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| Teh Updatez? |
[25 May 2008|11:37pm] |
So, I've been pretty quiet lately, decided I should say something here.
I'm moving to California. In less than two weeks. I don't yet have a place to live, but I do have a place to stay if I need it, and I'm hoping to not need it by finding a place to live two days from now.
I've started up playing warcraft again, got to L56.. then I went to a work event for a week and didn't play, and haven't really played since. What I have done, is gotten halfway through Book 11 of Wheel of Time (the last one published), and spent many an hour watching tv episodes and working on my various personal projects. I watched Coupling yesterday (yes, all of it), and it was decently good. I have no complaints.
Personal projects: Front Row is always on the primary monitor. I've made it so that it isn't, by spending many, many hours in a debugger figuring out how it does what it does, and then many many more hours reverse engineering the API for it so that I can write a plugin for it to show stuff. Wouldn't have been nearly as easy (and I probably would have given up) if the BDK didn't exist, but I find it's never been up to date with front row from leopard (just the stuff from the apple tv), so it wasn't too useful besides a couple pointers in the right direction. I can't release it yet, as there's a lot of debugging cruft and stuff that doesn't make sense in there, but I hope eventually to clean it up and release a binary. The amount of random stuff I had to do to get a working copy of the headers and stuff going is a bit staggering, I don't know that I could really release the source and ever have anyone else compile it. :/
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| Go WebKit! |
[27 Mar 2008|12:15am] |
I'm now running the only known browser that's capable of passing both objective criteria of the Acid3 test. WebKit nightly r31356 is pixel exact, 100/100, and running on my machine.
Opera claims they got to 100/100 first (but then the test changed on them), but they didn't provide any test builds, and they very obviously were not pixel-exact (",a" ftl), and we haven't heard from them since. WebKit offers up builds on a regular basis, which means I was able to download the 100/100 (not pixel exact) build, and just now download the pixel exact one.
I don't know why I'm so happy about this, but I think it's honestly a pretty big testament to the quality of the webkit/khtml code. Congratulations guys! :)
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| 日本３、２日 |
[03 Mar 2008|02:11pm] |
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Today we went to Akihabara. Not much to report yet, the day's not over.. but we're sick of standing/walking, so we're back here to recuperate and drop off all of our warez.
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| Japan - Trip 3, Day 1 |
[03 Mar 2008|12:05am] |
After my post yesterday, I went and found the denny's and some pizaman, and then came back and went to sleep. The plan was to meet up at 9 - that didn't happen. After our alarm (supposedly) went off, AND people were knocking on the door, neither Jim nor I woke up. At 9:45, the rest of the group called us, and that finally got us out of bed. weird for me to sleep so soundly..
Anyway, we wandered around mostly. Took a train to harajuku (not too many crazy fashion shows going on, unfortunately), walked over to shinjuku, headed back towards the hotel, got some dennys, then came back, and kind of split up for a while for napping/games/whatever.. then went and got dinner at a donburi place with a machine that you order and pay at, get receipt tickets, then bring that to the person who brings it to the kitchen and gives you your order. Then a bit more wandering got us to ginza at around 11 at night, which was bright but not very interesting, and then we're back to the hotel and I'm going to bed. My feet and back already hurt from the huge amount of standing/walking I'm doing, when I'm not used to it. Also, I'm a wuss.
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| Japan - Trip 3, Day -1-0 |
[02 Mar 2008|06:11am] |
First, Day -1:
It's thursday, the day before I get on the airplane, and I had tasked myself with picking up the JR Passes. This is why I was in NYC on thursday, and where iPhone1 was destroyed. I slept over at a friend's place, and she woke up rather early.. the only reason this is all being mentioned is because it plays in to the scheduling slightly.
Alright, travel plans called for leaving JFK around 11:30 EST on Friday, getting in around 15:40 JST on Saturday. We left early, to make sure that traffic didn't screw us, which it didn't, but I didn't end up sleeping Thursday night. At around 5 I left to drive around and bring everyone to the apartment building that I live in, where the rental van one of us had rented was. There were 6 of us in the group, 5 of us on this plane and someone we were to meet up with in Japan - more on that later.
Anyway, around 6:30 we're off and we get to the airport, get through screening, and get on the plane with no major problems. There was very little turbulence except for a period of about 2 minutes, 30 minutes before landing, at the middle altitudes, but I didn't get much sleep, unfortunately. You'd think after being up for 30 hours around 5-6ish from Thursday morning until noon-ish Friday, I'd be able to sleep for more than 15-45 minute stretches, every 2-3 hours, but you'd be wrong. We actually took off slightly quicker than expected, and made good time. We were supposed to land at 3:40, we got to the gate around 3:15. But it didn't help us..
See, like I said earlier, we were waiting for one person here in Japan. His scheduled arrival time was 6:15, actually landed at 6:24, and finally got through customs and everything around 7:19. So we were stuck in the airport waiting for him, because we had his JR Pass that would let him get on the train 'for free'. While waiting, we were interrogated by the police, I think because we were a bunch of foreigners with a lot of luggage looking like we were just lazing about in one spot for a few hours. The police officer somehow had singled me out from the beginning, somehow.. or maybe I indicated I did by speaking first when he addressed the group? I dunno, but I ended up being the one talking to him, which wasn't so bad. Basically just asking us simple things like who here spoke Japanese, are all these bags ours, what country are we from, are we here for business/pleasure.. I don't think he was suspicious of anything, just curious. At the very end, he said 'なんとなく', which I had to look up.. but other than that, I held the conversation rather well I think. Jim followed along and understood what was going on, the rest looked confused because they don't know Japanese. :P
We got on the narita express, got off at tokyo, exited the station, walked over to the marunouchi train line, and got turned away - oops, kanda's on yamanote. Back in to the JR station we went (the station guard probably thought we were all idiots), got on the correct train, walked a few blocks, and we were at the hotel! People's spirits are mildly low, but not terrible, but a lot of us are cranky by now. Which is completely different from being Crunky, which I intend to go purchase soon. Ignoring that last sentence, we checked in - they had combined our complex arrangements to avoid room shuffling, which was good because I was going to ask if they could and they already had, so only one room needs to be shuffled tomorrow, instead of 3 (there were limited openings for the rooms with two beds, so tonight only got placed on one reservation, then another for 4 days, then skip a day for a kansai trip, then two reservations for the rest of the days - one for group A, leaving net week, one for group Awesome, which includes me, leaving the week afterward.)
But we all managed to get in our rooms, figure out how to turn on the electronics, etc., then went for food - cocoichi curry! I didn't realize the one near here was so small, otherwise I'd probably not have suggested it.. i thought there was additional seating, but it turns out there were 10 bar-style seats, 6 in one group, four in another, so they had to turn away a few people while we clogged the place up. I felt somewhat bad about that. Everyone seemed to enjoy their food though, so back to the hotel for everyone, then Jim and I started wandering around. We didn't find much, but apparently if you want a massage, kanda station is a pretty good place to get one. I had (#UNDEF) more offerings (percentage-wise) in one hour last night than I have had in all of my days up until today. Going from 0 to 4 in one hour was weird.
Which brings me to my final point - what the hell happened to my gaijin shields? It's like the forward deflectors are at about 5% capacity, does the colored hair not scare you? My obvious whiteness? My tallness? The person next to me (tattooed, pierced, tall, etc.) I got more random approaches (the police officer, the massage girls, etc.) than I would have expected. Perhaps last night's phase of the moon (whatever it was) is to blame, but it was weird. I was just marveling to myself for a while about how strange it was to actually have people try and talk to me (even if it is for offerings of massage), instead of just assume I don't know Japanese and thus skip over me entirely. Also, every time I've asked so far about people understanding English, they've often responded with 'a little bit', as opposed to the 'no' you usually get. After the 'no', speak english anyway, just slower between words - they'll very likely know the vocabulary, so you can still get by. ;)
But yeah, it's 6:33 in the morning and now I'm wide awake, whereas after our little walking adventure (which was supposed to have been longer, we had only come back to get directions somewhere), I just passed out on the bed. But only for 4.5 hours. boo.
Tomorrow's our first real day, let's see what happens..
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| iPhone update! |
[02 Mar 2008|06:09am] |
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I didn't get it repaired for free - after handing over a bunch of money, I got a "new" phone, promptly bought some casing for the thing and coddled it until it was in it, and then got on a plane to Japan. More in the next post.
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| well this sucks.. |
[28 Feb 2008|08:14am] |
I just dropped my iPhone on the cold, hard, merciless streets of NYC, and they were not kind to it. The glass is destroyed, but otherwise it works. I guess I will be seeing about repairing this thing while I'm in japan instead of using it as a music player for the flights..
- posted using working broken iPhone
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| Why the hesitation? |
[13 Feb 2008|02:01am] |
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Why is it that a new job inevitably leads to change, without as much hesitation as the possibility of a new position at the same company, in a new location? Or even the same position, same company, new location? My mind's been a bit mixed up lately, and I don't know what to do.. Logically, there's the obvious (to me) decision, the obvious (to most everyone else) decision, and the completely idiotic (to everyone, including myself) decision. The third can't happen, but I wish it would.. but won't be discussed here. 4 people know approximately what it's about, and it's hopefully a fleeting desire and it leaves my consciousness soon, because it's annoying as all hell.
The other choices, however, are both possible and important. I'll not say which is obvious to whom and go over both. The decision is, in short, "where will I live next year?"
The company I currently work for has an office in Tokyo. I've wanted to go back to Japan ever since 5 hours before I left, and have accomplished it once (twice in March), but 4 weeks in 5 years is not enough, and I think I want to live there again. I don't know for how long. If I move there, I'm definitely going to a different manager and on a different realm of projects. I think I'd enjoy the work, but I worry about being separated from the mothership - the Tokyo office is rather small for engineering - and what it would mean for my career and advancement within the company. On the flip side, it opens me up to more things.. I get to practice my language skills (I hope, I didn't do much of that the first time I was there), and potentially use that later in life. Who knows?
The other possibility is said company has an office in California. I also want to live on the west coast, and could easily do that. It would mean that I'd probably stay working on the same stuff I am currently (good, because I like my manager and what I do, bad because it's somewhat secluded/specific). It also has negative affect on the career, since the office is, again, not where everyone else is, but it's much much larger engineering than the Tokyo office is, with better communication/time overlap than Tokyo/CT is. I also have a few friends in the area already, I speak the language, and I like California from what I've seen.. which is just slightly more than what I've seen of Tokyo.
I know I want to move. Tokyo or Bay Area California? I can't trust what anyone else suggests though, as everyone I'd take advice from would, I hope, desire me to stay closer so that they could visit more. But realistically, who's going to visit whom, no matter where I live? I suck at keeping up with people, I suck more at planning, and while I have a massive case of wanderlust such that I want to live everywhere (Tokyo and California are certainly not the only two places to eventually have crossed off my list), I don't really enjoy traveling much. I don't mind it, but a vacation to me involves sleeping til 4 and doing work on my own schedule. Were I to live in California, I doubt I'd see anyone/everyone much more than I would were I to live in Tokyo. I count the number of people who'd visit me specifically as very few, those who visit the area as slightly higher in both cases. Traveling to either Japan or California would be, for most, a huge time and money sink that most could not justify; I think the exoticness of Japan would incentivize more people to visit, while the monetary and time outlays would bring them to be about equal.
In the end, the lists of pros and cons in my mind just about balance out, and the decision comes down to planning for the future. I don't plan for the future well at all - I couldn't tell you where I'll be a week from now, let alone have a 5 year plan. I have a list of stuff I want to do, including 'get rich', 'be famous', 'become president', 'live in <list of places>'. The last one is obtainable right now, and the list includes, quite near the top (as tied for first place), 'Japan' and 'West Coast US'. I have a company willing to let me move to Japan (not that they're going to be paying or anything, just allowing), whereas if 5 years from now I'm for some reason not working here, I can't be guaranteed that wherever I am working will be willing to do the same. I should take advantage of the possibility now, right? It's easier to get a job in California than as an English speaking computer programmer in Japan, so do the less-likely-to-be-offered-again item now, and accomplish whatever I want there, then continue to go through the list, right?
It's silly. When one looks for a new job (or at least, when I was earlier, when I got the job I have now), I didn't consider where I was moving to, it was the job. Were I to be again searching for a new job, the where I am wouldn't matter as much as the what I was doing, to the point that a move to Japan/California/Zimbabwe would probably be accepted with little discussion or consideration (ok, maybe not Zimbabwe.. it's not on the list). Why is less change (I'm staying with the same company) a more difficult decision than a change of everything would be?
For those still wondering - Japan is currently in the lead and is the decision obvious only to myself. California is the obvious one in most other people's minds. The third involves a girl, and there's no way it wouldn't lead to trouble, but emotions suck like that. Also, it's not even really a choice that could be made, as I doubt that she really even pays attention to my existence, let alone my insane desires ;) Oh yeah, and the whole "rawr, relationships suck" that I still believe in, but rather wish I didn't.. for that reason alone, option #3 is not on the table. Thankfully. But yeah, Japan! I wish I could get excited about it, but indecision ruins this. Once I decide firmly enough to declare to the people required, and the course is set, I'll begin to get excited about it, I hope.
Someone make the decision for me, so that I can decide whether or not I like your decision, and then go with what I want. It's like flipping a coin and then going against it because you really wanted the other, except then I get to silently despise you forever for making a horrible life-defining choice for me, and it not being what I wanted. Asshole.
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| Japan '08 |
[27 Jan 2008|01:15am] |
Facebook status updates get more love than livejournal. I haven't posted since november, so I might as well.. Anyway. I'm going to Japan for two weeks (one week vacation, one week work) in March. There's talk between people several levels above me as to how this plays in to the overall strategy of me moving out there, which is new I think -- previous attempts to raise this desire have ended two levels above me. This seems to have gone to the next level, which is kind of full of awesome. The exchange rate, however, is much less full of awesome. This will be the first time I've done a money exchange with Japan when USD/JPY wasn't approximately 120. It's currently shitting (not sitting) at about 106. Great for the Japanese coming over here, and honestly, once I move over there.. send the economy in to the crapper. But I wish I'd gone there and done a salary conversion when it was at 120, instead of when it's been averaging low. It makes a noticeable difference, alas.
Anyway, flight details in case anyone cares: Leaving JFK a little before noon EST (GMT-0500) on Fri 29th, getting out of Narita airport in Tokyo around 4 JST (GMT+0900).. then coming back on the 17th, arriving about 30 minutes before I left (so around 6:20PM EDT (GMT-0400)).
If any current readers are in Japan during this time (hi dan!), feel free to ping me via email (spectral, over at pewpew, then a dot, ending in net) and let me know. The first week is kind of encumbered with amusing other people as well, as we're traveling in a group of 6-7 people. Second week is busy working. No guarantees, but we'll see.. I can't make any attempt to meet up if I don't know about it at all, now can I?
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| This is getting a bit ridiculous. |
[17 Nov 2007|03:13pm] |
Last year - something broke in the apartment above me. Rained in my kitchen.
A year ago or so - the drainage for my shower broke. Rained in to the garage.
A few weeks ago - my water heater broke. No flooding, but it was probably close.
Last weekend - Water heater on third floor exploded. Rained in my closet.
This weekend - Dishwasher broke in the apartment above me. Rained in my kitchen.
All the time - Any time it rains hard it has a likelihood to flood from the drainage near the washer/dryer and also near the water heater.
This place is called riverview, and we have constant problems with water. Never will I live in a place that has a name involving fire.
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| I'm only tired when it rains.. |
[10 Nov 2007|06:07am] |
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So I was asleep.. and then I wasn't. I couldn't explain it, it seemed like someone had splashed water on my face. No one was in the room and the cat couldn't do that, so I went back to sleep. Then it happened again, I swear about it, feed the cat thinking somehow he's involved, take a piss, and go back to sl.. WHAT THE HELL.
It should come as no surprise to any readers here that I keep my bed in the closet. I have a queen size japanese style futon, and it fits in there with plenty of room to spare (it's a large closet). I can then keep the door to my bedroom and my closet open so that the cat can wander as he wishes, without sleeping in easy sight of anyone walking by my bedroom door (like any roommates I might have). The only weirdness is there is shelving and a water heater in my 'bedroom'. I'm not doing it for aesthetics, so it doesn't bother me, but it is a much more pleasing size (the main bedroom is much too large), and it's darker/quieter in there.
Anyway, so the ceiling is completely soaked through and currently dripping in at least 3 spots in my closet, I don't know how much damage to the walls, dripping in to the hallway, and I call maintenance.. the guy comes out here, checks on the people upstairs, they have the problem too.. third floor apartment above me has had their water heater crap out and destroy two floors worth of master bedroom closets. Awesome.
No idea what's going to happen to my futon, at least one part of it got rather soaked. It was leaking down along the wall for a while, before pooling enough in my paint to start dripping a half inch from the wall.
He said to just put stuff underneath it, it'll probably stop dripping soon (it hasn't, it's been 35 minutes), and contact them if the carpet needs professional cleaning. I'm not sure what to do about destroyed property.. or where to sleep tonight.
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| Leopard |
[30 Oct 2007|01:07am] |
So, so far leopard has more impressed me with the little things than the big things. Some small visual tweaks, and I actually haven't used spaces all that much yet (and it's kind of pissed me off a couple times, windows appear to have strong affinity, so if I've, say, dragged the 'Connect to Server' window in finder to a different space than the one I'm currently on.. even if it's NOT currently open, it'll open on the other space and flip over to it. Kind of weird, makes sense I guess but it's mildly annoying while I'm not used to it. Not sure I ever will be..)..
I have yet to get time machine working the way I want to, so maybe I'll eventually be impressed by that. Still trying to get netatalk to not suck (ubuntu won't link netatalk to openssl, fuck you licensing issues).
Cover flow in finder was just awesome squared when I spun through a couple hundred pictures and videos from the party this past weekend.
But the small things are impressing me more, even though they probably should have been in there since the beginning:
Tabs in Terminal.
Speed. Everything starts so quickly. I don't know if it's because I reinstalled, but wow. Most everything in <1 bounce.
Scrolling non-active windows!
More distinctive identification of what windows are active (deeper shadow, lighter colors for inactive windows). Perhaps this isn't too different from previous style, but I ran shapeshifter and this is nicer.
In other news, I've now had a video game prevent me from going to work, and it was NOT halo 3. We got wrapped up in playing portal, and by the time I realized what time it was (half way through us playing through it again with commentary), it was rather late and I didn't want to drive home from Rochester. I feel rather silly about this.
Look at me still talking when there's science to do..
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| I've got nothing to write about.. |
[05 Oct 2007|08:57pm] |
I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just haven't had anything to write about lately, and I apologize for it. Work has been kind of crazy, and I've been traveling a lot lately. Oh, I got the second season of "How I Met Your Mother" yesterday, it's very nice so far. But other than that, it's mostly just been me sitting around the apartment. I was sick a couple weekends ago, but I'm doing better now, and I think I'm going to play DDR tomorrow. Woo! Hmm. Hermes? Hermes is good. still fat..
Ok I can't do this, I'm only writing this entry because a coworker wrote in his blog that people blogging about how they have nothing to blog about is lame. He wins this round as it really, really is.
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| woo, shapeshifter updated. |
[28 Sep 2007|07:11pm] |
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I somehow missed out on this for a couple weeks - unsanity updated shapeshifter to work with safari 3 beta. No longer do I have a menu bar that's half decently themes and half aqua, and no longer am I stuck with a safari window that's in brushed metal. Woot.
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| Programming Challenges - 10038 - "Jolly Jumpers" |
[25 Sep 2007|01:03am] |
This one was really easy, and it got accepted on my first try. Actually, it compiled on my first try too (not even a silly typing mistake), but didn't work the first time I ran it locally (stupid mistake, I did cin >> count instead of cin >> n ;)). But I think this is my first submission where I got 'Accepted' on the first submit. woo!
my solution
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| Programming Challenges - 10196, "Check the Check" |
[23 Sep 2007|02:24pm] |
The basic premise is you're given a chessboard, and you need to see if either of the kings are in check. My first submission, I had a bunch of debug code. My next few submissions I played with line endings since that's bitten me in the past. I then complained and Aaron gave me his exhaustive list of testcases, to which 1 out of the 97 there showed me my problem: I made a really, really stupid mistake and just wrapped doPeril up in the case where there were non-looped perils (knight, king, pawn) with a do { } while(false); .. the problem being that if it found ANY piece in peril, it would break out of the loop. solution: write another macro that didn't do the breaks.
Again, I'm not particularly proud of the code quality of any of these. If I hadn't been an idiot and had coded this one decently and properly, I wouldn't have had such a stupid mistake. The appeal of writing quick and dirty code though, and of writing things that makes said coworker cringe when he reads through my solutions, causes me to keep doing crap like this: ;)
my solution
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| Programming Challenges |
[20 Sep 2007|07:35pm] |
So my friend/coworker/boss/whatever started doing some programming challenges from this book, and blogging about it. Not being the kind of person who doesn't do exactly what everyone else does, I started doing the ones he does. I'm not proud of any of these solutions, but they were quick, dirty, and fun (much like your mom), so I don't have too many complaints.
Problem 10189: Minesweeper.
I don't actually know if what I have below is my final solution for this one, I did it on the other computer. It took me two submits to get it working, mostly because the first submit didn't compile: I'd uploaded the wrong file (which might be the one below. I'm too lazy to check ;)).
my solution (I think?)
Problem 706: LC-Display
This took an embarrassing number of submissions, mostly because I made a stupid mistake in my termination condition (I couldn't handle inputs like 3 0, the 0 terminated). Oops.
my solution
Problem 10267: Graphical Editor
This was also a bit embarrassing. Problem 1: I didn't check my rectangle fill function, had it broken. Problem 2: Didn't check if c == repl for flood fill, got in to infinite loops. Problem 3: Apparently when the code said 'save a file' it meant 'output the filename to the screen, then the image. Do not save anything to a file'. Me correctly reading the instructions would have helped here.
my solution
Problem 10033: Interpreter
Wrong answer, runtime error (had forgotten to save it), and then accepted. I forget what my wrong answer was for, though.
my solution
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| Advertising has gone too far |
[08 Sep 2007|03:21pm] |
So, I was browsing around earlier on digg, when one of the sites attempted to print something. Yup, that's right, I go to a website in a background tab and a print dialog pops up telling me that it can't print because I don't have a printer connected. What the hell?
About an hour later, I went to icanhascheezburger, and "ad.txt" downloaded itself, and loaded in to textedit. It was an f'in webpage too, so it's not like I could even read the ad, all I got was css. Perhaps this is a poorly configured server, and it was meant for IE people where IE will just show any random shit in the browser as html, but come on..
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