in fall time with one LED being exposed to ambient light vs being covered with a hand. Unfortunately, we aren't getting any kind of useful results when we include more than one LED in the circuit... stay tuned for more details.

Firedrill in the ENGR

2007-02-07T13:51:00.001-06:00

Firedrill in the ENGR
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

So that's why the instructor said it would be a short lecture today...

Maybe I Should Graduate?

2007-02-06T21:52:00.000-06:00

Update: I misread one of the requirements for the Computer Engineering degree. I actually need two advanced elective ECE courses, instead of 1 CS. [/Update]

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to hang around here for a full 4 years or not...

I ran my DARS (Degree Audit Reporting System) report today to see what's left for next year. Answer: 3 courses.

I can graduate if I take (Updated):

Engineering Professional Development 397: Technical Communication
Computer Science 577: Introduction to Algorithms OR Computer Science 520: Intro - Theoretical Computer Science
~~Any one additional Computer Science course numbered over 400.~~
Any two additional Electrical and Computer Engineering courses numbered over 400.

That's it. I could sleep from now until December 2007 and still graduate. Maybe I should have taken 17 credit semesters and graduated this year?

Now I have to decide what to do: I can easily graduate in December, or I could take a lot of courses that I'm interested in and stick around until May 2008. Any advice?

Too Cold For USB

2007-02-06T01:17:00.000-06:00

Negative temperatures outside my window are apparently not conducive to electrical continuity in the 30' of USB extension cables I have jerry-rigged around my living room. Nate couldn't get anything to print tonight, and after cycling the printer power and printer's USB connection, I tried the next link in the chain, underneath the heater/AC unit with its vent to the bitter cold. Seemed to be firm when I unplugged it, but popping it back in magically started the printer again. Coincidence? I fear not...

Things I Learned Today

2007-01-31T17:48:00.000-06:00

Metal is very cold when the air is 14 degrees, and an excellent conductor of heat. It will, in fact, suck all the heat out of your hands. This is not safe when you are outside atop a 15' aluminum tower.
Heat conduction goes both ways. You should never turn on a heater on one side of a piece of metal, and then touch the other side to see if it's hot. It is. Even if the air outside is only 14 degrees. You'll still burn some fingerprint right off your finger.
When snow reaches the top of a water spillway which you know to be about a foot deep, stepping in it will result in snow going over the top of your otherwise waterproof boots.
Just because you push water into one end of a hose does not imply that it will come out the other. In fact, it does not imply that it will come out at all. I have, in fact, no idea what happens to it.
The mister nozzle does not work :(

Completely unnecessary, but a lot of fun to watch!

2007-01-30T00:06:00.000-06:00

CakeBot (via hack-a-day)

College male seeks more heat in relationship

2007-01-25T08:40:00.000-06:00

Dear downstairs neighbors of University Heights Apt 60, I just wanted to drop you a note to thank you for running your heat earlier this year during the cold snap before Winter Break. Dave and I very much appreciated your generous donation of your unused BTUs. That said, I think our relationship has been moving in a new direction lately, and I'm not comfortable with it. In fact, it's been getting downright chilly. Frigid, even. I greatly fear for our continued friendship if you are not prepared to turn up the heat in our relationship a little bit. And I think you know what I mean by "turn up the heat." Now. I'm freezing. Always Yours, Colin P.S. - Sorry about the noise. Nate bought a new subwoofer, and it's fun :-D

Howto: Mythtv SNES Joystick Control

2007-01-22T10:24:00.000-06:00

Update: Why oh why can't Blogger preview my post in the *actual* stylesheet of my blog? I seem to remember WordPress doing this... if so, I must switch. ASAP.

I'm back down in Madison, and in the midst of unpacking all my junk after moving down here from home. One thing that Nate & I set up right away is my HTPC, an Ubuntu-based MythTV box. Unfortunately, I noticed over winter break that my homemade serial-port IR receiver has given up the ghost, so I can no longer control MythTV from my universal remote. I've ordered the parts for a USB IR receiver, but as I mentioned earlier, my soldering iron has also given up the ghost... So, what to do in the interim? Well, there is a keyboard attached to the Myth box, but it doesn't reach the couch. Enter the SNES controller and MythTV joystick control. Here's how I got it to work:

Goal

Control MythTV from an SNES controller (or any other gamepad)

Required Software / Hardware

MythTV (I believe any version since 0.17 will work)
SNES controller connected via parallel port adapter and the gamecon driver (see Documentation/input/joystick-parport.txt in the Linux source tree)
jstest (Optional, available on Ubuntu in the "joystick" package)

Determining joystick layout

The first step in writing a MythTV joystick configuration is to determine the exact layout of your joystick, as Linux sees it. Specifically, we need to know what axes (and axis values) and buttons correspond to the controls on the joystick. If you're using an SNES controller with the gamecon driver, I've done the legwork, and you can skip to the next section below, using my example configuration. (Obviously you should test it and make sure it works.)

To determine the layout of your own joystick, you can use the optional jstest program mentioned above. You can install it on Ubuntu from the joystick package (you will need the universe repository enabled):

$ sudo apt-get install joystick

Run jstest and record the axis numbers and values, as well as button numbers, that correspond to all the controls you wish to use on your joystick. jstest requires a parameter of the joystick device to open. For example, I run jstest like this for my first SNES controller:

$ jstest /dev/input/js0

jstest produces output for my SNES controller like this:

Driver version is 2.1.0.

Joystick (SNES pad) has 2 axes (X, Y)

and 8 buttons (BtnX, BtnY, BtnTL, BtnTR, BtnTR2, BtnSelect, BtnThumbL, BtnThumbR).

Testing ... (interrupt to exit)

Axes:  0:     0  1:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off

This tells me that the joystick as seen by Linux has two axes and 7 buttons. Pressing them in sequence changes the output, such as this output when I hold the directional pad to the left and press the "A" button:

Testing ... (interrupt to exit)

Axes:  0:-32767  1:     0 Buttons:  0:on   1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off

This tells you that the D-pad "left" direction corresponds to value -32767 on Axis 0, and that the "A" button corresponds to button 0.

Compiling a full list for your joystick would give you a mapping like this one for the SNES controllers & gamecon driver:

SNES Button	Linux joystick mapping
D-Pad Up	Axis 1: -32767
D-Pad Right	Axis 0: 32767
D-Pad Down	Axis 1: 32767
D-Pad Left	Axis 0: -32767
A	Button 0
B	Button 1
X	Button 2
Y	Button 3
L	Button 4
R	Button 5
Select	Button 6
Start	Button 7

Writing the MythTV `Joystickmenurc`Configuration File

Now that you have the logical layout of your joystick in hand, it's time to configure MythTV itself. This is done by means of the joystickmenurc configuration file, located at ~/.mythtv/joystickmenurc for the user that mythfrontend is launched under. This file will instruct MythTV as to which joystick device it should open, and then provides a mapping from the joystick layout to the keyboard strokes for MythTV.

`joystickmenurc` Format

As described in the formatting section of the Joystick Control page on the MythTV Wiki, the format for the joystickmenurc is as follows:

devicename <devname>: Specify the name of the joystick device to use, (e.g. /dev/input/js0)
button <num> <keystring>: Send keystring when button num is released
chord <cnum> <bnum> <keystring>: If button cnum is down, and button bnum is released, send keystring
axis <num> <from> <to> <keystring>: If axis num goes into the range of from-to send keystring

Example `joystickmenurc` for SNES controller

I think the formatting is best explained by an example. Below is the actual ~/.mythtv/joystickmenurc file I use on my system, with commenting explaining exactly what is intended and how it works. If you use an SNES controller attached via the gamecon driver to /dev/input/js0, this configuration should work for you as-is. Simply drop it in your ~/.mythtv directory and relaunch mythfrontend. For everyone else, feel free to use this as a template, or see the Joystick Control page on the MythTV Wiki for an example of an Xbox configuration file.

# ~/.mythtv/joystickmenurc
# Joystick menu config file
#
# Created 1/21/2007 by Colin McCambridge
# based on instructions at http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Joystick_Control
#
# This joystick menu configuration controls MythTV with an SNES
# gamepad connected via parallel port and the gamecon driver.
# 
# Controls:
#  SNES Pad            Keypresses       Joystick Device
#  --------            ----------       ---------------
#  UP/DOWN axis        Up, Down         Axis 1: U -32767 D 32767
#  LEFT/RIGHT axis     Left, Right      Axis 0: L -32767 R 32767
#  B                   Enter            Button 1
#  Y                   Esc              Button 3
#  A                   P  (Play/Pause)  Button 0
#  X                   S  (Guide)       Button 2
#  Start               M  (Menu)        Button 7
#  Select              I  (Info)        Button 6
#  Left Top            Page Up (REW)    Button 4
#  Right Top           Page Down (FF)   Button 5
#

###########################################################
#
#    SNES Gamepad Device
#
###########################################################

devicename /dev/input/js0

###########################################################
#
#    D-Pad
#
###########################################################

#Up
        axis    1       -32767  -1      Up
#Down
        axis    1       1       32767   Down
#Left
        axis    0       -32767  -1      Left
#Right
        axis    0       1       32767   Right

###########################################################
#
#    Buttons
#
###########################################################

#A ==> Play/Pause
        button  0       P
#B ==> Enter
        button  1       Enter
#X ==> Guide (S)
        button  2       S
#Y ==> Exit (Esc)
        button  3       Escape

#Start ==> Menu (M)
        button  7       M
#Select ==> Info (I)
        button  6       I

#Left Top ==> Rewind (PgUp)
        button  4       PgUp
#Right Top ==> F.Fwd (PgDown)
        button  5       PgDown

Final Notes

For making your own joystickmenurc file, you may find the MythTV Default Keybindings, or the more abbreviated Remote Control Buttons list handy references as to the control operations you can define.

For an exact list of valid key names to use (e.g. "Escape") refer to the Qt documentation for the Qt.Key enum. This document lists key names in the form: "Qt::Key_Escape", use only the name following the underscore.

Note: there is an undocumented discrepancy regarding the keys Page Up and Page Down. While the Qt.Key enum lists them as PageUp and PageDown, they can actually only be specified as either "PgUp" and "PgDown", or "Page Up" and "Page Down" respectively. See messages 3 and 4 of this email thread for reference, or view the relevant Qt source file (especially the keyname[] array at line 89, and method decodeString at line 388): qkeysequence.cpp

Building a Power Supply: Phase 1.5

2007-01-17T13:31:00.000-06:00

Subtitled: On Hiatus

My new Weller WES-51 (from back in October) was finally used for the first time on Monday. It functioned for all of 2 hours or so. I believe a faulty transformer is to blame. I followed the directions for troubleshooting the device up to the point where I sliced an inch-long gash in my thumb with a blunt screwdriver. I no longer have a soldering iron and am not yet comfortable typing with my left thumb, let alone assembling circuitry. It seems I should have taken Paul's advice more closely to heart. So I guess, stay tuned?

Building a Power Supply: Phase 1

2007-01-15T11:07:00.000-06:00

Well, as alluded to in earlier posts, I have been working on a project over this winter break. I am designing and building a three-output adjustable linear bench power supply. I think that about 2 people who read this will have any idea what that means, so here's the basic idea: If you want to skip all the back-story, please just take a look at the pictures instead. :) Most engineers are engineers because they really like to tinker with things. Maybe that isn't actually true of "most" engineers, but I think it's true of all the cool engineers. :-) Anyway, electrical and computer engineers tend to like to tinker with electronics. For instance, this strange tinkering bug might possess them to build a cable to link their universal remotes to their computer for brain surgery. The end product of which, might, perhaps, allow the remote to display "MythTV" (why that?) on screen instead of "TV" or "VCR"... ...Not that anybody you know would do that... Anyhow, in the course of messing with electronics, you need a fair number of tools. A digital multimeter to show you how many volts something is at, or how much resistance is in a given wire, is absolutely essential. So is a soldering iron to make changes to circuits. (mad scientist's evil grin >:-D) Another essential is some sort of power source. That's where my project comes in. Most devices you buy (think digital camera, cell phone, remote control, answering machine, electric pencil sharpener) have either batteries, a wall plug, or a combination of both as a power source. Generally, devices which have a wall plug (such as your cellphone charger) convert the AC electricity in your house to DC electricity, like that which comes out of a battery. That's all well and good, and every device is customized to use whatever precise form of DC voltage it needs, but what about building your own devices? Or powering up broken stuff? You (the electrical/computer engineer) would have to have one of every kind of power source, or at least the most common types, on hand. Enter my adjustable bench power supply. (You knew that whole mess was going somewhere, right?) This is (/will be) a device that plugs into the wall, and converts the AC electricity available there into DC electricity at any voltage. Thus it can be made to work with any circuit's needs. There are limits of course, though I haven't completed enough of my construction to know the final specs yet. I expect to be able to provide about 1.0 amp at 1.5V to 30V from one output, and 1.0 amp on each end of a tracking ±1.5V to ±15V. Non-EE Translation: the supply will have three outputs. The first will be able to simulate anywhere from 1 to 20 AA batteries in a row, including "fractions" of batteries. The second output will be able to simulate from 1 to 10 AA batteries (adjustable separately of the first output). The third output will be adjusted simultaneously with the second, and will provide negative1 to 20 AA batteries, at the exact same voltage as the second output. I.e., if the second output is +9.5V, then the third will be -9.5V. So enough nerd-babble. All anybody really cares about is pictures, right? Fine. Since I've only been prototyping for one day so far, I have only tested part of the final circuits. (For the electrically-inclined, I haven't included the transformer or rectifier stages yet.) BUT, here is what I have so far: This is the simplest adjustable voltage supply. The little blue box is the control (a potentiometer). Proof that it works [468K MPEG4] This is the next iteration, with a digital circuit, a pushbutton switch, and three preset voltage levels. I'm rather pleased with how this turned out, though I still have some work to do on the switch, as it sometimes switches 6 or more times per button press (for the EEs: I tried using a RC debouncing circuit, until I realized that leaves the voltage level in the no-man's zone around 1.2V for way too long. Oops. Now I just have a pull-down resistor, and the normally-open switch ties the clock pin on my CMOS 4017 to Vcc.) Enough of that: I saved the best (IMHO) for last. Proof that this circuit actually does something [520K MPEG4]. In this clip I press the pushbutton several times. Note that the voltage switches from about 3.25V to 5V to 8V, then cycles around again. Also note the LEDs that track which voltage is currently selected :) Alright, I've already wasted way more time on this blog post than I meant to. Back to the bench!

Life's Little Mysteries

2007-01-13T22:58:00.001-06:00

Life's Little Mysteries
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

So that's how bite-sized Tostitos are made!

Resistors capacitors and diodes oh my!

2007-01-13T11:52:00.001-06:00

Resistors capacitors and diodes oh my!
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

My $97 order from mouser came in today! Now I can start building my power supply... just as soon as I finish cleaning my room. :-( But seriously, who knew FedEx delivered on Saturday?? How awesome is that?

Gotta Fly Red-Eye While I'm Still Young

2007-01-11T01:18:00.000-06:00

SFO 00:35 6/8/07 --> MSP 06:03 6/8/07 MSP 10:25 6/8/07 --> GRB 11:39 6/8/07 GRB 12:05 6/10/07 --> MSP 13:13 6/10/07 MSP 14:20 6/10/07 --> SFO 16:16 6/10/07 Cousin Tracy's wedding Just need to navigate Caltrain + BART now.

Howto: Resize Your Own Watch

2007-01-10T19:35:00.001-06:00

I haven't put too many posts up here that are actually helpful to anyone else in any way, so I thought I should start working on that. This may or may not be helpful to anyone either, but what the heck, I already had the pictures... Disclaimer: I am not a jewelry / watch expert, and in fact know next to nothing about them. What I present here worked for me, but I make no claim that it will work for you and take no responsibility for your actions and any damage they may cause. :)

Back-Story

So why am I resizing a watch band, of all things? Well, my parents bought me a Seiko watch for Christmas during my senior year of high school, which I like very much. Unfortunately, wearing it for several years (and drumming with it on) popped one of the hands off one of the smaller dials, and that hand now rattles around freely under the crystal, frequently getting stuck under other dials and jamming the watch up: Note the alarm dial (bottom) of the old watch is missing a minute hand, which is located upside down jamming its second hand (left dial). After sending it off to Seiko for a repair estimate ($162), we decided it wasn't worth the money to repair, as it would be better spent toward the purchase of a new watch. Fast-forward several months, and I find my very same watch on Amazon.com for $105 (no longer available). I was pretty excited to have a chance to get it fixed, so I bought it. Fast-forward another week or so, and my new watch arrives. Three sizes too large for my wrist. Oops. And so, here we are.

Goals

Resize a watch band of the "pin-and-link" type seen above.
Avoid fees to have it resized at the mall
Avoid damage by the inept worker at the Younkers jewelry department

Tools

Pentel 0.5mm mechanical pencil tips
Thumbtacks
1" Brad
Light hammer

Steps

First, take a close look at your watch and determine how many links need to be removed, and from which sides of the clasp. Keep in mind that you should try to balance the removed links from both sides, or the clasp will end up on the edge of your wrist instead of the back. I had this step easy, as the old watch was fitted correctly to my wrist already as a model. In my case, I needed to remove 3 links total: 2 from one side of the clasp and 1 from the other.
The next step is to determine exactly which links you will need to remove to accomplish this, and which pins hold them in place. Generally, you will need to remove 2 pins (one from each end of the link(s) you will remove), and then replace 1 to rejoin the watch band.
Removing and inserting these pins without a commercial tool for doing so is the tricky part, and why I am writing this Howto. So, on to the pins:
On my Seiko, I started by removing one of the pins on the links near the clasp, in the direction indicated by the small engraved arrow:
One method to remove these pins uses the tip from a 0.5mm mechanical pencil. Remove the tip and place it point up on a solid surface. Then press the watch down, aligning the pin with the pencil tip's metal shroud. Apply force as vertically and firmly as possible. This was the first method I tried, and though it worked for two of the pins I needed to remove, it destroyed 3 mechanical pencils by pushing the metal shroud into the tip. For this reason, I do not recommend this method.
A second method is to use a thumbtack. Place the tack point-upward on a sold surface. Very carefully align the watch pin on the tip of the tack and press downward firmly. It is very important to keep the watch aligned so that you are always pushing directly into the pin, not at any angle. If you are not careful, the watch will slip off the pin, and if you're like me, you'll stab the pin a full quarter inch into the tip of your finger. Despite the increased danger in this method, I found it to be the most effective, and though I did destroy another few tacks in the process, I was able to remove the remainder of my pins relatively easily.
Once all the pins are removed, you simply rejoin the remaining watch band pieces by reinserting pins as necessary. This is the second significant challenge.
When reinserting the pins, it worked best for me to insert them in the opposite direction I had removed them in. I attempted to insert the pin in the direction of the arrow the first time around, pushing the "bulge" in the pin through first, with the result of destroying the pin:
It is possible to push the pin nearly all the way back in just by hand and pressing the watch against a table, but replacing the pin the last 1/16" proved trickier. You would like to reposition the pin as it originally was, to minimize the risk that it will fall out.
The best method I found for recessing the pin back to its original position was to tap it lightly with a hammer, via a nail. Place the watch on a solid board or edge of a table so that the edge of the watchband rests solidly on the surface. Then align a small brad (I used a 1") with the stub of the pin sticking out, and rap it lightly with a hammer as shown:
Repeat for all pins that you need to remove and replace to adjust the watch size.
And that's it! Finished watch, down to size with minimal scratches. Total bill of materials:
- 3 mechanical pencil tips
- several thumbtacks
- one watch pin
- one stabbed finger

Stupidest Software Packaging Ever

2007-01-07T23:40:00.001-06:00

I thought I was buying this brand-new for $0.01 back around Black Friday, until I realized (after I had submitted the order and they had billed my card, aka "too late") that one $20 rebate was actually an upgrade rebate. Oops. So Fry's got $20 for it instead of $0.01. Oh well. None of that back-story can excuse this: Yes. That's a hinged computer software box. There is little more to say. I'm sad. : (

Playing catch-up

2007-01-07T23:40:00.000-06:00

It seems that it has been a while since I've posted here. I'm going through a bunch of pictures from the past month at the moment, so I will start posting some things up as I encounter them. Here's a general summary of what I've been up to:

I finished my last final exam at about 8:30pm Friday, December 22nd, finally starting my winter break
My family picked me up in Madison on Saturday morning and we went out to South Dakota to visit my Grandma and my dad's sister's family. That's the location of my previous post with the Christmas lunch
On the way home on the 26th, we stopped in Abbotsford, WI, to visit my other Grandma and one of my mom's brothers' family.
Back home, I finished Christmas shopping for my family on the 27th, (talk about last-minute shopping... actually, the sales are a really great way to shop. I'd strongly consider it next year.), and then later that day we had our family Christmas.
Thursday Jared, Scott, Ashley, Angela, and I went out to eat down at Hudson's to catch up a bit, and then Friday Jared had a party with more high school friends, and Saturday Jared and Scott and I held a LAN party in my basement, complete with Figaro's pizza
Since then I've pretty much just been hanging out. I spent a couple days designing a bench power supply and picking out all the parts for it. I'll be sending in an order for those tomorrow, hopefully they'll arrive in enough time for me to try it out before heading back down to Madison.

I think that's it for this summary... as I sort my pictures, I'll post some more.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-24T12:14:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas!
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Merry Christmas from South Dakota!

Like woah

2006-12-12T20:18:00.001-06:00

Like woah
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Two firetrucks, a fire SUV, an ambulance, an unmarked police car, and a moped just sped down Engineering Drive to the mechanical engineering building.

micro

2006-12-12T16:37:00.001-06:00

micro
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

I didn't realize that there were two types of small SD cards - miniSD and microSD - until my microSD card came in the mail today. I meant to buy a miniSD card for my cellphone... oops. This thing is, let's just say, a bit too small. Like "holy crap, how on earth did they fit 1GB in that impossibly small wafer of plastic"-small.

Hilarity

2006-12-11T10:00:00.000-06:00

-xkcd.com

Ice Queen

2006-12-03T12:01:00.001-06:00

Ice Queen
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Umm, yeah... we need to winterize that RIGHT NOW. Note the iced-over pool, the little sculpture around the working jets, and especially all the frozen shut jets... That's bad.

Snow!

2006-12-01T10:52:00.001-06:00

Snow!
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Winter has arrived! (Hopefully for real this time)

Not so much learning today

2006-11-28T20:23:00.000-06:00

I apologize to Professors Hill and Solomon, because I don't think I did much today but offend them by continually nodding off through their lectures... oops. Dave and I stayed up, well, a bit late last night finishing our 552 project. I got up at 7:30 Monday morning, and then went to bed at 1:15 PM this afternoon. The moral of the story is: do your work when it's assigned, not when it's due. Now do I go and sleep more or do I try and do something tonight?

On the CS Terminal Room D whiteboard

2006-11-27T18:53:00.001-06:00

On the CS Terminal Room D whiteboard
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

It doesn't get much clearer than that. CS 540 is for hot people!

Still debating

2006-11-23T23:28:00.000-06:00

I'm still debating how to handle moblogging, even as I phoned in my picture leaving for Florida today. One option is Flickr + Blogger to automagically create blog posts that redirect to flickr. The other option is to write some mail processing scripts of my own, and send the pics from my phone to myself. If I go with route two, I can possibly integrate with the XMLRPC work that the Gallery Summer of Code projects supposedly completed. I will have to look into this further. Meanwhile, here is the history of what could have been my mobile blog to date, had I not been too lazy to get it up and running earlier: Colin's Moblog

All Packed Up

2006-11-23T16:17:00.001-06:00

All Packed Up
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

And so begins the biannual Bayport band trip. Have fun in Florida Kaisa!

...Very Soon

2006-11-22T12:53:00.001-06:00

...Very Soon
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

I should have known that a) there would already be a free, simple way to do this and b) Paul would know what it was. Thanks Paul! I may still write my own someday, but it no longer need be soon. I guess I'm still not accustomed to having a national network instead of Cellcom. It's nice! Oh yeah- the pic is just a random view out my window past the speaker.

Moblogging... Coming Soon

2006-11-22T09:32:00.000-06:00

I realize I'm doing a pretty crappy job of keeping this blog updated lately... sorry! As many of you know, I ended up taking a set of classes this semester with very few exams (i.e., only one midterm + one final per course), but with large projects in all. They've been consuming most of my free time, and blog-apathy is my excuse for the rest. I have, though, been taking pictures over the past couple weeks of stuff that I wanted to post to my blog. I would post a whole bunch here, but I don't want to be a problem for those with less-than-blazing-fast broadband connections (hi Jeni!), so instead I'll just post one, and then direct you to my "moblog" gallery (Coming Soon... after I get out of class). On the topic of moblogging, I just figured out this morning how to send picture messages to my email via my cell phone. I can't believe I never tried that before! Expect code to be forthcoming this weekend for turning those emails into moblog posts. Then I suspect you will see my blog post frequency increase again. Anyway, here's one of the pictures I took recently: This is why we will have to shut off the fountain soon... it's icing over :(

Huzzah! Functional Branching!

2006-11-09T02:08:00.000-06:00

Dave and I spent all of one late night implementing the first generation (unpipelined) of our 552 project, a 16-bit MIPS processor in Verilog, and then we spent a couple hours this afternoon debugging it. Around 5:15 we ran into a snag: The assembler we were provided was for a slightly different instruction set architecture than the one we were required to implement. Specifically, in that other ISA, PC-relative branch offsets assumed a least-significant bit of 0 and thus didn't waste a bit in the instruction for that zero. As a result, the next PC calculation (for that ISA) would be PC <- PC + 2 + (sign ext. Immed. << 1). This is a problem, because Our ISA is byte-addressable, and says the PC calculation should be PC <- PC + 2 + sign ext. Immed. (See beqz instruction for an example.) Those of you familiar with computer architecture will recognize this as a severe problem: The assembler is generating offsets to odd byte addresses, due to the off-by-one-bit error, while all of our instructions are word-aligned. On the upshot, I was able to hack around this in the assembler source and get a working version. Plug in the new binary, fix a minor bug in the parameterization of our sign extender and voila: This is the (admittedly meaningless out of context) output of running the branchTest test program (assembled by my modified assembler). To see the full output and verify perfect branching functionality for yourself, here is a link to the full waveform [PDF].

Must be Halloween

2006-10-28T01:26:00.000-05:00

It must be Halloween in Madison. Countless scores of retarded drunk kids running around in costumes, high-intensity floodlights erected on State Street, but amazingly enough not that cold. Good weather for those interested in the festivities. Interesting anecdote: after a couple job search-related activities this afternoon, I took the bus in to campus to meet Jared for supper. Got off at Johnson & Mills and walked up to University. Coming up the street were a whole bunch of people on bikes filling every lane of University, and backing traffic up solid as far as I could see. It was crazy. Lots of yelling and angry horn-honking abounded, but the revelers continued unabated. I guess that's Madison. I actually think, if you added a light to each bike, that that might be legal... Don't bikes have the same rights as cars for use of the lanes? My Halloween: Pumpkin from Jeni :) Cleaned the apartment. A lot. Plus pumpkin in context. Now I'm either going to load DD-WRT on my new Buffalo WHR-G54S router or perhaps go to sleep. TBD.

Bon Appetit

2006-10-21T20:39:00.000-05:00

After struggling with very confusingly-worded & vaguely-defined pipelining homework questions most of the day (in between bouts of internet surfing, router ordering, and sleeping), I felt I needed to do something out of the ordinary to get my thoughts straightened out and myself re-motivated to study this weekend. So, I broke out Mom's recipe cards & started cooking. About an hour later, here is what came out: And it was good, against all odds. In other news:

I bought some new toys this weekend, like the aforementioned Buffalo WHR-G54S. I also bought a nice Digital Multimeter: Fluke 179, some TL81A electronics test leads (probably overkill, but handy nonetheless), and a temperature-controlled soldering station: Weller WES51.
I have three midterms this week: Monday- CS 540 (Artificial Intelligence), Tuesday- CS 552 (Intro. Computer Architecture), Wednesday- CS 537 (Operating Systems).
Combining the two items above means its a good thing UPS takes until at least Wednesday to deliver packages!
Now, Jeni & I are going to get some coffee with Josh, and then going to Marie Antoinette

And Done.

2006-10-19T02:38:00.000-05:00

Dave and I finished our ece 315 lab today with the completion of the bench exam. It went fairly well, though it took us all but the last 3 minutes of the 3-hr timeslot to finish. Below is a video clip of our functional final project, er... functioning. The idea was to drive the stepper motor at a rate of 10 steps per second, while flashing '0' on the 7-segment display at a rate of 5 Hz. The stepper motor would turn until reaching the optical sensor, at which point it stops and allows the user to manually move it to a new position. When the pushbutton is pressed, the stepper motor turns back on and moves to the optical sensor again. The cooler part was that on power-up, we also perfectly center the bar underneath the optical sensor by swinging back and forth to detect both edges. That looked really sweet but I didn't think to record it. Oh well. Here's the final construction board after 6 labs' worth of adding parts: And here's the aforementioned clip of the functioningness: (Requires QuickTime, or VLC, or something)

Crazy Patterns

2006-10-16T13:22:00.000-05:00

Jeni & I saw Gomez last night (see last post), and since then the song "How We Operate" has been driving me nuts. All day it's been running through my head, and I kept thinking that it sounded very, very similar to some other song that I knew. At some point Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited" came to mind, and somehow I was sure that was it, even though they didn't seem similar enough. Fortunately, when Dave came home for lunch, his musical knowledge came to my rescue. The reason they sounded so similar despite being different was that they have the same chord progression. Being a percussionist, I'm not 100% sure what that means, or how to hear it in a song, but it makes sense to me, and explains why these two songs have gotten stuck together in my head! Incidentally, Dave is amazing. I explained my predicament to him, and found him an old copy of Uninvited I had laying around. He listened to it for like 30 seconds, started playing along with it on his piano, and then listened to the iTMS clip of How We Operate again, and handed down his verdict. It was pretty awesome. Now he's upstairs playing "Bui-Doi" from Miss Saigon by ear. Unreal. Cool. I only wish I had a bit more control over this pattern-matching thing that goes on in my subconscious. Hear what I mean: "How We Operate" - Gomez "Uninvited" - Alanis Morissette Bonus amazing song: "Bui-Doi" - Miss Saigon

Gomez

2006-10-16T01:16:00.000-05:00

Jeni, Josh, Lauren, Lauren's mom, and I went to the Gomez concert tonight at the Annex. I was going to try and find a picture of them performing, but I didn't find one I liked soon enough (read: in less than 30 seconds) that I had no copyright qualms with, so just go here and find one yourself. The concert was awesome, though Josh ended up not liking their music. For myself, I need to get a copy of some of their CDs! Perhaps they are also on the iPod nano that Jeni is letting me borrow right now. I will have to check in the morning. Now I must sleep, so I can get up and meet my Math 320 group at 8am tomorrow.

October 11, 2006

2006-10-12T16:04:00.000-05:00

It snowed: And then this morning it was so cold when I left to touch up my project at CS, that I had to call Dave and have him bring me a hat to CS 552. Incidentally, I did get the project done, though it kept me up until 3:30, and saw me back in the lab from 9:10 to 9:35 and 10:45-10:55. (CS 537 runs 9:30-10:45, with CS 552 [project due] 11:00-12:15.)

Pending Review

2006-10-08T18:05:00.000-05:00

In the last 24 clock-hours, Ben and I have put in (combined) over 24 man-hours on our CS537 project, I believe, but I think we finally found the last bug. I'm so glad, as the process was extremely frustrating. The idea of our project is basically just to implement a correctly-synchronized scheduling algorithm in a multi-threaded system of "Stations" and "Channels" by using Java monitors. We ran into a lot of bugs over the past 24 hrs, ranging from coding typos to design flaws. In the end I doubt there are more than 10 lines that either of us wrote that haven't been rewritten. All that's left now though, pending Ben's review to see if he can get it to break, is to fix up the commenting and make sure it adheres to our (rather stringent) style guidelines. Awesome! Now on to CS/ECE 552, where I am sure I will put in another 12+ man-hours by its Tuesday due date. :( On the upshot, I finally had a reason to try out Skype to work with Ben on this, and it's really pretty cool. I'm sure everyone reading this who would be interested has already tried it, so I won't say anymore about that, other than that I'm impressed and probably should have tried it a long time ago. Oh, and that it's a lot cheaper than spending 4 hrs 18 minutes at a crack on your cellphone.

nanofortnights

2006-10-07T17:27:00.000-05:00

Tim asked me how long I thought something he was waiting for would take today. My reply was "54 nanofortnights," which sounded a lot wittier before I ran the math and found out I had just specified 0.06 seconds. Oops. Then we learned that I can't round, since 0.0653184 is typically rounded to 0.07 seconds. Yikes. Look what this "new math" has wrought upon us...

Up Waaaay too late

2006-10-03T20:42:00.000-05:00

So I didn't go to bed until 4:45 last night/this morning. Oops. I guess I decided I needed a bit of a break now that I'm finally back to my apartment (as of 8pm tonight). I'm surprised how long I've made it without crashing today on 3:45 of sleep. This was the scene yesterday when I went back in to campus to work with my CS 537 partner Ben. It's somewhat hard to tell from the photo, but straight above me is your average early-evening-with-cloud-cover gray. Down the street at the bottom of the photo (downtown Madison), it's pitch black. Very impressive-looking storm, though we didn't really get anything at all out of it. One crack of thunder and a couple sprinkles. They're taking down the last construction crane outside Mechanical Engineering today. I can't remember the sky over Engineering without cranes. "One last refrain... before the sun sets."

1:36 AM

2006-10-03T01:49:00.000-05:00

Dave turns on the stove & starts some spaghetti. It's going to be a long night. End product: Picture of spaghetti with picture of spaghetti. Metaspaghetti? Idk. Too late at night to know for sure. (Warning: large linked image) It seems my time-management skills fail me after 1am...

Contrary to Popular Belief and Rampant Speculation

2006-10-02T21:38:00.000-05:00

I am not, in fact, dead. We'll just say that in my current priorities this blog is, on a scale of 1 to Important, somewhere around - √π Sorry. How about this weekend? I'll try.

Battery Recall

2006-09-07T17:59:00.000-05:00

Well, it only took 3 attempts, but DHL and I finally connected today to deliver my new PowerBook battery. This one replaces the recalled one my computer is currently discharging into a safe-for-shipment state. An interesting note about the recall shipment process: the new battery arrived via DHL. In the box was a FedEx prepaid shipping label, and directions that indicated I should use the FedEx sticker in the US, while Canadian recall participants would be provided with a UPS sticker. Who would have thought you could get all three (DHL, FedEx, UPS) in one transaction? Impressive. From the letter accompanying my replacement battery:

Tips for faster discharge: Play a DVD movie, a CD in iTunes (turn on the Visualizer), or the Chess game (set to play computer vs. computer).

Haha, awesome: Apple just instructed me to play computer vs. computer chess as part of a battery recall. As a matter of fact, I think I shall... as well as enjoying as much of Inside Man as I can watch in the remaining 12 minutes of this battery's life. Au revoir, my somewhat-abused-and-less-than-loved-for-being-ridiculously-hot Sony-manufactured debacle of a battery.

Über-USB!

2006-09-06T01:38:00.000-05:00

Dave and I pooled our USB extension cords this evening to wire my laser printer to the Myth box by the TV. The result? Approx 20' of über-USB! The picture below pretty much says it all. The Myth box is located left of the TV, and the printer is located at the right of the image, at the near end of the couch. The über-USB cable wraps all the way around the room behind the couch, under the window, and behind the TV, for approx 20 feet total. Awesome! [Large linked file warning: 1.22MB] From left to right across that picture, the green circles highlight:

The end of one USB extension piece in the Myth box
One of the connections between extension cables
The other end of the über-USB cable in the printer

How nerdy are we?

They "Cleaned" It

2006-09-06T01:32:00.000-05:00

So at the Engineering Bash I tried to turn on the fountain. It flooded in about 60 seconds. I jumped to a hasty conclusion that the summer maintenance folks had failed to clean the filters properly, and accused them of such, publicly. Only to have one of those said summer maintenance folks inform me, in person, that he was in fact on cleaning duty this summer and can vouch for it having been done. I was left looking like a jerk, grasping at straws for other explanations, and having to walk away embarrassed. Today, Tim and I took a look "under the hood" of the fountain to see if we could figure out what, after the assurance of clean filters, could possibly be causing the flooding problem. Here is what we found: Oh wait: That looks an awful lot like completely clogged filters, leading directly to the flooding we experienced. 15 minutes with a shop vac later, the problem was resolved and the fountain runs fine. So I looked like a jerk for naught, and apparently the maintenance guy and myself have a different perspective on the precise definition of "frequently cleaned."

The mouse IS the better mousetrap

2006-09-04T14:54:00.000-05:00

I was trying to clean my laptop screen today with my "Klear Screen" cleaning solution (bought two years ago from Scott's recommendation, works awesome. www.klearscreen.com), and I could not seem to polish off this one particular smudge. Let me back up. The cleaning process is:

Turn off monitor. Well, I didn't want to shut my laptop down, so I settled for turning off the backlight, leaving the contents of the screen just barely visible.
Spray once for 14" or less, or twice for above.
Spread solution to corners of monitor with corner of micro-chamois.
Immediately begin polishing off the solution with remaining surface area of micro-chamois.
Once no solution is visible, the monitor is clean.

Use once a week for best results (Hm, I've used it about half a dozen times in 2 years...) So I was stuck in step 4, because I couldn't seem to polish off this one spot. Upon closer inspection, that spot was my mouse cursor. Oops.

Never be lost again

2006-08-31T17:12:00.000-05:00

Just a quick shout-out for the UW Campus Map, which is pretty awesome. I don't know when this latest version went live, but I'm pretty sure it didn't look like this at the end of last year. In other news, Wells Fargo will be building a new ATM in the campus area, at (if I remember right) approx 500 University Ave. Good thing, too, or I would probably have switched banks to avoid having to drive 15 minutes to an ATM. Also, we got internet & digital cable hooked up in our apartment on Tuesday. Now I'm thinking about buying an HDTV, as we can get HD content to match our current lineup for only $3 more per month. Anyone have advice on HDTVs?

e.c.b.

2006-08-28T15:08:00.000-05:00

Well, I have made it to Madison for another school year. At the moment, though, I don't have internet access in my apartment. Supposedly the cable guy is coming to set us up tomorrow at 1pm, though Tim expects him to cancel. And so I find myself at ecb, in the Enlight office. (Which has fortunately been getting cooler while I sit here... it was extremely hot when I got here. Perhaps we should not have boxed a server up in a room with no circulation.) Other interesting news:

There was a note under our mouse in the Enlight office: "Building Security Discrepancy" from 5-12-06 at 3:55 am. Explanation: "Door keybox unlocked" Hm... somebody in Enlight made an oops.
Due to the destruction of University Square: My nearest Wells Fargo ATM has been removed. Now there aren't any on the UW campus :-(

And I already lost it.

2006-08-24T23:58:00.001-05:00

A lot has happened since the 15th of August, a mere week and two days ago. In brief:

I completed my internship at Microsoft. Everything seems to have wrapped up fairly well, though Paul says that one of the bugs I worked on (for three weeks) may actually have been in vain. I sincerely hope that is not the case. Please don't tell me if it is, Paul, or Allen.
I shipped all my stuff home to Green Bay, via Fedex this time, to attempt to avoid previous misfortunes
I moved home, only arriving some 2 hours late courtesy of a minor fuel leak in the left wing of the MD-80 plane we were flying from Seattle to Chicago.
I helped my parents set up a "home office", which basically means combine the following items into one of the new rooms in our basement:
- My desk
- My old stereo
- My old server computer
- My sister's 15" LCD monitor
- My networking cables
- My 8-port switch
- My second-best spare keyboard & mouse (well, best until my new wireless set gets here on Friday)
- My spare USB cable
It turned out pretty nice:
I went down to Madison to visit Jeni & Dave and drop off a vanload of stuff for my apartment.
I lost the key to said apartment, within 30 minutes of getting it from Dave, and before even setting foot in the new place.
I received the first 6 boxes of stuff from Seattle, in relatively good shape, though I have yet to open my computer box up and assess any damage.
I joined MySpace... On the upshot it only took 5 visits to the same page before "Sorry! An unexpected error has occurred" stopped blocking me from confirming my registration, and only 10 clicks on the link to add Jeni as a friend before it actually sent the request.
I submitted my request for a replacement battery in Apple's battery recall. I should get my new battery in 4 to 6 weeks. What happens if it blows up between now and then??

Earliest blog post ever

2006-08-15T05:54:00.000-05:00

Going by local (Pacific) time, it's 5:54am. I haven't actually bothered to find out if this is a fact or not, but this is my earliest blog post ever. From work. Before 6am. I dropped my parents off at the airport for their 7am flight home about 30 minutes ago, and just came straight to work, where I plan to sleep for an hour or two on our couch. Driving up to Microsoft from SeaTac Airport was pretty awesome: the sky changed from pitch black to the first colors of sunrise as I was driving. Work is going very well: I have one more bug to finish up before the end of my internship, and I have been making good progress on it, now that I can actually get the hardware to demonstrate the bug I'm trying to fix. (That was a frustrating 2-week ordeal.) The process of fixing it will take a giant leap forward today, enough to give me credit for the bug on performance numbers, and hopefully by the end of my internship on Friday, it will be all solved! And now I will sleep, since I got up at 4:15.

Blue Angels

2006-08-08T01:37:00.000-05:00

Jeni and I took a pretty crazy bus ride from Renton to southern Seattle to see the Blue Angels perform for Seattle's SeaFair this past Saturday. It was pretty awesome. So awesome that I went back again with my officemates on Sunday. Unfortunately, we left too late to get all the way over to Southern Seattle, so we caught the second show from Mercer Island. I brought my camera with me both days, but neglected to charge it before Jeni & I took off on the bus... The two pics of the Patriots and the two before that are from Saturday near Genesee Park, and the remaining are from Sunday on Mercer Island (with a charged battery) Too bad I didn't think ahead the first time: it would have been cool to get both views. Trying something new for these pictures, let's see how it works:

Blue Angels

Aug 6, 2006 - 34 Photos

Life Lessons: != <> ≠

2006-08-04T02:03:00.000-05:00

The following pairs of items are not equal, quantitatively mismatched, or otherwise inappropriate to equate.

1 package of hamburger (1.2lb)	≠	1 jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce
0.5 box of spaghetti noodles	≠	1 jar of sauce + 1.2 lb hamburger
quality green beans	≠	fred meyer produce dept.
12-week internship	≠	long enough to do everything in Seattle

Seafair this weekend, with the Blue Angels performing an air show. Should be awesome!

What was it about that night?

2006-08-01T02:55:00.000-05:00

Connection. In an isolating age... This afternoon on the way home from work I heard Chicago's 25 or 6 to 4 on the radio, which naturally brought the associated quad/tenors groove to mind. Then I came home and decided on a whim to look through my Bookmarks folder of friends' blogs and journals, revisiting some places I haven't been in weeks or months. That was a cool experience in and of itself. And then out of the blue, another tab pops up in Adium, and there's my fellow drummer and one of those very journal authors, one Joel Liberski. It had been far too long, but it seems Joel is doing quite well, as the Poetry editor for the UWGB literary journal Sheepshead Review, and a near-future English major graduate. He has a way with words that I have only been able to regard in continued amazement since I first read his writings. I can't even believe that over 4 full years separate the present from the last time we were in class together, that it has been 5 since dashing across the practice field to beat the marching band out from behind the school in Joel's car, 6 from a certain freshman showing up a certain junior on a rudimentary (ha ha) paradiddle lick, and 7 or 8 from a terrified middle schooler listening to an intimidating high schooler tell every one to be quiet because the audience could hear us at the Bay Port percussion night. It was excellent to talk with him again, and to read a bit of what he's been up to. Incidentally, he's published now: UW Green Bay Spring 2006 Sheepshead Review Thank you, as always, sir.

Waterworld

2006-07-31T01:29:00.000-05:00

Holy crap: http://www.channel3000.com/weather/9586944/detail.html That's insane. Makes me glad to be living above the ground, though I don't think my buildling for this upcoming year would have been affected anyway. A bunch of my friends live on that floor though, and their apartment was flooded up to the door handles. Crazy. In other news, Jeni & Lauren & I went to Vancouver, BC, this weekend. We spent a total of 1.75 hours waiting in line to cross the border. We also walked around downtown Vancouver for about 5 hours. We did not stay for the fireworks, but watched all the people up until that time. Lauren is headed home on Tuesday... I hope her new apartment is ok! (Not sure where you are located, Lauren...)

Milk was a bad choice.

2006-07-24T02:08:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry Jeni... I said that the weather in Seattle was always great and comfortable, and then the weekend Jeni moves up here, we have a record heat wave. Of course, since Seattle "never gets that hot," people here [read: my apartment complex] have no air conditioning. My roommate tried to buy a fan today, but apparently all the places he stopped were already sold out. We went to play racquetball this evening. It was a good time, except for the fact that it was definitely over 100° in the court. Yuck. In other news, Jeni & I still managed to tour around Seattle a bit this weekend. We checked out REI, Fremont (including the troll, see pic from my cell phone below), and Gasworks Park yesterday. Then today I showed off the Microsoft campus, and we went to the Factoria mall and Frys. I'd never been in a Fry's until today, and let me just say: it was cool. Not as cool as the fact that Jeni lives right down in Renton now, but pretty cool. Speaking of which, we also drove past Jeni's house, down near the Sam's Club, Walmart and Starbucks. It looks good from the outside, but it might've been a bit weird for me to be there when she was moving in, so I'll have to visit at a later date. Schedule for the remainder of the summer: This week: Lauren comes to visit on Thursday. Saturday & Sunday Lauren, Jeni & I are going up to Vancouver. Next week: a week of work, with an as-of-yet undetermined weekend. Week after that: My parents come to visit, maybe we'll go somewhere on the weekend. Week after that: My parents go home, I work for a week, and I go home. I can't believe the summer went by so fast... [time to see what we have time to see...]

Battlestar Galactica

2006-07-16T16:32:00.000-05:00

Wow. I finished the first season of Battlestar Galactica about 10 minutes ago, and let me just say: awesome. Anybody who likes Sci-Fi should definitely check it out. Simply incredible. Now for some racquetball, then maybe I'll clean my desk off finally, or label all some pictures (I have a lot to sort through... best I can promise is you'll see them when you see them...), or figure out how to use Quicken, or cook some supper, or maybe I'll just start in on season 2.

Why do all the cars feel the need to break down at the 520 - 405 interchange??

2006-07-14T22:19:00.000-05:00

Seriously, it's the worst possible place for an accident. Here's the situation. 3 lanes comprise 520-W. The rightmost is the carpool lane. 520 crosses a bridge, at the end of which the carpool lane becomes an exit lane for the interchange with 405. Then an on-ramp comes up from the right, which has a carpool lane on the left and a normal car lane on the right (2-lane on ramp). Those merge into one lane, which comes up next to the aforementioned 520 carpool lane-turned-exit lane. Now there are 2 normal lanes, then 2 exit lanes. The rightmost exit lane is 405-N, and the next inward is 405-S. Seems vaguely reasonable. But then consider the traffic patterns. First, you have carpool people barreling down the right-hand carpool lane of 520. Now that lane becomes an exit lane for *everyone* going to 405. So all of a sudden a quarter of the highway merges into the carpool lane. Next, from the right, you have ordinary traffic, most of which is not interested in 405, because they want to take the 520 bridge over to Seattle. So all of these people need to cross from the right through the over-stuffed carpool/exit lane to get to the left. Plus, all the people in the carpool/exit lane that want 405-N (me) are trying to merge farther right *into* the on-ramp traffic. Now throw in rush-hour traffic in Puget Sound, and you're looking at a grim interchange. Then, for the icing on the cake, toss in a weekly accident complete with 2 cops, a tow truck, and 4 lanes of gawking idiots. ... Estimated transit time from Microsoft Building 28 to The Park @ Forbes Creek: with no traffic: 15 minutes. rush hour traffic: 35 minutes. minor accident + 4 lanes of gawking idiots: 1 hour 5 minutes. Why oh why do they all have to break down right there!?

Where's the restaurant?

2006-07-06T02:04:00.000-05:00

For the 4th of July, I took a long-weekend trip to Crater Lake & northern California. Jeni & I went to Grants Pass, OR, Friday night, and then down to Redwoods National Park on Saturday, where Jon joined us in the afternoon. We checked that out through Sunday, staying in Crescent City, OR, overnight. Then we went back to Medford, OR, stopping at Oregon Caves National Monument en route, where we took a tour through the cave led by a pretty crazy dance major tour guide. Monday Jeni had to work, and Jon and I explored Crater Lake and a few scenic pullouts nearby, including the Rogue River Gorge and Mill Creek Falls. Monday night we all stayed in Medford again, and discussed Minnesota sales tax code. Then Tuesday we all went back to our summer residences to get back to work. Tuesday night in Seattle I made it back in time to catch the fireworks at Gas Works Park. Pretty awesome... synchronized with music, well choreographed, and even some sweet new ones I'd never seen before, like smiley faces, cubes, and some sort of "Italian Electric Show" that involved dozens of little explosions from one shell. All told it was a pretty awesome weekend. More pictures to come when I find my camera's USB cable, but here's one that I uploaded on the road (it's deceptive because of the shadows, but there is exactly ONE tree in this photo): The trees were large.

Klamath, CA

2006-07-01T17:55:00.000-05:00

Just had to make a quick post from Klamath, CA. It's a tiny little town near the Redwoods National and State Parks, but they have a gas station with free Wifi. So while Jeni is inside getting her coffee, I had to say hi. (In explanation, Jeni & I are down here in Cali meeting Jon for a short vacation over the holiday weekend)

Layer Cake

2006-06-24T03:13:00.000-05:00

My roommate and I watched that movie tonight. Pretty crazy. I was only 45 minutes later than usual to work today, but ended up staying almost 2 hours extra. It was pretty cool, I actually felt like I got some real work done, from submitting the last of my contribution to the project I'd been working on for the first two weeks to starting my debugging with a pretty interesting/intense hour-and-a-half long hands-on tutorial. Then to top off a night that went considerably better than the end of last, we have a racquetball court in our apartment complex's office! Plus, my roommate has all the requisite gear, when you add in my safety glasses. That should make for a pretty fun summer. He's a little bit better than I am, but not by so much that its unbalanced or not fun. It's pretty awesome. In other news, I now also have a wlan card for my desktop, so I can finally get this thing back on the internet. All around a good night. Definitely beats spending 3 hours trying to get home because you were too stupid to get back on the right bus and too trusting of the idiot that told you these other buses would be fine.

What's a five-letter word for "exhausted"?

2006-06-23T04:40:00.000-05:00

C-O-L-I-N It's 2:38 am. I just got home from a concert. The story in brief: Eric and I went to a Counting Crows / Goo Goo Dolls concert in Auburn tonight. He had had two tickets to the show and two tickets for a shuttle from the Azteca in Bellevue & back. We went to the Azteca, got on the shuttle, and set off. Thanks to traffic, we arrived 40 minutes after the show started. Thanks to the opening act, we didn't miss either band. Fast-forward through a pretty good concert. (sorry, it's late, I don't have time to describe more than that) Colin & Eric exit the amphitheater, and follow the sign marked "Shuttles/Taxis" We arrive at a huge lineup of buses, thinking we may be in the wrong place, since we need one particular bus back to Bellevue. We ask the guy doing crowd control if these buses take us to the shuttles. He says "Yes." We get on the bus. 15 minutes later we're at the Supermall in Auburn, WA, with no bus in sight. The bus driver lady starts to take us back up to see if our shuttle might still be there, but she is radioed that a) the shuttle is gone, and b) she has to take us back to the Supermall. We call my roommate (who's a saint, btw) at about 12:25am and beg for help. He drives down to Auburn to pick us up, getting there at about 1am, and saving us probably $100+ in taxi fares. Two side notes: 1) My cellphone battery had just died on the shuttle going out to the amphitheater from Bellevue, so I couldn't do much calling. I never realized how inconvenient that is. 2) You cannot place an order at the Wendy's so-called "pick up window open late" unless you are in a car. This has been observed experimentally. We get back to the Azteca around 1:30. I drive Eric home, and then myself. And now it's 2:45. What the adventure. Good night.

I solved it!

2006-06-12T01:07:00.000-05:00

[Update]: Well, it seems I'm actually rather stupid. Tim solved it in less than half an hour... over 5x faster than me :( [/Update] So I've been working this puzzle from the Google homepage ever since I noticed it (which would probably have been the day it came out). It looks like this: The idea is to fill in 14 of those cirles with the numbers from 1 to 14 (inclusively), such that the distance between 1 and 2 is strictly less than the distance between 2 and 3, which is strictly less than the distance between 3 and 4, etc. (Distance is taken from the center of the circles, so assume the distance between two centers in the same row or column is 1, for simplicity's sake.) You'll note that there are 18 circles. You must leave 4 unfilled. I'm pretty sure I worked on this puzzle for 2½ hours. Here is proof that I completed it. Note that I have blurred out the distance values calculated automatically by the puzzle, because it would be a huge clue as to how the solution works. [SPOILER WARNING] clicking this image will show you the solution. You have been warned. It was a lot of fun, and I was pretty ecstatic when I solved it. In other news: I got to see Katie Roarty tonight! She was in town visiting her brother Matt, who (if I correctly understood) just graduated from college. Hurray for Matt, and for seeing Kate again (do you go by Kate now? sorry for not being sure...). I witnessed an intense nerf war and was nearly killed in the heavy crossfire. Fortunately the only true casualty of the night was a bit of free time when I got lost twice on the way home. (Yeah, so I wasn't actually supposed to follow you quite that far, Kat[i]e... more like I should have veered left to end up on 520 again. Oh well, not like I was really going to break a record and make it home without turning around tonight, in a new place, in the dark!) I also reinstalled Windows Vista as a clean install this time. Some fun statistics: Installation time required for upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, which resulted in a lot of broken or otherwise dead drivers & hardware (like my sound card): 2 hours and 20 minutes Installation time for a clean install of Windows Vista onto a newly-formatted partition: 37 minutes. Much nicer. Here's a fun UI bug: before activating Windows, this dialog box was exactly the right size. But now that I am reassured by the "Genuine Windows" emblem, it no longer fits, and thus I cannot see the whole emblem. Lol.

First Post!

2006-06-10T02:45:00.000-05:00

From my desktop, reassembled, restored to working order, and ready for the adventure of conversion to Windows Vista Beta 2, occurring live tomorrow at 9:00 am Pacific at the Windows Vista Install Fair in Building 33. Problems I anticipate tomorrow:

Two massive (97.8GB and 111GB) ext2 partitions storing all of my data and media, which are accessible to windows via an open source driver and some registry hacks.
A messed up ITE integrated RAID controller that is flaky even with the official Windows XP drivers
Most of the programs that I have installed to test Vista with are designed for making rips of DVDs... not sure I really want to be filing bug reports about those.

Problems I never dreamed of that happened today: All I can really say is UPS must have dropped this at least 3 times to pull this off: "Please remain seated at all times while the vehicle is in motion" You'll note that that audio card WAS screwed in when it left Green Bay. So where's the screw? Oh! There it is! Shorting out the video card! (Sorry, you can't see it in this pic... bad angle) Good Lord. But, since I had my camera handy, here's a happier bonus picture of my office at Microsoft: The two boxes at the left are mine. One's a decent Dell, the other's a 3.00 GHz Pentium D with 2GB RAM. It's fast. You'll see I've also got a pretty nice 19" LCD (You have to be an FTE to get dual monitors), a wireless keyboard and mouse (though the "ergonomic" keyboard took some getting used to... even Enlight didn't prepare me for using one full time.), a little 5-port switch and a 4-port KVM. I pretty much showed up on the first day, they handed me boxes with all this new stuff in it and said "go nuts!" It was cool 8-). Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the Microsoft cup, which I think at the time was just water, but could also have been free coffee, tea, hot chocolate, flavored carbonated water ("Sparkling Rain" or something like that), or almost any Coca-Cola product. I'll have to post another picture of my office next week, as I'm actually going to be moving offices into an "intern bay" with 5 or so other interns... that should be interesting.

The Grateful Dead

2006-06-10T00:20:00.000-05:00

lol. you have to love musicians for not being afraid to call it like they see it:

JPB: I've got good news and bad news and good news. And the good news is that you guys have managed to buy every major legislative body on the planet, and the courts are even with you. So you've done a great job there and you should congratulate yourself. But you know the problem is - the bad news is that you're up against a dedicated foe that is younger and smarter that you are and will be alive when you're dead. You're 55 years old and these kids are 17 and they're just smarter than you. So you're gonna lose that one. But the good news is that you guys are mean sons of bitches and you've been figuring out ways of ripping off audiences and artists for centuries.....

- John Perry Barlow, one-time lyricist for The Grateful Dead, and co-founder of the EFF

Move-in Phase 2

2006-06-08T01:55:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been in my new apartment in Seattle for a week, but my stuff only recently caught up with me. (Via 6 boxes from UPS. 6!) As you can see, it's still a bit of a mess: All of my cords & electronics that I couldn't live without. (Ok Jeni, now I'm a bit pathetic) All this junk is also mine, including the speaker precariously perched on the armrest of the couch, with the sole exception of the No Fear energy drink. That's my roommate Casey's. More pics of the apartment to follow... after I do a bit of cleaning. Meanwhile, I didn't get home to make myself a delicious bowl-of-soup-from-a-can supper until 7:45 tonight, because I made a detour through Goodwill on my way home. The mission? Find a desk/work surface that I can a) set up my desktop on, b) build electronics on, c) get for very little money, and d) transport in my rental car. Well, for $25, I found exactly what I needed to fit the bill: The only catch is, I forgot about requirement (d) until actually trying to fit it in my car. Let's just say, it technically fit, but merging onto the highways around Seattle with no ability to see out your left back seat window nor the left half of your rear view mirror is Dangerous. DO NOT ATTEMPT. I will be disassembling the desk/counter before donating it back to Goodwill in August. Check this out, it started at Goodwill the same day I started at Microsoft: Now for some updates. For real. Just not as much as I promised. Yet. I posted a bunch of pictures from this past weekend on my new photo gallery site. You should all go check it out, and bookmark the site for future reference. I'll be putting up a lot more pictures as I find time between setting up computers, work, and hopefully some travel in the near future. (I would have used flickr, but this one gallery = 56MB zipped, and flickr limits you to 20MB / month. Here I've got 20GB storage and 1 TB / month bandwidth.) Alright, that's it for tonight. Must go to sleep now so I can go in to work early, so I can leave early, so I can catch a movie at a reasonable hour tomorrow night, so my roommate can invite his friend Kate, who must work very early on Friday.

Aren't We Productive?

2006-06-06T01:36:00.000-05:00

Today in a mailing list thread discussing the property of circular manhole covers that they cannot fall through thier respective manholes (assuming the manhole has a lip of nonzero width):

They said “manhole cover” which I assumed meant a 3D object, made of steel or aluminium, impressed with a non-slip pattern and a city engineering sigil, and with a slight upwards dome shape to resist compression. Though I believe we’re supposed to call them “personholes” in this day and age of political correctness. -Matt

Mt. Rainier is a volcano

2006-05-31T02:12:00.000-05:00

And when it blows, it's going to be bad. I watched a show on the History Channel tonight, Mega Disasters, which forecasts 18,000 deaths and 31,000 injured when (not if) Mt. Rainier explodes. The biggest risk? The mountain will flash-melt tons of snow up at the peak, which will result in boiling water mixing with pumice and ash pouring down the mountainside. These avalanches/waves will strip all the dirt from the mountain slopes as they go, and pick up other minor debris, like boulders the size of rooms. The whole muddy mess will roar down the mountain, filling valleys with a 40' to 100' tall wave of utter destruction with the viscosity of wet concrete and the force of a freight train. Bad News. The area that will be worst hit is the little towns on the volcano (retarded place for a town), and the city of Tacoma, which is right in the path that the muddy destruction wave thing will take to reach Puget Sound. Fortunately I won't be subjected to that up in Kirkland, but we will nevertheless be buried under hundreds of tons of ash falling over Seattle and afflicting its 2 million residents with a nasty cough and toxic dust. Let me just say, for the record, that when that thing starts rumbling, I am getting the hell out of here. I'm not sticking around for pictures like people did when Mt. St. Helens was erupting. I'll get my pictures off of Flickr after the fact. Well, with that cheery revelation, I need to go to bed. All that stuff I promised in my last post is coming, I swear... I've been without internet since Sunday morning when Jeni & I left Salem, OR, so I haven't had the opportunity to catch up just yet. In the mean time, I start work at Microsoft tomorrow, and I'd really like to be awake for it. Good night all, and if you live near the Cascades, keep an eye on your neighborhood volcano.

Update

2006-05-26T17:11:00.000-05:00

At Lauren's behest, I am updating my blog. Expect (a lot) more later. Wifi is pretty scarce around Crater Lake, and you have to drive like 30 miles to get back in cellular range. Since I guess I haven't posted anything this side of normal life in Green Bay, I'll summarize briefly where I've been for the last week:

Friday, May 19: Green Bay, WI -> Madison, WI
Saturday, May 20: Madison, WI -> Rapid City, SD
Sunday, May 21: Rapid City, SD -> Missoula, MT
Monday, May 22: Missoula, MT -> Seattle, WA
Tuesday, May 23: Seattle, WA -> Aberdeen, WA -> Central Point, OR
Wednesday, May 24: Central Point, OR and Medford, OR
Thursday, May 25: Central Point, OR -> Crater Lake National Park -> hiking around Plymouth & Klamath counties -> Crater Lake National Park
Friday, May 26: Crater Lake National Park -> Medford, OR -> Crater Lake National Park -> ?

I'm at the library in Medford right now, but I have to leave pretty soon because Jeni's done with work in an hour and a half (which is how long it will take me to get back to Crater Lake). I promise I'll update later, and even go back and find all the other things I promised to post that I never did so Jeni doesn't have to complain any more. I have a bunch of pictures from here & other trips that I haven't posted, so I guess the moral is: stay tuned.