Inter-People Communication

I watched season 1 of The Big Bang Theory this weekend.  Every episode.  That should prove sufficient nerdiness warning for this post!

In computer science there's this idea of inter-process communication, and a common method of accomplishing this is this other idea of message passing.  Two different models of message passing are synchronous and asynchronous systems.

Synchronous systems require an acknowledgment before sending out the next message.  Asynchronous systems don't care, just send the message!

I think dating usually works synchronously, although there are times when communication is asynchronous.  I don't know about you, but those asynchronous points in communication cause a great deal of anxiety for me, mostly because I'm not sure if the message was received or not.  I think guys have a similar problem; I read in a book somewhere that guys like getting an acknowledgment after a date that it went well.  Not necessarily to set up the next date, but just to know that the lady had a good time.  After experimenting with this a little bit, I've noticed that a quick text the day after a date will improve the odds that the guy will set up the next date quickly, by a factor of several days.

Quite obviously there is no way I'll be able to get social norms in dating to adhere to any kind of communication protocol (although I theorize that if we did have some sort of protocol we'd have a lot fewer misunderstandings).  And I think that neither synchronous nor asynchronous message passing will provide an ideal solution that will enhance early-dating-communication while maintaining current social norms.  But I do think some of the principles can apply successfully.

Say Bob wants to take Alice on a date, yet will be out of town next week.  He doesn't want his window of being able to contact Alice to close, so he has to contact her before he leaves town.  Given current social convention, Alice is free to respond any time while Bob is out of town, although if she's very interested in Bob, sooner is better than later.

But now Alice has to wait until Bob gets back!  And even if Bob has access to his communications devices (because let's face it, who doesn't have their cell phone with them most of the time?), social convention dictates that Bob wait until he returns before he contacts Alice with the details of their date.  This waiting causes a lot of anxiety for Alice, even though she already knows that Bob will probably contact her.  If Bob sent a quick acknowledgment with a message that he'll contact her when he's back in town, Alice would have no need to be concerned.  Or maybe Alice is just an neurotic.

Or maybe Alice would be so busy with her own life that she'd forget about Bob being out of town, and when Bob returned and contacted Alice, his window of opportunity on dating Alice would have closed (happened to me!).

Here's another example.  Say Bob and Alice go out on their date.  They have a good time, but Alice waits patiently for Bob to contact her for the second date.  According to social convention, Bob must wait several days before contacting Alice again, but during that time doesn't really know if Alice had a good time or not.  Bob stresses for several days waiting for the requisite time to pass.  If Alice sent a message to Bob the next day saying she had a nice time, then Bob's anxiety is relieved.  Or maybe Bob is a neurotic. (This maps to the anecdote I mentioned earlier)

At any rate, dating is very stressful for everyone involved.  If we were all better communicators (or selective mind readers), things might go much more smoothly.

Secure Your Gmail

Gmail Account Hacking Tool
Official Gmail Blog: Making Security Easier

Securing your gmail account is easy. Just do it.

Log in -> Settings -> Browser Connection (at the bottom) -> Always Use https

The REAL Reason to Use Linux

Because it's fun. :)

Bricked iPod, Update

I finally got around to cracking my iPod case open. It took a penknife and a guitar pick. If you try this at home, know that there's a little trick to it and you really have to dig at the case to get it to pop open the first time. There are videos floating around on youTube if you want a little guidance.

I tried the business card trick, and lo! It works!

Turns out my computer *will* run the latest version of iTunes, albeit slowly. My computer recognizes the iPod, updated the software, and now the resurrected iPod charges happily.

The real test comes tomorrow afternoon - will it survive another run?

This little experiment gives me all sorts of fresh ideas. Namely, replacing the iPod battery. We'll see if the iPod works first.

Bricked iPod

I bricked my iPod a few weeks ago at the gym. I was running on a treadmill that didn't have a secure place for water bottles, keys, etc. and the iPod made a happy dive onto the treadmill belt.

It seemed OK until I tried to upload music to it a few days later, and it's been very sad ever since. I even tried to reformat the disk and everything.

One of my friends from work pointed me to this NY Times article about a blog post that may contain magic information that will get the iPod working again.

I'm actually not opposed to buying a new iPod (I've been looking at the iPod shuffle, since I mostly use my iPod at the gym and the clip-on functionality is kind of cool), but I need a better computer to run the latest-and-greatest version of iTunes, signifying a greater investment than I feel comfortable with right now. On the other hand, I could always dig up old software and try that with new hardware, but that is a daunting path to take.

Anyway, I'm going to try this insert-business-card method this weekend and see if it works. If not, I'm out an hour and a business card.

Well, Crap

So I thought a fun project that would occupy some time (and also be productive) would be to make my own version of this "Leetle Bag".

I was at JoAnn's the other day and found this really pretty, sheer navy blue material dotted with glitter and tiny rhinestones (to look like stars), and thought it would be great for a dice bag (for my Dungeons and Dragons game - I need a new one because my original set of dice walked off with the dice bag, perhaps never to be seen again). I don't have a sewing machine and I felt that this wouldn't be hard to hand-stitch together. Yes, I need a sanity check - it would take me a half-hour to sew this if I had a machine set-up and ready-to-go.

I found another "starscape"-like cotton material to serve as the lining of the "Leetle Bag". I bought a fat quarter because it's the perfect size (18" x 22") for the bag - you don't actually have to buy 3/8 yard (as per the directions). I did end up buying 3/8 yard of the sheer material because it obviously doesn't come in fat quarters. I also bought a yard of navy blue cording (it's fairly light cord, but I couldn't find a cord I liked that was the right "weight") and navy blue thread to match the fabric.

I've altered the directions slightly and am cutting one rectangle of 9-1/4" x 21", instead of two 9-1/4" x 10-1/2" pieces. (I just noticed I screwed up the math already - and I'm a math minor! What's up with this?)

I'm already stuck. I noticed last night that, if I made the bag following the directions, the wrong-side of the cotton material would be on the outside of the bag, and I would lose the cool effect of the two materials that I had hoped for. However, if I further altered the directions so that the right-side of the cotton material was facing out, my dice would be subjugated to the wrong-side of the fabric, and the interior of the bag wouldn't be neatly finished.

I have a solution. I could go back to JoAnn's, find the cotton fabric on a bolt and get a 3/8 yard swatch. Then I could cut a rectangle 9-1/4" x 38" and sew it to make an inner bag where both the outside and the inside were the "right side" of the fabric. I would still have the problem where there are seams showing on whichever side I decide they're on, but it would be slightly more ideal.

Alternatively, I could go back to JoAnns, get another fat quarter of the cotton, and make an "inner inner bag" or (more likely) use it as a lining for the sheer fabric. I think I like that idea better as the cotton will "stabilize" the sheer fabric, which is very slippery.

I also noticed after-the-fact that the sheer fabric doesn't have the glittery pieces equally distributed, so one side of the bag will be noticeably different from the other side of the bag in terms of how "starry" it looks. Which means that I will have to either (A) live with it, or (B) go back and buy another 3/8 yard and cut it so the glittery pieces are more evenly distributed. Because I'm a perfectionist, I think I'll go for option (B).

Furthermore, I also think that I'm going to get my iron out, undo the (tiny amount) of work that I did last night, and draw some lines to follow when I'm stitching this stuff together. Eyeballing doesn't work and makes for very uneven stitches.

And this was supposed to be just a fun project.

Harry Potter Spoilers

The Twisted Economics of Harry Potter

Please don't take my comments the wrong way; I think Ms. Rowling has created an fascinating world and a great story. My main complaint with her is that she's unnecessarily verbose.

I predict that soon after the last Harry Potter movie is released that poor Harry and company will be dropped for the next new and enchanting book or film. Look at the Lord of the Rings trilogy: soon after the Return of the King Extended Edition was released to DVD people (meaning the general public) stopped talking about it.

But there are those that think, "Gee, this Harry Potter mania is going to last forever."

No, it's not. Nothing is permanent in this world but change. I highly doubt that Harry Potter will become a classic (we'll see in 50 years) as much as a novelty. As far as children's literature is concerned, there are better tomes out there.

Let the flaming begin.

Seattle Trip Summary

I went to Seattle for the 4th, and stayed through until Sunday. It was a great trip!

The 4th - I went to the Gasworks' Fireworks show, officially called the WaMu Family 4th at Lake Union. It was FANTASTIC. I think the website has a link to the televised broadcast of this year's show.
The 5th - I went to Pike's Place Market, The Space Needle, and the Science Fiction Museum. I ended up going to the Space Needle by myself, which I don't recommend. It's almost a waste of 20 bucks. The evening of the 5th was Open Access Night (sponsered by Boeing) and admission to the Science Fiction Museum and the Experience Music Project is free. Pike's Place Market has some truly fabulous peaches right now.
The 6th - We drove up to Everett to see the Future of Flight Aviation Center & Boeing Tour. Boeing and Microsoft are huge presences in Western Washington.
The 7th - Woodland Park Zoo. There's a rose garden not far from the South Entrance to the zoo, which I recommend checking out. We didn't find many fragrant varieties, but it was definitely worth seeing so many blooms in one place. The zoo was fabulous and the entry fee completely worth it for the butterfly exhibit alone. The siamangs they have there are also impressive.

On Air Travel and Security

It pays to be a well-informed traveler these days, especially when you're travelling by air.

Standing in line at the airport is one of everyone's least favorite parts of the trip. Take your shoes, your jacket, and your belt off. Empty your pockets. Go through the metal detector. Put all your stuff back where it originally was. If you're special they also go through your luggage. Nice.

3-1-1 Rules
Permitted and Prohibited Items

Basically, save all those mini-toothpaste tubes from the dentist, and forget bringing that huge bottle of contact lens cleaner with you. I'm fairly certain that it's best not to bring anything at all with you, but that's a little impractical. Theoretically, you could bring that big liter-size shampoo bottle with you, but I can imagine getting harassed for it.

I'm really fond of Bruce Schneier's work, and I admire his opinions on security issues. He publishes Crypto-Gram Newsletter every month, which I receive via e-mail. He finds a lot of interesting news articles and comments on why things are as innane as they are. He also writes a lot of essays and op-eds for a variety of magazines, e-zines, newspapers, etc. Here are some of my favorite articles he's written concerning airport security:
Why Everyone Must Be Screened
Let Computers Screen Air Baggage
Airplane Security and Metal Knives
Homeland Insecurity

And just for you, religious guerilla rebels, from his blog:
Why Terrorism Doesn't Work

Americans seem to be really focused on "fixing-the-symptom" rather than "fixing-the-cause" when it comes to the war on terror, and pretty much everything else in general. This makes me really sad. How do you turn a nation from being short-sighted and hedonistic to long-sighted and abstemious? Any ideas?

While I enjoy reading Schneier, I don't own any of his books. Not even Applied Cryptography (which now comes in a Schneier's Cryptography Library mega edition). I weep at the gaping crater in my overflowing library.

On New Computer Interfaces

I stumbled across this while reading a thread on Slashdot regarding the "soap" mouse (basically, an optical mouse contained within a "sleeve" of jersey-weight fabric, so it would slip like a bar of soap and you can use it to manipulate the pointer on a screen).

Anyway, I do believe that there are some great innovations in human-computer interaction these days. I find that one of the more fascinating "higher level" things that are going on in computer science. Are some of these new innovations impractical? Of course. Not every new invention or way of doing something is going to adopted in the next generation of applications/hardware. Not every piece of hardware is refined enough at first draft to have a "cool, sleek" look.

Do you remember when DVD players first came out? I certainly do. I remember saving a crapload of money to buy this $300 machine that was larger than my parents' VHS player. Now you have these tiny, refined, DVD players that include a small screen. You can fit probably 8 of these in the space that original clunky DVD player took up.

I think the Wii has one of the most innovative, original HCI controls, despite its flaws. Whatever device the Wii controller spawns (or 3rd or 4th generation device) may or may not be an improvement over the current controller. There are many roads to Rome.

I see a lot of potential for the soap mouse, and not just for gaming. Imagine an extension of the little clicky thing some professors use on their powerpoint presentations. Now imagine they can access the entire desktop in their lecture.

Gaming Weekend

I played a lot of games this weekend. Wow.

Friday night was a standard Dungeons and Dragons night.
Saturday night my honey and I went to his parents' home for dinner and a couple games of 500. I didn't know how to play, so I got the 15-minute, 3-teacher crash course.
Sunday we went to a friend's apartment to play games. I learned Carcassonne, Apples to Apples, and Munchkin.

I felt that "Carcassonne" was too dependent on luck, and that it would be much easier to roll a die to determine the winner of any one game. I did, however, like laying down the tiles. The tiles are aesthetically pleasing and it's nice to find places to put them.

"Apples to Apples" was my favorite game of the night, if only because it's one of those "everyone feels good" games. It's also interesting (and amusing!) to see what other people come up with in response to the adjective card.

"Munchkin" was also fun, but I was getting tired by that point so I'm not sure if I really enjoyed the game or not. I can at least see why other people think it's fun.

I played Settlers of Catan last weekend, which I really enjoyed. There's just enough randomness to the game to make it different every time you play it, and enough strategy involved that you do need to have a strategy to play the game effectively. I think I'll actually end up buying this game eventually.

Halloween Costume 2007 - Kaylee's Teddy Bear Jumpsuit, Pt 1

Yes, I'm a nerd, and yes, I'm a big fan of Halloween. Did I mention I have crazy fugue states in which I compell everyone around me to question my sanity?

I usually decide early what I want to dress up as, so that if there are unforseen complexities I can still have a nice costume ready on time.

This year was a toss-up. I was either going to do Shane Vansen from Space: Above and Beyond, or Kaylee from Firefly. Kaylee won out, only because my sweetheart replied to my e-mail with, "That would be PERFECT!".

Others have trod this path before me. Apparently Kaylee is a popular choice among fellow female geeks. One girl has her notes on making the costume here, and Serenifly has screenshots of everyone in the cast and notes for some of the costumes worn on Firefly and Serenity. I will probably not worry about the jacket or parasol. The shirt I'm going to substitute something from Urban Outfitters.

Something tells me that this will be a project not unlike the one I half-heartedly started for Arwen's chase habit one year (and left undone - it would have been financially disasterous).

So for others who wish to venture into the abyss with me, this is what I've found so far:
Kaylee's Teddy Bear Patch - this is the "correct" bear patch to use, but the site requires a $65 minimum order. I ended up getting some trim and eyelet for future projects - I might end up making my own translation of her "Prairie Harpy" dress (except I would use a blue floral print and probably different lace). I'll probably E-Bay the other 9 bears that I won't need. I tried to contact Trim & Button Expo (mentioned on the how-to site), but they're out of stock.
The Bead on Kaylee's Necklace - This is as close as you will get to the bead in the promo photos; Murano glass is very individual. This site also wants a $20 minimum order, but if you like jewelry making this won't be hard. I bought two extra beads to make matching earrings.

The character on her right pants leg is the "xi3" from "xi3huan", which means "happy": 喜
I think the character near the teddy bear is "ai4", which means "love": 爱 (simp) 愛(trad)
The characters on her pocket are a puzzle. The top one looks like it might be "ping2" from "ping2jing4", which is one of the two translations for "Serenity" they have on the show: 平静 The middle character doesn't look like "jing4" to me though. The bottom character has "tu3" ( earth - 土) for the radical but I can't make out the rest of the character to try looking it up in a dictionary.

My mother (who is suffering from empty nest syndrome) offered to make the jumpsuit for me, so I'm squared there. I don't care for Kaylee's jumpsuit in Serenity, but I really love the embroidered flowers on it. My mom mentioned painting the flowers on, which seems more in line with Kaylee's character. We'll see what happens.

For those who are just altering a jumpsuit, I recommend getting a military surplus one (in cotton, not high tech fabric), cutting off the arms and finishing the edges on the armholes, and putting the patches and writing on. If Mom does end up making the jumpsuit from scratch, I'll see if I can post photos of the pattern pieces.

Cool Ink!

Live Ink Offers Better Way To Read Text Online
Live Ink Homepage

Basically, Live Ink takes text in block format (the standard way of how we read) and restructures the text to make it easier for us to read. Turns out the human eye naturally focuses on a "spot" better than a "line". By restructuring the text, students have been able to raise their reading proficiency by 10-15 percentile points (U.S. Dept. of Education - sponsored study).

The Live Ink homepage has lengthy samples (under demo) of their text restructuring. Who knew Moby Dick would be easy to read?

Maybe
I should start
writing in chunks
like this.

Perhaps more people would
read my blog
and be inspired
to leave a thought.

Or perhaps I should just stick with the standard, block form provided to me by Blogger. At least until we switch over to Live Ink.

Math For Programmers

I stumbed across this today and thought it was fascinating enough to share.

D&D Night

Studying something like computers inevitably allows one to soak up various aspects of nerd, geek, and dork culture. This is a given because otherwise you will miss the humor in the term, "making one's saving throw versus death", among other geekspeak.

Friday night, I participated in an old-fashioned, paper-and-pencil game of Dungeons & Dragons. Did you feel the disturbance in the Force?

I had fun! Imagine that! I have a theory regarding role-playing games that, like acting, enables people to learn about the human condition in a relatively safe way.

I am possibly a bad actress, but I thoroughly enjoyed more-experienced role-players voicing their characters. Watching the Dungeon Master that night was very interesting. He went from pulp-fictionesque villain to goblin to frightened guard without blinking an eye. It was amazing. (Yes I'm biased, but it was still awesome to watch)

And yes, dorkiness is possibly the epitome of unsexy. Except for maybe smoking cigarettes, cruelty to people or animals, and evilness in general. But you get the idea.

I Want To Work for NetFlix!

Vacation Policy at NetFlix

Say What, Mr. Gates?

Gates Warns on U.S. Immigration Curbs

In the same speech before the Senate committee on health, education, labor and pensions, Gates says the following:

“It makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals, many of whom are educated at our top colleges and universities, that the United States does not welcome or value them,”

and

“America cannot maintain its innovation leadership if it does not educate world-class innovators and train its workforce to use innovations effectively. Unfort­unately, available data suggest that we are failing to do so . . . especially in our high schools.”

So our institutions of higher learning are capable of producing well-trained, highly skilled individuals, but none of our USA-born high school graduates are attending these great schools? Is that what he's saying?

Let's also mention that, if Mr. Gates was so concerned with being unable to hire people to work for his States-side facilities, he also has sites all over the world, including sites in India, China, Hong Kong, and Japan. Abu Typesthecode in India can write the same snippet of code that will do "something" in Vista that Joe Coder in Seattle can. Microsoft is a big enough corporation that, aside from manufacturing concerns, where you do your work in the world doesn't matter as long as the work gets done.

Maybe if Mr. Gates would pull his head out of the clouds he could see about doing something to really improve this country's problems regarding education, rather than complain about not being able to find (or retain!) a quality workforce. When I graduated college I didn't have program managers beating down my door to find me, even though it seemed like everyone was saying software engineers were in high demand.

Oh but wait. Doing something productive regarding education would cost money. Precisely what he's trying to save by "fixing" immigration.

Do You Remember Laika?

This is news to me, and I thought I'd share it with the world.

Do you remember your middle school history? Or even your world history? The part that covered the space race? Do you remember your history book talking about the trials conducted with animals? How the Russians and the Americans sent up animals to see if they could handle being in space before we sent up people? Do you remember Laika? Do you remember what your history text said about what happened to Laika?

If your memory is as good as mine, or you happen to have a grade-school history text in front of you, I can pretty much bet that the texts don't say anything about what happened to Laika.

The internet is a powerful tool. The other day, I looked up Laika on Wikipedia. Turns out, Sputnik II (her space vehicle) experienced an anomaly in flight that caused the temperature control to malfunction, and poor Laika died 4-7 hours after launch from overheating. Not a happy way to go.

The original plan was to have a 10 day mission, after which they would euthanize Laika with a dose of poisoned food. Still not a happy way to go, but you would think it would be better for her to be euthanized than overheated.

I guess what really riled me was that, even though they knew what the problem was, the scientists just let her overheat. And yes, I realize there's nothing I can do about it now.

The new fellow I'm dating mentioned that, having majored in software engineering, I should be more logical about the whole thing and just be OK with the fact that Laika died a horrible death. (Several days later, I'm still not OK with it) While I do think that he's serious to some extent, I also think he was trying to poke fun at my expense.

I was at Disneyland the other day, and found a great sign. There was a silhouette of Tinkerbell on it with the words: "Slow" and "Pixies at Play" on it. I mentioned to my fellow how cute I thought it was, and he said:

"I think we should send pixies up to space to conduct scientific experiments!"

Never Tick Off An Engineer

What Women Want

What Women Want
IT Industry Culture Failing Women

It sounds, to me, that women want to be treated fairly and be given equal pay for their equally brilliant ideas. It looks like women are finding that in industries outside IT in the UK.
Granted, this opens up the whole can of worms regarding women taking a mid-career break to raise children, which is something I don't want to touch on today. I don't have an answer for that, and I don't know what I will do when I get to face that problem.
I have no idea if the decline of women in tech is happening in the United States, but I for one want to stay! I'm not the best coder, although I'm proud of a few snippets I've done elegantly. Database is my weakspot, and I'm definitely not up on bleeding-edge technology.

Speaking of bleeding-edge technology, here is a funny ancedote that happened to myself and one of my best friends from college. I had just bought an iPod and a FM transmitter so I could listen to it in my car. This FM transmitter plugs into the cigarette lighter on one end and the iPod on the other. When the radio is tuned to the same frequency the FM transmitter is tuned to, music from the iPod magically comes out of the speakers.

My friend (who is galactically intelligent -read smarter than me- and I hope won't mind me sharing the story) was riding in my car one day soon after I bought the iPod and FM transmitter. He looked at the iPod, then the radio, then asked, "How does the music get from the cigarette lighter to the radio?"

This from a guy who just bought an XBox360 and PS3. :)

Update: I called my friend last night and he told me he just bought a Nintendo Wii on eBay. :)