Jon's Notes
February 27, 2005
Coding:
I seem to be running into mental speedbumps after 200 or so lines of Perl code. Errors seem to appear more often after those 200 lines. I also have a tendency to go back in and make the existing code more complex rather than add length one the script reaches 200 lines.
On the plus side, I'm spending more time writing Perl and SQL than I have in the past. Work is great because it keeps me mentally busy.
My whole AIM social network graphing project has been on hold because of school, but I got a chance to work on it yesterday. I'm rewriting the AIMSniff log parsing segment because it is terribly broken.
School:
Missing classes because your alarm clock is borked is no fun. My traditional alarm clock will now be backed up by cron telling xmms to play Rush songs.
On the plus side, I'm understanding things in one class that the rest of the class seems to have difficulty understanding.
There is this one Unix server at school that I pretend to admin. It is no problem most of the time, but lately we have had some students using it for mischief.
Life:
Being out from under the thumb of school's residential rules is refreshing. Living in an apartment is definitely a step up from living on campus. That said, I cannot wait to become a landowner. It is amazing how many constituency things are established by paying property tax instead of simple residency.
A situation back home that has been in the making for a couple of years has finally boiled over. Using “Karen's” parlance, I knew “Melissa” was headed for trouble, but with “Jake?” (Isn't playing the names changed game fun?)
Invoking Russ's observation (paraphrased,) women are like apples. You have to climb high to reach the good ones, and the bad ones fall to the ground. The effort and determination required to reach the top apples shows responsibility. Jon's corollary to Russ's observation is that some of the top apples get tired of waiting and rot their stems so they fall to the ground. The problem is that you cannot tell that they chose to fall until after they have been on the ground for a while.
Digression on a union of life and work
The media coverage of a local government monopoly debate is amazingly one-sided. The media people assume that what the town government tells them about the availability of a certain utility is accurate.
The town government says that they need a monopoly because no private companies are willing to provide a particular service to their residents. In fact, there are at least two private companies providing the service in question to the town in question. I do not know why the media has not noted the discrepancy.
It gets interesting when you look at the costs being tossed about. The town government implementation would cost nearly $100 per resident for initial deployment. The also plan to charge around $40 per month for service. The private companies already have infrastructure in place and currently charge $26 per month for service.
It is also interesting that the private companies providing service are actually providing service. The government monopoly is currently providing thin air using a technology with a predicted general availability of late this year.
End Digression
I seem to be running into mental speedbumps after 200 or so lines of Perl code. Errors seem to appear more often after those 200 lines. I also have a tendency to go back in and make the existing code more complex rather than add length one the script reaches 200 lines.
On the plus side, I'm spending more time writing Perl and SQL than I have in the past. Work is great because it keeps me mentally busy.
My whole AIM social network graphing project has been on hold because of school, but I got a chance to work on it yesterday. I'm rewriting the AIMSniff log parsing segment because it is terribly broken.
School:
Missing classes because your alarm clock is borked is no fun. My traditional alarm clock will now be backed up by cron telling xmms to play Rush songs.
On the plus side, I'm understanding things in one class that the rest of the class seems to have difficulty understanding.
There is this one Unix server at school that I pretend to admin. It is no problem most of the time, but lately we have had some students using it for mischief.
Life:
Being out from under the thumb of school's residential rules is refreshing. Living in an apartment is definitely a step up from living on campus. That said, I cannot wait to become a landowner. It is amazing how many constituency things are established by paying property tax instead of simple residency.
A situation back home that has been in the making for a couple of years has finally boiled over. Using “Karen's” parlance, I knew “Melissa” was headed for trouble, but with “Jake?” (Isn't playing the names changed game fun?)
Invoking Russ's observation (paraphrased,) women are like apples. You have to climb high to reach the good ones, and the bad ones fall to the ground. The effort and determination required to reach the top apples shows responsibility. Jon's corollary to Russ's observation is that some of the top apples get tired of waiting and rot their stems so they fall to the ground. The problem is that you cannot tell that they chose to fall until after they have been on the ground for a while.
Digression on a union of life and work
The media coverage of a local government monopoly debate is amazingly one-sided. The media people assume that what the town government tells them about the availability of a certain utility is accurate.
The town government says that they need a monopoly because no private companies are willing to provide a particular service to their residents. In fact, there are at least two private companies providing the service in question to the town in question. I do not know why the media has not noted the discrepancy.
It gets interesting when you look at the costs being tossed about. The town government implementation would cost nearly $100 per resident for initial deployment. The also plan to charge around $40 per month for service. The private companies already have infrastructure in place and currently charge $26 per month for service.
It is also interesting that the private companies providing service are actually providing service. The government monopoly is currently providing thin air using a technology with a predicted general availability of late this year.
End Digression
February 22, 2005
Air Travel
I seem to be one of the few people my age who has never ridden an air place. That experience has been missed not for lack of interest. It just never worked out. Now it may never work out. At least, not via an airline.
I will not fly into or out of a commercial airport in the United States until the practice of treating citizens as subjects has ceased. Should I need to fly internationally, I will drive or take a bus to the nearest Canadian airport and leave from there.
As for those who say that safety is better than freedom, that can be your choice (As for me and my house, &etc.) It is not your choice to remove freedom from the rest of us in the name of your safety. Your reaction from cowardice at the death of thousands erodes the work of ten thousand who went before.
Politicians have attempted to pass laws similar to the infamous act on prior occasions. Attempts to pass those laws failed with good reason.
I will not fly into or out of a commercial airport in the United States until the practice of treating citizens as subjects has ceased. Should I need to fly internationally, I will drive or take a bus to the nearest Canadian airport and leave from there.
As for those who say that safety is better than freedom, that can be your choice (As for me and my house, &etc.) It is not your choice to remove freedom from the rest of us in the name of your safety. Your reaction from cowardice at the death of thousands erodes the work of ten thousand who went before.
Politicians have attempted to pass laws similar to the infamous act on prior occasions. Attempts to pass those laws failed with good reason.
February 18, 2005
Sad but true:
“I will speculate that today's single-threaded applications as actually used in the field could see a performance boost for most users by going to a dual-core chip, not because the extra core is actually doing anything useful, but because it is running the adware and spyware that infests many users' systems”-Herb Sutter in the March 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal.
February 07, 2005
February 06, 2005
Upside Down
There have always been two facets to this place. One is to keep friends, family, and other interested parties informed on my life in general. The other facet is to be a outlet for my thoughts on more serious things such as school, systems, and the world.
Anyway, here is what has happened since I last wrote.
I did not have enough money to pay for another semester at CUW, thieving pirates…
As soon as I realized this, I started looking for a job.
A most encouraging professor asked me to work on building a K12LTSP system during this time. This project culminated in attending a school board meeting in the town where I used to live. The owner of a local ISP was at the meeting. Somehow this lead to a interview and form there, a job.
Starting a full-time job, along with a lack of funds, necessitated attending school only part-time. CUW does not let part-time students live in resident housing (unless they are working full time for Residence Life.) A friend had space available and is tolerating my presence for a low dollar amount per month.
I am currently taking two courses at CUW. Both are in the Computer Science department. One of a handful departments not overrun with the trappings of liberalism…
My education plan for the foreseeable future is to minimize my exposure to the traditional education system while completing the courses for my major. Fun courses like Software Engineering. Hopefully I can convince Concordia's Registrar office to accept CLEP and other such credit for examination programs in place of the irrelevant required courses.
What is up with most places not distinguishing between adult education (for people past the age of easy learning) and distance learning?
Anyway, back to news about my job.
Working for a small and growing company is exciting. It is very different from CUW. Concordia University Wisconsin acts like a Fortune 500 company where bureaucracy and politics are concerned.
The place where I am working employs quite a few college students. They are not treated as anything other than what they are—employees.
Concordia is quite different. They hire students to work in areas as diverse as maintenance, the library, information technology, and a call center. These students provide the backbone in all of the Concordia departments that actually do something, yet campus policy requires departments to pay students nearly minimum wage, with pay increases officially based on years on campus, not skill. This is topped by a attitude among some staffers that these students are something less than coworkers.
Anyway, here is what has happened since I last wrote.
I did not have enough money to pay for another semester at CUW, thieving pirates…
As soon as I realized this, I started looking for a job.
A most encouraging professor asked me to work on building a K12LTSP system during this time. This project culminated in attending a school board meeting in the town where I used to live. The owner of a local ISP was at the meeting. Somehow this lead to a interview and form there, a job.
Starting a full-time job, along with a lack of funds, necessitated attending school only part-time. CUW does not let part-time students live in resident housing (unless they are working full time for Residence Life.) A friend had space available and is tolerating my presence for a low dollar amount per month.
I am currently taking two courses at CUW. Both are in the Computer Science department. One of a handful departments not overrun with the trappings of liberalism…
My education plan for the foreseeable future is to minimize my exposure to the traditional education system while completing the courses for my major. Fun courses like Software Engineering. Hopefully I can convince Concordia's Registrar office to accept CLEP and other such credit for examination programs in place of the irrelevant required courses.
What is up with most places not distinguishing between adult education (for people past the age of easy learning) and distance learning?
Anyway, back to news about my job.
Working for a small and growing company is exciting. It is very different from CUW. Concordia University Wisconsin acts like a Fortune 500 company where bureaucracy and politics are concerned.
The place where I am working employs quite a few college students. They are not treated as anything other than what they are—employees.
Concordia is quite different. They hire students to work in areas as diverse as maintenance, the library, information technology, and a call center. These students provide the backbone in all of the Concordia departments that actually do something, yet campus policy requires departments to pay students nearly minimum wage, with pay increases officially based on years on campus, not skill. This is topped by a attitude among some staffers that these students are something less than coworkers.