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<blog>
<entry>
<date>2002-10-05</date>
<text>
The trouble with starting a journal is beginning.  Humans are such dynamic blends of the past, present, and future, to capture a moment, an expression, an emotion, a motive, is the most difficult task in life.  Perhaps this is why art has been so cherished through out history.  Blogs on the other hand are not typically cherished (as far as my understanding goes).  At least not by the writer.  You put something down on a completely temporary medium, hoping that someone will stroll by and appreciate it for a brief moment, never knowing whether or not they even like what they read; it is inconsequential, that is why I have chosen to start a blog rather than a traditional journal. 
<p align="center"><img src="/images/me.gif"/></p>
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</entry>
<entry>
<date>2002-10-09</date>
<text>
As soon as all of my siblings had left home, my <a href="/images/austin_mom_and_dad.jpg">Mom and Dad</a> regressed 20 years in terms of maturity.  They are at the point now where it is often annoying to be around them.  Thankfully they don't act this way all of the time.
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-10</date>
<text>
It seems that the only economic encouragement these days are the low interest rates that one can find.  Yesterday, I received the only good news I've had all week:  I got a new interest rate of 7.5% *big smile* <br/><br/>  I typically not the kind of guy to complain a lot, but I have noticed lately that I have become a whiner. I'm not sure when that happened, but I intend to stamp this behavior out -- pronto.  <br/><br/> 
Music for the day:  <i>Hard Candy</i> Counting Crows 
<br/><br/>
Plans for tonight:  Cup of Joe, a caffeine crazed typing fit while trying to finish off my <a href='http://www.sans.org'>SANS</a> paper. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-15</date>
<text>
Last weekend was extremely good to me. I'm not sure that I want to comment about it here.  I am quite a private person, generally speaking, I don't share my personal life with very many people.  If you know me, and I share my personal life with you -- feel very fortunate.
<br/><br/>
Music for the day:  <i>Yoga Rhythms</i> Soul Food 
<br/><br/>Plan for the night: Once more, I will be working on my <a href="http://www.sans.org">SANS</a> paper.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-19</date>
<text>
My Sister got married tonight.  It was a beautiful ceremony, and served as a fantastic reminder of how empty my life is.  I have a girl friend (for the first time in over a year), but I don't feel like it is anything serious.  Besides, she is Russian, and perpetually reminds me that she <i>must</i> drink profusely and smoke whenever her Russian friends are around, because this is what Russians do when they get together.  Her friends are around much too frequently.  I didn't want to go out with them tonight, so we said our good-byes and I came home to relax and reflect on the day.  I hate this feeling I have right now.  This lonely feeling.  This feeling that no matter where I look in the world, that I cannot find someone who is right for me.  Maryna is a good woman, overall.  She is kind, elegant, and beautiful, but those good qualities are never enough to blind me to the drinking and the smoking.  I think she doesn't want to change, and I think to myself: "who am I to ask her to change?"  I knew she was like this when I started seeing her.  Ultimately, I don't want the mother of my children to drink and smoke.  I would like a woman who has taken care of her body, and will continue to do so -- even as I have taken care of my body.  But still, it is painful to be alone.  I have been alone too often in my 24 years of life, I find I can no longer bare the burden of this pain.  So I sit here reflecting on life and relationships alone, while my girlfriend spends the night getting drunk with her friends.  <br/><br/> Suddenly my bout of insomnia returns.
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-20</date>
<text>
I woke up at 11am this morning and laid in bed until 2:30pm.  I was wishing that Maryna was here, and at the same time thinking about all of the disappointment she put me through last night. After my sister's wedding, she wanted to stop by a birthday party.  I obliged, we didn't stay long -- then she tells me that she has to go back, because she had promised Anya that she would hang out.  I felt like such an unwanted piece of trash. She called three times this morning, I answered on the fourth.
<br/><br/>
Okay, so she apologized and made up for ditching me last night. I am very moody and sensitive sometimes, I'm not sure how that happened. In the future I may try to explain this to her.  For now, all is well.
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-24</date>
<text>
Nothing profound or thought provoking tonight -- like there ever is.  My friend Anthony was telling me about how I should "open up" and share my feelings with Maryna, because if I don't she will drift away.  So here is to you Maryna.  I like you.  I enjoy spending time with you.  I am not looking to settle down right now, so if that is your plan, you should re-think it.
<br/><br/>
Music for the night:  Inti Illimani <i>Lejania</i>
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-25</date>
<text>
I spent the entire night trouble shooting a problem that I created at work.  I think I could get fired over this one.  I'm just not a hardware guy, no matter how you dice it - I'm not cut out for industry.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-26</date>
<text>
I spent a lot of time with Maryna yesterday.  She is always an encouragement to me.  I feel much better about my failures.  She really is wonderful.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-28</date>
<text>
Minor and I ran today.  This is our routine thing to do on Mondays.  Today it was raining, cold, and dark.  Perfect.  We took off at a must faster pace than normal.  Being that I got a <i>workout</i> last night, Minor kicked my butt.  He has really improved since we first started running at the beginning of the summer.  The student has become the teacher.  On hellish nights like tonight, the winner is the one with the most desire; Minor definitely had the desire tonight.
<br/><br/>
Plans for the night:  Web page layout.
<br/><br/>
Music for the night:  Musicforhackers internet radio.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-10-29</date>
<text>
I have never been so scared in my entire life.  I have become very accustomed to having spare change in my pocket, broad band internet access, cell phones, and new cars.  I would say that I have done very well for a new college graduate.  I made a fatal mistake, taking this job, and depending on my new income too much.  It wasn't really by choice.  My old beater, affectionately referred to as the beast, a '75 Pontiac LeManns died last fall while I was still an intern here.  I only had a week to find something else reliable.  I chose to go with a new car.  I love it.  I don't have to worry about it over-heating and spewing anti-freeze everywhere -- in the middle of the winter no less.  I don't face the down-nosed-glances I got while driving my old car.  My Camry gets respect, and I like that, almost more than anything.  When my land lord told me that my building had been condemned, giving us 30 days to find a new place, I took it fairly well considering it was right in the middle of finals week of my last semester in college.  However, it also doubled the amount I was paying for rent;  I got a little more space, but still these things start to add up.  When Southwestern Bell couldn't seem to transfer my telephone correctly, I went without.  Until, a guy at work complained he couldn't reach me, despite carrying their fucking pager with me 24/7.  So I got a cell phone.  It is nice too, and I like being available to my friends and family anywhere any time.  This, like everything in life, comes with a price tag.  <i>They</i> call this symptom <b><i>The Golden Handcuffs</i></b>.  Once you put them on, there is no escape. 
<br/><br/>
Now I am faced with the fact that I may loose all of these privileges, and I am truly scared.  Scared my girl friend will dump me.  Scared I will have to sell my car and cell, cut off my internet connection, and go back to doing data entry work.  It is not like I can find another job like the one I have now, not with the current economy.  It is always 20/20 hindsite.  I wanted to go to Graduate school, but I didn't have the money, or the applications in on time, and so I took a job in a field that is only marginally related to my own:  Information Technology Consulting.  I am in the Networking group, and this is a farce.  I am a programmer by trade.  I am also very handy with Computer Science theory, when it comes to networking I am a clutz.  I have known this fact for some time, because my father is a networker.  You would think that if I didn't pick it up from him, it wasn't going to happen.  Fortunately, until now I have been the security guy's backup.  There was a shift in organization, the primary security guy is now my boss, and I have become the "primary security guru".  I do okay with most of the task that are given me.  Aside from one major Fubar last week, my record has been spotless on the security side of things.  I get the assigned task done, and I get them done in a timely fashion.  Albeit, not always as elegantly as a <i>true</i> professional -- I am a yearling after all.  Now the situation seems to be changing.  Something in the mix, someone up stairs, seems to think that I'm not earning my keep; despite having more project hours than anyone else (which means more money for the company) -- granted those are all programming projects that no one else has the time/skills to complete, and they don't really fall under the guise of the group I'm in.  Now they are pushing me into a role I am unsuited for, and altogether untrained for.  I mean really, these fuckers are the kind that only help their cock sucking buddies, they have scarcely taken the time to teach me the skills I need to do the <i>real</i> networking side of my job. They are pushing me into the consulting side of the business.  Saying that I am now responsible for spec'ing out equipment, and visiting customers on sales calls.  What the fuck?  When I started here, I was in a network monitoring/security role; my title is "Network Security Analyst", how does that translate into "Network Engineer".  They have a damn good engineer that is the so-called junior engineer, whom they pay peanuts. Meanwhile, the Senior Engineer sits on his ass making 3 times as much money.  It isn't right.  Now they are pushing me into this engineering crap too?  Why isn't the Senior Engineer the one doing the specs for this stuff?  They hardly let me get on a router or a switch (not that I really wanted to mind you) while I was an intern, now they want me to spec this stuff out for our customers.  I can't handle being: the resident programmer, the network monitoring guy, the off-site consultant, and the firewall administrator.  Jack of All Trades, Master of None:  it just isn't going to work.
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</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-11-12</date>
<text>
It has been a while.  Hmmm. Let's see, I would have updated sooner, however, I have been rebuilding my computer with Mac OS X.2.  The upgrade broke things.  Needless to say I had to take the long way.  Backup data files I wanted to keep, scrape the drive, and install a fresh copy of OS X.2.  It worked like a charm.
<br/><br/>
At work:  I am working on a security audit.  It is going well so far.  I think that this is the most fun that I can have <i>working for the man</i>.  Every audit represents an opportunity to expand my hacking skills (legally).
<br/><br/>
Personal Note:  Subtleties are lost on me.
<br/><br/>
Music for the night:  Anything David Gray
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-12-06</date>
<text>
Work has been keeping me sooo busy lately.  I am writing this on the road from Alabama.  <i>Stars Fell On</i>.
<br/><br/>
It has been rainy and cold here, and I miss my friends and family back home *cough* Maryna *cough*.
<br/><br/>
I registered for the GRE today.  I plan on taking it on December 21st.  Things are starting to move finally.  Maybe in the near future, I will get some reference letters together and then I will really be prepared to apply to some graduate schools.  Now I just need to hammer down what exactly I want to do.  There have been some ideas, nothing solid; plus that is a big decision.
<br/><br/>
I finally put up a temporary splash page for my website, no more "under construction".  The page that is up is really lame, but perhaps it will inspire me to do something better.
<br/><br/>
I definitely need to finish the layouts and build up the content.
<br/><br/>
I feel like I am pulling my life back together after my move in June.  It has been several months now, and things have been in disarray ever since then.  I have alienated my friends, family, and myself (if that is possible).  In other news, today I realized that I don't like my apartment.  In fact, I would say, I dislike it very much.  When June rolls around I need to find a different place!
<br/><br/>
Today, I also worked up a CV.  It is not polished yet, but it is a good start.  Being out of town was just what I needed.  What a productive day!!  
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2002-12-22</date>
<text>
I took the GRE yesterday, after studying all week for the vocabulary section.  The test was quite challenging for me.  My target composite score was 1200, I came up a little bit shy, reaching only 1150.  Generally I think the Analytical section would have been my best one, however as you may know, it was retired in October.  Sooo... I had to do the Analytical Writing section instead.  I haven't written something so good, in such a short amount of time (30-45 minutes), in a while.  So I'm hoping for a really good score on that.  It has been my experience that this will not be the case.  It will come back with, at best, a slightly above average score, but in general _nothing_special_.  This isn't raw pessimism.  This attitude is simply realistic.  Over the course of my existence, I have become (often) painfully aware that I do not fit _THE_MOLD_.  I think I more than make up for it with hard work, alacrity, creativity, insight, and fresh perspective.  The question is:  are these qualities going to prove useful in the course of my career??  Whether it be in academia (as I have always hoped) or in the Maya of the corporate world.
<br/><br/>
Music for the Night: Everything Claude Debussy (Classical)
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-01-02</date>
<text>
Happy New Year!  I look forward to February and Chinese New Year for fliped reasons that I won't discuss here.
<br/><br/>
Work.  What is it?  and why do we have to?  I have to say it:  the American system is messed up -- it is paid slave labor.  I thoroughly respect anyone who has escaped this madness.  The worst part is the grind, there is no _life_ in it, no soul.  I will go mad if I am forced to continue life this way.  Mad or dead to the world.  Until that day -- I live weekend to weekend. *smirk*
<br/><br/>
Music for the Evening:  Deep Forest III, Deep Forest.
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-01-14</date>
<text>
The treatise for the night:  "what good are policies if no one follows them?" and "How childish can grown-ups be?".  I have never seen a bigger circus at work, and the worst part is that I am in the middle of it.  There are a couple of people that have access to the firewall.  While this appears to be a good idea, it is not.  Why? The human factor.  When there are two paths to obtaining a goal, a manipulative human will always choose the path of least resistance.  In this case I have a user (who happens to be a manager of another group) who was requesting elevated privileges as a VPN user.  He didn't ask me to do it, why?  I would have turned him down.  Instead, he went to one of the less surly firewall administrators and asked for the favor.  Those of you in the security field know, there are no such things as favors.  I (fortunately) happened to be logged into the firewall console (one at a time thank you very much) when the other administrator tried to complete the _favor_.  Naturally she sent me an email asking if I would log out so that she could get in.  She also attached the original email to her request for me.  So I found the information she needed and sent it to her.  She then replied, asking if I would add The Manager to X_VPN_GROUP that has higher privileges.  I replied to her explaining that in the event that a user's privileges are being elevated, I would need the request to be authorized according to the policy in place at the institution.  This apparently didn't go over well with _The_Manager_ because he emailed my manager my response to the request -- getting a bit of a chuckle I might add -- as if I hadn't done my job right.  All was fine and good, until _THE_MANAGER_ had me booted from the firewall console.  That was abruptly at five o'clock, I decided to deal with the new twist tomorrow.  Things could get ugly from here.  Especially since the deadline for the firewall migration I'm working on is rushing forward, and I no longer have access to the current firewall. <br/><br/> As I look around, I don't think I have ever seen so many people trapped in Maya in one place at one time.  It is absolutely amazing.  Monkeys, zombies, and little minded people getting off on the crack of small-town-politics all in one _small_ corporate environment in the middle of no-where Oklahoma, USA.
<br/><br/>
Plans for the Evening:  Work on my current academic paper so I get the fcUk out of the plains, the people here are freaking retards like this. 
<br/><br/>
Music for the Evening:  A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-01-15</date>
<text>
Man am I paranoid.  Turns out, my _big_beef_ yesterday was purely coincidence.  When I got kicked out of the server, it wasn't because _The_Manager_ had booted me from the system.  There was a hardware failure on the box, and the server had shutdown.  Chalk another one up to over reaction and paranoia.
<br/><br/>
I am getting worked to death, it is no surprise that my coworkers have become the objects of my delusional paranoia. I need a nice long vacation.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-01-21</date>
<text>
The longer I hang around this job, the more I realize how out of place I am.  The guys are great (in general), and I totally respect each of them for different reasons.  I feel as though I am somewhat of a laughing stock for some reason.  This is not a good feeling.  It is a damaging feeling, and I know that I cannot continually submit myself to that kind of emotional lambast.  Further, I think I intimidate those around me because I won't conform to their peer pressure.  I'm not immune to peer pressure, I simply don't regard them as my peers.  They aren't my peers, not because they aren't smart enough to be, but because our interest are light-years apart.  I go home and review academic papers for publication, they go home and watch sports (drink in hand).
<br/><br/>
Plans for the night:  Work on my last paper.
<br/><br/>
Music for the night:  Groove Salad streaming radio.
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-02-09</date>
<text>
I have been a busy bee lately, applying for graduate schools, writing personal statements, and polishing off my CV.  Not to mention projects that won't die at work, and my own personal research interest on the side ( which, by the way, I am developing a paper for, as well as a presentation).
<br/><br/>  
All of this while juggling a relationship. Not bad eghh?
<br/><br/>
In the meantime, I am still stuck at the job I have come to love and hate.  I love the money, I hate the job.  At this point, no amount of money is going to help keep me here.  It is not for me, but getting out is next to impossible. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-02-14</date>
<text>
I am not living.  In need to break out and have an adventure before I am to old to enjoy it.  I have been reading my best friend's blog...he is having adventures.  God, to be free from the pressures of society, to be able to think, plan, and do good science, what a pleasure that would be.
<br/><br/>
It is coming for me.  I am striving for this.  Nothing is going to stop me.
</text>
</entry>  

<entry>
<date>2003-02-21</date>
<text>
It is amazing how quickly I can go from a high to a low.  Today, I over slept, and decided not to go in to work.  I worked the outage last night, and I have put well over 40 hours in, but this won't excuse my absence.  <br/><br/>
So I have spent this crisp early afternoon reflecting on life; all together not a good thing.  I was my happiest as a child.  No responsibility, no money, no pressure.  The sum of my days spent enjoying God's creations in nature; to understand the deepness of the clear blue skies, to find dandelions and appreciate their beauty, to watch birds flocking from tree to tree, to wonder wide eyed.  It has been difficult for me to adjust in the adult world.  I guess I am still a child in my heart.  Maryna sometimes says that I have a "simple goodness" about me.  This is why:  I don't care about race, religion, politics, money, work....and I never really have.  Oh sure, there were times when I struggled to fit into to the image of what I was "supposed" to be, but those days were spurious and scarce. <br/><br/>
I sit here thinking  <i>now what?</i>  I obviously can't be successful under the circumstances I have found myself.  Yet the pressure of these circumstances is preventing me from moving beyond them.  For example I have been applying to Graduate Schools for a while now, however, it is more than a struggle to get every thing together in time for the deadlines, the application fees, the letters of reference, and other <i>adult</i> necessities.  <br/><br/>
There is a man that works in Dr. Paprzycki's lab -- he is responsible for my black mood today.  He knows exactly <i>shit</i> about computer science, and yet he has three scholarships, and his "research" is fully funded by the government.  I put <i>research</i> in quotes, because he doesn't have any research.  Yesterday he was learning how to install linux.  Fuck, we should be supporting about a million 14 year old high schoolers if installing linux is worthy of NSF funding.  The sick thing is he was working on a machine that had a perfectly beautiful installation of SUSE 8.1 on it.  I mean this was a sweet linux box.  I offered the root password to him, but he thought it would be better if he reinstalled using Redhat 8.0.  I sit here thinking "What the fuck?"   Of course Redhat is the first linux that most everyone learns, but to bastardize such a work of art must be a crime.  <br/><br/>
I think my failure is in life is due mostly to two things.  One, my parents never pushed me. Two, I have always been good at everything I do.  Now you must be thinking <i>How is this a problem?</i>  My parents were fabulous parents, and I am certainly not blaming them for my problems.  My childhood was great, but when I needed guidance the most there was none.  This isn't exactly their fault, I wasn't exactly running up to them seeking guidance.  I was quite the arrogant little teenage bastard, full of pride, and so sarcastic that it would be difficult to have a conversion with me.  As for being good at everything, most people would think that it was a blessing, but it isn't exactly.  You see, I have problems focusing.  I was so widely spread during my adolescence that I never really developed a passion for anything in particular.  The things that I did love doing were eventually taken away from me due to circumstances beyond my control at the time.  I enjoy life and everything in life.  Now, I have a <i>good</i> job.  I have a <i>nice</i> car.  I have a great girlfriend.  I have it <i>all</i>.  And yet I struggle with the simplest things in life.  Meaning, happiness, direction. <br/><br/>
I can't finish anything I do.  When I start something new, I am filled with joy and fiery passion, blazing toward some grandiose goal.  Then circumstances interrupt this flow, and I just loose all desire to ANYTHING.  I just feel so hopeless and desperate.  It seems as reasonable to just cease than to continue with the struggle.  I think that I am out of energy, that I am burned out again.  I think I have been burned out with playing by everyone's ridiculous rules since high school, it must have been my youthful exuberance that carried me through.  Now that exuberance has faded. 
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-02-23</date>
<text>
Today, I woke to find Tulsa covered in a blanket of snow.  It was one of those fantastic events - totally unexpected. Typically I would have rejoiced at the site of a blazing white blanket frosting the ground, but today I was to leave for Seattle, Washington for a Hacking conference.  I was afraid that I wouldn't make my flight, or that it would be cancelled.  No worries, United got me there!! <br/><br/>
The first thing I saw as we banked over the city for our landing, was the Space needle.  I smiled in spite of myself.  The landmark is about a mile north of where I'm staying, so I'm not sure I will make it that way given the conference is a mile in the other direction.  In any case I am totally stoked. <br/><br/>
Maryna, the note was incredibly sweet, thank you.  I love you. Happy birthday (tomorrow). <br/><br/>
It feels good to be out of Tulsa.  Last year, when I stayed in Portland, I felt revived.  The cities of the Northwest have a swanky groove.  Probably the killer coffee, which I will be cherishing tomorrow while walking to the Sheraton Hotel. <br/><br/>
On the flight to Denver I contemplated an ideal that I have pondered before.  Since others are already hammering out the Grid, I have decided to focus on other (more abstract) areas.  When I was growing up imagining being a scientist, I never foresaw the shameful truth of how much a sham science really is.  Consider this:  papers are the money of science and all scientist have been forced into paper-whoredom.  Publish or perish they say.  One day I will forge ahead as an unreasonable man.
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-02-25</date>
<text>
The training part of the conference was fantastic.  I really enjoyed learning about hacking web applications.  I know that this training will make me more security aware while coding web applications -- but then, that's not my job, is it? <br/><br/>
At the end of today (the second day of training), there was a hacking ladder.  There were ten levels, and the first one to the top won a prize.  I made it to the second wrung.  I am not cut out for hacking, I guess.  I don't think fast enough.  It isn't that I'm not smart or can't comprehend what they are doing, I just approach things too differently.  I am a triangle in a round-peg world.  Today, I actually thought I might try to pursue another field altogether since I can't seem to get things together for grad school either.  I contemplated the alternatives.  It is a short list.  <br/><br/>
Ultimately, I feel that my struggles are environmentally based.  I can't concentrate on one thing long enough to see it through -- my greatest weakness.  I simply get frustrated, or board, or distracted.  I can't function within the realm of the world I live in.  I used to be able to handle things.  The last time I felt I had the touch was in high school.  It is like my brain chemistry changed and left me inept like a stroke victim.  I don't know where to go from here.  I don't know how to rest my mind and refocus my life so that I can be successful at <i>something</i> - <i>anything</i>.<br/><br/>
I'm just tired of being mediocre, but I can't ever get past it. I have said it before, and I will say it again here:  I am afraid to succeed.  I have never been able to handle pressure, and by tracing my self history backwards through time, I realize that I have been this way since I was born.  I believe it is a permanent character flaw; what does one do with one's self when you discover a flaw so deeply ingrained in your genes?  I have pondered this question and elected to work around it.  I need to put myself into a situation where I don't feel pressured.  Where I feel that I have latitude to be myself, to express myself, to live life like myself.  I may take some doing to find this environment.  I may even have to create it myself.  I.E.  Work for myself -- this presents its own caveats. 
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</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-02-26</date>
<text>
There are so many things to say, and no time or space to express them fully.  There are so many things that I wish to learn, yet there is not enough time or money to learn them all.  So I have elected to seek after the subjects which ignite a passion in my being. --<i>Dulce Viva</i><br/><br/>
Today it is cold and cloudy in Seattle.  It hasn't rained since I arrived on Sunday night, it is Wednesday now, I understand this is quite unusual for Seattle this time of year.  I am enjoying the weather, the scenery, and the break from my daily routine.  Today, I left my lunch ticket at the hotel, and so I had to find someplace outside of the conference to eat.  I stopped at a tiny pizzeria around the corner.  The pizza wasn't great, but it was good to flush out the bitter-coffee nausea engulfing my stomach this morning. <br/><br/>
Last night, I stayed up working on two things.  One, this blog.  I finally have a scheme that is publishable (on a temporary basis - as is everything on my web site).  You're looking at the fruit of my labour now.  The Second thing was purely theoretical.  Consequently I do my best thinking while drifting between sleep and wake.  It was a restless night, so I made quite a bit of progress on this idea; time vector analysis of the SHA hashing algorithm.  While dreaming of a framework to implement this, I delved into a more general arena of distributed pattern recognition, event correlation, dependancy extraction from seemingly random data etc.  What is this??  This arena involves: finding relationships, dependent variables, and patterns in otherwise random data sets.  For example a SHA hash.  Can a relationship between the input and the output be determined.  If so, this opens the door to a wide range of attacks on the use of one way hash algorithms.  The idea between one way hashes is quite simple:  to produce output as unique as possible for a given input, and to use an unstable algorithm.  By unstable, I mean:  for small changes in the input, we get large changes in the output.  This adds to the security of the algorithm.  I would like to setup a distributed system, in which a database of each clear text to hash output is stored.  In doing so, we would have a good base for data mining relationships with.  This approach isn't meant to crack large blocks of data, instead shorter passages, such as passwords or session tokens.<br/><br/>
So, how can we find patterns/relationships in this kind of unstable data?  Break it into pieces.  Allow these pieces to represent vectors in a dimensional space (the dimension depends on the number of pieces that are used -- 3 or 4 would be handy).  Now you can use some spatial analysis to look for dependancies within the data.  If you were to draw a time-spatial diagram of the data, you should be able to see which input vectors affect the behavior of the output vectors.  
<p/>
<hr/>
Wow, the afternoon session at <a href="http://www.blackhat.com">Black Hat</a> where incredible.  I attended: <br/><br/><bl><li><b>Payload Anatomy</b> by Riley Hassell</li><li><b>Vivisection of an Exploit</b> by Dave Aitel</li><li><b>Applied Black OP Networking</b> by Dan Kaminsky</li><li><b>Securing Your Network Part 2</b> by Erik Birkholtz and Eric Schultze</li></bl> <br/><br/> Absolutely incredible information.  I could use another week of this kind of lecturing.  Throw in some labs and I might actually become a legitimate hacker.  I definitely learned some new tricks from the last session.  I had no idea you could use NTLM hashes to authenticate a user -- but it makes since.  I also understand what "The Egg" in regards to exploit coding, thanks to Dave Aitel.  Who by the way has a very nice product called Canvas for $995.  Dan Kaminsky mostly discussed Scanrand, and some things that you could use it for.  Very nice, it scanned 65,535 LAN addresses on port 80 in 4 seconds.  I am considering integrating this into Nessus, if no one has already done it.  I could really use a scanner like this to cover more ground more quickly.  Once you get some host to answer up, then you can go back with nmap or queso and finger print the host.
<br/><br/>
Another super cool thing Dan showed us was this nice QT program called Phentropy using OpenQVIS.  All you have to do is pass it a three dimensional matrix values, and it plots them in three dimensions.  When I saw this, my jaw dropped.  It is incredible for rendering MRI information on a PC -- and it is free.  However, the thing that really got me going was that it fits right into the stuff I was thinking about this morning!!  With doing a time-spatial analysis of SHA and MD5 hashes.  If there are any relationships between the inputs and the outputs, I should be able to construct a suitable way to demonstrate this.
<br/><br/>
PS, I am so strung out on coffee.  I have to stop drinking it now.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-02-27</date>
<text>
No thoughts as I walked to the conference this morning.  Today I have some very interesting sessions.  Stealing with BGP and Securing Wireless Networks should be the most applicable.
<br/><br/>
Last night I did some more work on my blog's layout.  I think I am getting really close to having bv.pl done.  This is a perl script that reads an XML blog, and creates my blog site in html automatically.  The next step will be automating the upload to my web host; this automation would be so much easier if I was hosting my own server, but then there are other perils in that.
<p/>
<hr/>
Tonight I went on a walk about in downtown.  I was hungry and wanted pasta, there were no suitable restaurants for a single to be served.  I was really impressed with the restaurants in downtown Seattle.  They are all dimly lit.  So dark, I could hardly tell that they were open at all.  More like lounges than restaurants.  They were all trendy (and pricey I'm sure).  On my way back to the hotel, a derlick asked if I had any spare change.  I have been in a really generous mood here, obliging any one who asked for alms.  I had left my change at home, since he was curteous and sober I gave him eleven dollars.  
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-02-28</date>
<text>
It is Friday, my plane for Tulsa leaves in two hours. to avoid a rush I arrived at the airport an hour ago, sat and had lunch, and now I wait.  The object of my affection (creative affection) lately has been this blog.  It has progressed a lot in the last four days - not that anyone reading it will ever know because I refused to post it as straight XML (as it has been since last October).  Now it has skin, it is navigable, it is almost presentable.  There are a few more touches that I will add.  Possibly a navigation column on the left side.  The one feature, I have been drooling over since I thought of it is <i>auto-linking</i> with other blogs.  What will this do?  Just that.  I will tell my program &lt;auto-link&gt;www.katzchen.net&lt;/auto-link&gt;  and it will send a spider to the requested domain, down load the blog contained there, and attempt to match up Minor's journal entries with my own.  In this way, a reader will easily be able to get a multi-dimensional view of the world at one particular instance in time.  Cool?  I think so. <br/><br/>
In other news, Seattle is back to its normal winter conditions:  over cast with drizzle throughout the day.  I am glad to be leaving, however, Tulsa has had record amounts of snow:  10" for February.  I am not looking forward to that. <br/><br/>
I talked to Maryna last night, it sounds like she missed me, and that she was bored.  I am looking forward to seeing her at the airport.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>date=2003-03-02</date>
<text>
I feel upset to be back in Tulsa.  I feel like life is wasted here.  I can't explain it; I think it is related to the pressure that I feel here.  I have not been good at dealing with pressure as far back as I can remember.  I need to make some things happen instead of continually talking about them.  This week is going to be hell at work - catching up.  After that, I am turning over a new leaf.  I am going to become fiscally responsible <i>again</i>, I am going to work out <i>every day</i>, I am going to produce some <i>quality work</i>.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-03</date>
<text>
It is 5:24am, I haven't slept all night.  So I made some updates on the blog formatting tool.  It now supports XML-ISO date formats in a &lt;date&gt; tag contained within the &lt;entry&gt; tags. This also fixed the string sorting problem. 
<br/><br/>
I wasn't tired at all until 10 minutes ago.  Now I am going to need a lot of coffee to make it through the day.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-04</date>
<text>
It has come to my attention that some readers of this journal have become fearful of my disposition on life, seeing me as crying out like a trapped animal.  My journal entries, admittedly, have a dark tone, but it should be clear that such is case when I feel the need for expression.  When I am over flowing with joy, wonder, amazement, life, passion, and liberty, I am too busy living, enjoying, and revealing in the world around me to make entries at all.  So naturally, one would suspect that my balance was obtusely scewed.  This is not the case.  I am well developed emotionally, exhibiting all ranges of emotion:  love, anger, pain, joy, sorrow, humor, and so on.  Unfortunately, it is in the darkest hour of despair that my need to express myself drives me into the depths of raw emotion, birthing a shadowy blog entry. I will make every effort, in the future, to make cheerful expressions as well.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-06</date>
<text>
I have seen great things this week.  I gave a <a href='http://presentations/osu_grad_symp2003/'>presentation</a> at the 14th annual Oklahoma State University Graduate Research Symposium.  It was fun and tremendously exciting - mostly because I feel that it went well.  I would like to thank Dr. Marcin Paprzycki for graciously lending me his Stillwater office for the night so I wouldn't have to drive to Stillwater in the morning.
<br/><br/>
At work, I finally made some progress on the firewall upgrade that has been plaguing me for months.  The last time I made it this far, I hit a licensing road block, contacted technical support where they promptly "baked" my management console.  After rebuilding, I solved the licensing issue myself.  Actually this time, things went smoothly - mostly.  After a test during tonight's outage I will know if it is really working or not.
<br/><br/>
I would also like to thank Dr. Debao Chen for his fabulous smile.  I have studied under him in two classes, rarely have I seen him crack a smile.  Today I asked him to write me a letter of recommendation for Graduate school, he kindly obliged, and I <i>tried</i> to thank him in Chinese.  "Your Chinese is very bad," he said with a huge grin on his face, this after taking a moment to decipher what I had said.  Reflecting on his appearance at that moment, I have realized that this is the same smile that my Grandpa Gilbert gives from time to time, especially when he has made a particularly witty comment. My chinese is bad, very bad infact, but it was good to see him smile.
<br/><br/>
Now the amazing thing I have seen.  St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma officially kicked off their Linux on the Desktop project.  The aim of which is to determine if Linux could be used in their environment.  I am tremendously excited about this.  This is a huge change in the culture of the IT technology.  I would like to thank IT President George Kendall transforming this dream into a physical reality.  Comments around the office suggest that this project is his final shot across the bow before retiring this summer; George never did like Microsoft that much.  Three cheers for Mr. Kendall!!
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-07</date>
<text>
I got an email from my mom this morning saying that Dad may have had a heart attack.  I was very worried, the EKG and blood work came back negative and I feel relieved.  The question is what was it?  An Anxiety attack or a panic attack??  Dad, I'll be thinking about you.
<br/><br/>
The new firewall's VPN is still broken. Aggghhhh!!!!
<br/><br/>
I am deathly tired from staying up all night last night, and yet I feel compelled to work.  Work on my Blog, work on <a href="http://www.agentlab.net">the project</a>, work on ideas, etc.  I would describe my mood as cheerful optimism.  The kind of optimism that comes out of the blue, the kind that isn't based on any signs of hope -- it just is.  
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-08</date>
<text>
Cool!!! I wrote a script to ftp my blog entries onto my remotely hosted web site.  You will probably begin to see more regular updates. Cheers.
<br/><br/>
<i>P.S.  Happy Woman's Day Maryna!!</i>
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-09</date>
<text>
The weather has been absolutely beautiful the last two days.  I feel like spring is around the corner, and this brings a youthful optimism to my heart.  Today, I read a journal article "SRIRAM: A scalable resilient autonomic mesh" printed in the IBM systems journal.  It was quite interesting.  I especially enjoyed their approach to spanning trees in their P2P Mesh system.  I feel that some of their approaches could be used in the system that I am developing.  I did see some small flaws in their design.  For example each of the clients is allowed to calculate their own ranking - anyone steeped in security knows:  you can't trust the clients (for any thing).  And if you take client input, find a way to validate it.
<br/><br/>
I also looked at my <a href="/reading/">book list</a> lately - I haven't been reading enough books.  I feel this is mostly a reflection of my busy schedule.
<br/><br/>
It has been a light and cheerful day.  I have not dedicated my brain to any harsh work loads today, and I am thoroughly enjoying the rest.  I have let my mind wonder between distributed pattern recognition (Newell Machines), to gather raw information and assimilating it into knowledge (for the e-Travel project), to developing a main page for my blog.  I think that the main page (nonexistent at this point) could use some thought - and some work.  There is also the cross linking feature that needs some work.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-11</date>
<text>
Today was the best day that I have had in a while...so I am making a cheerful, positive entry in my blog...enjoy. <br/><br/>Today was not a great day at work, I am still struggling with the firewall project there. It has become the bane of my existence, in the most proverbial way.  At lunch, however, I received a bit of exceptional news:  my presentation on clustering in distributed systems won the award for <i>Best Paper Presentation for Research in Physical Science</i>.  It comes with a fifty dollar reward, which is nice, but I'm more excited about the new shiny golden bullet I can put on my <a href="/austin/cv.html">CV</a>. 
<br/><br/>
Also in the news today, my best friend Minor Gordon has passed his German test, and so it looks like he will be spending quite a bit more time in Berlin *grin*  Congrats Minor, best of luck.
<br/><br/>
Now back to my rotten day. There was another good thing that happened tonight.  I was sitting and having some coffee with Maryna at Starbuck's.  I was drinking a very pleasant hot chai, and she had a rich cup of mocha.  I was completely worn out when I arrived, I had spent the last hour and a half napping.  Being near her gives me strength;  I feel revitalized.
<br/><br/>
Music for the night:  Coco de Mer
<br/><br/>
Plans for the night:  ALIS (Agent Lab Indexing Spider) version .01.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-14</date>
<text>
I came home from work today completely frustrated with the world.  Granted, I'm mediocre at my job, it is not a reason to disrespect me as a person.  Everyone deserves a basic level of human respect.  I am not afforded this respect by my employers, and certainly not by many of my coworkers.  I told myself <i>"Don't feel sorry for yourself, change your circumstances"</i>.  After meditating for two hours, and taking a shower, I feel I have recovered from the de-humanizing humiliation that I was put through at the office today. People think it is fun to tease me, because I "take it well".  I am like the Chinese in this respect - I smile when insulted.  I wonder sometimes what they think they are accomplishing by ridiculing me in such a way.<br/><br/>
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-16</date>
<text>
Life will not surprise me, if when I awake in the morning that the United States is at war with Iraq.  The deadline was set for the 17th, that is tomorrow.  I am not worried.  I am not particularly for going to war with any nation, there are times however when it becomes necessary to ensure the safety of innocence, whether near or abroad.  Is this one of those times?  I cannot say.  I can only ashamedly say that I feel our nation has been set on war for the last 8 months, when we shipped out the heavy armer from a Fort where my parents live.  I am deeply concerned with the consequences of such an engagement, yet reserve some hope for the best possible out come.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-17</date>
<text>
<title>An Ode to Nerdom</title>
It is St. Patrick's day, I am sitting in a deserted Cafe Borders reading over academic papers.  No reviews today, only trivial pursuits of personal interest. The fact the cafe is empty makes me smile a bit.  It isn't often it feels so barren, and so personable.<br/><br/>I am also reflecting on my entry from the <a href="/blog/2003/03/14.html">14th</a>.  Interestingly enough, I realize that I shouldn't take such jauntings seriously, but there are days and times when it gets under my skin - especially when I feel I have had enough of life.  It is the <i>kick me when I'm down</i> syndrome. <br/><br/>
No war today, it looks like tomorrow, or perhaps Wednesday, things will break out.  This morning, the United States of America officially suggested that the United Nations Inspectors withdraw from Iraq.  The US also withdrew from debate on a new UN resolution mapping out peace for Iraq, all in all, things look fairly bleak. <br/><br/>
Dr. Paprzycki called me to ask about my applications into RPI and FSU.  I just rounded up my test scores and transcripts and mailed them off last week.  I hope that they will find their way on to Smansky's desk sometime this week.  Still stymied on FSU - I need to round up another letter of reference.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-19</date>
<text>
As I sleep tonight, my country is at war with Iraq.  Anticipation troubled my sleep last night, perhaps tonight rest will come as less of a struggle.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-20</date>
<text>
The bombing in Iraq continues.  Today I am thoroughly exhausted and frustrated.  I have been battling the firewall upgrade at work so much that I have forgotten what it is like to complete a task.
<br/><br/>
Today, I purchased a book on Carbon programming.  Carbon is <a href="http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Carbon/carbon.html">Apple's</a> programming interface for OS X.  I intend to do some damage *grin*  I would like to see a native GUI for <a href="http://www.nessus.org">Nessus</a> - as well as a scanning tool built on top of <a href="http://www.doxpara.com/">Scanrand</a>, because I believe it has superior scanning speed. So much to do, so little time.
<br/><br/>
I haven't heard from RPI yet ;(  I need to get back at it, but I am just so worn out lately.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-23</date>
<title>To those without understanding</title>
<text>
<i>
I envy those to who life seamlessly flows; <br/>
to those whose circumstance lend ease of travel <br/>
from thought invoked inspiration, <br/>
through trivial tribulation, <br/>
and onward to completion.<br/><br/>

As for the rest of us, on with the struggle.<br/>
For we enjoy the sweeter victory when success does pay homage, <br/>
for it has been difficultly earned - borne on weary shoulders.
</i>
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-24</date>
<title> Laundry </title>
<text>
I did laundry tonight. After starting my loads, I briefly surveyed the crowd.  The obese Hispanic women gossip frenziedly, straining to ignore their children rampaging around the room emitting glass-shattering squeals of excitement while barreling from corner to corner as if it where the very running of the bulls in Madrid.  The Hispanic men wait outside, easing their boredom with the soothing drone of mellow Latin music streaming from car speakers nearby where they sit, smoking.
<br/><br/>
There are the poor white hicks with their drawn accents colorfully chewing out insightful statements - hardly worth the breath vanquished in the effort to speak. They are the worst groomed and worst dressed among the busy crowd.  It would be no surprise to find several high school drop-outs among their ranks.  Still they are humble and intriguing, and I ponder frequently how any grown person could enjoy "Monday Night Nitro" so much.
<br/><br/>
The occasional drunk stumbles in from the bar next door; tonight yielded a short American Indian man with grey hair handedly hidden by a yellow baseball hat.  His speech so slurred even the white trash had trouble understanding his muttering.  "Peace," he stammered, trailing off into a string of grunts and groans so mangled as not to be English at all, but a language of his own design.  What high praises he must have uttered! To high for us to be sure.  Perhaps a diatribe, through slovenly lips he sowed?  Only God knows.  Three times he spoke, moving from the front to the rear, and three times he spoke again coming from the rear again to the front before wheeling around the corner and reentering the bar.  The small crowd, stunned, paused momentarily from the monotony of their chores; and shaking their heads, they gawked in awe and amazement. My jaw also dropped before a smirk creept over my countenance, pulling it back into an awkward and cockeyed smile.  Holding a second, the smile relaxed, fading back into my normal unconcerned expression.  My momentary interest adrift quickly - I returned to my book.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-25</date>
<text>
There were reports of heavy fighting today in Iraq, the good news is that it appears as though some of the Iraqi population has begun to revolt against Sadam's ruling party.  Hopefully this will help and not hinder the war efforts.<br/><br/>  I have decided to buy a wireless access point for my apartment.  While I have plans to secure it eventually, initially I will just drop it in place.  So much for being a <i>Security Professional</i>!! <br/><br/>
Work was good today.  Thursday night I will doing a risky procedure to try and wrap up the firewall migration.  I really pray this works, my strength for dealing with this issue has drained completely and my frustration level is rising daily. ;(  <br/><br/>
In other news, I am struggling to make it past page 500 on <a href="http://www.stephenwolfram.com/">Stephen Wolfram's</a> new book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1579550088/"><i>A New Kind of Science</i></a>.  It is an informative and eye opening read, but not terribly stimulating as reading goes.  Perhaps the fact that after 500 pages of reading I am yet half way through the book causes me some vexation.  After making it this far, I realize that when I finish I will have to begin anew in order for me to master the subject -- it is just that big.  Everything from Biology to Physics under one cover.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-03-30</date>
<title>Two Giraffe and a Papasan!!</title>
<text>
What a great couple of days!  I took the last few days off from my extra-curricular activities to rest, relax, and reflect on topics of varying nature.  My best friend from high school, Brian Wunderlick, came to town on Wednesday night.  We had a blast catching up, playing pool, playing basketball, and discussing relationships.  Here's to Brian, who always knows when to <i>step out</i> for a few minutes - I owe you one.<br/><br/>
A very good friend of mine from college, Anthony, then dropped into town on Friday.  Him, myself, and Maryna went bowling.  It was also a blast.  I forced Anthony to stay and bowl 5 lines, to my surprise and his amazement, he bowled a 207 on the 4th line and a 198 on the 5th.  This turned out to be his two best games ever. Needless to say, he kicked mine...although I did win the first three games *grin* <br/><br/>
Today, I saw Fritz Lang's Metropolis for the first time.  It was a newly restored version, targeted to match the original movie opening - before edited by the Nazi's in Germany and MPAA here in the States (<i>notice a correlation here?</i>).  Around 25% of the original footage was still missing, and is considered destroyed, this version however included some great scenes missing from previous releases here in the States. <br/><br/>
After the film, Maryna and I stopped for a cup of joe and went shopping at Peer One.  This is one of her favorite stores - mine as well.  While we were there I found a nice looking Papasan chair, which I readily bought for my <i>thinking spot</i>.  My <i>thinking spot</i> is a place in the front of my apartment were the warm summer light filters in through the blinds, carrying with it energy and inspiration.  Previously I sat there with Bean-bags, but I'm getting too old to recover easily from that kind of abuse, so I have sought out a more accommodating arrangement.  Maryna had suggested many times that I move one of my two sofa's into the front window to take advantage of the light, but this would mean displacing my beloved plants.  I've always thought a nice reading chair would fight there handedly - now a solution has presented itself quite nicely. <br/><br/>
While at Peer One, I also scoped out a pair of giraffes which are book ends.  I am going to re-arrange my desk, the whole back room in fact, for these critters.  Cheers.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-03-31</date>
<title>Dispirited Esprit </title>
<text>
I had far too many desperate and depressing thoughts today.  Mostly these leeching thoughts were the results of comments maid to me by my coworkers.  First Greg Brooks, in reference to my desktop machine <i>blue screening</i> , says <i>"Great, just what I need from you, lower productivity"</i>.  That really set me off.  I am a <i>"Security Professional"</i> so it is essential that I maintain an up to date system.  I was applying the latest hot-fixes for Win 2000, resulting in a blue screen.  If Greg wants to demerit my work he should do it at a more appropriate time, not when I am trying to do something right.  Incident number two:  Sean Mullen says to Jimmie Byington "Here is our second clown right here," upon seeing me in the Com Room.  Yes, and these are the guys who have repeatedly lectured me on what they feel a <i>"professional"</i> should <i>act</i> like; note, they never say that a professional should <i>be</i> like anything, all they infer is <i>acting</i> a certain way.  Does any one else see the difference? One is only surface deep, and the other has weight and merit.<br/><br/>
Needless to say, my morale went straight into the dumper today.  I went to lunch and contemplated flatly resigning, this marks the first thoughts along this line, previously I imagine leaving to go elsewhere.  I actually made a list of my grievances. <br/><br/> <bl><lh>Why I must leave:</lh><br/><br/>
<li>My employer takes for granted the things I do well while repeatedly and deeply denigrating my mediocre performance on activities I struggle with.</li><br/>
<li>I am the recipient of verbally abusive treatment</li><br/>
<li> I am publicly humiliated, including in front of the company's customers; laughter at my expense is quite entertaining to my peers, one might say that I was the company laughing stock</li> <br/>
<li>My character and esprit are mocked jovially and continually.</li><br/>
<li>My work, schedule, performance, work-load, punctuality, attitude, and every other quality are scrutinized to a degree far beyond that of any of my peers.</li><br/>
<li>Everything I do is second guessed - including suggestions that I make;  granted sometimes it is necessary due to my bantam ability in the networking arena.</li> <br/>
<li>Finally, it should be noted that I learn as a child learns - by my mistakes, and there is no room for this approach to learning in this environment</li></bl>
<br/><br/>
In short, I feel that I have every reason to resign, and yet I have no where to go, and so I stay.
<br/><br/>
On a lighter note I bought an 802.11g Wireless access point in order to enjoy the Internet from the comfort of my new Papasan chair, pleasingly placed in my favorite thinking spot.  While trying to configure the access point, my <a href="http://www.connectix.com">Virtual PC</a> crashed, and so I went ahead and bought the upgrade...ahhh!!! Even though I have a Macintosh, I am still paying out the <i>yanger</i> for Microsoft crap.  I was hoping to be able to post this entry from my chair, because the thought gives me a smile, but it doesn't look probable for tonight ;(
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-04-01</date>
<text>
I made a small break-through with the firewall today.  Yesterday when I tried upgrading the production firewall, the installer died with a Dr. Watson error - not good.  Neither myself nor support really had an idea why it did this.  After digging around today, I realized that many of the objects in the database where designated as 4.0 objects, and these are no longer supported. So, today I spent all my time deleting and recreating 68 out-dated firewall objects - joy.  While it makes me feel good to have discovered this problem, it will probably still bomb out on the install, because that is how this project has gone.<br/><br/>
Tonight, I filed my taxes - I would like to thank George Bush for the gracious return that I will be getting. <br/><br/>
I am exhausted.  Bedtime. 
<hr/>
<p/>
Not quite, I did a little work on my blog uploading script.  Now I should only be uploading files that have changed, where as before I was uploading all previous entries each time I made a new entry
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-04-02</date>
<title>When Al-Qaeda Strikes...</title>
<text>
I had a night terror about a <i>spider</i> at 2am this morning.  I distinctly remember having a night terror about a <i>spider</i> about two weeks before September 11th, I pray that it is merely coincidence. In the first night terror I woke up screaming: <i>" I saw a spider!!"</i>.  This morning I woke up in a cold sweat screaming:  <i>"A spider is biting me!!"</i>.  Neither case produced any physical evidence of a spider.
<br/><br/>
My sister's husband John holds a theory that I rather respect:  Al-Qaeda attacks against America (September 11th, the Kenya attack, etc) are spaced apart by about 18 months.  This April represent the space roughly 18 months after September 11th.

<hr/>
<p/>
Well, I made some progress on the firewall at work, only to be stumped again.  It looks like a file permissions issue, but I checked the permissions, and they appear to be fine.  <br/><br/>
Terri "The Devil" Blevins sent me an email today.  She was my undergraduate advisor at Oklahoma State University, and an obstacle that every student must overcome.  She noted my award in the Graduate Symposium and inquired whether or not I had considered obtaining a PhD.  I replied, "Of course I have, and I intend to move that direction."  She immediate response back with "What is wrong with OSU-Tulsa?" <br/><br/> Let me count the ways: <br/><br/><bl><li>1.  I would be their first PhD student at OSU-Tulsa for Computer Science...LOL, I don't think so.  Maybe they like me so much, they decide not to let me graduate!</li><br/><br/><li>2. If I stayed, I would be taking "Master's" level courses that I already took as an undergrad.  The same professors, the same subjects, the same classrooms - no thanks.</li><br/><br/><li>3.  It is not likely that I would receive full support and stipens - no they like to reserve that for highly qualified Linux installers for the various labs around.</li><br/><br/><li>4.  No one in academia would respect me if I graduated from Oklahoma State. (This is the thing that Terri doesn't understand )</li><br/><br/><li>5.  There are no fresh ideas floating around the <i>students</i> here; that is where the magic happens.</li><br/><br/><li>6.  Limited research opportunities.</li><br/><br/><li>7.  Limited post-graduate research opportunities.</li></bl><br/><br/>  That about covers it.  I have to say I would rather stay in the industry than get another degree from OSU.
<br/><br/>
<b>Music for the night</b>:  Bach, Bach, Bach!!!  I just can't get enough in the Spring.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-03</date>
<text>
I started reading <a href="http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Carbon/carbon.html">"An Introduction to Carbon"</a> tonight.  It is very good, actually after a few minutes of reading I realized how easy the Carbon interface is; it appears to be superbly laid out.  I remember when I was a freshmen in College I looked into some GUI programming for Windows and X.  While I didn't spend much time investigating X windows programming, Microsoft Windows is extremely complicated (IMHO).  Not so with Carbon.  I think I'm in love *grin* <br/><br/>
Maryna started reading this book by Rodger Penrose:  <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0192861980/qid=1049449880/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-6619307-1017768?v=glance&amp;s=books&amp;n=507846">"The Emporer's New Mind"</a>.  She was amazed at how closely related Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) is to Philosophy alla Plato, De Carte, et al.  I was very pleased that she is taking an interest in my field, not that I'm a nazi about it.  I'm perfectly happy with her intellectual abilities, and even though we might never have a meaningful discussion about first order logics, she could lecture me for hours about renessance artist. Non the less, it is very cool that she is reading this book.  She is already beginning to see why my eyes light up when discussing great topics in Computer Science, and this is a joy for me. <br/><br/>
Dr. Paprzycki killed my desire to write academic papers - at least for a while.  It was good that he was working with me on my Clustering idea, but it was a huge disappointment that he was trying to work the angle.  He is always trying to work the angle, trying to turn me, trying to get me to devote my life to his allegence and his project.  There are various aspects of the system that I find <i>somewhat</i> interesting, but I am not interested in the project as a whole.  I can only follow where my energy goes.  At the same time, I have an urge lately to contribute, unfortunately, work has been kicking my <i>arse</i> - limiting my available energy and willingness to sit in front of a computer out side of <i>the job</i>.  <br/><br/>
On a similar note, I noticed that I have been reading less (in general), but desiring to produce some programs.  I feel confident that within six months I will have a very descent repatoire of programming examples.  Some in NASL, some in Carbon, some in Perl, and perhaps some in Java.  I feel like it is about time to add another bullet to my <a href="/austin/cv.html">CV</a>.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-04-05</date>
<title>A day without rain...</title>
<text>
I spent the morning sleeping.  I could have gotten up, I wasn't really tired on this beautiful Saturday morning, but as usual laziness prevailed as I lay in bed drifting periodically between sleep and wake.  Drifting. Drifting.  Waking.<br/><br/>
My friend Anthony called me around 11am, just after I stepped out of the shower, he wanted to do lunch.  We made plans for noon at Wendy's in Utica Square.  At 11:30 am he called back and said that he would call me when he was leaving.  Noon passed, then 12:30.  I went to lunch without him.  He called around 12:45 or 1pm.  This is a pattern with him:  he has trouble breaking away from his AOL connection long enough to get ready, so he is continually late. ;(  <br/><br/>
After eating, I spent a leisurely afternoon reading and studying at the local Starbuck's coffee shop.  It is intrusively loud here ( I say here because I am writing this as I sit ).  The <i>background</i> music isn't; not even my headphones can prevent the invading sounds - no matter how mellow the tunes.  The patrons are loud gaudy Americans, so one can expect the accompanying ruckus, still the coffee is good and the shop within walking distance of Wendy's. <br/><br/>
Tonight, I am going to a party with Maryna.  It is her friend's birthday.  Birthday's are huge with the Slavic crowd.  I heard a statistic a couple of weeks back stating that 60% of Russian men were alcoholics - I think that number may run a little low *grin*
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-06</date>
<text>
Perhaps it isn't fair to say that Dr. Paprzycki was solely responsible for killing my desire to write.  One, it is wrong to blame any one but myself more my current lack of motivation. Two, a person can only have such an effect if you let them.  That is it - my will is no longer strong enough to fight off <i>attacks</i>; indeed if we can call these attacks, resistance is perhaps more correct.  I am tired of the resistance people provide so freely, this by their human nature:  disbelieving, distrusting, self-centered beast-hood.  Truly, Dr. P is not responsible for his self-promoting, self-preserving behavior, this behavior was learned.  The academic system is at fault for this, corrupting its patrons, transforming them into a twisted version of their once pure pursuits.  Papers, papers, papers.  Who will write?  Thinking is no longer required, you don't write the truth, you must write what the crowd wants to hear. <br/><br/>
In all fairness, there is some terrific work being done in academia. World changing work - but this work is obscured by the mass of illegitimate ramblings of the game players.  <br/><br/>
What is science??  I was taught that science is posing a question, and then systematically defining an experiment to answer the hypothesis.  Has it changed so much?  Few care whether their methods are truly scientific so long as their "<i>results</i>" are "<i>publishable</i>".  <p/>
<hr/><p/>
Yesterday, I had some mental progress (indeed this is what I will call all of my ideas from now on - until I implement them) on the Newell machine.  It came difficultly.  I had some vague idea, some visualization of the workings of the machine, but no idea what I was trying to express, until now, now I have an inkling.  I wanted Cellular Automata to be able to compress files, to generate transformations, recognize patterns, multiply matrices, to be a black-box calculating machine grinding through millions of calculations with the ease of 4 or 5 simple rules.  I am picturing the wedding of Cellular Automata with Genetic Algorithms.  I am picturing a parallel system.  I am picturing emergent behavior.  I am picturing discovery - simply discovery.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-04-07</date>
<text>
What great fortune today, Greg asked that I go to a Windows XP <i>training class</i> this morning (He really thinks that I am not proficient with Windows because I don't like using it - and I was behind when I first took this job but not so much now, even though there are still things that I don't know ).  In any case, I ended up winning a copy of Windows XP professional ( the full copy, not the upgrade version ).  This presents some very interesting opportunities.  Like the possibility of buying another laptop ( a cheap one ) to put windows/linux on...  For now, I just installed XP on my Virtual PC box - now I have an unpatched version of Windows 2000 and XP Professional.
<hr/>
<p/>
I went to Barnes &amp; Noble and got on the <i>free</i> wireless network, good coffee and the Internet - you can't beat that.  Tonight I have done a little research on various things, nothing serious.  Now I am going to play a few games of chess and get to bed.
<br/><br/>
Music for the Night:  Bach
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-08</date>
<text>
Gidget is my new name for Checkpoint NG because it is a total tease.  Today, I successfully pushed a policy from the back-up management console to the back-up firewall on version 4.1.  It took most of the morning to get the damned things to version 4.1, I should have stopped and waited a night so that the server would get backed-up, however, given the extremely overdue nature of the project, I pushed forward.  After the upgrade to NG for the second time, the backup management console exhibited the same behavior as the production console - I couldn't manipulate objects in the object database, nor load licenses with SmartUpdate.  Before I gave up from exhaustion around 5:45, I tried manually upgrading the objects database, which bombed out leaving me with the proverbial pile of rumble.  Tomorrow, I will see what I can do to resurrect the beast.  Perhaps I can put it back on the network, copy the production (4.1) configs over and try to do the manual update once again.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-04-09</date>
<title>The Words of the Profit Isaiah</title>
<text>
<b>Chapter 13, verse 2</b>
Prophecies about Babylon [Iraq] <p/>
<i>Lift up a standard on the bare hill,<br/>
Raise your voice to them,<br/>
Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles.<br/>
I have commanded My consecrated ones,<br/>
I have even called My mighty warriors,<br/>
My proudly exulting ones,<br/>
To execute My anger.<br/>
A sound of the uproar of kingdoms,<br/>
Of nations gathered together!<br/>
The Lord of hosts is mustering the army for battle.<br/>
They are coming from a far country<br/>
From the farthest horizons, <br/>
The Lord and His instruments of indignation,<br/>
To destroy the whole land. </i> <br/><br/>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-11</date>
<text>
I ran a five kilometer race tonight.  It was tough, I haven't been training very rigorously since Minor left, but I had an okay outing despite this.  The thing that hindered my performance the most was having to work the outage the night before, staying up until 4:30 am while getting only 4 and a half hours of sleep before a road race is not a good thing.  I kept a good pace, but I did have the drive to push my self.  After we maid the turn at 2 and a half kilometers I was feeling the fatigue.  Still, I tried to stay with the pack that I was with.  In my head I kept telling myself:  <i>"That's your pack, stay with them."</i>  As we neared the finish line, I found myself looking for Maryna in the crowd. <br/><br/>
My time was a little over 21 minutes even.  I'm guessing that I came in around 32nd place - but I don't know for sure.  Minor probably would have ran a 19 something on this day *grin*  I was pleased that I <i>beat</i> all the other runners from my company.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-12</date>
<text>
Today I played my second round of golf for the season - it was a rough outing, but fun.  I took in too much sun as well.  I came home to find an auspicious letter waiting for me in my postbox, mail on Saturday is unusual.  The letter was a communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Graduate school I applied to recently, I decided not to open it until I could share the moment with Maryna.  It could be a moment of triumph or defeat, either way I am glad to hear something.</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-13</date>
<title>Herds and Herds of <i>God's Little Cows</i>...</title>
<text>
I held the envelope in my hand, my breath quickened, for an instance I let myself slip into a day dream of what life could be like after opening this envelope.  The move away from the corporate world and back into my beloved academia, where my days would be filled with intrigue, discovery, research,  passion, so on and so forth.  I intentionally waited to open it until I could share the moment with Maryna.  She sat across from me smiling, waiting intently for the news, always hoping for the best, knowing that it is the desire of my heart.  A smile flashed across my face, I waved the unopened envelope through the air jocundly, ignoring for a moment the weight of the news contained within.  The day dream faded, I came to my senses and started opening the edge of the envelope.  I slid my finger under the flap tearing it gently - then I ripped off the end of the white tomb. I unfolded the crisp white letter slowly reading my name and address as a warm up to the news.  <br/><br/>
There is something about letters of this nature which inclines the writers to break the news as early as possible; after two words I knew I had been rejected.  My eyes began to burn as I tried to hold back tears, Maryna wrapped her loving arms around my neck comforting me and kissing my forehead.  I nodded in acceptance, telling myself that I had been prepared for many rejection letters on the road to finding a scholarly home; still, the first one's bite penetrated me, leaving a bitter stinging sensation in its wake.<br/><br/>
Later that evening, Maryna and I went for an evening stroll to enjoy the remarkably beautiful weather.  On the way we passed a clover patch, and as a child delighted with simple pleasures in life Maryna bent to marvel at the smooth greenness.  A smile crept over her face as she combed through the turf. I crouched down with her, watching with amazement as she plucked a single stem from the clutter.  She smiled as she gave it to me, "Here we go," uttering one of her favorite delightful expressions (even more delightful with her slight British accent).  It was a four leaf clover.  "I feel that my luck is changing already," I replied with a grin.
<p/><hr/> <i>God's Little Cows</i> is the literal translation of the Russian word for a Lady-Bug.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-14</date>
<text>
I played golf today as part of the <i>Corporate Challenge</i>, I had a hot putter and nothing else.  It was a good day of rest.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-18</date>
<title>Coffee brings us together </title>
<text>
Coffee brings us together.  Young and old, male and female, punk and prep, coffee brings us together.  It is a warm spring day.  The wind running from corner to corner, wrapping its warmth around all.  A middle aged man with a pony-tail sits in the shade with a block-chined younger tatoo'd man. It looks like they are having quite the conversation - though it doesn't survive the glass separating us.  Coffee brings us together.  A hispanic couple sit in the corner by the front window with a friend, I don't know much spanish, but it sounds as though they are discussing plans for a restaurant.   A young intense man sits on the right side of the room, he is intently reading some white papers, occasionally glancing up to check out the passers-by.  Young girls shopping with their mothers stop for coffee too, though they don't sit to enjoy it.  A middle aged Jewish man takes a seat in the middle of the room, he is waiting for someone - and while he waits he enjoys a rich blend of coffee.  Coffee, it brings us together: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Orthodox, or atheist - coffee brings us together.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-04-20</date>
<text>
While going to meet some friends, Maryna and I passed another patch of clovers... she stooped momentarily and upon rising, held <a href="/blog/2003/04/13.html">another</a> four-leafed clover in her hands.  Absolutely amazing.  I told her I want to start selling them on e-bay.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-23</date>
<text>
Last night Maryna needed some support and comfort to deal with some issues at her job, this left me more than a little tired when I made it home.  Naturally, I was late to work the morning after - I didn't make it in until almost 9am.  Out walks Dave "The New Kid on the Block" Henderson.  He looks at me, then purposefully looks down at his watch - as if it is his job to track what time I come in to work.  Then he goes out of his way to harass me about it, "We're going to have to have a talk about your schedule," he says with this smug ass grin on his face.  I know you can't see this Dave, but here is the finger to you.  You don't know my schedule, you didn't know that I was <i>scheduled</i> to work late on a web server migration, you didn't know that I had issues to deal with outside of work the night before, and you obviously don't realize that I cannot stand smug people who have no business asserting their judgment over me especially in regard to <i>MY</i> schedule.  To Dave H., I give the finger not once but twice!!! - neigh three times bia'ch.  
<p/>
<hr/>
Another ironic bit of information:  Colleen stopped by to have lunch with Greg, and Greg mentioned to me that he had a dream that I "pulled a Gomez on him", meaning that I walked into his office and told him "I've had enough" and quite on the spot.  I laughed and smiled quite widely as I responded, "I've had that dreams 15 or 20 times!"  I followed this up with:  "It's not like I get treated extremely well here."  A good example would be Dave Henderson's remarks to me this morning - this turns out to be quite a typical thing around the office.  People think that because they are a couple of years older than me that they are <i>wiser</i>; they are not.  You have to understand the motives of others to be wise - they do not.  Not only do I understand other people, I understand myself which makes me not only wise but enlightened.  This isn't bragging, I suffered long and hard, through my suffering things came to light - most of these revolved around me and one of several questions:  Who am I?  What am I doing with my life?  What do I want to do with my life?  Why am I so lonely?  What is wrong with me?  What is <i>right</i> with me?  The list goes on.  When you truly turn your eyes unassumingly and presumptively on yourself you learn a lot.  I would guess, that there are not many among our ranks at Tulmel that have done this.  
<br/><br/>
There was a second half of the dream that Greg didn't disclose.  I would guess that one of two events occurred in the second half of his dream:  my leaving lead to Greg being demoted or being fired, or my leaving lead to the entire company's demise in the eyes of our customers - meaning the customer exacted a ninety day out after I left.  Either of these to options would not surprise me.  I can tell that Greg is worried, I could see the fear in his eyes.  His actions, on the other hand, reveal to me that he has told himself that it was only a dream; he is not taking heed!  It wasn't two hours after he talked to me about his dream that smarted off about my performance review to a fellow employee.  The exact kind of thing that makes me want to leave!! First of all, he shouldn't have been discussing my performance review with my peers!  Secondly, he said "That's set in stone - six months of zero production!" in regard to my review.  Yes, I have struggled with the firewall upgrade.  Yes, that daily struggle has meant I had less time to work on other things.  I have hardly had "zero production"  .  While I have struggled with the firewall, I have maintained my other responsibilities fairly well!  I have not slipped much on the daily administration of the production firewall.  I have not failed to fulfill my <i>on-call</i> responsibilities.  I have been supervising the Interns activities, and she has made quite a bit of progress on the WAN site database.  I have been supervising our new employee Josh's progress on his first big project - making sure that he didn't drown.  Well, that isn't exactly nothing!  Granted my production has been reduced, but it certainly isn't zero.  If I weren't <i>producing</i> anything, then that means that anyone could stand in and do my job; as far as I can tell, if I left, they would be hurting pretty bad.  I have half a mind to make his dream prophetic just to show him that his perception of my performance is more or less skewed.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-28</date>
<title>musings...</title>
<text>
Tonight I ran with a fire I haven't had since early in the Summer.  I haven't pushed myself so hard since Minor left for Berlin.  I think it was because I really felt like getting out for a run, my head was cloudy with thought, running purifies it like a pilgrimage.  <br/><br/>
Greg has either been reading my blog *grin* or having a recurring nightmare. <br/><br/>
Maryna is at a poetry reading - one of the great Russian poets is performing at University of Tulsa.  It seemed like she didn't want me to go.  She said she didn't want to put me into "Russian Culture Overload".  Cute.  I had much work to do tonight any way, and while I appreciate good poetry - I don't particularly care to hear the poets read it to me;  don't get me wrong, there are some poets who are absolutely magical when they read, most are a let down and I would rather hear the poem in my own voice. <br/><br/>
Plans for the night:  Working on an Academic Paper. <br/>
Music for the night:  Everything Classical (Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven)
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-04-29</date>
<title>Untitled</title>
<text>
My Brain is on fire with a madness, <br/>
Business consumes me; <br/>
I am taken with the torrent.  <br/><br/>
Hurriedly frenzy, unforgiving rush. <br/>
My mind exploding -- firing every cylinder! <br/>
Desperately seeking convergence, focus, calm.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-02</date>
<text>
Utica Square feels like Portland again today.  Leaves nearly illuminescent green against the overcast sky. The sun breaks through some, caressing the tree trunks, tenderly wrapping them in light.  I am relaxing after work, Spanish folk music drifts down from the overhead speakers while I stare out the large glass panes facing the walkway outside.  The stress of the week eases away.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-03</date>
<text>
This is the way to work.  It is a late Spring evening, I am outside by the river enjoying the pleasant weather, the cool breeze, the clouds, and Bach.  Everyday should be like today.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-09</date>
<title></title>
<text>
It has been some time since I have updated my blog.  I have spent most of my time working.  I have more things to do than I have time to do them in.  This week I put in around 50 hours at work.  The good news is that Greg suggested that I would be getting a raise.  I hadn't planned on have a raise, and with my Graduate career taking off slowly a raise is a good thing.  <br/><br/>
We have three audits, two underway and one coming quickly.  I feel good about my contributions to the current audit.  It turned out that it is mostly a web application audit, and although we didn't <i>own</i> the box, we did get into to one of their web applications as an administrative user.  Beyond that, I have found a second major problem with their site, as I dig into that, I believe that I will find it runs deeper than expected. <br/><br/>
I read a good quote a couple of weeks ago.  I would like to share it here:  <i>Success is going from one failure to the next without losing enthusiam -- Sir Winston Churchill</i> <br/><br/>
I have been listening to <i>a lot</i> of R.E.M. and Matthew Sweet lately, a return to my rock roots?? I have also been putting some work into my website -- you can't see it yet it's not finished;  I promise you will like it, or at least you should and if you don't too bad.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-11</date>
<text>
Maryna and I went to see the Emerson Quartet on Saturday afternoon.  May I say, I believe this is the best string quartet that I have ever heard.  They have been playing together for 25 years - they have been playing music together for as long as I have been alive. <br/><br/>
I put about 50 hours in at work last week, this week will likely be around 60.  I have two audits going and one coming up the pipe, plus I will be out of the office all week in training - that makes it tough.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-12</date>
<text>Remember Big Chief tablets from your school days? How about Boys against Girls on the play ground - the modified version of tag, where every member of one gender was <i>it</i> all at once, until they caught one person on the opposite side.  Kickball, dodge ball, four square, and soccer.  Man, being a grade schooler was the life.  Issues included:  what to wear to school, memorizing spelling words, what to do after school, and which girls you thought were prettiest, nicest, sweetest, and so on.  Times have changed.  The hustle and bustle of adult life leaves little time for true wonderment.  I want to leave this system.</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-13</date>
<text>
Do you remember elementary school??  I am almost 26 now, so it is getting a little foggy, but that isn't the point I want to make.  When I was in elementary school, around 3rd grade, I remember our science teachers telling us that "the atom is the smallest unit of matter".   This just isn't the case, we have electrons, neutrons, protons, and these are made of smaller units of quarks and various other things.  I'm no physicist so I won't get into details of atoms and such, arguments of this kind are of a secondary nature here.  The point I want to make today is that:  things change.  The bleak outlook of one afternoon seems to cast its shadow far into our futures.  In reality this isn't the case; after a while of carrying on, suddenly we are past the shadows.  My message today is that every Spring needs a Winter.  Spring is that wonderful time in life where we bloom as people, are talents are coming to fruition and we start to feel successful.  You can't develop your talents without failures, challenges, tribulations, and adventures.  Remember the old Webster's definition of <i>adventure</i>:  an uncomfortable experience encountered under foreign circumstances.  Chin up young people - Spring is coming.  <br/><br/>
The mountain which is most difficult to climb becomes a footstool from which our triumphs are harolded. -- <i>Lao Tsu</i>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-16</date>
<text>
I am getting closer to finishing my web site's make-over.  I am having issues with Gimp created graphics rendering well under IE; it is almost like the browser knows it should display the image with no anti-aliasing what-so-ever.  I hate Microsoft.  I bet if I used a Microsoft version of photoshop that it would render 100% better, but I am determined to make the site look as good on Microsoft as it does under Safari on my Macintosh, and so I will continue to slave away at editing the graphics.  I burned two hours on this tonight. ;( </text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-18</date>
<text>
Maryna and I went to Mayfest today.  Mayfest is a Tulsa festival of art and culture that happens every May.  There was some nice art there.  The highlight of my day was eating German Roasted Almonds.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-05-19</date>
<text>
Maryna and I saw Audrey Tautou's latest film, it was a masterpiece:  <a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&amp;cf=info&amp;id=1808446039&amp;intl=us"><i>He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not</i></a><br/><br/>
There is a new movement in French Film started with <i> Amelie</i>.  Vivid, almost surreal colors, deep reds, jade colored greens; deep saturated color only possible with digital processing. <br/><br/>
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-05-20</date>
<title>nemo servus potest duobus dominis</title>
<text>
Again, I have grown weary of keeping up with St John business and outside business.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-22</date>
<title>The Zoo</title>
<text>
The air smelled as ginger when we walked in - holding hands, smiling, and laughing.  It was a clean and fresh afternoon, heavy morning showers cleansed the dense air leaving a light pleasant taste to it.  The walls of the cafe were painted with scenes of European streets, markets, and delicatessens, and the attendants quickly took our order.  We were the first customers of the late afternoon.  Delightfully consuming our lunches and enjoying our rich favored expressos, we decided that it was the perfect afternoon for a trip to the zoo.  Maryna and I had never been to the zoo.  <br/><br/>  
We pulled up to the parking kiosk slowly, realizing for the first time that I had no cash to pay for parking.  I began to rummage through the car's ash tray - where I keep my spare change.  "Fifty cents,"  it was not enough.  Maryna couldn't find any cash in her purse either and we sat thinking for a moment what we should do.  Finally a stranger in a white suburban pulled along side.  I lowered the window inquisitively.  "Here you go," the kind older woman said, she couldn't have been more than 60 years old, but certainly no less than 50.  She handed be a white stub with some print on it.  "It is a parking pass!" she said smiling as the car rolled away.  Gleefully, I pulled up to the toll taker, who gave me a pronouncedly disappointed look.  She was obviously sad to see the generosity of another spare us from paying $2 for parking.  I would have gladly of paid the money if I had the cash to do so, I did not. <br/><br/>
The air was quite muggy at the zoo, almost a bit too warm.  Still we perused around the exhibits.  I had purchased a disposable camera for the occasion, cheerfully and childly snapping pictures as they caught my fancy.  Maryna blushed whenever I turned the lens onto her - placing her hands into the space between the camera and herself, as if she was too hideous to film.  "Rubbish," I thought to myself.  She was beautiful in the afternoon light.  The sun gently caressed her cheeks adding a tinge of pinkness and vividness to them.  Her lips finely outlined with rouge, curved with perfection when she smiled.  She liked the giraffes.  They are a curious beast, something between a camel and a horse, but stretched out and speckled brown and tan by the very hand of God. <br/><br/>
God:  now that is a conundrum.  What is this deity that we hold so high?  Truly I say <i>we</i>, I am a deep believer in the righteous and holy God.  This doesn't deter me from asking deep philosophical questions about existence, the universe, the meaning of life, God, evolution, and all the creatures on the earth - human, flora, fauna, insects and so on.  Curious creatures we are indeed.  Last week Maryna, an assistant at a chiropractor's office, was executing therapy on a patient who is <i>of the faith</i>.  In deed, a faith stronger than mine, more demanding than mine, a proud faith, a faith that leads her to refer to herself as <i>Pentecostal</i>.  She attends a rather large church, if you lived in Tulsa, as I do, you would certainly be familiar with this organization.  This woman felt the need to pray for Maryna while receiving therapy.  All in all, not a bad thing - as we could all use some prayer now and again.  Still, she began to pray out loud.  Clearly uncomfortable with the situation, it was all Maryna could do to say thank-you.  <i>Thank-you!  Yes, thank-you for judging me when you don't know me.  Thank-you, for belittling me in my place of employment.  Thank-you, for putting me down - I hope you made yourself feel better. </i>  <br/><br/>  How judgmental Christians have become.  Isn't it written that a man cannot see into the heart of another? Would Christ have handled himself in this fashion - forcing prayers onto someone?? I think no.  Christ, even as the son of God in the flesh, humbly approached many of the worst sinners, affording them respect and dignity that others did not.  Did he belt out a prayer for Zacherias:  <i>"Woe to you, you cheat, you fraud, you sinner.  You need God!!!  Repent!!!"</i>  Again, no.  His ways were subtle, tender, and merciful.  Maryna is Eastern Orthodox.  This isn't a sect that is respected by certain other factions.  As I know her, Maryna is a believer; no she might not have explicitly <i>"ask Jesus into her heart"</i>;  I ask: is this a requirement?  Doesn't Romans 10:10 say:  that if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that you will be saved (paraphrased)?  I attended the Greek Orthodox Easter service, remarkably, it was very similar to any Baptist or Methodist (especially Methodist) church service that I have ever been to, the only exception being the priest sing everything instead of speaking.  I am openly ashamed to call myself a Christian, though I am a believer.  It is the behavior of the other believers that place this shame on me; is it not shame to cause the righteousness of a holy God to be placed under human desire for proof - for works - to place this holy deity under the judgment of a lowly human??  Is it not shame to place ourselves next to God's righteous Son, whilst lowering our fellow man with labels like <i>sinner</i>.  I say to you:  I am the lowest man and a decrepit sinner.  And yet, I do not label my fellowmen.  I say to you that the act of this stranger at the gate of the zoo is more righteous in the eyes of God than the prayer offered by this patient, for in the kingdom of God the least will be the greatest and the greatest the least.  This woman became a servant to us, giving us passage into the zoo, and this patient become authoritarian looking down her nose at some poor lost child - little does she know the heart or mind of the <i>child</i> she is judging. <br/>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-28</date>
<text>
I did laundry last night *sigh*  I hate doing my laundry.  While doing my laundry I finished off the "Tao Te Ching".  I found it interesting and inspiring. After finishing the book, I got a bit bored waiting on my laundry to dry and my eyes fell onto the Mrs. Packman arcade game in the corner.  It had been many years since I had played Mrs. Packman, I strolled over to take a look.  Hmm... the high score was only 34,000.  "I can do better," I said as I popped a quarter in the machine.  My first attempt felled the high score, but since I had a second quarter, I went ahead and raised the bar again to 54,000. *grin* Satisfaction.  I guess it is a little bit like graffiti - knowing that somewhere there is a place for you in the world, even if it is only on a video screen in a laundry-mat.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-05-29</date>
<text>
I am tired.  I have grown weary of the put downs, the snide remarks, the <i> jokes</i> that every thinks are so funny except for me the victim, the butt.  I try to ignore it when it is my coworkers making the comments, but my boss making <i>jokes</i> is unacceptable.  I can't think clearly; I am entirely disappointed, frustrated, and disgusted. <br/> <br/>
I miss my friend Minor, who always understood what I meant by this, and I thank my girlfriend Maryna for being so understanding.  It is difficult to be sensitive.  People say mean things, they don't always intend to be hurtful, but that is the way it ends up.  I am tired.  I want a simpler life; somewhere there has to be a place where only the enlightened are allowed.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-03</date>
<title>"Sorry, I don't touch smooth glass surfaces on the desks of strangers..."</title>
<text>
I am sitting here at work, polishing off hour number 27 on day two of the week *grin*  I am working on a security audit report - I am stuck on the conclusion section.  For those of you who know me well, this shouldn't be a surprise.  Much like my Father before me, and his Father before him, finishing <i>anything</i> is monumentally more difficult than beginning.  However, fast approaching deadlines help.  It is going to be a busy month.  Sunday night I will be flying to Birmingham for the second time;  I will be presenting a security audit for a client there.  I come back on Tuesday.  The following Sunday I fly out to Coco Beach, Florida for an internal security audit there... that should actually be fun.  Ta Ta For Now.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-04</date>
<title>Three days and 35 hours later...</title>
<text>
It's Wednesday and I put in 35 hours at the office already.  I think I will take Friday off as a comp-day.  I solved another problem today, so it looks like I will be able to ease into the weekend.  Sunday I leave for Alabama to deliver a presentation.  At least next week Josh will be back in the office to take some of the burden off of me. <br/><br/> I haven't had a <i>deep</i> thought in my head in at least a week.  Am I sad because of this? Yes, I believe I am grieving for my over worked brain.  Over worked to the point of shutting off all creative thought - it is a sad, sad day.  Still I feel up beat and optimistic and driven.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-13</date>
<text>
Today at work I finally upgraded the backup firewall to NG - I played golf to celebrate.  I plan on rolling out my new web page layout tonight, it isn't ready but if I don't put it out there now who knows when it will happen.  <br/><br/>
I leave for Coco Beach Florida for an Internal Penetration test on Sunday - I am pumped about this:  hacking all day, relaxing on the beach by night.
<br/><br/>
Minor finally met a woman whose critique of the english language makes his look laid-back. <br/><br/>
Planning on going to Belarus in August *grin*
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-14</date>
<text>
I think I finally recooperated from all of the long hours over the last 2-3 weeks at work...  just in time to head off to Florida for an Internal audit.  <a href="/blog/2002/12/06.html"> Last year</a> we had an internal penetration test in Alabama, we were working 15 hour days... I'm guessing Florida will be the same (at least for the first week).
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-15</date>
<text>
I am writing from 29,000 ft.  It is a partially cloudy day, take-off was basically smooth.  I will be in Orlando, Florida by nightfall. <br/><br/>
I am pumped about this internal audit.  This will be my second major audit, the difference between the first one and this one is my level of experience.  I am more confident about my ability to hack now.  While I still haven't owned a box, I think that this is going to be the trip where I break through.  Sure I have gotten into web applications, and some database stuff, and found cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, and worked magic on a survey form so that it acted like an anonymous remailer -- but it is time to own a box!!  The strategy this week:  scan the entire internal network on port 80, find vulnerable default web pages on desktop machines, get the SAM file, crack it, use credentials to get into more important machines, elevate my privileges.  Game over.  Greg offered to play <i>the game</i> with me (see who can crack the most boxes)... I turned him down.  I tried using that to motivate me last pen-test and fell flat on my face.  <br/><br/>
**Big Smiles**  Hacking all day, relaxing on the beach at night *grin*
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-16</date>
<title>Florida:  Day One</title>
<text>
Sunny and partly cloudy, 91 degrees.  Pen-Test is going well for day one, we have a complete map of their network, a list of web servers, and a list of HTTPS servers... All in all not a bad start, but as Greg likes to put it:  "We don't own a box yet".  I am hopeful for Day 2.  I have three good looking targets picked out:  all have IISSamples installed on their web servers, there is a vulnerability for this that should allow me to browse files on the machine.  <br/><br/>
Plans for tomorrow:  scan the other address spaces for web servers to hack.  Launch serious port scans on interests already identified and run Nessus against them.  Brute force cisco networking equipment via telnet.  Look at resources we can access via shares <br/><br/>
Relaxed at the beach during diner; very nice night. <br/><br/>
<hr/><br/><br/>
I reviewed some of the work I did today!  I incorrectly calculated <i>my</i> box total... after going through and organizing nbtdump results, I realized that I own 7 boxes after day one, and I have a log on to an 8th!!!
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-17</date>
<text>
Our penetration test is going extremely well.  Ate diner at a Lobster place - had shrimp pasta and didn't eat much.  Stopped at the grocery store, picked up a few items.  Went for a run on the beach.  This was the singly most sublime utopian experience I have had in long time. <br/><br/> For miles ahead there was only beach, for miles behind - beach.  To my left miles of deep blue ocean, crested with shimmering white jewels as the breakers folded into the shallows.  To the right, the antiquate feeling shore line:  palms freely waving in the gentle breeze, dune-grass cropping up along the fences separating the shore from the hotels lining the road.  Above me, teal sky peppered with dusty white clouds.  Below me, soft, wet sand, rinsed carefully by the rising tide.  I ran along the shore where the ocean meets the land.  There is a strip of packed wet sand there, it is good for running on.  Here and there I strayed into the surf.  The cool water poured over my ankles, down into my shoes and quenched the thirst of my feet, warmed from the constant strike of my stride.  I went some way, then turned and overran my previous trail. I cannot say how far I ran - it is difficult to judge the distance there; all of the landmark-hotels started looking the same at dusk: sillouets against the golden-orange sunset.    Still I found my way...exhausted, but invigorated, I strolled slowly back to my room.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-18</date>
<text>
<title>Work first, then thoughts on my love life</title>The security audit here in Florida is going better than I could have ever dreamed it would.  We wrapped up the day yesterday by hacking into a server named <i>security</i>.  I have always dreamed about hacking into a security server and taking control of a security camera, just like in all the hacker movies you see, but you think <i>"That could never happen in real life"</i> - today it did.  Here is the play by play: <bl><li>MS SQL was running on port 1434</li><li>We connected to the database and logged in as the SQL Administrator (SA) with a blank password; at this point we owned all of their data but wanted more</li><li>We were able to execute shell commands from the database, so we mapped a drive to our server (linux box with an anonymous Samba share).</li><li>The shares drive contained some tools: netcat, pwdump2, lsadump2, vncpwdump.</li><li>We then  ran netcat on our server listening on a port</li><li>Next we launched netcat from the database, binding the shell to it, and connecting to our listener; we had shell.</li><li>Got the SAM file with pwdump2, the VNC password with vncpwdump</li><li>Cracked the SAM over night</li><li>Logged in the morning using the freshly cracked passwords</li><li>Found the security application</li><li>Discovered that we needed a password to login to the application</li><li>Used our database privileges to create a user in the database</li><li>Logged in with our new user</li><li>Figured out how to watch the cameras!!!</li></bl> I feel like an IT Rock-star!! <br/><br/>
I had an interesting conversation with Greg and Colleen at lunch today.  We were talking about relationships.  Greg was talking about his ex-wife and how he never wanted to get married, and everything that was wrong with their relationship and how that is different with Colleen.  Colleen and Greg basically asked me if me and Maryna were getting serious - but without phrasing it that way, because if they had I would have clammed up.  I told them how I felt about the situation. <br/><br/>
Maryna is the loveliest girl I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and I love her more deeply than I have ever loved before.  She makes me laugh - she needs to know that I'm not laughing at her when I laugh, I just find her extremely delightful and humorous.  Still our relationship is not without its flaws.  My mind tends to wander - I have to be constantly entertained, not by the likes of TV or other <i>normal</i> things, but with intellectual stimulation.  This makes simple conversation a struggle for me at times, and I know it takes a toll on Maryna, so she is really a dear for putting up with me for so long.  I think that Maryna feels intellectually inadequate for me sometimes, but this is not the case.  She is incredibly smart. Not in a geek sort of way (like me: computers, math, and science), but if you go to an art museum with her, I promise you, there will be artist there that she <i>knows</i>:  where they were from, what period they worked in, where they worked, about their lives; this is extremely cool and I have mentioned this in the past.  Still, I am concerned about our openness as a couple.  It has been on my mind for sometime now.  I don't think that we could be successful as a couple unless we make some changes in our communication.  Last Monday, Maryna had to have her Visa renewed - this is an extremely trying time for all foreigners, and she was really nervous and upset about it but didn't want to tell me.  Sure, in passing she mentioned that she was worried about it, but she didn't convey the magnitude of her emotion to me.  Instead she went to her friend Anya and went out drinking, like she had done all last summer when she had Visa trouble.  I don't know if it is Russian thing or not, or if she thinks that I wouldn't understand (that's not to say, but isn't the issue), but I don't need her to be this rock-solid woman who isn't affected by anything.  I want her to be real. To tell me how <i>she</i> feels. Not how her friends tell her to feel, not what she expects me to like, and not to put on a strong face for me when inside she is frightened and scared.  What good am I too her if she is afraid to confide in me.  Confidence, this is what couples must have in each other to succeed.  I have confidence in her, I only hope that she has confidence in me.  I'm not with out my flaws, I don't want anyone to think I'm perfect, I am far from it.  Greg spoke wisely at lunch "I concerned that you can't tell each other <i>everything</i>."  Maybe it will develop with time, I feel like we could tell each other everything.  I intend to talk to her about this before I post this journal entry.  It just isn't something that we have gotten comfortable with.  Comfort is another thing that couples need to have to be successful.  Without a certain level of comfort there can be no happiness.  That isn't to say get so comfortable that nothing ever changes.  Life is change, when you have ceased changing, you have ceased living.  Comfort in the way of change - change together for the better.<br/><br/>
I talked to Maryna for a while tonight.  When she says "I love you", I feel warmth inside.  I wished she would say it more often.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-23</date>
<text>There is a place where the land meets the ocean; here lies a thin path, along which the gentle surf washes over your ankles and the sand breaks beneath your feet, giving way, it is gone with the ebbing tide. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-26</date>
<text>
Every moment, every instance, every experience, and every second of every day has an impact on our lives. Every person we meet, hold in esteem, resent, hate, fall in love with, or be loved by affects us.  For good or bad each of these has a deep and resounding effect - an effect profound enough that it becomes ingrained into our very existence and we carry this embellishment along with us to the grave, a token of our human existence. <br/><br/> Therefore our lives are like a smooth pond of water. The surface, at first, is quiescent.  Events are like small pebbles tossed onto the surface, causing a small, ever so slight wave - a ripple even - to radiate across the surface.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-06-28</date>
<text>
Coming home today; it feels good.  At the airport in Orlando Colleen and Greg were offered a spot further up in the line - a nice group of people saw that they had a baby and took mercy on them.  They gladly accepted and left me behind...   After trying the automated system and being directed toward an Agent, the same people were just standing around, so I stepped up behind Greg and Colleen.  Colleen gave me attitude about it. "Those people were kind enough to let us through, you are cutting in line and that's <i>not cool</i>."  I shrugged my shoulders, I wasn't trying to get in front of them, I just wanted to stay with my party.  I thought we were traveling together, but that kind of shattered that theory.  So after we got off the airplane in Memphis I didn't wait for them to get off the airplane, I didn't wait for them to get the massive stroller off the gate-checked baggage.  I took off to do my thing.  It was nice not to have travel at their slow pace.  I don't really care if it pisses Colleen off - she started it.  If they don't want to travel with me that is fine - they won't. <br/><hr/><br/>Probably I was just over reacting... I was extremely cranky after such a long trip.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-07-04</date>
<text>
I stumbled into Barnes &amp; Noble and into an <i>evaluation</i> version of Panther. *grin*
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-07-05</date>
<text>
I have spent the holiday weekend reflecting on life.  I work too much at the wrong things.  While working is fun for some people, I personally don't enjoy it.  It is too rigid for me.  I am a creative thinker - no matter how you try to press me into the box that is the corporate world I will be unhappy.  I have know this for some time, but keep making excuses for why I should stay, or why I can't leave.  I know that my place is in academia.  I have loved school and learning since Kindergarten.  I loved high school.  I loved college, but I was disappointed about the level of challenge presented to me there.  My job is challenging, but for all of the wrong reasons.  I realized my Senior year of college, that the challenge I seek is one that I will have to invent for my self.  Now I know that this will only happen when I am driving the bus.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-07-06</date>
<text>
I upgraded to Mac OS 10.3 today... some interesting stuff.  For example, expose is pretty useful for me.  There have been some annoyances as well:  X11 died after the upgrade, and it is no longer as easy to customize icons (but we all knew that was coming - lucky I know how to edit the XML properties files to accomplish this ).
<br/><br/>
Reinstalling X11 took care of the issue -- and my old configuration was mostly intact.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-07-20</date>
<text>
I have loved much in life and hated little.  Still, if I were to die tomorrow there would be much I left unfinished.  Much I wanted to do and did not do.  Much I wanted to say and did not say.  Much I wanted to see and hear and did not.  Much I wanted to write but did not write.  Even now I fight off the peaceful seduction of sleep, staving, fighting, writing...expressing, changing the world.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-07-24</date>
<text>
At five I go for a run.  I planned on five miles, but fell short  due heat and lack of recent training.  I jogged my usual mile warm-up, stretched, ran three and a half, stopped for water and rest, then finished one stride at a time struggling for the finish. <br/><br/>
I eat a <i>mango colada</i> with protein and spirulina for supper. I neglect my overgrown hair, my laundry, my dishes, and my fatigue to sit and write.  Its Starbuck's - I sit and write.  Sometimes reflecting on my discontentment.  Discontentment with my job, my thoughts, my skills, my abilities, my inabilities, and life in general... this is the mark.  Though I have moved beyond the self-destructive, my discontentment lingers, driving me...pushing, forcing me up, up, up.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-07-25</date>
<title>Cafe Cubana at 5 O'clock</title>
<text>
The cafe is completely empty besides myself and one barista.  Senatra wafts down from speakers on the 16 foot ceilings.  The warm yellow walls give a cozy feel to the atmosphere - a warm feeling.  A kind of warmth that eases the day's stress.  The coffee is earthy and a tat bitter, still, it is enjoyable.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-07-28</date>
<title>Cafe Cubana at Noon</title>
<text>
My allergies are so horrible today that I stayed home from work.  Even now, I can't focus my eyes.  Painful, because I had a lot that I wanted to finish today - and some reading to do. <br/><br/>There is only one problem with this fabulous cafe:  no power outlets.<br/><br/>
<hr/><br/><br/>I started cleaning my apartment today...I have a massive overhaul in mind.  I threw away all of my towels and bought new ones.  I bought a new shower curtain.  I am planning on getting rid of my nasty brown sofa and rearranging the other furniture I have.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-01</date>
<title>Defcon 11</title>
<text>
It is the first day of Defcon 11 and it sucks... all of the rooms are full, which means I won't get to hear any of the sessions that I wanted to.  I'm stuck in a DNSSEC meeting, which in itself wouldn't be bad, however, I can barely hear the speaker over the constant hum in the background.  The inhuman droning of 10,000 hackers.  There had to be at least 2,000 people lined up to get into the Apollo room planning for a session three hours in advance.<br/><br/>Mine is a quiet soul.  I left to find the peace within myself.  And I ask myself the question that haunts me day in day out for months at a time:  <i>what am I doing with my life?</i>.  Even in Vegas there is no escape.  To the contrary - the stimulation of the surroundings drives me further into my self-reflection, solace-seeking internal struggle.  <br/>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-03</date>
<title>Taxonomies, Ontologies, and Object Oriented Programming Paradigms</title>
<text>
The most peaceful place in Las Vegas is at the airport terminal waiting for my plane to return home.  This weekend has been restful in some ways and disturbing in others.  I slept better in my hotel bed than I have in a month at home - distance from the office and associated stresses.  I am looking forward to my trip to Europe.  I spoke to my friend Minor the other day, he was enjoying the beer festival in Berlin and sound like he was doing very well.  We had a short discourse on Taxonomies versus Ontologies the differences, the dependencies of Ontologies on Taxonomies and what differentiates them... we are going to have a lot of fun in Berlin drinking and continuing this discussion.  </text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-04</date>
<title>Oklahoma Private Security &amp; Investigating Services</title>
<text> I just finished my first ever <i>paid</i> web project, take a <a href="http://okinvestigations.com">look</a>.  Nothing fancy, just an intro web page...and I'm not really a designer - it is really just a hobby.  If you ever need a Private Investigator, David is a really nice guy and he'll do you right.</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-06</date>
<title>Catch ya' Later</title>
<text>
This will be my last entry for the next two or three weeks.  Tomorrow evening I am getting on a plane to New York (without my computer), and the day after that I fly on to Paris and Berlin.  I will be visiting my good friend Minor for a few days before moving on to Belarus to meet Maryna's parents. *grin*  <br/><br/>
I found out tonight that my old, and best ever, roommate <a href="http://www.xanga.com/manlykuo">Mark Kuo </a> has a website going.  Way to go Mark!!<br/><br/>Not only this, but I think my Mom is going to be starting a website as well.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-11</date>
<title>Berlin</title>
<text>
I will write of New York when I am in a more serious mood.  Maryna and I left New York together on the over night flight to Paris.  We had planned to go on to Berlin together, however the arrangement of the airport in Paris meant we had to 'enter' France to fly to Berlin - this was a problem.  The authorities in France would not permit Maryna to proceed to Germany without a visa; apparently you get one stop in the EU without needing a transit visa, anything more than that requires papers.  We walked to the ticket counter for a while before deciding that Maryna would have to fly to Warsaw directly.  The parting was unexpected and sudden, leaving me full of emotion as I ran to the gate to catch my flight - it had already left.<br/><br/>After finding my way to the flight transfer desk and getting myself rebooked on the next flight to Berlin, I sat in the picturesque Parisian airport trying not to break into tears.  My eyes burned, "why does France care whether she flies to Germany or not?" I asked myself.  Of course, I understood later that they would be liable for her if they let her go.  I was angry for a little while, but once I made my flight to Berlin, I was able to calm down and relax. <br/><br/>I had no problems at the Berlin airport.  Minor was at the gate waiting for me.  After a warm welcome we caught the bus to Zoologische Garten, an area near where he lives.  I changed money at the Deutsche Bank while Minor bought subway tickets for me.<br/><br/>Berlin was amazing!! The city has no tall buildings and lacks the eminence of New York, still it has 3.3 million people and it is very large.  I think that the public transportation system in Berlin is a model for the world - it was simple enough for me to understand after a day and I don't speak German or know Berlin at all.  They have four kinds of public transportation:  U-Bahn (subway), S-Bahn (train), Buses and trollies.  The S-Bahn is an above ground train like you might see in Boston or Chicago - except the stations for the S-Bahn are very near the U-Bahn stations and share station names.  The U-Bahn is an underground subway and these go very fast.  The trolly and buses cover everything that the trains don't.  The trains come every seven minutes with German precision, the trollies and buses are less frequent but are always on time, very reliable and very well designed, as well as clean. <br/><br/>Minor gave me the kind of Berlin tour that you cannot buy - it takes knowing a local.  We covered every square inch of the city from Alexander-Platz to Checkpoint Charlie to the new Sony Center.  Berlin is vibrant and fast-paced with a pleasant atmosphere.  I like it much better than any other city I have ever been to.  It is clean (mostly), there are few bums, few addicts, and while the Germans will run you over to get in line - I don't find this odd for a city.  In fact I noticed how in New York people will literally push you out of the way if need be.<br/><br/>In Berlin, Minor and I spent some time sightseeing after which we would visit the street side cafes or beer-gardens.<br/><br/>The cafes in Berlin are very common.  There is no air conditioning, so in the summer nearly every restaurant seats their guest on the sidewalk. The prices at the cafes were somewhat higher, but they expect you to sit for long periods - which is nice because the waitresses and waiters leave you alone until you ask for the check. <br/><br/> Our discussions were wide, ranging from the semantic web, agent platform design, the meaning of knowledge (my definition is somewhat more strict than academia in general as it turns out), machine learning (as it is known in the field of CS) versus the theory of learning, Ontologies vs Taxonomies vs Object Oriented Design, the beauty of python as a programming language, why you should never sit down and write a major project in a new language - the need for insignificant tasks in the process of learning, the pain of learning, the burden of work, how to gain respect in the community, how to meet enlightened people and why they are so rare, finally love, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  "I am purged", I said.<br/><br/>In Tulsa, the only intellectual I really have to talk to is Maryna.  It is wonderful that she is my girlfriend; my best friend (besides Minor).  It felt really good to catch up with my only peer - i.e. an enlightened intellectual (more so than I) from a small town in the Mid-West of America who is very interested in Computer Science among other things. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-12</date>
<title>Grodno, Belarus</title>
<text>
Maryna and I went out to see Grodno today.  It is almost like a small European town - almost.  We went to the town centre and saw some of the sights.  I wanted to sit at a cafe because I enjoyed them so much in Germany - not to be in Belarus.  We had to go inside for service, then the bar wench was very rude to us. <br/><br/>It feels different here.  The locals are very unaccustomed to foreigners - I get sideways glances when they hear me speaking English.  Berlin was very accommodating and very comfortable.  While Maryna's parents house is a sanctuary, Grodno is less attractive to my taste.  It reminds me a Liberal, Kansas, my home town, in some ways.  <br/><br/>Foreigners are required to register with the local passport office within three days of entering the country.  Tomorrow will be the third day, I tried registering today but the office is only open every other day.<br/><br/>
After seeing Poland (Warsaw), I have to say that Grodno is about 12 years behind in developement, it is about twenty years behind Berlin.  I can't see this changing much if the Belarussian President won't open the borders.  It was very difficult to get in the country.  Crossing the border was a challenge, even with a valid passport and visa accompanied by Belarussians.  The inspectors at passport-control had to phone their supervisors for clearance to let me pass.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-13</date>
<text>
All foreign visitors of Belarus are required to register with the local passport agency, today I went to do this.  Maryna's mom had hoped to only show me the best of Grodno, however the passport office is far from the best.  Many of the buildings here are falling apart - they haven't been maintained for twenty years or more.  The average age of a building has to be around 30 to 40 years. Fortunately, there is new construction in a few areas.  They are putting in European style brick side walks and have built some new buildings here and there. <br/><br/> After registering, which required a state issued insurance policy we came home. <br/><br/>Before registering we went to the flea market.  This is where you can get good deals.  Maryna's mom bought me two sweaters and a leather jacket.  The are so generous and kind.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-14</date>
<text>Today, Maryna and I went for a long walk.  I wore the sandals Maryna's parents gave me, by the time we returned to the flat I could barely walk - they are the kind of sandals with "massaging" soles.<br/><br/>Today I bought a nice rug for my apartment.  It cost about $50 - in the states the same rug would likely go for $200 (or perhaps $400 because it would be an import ).  Then Maryna helped me pick out a watch - it cost $60, a good price I think.  I like bargain shopping, and this is definitely the place for it. <br/><br/>I can't believe how much food they have been feeding me here.  I was hoping to lose some weight (5 or 8 pounds) while I traveled because it is easy to do when there is little pressure or stress on me, however, I don't think it will be possible with the cooking here.  Their food is very very delicious *grin*  Self control is not an option as the locals become very offended if you don't eat what they provide.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-15</date>
<text>Tonight I am <a href="/images/grodno/scary.jpg">going hunting</a> with Maryna's Dad, her Uncle and a few of their friends.  I was concerned by this at first, however I am comfortable with it now.  Although non of them speak English, and I speak no Belarussian, we are going to wonder around a feild together with guns performing the most primitive of rituals.  This will be my first time hunting as well - while I once asked my Dad to take me, it never materialized. <br/><br/> Last night, Maryna's Dad showed me the <a href="/images/grodno/weapons_instruction.jpg">guns</a> that we will be using.  He picked out a 20 gauge semi-automatic shotgun for me, he will be using his old favorite 12 gauge over-and-under - they are both Kalashnikovs. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-08-16</date>
<title>After the Hunt...</title>
<text>
Hunting was fun.  There weren't many ducks but I got to shoot at one, and later I was able to fire all of the guns.  I know everyone thinks I am full-on crazy for hunting with strangers who don't speak my language, and sometimes I question my own lack of fear associations, however this is one thing that I would gladly do again in Belarus. <br/><br/>The only detriment was being exposed to the local mosquito population.  Here, they are call Kamapi ("camarie").  My arrival marked the beginning of a feeding frenzy, and I noticed that they didn't bite the natives as much as they did me.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-08-17</date>
<text>
Two days later and the <a href="/blog/2003/08/16.html">Kamapi</a> bites are still burning and itching.  Sitting in the middle of a marsh in Belarus was probably not a great idea afterall.  Next time, I will definitely take protective measures: mosquito repellant -hopefully this will work on Kamapi also!!  I wonder how we were able to spot ducks with the swarms of mosquitos around us!!<br/><br/>The affects of jet-lag have grown if not diminished at all.  I am tired frequently during the day and restless at night.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-08-18</date>
<text>
I would kill for a root beer right now - icy cold and delicious.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-08-19</date>
<title>Banya</title>
<text>
I went to the banya last night.  This was the single most interesting experience I have ever had.  May I say, there is nothing quite like sitting in a 90 degree Celcius steam room naked with your girl-friend's dad, beating yourself with a VeNik (a bundle of soft-leaved branches).<br/><br/>I don't think I can describe this experience, hunting was a big bonding activity, the banya is far beyond description.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-08-20</date>
<text>
Toured Minsk today.  Not much to see if your an American Capitalist pig like myself.  For those of you who don't know - and most in the U.S. probably don't - Minsk was where the Communist party was formed.  It warms my heart to know that the communist manifesto was witten during a large Vodka party - one which lasted for three days.  The party was in the living room while the manifesto was written the adjoining bedroom.  As a token of our visit, Andre purchased some communist party pins.  There are historic trinkets, some date back to 1948, most have Linen's image on them - who also ironically wasn't a founding member of the party
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-08-21</date>
<title>Good Dreams in Minsk</title>
<text>Last night I dreamed of building a laboratory in [Tulsa??], something I normally wouldn't consider.  In the dream, I was awarded a large grant - the grant was paid directly to me, not to my affiliated institution.  I used the money to purchase a building an renovate it.  The first floor contained the server farm, the servers were under the floor and the cases were water cooled.  The front entrance lead to a glass wall with a badge swiper.  The sliding glass doors opened letting the person enter a man trap.  There was an unoccupied window to the left - room for a security desk.  To exit the man-trap there was a key pad where a PIN had to be entered.  If entered incorrectly a door to the right would open.  The <i>intruder</i> would enter the room to the right were there were smaller holding cells with Internet access, TVs, telephones, chairs and cots - they would have to contact the on-call person to let them out because the doors locked behind them.  If they entered their PIN correctly, another glass door opened in the front leading them to a divided staircase - one to the left, one to the right.  They both lead to the lab space on the second floor. The ceiling on the second floor was glass and high ( I imagined it something similar to the F gate at the Paris airport).  There were ergonomic terminals there divided by cells - not cubicals as there were no walls.  The space was open and free.  There were large glass covered whit boards in the front on the left and right - places to think.<br/><br/>The white boards had viewing areas - circular sofas sunken into the floor partially for the effect of separation. <br/><br/>All the monitors were flat screens with ergonomic keyboards.  All access to the server farm was done via VNC or similar approaches.  There were house plants growing in pots on each desk, but the green only accented the bright white surroundings, it did not over come it. <br/><br/> The corridor was moderately long with perhaps six desks on either side.  There was plenty of space around each desk.  The ceiling was also lit so that it could be used at night.  Each desk had smaller white boards - the main focus of the work space pressed against the wall.  There was room to breath - room to walk and meditate.  Above the main entrance, where the man-trap was downstairs, there was my office.  There was only a glass wall, which doubled as a white-board, separating my office from the others.  There I had my desk, a leather sofa, plants, and a large flat-screen TV which suspended from the ceiling on cables.  There was a short staircase on either side which connected it to the main lab floor (my office was a foot or two elevated). <br/><br/>On the other end of the building there was a solid wall where announcements where posted.  Behind the wall, a small apartment where I <i>lived</i>, public restrooms and showers, a private restroom for my flat - more or less a locker room feeling there. <br/><br/>The lab was created to research High Performance GRID computing and Non-Linear Programming Techniques.  When I first finished building it, there were no students or researches; the lab sat empty except for me in my office and the occasional visitor.  It seems it was difficult to find talented people in [Tulsa??], but eventually a student here and there began to fill in the desks.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-08-22</date>
<title>Coming Home...</title>
<text>We packed last night for our trip home - it should be interesting to see if we can get all of our new goods packed in our luggage... somethings couldn't be packed until this morning due to laundry.<br/><br/>So far I noted I have gained: <br/> <bl><li>1 Brest Crafted Persian Rug</li><li>1 Titanium Casio Watch</li><li>1 Belarussian Chess Set</li><li>1 Belarussian Box</li><li>1 Belarussian hand crafted towel</li><li>1 Leather Jacket</li><li>2 Russian Made Wool Sweaters</li><li>1 Leather Bound Journal (which I am currently using in leu of my laptop )</li><li>1 DJ Mix CD - a gift from Minor</li><li>1 Digital 8mm Video Cassette full of memories</li><li>2 Disposable Cameras full of memories</li><li>Several stamps on my passport</li><li>Two weeks of rest, relaxation and reflection</li></bl>  <br/>Most importantly perhaps was meeting Maryna's and family.  I like all of them very much.  Her parents are wonderful - even better than I expected. <br/><br/>Now I am ready to be home - if only to enjoy expresso, wireless internet access, and mango coladas. <br/><hr/><br/><br/>Sitting in the Minsk airport waiting on the plane to be made ready - it is 12 minutes behind now. Thankfully we have a two hour lay-over in Paris - which is barely enough time as far as I'm concerned... the layout of their airport is very strange.<br/><br/>Nervous, nervous,can't concentrate to read anything, in some ways it is easier for me to travel alone.  Maryna worries and this impacts my mental calm as well.  Traveling with Maryna is nice, however, because the flights go by quickly from the good conversation. <br/><hr/><br/><br/>Well if we board the plane right now, the plane will take off exactly an hour late giving us only an hour to find our gate in Paris -- probably not enough time. <br/><br/>The flight finally took off - an hour and a half late putting us in Paris at 6:20, check-in for our NY flight closed at 5:40 pm.  So much for the two hour lay-over.  The icing on the cake was that both Delta and Bellavia's offices were closed...and so we sit in Charles de Gaulle airport enjoying our company nervously waiting for day break tomorrow and another chance at flying home.  The difficult thing is that, of course, we have missed (or will miss by tomorrow morning) our flight from New York to Tulsa.  I shudder to think of how much money we have spent on unused airline tickets for this trip, and I burn with anger when I think about the course of this waste - human nature. Each state treating other state's citizens as less than human; should have been expected, predicted and accounted for, but it makes me sick to think that this is the norm for the world and beyond that we have been treated as numbers in a "civilized" nation. My only sincerest hope is that either Delta or Belavia will help us in the morning - I must admit, however, I suspect no special treatment will be given by either. <br/><br/>This situation is the result of cause and effect.  A plane, a machine, an inanimate object ceased to function in Minsk, Belarus.  Two anxious travelers waited for an hour and a half before Belavia corrected the issue and boarded the plane.  The effect was the casual disjunction of the young couple's flight plan.  The effect was being told by Air France that they couldn't help us because (1) our being late wasn't their fault and (2) our NY flight was booked through Delta, whose office had closed for the night.  The effect is a young, travel weary, couple waiting together in a foreign country wondering what the dawn will bring.  Each day is a new day - each day is new.  The effect is boredom, mind splitting boredom - the effect is writing, writing, writing - entertainment.  The effect is a stream of consciousness, the effect is just this _ this.  Now, everything, a flood, a flood, patience, quite (or ambient silent noise, the kind so driven and constant that you can no longer distinguish its presence ).  Just this.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-08-23</date>
<title>Leaving Paris</title>
<text>
<p/><b><i>Paris, 1 am Local Time</i></b> <br/> Just a bit ago Maryna returned from the restroom tailed by two French security guards.  They asked us (in French) what we were doing here, when Maryna didn't respond he asked if we spoke English.  I was just waking from a <a href="/images/paris/paris_2am.jpg">nap</a>, but answered 'yes' quickly.  The young man on the left asked us if we had our tickets.  I kindly explained how we missed our flight and are waiting for the next one into New York.  "Oh, okay" he responded, turned and walked off as quickly as they arrived. <p/><p/><b><i>Paris, 8:20 am Local Time</i></b><br/>The return trip has been trying. It has been an <a href="/images/paris/flying_standby_in_paris.jpg">exercise</a> in <a href="/images/paris/midmorning_nap.jpg">patience</a> which will eventually pay off.  My Grandpa always said "you have to find the right person."  We found a very nice French woman at the International Air France counter who got us on the waiting list for a 10:40am flight to somewhere in America - Cincinnati? or New York? it didn't really matter, we both agreed that we would have more options once we got to the states and neither of us wanted to consider returning to Minsk.  We have been praying now that we will get seats on the flight. <p/><p/><b><i>New York, 12 pm Local Time</i></b><br/>Maryna and I proceeded to the American Airlines counter to see if they would work with us for missing our flight at 9am.  In typical New York style, the unapologetic counter clerk said there was nothing he could do for us.  He kindly explained to me that his airline didn't cause the missed flight and therefore there was nothing he could do for me.  I explained to hime that Air France and Delta were in the same situation with us in Paris, but they kindly found us a flight to the US without even charging us for rebooking a day late.  "I can't believe that I got better service from Air France than I am getting from American Airlines!! I'm in shock" I said (I wasn't really, I fully expected at least one of the airlines I was flying on to punk me, and I was grateful that I didn't have to buy a new ticket from Paris to NY).<p/><p/><i><b>New York, 5:30 pm Local Time</b></i><br/>We got raped by the American Travel system but we ended up on a flight to Tulsa tonight.  It has been 40 hours since my last shower! I am just ready to sit in Tulsa, take a shower, eat some pizza and unwind. <p/><p/><b><i>Cincinnati, 8:20 pm Local Time</i></b><br/>Our plane to Tulsa boards in 45 minutes.  It has been a wild wild trail home.  Kudos to Delta and Air France for taking care of us, and a big thumbs down to American Airlines for their poor customer service and customer relations! <p/><p/>After another two hour flight, God willing, we will be in Tulsa.  43 hours of not showering - I went to the restroom and freshened up as well as changed my shirt, this really helps ones mental posture. <p/><p/>Maryna has been great.  I could not have survived this trip without her. <p/><p/>I spent much quality time while I was Grodno considering my dynamic clustering system.  The ideas were flowing.  I noted several things that I hadn't before, and I am making good mental progress on the design.  Conceptually, I understand almost every aspect of the system now - most of it has been written in note form, but there are many layers of abstraction to traverse before implementing a functioning system.  Next step:  work on a simulation model so I can tell if all of this thought is justified or wasteful. <p/><p/><b><i>Tulsa, 10 pm Local Time</i></b><br/>Tulsa. *grin*
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-08-26</date>
<text>
Back to the grind... I will try to post the entries I made while in Europe - I made them by hand.  I will also try to post some of the pictures soon.  In a month or so a video may go online *grin* - it depends on how fast I can get a hold of a digital 8 cam 'corder.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-03</date>
<text>
It is 3:30 am, I just got back from Norman, Oklahoma working on a checkpoint firewall upgrade.  This one bombed out ;(  Sleepy now.  I apologize that I haven't finished posting my journal entries from my European vacation  ( or all of the pictures) yet, I have been busy busy catching up with everything while I was away. <br/><hr/><br/>I misplaced my cell phone.  I think I may have left it in the van I drove to Norman. There goes $300. <br/><hr/><br/> At change control today at work, everyone was laughing at me - again.  I have taken more than my fair share.  I'm tired of being a laughing stock.  I'm tired of people who work with more or less stable systems laughing at me when an upgrade on a relatively unstable system fails.  I'm tired.  They think it is so funny that I fail repeatedly, when really I have very little control on whether an upgrade goes smoothly or not - that is really in the hands of the software developers, isn't it.  fuck this shit.  i have been ready to quit in the past, but today I came closer than ever before.  i left the meeting after they were done ostracizing me.<br/><hr/><br/>I found my phone...so at least one good thing happened today.  Maybe more than one...
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-04</date>
<text>
I have posted many of my journal entries from my trip abroad... In fact, they are mostly there now, only one or two days missing.  You can read about my trip beginning: <a href="/blog/2003/08/11.html">here</a>, and continuing through to <a href="/blog/2003/08/22.html">here</a>.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-08</date>
<text>
All my <a href="/blog/2003/08/23.html">journal entries</a> and pictures of my European vacation have finally been posted... now to get to that video. <br/><br/>Music for the night: Enigma<br/><br/>Activities for the night: Lab setup (at home), installing XP on multiple machines, installing Globus toolkit, finally begin learning Globus programming for my class.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-09</date>
<title>All hale the power of Peanut Butter!!</title>
<text>
As I was otherwise unengaged this evening and operating under the heavy influence of Peanut Butter, I took the time to create an RSS feed for my blog!! *evil laugh* <br/><br/>You can subscribe to the RSS stream by importing <a href="/blog/breakingrobots.opml">this</a> OPML file into your RSS reader. <p/>If you have a Macintosh (like me), then you should check out <a href="http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/">Ranchero's NetNewsWired</a> and NetNewsWired Lite (the free one). Although I haven't tried any, I'm sure there are dozens of crappy RSS readers for windows.  BTW, I wasn't implying that NNW Lite was crappy so much as most software for windows is... just want to be clear about that.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-11</date>
<text>
I worked 16 hours yesterday.  I intended to read, then later I changed my mind and intended to dedicate this day to frivolity, and later still I intended to read again...</text>
</entry>I recently realized that I am burned out (again).  The trouble with me is that I work like an Artisan.
<entry>
<date>2003-09-14</date>
<text>
I have a haze around me most the time now.  It is difficult to explain. No clear motivation, mental-focus, or desire. I fear that I have worked myself into a situation which will be impossible for me to escape. I have no desire to work in a corporate environment, with my test scores it is unlikely that I will work my way into a good University in America, but with my legal obligations on my student loans impossible for me to leave the States. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2003-09-16</date>
<title>Disturbing</title>
<text>From time to time I read Aaron Swartz's weblog.  All in all it isn't bad.  On September 15th, Aaron wrote an <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001036">entry</a> in which he discusses a compulsory licensing system - a system that would help to make the RIAA happy, meanwhile screwing the little guy (an accurate statement as the history of taxes go).  If there is one sure way to kill a pure thing, like the Internet, it is to let governments get their hands on it more than they already do.  The minute that we accept a tax on the Internet we must be weary:  the following moment is the one where the government begins telling you how you should use it.  Perhaps Aaron's moronic or perhaps he is a bit much a zealot in favor of music swapping...either way I think it is a BAD idea.  The truly scary thing is that he has some influence within the 3WC's organization.  Aaron pull your head out of your ass - this compulsory licensing is evil - I can't believe that on your <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/school">school page</a> you actually think that you are changing the world for the better: "fight the power, beat the system, change the world".  Who do think controls "the system" you speak of?? The government. Think about it.<br/><br/>Read my further comments on <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=78748&amp;threshold=-1&amp;commentsort=0&amp;tid=98&amp;mode=thread&amp;cid=6981890">Slashdot</a>. <br/>I particularly enjoyed <a href="http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=78748&amp;cid=6978470">these comments</a> by Soko.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-20</date>
<text>
I have thought little lately.  Little, at least, about my usual introspective topics.  My head has been in a daze since returning from Europe.  Call it fatigue, coincidence, or a needed break.  There was one night to note among the last 15 to 20.  Struggling to sleep, I rose to work on my pet project, but beyond that I haven't held a thought in weeks.  I have held opinions, and formed ideas (of course), and naturally I think while I trouble shoot problems on my job, but all of this is really superficial thinking.  It is more of a reaction - reactions that I was trained to have.  Reactions that are predictable.  Reactions that are as shallow as my brain has been since the end of August.  The raging fire has dulled to warm embers. <br/><br/>  I want to be definitive about this: I am not morning this change. I feel that it, like many natural systems on this earth, is only a temporary shift.  The gathering of potential energy, a cumulative gathering of merit, an undercurrent of thought, emotion, of <i>being</i> seeking a larger shift, seeking to define itself where no definition existed before.  The gathering a necessity to over come the static friction of my usual surroundings, thoughts, feelings.  I stand in awe of myself... in awe of my lack of interest as of late.  Realizing that the lull is going smash itself suddenly, leading to a hurried frenzy of sudden motion, of sudden activity, of sudden and pure passion.  A storm swell.  I stand in awe and anticipation for that moment.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-21</date>
<text>
I would like to say that I went running today, I just didn't have the will power to do it after work.  I have a valid excuse:  the arch in my left foot is falling.  Probably I need new running shoes with better arch support. <br/><br/> I saw some interesting fellows at Cafe Cubana the other day.  One I am acquainted with, he works at Barnes and Noble, the other is new.  The pair of them were working on Macs and programming.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-23</date>
<title>An interesting Joe</title>
<text>
I met an interesting character today.  I have been acquainted with him for some time as he works at a Star Bucks here in town and gave me a beta copy of Mac OS 10.3 for kicks.  Last <a href="/blog/2003/09/21.html">Sunday</a> I saw him and a friend at Cafe Cubana programming, they left before I got a chance to inquire into their project.  Apparently they have worked all summer on a project to implement their own Virtual Machine.  Modeled loosely after a Java Virtual Machine with several major exceptions - Java runs as a Just In Time Compiler, while theirs is more of a translator.  Their aim is interesting as well.  They basically developed a meta language engine which can take as input a natively written program on one compiler set and knows how to translate its machine code into to a the native machine code of completely different architecture.  They accomplish this by describing the architecture of the participating machines... no they haven't got Intel yet.  They are working on SPARC, PPC, and another virtual machine which is popular in academia.  Absolutely intriguing.  All of this work is toward taking the <a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/article/0,,6-30-0-23619,00.html">Siemens Westinghouse scholarship prize</a>.  Good luck, <i>Interesting Joe</i>, good luck.  I only wish I had the motivation or encouragement to do this before I passed my prime *grin*  </text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-25</date>
<text>
I woke this morning to a tooth-ache and throat swollen with lymph.  My sinuses are draining, my head is plugged, my nose is stuffed, I can hardly hear, I'm tired and generally not feeling well.  I called in to work, I suffered through Wednesday but if I don't rest now, I'll be ill for sometime.  I took my second quiz in my Data Structures II class tonight.... although I didn't study at all (out of frustration for my mediocre performance on the first quiz relative to the great amount of studying that I did).  I attended all the lectures and I have seen all of the material before, so I figured I would take the quiz blindly and go down without a fight.  Before class I reviewed the run times of all the sorting algorithms - this was the only preparation. To my enjoyment the second quiz was much easier than the first.  The third is going to be tougher, but at least I feel that I can study for it as it covers things I've never studied before.  <br/><br/> I took a long walk to school today, I want to remember what it felt like.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-27</date>
<text>
The swelling and fever are mostly gone, the teeth on the right side of my mouth ache continually.  Sharp intense pain results in any cold substance touching the aching teeth.  I will be making a dentist appointment early in the coming week. <br/><br/>I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to implement a study on Parallel GAs for the GRID - the target of my Advanced AI class.  <a href="http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~raj/gridsim/">GridSim</a> doesn't seem to go into depth enough to satisfy me, although my professor probably would be indifferent if I were to use it.  It doesn't even make an attempt at modeling latency on the Internet - which can be killer for a distributed application.  GridSim is quite abstract, it doesn't seem to allow the programmer to go into much detail about the layout of their application... perhaps it will be enough.  In any case I have to do _something_, and conquering <a href="www.globus.org">Globus</a>s is not going to happen by the end of the semester.  I am trying to stay focused on the task of implementing the GAs, despite the very strong desire to attempt writing my own Internet topology model for the use in Public Resource Computing models.  Perhaps this will happen eventually, but for now I just want to get in the good graces of the professor. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-28</date>
<title>A sure sign the Ukrain is not moving up in the world.</title>
<text>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3144704.stm"><i>Link</i></a>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-09-29</date>
<title>Still hurting??</title>
<text>
It has been four days, my tooth-ache worsened with each day.  Yesterday, I had to take 800mg of Ibuprofen to keep the swelling at bay, with regular treatments of Anbesol to numb the pain.  Hopefully, I will get ahold of a dentist that can work me in soon.<p/>I saw the dentist today, and for once in my life it was a great relief. Three years ago I was the unfortunate victim of a dental hack - a crime at the level of a blank canvas being called modern art.  This dentist, to be left unnamed, drilled into the hollow of my tooth. "Shit," he said, followed by some medical terms and an attendant hustling around quickly.  I should have been given a root canal right there. The tooth that he butchered never did feel right, it took 8 months before I could eat anything cold on it.  Overtime, I stopped noticing it - until last Thursday.  Today, my new dentist declared that the tooth was abscessed, and that I will need a root canal. My new dentist removed my old filling, and anesthesized the pulp, and then applied a temporary filling.  The root canal is scheduled for October 20th.</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-02</date>
<text>
Installed SuSE 8.2 Professional on my server tonight.  I am working on blowing away my desktop machine as well.  I have some serious programming to do, so there is no room XP.  I installed XP as a temporary madness, and because I had a copy and I wanted to give it a chance.  In typical fashion it wouldn't cooperate correctly with my Macintosh PowerBook, so it's out and Samba is in. <br/><br/> Interesting rumors flying around work... <br/><br/>I wish I had ran today.  My heel is still a bit sore, but mostly today I avoided running because of laziness. <br/><br/> You can't really appreciate SCSI until you do a side by side install next to an IDE drive.  My PCs will both be running SuSE 8.2 Professional with VNC so that I can control them remotely.  I am also planning on installing VM ware with a version of windows 2000 on them... just for fun.  Need a stable environment for experimenting with grid applications.<br/><br/> I have been studying reputation systems for the last month.  Interesting that all of the so called <i>GRID</i> experts have missed the boat.  This is the only way that dynamic grids will be able to protect themselves from <i>code replacement</i> attacks.  Not to mention <i>flooding</i> attacks and other nasty things.  These problems are incredibly difficult to handle while trusting the virtual organizations and trying to do user level authentication.  None of the nodes have any knowledge.  They can't tell whether a node communicating with them is evil or good.  They can only see that "yes, this is a valid certificate". That isn't enough. Throw in a reputation system built on top of X.509 attribute certificates issued by distributed sources and you have something.  Link this with a way of permanently registering nodes via their MAC address (so that they can't change their identities) and you have something more substantial than the toys that professors are playing with these days;  toys that the industry seems to think are worth something, but then the industry has the resources to throw away man hours molding crap into something half-usable (at least the big players do).  But that's perfect.  The code was written for the big players anyway, so why shouldn't they suffer to make it work.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-03</date>
<text>
I took a long walk at lunch today, walking around downtown before settling down in <i>Plaza D'America</i> near my own building.  I spent a great portion of that time wondering about one trait I have that separates me from everyone else.  No matter how hard I try I cannot accept complements from people.  I have never been able to.  They start, my face starts burning and I wished they would stop.  I have adapted and I usually preempt their praise with an extremely humbling, negative comment.  People don't like this - you can see that on their faces.  This was the topic of my wonderment this afternoon.  Why won't I allow myself to accept their complements.  Then it hit me.  Complements from ordinary people are like sand bags strapped around your neck.  They are meant to hold you down. They are meant to ease your progress.  Your own spirit is crying out "This isn't good enough yet!!!" striving to something better.  And there they are, the ordinary ones.  "Wow, that is really amazing!!" Why?  Because it is far greater than they could ever achieve and they don't want to see what your really capable of. They hold you back in the least offensive way they can...by complementing you.  Spirits are easily influence.  A complement is the easiest way to pacify the natural hunger of a spirit striving toward greatness.  No hunger, no drive.  No drive, no ambition.  No ambition... and well, you're really quite ordinary then aren't you? <br/><br/>Contrast this with a complement from an extraordinarily great person.  When they give a complement it is really less of a compliment and more of an exhortation; driving you, spurring you, challenging you to live up your potential.  Something inside you resounds - resonates.  The mutual respect between two great men is like iron clashing together, forcing each to become something greater than himself alone.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-04</date>
<text>
I attended the Tulsa State Fair last night with Maryna and some friends.  We caught the end of a Chinese Circus act, which was the most entertaining part of the evening.<p/>I finally got the installation of SuSE 8.2 to go beyond the disk format on my desktop machine.  I had to put it into safe mode, something about the driver for the hard drive is not quite right in the regular mode. It is installing like a champ now.  Now to figure out xinetd *grin*  I like the fact that it disallows connections by default.  This is a commendable approach to security. I like several things about the latest version of SuSE, notably support for RPM packages.  <p/> I left my laptop hooked up to my printer while I left to do laundry.  An hour and a half latter, when I returned, an inch thick pile of paper had accumulated and my printer was still running.  The scheduled amount of reading that I have to do in the coming week is impressive, but I'm up for it.  I have two goals for the week.  I wish it were one, but I have two classes to keep up work for.  Goal one is to complete a draft for a paper on security.  I know what the focus is going to be.  I have already gathered a significant amount of supporting resources (my large reading list) so I only have to read and write.  My second goal for the week is to complete my home work for Data Structures II.  I am more than half way with this so one good days effort should put me close.  The fact that I will be on vacation from work is going to aid me greatly in my quest to complete these goals.</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-05</date>
<text>
I went to Gardner's today with Maryna.  I replenished my supply of used classics.  Then it was on to the park to study.  I could barely concentrate on my reading.  We stopped by Utica Square to visit my good friend Serguei who has been away in California.  Some very interesting conversation followed.  He was very interested in discussing our views on <i>What is thought</i>.  <i>What does it mean to live</i>.  <i>What is intelligence</i>.  I don't think he was prepared for my views.  These are topics I have thought much on.  Serguei thinks a great deal, but only lately has he turned away from making money onto life's important topics.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-06</date>
<title>Good Pi{e}</title>
<text>
Maryna and I watched <a href="http://www.upcomingmovies.com/eastgreatfallshigh.html">Pi</a> last night.  This is always good for inspiration. The scary thing is the recommendation on amazon.com, those who bought PI also bought <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/078401213X/qid=1065472460/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8758966-3502456?v=glance&amp;s=dvd">Requiem for a Dream</a>.<p/>
Today I woke later than planned, showered and went for a long walk in the crisp fall air.  I have dedicated most of the afternoon to reading, and it has been great.  I ordered <a href="http://papajohns.com">Papa John's</a> for lunch at 3pm - that is some good pie.  <p/> The plan for the rest of the day is to continue tracking down references and reading material.  The focus will be on reputation systems today.  Then sometime later in the evening to work on my home work assignment, which involves programming.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-07</date>
<text>
I received a check from Delta Airlines for Maryna's stolen luggage, this was encouraging.  Today, I cashed the check and gave the money to Maryna.  <p/> Today I woke around 10am.  That was earlier than yesterday, but today has not been as productive.  I have been trying to get myself to work on my programming assignment for Data Structures II, but working with sorting algorithms just doesn't seem very appealing lately.  My research, on the other hand, has been doing very well.  For the first time, I feel like I have the time to track down leads and reference from paper to paper.  It really is amazing how you can narrow down what your looking for with this common approach -- I never appreciated it before because I could never free up enough time to spend hours reading, download, and printing papers.  Hopefully I will finish my programming assignment tonight so that I can free up the rest of the week for reading.  Ultimately, one goal for the week was to begin a draft for the IAS'04 conference.  I should like to get on to that as well. <p/> <i>Other priorities (but not for this week)</i> AA (who has begun referring to himself as A^2) and MP are all hyped up on simulating PGAs with GridSim.  GridSim does justice as a simulator.  However, it comes nowhere close to where it needs to be to simulate the scheduling involved with a PGA, or any other complex Parallel algorithm. Anything simulated with this software is really a complex guess based on the assumption that the computation time will be much larger than the scheduling or communication cost of a system - not always accurate.<p/><i>Yet Another Change In Direction (YACID)</i> I will actually implement the PGAs - but I will do so in an MPI environment first.  Globus supposedly supports MPI IO functions through its Nexus library.  This is the logical way to go.  Develop it for MPI, see if it is worth the effort to adapt it to the GRID environment.  If it isn't adaptable to the GRID, at least I will have something to show for my class credit. <p/> It's terrible when you have to sink down to this level - to think in these terms.  Mostly, I am willing to do this for two reasons.  One, I don't care for OSU and if I have to stay here for my Master's, I would like to get it over with as quickly as possible.  Two, while this week is open, I typically don't have that much time to spend on my classes - hence I do as little as possible to <i>get by</i>.  Ugly, and I don't like it, but necessary. <p/> I wrote <a href="/blog/2003/10/06.html">this</a> not realizing that <i>Pi</i> and <i>Requiem for a Dream</i> are done by the same director.  Before going to bed last night I noticed the similarities.  Minor, of course, pointed it out this morning.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-08</date>
<title>I had no idea...</title>
<text>
I had no idea that <a href="http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&amp;va=gubernatorial">gubernatorial</a> was a word until last night.<p/>Happy birthday blog!!  As of <a href="/blog/2002/10/05.html">October 5th</a>, my blog was one year old. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-10</date>
<text>
I got quiz two back in my Data Structures and Algorithms II class.  Much better than the first one.  25/30, average was 23 with a standard deviation of 4.6.  That should put me right at 100% for that one (if he curves - I think he will have too).  The next quiz will be tough.  In the queue are <i>Red-Black Trees</i>, <i>Dynamic Programming</i>, and <i>B-Trees</i>.  <i>B-Trees</i> I have seen before and are fairly straight forward, it is going to take some study time to work out the other two topics. <p/> Didn't get enough reading done this week.  I burned more time than expected on my DSII programming assignment.  Oh I got it done, which is more than I can say for half of the Stillwater section of the class:  50% of the students where absent for tonight's class.  Hmmmm... wonder where they could be ?  It would have been a shame for a.cs to go down between 7:20pm and midnight *grin* <p/>  I have two pages of notes on the security paper for AA.  It's not formalized enough to share.  I know the ideas are solid and with the resent changes in <a href="http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/boinc_transition_plan.html">Seti@home</a>, things are slowly moving in the direction that I foresaw them going. It is a pleasing feeling to know that your thoughts are justified; it will be a far greater feeling to justify them by my own actions. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-14</date>
<title>Like totally or More Studies in the Human Condition</title>
<text>
I planted myself at the neighborhood Starbuck's to study and catch up on some reading that I missed out on while reorganizing my apartment.  Two royal purple plush chairs sit in the front window, occupied by two young and attractive women.  Two young and attractive women with little on the brain.  The first, brunette, talks fast.  Unapologetically uses "like" to accent her already hysterical speech.  Every third phrase ends with "you know".  The second, blonde, quiet.  Intently listening, agreeing wholeheartedly with the shallow laments of her dearest friend.  Frequently responds "totally".  The pair discuss their "relationships". I quote this because they are hardly more than games.  The boy in the corner with a burgundy - no dark maroon sweater smirks.  He can't help himself.  He hasn't seen a display of youthful emptiness of this magnitude in weeks.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-15</date>
<title>Dairy-Feed Firewall Monkey</title>
<text>
There was a time when working with Checkpoint firewalls intimidated me - that day is gone.  I have been through so many firewall upgrades (many of them failed upgrades) that I no longer contain the capacity to fear them.  Today I was struggling with a configuration issue on a remotely managed firewall.  There is a bug and the firewall logs are not making it to the management console - I won't bore you with the details here.  Even though about half of the functions they claim to have don't work, Checkpoint is really progressive.  One of the sexiest features of their latest offering (NG) is their <i>Secure Internal Communications</i> or SIC.  The firewall management console contains a certificate authority which is capable of generating and distributing certificates.  The firewall itself is distributed.  The firewall enforcement modules are the actual firewalls, they block traffic etc, etc.  The management console can be on a separate machine, the rule base is store here, compiled and uploaded to the firewall enforcement modules.  I noticed today that the logging, which is normally done on the management console, can be broken off onto a separate platform as well.  Beyond that, by giving the management console a static NAT address, it can be used to remotely manage firewalls elsewhere on the Internet.  This is amazing when you see it working.  From one management console, I was able to initialize a certificate, pull that certificate from the remote firewall, apply that certificate and then use the certificate to provide an encrypted communication channel for the manipulation of the firewall rules.  I defined a separate firewall policy for the remote machine, compiled it and pushed it to the remote firewall where it was installed.  *grin*)  This is an internet success story.  A distributed system (albeit very small in this case) using certificates and ... yes, it is working!!! 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-17</date>
<title>When my brain awoke this morning...</title>
<text>
I worked the outage last night.  When I got home Minor was online, giving us an opportunity to try out iChat AV audio chat.  It is more like talking on the phone - a little strange, but very cool.  I can't wait to get an iSight *grin*<p/>Any way, today has been a slow mental day (for the most part). I kick around some ideas for tunneling broadcast traffic across router borders.  Some interesting things could be done with this.  There is a tool that does this already called mTunnel, but it is limiting in some respects.  I am looking for more of a <i>broadcast gateway</i>.  I think I will take tonight off to have fun.  Tomorrow, I will be working on my paper for AA.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-18</date>
<title>Why do I even try?</title>
<text>
I don't understand sometimes why I even try.  I know that I can't own nice things, I know this. Either I or someone else breaks them.  It is especially disappointing when I end up breaking them, but at least I can indulge in a cycle of humbling self abuse.  Anger is the only result from others breaking my stuff.  One thing that has happened twice to my car really upset me:  door dings.  This afternoon I got something worse.  Somebody backed into my car and broke out the left tail light of my Camry *grin*  To be expected, they just left.  Why should they care that it cost me $181 to replace it?  I had been busting my ass to save money lately, now I just ask why do I even try?  Between this and my root canal on Monday I'm cleaned out for a month or two.  I was hoping to buy some nice presents for my best friend Minor... I'm still going to put something together, but it won't be as lavish as I had hoped. I was hoping to save up to attend a decent university for my PhD as well. ;(  <p/><i>Columbian Coffee</i><br/>I was feeling a little sleepy (and I am bent on staying up all night to program like I was twelve), so I stepped out for a walk and a coffee.  I can hear Oktoberfest in the distance.  While I went last night, I must confess that I don't understand it.  There was precious little German beer there.  Very little German food.  Mostly there were a lot of gluttonous American drunks using anything as an excuse to get smashed - together. <p/>There is one tent set up as a <i>beir garten</i>, it was the rowdiest.  There were people standing on the tables.  Singing? It didn't really sound like singing.  They should start calling this festival <i>drunkenfest</i>, it would be less insulting to the German people.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-19</date>
<title>Disadvantaged</title>
<text>
I have come to believe that I will perpetually be playing <i>catch-up</i> (warning I'm in a mood for Ranting - I'll try not to unleash the full wrath on these pages).  Living in Tulsa isn't helping this.  I went to the book store today to purchase a book on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1578701902/qid=1066584597/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-6447443-3358413?v=glance&amp;n=507846"><i>autoconf, automake, and libtool</i></a>. Out of four books and two chains no one had it.  This doesn't surprise me as it isn't the first time I've been disappointed by them.  I need a reference to figure out the autoconf macro definitions. This is the kind of book that you need on your shelf - online references won't cut it here.  <p/>
If I lived in Portland or Seattle, I bet I could have had this book on the first trip.  Perhaps even <a href="http://www.powells.com/">my favorite used bookstore</a> would have it.  I know that <a href="http://www.gardnersbooks.com/">the best used bookstore in Tulsa</a> doesn't. ;( <p/>In other news, my carpal tunnel syndrome is getting worse.  This is directly related to the crappy desks they give us at work.  I don't fit my desk so my right wrist ends up resting on the edge of the desk as I reach up for the keyboard because the desk is too high and I can't raise the chair any higher because I would crush my legs. :(  Arrrgggghhh!!!!  <p/> *devious smile* I wonder if that Kurt Cobain wannabe uses a personal firewall */devious smile*.  Oh how crappy, he doesn't even have wireless. Thought I would check on the Access Point's setup as well.  It is a linksys, it took five guesses to get the admin password right.  It wasn't the default - but they really should have known better than to make it <i>admin</i>!!! hmmm... should I add WEP to their Access Point or change the password ??  That could be fun.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-20</date>
<title>Root Canal and Laundry Day</title>
<text>
I had my root canal done this morning, everything went smoothly.  I didn't feel a thing.  This is probably the most painless dental procedure that I have ever had.  <p/>
The laundry mat yielded some interesting people tonight.  Two, possibly gay, black men, one of which cat-called my car (?) while I was leaving.  Everyone else faded behind the screen of a dozen hispanic children playing tag and screaming at the top of their lungs; the parents don't move during the torrent. I left with a headache.   <p/> I read Toshio Yamagishi's paper "The Role of Reputation In Open and Closed Societies: An Experimental Study of Internet Auctioning" tonight.  It was worth the time spent reading 50 pages.  I am now actively using <a href="http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/">BibDesk</a> to manage my desired references and to handle the layout of my notes.  Generally, as I read a paper I make notes along the columns.  These are usually the points that need to be included in papers I happen to be working on.  I am now denoting this information in BibDesk, we'll see how this works out. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-23</date>
<text>
It is the beginning of fall.  The starlings are gathering around downtown Tulsa. They are resting now in the field across the road.  Their days consumed by constant eating - preparation for their long southward journey.  The temperature is beginning wane into comfortable ranges. The leaves, tree's clothes, softly sinking through air toward ground below. My day's stress drifts with the cool breeze on my shoulder.  Unimpeded, I sit thinking in the courtyard at OSU Tulsa.  My head is clear, but my mind is not moving. I note that it is difficult to connect two thoughts. I haven't felt such peace all week.</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-24</date>
<text>
Much to do today.  I worked the Network Outage last night, and had an On-Call issue this morning at 7:40am, so I have the afternoon off.  The deadline for my security paper is fast approaching - October 31st.  This will be my focus for most of the weekend, until I have to shift gears to begin my next program for my <i>Data Structures and Algorithms II</i> class.  <p/>On a side note, I forgot how lame OSU's scheduling is in Tulsa.  There was one class that I <i>really</i> enjoyed in my undergraduate studies: <i>The Theory of Computation</i>.  It built on the topics discovered by the likes of Turing and Church.  It was all theory, and incredibly entertaining for me.  I wanted to stay on the firm ground of theory for my Master's degree, and study more of the topics covered under the theory of computation.  I slated two classes to flesh out this desire in my optional electives:  <i>Automata and Finite State Machines (CS5653)</i> and <i>Algebraic Structures of Formal Grammars (CS623)</i>.  :(  Neither are being offered next semester.  I guess it is all the same since I will need to knock out <i>Formal Language Theory (CS5313)</i> as a prerequisite.  Soooo... I will be taking a much needed class in Network Programming and some other core class that I won't find terribly interesting.  
<p/>Side Note:  I'm at my favorite cafe again.  There are five other wireless lab tops on the network today. One other artisan using a Macintosh like mine, the other four are windows machines owned by <i>professionals</i> ( they look like developers ). I thought I would take a little survey of what they were running - found something interesting on one:

<p/>Interesting ports on  (192.168.1.114):<br/>
(The 1595 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)<br/>
<table>
<tr><td>Port</td><td>State</td><td>Service</td></tr>
<tr><td>135/tcp</td><td>open</td><td>loc-srv</td></tr>           
<tr><td>139/tcp</td><td>open</td><td>netbios-ssn</td></tr>       
<tr><td>445/tcp</td><td>open</td><td>microsoft-ds</td> </tr>
<tr><td>1031/tcp</td><td>open</td><td>iad2</td></tr>
<tr><td>3306/tcp</td><td>open</td><td>mysql</td></tr>
<tr><td><b>12345/tcp</b></td><td><b>open</b></td><td><b>NetBus**</b></td></tr>
<tr/>
<tr><td/><td/><td><i>This is a port typically used by a trojan for those who don't know (although it could have been running anything)</i></td></tr></table>

<p/>Opps!! He isn't running a personal firewall.  Shame, shame.  He was smart enough to take it off the network quickly *grin*  Actually, I was hoping to give him a warning, but they left ;(  I hate to see boxes get compromised and the owner not know it.  I would hate for that to happen to me... although I strongly suspect that it already has once in the past while I was taking a class at Black Hat 2003.  One of the teachers of the class had a Mac just like mine... after that class, I began to notice that my Apple-S key would no longer save files... I'm probably just paranoid.  I am planning on doing a fresh install of 10.3 with the first application being tripwire.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-26</date>
<title>Nothing sounds right</title>
<text>
This is crazy.  Last week I felt like writing.  The words were flowing easily enough, but I had to study for a quiz in my DS2 class.  This week, I have a paper due and my ability to clearly, concisely say what I want to has faded.  Nothing sounds right.  I start sentences but am unable to develop the thought into a paragraph.  I'm having trouble linking thoughts together where they make rational sense. I can't find a place to start.  This is really just anxiety.  The pressure of a deadline always breaks the flow of my thoughts... I need to get over this.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-27</date>
<title>Doing better tonight.</title>
<text>
Not wanting to give myself any excuses for my poor writing performance last night, I refused to admit my physical well-being as a hinderance to the writing process.  I had a fever and didn't realize until this morning, when it had eased, how my head was throbbing.  Needless to say that the writing tonight went much better.  While I still may fall short of my goal of clearly and concisely presenting my thoughts in the written word, at the very least my sentences are rational and coherent - this is a relief. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-28</date>
<text>
My eyes are swollen and drooping shut.  I got 9 hours of sleep last night, yet I feel tired most of the day.  This is more than just a purely physical ailment  - this is the result of long term emotional stress.  I have more to do than seems possible to complete, and yet there is no recourse, it must be done.  I'm wondering whether two classes is a good idea for next semester, considering work will likely be very busy including some travel in the spring.  I may have to lay off.  <p/>Interesting, just took a browse through the want ads on monster.com.  Searching for <i>network security analyst</i> yielded 9 pages of want ads from across the nation.  Most adds listing salaries were higher than mine.  Also the national average starting salary for a B.S. in Computer Science is $47,500/yr.  I started below that point.  I have said it many times - probably too frequently:  I don't want another job.  If I did, I would leave in a heartbeat. <p/> I keep having this dream about <i>the last insult</i> where I get up and leave.  Funny dreams don't usually come with titles, but this one seems to. <p/> The paper has gone much better tonight thanks to Minor who bailed me out by taking my distended disorganized thoughts and honing them into a focused outline format.  This is something that I typically wouldn't consider working without, but something happens to my thought process when I am facing a deadline.  To be frank, it goes to shit.  I lose perspective on the task I'm working towards which makes any analysis or clarity impossible.  This is what I mean when I say <a href="/blog/2003/10/26.html">"I have to get over this"</a>.  Deadline pressure breaks me.  I know this.  This flaw of mine isn't contained in any specific field - such as writing in this case.  Instead, it is spread out into every aspect of my life.  :(  There have been times when I'm able to eek passed this short-falling to achieve <a href="/blog/2003/03/06.html">greatness</a>.  I just need to force this to happen more frequently and the crumbling less. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-10-28</date>
<text>
I ordered panther tonight;  two days to wait, two days. <p/> The rest of the night:  cherry coke, blueberry donuts, and writing like I'm running on a treadmill.  Damn those deadlines. Be simple.  Be the keyboard.  Be Hemmingway - say more with less.<p/> <a href="http://botwerks.net">Interesting</a>, in many ways I see similarities with myself.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-01</date>
<text>
It is the time of year where a mid-afternoon run feels like a morning jaunt.  The Arkansas river stands as glass stretching from bank to bank across its shallow basin.  Light wisps of fog move about the pane - fairies dancing.  The air has a mystic refreshing quality. I am the only person out enjoying the day.  The sky is overcast with a pleasant grey color.  The banks are still green, giving a striking contrast between sky and earth.  The half naked trees watch over the trail; half naked the other half dressed in green and yellow. Every other moment a leave dives from a tree - consciously.  In their new freedom they hang suspended momentarily, then dash most unexpectedly into the earth.  As if for a mere second you could believe that they would win their fight against gravity and rise up, floating off into the grey mist of the sky above. </text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-03</date>
<title>November Vacation, Day 1</title>
<text>
<bl>
 Goals for the day:
 <li>1. Reinstall SuSE on desktop machine</li>
 <li>2. Install LAM-MPI</li>
 <li>3. Read Chapters 6,7,8,9 in Checkpoint CCSA book</li>
 <li>4. Backup my laptop in preparation for Mac OS 10.3</li>
 <li>5. Listen to the Honeyrods, the Booda Velvets, and Nirvana</li>
 <li>6. Work on my DSII programming assignment</li>
</bl>
<p/>Normally I would say that this list (even a short list like this was unreasonable) wouldn't get done by the end of the week, forget about by the end of the day...
<p/>I finished all items above, but numbers 5 and 6.  Plus I fell short on #3, but I got a haircut, did laundry, and ran 5 miles none of which were on the list.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-04</date>
<title>Couldn't Sleep</title>
<text>
I woke after 4 hours of sleep.  Today is my birthday, I'm twenty-six today.  It doesn't feel any different that twenty-five, with the exception of a few extra creeks and moans here and there.<p/>I should be programming, but something about a sleepless night screams for less practical remedies.  Sooo.... I am working on improving the appearance of my blog by installing <a href="http://blojsom.sourceforge.net/">blojsom</a> like Minor did.  More or less, I like what he has done with his.  Instead of hosting it on xamot, I think I will utilize my cable connection for this using a HTTP redirect page from my main website and a couple of perl scripts to make sure that the address remains correct.  If I succeed with the installation, configuration, and testing, you may eventually see a more user friendly journal entry *grin*  That is, if I can convert my current blog to the new format easily enough... although there are some options if I can't.  <p/> I think I will also install Panther this morning since I'm up. *grin*) <p/>Having a Linux Desktop in addition to my laptop is a awesome!!  I have almost everything backed-up in under an hour without having to burn any CDs/DVDs.  I'm almost ready to go for the Panther install.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-05</date>
<title>Meeting with Abraham</title>
<text>
I met with Dr. Abraham today to discuss my <i>Grid Security</i> paper, and his ideas to include statistical trust models into it.  I managed to convince him that the distributed model of trust would be better.  The argument went something like:  <blockquote>Me <i>If I use a Bayesian model, then each node would have to store historical information about interactions with every other node, correct?</i><p/>AA:<i>Correct</i><p/>Me: <i>Then I'm storing a magnitude of information size N on each node, that's a lot of space.  I can accomplish effectively the same goal using referrals and I would only have to store a fraction of the history information required of a Bayesian model.</i><p/>AA:<i>Yes, I see.  The idea is sound</i>. </blockquote> <p/>I went to on to explain the ways in which we could extend this idea, mainly with the use of Ontologies to describe the Applications language (or protocol if you will). You could then use this as a baseline to detect system anomalies.  Two hours later, I leave his office with a stack of (mostly) crap papers, and two rejected NSF grant proposals to read.  Meanwhile, that time would have been better spent working out my DS2 homework: dynamic programming solution to the activity scheduling problem.<p/>I saw the Matrix Revolutions tonight, and after a long day of battling with dynamic programming it was exactly what I needed.  After dropping Maryna back at her apartment I started the drive home and realized my mistake:  I was trying to use a matrix like the book suggest doing, but my implementation is far beyond using a plain table.  The approach for dynamic programming is to calculate the answers to the subproblems and save them so that they can be looked up when you need them.  Storing sets, like I am using, in tables isn't practical - I need to be saving the subsets in a structure which can be referenced more easily than a table.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-06</date>
<title>Coding Merathon</title>
<text>
After coding the entire day, my homework is done.  There is one part that is partially botched.  I just couldn't figure out the dynamic programming paradigm until late last night... way too late to implement, plus I made a mistake in my understanding as well...  Oh well.  The worst part is that I spent (virtually) the entire week on this program, while I had planned to study for my CCSA test tomorrow. ;(  In any case, I was going to reschedule the test, but rescheduling must be done 24 hours ( I only had 22 ) in advance of the test otherwise they take your money any way (and if they're going to take my money I might as well role the dice on the exam ). :( If I have to retake it, I will pay for it out of my own pocket.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-07</date>
<title>CCSA to the rescue...</title>
<text>
I am personally not convinced that industry exams are worth their salt, but my bosses seem to like them.  While I not one to bow or bend to the corporate will, I am dependent (for now) on my job.  After much thought and deliberation, and more or less as a direct result of the <i>interesting</i> changes of our employee benefits package of late, I have decided to load up on certifications.  I already earned <a href="/blog/2002/10/10.html" >one</a> last year.  Now, I have two.  Soon I plan to pass the CCSE and the CCSE+.  Then for my my yearly training I will attempt to get more SANS training and work toward some of the certifications listed <a href="http://www.giac.org/subject_certs.php">here</a>. Perhaps the GCFW or the GCIA are up my alley.  After looking at the descriptions, I think that I would likely be more comfortable with the GCIA.<p/>Plans for the night: relax, read, enjoy a nice up of Starbuck's Coffee, think about next weeks goals. <p/>Next weeks goals:  <bl><li>Implement PGA on MPI cluster</li><li>Implement Asynch PGA on MPI cluster</li><li>Experiment with the two</li><li>Start report of findings - to be finished by December 5th</li><li>Work on the Grid Security Paper</li><li>Study for the CCSE</li><li>Reinstall SuSE on my desktop machine ( I hoarked it backing up my Mac's files... Note: never just delete the "Desktop" folder on a KDE system, bad things happen after that.</li><li>Read - as much as possible</li></bl><p/>Sometimes it is beneficial to reflect on the goals accomplished during the week.  Here is what I got done this week... as usual the list is smaller than the planned goals: <bl><li>Finished DS2 Programming Assignment #2</li><li>Upgraded my Macintosh to Panther (OSX 10.3)</li><li>Studied for my CCSA</li><li>Passed my CCSA</li><li>Turned 26 - yes this takes effort</li><li>Read Plato's Apology and Crito</li><li>Purchased a stash of books for my reading self</li><li>Played around with Blojsom for blogging - didn't really get anywhere it yet</li><li>Brained stormed ideas for Dr. Paprzycki's Graduate Students</li><li>Fought threw the crowds to watched the Matrix Revolutions in a sold out theatre (capacity 443)</li></bl>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-09</date>
<text>
Tonight, I am preparing my machines for this week's onslaught of MPI programming.  Other goals for the week, that didn't make last week's list but are already listed on my iCal task pane, are: <bl><li>Working on the grid security paper</li><li>Filling out scholarship applications</li><li>Loading all of my favorite utilities back onto my Mac</li><li>Getting Blojsom or Bloxsom up and running</li><li>Web Site enhancements - because it has been awhile.</li></bl><p/>This weekend has been extremely productive, yet relaxing.  I finished reading Hermann Hesse's book Siddhartha.  Very interesting read, shares many of the same topics that are being covered in Plato's works that I have also been reading.  One of the improvements I hope to make to my web site is the addition of a reading list (and/or a "Book Shelf" list ) implemented in XML+XSLT.  Why not Blojsom?? Because I feel like using XSLT!! That's why.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-10</date>
<title>MPI Quest Day 1, or Signs you're compulsive </title>
<text>
Things accomplished today:<bl><li>Installing Linux on my Virtual PC</li><li>Installed SuSE8.2 on Sepentor</li><li>Installed LAM MPI on all machines</li><li>Compiled "Hello World" program</li><li>Ran "Hello World" in LAM MPI environment</li></bl><p/><hr/><p/>
How to know your compulsive?? When it is 15 after midnight and you've check for operating system updates three times.<p/><hr/><p/>
My fried Minor has developed a nice morning ritual involving a pastry.  I partook of the wonderful German pastries during my brief stay in Berlin, and so I feel that this is a wonderful ritual.  <p/> Alas, my most recent ritual involves Panera Bread Company.  During my recent vacation time, I have found this routine very comforting:  wake-up, run, check email, eat a bowl of soup at the bread company.  And today, I have expanded the ritual to included studying at the cafe... the atmosphere is most pleasant.  Soothing classical music graces the air while relaxing earth-toned walls sooth my mood.<p/><hr/><p/>
I stopped by 1318 lab today.  I noticed that Istvan Jonyer stopped by a while back - hmmmmm, will have to look into that.  Basically, I stopped by because I didn't feel like being at home, but needed Internet access.  I installed a new Virtual PC today and loaded SuSE8.2 on it.  I am going to install MPI software on it, creating a MPI cluster wholly contained on my laptop. *big grin*   If the CD-ROM boot will cooperate with me, I will take great pleasure in blowing away Michael Ira Winger's Red Hat Box, and putting SuSE8.2 Professional on it... like it had before he messed it up by installing Red Hat. *evil laugh* bye bye Red Hat...hahaha...<p/>
Read through the LAM MPI documentation today... configuring MPI clusters is way to hands on.  While not difficult, I believe that it need not be this involved.  MPI is screaming for Rendezvous.  Think <a href="http://www.swampwolf.com/products/howl/GettingStarted.html">HOWL</a>+MPI.  One thing at a time, I have my hands full right now.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-11</date>
<title>Heart of a Dog</title>
<text>
I haven't stayed up reading all night since I was in seventh grade - until tonight [this morning really].  It isn't often that I sit and read books straight through.  There have been a few recently that I desired to do so: <i>We</i> by Yevgeny Zamyatin, <i>Siddhartha</i> by Hermann Hesse, and <i>The Fountainhead</i> by Ann Rand.  And one in which I did:  Mikhail Bulgakov's <i>Heart of a Dog</i>.  <p/> Maryna turned me on to Russian literature with <i>We</i>.  This is literature that speaks to me.  This is a people who have suffered, who have felt the frustration of the world, who have restrained their anger in the face of frustration.  This is a people who have tactfully, accurately, and passionately spoken out against the cause of their frustration, presenting their bane to the world between two covers.  I am in awe. <p/>Please note this:  I read this work in English, forgiving that something might have been lost in the translation, the book was still <i>that good</i>.  This is a credit to the translator Mirra Ginsburg.  The inside cover reveals that she was born in Russia and translates Russian literature for a living.  Indeed, the English translation of <i>We</i> I read was hers.  In the future I will not hesitate in the least to read a translation by her.  In fact, I will likely seek out other Ginsburg translations of the Russian classics.  Maryna tells me that <i>The Dragon</i> by Dostoyevsky is deep and quite pointed, and I see that she has done a version in English. <p/>Now back to my usual techie drowning - Mac OS 10.3.1 has been released!!
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-12</date>
<title>Blast it!</title>
<text>
Every city needs 24-hour book stores!! And it must carry every book in print for the computer section!! <p/>
I'm working on learning MPI, naturally I want to do this in C++ as it is my preferred programming language. Sufficed to say that the C++ implementation of MPI varies widely from the documented C library.  Naturally, I could just work my way through the C++ source code, but (naturally) I'm short on time for this project and I have about three other major things going on this week to boot.  So much so that I'm going to need a book geared directly for it.  And I'll have to order it online because no one in Tulsa is going to have <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521520800/qid=1068621663/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/104-1782577-2875139?v=glance&amp;s=books">this</a>, and that is going to burn two days :( <p/> Damn, if I was in Portland, Seattle, New York, there would be a chance that I could have gotten this book today or tomorrow; either because someone in town would have it, or because of next day delivery in NYC. <p/><hr/><p/>My favorite Starbuck's, the cozy one on 51st and Harvard, is packed tonight. I just managed to grab the last free seat in the house.  It has been a marathon reading day.  A hundred pages here, fifty pages there, a little of this book a bit of that one.  I stopped in at Starbuck's to nail the coffin shut on my Data Structures II reading before the quiz tomorrow night; I have two chapters left.  I have three chapters left in the Checkpoint Management II book, my CCSE examination is scheduled for Friday. I have elected to continue reading the MPI book I have until the C++ version arrives.  At least it will help to build some background with the MPI libraries, i.e. knowing which functions have which properties and so on. I'm reading selected works of Plato for enrichment, while simultaneously reading <i>Linked</i> by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.  I am stimulated to the max this week.  My sincerest wish is that I could continue along this path indefinitely.  There are some scholarships that I will be working on over the weekend, with their help perhaps next year I will be able to follow this path again in the future.  For now, it has been the most enjoyable Fall I've had in recent history.  Here is to the future.</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-13</date>
<title>Rainy</title>
<text>
Today is beautiful. It is overcast, drizzly, and cold.  As I am still on vacation from work, I elected to walk to campus today.  It takes about an hour for me to walk from my apartment to campus.  I could cover the distance in less time, but I enjoy a good leisurely stroll on a chilly day. Tulsa in the late Fall is almost like the Northwest in early Spring or Fall in the Northeast.  I love this weather. I love putting my hand against my cheek to feel cold flesh like iron.  I love that everyone else scurries avoiding the blessed drizzle, and that I can stroll at my leisure soaking in every droplet. I love listening to the leaves rustle in the gently falling rain, the sounds of the gutters carrying away the aggregate moisture. I love the soft glistening of objects  painted with water.  Everything is new again.  The dingy, the decrepit, the worn, the weary; all need but a coat of Fall drizzle to be reborn blazing and new.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-14</date>
<title>Hmm</title>
<text>
Major events today:  Dr. P is in town, I passed my <a href="http://www.checkpoint.com/services/education/certification/certifications/ccse.html">CCSE exam</a>, Maryna is out of town for the weekend so I'm "batch'ing" it, and I'm using my bachelor time to setup a MPI cluster in the lab.  Three machines at home wasn't a big enough MPI cluster to satiate my desires (plus I will need more in the long run).  I decided since no one else is ever there that I would destroy the lab.  I own it now, it is mine.  No more of this windows crap - I'm scraping windows off all the machines that I want to.... with the exception of the mail server and the domain controller *grin* I ask you: <i>who</i> will stop me??  Hahahaha...<p/>Installing linux is slow, and more or less boring.  I am, of course, patching the servers during the initial install and this is taking a long time on SuSE's servers since they just released 9.0. :(  What I need is a tool that easily replicates an installation.  Something like the Red Hat jump-start boot-disks except on a distribution that doesn't suck.  More or less, a tool that would query the RPM (yes the only good thing that Red Hat Linux ever did) database and see what is installed, store the package names and download locations on disk.  Then you install the tool on the fresh base system and replicate.  If anybody knows of something like this please drop me a line.  <p/>Even better would be RPM repository server.  A server that downloaded each patch and stored them in a repository, then other servers on the LAN that wanted the updates could use the repository instead of downloading them again from the Internet servers. (Interesting that this is basically the model that I envision for wide-scale distributed systems, hmmm)  Something like <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sus/default.mspx">SUS</a> for Linux.  Again, I'm too lazy to look this up right now, so if it exist please let me know.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-15</date>
<text>Shee'at... Now I find that if I would have flipped forward 10 pages, the C++ bindings are covered in the text.  They are listed in an appendix in the back of the book, but the usage is a little vague in the appendix given the lack of examples (i.e. the syntax is shown, but out of context).  I guess they are going to cover Fortran and C++ as the C bindings are the same as the Fortran bindings. So I wasted $60 on the other MPI book.  No, not wasted, the other book has some interesting things in it - which I will savor over the holiday break.<p/>More disappointment.  I looked into XML+XSLT for Safari and it looks to be a no go.  Safari used the KHTML rendering engine which apparently supports on XML+CSS2.1 :( Interesting how in less than two years something that I learned is nearly completely useless to me.<p/>
Working in the lab today building the MPI cluster.  One host took 3 hours yesterday :(  Hopefully the update site won't be crushed today.  While the hosts are building, I'll be programming.<p/>Well, I haven't got much programming yet, but I have a cluster of four MPI nodes.  Every node is up to date.  Soon, I will rebuild the lab's main server and setup rinetd so that each of these boxes will be available on the net.<p/>It only took 4 hours to build the three remaining servers. SuSE's online update mirrors weren't getting slammed today; very nice.  I now have a 5 node MPI cluster: one node for the master, 4 for computation.  Now to make some headway with the code.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-16</date>
<text>
I took a walk in the fog last night; very soothing. Unexpectedly, the fog has stayed through the morning and early afternoon.  Downtown Tulsa is yet wrapped in a shroud of fog at thirty after noon.<p/>My plan for the day is to program in MPI for a few hours, then spend the afternoon writing on my paper, then pick Maryna up at the airport.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-17</date>
<text>
It was rough being back at work for the first time in two weeks.  It is good to have a backup who takes care of things while you are away, I was able to catch up on email after only one day.  Tomorrow, I hack on one of our own web servers. I am looking forward to this. <p/> 
On another note, Sunday I restarted my paper (yeah the one due Friday) for about the sixth time.  I pared it back to its essence, I only hope I didn't prune too much out. I feel like I got a better groove going through it now - hopefully I will be able to carry that out tomorrow night.  After I was too tired to write tonight, I filled in the Reference section (although not fully).  This is a rather mindless task, but it has to be done and it's better not to wait until the last moment to do it.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-18</date>
<title>Newell Machine</title>
<text>
From <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684868768/qid=1069215042/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-7845467-4864631?v=glance&amp;n=507846">Emergence</a></i> by Steven Johnson:
 <blockquote>
	The brilliance of Selfridge's new paradigm lay in the fact that it relied on a distributed, bottom-up intelligence, and not a unified, top-down one.  Rather than build a single smart program, Selfridge created a swarm of limited miniprograms, which he called demons. "The idea was, we have a bunch of these demons shrieking up the hierarchy," he explains. "Lower-level demons shrieking to higher-level demons shrieking to higher ones."<p/>To understand what the "shrieking" means, imagine a system with twenty-size individual demons, each trained to recognize a letter of the alphabet.  The pool of demons is shown a series of words, and each demon "votes" as to whether each letter displayed represents its chosen letter.  If the first letter is a, the a-recognizing demon reports that it is highly likely that it has recognized a match. ...
 </blockquote>
Selfridge was a colleague of Marvin Minsky's.  There are some interesting similarities between Minsky's <i>Society of Mind</i> approach and what Selfridge describes here. I have also toyed with similar ideas for a distributed cellular automata, which I referred to as a Newell machine.  I referred to Newell because he was the inventor of the <i>rule base</i>, but in the original description of his rule base, it seemed like he described the rules as firing themselves.  This inspired me to think about a transformation system in which there were defined a group of agents.  Each agent would have two properties.  One would be a pattern, on finding the pattern, the agents sends would apply a transformation (their second property).  The transformations would be defined by very simple rules, ideally these would be rules similar to cellular automata.  There would be a common space, modifiable by all agents.  The agents would scan through the common space in any reasonable fashion and <i>fire</i> when they came across their pattern, a semaphore would need to determine the ordering of the firing agents should two or more fire at once.  However, after being granted permission from the semaphore, an agent finding its pattern would apply its transformation to the common space.  The cumulative results, at least in my mind, would be a sort of asynchronous cellular automata.   
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-19</date>
<title>Safari 1.1 (v100) Bug</title>
<text>
During a penetration test at work yesterday, I found a web server vulnerable to a XSS attack.  While brainstorming for ideas on how to exploit the bug, I discovered that Safari 1.1 (v100) is vulnerable to a cookie theft attack.  The BugTraq posting is <a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/344850/2003-11-16/2003-11-22/0">here</a>.  After receiving a confirmation from another BugTraq subscriber, I notified the Safari engineers at Apple.  As it turned out, they monitor BugTraq and knew of the problem from my posting there - Very Cool *grin* <p/>Christian Horchert from veedev.de wrote to tell me that apparently the cookie theft bug persists even when cookies are "disabled".  This makes since to me, since it is a bug in controlling the <i>reading</i> of cookies.  Disabling cookies is really about disabling the writing of cookies - or at least that appears to be Safari's approach.  The javascript is always going to try to read cookies even you have them disabled.  So if your code can't control the reading of cookies - what makes anyone think that they would be able to actually disable the reading of cookies ??  None the less, it was good info to know, so thank you Christian.</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-20</date>
<title>Egad!!</title>
<text>
I got stuck at work tonight trouble shooting a failed VPN setup and didn't get off until 8:30pm.  Not a problem, there was no scheduled quiz, I thought "I'll just show up an hour and a half late..." When I arrived, there was no one in the room, class was over.  I spent 3 and half hours trouble shooting a VPN that wasn't working because the CCNP at the other end couldn't get his hardware squared away - then on top of that, I missed the one class that I wanted to be in the most:  NP Complete Theory. ;(  I've never been in a class where the instructor tried to explain this! They always skip it. Now, for once a professor was going to explain it, to actually attempt to cover the material in a classroom full of students....*fizzle* and I'm not there.<p/>Word for the night:  <i>bridge-brain</i>.  Also, could it possibly be the reason I don't fit in anywhere?
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-21</date>
<text>
After a full blown dispair and panic attack last night, I am actually feeling quite pleased with my submission for <a href="http://ias04.softcomputing.net">IAS'04</a> - thanks for all your help Minor I couldn't have done it with out you, and I owe you, again.<p/>Now for a nice evening of relaxing reading before I take on my next <a href="http://www.cs.okstate.edu/~jonyer/teaching/5413/Program 3.pdf">conquest</a>. Once I finish programming this beast of an assignment - I mean RSA is serious stuff - I will resume working on my Parallel Genetic Algorithms.  This is going to be an equally daunting task and it is also due the first week of December *grin*  Isn't graduate school fun?? *grin*
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-22</date>
<text>
Working in the lab today.  I rearranged the network to provide a true DMZ segment with no filtering.  We will hopefully be joining the <a href="http://www.planet-lab.org">Planet-Lab</a> project, and this was one of their requirements.  I just need to get <a href="http://www.cs.okstate.edu/~aa">Dr. Abraham</a> to fill out the necessary forms so that we will have a site dedicated to us.<p/>Other than messing around in the lab, I have spent the day decompressing.  Tomorrow, it will be back to the grind - working on my programming assignment for DS2 and working on my MPI programming.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-23</date>
<text>
I walked into the lab today - 40 degrees with the wind howling like a bansee... it was great!. <p/>
I'm in Lab1318 again today with much to think about and much to do. Starting off with a little cleaning and Nirvana's <i>Smells Like Teen Spirit</i>.<p/><bl><li>4:26pm - Kicked off backup of Xamot</li><li>5:05pm - Backups are done.</li><li>5:27pm - Start SuSE 8.2 install and break for supper</li><li> 7:05pm - SuSE is complete and I am configuring online updates.</li> </bl><p/>I never seem to get much done in the lab... I spent most of my time to night rearranging furniture and I'm far from done with that.  This place will rock (for me) when I am finished.  For now I'm going to leave three machines in place: the domain controller, the mail server, and Bazooka (Oracle?).  Everything else is mine, mine, mine.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-25</date>
<title>In the lab again...</title>
<text>
Another night of linux installs and furniture rearranging.  When I walk into the lab now, it feels more like home since I having everything the way that I want it.... now maybe I will get some freaking programming done!!!  The Praxis cluster has six host, and the new MPI cluster, Quaerendo, has three so far.  Plus yesterday I got the planet-lab server up and running.  Our group on planet-lab is researching <a href="http://www.planet-lab.org/php/institutions.php">Bio Inspired Grid Computing</a>, which AA is refering to as the B.I.G. project. Maybe next semester I will do something with this.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-11-28</date>
<title>Dystopian</title>
<text>
I AM worn.  I am only trying to keep everything together through the end of finals week.... then I hope it all breaks loose.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-01</date>
<text>
Three hours of programming - no progress :(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-02</date>
<title>A rant and a half.</title>
<text>
So, Greg just can't keep from making sarcastic comments to me at work, despite the fact that he is no longer my boss.  I was trying to show him an <i><a href="http://www.owasp.org/software/webscarab.html">up and coming</a></i> application hacking tool...but as usual he had no appreciation for potential and started right in with quality sarcasm like "that is a <i>really</i> great tool". I love the tone he uses when he says these things, he might as well say "I think you're a loser" at the end.  Then once out of a hundred times he actually perceives the fact that I understand sarcasm and tries to make it up to me later with flattery like "We think you're a very valuable employee" - to which my response is stop giving me lip service and show some respect...but then historically we can't expect that to happen can we? Just the same, I'm at the point now where I don't give a damn about your respect.
 
<p/>I think that he will eventually come to regret his lack of candor in dealing with me as a peer (of course he is not really my <a href="/blog/2003/01/21.html">peer</a> on many levels, but on the levels that he should act as a peer he seems to project an air of arrogance towards me).  I am a very very very patient man, I have put up with more than my fair share of the <a href="/blog/2003/03/31.html">putdowns at this place</a>.  No more.  I won't have them.
<p/>Greg, I hope your reading this.  I would just like to say that while I respect your professional opinion on many levels and most of the time you are a nice enough person - I still think that for the most part you are a DICK on the job. Also, while your a great security professional, you made a really crappy manager because you lack any kind of duel perspective what-so-ever.  I really resented it when you put me down in front of our clients - and you've done this far too many times. I agree that sometimes your putdowns have been justified but you should have had enough tact to be a "professional" in those situations.  Professionals don't put their coworkers or employees down - no matter what - but then maybe you forgot all that lecturing you did on being a professional.... you and the rest of the Network Support group.  Talk is cheap, few of you ever really backed up what you said.  Sean Mullen was the exception, but you ran him off because of your lack of <a href="/blog/2003/03/14.html">RESPECT</a> - think about it.  All of you only saw Sean as a former St John employee (i.e. he didn't work at Harris, and there is an obvious double standard at TULMEL for all non-Harris people) and a former Desktop Tech, none of you ever really gave him the benefit of the doubt - you set him up for failure but refusing to fail he left out of frustration.
<p/>
Although most the time at SJMC your putdowns have not been justified, while I'm ranting, I may as well say that I especially enjoyed it last year during the firewall upgrade when your idea of motivating me was to "give me shit" about not getting the upgrade done... despite the obvious increase in complexity of the process since you where the firewall administrator.  For example, the release notes of the typical CP 4.1 update were 12 pages long, the release notes for NG were over one hundred pages long - but did you account for this? No. Instead you made comments to me and others, and the client about my inaptitude.  When you undermine your employee or a coworker, you're really not doing yourself a favor in the long run; you're just making the company look bad despite your desire for such putdowns to act as a shield for the company.  I guess your line of thinking goes "If I put him down to the customers when he makes a mistake, maybe they won't think the whole company is like him"... yeah, that's a great message to be sending out to your customers. Think about it from the customer's perspective - you're so trustworthy that you're putting down your coworkers and employees. If a <a href="/blog/2003/05/29.html">boss</a> doesn't have confidence that their employees are doing good work - how can a customer expect to be confident in us as a company?  The sick thing is, it isn't that the work I do is bad, just that you always perceived that it would be bad - or you always thought that it should be better (as if you were doing it).  Forgetting, that you have 5 years experience on me, you wanted me to be as <i>good</i> as you.  Yeah, if I was a customer and you started putting down your people, I would get an uneasy feeling about doing business.  But I wouldn't expect you to know that given your typical shortsightedness.  By the way, you can take your shitty cyber-guard upgrade and roll-back plans, roll them up and shove them up your f@*!k'ng ass. I can't believe that you were able to fill two pages with that dribble that really only said that you were going to replace the firewalls and if you failed at that menial task that you would put the cyberguard back in place...  I can't believe that you actually thought that this actually aided in your success.  
<p/>
I would like to add that your management shortcomings don't surprise me, because it seems to my analytical <i>perceptrons</i> that most of TULMEL's upper management is as narrow minded and shallow as you are and this is probably why you "fit in" so well with them.  You're a lifer Greg.  TULMEL owns you. You know it, they know it, you're one of them.  You'll probably never be anything else.  You, like most of them, don't really seem to understand people or appreciate that employees are <i>helping</i> you/them to make a living...  when a company stops appreciating what each and every employee brings to the table and starts treating them only as assets, said company is in for a wake up call.  People will put up with this treatment for short periods of time because they need the income, but in the long run most reasonable people will seek to <a href="/blog/2003/06/26.html">reconcile</a> their self-image with the world around them and then you're f@4$ked because they have to leave to accomplish this - just like Sean Mullen did.  TULMEL is full of bright people.  It is high time Charlie starts running the company in a fashion that reflects this - instead of treating employees as unimportant droogs.
<p/>
I can't believe that you and Nenad had the balls to ask me if I'm happy in my job today at lunch.  Especially since you weren't really interested in what I had to say about it ( you couldn't have been given the way that you craftily [or not so craftily afterall] approached the subject)... you just asked to get a feel for my outlook so that you can go on plotting "your" strategies around your employees instead of with them... so let this journal entry help you on your quest, f#2!ker.  Your attitude is exactly the cancer that is going to kill TULMEL eventually.  You can't treat people the way you do and expect them to enjoy it.  You can't treat <i>me</i> in this fashion and expect <i>me</i> to want to continue my employment at the company condoning this behavior. You give yourself away too easily.  You are more transparent in your thought and subsequent actions than you realize that you are.  I realize that you all know that I am "not a people-person", but you extended your judgments of my character too far.  You see, I read people very well, better than you would bet on, it just happens to suit me not to let on to this... so I continue to encourage your projected reputation of me as less than average at judging the motives of others.  You give yourself away in your disrespect to me - and you do it because you don't think I understand what you mean by your snide comments or your disgusted looks or you just plain don't respect me enough on a personal level to really give a damn.  Here is a message for you - I don't react to those signals even when I recognize the meanings.  In short, you underestimate me in some areas because I didn't live up to your expectations in other areas, while simultaneously lacking the understanding of why I stopped caring to live up to your expectations... I ceased caring about six months into my internship. When you beat a dog, you ruin it; when you (or the Network Support group in this case) continually and persistently verbally abused me as an intern, you ruined me as an employee. Bad move. So, you're probably wondering why I took the job if that was the case... the answer should be mostly obvious with one twist.  One, I needed the money, two I needed the experience. Three (the twist), I wasn't entirely sure where my path in life lay.  I've spent a great deal of effort working out this last detail, but we shall see how my plans for <strong>MY</strong> life pan out.  I can assure you that when you asked me "How long will you stay with TULMEL?" while I was negotiating a job (or shortly thereafter) that my answer was entirely honest and more accurate than you gave credit....then, you probably don't remember how I answered the question, but I do and I'll not repeat it for your benefit here.
<p/>
Now you know that I'm <a href="/blog/2003/05/20.html">jaded</a>. Good, it will make things easier for you in the future.  Take a note here: if any of you think that I have forgotten the way that I was treated as an intern, you are wrong.  I forget a great many things - in fact I'm typically quite absent minded (especially when it comes to work thank God, that's is while I'm still mostly sane) - but I have not forgot one putdown, one insult, one jeer or one snide comment made by you and any other at TULMEL or St. John.  I haven't forget the week before I signed my offer letter when Charlie looked me dead in the eye and lied to me with a straight face.... he probably still thinks that I believed him - I didn't, it merely benefited me to pretend that I did.  I knew that he would eventually regret this action of his... though not by my hand.
<p/>
Next time you get the urge to do some strategic planning and you get that itch to know where I stand in the mix you should suppress asking me directly.  You merely insult me further when you ask about my thoughts on such matters with no empathy. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-03</date>
<title>Another day of decompression</title>
<text>
Taking today as a comp day for having to work the day after Thanksgiving.  I've spent most of the day just relaxing.  I've needed a lot of this lately. 
<p/> I finally got my program #2 grade back - it was also 100%, this is somewhat of a miracle (and undeserved at that).
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-04</date>
<text>
Like anyone else I get cranky sometimes. I get tired, frustrated and worn out.  Like anyone else, I have good days and bad days.  Days where I have fun and days where I don't have fun.  I have weeks where I get rubbed the wrong way one too many times by too many people and then I <a href="/blog/2003/12/02.html">go off</a>.  I usually manage to find my even keel again after some decompression time.  <a href="/blog/2003/12/04.html">Yesterday</a>, I took a day for decompression and it was exactly what I needed.  
<p/> I find that there are no short answers to life's big questions. There is always the Yin and Yang.  People of greatness understand this, and people of understanding have a mastery. In every choice there is always some positive and some negative.  Work is no exception. The key to the big questions is foresight.  What will it mean when it is all done? Only once it has ceased can we understand the worth of something; everything on this earth ceases.  You have to be able to visualize the end to understand the worth.  Questions like "are you happy in your job" are temporally inadequate. It only considers <i>the now</i>.  <i>The now</i> is vapor and vanishes as quickly as it comes.  The question that begs to be answered is "will you be happy in your job after 50 years?"  Once put in perspective, the answer is clear.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-05</date>
<title>Sweet</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/">Tim Bray</a> gave up the props to me in his journal <a href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/12/04/CornerOfCat">yesterday</a>.  Once upon a <a href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/10/06/OneCorner"> time </a> he mentioned an Asian artist but couldn't remember the name quite right.  I have an unofficial minor in Asian Culture from Oklahoma State University. "Unofficial?" you ask.  "Unofficial," I say. "You see, they didn't actually offer a minor in Asian studies at OSU, but I had enough hours of Asian art, history, and Chinese language that it should have qualified."  It might well have if I had been at a 'real' school...but I'm _not_ bitter. *grin*  Besides, I focused my electives on Asian studies because I thoroughly enjoyed them and not because I would gain anything besides enlightenment from it.
<p/>Also in the news this morning, Apple released a security patch for the browser vulnerability that I <a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/344850/2003-11-16/2003-11-22/0">reported</a>.  It only took them <a href="/blog/2003/11/19.html">17 days</a> to distribute - this is actually very good performance considering the problem affected the Web Core of the OS; I am very pleased with the response.
<p/>After another day at work of not getting to work on what I wanted (and needed) to do I feel a very strong urge for change.  Wanting to cleanse myself and enjoy something pure, unadulterated, and thoroughly, because at work all they care about is volume and not quality, I took Maryna to Tuchi's Italian restaurant; a small, slow place with great quality and atmosphere.  Tuchi's is the perfect local escape from the trappings of Tulsa; they treated us as the waiters at European cafes - by leaving us alone to talk and enjoy our food, and I enjoyed this thoroughly.  Working should be more like drinking wine - every activity should be savored and mulled over, not rushed.  Any kind of design work should be subject to a slow and deliberate creative process.  No employee should be given more work than can be easily handled. This is the only way to develop good designs and produce good work.  Did Michael Angelo rush any of his work?  No. They are master pieces.  Information Technology is difficult because the managers in charge don't understand all of the nuances.  They don't understand why they can't have it "now" when they wanted it yesterday and didn't know it until 5 minutes ago.  It is probably one of the largest rat races ever run in the history of the world.  My belief is that the majority of software bugs are introduced because products are <i>rushed</i> to market half done - the marketing forces only think about the short term income of putting out the product. They don't stop to consider the long term implications.  There are more important things than short term gains in income, and these are things that will ensure long term income and higher revenue in the long term:  quality, reputation (for quality), and quality.  Quality is something that most companies think that their employees should provide without input from the corporate culture.  This belief is a common misconception.  Without the proper corporate culture, producing quality will remain an unattainable goal; eventually the employees will begin fighting amongst themselves (finger pointing for whose fault the latest failures where ) until the corporation finally breaks down and degrades to lower levels of profitability.  The study of emergent behavior provides great examples of why it isn't necessarily any particular employee's fault, but rather the system at the organizational level which is the culprit.  It is the interaction that is important - communication.  The environment is important, just as sitting in a particular frequency of light has an effect on your mood so does sitting at a particular desk or under track lighting.  Everything has an effect on the process... and the variables are innumerable and all together unaccountable.  The unaccountability of the environment only fuels the lack of quality.  If the environment where fully accountable, better planning would be done.  Better planning would relief the pressures of the "now" because managers would realize what kind of resources are truly needed to accomplish a task.  Poor planning equals rushed and over worked employees equals poor quality, equals poor reputation, equals less business.  Do the math people.  Do the math. <p/>Ultimately there is only one way to improve the situation: saying "no".  Saying no to clients who are in a hurry.  Saying no to clients who want too much for too cheap.  Saying no to clients who want IT without truly having the budget for it.  Saying no to the managers who want their projects done yesterday and only began it this morning.  Saying no.  Saying no to the insanity of the system.  It is time.  It is time to say "no" - no more insanity. No more rushing.  No more.  It ceases now.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-08</date>
<title>Now for something entirely different.</title>
<text>
I've been waiting to say that for over a year. 
<p/>For the benefit of the readers out there who don't know me well, I submitted my resignation on Sunday night.  It was a long time coming, still it took great courage to walk away from it.  Basically, I was no longer content with the way that we were doing business as a company.  I could no longer put my faith in their business model, and I think that their idea of splitting time between one customer (who expects 40 hours a week) and all of the others is borderline morally wrong.  Not to mention the adverse affects it has on the poor employees who have to face a scheduling nightmare and frequently fend off demands that they just can't meet.<p/>There were aspects of my job that I enjoyed immensely:  penetration testing was one of those.  Administrating the firewall was fun at first, but the torrent and unstopping flood of request for changes burned me out after a while.  It got to the point where I no longer enjoyed being there.  I was facing physical aversion from my place of employment - and this is psychologically a bad place to be in... 
<p/>My resignation letter was due to the straw that broke the camel's back, and mostly thanks to Greg Brooks. He spent a lot of time as the firewall administrator before me, and naturally he had things that he liked to do in particular ways and more or less insisted on everything being done his way.  Fine, he was my boss after all, so I went along.  Then one day a month or so ago, he moved out of the position as the manager of the network group - so he wasn't my boss anymore, right??  But that didn't stop him from nosing around the firewall.  "We should be doing it this way!", "I don't like that"... friendly enough, so I tolerated it, expecting him to move on and start developing the "outside" security business... but that wasn't taking off so he spent his time looking over my shoulder.  I don't mind people double checking what I've done at work - honestly, but when they approach this double checking in the way that Greg did, it begins to become bothersome.  He wasn't double checking in collaborative spirit - he was flat out looking for things that I wasn't doing his way (i.e. things I was doing "wrong" ).  Some mistakes get made here and there, no one is perfect, but this back dodging spirit I can't tolerate, especially when he approaches the situation assuming that he is right all of the time.  Then there is that annoying little look of his.  His sarcastic little scoff, and his pointy sarcastic remarks.  This "isn't professional" to borrow a phrase that TULMEL loves to throw around. Then, Greg's behavior was a drop in the bucket of the long list of reasons why I decided to leave.
<p/>Long story shorter, when I woke up for work this morning I was half expecting them to ask me to leave right then.... they waited until 4pm.  Par for the course.  This just exemplifies why I can't work for them any more - this is the kind of company that they are.  Oh you're resigning, we won't have any of that... "Policy" (which just got mandated this afternoon) says that we have to escort you out.  I can say openly that I was a security administrator and that I understand why they would do this if they thought I was a threat to them, but I'm not a threat.  I hold no malice for them personally or their company, I just can't tolerate working in that environment anymore. It is a bit like moving out of your parents house when you hit that age.  You still love your parents on a personal level, you just can't handle the way they run things anymore.  Consequently, if I did hold malice toward them ( purely hypothetically speaking ), locking my account and taking away my access would not prevent me from hurting their IT infrastructure and hurting it badly.  They have a sea of un-patched workstations (which I have been harping about for more than a year) run by a plethora of "dumb end users". You get the picture.  This is why ALL machines need patched and not just servers.  Nachi took down the network there and only one server was infected.  Why I took a lot of time explaining this in a security expose that I recently wrote for them, and why hopefully they will seriously consider fixing the problem.
<p/>That is enough of that, now it is on to brighter days - doing something else altogether different.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-10</date>
<text>
I still haven't unwound all they way, but I'm getting there.
<p/>
Things are not as bad as they seemed on Monday.  I got an email from Charlie saying that I would be paid until December 31st.  I appreciate this gesture very much.
<p/>
I would like to emphasize this point:  my blog is my outlet for my frustrations in life!  This is my verbal punching bag - and I don't hold any punches here. If I'm angry, I express it here.  Frustrated, you'll see it here.  If I'm happy, you might see it here.  You get the picture.  Often I'll write an entry flaming someone and forgive them the next day - of course I don't always come back to the topic and mention in these pages.  If by chance you find yourself here, don't worry about it.  I was probably just having a bad day and you stepped into it and become the visual realization of my frustrations.  It seems that I've mentioned Greg a lot in the last few entries.  Greg is like a big brother to me.  Everything that I learned about security I learned from him.  I hold a deep respect for his abilities - sometimes even awe!! Any personality conflicts I have had with him recently are more a reflection of my own character's shortcomings than any reflection on him as a person or professional. I don't know many people as talented, capable, and driven as Greg... I just wished I could have kept up with him *grin* but I couldn't, and it seems I broke something of my spirit trying.  Greg, best of luck, I hope you won't hold these last few weeks against me (very long)... one day down the road it would be nice to catch up and see what your doing and what great exploits you've managed!  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-15</date>
<text>
There isn't much to say these days. The fire in my belly has been quelled for now... hopefully I'll find my drive again soon. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-16</date>
<text>
I spent a great deal of time today studying people.  Watching them as they drove by.  Absorbing their faces, the way the sun reflected off their skin.  Knowing their expressions, feeling their feelings.  I forgot how much I enjoy watching people go by.  Almost everyone seems to be in a hurry, rushing here or there.  Not realizing that the important things are right there - right in front of them.  <p/>
The sun was bright today, and for the first time in ages I saw the world as vivid.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-17</date>
<title>What I enjoyed most about Europe</title>
<text>
Quiet People. While I've always noticed that American are exceedingly loud - and very rude by being so loud in public places - visiting Europe just solidified this disappointment with my culture.  I'm at Starbuck's trying to review some papers for Dr. Abraham (it's warm here and not at home), and there are two law students (based on their conversation so far, they should remain students ) studying for finals.  One of the guys is talking so loud, that I can't even block out his voice with my head phones on. ;(  The best part is that they don't even realize how loud they are.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-20</date>
<text>
From <a href="http://www.agentlab.net/blojsom/blog/minorg/life/2003/12/17/?permalink=Es+tut+gleichmaessig+weh.html&amp;smm=y">Minor's</a> journal:
<blockquote>Because I do not know how to feel when I see raindrops clinging to the barren branches of a tree beside the path I'm walking along, and it's so beautiful that I can't go forward any more, but Have to stop and stare at it.</blockquote><p/>This is precisely why I love watching people.  To see them for what they are. Truly, they are each beautiful in their own way.  Most of all I love watching them, because I appreciate the differences between them.  No two people are a like.  I watch them and appreciate each one as unique - like appreciating snowflakes.  Watching most of them rushing to and fro just reassures myself of how different I truly am from all of the rest of them; this makes me happy.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-22</date>
<text>
Well, my last paper was accepted to the <a href="http://www.cs.okstate.edu/~aa/itcc04/itcc04.html">ITCC 2004 conference</a>, but they changed the page limit from 8 to 5... so I have some chop work to do this week.<p/>Also today, I spent just over two hours chatting with Minor about some of life's deepest philosophical questions. These conversations have become somewhat of a rarity since Minor moved to Berlin and I rather miss them... Here's to enjoying them when I can!!
<p/>Tonight, I updated my CV.  I haven't done this for some time.  I overhauled almost every section, but mainly the sections on security and programming.  Then I made entries for the latest events: my paper refereeing and my upcoming publication.  Finally, I decided I didn't like the "Related Research" section at the top - so I moved it nearer the bottom and escalated my "Publications" and "Presentations" sections.  I don't know how long I will like this better, but for now I'm calling it good.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-23</date>
<text>
I'm here at the cafe again tonight to load up my <a href="/blog/2003/12/22.html"> updated </a> <a href="/austin/cv.html"> CV </a> and my latest content edition to my web site: a book <a href="/reading/books.html">reading list</a>.  
<p/> I had a meeting with Dr. Abraham today, he seemed more candid and relaxed around me than he used to.  I've told him that I resigned my position with the intent of being in graduate school full time and he seemed very responsive to that - even encouraging, saying (paraphrased) <blockquote>"I was in a similar situation. I was in the industry making... ughh, pretty good money, and then one morning got up and decided to leave.  My friends and family where like: 'are you completely nuts?'  So... the important thing is, once you've made a decision is not to look back."</blockquote> 
<p/> I agree.  The decision was made long ago, but only recently I found myself at the precipice and leaped.  The last two weeks have been refreshing and relaxing, but I know that I have to start getting back into it, and more seriously if anything, so it is nice to get some encouragement from my professor.  
<p/> Merry Christmas everyone!!!
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-29</date>
<text>Last night, after having a nice drop-in visit with my parents, I stopped in to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Helmer in my "home town" of <a href="http://www.marionks.com/cityofmarion/">Marion, Kansas</a>.  Grandpa hurt his back just after Thanksgiving and has been nursing it ever since.  After an excellent visit, Maryna and I stopped by <a href=" http://www.gambinospizza.com/">Gambino's Pizza</a> on Main St for supper.  Uncle David has been the manager of the Marion Gambino's for some time now - he was there on this night too. I think for the first time in my life I had a conversation with Uncle David that didn't feel weird or awkward.  It was a welcome change. David is an artist and I know that he has suffered much in life.  My heart welcomed the sight of him doing well.  
<p/>Today, I spent a few hours scaling, cropping and uploading pictures today.  All of the pictures from my European vacation have been touched.  I also loaded some pic's from my <a href="/images/birthday2003/">birthday</a> this year, from <a href="/images/octoberfest2003/">Octoberfest</a>, my <a href="/images/ashleys_wedding/">sister's wedding</a>, mine and Maryna's <a href="/images/zootrip/">zoo trip</a>, and a trip Maryna and I made to <a href="/images/kansascity/">Kansas City</a>.  Enjoy!!
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-30</date>
<text>
Well, to my misfortune I walked to Cafe Cubana today but was unable to get onto the Internet.  There are a limited number of power outlets and my lap top's battery was on empty.... so I went out for a walk-about.  I walked from 15th and Peoria up Peoria to 3rd street, went west into downtown and passed by the OSU-Tulsa campus (which was closed).  I've ended my journey at Gypsy's Coffee House and purchased (arghh) Internet access here. 
<p/> This morning I finished off one of the <a href="/reading/books.html">books</a> Maryna gave me for Christmas.  Then I read a couple of discussions in Plato, and a chapter or two in <i> Captains Curageous</i>. I would say that I mostly read today... but I was hoping to do some work on my Parallel Genetic Algorithm today as well :(
<p/>I've spent most of my free thought time since September thinking about what it means to be in a relationship and where Maryna and my relationship should be heading - unbeknownst to her.  Occasionally, I would ask her about this or that and express my angst to her during this period - and while she could tell that I was evaluating some major decision she wasn't sure about the topic.  And so, I reached a conclusion eventually and settled on <i>marriage</i>.  After evaluating everything that I like and love about Maryna and trying to enumerate the things that I didn't like (and there was only one small thing ) and trying to weigh out the pros and cons, I felt that I should take the plunge.  As Marcin so elegantly put: <blockquote>"If she is the best thing that has ever happened to you, marry her, and if she is just a little piece of ass... well, you can get ass anywhere"</blockquote><p/>So, here I am staring down the <i>final frontier</i> and I'm at peace with it.  It is going to be interesting to say the least and will most likely call for another trip to Belarus and an Orthodox Wedding there... which would intimidate the average joe, but I've already been once, and it wasn't bad at all.  Plus, we'll already be in Europe, so it would be nice to make a honeymoon of it while we're there.... I'm thinking Paris or Amsterdam.  Needless to say, I will be working on my Russian among other things in the coming months.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2003-12-31</date>
<text>
It is a beautiful day. Sixty degrees, sunny, with a light southernly breeze, not at all the way winter is supposed to be.  I stayed up to finish Captains Courageous last night and woke late this morning. After a shower and yogurt for breakfast, I spent the better half of an hour meditating.  I slipped into it and was concentrating on anything in particular. <p/> Last night I had a long walk about the city. I'm still a tad weary this afternoon, so I stroll gently up 15th St. to my destination this day.  Half way to the cafe, I notice a quaint and some what removed office supply store a block to the south.  Its northern wall is covered in still green ivy with a patch cut away for advertising the building's purpose. The barren patch was painted red and white, reading "Duke's Office Supply".  This is a time capsule.  The shelled out remains of a once prosperous store now sitting quietly on an obscure corner of an unnoticing town, hidden, nestled into a residential area likely created by the hard fought against crosscutting highway just to the east.<p/>I peer at the building from across the street, jaw gapping slightly then turning to an inquisitive smirk.  This place amazes me. "How can an office supply store survive like this?" I ask myself.  Everything I've read about scale-free networks references cities and specifically businesses as one form.  Yet, here this business stands completely physically isolated from other businesses.  I shall look into this enigma again in the future.<p/>I continue my stroll past Duke's enjoying the wonderful character of Cincinnatti Avenue.  The grand old houses sitting fifteen feet above the street level; their porches extending out like walls around a fortress; two or three stories high, mostly square in stature with pleasantly sparsely gabled roofs.  I continue walking.  There is a batch of industrial style condominiums next to a giant green house-mountain.  The condos tower like a granite cliff, but blend with the character of the street so that the structure is barely noticeable to the unobservant.  I find myself intrigued with the boxy condos as I stroll along observing them from various perspectives.<p/>Alas, I round the corner to get back on track with my intended plan of travel and find a Tulsa jewel, Maple Park. Cozying up against the highway's exit ramp, the park is strangely quite. I can see the back side of the boxy Cincinnatti St. condominiums - another perspective. The park is a natural hilltop meadow, lightly sprinkled with massive trees, overlooking downtown Tulsa.  There isn't much to the park itself. It is mostly a brown stretch of peacefully open space (at least brown in the winter).  I've found a bench to sit and wright on.  The sun warms my face as I write, and the cool indian summer breeze makes certain I am comfortable.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-02</date>
<text>I'll spare the "another year" moaning that everyone else does about now...<p/> So I went out to the mall to hook up with the 2600 group, but didn't see anyone I knew.  Needless to say, I spent about two hours lurking, waiting for someone I knew to arrive.  I did run into two friends wondering around the mall, though.  A guy I used to have class with at OSU-Tulsa, Dan Pickett who works at <a href="http://www.secureagent.com/">SecureAgent.com</a> and Serguei's friend Andre who was accompanied by his girlfriend and his sister (who used to go to school with Serguei in Russia).  I gave Dan some security tips for his home wireless network and just shot the bull with him for awhile; we're planning on doing lunch sometime.  Meanwhile, Andre informed me that Serguei has found a job in Oklahoma City and has been working a lot over there. Wow, I wonder if Serguei is driving back and forth and staying over there.  Good to hear that he is finally working. <p/>I've been reading more than anything lately, including thinking.  I'm sporting a mild depression and general lack of motivation - probably seasonal although it could equally be attributed to laziness - I find myself not wanting to do much of anything. I find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and equally difficult to tackle anything major once I wake up.  I'm hoping to hear about the RA spot next week, hopefully between that (if I get one) and my classes I will have an adequate amount of structure.  The high quantities of reading I've been taking in is good, I noticed that I'm reading a bit faster than I used to and doing it less consciously; I find this encouraging. <p/>Sometime this weekend, I plan on sitting down and revising my last paper as Dr. "I didn't contribute anything, but I'll still harass you about it" Paprzycki has started inquiring about the status.  He is not my professor, has never been willing to offer financial support for his student labor, nor did he contribute anything to the last paper.... so I'm not responding to his email.  A response would be an indication that it is okay for him to be asking, and its not. I will eventually respond because I consider him a friend, albeit not a very close one. He was much closer to Minor than to me, I could say that he is only friend by proxy.<p/>Maryna and I did yoga last night.  It is a good work out, I want to do it again. Maryna has started working out the details for the wedding.  She had me look at some invitations last night.  I have good taste - she does also - and I didn't see much difference between any of the choices that she offered me to look at.  I don't understand why women obsess in this way.  There is no such thing as perfect, period. We don't have enough time to be indecisive; there is only "good enough" (and hopefully cheap enough) and everything else.  Fortunately my sister was around today while we were hanging out, and she was kind enough to explain that us men are not capable of understanding the nuances of fine wedding invitations.  Truly, we are not. I don't see anything to be stressed about.  My only course of action, is to be as supportive as possible, sharing my opinions when I have strong ones, and being patient otherwise. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-05</date>
<title>Hmm...</title>
<text>
Now, I'm not a Democrat (nor much of a Republican, how about that Green party, egh? ), but I've been watching some of the debates - like the one for the Iowa Caucus last night.  I am more rational than the typical voter, I weigh each candidate's qualities independent of his/her party affiliations.  For example, I <i>almost</i> voted for Al Gore last time around, <i>almost</i>; I liked his college education plan. <p/> This time around, there are some good ideas coming out of the democratic camp.  I like <a href="http://lieberman.senate.gov/">Lieberman</a>, <a href="http://www.johnedwards2004.com/home.asp">Edwards</a>, and <a href="http://www.kucinich.us/">Kucinich</a>, in that order.  <a href="http://www.deanforamerica.com/">Dean</a> is "okay".  I'm not sure any of them are <i>better</i> than <a href="http://www.georgewbush.com/">Bush</a>. After all, it is easy to criticize but difficult to lead (especially in these difficult times).  I would really like Kucinich if it weren't for his plans to pull out of Iraq "immediately", he has a more or less socialistic healthcare plan - which I think we need - and his other ideas have merit as well.  When Lieberman opens his mouth, he speaks the truth.  I think he is one of the most well balanced of all the candidates. He is never over optimistic nor overly pessimistic, and I think this is a good quality.  Edwards exhibits similar qualities. These are some intelligent people with good ideas.  In any case, if Edwards doesn't win the nomination, any candidate would be wise to take him on as a running mate.  He has it. Democrats seem to like Dean, though.  I don't get warm fuzzy feelings with Dean.  I think he would be "okay" - just like Bush is "okay". 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-06</date>
<title>It's official...</title>
<text>
I won't be voting Republican in the 2004 elections... I've always voted Republican before, why change now?? <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.2417.ENR:">This</a> is <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61792,00.html">why</a>. I can't see why the FBI needed this additional power, they should have to be checked by a judge as they always have been before.<p/>I walked to the cafe again today.  The weather appeared to be deceptively warm when I left the house... which is why I walked.  Once I was on my way, I realized that it was much colder than I had anticipated; probably around 30 degrees for the high today. I guess I'll be a little than a bit chilled on my way back *grin*
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-07</date>
<title>Staying Up Late</title>
<text>
Staying up late and coding... It is about 2 am now.  I'm actually making some progress with my Parallel GA project - I haven't touched it in a week, but I didn't feel much like reading tonight. I'm trying to tackle the breeding function(s) tonight (this morning)... I'm going to start by implementing only one breeding option and work my way around to other methods later.  So here is a list of the objects in the project: <p/><bl><li>GeneSequence Class</li><li>Fitness Class (which will eventually be passed into an Individual as a template object)</li><li>Individual Class (which eventually become a template class)</li><li>A Population Class (a set of Individuals)</li></bl><p/>Here is what I've done recently: <bl><li>Implemented the main Breed function as a Variable Length Argument List Function, where the arguments describe the various characteristics the breeding function should have.</li><li>Implemented Life-spanning for the Individual class - i.e. Individuals can now "die" off after a certain age has been reached.</li><li>Finished the progress of the Population Aging</li></bl>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-08</date>
<title>Where are my books</title>
<text>
The semester starts in 4 days - where are my books, my books, my books???  I should have checked the shipping more carefully before I bought them, both Amazon and BookByte used USPS to ship them.... God knows when they'll show up.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-09</date>
<title>My only beef with OS X</title>
<text>
I love TextEdit.  Even more since it can read Microshaft Document files *grin*  There is only one beef - it doesn't support split columns at ALL!!! You can't create them, you can't view them - and this is a major problem that almost cost me a publication tonight.  If Dr. Abraham hadn't been on stand by waiting for my desperate plea for help, our paper would have missed the "photo ready" deadline.  I was about to start sweating bullets.  I mean, I knew that TextEdit couldn't do split columns, but I thought that Lyx might be able to... and it very well may be able to, but that is of little use if you can't save the .lyx file in some other (useful) format.  Which I wasn't able to do, at least not with the version available via Fink.  I guess I should have tried the MacLyx variety but I was concerned about Library linkage, etc.... oh well.  Perhaps the next paper won't require such rigid formating.
<p/>Maryna and I saw <a href="http://lastsamurai.warnerbros.com/html_index.php"><i>The Last Samurai</i></a> tonight after a long day of wedding planning... it was a reward of sorts.  The movie was very good; a little gory, but all in all, very good.  I recommend it.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-10</date>
<title>The light breaks through the clouds - for once</title>
<text>
I got the RA spot that I was hoping for, thank God, I was really dreading going out and looking for a part-time job.  I now, for the first time, have the ideal situation for studying; I am a full time Graduate student working as a Research Assistant to my advising professor (at least I'll make him my advising professor now, I was holding out on this).<p/>School starts Monday, I was fortunate enough to get one of my three books in today.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-13</date>
<text>
Yesterday was the first day of class - joy *grin*  I swear if one more professor goes through the syllabus one more time....<p/> I have one class in Stillwater, I elected to ride the bus over right after eating lunch - big mistake.  I was not feeling very well after that.  I have my third and final class tonight.  I think that two of my classes are going to be difficult... but they should be informative if nothing else... Then again these aren't the kinds of classes that I enjoy:  Operating Systems and Computer Architecture.  Both of them focus on topics that I would rather not focus on, but they are <i>core</i> classes.  My third class, Network Programming, should be interesting.  I wanted some classes along the lines of the Theory of Computation, however, OSU's computer science program sux and they are only offering 11 graduate courses this semester; one is an independent study course and another are thesis hours, so really there are only 9 courses to choose from. Disappointing, but that's life.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-14</date>
<text>
I discovered that there is a wireless network on OSU's campus in Stillwater.  I went to the Administrator's office to get my account setup.  Pleasant enough.  I was explaining to him that I only have one class here in Stillwater and that the rest where in Tulsa.  "Well, you oughta just transfer on down here," he said adamantly, "It's a better school." <p/> Now that is ponderous.  An administrator at the University refers to one portion of the University as better than another, where as in my mind they are equally decrepit. I find the tribal behavior of humans fascinating.  They offer the same classes on both campuses - often over Interactive Television (i.e. using the same professors) - and yet there is a perception that this portion is some how better than the other. Simply fascinating.<p/> Just now while I am typing this, I discover that there is an open wireless network in my class room *grin*  This could be of some entertainment later on.  
<p/>Some other non-related good news.  Not only did I get the aforementioned research assistantship, but I was also fortunate enough to get a TA (Teacher's Assistantship) as well.  This will be good experience.  I will be helping formulate the homework assignments, some possible grading, and holding office hours once a week to torment... eghh... I mean <i>help</i> the struggling undergraduates.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-19</date>
<text>
Joe and Nathan are at the cafe today, working on their Operating System project.  They impress me.  They know so much as Seniors in high school - things I didn't learn until my Senior year in college.  Nathan was already accepted to the U of Illinois!  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-20</date>
<text>
I read Tim Bray's <a href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/"> ongoing</a> today (there is usually good stuff in there) and he had a <a href="http://beta.technorati.com/"> link</a> to an interesting new development in the blog sphere.  Basically you type in a URL and the website reports back the links "cosmos".  In other words, it reports in bound links to that particular site.  <p/>To my surprise, Minor's ex-girlfriend Yelena has a <a href="http://7elena.blogspot.com/">blog</a> going, as well as my <a href="http://crimsonstorm.tblog.com/">brother</a>. Neither of which I knew of previously.  One day, I may have a links page... in which case I will link back to them.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-21</date>
<text>
I almost over slept the Stillwater bus this morning... I arrived just as the bus pulled up to the stop.  I have enjoyed my break from life's rigor immensely, but now I think it is time once again to struggle toward the shore or order and try to get some structure back in my routine. Having a full load of classes has helped with this, but not nearly enough.  Well... this is not a high priority... just something that I want to do.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-24</date>
<title>Hopeless Lamers</title>
<text>
I attended a meeting of the Knowledge Management Society today. Lame, but I don't blame the poor participants, after all they are living and working in Tulsa and are suffering from desperation.  I never understood while Minor ranted so passionately against this place - I was never close enough to it to fully understand the situation until now.  The thing about desperate professors is that they end up trying to pimp themselves out to anything that comes along... They trying to do too much and end up doing nothing. This is a path that I have already been down, and it will be difficult to prevent them from dragging me into their self-defeating game. Great scientist don't pimp themselves, they focus.  They focus on one thing, and they understand their focus so intensely that others begin to understand the importance of their focus also.  I want this focus - on something, anything. 
<p/>Another disheartening blow:  on the way into the meeting Dr. Thomas stopped me to complain that I blew away some of his servers in the lab.  I didn't even know that he had machines in the lab; had he marked his machines, I wouldn't have touched them.  It is sickening that he would try to blame me for their lack of organization and communication.  Three professors trying to share is a recipe for disaster. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-27</date>
<text>
So, the professor I was supposed to work with this semester just got picked up by the police for solicitation of a minor for lewd acts... doesn't that beat all.  It was a sting operation. <p/>
Fortunately, I should be able to get reassigned to a different professor.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-28</date>
<title>The benefits of class</title>
<text>
The thing that I value most in a really great class is that it pushes you out of your comfort zone.  Many of the core classes in computer science are not fields that I am extremely interested in, however I am forced to endure them a second time to complete a Master's degree.  The benefit to this pain is that two of my classes have good instructors.  One instructor is not using a book - he doesn't need it - I think he is Romanian.  He is fabulous.  He presents the topic in a complete and logical way, but is teaching us hardcore Operating Systems the old school way, and I respect this.  In the other class, I have a Asian teacher whose field is on the hardware level - far below where I normally venture.  In his class we have to write a 20 page term paper! Journal papers aren't usually that long.  He suggested that we work in Quantum Dot Cellular Automata or Clock-less systems if we didn't have anything else that we want to study.  I've read 4 papers on QCAs now, and they are interesting, but I don't see anything there that I really want to do.  In the process one paper talked about implementing FPGAs with Quantum-dots... then I started thinking about FPGA processors again... I'm going to spend most of Thursday and Friday learning about those. I think I'm leaning toward implementing some kind of automata on an FPGA, but I have to narrow the paper down to a very specific topic.  DFAs and NFAs have already been implemented for some string searching algorithms because after constructing the automata you can do string matching in O(1), which makes them nice... and when you can implement them in reprogrammable hardware, well, you can just imagine how much faster that would be.   
<p/>
Check out <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;cid=585&amp;e=1&amp;u=/nm/20040127/sc_nm/arms_denmark_landmines_dc">this</a> news headline; very cool.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-01-28</date>
<title>The Human Flip-flop</title>
<text>
Tonight I am working on giving my blog a new look and feel, and I was browsing through some of the older entries, which I haven't done in a while.  Man did I waffle back and forth a lot when I was at TULMEL.  I hated it, I loved it.  I wanted to get a way, I couldn't get enough. <p/>
I must admit, as much as I disliked the place, there were aspects of the job that I did like.  Toward the end, those aspects had faded to virtually nothing.  The other point I wanted to make is that leaving was somehow traumatic for me.  I credit this to institutionalization; like a prison inmate who has a long sentence and once released has trouble readjusting to society. Happily I report that I am <i>almost</i> fully recovered.  Last week I had a tremendously creative spurt, wonderfully, it is tip toeing into this week too... and I don't feel like I'm going to explode from information overload, stress, and creative frustration. A sign of hope.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-03</date>
<text>
I thought this semester would be somewhat more relaxing since I'm a full time student now and I have time to concentrate on my assignments... then I went to my Operating Systems II class yesterday and got the first part of our 3 phase project:  implement our own virtual machine.  This is an amazing assignment, both in challenge and girth. I'll try to keep you posted on that... but needless to say that I'm going underground for some time.
<p/>
One thing that has surprised me is that my life's latitude has prevented me from stressing out about my work load - which is interesting and somewhat unexpected. I have this long list of stuff to do, but rather than thinking "I don't have time to do all this" I'm now thinking "I can do this, it's not that hard."  Hopeful optimism.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-04</date>
<text>
It snowed, and I had my first test in OS2 today... there were no surprises here, and I think I was fairly well prepared for it, which is a good thing.
<p/>Maryna blew me off tonight to do her homework - and I'm proud of her for being so dedicated. *grin* So I'm in the lab tonight.  I took some time to review Dr. Jonyer's first draft at our next grant proposal, happily it was good.  I think that he really digs my grid security model as he included a sketch of it in the proposal... very nice.  I hope they get the grant, then I could be funded for the duration of my stay here. 
<p/>I started on my client-server program last night. It is due Friday.  Surprising, I have the initial framework up and running... I've never worked with sockets before - I've looked at them (in exploit code) but never touched, and I must say that it isn't difficult since the library does most of it for you.
<p/> Finally, I'm reading <i>Practical RDF</i> so that I can get up to speed on the semantic web... and stuff.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-05</date>
<text>
Hmmm... my network programming assignment is <i>almost</i> done, now if I could just pick a topic for my term paper in Computer Organization &amp; Architecture, and get somewhere with the reputation system for the grid, and get some more reading done...
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-06</date>
<text>
I feel a loss of direction in life.  I finally made it into graduate school full time - with support - but now what?  Work on my grid ideas by myself with no real guidance or direction?  Abandon them for something else??  If it weren't for the constant flow of class work and assignments I would feel completely untethered, completely adrift. I was chatting with a good friend yesterday, and I made a statement like "I'm strong enough to stand on my own."  The point I wanted to make was that I didn't need help to achieve goals... I can set and achieve goals easily enough, but how do you deal with apathy? Goals don't mean much to me. They use to when I was younger.  Now, time passes, goals get met or they don't, and there doesn't seem to be a drastic difference to me; time passes. The worst part is the wondering.  Do I really <i>not care</i>, or is it just the winter blues?  Am I going to give up on something that I really enjoy, only to find out the next day or week or month that it was a misjudgment made under the haze of depression.
<p/>
Over at the <a href="http://www.dynamicobjects.com/d2r/archives/002567.html">CleverCactus</a> Diego has some interesting things to say about businesses.  
<blockquote>A company shouldn't, can't, be an end in itself (As I've said before). A successful company (IMO) is not one that only makes money (although that's important of course) but also contributes to the life of its employees, its community and society, and does its part, to put it simply, in making things better. </blockquote> I find this point of view interesting... employee friendly companies - do those exist?? Can they exist?
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-08</date>
<text>
<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/giantlaser/">Stories</a> from an Iraqi ISP operation. Very interesting.<p/><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994636">Also</a> cool.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-09</date>
<text>
I am up late *slash* up early working on my pre-proposal for my term paper.  I read through about 12 papers trying to find a topic that I wanted to cover... it is difficult because the scope must fall under the guise of <i> Computer Organization &amp; Architecture</i>, and this is not a topic of particular interest to me in general.  I had planned on finalizing my topic by last Friday *smirk* right, like I would be able to finalize something like this before the deadline is upon me *grin*  <p/> Even, by eight o'clock last night, I was trying to narrow it down between two or three ideas.  Finally, I think I found a cross-cutting topic; something that interest me that can be implemented in a Quantum Dot Cellular Automata - something that interest the professor.  And surprisingly the final paper outline came out smoothly on the first try with little arranging needed, and I was able to pare back this outline into the form I needed for the pre-proposal.  While there are a few short paragraphs to fill - and I'll need Internet access to finalize those, the majority of the work is done... which leaves me pleased. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-10</date>
<text>
Whiners.  That is all OSU has in their graduate program, a bunch of whiners.  I thought all of the whiners would have quit school after getting their B.S. degrees; guess not.
<p/> I walked into the lab today, it was nice enough outside to do this for the first time in a couple of weeks.  I'm installing linux on a couple of new boxes.  Next I'll be installing Folding@Home on all of the linux machines... again - hopefully it will work this time. I'm also working on a bunch of scholarship applications.... maybe one of these will pay off.
<p/>A <a href="http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/02/10/backup.html">nice</a> automatic backup tutorial for you Mac OS X users out there... too bad I have a lab top and I can't run a backup cron job while I'm sleeping - since my machine wouldn't be connected :(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-11</date>
<text>
<a href="http://folding.stanford.edu">Folding@Home</a> is now running on all of the lab computers.  Sometime I'll figure out how to make sure that it runs on start up...
<p/>... and an hour later got berated for not asking permission to "make a change in the lab"... nice. Yeah, I'll ask you next time I need to compile something, because hey that's a user level program too.  And I'll ask permission to go out to web sites because a browser is a user level program.  My God!!! I thought I was escaping this kind of lunacy when I left corporate America!!! When you have to ask permission for little things like this, it says two things.  One, the professors over the lab don't trust you - fine.  And two, they don't want anything to get done.  If all they wanted was someone to make up a web page I can recommend other people for that.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-17</date>
<text>
The more I read about Steve Jobs, the more I respect him as a businessman and entrepreneur... Jobs, the head of Pixar and Apple computer corporation, the founder of NeXT computer company, is a harbinger and the ring master of the digital revolution.  People say that he "has vision", but I think that it is more than that, and yet subtler than simply being more.  Example, Pixar.  He bought Pixar from Lucas, which had created Pixar as a special effects studio for the Star Wars movies, at a discounted rate due to Lucas's ongoing divorce.  A fairly subtle move.  He then turned it in to an animation studio working with Disney to take movies to the market.  Today, Pixar is the most recognized name in animation... so much so that they don't need Disney anymore.  Seems crazy, no? Disney has <a href="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&amp;c=Article&amp;cid=1076887504700&amp;call_pageid=968350072197&amp;col=969048863851">bullied Pixar around</a> a bit in their contract, so when it expired Jobs was trying to get more money out of the rickety deal... and finally just pulled the plug for a lack of consideration from Eisner.  Poising Pixar to become a dominant force of its own - without Disney.  
<p/>I for one believe that Jobs will only have a positive affect on the movie industry... as it begins to move into the digital era, I sit here holding my breath hoping that they won't go down the same round as the RIAA... but then I remember the preemptive "don't steal movies" trailers they are already running.  I and say to myself "why are they worried??" Going to the movies is an experience that can't easily be recreated at home.  Of course, there are people that enjoy renting movies more than going to them... this is the group that will benefit from downloadable movies, not the rest of us.  I love going to the theatre, smelling the popcorn, and the bouquet that only the airs of the theatre can create.  Sitting in the plush seats, starring up at the large silvery screen, enjoying the surround sound.  I love the experience.  I love sharing the experience anonymously with the others in the theatre.  Movie industry magnates, you have nothing to fear.
<p/>
Steve, if you're out there... you are the movie industries last best hope for salvation in the digital era.    
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-18</date>
<title>SCO versus IBM</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040209231214944">Good reading</a> for anyone interested. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-19</date>
<text>
First Microsoft agrees to reveal Windows source code to government agencies, headline <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2659857.stm">here</a>.  <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/21/1042911364444.html">Russia</a> was on the list to receive the source code. Obviously, the persons at Microsoft who made the decision to share source code with Russians didn't think things through... what did they think would happen?? I think that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3484545.stm">this</a> was the logical conclusion to their choice to share with Russians and <a href="http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/newsItem/0,289139,sid1_gci945815,00.html">Indians</a> and, frankly any government.  It is a different culture.  Everything can be bought or bribed.... your precious source code is no exception.  So you can run around trying to prevent Americans from getting a hold of it... fine.  But the exploit code is going to keep rolling in from over seas and there won't be a thing you can do to stop it or protect your customers from it.  Thankfully I can sit back and enjoy the show since I own a Macintosh.
<p/>
Riding the bus to Stillwater yesterday made me nauseous.  I was late waking after a late night working and I had an empty stomach, but the thing that really upset my comfort was the heat.  The bus driver had the heater roaring; I hate being indiscriminately subjected to the temperature preferences of others, especially when they lay at extremes. This is one of the reasons I cannot stand working in office buildings.  The nazi in control of the climate ensures that you could make ice cubes on desk in the spring time and that you could boil water in a pan without a stove at the first hint of fall.  Why?? Three words: Fuzzy-logic temperature control.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-20</date>
<text>
It was warm yesterday, warmer than it has been in some time.  I elected to walk to the lab in the morning.  There is nothing quite like starting your day with a long, slow, ponderous walk. It is refreshing beyond description. <p/>I've started using the ergonomic keyboard regularly now.  Before leaving work last December, my right wrist was beginning to show signs of carpal tunnel, in no small part due to the desk they gave me to work at.  The chair was too tall and awkward and the desk was too high, leaving me to reach up to the keyboard all day.  Naturally, my right wrist would drop onto the edge of the desk causing inflammation over time.  It has improved dramatically since I don't have to type (and more importantly) run the mouse all day long.  However, it still tightens up once in awhile when I use my laptop's keyboard in some positions, and something has to give.  I have used the ergonomic keyboard, a gift, several times before and liked it okay - but it was never completely comfortable while I was typing on an old keyboard all day and on my laptop when I wasn't at home or at work.  Now that I have a major programming project going and I have to type a lot, I needed something that wouldn't wear my wrist down, the ergonomic keyboard has proven itself several times over.  And, now that I've been using it more or less regularly for a week or two, I plan on lugging it everywhere I go.  Why??  Because my wrist feel much better... 
<p/> I type so much that I have even considered moving to a Dvorak keyboard layout.  I used to want to do this when I was younger because it was a statement about being different... now I see how much a small difference can have on your health.  In fact I'm contemplating making the change of the summer - I won't have to type much then... it would offer me a chance to forget QWERTY long enough to retrain my muscles on something new.  I think when Maryna and I go to Belarus in May, I will orchestrate the change. I'll be gone for a week, at least, and I won't be taking my computer with me so it will be the perfect starting point.  However, I can't see putting that off for three months. Perhaps I'll start sooner - like after I finish this programming project... who knows.  I do realize that even an ergonomic keyboard won't help my wrist for the many years of typing I hope to see ahead.  It is a good time to change.  
<p/>Am I the only person that thinks that the Dvorak's "=" is in a bad place for programmers??  I guess there have to be some trade offs.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-21</date>
<text>
I finished my VM at about 1 am this morning.  I had finished the fetch and decode phases of the CPU last night, and tonight (this morning...whatever) I finished the execute phase and most of the I/O handler... 1713 lines of code so far (but there isn't much left to do, one minor change for the sysin function ).  I must say, that I was shocked with joy when I ran the provided test program for the first time and the output was correct on the first try.  Like I said, the project wasn't that hard. The getting a mental wrangle on the specifications was the hard part, and setting aside the time to implement the thing was difficult too.  I spent 8 hours reading the specs, conceptualizing the pieces of the system and designing the object classes, with 5.5 hours spent on debugging (it would have been less but I have been coding while I'm exhausted and burned about 2 hours with "bugs" that were really there ), and about 18 hours of programming... not too bad.
<p/> Now I'm trying to write a program with our toy assembly language... and I find myself REALLY missing the register to register <i>mov</i> operation... things are really difficult when every operation has to be memory to register. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-24</date>
<title>Rough week</title>
<text>
I didn't get any sleep last night, I don't mean I didn't sleep well, I mean that I didn't go to bed - not even a nap until 2pm this afternoon. I spent from 11pm to 4pm adding some functionality that my system was weak in. It was a good thing too, because the arithmetic overflow was the first thing that Samadzadeh went for, I guess he saw a lot of students not implementing this.  He knocked me some points for not displaying the execution time as the number of clock ticks that transpired while the program was running - I had it calculating the virtual number of seconds based on a imaginary clock cycle frequency.  I think that the misunderstanding is due some poor phrasing in his specification document.  I think that he is knocking me points for not having a <i>make</i> file to automate the compilation... make files are for wimps ... no really I just never learned how to make them and couldn't learn on the fly with such a big project.  What else?  Aghh, he also knocked me outputting the clock time and the execution time to the terminal - again the description in the specifications seemed to indicate that this should be done...  no he only wanted it in the output file. So besides the make file, there was only one other foo bar.  While I detected arithmetic overflows... I only presented warnings and the errors were not fatal.  Prof. Samadzadeh just hung his head.  I mean it makes since now, yes, even after getting no sleep, but in the heat of battle while your trying to understand the specifications, things aren't so clear. I'm kicking myself for this.  While I was coding it, I was telling myself "no, that should be fatal - its not like you can use any of the numbers if there is an overflow there would be no point in continuing."  That conversation didn't last long - it was 3am, my mind drifted before I finished the thought.  Now I'm just completely ashamed of myself.... its depressing.  I put in so many hours of hard work into the thing and end up making an obvious rookie mistake. He said that "if he needed to mention this to the class" that he wouldn't use my name". Right *grin*  Go ahead, I'm already completely embarrassed as it is - why not make it complete?
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-02-26</date>
<text>
I slept like a rock last night and woke up refreshed but a little tired this morning.  The main side effect to staying up all Monday night was I didn't have any kind of attention span and I couldn't concentrate on anything.  Rather than reading on the bus to Stillwater today I just gazed out of the window blankly and let my mind wonder.  It wondered right to my network "programming" class *cough* Telecomm *cough* 
<p/>
I admit I complained about the course content.  I knew what the likely consequences of this action would be: 1. no change, 2. redirection of the class.  The professor just doesn't get it.  He gets that he wasn't covering what he was supposed to cover and redirected the class - but again in the wrong direction.  Now he is focusing on the details of TCP/IP protocols instead of routing protocols that he was covering before; but this is still just a networking class.  Damn, for God's sake read the class catalog before planning the contents of the class.  <p/>
I like to think that I am flexible when it comes to this stuff, but there is this pesky thing called principle.  When I pay for something, I want to get what was advertised not something close to it.  When my classes are free - I'll let the professors teach whatever they want to - until that day I should get what is described in the course catalog.  I know that it will be difficult to get my money back... but again with the principle, I'm not quitting because I don't like the class or because I can't hack it but simply because the class isn't what I payed for.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-01</date>
<title>A brand new day</title>
<text>
After three exhausting days of moving, it is nice to have a break.  Yesterday alone, I put together two bookshelves, a CD rack, scotch-guarded two rugs, constructed two wire computer racks, and filled the afore mentioned bookshelves and computer racks with stuff that was sitting on the floor.  Later, I tore Maryna's computer apart to replace her floppy and to try to figure out why the power switch isn't working anymore.
<p/>
Before 9 a.m. this morning, I called three utility companies to get my utilities transfered; it is going to cost $65 next month for the transfered utilities. I spent the last hour catching up on email and the news, now I'll spend two hours on Cocoa programming before heading to class... and all this before I would normally wake up - at noon.  Something about a new place - especially one that you like living in - gives off energy... I love it.
<p/>
Cocoa is so much better than the Carbon interface.  I can't believe that I even tried to use Carbon previously... I would have been a year a head of the game if I would have just stuck to Cocoa from the get go.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-05</date>
<text>
Check out "Walking Wounded" by <i>Everything but the Girl</i>, it's a good one.  
<p/> This has been a terribly interesting day.  I will write more about it here after I finish processing all of today's events mentally.  
<p/> Goals for the weekend include implementing Phase 2 Step 1 of my Operating Systems II project.  This step incorporates the use of virtual memory into the virtual machine that we created in Phase I.  In step 2 we have to implement disk management system, and in step 3 context switching and multiple jobs running concurrently.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-06</date>
<text>
There is too much hatred in the world, too much disgust, too much criticism, too much self-righteousness, too much pride, too much fear, too much pain, too much suffering, too much bitterness and every other evil thing. Of all the pains I have ever felt in life far too many of them have been caused by pride - either my own pride or that of another.  We humans love to build ourselves up. To the point that much of this life is wasted <i>keeping up appearances </i>.  Maintaining useless self-images.  Wanting to <i>appear</i> to be something rather than <i>being</i> it. Maintaining the illusions we hold of ourselves, our own self image or an image that we believe someone else holds of us, and doing so at the expense of those around us.  I wished that people were more honest about themselves. There is no point to maintain the charade. Be yourself. Be vulnerable to the world, yes there are people who will hurt you and say mean things and envy and try to stand in your way and complain about you; these people will reap the rewards for their labor; we are all guilty of being these people and we must strive not to be. Embrace humanity; love; be kind; be good; care for each other.  Be peaceful
<p/>I have spent many hours being taught great patience in this life, and I have used patience in the past to humble myself in situations where lesser men would have been insulted. This could be called meekness - power in reserve - however, I usually concede my will to patience for the betterment of all concerned parties.  There is a time to endure, and a time to correct wrong, in enduring we can hope to influence and with influence we can hope to nurture growth. The past was the time to endure, and now is the time to correct.
<p/>Once upon a time in a computer lab, there was a very talented, extremely bright young admin (and systems designer).  Having found favor with the overseeing Professor of the lab, and deservedly so, this young man was to instruct and manage his fellow students - those of lesser ability than his.  During the course of his duties it was his frequent habit to inquire about what they were working on.  To check up on them so to speak. "What are you working on?" he would inquire.  Unfortunately, the young admin's tone was not that of pure intrigue and he did not ask out of personal interest.  Clearly the tone betrayed his motives: in his mind it was his job to ensure that all of the students continued making progress toward some particular goal; and that he should do this because he felt himself superior to the others.  He was the caretaker of the lab, afterall, and the overseer of the students working there ( including myself although not to the same degree as the lesser students), so whenever these words crossed the threshold of my ears in the past I responded politely out of courtesy and what I felt was mutual respect. 
<p/>Times have changed, as they so often do, and now I am the only person in and out of the lab on a regular basis.  This young admin had returned from abroad for a visit. While we were working in the lab recently, he indulged himself with his habitual phrase "What are you working on?" in the same overbearing tone that he had used in the past. While surfing the Internet looking for command line MP3 rippers, the words floated from his lips. I cannot judge his intent.  I can only write about my interpretation of his intent, and I believe that to be an outward expression of his internal belief that he is my superior. I am no one's whipping boy, no matter what they may think of me or my presently chosen path, no mater how dear a friend, no matter how much I respect them. I did not respond to this question. 
<p/> The previous day we had a discussion in which he expressed to me his thoughts on my current performance with the University.  In which he expressed his concern that I was "drifting" that there was no one "overseeing" me, no one pushing me to become "better" (whatever that may be is purely a matter of subjective opinion). I assume that he felt that if no Professors at the University would do the pushing that it was his rightful place to apply pressure where needed; it was not his place.  
<p/>My path has been laid before me, and I have chosen it. I am drifting because I need rest.  I am drifting because this is what I want to do at this particular moment; to rest, to observe, and to indulge my interest with reading and learning, <i>doing</i> when I feel the inspiration to do so. I am waiting for some new direction to present itself, this is an act of patience, but this is not an act to be understood by many in this world... including, unfortunately, this young administrator.  He sees and he thinks he understands, but he over looks much; his quick judgments lack the deliberation of experience. When there is nothing to be done, do nothing. Deliberate and wait. <i>Idle</i> can be a verb, this implies an active action.

<p/>This particular admin can't stand idleness.  He would rather run with a rage a thousand miles in the wrong direction than to idle.  I respect this, I was younger once.  Without the journey's of youth there would never be the understanding of maturity. Understanding of this nature, the pearls of wisdom, can not be imparted by a single other human being, they must be acquired singularly through personal trials and experience.... while books are great for enlightening the mind, they cannot count towards experience for the soul and we intelligentsia take this for granted far too often. 
<p/> Good luck Admin, Godspeed.  You aren't going anywhere until you master two things: (1) communicating your emotions to those around you, and (2) communicating your ideas to people on a level that they can understand.  It makes sense, to climb to the top in the world you have to interact with the world, and that means dealing with lots of people. Until you have master these qualities you will be merely a rebellious genius.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-08</date>
<title>International Women's Day</title>
<text>
<i>Happy Woman's Day Maryna!!</i>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-09</date>
<text>
The first signs of Spring are beginning to show in Tulsa.  The temperature is up to 70 degrees, the sky is clear, and there is much to be done before the end of the week - even more by the end of the month.  Thank God for Spring Break next week.  That will buy me several extra hours for work, hours that would otherwise be spent going to class or riding the bus to class.
<p/>Here is to those of us who aren't pissed at the world.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-10</date>
<text>
A pleasantly breezy Spring day.  A young turkish man named Anwar, with his wine-red mustache and beady black eyes says hello to me as I step off the bus this afternoon.  He is a friend of a friend.  Tan with dark reddish black hair, Anwar stands all of five feet tall.  Scrawny and sympathetic, Anwar is thoroughly likable, though far too reserved and shy to be good for enduring conversation.  He has a brain behind those peering eyes. You can see it behind the screen of iris, mocking, peering, watching and recording.  
<p/>"Hi, how's it going Anwar?" I respond.  I hear him mumbling an answer as our paths diverge, I round the corner to enjoy the sunshine while he enters the student union. <p/> I have been thinking about people again this afternoon.  I like thinking about people.  Each one is wholly unique - a true individual.  My experience leads me to believe that all people are essentially the same... how can they appear so different? Cultural difference can account for some variations, but even people within the same culture are unique enough to be interesting - at least the larger majority are, or at least they are to me.  I think this perceived uniqueness is somewhat of an illusion though.  We hardly ever focus on the aspects of the whole person, instead focusing on the qualities of a person - the essence or the few traits that make them different from the rest of the crowd... these differences are dynamic over time so it is also possible for a person who once stood out in a crowd to blend in again without ever having changed.  But when taken as a whole... the general population is more or less the same.  We eat, we drink, we sleep, we communicate under the guidance of our culture's predominate protocols... and so on... but generally speaking the patterns are the same; born, live, die....
<hr/>
And here I thought the beauty of RSS was that you didn't have to <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001148">clutter your inbox</a> :(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-11</date>
<text>
Well I'm heading over to my old place to put the finishing touches on the cleaning there... Mark's old sofa is supposed to get towed off today and then I'll be able to turn the key in. <p/>
I'm waiting in the cafe for my sister to come help me with some cleaning.  There are two old men discussing politics.  "...that is the best way for a government to work..." funny how everyone has the answers. Since I grew out of my boyish dogma I've never found things so clear (although sometimes it is fun to argue for the sake of arguing - and then I find a certain amount of dogma necessary for entertainment value).  Everything is interlinked, connected.  Everything has some small effect on everything else - in short I think most things are vulnerable to "butterfly" effects, i.e. one small change in input leads to major changes in the output.  That's a little scary when you think about the mathematic definition of such systems, they are defined as <i>unstable</i>, and yet life persists, it survives, even makes progress, one could even say that in certain circumstances it thrives.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-15</date>
<title>The most beautiful tree</title>
<text>
It is Spring.  It was altogether a beautiful this weekend.  On Friday, I went for a walk, on the way I noticed the most beautiful tree that I have ever seen.  Its trunk is white frosted lilac and the tree itself is somewhat scraggily, with knotty branches reaching tiresomely to the blue heavens above.  The thing that makes this tree so beautiful is its blossoms.  Each is lavender colored at the base, consumed by white flames at the tips. The blossoms are plentiful. The tree is burning with lavender and lilac and white.  Against the clear blue sky the sight was awesome. <p/> I have never taken notice of this tree before - I have lived in Tulsa for almost 8 years. I find it surprising that even after seven years of living here that there would be anything new to see...<p/>
Upon inquiring with my Dad about the tree (Mom and Dad were in town this weekend) he said that the tree was called a "tulip tree".  I did a little digging an found that it is more properly called a <a href="http://plantsdatabase.com/go/2452/">Saucer Magnolia</a> as the <i>yellow poplar</i> is also called a "tulip tree" and there is little or no resemblance there.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-16</date>
<title>The lab web page</title>
<text>
I finally got around to reworking the <a href="http://www.agentlab.net">lab's</a> web page today, it looks great under Safari but no so great under IE 5.x which is all I have available immediately.  I'm planning on taking a look at the site using IE once I get back into the lab next week and make some small adjustments here and there to the layout.  Such a small site and it took about 5.5 hours to throw together :( 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-18</date>
<text>
I put in a solid day of programming on Phase II of my Operating Systems II class today - and I'm just reaching the point where you start to get a feel for how much work really needs to be done.  I'm trying to fight of the panic and just keep working... and this is a difficult thing for me, as you know, because I have difficulty working under deadlines.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-19</date>
<title>Bleh</title>
<text>
I woke up sluggish this morning after hammering away at phase II of my OSII project last night.  I read some Hemingway to get the blood flowing to my brain... but I'm still dragging it.
<hr/>
Agggh...  I just spent the last 5 hours staring down the barrel of the same bug, and for the life of me I can't determine why it is a bug.  I'm getting a Segmentation Fault (EXC_BAD_ACCESS) on a private member variable, the variable is an array... the funny thing is if I comment out the offending lines, and then access the same variable in another part of the program there aren't any problems!   
<hr/>
Why do all robots look like lunch boxes?  Every time I read a story about a new robot doing this or that, I click on the link and wince as I see the picture... the last one was a $300,000 robot, who knows what it did, it looked like a trash can with a lunch box on its head.  There is more to a robot than just functionality - albeit functionality is important esthetics have to count for something along the way.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-21</date>
<title>Hotmail Plugin for Mail.app</title>
<text>
I located a <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/httpmail-plugin">Mail.app Plugin</a> for Hotmail accounts and set it up for Maryna, it seems to work well.
<hr/>
I've put the very frustrating phase II aside for now to focus on my other homework due this week. :(  Hopefully things will go better on Monday.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-22</date>
<text>
I thought I had found my bug, but never mind.  I just forgot revert back to the latest version of the code.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-23</date>
<text>
I finally fixed the bug... I showed the code to <a href="http://www.cs.okstate.edu/~jonyer">Jonyer</a> and he fixed it in 5 minutes - props to the skillz.  I didn't initialize the variable where I thought I had. :(  It is always the stupid mistakes that end up costing me the most time.
<hr/>
The programming has gone much better since I got past that last bug... and I've got some new tunes to boot.  <a href="http://www.marcata.net/walkmen/biography.htm">The Walkmen's</a> Bows+Arrows. Not bad at all. I always love getting turned on to bands that have been around for a long time that I've never heard of.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-26</date>
<text>
From <a href="http://www.onedamnpixel.com/blog/index.php">Saif's</a> Blog... *oips* there I go *stealing* again.
<blockquote>So we are getting a huge gigantor bronze indian in Tulsa. woooooooopdeee doooooo. It'll be bigger than the Statue of Liberty. That - is a bit gaudy imo. It's actually kinda egotistical if you ask ME - but shhh - no one asked I know I know. It's the it thing to talk about right now - so I'm really jus ranting to fill the necessary requirements...
<p/>
...Anyway. You guys shouldn't be worried about the indian. You should be worried about the GIGANTOR EAGLE ON HIS ARM!@ Can we say - Oklahoma where the winds go sweeping down the plains...
<p/>
Eagle = sail = falling indian.
<p/>
Brace yourself.
</blockquote>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-28</date>
<title>iPod + iTrip review</title>
<text>
My beloved Maryna purchased me an iPod recently, and to keep it company she also purchased an iTrip and a base station.  Wow!  The iPod is awesome.  Love it.  The iTrip... I'm not loving so much.  Its performance depends heavily on the quality of the receiving antennae... and well mine aren't so great.  It works okay in my car as long as I hold it above the front seats (my antenna is in the back windshield ).  In my house the range varies wildly depending on what day it is and what the weather and atmosphere are like ;(  I can get anywhere from 10-20 feet away from the radio.  Tonight I tried using a headset radio, I thought it would be nice to wear the headset and be able to move around the lab without having to take the headphones off but it didn't work out because the headset could only pick up the iPod signal from about 3 feet away :(  <p/> To recap:  iPod is good, I love it.  iTrip is okay, probably not worth buying.  The base station is nice, but it would be nicer if I had a desktop macintosh instead of a laptop (like I've got) - it just doesn't make as much since. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-29</date>
<text>
I was taking a break from programming this morning and walked to the local QuickTrip for a cup of coffee.  On the walk back, I saw something along the street curb moving.  I paused and looked.  Starring at me standing on its hind legs was a huge rat!! I mean he was at least twice as big as Maryna and I's house cat (and he is rather large). <p/>After our eyes met, the thing turned and ducked back into the storm drain - it was a tight fit despite a good deal of stretching as the rat went in first head then bottom.  Based on the cute little cat that was fleeing the area and then returned to its doorstep, I venture to say that this rodent must be feeding on the local cat population.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-30</date>
<text>
Wow. A nice post by <a href="http://www.craigburton.com/discuss/msgReader$19?mode=topic&amp;y=2001&amp;m=2&amp;d=6">Craig Burton</a>.
<hr/>
A link from <a href="http://joi.ito.com/">Joi Ito</a>'s website to a very <a href="http://www.zefrank.com/smallworld/">funny</a> video (if you hip to the social networking applications out there.
<hr/>
Minor just came to the lab to collect his things before heading back to Germany.  He worked in silence and left. He said two words one of which was "thanks" as he walked out.  Good luck Minor.  I hope your life is not as lonely as I suspect it will be.  If there is only room for <i>the best</i> in your life, how can you live with yourself?? You have deep and serious flaws - we all do. It isn't until you accept them that you can move past them.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-03-31</date>
<text>
Not that I <a href="30">said</a> much either.  It was one of those situations: he came into the lab, noticed I was in the room, and looked away immediately... that doesn't compel an out reach of vocalization. A friendship died, so it goes.
<p/> I will probably rehash this experience in these pages many times, as this is how I deal with confrontations... by reliving them until finally I reach an understanding or stop from exhaustion.  After a while I will move on to something else to think about, such is life.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-01</date>
<title>iPod Use #2</title>
<text>
The first use is obviously to play music, the second use however is as an alarm clock.  You can set the alarm, put the iPod to sleep (to save the battery over night) and when the alarm goes off, the iPod will wake itself and play the music that you selected with the alarm!! Marvelous, simply marvelous.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-02</date>
<text>
Simply the best robotics work I have ever <a href="http://www.vstone.co.jp/e/rt01e.htm">seen</a> - and they don't look like trash cans.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-06</date>
<text>
I coded all night, porting to Solaris introduced a segmentation fault not seen on my Macintosh :(  At 4:45 am, I stopped coding got dressed in my suit and headed to the airport.  I tried to sleep as much as possible on the flight, but we changed planes in Dallas - the 757 wasn't as spacious as the Super 80 that I flew out of Tulsa on. <p/>The presentation in Las Vegas went well - at least as far as I could tell.  I did my slides an hour before presenting (because all of my time was eaten up coding).  It was a twenty minute talk.  I had a lot of questions and that is usually a good indication that you have held the audience's interest at the very least.  I stayed and listened to several other presenters, and now I'm sitting at my gate at the airport.  The security line only took about an hour to get through - the last time I was in LV the wait was 2.5 hours to get through security... so the situation was much better this time.  I stopped at Ruby's for a hamburger, it was the first food that I've had all day.  I have a two and a half hour wait before my flight leaves - I was going to spend it trying to track down the bug in my program (I have to present my program tomorrow morning at 11:30 am - yeah I won't be sleeping tonight either), but my laptop battery is sitting at 7% ;(  I guess I will try to get some rest instead, I need it.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-07</date>
<text>
It is 3 A.M.  I'm programming.  The idiosyncrasies between my PowerBook's PowerPC Processor and the SPARC at school are killing me.  One thing works just fine on the PPC and causes GCC to throw fits on the SPARC.
<hr/> List of idiosyncrasies for tonight: isxdigit on solaris returns 128 for true not 1, using '\0' with a memset command on solaris nullifies the pointer.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-08</date>
<title>Golf</title>
<text>
Golf is something that I sacrificed on the alter of higher education.  For the last four years, I've been too busy running around completing assignment after assignment, doing task after task, jumping hurdle after hurdle, only to let the things that are most important to me die quietly. Some of my closest friends went to the wayside because I was too busy to maintain the relationship.  Perhaps education is something that requires some sacrifice, perhaps I am more of a fool now than ever.  Tonight I'm going to the driving range, hell or high water.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-12</date>
<text>
There is one month left in this semester. My interest in doing school work is waning quickly.  I'm sitting here trying to coax myself into putting the finishing touches on an assignment due tonight.  The assignment is altogether uninteresting, not to mention more or less pointless.  There is no substance to the assignment beyond forcing us to understand some of the more eclectic forms of CPU pipelining - forms that aren't applied in reality anymore. 
<p/>I spent the bus ride today reading, but also intermittently thinking about how I want to spend my summer.  I have already concluded there will be no class this summer and that I will focus on my own interests.  However, which of my interest shall I focus on - that is the question.  I have two or three in the pipe. I shall have to meditate on this more in order to narrow the choices down to one.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-14</date>
<text>
I'm on my second day of no caffeine.  A couple of headaches today, with an overarching atmosphere of general confusion and fogginess.  No cravings yet, but I know those are down the road.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-16</date>
<text>
Hmmm... day four.  The headaches came back briefly tonight, but otherwise I feel great without any caffeine.  I also don't feel the need to munch while I'm working - which is nice.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-19</date>
<text>
I rested this week to strengthen myself for the onslaught of the semester's end. I'm sheepishly mustering what strength I have left for it. <hr/>My laptop's new hard drive arrived today. I think that I will begin the backup process and try to install it tonight while I study and read for class.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-20</date>
<title>Hard Drive Upgrade</title>
<text>
For the past three years I've had my PowerBook I've wanted to upgrade the 20 Gig hard drive to something larger. My new 60 Gig drive arrived last night, and after purchasing a set of Torque screw drivers to remove the hard drive assembly, it is done.  I reinstalled the OS from Maryna's Disks because they were further up to date than my own... but now I'm questioning this wisdom... She has an iBook and I'm wondering if the builds are different. :(  <p/> Also I somehow managed not to copy my archived picture directory to the Backup CD I burned last night, so I lost most of my pictures :( I will have to revert to my older backup, though I don't recall when that was done :( I did manage to save my GPG certificate, my SSH authentication files, and my address book this time - though I had forgotten these last <a href="/blog/2003/11/03.html">time</a>. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-21</date>
<text>
I'm back on caffeine. Eight and a half days without.  This weekend I will likely be pulling all nighters to finish all of the project work that I have to. *sigh*
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-22</date>
<text>
This morning I put the finishing touches on my program 2 and performance analysis report due Monday in Computer Organization &amp; Architecture.  I have a term paper due on Monday as well, and on Tuesday my Phase III of my Operating Systems II class is due.  Fun times.  Yes, after I finished program 2 I started working on Phase III only to realize my compiler was broken from this weeks hard drive upgrade &amp; OS reinstall. *grin* I always pick the worst times to do system upgrades... but it keeps the pressure on to get it wrapped up.
<p/> So there have been tornados in Tulsa for the last two nights and this afternoon.  I lost one night of developing on my projects sitting in a storm shelter, fortunately todays storms were hitting south Tulsa and I can keep working.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-23</date>
<text>
I reinstalled the compiler once before I realized that I was installing XCode 1.0 which only worked on Jaguar (OS 10.2), so I downloaded and installed XCode 1.1 and the compiler is up and running again.
<p/>
<hr/>
I finished most of my Phase 3 requirements - a couple of finishing touches and then I'll be able to focus fixing the items that were broken in Phase 2.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-04-27</date>
<text>
It's 2:42am, I'm putting the finishing touches on the final phase of my Operating Systems II projects. It is a good feeling to be able to look forward to finals.... i.e. anything else besides this project. The project was brutal and easily the toughest programming project that I have ever completed. <p/>The excellent thing is that I managed to get the term paper and second programming assignment for my other class done this weekend as well.  Last weekend, when I was looking at my schedule for the week I couldn't imagine how I would get everything done on time.  Thankfully, God smiled on my programming abilities this week and everything went smoothly - better than I could have imagined. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-04</date>
<title>The day after...</title>
<text>
I bombed my final last night. I came home bitter and frustrated.  I studied all of the class videos to review everything that we "covered" in class.  I took good notes. I reviewed the 700 slides for the class - that should tell you something about the quality of the instruction.... and yet as I flipped through the final I knew how to answer 1 out of 9 questions (naturally I answered the other 8 but I would say at least 4 or 5 are going to be flat wrong).  Dr. Park is a great researcher but ultimately not someone I can learn from - obviously.  His idea of "covering" material when compared to someone like Dr. Jonyer or Dr. Samadzedah or Dr. Chen (well frankly almost everyone else) is sickening.  Not a little part of the problem is due to the fact that this was a televised course.<p/> All of this frustration has me pondering the nature of the American education system again.  Like all of capitalist society, our education system is a business.  This is a damn shame.  Our schools are only interested bringing in money not in education, they are more interested in pumping students through the system than teaching them anything.  But is this anyway to learn? I'm not talking about "learning" were you memorize something for the test and then forget a week later. I'm talking about deep learning, the kind of learning that lasts for a life time. The answer must be a resounding no.... and so I'm in the ponderous mode again wondering what the solution to the problem is. How can the education system be improved?  Certainly the idea of taking a midterm and a final must go, this system puts entirely too much pressure on one night's performance.  I liked professor Jonyer's approach in Data Structures &amp; Algorithms II last fall.  He gave us three difficult programming assignments and 10 quizes.  I think that this was much more fair assessment giving a better measure of the student's performance over time.  
<p/>Then ultimately the root of the problem is that Universities hire faculty based on research (because they want grant money) and little attention is paid to the quality of instruction in the class room.  But then perhaps the quality would be better if the poor professors weren't being overloaded with work (again because the university is greedy for money and demands a lot from their profs. ).  
<p/> I could go on ranting about this for hours... I'll mention just a few more things and then stop here.  <bl><lh>Problems with Dr. Park's class</lh><li> He was in Stillwater. I had to watch him over a compressed television channel. I couldn't always read the slides</li><li>Dr. Park is hard to follow. His slides are full of errors and sometimes he never did get it correct while he went through examples.</li><li>The class was once a night for three hours. This is too much at a time. I've found that I always do better in the shorter more frequent classes. (not like I have a choice at OSU though since we have such a plethora of classes to choose from - all 11)</li><li>One Midterm, one Final. Too much emphasis on these exams</li><li>Not enough homework to demonstrate the important aspects of what we were studying. Dr. Samadzedah was really good at giving us pertinent homework, Dr. Park was not.  If you did the homework in Dr. Samadzedah's class you could handle the tests, no trickery, no shadiness like Dr. Park who like most Korean (?) professors that I've had at OSU like to be difficult but in order be so won't reveal what will be on the tests - don't cover the homework assignments on the tests or explain them in class, etc.  </li> </bl>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-05</date>
<text>
I aced my final this afternoon.... it feels soooo much better to rip through a final that you know the answers to... Dr. Park is too cruel.  I talked to Eric today about Monday night's final, he suffered through it as well and also thought that most of the material covered on the final was never discussed or presented in class.  However, he reassured me that most of the grade for the class comes from the Term paper... so maybe I'll get a B instead of failing. :( 
<p/> After my final was over I went out for a round of golf. Very nice. A little sun, a little walking for exercise - and I didn't play half bad on the back nine, three pars. All in all, not too bad for my first outing of the year. 
<hr/>Good for a <a href="http://www.teemings.com/extras/truelife/scylla6.html">laugh</a>.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-07</date>
<text>
Check out the wall cloud this <a href="http://weatherbug.blogs.com/stormchase/2004/05/a_wall_of_dirt_.html">guy</a> was standing in front of!!!
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-09</date>
<text>
<blockquote>"The opportunity to make decisions on the spot has made young people reluctant to divide their lives into time slots, as older generations are used to doing."</blockquote> a Norwegian researcher quoted by Rheingold in his book <i>Smart Mobs</i>.  Yes, this has a weight to it. As the speed of communications increases and becomes more and more mobile the ideas of "locality" and "presence" will shift, or at least I believe they will. Who wants to live life like a clockwork doll? Time should be more fluid and more dynamic; work when there is meaningful work to do, and rest when there is not.

</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-11</date>
<title>Sweet Success</title>
<text>
My hard work in my operating systems II class paid off, I got an 'A'. YES!!!  In my other class, Computer Organization and Architecture, I got a 'B'... and I am pleased with this since I bombed the final.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-14</date>
<title>Corporate America is a Waste of Talent</title>
<text>
I'm sure not all of you agree... especially you working stiffs out there that enjoy your jobs (and if you enjoy your job, that's great. Consider yourself lucky, you're in the minority).  <p/> Now that I've been away from that scene for 6 months, and I'm back to being myself, I can see that beyond the skills that I learned there, I was wasting my time jumping through hoops.  I wasn't built for handling the politics of it all, I'm much happier in academia where I'm not (currently) as affected by the politics. Besides, if you do good science, in academia, the politics seem to work themselves out.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-15</date>
<title>Another one down</title>
<text>
The paper that Dr. Thomas and I rushed through last week was accepted. No worries mate.
<p/>
Funny, I didn't even mention working on it previously - I guess I was too busy.  I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the paper, naturally, it definitely had that night before feel - though not as bad as I normally have when rushing (I seem to be getting better at this ).
<p/>
I wanted to take this weekend easy and catch up on some wedding stuff with Maryna, however, it looks like I'll have to do the wedding catch up today so that I can finish my reputation system tomorrow (2 functions left), so that I can polish the paper on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of the coming week.  Thursday and Friday will be spent running around finishing all of the things that need to be done to put on a great wedding "show". Yea. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-16</date>
<title>Atalkd is much easier than Samba</title>
<text>
Sometime ago Maryna's computer died, since then she has been wanting to recover the music off of her hard drive (which wasn't the cause of the failure).  Now that the semester is over, and I have some breathing room, I found the time to do the recovery last night.  Going in, the plan was to hook up the HD to my linux box, mount the drive, and setup a Samba share for it.  Then, as I was flipping through the administration manual for SuSE 8.2 looking for some tips on setting up Samba, I noticed that SuSE comes with an AFP daemon already setup in the kernel... so the plan changed.<p/>
After getting the hard drive mounted, I took 5 minutes and setup <a href="http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/">netatalk</a>.  The version that came with SuSE 8.2 was 1.6.x, which worked great.  I found setting up shares, and setting the permissions on those shares to be much easier than setting up a Samba share.  <p/><h5>Case and Point</h5><p/>
The syntax for setting up a share in Samba looks like this: <blockquote>
[public]<br/>
path = /usr/public<br/>
public = yes<br/>
only guest = yes<br/>
writable = yes<br/>
printable = no<br/>
</blockquote>
That is pretty busy, requiring multiple lines, and I much preferred the setup of the netatalk daemons.  To setup a share you edit <i>AppleVolumes.default</i> which looks like this:
<blockquote>/music "Music on Praxis" rwlist:@users</blockquote>
That's it, <i>/music</i> directory gets shared with the name <i>Music on Praxis</i>. The best part is that AFP for linux uses a PAM module - so you don't have to setup a Samba passwords for the users, they automatically use their unix passwords.  To allow guest read access:
<blockquote>/music "Music on Praxis" rwlist:@users rolist:@guests</blockquote>Where @guests represents a group called <i>guests</i> on the linux box.  So perhaps the only advantage of using Samba is that the windows users don't have to have an account on the linux machine to access the drives, but as far as I understand it, there is a way to setup anonymous shares as well... so then again...
<p/> This is great! I was considering hooking up my printer to the linux server and setting up a Samba share, but I was concerned that it would take forever and a day to setup and that my Mac might not be able to print to it correctly.  Now I'm going to play around with <i>papd</i>, a daemon for Apple Printer Sharing, that comes with netatalk.  I think that it will work nicely.  
<p/> I've noticed only a few bugs with the service.  Most notably some users have trouble viewing files in the shared drive, but they can view their home directories (setup by default in SuSE 8.2) without any issues.  I would assume that this is a configuration issue, but then it was good enough to recover Maryna's data files and tear down *grin*  The only other thing that annoyed me was that the version of netatalk that I have doesn't do the Rendezvous (mdns) thing.  So the share doesn't show up when you browse the network, but works fine when you specifically connect to it.  I was going to setup HOWL to advertise the service for me (just for fun) but I don't have apt-get on the machine at this point, and the machine can't stay on the network all the time right now because of the wiring in the house (the wireless AP &amp; hub are in the living room, whilst the servers are usually in the office, a good 40 feet away - and running cable isn't an option)
<p/>So not a serious comparison here, but that's my two cents anyway: netatalkd's syntax is better than Samba's... now if only windows machines could access  Apple shares. *grin* Apple can access Microsoft shares, that should tell you something about who is more compatible.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-18</date>
<title>iMove is great!!</title>
<text>
For our wedding present, Maryna's boss Dr. Cole bought us a mini-DV camera.  Tonight I purchased an IEEE 1394 firewire-to-camera cable.  For the first time, I can really appreciate iMovie... and may I say WOW!!  Try typing on your blog and importing digital video (at the same time) on a Windows machine... it ain't gonna happen.  <p/>The coolest thing for me so far is that iMovie breaks the scenes into separate clips automatically for ease of editing.<p/>
I played around with the effects a little - those are easy enough... I couldn't quite figure out the Title screens (and sub titles) ;( Tomorrow.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-19</date>
<title>Vitzya Helps</title>
<text>
<embed src="/movies/vitzya.mov" height="487" width="720" autoplay="true" /> <p/> <a href="/movies/vitzya.mov">[ Vitzya Movie ]</a> 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-20</date>
<title>Protect TN3270 connections via encryption</title>
<text>
I wished I would have discovered this while I was working for TULMEL.  A year or so ago, there was a client hospital in Florida whose patient health information application ran over a TN3270 connection.  You could sniff the user connections to the main-frame, pick out the passwords, log in a couple times to find the permission set that you needed, then lookup whatever patient information you wanted to.  They could have seriously benefited from having encrypted traffic on that application, but none was provided by the vendor.  Here we were as the penetration testers and security consultants with no real solution to offer other than to "pressure the vendor for application level encryption".  Tonight (this morning), I ran across <a href="http://www.secureagent.com/idg9074/9074benefits.htm">SecureAgent.com</a>'s website, a local vendor who sells devices to replace main frame connection controllers - adding a layer of encryption for all TN3270 connections to the main frame in the process.  <p/> Here we didn't have a good solution to recommend for the problem, and we were walking past the Secure Agent building two or three times a week getting lunch. 
<hr/>
I started working on the Dvorak keyboard tonight :( It's difficult... I feel myself fighting off qwerty every step of the way. It will be a battle, but ultimately worth it.  My wrists ache from the change in utilization patterns... and from fighting off qwerty.  The nice thing is, that I can guess the location of the keys based on its frequency or whether or not the character is a vowel. From tonight on I will only use Dvorak... <p/>The trickiest thing is retraining some of the most common key combinations and the keys from the home row.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-05-28</date>
<title>Married? Wow!</title>
<text>
Maryna and I got married five days ago, and I can hardly believe I'm married.  When it is right, marriage is the easiest, most beautiful experience two people can share.  <p/> The wedding photographer used a digital camera and was able to give us copies of every picture immediately after the reception.  When Maryna and I finally made it home, we had a good time looking through the pictures together.  It was amazing how beautiful everything was - during the ceremony I couldn't tell. During the ceremony itself there was some trouble with the music - I started to get upset, but then Maryna appeared at the top of the staircase, I forgot everything - I didn't even hear the music anymore. She was a stunning bride; so radiant and so beautiful. <p/>  Now I am in Belarus again. We arrived yesterday after an all night flight.  Today I slept frequently, and I will likely sleep in tomorrow as well.  Minsk was more beautiful than I remembered, everything was clean and fresh in the spring light; the fields where green and the sky was light blue with fluffy white clouds - the temperature was a moderate 60 degrees.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-05-31</date>
<title>Jet Lag</title>
<text>
The first day of jet-lag was hard, but passes quickly with sleep. The first day of the wedding was tiring but enjoyable - there was much toasting, eating, and merrymaking.  The second day of the wedding was easier, and shorter. The ceremony in the Eastern Orthodox Church was amazing; this meant so much to Maryna and her family. I don't regret making the trip either, I love this country's people so much. Though their average income is only $100 a month, Maryna's family gave us over $5000! In the U.S. we received more gifts than money - but nothing like the gifts in Belarus. Their people are so kind, some of them gave a year's salary! Not to mention that all the gifts were made in dollars, not rubles. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-06-01</date>
<title>Beautiful Belarus</title>
<text>Belarus is more beautiful than I remembered. We drove out into the countryside today to visit Maryna's uncle Mihial and his family.  The landscape was incredible - an equal to the heart of the people. <p/> Tomorrow, my parents leave for Paris, after three days there they will return home.<hr/>Grodno has restored nearly every building in the center since last year when Maryna and I visited.  They are still working very hard to improve their country... indeed, I can tell they have made progress and will continue to do so. The grocery stores are open until 11 pm in Grodno - this was bumped up from 7 pm (or 9 pm) last year, plus there is a new indoor market in town modeled after a shopping mall (the quality is very respectable) - I even found a pair of real Nikes for sale (though they cost $100 US). Along with the progress, prices have increased. Last year, a bottle of Vodka cost $1, this year it was about $2. There were also cars everywhere - good ones like Mercedes &amp; BMW. Plus, there were a half dozen or so apartment buildings built within the year. Along with the progress, the attitudes of the people have changed; I think they have some hope for the future now. </text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-06-02</date>
<title></title>
<text>
Mom and Dad left for Minsk today. Their plane took off around 1pm, they should be in Paris by now; hopefully they will enjoy themselves there. <p/>
This trip has been thoroughly enjoyable. I find Grodno more comfortable than in the past - it is impossible to explain all of this change completely. I feel that as my Russian improves more and more that this will be like a second home. 
<p/>Today Maryna and I walked to the Nemann River to relax and enjoy the wonderful weather - as we would do in Tulsa.  The Nemann is a wonderful river; a slow moving green mass of water gently rolling along the steep grassy banks. The sun is out but it's not hot, there is a constant stream of fluffy clouds rolling past. Walking along the river trail under 100 foot pine trees is pleasant - the sound of the country fills the air along with the singing of the wind in the tree tops. There is peace here today, such as I haven't had in some time - the wedding planning and arrangements have been stressful.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-06-03</date>
<title>Fishing near Lithuania</title>
<text>
We went fishing at a lake near the Lithuanian boarder today. We had to sneak past the border patrol because the lake is within the 20km zone, which means if your not a resident you need to have a VISA to the bordering country to be in the area. At least now I know the way to Lithuania in case I need a route out of the country - though I would still prefer Poland.
<p/>
The lake was beautiful, with pine trees all the way around. There was a bit of fishing, much drinking, and some campfire cooking. The Belarussians have an interesting tradition of cooking bacon-on-a-stick for desert - I still prefer smores.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-06-04</date>
<title>Looking forward to the trip home.</title>
<text>
There isn't much to say today - I'm looking forward to the trip home, mostly so we can be back in control of our own activities again... and I'm craving some Internet time *grin* <p/>
Belarus is a nice escape from the states, but after two or three weeks I start wanting to do some work.  I wish I had a computer here - there is nothing else to do, I could finish some projects I want to complete.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-06-06</date>
<title>Packing</title>
<text>
Tonight we are packing, tomorrow morning we'll leave for Minsk, then after a day of site-seeing we'll head home.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-06-10</date>
<title>Home Again</title>
<text>Maryna and I survived, we completed our journey home last night around 6pm. The trip was exceedingly good - we even made it home with most of the breakables. <p/> I'll be retro-posting a couple of entries I made whilst away. Me thinks that there will be much updating to the site in the coming week - with wedding pictures and the like.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-11</date>
<title>Dragging it.</title>
<text>Yesterday I had the energy of a bull, today I'm dragging my butt. <hr/>I spent some time working in gtypist today. Slowly, slowly I'm getting better at Dvorak - I went cold-turkey on QWERTY before I left for Belarus. I still haven't internalized many key combinations - which is the key to typing quickly... and I still have QWERTY in my muscle memory, which means I won't be typing quickly for some time to come. Maybe by the end of the summer.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-12</date>
<title>Programming is more difficult on Dvorak...</title>
<text>
Today, I got back to the grind and started in on some programming... only to find it difficult to get into the flow on the Dvorak keyboard.  It's only fair to say that I'm not yet proficient with the new keyboard, but I feel I've made excellent progress, that is to say that I can almost type a constant stream of words (not terribly quickly yet but constant) when I close my eyes to type.  I also feel that I've reached the point of no return. I'm at that place where I can no longer remember the Qwerty keyboard, so trying to go back would be at least as difficult as moving forward.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-14</date>
<title>Random Musings</title>
<text>I'm trying out double shot's coffee today. The atmosphere is good - it's quiet, maybe that will help get some writing done. *grin* Probably not.
<hr/>
Summer colds are the worst. I picked one up on the way back from Belarus, and I'm paying for it now. I am miserable. My nose is running. My eyes are watering. I'm coughing. My throat aches. My head is cloudy. My mind is foggy. I have a low-grade fever. I'm tired (from jet-lag? laziness? )... and I'm trying to write. Simply lovely.
<hr/>The outline of the paper is going well... but I'm a day behind - I should have been writing already. :( I would have had two weeks to work on this if I hadn't been in Europe when Doc Jonyer expressed an interest in this particular conference. Fortunately, I have a very laid back attitude toward publishing... if I don't finish in time for this conference there will always be another, so the work isn't waisted.
<hr/>
After Double Shots coffee, I am literally shaking, and have been for the last several hours.
<hr/>
Right in the middle of finishing a portion of this paper's outline, Allen stopped by to chit-chat with Maryna. For an audio driven person there is no greater distraction than two people talking in an otherwise quite space. Total flow killer.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-16</date>
<title>Judo Austin</title>
<text>I went to Judo with Serguei yesterday and had a lot of fun getting tossed around the matt.  It turns out to be a decent workout as well - so I think I'll be going back on Thursday.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-18</date>
<title>proximity-based, network-aware, topology-aware, or semantic  clustering...</title>
<text>
Tonight I'm working on literature review for the next paper I'm working on.  The last paper didn't have enough references, and Dr. Joyner brought this up in our weekly meeting today... granted, Dr. Thomas and I whipped up the last paper in two days. Never the less, this is a very important step in the process. I spent something like two hours just surfing and collecting papers to read; this session yielded fruit to boot.  In the past, whenever I looked for papers on this particular topic, I found little citable material, today, however, was different. It seems that the ideal of clustering internet clients is beginning to take off. I also managed to identify several other monikers for the topic as well - something I'm not typically efficient at.

<hr/>Judo yesterday was brutal; I have a huge bruise on my arm, and I could barely stand up yesterday. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-19</date>
<title>Scratch semantic clustering from the list...</title>
<text>I love the way learning is never a straight line... <a href="./18">Semantic clustering</a>, which I included in a list yesterday is not the same as the other items in the list.  Semantic clustering turns out to mean clustering based on the items shared/downloaded on a p2p network... which makes since when you consider the name.<hr/> Describing an intimately designed system containing subtle but elegant features is difficult.  I'm finding it hard to lay out the details in simple but meaningful ways while managing to convey the importance of each piece.  Each piece both contributes to and relies upon the success of several other pieces, making them terribly subtle on their own... it is the synergy that holds the work together, but simply describing synergy is daunting.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-21</date>
<title>Permanently Distracted </title>
<text>I was contemplating life &amp; technology again today. I was wondering how it would feel to walk away; what it would be like to get a non-technology related job?  No computer science, no programming, no technology.  I just wonder if I would be happier.  In the world of technology, I just seem to be permanently distracted. 
<p/>These thoughts accompany thoughts about making a living again... ( this is a dangerous game for me ).  Today I was thinking about what kind of a job I would want to have if I had a "real" job again - purely a mental exercise, as I don't believe that the kind of work environment that I would want actually exists (at least not here in the States, or if they do they are very rare). These thoughts also coincide thoughts about what kind of PhD program I would like to be in. 
<p/>So what kind of place would it have to be? Open, friendly, a "we're all in this together" attitude, collaborative, energetic, light-weight, slow-to-medium paced, and love/passion driven.  Location is important, pay is not.  Be surrounded by bright open-minded people is important - interacting with these people is more so.  The plains states are a no go, the thought of the midwest doesn't get me going either.   
<p/>I think a lot about alternative energy (or "green" energy), I wonder if that realm would produce a satisfying career?  I think a lot about going into business for myself - but you need a product (or a service) for that. I think about continuing on my current path of academia and what being a professor will be like - if I can survive this period of isolation. I think about my friends old and new, and about friendships that have dissolved, and about friendships to come. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-26</date>
<title>A plan for peace...</title>
<text>
I don't know if any of the following has/is being done to prevent terrorists attacks on the US.  I know that I would like to see steps 1 through three taken, even though they would be <i>painful</i> at first. <p/>
<bl>
<li>1.  <b>Stop the import of oil</b>.  Typically, acts of terror are performed within close proximity of the target - and that takes money.  Money for passports, money for visas, money for plane tickets and transportation, money for housing, money for training, and money for supplies.  Taking away the revenue supplied by middle-eastern oil exports would greatly reduce the funding available to terrorists, which in turn would make targeting a country halfway around the world more difficult.<p/>
</li>
<li>
2.  <b>Outlaw the manufacturing and sales of internal combustion engines fueled by petroleum</b>.  Is this an extreme step? Yes, but no more extreme than invading two countries.  Use this step to reinforce the actions of step one, because let's face it, we can't produce enough oil to satisfy our own demands.   Naturally this step would have to occur over the course of two or three years to ease the blow to car manufacturers - they would need a heads up to get into other industries.  <p/>
</li>
<li>
3. <b>Move toward green energy</b>.  Eliminating the production/sales of gas/diesel fueled engines would create a huge demand for alternative energy sources.  In order to persist with steps one and two above something would have to fill the gap, renewable energies would be the logical choice.  <p/>
</li>
<li>
4.  <b>Background checks for visas.</b> No more "quick" visas, require a background check (in their country of origin) of any one applying for visas from the countries in question.  If their own government has any dirt on them, deny the request up front.   Pass the cost of this background check onto the visa applicant. <p/>
</li>
<li>
5.  <b>Limit the number of visas issued to Arab nations (i.e. the countries in question)</b>.  Limit our exposure to the threat.  Lower the number of visas issued to an amount where the visitors could be easily tracked. <p/>
</li>
<li>
6.  <b>Visitor Registration</b>.  Require visitors from these nations to register with a federal agency:  phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, schools, universities, etc.  If any of their information changes without receiving approval from the agency first, revoke their visa immediately and notify all law enforcement agencies that these folks need to be tracked down to be exported. <p/>
</li>
<li>
7.  <b>Fingerprinting</b>.  Require finger printing for visas to the U.S. from the countries of concern.  Many of their names are very similar, that can make things confusing when we're trying to keep track of who's who.  Having a finger print file to reference would statistically reduce confusion in this area. <p/>  
</li>
</bl>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-27</date>
<title>iPulse</title>
<text>
The price of the coolest computer monitoring program finally dropped to the very reasonable rate of $12 - so I bought it. Very nice.  Having a continual view of my machine's network traffic and CPU load helps to cull the paranoid from the sensible moments of concern when attached to a <i>hostile</i> wireless network. In short, this little application is not only beautiful to look at, not only does it display important information, but it eases my mind as well.
<hr/>
In other news, I am admitting that I am creatively constipated... Well, yes and no.  The flood of ideas to my brain are crippling. Greg (my old boss) once said (as more of an insult [?] than anything else as far as I could tell) that I should be working in a think tank.  I can't think of a better job.  I have more ideas than I could ever develop on my own, and no ability to choose between them - no ability to focus on only one.  Dad described this to me once, at the time I didn't understand what it was that he was talking about. Now, I understand what he meant by saying that his brain was "constantly wound-up". There are nights, like tonight, when I have such a desire to create, that sleeping is too difficult to consider; enter the frustration of not having enough skill to implement my ideas.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-06-30</date>
<title>Building a system prototype</title>
<text>
The software agent paradigm is the perfect paradigm to do prototyping in.  Ideally, it abstracts the nastiness of network programming allowing the designer to concentrate on the content being communicated between to elements in the system.  The only problem is that there are no decent, openly available agent platforms written for C++, so if you want to go the agent route you get trapped into using Java.  I don't particularly enjoy programming in Java, and as a matter of fact the end application must be in C++ anyway, so this is a problem.
<hr/>
<h4>WWDC 2004 Keynote </h4>
I just watched the entire Keynote from WWDC 2004 'Frisco. Steve Jobs demonstrated <i>Tiger</i>, Apple's next major release of OS X. It is simply amazing!  Goto their web site and view the demo.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-02</date>
<title>CSS is very nice...</title>
<text>
...but it could be easier to align the DIVs with each other. Just somekind of orientation attribute stipulating which side of the previous DIV that the next one goes on in <i>relative</i> mode.  It seems like a small addition (I have no idea how much that would complicate the programming) that would make setting up pages alignments easier.  As is, yeah, it is as bad as doing the job with a table element.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-03</date>
<title>An update to the Weblog layout.</title>
<text>
For those of you reading the HTML version of the page, I hope you are enjoying the new layout. <p/>
I finished the mock up two days ago, but it took some doing to find the right combination of DIVs for the site to render decently in Internet Explorer 6 and Safari... I wasn't able to test the new design in any other browsers (yet) so if things are broke, I apologize. There are still a few kinks to work out, but hopefully they'll be gone soon. 
<p/>In other news, I'll be ripping into the BOINC client next week to determine whether or not it can be modified to suit the needs of my thesis work.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-05</date>
<title>Fahrenheit 9/11 or A message to the hardline republicans </title>
<text>
Maryna and I saw Michael Moore's <a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&amp;cf=info&amp;id=1808569540">Fahrenheit 9/11</a> tonight. I have to say I was impressed.  I wasn't really sure what to expect going in; there were a lot a people on the 'net (and elsewhere) calling this film "left-wing propaganda", and still others calling it genius.  For a once-upon-a-time Republican who is struggling to find a new political identity, I found myself agreeing with a large majority of points made by Moore in the film.  I'm not an extremist.  I don't think that Bush is evil, I'm not a card-carrying Democrat of any kind either. I don't think everything Bush has done in office was a mistake, but he certainly is no golden-boy either. Let's say that he has made enough serious mistakes that I cannot in good conscience even consider voting for him in 2004. On his list of major mistakes I would certainly include the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq - among countless other minor incidents.  I thought Moore did an excellent job of presenting his side of the story, and did so in a fair light; after all, most of the condescending images and sound-bites of Bush, Chainey, et al. were taken directly from news reels, and many of the conclusions Moore makes are hardly without merit.   Everyone considering voting in the upcoming elections needs to see this film. It will give you plenty to think about.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-06</date>
<title>A small font hack for Safari/IE compatibility.</title>
<text>
I spent last night working out some kinks behind the scenes.  There was previously a small bug with the preview function, so there were times when sentences were chopped together (and read wrong) on the month's index page. I believe I have eradicated that problem completely now.  I also spent sometime today cleaning up some CSS bugs under windows, and finding a font that allows the page to render *almost* as well in Internet Explorer as it does in Safari. This is no easy task. Many of the stock fonts look terrible under IE, and conversely, the fonts that looked descent on windows didn't look as good as the defaults on the Macintosh.  I found a compromise, or a small hack that looks like this:
<blockquote>
		font: 8pt/16pt lucida; <br/>
		font-family: "Courier New", Verdana, sans-serif ; <br/>
		font-size: 8pt; <br/>
</blockquote>
Originally, on the Macintosh, I had the font defined as "font: 8pt/16pt lucida;" - which looks great under Safari, but looks a bit funky under IE. So I played around until I found a font setting on IE that looked similar (albeit not as good) to the font rendering under Safari; this setting represents the second two lines above.  Then I began playing to see if I could I find something that would work for both.  The hack shown above renders the same under IE as if the first "font" line were not present. It has the added benefit to changing the rendering on the Macintosh slightly - pushing it more toward the original choice with just the first font tag by itself while looking better than only having the last two lines (at least for my taste and the layout). 
<p/>
Finally, Yahoo! indexed my site again and the search field is working now. It worked briefly when I first turned it on, but apparently if you change the custom results template any you have to wait for the site to be reindexed before the results work correctly again - which I found strange.
<hr/>
Yeah, about that... Maryna's Safari browser renders the page in a nasty kind of Courier font (per the second tag), so forget everything I said about the font hack... I emptied my cache and I'm still getting the nice looking Lucida font while Maryna's is still rendering in Courier. I'll try to figure that out.  But at least it does look better on windows.
<p/>
Yeah, and the search field is broke again. That is the most finicky CGI script I've ever seen.  I wonder if any update to the site causes it to stop working correctly ??  Wow, that would suck. I would just switch to Google, but I compared the results, and Yahoo's were better (and they should be since they host my site).  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-07</date>
<title>Dvorak Update and a meeting with Dr. Joyner</title>
<text>I had a long meeting with Dr. Joyner about the design for the system today.  We were discussing the pros and cons of building onto the <a href="http://boinc.berkeley.edu/">BOINC </a> client as opposed to starting from scratch to implement hierarchical clustering of the clients.  Obviously they have done a ton of work on their client - and it is a good stock distributed systems client, but in the end the huge learning curve for learning the ins and outs of their implementation necessitates the need for me to begin from scratch.  There are too many unknowns when diving into someone else's code, I would run the risk of drowning in it and never accomplishing a thing.  It partly came down to the fear that six months from now I would hit a show stopping snag and have nothing to show for the work, while if I roll my own I shouldn't hit any snags caused by differing design methodologies.  The decision was tough. There were many arguments for reusing what they have done. The major deciding factor in the end was the fact that the majority of the BOINC client code is written in C despite the web page making claims to the use of C++... which they do use, but only in the GUI code sections that I wouldn't dream of touching at this phase.  So that's that.  After thinking this over for the last week I continued forward with my own implementation.
<p/>
<h4>Dvorak Update</h4> I'm still learning how to type on the Dvorak.  I would love to say that I'm back up to speed and that it went smoothly, but I can't.  It's a battle.  My proficiency comes and goes with the breeze. I have brief moments where the typing is smooth and fast, but for the most part I'm still adjusting to the new layout.  Most of the mistakes I make now are on non-home-row keys or on keys that shifted hands (i.e. where it was on the left hand side in QWERTY and on the right hand side on Dvorak - or vise versa).  The punctuation situation is improving, as well as some of the most common key combinations.  I up to around 37 w.p.m. without errors when touch typing, but remain significantly slower when I'm thinking about content and typing.  I can say that my wrists hurt less now, a very nice improvement as I was starting to develop carpal tunnel syndrome using QWERTY. The mouse still causes some minor irritations.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-09</date>
<title>KLOC rug</title>
<text>
I wish I could get the <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/09/unwired_hump_rug.html">KLOC rug</a> designed by Christian Gavoille, but it looks like it is only available in Europe!! 

Original link from <a href="http://funfurde.blogspot.com/2004/07/kloc-floor-lounger.html">FunFurde</a>.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-10</date>
<title>SMS over AOL (and it works from iChat)</title>
<text>This from <a href="http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030625235057445">MacOSXHints</a>: <blockquote>With today's release of AIM4.6b1.1131, the capability has been added to allow AIM users to send SMS messages to mobile phones. All you do is type the message you want to send as an SMS into a new IM window and change the screenname field to +16175551212. Replace 6175551212 with the phone number of the SMS-capable mobile phone. The "+1" is the country code, which is required; however, I don't think AOL supports non-US numbers yet, but they do plan to. 
<p/>
To utilize this cool feature in iChat, simply type Shift-Command-N for a "New Chat with Person," and enter the phone number in the above format. When you send the message, you'll receive confirmation from AOL that it was sent. Pretty neat! 
<p/>
[robg adds: Indeed, and very cooly, this worked as described in testing with my Nextel/Motorola phone. Now I can send myself reminders of things to forget later directly from iChat!]
</blockquote>

I tested it with my Samsung T-500 with SMS service from Sprint and it worked without issues.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-11</date>
<title>A good simple example of Pthread programming</title>
<text>
This sample text is one of the simplest examples of thread programming in C/C++ that I've ever seen - not that I've done that much looking.  Taken from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201357526/amzna9-1-20/ref=nosim/102-8058111-7320150?dev-t=D26XECQVNV6NDQ%26camp=2025%26link_code=xm2">Gregory R. Andrews's book</a>.  It is also, not a terrible example of split binary semaphores. 
<blockquote>
#include &lt;pthread.h&gt; <br/>
#include &lt;semaphore.h&gt; <br/>
#include &lt;stdio.h&gt; 
<p/> 
#define SHARED 1 <br/>
<p/>
void* producer( void* );	<font color="green">// The two threads </font><br/>
void* consumer( void* );
<p/>
sem_t empty, full; <br/>
int data; <br/>
int numIters; <br/>
<br/>
int main( int argc, char* argv[] ) <br/>
{<br/> <blockquote>
	pthread_t pid, cid; <br/>
	pthread_attr_t attr; <br/>
	pthread_attr_init(&amp;attr); <br/>
	pthread_attr_setscope(&amp;attr, PTHREAD_SCOPE_SYSTEM ); <br/>
	<br/>
	sem_init(&amp;empty, SHARED, 1);  <font color="green">// sem empty = 1 </font><br/>
	sem_init(&amp;full, SHARED, 0 );  <font color="green">// sem full = 0 </font>
	<p/>
	numIters = atoi( argv[1] );
	<p/>
	pthread_create(&amp;pid, &amp;attr, producer, NULL );<br/>
	pthread_create(&amp;cid, &amp;attr, consumer, NULL );
	<p/>
	pthread_join(pid, NULL);<br/>
	pthread_join(cid, NULL); </blockquote>
}<br/>
<br/>
void* producer( void* argc)<br/>
{<br/><blockquote>
	int produced;<br/>
	for( produced = 1; produced &lt;= numIters; produced++)<br/>
	{<blockquote>
		sem_wait( &amp;empty ); <br/>
		data = produced;<br/>
		sem_post( &amp;full );
	</blockquote>
	}
</blockquote>
}<br/>
<br/>
void* consumer( void* argc) <br/>
{<blockquote>
	int total = 0, consumed;<br/>
	for( consumed = 1; consumed &lt;= numIters; consumed++)<br/>
	{<blockquote>
		sem_wait( &amp;full );<br/>
		total += data;<br/>
		sem_post( &amp;empty);
	</blockquote>
	}<br/>
	printf( "the total is %d\n", total);<br/>
</blockquote>
}<br/>
</blockquote>
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-07-17</date>
<title>Unfocused</title>
<text>This week I haven't felt like doing much.  I've done a little coding here and there, a lot of reading, and some <i>judo</i>, but not much beyond that. Here's to the weekend and next week.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-07-27</date>
<title>This is stupid </title>
<text>
I haven't written much lately. Every time I start writing an entry, I stop in the middle; I get the inclination that "this is stupid" and I erase everything that I've written up to that point.  I have suddenly become picky about what I write here. I find this behavior somewhat intriguing as I never cared much about it before so long as the writing was intelligible. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-28</date>
<title>Some nice work with Flash</title>
<text>
From <a href="http://boingboing.com">Boing Boing</a>, a <a href="http://www.complexification.net/">nice demonstration</a> of Flash programming.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-07-29</date>
<title>User Authentication to Open LDAP</title>
<text>
Philip and I had some time getting the client authentication working in the lab today.  We could browse the LDAP directory from the client using GQ, we could see the LDAP users from Yast's users and groups pane, but they weren't showing up on the login screen.  <p/>Browsing around the net, I found a couple of sites reporting problems which reminded me that errors like this can be tracked down from /var/log/messages.  
The message I was getting was "kdm: ldap_pam: bla bla (Protocol Error)".  After calling in some help from various mailing lists, and comparing our configuration to a working configuration (always helpful), I changed the LDAP version in /etc/ldap.conf from version 2 to version 3 later realizing that the same affect could have been achieved by un-checking the "Use LDAP version 2" box on the pane provided in Yast->Network Services->LDAP Client. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-07-30</date>
<title> Ibuprofen is a miracle drug </title>
<text>
Last night I hurt my knee in Judo practice.  During warm-up, we did an exercise where one guy picks another up on his back and runs across the dojo. The guy who was carrying me lost his balance and fell face first into the mat dropping me straight down on my right knee.  When I tried to get up, I realized that my knee didn't feel right so I asked for ice.  After icing it down for 15 minutes the burning/numb sensation went away and I watched the rest of practice, but by the time I got home I could barely walk. I took a high dosage of ibuprofen, grabbed an ice pack, and laid myself on the bed with my leg elevated. This morning, my knee feels almost good enough to walk on.  I've been taking ibuprofen every two hours, and as the day goes on the swelling keeps going down. I love you ibuprofen.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-08-03</date>
<title>Blogchalking.tk</title>
<text>
So Blogchalking.tk finally cut off us free loaders or their site is down.  If you've had trouble loading my site's pages recently, this was probably the cause. I've fixed the problem by hosting the blog-chalking image locally and this is better for everyone.
<p/> 
Shortly, I should have an image gallery page up for the first time.  There is a bit of coding to do, but the layout is mostly done.  Then it will back to my thesis project until class starts up again. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-05</date>
<title>Cautious excitement</title>
<text>
I am looking forward to the beginning of the Fall semester with a cautious excitement. On one hand, I am looking forward to the return of some structure in my life, on the other I begrudge the monotony that accompanies student life. Assignment after assignment, test after test, most teachers trying to cover more material than is strictly possible in the given time frame.  Fortunately, I know that I will have one excellent teacher during the upcoming semester.  I had him for one (tough) class last semester and found him not only to be challenging and fair, but also a well rounded and wonderful professor.  I think the element of his class I enjoyed the most was that he didn't use a book to teach - and he didn't need to.  He taught us from his own notes on the subject - the way that he had likely learned - with a chalkboard full of diagrams and definitions complemented with insightful lectures. The professor was Dr. Mansur Samadzedah in Stillwater.
  </text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-08-06</date>
<title>Desparate for some peers...</title>
<text>
The longer I stay in my pseudo-depressed state the more I wonder about it. <p/>I have it nailed down now: I don't have any peers here (or elsewhere) since Minor and I don't communicate anymore. I feel utterly alone in the world with regards to my interests and personality and aspirations. I surf IRC channels looking for peers, but (so far) there are none to be found.  I go to 2600 meetings once in a while, and while there certainly interesting people there, there are no peers. I look around campus literally disappointed with what I see; most people interested in computers there are only in it for the money (which they will likely never see). There are nights I stay up surfing around the web just looking for something interesting, or rather someone interesting, but usually their websites are more interesting than they are - and even that is a rare case as most people's websites suck.  I mean it, not just the layout, but the layout and the content.... I'm not saying mine is better or anything, but looking around I can easily picture myself in the top 10th percentile, perhaps even the top 5th percentile... and I find this utterly depressing. I always believed that there was a higher standard out there, something higher to aspire to. More and more lately I have doubted this. It is probably my mood, and it will pass. In any case, I'm looking for a change on the horizon. <p/> I want to be a part of something larger than myself. I want to do something utterly exciting to me, something challenging, rewarding, and cutting edge. I want to be in the middle of it. I want to get on a rocket and light the fuse. I need peers to fuel me.  I need peers to inspire me.  I need peers to lean on, and peers to laugh with. I need peers to strive beside. I need peers. They have to exist. I had them before, and surely there is more than one or two people in the world like me. 

<hr/>
My home office desk is strangely alluring today. I'm sitting at it for the first time in a month or more.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-07</date>
<title>Hmmm... it is my summer after all... </title>
<text>
so I should spend it the way that I want to. 
<p/> 
I just found out why no one (to my very limited knowledge in the area) utilizes HTTP 1.1 request pipelining for web crawlers - what you gain in speed you pay for in complication.  Pipelining the GET requests saves tons of connection overhead, the trouble is the server spits the pages out back to back, thousands of bytes commingling without chaperone.  It is a head scratcher, but a fun one, and a nice break from the "thesis" project.

<p/>( Do I speak too soon, I see word on the Net that Google tested a crawler that utilized HTTP 1.1 in April, uncertain if they are using it in production now or not )
<p/>While I was browsing what <a href="http://sourceforge.net">source forge</a> had to offer in the way of spiders, I ran across <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/metaspider/">this</a>, which qualifies as interesting.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-09</date>
<title>A nice tip for changing the boot splash screen on your Mac</title>
<text>
To change the boot splash screen, simply save any image that you desire as a PDF, and replace the system default: /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemStarter/QuartzDisplay.bundle/Resources/BootPanel.pdf. Tip from <a href="http://channels.lockergnome.com/osx/archives/20040809_customizing_osx_changing_the_boot_panel.phtml">Locker Gnome</a>.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-10</date>
<title>Customize Mac OS X Login Screen</title>
<text>
Inspired by <a href="09.html">yesterday's</a> hack from <a href="http://channels.lockergnome.com/osx/archives/20040809_customizing_osx_changing_the_boot_panel.phtml">Locker Gnome</a>, I set out to change my login logo - the apple gets boring after awhile. 
<p/>
Same hack as yesterday, find the appropriate graphic and replace it with our desired graphic (make backups as need be). These hacks were done on Mac OS 10.3.5.

<p/>
The login screen graphic is located at: <blockquote>/System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/Resources/applelogo.tif</blockquote> The image can only be 90 by 90 or it will be cropped, and it must be a tif file (obviously). <p/><img src="/images/machackscreenshot2.jpg"/>

<h3>About this Mac</h3>
<p/>The images on the "About this Mac" panel can be modified as well. The image you want to replace here is: <blockquote>/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/Resources/MacOSX.tif</blockquote> You have to reboot for the change to become evident. I used a nice image with Mr. Stupendous overlaid on the "Mac OS X" for this image.

<p/>
<img src="/images/machackscreenshot.jpg"/>
<h3>Changing the Login Text</h3>
For a description of changing the text on the Login Screen visit <a href="http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/secrets/macosxhints/">Mac World</a>, read the section titled "Adding Text to the Login Screen".
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-11</date>
<title>A cool and breezy day</title>
<text>
After raining last night, Tulsa is refreshingly cool today. I love cool and breezy days, especially in the summer when they are far and few between. The cool breeze makes me want to take a long slow walk. 
<p/>
In the meantime, I'm sitting in the cafe looking through some older directories on my laptop.  I ran across a quote I had saved;  the quote is from Daumal, and is refreshing each time I read it.
<blockquote>
Sometimes one of life's accidents -- misfortune, a deeply moving encounter -- rattles the relatively factitious and solid edifice that a human being has built up for the comfort of his existence. Shaken to what he believes to be his roots, he is burned for an instant by the fire of a question, a doubt: who am I? why am I living? where am I going? At this moment of reality, he thinks. But such moments are almost always exceptional and accidental, particularly for the specialized men conditioned by social attitudes, withdrawn into vicious circles in the shadows of their consciousness that our modern civilization produces in abundance. But the edifices semblance of balance is rarely compromised in a serious way. For the question who am I, civil status, first names, last names, positions, professions, titles, ranks, social circles, mirrors, ambitions, vanities and laziness are there to give the pretense of an answer. If the person is of a slightly speculative nature, his little internal philosophy also keeps answers to these rattling questions -- brilliant, consoling or approximative answers -- in reserve. And man, that phantom vessel, sets off again under his illusory rigging on the waves of this world where, at times, a real vessel leaves its wake. 
</blockquote>
<h3>Other random thoughts</h3>
I've known for some time that the quickest way for me to never complete a task is for me to use the phrases "I will..." or "I'm going to..."; yet I often find myself falling into this trap. A week ago I said that I was working on the photo galleries for my website, I actually finished them, but not to my satisfaction. The code wasn't convenient enough, it would have required too much effort to add new galleries, etc., so I'm going to redo the code sometime when I feel the chi move that way again - for now I have more than enough to chew on.
<hr/>
After three years of trusty services, a piece of my Apple laptop has finally failed: the power supply.  It started acting up a month or so ago, and has denigrated to the point that it can no longer be trusted to function on a regular basis. It is working about 50% of the time now. Three years of daily usage with no major hardware failures - see how many Dell, IBM, or HP laptops can compete with that.  
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-12</date>
<text>
I am going to visit Grandma and Grandpa Gilbert this weekend. It should be a nice mini-vacation; Maryna and I are leaving tomorrow and will be back on  Sunday.
<hr/>
Yea, I upgraded to XCode 1.5 the other day, no major complaints, but the end-line key isn't working correctly; it only takes you to the end of the word - at least with auto-finishing turned on. 
<hr/>
My <a href="../07/30.html">knee</a> is doing better.  It is back to about 90% functionality with no pain.  It is strong enough for any activity other than full-contact sports, i.e. Judo. I'm looking forward to getting back to the Dojo though, there is no work out like it. A test of strength, intelligence, balance, and focus.  In the meantime, I'll satiate my needs trying to catch some of the Olympic Judo matches. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-16</date>
<title>XCode 1.5 breaks linking</title>
<text>
I upgraded to XCode 1.5 sometime ago, and everything to work well, however, I have discovered (along with others) that the upgrade uses ZeroLink which breaks linking to libraries.  It linked fine to libraries compiled under XCode 1.2, but I got <i>unknown symbol </i> errors for any library compiled with 1.5.
<p/>I've read several sites talking about solutions. I tried running <i>ranlib</i> on the libraries; that didn't work.  I tried turning ZeroLink off; that didn't work. Apple had an older article on linking issues that suggested that XCode should always be un-installed before installing a newer version - so much for upgrading I guess. Well, I didn't uninstall XCode 1.2 before installing XCode 1.5, so I'm trying that now... if that doesn't work, I'll be downgrading back to 1.2.
<p/>
Reinstalling 1.5 didn't seem to fix the issue. I noticed that someone mentioned linking issues because the soft link for <i>cc</i> points to <i>gcc</i>, I'm going to point this at g++ and see what happens. Nothing, that didn't help - I guess I'm not using <i>cc</i> for linking.
<p/>
Now, I'm downloading 1.2 so that I can down-grade, grrr....
<p/>
Rolling back to 1.2 didn't solve the issue, so it may be a problem with the library after all. :(
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-17</date>
<title>AirPort Express Arrives</title>
<text>
My <a href="http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/"> AirPort Express</a> arrived today after more than a month waiting.  
<p/>
Although it is only supposed to support WDS with other Airports, <a href="http://arstechnica.com/reviews/004/airportexpress/airportexpress-1.html">Ars Technica</a> pointed out that using a Linksys WRT54G with <a href="http://www.linksysinfo.org/modules.php?name=Downloads">modified firmware</a> also worked - Thank you Ars!!!
<p/>
It took longer than it should have for me to figure out how to upgrade the firmware on my Linksys router, but I managed.  Then I setup the Express in "Bridge Mode" which really uses WDS for the connection so that the other doesn't have to be setup as a bridge (it can continue to act as a regular AP/Router); very nice.
<p/>
I then made share that I could share my Lexmark printer over the network - everything worked as advertised. Tomorrow, when I'm not so tired, I'll see if I can connect ethernet devices on the Apple side of the bridge, as this is the main reason that I wanted it.  If not, no big deal, I have another WRT54G laying here, I can update its firmware and it will work correctly with the ethernet devices.
<p/>
Not bad for two hours of work.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-18</date>
<title>AirPort Express Streaming Music Review</title>
<text>
The streaming music feature works as advertised. Here is the low down.
<p/>
I have a Linksys WRT54G running the Satori 4.0 firmware running WEP with 128 bits of encryption in B/G mixed mode. The Airport Express is connected in "Bridge Mode" (Extend Existing Network). My PowerBook (500MHz P4) has an Airport card (802.11b), Maryna's iBook (933MHz P4) has an Airport Extreme Card (802.11g).
<p/>
I can stream music to the Express fine, but the stream suffers interuptions when I background iTunes.  Maryna's laptop has no issues streaming music from the disk without interruptions. Note: I have broadband access to the Internet through Cox Cable.
<p/>
Take it to level two:  streaming an Internet Radio channel to the Express AP. Even when iTunes is in the foreground the 802.11b card suffers.  I tried various bandwidths, none played for very long before breaking up. The 802.11g card can redirect the Internet Radio channel to the AP Express at 64 kbps while iTunes runs in the background without any interruptions.  
<p/>
The bottom line:  if you are running your wireless network in B/G mixed mode, make sure that you are streaming from a computer with an 802.11g card, it will work much better (I could go into a heavy technical discussion of the 802.11g protocol versus 802.11b and why this result makes since, but I'll spare you).
<hr/> 
I Can't get the ethernet port to work while in WDS mode at the moment. :(

</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-19</date>
<title>Didn't get much done today.</title>
<text>
I slept in a bit, getting up around 11 am, to find my laptop battery dead and the power cord not functioning.  I watched a movie to kill time until the UPS man arrived with my new power cord.  After getting that, I left for the cafe to work where I ran into Mike. We spent several hours shooting the bull; its been a while since I had a decent conversation with another hardcore techie.  Now I'm off to get some work done; I'm sitting in the cafe at Borders having a Honey Vanilla Latte (very good), the caffein is helping with the concentration.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-22</date>
<title>Seattle's new library</title>
<text>
On my <a href="../../2003/02/23.html">one and only visit to Seattle</a>, I saw <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/library/">this</a> building being constructed. It didn't look like much then, they were putting up the steel frames of the base - but, wow, it looks awesome now!!!
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-08-23</date>
<title>Fall Semester starts today</title>
<text>
My first class is in Stillwater. While I was enthusiastic about taking classes in Stillwater last semester, on the drive over today I was contemplating changing my schedule this semester to avoid it.  In the Spring, I rode the bus and used the time to read. This semester, I think that I would rather spend the time working on my thesis project; it could use the continued focus.  
<p/>I went to my Stillwater class, I had the pre-class jitters as usual, but I think that everything is going to be fine.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-08-25</date>
<title>Dvorak Update &amp; Class</title>
<text>
<a href="../05/20.html"> Some time ago</a>, I switch from the QWERTY keyboard to Dvorak.  I am more or less back up to my old typing speed, although my accuracy is still not what it was. I am happy to report, that my wrists feel much better, the only time the ache now is if I have to use the mouse too much or at awkward angles.
<p/>
Tonight, I have my second class:  Formal Language Theory.  This subject is one of my favorites in the realm of Computer Science. I thought that my first class (Theory of Finite State Machines and Automata) would be similar, although it turns out the book for class focuses mostly on Algebraic aspects of Formal Languages and Automata. It will be much more challenging than I anticipated, but enlightening none the less.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-08-26</date>
<title>Wedding Pictures from Belarus</title>
<text>
The wedding pictures from Belarus are up. You can find them <a href="/images/wedding2004/Belarus/"> here. </a> The video is coming along and will be out *sometime*.
<hr/>
<h4>Wireless ethernet bridge</h4>
When Maryna and I moved into our new place, I quickly realized that Internet access through the cable modem was going to be a problem for my data servers.  This conundrum was obvious since the cable outlet (i.e. Internet uplink) is 50 feet away from my office, and stringing cable through the living room was not an option. 
<p/> I had a glimmer of hope one day when I saw modified firmware available for Linksys WRT54G routers, and that this firmware could be used to create bridges.  So after finally getting around to playing with this firmware, I set up my second WRT54G into client mode (this is how it bridges).  From my office I can now connect to the Internet via ethernet cable.  I have seen reports that only one device can connect to the WRT54G when it is in client mode, hopefully this is not the case since I only wanted to connect my servers to help debug my thesis project's client/server code.  I guess this would be okay, though, since I don't need both servers up to debug with, one would be enough.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-08-29</date>
<title>Stupid freaking cat.</title>
<text>
Maryna's all so lovable cat - who I hate at this very moment - jumped onto my laptop's keyboard and smashed the space bar.  It is working, but seems permanently damaged, as the key doesn't spring back up like it is supposed to.
<p/>
This kind of thing eats me up inside, because every time I sit to type something, I'll hit the spacebar and remember how it was broken.  The only method that I've ever found to subdue my anger in instances like these, is to replace the broken instrument as quickly as possible.  <p/> Arggghhh!!! $129 replacement.  I swear, if he ever comes near my computer again, I'll take him out into the country and leave him there.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-08-31</date>
<title>I hate Scoble</title>
<text>
It's official: I hate <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/"> Scoble </a>.  In <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/08/31.html#a8173">this post</a>, Scoble is clearly just marketing the Tablet PC.  Way to go Scoble!! I hope that you get commission for every Tablet PC you help to sell (*snicker*).
<p/>
Oh Scoble, has <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/04/27.html#a7304"> angered me before with his BLIND marketing tactics, </a> but I figure, everyone makes bad judgment calls once in a while. With todays post - and numerous others that I don't feel like tracking down - I can see that Scoble is indeed simply a blind Microsoft evangelist!
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-01</date>
<title></title>
<text>
It is a beautiful late-summer evening.  The kind of amber evening that warms the heart with hope and memories of Fall. Several years have passed since I discovered my love of Computer Science on nights like this one.  My friend Serguei and I used to sit outside, as the sun set, enjoying the warmth from a hot cup of tea while we compared notes for class.  That was the end of my adolescence and the beginning of young adulthood for me.  I moved from a time of angst and despair, the hallmarks of my youth, into new and unchartered territory, a territory of potential and hope. It was during that Fall that I found a place for myself in the world of Computer Science, no matter how abstract or seemingly temporary. The passion I uncovered for the foundations of Computer Science gave me the strength to finish my Bachelor's degree, the direction which eventually lead me to where I am today.
<p/> 
<hr/>
My laptop's new keyboard came in today.  It took 2 minutes to install - I love modular computer design. 
<p/>
<hr/>
I just walk right past two of my old coworkers, neither of them recognized me... hahaha. I hardly think about that place anymore, and I'm glad to be free of it.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-09-02</date>
<title>Why not Sipser??</title>
<text>
For my graduate level course in Formal Language Theory class at Oklahoma State University we are using Hopcroft, Motwani, and Ulmann's <i>Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation</i>. Why?? First of all, we shouldn't be using an introductory, but let's us forego that battle for an instant. 
<p/>
Even in its second addition, this book is rife with ambiguous definitions, questionable examples, and homework problems which are not exact enough to realistically be assigned to students. All of the content in the first few chapters seems to titter between the ambiguous and the arguably wrong.
<p/>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/053494728X/">Sipser</a> has a wonderful, compact, and exact text which more than adequately covers the material for an introductory work. So, why aren't we using it? Dunno. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-03</date>
<title>Way to go pop!</title>
<text>
Looks like Dad just wrapped up a <a href="http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/web/news/inview/90204virus-free.html">"small" project </a>up at Kansas State University. Way to go!!
<p/>
And yes, most college campuses have an influx of viruses once the dorms fill up with students in the Fall; to my knowledge this is one of the only state schools I've seen undertake an effort like this.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-09</date>
<title>ViewScan 8.0.15</title>
<text>
Several years ago, I purchased ViewScan 7.x <i>Professional</i> for $40 dollars.  This purchase was one of the best I've ever made for two reasons: the product is awesome (and at the time was the only way for a Mac to support a Canon's CanoScan 670U USB scanner), and secondly because I'm entitled to unlimited free upgrades!  
<p/>
From <a href="http://www.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/">Apple's Hot Download's RSS feed</a>, I saw that <a href="http://www.hamrick.com/">ViewScan 8.0.15</a> was available, so I upgraded (flawlessly).
<p/>
I love technology when it works.  Way to be Ed Hamrick.
<hr/>
<h4>Amazing Political Adds</h4>
Some great <a href="http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us">political adds</a> via <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2004/09/09/presidential_campaig.html">Boing Boing</a>.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-10</date>
<title>Dazed</title>
<text>
I haven't been able to engage my mind much at all today. I had to take Maryna to the airport for a 5:30 AM flight to Boston; rather than sleeping and trying to wake Maryna and myself up at 3:45 AM, I elected to stay up all night and crash after I'd dropped her off. I woke up around noon, but most of the day has been a blur of sniffling and feeling tired.  The sniffles were courtesy of Maryna by way of Dr. Cole's office. I took cold medication but only managed to compound the fatigue I was already fighting.  Tomorrow, ah, tomorrow.   
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-11</date>
<title>Reworked the Makefile</title>
<text>
While yesterday it was difficult to get into the coding, yesterday evening went much better - though I didn't code much, I made a design change or two that should be beneficial moving forward.  I also started reworking my thesis project's Makefile.  When I started programming the project, I didn't have a Makefile at all, then I reached the point that I was compiling multiple executables on the command line and decided it was time for a Makefile.  That was a great improvement which decreased my recompile time drastically.  Last night, I reached the point where the project is big enough that recompiling the entire thing for one small change in a function was taking too much time.  Alas, after reworking the Makefile to incorporate dependencies, recompiling is speedy again.
<hr/>
<h4>Striking Distance</h4>
The thesis project is getting within striking distance to a functioning prototype.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-12</date>
<title>Finding a good spot to work</title>
<text>
Like anyone without an office of their own, I spend far too much time wondering from place to place looking for a decent spot to work in.  Work environment is far more important to me than to most other people.  I need a bright clean place, that is relatively free from conversation, though other noise is not an issue. 
<p/>
My typical work spots include places like Cafe Cubana, Border's Books and Music, some quiet corner of campus, and the like. Being a Sunday, Border's was packed out so there was no seat near a power outlet, only the crowded and noisy Main Hall was open on campus, and I didn't feel like going to <i>the Cafe</i>.  Then I remembered, on Sundays (and generally any time during the day) that Gypsy's Coffee house is deserted. 
<p/>
I have a great cup of mocha, wireless Internet access, a window letting light of just the right ambience, and a space free of conversation. Gypsy's during the day is like wondering into an establishment in a small town. I can work here. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-13</date>
<title>Not ripped off after all</title>
<text>
Ever since Microsoft forced me to pay for the upgrade to Virtual PC 6, I have felt ripped off.  After the upgrade, my OS Pack for W2K from Version 5 wouldn't load on 6.<p/>
On a whim, while I couldn't sleep early this morning, I tried a fresh install of VPC 6 with the intent of buying another OS Pack... but as it turns out, VPC 6 already had W2K installed. 
<p/>
Not a bad deal after all.  Now I'll have a test machine to develop a windows version of my thesis project for. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-19</date>
<title>GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool</title>
<text>
Sometime ago I purchased <i>GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool</i> by Vaughan, Elliston, Tromey, and Taylor.  Sadly, this book's quality as an introduction to these tools is not good.  The authors know the material extremely well, this works to their disadvantage as they frequently assume too much understanding on the part of the reader. 
<p/>I'm in chapter 7 already, and the authors believe the reader has a functional knowledge of constructing <i>configure.in</i> files far beyond the expected ability of a reader based on the examples provided in the text. They could have benefitted from a knowledgeable editor to guide them as the wrote.  Instead, they offer us a wondering and tumultuous trail through the projects, neither completely demonstrating functionality nor the interactions possible between the tools.  I guess I will have to dig through the <i>man</i> and <i>info</i> files after all.<p/> 
To be fair, I'm only in chapter 7.  If I manage to get a firmer grasp on these tools, there is pertinent information to be gleaned from this text. I'm looking forward to the chapter on configuring packages for compilation with cygwin... though these are advanced topics and I was interested in more of an introduction. 
<p/>
In short, this is a book aimed at users of the <i>Autoconf, automake, and libtool</i> utilities who would like to expand their knowledge of these tools.  It is not an introductory text in any sense - and certainly not worth the price for beginners.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-20</date>
<title>I finally have a googlenym</title>
<text>
Finally, I have a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlenym">Googlenym</a> after falling short again and again, I've managed to dominate the phrase <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=breaking+robots&amp;btnG=Search"> "breaking robots"... </a>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-22</date>
<title>Why is Cobol scary?</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/09/22/Cobol5B">Tim Bray</a> says that high amounts of COBOL code in production is "scary".  I disagree.  Well written COBOL code running on a mainframe is rock solid. The code can run for decades, partly why we had the Y2K problem to begin with. To compliment the stability of the language, it is mostly in use on ultra-stable hardware: mainframe computers.  Who would want to give up the stability of a mainframe to move to a J2EE application running on a windows server? Not I said the little man. Imagine missing a payroll check because a new windows exploit took out the server on payday. That isn't to say that mainframes don't have to be patched, but it seems like, at least traditionally, the patch rate is much much lower than other platforms. 
<p/>Secondly, COBOL is a fine language for Reporting and Records manipulation.  Definitely one of the best report-generating languages (if not <i>the</i> best); dare I say it's better than Perl at record manipulation and reports? Regex gives Perl a definite edge, but I think the comparison is too close to call. I for one would *kill* (not literally) to have COBOL style record handling as an option in C/C++/Perl - heck, even Java should have it if it doesn't already (I'm not a regular user of Java and certainly no guru with what features Java offers).  Many modern languages offer some record manipulating features, but IMHO none are quite as suave as COBOL's - but then with everything drifting towards databases, perhaps we could make the argument that the flat-file is dead?
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-23</date>
<title>The Horn Guy</title>
<text>
By way of <a href="http://joi.ito.com/archives/2004/09/23/the_horn_guy.html">Joi Ito's blog</a>, a must see Windows media file,  <a href="http://media.ebaumsworld.com/hornguy.wmv"><i>The Horn Guy</i></a>.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-09-27</date>
<title>Students, or how my TA office hours were consumed in fruitlessness.</title>
<text>
Normally during office hours there are no visitors. I sit at my desk thinking over aspects of one problem or another, or doing my own homework. Today was different.  The students in class got their homework back last Thursday, one student emailed me Thursday night asking for me to meet him on Friday. I emailed him back asking him to come in during my office hours, and he came.  <p/>The encounter starts normally with me asking what questions I can answer for him.  He began stereotypically by exclaiming how well he knows this material, that he should "be at Yale or something". I was the same way when I was young.  The truth of the matter is that there isn't a lot of difference between succeeding at Oklahoma State or at Yale, except that people esteem Yale more. There are more opportunities at a larger, wealthier campus like Yale, offering something in the way of a reason why these schools are esteemed as they are. The science, however, is the same. <p/>I explained to the student that his answers were not correct, and if given my way I wouldn't have given partial credit. Relentlessly he continues trying to convince me that what he meant by what he wrote was correct. I disagree.  Then he changes tactics. He says that I didn't give him enough partial credit for his other problems. He claims I should have seen that he understood the major concepts in spite of his errors and given him more partial credit. Meanwhile, I continue trying to explain to him that he didn't state his assumptions plainly enough and therefore his answers are wrong.  To no avail, he still believes he's correct. He will likely go on believing he is right until someone that he respects fully confirms that he isn't. It is one thing to understand something inside of your own mind, and it is another to understand it to the degree necessary to demonstrate competency to others; the later is the nature of education. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-09-28</date>
<title>C++ Software Agent Platform</title>
<text>
<font color="darkgreen">Update: This entry is a sketch for what I feel an agent platform should be. I recently (2005-07-05) started a small side project called <a href="/projects/libsprac/index.html">SPRAC++</a> to work toward these goals. Contributions &amp; suggestions are welcome.</font><p/>
<font color="darkgreen">I wrote this some two months ago, and never pushed it out until now.  It is still only a sketch. </font><p/>
I have often wished there was an open source, C++, Software Agent platform.  I'm beginning to develop the system I will (hopefully) base my thesis on. It is moving along slowly, but I have reached the point where I am starting to implement network communication components.  This isn't an extremely difficult task, but remains tedious while the system design is still evolving - as it is in my case. While I'm hacking out the tedious network programming code, I keep reminding myself the system would be much easier to prototype in the software agent paradigm. An agent platform would abstract away the networking code, leaving me to focus on the more important aspects of the how the system should function.
<p/>
Dr. Paprzycki and I have casually discussed the nonexistence of a C++ agent platform over email.  His response was along the following lines: <blockquote>Java is the language of choice as this is the one that is conceptually best suited for the agents. I mean, agents are conceptually an extension of object oriented programming and the agency is a Virtual Machine that is between agents and the computer. And this is matching best with Java.
</blockquote>
I can accept the fact that Java was initially the language of choice for developing agent platforms.  There are portability advantages to using Java, but there are times when performance is more of a priority than instantaneous portability. 
<p/>
I disagree that an Agent Platform <i>must</i> be a Virtual Machine; there are obviously security advantages to hosting agent platforms on a VM, however conceptually any run-time environment should suffice. 
<p/>Naturally, I also feel that because the agent paradigm is an extension of object oriented programming that <i>any</i> object oriented programming language should be able to support an agent platform.  Further, I would expect that agents written on a specific agent platform should be able to communicate seamlessly with any other agent, whether or not they are implemented in the same environment.  This is not the case today, and this is a major shortcoming of the agent paradigm. Agent communication protocols should strive to reach the level of interoperability achieved by internet communications protocols, where varying implementations work together without major issues.  
<h4>What elements are needed to implement an agent platform in C++? A mere mental exercise</h4>
Every system implementation utilizing an agent platform is conceptually different. This tells us that we should strive for flexibility above all else, however, we still want there to be a familiar and convenient encapsulation/abstraction of the underlying network programming. I.e., we want a template, or framework, that provides some basic atomic services, where these services can be easily modified or built on to. Toward this end, I will briefly list attributes that I would like to see incorporated into an agent platform.

<blockquote>
<bl>
	<lh><b>Aspects of an Agent Platform </b></lh>
	<li>Object Oriented </li>
	<li>Mobile Agent Support </li>
	<li>Message Passing as Basis for Communication Modules</li>
	<li>Agent Communication Language Support</li>
	<li>Ontology Support </li>
	<li>Action and State Driven.</li>
	<li>Easily Extendable </li>
	<li>Light-weight Agents </li>
	<li>Light-weight &amp; Efficient Agent Platform </li>
	<li>User Level Program Support &amp; Daemon Support </li>
	<li>Support for High Level Artificial Intelligence Constructs (such as Neural Networks) </li>
	<li>Adaptability </li>
	<li>Genetic Programming Support </li>
	<li>Avoiding (Programming) Language Specific Approaches </li>
</bl>
</blockquote>

Most of these attributes boil down into one guiding principle: modularity.  We want to support a host of different capabilities while not explicitly requiring their use in the most basic agent implementations. 
<h4>Object Oriented</h4>
This goes with the territory. The base agent should be a class that we can inherit from and extend. 

<h4>Action and State Driven </h4>
In my mind, Agents should primarily function as Finite State Transducers, either Moore Machines, or O'Mealy Machines, or something similar. They accept input messages, and respond according to the state that they are in, sometimes producing output messages in response. Thinking in terms of states and transitions is very natural for most programmers, I think having this as a base paradigm underlying the agent oriented paradigm would be beneficial, aiding rapid program prototyping. 

<h4>Ontology Support </h4>
(common definition of actions and messages)

<h4>Genetic Programming Support </h4>
Supply modules which would allow for easy implementation of genetic algorithms with Agents as the entities evolving.  I see this as a move toward merging the Complex Adaptive Systems paradigm with the Software Agent paradigm.  


<h4>Avoiding (Programming) Language Specific Approaches  or Why JADE doesn't fit the bill. </h4>
Given the goal of cross-platform interoperability, one important task of the system is to avoid any language specific approaches during the implementation.  JADE is a good illustration as to why this is a problem. JADE can only interact with over agents written in Java. Why? The main reason JADE based agents can't interact with non-Java agents is JADE's dependancy on Java-RMI.  While Java-RMI is a quick and convenient way to implement a distributed object model, it necessitates the use of Java exclusively as it can't be called from other languages easily.  This diverts us from our goal of <i>total interoperation </i>: interoperation between agent platforms, interoperation between varying programming languages, and interoperation between varying operating systems. Now your probably thinking that CORBA is the solution, and perhaps it is a step in a similar direction, but I don't believe it is simple enough to be put into wide spread use.  I feel a better approach would be to design generic protocols for message passing, and then to implement modules (native APIs) for using the protocols in various languages.  

</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-09-30</date>
<title>One problem with Virtual PC 6</title>
<text>
There is a major problem with VPC 6 on the Mac:  it no longer allows me to adjust the amount of RAM in the Virtual PC.  The RAM in the VPC is now set based on the amount of RAM in your Mac.  I only have 512 Meg of RAM in my PowerBook, so the VPC limits me to 32 Meg on the VPC. This sucks! The thing is so slow that I can hardly work on it.  At least when I could throw 128 Meg of physical RAM at the VPC it was fast enough to be usable. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-10-06</date>
<title>It's Alive!!</title>
<text>
I finished my thesis project prototype system early this morning. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-07</date>
<title>A slower day, and the realization of personal growth.</title>
<text>
Today's office hours were slow - a much needed break.  I fixed two little portability issues with my thesis project, and spent the remaining time planning for the next phase: <i> porting the project to everything that has a CPU</i>. *grin*
<p/> Linux will be first, with more or less a simultaneous step into Windows.  I have never been a fan a Windows programming.  I stopped using Windows for programming after they discontinued DOS. It is time for my return. I am installing VC++ on my freshly reinstalled Virtual PC.  I want to understand all of the intimacies of creating a portable project and this project is about the right size for it, big enough to be nontrivial and small enough to be feasible. 
<p/>I have tons of unanswered questions this project is helping me answer.  I never knew how to do multi-threaded programming in C/C++, now I know.  I wasn't experienced with Socket programming before this project, and now I see it is nothing to fear.  I had never included a library written by someone else until this project, the power and convenience of a well written library is something to be marveled.  A never considered using Automake before, now I'm planning on diving into it.
<p/>Growth is good. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-08</date>
<title>A nice tip...</title>
<text>
Via <a href="http://hipoxia.com/blog/359/"> Hipoxia. </a>  If you want to connect to an NFS or Samba drive (or probably even FTP or AFS) when you login to Mac OS X, connect to the drive you want, then drag the file '~username/Library/RecentServers' (created after mapping the drive) to your start-up items in System Preferences.  If the username and password for the drive are stored in your keychain, then a connection will be made to the drive behind the scene, otherwise you will be prompted for your credentials. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-09</date>
<title>Linux build fails, then the box dies</title>
<text>
So so so... I spent several hours yesterday installing all the libraries that I needed for my thesis project. I managed to get the project to compile, and after a couple of frustrating hours to link. Then I ran the program, and the dynamic linker failed to load one of the libraries. Aghhh!!! So I figure I should reboot the box.  It goes down and doesn't come up, which is starting to become a pattern with the lab machines connected to the internet.
<p/> So so so... I'm back today, in the lab, reinstalling all of the libraries I need to compile and link my project to on another machine (I can't wait until I get the process automated). Now the freakin' libraries won't compile. It makes me appreciate FreeBSD sooo much more.
<p/>
Meanwhile, I'm installing VC .NET on my Virtual PC... is been over two hours and it still hasn't completed the installation.  Oh how I wish I could through more memory its way.
<p/>
Another 14 hour day?? Ten hours and counting.
<p/>
I ended up stuck with a failid compile of gpgme. The machine's dynamic library handler couldn't load libassuan. :( I opted to reinstall the machine, which went well until I kluged the root password twice in a row - which means I don't know what it is.  Which means I'll sort it out later, the <i>chi</i> isn't there for this today and unlike when working for someone else, I don't have to fight the <i>chi</i> now, I simply move on to something else. If things work out, I'll end up posting the project I was working on today, otherwise I'll never mention it again.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-10</date>
<title>In the lab again</title>
<text>
I'll be in the lab again today - big surprise.  I'll talk more about that once I get there.  Now, a nice tech toy from <a href="http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark/">Griffin </a> by way of <a href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/10/1338207"> /. </a>
<p/>
Once again I'm at the point where I have the source code compiling, but when I run it, the library isn't found.  Something with ld.conf.so ? At least when I reboot the machine now, it doesn't die.  The reboot worked, the libraries are found. Now I can get to working out the idiosyncrasies that exist between Linux and Macintosh. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-11</date>
<title>Found the last bug and squashed it.</title>
<text>
Last night I tracked down two major bugs in my thesis project prototype, and made one small performance change. The first bug was due to my Sqlite library not being compiled with the -DTHREADSAFE=1 macro defined. If you're using SQLite and getting a 'failed assertion in Mutex' error (or something like it) in the file os.c, then your library wasn't compiled with the THREADSAFE macro.  The second bug I corrected was because I wasn't calling finalize() after doing queries (read only). SQLite locks the Database for reads, and stores the queries in a temporary database.  If you don't call finalize() when your done processing the queries, you will eventually get a message saying that a temporary database file could not be opened.  Finally, for good measure, I enclosed all operations that modify the DB into transactions.  These three changes fixed the reliability of SQLite on the server side, which had been shaky. Previously, 10-40 client connections to the server caused the DB to exhaust its temporary file space.  That is no longer an issue. 
<p/>
I thought that my thesis project prototype demo was this morning at 10 am, it is at eleven.  In the meantime, I found the last bug and fixed it.  I had a stringtype.find("-", spot) where I needed a stringtype.rfind("-").
<p/>After making the change, all the bugs on the Linux client/server are fixed.  Now to wrap this sucker in a ./configure script and figure out how in the world libtool works.  Polish, polish, polish.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-13</date>
<title>A blah couple of days</title>
<text>
It has been a blah couple of days.  I'm mentally and physically exhausted from the push to complete my thesis project system prototype.  While I've enjoyed implementing the system thus far, the road ahead is uncertain.
<p/>
I have a midterm tonight in my Formal Language Theory class.  If it is anything like the homework assignments it should be manageable. There is one formula that I need to memorize to convert DFAs to regular expressions.  I know how to do this using the GNFA approach, but the book for class uses a mechanical algorithmic approach that is far more confusing. It is terrible though, once you figure it out.  I figure I'll review the formal definitions of automata, though I almost these almost from memory now.  Any way, it should be fun.
<p/>
I've had a headache for a bit today, yesterday I had a bit of a fever.  Hope it is nothing. 
<p/>
I think the next step in my project is to start understanding the Autoconf tools.  I couldn't get VC++ installed on my Virtual PC, so the windows port will wait for now.  I think the next feature will likely be to incorporate DNS-SD (over mDNS, or Rendezvous as Apple calls it), or DNS Service Discovery.  This way clients on the LAN will require little or no configuration.  Clients would not require configuration if there is a Cluster Manager or a Root Node on the LAN.  If there is no CM or RN, then only one Client would need to be configured, the rest should follow suit. 
<p/>
Thinking about backup plans in case I don't get into a PhD program, and for the first time in my life I understand how intelligent people end up delivering pizzas.  I wouldn't want a job that was too demanding, because I'll want to continue my research on my own. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-17</date>
<title>Grueling and unlikable work.</title>
<text>
I spent all yesterday grading Quizzes.  Today, was spent printing the analysis reports for programming assignment #1; I've taken over 2 hours just on the printing process alone.  Now I'll starting the grueling task of grading them all. :(  I was planning on having this done by Monday, but I don't think I will.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-19</date>
<title>A break from grading.</title>
<text>
I decided to take a break from grading today. I planned on developing today, but I've been in a bummed out mood all day. I have managed to upgrade a couple of the lab machines and install my thesis project code on them for testing.  One day I may explain to everyone here what my thesis project is all about, but not for now.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-22</date>
<title>Three great films</title>
<text>
Three of the best films I've seen lately.
<bl>
<li><a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&amp;cf=info&amp;id=1808471272">I "heart" Huckabee's</a></li>
<li><a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&amp;cf=info&amp;id=1808457310">Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</a></li>
<li><a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&amp;cf=info&amp;id=1808435938">Lost in Translation</a></li>
</bl>
Of these, the third is the most subtle.  If you have never watched an Asian film, either Chinese or Japanese, then you probably won't understand this one.  Eternal Sunshine is a twisted love story, but will remind you to be thankful for what you have.  Finally, I "heart" Huckabee's is an intellectual journey through one young man's existential crisis; intelligent and a good bit of high humor.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-24</date>
<title>Grading Programs</title>
<text>
I've been grading programs all weekend long and just noticed a very interesting trend.  It takes me longer to grade programs written in Java; the other programs are written in C or C++. 
<p/>
I consider myself to be fluent in the Java Programming Language, a bit rusty but more or less fluent. I never voluntarily program in Java any more, only in C++. They aren't terribly different languages though, so there must be something else to it.  
<p/>
My theory is this: programmers who prefer Java, i.e. those who wrote this program in Java, think differently.  It is the same kind of differentiators that determine operating system preference. I feel the thought-process plays a large role in what we find comfortable as users; one reason I never felt comfortable using Windows was because nothing was intuitive for me, Mac OS is comfortable because everything is intuitive for me. I'm speculating that the same is true of programming languages. This isn't a wildly new revelation, I would have speculated this based on my own experiences learning various programming languages, but this is my first experience observing a range of programmers tackling the same problem.  Even the simplest tasks yield wildly varying results, it is simply amazing. 
<p/> 
The question I have now is which sphere holds the greatest influence?  Does programming language choice influence the programming thought-process more? or does the thought-process influence programming language preference more?
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-25</date>
<title>Digital Rights Management and Apple</title>
<text>
A few people have linked to <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19246">this article</a> called "Prepared to be screwed by digital rights management" written by Charlie Demerjian.  Overall it is a great rant about how DRM hurts consumers and why that is bad.  I take issue with only one point in the article.  The author includes Apple in the list of *evil* capitalist companies because of their DRM Fairplay. During the article he is ranting against *evil* capitalist companies for building "walled gardens", he then moves on to rant about the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), saying quote:
<blockquote>They are composed of the biggest companies in the industry, everyone is there...</blockquote>  
Everyone except Apple.  Check the <a href="http://www.dlna.org/about/roster">DLNA's roster</a>. No Apple. Mac Minute <a href="http://www.macminute.com/2004/06/23/dlna">confirms</a> this, Apple is not in the gang.  Of course, as Charlie pointed out to me in an email, Apple does have 80% of the market share for music DRM... so why would they want to change that? 
<p/>
Yes it is a shame that Apple had to use DRM in iTunes, but do you really think that the record industries would have signed on with iTunes Music store if Apple wasn't using a DRM scheme? No, I don't think so.  ITunes Music Store may be the one example of where DRM does benefit the consumer.  We wouldn't be able to buy music online today without it (okay this is an exaggeration, but iTMS rocks!).  Now I personally feel that Apple implemented their DRM Fairplay under pressure from the Recording industry and not of their own volition, and the fact that they don't belong to the <a href="http://www.dlna.org">big DRM club</a> seems to back that up. In fact, Apple may be the only major computer company not listed on the roster for the Digital Living Network Alliance.  
<p/>
I get Steve Job's vision for the future, and I don't see an oppressive rights management scheme as a part of it - at least in my book. Perhaps I'm just a bit too naive.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-27</date>
<title>Exhale</title>
<text>
On Sunday night I finished grading program #1 for the Data Structures &amp; Alg. II class.... *deep sigh*
<p/>
Dr. Jonyer and I didn't talk about the system last week, so I had a few days of self-directed development on my system.  I took the time to add a little polish in places that needed it. First, I added a few new user tools for listing the hosted projects, cluster members, and tasks on the server piece.  Then I added syslog support, which I prefer over dumping everything to the console.  Finally, I streamlined a section that I had breezed over for the initial prototype demonstration.  
<p/>The section I worked on initially worked in the following manner. The server assigned the clients tasks, the client would then request the needed files for its CPU architecture. Next the server would see if it had the files for that architecture and deliver them, otherwise send a "no support" message. The problem was the first task in the queue wasn't guaranteed to use files supported by the client's architecture, so I was assigning tasks to clients that the clients couldn't complete.  It was a cheap and dirty approach that worked well enough for the demo, but wasn't the most efficient use of bandwidth and the client's time.
<p/>
Now I do it the right way. When the client request a task it sends its OS and Architecture information upfront, then the server can see if there are any tasks having files supporting the client's architecture.  If there are tasks but not tasks that support the client's architecture, I send a "no work" message.  This way I don't have to make the client handle clearing tasks when there is no file support for their architecture.  In other words, they won't be assigned a task unless there is support. Overall, this little bit of polishing doesn't seem like much work, but it took the whole day to do and should save me a week or more of work latter. I.e. coding up the job clearing code would take a week or more to do.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-28</date>
<title>A Vote For Kerry Afterall? </title>
<text>
Tonight Maryna and I went to a lecture at TU.  The presentation was by Howard Hongju Koh, the Dean of Yale's Law School.  His presentation centered around the Supreme Court and its interaction with International law. Specifically, there were three cases that he covered in some depth, and they were the Hamdi case, the Padilla case, and the Rasu case; all cases in which the US Government, lead by G.W. Bush, held a prisoner indefinitely without due process.  Koh's contention was that if we allow the Government to flout International law (via treaties and conventions) then no US Citizen is safe from this government, that any citizen could be accused of being a terrorist and held indefinitely.  
<p/>
He discussed the three mentioned Supreme Court cases, and how the rulings of the Supreme Court are likely to go if they make a sound ruling within the bounds of International laws.  He showed us that other US laws apply to Guantanamo Bay Cuba, like the anti-slot machine act, therefore the detainees represented in the Rasu case must have rights under the writs of Habeous Corpus.  That the Government does not have the right to indefinitely hold the property of a US Citizen without due process according to the Constitution, therefore they cannot hold a Citizen without due process.  He believes that Hamdi (a US Citizen captured in Afganhistan) should be granted Prisoner of War status and dealt with according to the Geneva convention. Further discussing that the Geneva convention is in place to protect American Citizens and Solders abroad, and that we should not subvert it simply because it appears convenient to do so at the moment. Finally, that Padilla is a common criminal and should be charged as such.
<p/>
Koh's lecture was insightful and balanced.  Despite not liking Senator Kerry, the damage G.W. has done to America's International reputation is severe enough that I will likely vote for Kerry purely on that line. 
<p/>
Here's to another first time Democratic voter.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-10-31</date>
<title>SuSE 9.1 + LDAP authentication issues.</title>
<text>
Over the summer I helped an undergraduate student setup an LDAP server in the lab, we had clients authenticating against it.  There were two issues with the server.  He didn't have SSH authentication working, and user directories weren't being created when LDAP users logged in.  Not knowing what he had done exactly, I thought a fresh start was in order.  I reinstalled the LDAP server's OS, reconfigured the LDAP server, and configured the client to authenticate against it.  It all worked, and then I rebooted and it didn't work.
<p/>
After much head-scratching I have tracked down the problem. SuSE 9.1 overwrites the /etc/nsswitch.conf file when it reboots.  It replaces the "passwd files ldap" entry with "passwd compat", and "group files ldap" with "group compat".  That would be fine if user authentication actually worked when these entries are set to <i>compat</i> but they don't - at least not for me. 
<p/>
Out of disgust, I've been browsing around for a new flavor of Linux.  I love SuSE, it's ease of use is amazing.  Setting up Samba shares, and NFS shares are the easiest of any distribution I've ever tried. Creating posixAccount users in the LDAP directory works flawlessly. However, there are about two dozen machines in the lab which I need to authenticate against the LDAP directory, and I don't want to fit SuSE to make it work.  LDAP is the solution, now I just need a distro where it works without issues. Perhaps, I'll run the LDAP server off one SuSE machine and change the client distribution to something like Debian or MEPIS.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-01</date>
<title>Virtual PC is a disk hog</title>
<text>
Okay, so I managed to figure out how to <a href="/blog/2004/09/30.html">increase the memory in the machine</a> - you just can't do this while it is running.  Now I have a new beef. The disks are "dynamically expanding".  What happened to the good old days of giving it a gig or 2 and calling it good.  There is an option to convert to a fixed size, but it told me that the 16 Gig of virtual space on the disk was not big enough to convert to a fixed size. Whaa???  The other option is to "reclaim zero space"... which is running but taking forever to complete.  Before reclaiming the zero space, the disk was taking 6 Gig of real space, now it is only taking 5.  I was thinking that 1 or 2 Gig would be more appropriate.  Damn, I hate the way Microsoft jacked-up this product, when Connectix owned the Virtual PC things were much better... the disk space could be limited to a reasonable amount at least.  
<p/>
This is probably my fault for not changing Microsoft's outrageous default disk size before running the VPC... but then they probably wouldn't let me anyway.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-03</date>
<title>And so it goes...</title>
<text>
All the hard-core democrats on the Internet have already begun whining about the loss of John Kerry.  I personally felt he did the best he could with the Democratic platform.  Bush took a traditional stand against gay marriage, an issue that the democrats wanted to push for this election and an issue that they sadly miss judged.  The overwhelming majority of Americans are against recognizing guy marriage, period. That same majority would likely support civil unions. The democrats felt that the economic issues and the failures in Iraq would be enough to sway the vote Kerry's way, but in the end, the Republicans were able to motivate their conservative base to support Bush's stand against guy marriage.  
<p/>
While I voted for Kerry because I don't agree with Bush's war in Iraq or the PATRIOT act, ultimately Kerry wasn't the kind of candidate that I would get excited about.  His record isn't great, he has a bland personality, and he was obviously pandering on tons of issues. 
<p/>
What the Democrats need to do now, is forget about their loss, and find a candidate who will be good enough to defeat <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/22/elec04.prez.schwarzenegger.ap/">Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008</a>; yes, it is probably going to happen if Orrin Hatch has his way; no, Hillary Clinton won't stand a chance. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-05</date>
<title>iMovie, FileVault, and Video Importing</title>
<text>
Last night Maryna and I were using iMovie to import some video footage from our Cam-corder, and in the middle of the import process, the footage would begin stuttering and then the import would stop.  IMovie didn't report any errors, and it was obvious that neither the video footage or camera was the  source of the problem because there was no stuttering when we played the footage, only when we tried importing it.  This problem would have likely left a normal user stumped, fortunately I was able to diagnose and correct the problem immediately. 
<p/>
The problem was due to Maryna's drive being encrypted with the FileVault. The FileVault is essentially using an encrypted disk image to accomplish the encryption.  The problem is that the disk image is of a static size, so when it gets filled up, it has to be expanded and then re-encrypted, which doesn't happen fast enough to support video importing in iMovie.
<p/>
There are two solutions: <bl><li>1. Disable the FileVault for your home directory.</li><li>2. Move the iMovie project outside of your home directory.</li></bl>
<p/>
I went with solution number 2. I created a directory outside of Maryna's home directory and moved the current iMovie project to that directory. The directory I created was /Movies/, but this could be anywhere on the drive that isn't encrypted. Then so the change would be transparent to Maryna, I deleted her Movie directory and created a link to the new one.  (ln -s /Movies/ ~/Movies).
<p/>
Everything worked like a charm after that, and the video importing went off without a hitch.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-07</date>
<title>Easy does it</title>
<text>
This weekend has been the most relaxing I've had in some time (not counting last weekend when I was sick), possibly the most relaxing since the semester's beginning. It is the first weekend in months that I didn't spend programming, doing homework, or something else along those lines.  I was able to read for leisure today. It felt great.
<p/>
To what grace do I owe this leisurely day?  Phase II of the thesis project was surprisingly easy to implement.  I designed phase I with phase II in mind, but even I couldn't have guessed the precision of my design choices.  I haven't debugged phase II beyond making sure that the phase I client-server portion still functions properly, so I shouldn't brag too much. However, based on the few changes I've made, I believe (mostly) everything will work on the first run.  
<p/>
Once phase II is debugged, the research possibilities offered by phase II are astronomical. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-09</date>
<title>Debugging not going as smoothly as hoped.</title>
<text>
I'm in the lab today debugging my thesis project. I had hoped that the changes I made for phase II wouldn't affect the functionality of phase I, however some bug seems to have slipped by.... probably due to the cough medicine...
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-10</date>
<title>Still fighting the cold</title>
<text>
I've tried everything: over-the-counter medicine, vitamin-C, rest, zinc tablets, long-distance running... nothing has really finished off the cold.  While I feel okay during the day (for a few hours) I wear out quickly and resign to a headache in the evenings.  I'm still coughing, and I still have a mild fever.  It is putting a major dent into my thesis project development cycle now.  I find it impossible to work when I'm under the weather, the desire isn't there.  Probably time for a doctor.... :(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-11</date>
<title>RSS could help us to learn languages</title>
<text>
There was a post on <a href="http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001561.html">World Changing</a> about ways to acquire new languages.  I've been leisurely learning Russian and occasionally wish I made better progress. The reason I don't make progress faster is because I never take the time to focus on learning Russian. In other words, I would learn faster if it was force fed to me.   
<p/>
Then it hit me.  We could use RSS to help people acquire new languages or expand their vocabulary in languages they already know. There are daily emails with "the word of the day" for almost any language, but the migration to RSS has yet to occur - at least as far as I can tell.  Does anybody out there know of an RSS feed for language vocabulary??
<p/>
I would learn faster if my RSS feed reader presented me with one word a day.  This technique would definitely increase my exposure, because I at least skim everything that shows up in my RSS reader.
<p/>
<font color="green">A found a site offering RSS feeds for English vocabulary</font> <a href="http://www.wordsmith.org">here </a>.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-12</date>
<title>Bring on the end of the semester</title>
<text>
Well, for the past two weeks I've been under the weather.  Now, I'm finally starting to feel better.... but I'm very far behind with my thesis project development. :(  
<p/>Before I fell ill, I might even say that I was obsessing about getting my implementation going.  Now, I'm struggling to focus on it... even kind of avoiding it. Wanting an intellectual break from some topic or another is normal for me, I it won't be long before I'm obsessing again. For the last few days though, I've just needed a change of pace. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-15</date>
<title>Apple limits Disk Utilities ability to create CD disk images.</title>
<text>
What?? Apple, what are you doing??
<p/>
Is it just me, or did the upgrade to 10.3.6 disable the ability to create an image from device in "Disk Utility" when the device in question was a CD burned by iTunes???
<p/>
Apple, this sucks.  It is a major inconvenience.  You shouldn't be enforcing digital rights management from your system utilities... this is just a wrong approach to building a tool. 
<p/>
Maybe its just me having trouble?? Anyone else notice this?
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2004-11-19</date>
<title>The blues again (and again and again)</title>
<text>
Whenever I get work into an excited frenzy (a mania, if you will) - where I feel like I can handle anything - I make the most mistakes in judgment (and work related - basically in every aspect of my life).  The mistakes lead into a stupor. Then into a period of reflection and depression during which I feel as if my whole life has been wasted following a hollow dream, searching for a reality that will never exist for me; then I feel paralyzed, like there is no point to even trying, because no matter what, no matter how hard I try, I'm going to fuck up again.  Knowing that I can't prevent only adds on to my hopelessness. 
<p/>
Basically, my whole life has been one failure after another, but I keep getting up in the morning - and for now - I keep trying despite my better judgment that tells me I should just give it all up.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-21</date>
<title>Writing is hard work</title>
<text>
I'm working on another grant proposal; writing is hard work. In my estimation, the fastest that I can put coherent thoughts together in a readable form is three weeks, but that is optimistic.  For me to write a polished paper, probably takes at least a month.  Yet, I'm routinely asked to throw them together in a week and a half... none the less.

<h3>Word versus TextEdit in the spelling correction category</h3>
Hands down, TextEdit has a wider variety of spelling suggestions available for when you botch the spelling of your least used words.  However, the score is even in this category because of Word's grammar checker.  The grammar checker in Word makes a nice edition, not that I usually use it, but everyone could use a little double checking once in awhile. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-23</date>
<title>Second night with no sleep</title>
<text>
Tonight (this morning really) is the second night I've spent writing all night long. The grant proposal is due today at five.  It is simply amazing how much this has shaped up in the five days we spent on it.  I was skeptical that we would have a solid proposal, but I think we have managed it. In fact, I'm hoping that we will go for a *good* conference publication with this one, perhaps even a journal though the fact that it is a system overview limits its applicability as journal material.  I think with a little more work this paper will be the best publication that I have contributed to so far, definitely second place if not first.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-28</date>
<title>Not just iTune's CDs, any CD</title>
<text>
Some time ago, I <a href="15.html">mentioned </a> that Apple changed the functionality of the DiskUtility so that it can't create images from disks burned from iTunes, I'm sad to report this isn't entirely accurate.  The DiskUtility will no longer make <i>disk image from device</i> when the device in question is a cd-rom. I think I understand why they did it, but come on.... crippling a utility that has legitimate purposes??  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-11-30</date>
<title>Thanksgiving was great</title>
<text>
I started today with a chess rating of 1583 and maintained a 1573. I wrote my first <i>flex</i> and <i>bison</i> parsers for TL-Delta language (this was an assignment in one of my classes). I mentioned to the professor that I would like to generate executables from the TL-Delta grammars, the executables would either be pseudo-Turing Machines or Linear Bounded Automata (LBA).  Dr. Hedrick didn't think such a task could be finished before the end of semester. *grin* I finished in one day, two weeks before the end of the semester. The whole process, including defining the TL-Delta grammar in Bison and configuring flex rules to help bison parse tokens and defining a second flex grammar for producing a compilable function in C took 8-10 hours of the course of three days. The great part is the Bison code is only a grammar acceptor, I didn't need semantic interpretation to produce the output. Once a given TL-Delta grammar has been verified with my Bison grammar, I run the TL-Delta grammar through the second flex grammar which generates the C code by substituting TL-Delta tokens with legitimate C code.  The output function is then included into C wrapper which has all the needed boilerplate code to take command line inputs and run the TM code - which is still not guaranteed to halt. I'm going to throw together a Makefile to automate the process, and upload it to the projects page. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-12-02</date>
<title>Turing Machine Compiler</title>
<text>
The <a href="/projects/tmc/">Turing Machine Compiler</a> mini-project has been released to the world. Almost completely useless, but it only took about 10 hours from start to finish including building the web page and tar files. 
<hr/>
<h4>Chess Rating</h4>
I am enjoying the highest chess rating of my life, 1616. Once before I broke into the 1600's, but peaked out at 1604. Today, a nice victory put me at 1616; beautiful. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-12-08</date>
<text>
I've been in the dumps most of the month. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed heading into the end of the semester - though most of the pressure I feel is internal. I'm trying to rewrite my personal statement, but I'm paralyzed with fear.  I could go off on a tangent about fear and how it is the last and most difficult hurdle to jump but I'm not going to.  I'm rarely afraid, but in the arena where I know that I'm going to be judged by other people's standards, yes, I can freely admit I how some concerns about it; PhD applications is an arena where the candidates are judged by the perceptions of the admissions boards, there isn't a thing I can do about it.  The thing is I'm too smart.  I understand how the system works and realize that I was not in synch with it starting with the high school that I went to. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-12-10</date>
<title>Trouble with Security Update </title>
<text>
Is anyone else having trouble with Security Update 2004-12-02 Ver 1.0 on a 1GHz PowerPC 4 PowerBook??  The issue seems to be related to either my USB mouse, which I always detach before putting the TiBook to sleep or to the machine sleeping and having the power cord unplugged.  In any case, I can't get the machine to wake up again until I unplug it, take out the battery, and hit the hardware reset button.... Turing the machine off instead of sleeping doesn't seem to correct the problem either. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-12-12</date>
<title>Laptop woes suck</title>
<text>
I'm still having trouble with my laptop. It is starting to get on my nerves. It is somehow related to USB devices.  I plugged in my USB printer today and the laptop froze completely.  Again, I had to use the hardware reset to get it back up. With no USB devices plugged in, I can put the machine to sleep - it doesn't wake up but the "close the lid and reopen" technique is working.  With USB devices plugged in it is hopeless.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-12-13</date>
<title>Hello Boston</title>
<text>
Boston is cold and gloomy with no need for sunglasses here in the winter. Besides that, nothing is open on Sunday night.  I've asked for directions a couple of times, trying to find my way around the subway, etc.  I've noticed, that for the most part, nobody knows how to get anywhere.  I could tell that a few people really did know, but didn't want to take the time to explain it. Nice. New York was friendlier in this respect. 
<p/>
First thing, Terminal C didn't have an ATM.  I go to the subway terminal - no ATM.  I go back to the airport, and finally find an ATM in the B terminal - all of this takes about an hour. The subway token machine doesn't take bills larger than $10's but the ATM gave only 20's - fortunately there was someone at the kiosk.  Secondly, hotel rates are outrageous here, I managed to get a nice place cheaper than the hotel the conference was being hosted at, both hotels are old, and while nice, I can hardly justify the cost.  My observation is that Boston isn't anywhere near as affordable as Seattle, where I found a room for $50 a night - viva The Kings Inn.
<h4>Morning Walk</h4>
Light to medium foot traffic with long lines at the local Starbuck's. 
<h4>Apple Tiger Code Talk Boston 2004</h4>
I'm under NDA, so there won't be any specific details.  My overall impression is favorable. These events are free to students, and I highly recommend going to them if your interested in learning something about Apple's platform.  The best session for me was on using <a href='http://developer.apple.com/tools/performance/'>Shark.</a> 
<h4>BTW</h4>
It's 4:45pm and it is dark outside. *grin* Beautiful. 
<h4>Turing Machine Compiler Update</h4>
Also made some updates to the <a href='/projects/tmc/index.html'>Turing Machine Compiler</a>. I expanded the functionality to support file I/O using a buffered reader, and corrected the bugs for the command line input method. I probably won't touch it again for some time, but when I do, I'll either add a flag to run the machine as an LBA or add support for multiple internal tapes. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-12-14</date>
<title>Denver</title>
<text>
Priceline.com hooked me up with a 4 hour layover in Denver... and now it looks like my flight is delayed, so I'm eating up my space time programming. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2004-12-16</date>
<title>A new laptop may be imminent. </title>
<text>
I installed 10.3.7, and initially thought that it corrected the problem with my laptop freezing... but then my laptop froze on my twice today. I'm starting to suspect that there is an issue with the battery connection on the bottom of the left side, and that on the occasions when I move my machine it dies. 
<p/>
Time to start shopping around for a new one. 
<p/>
I went ahead and purchased an ADC select membership so that I could get a copy of Tiger and a discount on new hardware. I picked out a new Aluminum PowerBook and supped up the memory and hard drive space (as usual).  I have to say that having my TiBook breaking down is like loosing a relative or a good friend.  For three and a half years my laptop has been everywhere that I have been (nearly) and taking a pounding in the process.  It is still running and I hesitate to replace it, however it is no longer reliable.  I turn it off and it won't come back on, it goes to sleep and won't come back, etc. I was hoping that it would last until Tiger came out, but alas I have elected to go ahead and purchase a replacement.  I really didn't want to spend the money right now, and it makes me very melancholy to do so.  
<p/>
After three years, I can get a machine that is twice as fast, has four times the disk capacity, 8 times the video RAM, with the same amount of RAM for $500 cheaper. Plus, the space powerbook battery that I already have will work. I'll probably cheer up once I have my new machine in my hands, but until that time I'll be lamenting over my current hardware. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-04</date>
<title>Starbuck's to make a sketch of my thesis proposal </title>
<text>
Inside, it's warm and dimly lit. There is no crowd today but the place isn't empty either. The baristas are chattering between themselves while they wait for new customers to arrive. Today, both the coffee and the atmosphere are cozy. In the corner by the window, there is an old man napping. His head tilts forward over his lap where there is a book folded over his knee. His chin rests on his chest and his arms are crossed.  His gray-brown hair bobs slightly as he breaths. One stage shy of snoring, he makes a sound while breathing that only the very young and the very old can make. The very sound of innocence itself.  Truly a sound only made while sleeping. <p/>Outside in the muddy courtyard, a large gray squirrel is foraging. It is late in the game, winter is upon us but this creature hasn't stopped working. He has to dig for his prize now as the nuts he seeks no longer nestle in the top layer of grass but have burrowed far into the earth. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-05</date>
<title>Dispair</title>
<text>
Over Christmas break I spent some time talking to my Dad's boss Harvard - all in all a cool guy. I wanted to see what he thought about distributed systems among other things.  I asked him why Kansas State University didn't use their lab and library computers to participate in projects like Folding@Home, his response floored me.  Harvard said that they didn't run systems like this because of the liability involved. Of course, I didn't see running a system like this as a liability so I asked him to explain, which he did.  Apparently, because the machines where purchased with state funds they can only be used to support state-funded projects.  Nice.  Projects like Folding@Home may open many doors to our understanding of the human body and future medicines, but politics takes precedence.  Then I got to thinking that most state run universities probably have these restrictions, and that this is a major road block to the development of GRID computing environments.  How can you build an cooperative computing environments if all of the participants are only allowed to run projects that are sponsored by their home institutions, or perhaps it doesn't matter so long as the machines being used were purchased for the explicit purpose of building a GRID (which I hope is the case). 
<p/>In news related to the title of this page: I'm depressed again. I'm not feeling like doing anything, though I managed to finish a painting today. I guess I don't consider painting a productive activity. I enjoy it for the sensation of the process not because I'm especially good at it, I'm not.  I have a relatively good command of color and composition, but I'm limited by my elementary command of perspective when working with a brush. Everything looks a little cartoonish or flat. I can say definitively that I have aspired to mediocrity in this arena, and while I enjoy the process, I'll never be a master. Perhaps this fact is what I most enjoy about the process - that I'm not really trying to master it, or to improve at all. That I'm simple when I paint.  And that I don't think too much while I'm painting.  It is a way for me to reconnect with the physical world instead of living my life in the space between my ears.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-09</date>
<title>Slowing me down</title>
<text>
I'm still battling my laptop's issues.  Periodically it won't start, and when it does start it freezes from time to time.  I thought I had narrowed the problem down to the connection with the fan, but I was wrong.  Before, I thought the laptop froze when it was moved or pressure was put on the bottom of the case near the fan, today, I noticed that it died while adjusting the screen angle.  So I'm wondering if it isn't the screen/video card after all. Yesterday, while investigating the fan angle I took the entire thing apart and removed the motherboard to have a look.  Nothing noticeably wrong, though I did notice that the video card seems to be missing a screw. As soon as I can find a screw to replace that one, we'll find out if that has something to do with the problem.  After having taken my PowerBook apart I now know why the technicians want $80 to a $100 an hour for working on laptops - they are very very tedious. In any case it is hard to get much work done when the computer keeps dying and takes an hour to get started again.  I have a replacement in the works, but there are some issues with it and I don't want to discuss those here at the moment.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-10</date>
<title>My new laptop is in, time to get back to work</title>
<text>
When my Apple originally arrived it came with a screen defect. I called Apple wanting to return it, but they refused and suggested that I take it to an Apple Affiliated tech shop - which I did.  They said "it's brand new, so we'll send it to Apple."  A week later I talked to the tech who had heard back from Apple saying that they weren't going to replace the screen, needless to say I was pissed.... but low and behold when my laptop arrived today, the dead pixel had been repaired. I have no idea whether or not they changed out the screen. I am a happy camper now. Time to get back to work. I've felt handcuffed without a laptop computer to work on. And I've grown completely weary of trying to baby my older dying PowerBook into working occasionally.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-11</date>
<title>The pixel is back</title>
<text>
I spoke too soon, the dead pixel is back. I started QuickTime and boom, the dead pixel jumps out against the black background. But I think I can learn to tolerate it since it appears to be a software issue related to QuickTime.
<p/>
<h4>Things I've noticed since growing my hair out</h4>
People check my ID more when using a credit card.  Apparently their assumption is that all long-haired people steal their credit cards. 
<p/>
When using a credit card at stores that make people swipe their own cards, the employees always make sure to explain how to complete the transaction - step by step.  They never did that when I had short hair and it makes me want to breakout with "Hey, I'm a graduate student in computer science! I think I can handle the credit card machine!" but I never do. I simply smile quietly. 
<p/>
Police are more likely to follow me around while I'm driving.  The Camary helps, I wouldn't want a junker and long hair at the same time - God forbid. 
<p/>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-12</date>
<title>And today the pixel is gone</title>
<text>
Today there is no dead pixel in the middle of my screen, so this is definitely a software issue relating to either quick time or to the full screen openGL driver.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-13</date>
<title>Passion, Tao, and where I'm going.</title>
<text>
Frankly, I'm 27 and I don't know exactly what I want to do with my life.  For the last 2-3 years I've been pursuing a career in academia. This winter I used my winter break for soul searching.  By that I mean trying to figure out what I'm doing here.  I have an incredible amount of talent in a wide variety of areas - I'm not trying to brag, seriously - and that makes it difficult to say "this is my calling" or "that is my calling".  My love for computer science started with my love for programming which started with my love for playing video games, which started with Pong (not the Atarii version but the original). I love computers like football players love the feel of dewey grass under their feet.  I love computers like runners love looking over the horizon. I love them simply and completely. It is hard to picture my life without them. Computers, however, don't satisfy every creative desire I have, and they never will. There is some part of me that has had an awakening.  Some creative, artistic talent in me is clawing its way out. Forcing cravings upon me that I haven't had in a decade - the craving to create with my hands.  To hold clay between my fingers whilst fashioning something. To paint. The desire to build something besides software (though I can't see giving up software).  For this reason, I've been poking around some more industrial areas looking for a place where I can use all my skills together. My connection with creating solid physical things gives my personality the balance that it needs, so I know that creating is something I want in my everyday life. The next logical question is "what should I be doing?"  And lately the answer seems to be fabrication. The thought of building prototypes has really turned my crank lately.  Molding and casting I've always sort of known how to do, but I'm currently learning how to do carbon-fiber fabrication. Its not tough, surprising easy actually - well it is probably too soon to say that it is easy but it isn't intimidating at all. Thinking that this isn't intimidating makes me want to learn some metal working also.  Things like shaping, welding, and finishing, etc. Next, I want to learn injection-molding so that I can make my own plastic parts from recycled plastic. Finally, I've wanted to learn how to wire electrical parts and digital circuits.  Where is this going?? My conclusion right now is into robotics design and fabrication. That way there is plenty to build with my hands, and if I want to write software, there would be plenty of that also. In the meantime, I have a project or two going to hone my skills with carbon fiber.  We'll see, perhaps this is some strange phase I'm going through right now.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-16</date>
<title>My new favorite mini Linux distribution.</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.trustix.org/">Trustix Linux</a> is a small command line only linux. The installer looks like Red Hats circa 5.x. This distro is great for running Linux on a Virtual PC like I do - where running either KDE or Gnome grinds the machine to a halt.  It supports the dvorak keyboard layout.  It uses RPMs, but has an automated updating service of its own SWUP). Very nice. 
<p/>
FreeBSD 5.3 also works well in the Virtual PC -so long as you don't install the mouse support in the OS. 
<p/>
SuSE 9.1 also works well if you do the install in 'safe mode' and do a minimal install first with a second pass to install the software that you want later.  If you try to install any software during the installation, you'll end up with X11 installed. Also, during the installation, there is no support for the dvorak keyboard layout (oh yes there is a menu to select it, but changing the layout has no affect on the input). The good news is that after the installation is complete, the keyboard can be changed to dvorak.  Finally, telling SuSE you don't want to use the mouse does no good either. Whenever the mouse scrolls over the VPC it gets captured.  
<p/>
The only advantage to having SuSE is that most stuff will compile correctly... unlike Trustix Linux. And when you install a library in SuSE, it doesn't disappear like it does in FreeBSD. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-17</date>
<title>Working on Package distribution.</title>
<text>
I finally read through the Mozilla C++ Portability rules. Some of them are interesting.
<p/>
In other news, I'm working on making my thesis project more readily installable for users.  Personally, I think it is several steps shy of being ready for installation by users, but it will aid in the debugging process if it is.... but it isn't much fun to work through these kinds of issues. I'd rather be pushing the features along. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-19</date>
<title>Virtual PC CD-Capture Feature is the best</title>
<text>
Lately for testing and development I've been installing, and reinstalling, several OS's. I've found the fastest and most convenient way of doing this is directly from a downloaded ISO image.  VPC lets you "Capture CD Image", select the ISO that you want, and voila the VPC acts as if the ISO is a CD in the drive.  Much faster than actually accessing a CD. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-20</date>
<title>iWork repeatedly asks for Serial Number</title>
<text>
Problem:  iWork '05 asks for the Serial Number every time it is opened.
<p/>Solution: Login as the Admin account, open the application and enter the serial #.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-21</date>
<title>Convert a DMG file to ISO.</title>
<text>
Here is a nice tip from an <a href="http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/jkimble/archive/2004/05/17/13826.aspx">unlikely source</a> on how to convert a disk image (DMG) to an ISO.
<blockquote>hdiutil convert /path/to/bootableosx.dmg -format UDTO -o /path/to/output.iso</blockquote>
Of course you can do this from the disk utility tool also... Macintosh seems to refer to ISOs as CDRs. So choose CD/DVD master when you create the disk image and your good to go. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-22</date>
<title>Setting up a test bed - virtually </title>
<text>
I finally managed to work through the installs for three SuSE boxes on my Virtual PC. VPC used to be better because you could create a new machine (new MAC address) but use an existing machine's hard drive info (i.e. the OS would already be installed)... but hasn't seem to work since Microsoft took the product over from Connectix. So... three separate installs... but I'm almost done now.  
<p/>
Now I will have a LAN of machines to use as a test bed, six in total - three SuSE 9.1 boxes, one windows, one Trustix Linux, and one FreeBSD 5.3 - all virtual. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-24</date>
<title>Yuck!</title>
<text>
The pastor that married Maryna and I died of stroke last week.  We went to the memorial service on Saturday night and I ended up catching a head cold. I barely made it out of bed this morning. It was rough going.  I drove to Stillwater for my office hours, then back - a little reading in between.  Now, Maryna has class, so I'm about to start debugging the clustering mechanism in my thesis project.  I haven't had a chance to work on the project since December. First, my old laptop was dying, currently I have to split my time between the project, homework for class, and finishing my thesis proposal.  Later, TA duties will get thrown into the mix.  It is going to be another fun/challenging semester. The head cold doesn't help. I think I will be able to manage programming with a head cold, but writing under the influence of cough medicine is never pretty. 
<p/>
The proposal is coming along slowly, but I think that I like it - more or less. I'm spending the time carefully crafting the words, paragraphs, and overall flow, because I plan to use it as the basis for my thesis. I could have rushed through it and had it done for the 11th of January... but then I want it (and my thesis) to be the best representation of my abilities that it can be. Not that my thesis will be stellar by my standards (this project can do so much more given some time), but it should be decent. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-25</date>
<title>You might be a geek...</title>
<text>
You might be a geek if you hear someone refer to <i>The Donald</i> and you think of Donald Becker, not Donald Trump. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-28</date>
<title>Some days...</title>
<text>
Somedays I feel that my life isn't worth living anymore. Today is one of those. A day I'm wondering why I'm on the path I'm on.  A day I want to get a job at pizza hut and call it good. A day I want to crawl into a hole and hide from the ugliness of the world. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-30</date>
<title>Macintosh Super Drive</title>
<text>
Burning a copy of Tiger. Ahhh... The benefits of a Apple developer select membership. 
<p/>
I should say I'm only having to burn a copy because the version that they mailed to me would not load on my half-dead old powerbook. Hmmm... this one wouldn't even mount.  I see that my old powerbook can only handle DVD+R/W and the media I burned it on is DVD-R. Guess I'll be making a trip to Target when I get a chance. 
<hr/>
Intresting, via <a href="http://www.kevinrose.com">Kevin Rose Dot Com</a>.  Find <a href="http://www.theyrule.net">connections</a> among corporate boards.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-01-31</date>
<title>Excellent suggestions for C++ style.</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlo17/c++/const.qualifier.html"> Here</a> are some great suggestions on the proper use of 'const' in C++. 
<p/>
I may try to use these, but old habits die hard. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-01</date>
<title>OS 10.4 (Tiger) Update </title>
<text>
Build 8a351 works on the TiBook with 8 Meg of Video Ram. Next, install the developer tools and crank out a widget or two in my leisure time. Which will be in June or July sometime roughly.   
<p/>
I think part of the reason my earlier installation attempt failed was that I formatted the hard drive during the install.  A fresh install meant there were no network settings, which appears to cause the Beta to disable itself.  I assume that Apple has some tracking system for this release. I reinstalled 10.3.5 from disk, setup the network settings and gave it another spin with Build 8a351. Everything came out okay. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-04</date>
<title>chdir is a process resource. </title>
<text>
It is a good thing I decided to rewrite my thesis project from the ground up (almost). I'm finding that many of the assumptions that were made in order to "get it done" were thread ignorant. For example, I had assumed that system calls like chdir() were thread safe - they aren't always.
<p/>
Take for example the innocent looking chdir() call. Seems safe enough. However, the 'current working directory' is a process resource not a thread resource. Changing the directory in one thread changes the working directory in all the threads.  Two threads calling chdir() at the same time produces a race condition on the shared variable. Bad, bad, bad. This affects how I have to handle directory changes in the client threads and possibly means a change in the system's file structure design.
<p/>
This wasn't a problem in the alpha system since there were only two possible threads: a worker thread and a server thread. As it turned out, these threads were mutually exclusive. Obviously, this wasn't the desired architecture.  The final design called for a much more robust implementation, allowing any number of worker threads to run concurrently with various server, management, and service threads. If I had chosen to keep trudging along with expanding the alpha version, I would be chasing these problems down and not understanding where they came from. It is much better to face them now. 
<p/>
The beta version of the system is already 100 times better than the alpha code. It will be better still. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-05</date>
<title>How to Get Safari RSS (the upcoming release of Safari) to see your RSS feed.</title>
<text>
Browsing to <a href="http://www.apple.com/startpage/">www.apple.com/startpage/</a> and doing a view source will reveal a nice link.
<blockquote>&lt;link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="link_to_your_rss_feed" /&gt;</blockquote>
I could criticize this approach, but I won't. I'm sure there is some technical reason for doing it this way.  It would be more time consuming to actually discover RSS feeds by looking at every link on a page to see if it points to an .rss file... but then again you could have a thread specifically to do that on a page load... Then again, this could just be a preliminary hack that will be changed once the official release is available. 
<p/>
<font color='green'>Update: <a href="http://www.aaronadams.net/article.php/20040715151359191">Aaron Adams</a> beat me to the punch.  </font>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-09</date>
<title>Mac Update 10.3.8 Resets Customized Login Graphics to Default </title>
<text>
Mac Update 10.3.8 resets any <a href="/blog/2004/08/10.html"> customized login graphics </a> to the standard silver Apple. This is to be expected. The hack still works. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-11</date>
<title>Chess Related Post </title>
<text>
This program <a href="http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/chess.html">Chess Playing program, </a> called the thinking machine 4, shows you its thought process while it plays. It is rather beautiful to watch.  When you make a good move it thinks more, painting the screen a dazzling array of orange and green. 
<p/>
Link via <a href="http://kevinrose.com">Kevin Rose.com</a>
<p/>
In other chess related news, my ranking is currently up to 1620.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-14</date>
<title>The lab's firewall died...</title>
<text>
The lab's linux firewall died after about three years of continual service. The machine is still up, just one of the NICs grunked out. I'm not sure why. We replaced it, but something was messed up in the config. One possible replacement may be <a href="http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/index.html">FloppyFW</a>. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-15</date>
<title>Sweet select() ?</title>
<text>
I'm looking into using select() in the beta version of my thesis project. After I got the first cut of the server done I was freaking out because the process was eating 20% of the CPU while idling, ~50% of the CPU with one client attached, and ~68% of the CPU with one inactive client connected.  I've figured out more what I need out of my select call and chopped the code down to (mostly) the necessities.  The server is sticking right around 10% of the CPU for all the scenarios above.  I think this is livable, I'm still not sure whether this approach is "better" than a threaded-server with a blocking accept(). I would like to run experiments with a comparison of the two sometime.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-16</date>
<title>Freakin' QWERTY</title>
<text>
Anymore, I hate going into the CS research lab.  There are no windows, hence no view. The track lighting hurts my eyes and makes me moody. The lab is either cold or hot, never in between. And most of all, the keyboards are QWERTY only on the key systems. :(  This really messes me up when I get back on my laptop using Dvorak. I think the keyboard factor is the biggest of my lab aversion factors.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-17</date>
<title>Unobtained perfection.</title>
<text>
Last night between sleep and wake I deduced the server in the beta version of my thesis system is not thread safe.  I used a list structure between two processes. Some of the assumptions I made seemed reasonable, and they work.... on a single processor machine. In my mind's eye, I picture the processes running in tandem on a dual processor machine and I know it will break. I need to change the list implementation to a non-blocking list, then everything should be fine.  There are some other potential problems, but I think for a beta version they can be forgiven. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-18</date>
<title>Malware for Mac??</title>
<text>
Among other interesting behavioral anomalies I've noticed lately. Is Safari asking me for my login keychain.
<blockquote>
<img src="/images/Malware.jpg"/>
</blockquote>
Or is this related to the latest update and it being my first time to open Safari as the administrator? Dunno.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-21</date>
<title>5x5 Go Cracked &amp; Home tonight</title>
<text>
After an hour of jockeying for a plugin at Border's there we no movers.  I'm home now. Sometimes home is best. 
<p/>
Go, on a reduced scale of <a href="http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOP_68HC62_Eng">5x5</a>, has been cracked by a computer in the Netherlands. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-22</date>
<title>Some Cocoa Goodies from Blackholemedia.com, or playtime for today.</title>
<text>
Some <a href="http://www.blackholemedia.com/code/">Goodies </a> from <a href="http://blackholemedia.com">Blackholemedia </a>.  A nice asynchronous TCP object and a wrapper for SQLite.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-24</date>
<title>Always bringing the good stuff.</title>
<text>
A friend recently introduced me to some good stuff. <a href="http://www.scons.org/">Scons </a> and <a href="http://wsmanager.sourceforge.net/">DesktopManager </a>. First chance I get to rework the build processes of my thesis project, I'm going to take Scons out for a test drive. I've found Autoconf/Automake disappointing in many ways.  Most notably it is nearly impossible to get the thing to build "base" classes once when there are multiple targets.  WTF? I wondered why my build times were so big, then I noticed my base classes where getting compiled 8 times - once for each target. :(  I must say, there probably is a way to control this behavior - but who is going to figure it out. Autoconf/Automake is much much harder than it needs to be.  Scons looks as simple as it should be.  
<p/>
If I had access to a spare windows machine - or a working Linux box at home I would be using DesktopManager now. Very nice. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2005-02-25</date>
<title>Sure, I'll be the lab gimp....</title>
<text>
Spending tonight installing my system onto servers in the lab, so that another student can do a thesis using it.  I should be flattered, but as I see it the system isn't usable yet.... so this ends up being added pressure that I didn't ask for and don't particularly need. I wish I had someone to setup the lab for my thesis - must be nice. 
<p/>
<h4>Scons You Suck</h4>
I HATE when you get a program that looks promising (scons looks promising) and the examples in the documentation won't even work. Autoconf/automake had the same problem.  
<p/>Scons appears so beautifully simple, but as soon as I introduce common source files, the build breaks with the following error.<blockquote>
scons: *** Two different sets of overrides were specified for the same target: CppSQLite.o
</blockquote>
Here is the SConstruct file.
<blockquote>
Program( ['addproject.cpp', 'CppSQLite.cpp'], LIBS=['sqlite'], LIBPATH='.' )	<br/>
Program( ['adddata.cpp', 'CppSQLite.cpp'], LIBS=['sqlite', 'z', 'tar'], LIBPATH='.' ) <br/>
Program( ['addexec.cpp', 'CppSQLite.cpp'], LIBS=['sqlite', 'z', 'tar'], LIBPATH='.' ) <br/>
Program( ['addtask.cpp', 'CppSQLite.cpp'], LIBS=['sqlite'], LIBPATH='.' ) 
</blockquote>
Will someone please make a build system that works like the documentation says it does!!! Or update the documentation. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-02-26</date>
<title></title>
<text>
Benji married is high school sweat-heart today. The ceremony was strange and beautiful and moving. They wanted a bare-foot low-key affair.  Lacking a beach, they married at the roller-skating rink.  Everyone skated after the ceremony. It was a celebration. The irony of it all is that both Benji and Whitney forgot to take their sandals off for the service.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-02</date>
<title>Apple's Mail.app exploited </title>
<text>
It was inevitable.  I believe the Mail.app mail client that we all love has been exploited. (Or, given the benefit of the doubt, this could be an obscure bug of some kind, or related to some other compromise somewhere else in the system - i.e. I'm not promising my machine hasn't been compromised in some other fashion with some changes made to the Mail.app).
<p/>
<h4>Symptom</h4>  A email arrives in my inbox.  Mail.app recognizes that the email is junk.  The email is moved to my Junk folder.  The Junk Folder displays the number "1" indicating that there is an email in the Junk Folder. When I click on the Junk folder to view the email, the email deletes itself. If the email can delete itself, who knows what else it can do. 
<p/>
I've noticed this behavior twice in the last week.  Today, I'm trying to track it down.  My guess is that it is a GIF or other image related exploit since Mail.app automatically displays inline GIFs (and there are no preferences to prevent this ). 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-03</date>
<title>A nice tip for XCode users</title>
<text>
Something I learned, lost, and recently rediscovered.  There is a pragma tag that will allow you to separate your functions in the function drop-down menu in the editor. 
<blockquote>
#pragma mark - <br/>
#pragma mark &lt; Name &gt;
</blockquote>
The first line above draws a nice line.  The second becomes a bold type title for the section.  Handy for grouping accessors by functionality etc.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-07</date>
<title>I have been in the vacuum too long.</title>
<text>
I've been in the vacuum too long.  Now, I just want to finish my thesis work so that I can move on to something different for a while. Looking back, I can say that life would have been simpler if I had chosen to do only a simulation but I wouldn't have learned as much. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-08</date>
<title>Widgets I would like to see</title>
<text>
I posted these suggestions on <a href="http://nslog.com/archives/2005/03/09/qotd_widgets.php">NSLog()</a>, *ops* didn't realize I was supposed to suggest only one.  Since I really would like to see these kinds of widgets, and haven't nearly enough time to tackle any of them, I'll just list them again in the hope that someone with the time and talent will run with the suggestion. And hey, if you make a cool widget email it too me, if I like it, I'll talk about it (not that me talking about it means much...) and if you want I'll link to it or post it for you. 
<blockquote>
A widget for viewing web cams and X10 Wireless Cameras.
<p/>
A widget for tracking packages.
<p/>
A quote of the day widget (good quotes, ones from the Tae Te Ching &amp; Confucius, Einstein, etc.).
<p/>
An IM buddy list widget.
<p/>
A security event widget ( displaying a machine's firewall logs - if there are any - showing dropped connections, etc. )
<p/>
A Widget that would work with an SNMP server to display some "network health" information, or a widget that worked with something like MRTG to 
display network bandwidth graphs, etc.
<p/>
A "netstat" widget for displaying current network connections and listening services.
<p/>
A content publishing widget - post to your blog from a widget.
<p/>
Maybe a "who's on" widget that displays unix 'who' information. Link the 'who' information to the unix "talk" command for a "talk" widget.
<p/>
A rendezvous widget ( like looking at the Rendezvous links under bookmarks in Safari).
<p/>
A weather-bug widget (this one is obvious and should have been already done by someone).
<p/>
A community event widget. Retrieve info. about upcoming community events - or tie this to an iCal calendar.
<p/>
A sports event score widget. Baseball, football, hockey etc.
<p/>
A poetry of the day widget. Or Haiku of the day widget.
<p/>
A dictionary widget. This may seem more reasonable to some than others...
<p/>
</blockquote>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-10</date>
<title>Memory Leak in libtar-1.2.11</title>
<text>
Okay, so I've discovered that there are memory leaks in libtar-1.2.11, and at one point I thought that I had located them... but I haven't. It seems that the project's programmer implemented his own linked list structure, and this is where the memory is getting leaked but it isn't obvious yet how to fix it. <p/>Nope, the list looks clean.  So, <a href="https://lists.feep.net:8080/pipermail/libtar/2004-August/000193.html">Rich</a> seems to be correct about the source for one of the memory leaks, but there is another related to the path name that I haven't found yet.  This should be fun to track down. 
<p/>
<font color="green">Update: I conferred with Dr. Jonyer about the supposed memory leak.  As it turns out the <i>leaks</i> program only thinks there is a memory leak.  The memory in question is on the stack not the heap. This is true, at least, for the 'leak' that Rich pointed out. Now, I do think there is a potential leak in another section that involved some structures allocated on the heap. </font>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-16</date>
<title>ZeroLink to standard libraries in XCode without errors.</title>
<text>
So, on one of the list I follow a fellow posted an entry like: "I'm using XCode and ZeroLink and linking against the math library using -lm, when ZeroLink is off the build works, but when ZeroLink is on I get linker errors. What should I do?"<p/>
Of course, I responded with the smart-ass answer "Shutoff ZeroLink", but as it turns out Apple distributed ZeroLink versions for most of the standard libraries.  They end in "x".  So the real answer to his question turned out to be use the linker option "-lmx" when using ZeroLink. In other words, the math library "libm" has a ZeroLink counter part "libmx". 
<p/>
<font color="green">Update: I found out the next day that the gentleman who made the post was actually using the ZeroLink friendly libraries, and was still getting errors. So, it turns out that my post didn't come off as smart-assed as it could have. </font>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-18</date>
<title>My thesis project: one day it will work, just not today.</title>
<text>
I've been pulling my hair out since Monday trying to get the newly revamped Beta code for my thesis project to run correctly on Linux. What I found was that GPGME 1.x wasn't working correctly because I didn't compile my code with Large File Support. I didn't even suspect something like this, until I read through the entire info page for GPGME and found a paragraph about the <i>off_t</i> type being 32 bits unless LFS was on, then it was 64 bits.... oh, and by the way GPGME is compiled with LFS on by default and your application must be compiled with the same options to work correctly. Recompiling with LFS on fixed the issues I was having with GPGME 1.x on Linux.... and introduced another one related to <i>libtar</i>. All I can say about this is "I now prefer FreeBSD to Linux". 
<p/>
I did some digging, and as far as I can tell, <i>libtar</i> doesn't have LFS.... so I may have to implement with an alternative ( <a href="http://people.freebsd.org/~kientzle/libarchive/">libarchive </a> ). This makes me unhappy. It is the right way to go in the long run.  Libarchive is fairly portable AND has LFS, libtar is portable with no LFS. But, in the short term my thesis isn't advancing. 
<h4>Yeah... this is no good.</h4>
I tore through <i>libarchive </i> this afternoon... I liked <i>libtar</i>'s API better from a user stanpoint, but <i>libarchive </i> looked okay. The nail in the coffin is not being able to make the <i>libarchive</i> example in the man page actually run. Well.... okay it ran but wouldn't create a TAR or terminate. 
<h4>Glad libarchive didn't work out.</h4>
Trying another archiving library was something that did in "panic mode". I literally spent several hours trying to nail down the problem without prevailing.  In this case I'm glad that libarchive didn't workout.... because after taking a break from coding for a 3 mile run I was able to chase down the problem. Heap corruption. Something that got changed trying to figure out the previous bug with GPGME.  Undoing that change did the trick.  Now to get the networking debugged.... 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-20</date>
<text>
I'm in the lab today. When I stopped to get the key, the security guard was sleeping in front of his monitor.  At least he looked awake.  It took him about a minute to realize somebody was at the counter asking for help. 
<h4> Alleviating Paranoia </h4>
To alleviate <a href="02.html">my recent paranoia</a> with the Mail.app and other possible system vulnerabilities, I have implemented "the right" thing for system security.  Tripwire + LittleSnitch + Frequent Whole System Backups. I bought a 250 Gig external USB 2 hard drive for the backups. I did a fresh install of 10.3.5, followed by the installation and tuning of tripwire before any network contact was made. Then the iterative process of installing software and re-running/updating the tripwire DB began. :) This is as mundane as it gets, but information is power and I now have superior information about my machine's integrity. <p/>Given the fact that no one considers passwords on a.cs.okstate.edu to be secure, I'll likely be migrating my main email account off that server as well... possibly to gmail (the only feature that I find attractive is their free POP3 over SSL connection). 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-24</date>
<title>A nice thing about iWorks'05</title>
<text>
I can draw a diagram using <i>Omni Graffle</i>, copy the drawing onto the clip board and paste it wholesale into <i>Pages</i>. No exporting or saving it as an image. Ahhh.... perfection. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-26</date>
<title>Aspiring to STL Mastery</title>
<text>
You know you're well on the way to mastering the STL when you start using declarations like this in your code...
<blockquote>
map&lt; string, list&lt; pair&lt;SDSFile, string&gt; &gt; &gt; workToReturn;<br/>
map&lt; string, list&lt; pair&lt;SDSFile, string&gt; &gt; &gt;::iterator j;
</blockquote>
because this is the structure that is "the right thing"... and you use the <i>pair</i> object to save a gratuitous <b>struct</b> definition.  This is a thing of beauty. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-03-31</date>
<title>I'm trying to remember... </title>
<text>
I'm trying to remember how quiet Europe is. There are precious few quiet places here in Tulsa. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-04-05</date>
<title>An afternoon conversation at the cafe</title>
<text>
An older gentleman, grey-white thinning hair, gold-rimmed aviator bifocals, white oxford shirt with a blood red power tie tucked under the third button, hails for my attention. "Excuse me, I noticed that you have an Apple." His voice is matter of fact, I can feel the sternness in it; this is an authority figure. His legs are slightly more than a shoulder's width apart and his hand rests on his hip crushing a newspaper.  He is fit despite his age, maybe sixty or sixty-five, an intellectual tiger and an athlete. <p/>"Yes.." I say hesitantly and as politely as I can having been taken off-guard. 
<p/>"If a magic fairy came down and gave you a choice between a brand new Apple laptop and a Hewlett-Packard (or a Dell), which one would you choose?"
<p/>"Well," I said slowly as I found the politically correct way to say that I'm an Apple nut and they will have to pry it from my cold dead hands, "I would choose the Apple."
<p/>"And what is it about the Apple that you like?"
<p/>"Well, for me, at least, I mean for my thought process, Apple is more comfortable." He doesn't react, so I continue in my normal disconnected elusive half-stuttering way, "I used to use Windows at work... when I was doing IT administration, and nothing really felt... comfortable to me. You know, the way things were designed to work and the way that I thought about doing them didn't seem to agree."
<p/>Blank-faced, "Well, I don't have a thought process on the computer and I hate those bastard Microsoft engineers.... are you dyslexic?"
<p/>"Um.... no, I don't think so, not really anyway, at least it has never been diagnosed."
<p/>"See, all the millionaires I know are dyslexic screw balls, real eccentrics... and it seems that it takes that kind of person to out think the norm." At this point, I'm not sure what to say. How does one respond to that? He repeats his question as if I hadn't answered, probably sensing the uncertainty in my response, "Are you dyslexic?"
<p/>"Well, no, I'm not really dyslexic. I mean I had trouble as a child telling the difference between 'b' and 'p' and 'd' and 'q', but I wasn't diagnosed... I mean I feel normal now, but I don't think like everyone else, you might say that I'm an odd ball. I'm an artistic creative type, and I think differently."
<p/>"I'll tell you, I've run a clinic for 20 years. We had Macintosh in the beginning and I was happy with it, it was perfect and everything worked.  Then these IBM types came along and switched the whole clinic over to PCs. I've spent the last 4 years in discomfort." A half second pause, "I'll tell you a story, since I interrupted you. <p/>  I have a couple millionaire friends, and a few billionaire friends and every damn one of them is a screw-ball. My good friend Rolla, he was a multi-billionaire. When he was a baby, he tripped and fell down the stairs and lost his sight. About the time he was six, his Mom kicked him out of the house.  She said, 'You're not going to get your vision back, so you're going to have to learn to live with it', she sent him off to a special school for the blind in a nearby town in Kansas - and told him he'd have to find his own transportation there and back and that if he couldn't do anything else, he could at least learn to make baskets. Well, he did. He found a ride back and forth. One cold winter day, his ride didn't show up.  He waited on the steps for him for a while, but it was cold.  He waited in the car for awhile, but it was cold. He finally ended up inside a building at the Chiropractic college next door. While he waited, he made the fortunate mistake of mentioning to a Chiropractic student that his neck had hurt ever since his accident. You know how it is with Chiropractors, as soon as you say you've got a pain, they've got you in an ankle lock, dragging you into treatment." He gestures with his hands making the shape of the lock, "Well, after a few adjustments, Rolla got his sight back.  Not all of it, and not very good either, but enough to be able to read, get his flying license, driver's license, and make millions selling airplanes. Rolla died a couple of months back, and his millionaire cousin and hang-out buddy was telling everyone at the funeral about Rolla. We all wondered how he managed to get his driver's license, let alone a pilot's license, because he was a God-awful driver. His cousin knew the secret. Rolla had memorized the order of every eye chart on the market.  He could see well enough to see the second row, which let him know which chart it was... there are only six charts in existence. Not many people would think to find out how many eye charts there are and to memorize them. Isn't that something?"
<p/>"Wow...", I'm stunned. It isn't everyday that you hear such personal tales of nearly-blind millionaires.
<p/>"Well, I'll leave you be now, enough of me interrupting you." Then as quickly as he came, the old doctor had gone, leaving me with my thoughts.
<p/>
Now, back to my thesis proposal. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-04-06</date>
<title>I am an Elastic Firecracker</title>
<text>
Tripping Daisy, Ah... I miss the bands of my youth. Good old friends have come back for a second round in the playlist. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-04-10</date>
<title>Writting and the Cafe</title>
<text>
Now that my thesis project is (mostly) done, I get to concentrate some on writing for a while. Then move on to experiments with my system and BOINC. 
<p/>
The great thing about Cafe Cubana on the weekends is the music. They have a satellite radio. On the weekends, occasionally, they have really great jazz. There is nothing like really great jazz on Sundays. 
<hr/>
<h4>The Father of computer virii, Distributed Computing, and Public-Resource computing</h4>
John Shoch and Jon Hupp were definitely ahead of the times. In 1978, they developed the first internetwork worm at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Two years latter, they wrote <a href="http://vx.netlux.org/lib/ajm01.html">this </a> paper on the matter. In an attempt to investigate distributed computational systems, they created the first true public-resource computing applications, the first computer virus (note it wasn't public knowledge at the time, so Morris is typically credited with this accomplishment), and the first mobile/migrating processes. And I thought that public-resource computing went back to the mid-ninties, early-ninties at the earliest. It would seem that distributed computing has existed since the earliest reliable networking protocols - and this makes sense.  
<p/>Okay, so even Shoch and Hupp were not the first.  There were distributed applications as far back as the 1970, with 'The Creeper' looking like the first network worm written by B. Thomas and the "McRoss" simulation being the first mobile/migrating process; both occurring in the early 70's. Even Shoch and Hupp say that their list probably isn't complete. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-04-12</date>
<title>Cricket versus MRTG+RRDTool+MRTG-RRDTool.cgi</title>
<text>
While I think <a href="http://cricket.sourceforge.net">cricket </a> is a great idea (in theory), in practice I found doing the simplest monitoring difficult. In fact, I couldn't get it to monitor eth0 on a linux box. I burned 2-3 hours trying the various contributed packages for monitoring eth0 with net-snmp, I even tried to work through my own configuration to do this, but I found the documentation lacking in working examples. Finally I gave up and went back to good old <a href="http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/mrtg/">MRTG </a>. MRTG is steady as a rock. When you don't have a huge number of devices to monitor, nothing works better. I set up the monitoring I wanted in 20 minutes. Cricket was basically created for people needing to monitor hundreds of devices, and to handle the case were the devices don't have the same SNMP community string, which MRTG doesn't handle well. I think if I was trying to monitor a switch or router that cricket would have worked beautifully, but it had trouble monitoring a server. 
<p/>
I went ahead and used the RRD database format so that I can export my bandwidth data to XML. Switching MRTG to the RRD format means you need <a href="http://www.fi.muni.cz/~kas/mrtg-rrd/">mrtg-rrdtool.cgi </a> to draw the graphs for you.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-04-16</date>
<title>Safari 1.3</title>
<text>
When Safari 1.0 came out, it was the fastest rendering browser I had ever seen. Then Safari 1.2 raised the bar, again increasing the speed of page rendering. Safari 1.3 is simply amazing. It loads pages like lightening across the screen. Hopefully, they made some security improvements as well.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-04-17</date>
<title>Just in time.</title>
<text>
I've been waiting for a Mac version of Lyx since I switched to Mac. Now its <a href="http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/lyxmac.html">here </a>... well okay, technically its been out since last October, whatever. 
<p/>Apple's Pages is great, until you need to type a formula, then it... well it sucks frankly (Word is better even). Hopefully having Lyx will help fill in the gaps. 
<hr/>
<h4>Simply Amazing</h4>
People come into a cafe and use the free wireless network. They have windows running, with their C drive shared out and a blank Administrator password, never thinking twice about it. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-04-18</date>
<text>
The premise for my thesis project is so subtle, I wonder if I'm simply delusional. I've tried tackling the justification from a couple of different angles now... but haven't nailed it down. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-04-30</date>
<title>Initial thoughts on Tiger</title>
<text>
I installed the developer version of Tiger tonight, herein are a few notes about the changes. 
<p/>
<bl>
<li>iChat supports Jabber</li>
<li>Rendezvous is now called Bonjour</li>
<li>There is a small metallic sound while typing, I guess that is supposed to help with the tempo. </li>
<li>The dictionary app will get a lot of use from me, looking up words is my primary use for Sherlock. </li>
<li>Logging in seems sluggish</li>
<li>Safari 2.0 is slower at rendering than 1.3</li>
<li>Safari has a nice new feature: "private browsing". Web pages are not saved in the history file and information is not collected for auto-filling forms</li>
<li>I'm sure the dashboard will get some use, even if it is only for the calculator</li>
<li>To make your RSS feed show up in Safari 2.0, you need to change the link type from 'alternative' to 'alternate'. </li>
<li>Mail.app has a completely redesigned interface. And it didn't quite get the mail accounts imported correctly. </li>
</bl>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-05-01</date>
<title>Where did the boot splash screen PDF go on Tiger? </title>
<text>
It seems that Apple changed the location of the Boot Splash screen on Tiger - at least on the Developer release (what I have).  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-05-03</date>
<title>Computer Science?</title>
<text>
Computer Science should be renamed "Computer Systems Engineering" or some other such term; in America it isn't science. You aren't allowed to build arbitrary systems and experiment with them to observe their behavior. In short one isn't allowed to make a hypothesis and subsequently prove or disprove it. The only work encouraged is work were the outcome is known a priori, or where the bounds of the system can be proven theoretically beforehand. This is engineering not pure science. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-05-14</date>
<title>No Boot Splash Mods for Tiger</title>
<text>
It seems that Apple has done away with the Boot Splash sceen PDF in Tiger. Probably they construct the boot splash from smaller composite graphics instead - and there are a half a dozen applelogo.tif files in this beast... making it difficult to pin point. Besides moving away from the PDF drastically reduces the customization options. :(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-05-15</date>
<title>Oh damn, that's sexy</title>
<text>
Via <a href="http://www.osnews.com/">OS News </a> and <a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/10465/">others </a>, Linux gets Native Posix Thread Library (<a href="http://people.redhat.com/drepper/nptl-design.pdf">NPTL </a> ) support under 2.6.x kernel - or a patched 2.4 kernel. Checkout the (non-scientific) benchmarking on the slackware post... WOW. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-05-26</date>
<title>The Farm</title>
<text>
Just got back from "the farm". Very relaxing, very isolated, very nice break from Tulsa. [ Pictures ]
<p/> <img src="/images/thefarm/DSC03013.JPG" /> <p/>
<img src="/images/thefarm/DSC03014.JPG" /> <p/>
<img src="/images/thefarm/DSC03017.JPG" /> <p/>
<img src="/images/thefarm/DSC03018.JPG" /> <p/>
<img src="/images/thefarm/DSC03020.JPG" /> <p/>
<img src="/images/thefarm/DSC03022.JPG" /> <p/>

</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-05-27</date>
<title>Judy Arrays worth a look.</title>
<text>
Via <a href="http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/view/741"> Lambda-the-Ultimate </a>. <a href="http://judy.sourceforge.net/"> Judy Array </a>.
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2005-05-28</date>
<title>Campus Deserted</title>
<text>
It is Memorial Day Weekend and campus is deserted. I am the only person in the commons; I like this. I remember when I first started at OSU-Tulsa. I was still taking classes at TCC. I would workout after my 8 am Calculus class and ride my bike the additional mile to OSU, eat my sack lunch and then work on my calculus homework. Back then, like now, I was the only one around the commons during the day. Things have changed much since then, some changes have been good, some have been undesirable. I like to stop in these quiet moments and reflect about the past, the future, and the inevitability of change. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-05-30</date>
<title>Marriage and Working At Home</title>
<text>
I can say one thing about being married: forget about trying to get work done at home. If you don't have an office with a thick oak door and a lock, it isn't happening. I'm the kind of person that has to be isolated to concentrate, so having the spouse around (watching TV or wanting to chit chat) becomes a distraction for me.
<h4>What's not fair about this post</h4>
Maryna pointed out a few things that she didn't think was fair, I agree with at least the first one.
<nl>
<li>It is impossible to tell when I'm working and when I'm goofing off - especially if I'm at the computer.</li>
<li>She says I have "all day" to work, so I should give my evening time to her. She has a point, except I end up working odd hours because I can't wake myself up in the morning.</li>
</nl>
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2005-05-31</date>
<text>
My youthful optimism is gone. A shell of a man remains. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-01</date>
<title>An Old Networker's Edict</title>
<text>
I was reminded of an old networker's edict the other day: 
<blockquote>
<i>Route</i> whenever you can, <i>bridge</i> when you have to.
</blockquote>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-02</date>
<title></title>
<text>
Something about my current home office setup makes me uncomfortable. I can't stand to do any truly serious work there for very long. In fact, I haven't been able to get anything serious done at home since moving out from the Utica Square Apartments (now torn down... they forced us all out because the apartments were condemned; a piece of me died with those apartments ).
<p/>
Any way, the point is I want to be out of the house but can no longer afford coffee since I'm without summer employment. I splurged on a Jones Soda, the message under the cap read:
<blockquote>
There is new hope for projects you had almost given up on. 
</blockquote>
I can say that I've been tired of my thesis project for a little while now, but I wouldn't say that I almost gave up on it.... nevertheless I'll take this as a positive omen. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-03</date>
<title>A great cartoon.</title>
<text>
The story of Doug:
<blockquote>
When Doug was a kid, he drew cartoons all the time. He drew cows and alligators and pigs and superheroes. He drew a platypus named Ed. He drew a dead dog named Dead Dog Bob. He drew everything he saw and everything he wanted to see.
<p/>
Many years passed. By a strange series of coincidences, Doug found himself working in an office. The more he used a keyboard, the worse his penmanship became. The constant hum of computers made his brain twitch. He stopped drawing cartoons.
<p/>
But then the chickens came.
<p/>
Like some sort of haunting supernatural force, the chickens bubbled up from the darkness of Doug's subconscious mind. In a trance-like state, he drew them on office whiteboards. He drew them in notebooks. He drew them on anything that sat still long enough. People started asking, "Who's drawing those damn chicken cartoons everywhere?"
<p/>
Doug tried to stop but he couldn't. The chickens were unstoppable. To retain his sanity, all he could do was grab a stack of sticky notes, and release the savage chickens.
</blockquote>
I like Doug's story... and I like his <a href="http://www.savagechickens.com">cartoons</a>.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-04</date>
<title>Rumors of Macintosh moving to x86 architecture </title>
<text>
I can't help but think that all the rumors are just Steve exacting revenge on the rumor sites. 
<p/>
A switch doesn't make sense to me, especially not with IBM's cell-based processors coming up the line. Releasing a port of OS X for x86 architecture in <i>addition</i> to the powerpc *does* make sense, as this would add to the steady stream of "switchers" out there. I would love to run OS X on my spare x86 boxen. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-06</date>
<title>Apple makes the switch...</title>
<text>
So Apple is making the switch to Intel? Why? What do they have to gain? Ask yourself the same question that Steve asked himself a decade or more ago when he moved Apple to rebuild the Macintosh OS: what is the main reason that users don't want to switch to Macintosh?  If they switch, all of the Applications they have already bought won't work anymore. 
<p/>
I think the reason Apple is switching to Intel is two fold. The first reason is the Intel chips are widely recognized as "faster" (because they have higher clock rates not because they have better throughput necessarily) and because the chips are CHEAPER; I don't think this is the main motivation though. The second reason I think they are switching is to remove the reluctance of users to switch. I think that Apple plans (or if not - they should be planning) to allow Windows Applications to run natively under OS X. Or at the very least to allow Windows Applications to run under OS X with a simple recompile against the transition SDK. 
<p/>
Now that OS X will be released for Intel based machines, we can have a lot of fun running <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/">Xen</a> under the hood. *big smile* Perhaps with the right Xen hack, OS X won't even realize that it isn't running on Apple's hardware *big smile* 
<p/>
Update: Sorry, lost a day in there somewhere. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-08</date>
<title>Reason to worry</title>
<text>
From Think Secret, <a href="http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0506intelxbench.html">Intel-Mac benchmarks. </a> 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-09</date>
<title>Incorrect focus</title>
<text>
Doesn't anybody else think it is a little outrageous that an Internet hacker is being threatened with 70 years in prison for breaking into some computer systems? I'm talking about the US Justice Dept.'s case against Gary McKinnon, an out of work systems administrator who exploited over 100 of the US Military's networks using holes that had had patches for "years". Does the punishment fit the crime? Five years seems extreme to me, 70 years seems outrageous. Isn't that we give to murderers?
<p/>
Shouldn't everyone be asking "why the hell did the military have such vulnerable systems on the Internet?"
<hr/>
<h4>We have to get these clowns out of congress (and the white house)</h4>
Who is leading this clown troop? The longer they're in office, the more like Nazi Germany America is becoming. Apparently, the powers of the FBI (or should we start calling them the SS now? since they have secret powers and secret warrants ) will be getting expanded <a href="http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5736302.html?part=rss&amp;tag=5736302&amp;subj=news">AGAIN</a>.
<p/> While our civil liberties are being slaughtered in the name of national security, the "Ameri-Nazi SS" (the FBI) hasn't appeared to catch any more terrorist - despite their expanded powers. While the Bush administration would like us to believe that they are winning the "war" on terrorism and that there are fewer terrorist in America today than ever before, I find this a hard pill to swallow. The fact of the matter is the government is simply fleecing our American rights. How long will it be before the "Ameri-Nazi SS" start making random stops of citizens on street corners demanding to see our papers?? 
<p/>
America, wake up, you're living in a police state now!! You better start fighting it before it is too late. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-10</date>
<title>WWDC Keynote</title>
<text>
Watching Steve Jobs's WWDC Keynote address today. Steve justifies the switch to Intel by highlighting the performance per Watt. According to Steve's slide, Intel chips have more than 7 times the performance per Watt than the PowerPC. I find this to be an interesting measurement. This isn't necessarily a measurement that is interesting in a Desktop machine, but it is crucial for laptops and mobile computing.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-11</date>
<title>Dvorak Fully Comfortable</title>
<text>
I'm as comfortable programming on the dvorak keyboard now as I ever was with Qwerty. My error rate is still a little higher, but my average typing speed is actually better than it was when I <a href="../../2004/05/20.html">switched a year ago</a> - and *big smile* my wrists don't hurt after long hours of typing. 
<p/>
Man, it is hard to believe that I've been typing on Dvorak for a year! Wow, time is really flying for me these days. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-14</date>
<title>A thinking box</title>
<text>
Sometimes I get trapped into a particular way of thinking - a box if you will. Everyone has this problem from time to time. The difference between me and most other people is that occasionally I REALIZE I'm in the box. Knowing where your thinking is at allows you to alter its pattern. Alternative thinking changes your perspective, and a changed perspective can get you out of the box. Perception is reality some people say. I don't know about that, but I can say getting out of the box feels good. No, it feels great. It is like a fresh wind of life blowing into your lungs. It adds a little bounce to your step, gives you a little smile for no particular reason.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-15</date>
<title>The TiBook Lives Again</title>
<text>
My old TiBook, which quit running reliably after the upgrade to Mac OS 10.3.8, has new life. When it started dying and wouldn't reboot or turn on properly I thought that the problem was a hardware problem. The laptop would run for an hour or two then would suddenly freeze - it just stopped, no word of a kernel panic or errors of any kind, the screen would just freeze on the last image available and the machine would no longer respond to the outside world. After dying, the laptop would start only about 25% of the time. A tech told me it was likely heat related, or a bad contact with the VGA card - and he wanted $100/hour bench to try and diagnose it. Without an Apple Care plan on that beast, I decided it would be a safer bet to replace the laptop - that was around finals week in December. 
<p/>
Today, for the hell of it, I installed Yellow Dog Linux on the laptop and it seems to be running fine. I have three theories. (1) It was simply a bug with the older power books and 10.3.8. (2) It was a hardware virus (or firmware virus) - yes they do exist. (3) Apple needed a sales boost, so they purposely stopped supporting the older TiBooks :(
<p/>
In any case, I'm as happy as a lark to have my old friend back. It will become my main linux development machine. In my home lab, I now have an XP desktop machine, a BSD desktop machine, a Mac OS X laptop, and a linux laptop. 
<p/>
<font color="red">Update: I spoke too soon. The old gal took a dive early this evening, though that was after I upgraded to YDL 4.0, it ran for more than a day under YDL 3.x without any issues. I'm going to rollback to YDL 3 and see if it will run stable again. Its possible that whatever buggy code that got put into Darwin might have been ported into YDL also :( If I see problems with YDL 3, then I feel certain that it is some kind of hardware issue. </font>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-21</date>
<title>A Great Action Flick</title>
<text>
If you're into Action Adventure films, I highly recommend <a href="http://www.saharamovie.com/">Sahara</a>. It has a good plot (relatively speaking) with beautiful cinematography.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-25</date>
<title>Google Summer of Code</title>
<text>
Finally, after much anticipation, Google sent out emails to the accepted/rejected proposals. I'm disappointed to say that mine was rejected. Oh, well. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-27</date>
<title>Printing to a Bonjour Printer from XP</title>
<text>
<a href="http://apple.com">Apple </a> made this one exceptionally easy for us. Download and install the <a href="http://a1408.g.akamai.net/7/1408/9955/20050505/akamai.info.apple.com/Bonjour/061-1768.20050505.BJWdw/BonjourSetup.exe">Bonjour for Windows </a> package, there is an option to create an icon on your desktop. Run the Bonjour printer icon. Voila, done. It just works. 
<p/>
For those out there who don't follow Apple's every move like a love sick puppy - Bonjour is the new name for Apple's Rendezvous, which is Apple's implementation of <a href="http://www.zeroconf.org/">ZeroConf networking </a>. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-28</date>
<title>iTunes 4.9 Brings Podcasting to the masses</title>
<text>
iTunes 4.9 in conjunction with the iTMS allows a iTunes user to subscribe to various podcasts. Very nice guys. Podcasting was a hot topic - now it is likely explode. Take your favorite talk radio on the road with your iPod. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-29</date>
<title>Playing Mechanic</title>
<text>
At ten in the morning, Maryna calls me, "Austin my car died, can you come give me a jump?" 
<p/>
"Sure," I say, fortunately we both happened to be on OSU-Tulsa's campus at the time. Then she says, "Oh, the radio is working..."
<p/>
"Well, then it isn't the battery. I'll come look at it." I drove over to where her car was. After looking at it a bit, I guessed it was the starter. "I think it is the starter," I say, "we'll have to fix it tonight. Take my car for now." We came back after we had finished working for the day. I popped the hood and tried jumping the car just to rule out the battery. Then I went about the busy business of finding the starter. I didn't have a clue what I was looking for. I gave Dad a call, he was a motorcycle mechanic once upon a time and he knows a lot about cars too.
<p/>
"Hey, Dad, the starter went out on Maryna's car.... what does a starter look like?" I proceeded to explain the symptoms and Dad concurred that it was most likely the starter. Then he explained what the starter looks like and roughly where it would be at on the car. I still couldn't find it. There was nothing matching the description around where it should be at. 
<p/>
"Well, ok, I can't find the starter," I say to Maryna, "let's see if we can get a replacement from the parts store, then I might have a clue what I'm looking for." She laughed. We went to the first parts store, they wanted $193 and didn't have one in stock. I was determined to get this fixed without delay. We drove up the street and Maryna spotted an Autozone that I didn't know was there. We went in, the guy at the desk fixed us up with a new starter. It was $123 with $40 core, and they had it in the store.  I pulled it out of the box. Ok, so now I have idea what I'm looking for. Maryna and I went back to the car, and I started by jacking the car up and taking her left front tire off to unhook the battery cables. Once that was done, I started crawling around under the hood. I still couldn't find the start - I am no mechanic, that's for sure. After another call to Dad with me describing where the oil pan and transmission where at he managed to describe where the starter would be in relation to these things. I crawled further under the car and eventually looked up and saw the starter. "Wow," I said into the cell phone, "that is going to be a lot tougher than I thought it would be." It turned out to be under the air breather and snorkel. After taking those off, the starter was mostly accessible from the top side. The only exception was loosening the bottom bolt - which I did from underneath. 
<p/>
After taking the starter lead and the positive connectors off, I removed the bottom bolt on the old starter. It got stuck on the last couple of threads. "Damn," I exhale. 
<p/>
"What is it?" Maryna asks. She had been watching up to this point.
<p/>
"The bolt is stuck on the last thread," I answer. 
<p/>
"Let me see if I can reach it," she reached down into the car from the top and started working on the nut. With her smaller hands she was able to make the last couple of turns slowly - but she got it out. 
<p/>
Then I started trying to shake the starter loose - but it wouldn't budge at all. Finally, Maryna spotted the top bolt. I went to work with the ratchet. We finally extracted the 4 inch bolt, a quarter rotation at a time, over the course of twenty minutes. 
<p/>
One person can take a starter off a car. Replacing a starter is a two person job. I held the starter in place while Maryna started the bolts - the first one missed, we had to take the bolt out and start again. We switched places, Maryna held the starter in place while I started the bolt... voila. I worked it in until the bolt was finger tight. Maryna got the bottom bolt started. Once it was in far enough to hit it with the ratchet I took over. I tightened both bolts, reconnected the leads, reconnected the battery and un-jacked the car. Maryna turned it over and it started the first time. 
<p/>No American women I know would help fix a car. It is good to have a wife who will go to the mat with you when there is no money for a mechanic. When we finished, we were both covered in grease up to our elbows, laughing and cutting up.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-06-30</date>
<title>SPRAC++ Agent Platform</title>
<text>
I have a small side project going at the moment that fits nicely into the software agent paradigm, but which HAD to be done in C++ due to the eventually inclusion of a windows DLL. I've never found a decent agent platform for C/C++ though I'm sure they're out there. In any case, it was a good exercise to work through a simple implementation. A project page with an alpha release are up <a href='/projects/libsprac/'>here</a>, with a brief blurb <a href='/projects/'>here</a>. The accompanying network communications package is still under development. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-07-02</date>
<title>New tires</title>
<text>
I'm at Walmart for new tires. There's a two hour wait, but one new tire cost $37. It is hard to beat that. 
<p/>
The only bad thing about the prices here is that it takes them 3 times as long to do anything. It has been an hour and twenty minutes. :(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-07-03</date>
<title>Re-inspired... </title>
<text>
Being in the a computer lab with 56 PC's sitting idle for most of the day has renewed my zeal for my thesis project. After working so long and hard on the code that runs the system, I had started to believe that the work wasn't entirely worth it. But after seeing a lab full of machines sitting idle again, I know that what I'm doing may help put these machines to a better use. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-07-08</date>
<title>Oldest first could be better</title>
<text>
There seems to be a <i>de facto</i> standard among search engines (of all natures) to give preference to newer material. It occurs to me that this is more of a hinderance than a help when conducting research. It seems that finding the oldest material first would be the most beneficial approach. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-07-10</date>
<title>Want a good laugh?</title>
<text>
If you are a Unix developer and you want a good laugh, read through Microsoft's documentation for <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/createdirectory.asp"> createDirectory() </a>. 
<p/>Specifically, assume that you DON'T want to simply inherit the security settings from the parent directory, so follow the link for the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/secauthz/security/security_attributes.asp"> SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES </a> structure. 
<p/>When you get there you'll note the structure describing the security settings holds a pointer to another <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/secauthz/security/security_descriptor.asp"> structure </a>  describing the file's owner, the group, an discretionary ACL, a system ACL, and some qualifiers. You finally get here, and you're thinking, okay, now I can create a directory. Then you notice you can't set the SECURITY_DESCRIPTOR attributes by hand, you have to access them through a family of functions: GetSecurityDescriptor*. So you have another 14 web pages to read through (at least) before you can create a directory with the permissions scheme you want.  
<p/>
This approach (with the ACL and all) seems powerful to me, but at the same time I find it laughable because Unix provides reasonable file security with a super simple interface. Simple is good. Windows file permissions are far from simple. It is no wonder so many windows applications screw up the file permissions. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2005-07-15</date>
<title>Macosxhints to the rescue</title>
<text>
I am one of the people who does not like Safari displaying PDF files. I want to down load them and read them in preview, thank you very much. 
<p/>
The tip from <a href="macosxhints.com">macosxhints</a> was apparently slightly incorrect and subsequently removed, but it was close enough to figure the rest out. 
<p/>
So here is how you disable PDF support in Safari:
<blockquote>
<bl>
<li>Close Safari</li>
<li>Open a terminal (command line)</li>
<li>type: "defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport YES"</li>
<li>Open Safari</li>
</bl>
</blockquote>
Back to the good ol' days.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-07-16</date>
<title>An early morning</title>
<text>
After 4 hours of sleep, I am up again to go work in the lab. I'm working a double shift today to make up the hours I missed because of July 4th. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-07-21</date>
<title>A new OS exploit</title>
<text>
There seems to be a new OS X exploit out there. Somehow, someone is causing an NFS volume called Library to be mounted: (/Network/Library). This can only be bad news. When I try clicking on the volume for information, I get nothing. They changed the default view from icon to column. It could be that the exploit is sharing my Library folder, and what I'm seeing is the artifact from that. :( 
<p/>
I've  noticed this issue has happened a couple of times the last few days. I wish Apple would stop bragging about how secure their OS is. 
<p/>
<strike>Hmmmm.... the system says that the kernel was modified today. Not good.</strike> 
<blockquote>
234881026 811209 lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 0 9 "Jul 21 23:31:12 2005" "Jul 21 23:31:12 2005" "Jul 21 23:31:12 2005" 4096 8 0 mach
</blockquote>
<strike>Looks like it is time for a fresh rebuild. :(</strike>
<p/>
<font color="darkgreen">Over reacted. It was late. The mach.sym file is not the kernel, it is a symbol file which gets recreated periodically. See <a href="http://lists.apple.com/archives/Darwin-kernel/2002/Jun/msg00027.html">here </a> for details. I stand by everything else.</font>
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2005-07-23</date>
<title>Sorry Saif</title>
<text>
Ops... fat-fingered Saif's last name on my <a href="/links/links.html">links page </a>.... which he so graciously pointed out on his <a href="http://www.onedamnpixel.com/catchall/links.php">links page </a>:
<blockquote>
Old Sears co-worker - who at least at first - couldn't spell my last name it seems... K H A N! lol
</blockquote>
He he he... I found Saif last time using GeoURL.org, which has been moved now to <a href="http://geourl.info/">GeoURL.info</a>. Seems like it was down forever and a day - I'm glad to see it is back. 
<hr/>
<h4>I *heart* getaddrinfo()</h4>
While at first glance using getaddrinfo() feels strange, especially if you've used gethostbyname() for awhile. After messing with getaddrinfo() for awhile it grows on you. Transparently support IPv4, IPv6, or whatever other network connection your vendor's getaddrinfo() implementation supports. It is a beautiful thing. Craig Metz is a sexy beast, so is the POSIX working group that worked with him on this. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-07-25</date>
<title>VC++ 6.x doesn't support the addrinfo structure</title>
<text>
The version of Visual C++ that I have doesn't support the addrinfo structure :( I'm upgrading the Platform SDK, I wonder if this will help. I know they have support for addrinfo, because it is on MSDN. :( I just hope I can make the compiler I have work....
<p/>
Some people might be wondering why a unix programmer would be programming on Win32 so much lately. Most of the code that I write is POSIX compliant and done in C++, from that perspective it doesn't matter if I compile on Windows or on Unix. There are always small issues... but nothing that I can't overcome. Bottom line: I'm a programmer. I'll code anything, in any language, for any platform. 
<p/>
Anyway, I have a little side job going, and it is Windows centric. It has been a good opportunity to shake the dust of my Windows programming experience.
<p/>
<font color='green'>Update: Updating the platform SDK doesn't help. Fortunately, MSDN has a VC++ 8 Beta release out. </font>
<p/>
<font color='green'>Update: It seems updating the Platform SDK was the right thing to do, but the include directories have to be modified to use the new SDK files :( Still trying to figure that out. </font>
<p/>
<font color='green'>Update: I worked out the include paths, environment variables, etc, now I get an error from the Wspiapi.h complaining about a zero sized array. :( </font>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-04</date>
<title>Motivation</title>
<text>
It has been incredibly hot in Tulsa lately. The heat is draining. There are few escapes available. 
<p/>
It's tough to get motivated when I wake up drenched and tired in the morning. I end up staring at my computer screen - trying not to doze off. It's pathetic. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-06</date>
<title>Back Pain</title>
<text>
I was  up early this morning with a certain amount of zeal for working - a rare thing these last few days. I was sitting on the couch polishing off some coffee. Maryna sat down next to me, then she flopped her head onto my shoulder. *pop* she hit just so and my back went out from the sideways pressure. 
<p/>
It's difficult to concentrate on anything when it hurts to sit, to breath, to move, to walk. If it isn't one thing its another. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-14</date>
<title>Rain</title>
<text>
It rained all night and most of the morning, and the temperature dropped to something humane for the first time all summer. I've taken a few days to relax, doing only the simplest mental work, and today I am ready to dig back in for the long haul. 
<p/>
I spent the morning browsing around at cryptographic libraries that I can use as substitutes for GNU PG &amp; libgpgme. The choice of libgpgme developers to perform all the functions in their own processes (for the sake of 'security') leads to difficulty when trying to embed the library wholesale into an application. Static compilation - necessary for my middleware project - is not possible because libgpgme loads libgpg-error dynamically. At first glance libgpgme is very nice. The benefit of managing the private/public key pairs using GPG is very seductive. Then you start hitting the hick-ups and realize you're going to need something else. Enter <a href="http://www.dmoz.org">DMOZ</a>.
<p/>
All followers of search engines and search technologies have likely heard of DMOZ, but I wonder how many have used it. Typically, I don't run through their directory very often myself, but today was different. It could have spent 3 days using Google and never found more than two or three cryptographic libraries - and the majority of them would have been commercial. Browsing to the appropriate section in DMOZ lead to a dozen or more libraries, with at least a half dozen written for C/C++. I found a few candidates to look closely at, then narrowed it to down to a few prospects, now I'm looking at which one I should use. 
<h5>Crypto++</h5>
I'm working with the crypto++ library right now and having issues. I can't say much for the C++ coding style. Files are named one thing and declare classes of different names :( I can say this: crypto punks are *apparently* not good programmers. Yeah, this package is NOT GCC 4 friendly.... too bad, I like the interface a lot. 
<h5>Catacomb</h5>
Catacomb-2.0.0 has an autoconf script which doesn't recognize Mac OS X. :( Also there is zero documentation - not even an example folder or test set. :( The package also appears to be relatively young.... onto the next package...
<h5>Beecrypt</h5>
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/beecrypt/">BeeCrypt</a> compiles. The autoconf script allows the package to optimize itself for the CPU architecture. The package has Java &amp; Python support in addition to C/C++. Plus the code is tight at ~276K and the library builds fast - 20x to 30x faster than GPG/libgpgme/libgpg-error do. 
<p/>
The C++ wrapper emulates Java's public key libraries, I guess that isn't a bad way to do things, but there seem to be few examples of how to use the package. I can use the Sun Documentation to get the basic gist of it, but the details vary. The only draw back to this package seems to be documentation and example code. No info or man pages provided, doxygen documentation is the only documentation provided. 
<p/>
The C++ wrapper is dependent on IBM's ICU libraries for unicode support. I'm not sure how I feel about this. ICU is big and takes a long time to compile. Frankly, I'm not entirely convinced it should be required. 
<p/>
<font color="green">Update: Well, not only is ICU required but it is linked dynamically.... and that is a deal breaker. The whole purpose of moving away from GPG + libgpgme + libgpg-error was to find a static crypto library. I'm looking into Nettle now. I have reservations about it because I don't think the Win32 support is good enough. I may just use beecrypt's C library without the C++ wrapper :( or I could put in the time to wright my own wrapper with no ICU or dynamic dependencies. </font>

<h5>Nettle</h5>
<a href="http://www.lysator.liu.se/~nisse/nettle/">Nettle</a> is used by LSH for its cryptographic needs. I think I'm going to go with BeeCrypt, but this might be a fall back. BeeCrypt is roughly 10 years old and has good compiler/platform support. Nettle is about 5 years old. 

<h5>On another note...</h5>
<a href="http://blogs.linux.ie/caolan/2005/03/24/gcc-4-pickiness-on-enums/">Caolan McNamara</a> out of Ireland points out the problem with anonymous enums under GCC 4, so I'm guessing the solution is to name the enums and refer to the enumerated types by their names.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-17</date>
<title>Banksy</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.banksy.co.uk/">'nough said.</a>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-19</date>
<title>A good morning</title>
<text>
I went to bed early last night and woke-up fresh this morning. I started the day with 2 hours of research. Research that I can't help but to think could have been done faster using the right application.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-21</date>
<title>A very good concept</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/gizmodo-japan-auto-door-117256.php">A new Japanese sliding door concept</a>. I bet the code behind this is going to be much more difficult than they expect - the shape changes as people walk. The lady with the bag, would be swinging the bag, etc, etc. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-22</date>
<title>A Suggested University Curriculum for C++</title>
<text>
Most Universities offer at least two classes in C++, an introductory class and an advanced class. I propose two additional classes be added to this sequence. 
<p/>
The first additional class, which may already be available at some larger universities, would cover the STL. Containers, algorithms, etc. Effective use of the STL makes any decent C++ programmer at least as good as the average perl-slinger in terms of productivity. 
<p/>
The second class would cover the <a href="http://www.boost.org/libs/">Boost libraries</a>. I think that students would greatly benefit from knowing the ends and outs of these libraries. Besides being considered for future standardization into the STL, these libraries are an awesome resource for productivity boosting. All of the libraries attempt to be compiler and platform agnostic, concessions are made where necessary.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-23</date>
<title>Google Talk</title>
<text>
This has been covered on <a href="www.slashdot.org">Slashdot</a> and elsewhere. 
<p/>
What you need:
<bl>
	<li>A Gmail account</li> 
	<li>A Jabber compatible chat client (like iChat)</li>
</bl>
Point your jabber client to the server talk.google.com. Cheers!!
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-24</date>
<title>Google + Jabber = Good</title>
<text>
<a href="23.html">Yesterday </a>, like everybody else and their dogs, noted that Google rolled out a chat service built on top of the Jabber protocol. Today, I would like to throw in my two cents into why I think this is a good thing.
<p/>
I've long thought that the Jabber protocol was much more flexible and generally better thought out than either AOL's or Yahoo's or MSN's.... and I've longed for these services to interoperate. Yesterday was a baby step toward interoperation. Google is mainstream. Google adopting the Jabber protocol should help to push the Jabber protocol into the main stream. In my wildest fantastical dreams, I could see Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL eventually adopting the Jabber protocol as well. The next step would be the agreement on a standard file transfer protocol, followed by the migration to Apple's video and audio chat protocols. Yeah I think Apple's video and audio are that much better than anything else out there - though I haven't tried the <a href="http://www.gizmoproject.com/">Gizmo project</a> yet, they are certainly better than <a href="http://www.skype.com">Skype</a>. Now, the only thing Apple needs to do to speedup this revolution is to release iChat for Windows and Linux... oh yeah, and some better Jabber support would be a plus too. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-25</date>
<title>Small Portable Compression Library in C</title>
<text>
Looking for a small portable compression library done in c/c++. Check out <a href="http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/lzo/">mini-lzo </a>. Props to Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer for this contribution. The compression isn't as good as zlib, but it is small, lightweight and fast. 
<p/>
<h5>I'll be a monkey's uncle</h5>
I typed this entry up after midnight on the 24th. Today, I'm browsing the new mags at my local Border's and I picked up a copy of the latest Linux Journal. Lo and behold, it contains an article, "Compression Tools Compared", discussing the various compression packages out there - both in terms of speed and size reduction. The author Kingsley G. Morse Jr. confirms that lzop is the fastest - both for compression and decompression. The article is linux centric, so he doesn't cover portability when discussing library support. 
<p/>
The main reason I'm considering lzop (besides its speed and lightweight memory footprint) is its portability. It (apparently) compiles on many platforms with various compiler support. Zlib compiles on windows, but apparently only under cygwin.... which is not an option. The author did point out a couple of other libraries capable of gzipping. They include zlib, zlibc, zlib1g, and zziplib. I haven't checked all of these out - but I will. Finally, there is the lzma library for doing 7zip compression. I checked this out last night, I couldn't tell if it had cross-platform support or not. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-08-27</date>
<title>Apple Security Update 2005007 v1.1 breaks MacGimp</title>
<text>
Haven't tried using the Gimp lately - tried today, only to find that it dies. It worked before applying security update <a href="http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2005007v11macosx1042client.html">2005007 v1.1 </a>.
<p/><font>Update: I downloaded and compiled the pure X11 version, it works fine. Something about the Aqua-tized version got broken.</font>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-04</date>
<title>Gas Rationing</title>
<text>
I bought gas last night and the pump shut itself off after giving me $25 of gas or half a tank. Looks like QuickTrip is rationing their gas sales. I paid $3.09/gallon, down from much much higher. The gas price makes living in on the plains that much more difficult. As you all know there are hardly any public transit systems in the plains' cities. I've been riding my bicycle every day that I don't have to drive to work. As Maryna is fond of saying, we'll be skinny and well read.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-05</date>
<title>A nice little X window manager.</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.xfce.org">XFCE </a>. If I ever have to spend a lot of time on Linux again... this could be worth checking out. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-09</date>
<title>The first wrap-around...</title>
<text>
I'm rolling through my first wrap-around of the semester. Stuff is just not getting done fast enough. My schedule is fragmented just a bit too much - and when its not I have trouble concentrating. Sooo.... when I have the will to do something, it is best not to stop until it is finished; ten, twelve, twenty hours, or whatever it takes. 
<p/> 
I showered up early, stopped by Cafe Cubana for a warm Chai with a shot of expresso, and now I'm in the lab. The soothing sounds of Vivaldi's violin concertos remind me that it will all be okay. Somehow they are more beautiful at this moment than they have been for a very long time.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-13</date>
<title>inet_ntop() implementation for Windows</title>
<text>
If you're reading this, you've probably already noticed that Windows doesn't have an inet_ntop() implementation. So the way to do this is to use getnameinfo() instead. The synopsis is listed below. You'll want to use pass ( NI_NUMERICSERV | NI_NUMERICHOST ) as the flag argument. 
<blockquote>
getnameinfo(const struct sockaddr *sa, socklen_t salen, char *host, size_t hostlen, char *serv, size_t servlen, int flags);
</blockquote>
By the way, if your not already, you should replace your gethostbyname() and getservbyname() calls with getaddrinfo(). getaddrinfo() is portable and protocol agnostic. 
<p/>
Some other good tips can be found <a href="http://www.kame.net/newsletter/19980604/">here. </a>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-14</date>
<title>Free Coffee</title>
<text>
I'm at Border's today. I had a free coffee on my frequent drink card. I'm working on laying out my proposed thesis experiments. My proposal is nearly ready to present. It is about time for things to really start thumping. I'll probably spend most of October in the lab, day and night, night and day. Most of November will be spent hunched over the keyboard writing and assimilating. 
<p/>
I was on my bike today - my usual mode of transportation since the gas price spike. On the way to the computer lab, I rode up Utica Avenue. At some point the sidewalk ends. When the sidewalk ended, I rode on the grass along the street. Then the margin of grass I was riding on narrowed into nothing. I checked the traffic over my left shoulder, it was clear so I jumped the foot and a half curb down into the street. Pop! My back tire blew out. I stopped to survey the damage. It looked like I knocked all the air out of it. After digging through my bag, I realized that I had left my pump at home. Aghh! I had to walk the mile and a half I had left, then walk all 5 miles home once I was done. I got my exercise, that's for sure.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-15</date>
<title>Fall is coming</title>
<text>
I can taste Fall in the cool breeze today. I love a good Fall. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-16</date>
<title>Deja Vu</title>
<text>
I had a <i>deja vu</i> today. I was walking up the hallway saying a phrase that I've seen myself say before. I flashed back to a dream I had at some point, I realized that I'd seen most of highlights of today previously. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-18</date>
<title>BitRock Installer Builder</title>
<text>
I ran <a href="http://www.bitrock.com/">BitRock </a> through the paces yesterday. Wow, this is amazing software. <strike>Ultimately, I don't know if it will be robust enough to handle installing my middleware project, but for most other software it is simply amazing.</strike> The more I use BitRock the more I like it. Things they should add:
<blockquote>
<bl>
	<li><strike>A java detection module which doesn't cause the installer to bomb when Java isn't installed.</strike></li>
	<li>Detection modules for other languages, especially: Python, Ruby, Perl, PHP, <strike>tcl</strike>, etc.</li>
	<li>Detection modules for C/C++ compilers, Pascal compilers, Fortran compilers, etc.</li>
</bl>
</blockquote>
Features which are already nice:
<blockquote>
<bl>
	<li>Ease of Use. It took all of two minutes to make a simple installer. They have a very intuitive interface. </li>
	<li>Support for custom install screens which can return strings, paths, etc.</li>
	<li>Support for custom splash screens and logos.</li>
	<li>Support for custom error messages.</li>
	<li>Support for Java and Tcl detection.</li>
	<li>Support for silent or unattended installations using the --mode unattended command line option. </li>
	<li>All installers can be run from either the command line or a GUI</li>
	<li>You can build installers for many platforms in one place, the installers can have platform specific pieces along with pieces common to all installers</li>
</bl>
</blockquote>
Free licenses are available for open source projects, everyone else is pay to play. 
<p/>
<font color="green">Update:  Daniel Lopez from BitRock saw my post through <a href="http://feedster.com">feedster.com </a> and emailed me with some pointers. He says you can prevent the Java detection module from exiting the installer by adding the &lt;abortOnError&gt;0&lt;/abortOnError&gt; tag inside the &lt;autodetectJava&gt; action!! Also, he says they already support Tcl detection but it isn't currently documented AND they are willing to write similar modules for python, perl, etc. if there is sufficient demand. I also added a few more bullets to the list of things they do well. Thanks Daniel!!
</font> 
<h5>Stoned out on caffeine</h5>
I woke early this morning and I think I over did the coffee a little today. I'm feeling a bit strung out this afternoon. On the plus side, I found two bugs in my thesis project code that I spent several hours looking for yesterday (before giving up and focusing on another part of the code). Woot!
<h5>Apple doesn't really care about security... </h5>
Hey Apple, where are the FreeBSD security scripts? Like "450.status-security" really probably should have let those in don't you think? If they didn't work, maybe you could have modified them to work with the Mac. 
<p/>
I think Cheshire is a genius for <a href="http://files.dns-sd.org/draft-cheshire-dnsext-dns-sd.txt">DNS Service Discovery</a> and a fool for <a href="http://files.dns-sd.org/draft-cheshire-nat-pmp.txt">NAT-PMP</a>. NAT-PMP is a protocol for allowing a host on a NAT'd network to learn the public IP address of the router and to make a NAT port map entry for itself, i.e. it is a protocol that wipes away all the security that you gain from NAT'ing your LAN since any machine has the ability to make itself available to incoming traffic. If many routers start supporting this (I have no idea what the picture looks like at the moment), I have a feeling that it will be a protocol very popular with trojan horses and viruses. Large corporations without host-based firewalls are really going to feel the pinch on this one. 
<p/>
I think it is time for all major OS vendors to start shipping their OS with IDS pre-installed. And I think we are going to need something a might bit stronger than a simple file-integrity checking (<a href="http://www.tripwire.org/">tripwire</a> or <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/aide">AIDE</a>). Something like <a href="http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/">The Little Snitch</a> for all OSes would be nice. <a href="http://www.chkrootkit.org/">Chkrootkit</a> would be a nice addition. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-21</date>
<title>Build-times are everything...</title>
<text>
I have a reasonably big project, and while I don't want to wait 20 minutes for a full build, I've always thought the build time somewhat less important than the runtime, or memory efficiency, etc.
<p/>
Anyway, some build-time zealot did some testing and posted the <a href="http://www.gamesfromwithin.com/articles/0509/000100.html"> results</a>. Interesting.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-09-21</date>
<title>Memory Leaks</title>
<text>
I have a major memory leak in my project. I suspect it is in zlib. I don't have a lot of practice with finding/fixing memory leaks... so things are going rough lately. Generally, my code doesn't suffer from memory leaks because I am VERY careful to ensure that I free all the memory I allocate. I wish everyone took the time to do things right.
<p/>
If your coding in C++, <a href="http://www.flipcode.com/articles/article_memoryleaks-pf.shtml">here </a> is an article explaining a great way to self regulate your code for memory leaks using new/delete operators.
<p/>
On OS X, you can link your code to libMallocDebug and then track leaks using the MallocDebug.App. So far it hasn't worked very well for me. I'm not launching it from XCode 2.1, but I don't think that should matter.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-10-11</date>
<title>Gathering performance data on Windows without a lot of fuss</title>
<text>
So you need performance data on windows and you need it quickly. A pragmatic solution is daunting, you can read some registry keys and parse through the block of data it provides, there is the Performance Data Helper API, the WinSNMP library, or there is a COM interface through WPI. <strike>If only the task monitor application could cut a log file....</strike> <font color="green">Update: for what it is worth, perfmon can cut log files, it just isn't immediately obvious how to accomplish this.</font>
<h5>Typeperf to the rescue</h5>
There is a way to get performance statistics without having to code your own monitor (and without relying on SNMP - it seems silly to use SNMP to gather performance statistics on a local machine).  Typeperf is in the System32 directory. It is a wrapper for the PDH API. You need only locate the appropriate PDH description for the counter you want to monitor. Typeperf can do remote monitoring also. 
<p/>
For a complete list of the performance monitoring objects (PerfObjects) run:
<blockquote>
 typeperf -q
</blockquote>
Warning: the list will be very long. If you want to see only the counters related to a specific PerfObject you can run:
<blockquote>
typeperf -q &lt;object name&gt;
</blockquote>
Valid objects to query include:
<bl>
	<li>Processor</li>
	<li>System</li>
	<li>PhysicalDisk</li>
	<li>LogicalDisk</li>
	<li>Server</li>
	<li>Memory</li>
	<li>Cache</li>
	<li>Objects</li>
	<li>Paging File</li>
	<li>Thread</li>
	<li>Job Object</li>
	<li>Job Object Details</li>
	<li>Terminal Services Session</li>
	<li>ICMP</li>
	<li>TCP</li>
	<li>UDP</li>
	<li>IP</li>
	<li>Network Interface</li>
	<li>NBT Connection</li>
	<li>Telephony</li>
	<li>Print Queue</li>
	<li>RSVP Interfaces</li>
	<li>RSVP Service</li>
	<li>RAS Total</li>
	<li>RAS Port</li>
	<li>PSched Flow</li>
	<li>PSched Pipe</li>
	<li>.NET CLR Data</li>
	<li>ASP.NET</li>
	<li>Distributed Transaction Coordinator</li>
	<li>Server Work Queues</li>
	<li>Redirector</li>
	<li>Browser</li>  
	<li>WMI Objects</li>
</bl>
<p/>
Most of the objects listed above provide multiple counters. Some of the objects will have multiple instances - allowing you can query the counters for individual instances. Basically, you can monitor every aspect of a Windows XP system from the command line, or from the command line of a remote computer. This is power. No *NIX system I've seen has the ability to do this (correct me if I'm wrong). 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-10-12</date>
<title>Free Intel C++ Compiler for Linux</title>
<text>
Free compiler for Non-Commercial Use, find the link to "Free Non-Commercial Download" on the right hand side of <a href="http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/compilers/clin/index.htm">this page </a>. Supposedly has much better floating point optimization for ix86 platforms than GCC. Registration required.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-10-16</date>
<title>CppSQLite3Statement + GCC 4.0.0 + /O2 </title>
<text>
I woke up about 2am this morning with a hankering to fix a memory leak... strange.
<p/>
Sqlite 3.2.7 had been leaking memory like a sieve. I guessed (correctly) that there was no problem with the library, and that the problem was with the C++ wrapper that I am using: CppSQLite3. Actually, the problem wasn't directly caused by any flaw in CppSQLite3. The sqlite_finalize function is called from the deconstructor of the CppSQLite3Statement object. However, when compiled with GCC 4.0.0. (with the /O2 optimization option) this function had no effect causing sqlite3 to leak memory. I made a one line addition to my code base, explicitly calling CppSQLite3Statement::finalize(), which in turn calls sqlite_finalize(), and the leak went away. 
<p/>
The end result for me is a major major improvement in my program's stability. There is still a bit of a leak somewhere - I would guess in zlib, but I haven't tracked it down all the way yet. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-10-26</date>
<title>Wrist pains</title>
<text>
Starting on Sunday or Monday, my wrist began aching severely. Every time I grabbed the mouse, my ring finger and pinky went into spasms. It hurt to type, the base of my thumb was tender, and the top of my hand hurt along each bone. I've been typing a lot lately so was worried it could be the on start of carpal-tunnel syndrome. I went to see my chiropractor, Dr. Cole, today. He says it is most likely not carpal-tunnel, but an entrapped radial nerve. He did some very painful adjustments and said to come back for more ultrasound treatments. It is feeling slightly better today - I can type at least, though the muscles in my right hand (especially my pinky finger) are weak. My body never lets me down. It always fails under stress. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-10-27</date>
<title>Fink versus Darwin Ports</title>
<text>
I've found the Darwin Ports interface far more intuitive than Fink's dselect interface or finks apt-get interface. The 'port' command is very similar to apt-get, but easier because you don't need to specify the exact package name. 
<p/>
My two cents.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-10-31</date>
<title>ROCKS Cluster Software</title>
<text>
Tried working on the Linux cluster today. ROCKS is a super good environment for working with MPI. Every command you type as a user is automatically run on all available nodes. File changes are synched instantly. I highly recommend ROCKS for MPI users.
<p/>
Unfortunately, this is not the ideal testing environment for my system as the client machines need a different configuration than the cluster manager - and I don't want work to be created on the clients in parallel. :( Doing some thinking at the moment about how to get around this. I could use a portion of the non-replicated file system... still it is mighty inconvenient. 
<p/>
Oh yeah, trying to do transactions in a SQLite DB on the NFS shared FS produces a segmentation fault :( I knew the locking was broken on directory structures that are shared, but I didn't think it would go down like that. The best case scenario says that I should get a DB is locked error or something like this.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-11-02</date>
<title>Mac OS X 10.4.3 Update breaks some networking code</title>
<text>
My project worked fine before the upgrade, now I'm getting a Trace/BPT trap error. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-11-05</date>
<title>Coalesce</title>
<text>
I discovered the beauty of SQL's coalesce function today. Very handy. It is amazing to me how much deeper I've gotten into SQL since using an embedded SQL DB for the back-end of my thesis project. A week or two ago, I used a join for the first time - also very handy. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-11-08</date>
<title>Rootkit Hunter</title>
<text>
Running UNIX/LINUX/OSX ? Paranoid? Put your mind at ease, check out <a href="http://www.rootkit.nl">Rootkit Hunter. </a> Checks files and running processes for common rookit signatures. 
<p/>
What it found on my system was a hidden file .DS_Store in the /usr directory. What is interesting, is that I've never browsed to /usr with Finder so no .DS_Store should have been present. So this was interesting. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-11-14</date>
<title>Dvorak Update</title>
<text>
Tested myself typing text on Dvorak for the first time in <a href="../06/11.html">awhile. </a> I'm typing solid with a corrected rate around 70 w.p.m (raw rate around 81) with bursts up to 90 w.p.m. - pain free. The last time I broke 90 w.p.m. was as a Freshman in high school, when my wrists were young and fresh and I was excited to learn typing. The fastest I ever typed was 97 w.p.m. I sustained the rate over one page of text. But really, when do we ever need to type this fast? Honestly, anything over 50 w.p.m. is productive. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-11-15</date>
<title>The Dude Abides</title>
<text>
I took a typing and proofreading test today :( Trying to move from one menial job to another while I look for something more substantial - the student loans went into repayment. The typing went very well, even better than my dry run <a href="14.html">yesterday. </a> I came in with 77 w.p.m. on my second attempt. My first attempt was better probably just over 80 w.p.m., but I finished the text they gave me before the timer went off. The proctor didn't tell me I should repeat the same text should I run out of material to type. Oh, well.
<p/>
Proofreading, aghh... well I don't think that went as well. I do okay with it, but I'm not really trained for it. Also, when I know it's a test I second guess myself on the questionable stuff. I mean, there are always the things that are clearly wrong, then there are the border line cases, and finally edits dedicated purely to style. Well, there were only two changes I made that I would have liked to check on. 
<h5>...it went well enough</h5>
I have an interview tonight.
<h5>Sony's Rootkit Goodness</h5>
Recently, Sony released "copyright protected CD-ROMs" which contain a trojan horse (put there on purpose). They claim they need this to "protect" their copyright protected music. Anyway, the "DRM software" damages computers.
<p/>
Does anybody else think "Class Action Lawsuit" when they see this?
<blockquote>
<img src="http://www.breakingrobots.net/images/planetsony_usa.JPG"/>
</blockquote>
Image via <a href="http://www.doxpara.com">DoxPara Research. </a>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-11-20</date>
<title>Not for me...</title>
<text>
I was offered the <a href="15.html">job, </a> I turned them down - twice. This represents some real growth for me, as this is the first time I've ever turned down a job I applied for. It was worth a few hundred dollars more a month, but after learning more about the position, I felt that it wasn't for me. Still, I have a pressing need for a more substantial income. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-12-03</date>
<title>To feel...</title>
<text>
I want to feel again. To taste the fulness of life. To hear, to see, and to smell it. To breath it in deeply. To live in the moment. 
<p/>
Yesterday, I discovered <a href="http://www.flaminglips.com"><i>The Flaming Lips</i></a>. Wow. They stirred something up inside of me that I haven't felt in a long time. I feel like schooling is beginning to stunt my growth. I feel like I've crawled over the top of the mesa of knowledge and I'm looking out across the barren vista below and  its empty down there. It's lonely, so so lonely. And of what use are the skills that I have now? Do I feel like using them to slave away for someone else? No. Can I work for myself? Not exactly, not yet. What purpose can they serve me? Skills in and of themselves are wastes. 
<p/>
I feel in this moment like one feels after reading a really great piece of poetry; I feel full of life. Colors are sharper, my feelings are deeper. Life is more real in this moment than any in the recent past. I don't know what I'm going to do, or how, or if I'll do well or poorly or average. I just know that things are changing and I'm ready for the change.
<p/>
I don't even know what I'm trying to say here.... I just want to feel again. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-12-13</date>
<title>Coca-cola Blak</title>
<text>
Want a preview??  No not really. On a whim today I dumped what was left of my coke classic into my coffee (with milk). It is an interesting taste. I have to say that I will probably do it again. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2005-12-25</date>
<title></title>
<text>
I started a new job last Monday. I'm doing Data Entry/Helpdesk/Computer Support. Should help pay the bills at least. I'm slated to start jury duty on January 9th, grand jury pool. The letter says that the duty may last between 6 months and a year :( $43 per day. I can't say that I'm thrilled about this, but I don't want to skip out on it like everyone else I know, even though it is a major life interruption. Interruptions can be good things. It should be interesting in any case. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-01-04</date>
<title>A Wish...</title>
<text>
I wish I could read all day today. Barring that, I wish I could program all day today. I have so much that I want to create or to improve. My current foray back into the working world has served to remind me of how much crappy software is out there and that people are willing to use it because it is all they have and better than the alternative - nothing. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-01-15</date>
<title>Good Brain Goo</title>
<text>
Apple iTunes has added a new <i>ambient</i> radio station to the listings: <a href="http://www.dub-beautiful.org/radio/dbr.htm">Dub Beautiful Collective </a>. I like it very much. 
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-01-16</date>
<title>Good Systems Administrators</title>
<text>
Being a good systems administrator is a bit like being  an omnipotent ghost; you're everywhere you need to be doing everything that needs to be done to keep things running, but no one should ever feel your presence. They should only know you exist when there are problems - and there should be as few of those with as limited a duration as possible.  
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-01-17</date>
<title>Real Technologists</title>
<text>
Real technologists work as hard as possible to eliminate their own necessity. It is only hacks, amateurs, and hobbyists that want to be indispensable. My highest goal in any corporate environment is to make the company money by simplifying anything possible to the utmost in order to eliminate the need for human driven processes. In an essence, I go to work everyday with the implicit purpose of eliminating my own job and moving on to the next challenge. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-01-28</date>
<title>Subversion + Trac</title>
<text>
If you like subversion, you should consider setting up EdgeWall's <a href="http://www.edgewall.com/trac/">Trac</a> to track repository changes, bug tickets, and feature requests. It is as easy to setup repository tracking with Trac as it is to create and manage code repositories with Subversion. Although it did take some time to get the correct dependencies installed, I think the few hours of effort will be well worth it. 
<p/>
Trac is helping me to eliminate the sea of colored sticky notes I have on my development desktop! And, the best part is that you can search through your tickets and repository through a web interface.
<hr/>
<h5>Change Trac Logo (using the http server supplied with Trac)</h5>
Oh, and if your trying to change the Trac Logo from the default (common/trac_banner.png) to your project's logo you need to comment out the default and add a line like the following in the project's <b>trac.ini</b>:
<blockquote>
[header_logo]<br/>
#src = common/trac_banner.png<br/>
src = site/file.png
</blockquote>
Then make sure the <b>file.png</b> resides in your project's <b>htdocs</b> directory.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-01-29</date>
<title>The Hardest Bug</title>
<text>
I just spent a solid week looking for a bug in my code. I was poring over and over all the sections of code that changed between the last working version and the current version. I even had a hunch what I should be looking for, but nothing was showing up. Tonight, on a whim I found the problem. It belonged to a section of code that had not changed in 6 or 8 months and which was insignificant and unused until recently. The bug took 1/2 second to correct once spotted. 
<hr/>
Seems like I get stuck about once a year on a bug like this. :(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-02-10</date>
<title>Active Directory + WSUS</title>
<text>
For the last couple of weeks at work, I've been messing around with Active Directory and Group Policies. I've learned a lot, and now my first rollout is approaching rapidly... and I think that everyone could learn a lot from Microsoft's efforts.  
<p/>
Linux especially, could learn a lot from the functionality in Windows Server Update Services. I don't think there is a better way to manage OS updates across a domain than this. 
<p/>
Microsoft's Active Directory and Group Policy are monstrous achievements for Microsoft. Simply Monstrous. They have come a long way from the 2000 version. While I haven't seen Novell's directory structure in action - everything else I've seen seems to be years and years behind. NIS and plain jane LDAP are basically simple user authentication directories as far as I'm concerned - correct me if I'm wrong.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-02-18</date>
<title>Snow</title>
<text>
It was 10 degrees Celsius when I left the house this morning. I left early for work so that I would make it on time. I arrived to find that campus was "closed". The perfect day to bang out thesis work in the lab is ruined. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-02-23</date>
<title>HFS+ Meta Files a pain for tourists...</title>
<text>
I move my thesis project between Mac OS X and Windows a lot... and those HFS+ meta files get really heavy. Here's a little tip on how to lighten your load using DOS command line tools. From the base directory, type:
<blockquote>
del /AH /S *
</blockquote>
Don't be scared of the *, the /AH says only delete files with the hidden attribute on - all the HFS+ meta data files will have the hidden attribute on when transfered to NTFS using a tar-ball or a zip file (tar-ball for sure). 
<p/>
This is easily done on *nixes also:
<blockquote>
find . -name .svn -exec rm {} \;
</blockquote>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-02-24</date>
<title>No mkstemp() for Windows ?</title>
<text>
There is a race condition when using mktemp() to create unique file names, everybody should be aware of this, no big surprise. The nice thing about most *NIXES is that they actually use random strings substituted into the pattern to create the unique name. With a large enough pattern, you probably won't run into the race condition right away. Not so with Windows. 
<p/>
I found a problem in my thesis project where the clients were returning result files, but the files weren't actually making it where they're supposed to be. They were marked as returned in the DB but the file was missing from the FS. I immediately realized that this was probably a name collision problem with temporary file creation. I switched my unix code base to using mkstemp().... and found out tonight during the test compile that Windows doesn't support mkstemp(). 
<p/>
Mkstemp() creates a file for each unique temporary file name and returns its file handle. This avoids the race condition. To make matters worse, Windows generates the 'unique' names sequentially. What happens when a dozen clients show up to upload results? The race condition bites you in the arse and you end up losing result files. The problem is you call mktemp() it returns a unique file name but before your thread gets to create the file, another upload is initiated and the same filename is handed out (because that file doesn't yet exist). When both programs are writing to the same file handle at the same time, you get unpredictable results. In my case, the thread that finishes first copies the file to its 'final' resting place and deletes the temporary one, so the second thread can't complete the copy without errors.
<p/>
One option is to use GetTempFileName() on windows with the CREATE_NEW flag set and then loop until success.... does that sound like a good solution ? You could end up waiting a very long time before you could create a valid file name - probably the socket would timeout before this happened when the server is busy. 
<p/>
A second solution is to break the temporary directory into sub directories... to lessen the chance of a collision happening. This is almost as much work as solution #3.
<p/>
<a name="opt3"/>Solution #3 is to write your own implementation of mkstemp() using good pseudo-random number generator. I've got the framework in place to do this, so this is the approach I'm going to go with. I do this with some resentment, as I really feel this is a service the OS should handle.
<p/>
<a name="OSU" />None of my classes at Oklahoma State University covered specifics at this level of detail (Apparently <a href="http://projects.cerias.purdue.edu/secprog/class2/6.Temp_&amp;_Rand.ppt">Purdue</a> does!). Even though we covered race conditions very thoroughly, I still have to learn real-world instances the hard way. ;(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-02-28</date>
<title>Went with option #3...</title>
<text>
I went with <a href="http://www.breakingrobots.net/blog/2006/02/24.html#opt3">option #3 </a>, it didn't take long at all to write the code to do this using LibBeecrypt. It took somewhat longer to get LibBeecrypt to link on WIN32 platforms, but I got this working on Sunday. It seems to be working great with three or four machines uploading files at the same time, tomorrow I'll find out if this fixed the problem completely or if there is some other problem lurking in there. 
<p/>
A note on <a href="http://www.breakingrobots.net/blog/2006/02/24.html#OSU">this </a> also. As much as I complain about what I did or didn't learn at OSU, I can say they have at least equipped me with a certain utility to learn things for myself. No, I should say that I already had this utility but they have contributed to honing it significantly. Further, I can say that I would rather attend a school that teaches fewer real-world skills but leaves each student with a sharper ability to learn what they need to for themselves - Oklahoma State did give me that.  
<p/>
Today, I'm relaxing. I've been pushing hard for the last 6 weeks and it was time for a break. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-03-09</date>
<title></title>
<text>
This week I worked on getting a Linux box to authenticate against Active Directory. This has gotten a lot better support since the last time I tried. 
<p/>
Monday or Tuesday, I had the ability to log on to the machine with domain user credentials thanks to MIT Kerboros, Winbind, and Samba3. Yesterday, I had Squid proxy setup and got a basic configuration working. Most of yesterday I spent trying to get Squid to authenticate against the domain. I worked on this all day today as well, I cracked the problem about 3:30pm. After I got squid to authenticate domain users, I then tackled the problem of granting access based on domain groups. This actually took a bit of perl hacking on the wbinfo_group.pl script that comes with Squid now. At the end of the day, I was working from a motley set of resources. One that got MIT Kerboros setup correctly and almost got Samba3's config right. One that pointed out the flaws in the Samba3 configuration. Then there was one resource that explained how to setup the authenticator helpers in the Squid configuration - but this was targeted at Red Hat users. Then I found a few useful references in the Squid mail archive about changes that had to be made in wbinfo_group.pl to make it work correctly. When I went to make the changes I noticed that the file I was working from wasn't the same as the one in the example - it had been changed to handle multiple group membership - so I had to hack a small small bit to fit the changes into the newer file. Once I finished that everything worked well.
<p/>
All in all, doing this on SuSE 10 was fairly easy. I didn't have to modify the nsswitch files or mess with PAM, that has all been setup for you. Oh, and the firewall configuration under SuSE 10 is much much better. GUI configuration through YAST... almost as friendly as XP's firewall configuration. Simple is good. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-03-29</date>
<title>Stop Phishing Scams at the source...</title>
<text>
<a href="http://www.castlecops.com">CastleCops.com </a> started a new community driven effort to stop phishing scams. They call it PIRT. For those of you who don't know, read up on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing">phishing </a> on wikipedia.
<p/>
To lend a hand with the community watch, when you know that an email is a phishing attempt, forward it to pirt (at) castlecops (dot) com. It is as easy as that. They will investigate the contents of the email. If it turns out to be a phishing attempt, they will contact the systems administrators for the sites were the attack web page is hosted. They noted the vast majority of attack sites are being hosted on compromised web servers ;(
<p/>
I estimate that about 3% of all my junk email on an average day are phishing scams. Since my account is located on a educational host, I'm guessing this is a little higher than the average - but I don't have any proof. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-04-06</date>
<title>Apple's Architecture Migration</title>
<text>
It seems that <a href="http://www.breakingrobots.net/blog/2005/06/06.html">my analysis</a> of the motives behind Apple's processor migration  announcement last year are looking more and more <a href="http://www.macosxrumors.com/articles/2006/03/23/leopard-to-include-vmware-like-virtualisation-software/#more-624">correct</a>. It seemed obvious to me from the start. If your Apple, you've got to ask yourself "how can we increase our market share?" or more importantly "we have a better product, what is preventing users from switching?" The answers are complex to be sure, but somewhere in the mix is "Windows Dependency". Allowing all windows apps to run natively on OS X with little to no performance hit removes that barrier. Since virtualization can only occur when the hosted OS is written for the same architecture as the host OS, the architecture switch was a given. 
<p/>
You heard it here first - over 9 months ago. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-04-07</date>
<title>Feed migration</title>
<text>
Last night and early this morning, I migrated my RSS feed to ATOM. Mostly, I was finally tired of entries not showing up because I mangled the HTML encoding somehow. ATOM is more forgiving from this standpoint (I think) because I can embed HTML directly into the feed without the required CDATA encoding crap. 
<p/>
The feed generating code is smaller (roughly half the size) and cleaner. I think they did a great job with ATOM.
<hr/>
<h5>Update:</h5>
Wow, some major breakage on April's index... I seem to have messed something up good.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-04-12</date>
<title>OpenBSD 3.8</title>
<text>
I intstalled OpenBSD for the first time last week. I'm setting up a Nessus scanning machine on a 500MHz P3 that has seen better days. So far I'm impressed with OpenBSD. It's lightweight and responsive. Its simplicity is impressive. It has everything it needs without getting too fancy. Its hard for me not to like a default install (sans X-windows) that only has 15 processes running. After I get everything working the way that I want it, I'll kick the security level up. Yeah, so BSD provides a means to prevent configuration files from changing while its running. Oh, how sexy! Also, the effort the OpenBSD team has put into code auditing is beneficial to the end product. Only one remotely exploitable flaw in the OS in the past two years. No one else even comes close. 
<p/>
I've been running our proxy server off of SuSE Linux, but if all goes well, I will likely migrate this to OpenBSD also. I've got a bit of work to do in understanding the PF firewall, but my initial impression of PF is that it is quite natural. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-05-04</date>
<title>Airedale Puppies For Sale</title>
<text>
Mom and Dad whelped their first litter of <a href="http://www.flinthillsairedales.com/">Airedales </a> on March 7th and the cute little guys are already for new homes!!
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-05-21</date>
<title>The funny thing about marriage...</title>
<text>
Every man thinks that he isn't respected enough and every woman thinks that she isn't loved/cherrished enough - both are usually wrong. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-06-03</date>
<title>The IT Crowd</title>
<text>
Many moons ago, <a href="http://boingboing.net/">Boing Boing</a> covered a little known UK sitcom called <i>The IT Crowd</i>. Last month I managed to download and watch all 6 episodes. Since then I keep checking back on their <a href="http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/I/itcrowd/">web site</a> to see when there will be an episode 7... So, yeah, it's good TV.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-06-04</date>
<title>Compiling LibBeecrypt on WIN XP</title>
<text>
I actually worked through these problems in February, but never posted them for some reason. I ran into these problems again today and looked for what I had done - fortunately I BCC'd myself on a few email where I described this solution to someone else. Most of the modifications need to be done in the Makefile, to the OBJECTS line.
<p/>
In Makefile.mak, comment out either aes.obj or aesopt.obj from the OBJECTS line. Add entries for sha_k.obj, sha512.obj, hmacsha512.obj, hmacsha384.obj, sha384.obj. Comment out both blowfish.obj and blowfishopt.obj as these cause link errors. Then in beecrypt.c and beecrypt.h, comment out references to blowfish. There will be two changes in beecrypt.c. Also, you need to link against Crypt32.lib and Advapi32.lib when using the static version (beecrypt.lib). 
<p/>
Hopes this helps.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-06-08</date>
<title>Perl Module Image::Epeg won't compile on Mac OS X</title>
<text>
Epeg is a jpeg thumbnail library - I'll talk about it more another day (if I like it). Libepeg installed nicely through Darwin Ports but the perl interface wouldn't compile. Compiling gives the following errors:
<blockquote>
mysys$ perl Makefile.PL
WARNING: Setting ABSTRACT via file 'Epeg.pm' failed
 at /opt/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm line 615
Writing Makefile for Image::Epeg
mysys$ make
/usr/bin/gcc-4.0 -c   -I/opt/local/include -fno-common -DPERL_DARWIN -no-cpp-precomp -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -Wdeclaration-after-statement -I/opt/local/include -O3   -DVERSION=\"0.07\" -DXS_VERSION=\"0.07\"  "-I/opt/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/darwin-2level/CORE"   Epeg.c
Epeg.xs:20:37: error: /usr/local/include/Epeg.h: No such file or directory
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_file_open':
Epeg.c:95: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:95: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
Epeg.c:95: error: for each function it appears in.)
Epeg.c:95: error: 'RETVAL' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.xs:73: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_memory_open':
Epeg.c:117: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:117: error: 'RETVAL' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.xs:84: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_size_get':
Epeg.c:138: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:138: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.xs:93: warning: ISO C90 forbids mixed declarations and code
Epeg.c:145: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_decode_size_set':
Epeg.c:170: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:170: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:171: warning: ISO C90 forbids mixed declarations and code
Epeg.c:176: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_decode_colorspace_set':
Epeg.c:198: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:198: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:199: warning: ISO C90 forbids mixed declarations and code
Epeg.c:203: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_comment_get':
Epeg.c:225: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:225: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:226: warning: ISO C90 forbids mixed declarations and code
Epeg.c:231: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.xs:121: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_comment_set':
Epeg.c:254: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:254: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:255: warning: ISO C90 forbids mixed declarations and code
Epeg.c:259: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_quality_set':
Epeg.c:281: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:281: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:282: warning: ISO C90 forbids mixed declarations and code
Epeg.c:286: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_get_data':
Epeg.c:309: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:309: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.xs:146: warning: ISO C90 forbids mixed declarations and code
Epeg.c:318: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.xs:154: warning: pointer targets in passing argument 1 of 'Perl_newSVpv' differ in signedness
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_write_file':
Epeg.c:352: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:352: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:353: warning: ISO C90 forbids mixed declarations and code
Epeg.c:360: error: parse error before ')' token
Epeg.c: In function 'XS_Image__Epeg__epeg_close':
Epeg.c:385: error: 'Epeg_Image' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:385: error: 'img' undeclared (first use in this function)
Epeg.c:389: error: parse error before ')' token
make: *** [Epeg.o] Error 1
</blockquote>
Hmmm.... I scratch my head for awhile, then dug into the Makefile.PL looking for answers. You'll notice right away that the library directory is hard coded to /usr/local... I changed this, I commented this out - neither fixes the problem. I changed this back. I ran 'perl Makefile.PL' and looked in the Epeg.c file for answers. The epeg.h has its path hard coded as /usr/local/include... I tried changing this to the correct path - nada. I tried removing the path all together just leaving the header name (like it should be) - nada, still broke. Finally, I dug into Epeg.xs.... ahhhh, yes. Removing the include path from the Epeg.h header line and rerunning 'perl Makefile.PL' fixes the problem. Cheers.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-06-09</date>
<title>Thumbnailing JPEGs with Image::Epeg</title>
<text>
Well, I tried using Image Magick to resize thumbnails, but it doesn't respect aspect ratios (or at least I couldn't figure out how to make it retain the aspect ratio using the perl interface - or I should say I didn't want to put any effort into this). A week or more ago, I found a simple JPEG thumbnail library called Epeg - it also has a corresponding perl module. Yesterday evening, I worked through getting it compiled and installed, tonight I took it for a test spin. It works easy enough to call good. It does a basic thumbnail reasonably well. I wouldn't call the output great, but it is good enough to get about 80% of my thumbnails done in one quick shot, which is a big help. I can hit the rest with Gimp. Of course, the major drawback is you can only use JPEGs ;(
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-06-15</date>
<title>Installing XP Pro on Dell Inspiron 1300 Fails</title>
<text>
The installer dies with some stop error code and message that includes pci.sys. Read up on Dell's web forum, many people suggested that a Windows XP Pro SP2 disk would not have this problem.... who has one of those laying around? Others suggested slipstreaming XP2... 
<p/>
There was one more comment in the forums that seemed to work for me: when the installer loads and says "Press F6 to install RAID..." press F5 instead. Then select your processor type and go on with the installation. It should run without problems. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-10-16</date>
<title>Surfacing</title>
<text>Wow. For sometime I've been working almost exclusively from my windows laptop. The unintended consequence being that I haven't been posting here. After being in Windows land for so long, I can say without hestition: I've missed my Mac. Now, I've discovered some nice utilities, tools, and applications for Windows, but for my day in and day out activities, the Macintosh is far better - IMHO. I've especially had withdrawl from the one-click dictionary, spotlight, the unix terminal, Mail.app, and NetNewsWire Lite - to name a few. 
<p/>
Anyway, I have some older stuff to post, rather than doing it retroactively, I'll just post it like it was new.
<h4>New House</h4>
Maryna and I purchased a house. It is very nice. I had to put a week into painting and moving, but now everything is beautifully in order. If you know me, you'll have to come see it. 
<p/>
Now, the house's cable modem access point is in Maryna's office and my office is on the complete opposite end of the house. I tried each and every wireless channel but non of them proved to reach my office with more than a "very weak" signal. Plus, the airspace is a might bit more crowded in this neighborhood causing me to get bumped from the net at least once every three hours ;( I went looking for something more reliable. We have plaster-of-parris walls so dragging networking cable through the ceiling was out because you can't make a wall drop like you can with drywall. I decided to check out the Homeplug 1.0 standard. I purchased two Netgear Power-over-Ethernet bridges and hooked them up. The throughput is comparable with 802.11b, and the reliability is great. I haven't been bumped off the net since. The latency seems to be a little better than the wireless networking equipment that I had, but the Homeplug is more susceptible to network jitter. I get unexpected spikes in latency, whereas the wireless equipment was more or less constant. The other thing I worry about is a cord running from my power outlet to my PC. No it won't work through a surge protector. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-10-17</date>
<title>Using Perl::Sendmail to send multiple MIME attachments</title>
<text>
Awhile back, I needed a script to send an alert email with file attachments... yes multiple attachments. Being that Perl is my weapon of choice for most scripting needs and I've used Mail::Sendmail in the past I set out to make this happen. The trouble I found is that the most common examples of sending attachments using Mail::Sendmail only show how to attach one file. To complicate matters, most examples love to use perl's special block printing functions to accomplish this. It makes understanding what the examples are doing with MIME types very difficult. Well, I waded through it, trying a change here and a change there and I have compiled an example that sends an email with multiple attachments using Mail::Sendmail. 
<p/>
Essentially, there is a hash called %files where the keys are the file names and the value holds the contents of the file. Any file in the hash gets appended as an attachment. (Warning this is not a good way to go if your files are LARGE, mine aren't, but the example should be fairly straight forward and you can easily modify this code to handle reading the file from disk while constructing the email. ) The $message variable makes up the body of the email. In this case it is an HTML message - it could be plain text, whatever. See the Mail::Sendmail documentation for information on the remaining variables - they are all standard. 
<p/>
I hereby release <a href="/programs/perlExamples/mime.txt">this example code</a> into the public domain, without waranty or implied waranty or guarantee of fitness of any kind. Cheers.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-10-19</date>
<title>Kaspersky Anti-Virus</title>
<text>
The following are my thoughts on Kaspersky Labs Antivirus compared to Symantec. Price = wow. Kaspersky aims to be competitive. With a two or three year commitment on your AV licenses you can likely cut your AV cost in half over Symantec - at least in my region (Great Plains). 
<p/>
The performance is good. The scan rate is as good or better than Symantec, and the reported detection rate is also as good or better than Symantec. Though I should point out that any antivirus product fails to detect (an arguably high) percentage of current malware.
<p/>
On a personal laptop, Kaspersky is equal to Symantec. It is usable and user friendly. On the corporate level, Kaspersky isn't quite as intuitive. Rolling out a Symantec Corporate Edition server and joining clients to it is very straight forward. Symantec did an awesome job. Kaspersky isn't quite as intuitive, but it is ALMOST as good. Installing the server is no issue - but if you are not doing a remote installation of the clients then it will take a bit of knowledge about the product to get things going. An hour or less of reading will help you to understand the software pieces that you need to get things up and going. Ultimately, you install the Antivirus client and then an additional networking agent to communicate with the policy server. I think that Kaspersky takes care of this if you use the automated rollout tool, but if you are installing manually from the machine, you have two pieces to install whereas Symantec only has one installer. The only thing I DIDN'T like about Kaspersky's centralized management is that scheduled tasks and client management are handled through the windows task scheduler and related ports - ports commonly used by virus to propagate across a LAN. Symantec will work from behind host firewalls so long as their special TCP port is open. So they both require ports to be open for communication - but is the ports that Kaspersky requires that make me a slight bit nervous.  
<p/>
I can give Kaspersky a cautious two thumbs up. If your tech budget is tight this is certainly a product worth looking into for some cost savings. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-11-16</date>
<title>Vienna RSS Reader</title>
<text>
For the longest time I've used <a href="http://ranchero.com/">NetNewsWire Lite 2.0.1</a> for reading RSS and Atom feeds. Lately, I've been trying out <a href="http://www.opencommunity.co.uk/vienna2.php">Vienna</a> for Mac OS X... and I like it for a basic reader. It has all the features of NetNewsWire Lite (that I like) and a few extras, but not all of the features of NetNewsWire (the full version).  
<font color='red'>Update: Hmmm.... I can't say if this was Vienna acting on its own or getting pwn'd by page content, but a few times Little Snitch caught Vienna trying to contact https://www.paypal.com. Also, there seems to be some other security related issues, because Vienna crashed a few times while rendering pages. BTW, nothing exotic here just regular reading. I've since switched back to NetNewsWire Lite. Maybe one day I'll pony up for the full version of NetNewsWire.</font>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-11-24</date>
<title>svn+ssh using plink on windows</title>
<text>
Recently, I needed to get Subversion working over SSH on a Windows machine. I elected to use <a href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/">Plink.exe, </a> the command line version of Putty to do this. I got my SSH tunnel working through plink in almost no time, but it wouldn't work when I executed an 'svn' command, such as 'svn co svn+ssh://server/repos'. The client simply sat there, pressing Ctrl-C caused the following error message "connection closed unexpectedly". After struggling with it, I found mention that paths in the subversion 'conf' file must use forward slashes. Using 'ssh= plink -P 1234 -l username -i D:\path\key.ppk' prevent plink from find the key. Plink defaults to using a password when it can't locate the key file. Hence <i>svn</i> sat waiting for a password on STDIN until catching a Ctrl-c. I changed the path to my key to D:/path/key.ppk' and every thing worked immediately! 
<h4>Step-by-step</h4>
This guide assumes you already have sshd and subversion configured and working on your *nix server and that you have a good grasp of how to use them. <p/>Here are the step by step instructions (more or less) for getting svn+ssh to work from a windows client:
<p/>
Use PuTTYGen.exe to generate a public/private key pair. 
<p/>
Leave the passphrase blank and save the private and public key somewhere safe.
<p/>
Edit your Subversion config file to modify the ssh tunnel, or create a new tunnel. In Windows, this file is located at <blockquote>C:\Documents and Settings\&lt;username&gt;\Application Data\Subversion\config</blockquote> Under the [tunnels] section, I added the line: <blockquote>ssh = plink -P 1234 -l username -i D:/Path/to/key.ppk</blockquote>Where key.ppk is the private key that you want to use to authenticate. Make sure you use the -l option, on unix you wouldn't need this, but plink will get confused if it isn't there, even when logging in with key authorization. Be sure to use forward slashes in your paths!! Make sure that plink.exe is in your PATH, otherwise use <blockquote>ssh=C:/path/to/plink.exe -P 1234 -l username -i D:/Path/to/key.ppk</blockquote>
<p/>
Use <i>pscp</i> to copy your <b>public key</b> to the server. This is likely the key you saved without the .ppk extension.
<p/>
Login to your server.
<p/>
PuttyGen doesn't save the keys the way that OpenSSH expects them. You can use PuttyGen to export the key to OpenSSH or you can simply use <i>vi</i> to do this - I elected to use <i>vi</i>. Delete the headers and the trailing footer line, then get rid of each newline character so that the key is one long string. Before the key, type <blockquote>command="/path/to/your/svnserve -t -r /repos/path</blockquote> followed by a space. Then type <blockquote>ssh-dss</blockquote> followed by a space. If your key is not a DSA key, like mine, figure out what you need instead of ssh-dss. Finally, after your key string type a space followed by <blockquote>username@domain</blockquote>This should be something meaning full to you. Typically, you would use this to figure out which key to delete if the need arises but it isn't necessary.
<p/>
Append your key file onto your <i>authorized_keys2</i> file using: <blockquote>cat key-filename >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2</blockquote>
<p/>
Logout of your server.
<p/>
Test your connection from the windows client:<blockquote>plink -l username -P 1234 -i D:\path\to\key.ppk server_ip</blockquote>You should see <blockquote>( success ( 1 2 ( ANONYMOUS EXTERNAL ) ( edit-pipeline ) ) )</blockquote> This means your connection is working and you are ready to use Subversion. Note that you won't get a command prompt because we configured SSH to run svnserve when the session is authenticated using this key. If you still want command line access, login without this key using Putty or ssh.
<p/>
List the contents of your project: <blockquote>svn list svn+ssh://serverIP/project</blockquote>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2006-12-30</date>
<title>You think you know something about C/C++?</title>
<text>
Wow... I'm at a loss for words. I've been programming in C/C++ for nearly a decade and I just found this little bit of information today. I happened to be reviewing the documentation for the execve() system call on Mac OS X and I noticed that it mentioned that main() gets passed three arguments, not two:
<blockquote>
main( int argc, char** args, char** env )
</blockquote>
The third argument is a NULL terminated array of environment variables (the same format as <i>char** args</i> in other words. Now, the normal way to find an environment variable would be to call <i>getenv()</i> with the name of the variable you want, but printing the environment variables passed in could be interesting:
<blockquote>
#include &lt;iostream&gt;<br/><br/>
int main( int argc, char** args, char** env ) <br/>
{ <br/>
 &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; int i = 0; <br/>
  &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; while( env[i] != NULL ) <br/>
   &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; { <br/>
    &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; std::cout &lt;&lt; env[i] &lt;&lt; std::endl; <br/>
    &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; i++;
   &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; } <br/>

 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; return 0; <br/>
} <br/>

</blockquote>
<p>
No teacher or book ever mentioned that main() can take more than two arguments. My guess is that this is OS dependent. Which would explain why it is never mentioned or explained in books. 


<p/> I don't immediately see how browsing through the environment variables could be useful, but then I never knew it was possible before... maybe I'll think of a use for it later.
<p>
What else is out there? How about another NULL terminated list? It looks like this is the command that was called - but why again, this is normally in argv[0]?
<blockquote>
#include &lt;iostream&gt;<br/><br/>
int main( int argc, char** args, char** env, char** whatisthis ) <br/>
{ <br/>
 &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; int i = 0; <br/>
  &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; while( whatisthis[i] != NULL ) <br/>
   &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; { <br/>
    &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; std::cout &lt;&lt; whatisthis[i] &lt;&lt; std::endl; <br/>
    &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; i++;
   &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; } <br/>

 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; return 0; <br/>
} <br/>

</blockquote>
Windows also supports the extra arguments in main.
</text>
</entry>


<entry>
<date>2007-02-06</date>
<title>Space Junk Cleanup</title>
<text>
Maybe some of the civi-space startups out there should tackle this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/science/space/06orbi.html?ex=157680000&en=2e0e0b3efc03312d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink">space junk </a> problem? I bet there are some valuable metal alloys floating around up there. The problem would be knowing what is safe to bring back down and what you would want to leave, i.e. anything radioactive would probably more costly than it was worth, but then I guess the US would be willing to pay for the proper disposal of some of the more dangerous materials. 
</text>
</entry>

<entry>
<date>2007-05-08</date>
<title>SC440 with Broadcom bcm5754</title>
<text>
Doing boot -c and enabling acpi does not correct this <a href="http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/openbsd/2007-02/0029.html">issue</a>. 
<p/>
No instability, no crashing, I can ping the IP assigned to the interface, but it does not pass traffic. According to <a href="">this</a>, support for the bcm5754 chipset is relatively new, which may explain the problem. 
<p/>
I grabbed the 20070508 snapshots and upgraded to the current version, this fixed the problem, which supports the theory that this was a bug in the driver.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2007-07-22</date>
<title>Interesting problem using OpenBSD + Postfix for mass email campaigns</title>
<text>
OpenBSD's default maximum number of file descriptors is 1772. Postfix accepts mail and then writes the mail to disk, hence every incoming email uses at least one file descriptor and possibly more. This became a problem when sending out 100,000+ emails within a two hour period. The fix is simply to increase the maximum number of file descriptors to a reasonable number using the <i>sysctl</i> variable <i>kern.maxfiles</i>.  When OBSD runs out of file descriptors, it logs an error message to /var/log/messages, something like "/bsd: file table full". Of course, I would only look in this log if something was obviously wrong... and in this case the exhibiting symptom was a little strange. 
<p/>
The symptom exhibited itself in our POP3 daemon. Whenever we were running a mass email campaign, several of our email users would start getting multiple copies of old email (anything still residing in their "cur" directory, maildir format). I thought at first this was an Outlook bug, or at least an Outlook/Dovecot bug, because when I checked their mail directories there was only a single copy of the email. I thought Outlook must be freaking out and downloading the same email over and over again. When I started looking into the issue this time, I noticed that I got a "no file descriptors available" when I tried to <i>ls</i> a directory. Then I put the two together. Dovecot keeps an index file referencing the email in the users directories. When it was unable to get a file descriptor to read this file, it ended up creating a new index file with new UID numbers for each email. In turn, this caused Outlook to think the email was new and to download it again. So at least part of the problem was the way that Dovecot handles the "no descriptor" error, its likely that it doesn't even check the <i>errno</i> when a file fails to open. The root cause, however, was the limited number of file descriptors available.
<p/>
Interestingly enough, not having enough file descriptors didn't adversely affect Postfix. Seemingly, it simply returns a server error when receiving email that it can't write to disk. 
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2008-01-29</date>
<title>How to get spaces to print in Ruby on Rails (RoR)</title>
<text>
As a newbie in the rails environment, I spent a couple of frustrated half hours trying to get spaces to print in a formatted string... see example.
<p>
def show_sku_message<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;sprintf("%-8s %-5s %-5s", value1, value2, value3 )<br/>
end
</p>
The spaces in the format don't print when viewed in a web browser. ;( Then it hit me, this is a browser feature, not a problme with ruby.
Browsers strip out extra spaces between tag. What I really want is a &amp;nbsp; instead of a space.
<p/>
Tacking on gsub(' ', '&amp;nbsp;') will do the trick. 
<p>
def show_sku_message<br/>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;sprintf("%-8s %-5s %-5s", value1, value2, value3 ).gsub(' ', '&amp;nbsp;')<br/>
end
</p>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2008-06-12</date>
<title>C++ Tertiary Operator can be chained</title>
<text>
Today, while I was digging around on the web for some information on template meta-programming I ran across some really interesting code:
<p/>
bool a1 = false;<br/>
bool a2 = false;<br/>
bool a3 = true;<br/>
<p/>
std::cout &lt;&lt; ( a1 ? "true" : a2 ? "a2=true" : a3 ? "a3=true" : "all=false" ) &lt;&lt; std::endl;
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2008-06-28</date>
<title>Unbake Windows Text Files on Unix</title>
<text>
If you work on multiple platforms, occasionally you'll need to remove Windows line endings from files before working on them in Unix. 
I ran across a great tip on how to do this on <a href="http://madross.com/blog/convert-windows-line-endings-to-unix-os-x/">Madross.com</a>.
<p>
$ cd /director/with/your/file<br/>
$ find . -type f -exec perl -pi -e 's/\r\n?/\n/g' {} \;
</p>
The above recursively edits your directory. Or you can do this one file at a time:
<p>
$ perl -pi -e 's/\r\n?/\n/g' filename.txt
</p>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2008-08-29</date>
<title>Another frustrating conversation with a "Technology Recruiter"</title>
<text>
I'm looking for work in St. Louis, which is a bigger market than Tulsa... so I thought, what a great oportunity to move into a development position. Ha. I've had about a half a dozen conversations with recruiters. All of them dangle the carrot of development work and all of them try to suggest IT work instead. Today's worst conversation went something like this:
<blockquote>
Her: So I ran acrossed your resume yesterday on Dice.com. We have a client that is about to higher 10 C++ programmers and I think that you would be a great fit.<p/>Me: Yeah that sounds great.
<p/>Her: So what kind of professional programming experience do you have?
<p/>Me: Essentially none, all of my programming experience is academic... *thinks to himself 'Did you read my resume?*
<p/>Her: Oh well our client really is looking for applicants that have two years of <i>professional</i> experience. So I really don't think that you're a good fit.
<p/>Me: *thinking 'Then why are you wasting my time calling?'*
<p/>Her: But I do have some other positions that I think would be a better fit for you. I have a listing for a LAN administrator.<br/> 
<p/>Me: No thanks. I'm really only looking for development work.<br/>
<p/>Her: Are you sure? I think you'd be a really great fit for this LAN Administrator position.<br/>
<p/>Me: I didn't get a Bachelor's Degree, let alone my Master's Degree, so that I could work in IT.<br/> 
<p/>Her: Really?<br/>
<p/>Me: Yeah. Call me when you have some development work.
</blockquote>
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2008-12-01</date>
<title>An essay I enjoyed</title>
<text>
I read Paul Graham's essay <a href="http://paulgraham.com/artistsship.html">"The Other Half of 'Artists Ship'"</a> today, enjoyable read for someone becoming more familiar with the software development process.
</text>
</entry>
<entry>
<date>2009-06-29</date>
<title>VirtualBox</title>
<text>
For the longest time I've been using <a href="http://www.qemu.org/">Qemu</a> for virtual machine emulation. Tonight I tried out <a href="http://www.virtualbox.org/">Sun's VirtualBox</a>. So far I'm very impressed. With hardware virtualization support, the VMs run very fast. 
</text>
</entry>
</blog>

