Heartbeat - posted by magicite
Yup, still here.
I somehow survived last semester (though I've yet to finish up a project...). I know I often say things like "I don't know how I survived X," but truly, it was tough times. Having to work on three grad-level projects at once is no good.
Instead of taking four classes like I did last semester, I'm down to two classes this time around. First, we have Stats 5021. Despite being a math major in undergrad, I have never taken any statistics courses. This course serves to fill that gap. This is also my first one hour class in years (most of my classes are 1.5 to 2.5 hours per session). I must say, I do miss short classes. I seem to stop caring about 1hr5min into any lecture, no matter how [un]interesting.
My second course is a special topics course, called Advanced Storage Systems. This is going to be a heavy project course; sadly, I have no background here, so I'm not sure how it will go.
In other news, a pipe burst in the EE/CS building at the UofM, causing severe damage. Among other things, the two labs I use for my TA work are closed indefinitely. Were they destroyed? I do not know, but this is going to making TAing 1113 verrry interesting for awhile.
I've recently been reunited with my longtime love, grapefruit. I had forgotten how tasty it can be (and, after searching the Internet, learning how good it is for you). For those looking to rekindle an old flame, I recommend it be this one.
Happy with the Obama administration so far, excepting the call to delay the DTV cutoff. The original date was in 2006... let's get it over with.
A Wee Bit Rusty - posted by magicite
So I was completely wrong. This semester is definitely one of my busiest ever, if not the busiest ever. Why is it so busy? I have a ridiculous schedule. I'm taking four grad classes (though one is colloquium and is easy), have my normal TAship, and also continue to work at Cray in my "free-time." Plus, I'm supposed to be starting out on some independent research.... yeah, more on that later. Hence, the complete lack of posts here.
So as a PhD student, I'm expected, roughly in my second year (i.e., now), to start doing some real research. But here's the problem: I have absolutely no time for it this semester. This has given rise to some inevitable friction between myself and another entity... not sure what I'm going to do about that.
That's not entirely true. I've thought quite a lot about what I would like to do with my life, and I'm not as confident as I once was that I want to get my PhD. Don't get me wrong, I like doing research, it's just that I'm not sure getting a PhD is in my best interest at this time. As much as I like research and CS, I like other things as well, and I don't get to do those other things at all while in school.
So, what to do. I really have three choices, as far as I can tell. I can continue along on the PhD path as is. Or, I can get a job in industry and get my PhD at the same time, albeit slowing down the process. Or, I can just get a job in industry after completing my masters in the spring.
I asked my advisor on the likelihood of option number two working out; that is, going down the PhD and job route. He said it was approximately.... zero. It just doesn't happen. So that realistically narrows down my options to sticking with PhD, or stopping at masters and getting a job.
Now now, I know what you're thinking. The economy is crap, unemployment is at an all-time high, so going the job route is unreasonable. While these facts are true, it ignores the fact that, well, I was offered a job a little over a month ago. So again, the two options remain: PhD, or job.
Let's assume that right now is the only time in my life where I can get a PhD. Thus, taking a job and stopping at masters means I would never be able to get a PhD. What do I lose out on? Well, I probably cannot be a CS professor anywhere. I probably couldn't get into a high-end research institution. That's... really all about it. A PhD probably won't make me anymore money in the long-run (side note: while it's "not about the money," it's an important factor to consider). All things considered, I don't think I'm missing out on much.
Now the question is, stability. Arguably, a PhD ensures stability. If I were to become a professor, I'd be a professor for life. Economy going poorly? Doesn't really affect tenured professors. New widget or technology X make me unneeded? Gulp. This is perhaps my biggest hesitation with regards to the job route. What if my skills go the way of the Punch Card? I think I worry about that problem too much. History has shown that I learn new things independently and explore new areas on my own. A rolling stone gathers no moss, all that. Still, it sits in the back of my mind.
About the job. I like it. It's interesting work, and I think I can make real contributions. And it allows me to have free time.
But... the grass is always greener on the other side. Blah.
It really comes down to a matter of choice. Neither choice is wrong, or necessarily better/worse than the other; they're just different paths that will lead to different lifestyles. That makes this whole thing difficult.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat - posted by magicite
Another summer, another failed attempt at revamping this website. I haven't even touched the design since I made it, which was Summer 2004. Next summer? Who knows. My current interests fall outside of web design, so there isn't much motivation to do it.
But yes, indeed, the summer is coming to an end. My internship is coming to a close for the summer, and classes start up on Tuesday, right after labor day and right as Hurricane Gustav pummels the southern states.
Speaking of classes, I've added another one for the fall. I forget its name at the moment, but it's outside of the CS department and will help fulfill my PhD and Masters requirements. More on that in a few months...
The other day, I started making onigiri. They're quite yummy and portable. These will serve as excellent snacks this fall, especially when slogging through my Tuesdays and Thursdays, where I will be busy with U stuff from ~9:30am until ~10:20pm. Man, Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be terrible this semester...
...or will they be? My spring workload was rather taxing, but that was because parallel and algorithms were both very highly demanding classes. That's not to say that the current batch of classes aren't demanding--they are--but I think the nature of the previous classes was a bit more taxing than the new crop. Namely, both parallel and algorithms were theory classes, and none of my new classes are really theory driven (according to the department).
I've been watching lots of Kurosawa films recently. Lots and lots--he put out sooo many (good) films. It will be nice to have some non-Kurosawa films soon though.
The RNC will occur in St. Paul this year (unless ol' Gustav messes things up). I sense that the twin cities will be a zoo for the next few days...
I bought a clapper. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.
Geocaching - posted by magicite
The last few weeks have proven to be rather uneventful, outside of my newfound desire to go geocaching all the time. If you find yourself in the TC area and would like to go geocaching sometime, just let me know.
Memories of a Good Friend - posted by magicite
I'd like to talk about my best friend when I grew up, Randy Feidt. I've only mentioned him once before in this post (briefly). The ensuing paragraphs meander and perhaps serve no obvious purpose, but I feel as if they are important. Please read them.
When I was growing up, I had but one male cousin my age: Randy Feidt. As you can imagine, we did everything together when we could. Up until the mid 90s, he lived about ten miles away, so I would on occasion either go over to his house, he would come over to my house, or we would bump into each other at our grandma's house.
I remember one time when I was spending the night at his old house and we closed a door in his room for some reason. When we awoke, the door had been mysteriously opened. When we went to go investigate, a motorized firetruck of his on a high shelf started to spark and move. We hightailed it out of there. Being the kids we were, we thought it was a ghost. To this day there's still no explanation for what happened. It was not our imagination.
In the mid 90s, Randy and the rest of his family built a house more or less in my backyard. Let me tell you, it was awesome. Now, we could do whatever we wanted to do all the time, and we wouldn't have to get rides from our parents to do it. Since we lived amidst a creek and woods, we'd often find ourselves playing there. Like I had done with my brothers, and had continued to do after Randy moved nearby, we'd build dams in the creek and forts in the trees (dams and forts are what every young boy lusts after). In the wintertime, we'd pull out some sleds and go sledding both at my house and at his house, since we were both on hills. We'd have competitions to see who would slide the farthest. It was fantastic.
At some point my brother Joel and I bought a pet hooded rat after seeing a segment on them on TV. Little did we know that the rat we bought (we named her Milo, by the way, from Milo and Otis) was not only female, but pregnant at the time of purchase. One day, Milo gave birth to numerous new hooded rats. Randy ended up with one of them, and it grew and grew until it eclipsed Milo in size. How both of us convinced our mothers to let us have a rat, I'll never know.
As we got a little older, we continued to do these things, but we expanded our hobbies a bit. We were now old enough to have BB guns, so we would shoot pop cans or the mud (to make it splatter) or other things (like old barn windows...I mean, scratch that). We were also in Boy Scouts together, which meant we went camping together often. Two summers in middle school, we were both on the same little league baseball team. Even though I was beyond terrible, he continued to practice with me and we had more good times.
In early high school, during one of the summer breaks, I introduced Randy to a couple games I was playing, and he was hooked. I do believe he came over every day that summer (or so it seemed) just so that we could play video games together on the computer. At the time, Randy and his family had an older computer that couldn't run these games, so he started an unsuccessful campaign to get his parents to buy a new one. After he figured out this wasn't going to work, he started to seriously consider saving up to buy one for himself. Granted, he didn't have a real job yet, but he was convinced he could do it.
On multiple occasions I went with Randy and his family to their cabin up in northern Minnesota. This would have been before Randy started to smoke. How do I know? Well, a friend of Randy's stepdad came to visit one time and brought his daughter and her friend with. Of course, they just happened to be our age. The normal high-school-age flirtation ensued (Randy really liked one of them), and eventually they both took out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. They offered us both a cigarette. I quickly declined, but Randy hesitated. Eventually, he declined as well, but I'm fairly certain he only declined because I did. He really wanted to impress the girl, but didn't because he knew it would be bad for him, and my rejection reminded him of that.
Not that it mattered. Starting around middle school, the path in life that Randy and I were on began to diverge. We started to have different interests, different friends, and different habits. I became, and remain, someone who worried about school all the time. Randy, on the other hand, did the exact opposite. He stopped studying altogether. His friends all smoke and drank (who knows what else, to be honest), and he followed suit. By the time Randy and I graduated from high school, we had nothing in common but our childhood memories. Even so, we still got along great, and every time we'd see each other, we'd shoot the shit and talk about the good times we had growing up.
Randy's path took him to the workforce after highschool graduation. I went to college, so it is here that we really went our separate ways, since we were now in different places. Honestly, it's a shame he didn't try harder in high school and choose to go to college somewhere, because underneath it all, he was intelligent. Perhaps he didn't have the patience for school; I really don't know. I do know he tried. I vividly remember what I did after 8th grade graduation. For some reason, I found myself staying at my dad and eventual stepmom's house with Randy. I don't remember why we were there or what we were doing, but I do remember eventually having a very long, prolonged discussion with him. While I don't remember everything we talked about (girls and reminiscing probably entered the conversation; so ok, perhaps not as vividly as I alluded to), I do remember two things. One, we talked until the sun rose. Two, we talked about our future and our goals in life. Randy and school had never really gotten along (again, despite this, he was intelligent), so his grades were never the best. But it is here that I told him that everything he had ever done with regards to grades up to this point was meaningless. That, in fact, ninth grade on up is when grades actually started to count, and that if he had any intention of going to college, that now was the time to start caring. Upon telling him this, he remained silent for awhile, as if processing what I had told him. Having not known this, he believed he was screwed, destined to stay in Northfield his entire life (which there's nothing wrong with, but for some reason, teenagers seem to hate their hometown and want to get far away from it). When ninth grade rolled around, he put a ton of effort into school... for about two months. Then, just as before, he slacked off and began to fail his classes.
As I mentioned, we went our separate ways after high school. I do not know what Randy did at this time. I saw him working at the Tacoasis in Northfield on a couple occasions, and I saw him at my dad's wedding three summers ago, and my brother's wedding one summer ago. I also know that Randy had a baby boy about one year ago, shortly before my brother's wedding. As I write this, I've still never seen him.
You know, I'd like to tell myself that Randy's path in life has led to happiness. After all, in spite of his life's difficulties, he's had plenty of fun in his life, has a healthy baby boy, and many friends. Even though he remained "stuck" in Northfield, he had much of what many of us would consider essential to one's happiness, and that is the most any of us could ever hope for.
As I said, it'd be nice to tell myself that, but it's just not true. You know, Randy and I were born only three days apart--he beat me by three days (that bastard). Of course, growing up, Randy never stopped rubbing this fact in. Since he was three days older, he was therefore, however infinitesimally small, wiser than me. It is with exceptional sadness that that I report that, in about twelve short, short hours, I will be older than Randy.
It turns out that Randy, unbeknownst to me and presumably everyone else who knew him, reached a level of deep sadness few of us have ever or will ever reach. In spite of, or perhaps because of his circumstances (having a child, a job, friends), Randy chose to cure his sadness by removing himself from this world. Sometime this past Wednesday, Randy shot himself in the chest, and then simply ceased to exist.
But I'll always have my memories.
***
His obituary has been posted to the local newspaper website.
FAIL - posted by magicite
This one's geeky. You have been warned.
So it turns out that aliases in a shell are not inherited by any of its children. So, if you wanted to write a Perl script to examine a user's aliases, you're out of luck. The reason for this is that aliases are not part of the shell's environment, and thus, do not get inherited.
It is true that if the aliases are stored in a file somewhere (.bashrc, for example), you could just parse that file, or, launch a new bash shell from within Perl, and parse the output from the alias command. But that doesn't capture aliases added in that particular session, which is exactly what I need it for.
I'm not gonna lie, this is the first time a shell has failed me. I understand why it is done this way (Suppose aliases were inherited. Then, if I were to log in to my account from your shell, I would have all of your aliases), but it still makes me unhappy.
