Pug’s Place

Note: This isn’t by any means important, but I’m grasping for things to post here at the present.

I’ve been lurking on Dave Farber’s Interesting People mailing list for some time, but a post made on Friday about aviation prompted me to write a response which was posted this morning. So, yay, I got an email posted by Dave. I’ve reproduced both posts below.

Tomorrow I’m flying to Sedona with Chris and my former flight instructor, Jason. I promised Jason from week #1 that, once I was a private pilot, I would buy him lunch in Sedona (at the Sedona Airport Restaurant, whose Flash-based website sucks!) so I’m going to make good on my promise. I’ve planned out a flight path which avoids high terrain as much as possible and provides plenty of emergency landing locations and practiced flying it it in both MS Flight Simulator and the newly-discovered Google Earth Flight Simulator (which is damn cool, if simple).

Oh yes, while I missed the eclipse on Monday, Chris, Amy and myself were out on our balcony at 4:30 am this morning watching the Aurigid meteor shower. Just as reported in 1994, many of the meteors we saw were bright blue. I’d ask if anyone else watched, but they were apparently only visible to viewers on the western side of the Rockies.

Read on if you’d like to see the pair of mailing list posts I mentioned above without clicking off-site.

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After seeing increasing numbers of these ugly-beyond-belief trucks on the road, I’ve come to the conjecture that the Honda Ridgeline is a subtle weapon built by Nippon for use against the Yankees.

Okay, so here’s how I posit this supposition: The Ridgeline is a two-pronged attack.

1. The Honda Ridgeline distracts drivers so with its visage that they are more likely to become involved in automobile accidents; in fact, a fight-or-flight response may in some individuals be triggered, causing increased kinetic energy at time of impact.
2. Subtler still, I expect nightmares of its front grille to prompt suicides by the most influential members of our Arts communities, causing a decline in American culture.

Comments welcome.

In addition to passing my classes, managing the UF programming team, working and even sleeping upon occasion I’m also in high-gear on my job search. True, I’m in high gear about a month later than I really should have been, but the turtle doesn’t always win the race. Anyway, I’m presently applying to some positions at Google. While brainstorming ideas for this cover letter, I had the idea for a sure-fire approach which I won’t use:

Dear Google,
    I’m MacGyver.
Sincerely,
    Michael Knight

The idea is that (statistically speaking) even if the reader isn’t a MacGyver fan, he must be Knight Rider fan.

Comments?

Her computer has moved to be under her bed. I, quite randomly, decided to take a picture and post it here.

Some people have asked what I’m up to besides work. Well, I’ve been playing a bit of Diablo II with E. and Jacob, coding, coding, reading and coding some more.

I’m not really playing any Civilization IV because it’s gotten to be somewhat tedious. The gameplay is fine, really, it’s just the little quirks of running it with Cedega in Linux. Like my little quirk where the game board fonts are all little cyan legos:

It makes the game much more interesting to not know what a unit is, what the name of a city is or other little things like that.
That said, I’m waiting on the Cedega folks to fix it.

Here are some notes on replacing the batteries in a Belkin Universal Series 800VA 6 Outlet Uninterruptable Power Supply:

1. The UPS clearly states that there are no user-serviceable parts inside and that opening the case is Bad. Since the batteries last ~3 years and the warranty is only 3 years long this is rather moot.
2. It takes TWO (2) 12V 8AH batteries. I purchased my replacements from Apex Battery.
3. The batteries are mounted securely inside the case. They are not simple to get to, but neither are they impossible.

Other than being sure to order 2 replacement batteries the hardest part about doing the replacement is getting to the batteries. Before you start make sure that you have the following:

• A long-handled 3/16″ Phillips screwdriver (or similar). The shaft should be about 4 inches long.
• A 9/32″ hex socket wrench with a long shaft (8″ or longer). You can also use an extender to get that length, but it needs to be taller than the case.
• A flat-head screwdriver or a molex connector remover of some sort.
• The replacement batteries.

The basic procedure then is…

1. Open the case, there are 5 screws: 4 on the bottom and one on the back.
2. Disconnect the batteries from the transformer. Disconnect the ground (black) that runs between the batteries, then the ground that runs to the transformer and finally the hot (red) that runs to the transformer.
3. Unscrew the circuit board from the top. The board has 4 screws.
4. Unscrew the back-plate from the base-plate. There are two screws on the bottom corners of the backplate.
5. Gently pull the back-plate away from the circuit board. It will still be connected via wires, but you don’t need to disconnect these.
6. Now that the circuit board has cleared the back-plate, lift it up slightly and unplug the molex connector from the front (towards the buttons). This connector is the connector from the front panel lights and buttons. You can remove it with a proper molex connector tool, two flat-head screwdrivers or one flat-head screwdriver and patience. Be careful when prying to pry it out evenly on each side so as not to bend the pins.
7. With the molex connector unplugged you can lift and move the circuit board enough to unscrew the remaining two screws and two nuts.
8. Unscrew the two screws holding the battery retention bracket to the front-plate. These are at the top of the battery retention bracket. You will need the long-handled Phillips to reach these screws — there are holes cut in the bracket to allow for access with a normal, straight screwdriver.
9. Using the hex wrench unbolt the two forward-most hex nuts holding the other side of the battery retention bracket to the bottom-plate.
10. Gently lift up on the freed battery retention bracket and slide out both dead batteries, noting their orientation and carefully setting them aside so as to not mix up the new batteries with the old.
11. Slide the new batteries into place in the same orientation as the old batteries were.
12. Reattach the battery bracket, the front panel molex connector, the back-plate, the circuit board and finally the case.
13. Make sure it works, let the batteries charge up and enjoy!

Hopefully this will help someone out there…

Stephen, were you magically on UF’s campus today? I saw someone who looked like who you once were.

Oh, and I have a campus job now. I’ve been hired by a man who reads this blog, the man who runs the local Linux Users Group. I start after my vacation to South Carolina, once summer classes begin.

Oh yes, Summer Schedule:

• Tuesday: Programming Language Principles, 2pm - 5pm
• Thursday: Programming Language Principles, 3:30pm - 5pm
• Someother-times: Work with the Bureau of Economic and Business Research
• Otherother-times: Individual Research with Dr. Fishwick

In current events: One final down, two to go. Vacation starts Friday. Go, time, go!

One of the best things about having a Trekkie girlfriend is that you get to end letters in such fine ways as this:
“When I get you in my arms again, gosh, I don’t know what I’ll do… All I can say is that your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your culture will be adapted to serve us. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

I related this to Tae last night:

Tae: That’s cute…..in a very geeky way
Pug: It’s perhaps the most romantic thing I’ve written.
Tae: Hehehe! Totally, you Casanova you Pug: I deny nothing.

I nearly killed an old man while riding my bike from class today. This isn’t just any simple near-homicide, no sir. I nearly killed this old man from 10 yards away.

I had just left the computer science building and was rounding the corner between Marston and the nearby pond, doing a brisk walking pace on my bike (In other words, not very fast). As normal, people are trafficking through this area walking generally perpendicular to my direction of motion, crossing in front of me. So I’m coasting with light hands on my breaks planning my route between people. Before me but not quite straight ahead, around 10 yards away, an old man turned his head and caught sight of me. Upon doing so his face grew contorted in terror, he stopped mid-stride and made a shuffling hop out of my way which resulted in a stumble and yet another small hop to recover. He was near to falling down at every stage of this, that he kept his balance was somewhat amazing. I would not have been surprised if he had a heart attack from the experience as he was definitely an old man.

Let me reiterate that I was 10 yards away and moving at a brisk walking pace, less than the speed of Sam. He not only overestimated my forward speed, he grossly overestimated it. I, of course, plotted a course through the crowd which kept a wide berth between us and tried to ignore his scowls. He overestimated and overreacted in what would have been a comic manner had he not been at risk of acute myocardial infarction.

My analysis of the situation indicates a 96% probability that I was without fault. I keep my distance between myself and the pedestrians, I don’t speed through crowded areas and I don’t run down old men. But even so, that man thought differently. That makes this worth a post.

Several topics to toss in tonight’s update, so I’ll go in order.

1. Chasing Jimbo Wales

A group I’m involved in here on campus (Florida Free Culture) has arranged and secured funding to bring Jimbo (Jimmy) Wales to UF on Wednesday, April 12 2006. Jimbo is the founder of Wikipedia (and the whole of Wikimedia’s offerings, actually). He’s The Man behind the open encyclopedia concept. Anyway, I’m helping in various small ways to make sure this thing happens. We’ve just kicked into super- ultra- mega- crazy organizing mode to do all of the invites, secure panelists for a panel about various free culture-ish topics to occur after Jimbo’s keynote speech, publicize and followup the event in a positive way.

This should end up being a really fun event. First, Jimbo will be giving a keynote about Wikipedia, research and higher education (among other things I’m sure). Then he’ll be sitting on a panel with four other persons addressing specifics about open access to research information, open file formats (instead of MS Word files, for example) among other topics. Hopefully it’ll attract plenty of influential people, and even some students.

Amusingly, it’s about 8 people (including E. and myself) who are managing this whole task.

2. New ‘Top Music’ list

Since I’ve somewhat stopped using IMMS my favorite music list was getting rather stale. I’ve changed it now to show the songs I’ve played the most in the last week. Might be more entertaining.

3. Programming Contests

The UF ACM Programming Team is hosting programming contests here this semester to get more explosure and generate more student interest. The first of these contests was last weekend - 10 students competed, what I’d call an excellent turnout for our first try. I assisted in judging, so I couldn’t win anything. We’re planning at least two more, one of which is rather large, is in 10 days and is being put together by a large amount of sweat from my brow.

On February 25th the University of Central Florida is driving three teams and support personnel here to compete against seven UF programming teams in a full-scale 5 hour programming contest. I’ve reserved a computer lab and a classroom, garnered support from my department’s chairman, purchased $300 in prizes, had guest accounts created for computer access, acquired money to purchase food and drinks for competitors and advertised, advertised, advertised. Amazingly, a quick count in the RSVP account shows that we are only one person shy of our effective maximum number of UF students. So it looks like from a turnout aspect we’ll be success full!

My team consists of myself, Tim Smith and Justin Michalczak. We are “Team gump/tion zebra”, an ‘in’ joke, referring to the third line of the sample input of one of the problems Tim wrote for last weekend’s contest.

Oh, and last night I judged the “First Annual Codeslingers Shootout” at the Gator Linux Users Group meeting. The problem was selected by the LUG organizer, Clint, and was the classic Game Show problem:

Monty shows you three curtains.

Behind two of the curtains there is a silly gag prize. Behind one of the curtains is a really nice prize (like a new car). The prizes are randomly distributed before each game. But, there is always one nice prize and two silly prizes. Monty asks you to pick one of the curtains. Monty then opens one of the curtains that has a silly gag prize behind it. The audience has a good laugh.

Then Monty turns to you and says, “I’ll give you a choice. You may stick with your original selection or you can switch doors right now.”

What should you do? There are 3 possible answers: One, keep your original selection. Two, switch. Or, three, it doesn’t matter.

Your program will show either by algorithm or simulation the one correct answer from these 3.

The winner was Eric Lavigne, “Fastest Codeslinger 2006″, who wrote a correct solution in 9 minutes in ~12 lines of CLISP. I wrote two reference solutions in 15 minutes before the contest in both C++ and Java and they’re here, if you’re interested: [Java, C++]. Amusingly (and not at all obviously), the solution is to always switch doors. See basically, when you select one of the doors in the beginning you have a 1/3 chance of getting the grand prize. Then a door is removed, but your original selection still has a 1/3 chance of being right. The probability of your first choice does not improve. Which means that the remaining door has a 2/3 chance of being right. Since 2/3 > 1/3, you should always change doors.Edit: Correct fraction size. 1/3+1/2 did not = 1. Was tired, sorry.

People can debate this solution for hours because it does totally fly in the face of common sense, but programatically you can simulate (or calculate) exactly what happens to the probabilities and see that yes, you should always switch.

4. Class Notes

I noticed something which amused me today. Let me frame it in the form of a question: Those of you taking classes now, how many pages of notes have you taken for your courses so far this semester?

At present, 1.5 months into a 4 month term, I’ve taken the following volume of notes:

• Distributed Operating Systems: 3 lines, one of which is the name of the course (misspelled as “Distributed Oberoning Systems”
• Concurrent Programming: 2.2 pages, front and back
• Networking Security: 1 page, front and back

Now, I do write very small, but still… I realized today that I don’t kill nearly as many trees as the majority of the people in my classes. Yet I still learn the material. At some point in the last four years I figured out that no matter how detailed I make my notes, I never go back and re-read them so, well, why take heavy notes?

Anyway, I’d love to be amused by your experiences / utter hatred. Flame on.

5. Other news

James and I bought Sunkist last weekend. I’m sipping at one now. Orange soda is so underrated.

In addition to all of this, I’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (which I recieved at the end of January) and occasionally doing homework. I know, I should be working on Gpremacy. I will soon, I will…