If you're going to make something, you should try using it, too.
I teach, I go to school, and I study public transportation. So I take the bus. But that sometimes means being late, getting annoyed, and overall spending more time than I can really spare, just standing around and waiting.
On the other hand, when I go to my class on public transportation, I drive. I could take the bus, but my car is available, the class gets out at 10 pm, buses run once every 30-40 minutes by then. Miss one, and it might take me an hour to go home, when it's about an 8 minute drive by that time of night. That would really be pointless...
Once upon a time, I made a point-to-point itinerary planner for the NYC-NJ metro area, circa 2000-2003. After 2003, my work on it rapidly declined. I did use it, but more to help me find the right schedules I needed from the NYC MTA and NJ Transit-- manually pasting in the minute-by-minute schedule for the whole NYC transportation network was hardly worthwhile for me, and those agencies weren't going to help me either. After all, it was just a little personal project of mine...
But I'd been thinking about putting the two or three bus schedules that'd be useful to me on my PDA, and just using it myself to make my own life easier. But I haven't done that in over two years that I'd have been using that... and now, I'm about done with classes (and presumably the bus). It's maybe reliable enough for going to class, but the routes just don't fit into my teaching schedule. But at least I can sympathize a lot more with others in the same boat as I have been.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Chinatown
Yesterday, we went to Chinatown for dim sum (Chinese brunch). Having lunch in NYC means me getting up around 6 am, getting myself ready, then getting everyone else up and ready before getting into the car. A quick stop at Uncommon Ground for coffee and bagels to eat in the car, and we were heading south on the thurway.
We hadn't gone since moving back to Albany-- may be even 3 or more years. I think that Scott was still a baby when we went last, and the experience was a bit trying. But this time, the kids were quite a bit older, self-propelled, and actually willing to eat some of the food we ordered. The kids liked it a lot. But when I asked Scott if he wanted to move there, he said, "No... I like my home better." But he liked eating the wrappers off of dumplings (dumping the partially-eaten contents on my plate with the offer, "here, Dad"), eating the noodles out of Lo Mein (dumping all the non-noodle ingredients on my plate), and drinking lots of Jasmine Tea. Which meant a few trips to the bathroom over the next couple of hours. (Turns out, there aren't many bathroom options at the entrance ramp to the Lincoln Tunnel.)
But we briefly made the rounds. One stop at the Taipei bakery, one pass through the fish market, the fruit/vegetable market, and back to the car to Zabar's (Nova Lox, Whitefish spread, bagels, rugela), then back over the bridge to Mitsuwa for assorted Japanese goods and sashimi fish before heading back to Albany.
Altogether, about 15 hours away from home, with Scott telling me he was "homesick" about 3-4 times. He just doesn't like being away from home for more than a few hours, with the exception of visits to my sister's house. And on the way home, he developed an earache somewhere in the Catskills. There aren't a whole lot of drug stores around late on a Sunday night, but fortunately we found a Stewart's convenient store with kids' Tylenol, which did the trick.
Finally we made it home before midnight, put the kids to bed, put away the groceries, and was in bed by 1:30. Then to get my daughter up for school at 6 am... Somehow, I think I'll need a whole lot more coffee before lecturing today.
We hadn't gone since moving back to Albany-- may be even 3 or more years. I think that Scott was still a baby when we went last, and the experience was a bit trying. But this time, the kids were quite a bit older, self-propelled, and actually willing to eat some of the food we ordered. The kids liked it a lot. But when I asked Scott if he wanted to move there, he said, "No... I like my home better." But he liked eating the wrappers off of dumplings (dumping the partially-eaten contents on my plate with the offer, "here, Dad"), eating the noodles out of Lo Mein (dumping all the non-noodle ingredients on my plate), and drinking lots of Jasmine Tea. Which meant a few trips to the bathroom over the next couple of hours. (Turns out, there aren't many bathroom options at the entrance ramp to the Lincoln Tunnel.)
But we briefly made the rounds. One stop at the Taipei bakery, one pass through the fish market, the fruit/vegetable market, and back to the car to Zabar's (Nova Lox, Whitefish spread, bagels, rugela), then back over the bridge to Mitsuwa for assorted Japanese goods and sashimi fish before heading back to Albany.
Altogether, about 15 hours away from home, with Scott telling me he was "homesick" about 3-4 times. He just doesn't like being away from home for more than a few hours, with the exception of visits to my sister's house. And on the way home, he developed an earache somewhere in the Catskills. There aren't a whole lot of drug stores around late on a Sunday night, but fortunately we found a Stewart's convenient store with kids' Tylenol, which did the trick.
Finally we made it home before midnight, put the kids to bed, put away the groceries, and was in bed by 1:30. Then to get my daughter up for school at 6 am... Somehow, I think I'll need a whole lot more coffee before lecturing today.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Do the math
A thought occurred to me while sitting in Stats class today (my last class ever-- really) on Logistic Regression. I'm a moron.
I can nod my head and follow along. When it comes time to actually solve problems, however, that's a whole differnt story. I've discovered that I've miscopied everything into my notebook. Things have little hats on them for no apparent reason. I don't know whether that little subscript is a 1 or a lower case i. I don't know the difference. And there's no textbook, just lots of journal articles from Public Health, circa 1990, that are kind of small and blurry.
But today's lecture started to mean a little more-- namely the "migration table" which has fairly obvious applications to transportation. Somehow making the little grid of starts and ending places is pretty clear, as is how easy it is to spin one out of a database. Like I was doing about, say, 8 years ago, long before I ever thought about returning to Albany for the PhD.
And something else dawned on me, as I read another report about software failures (this time, in data warehousing projects) that happen about 2/3 of the time. Software projects across the board fails 2/3 of the time, like it's a law of nature or something.
Then it hits me: we programmers (I was one, back in the day) have a very limited grasp of real math. We've hit the hard limit of software quality when your working math knowledge is at about the 4th grade level, which is the God honest truth when doing development. We're just not good enough at math to make better algorithms, much less understand set theory or complexity theory which is at the heart of a lot of systems.
Forget about trying to explain functional languages vs. procedural languages.
Maybe it's true: we need to learn to do the math a little better. And be a lot smarter overall.... seems like that would be a good place to actually make tools- something that cranks the numbers for you, since the math is pretty hard, after all.
I can nod my head and follow along. When it comes time to actually solve problems, however, that's a whole differnt story. I've discovered that I've miscopied everything into my notebook. Things have little hats on them for no apparent reason. I don't know whether that little subscript is a 1 or a lower case i. I don't know the difference. And there's no textbook, just lots of journal articles from Public Health, circa 1990, that are kind of small and blurry.
But today's lecture started to mean a little more-- namely the "migration table" which has fairly obvious applications to transportation. Somehow making the little grid of starts and ending places is pretty clear, as is how easy it is to spin one out of a database. Like I was doing about, say, 8 years ago, long before I ever thought about returning to Albany for the PhD.
And something else dawned on me, as I read another report about software failures (this time, in data warehousing projects) that happen about 2/3 of the time. Software projects across the board fails 2/3 of the time, like it's a law of nature or something.
Then it hits me: we programmers (I was one, back in the day) have a very limited grasp of real math. We've hit the hard limit of software quality when your working math knowledge is at about the 4th grade level, which is the God honest truth when doing development. We're just not good enough at math to make better algorithms, much less understand set theory or complexity theory which is at the heart of a lot of systems.
Forget about trying to explain functional languages vs. procedural languages.
Maybe it's true: we need to learn to do the math a little better. And be a lot smarter overall.... seems like that would be a good place to actually make tools- something that cranks the numbers for you, since the math is pretty hard, after all.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Things that can be fixed
After the latest holiday snowstorm, I took out my donated, ancient snowblower, anticipating an easy go of clearing the driveway. It kept stalling, requiring a restart with an old, frayed pullcord. It broke. Standing, blinking, at the handle and a few inches of frayed line, I had a sudden flash of brilliance.
Ten minutes later, I'm back in the snow with a screwdriver kit, an old clothesline I found in the garage, some tape, a pair of dull scissors, and a paperclip. Despite my best efforts, I managed to replace the old frayed pullcord with the old frayed chothesline without bleeding or any other kind of injury. Proud of myself, I restarted the snowblower. It stalled.
After a few more tries, I discovered the source of the problem. Apparently these things need more gasoline sometimes. So once safely refilled, with none of it on my shoes this time, I finished the driveway quickly and relatively easily. I even did my walk and my elderly neighbor's walk.
Then the treads locked solid. After a few more minutes of mucking around with the thing, I gave up, dragging it back to the garage. At least it cleared the last snow of the season, and I'd run out of duct tape repair tricks-- at some point, I'd have to get one of my brothers to look at it when they come over for Easter dinner.
I discovered shortly after that a couple of cups of wet, uncooked Japanese rice shouldn't be put down the kitchen disposer. (Apparently they're not called 'garbage disposals' anymore). I don't know whether it's the hardness and small size of the grains, or the extra gluten in the shells. I also don't know whether the same is true for medium or large grain rice as is eaten by Koreans and Chinese. But after the initial grinding, they become highly abrasive, and actually shredded some gasket or something inside the disposer. The end result: the rice ripped a hole in the side, spraying all around the cabinet under the sink. And of course, any water down the drain goes straight through to the cabinets and the floor underneath. Which the dishwasher also shares.
And naturally, these things happen on days when I have lectures to prepare for, classes to attend, and projects to turn in. (Which happen on pretty much any day ending in 'y' this year.) So for about a day before I was back home again and ready to take out the tool box, it meant washing the dishes in the bathroom and emptying liquids into the toilet.
But replacing a garbage disposal isn't bad if you stick to the same brand. Remove a few screws, twist it out of the lock on the sink, take out the power cord, install a new power cord in the new disposal, twist it back into the lock under the sink, hook the hoses back in, plug it in, replace a bunch of screws, and back in business.
Except where I pushed too hard and knocked the sink out of the countertop. But that finally went back into place with a little shoving and some blows with a screwdriver and rubber mallet and almost no profanity.
Easy.
This morning, while my 4-year-old son was changing, I noticed he had a wristband around his leg, under his pj's. "What's that for?" I asked. Then I noticed he had a toy kitchen spatula underneath-- he used the sweatband to strap a spatula to his leg, under his pj's. Puzzled, I asked again, "how come you put that under your pajamas?"
"To fight the ghost with," he said, rather matter-of-factly.
I blinked. "What ghost?"
"The ghost that steals bad kids." I guess the brits have nothing on Japanese superstitions...
This doesn't sound like something solvable with the toolbox.
Ten minutes later, I'm back in the snow with a screwdriver kit, an old clothesline I found in the garage, some tape, a pair of dull scissors, and a paperclip. Despite my best efforts, I managed to replace the old frayed pullcord with the old frayed chothesline without bleeding or any other kind of injury. Proud of myself, I restarted the snowblower. It stalled.
After a few more tries, I discovered the source of the problem. Apparently these things need more gasoline sometimes. So once safely refilled, with none of it on my shoes this time, I finished the driveway quickly and relatively easily. I even did my walk and my elderly neighbor's walk.
Then the treads locked solid. After a few more minutes of mucking around with the thing, I gave up, dragging it back to the garage. At least it cleared the last snow of the season, and I'd run out of duct tape repair tricks-- at some point, I'd have to get one of my brothers to look at it when they come over for Easter dinner.
I discovered shortly after that a couple of cups of wet, uncooked Japanese rice shouldn't be put down the kitchen disposer. (Apparently they're not called 'garbage disposals' anymore). I don't know whether it's the hardness and small size of the grains, or the extra gluten in the shells. I also don't know whether the same is true for medium or large grain rice as is eaten by Koreans and Chinese. But after the initial grinding, they become highly abrasive, and actually shredded some gasket or something inside the disposer. The end result: the rice ripped a hole in the side, spraying all around the cabinet under the sink. And of course, any water down the drain goes straight through to the cabinets and the floor underneath. Which the dishwasher also shares.
And naturally, these things happen on days when I have lectures to prepare for, classes to attend, and projects to turn in. (Which happen on pretty much any day ending in 'y' this year.) So for about a day before I was back home again and ready to take out the tool box, it meant washing the dishes in the bathroom and emptying liquids into the toilet.
But replacing a garbage disposal isn't bad if you stick to the same brand. Remove a few screws, twist it out of the lock on the sink, take out the power cord, install a new power cord in the new disposal, twist it back into the lock under the sink, hook the hoses back in, plug it in, replace a bunch of screws, and back in business.
Except where I pushed too hard and knocked the sink out of the countertop. But that finally went back into place with a little shoving and some blows with a screwdriver and rubber mallet and almost no profanity.
Easy.
This morning, while my 4-year-old son was changing, I noticed he had a wristband around his leg, under his pj's. "What's that for?" I asked. Then I noticed he had a toy kitchen spatula underneath-- he used the sweatband to strap a spatula to his leg, under his pj's. Puzzled, I asked again, "how come you put that under your pajamas?"
"To fight the ghost with," he said, rather matter-of-factly.
I blinked. "What ghost?"
"The ghost that steals bad kids." I guess the brits have nothing on Japanese superstitions...
This doesn't sound like something solvable with the toolbox.
Monday, March 12, 2007
My new office
The library gives away tiny offices for PhD students. So, I signed up for it. It's about 4 x 8 feet, walled, a little grimy and dusty, with just a tiny window on the door. The room has a lock, so theoretically I can leave things of little value to others here. Then there are the occasional odd noises from the other overstressed PhD students in their tiny white-walled offices. That's what headphones are for, I guess.
It reminds me a little of a cross between my last office in NYC, and the office in the movie Brazil (which was based loosely on 1984, I suppose).
After two days of actual use, I'm starting to like it anyway. It's a great place to blog from. :)
It reminds me a little of a cross between my last office in NYC, and the office in the movie Brazil (which was based loosely on 1984, I suppose).
After two days of actual use, I'm starting to like it anyway. It's a great place to blog from. :)
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Ambient Clock
I just ran into this-- an idea simple and obvious enough to make you wonder why nobody's done this already. It's a simple clock that marks blocks of time with your schedule.
It syncs with Google Calendar, so if you use anything else, you're out of luck. Google can import from some formats (I think) so one could try to guess the chain of imports/exports between all of your various schedule programs and other timekeepers to figure out where you were really supposed to be right now and how late you're going to be when you get there,
Damn, I was trying to figure out how to merge a clock with a bus schedule. Now I also have to check into the IP ownership of this design, too.
Blocked!
It's Sunday Night, and once again, I have nothing due tomorrow, but a whole bunch of stuff due "soon". After a solid weekend of doing stuff around the house, including buying/installing a bunch of shelves in the basement, laundry, rebuilding the pantry shelves which had suddenly (but not unexpectedly) started to collapse, rearranging and sorting through the junk in the basement, and started sorting out old, outgrown kids' toys and clothes to donate. Not to mention a little more progress on a few other projects around the house.
I've done absolutely no work for school or my classes in a few days. As soon as I start to do anything, I do housework instead. At least it's somewhat constructive procrastination, now that I've sworn off of playing Civilization until I at least reach PhD Candidacy.
I think I have to go somewhere else for a couple hours, take only the materials I need for one project, and just finish it. Sometimes I can only work at home, and sometimes I have to go somewhere else to do anything constructive, like today...
I've done absolutely no work for school or my classes in a few days. As soon as I start to do anything, I do housework instead. At least it's somewhat constructive procrastination, now that I've sworn off of playing Civilization until I at least reach PhD Candidacy.
I think I have to go somewhere else for a couple hours, take only the materials I need for one project, and just finish it. Sometimes I can only work at home, and sometimes I have to go somewhere else to do anything constructive, like today...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)