Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in asyncster's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007
12:18 am	Tech talks and work Today I was supposed to have my first day of work. Surprisingly, it ended up being a lousy day, because HR screwed up my paperwork and it's going to take a couple days to fix (maybe longer). I don't want to blame anyone in particular. Statistically, if my paperwork is passed through 5 people, each of whom has a 90% chance to get it right, and a 10% chance to screw it up, there is about a 41% chance that my paperwork is going to be screwed up (0.9^5), this probability increases exponentially as more and more people handle my paperwork. I don't want to blame anyone because, realistically, only a few people really knew that what role I was coming in to fill, and these people were probably not included in any of the paperwork. Either way, it's a frustrating experience. On a brighter note, I went to the pro sports club today, for the first time. It is a remarkable building which I will describe in more detail later. Right now I'm watching a google tech talk on designing good APIs. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, July 16th, 2007
7:58 pm	Food tastes bad when you're sick (or: why are there no jamba juices in Seatle?) Somehow I managed to catch a cold the day before my NEO (new employee orientation) at Microsoft. I'm not sure exactly how I caught it, but it was either sleeping with the window open or sitting outside for several hours shivering at the Waterfront Seafood Grill. This year I was sick quite frequently. During my senior year in college I was sick a lot more times that previous years (except my freshman year), yet, ironically, my senior year was probably the one where I was most physically fit. Perhaps these two are correlated. NEO was pretty boring, in contrast with my internship where I felt somewhat excited at the end of the NEO. At some point today, we discussed stereotypes associated with Microsoft. I had a lot to say on the matter, but I didn't speak up, and the people that did speak up I felt had ridiculous suggestions. I'd like to send an e-mail to the recruiter. When I get sick, all food tastes a little disgusting. Or that's just what I tell myself, maybe it's my slow-cooked beef stew that's actually disgusting. I like to go to Jamba Juice when I'm sick because they smoothies seem to be healthy (at least, made with real fruit), and then can put in a tab which is loaded with Vitamin C. Whether or not this actually decreases your recovery time is one thing, but it is easy to eat, and still tastes great. Another thing about Jamba Juice: each shake is literally a replacement for a meal. If you get one with yogurt blend, it can easily top 500 calories. Too bad there are no jamba juices in Seattle. Well there are, but much more sparse than in the Bay Area. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
11:26 pm	Today I decided to go on a bike ride around Seattle. After looking on some bike maps I planned what seemed like a reasonable route. Starting in lower Queen Anne, it went north through Ballard, then went all the way east to the University district, and then back down through Eastlake and back to Queen Anne through Belltown. It was supposed to be a nice big loop touring throughout the city. I haphazardly wrote the instructions on an envelope. Halfway through the ride I realized that I had forgotten the envelope. I managed to get home about three and a half hours after setting off. I got lost many times and had to take tons of side-streets in a vain attempt to follow the original course. Twice I had to stop at gas stations and look at a map. Overall I learned a couple things about biking in Seattle. 1) the ballard neighborhood is an industrial wasteland, and is very unfriendly to bikers, and 2) don't do it. if you're planning to road bike, get the hell out of Seattle. I heard great things about the Burke-Gilman trail. From what I've seen so far, it doesn't seem like a great place to road bike. The path is too narrow, and it has too many people walking their dogs or running. I'll bet it gets better past the university. Next time I go biking, I'll try exploring the Magnolia area some more, or do the whole Lake Washington loop. Either one should be interesting. (Comment on this)
Friday, March 2nd, 2007
3:50 am	I've had a really shitty start to the semester. One lesson I've learned: NEVER lie to people that truly care about you, because if you mislead them, they may suffer consequences when they find out. I've been on both sides. Also, a lot of people in the world are complete trash, even people for whom you cared (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 4th, 2007
10:23 am	I'm a doctor After I fell asleep last night I felt pretty sick. Because I've been watching house episodes non-stop, I decided to try diagnosing myself. I looked up "flu symptoms" and I found the following: Flu symptoms include: Swift, severe onset. Prominent Prostration. Flushed, hot moist skin. 102-104 degree temp. Chills, body aches. Extreme fatigue, can last 2-3 weeks. Cough, sore throat. That pretty much nails it. I should have recognized these symptoms by now, but I'm not too smart. I took a couple advil and I feel fine. I'm glad I don't have some crazy disease like vasculitis. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 21st, 2006
1:58 pm	Lessons from this semester During the Spring 2006 semester I took Stats 135. My work ethic in that was pretty good. I went to nearly all the lectures and discussion sections, went to most of my GSI's office hours, and I spent a lot of time learning the material and understanding the homework assignments. Although I slacked off a little at the end, I managed to get an A- in that class, an admirable grade. Last semester I took another stats class - stats 152. I rarely went to class and discussion sections, I procrastinated on the homework assignments and project, and I studied relatively little for the exame. I spent about 1/10 the time on Stat 152 as I did on Stat 135. The result was a B. Not too bad. I'm eagerly awaiting to see if I passed my history class, on which I spent a total of 10 hours. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 17th, 2006
9:36 pm	egotastic I read this article in the daily cal a while ago. This article has no real purpose, it's just the random rantings of Ms. Anjali Koppal. Among the many unorganized thoughts in that article, she talks about LiveJournal: he content of an average LiveJournal entry is, simply put, an individual’s outpouring of personal worries and difficulties. The “comments” feature, which makes a feeble attempt at promoting feedback, is used merely as a means for fawning friends to sympathize with the self-consumed writer. And as a result of this disconnected communication, people who indulge in online activities such as blogging, youtubing, etc.. completely lack conversation skills. I don't agree with this statement, but I should get back to studying, so I'll write more about it tomorrow. There shouldn't be a correlation between the kind of online activities you do, and your conversation skills. When you are talking to someone, and you are genuinely interested in what they have to say, then conversing with the isn't difficult. However, when you don't give a shit about the person, then it's easy to appear as disconnected or uninteresting. Anjali is saying that bloggers are self-centered and they only care about their own opinions. The fact that you write on a blog, or watch those little viral youtube videos doesn't necessarily make you an egoist. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 4th, 2006
5:49 pm	People should check out the As-Seen-On-Tv alternative compilation CD called "Buzz Ballads". It has a lot of nice alternative songs from various artists. If nothing else, it seems like good sex music . (Comment on this)
5:41 pm	power I read an article on digg a few weeks ago. I rarely pay too much attention to any single article posted on digg (or reddit/slashdot for that matter) because there are simply too many of them. However, one of these articles has been stuck in my head for the past few weeks, and it is starting to bother me. The article is summarized here . It states that the power settings in windows are inadequate, and the cost of powering idle computers is around 5-7 billion dollars every year. The article estimates that 100 million computers aren't running Windows at a maximum efficiency mode (they also say this is a conservative estimate). And because it costs around 50-70 dollars a year to power an idle computer, the world wastes 5-7 billion dollars a year. Where did this article get the 100 million number? They didn't say, so it was probably an estimte. I take a look at my desktop right now (running windows XP), and the current power settings are from from adequate. The only power conservation setting is to turn off my monitor after 20 minutes. So from my sample of size 1, I'd have to agree with this article. The only redeeming quality is that my computer is only for an average of 20 minutes a day. However, it is common to see office computers running all day. And it wouldn't surprise me if many of them have inadequate power conservation settings. So is Microsoft to blame? One thing that I learned from Raymond Chen's blog is that Microsoft is by default blamed for all computer-related problems (hardware and software). He has many epic stories about windows work-arounds that fix bugs in hardware or other third-party software. So lets say that 100 million computers are running inefficiently. The important question should be: what proportion of computers are running inefficiently but are able to run in a more efficient mode. I.E does Windows do an adequate job of detecting the power conserving capabilities of computers. These days, over half of computers sold nowadays are laptops, and I am generally impressed with the power conservation settings on laptops. This is one thing that windows gets right. On the other hand, this is one thing Linux gets wrong. The ACPI drivers are linux are pitiful. The last time I installed linux on my laptop, the default kernel didn't even include an ACPI module. I would be surprised if the popular distributions (Ubunto, Fedora, etc..) include acpi support on the install kernel. And when an enterprising linux hacker tries to configure their kernel for acpi, their system has a good chance of panicking at boot-time (this was my experience for both laptops). Back from my rant about Linux acpi, it seems that Vista has more agressive power settings by default, which is definately a good thing. As long as the OS does it's best job to conserve power based on the capabilities on the machine, it succeeds. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 30th, 2006
5:29 pm	There are lots of hand-held electronic devices that I do not have. For instance, my cell phone is (for lack of a better term) a festering pile of cow shit, and I'd like to have a better one. I also want a digital camera to take along on my bike rides. While I'm at it, I'd like a portable mp3 player, because I don't consider my first-generation ipod shuffle to be very useful. And how about a nice palm to follow the GTD method like the other fanboys on 43 folders who swear David Allen is the next coming of Christ? Finally, I want a handheld gaming system like the Nintendo DS so I can play the shitty little games that I'd otherwise play on flash sites on the net. It should be painfully obvious to see where this is going. I want a device that does it all. Fortunately they exist: the pocket PC (which actually does more, including e-mail, web browsing, and everything else you can run on Windows). I want to spend a lot of money on one, and then lose it (or get it stolen). (1 Comment |Comment on this)
5:21 pm	Existentialism is a dangerous subject for people who do not have sufficient background philosophical theories (such as myself). I'll be the first to admit that I am unqualified to discuss philosophy. In order to discuss philosophy, you need to have been explosed to different perspectives (through books, classes, or real life, for instance). When you hear about how existential theory negates the inherent meaning of life, it can make you anxious and miserable. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 24th, 2006
5:17 pm	I generally avoid commenting on popular stories that appear on digg, slashdot, or other such sites. Among the comments that accompany the stories, and the infite other blogs that write about them, readers can get a thorough amount of commentary about issues. However, there are times when these little stories float in my head and cause me unnecessary anxiety, so I've decided to write about the Iraq war. In the front page of digg you'll find a link to this great video about the reporting done in Iraq. The reporter in the video states that it is simply too dangerous for western (more generally, non-Iraqi) journalists to venture outside the "green zone", which is an area of Baghdad heavily protected by US troops. The reporters within this "green zone" are safe, but they receive reports which are carefully arranged by the US military. Although the video didn't explicitly say this, it seems that much of the intermin Iraqi government also resides in this "green zone". The whole point of the video is that the "real news" happens in the areas outside the green zone. However, this area can only be covered by Iraqi journalists, who may be good journalists, but do not have the background to make the story meaningful to American viewers. There are many questions that American reporters would ask which Iraqi reporters may not think to ask. News organizations have to collect a large amount of footage and other information from these Iraqi reporters and add context to them. Because reporters cannot experience the real Baghdad first-hand, it leaves Americans and other viewers with an incomplete picture of what is happening in Iraq. One solution, in my opinion, is to find high quality Iraqi journalists who ask the 'right' questions (where 'right' is defined by the American news sources). Another option is to have Iraqi reporters in constant communication with their American counterparts, who may suggest questions, etc. Can anyone else think of solutions? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
7:40 pm	Bored in Los Alamos I'm sitting on the computer shooting off facebook messages to some of my old friends. Hopefully I'll be able to find something exciting to do this weekend. I have three really good friends from Los Alamos. One of them is staying in Santa Barbara, one of them doesn't have a facebook profile ( and I lost his number), and the other will be too busy having sex with high school girls. I went to starbucks today, and ran into a friend who also goes to Berkeley. Then I ran into her again at quiznos, and again at the supermarket. Aren't small towns so wonderful? (Comment on this)
Monday, November 20th, 2006
2:19 am	I haven't posted anything for several days. There have been a few times where I started writing something, but then I simply hit the cancel button. I usually cancel the post because it's either uninteresting or it could lead to trouble/drama. While sitting at the library today I was watching The Departed instead of doing homework. It was a signature Scorcese film: gangsters, violence, cops, and Leonardo DiCaprio. One element of the plot is Billy Costigan, an undercover cop who successfully infiltrates a Irish mafia network (played by Leonardo, of course). He earns the trust of the mob overlord Frank Costello (played by Jack Nicholson). Costigan is completely devoted to his mission. The movie exposes Costigan's determination through a conversations with a police psychologist. Costigan has severe anxiety and insomnia due to his work. Although it is painful to watch, I admire people who are so focused to their work that it begins to negatively affect their health. But in the end, every main character dies. ( not really a spoiler - it's a scorcese film ). So naturally I felt depressed. As I was walking home, I noticed a small shack on the crner of Telegraph and Regent. Inside this cabin I could hear Classical Music playing. Thinking about that way of life is depressing - a poor old man going to sleep every night in a crappy shack (in a crappy neighborhood) listening to classical music. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
9:54 am	Two more rants When you log into your gmail account, there is a bright link at the top which reads "Five new features!". I clicked on that link, and all those features were either cosmetic changes, or features that aren't really useful for users like myself. On thing that bothers me is that Gmail does not have substring search. Let's say that I'm searching for an e-mail from 'MaryAnne'. Because I forgot her name, I search for 'Mary' and 'Anne', but I get nothing. I am assuming that gmail is so popular, and has so many users, that searching through strings with an O(N) algorithm would completely overload them. So they simply index keywords in e-mail and just use an O(1) lookup. Apparently if you have Google Desktop installed, you can search through your gmail messages. However, I am unlikely to install Google Desktop on either my laptop (because it runs Linux) or my Desktop (because it has nothing important on it). So I'm basically stuck with crappy search. The coke machine at the bottom of evans is out of coke 90% of the time. It would be a great opportunity for a student organization (MUSA) to make hundreds of dollars a month. Next time I'll try to post something more interesting. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 13th, 2006
9:22 am	Weekend of firsts This weekend was very exciting for me. I went on a little excursion called "triathlon training camp". It is where a large group of people go camping in the hills of Livermore and learn how to do triathlons. Then there is a race which is about 2/3 of an olympic distance triathlon. It was the first exposure for many people (including myself)to racing triathlons. Here are some things I did this weekend which are firsts: * swim in open-water (i.e not splash around in the beach) * get raped in open water - it was cold, and I couldn't breath * wear a wetsuit * bike in a competitive environment * sleep under a tent with 10 people while it rained * have a naked sushi party (j/k... but that wouldn't be a first for some people....) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 12th, 2006
5:03 pm	del.icio.us fails One of my favorite websites, del.icio.us, has become a complete failure. I used delicious for finding websites related to tags. For instance if I wanted to find sites related to freaky sex accidents, I could go to http://del.icio.us/tag/freaky+sex+accidents Also, if I wanted to find popular sites that contain php tutorials, I would go to http://del.icio.us/popular/php+tutorial This was a beautiful interface. In my example, it's not surprising that the first url contains no entries. People who want to read about freaky sex accidents might not want to share the bookmark. However, there are thousands of php tutorials out there, so it surprises me that the second link doesn't work. Apparently, after delicious was bought by yahoo, they decided to switch to a portal-type site. So now I have to open a new browser window, go to del.icio.us, and search for 'php tutorial'. The extra step is annoying (i might as well use google instead of delicious), but I guess it's tolerable. However, if you have tried to save a bookmark recently, you get redirected to a page that says: The document has moved here Where 'here' is a link that takes you to a login page (even if you are logged in). If you do log in, it takes you to the same document, and asks you to log in again. Failure. Now delicious is far inferior to local bookmarks. Can anyone recommend delicious clones? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 8th, 2006
10:53 pm	Healthy butter Today I bought some Earth Balance butter. It is highly recommended by Dr. Clyde Wilson, who kicks ass. The stuff tastes very good, and it is quite healthy. Pure dairy butter contains lots of saturated fat (around 80% of butter fat is saturated fat), and it has lots of dietary cholesterol. There are many substitutes for butter (margarines), but many of them contain trans fats, which is terrible for your health. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 5th, 2006
6:02 pm	Thinking about statistics I've been taking several statistics courses over the past year. Even though they're not required for my major, they've been a lot of fun, mainly because statistics is relevant to computer science and other fields (many of which I don't care about). One result of taking so many statistics courses is that I begin assigning probabilities to many things that happen (or could happen) in real life. For instance, if a girl says she's going to call me, I immediately think "yeah... theres is about a 2% chance that she will". If you think about it, this statement makes no sense, because she will either call or she won't (there is no probability distribution of whether or not she will call). Another example is when I hear my phone buzz in my pocket, I think "50% chance it's my parents, 20% it's my brother, 10% it's person C, etc..). It's kind of a fun game, and if you assign arbitrarily small probabilities to things (i.e theres a 0.00001 % chance of getting laid), and those things actually happen, then you feel a little better about yourself. There are probably other ways of achieving the same effects (supposing that something won't happen and being excited if it does), but statistics works for me. Also, I encourage everyone to take statistics 134 and 135, they are both fascinating courses. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
10:59 pm	Swimming problems I am still having problems swimming. One of the main issues is that I'm not timing my kick correctly (this was briefly mentioned in the previous article). According to goswim.tv When you kick down with one foot, your opposite arm should be entering the water. This creates a 'spiral' effect, which allows your body to efficiently rotate. You are supposed to do four kicks per arm cycle. Today at the pool I practiced this instead of doing the normal routine. After a while, I managed to get it down. My other problem is that I get tired very quickly in the pool. I can only swim a few laps before I need to stop and rest. This is going to be a huge problem for me during any actual races, where it is impossible to rest. This problem is difficult to diagnose because it could be a range of things - inefficient kick, inefficient breathing pattern (i.e badly timed exhaling), bad arm movement. (1 Comment |Comment on this)