Happy Pi Day!by Jim
14 Mar 2009
3:03 pm0
3.141592653589793238 462643
383279502884197169399375105820974
9445 9230 7816406286
20 8998 6280
3482 53421
170 6798
214 8086
513 282
3066 470
9384 4609
5505 8223
17253 5940
81284 81117 4
502841 027019 38
521 105559
Happy Pi Day, everyone! Today is 3.14 (aka March 14) and is special in a couple ways. Today is my sister’s birthday (Happy birthday, sis!), Einstein’s birthday (hooray for geniuses), and Pi Day. Pi day is an excuse to make (and eat) lots of pies. We’ll post a picture of the pi we make for dinner tonight.
I hope you enjoy my ASCII art — I made it myself 😉
Mixed Emotionsby Jim
19 Feb 2009
5:02 pm3
Last night was a difficult night for me. Most of it was very enjoyable. For our anniversary in December, I got two tickets to go see Wicked at the Orpheum theater in San Francisco. As an additional surprise, I arranged to meet with some good friends at a restaurant near the theater. Everything was wonderful. We had a great dinner and the show was amazing.
When we went to see Phantom of the Opera in December with Dallyn, we parked across the street from the theater so we wouldn’t have to walk far. We decided to park there again last night because of the convenience. When we returned to our car, I was absolutely shocked to see that our car had been broken into. The passenger side window had been completely smashed and our GPS and my cell phone were gone. I had my cell phone out while driving and left it in the cup holder instead of putting it on my belt. I forgot about it until we were already crossing the street to the theater and thought to myself, “it should be alright, the parking lot is well lit and attended.” Looking back on the situation, I realize that was a very stupid thing to assume. There is absolutely nothing the parking attendant is obligated to do if he were to witness a break-in. There is a sign that says they aren’t responsible for valuables left in vehicles. I was also parked at the far end of the lot, furthest from the booth and by a clear get-away path for a would-be criminal.
I was quite frustrated last night; I felt stupid and violated. I felt bad for Angie and Jon who had to ride in a freezing cold car because the windows had been smashed in (especially Angie, who had to ride all the way back to Livermore with me). Fortunately, they didn’t take our garage door opener, which was also in the car (along with a GPS that has “take me home” button — not to mention our address in my cell phone).
Things could certainly have been worse. I could have been mugged, more damage could have been done to the car, I could have had sensitive identifying information on my cell phone, among other things. I just hate making mistakes like this that make you feel so helpless and stupid. What a way to ruin an otherwise wonderful evening.
A Special Day for Geeksby Jim
13 Feb 2009
11:02 am2
You’ll have to pardon my geekiness, but today is a very special day. Today, at 3:31:30 pm Pacific (11:31:30 pm UTC), Unix Epoch time will reach 1,234,567,890. It is kind of like celebrating January 1st in the year 1000, at the turn of the millennium. So that you can more fully appreciate this special moment, let me give a brief history lesson.
You see, way back in the early days of computing (1969), some really smart guys at AT&T Bell Labs developed Unix. Unix is an operating system (like unto Windows) that runs programs except it didn’t have a graphical user interface (GUI with mouse pointers, icons, etc. — unlike unto Windows). A GUI was developed later, but at first it was all just command line stuff. For geeks, this is one of the things that makes Unix fun. Anyway, they needed a way to represent time, so they decided to use a standard integer value counting in seconds. Therefore, at 12:00:01 AM January 1st, 1970 Unix time started at 1 and they’ve been counting ever since.
Back on Sept. 9, 2001, Unix time rolled around to the 1 billionth second since Unix Epoch (1 Jan, 1970). The geeks over in Denmark thought this was pretty cool, so they threw a big party. Those Europeans are really into the whole Unix/Linux thing. Actually, I think it is more likely they are into the Anti-Microsoft thing.
So, if you read this before the big event, set your alarms and have a moment of reflection for how Unix makes the world a better place.
(This image was modified for demonstrative purposes.)
For those of you who want to witness this event, find your nearest Unix/Linux machine and type:
date +%s
If you don’t think you’re fast enough to get it on just the right second, you can try:
watch -n 1 date +%s
Which will display once a second, so you’re sure to catch it.
Conference in HD?by Jim
5 Oct 2008
3:10 pm2
In the past, I’ve been saddened by how the Church has lagged in the technology department. Understandably, technology is normally very expensive and it is sacred tithing they spend, so I’ve never complained about it. A few years ago, when they finally started posting conference as video files, I was very pleased. It wasn’t anything new or especially impressive, but it was a step in the right direction. This year, though, I was impressed. The new video streamer we used to watch conference this year was fantastic. Not only was it very responsive (we were able to watch conference without missing large chunks because of insufficient bandwith on their part, as in years past), but the fidelity of the video was unbelievable. I didn’t do any tests (I was trying to pay attention to the speakers), but the quality definitely looked HD to me. Full-screened on my HDTV, the quality was better than most DVDs. More than once, I got up from the couch and stared at my TV only inches away to see how clear the picture was. As an added nicety, http://lds.org broadcast conference in widescreen! (Strangely, http://www.byu.tv did not.) Forgive me for being so excited about this… after spending a lot on a TV, it is nice when I get to use the HD-ness of it. Did anyone else who watched conference online notice how good it looked?
The talks were all very good. I especially liked Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk in the Priesthood Session. What great counsel we received over the last 36 hours!
–Edit–
Okay, so it wasn’t HD. It was 640×360, which is technically not high-def; but in all honesty, online conference never looked better. 😉
It’s a keeper!by Jim
30 Sep 2008
6:09 pm2
The long search is over. I’ve finally decided on my official Linux server distro: ArchLinux. I’ve spent the last few weeks (and many, many hours) trying out a few different distros and have found the one I want to stick with. Recently, I installed a trial copy of Windows Home Server after hearing a few recommendations. This meant that my Linux server (where this blog is hosted, among other sites) would have to make room for another OS. I don’t think I could survive without a Linux server, though, so I chose to take the virtualization route. I tried out a few different virtual server programs and found Microsoft’s Virtual Server the most useful. I wanted to use Sun’s VirtualBox, but Microsoft’s product has a web interface for configuring and controlling your servers: very cool. Besides, it also automatically starts up as a service, just like it should.
Anyway, I would have used the same distro I had on the machine before installing Windows Home Server, but my version of Ubuntu didn’t seem to like being virtualized and it would freeze nearly every morning. I got tired of reseting it, so I started looking for more distros. I tried Fedora: too bloated — especially for a virtual server. I tried Debian, but it didn’t like living in a virtual environment either; it couldn’t get anything from the repositories. Then I found Arch (thanks to Antony). It was just what I wanted: robust, but simple. Simple meaning complexity, not ease of use. Arch is not for the faint-hearted. I consider myself a fairly experienced Linux user, so I gave it a whirl. As you can see, Arch doesn’t have the freezing problems Ubuntu had. I’m glad I finally found something that works well. Arch is here to stay.
Fortuitousby Jim
31 May 2008
12:05 pm6
I apologize for the long post, but I really have a lot to say. (It seems whenever airports are involved, my posts quadruple in length…) Bear with me, I think it’ll be worth it.
A few days ago my dad asked me to do a little project for him which involved burning some video to a DVD. My computer had been having issues, and I had decided to reinstall windows to hopefully fix those issues. (It had been a really long time since I did a full reinstall.) I decided to give Windows Vista a try since I hadn’t yet and I wanted to give it a fair chance. There is so much opinion about Vista out there and I really shouldn’t say anything until I can form my own. So, last night I installed Vista. Everything went smoothly.
The video project my dad wanted me to do is 56 gigabytes, so I figured I should free up some space on my hard drives by removing my (no longer used) Linux partitions and resizing the NTFS partitions with the new unused space. Well, most other times, this operation took at most 20 minutes. This time, I had a 500 GB hard drive with a 366 GB partition to resize. The problem was the block size had to change because the drive was so big. Basically, there are only so many address spaces the drive can use and when I grew the whole drive, the individual address spaces had to each grow too (because I already was using the most number of address spaces I could). So, it took my computer about 7 hours to do the complete resize. When you edit the partitions, you DO NOT stop in the middle, unless you want to have corrupted data. There was really nothing I could do; my computer was tied up for several hours. Fortuitous event #1: A couple days ago I copied the entire 56 GB project to a network drive to free up some space for my new Operating System. Even though my computer was occupied for many hours, I could still get to the project my dad needed me to finish.
I forgot to mention that my mom needed to be brought to the airport for a 6 am flight this morning, which means we had to leave at about 4:30 am (so she could be an hour early at 5 am). I was in a little bit of a time crunch. After I realized that I wouldn’t be able to use my own computer to work on this project, Angie suggested that I use her computer. Fortuitous event #2: About 3 weeks ago, I bought Angie a new computer. I had noticed that her computer was nearly 8 years old and showing its age. Angie was so good to not complain about it and just be patient with it. So, as a surprise, I bought her a new computer which is faster than my own. There is no way I could have used her old computer to work on this project.
So, I installed Adobe Premier and Encore on Angie’s computer and got to work. It took about 90 minutes to copy the 56 GB project. Angie’s computer is the only one in the house not connected to the gigabit network, so the copy was slow. (I guess I should have bought a new network switch while I was upgrading her computer.) Once I got started, I ran into the same problem that prevented me from completing the project months ago. I found a solution from a google search and was able to finish the DVD just minutes before having to leave with Mom making fortuitous event #3. I would have liked to have more time, but Dad needed something and this was all I had.
We hopped in the car and started the drive out to the Oakland airport. Things were going just fine, but as we pulled off the freeway on 98th Ave., warning lights started flashing on my dashboard. I realized my power steering was gone, so I quickly got in the turn lane of the offramp and turned right on 98th Ave. and pulled over to the side. My car had overheated. Fortuitous event #4: My car had died 2.7 miles from the airport. I can’t say how glad I was my car died in a place where I could safely get off the road. We called AAA and had a tow truck there in 15 minutes. I only got 5 miles for free from the towing service, so I asked if he would take us to the airport. He seemed a little surprised, but took us there nonetheless. When we pulled up at the curb to drop Mom off, a security guard gave us a funny look as I jumped down from the truck to go get Mom’s suitcase out of the trunk of the car being towed. We must have looked very strange. Anyway, we only lost 30 minutes and so (fortuitous event #5:) Mom was able to make the flight!
I asked the serviceman to drop me off at the nearest gas station. He unhooked my car and I went inside to buy some coolant. He was kind enough not to charge me, even though I think I went over my 5 mile limit (probably only by a mile). I got the coolant and he even helped me put it in the car and get it running again. With the engine running, he noticed that I had thin streams of coolant squirting out of my overflow tank. I thanked him for his help and bid him farewell. I had brought the GPS, so I was looking for repair centers nearby and considering waking up Jon (my brother living in Emeryville a few miles away) to help me out when fortuitous event #6 happened: Dad called to check up on me. We talked about the car and he figured that by refilling the coolant, I would probably have enough to get home. We had poured nearly the entire container of coolant into the car, so it had been quite empty. With his assurance, I started the trek home.
Fortuitous event #7: The last couple days I have felt a cold coming on, so I have been getting to bed on time (a rarity for me). The last three nights I’ve gone to bed at times ranging from 8:30 to 10:30 pm and slept for at least 8 hours. I couldn’t afford being sick with so little sick leave after Angie’s surgery, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t get sick by doing whatever I could to keep my body strong. With such a good sleep pattern the last few days, I hardly felt tired driving home at 6 am even though I had been awake for over 24 hours (and I don’t feel sick anymore). I arrived home to find my wife and my cat peacefully sleeping in bed. I put on my pajamas and got under the covers and went to sleep.
The more I think about the events of the last 24 hours, the more I realize just how fortunate I was. Seemingly terrible things happened to me, but in the end, everything worked out just fine. My computer is in perfectly good shape, Mom made it on her flight, Dad got his DVD, and I got home safely. I really felt like these events were more than just luck. The Lord really does look out for us and answer our prayers. Days like this help you realize that.
reCAPTCHAby Jim
28 May 2008
8:05 pm4
Today at work I attended a presentation by the inventor of CAPTCHA, Luis von Ahn, entitled Human Computation. An older version of this presentation he gave at Google is here. It was a very interesting (not to mention entertaining) presentation about how humans can be used to do things computers can’t. The coolest part is that he has created a way to turn games into a useful part of a computer program to identify words and images. At the presentation, he showed us a web service called reCAPTCHA. Basically, what it does is translate words from text scans of documents to digitize books. It turns the process of validating “human” users into contributing to a large project to make the world a better place. Cool.
So, I went to their website and found a WordPress plugin! I’ve installed the plugin, so donate some of your brainpower to a good cause by leaving a comment. This new feature now means you can leave comments without having to wait for them to be moderated. Enjoy!
P.S. Angie is doing well. The recovery is slow, but she is making progress.