Thursday, November 15, 2007

Yay work

nerd it up

Been doing some cool stuff at work lately. First have been learning how to script Ubuntu installations using Debian Installer preseeds. Pretty awesome stuff, and way better than Fedora. Also have been learning about profiling using OProfile and IBM's Visual Performance Analyzer. Very cool to be able to actually see where programs spend their time.

I just checked out Eclipse for the first time yesterday and I'm pretty impressed. I know a lot of Java people have been using it for years now, but since I really only did C programming in my upper-division CPE classes, I never had a need for much more than a text editor and a makefile. I loaded up the C and Ruby environments, and both seem pretty cool. I have usually avoided IDE's for programming because I always feel like they're getting in my way, but Eclipse seems to be a reasonable balance of useful tools and letting you do your work.

Have been testing out some really cool hardware lately, though can't go into too much detail. Most of the people on my team are software guys, so I'm happy to test out the cool, new hardware. :)

Other than that, just keeping busy playing ogame (3 attempts and still no moon!), reading the tale of 1337 on xkcd and trying not to miss anything major on osnews. Today Jen and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. I brought home roses and we went to Del Taco. Man are we awesome or what?

Current Music: Cake - Love You Madly (stuck in my head)
Link of the Day: If I know you I'm sure you've already seen Kenya . Now see Brazil! Marcos says's that's pretty much how it is there. Forget Norway.

Random Picture:aww
Also awesome: (thanks for the link, Matt)
so awesome

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Saturday, September 16, 2006

I am now a published nerd

woot.

Link of the Day: Bask in the glory of my init script writing skills

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Monday, April 03, 2006

Update on Life

Graduating in June!?

Yeah, holy crap. It's crazy.

I asked Jen how she would describe Boston in two words. She said "Very cold"

Boston was sweet. So much good food. I made my pilgrimage to Nerd Mecca (MIT), and we checked out quite a bit of the city. Also, I experienced Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in it's best form - A laser show!

I have been crowned King of the Nerds

Clark Turner, a Software Engineering professor was sitting behind me in Computer Security today. He noticed I was taking notes in LaTeX and thought that was pretty hardcore.

"I thought I was king of the nerds, but it seems I have to hand my crown over to you."

pwned.

Nothing makes you feel old like your little brother facebooking you.

Bryan is coming to Cal Poly next year, so apparently he somehow got his email account set up already. I check my email only to find that he has facebooked me!

Current Music: Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Purple Stain
Link of the Day: OMG Ponies!!!

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Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Sony Ericsson w600

AKA the beast phone

After a bit of searching, I decided on a new phone. The Sony Ericsson w600. No gadget has been this cool since I got my iPod.

Sweet features:
+ Full Bluetooth support (headset, file transfer, even HID- meaning you can use the phone as a mouse for your computer)
+ 256MB of memory which holds about 50 (full-length, full-sized) mp3's
+ Includes USB cable that you can attach and access as a USB storage device
+ Built in mp3 player with COMFORTABLE in-ear headphones!
+ Headphones double as handsfree device
+ My car has an audio-in jack that allows me to connect a headphone cable to listen to music
+ When someone calls and my car stereo is plugged in, the person's voice comes over the stereo and the mic picks you up
+ Nice, loud speaker on the phone

Few changes that would be nice
- Expandable memory (oh well, I have an iPod...)
- Can't use my phone as a bluetooth modem (I suspect Cingular wanting money has something to do with this)
- Weird default orange color (fortunately it comes with a nice dark blue one, too)


Current Distraction: Scrubs

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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Screw the Cal Poly English Department

and their grading scheme in which everyone seems to get C's

I got my grades back today and somehow I ended up with a C+ in Creative Writing: Poetry (Yes, I know how funny that is that I was in a poetry class, but it was really a lot of work). I put more time into that class than Graphics or Ethnic Studies and I got B's in both of those... WTF? I think it has to do with the English department's stance of "If you meet the requirements for an assignment, you get a C." It seemed like I was one of the better students in the class, maybe that's why I got the "+".

Working every day this week doing some crazy stuff with IncidentMonitor, SQL, and netViz. Very cool stuff. Too bad I can't tell you what.

Current Music: Flaming Lips - One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21

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Saturday, September 10, 2005

Getting all technical

No, not techno.

In light of it being summer, I'm currently going through what some might call "academic withdrawl". I strangely yearn to buy every book at Barnes & Noble and just spend the rest of my life reading about programming languages and web design.

I've been spending some time learning Ruby on Rails, and let me tell you, it is pretty sweet. I now have enough knowledge to put together a working schema and site, which is not too bad for such a short amount of time. Now I just need to learn AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) so that I can make some sweet change-the-page-without-reloading-it actions ala Google maps/mail/personalized and also CSS so that my pages aren't all ghetto black & white where the most exciting style change is when I bold some words.

Ruby, Rails, AJAX, and Penguins

What I'm using as a learning project for Ruby on Rails is something I've been thinking about for a while. Basically it is a database with information about different Linux distributions. My reasoning behind this comes from looking at DistroWatch all the time- seeing a new version of some distro that has come out and wondering "OK, so what makes this one different?"

The idea behind this project is that someone could go through the process of entering a new distro and choosing from categories that it might differ in from other distros (i.e. does it use KDE, Gnome, or something else?). I also want it to be extensible in the respect that if your distro uses "something else", you can enter that item (like, say XFCE) so that other people entering distros can re-use the information you have entered. To make it even more customizable, I want users to be able to add categories, like desktop environment, DHCP client, package management program, installation defaults, etc. Amazingly, I made this idea become a reality in the form of a set of web pages in one day using Ruby on Rails. We're not talking a full day either, this was like 2 hours when I woke up, 2 inthe afternoon, then an hour or so before bed. Like I said, all that's really left now is to make it look nice and to put some AJAX code in it so that if you choose "Other" for an item or click "Next Category" that it adds the necessary form fields to the page immediately. I think down the road I might also want to find a way to make it wiki-like so that if sometime replaces the description for Fedora with "TEH N00B DISTRO", then we can roll it back to when it was something useful. More on my RoR work before long.

Lastly, I leave you with:

CK's favorite OSX apps (so far)

Current Music: Scott Weiland - But Not Tonight
Link of the Day: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby - cartoon foxes teach you about Ruby (eventually)
Quote of the Day:
jewong@chimera:~ $ ls

Segmentation fault.

jewong@chimera:~ $

chimera is our server. ls is what you type to list files in a folder. Segmengation fault means the program is broken. jewong is Jeff, the guy who runs the server. Not shown is Jeff bashing his head against the wall and screaming obscenities (ok, so maybe that didn't happen but it's funny to picture). This is why my blog was down for a bit.

OK, now for the techno.

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Sunday, May 29, 2005

I'm alive!

But I have no life...

The lack of updates to my blog this quarter has been stupifying, I know. There's something about going to work 8am-noon, then school 1pm-5:30pm, then homework 6-10pm that doesn't leave much room for blogging. Here are a few of the things I have been meaning to put up here for a while:

Great quote from one of Marcos and my lab reports:
"In this lab, we learned a great deal about equipment reliability. Our measurements, while generally seemingly correct, were probably slightly erroneous. "

Proof I am with the right woman:
JenJollyJen:
why is internet explorer such a slow peice of shit
K DoubleUp:
haha
K DoubleUp:
i love you
JenJollyJen:
i love you too
JenJollyJen:
but i HATE ie

Life Update: I bought a 12" Powerbook

Conversation of the Day:
Jen:
So what kind of food do you want?
Brynn: Food that makes my vagina not hurt.
Carrie: What about pineapple juice? Oh wait, that's something different.
(note, Brynn had gone on a bike ride to Avila)

Current Music: Coheed & Cambria - Blood Red Summer

Random Pictures:




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Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Bought it.

I could wait no longer.

Since I have a performance review (and hopefully a raise) on friday and it will take 8-12 days to get here, I got my new computer. The specs are on this post.

I'm glad I ended up getting the Power Supply I did, because the one I was going to get, the Ultra X-Connect, although it looks cool, it blew itself up in this test conducted by TrustedReviews.com. Instead I got the almost-as-cool-looking, but rated a 10 in MaximumPC, Antec NeoPower 480. That's right. 480 watts. Booyah.

Link of the Day:The most common ways to kill a PC
Random Picture:

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The day has come

Link of the Year: http://maps.google.com

Holy crap. You can search for all the starbucks from your house to work. (Get directions, then click Local Search). There are too many awesome things to list here. Go there. Now.

Quote of the Day: b1ack penguin: i almost expected to see people walking around when I got to the street level.

Not so Random Picture:

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Monday, February 07, 2005

It's a mouse with frickin' lasers!

In an attempt to curb my want to buy a new PC, I got a new mouse today.

It's a Logitech MX1000. I had about $60 in Best Buy gift certificates and needed something to spend them on. Since I'm going to be buying my new computer online from Monarch, I figured I could get a new mouse and keyboard at Best Buy. Unfortunately, all the keyboards there didn't feel right because they keys were half-height or the F keys were all crappy (Curse you, F-lock!).

Since I haven't put anything up about it, here is the new computer I am gonna get once I decide to bite the bullet and actually get it.
It's a Monarch bare bones system, but for 18 bucks they assemble it and burn it in (test it harshly) for 24 hours before shipping it to me, so that if anything breaks, they can fix it first. I know a lot of the fun is in building it... but to be honest, it would be nice for someone else to take care of making sure stuff works. Either way I get to custom build it, and I was going to order all my parts from them anyway because they're the cheapest I can find.

Current Music: Linkin Park - By Myself
Link of the Day: Ask Karl

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005

BUURRRIIITOOOS

If you don't know what that's from, watch Invader Zim - Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain. You won't be sorry. Or maybe you will. But then I will be sorry for you.

OK, so I'm finally writing and update on my new monitor in WIDESCREEEEEN . The thing is pretty bad ass. 20 inches and it has video inputs on it so I can play gamecube on it (Picture in picture!) Anyway, here are a few random things that have happened lately.

Living two miles away from Jen rules.
I sleep over there like every other night and see her every day. It is so cool. Now I just have to figure out what to do for Valentine's Day. =) Her roommates are really cool, and they always think our cooking smells SOOO good, even when we make Top Ramen.

I installed Ubuntu Linux on my laptop
I finally did something that killed Gentoo dead. I couldn't insmod anything, which is a problem because you can't get on the internet to fix things. The installation time of 20 minutes was definiately better than the 3 days or so it took to get Gentoo up and running- although I am glad I did the Gentoo thing because now I know how it all works. If you are a mad haX0r or a luser, you should definitely try Ubuntu out. It is by far the most awesome distro I have come across. Come on. Try it. You'll like it...

I smoked a whole clove by myself
Now that I figured out how to smoke correctly, I quit.


The girls who work at Supercuts love Napoleon Dynamite
So I'm getting my shaggy hair cut and the girl is having fun because I was just like "Well, it's too long now and I would like it to look good." Apparantely they don't get that often. So I am sitting there and she's chopping away and I feel like I should say something like "Nice weather lately". Fortunately, just before that cliche conversation-starter left my mouth, she asked "Have you seen Napoleon Dynamite?" ... I was like "Heck yes". We talked about some of the funny scenes for a minute then I said "Tina, you fat lard, come get your food" in Napoleon's voice and she busted up laughing. I was worried she was going to accidentally cut my ear off laughing. So then she calls two of the other girls over who apparantely love the movie and was like "Do it again!" I did, they laughed. Yay for me. I am now known as the "Napoleon Dynamite guy" at Supercuts. I guess it's better than being the smelly guy.

Random IM from Karl of the Day:
For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting medical studies.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Drink of the Day: 7&7 - 1.5oz Seagram's 7 Scotch Whiskey, fill glass with 7-up
Current Music: System of a Down - The Metro
Link of the Day: Great review of last week's OC
Random Picture:

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Thursday, January 20, 2005

Most productive day ever.

But now it's 4am and I have work at 8.

Not much time to talk. Very sleepy. Will write a regular update later.

Our Tivo (MythTV) computer broke yesterday, so today I spent from when I got home at 6 until just now getting it reinstalled and reconfigured (which took only about 4 hours) and then got our new all-in-one remote to control it perfectly. This means no more having to use the keyboard to watch TV! I am really tired, but I have that high you get when you get something to work just right (I guess it's a nerd thing, haha).

Current Music: Jet - Cold Hard Bitch (not sure when I heard this today, its in my head)
Link of the Day: Numa Numa - Something about fat dancing nerds is verrry funny.
Random Picture:

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