Ktria's Little World

In case you're looking for a distraction, here's a fun link I found on Digg - an analysis of currently registered domain names. Pretty interesting stuff actually, though some of the graphs would be really amusing taken out of context...

Swiped from Jeff's blog, on the theory that our readerships don't entirely overlap, and everybody should get a chance to see this one. But mostly because it made me laugh. Apparently this is a poster in Sutton's?

(Cool points to anybody who can tell me which company's recruiting campaign I'm picking on here...)

I mentioned in this blog quite a while ago that I was up to a bit of geeky mischief. This was a one-evening I-don't-feel-like-doing-my-homework project that subsequently got forgotten, but I think it's about time to revive it. It was inspired by a Wired column which describes how to post on an Internet message board without actually having any knowledge or opinion about the topic. As someone who went through a brief and unhealthy phase of actually reading the comments on Slashdot articles, I instantly recognized the effectiveness of this method. Just think of the possibilities if someone were to code it up! Instant Slashdot comments! So...I did it.

The Slashdot Comment Generator

Or, for extra level of meta-irony (and more variety in the articles), you can attach it to the Slashdot Story Generator and get:

fake comments on fake stories

It actually works pretty well - at least, I find it amusing. The current problem is, it's only amusing once or twice. There just aren't that many phrases for the script to choose from. So I'm appealing to you, my blog readers, for help in coming up with more material. Have you ever come across a completely useless and annoying online post that you would like to mock? (If not, you can find plenty of the above by looking in the real Slashdot comments - that's where I got a lot of my examples...) Or perhaps a legitimate post that would still work if you just changed the subject? Or would you just like to be part of something silly? If so, suggest a comment for the generator! To get an idea of the ones I have in there already, you can look at the code.

If we can get this working well enough, I'll send it to the guy with the Slashdot Story Generator, and we will have created a complete replacement for Slashdot. :)

A few weeks ago, Ed and I were discussing an interesting rumor I had heard that Google might open an office in Virginia. I'm about 99% sure this is completely unfounded; as far as I know, the entire chain of evidence for it goes "Google hired Vint Cerf, and he lives in Virginia." In any case, it led to the question of whether either of us would want to work for Google someday. And though this may seem like a no-brainer, I'm kind of up in the air about it. Here's the big question in my mind: what does a Google employee DO? I'm sure there's a significant amount of maintenance/tweaking/upgrading required to keep everything running, but that can't be their main business or they wouldn't need a staff of genius coders. We all know that the employees get to spend 20% of their time working on the Next Big Thing, but what do they do with the other 80%? I suppose they must have a couple of projects in development (along the lines of Gmail, Google Maps, etc) that they're hoping will pan out, but it just doesn't seem to add up to the amount of code I would expect a big software company to produce.

So my questions for you:
If location/cost-of-living wasn't a factor, would YOU work at Google?
And what are they doing in there?
Discuss.

(Yes, this is a blatant attempt to get comments. But I also thought it might be more interesting all around than me rambling on about how my day was.)

It's really kind of sad how much my mood is tied to the weather. When it's nice out, I end up in a good mood for no particular reason. Now it's cold and gray and rainy, and I'm grumpy for no particular reason. Clearly, I just need to move to southern California to be happy forever...

Mood swings aside, it's been a very up-and-down sort of day so far. Just watch:

The good news: I woke up half an hour before my alarm clock this morning...and actually got out of bed instead of just lying there until the alarm went off. This may be a first. I made it to an earlier bus than usual, which was very full, and I was the last person to make it on board. Though the bus driver totally could have fit more people in there. He's new - he'll learn.

The bad news: Once I got to campus, I pulled up my research code to start working on it again, and discovered that all my changes from the last few weeks (and there have been many) were missing! I still don't know quite what happened, and neither do their techies. I know they've been doing some work on that server, so my best guess is that somebody restored it with an old backup copy. Good job, guys. And I didn't have my own backups, having trusted the admin types to deal with that sort of thing.

The good news: I responded to this discovery somewhat constructively by deciding not to trust other people with my code in the future, and setting up CVS to back up the code to my space on the CS department servers. I do trust our department techies, who have saved me from my own stupid mistakes more than once.

The bad news: Advil, while a good thing in general, pretty much kills my capacity to do work or stay awake in class. Especially when I have no coffee to counteract it. So today was pretty unproductive.

The really good news: After several hours of panic, I discovered that my code editing program had cached my recent files in a well-hidden temp directory. My work isn't lost! My undying thanks to dinky little freeware programs that don't clean up after themselves!

And some tentatively good news: I'm going to (probably) get (some undetermined amount of) relocation money from Amentra. Yay for not having to pay for my own move!

The bad news: Despite the good news, I'm still grumpy. I blame the weather.

Okay, my optimistic side won't let me end the post on that note. Today what makes me happy is being a week ahead on my digital logic labs. :)

Lots of traveling today - drove back from Williamsburg to Chapel Hill this morning, then flew from Raleigh to Orlando this evening, and here I am in Merritt Island. We definitely had a goofy couple of flight attendants on the plane (it was Southwest, which tends to be pretty laid-back anyway). Some choice quotes that I can remember:

"In the event of a sudden pressure loss, quit screaming and put on the mask that will drop from the ceiling. If someone next to you is a child or is just acting like a child, put on your mask first before assisting them."

"The button with the light bulb on it turns on your reading light. The button with the flight attendant on it does NOT turn on the flight attendant."

"Remember, if you marry one of us, you fly for free! Gentlemen, Lisa here is single. She likes pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, and her favorite color is clear. And ladies, our pilot is also single. He's wearing a Speedo...it's neon orange."

Luckily for me, however, this plane contained neither snakes nor Samuel L. Jackson. Though I totally saw this kid. He was wearing the same orange shirt and everything, but no bling.

Anyway, now to kick back and enjoy the Florida sunshine and drink the free beer for a few days!

Whew - it's only Monday of my spring break, and I'm already exhausted! Apparently, being lazy is hard work! :) Actually, it's been a very productive weekend. I've taken my next step towards the real world: the Great Apartment Hunt is underway! Ed and I spent Saturday wandering around northern VA, to get a bit more familiar with the area before we start looking for apartments. We figured out where our respective offices are; unfortunately there's no good "halfway point" between them, but there are some options where we would both have a reasonable commute. We both really liked Reston, which has a nice downtown area - to live around there would be ideal (I could actually be within walking distance of work!) though possibly not in our price range. We'll see!

Well, that's the most exciting news from the past few days. Watched Carolina play in the ACC tournament - they couldn't get past BC, but oh well. It's still a rebuilding year, in spite of the insanely good streak they've been on lately. Anyway, last year they got knocked out of the ACC tournament in the semifinals, and look what happened next! Now I'm hanging out in Williamsburg for a few days, before I catch a plane down to Florida to visit my parents for the rest of the week. Should be fun!

Today what makes me happy is outwitting W&M Parking Services. I agreed to meet Ed for lunch on campus, and only remembered when I got there that I couldn't legally park on campus anymore. But I gambled and got away with it. I knew there was a reason I never took off that old parking sticker from 2 years ago!

Of course I had a good weekend. Everybody in Chapel Hill had a good weekend. :) Ed came down for the weekend, since he's on spring break - he got into town on Saturday afternoon. We went up to Franklin Street early in the evening to save seats for the game, and after discovering that several places were full already (three hours in advance!) we ended up at our usual spot, Goldie's. A good group of CS people showed up, and we had dinner and beer and played some extremely fast-paced card games. And then it was game time! Of course the place was packed by this point - the bartenders had resorted to selling bottles of Bud Light in six-packs, probably because they were running out of everything else. We found ourselves a spot with a decent view of a TV, and watched the game! After the initial slow start, which I've pretty much come to expect from Carolina, it was neck and neck almost the entire way through. Very exciting, and very stressful! I'll admit, I came into this not knowing what to expect - Duke is very good this year, and while Carolina has really been on a roll lately, we're still such a young team. But as we continued to hang in there, my hopes kept going up! We built up a decent lead at the end, managed to hang onto it, and almost before I knew it the clock ran out and we had won! The usual chaos erupted in Goldie's, then spilled out onto Franklin Street. Bonfires, people climbing trees and telephone poles, rude chants about Duke in general and J.J. Redick in particular. I couldn't convince Ed to join the mob around the bonfire, so we just watched the craziness for a while. And of course, took some pictures of it.
At one point, there were three or four guys standing on top of that crosswalk sign; I'm fairly sure it has a dent in the top of it now! It was definitely a pretty crazy party, though it didn't approach the proportions of last year's championship celebration. Still, I'm glad that we got the opportunity to celebrate - and that I got Ed down here for it, so I could show him how crazy this town really is about basketball!

Of course, that was the big excitement of the weekend. Ed stayed for a few more days, and we had a good lazy time - went bowling, took some walks, hung out with the roommates. I was picking up the spring break mood from him - it's hard to convince myself that I'm not on spring break yet! And on that note, I'd probably better go do some work...

Today what makes me happy is the weekly return of the warm weather - 74 degrees tomorrow!

Last home basketball game tonight. How did the season go by so fast this year? I didn't get to go to as many games, and of course it's not the same just watching it on TV, so that might be why. Anyway, that was a lovely way to end our season at home - beating UVA by an embarassing 45 points. And for an added bonus today, Duke lost! :) We've really been on a roll these past few weeks. Can we keep it up and kick Duke's ass in Durham this weekend? I can certainly hope...

Today was also Ash Wednesday, so I fasted...sort of. I've never quite understood the Catholic definition of fasting as "one full meal and a few snacks" because that's not too different from what I eat on a normal basis... Anyway, I ended up having one snack and a small dinner, which seemed to be a good compromise. For Lent this year, I've decided to give up coffee. Right now, this seems like a pretty easy sacrifice - I'm actually getting enough sleep, so caffeine is not necessary for life, just a comfort thing. We'll see if I can keep it up once I start getting into final-project time!

And on that note, I'm headed to bed. Today what makes me happy is the fact that my hair has gotten (barely) long enough to put up with hairsticks. Sometimes it even stays up!