I’m glad that, while I was teaching, I never had to look at code that was so bad it needed an apology. An excerpt:
I … realize that this program is a messy compilation of inefficient coding, and perhaps even stands as something blasphemous in your eyes. Coming midterms forced me to write the program as is because this format required the least amount of thinking as well as the least amount of time. Therefore, I only ask one thing of you: Be gentle.
Wow.
Senioritis. I remember this. Ah, memories.
So I was going to apply to the Hertz fellowship. Thing is, they wanted four letters of recommendation and they wanted them yesterday. Four letters, by the end of October? I would have had to start planning this months ago. So that isn’t going to happen, at least not for another year. Of course, there was that tiny problem of addressing why software systems is an “application of the physical sciences”. Physical sciences? And you’re fielding this to CS guys? I’m sorry, but physical sciences just didn’t work out for me. Chemistry and I dated for a while, but it ended badly. Thermodynamics still has some of my CDs. Let’s not even talk about analog circuit theory … shameless hussy. Where’s the abstraction? Where’s the “soft” part of software? Unless Ted Stephens is right, the Internet is neither a dump truck nor a series of tubes. Where’s the physical there?
“Alex, why are you blogging at 3 in the morning on a Monday?” I’ll tell you why!
Last week, I wrote a question for an exam. An undergraduate exam. Taken by several people I know, some of whom I’ve known since I started here. Proctoring that test was nerve-wracking, almost like I was anxious by proxy. Anyone who’s been around me long enough knows that I’m a pretty nervous person. When you’re as obsessive as I tend to be you get to thinking that everything bad that happens could have been avoided if only you had done something about it. If people really got nailed by this test, I really feel bad about it, because there’s always a part of my mind that says, “You could have stopped that from happening. Somehow, you should have seen that coming and corrected it before things went bad.” In short, this whole teaching thing is tough on the old psyche.
On a slightly tangential note, CMU’s computer science department website is disappointing. I looked around on the research area pages linked from their website, and just about all of them haven’t been updated in years. Is this the state of CMU systems research?
By the second week of December, I need to complete a project that I should have started a month and a half ago. Screwed? Maybe.
A: So many places. So very many places.
So, here’s an update of the last, oh, 30 days. Sorry, Cal people (if you read this), but you’ve probably heard this before. I have a tendency to talk too much … oops?
So that’s what’s keeping me busy. Hope you understand now why I’ve dropped off the face of the planet.
Seriously, the next three weeks are going to be absolutely freaking insane.
So I’ve decided that commuting from Berkeley to Mountain View every day (1.5 hours each way) doesn’t sound like the best idea ever. So I’m looking for housing in Mountain View and in Berkeley now. Joy of joys. I have just about 3 weeks to find a place to live or I will be homeless. Am I concerned? Maybe just a little.
I’ve also got a handful of programming projects, a paper, a problem set and a presentation to finish this weekend. I think my head is going to explode.
I’m back, in a manner of speaking.
Midterms are, for better or worse (looks like for worse), over. *in dramatic announcer voice* The war is over, but the horror is just beginning.
I console myself with the fact that I’ve still got several good things going. I’ve got my health, my research, my summer job at Google … all in all, things are good. I’ve pulled myself out of worse before. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
I found a really nifty Firefox plugin that allows me to tweak my stylesheet and see the results without changing the style of the page. When I have some spare time (ha, right) I’ll probably end up doing some tweaking to the way the page looks.
Strong Bad E-Mail is back with a vengeance lately. It was getting a little un-funny back there about 20 episodes ago, but I’m pretty impressed that they’ve managed to come back with some pretty funny new material.
The new Intel Power Macs might be available as soon as August! I’m excited. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold out for another 5 months without caving and buying one of those new iMacs. Thoughts, anyone? And no “Buy a PC roflrofl”. I’ve heard it already, and no.
Things have been so ridiculously busy lately.
If any recruiters are visiting this site for the first time: hello! I wrote this whole thing. Well, 95% of this whole thing, but still.
My friend Mangesh is taking his LSAT on Saturday … scary stuff. One more reminder that GREs are less than a year away. Augh!
I finally nailed down a research position! I’m currently trying to cram as much C++ foo into my brain as humanly possible in preparation to dive in and do … whatever it is I’m going to do. The whole question of what I’m going to be doing is still at issue (at least on my end); at this point I’m still trying to get the source to download.
Work has slowed to a crawl; this is the first time since I started working at Rescomp that I’ve had an entire day of appointments go completely unfilled. With all these interviews I’m going to be missing a lot of work as it is, so I’m wondering I’m going to make much of anything this month. Oh well.
I think I’ve found someone even more obsessive-compulsive than I am; the guy who wrote ns-2, a network simulator program we’re using for my networking class. The tests this thing ran to validate that it was working properly took almost two hours to complete! That’s a lot of tests!
Did anyone see Sunday’s Foxtrot? So many WoW in-jokes there.
Bought a PDA last week; now I finally know where the heck I’m supposed to be at any given time! It’s already paid for itself in the number of things I’ve remembered to do before coming home and seeing them sticky-noted somewhere.
This semester looks like it’s going to be pretty hectic. On the plus side, my books didn’t cost nearly as much as I thought they would. Score!
I submitted my resume to a bunch of companies today, one of which was Adobe! Not only that, but I got three free shirts out it. Ahh, recruiting shirts. I’m like a walking Silicon Valley billboard.
I’m getting a free trip to Seattle to interview with Micro$oft! I’m using too many exclamation points!
So it turns out that almost 60% of my traffic is from eDeep. Go eDeep go!
Research is still pretty up in the air, which makes me a little nervous. I’m in the process of lining up some fallback options, but I’d really like to work with this project that I’m trying to join. Won’t really know one way or the other until Wednesday.
In exciting site news, the number of columns on the Amazon Wishlist page has been changed from two to three! *gasp* Oh, and my resume is available in the Info section as well.
So I go back up to the frosty north on Monday and school starts on Tuesday. Where the hell did the break go? Anyone? I demand two more weeks! It’s sort of depressing to see my beautifully empty calendar turn into a kaleidoscope of pain. Here’s hoping this semester is a good one.
So a lot has been added to the website over break – I’m actually pretty pleased. I’ve added Sudokunator, my Sudoku solving program for the Mac, to the Software section. The links section has been given a once-over and pruned. The Photos section and the Wishlist section are new. Also, for those WoW nerds out there I’ve added character profile information (current up to my last logout! I know, you’re impressed) in the Info section. There are several new AIM icons for public consumption. Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the additions.
The best part, I think, is that I’m still having ideas as to what else to put up here. Truthfully (and I’m sure I’ve put this here at least ten times) I don’t really care if nobody reads this. This is more an opportunity for me to actually create stuff and have something to show for my efforts. I was afraid that I was out of material and that the site would just rot, but it’s grown more in the past six months than it has in years and I couldn’t be happier with the results.
Congratulations to Tony for finally hitting level 40 and getting his mount. Now get to the 50s! I need a mage for Mauradon runs! Chop chop!
Last day of classes was today. Finals preparation begins bright and early tomorrow morning.
And now, evidence of my steady descent into madness. From the final homework assignment for Efficient Algorithms and Intractable Problems:
I am such a dork.
… I think!
Anyway, I think everything in front end should be restored as of now. This includes RSS and the archives. Enjoy; I’ve got a lot of things to add, but that comes after finals.
And now, excuse me for a moment while I rant.
For the past three weeks, my lab partner and I have been going to two labs a week (that’s 6 hours of lab a week, folks) in an attempt to finish this intractable project for my analog circuit theory class. We find out today that not only were we done with the required part of the project at the end of the first session, but had been attempting to work with the wrong circuit; apparently someone had posted a change in another place but had neglected to change the circuit in so inconsequential a place as the project guidelines.
This semester would have been so much better if it weren’t for that class. It’s the last one (well, one of the last two, but the last technical one) that I’m compelled to take, and my other two classes have been pretty good on the whole.
I really, really want finals to be over.