Schwerlog

2011-04-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

Noelle and I

2010-06-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

Noelle and I are getting married. We met last year in Rhode Island. A mutual friend, Sara Sparhawk, planned a weekend amongst a bunch of cabins in Charleston. We met during that weekend and I invited her to a piano concert later that week. We haven't spent much time apart since then.

The picture above is from her 30th birthday festivities. It was taken on the top of the Empire State building. The picture below was taken before we attended Reghan and Kristian's wedding reception. Please forgive the perpetual goofy look on my face.

Concerning our healthcare system

2009-09-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

Here's someone else's ideas that are definitely worth a look.

Our Cash for Your Clunker

2009-08-05T09:45:00.001-07:00

I am not understanding political support for the "cash for clunkers" program. It recently ran out of cash, but as usual, congress is more than happy to open our purse-strings again.

Here is what I think they are thinking: People that already own a car will probably need to buy a new car in the future. Cash for clunkers will encourage them to buy the car now. The program will succeed in improving sales in the near-term at the expense of sales in 2010 or 2011. The program will also help car manufacturers make some revenue during the current market downturn. This revenue will perhaps allow a car manufacturer to weather the storm. After the storm, tax revenues from the manufacturer's profits may exceed the original cost of the program, plus interest.

I'm not convinced.

The likelihood of car manufacturers becoming profitable as a result of the "cash for clunkers" program is about as likely as a sailboat crossing the Atlantic propelled by a bathroom hand dryer. At best, the program will prop up profits for a few months. At worst:

The distraction from realistic demand will weaken the US car manufacturers' competitiveness in the world market, and quicken their demise.
A harmful precedent will be set. "Cash for *****" programs will be started all over the country.
A well-meaning governor, hoping for an election year boost, will start the "Cash for Big Old Guns" program in his state. It launches with great success- citizens cash in their high-caliber arsenals.
The poorly armed residents are ill-prepared for the unforeseen zombie attack. Low caliber weapons don't even slow the approach of the hungry undead.
Strengthened by gorging on the residents of the unarmed state, the zombie army overwhelms adjacent states and nations (e.g. Canada).

I told you sos

2009-07-08T20:15:00.001-07:00

I wanted to compose some "I told you so" moments for ten years from now. Hopefully, the internet is still around then, and we'll be able to all have a laugh browsing through old blog postings.

The planet is going to get warmer, and nobody can stop it.
Observe the graph. You can see the upswing of CO2 levels about 120,000 years ago. By some measures, it appears that upswing occurred even more precipitously than the current one. People forget that New York used to be covered by glaciers. I'm pleased that things have been getting warmer for thousands of years. I don't expect it will stop it anytime soon.

Universal healthcare isn't worth the price.
After everyone is insured on the government's health plan, fewer and fewer will get into the business of healthcare to make money. Altruism will suffice for a while- but eventually it will become painfully obvious that the key motivators for the creation of new drugs, procedures and medical technology were lost years ago. Doctors will be less skilled, new drugs less frequent, and quality of life (as related to health) will stagnate.
I love the american healthcare system because it consistently produces the best doctors and medicine in the world. There are better ways to minister to the needs of the uninsured.

Buyer's remorse.
The government's purchase of large stakes in previously private companies will raise government's bureaucratic overhead to nightmarish levels. The AIG employee bonus scandal was just a glimpse of what the government can do when given the opportunity. It compounds the problem that the government has a moral duty to uphold justice (in its most infinitesimal form). Strain at the gnat and swallow the camel.

The Big Dance

2009-03-24T10:40:00.001-07:00

I went to the Big Dance, and my date left with another guy.

The audacity of nope

2009-02-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

I went to this site to understand better the obama/democratic stimulus bill. I was surprised at how inefficiently the federal government pays for things like doorbells and vehicles. How did they come up with all this stuff? Half a million for a dog park? Such a large spending bill provides little opportunity for scrutiny on the spending projects.

Democrats don't believe we are in an economic recession. If they did believe we were in a recession, they wouldn't propose a bill that would do little good to get us out of it. Says Mr. Romney. Tax cuts are a cheaper and more effective alternative.

Further, democrats firmly believe that our children will have more money than us. That's probably correct, but it won't feel that way when they have to pay half of what they earn to pay off interest on an enormous national debt.

Remember him? He's the one who lacked audacity of hope.

The Token Inauguration Post

2009-01-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

My skepticism is taking a beating these days. I listened to Barack Obama's inauguration speech yesterday. I can feel the tendrils of his rhetoric creeping their way slowly toward me. My instinct is to withdraw myself, and review the rhetoric with a keener and more critical eye. But it's difficult because the words are so compelling.

It has been a long time since the president has been a skilled speaker. I think of the two Bushes- the first being somewhat capable, and the second- well... his skills probably can't be over-exaggerated. Then Clinton, who may have been a good speaker but I could never trust his words. I heard that Reagan was a good speaker, but I was too young to understand him.

It's always been easy to be skeptical when the object of your skepticism encourages it. With Obama, it's hard to be skeptical. He is an excellent speaker. He is much easier to trust than the Bushes or Clinton.

Fortunately, I have a healthy mistrust of government. I also feel that the exercise of my skepticism is especially necessary under the present conditions.

Michael Crichton v. Global Warming

2008-11-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

In memory of Michael Crichton, the late outspoken author. An excerpt:

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with his statement. In software engineering, the 'consensus' of engineers is sometimes the best available solution. Being bold and independent often foreshadows engineering pitfalls. But engineering is hardly science.

After the prop 8 vote

2008-11-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

Lately I've heard a lot about the repercussions of the prop 8. A lot of people have amplified their previous assertions that the proposition is discriminatory. It's hard to compete with that kind of language. Oppression, bigotry, and prejudice are strong words for a proposition to "preserve" existing institution.

I've heard several arguments that defend prop 8 from a "moral" standpoint. I prefer these arguments because they speak to my religious principles. However, I'm also wary that such arguments are considered "close-minded" because of the current fad of moral-relativism.

Other arguments are pragmatic. These refer to the societal issues that result if the California's supreme court judgment were to stand. Some of these arguments are entirely philosophical: "The supreme court does not have the authority to extend rights not already identified in the canon of law". Others are sociological: "The fitness of a couple for a marriage license should be determined democratically because the consequences thereof will be experienced by all society."

I don't like the pragmatic arguments because they appear similar to the arguments that could have been used to advocate the pro-segregation and pro-slavery platforms of the past.

Here's a scientific argument:

The human organism has evolved in an environment wherein a single mother and a single father joined in a marriage contract have been the primary care-givers.
Consequently, a great number of traits of human physiology are optimized under the circumstances of a traditional marriage.
Therefore, traditional marriage contributes most effectively toward the best development of a child.
Because children are not permitted to vote, it falls upon the adult generation to vote in a manner that would best serve the interests of the forthcoming generation.

This reflects my view that marriage is primarily a license to care for children. Unfortunately, recent encroachments on this definition (cohabitation, shotgun divorces) have made the scientific argument less obvious. It is also hard to gather support for this argument because an imperfect marriage in one's own life disqualifies you from publicly advocating this argument.

One counterargument is that the rights of a future child do not trump the rights of the individual (see Roe v. Wade). ... I feel we have arrived at the fundamental disagreement. It's probably time to call it a day.

Before the Prop 8 vote

2008-10-30T15:49:00.001-07:00

As a silent proponent of proposition 8 in California, I've given my opinion on the matter some thought, and here's what I came up with.

If marriage is a right (e.g. freedom of speech), my argument is completely invalidated.

Marriage is not a right. Nobody has proven to me that marriage is a right conceded either by God, the Constitution or a humanistic ideal. Since marriage has never heretofore been considered a 'right' the burden of proof falls upon those who wish to declare it so. Perhaps I will treat this issue in a future post.

If marriage isn't a right, then it is something else. Everything else falls under legislative purview. It is the responsibility of a legislative body to determine the requirements of a civil marriage. My friend, Dr. Hansen, compares it to the laws legalizing gambling in certain states. These laws do not guarantee the 'right' to gamble. Gambling is not a right. However, all legislative authority can create laws for the governing of society. A society that legalizes gambling has chosen to deal with its many consequences. It would be tyrannical for a judge to make such a decision on society's behalf. Why should it be different for marriage?

I've heard 2 arguments against the codifying of traditional marriage in the California State Constitution:

There are many 'rights' given to married couples that are withheld from the untraditional couple.

I think a careful consideration of these 'rights' would reveal that they are privileges. If these privileges are desired, one should pursue legislation that provides these privileges. This approach has yielded domestic partnership legislation.

A homosexual couple seeking civil marriage do not negatively effect society. Withholding this privilege is spiteful.

There are many reasons to withhold a privilege. The privilege of marriage defines a central unit of society. Changing the availability of this privilege will also change a central unit of society. It is reckless to make such a change without society's consideration.

There are many reasons to codify traditional marriage. The primary reason I would vote yes on proposition 8 is "to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society".

Economic Liberty Update

2008-10-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

On 6o minutes last night, the reporters enlightened us to the 'smoking gun' that I referred to in my last post. The legislation was passed in 2000 by congress. It permitted the re-establishment of the derivatives market. Furthermore, it prevented regulation of that market. With a few exceptions, the derivatives market is used as a front for high-stakes gambling. Derivatives traders gamble on the behavior of financial concerns.

The blame for the aforementioned legislation lies on both political parties. It passed by a unanimous vote.

I think it ironic that politicians assert that our regulatory system is 'out-dated' and we need to rework it for the '21st century'. My first suggestion for 'modernizing' our regulatory system is to restore the 'outdated' 1907 legislation.

Economic Liberty

2008-10-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of hearing that the financial crisis was caused by massive deregulation. I know that this is mostly rhetoric because I have yet to hear of the 'smoking gun' piece of regulation that would have prevented the crisis had it remained intact.

Deregulation is the heart of a successful capitalist economy. China grows their economy by deregulating. We grow our economy by deregulating.

I have several concerns with regulating financial markets:

Reckless regulation stifles growth and advancement.
Smart regulation attempts to prevent the mistakes of the past.
If people couldn't have predicted the circumstances that led to the current financial crisis, why do we think we're smart enough now to effectively regulate?

I wish they would apply some engineering discipline. This is how we fix bugs in software:

Identify the problem.
Determine the root cause of the problem.
Fix the root-cause of the problem.

That means we fix the problem that we have successfully identified. This is the only problem that we are qualified to fix/regulate. Blanket regulation is equivalent to rewriting the software from scratch.

Behold the politicians approach:

Identify the problem.
Determine who/what can be blamed.
Determine how blaming that party from (2) will advance one's political career.
Place blame.
Repeat until harder-working people have actually fixed the problem.

If there needs to be regulation- let it be limited to fixing the root cause of the financial crisis. I hope politicians don't see this as an opportunity to advance their bureaucratic control onto parts of the financial system that work efficiently.

On Bernstein on Freakonomics

2008-08-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

I frequently read the Freakonomics blog. More recently, a post from William Bernstein attracted my ire.

Here is a quote I found particularly troubling:

Economic libertarians argue that this growing inequality is unimportant: aren’t the poor of 2008 still far better off in terms of real income, health, life expectancy, and material comfort than even the richest citizen in 1900?

The fallacy of this argument is that human beings do not measure their well-being by absolute real income or longevity — but rather in relative terms. To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, a wealthy man is one who earns more than his wife’s brother-in-law.

Fallacy? I think that the economic libertarian would be the first to admit that Bernstein's assertion is accurate. That doesn't invalidate their original point. It just means that you'll have better well-being if you don't look at it in relative terms.

Bernstein then continues to cite several studies that correlate poorer quality of life with larger income disparities. I fear that the average reader will simply glaze over when Bernstein equivocates "correlation is not causation". What he really means to say is that those quality of life issues were probably induced by global warming (I speak sarcastically, but it isn't as ridiculous as it sounds when you consider the quantity of scientific studies that boil down to meaningless correlations).

It is unfortunate that most correlations having only a slight hint at causation are frequently accepted as the latter. This seems to be the standard practice among "scientists" who are short on proof but heavy on rhetoric. It's irresponsible.

Cure America's Addiction to Oil

2008-07-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

A response to Harleyk.com Cure America’s Addiction to Oil by Taxing It.

In Harley's article, he proposes decreasing America's dependency on oil by taxing it. My response follows:

This may be oversimplifying the issue. Unfortunately, the suggested approach has already been tested (and failed) in Europe and other foreign countries which have a larger tax burden on oil than the United States.

I think the overall goal is that energy pricing move the market toward a more sustainable fuel source. Historically, there has never been any energy source as inexpensive, bountiful and accessible as crude oil. In order to tax the fuel enough to motivate a change in the market, you'll have to tax a lot more than 32 cents. I'd suggest tripling or quadrupling the cost of oil. But that approach has other unwelcome repercussions that are difficult to sustain economically. The present condition of food prices is an example of what may happen when prices change too quickly.

The Bush administration's present policy of opening up areas for more drilling may postpone the scarcity issue, but not remove it.

The solution to the problem is to allow the free market to "work it out". I think we'll be pleasantly surprised how the market evolves to accommodate the scarcity of oil.

Vim and Sneakers

2008-05-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this, but the buses in Manhattan have been advertising for a sneaker and clothing store called "V.I.M." Most software engineers probably also know that vim is short for "VI improved" the world's best text editor. The opposing camp (emacs) doesn't stand a chance in the midst of this marketing blitz. Unfortunately, this is one battle that goes largely unnoticed among the uninitiated.

Excerpts from Kennedy Book Report

2008-02-11T20:41:00.001-08:00

The following is an excerpt from a school report written by my cousin, Michael Kennedy. It is about my grandmother:

My oldest ancestor that my grandmother knows about is her mother, Anne Cott Cronchuck, born in Russia in June, 1892. She came to the United States in 1912. She came to this country by ship and landed at Ellis Island, settling in Stamford, Connecticut. She was a housewife and kept house for a family in Darien, Connecticut. She was married in Stamford, in the Russian Orthodox church. She was forty-six when she died. She was very religious and superstitious. She married twice. Her first husband died at thirty-five years old due to a horse riding accident. My grandmother was eight years old at that time. Church was the center of social life for her and her family. My sister Tia looks like her, with dark hair and blue eyes. She wasn't short, just average in height, and bright and very beautiful. She was a proper lady in all ways, who always wore white gloves. She had three sons and one daughter, my grandmother.

Peter was a soldier in WW II, was married and had one daughter, Patricia. We often saw her and her family. She had three daughters and one son. Peter died the day my oldest sister was born, October 15, 1965. He died of an illness. Wassil was also a soldier in WW I, in Paris. He died of cancer. He had one son who died in a boating accident. Sameul [sic] was also a soldier in WW II. He died of a heart attack. He never married.

Michael Kennedy's interview with with Grandma:
MK: Hi Grandma, how are you doing?
G: Oh, I am doing fine Michael.
MK: What was it like when you were a kid?
G: Oh, it was so long ago. Let me see, well I remember I jumped off a wall and got rocks stuck in my knee.
MK: Did anything else neat happen?
G: In WW 2, I would go and sit in this little house and there were posters of all the American planes, and German planes, I would watch for the German planes ond report the kinds I saw to the civil defense. It was an air raid watch.
MK: Did you ever have to report any?
G: No not me.
MK: Grandma I know you really have an interesting life, is there anything else you can tell me?
G: One thing you might find interesting, Michael, is when I was a teenager I lived with a different family. My mother worked and she felt that a young girl should not be left at home alone with three boys. So, I lived with an older woman and her husband. They were quite wealthy. They sent me to college. When I finished college, I worked for her as a personal secretary until I got married. Well, I don't remember much more.
MK: Thanks for your time, Grandma.

A family picture with Grandma Schwer

Grandfather "Opa" Schwer as a child

From left to right- my great uncle and his wife, Grandma, Aunt Deannie and Opa Schwer (Grandma's husband)

Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather Cronchuck

2008-02-11T19:30:00.001-08:00

Beard 2.0

2008-01-07T21:04:00.001-08:00

I forgot to shave this morning...

Dentistry to Dermatology

2007-11-26T07:11:00.001-08:00

I saw a post on CNN that details how our former occupiers are dealing with the distribution of illegal skin bleaching creams. I believe there is an easier and safer recipe to achieving the coveted pasty white complexion:

Ingredients:

1 computer
1 unlit room (preferably in your parent's basement)
1 copy of world of warcraft, evercrack or second life (or any other sufficiently addictive salve)
1 Monthly unemployment check

Directions:

Mix and enjoy

Or you can become a computer programmer. And they'll pay you for it.

Peanut butter and chili

2007-11-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

I made chili tonight. It tasted good. One of the ingredients was peanut butter. I added that because I heard somewhere it makes it taste better. I don't recall where. My mom proposes that the tradition began in Cape Cod, many years ago. I don't recall the occasion, but apparently we were trying to empty the pantry before leaving, and a pot of chili was involved.

I imagine having heard about peanut butter and chili on a cooking show somewhere. It's not that crazy. Consider that thai cooking frequently integrates chili paste and peanut oil.

In any case, I also hypothesize that the peanut butter tames the acidity and smell of the balsamic vinegar. Balsamic vinegar is an ingredient we add to tame the metallic taste of canned tomatoes. So this is the recipe's progression:

The canned ingredients (beans, tomatoes) make the chili metallic tasting.
The balsamic vinegar nullifies the metallic taste.
The peanut butter tames the vinegar's odor and acidity.

My other hypothesis is that none of these ingredients matter. Because we cook chili for a long time, everything gets mixed together and ends up tasting like meat, onions and tomato. Delicious.

Apple pick Warwick, NY

2007-10-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

It was unseasonably warm.

I Refactored the Blog

2007-10-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

I moved the nerdish entries to schwernerd.blogspot.com. The normalish entries will remain here.

How to deal with Comcast (or any cable company)

2007-09-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

Expert 72 Intermediate 26 Beginner 2

2007-09-19T08:40:00.001-07:00

2007-06-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

FYI. Baseball bats are not typically permitted for slow pitch softball usage, unless they are wood or otherwise approved by the USSSA.

A heavier, less-wieldy bat is required: a softball bat.

See the rule book for details.

2007-06-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

Here's some food I had at home recently:

Rock Cornish Hens, Rice Pilaf and Broccoli
Veal Parmigiana
Butterflied Lamb with Baked Potatoes and green beans
Chicken bedded in rice and an apricot sauce
Ham and Macaroni and Cheese
T-Bone Steaks, Baked Potatoes and green beans
Spaghetti with meatballs and homemade tomato sauce
Lasagna
Chicken Yakatori at the Edgewood fair

and Pizza from Mezzaluna's to fill in the gaps.
This is so I remember what it's like to live at home.

2007-05-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Deja Vu. Time travel is also part of the "Heroes" TV series. The following occurred to me after watching Deja Vu. These assertions do not presume the slightest familiarity with the subject matter.
Suppose a time travel machine was invented. If so, we could imagine that it was created by someone with good, evil or morally indifferent intentions.

If the time machine were created and used by someone with good intentions, he or she might go back in time to fix injustices. With sufficient effort, he or she would succeed in removing all injustice from the world. Which would preclude the need for a time machine in the first place.

If the time machine were created by someone with evil intentions, he would go back in time to create injustices. With sufficient effort, he would succeed in maximizing injustice in the world. The ensuing chaos would be paradise for the owner of the time machine, which would, again, preclude the need thereof.

If the time machine were created by someone with mixed intentions, he or she would spend his or her time mixing both justice and injustice in the use of the time machine. This reflects the world that we live in today: a mixture of justice and injustice.

Clearly, if any time machine has been invented, it is in use by a person of type C. Notice to the Galahads, Lex Luthers, Sylars of the world: stop trying to invent the time machine. It's a wild goose chase. Notice to the rest of us: keep plugging away, there's light at the end of the time-machine-invention-research tunnel.

Note: I woke up this morning and realized that these assertions rely on some other assumptions that I didn't mention. For example, I assume that we are existing in the only time-line. However, I maintain that my warning to the arch-villians remains potent.

Holmes on Software

2007-05-24T18:50:00.000-07:00

My dad and I watch the show Holmes on Homes on HGTV every now and then. Here is a guy that spends 50% of the show exposing the errors of other contractors and 50% of the time explaining and showing how to do it right. Most of these errors have to do with non-compliance with some sort of building code. For example, it is against building code to tie-in a sewage drain line into a storm drain line. Or make electrical junctions outside of a junction box or electrical switch. There are individuals who are qualified to inspect and certify a contractor's work. No work can be performed without a permit.

So I tried to think of some analogues for software development. Maybe the SEI or other auditing agencies are the inspectors? Clearly the software engineers are the professionals. Plumbers and electricians are the GUI engineers. The architect is, well, the software architect. The software developers are the structural engineers. The owner/user of the future dwelling is, sigh, the owner/user of the software. I'm sure I'm not the first one who came up with this analogy.

And permit issuers are? Yeah, I don't have the permit issuers worked out- but maybe that would be a good idea.

2007-05-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

I started a new job at Trepp. They are a commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) analytics etc. software firm. I am steadily becoming an expert in the subject matter. Bonds, yields, coupons, tranches, credit ratings, trustees, bond-issuers, bond-holders, loan servicers, interest rates, spreads, defaults, collateral, defeasance etc. etc. etc. I look forward to the new challenges.

August 1994 - May 12, 2007

2007-05-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

2007-05-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

A* Searching is a favorite of computer scientists. My personal experience has shown that this specific searching algorithm is the answer to a good percentage of the harder problems (ones where the brute force approach is intractable) that are presented during a software engineer interview. Some of the time I would miss questions that used this algorithm because I would waste time theorizing the existence of trickier and faster algorithms. Silly me.

Here are some other prototypes for interview questions:

1. Implement a design pattern (singleton, abstract factory, etc.) in a specific programming language.
2. Write the code for performing a type of search in a specific language.
3. Design an algorithm for playing a well-known arcade or board-game.
4. Design/Implement a software architecture for specific requirements.

I've also found that a lot of questions have a progression that mimics the software development process:

1. Solve an initial problem.
2. Modify the problem (requirements change).
3. Update your solution/redo the initial solution to accommodate the requirements change.
4. Return to step 2.

The Met in New York

2007-03-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

Rockefeller Center, New York

2007-01-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

2006-10-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

Crestline Campground on Palomar Mountain, California
33 degrees 18 minutes and 44 seconds North
116 degrees 51 minutes and 41 seconds West

A low of 37 degrees on the night of October 6, 2006 tied a record for coldness on that date set in 1994. This is where I learned the extent to which my sleeping bag was capable of protecting me from the elements.

A foil dinner containing uncooked potatoes and/or carrots requires at least 40 minutes on hot coals to be properly cooked. A foil dinner containing tater tots requires a mere twenty minutes before it is ready for consumption. Add cream of chicken or mushroom soup to make your foil dinner especially tasty. To prevent charring, rotate your foil dinner every 10-20 minutes.

To make hot chocolate without hot chocolate mix, combine hersheys milk chocolate with milk. Heat to a boil, constantly stirring to combine the chocolate and milk without scalding the milk.

Certain tadpole style tents require the rainfly to be integrated into construction in order to maintain structural integrity.

Last night's leftover foil dinners are today's breakfast.

Headlamps, although conspicuous, are desirable.

Bees in the wild are susceptible to the same extermination techniques as those in the civilized world.

Fear park rangers more than bears or cougars.

2006-09-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

Ever since the Mike left the apartment, and took the couch with him, we have been troubled by the lack of seating in our living room. Fortune smiled on the house. Beauitiful couches.

2006-08-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

Me, Chad and Heather

ASUS P5n32 SLI Deluxe motherboard needs a new home

2006-08-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

Should blogs be used for personal gain?
Comments will be interpreted as solicitations.

New. $160. Newegg sells the same for $200.

2006-07-27T19:44:00.000-07:00

2006-07-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

A thousand words.

2006-05-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

Behold the winnings of the weekly 20 burrito Chipotle raffle.

Badger's Final Bash

2006-05-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

Badger's first taste of bondage.
The run-of-the-mill friends of the groom shot.
Reception glitz.
We didn't hit that lady.

People in Phoenix are eager to assist.

2006-05-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

This is from the June 14, 2004 Newsweek, p. 53 (interview with Marcella, a cook):

"Flavor must be more revelatory than exploratory. It wants to be disclosed rather than imposed; it is neither stylish, nor pedantic, nor is it exhibitionistic. Like truth, it needs no embellishment. It is not the idea of a thing but the thing itself."

2006-04-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

Bread that lasts forever

2006-03-20T18:40:00.000-08:00

A certain corner of my kitchen possesses the quality of extending the shelf-life of ordinarily perishable foods.

The Corner.

Observing the quality of the bread. A sacrifice in the name of science.

That tag says January 22, 2006.

I have replaced the bread in its bag and will make further experiments several months from now. We are accepting applications for unpaid internships on this project.

New York New York

2006-01-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

Christmas was spent in New York. Here are some explanatory pictures.

This is what it looks like outside my house.

O Christmas tree...

Pretend those eyes aren't illuminated from the camera's flash.

The fortunate few dine at this table.

Zimmer's Wedding

2005-10-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

This is the best picture I took of the wedding happenings. Everything else was blurry. It's really hard to mess up someone's car when its raining. Oreos had to do.

Cleaning the leather couch

2005-08-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

Douglas Whitman procured a leather couch and recliner. The couch was especially soiled. It had to be cleaned.

Before.

Before (detailed). The lighter spot has been cleaned already.

The final product.

Recommended cleaning approach:

Apply leather cleaner to leather (using a spray bottle).
Allow leather cleaner to sit for 3-4 minutes.
Begin brushing leather with a cleaning brush in broad and slow
swirling motions.
As a lather begins to form apply more pressure and accelerate the
swirling motions of the brush.
Wipe clean with a cloth.
Repeat as necessary.

The important thing is to allow the lather of the leather cleaner to do the work for you. Getting it to lather up is difficult sometimes.

Things you see at the Zoo

2005-08-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

Below is a compilation of scenes that were observed during several San Diego Wild Animal Park and San Diego Zoo trips during the first 6 months of my membership of the San Diego Zoological society.A humanoid boreal.

You don't see this everyday. CHEETAH!

Mom and Dad.

A Giraffe kissing a pole.

A bridge, rumored to bestow certain "weightless" properties to its crossers.

Things you see at the San Diego County Fair

2005-07-03T12:51:00.000-07:00

cows

shoes

and lambs.

So this is what it's like

2005-06-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

So I've started to become productive at work. I have been hired on as a permanent, salaried employee now. I am busy working for a release of the software in July. I don't remember what it is like to be unproductive because I have a lot of work to do most of the time. It is a challenge bringing the software out of the 90's and into this century. Mostly there is resistance to change of any kind because it carries with it some mysterious "risk". It is frustrating though that we are working on problems that have been solved already by technology that is easily available outside of the box I'm in.

The Badger visits San Diego

2005-05-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

Mr. J. Tieman graced the schwerhome for a weekend. This is about as much as I saw of him.

Chasing a girl.

One of the ingredients in badger's special sauce.

On to the workforce

2004-10-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of anticipation, I started work. I am currently in a training period, which will allow me to familiarize myself with the software I will be working on, as well as company processes. Turns out it is a lot of reading.

It has been a while since I've worked a 9-to-5-er. I am excited to be productive. That'll be in 3-5 weeks, when I am finished with training.

Computer Architecture Comps Results

2004-10-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

So I passed the computer architecture comprehensive exam. All my worrying wasn't for naught- or I should say: I had good reason to worry. I passed by a measily 6 points. I should point out that I could probably have fineigled another 10 points on top of my score. (Thank goodness I didn't have to... I'd hate to rely on my fineigling skills to get a degree). Most of the mistakes were careless.

I will shortly be dubbed a Master of Computer Science, following some paperwork and administrative delays. I changed all my resumes from "MS expected Fall 2004" to "MS awarded Fall 2004". Now onto the workforce!

The benefits of blood giving

2004-09-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

I went to give blood today and received the following in return for my pint of O-:

1 Free car wash ($14.99)
1 Free Chipotle Burrito ($5.50 - $7.00)
1 Free t-shirt (~$5.00)

Although I'm not sure how much money the blood bank makes off of my blood, I figured that after using all the free stuff, that I made around $20 for every hour of blood donation. Not bad, but it wouldn't work as a full-time job because I could only go to work once every few months. But on second thought, maybe it's not that bad...

Computer Architecture Comps

2004-09-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

My month long studying binge came to a halt on Monday the 27th, when I took the Computer Architecture Comprehensive Exam for the MS program at UCSD. I felt good about the exam, until the next day, when I remembered that I incorrectly answered one portion of a question due to a stupid mistake. I used the bit offset instead of the byte offset when deciding how large a cache line was. It was supposed to be 32 bytes, but I put 4 bytes. How embarrassing, now I'm scared that I made other stupid mistakes. In any case, I'll know on Friday.

San Diego

2004-09-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

I have returned to San Diego after a three month absence. Yippee! Oh, does anybody want a gmail invite? I got 6, and they seem to spontaneously regenerate overnight. Leave a comment if you want one.

Block Island

2004-08-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

Visited Block Island with friends over this weekend. It was a day long trip including the drive and visit. See this link about Block Island.

Amateur Carpentry

2004-07-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

I installed the window framing and mouldings for the previously unclad windows in the attic of my house. The pictures show only two of the four windows I did. The other two are mostly obscured so I didn't bother showing them. These look nice though.

Chipotle

2004-07-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

I was pleased to discover that the wonderful Chipotle restaurant chain that existed so pervasively in San Diego, also extended to New York City. I had a carnitas burrito on Friday the 9th at the Chipotopolee near Penn Plaza in NYC. Tasted the same and as good as the La Jolla joint- but a little more expensive.

Gmailing

2004-06-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks to MrShoe, I am now a gmailer. Now that I am on the other side of the fence, the grass doesn't look as green as it used to.

Post-interview at Microsoft

2004-06-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

I finished interviews at Microsoft on Friday. It was pretty grueling. 5 interviews in one day. I felt like I started repeating myself after a while. I was asked mostly coding questions that I worked through. I made some mistakes, but found them in the process of working through the problems. It was pretty taxing.

I asked one of the interviewers about the source of the Microsoft Office Assistant. I had written a letter to Microsoft when I was just a kid. In the letter, written on yellow-legal pad paper, I suggested adding a more human component to user interfaces. Something like a talking human head in the corner of the screen. In any case, I had hypothesized that this letter might have contributed to the creation of the "Office Assistant".

The Microsoft employee, who shall remain unnamed, explained that the Office Assistant was part of a creation of Microsoft Research that included the technology to parse and understand phrased questions in a helpful way. Although the technology for accomplishing the feature was innovative, he pointed out that they had little idea of how badly it would be received. In general, he said (paraphrased): Microsoft has learned to be more careful about including an "active" component in user interfaces.

Microsoft Interview

2004-06-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

I am going up to Seattle to interview with Microsoft for a Software Design Engineer on Thursday the 10th of June. I'll also visit with some friends while I'm there.

Boy, I could really use a Gmail account. All my friends have one, including MrShoe and Ribrdb.

Disney Talk at UCSD

2004-06-03T17:48:00.000-07:00

I attended the CSE168 class to hear a talk by a couple of employees of Disney Animation (Rasmus Tamstorf & Carlos Gonzalez-Ochoa). It was about how they incorporated subdivision surfaces in the production process of feature films.

Interestingly, they discounted the potential of T-Nurccs and T-Splines. I kind of disagree with their offhand assessment, but that's probably because they haven't really investigated the matter completely. To me, it appears that the strength of T-Nurccs and T-Splines are how they can be easily incorporated into existing production cycles.

T-Splines and T-NURCCs

2004-04-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

Finished work with Dr. Buss on a project replicating some of the work from the siggraph 03 paper. Concentrated on a robust knot-insertion algorithm that would accomodate the need to add auxiliary knots when inserting a knot on certain edges. Here is a picture demonstrating a difficult knot insertion situation. The highlighted edge cannot accomodate knot insertion, as well as some other edges surrounding it. Here is a notebook page demonstrating a general case of difficult knot-insertion.

Baja Camping and Whale Watching Trip

2004-02-01T18:16:00.000-08:00

Went to Guerrero Negro with some friends to see the whales. I have pictures posted here.

Watercolor Modeling and Rendering

2003-12-12T18:14:00.000-08:00

Finished work on a project for Appearance Modeling CSE272 (Henrik's class). I basically reproduced the work done by Curtis et al. in SIGGRAPH 97 and added a couple features. The gui is really bad- everything is done using the keyboard and I don't have a readme file. You need to look at the source code to find out what is going on. Here's a link to the project code and the final report: Project Report, Project Code.

Shape Context Matching in Cluttered Scenes

2003-12-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

Finished working on a project for CSE252C Vision and Learning (Serge's class). It was mostly a rehash of work done by Thayananthan et al. in CVPR03. I didn't have remarkable results but it was certainly a learning experience. Here's a link to the project code and the final report: Project Report, Project Code.

Facial expressions with ratio images

2003-03-10T18:08:00.000-08:00

In the image-based rendering class, reproduced the work done by Liu et al at Microsoft Research. Here's the report. In retrospect, I performed the RGB->YUV conversion incorrectly, which explains why some of the pictures are lighter after expression morphing.

Multimedia Video-conferencing Project

2003-03-10T18:06:00.000-08:00

Worked with a students in CSE218 (Software Architecture Design) to create a multimedia videoconferencing system. Just the design. See the report.