Waves

Well the wave pool at Oceans of Fun in Kansas City will never quite look the same after seeing these waves. (Rincon is a few miles south of Carpinteria).

I did get to see the huge waves. Unfortunately I did not see anyone braving the waves on a surf board, although I did see two people out on a waverunner. On Wednesday I actually saw three surfers but they were all on land - not sure if they had been scared off or what the deal was with them.

Thank the intelligent designer

Thank the intelligent designer!

Bite My Shiny Metal Ass

Fox seems to have an incredible ability to start the best shows and then cancel them and then complain about their immorality on their news network...

Good thing buying DVDs lets consumers tell Fox that they understand and like the shows even if Fox doesn't.

For those that do not know - this is exactly how Family Guy got back on the air.

Now if only people would start buying up the Firefly DVDs...

New Orleans

Not Cool

Growing Pointy Hair

Well before a few months ago if someone asked me when I thought I'd start growing pointy hair I would have told them I was not sure if I ever would. I guess I should say getting ready to grow it. I'm still moving colored boxes for a living, but I'm going to start going to MBA classes on January 3rd through Pepperdine's fully employed MBA program.

I went to the orientation yesterday which was held on their Malibu campus (I'll be attending on a different location in what is basically an office building, but it is very close to Teradyne). Wow - if you ever stop by don't be distracted by the incredible view of the ocean from the main campus because you are only about half way up the mountain, keep going to the graduate campus which is almost on top of the mountain! Once you have looked out on the endless ocean for long enough your eyes might drift over a bit and notice the graduate housing you are next to which, yes, has an ocean view from the side of a mountain.

One interesting fact about Pepperdine I learned at orientation is that the founder, George Pepperdine, is actually from Kansas City and after making his fortune (selling auto parts I think) moved out to Southern California.

Thanksgiving

I had a good thanksgiving. I spent some time with my parents and brother down in huntington beach and then we headed up to my uncle's place in santa barbara. Turns out I have quite a bit of family out here in CA - 12 people were there (10 of which live in CA). I also got to see my baby cousin for the first time. Between running around with my cousins, drinking some wine and eating a fairly big meal (and probably largely due to the order) I actually slept through a decent portion of the day. The next day my immediate family headed down to the Getty and then saw Harry Potter. Then I picked up Susanna who enjoyed thanksgiving with her family. It was good to see the family and thanks to Len and Lorraine for hosting.

Despair

Despair has its new posters up.

Phishing

This post can be ignored by about half of the readers of this blog (you know who you are - working at a national security lab is a good indicator that you are in this group). Although I would appreciate their comments.

Last night on NPR they were disucssing Phishing and that around the holiday time you should expect a lot more of it. The link will give a better explanation, but basically Phishing is trying to get you to give out your personal info (credit card number being the big one, but other items are also helpful). Phishing falls under the category of social engineering.

I've posted about The Art of Deception, a book about social engineering, before. If you are really interested it is a good read. If you do not want to read a whole book about it, the main take away message is if someone contacts you (email, phone, whatever...) you really have no reason to trust that they are who they claim to be. Especially in email never trust links there are a lot of ways to make an innocent looking link take you somewhere you don't expect. (If a friend says hey look at this website it is funny and include a link then that should not be a big deal - just do not give the site your credit card number or any other information, and if the email seems strange at all contact the friend and make sure it is really from them (don't use the reply button that defeats the whole point - just type up a new email)). Say you get an email from Amazon saying there is something wrong with your account - don't follow the link in the email - just go directly to amazon.com and sign in and see if the website says there is something wrong - if you are really concerned get their phone number off their website. The key idea is go to a trusted source and go from there.

If you are worried that someone got your info call the company they claimed to be from (get the info off their website or phone book - not from the person calling or unwilling) and ask them if it was legitimate - if not just call the credit card company and tell them what happened.

Well I hope that helps and was not too rambling.

Stirling Solar

I was listening to NPR's On Point this morning and they were talking about Stirling Solar Power. Here are some pictures. Apparently Southern California Edison has contracted for a plant from this company which will produce 500 MegaWatts (enough to power about 300,000 homes). Their explanation is better than mine, but basically instead of using solar cells to go from solar power to electricity they use mirrors to concentrate the sun's heat on an engine which then produces electricity.

Breeze helps firefighters battle blaze

Oh, so this is why it smells like BBQ and traffic has been so bad.

Owning ideas

This article is fairly interesting. It explains some of the current problems with the patent system. I'm not sure I agree with everything it says since I think that some patents are good and important and the article does not show where the distinction is. However, it all of the particular instances it brings up I agree with.

Freakonomics

I just read Freakonomics. It was quite interesting. I'm not sure I'm fully convinced of all of his results, but he does bring up some interesting points and interesting ways of looking at problems, such as how he shows that Roe v. Wade is actually the cause of the massive drop in violent crime at the end of the '90s and swimming pools are more dangerous for children than guns. I think the three big take away points are correlation does not apply causation, common sense isn't always right, and even seemingly big and vague questions can be answered by properly framing and studying the question. Ok maybe those are just somethings I think and happened to see in his book, but it's my blog so I get to state what the point of the book is. If you disagree feel free to post a comment.

I like those points so I'd recommend the book, but I think there are a few downsides. Ok at first I was unhappy that there are no footnotes with references to the research he sites, then Mike told me to look at the end of the book and then I saw the quite extensive end notes - so never mind on that one. While I did appreciate his discussion of correlation not implying causation, in most of his examples he shows lots of evidence for his claims but he doesn't do a very good job of stating which evidence supports correlation and which evidence supports causation. The one other thing I didn't like is that before each chapter there is a quotation about how great he is - now I know he co-wrote the book with someone else so it was probably the other person who put them in - but still...

So overall I'd recommend it, but would recommend you buy a little salt to go with it.
Thanks Mike and Laura for loaning it to me - of course I finished it on the way back from Boston... Oh well guess I'll have to see you again so I can give it back.

If you are wondering about correlation not implying causation you can read about how a lack of pirates is causing global warming, scroll down to see the graph that proves it (thanks to Max for pointing that one out).

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Right now I am listening to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and I'm just a bit more than half way through but unless something really interesting happens my verdict is b-ah-or-ah-ing. As I drive along and listen when I'm paying more attention to driving it sounds kind of interesting and then I pay more attention and realize he's just jabbering on and while it kind of sounds deep it really doesn't make any sense. At first I was actually liking it because he was somewhat pro-technology, but then he started making comments on technology and science that were just silly. And his statement that quality is kind of the all encompassing force in the universe (well not quite how he states it, but close enough) seems awfully arbitrary to me. Well hopefully I haven't offended any fans of the book but that's my opinion.

The World Is Flat

Not sure anyone cares, but I thought I'd get back to posting some book reviews. It has been a while so I'll post some as I think of them.

Recently I listened to The World Is Flat. I was really impressed. I was actually surprised to hear such a reasonable discussion of the flattening of the world (globalization, outsourcing, and all that entails). Even if you are not in a field that has been affected by outsourcing there is a lot of good discussion of the many other affects of increased communication around the world.

The one thing that I thought was missing from the book is an interesting point I learned about in the IT and the US labor market class I took. The one thing that I never hear anyone talk about (other than one time on NPR) is the equalizing effect of currency exchange. If so much money is going to India and China then eventually the US dollar's value will drop relative to theirs and then the price of their labor will increase. Now of course even if it was a 2x affect outsourcing would still be quite inexpensive but it would take a big chunk out of the gains. There are two arguments I would imagine people would have with this. The first is why hasn't this already happened with China and Japan. Well that's because they have artificially kept it from happening by storing lots of dollars so eventually it will hit, but right now those countries are implementing policy to promote manufacturing in their countries. The other argument would be that having the value of the dollar drop is bad for US consumers. But outsourcing is good for US consumers so it doesn't really make sense to want to reduce or slow outsourcing, but be concerned for the US consumer.

Well now I'm done with that little rant. Anyway if you are looking for an interesting read The World is Flat is pretty good.

Boston

Last weekend I headed to Boston to see Mike and Laura and a lot of other people who either stopped by or are still in Boston. It was really good to see everyone! We spent most of the weekend talking, reminiscing and eating. The one downside is that I was hungry all weekend - if only Laura would have cooked some food - maybe some cookies or lemon squares or a few feasts... Luckily the weather was actually pretty good (well for Boston in November). Mike and Laura found a good place and in a cool area.

Thanks Mike and Laura for having me over and getting everyone together and for all of the food!

Max

Two weekends ago Max came out to sunny CA, except, unfortunately, it was not so sunny. So that changed around the usual tourist activities. In addition, that Monday someone I am working with and myself decided to go crazy on the project I am working on and implement a circuit involving two feedback loops instead of dropping down a few delay cells so I was not able to get away as much as I had hoped - sorry about that Max.

If you want to read about Max's take on the trip and/or see some pictures you can check out his blog. Friday I got away for a bit and we walked around Santa Barbara. Saturday we enjoyed a slow day hanging out around Carpinteria.

Sunday we went to Disneyland with Eric and his roommate. Eric's roommate works for Disney so we got to go for free! The park was far from empty, but it definitely wasn't the on season so we got to hit quite a few rides and see the big water/fire/anything else they could merge into the show, show. Eric's roommate not only got us in for free, but provide a bit of a tour with info about when rides had changed and some anecdotes.

Monday just got to share the ride to the airport with Max.

It was good to see you Max - good luck back in Israel!

Thank you for the gifts from the Getty your supah sekrit European sources - they came out cool looking. Whenever I am near or by buy a digital camera I will take some pictures.

Now back to moving little boxes...

Mike and Laura

Last weekend Mike and Laura came out to visit. Susanna and I picked them up and we headed to hollywood. We hung out there and saw the sites and then met up with my brother and his roommate. Eric and Evan show us around Mulholland Drive. We saw Nick Nolte's house (and there were cops outside, but we never figured out what was up). Then we saw two houses and at least one of them was either Steven Seagal's or the governator's. We also drove by Monica Lewinsky's house at some point. The view from Mulholland drive was incredible. We then went down to Burbank and drove by some of the studios. Thanks Eric and Evan for showing us around.

The next day we took off to Santa Barbara wine country. Thanks to some suggestions we were able to find some good wine. At some point I think we did enough tasting that it should really be called drinking. We had dinner in Solvang, the food was nothing special, but the town is cute. I almost forgot - before we headed off to wine country we went to the avocado festival in Carpinteria. It was a bunch of booths selling food, most of which was avocado centric and then a lot of booths selling crafts and such. Ate some good avocado related food. Thanks Susanna for being the designated driver.

Monday we took it easy. We headed to the beach then of course the hot tub. Then took the top down on the mustang and cruised down to Ventura to get some lunch. I tried Peruvian for the first time - pretty good stuff. The restaurant was Peruvian and Thai food - no idea what the link is between those two countries. Then cruised up to Santa Barbara where we walked state street. Even though I've been to state street it was a new experience being there on a week day since it was almost empty instead of packed. I also do not think it struck me before just how crazy fancy that street is. We stopped by the pier and watch some people fish - I didn't think you'd catch anything from there, but one guy was pulling them in 5 at a time. Then we found a restaurant and Susanna met up with us for dinner. Thanks Mike and Laura for visting.

Wine Country

Over the weekend my parents were in town. On Saturday they headed to carp with Eric and we all headed up to Santa Barbara wine country. It was our first journey up there so we did not really know where we were going, but it seems like most of them are off of one road so it was not hard to find a few. The drive up is really nice - it goes through a national forest. The wine was ok, nothing impressive, but we just hit some random places. The wineries were interesting, they ranged from pretty snobby to basically a bar where you buy a wine glass and they just keep refilling. It was good to spend some time with my parents and brother.

The other thing I did over the weekend is watch the new family guy dvd. It was very funny! It is actually three episodes that will be on TV that they made fit together plus some filler. The reason to buy the dvd other than the filler and commentary (as you will learn by listening to the commentary) is that there are a number of jokes that will be censored in the TV version.

Sorry Steve

Hey Steve - just noticed you weren't listed under friends on this site (I was going to click on the link to see if you had updated your blog and noticed there wasn't a link) - not sure how that happened (you're on my main page and even mentioned in the only comment I made in the source code for this site...). Sorry about that.

Fire

Wednesday I left my car's top down when I parked at work and when I left that night I noticed some white flakes on the seats and figured it was from the trees I parked next to. Then on the drive back there was a sign about the 118 being closed because of brush fire.

Thursday I was driving in to work and about 25 miles north-west of where I work I noticed that the sky had become a whitish-reddish color and that part of the ocean was reflecting this color. As I got closer it became clear that this was smoke rising from a giant fire a bit north-east of where I work. I went into work and didn't really think about it until 11:30 when someone came around telling everyone that we were going to be evacuated in an hour so if we wanted something from the cafeteria we should go now. (I still don't understand why getting food seemed to be the key message rather than the evacuating part, but maybe it is just that people who live around here are not surprised when they have to evacuate for a fire). Well due to recent events in the world and the fact that I had to drive north to get home as soon as I heard the word evacuate I walked to my car and started driving. Once I was well past the fire I stopped by some stores to do some needed shopping (it is a long drive - I go by a lot of stores). And each time when I went into the store the sky was blue and when I came out the sky was white and bits of ash were falling. Luckily by time I got about 15 miles south of Carpinteria the sky was nice and blue. Then I headed up to Santa Barbara to pick up my Grandma who was visiting my Aunt and Uncle. We headed back to Carp and walked around the town and got some dinner. At one point we got some candy and ice cream and sat down outside and I noticed that every once in a while I would see a bit of ash falling, but the sky stayed nice and blue.

Friday I called Teradyne to see if people were going back to work and they said the buildings would open at 12:00 but it was up to individual discretion if you wanted to come in. Well my individual discretion says 3.5 day weekend!

Opera

Opera is a web browser that until recently many people have avoided because you had to pay them to get a version without extra ads on it. But they have decided to make it free with no ads. I am not sure I'd recomend it over firefox, but it is fairly slick and should be much more secure than IE. You will need to go through the menus a bit to get it to block pop ups and such but once you do it has a nice system for handling them.

If trying out new browsers is something you are interested in this could be a fun one to check out.
If you are using firefox and are happy then probably no reason to bother with opera.
If you have been having trouble with firefox (or g-d forbid, are using IE) then Opera could be worth trying out.

If you do try it out and want some advice on the menu settings just let me know or post a comment.

Weekend

Friday night I headed to the hot tub with a book and some wine in a cup given to me by the company (cadence) that makes the software (the circuit design and layout tools I use at work) that makes me want a glass of wine on Friday night.

Saturday I got some laundry done and then baby sat for Zach and Zoe. It was fun to see them and I was quite impressed by how well they behaved and remembered all the things they needed to do better than I did.

Sunday I got to the beach for a couple of hours - it has gotten a bit colder so just went with a chair and a book (no heading into the ocean this weekend). I tried out Mi Fiesta which is a convenience store that also sells some Mexican food that was mentioned in the New York Times. It was good but not quite sure what made it any more special than any of the other restaurants in town. Also started to play with the idea of taking night classes to get an MBA. Not really sure if it will go anywhere but I'm starting to see what the possibilities are.

A note on information missing from my blog. Occasionally you might notice something missing from my blog entries or notice they are a bit light on detail. There are two reasons for this. The first is I just kind of post when I feel like it so sometimes I just don't get around to saying much. The other is that this is all publicly available (and as my posts on expose for windows proves, random people do sometimes read it). So there is a certain amount of person information I am willing to share but especially when it comes to information about other people I like to play it safe since I am not sure how others feel about information about their life being posted for all the world to see. You can always contact me personally and ask about what's going on other than what goes up on the blog if you are curious.

Is It Better to Buy or Rent? - New York Times

Another interesting article for those of us who do not own homes... Is It Better to Buy or Rent? - New York Times

Thanks Susanna for pointing this one out.

Inspiration

Nice... Inspiration

The first four despair posters of the new calendar are up on their website.

Firefox Update

A firefox update was just released. If you made the previous security fix then probably nothing too urgent, but if you did not get around to that - then definitely time to head over to mozilla.

Oh so that's who in those little planes flying over the beach

Had a fairly fast paced weekend. Started off with a gathering of grad students from Susanna's lab Friday night.

Then Saturday Susanna and I went to Zach's birthday party. Spent a lot of time helping kids put on skates and such. But still had a good time. Happy Birthday Zach! It was actually quite a party with several rounds of food, a little gymnastics course, little model planes, a climbing wall and rollerblading instructions.

Saturday night met some UCSB physics grad students Susanna knows.

Sunday went with Susanna and a Post Doc in her lab who knows how to fly small airplanes to the Santa Barbara airport where we got in a tiny plane that seats 3 people and took off. There are controls for two people and after he handled the take off, he standing handing the controls over to us. We circled around one of the islands and then landed in the Oxnard airport so Susanna and I could switch seats and then flew over the beach and found our house and then took it back into the Santa Barbara Airport. It was a cool experience. It wasn't really scary, but after doing a few rocking the plane back and forth maneuvers to get a feel for steering I realized I probably wouldn't be looking to make it a regular event.

Things I learned this weekend

The first thing I learned this weekend is that Carpinteria has a little salt marsh nature preserve with a nature trail through it. It is honestly not that impressive, but there were several humming birds and I really like watching them when they do that fly in place thing where it looks like they are floating.

The next thing I learned is that if you go in the opposite direction to the second closest beach entrance to the apartment and you go left instead of right there's a nice little bit of beach that is separated from the rest and is less populated. There were also some surfers out there unlike in the main beach area.

Susanna and I watched the 25 year anniversary episode of SNL and found out that Dr. Evil from Austin Powers is Lorne Michaels - who knew... If you ever listen to him talk it will become very obvious.

The final thing requires a bit of background. Last year I had an invention idea which Susanna and I both thought was actually a decent product idea. When we occasionally kick around the idea of quitting work and grad school and starting our own company I am usually thinking we would implement this idea. The other bit of background is two years ago (all of these years are school years) Max gave me a stack of old wired magazines he had and did not want to take to Israel. Recently I have been reading through them. Of course as I am reading through one from 2004 I read the description of something very similar to the idea described above and then they talked about possible extensions to their invention and basically described the idea. Garrr!

Firefox security issue

If you use firefox you should go do this: Firefox and Mozilla security issue.

A few days ago a security issue was discovered in firefox. As of now I believe that no one has found a way to make the security issue do anything other than crash the browser if you click on a strange link, but it is possible that someone has figured out how to make it do something nastier so it is worth following the instructions on the page linked to above.

NetMeeting

NetMeeting - I hate you - you are evil - I wish you did not exist!

Rather than conference calling and using netmeeting I think less time would be wasted if we all just faxed each document to each other!

zucchini

We are going to eat zucchini because we are zucchini eaters.

Oh Onion...

Onion Editorial

But David you only know a little java, you're not a java programmer...
True, but I did once dream about java because my two roommates, another good friend, and my ex-girlfriend picked my room for where they were going to stay up all night to finish 6.170. Their finishing touch was adding a lightening effect to the pinball like game they made. I dreamed of a pinball game with lightening flashing across the screen and the next morning I really thought I had seen the game. That affect did win them an award so I guess I can't be too mad about them disrupting my sleep.

So...yeah... I can laugh at java programer jokes I guess was the point of that little story.

Labor Day Weekend

Saturday I walked around town taking care of some errands (and finally got a hair cut) and then that night saw the aristocrats in Santa Barbara.

Sunday Eric and his roommate Evan headed up to Carp and Susanna and I went with them to the beach. Played some Frisbee, laid around, went back to the hot tub, got some dinner in town.

Monday did some cleaning and enjoyed part of the law and order marathon.

The Aristocrats

Last night I saw The Aristocrats and wow, as their subtitle says, there is unspeakable obscenity. The movie is comedians telling about talking about a joke whose punch line is the aristocrates. If you are a south park fan - this is a movie for you! (in fact they even have Eric Cartman tell the joke). The south park telling may have been the best, but hearing it from Bob Saget was also up there.

It is also cool because they have some scenes with the writers of the onion which is interesting because they look like they should be in the sipb (MIT computer club) room.

Weekend Update

Well hopefully I will get to say this every week - spent another Saturday on the beach then in the hot tub. This time the water was a bit warmer so I headed into the ocean - the waves were fairly high so I didn't do much swimming, but jumped into the waves and let them carry me back to the beach. Also walked all the way north/west along the beach - for a while there are homes right on the sand, but I think they are rentals, but then there is a little cliff of rocks and just behind the rocks are homes that look like people might live in them and there are stairs down the rocks about every other house. Being only a few blocks from the beach I'm of course jealous of the people 10 feet from the beach...

Sunday was an exciting day of laundry, shopping and cleaning up. Also found some decent Thai food in Ventura on Main St.

Solish Sunday

Susanna and I headed to Ben's house for a BBQ on Sunday. It was good to see Ben and to catch up on all the AEPi happenings. The food was good and we got a chance to play a little basketball (well, horse).

WinZip

If you are using windows (boo!) and you need to unzip a file that ends in .zip you can get WinZip just get the free trial version (it will just remind you it is free occasionally and might expire at some point). I have not used JustZIPit but it looks like it might be a bit easier and less of a pain with the trail version stuff.

With either of these you will need to download the zip file and then open the file in the program and choose to unzip it.

If anyone reading this has a favorite unzipping program for windows please post a comment.

Thank goodness for the hot tub

Well after a tough day of reading on the beach and walking along the ocean I sure was glad that the building has a hot tub so I could relax after my taxing day.

I'm thinking California isn't such a bad place...

The 40 Year-Old Virgin

Susanna and I saw The 40 Year-Old Virgin last night and wow I have not laughed that hard in a long time!

I do feel I need to warn that this movie is not for the easily offended, but if you are not easily offended - go see it!

Topdesk - Expose take off for windows

I got this from Akshay's blog (and Susanna pointing it out) TopDesk.

On Mac OS X if you hit F9 it tiles all of the open windows and then you can just click on the one you want to bring to the front. If you hit F10 it tiles all of the windows for the current program. If you hit F11 it shows the desktop and hides all open windows until you hit F11 again. On Mac OS X it is not only what I think is the best way of moving between applications (unless you like to have a bunch of terminals or text editors open) but it also looks super slick. TopDesk does basically the same thing except it doesn't look quite as slick and I think it is just on the edge of being too slow to be worth it. Although maybe if you have a fairly recent machine it will be snappier. 8/19: Thanks to James (see comments) for pointing out that if it is running too slow turning off Live Window Updates makes a significant difference. I am very impressed by the support provided!

You can download a trial version which is free but every once in a while will pop up a little message basically just to annoy you into buying it which is $10.

Greed

Ok, so I put some ads on this blog. They are off to the side and down a bit on the page. This is more of a market survey than a final decision. I am interested to see two things. One, if over say a month I actually earn enough through the ads to be worth it (I haven't even told google where to send the money yet so if this is moving slow the code will just be deleted and the ads will be gone). Two, how people react. If you are offended by the ads and especially if you are going to be less likely to read this blog because of them - please post a comment and let me know. I don't have many readers so it will only take comments from a few people to get rid of them.

Seat Guru

Not sure how useful this actually is, but a cool site Seat Guru.

Firefox RSS

Here's an easy way to get started into the world of RSS. If you are using firefox then when you are looking at a site with an RSS feed (such as the one you are viewing right now) then at the bottom right hand corner of the browser there will be a little orange icon. If you are interested in reading the page on a regular basis click on the orange icon and then a gray box will pop up - click on any of the options (there will probably only be one option) then a little dialog box will come up where you can give the book mark a name (such as David's Blog) and then when it says create in you can pick where ever you want, but I suggest picking Bookmarks Toolbar Folder. After that near the top of the browser window (where your bookmarks are) click on the bookmark you just created and there should be a drop down list of the recent posts. Warning it is just a set number of posts, unlike other RSS readers, it does not know what was the last post you read. So if the whole list is new to you, you might want to go to the page to see if there were some posts you missed.

Another good example of where to use this is if you go to craigslist and pick say furniture in your area you can do the same thing and then you can keep an eye on what people in your area are selling.

Many news sites and other blogs also provide this service (RSS).

ING referral money

Yes, another post about ING. If you are going to get an account let me know and I'll refer you and we'll both get a little cash...

In an Expected Revamping, Agilent Plans a Buyback

Not sure how interesting anyone else finds this, but as someone who interviewed for a position in Agilent's semiconductor division and now work for a competitor of its chip testing unit this is quite interesting to me: In an Expected Revamping, Agilent Plans a Buyback

Do Try This at Home: Assess Your Area's Real Estate Bubble - New York Times

Interesting for those of us who have to live in an area where we could never afford a home at current rates: Do Try This at Home: Assess Your Area's Real Estate Bubble - New York Times

Traffic School

Well one Friday morning a few weeks ago I got up a bit late and decided that on the fairly empty stretch of the 101 between Carpinteria and Ventura I would drive a bit over 80 mph (well it wasn't as preplanned as that makes it sound). I think that the fairly empty part is what got me in trouble since groups of cars are often going faster than that on the 101 with no one being pulled over. But as you have probably guessed by now, a California Highway Patrol officer noticed that I was going a bit above the legal speed limit of 65 and turned on the flashing lights. I was not feeling very rebellious that morning so I pulled over to the right shoulder very safely and fessed up to speeding (he actually did not ask me if I knew why he pulled me over, he just asked how fast my speedometer said I was going, after telling me what he clocked me at). Luckily he decided to report my speed as 75+ which he said would reduce my fine. He also described to me traffic school. Apparently if you get a ticket in California you can attend traffic school and the state won't tell your insurance about the ticket. (This is limited to one ticket every 18 months).

Well I paid my ticket online and then started online traffic school. As I run long simulations at work I read through the text and then it has little multiple choice tests at the end of each section. Unfortunately, because I got the ticket in Ventura county I have to go somewhere to take the final test since the county realized that if you take it online anyone could take the test for you...

The thing I found most interesting in the traffic school material is their explanation for why you don't save time by speeding. They said if you go 75 in a 55 for 20 miles you only save yourself 6 minutes and since people usually drive less than 20 miles they don't save much time. Now I drive at least 90 miles a day... that's 24 minutes I could take off my commute! Ok so the limit is 65 and the rule of thumb is they won't pull you over for less than 75 so I'd actually have to be going quite fast to save that much time, but I just thought that was a rather silly line of reasoning.

Now you may be asking - David aren't you at work? Why do you have time to go on and on about a speeding ticket? Well the project I am working on has several parallel tasks to it and they are all currently blocked by one person who appears to be in an all day meeting. And while this has given me a lot of time to go through the driving school stuff I can only take so much of that. Plus you might have notice that public has demanded a post. Luckily (or unfortunately depending on if you consider more work good) there is another project I am probably go to help with so I will have something to do when I hit these situations.

Ok time to get back to traffic school and learn more about how much speeding would help me if it wasn't so expensive to get tickets (and something about safety).

Craig's List

For those that don't know about Craig's List it is worth checking out. First find your city (or the nearist available city for those of us who live in small towns) (by default it is San Fransisco) and then you can find all sorts of used stuff for sale or sell stuff and it is also a good source for finding apartments.

My Stuff, Cable, and Internet all in one day!

Yesterday was a big day - the movers came with our stuff, the cable guy turned on the cable and we finally got the DSL modem!

Unfortunately a few things were broken along the way on the move, but the guys unpacking the stuff were upfront about it and even pointed out somethings I didn't notice (I think they wanted to make sure I knew they unloaded it that way and that it wasn't them that broke it). Luckily it was all insured so hopefully it won't take too long to get the money and replace the stuff.

It is nice to have all of our stuff, but of course the task of putting it all away is quite daunting. Especially since we still have some furniture setting up and building to do from our giant weekend of shopping.

Well I better head off to work (it's so nice to have internet access at home!).

ING DIRECT

Susanna's father told me about ING DIRECT. I've been impressed so far. It's an online savings account that pays 3.15% interest and their customer service has been good. I've also been impressed by what appear to be some reasonable security policies.

Cell Phone Dock

This cell phone docking station looks very cool, although a bit expensive, and I'm not sure what happens for a multiple cell phone household.

Wawanesa

If you happen to being moving to California or Oregon you might want to check out Wawanesa.
They had some rather low rates and reasonable coverage. No promises on their service but all of the ratings I saw for them were pretty good. It is a bit silly because instead of giving you a quote online they send you a form to fill out but hey for several hundred dollars I'll put up with some sillyness.

Does Bill Gates Stand in Line at the DMV?

Does Bill Gates Stand in Line at the DMV? - That question helped keep me occupied as I stood in line at the Ventura DMV to get my driver's license switched over to CA. About four years ago I went from a Kansas driver's license to one from MA and while I had to pay over $60, I basically just handed them my out of state license and was handed my new one (after taking a picture of course). Not so try to become a resident of CA. The governator wants a bit more than that (ok I have no idea if he has to do with any of this, but it seems like pretty much anything the CA government does is attributed to him). If you want to get a CA license better bring your passport regardless of what any website or other source may say or the large gentleman at the desk will inform you to come back at another time. You should check the website because hours vary day to day and once a month they are closed on Monday. CA only charges $25 which is a nice change from MA, but you have to take a written driving test - better read the book the night before. Then once you have had all this fun you are handed a piece of paper and told that's your license until they mail one out to you sometime in the next 60 days...

A few things have happened

Well it has been a little while since my last post. I think that this post will explain that situation.

I probably will not get this in order but hopefully it will be fairly close.

I went to Vermont for the wedding which was nice.

Went to CA to find a place to live. That was a tiring experance. We had a realator take us around Ventura to look at appartments and then called everyone with any ad about apartments in Carpinteria. We looked at a few places in Carp and found a nice one fairly near the beach for a reasonable price and signed the lease (well it actually got a bit complicated since we wanted someone to look at it before signing, but in the end it worked out). We also got a tour of Santa Barbara from my Uncle Len. (We means Susanna and I).

Went back to Boston - barely even remember this - I think I mostly packed up some stuff and got my stuff out of the way of my new suite mate.

Went to PA where we just hung out and at one point saw Robin and some of Susanna's friends.

Went to Greece. We first went to Lemnos (not sure about sp). Well first we went to Athens and stayed the night since our flight was canceled due to a strike. The island was very nice and we had a lot of fun going to the beach and walking around the little town. Then we went to Athens where we saw some nice ruins. Maybe one day when I get internet access from home I will come back and add in some more detail.

Flew back to PA. The next morning saw Swarthmore's little 4th of July parade. Then headed to Boston where the next day the movers came and packed everything up. Then the next day headed out to my new home in CA.

The move has been going fairly well. At first it wasn't so nice staying in an empty apartment, but I got a mattress and a new car fairly fast so that helped and then it helped a lot when Susanna showed up. There are still a few things to come, such as verizon didn't realize that when I ordered DSL I actually wanted to put in an order for DSL so it will be a while before we get that and our stuff isn't supposed to arrive till the 25th so we are doing laundry fairly frequently.

Work is going alright - fairly well setup in my new cube, although my first assignment isn't so exciting, but I doubt it will last more than another week or two and then I can hopefully move onto something real.

Well I should get back to work.

Apple to Use Intel

Here are some articles about apple switching to using Intel processors NYT and Wall Street Journal.

Firefox update

It's time to update Firefox. A security issue with version 1.0.3 and below has been found but if you update to 1.0.4 there won't be any issues.

Papa John's Pizza

If you order from Papa John's Pizza enter the code A5YJ8Z5TAD or A2Y38MZWAD and you might get some free cheesesticks.

Graduation and Travel Plans

I got my master's degree in EECS today.
Congratulations to everyone else who graduated!

Now that I am about 1/2 way through my two months of non-stop travel here is the rest of the schedule:
June 4 and Most of June 5: Vermont for a wedding
June 6 through June 11: CA to find a place to live
June 12 through June 14: Boston - try to think of something incredibly meaningful to do in my last few free days in Boston
June 15 through June 21: PA
June 22 through July 3: Greece
July 4: Fly back to Boston that afternoon from PA
July 5 or so: movers come to take everything to CA and very soon after I head out
July 11: I keep doing the same thing I have been doing for the past couple of years but the direction of cash flow magically changes

Bar Harbor

On Thursday Susanna and I took off in her new car to Bar Harbor. We did some hiking around Acadia. That was fun but rather tiring (I'm still sore and a little bruised). And of course the most important part was eating lots of lobster. Thanks again to Mom and Dad for the gift certificate to the Parkside Restaurant. It was supposed to rain the whole time, but luckily it held off until Sunday when we decided to head back.

Star Wars

I went to the midnight showing of Star Wars III last night. I liked it - definitely a lot less sap and silliness than the previous two. Plus some good Yoda fighting scenes.

127.0.0.1

Hee Hee:

Sticker from ThinkGeek

If you do not get it perhaps one of these will help:
Try 1
Try 2

Mac Buyer's Guide: Know When to Buy Your Mac

If you are thinking about buying a mac (and you should be) then this is probably worth checking out:
Mac Buyer's Guide: Know When to Buy Your Mac

Done!

I turned my thesis in today so the only two things between me and being done are grading some 6.101 papers and giving a presentation on my thesis project!

My Thesis

I just had my master's thesis approved over email and tomorrow I am going to print it and have it signed!

If you are interested:
My Thesis

I'll admit it is fairly boring to read, but there are some nice pictures in the middle and if you want to just read a few pages I suggest the conclusion.

It's Off

Well as of this afternoon my thesis is off in the hands of my supervisors. Hopefully they will only have minimal corrections and get back to me soon since I'll be gone pretty much all of next week.

The power amplifier design for 6.776 is done and written up. The design was tough, but was much less stressful than the lab since we did not have to actually build it. We designed a differential Class E amplifier with an output power of 92 mW and efficiency of 77% which does not sound like much but is actually really high for power amplifiers.

Time to enjoy a few days with nothing to do (well other than a few weeks worth of laundry and dishes and stress over when I am going to get my thesis signed).

The Time Traveler Convention - May 7, 2005

I went to The Time Traveler Convention - May 7, 2005 tonight. While no time travelers showed up it was cool to go to a party covered by the NYT. Even cooler than that (to me) is that SNL made fun of the event I was just at that night!

Unfortunately, no one from the future showed up, but it was interesting to listen to several professors talk about if time travel is possible or not.

Susanna's Birthday

Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday Dear Susanna
Happy Birthday to You

Stick Shift

Well I got back on the horse and tried driving some more and this time it clicked. After trying the driveway and a couple of parking lots I then took on some small streets. I stalled at about half of the stop signs but the rest of the drive went fairly well. Susanna was a good teacher and very patient as I jerked the car back and forth.

Stick Shift

I'm in Swarthmore at Susanna's house for passover and Susanna's parents have a stick shift car so Susanna offered to teach me how to drive it. We were just going up and down the drive way and I was starting to get a few reasonable starts (I never got it without any jerks, but I think a few of them there was only one jerk, rather than bouncing back and forth). Then I lost it and stalled out several times in a row and then the car had trouble starting so we decided to take a bit of a break. Maybe I'll try again later today but I'm not sure how much damage I want to do to Susanna's parents car...

Baker House Piano Drop 2005: Drop Date has a new meaning

How do MIT students celebrate the last day on which they can drop a class? Apparently they drop a piano off the roof of a 6 story building... It did break apart, although I still think dropping pumpkins of the 21 story building for halloween looks cooler.
Baker House Piano Drop 2005: Drop Date has a new meaning

Robust Remote

While doing laundry a few days ago (yeah it happens occasionally), Susanna and I had trouble finding the TV remote. We looked and looked and eventually gave up. When the drier was done I headed down to get the laundry. I opened the drier and noticed two batteries which seemed very odd. I also recognized the cheap off brand look. I was about to throw them out when I noticed the little part on the remote you remove to replace the batters also in the drier. I quickly went through the laundry and of course found the rest of the remote. I took it upstairs and it worked perfectly. I was quite impressed (well impressed enough to blog about it).

For a while there I flew across the country each month to talk to another company, now my big excitement is that the washing machine didn't destroy my remote. Looks like it's time to get a hobby...

Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system

If you are ever doing anything on the internet and do not want people to be able to track who you are sending info to or getting info from you can use this:
Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system

For a good list of reasons to use it see the website. For those who want to do file sharing with it the problem is that it is fairly slow so it's not really a good way to do that. Remember it will only stop someone from knowing where your packets are going - it will not stop someone from knowing what they contain - so if it is sensitive information you still need to make sure that the communication is encrypted.

Mariner Came In

My thesis project (code named Mariner) was delivered to the California office a couple of days ago. They look like they are ok, but actually testing will not happen for a bit. I have some pictures I want to post but I need to make sure that it is ok to do that first.

It works!

For 6.776 (the RF CMOS class I am taking) we have a lab assignment to work in pairs to make an amplifier centered at 50 MHz with a gain of 25 and an input impedance of 50 ohms along with several other specs. Figuring out the design and getting it to work in the simulator took some work but nothing too bad. But when it comes time to build something that works at 50 MHz things you might never think of all of a sudden make a big difference. Such as the scope probe we use to measure signals is actually the load of the amplifier since 10 pF is rather significant at 50 MHz. So you cannot look at the voltage at any point in the circuit other than the output because attaching the scope probe significantly changes the circuit.
Luckily it is at 50 MHz and not 100 MHz since that is where all of the FM stations are, but even at 50 MHz you have to contend with all that junk being transmitted when taking measurements.
Anyway, when we started building it we were having a really hard time getting any gain and it seemed like we had maxed out at about 6. For some reason I let myself feel all defeated and thought we would never get it to work. The entire time Susanna told me that we would figure it out and that once we did I would go on and on about how much I love building circuits and how glad I would be that we had to actually build it and not just simulate it.
Well it eventually struck me that we could get more gain by adding a buffer stage after our amplifier (for low frequency stuff that would be obvious, but for RF there are reasons why it is not). So my partner and I went in and rebuilt it, but we didn't have all the right values of parts and for some reason the TA thought that grad students don't have to be in their office on Sundays so we got to a gain of 11 and things were looking up.
Today we got the inductor values we needed and rebuilt it and then started switching around values of various components somewhat at random to see what would increase the gain. Eventually we got to a gain of about 24.5 at which point we tried things like jiggling components and blowing on it so no avail. Eventually I adjusted the variable capacitors a bit more and decided that my partner was being a bit stingy with his measurement on the scope and we called it a success with a gain of exactly 25 at exactly the output swing we needed. Tomorrow we find out if our TA agrees. And of course on the walk home today I thought about how much I love building circuits and how glad I am that we did not just simulate it.

Why did you just read all of that? Well I can't sleep and I don't feel like working on my thesis right now and hence another blog entry is created...

Last Test... Ever... Maybe

Today I took my one and only test for the term and since I am graduating (assuming I didn't mess up too badly) that could be the last test I take - ever! (Well yeah, I'll probably take another test at some point, but it is more fun to think of it as the last ever).

While I still have a lab due next week, hopefully now that I am done with that test I will have some time to reply to all of those emails and calls that I have been neglecting. And maybe also make some more progress on that thesis.

The Art of Deception

During my flights to and from Denver I read The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security (thanks Mike for letting me borrow it).

It is about corporate security, but the first 14 chapters are stories about ways in which social engineers can get information out of people. What's a social engineer? They are like a computer hacker, but instead of just hacking into a computer they use social methods, such as collecting enough information about a person so they can pretend to be that person over the phone and just ask a bank or coworker or whoever for sensitive information about the person. What makes this book particularly interesting is that the author, Kevin Mitnick, is famous for being a social engineer and since being arrested and serving his time has become a corporate security consultant. So he actually knows how social engineers work and the tricks of the trade.

The stories can be entertaining from the perspective of wow, I would have completely fallen for that and oh, that's how you steal someone's identity. While they are mostly about corporate security and information it is easy to see how the same techniques could be applied to getting your credit card or social security number. The corporate security sections at the end are kind of boring and I just read through those since I was on a plane and the movie was Finding Neverland.

Warning, reading this book can make you rather paranoid, although that's kind of the point.

An Exciting Several Days

Wednesday and Thursday I spent a ton of time in lab helping students in the analog lab class I am TAing get a lab finished up. The first 5 labs in the class can be built fairly sloppily, but the 6th lab involves a gain of 4000 so if you are sloppy at all (and even if you are not and are just a bit unlucky) then instead of an amplifier you get a nice noise source or oscillator. So of course those were an interesting two days. Toward the end of Thursday, two of the students who had been checked off for the lab were working on an extra credit part of the lab which is a power source and when you try for too high of a voltage out of it you get a ton of ripple on the power source. This is expected but after talking to them about why it happens I told them that that means they are going to need to redesign it and then quickly told them I was just kidding. One of them went from a look of horror to laughing. The other one was in so much shock she did not catch on that I had said I was kidding or that I had signed her lab - it took me a little bit to clam her down and explain that I was just joking and that that problem should be there. I felt so bad because I was just trying to lighten the mood.

The next morning I had a 10:45 flight to Denver to go to EntConnect, an Entrepreneurship conference that my Uncle is taking me to as my graduation present (Thank you Uncle Len). After the long night at lab I ended up sleeping until 10:55. I was freaked out and figured there was no way I was going to get out there, Susanna helped me calm down (Thank you Susanna) and look around at some possibilities. Then there were a series of calls to us air, united, and Len and Lorraine which lead to me just heading to the airport to see if I hung out long enough if I could get on some flight on stand by (Thank you Lorraine for suggesting this).

Some lessons learned on the phone - US Air will allow you to fly stand by if you are flying on miles, but United will not. Even if you have a first class ticket (double thank you Len and Lorraine!) if you are flying on miles then on the phone you are still restricted to flights you can use miles on. Another interesting part of this event was neither untied or us air seemed to have any record of my ticket when I told them the flight number, my name and destination but when I then told them my ticket number they found it right away.

I got to the airport at 1:30 and went up to the first class line, luckily there was just one person ahead of me, I went up to the person working at the counter and explained the situation (well except for why I missed the flight). She typed away for a while and again could not find my reservation and asked if I had any documentation, luckily I had my laptop and pulled up the email with the information and held the laptop so she could read off the information. She then asked me if I had anything to check - I said no - she told me she's putting me on a 2:00 flight that will stop in Charlotte and that I should run, she also added that I was lucky I got her because anyone else would have made me fly stand by.

I ran over to security - told them I had a 2:00 flight and got to skip most of the line and got to the gate about 5 minutes before they started to board.

The flight was fine.

When we landed and I found a place to sit I called up Teradyne to accept their job offer in Agoura Hills. They seemed excited and I am very excited. We will be talking sometime in the next couple of weeks to figure out all of the details. I decided on Teradyne because I enjoyed working there during my internships, also because I like the fact that the group I will be working for does a large variety of projects, unlike a lot of the design companies I talked to where people tend to start working on a very specific type of circuit and stay with that forever, and of course location. Especially after the past two winters in Boston I am looking forward to hanging out on the beach.

Well as I was finishing up those calls I heard an announcement that they overbooked the flight I was on by 6 seats and they are looking for volunteers (WOW - I am glad the woman at the counter had booked tickets for me instead of having me fly standby...).

This flight was also uneventful.

When I got into Denver I took a shuttle over to dinner where I met up with Uncle Len and some of the people attending the conference, we had a very good and big Italian dinner.

The next day we went to the conference which had some interesting talks. Particularly interesting was one talk about persistent search, rss , a9 and a couple other topics and combining them. Also someone who had worked for the Navy designing submarines during the 60's and 70's discussed some of the subs designed during that time and his own personal involvement. I also found it interesting to talk to some people who have been working in technology for a long time and who have ventured out on their own. From what I picked up from them matched what I have been noticing/been told which is I definitely feel that staring off with Teradyne and learning there is the right way to go but to keep my eyes open for opportunities. I also found it interesting that some of the people seemed like they were looking to go out on their own for big money, but almost all were out on their own so they can work on what they want and/or they can live where they want and have time for family.
And of course it was fun getting to hang out with Uncle Len.

Tomorrow there is a bit more conference in the morning and then in the afternoon I head back to Boston, this half of the flight it will be direct and I am in 1st class so that should be pretty comfy.

Well, time to get packed up and ready for bed so I can be awake for the talks tomorrow morning.

Before you install Windows

If you are installing/reinstalling windows it is important to remember that until you download all of the security updates your computer is very vulnerable (and yes it can take only minutes before something will try to attack your machine). So the way to get around this problem is to physically remove the ethernet cable from your computer before installing windows. Then once it is installed follow these instructions:
Step 1: Use an Internet Firewall

Once the firewall is on you can begin the exciting task of getting all of the security updates (at this point go ahead and plug the ethernet cable back in). Once you have all of the updates you might want to try leaving the firewall on, but you will probably find that lots of internet applications will not work, if that's the case go ahead and turn the firewall off.

If all of this sounds like a pain it might be time to look at this:
Mac mini

Darik's Boot and Nuke

If you are ever looking to really erase your hard drive then the following link is rather helpful:
Darik's Boot and Nuke

If you just format your drive you just erase the table saying where the files are, but you do not actually remove the bits describing the files form your hard drive. You might think that you could just write all 0's to your hard drive and that would do it, but of course there are some clever people out there so to really do it you actually need to write over it in a random pattern a number of times. In addition, of course there are also further complications. Luckily this disk takes care of all of that for you.

WARNING - if you make a disk from this website and you put that disk in a computer and the computer restarts - everything on the hard drive will be gone with absolutely no way of recovering it. So before you make the disk label it and then only put it in a computer if you really mean it.

If you want to download it scroll down to Download and click on Floppy Version and then pick the mirror closest to you. Then click on the icon on the right of the screen corresponding with that mirror. After the files are downloaded run the install program. For further instructions see the links under download or ask me.

Revenge of the Sith

Looks better than I and II. Hopefully they are hinting at some good fight scenes with Yoda.

AOL Movies: Star Wars Episode III Teaser Trailer

Just for Fun - The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary

Two posts in a row - someone is doing some serious procrastinating.

I just finished reading Just for Fun - The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. I got it for free by going to the Linux World Expo several weeks ago. It's a(n) (autobiography of Linus Torvalds. I figured I would just flip through it, but I ended up reading the whole thing over the course of about 24 hours. Either I found it rather entertaining or it was just the only thing I brought with me to work to read while running long simulations.

If you happen to have a copy I would say it's worth reading, although if you have been an avid slashdot reader for years there's probably nothing new. I thought it was interesting that it really was some kid (well, kid in his 6th year of college) just working away in his room. Although I did feel like he spent a bit too long describing what it is like to be a nerd, but perhaps that is for the popular audience who haven't killed a number of weekends coding away themselves.

While he is in no way qualified to philosophize and says so himself his theory that technology has three stages: survival, social communication, and then entertainment is fairly interesting.

Car

I am getting excited about moving out to California next year and in particular have started thinking about what kind of car to get.

Having rather limited experience in finding and buying cars I am interested in getting advice, so anyone who feels like throwing in their two cents - I would appreciate it.

Part of the challenge is that starting out I will have approximately zero dollars so I am almost certainly looking to get something used. At the same time, I have expensive taste and would definitely like to get a convertible so I can enjoy the sun, but another constraint is if I am going to drive at least 2 hours a day, a bit of fuel efficiency might be a good idea...

In addition to advice, if anyone has a consumer reports membership and could get me onto their website (or send me info from the site) that would be awesome!

Stories From The Final Interview Trip

Just a few interesting stories from the final interview trip:

The hotel I was staying in was next to several Oracle buildings and at one of the cross walks there was a yellow street sign that had one big penguin next to three little penguins. I tried to take a picture of it with my phone while driving and ended up with a picture of a yellow dot.

I lived it up one morning by ordering my breakfast the previous night. They brought up eggs, hash-browns and a really good croissant as well as four small jars of jelly and a pot of hot water and several tea bags. It was great but with the $20 price tag I figured that the next morning I could actually make my way down stairs to get my croissant.

I was driving along the 101 wondering why people think there is so much traffic in CA and then everyone slowly came to a stop and about 20 minutes later I finally drove by a car stopped in the middle of the road and then noticed one in front of it and then another and another and... - I think that was the first 6 car pile up I have ever seen - luckily it looked like it was just 6 fender-benders in a row.

I was interviewing at Linear and met the director of the group I was interviewing with and he asked where I'm from. I told him Kansas City and he said "oh" just like everyone else seems to, but this time he was suppressed because he is also from there. He asked me which part and when I said Overland Park, he said, oh that figures. Later he explained that he figured because of the schools but I found it funny to be in Sunnyvale and get crap about being a Johnson County boy.

I did a presentation of my thesis work at Exponent as part of the interview. At the end most people seemed to think I had done well but one person kept asking me what about my project was innovative and seemed rather unimpressed. Later when I was interviewing with her she asked if that was my PhD thesis and seemed shocked that it would be - then it all made sense to me and when I told her it was my master's thesis she had one of those - oh, I get it moments and became a lot nicer.

Overall I think the interviews went well and I am very glad to be done interviewing.

united.com - United College Plus

If you are a college student check this out:
united.com - United College Plus

especially:
Graduation Bonus

Interview day 1

Today's interview at Maxim seemed to go well. It seems like a good company. I will not go into more detail on the web but feel free to ask me about it. Tomorrow I am off to Exponent and then the next day is Linear.

After the interview I went to Fry's Electronics. As soon as I saw the giant sinc function on the building I knew I was going to like the place. It is an awesome electronics store and they make a good turkey with avocado sandwich too.

I just finished Jon Stewart's book from 1998, Naked Pictures of Famous People. This one is not as good as america the book and the first two chapters are a bit odd but the rest is very funny and is a quick read.

I should start going over my presentation for the interview tomorrow...

www.weather.com - Tenday Forecast

While www.weather.com - Tenday Forecast is not so amazing, it sure is going to beat www.weather.com - Tenday Forecast!

Off to CA for what should be the last set of interviews. I will be up in San Francisco so no family to visit, but I am staying near San Francisco instead of San Jose so maybe I will make it into the city for a bit on this trip.

It sure is nice to be a grad student, I am going to be gone for 4 days and not miss a day of class. Although this has been a crazy weekend since I have a problem set due the day I get back, and after taking a red-eye I doubt I'll be up for working on it when I get back.

Thinking back a bit... Susanna and I had a nice valentine's day. We went to a near by Italian restaurant which was very good.

I have started to make some real progress on my thesis which is a nice change, although of course that's taking a pause due to this trip.

Well I should stop typing and get ready for this trip.

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > What's Next: A 3-D View of the City, Block by Block

Interesting - especially for those in Philadelphia...

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > What's Next: A 3-D View of the City, Block by Block

Skype - Free Internet telephony that just works

Good stuff...

Skype - Free Internet telephony that just works

If you want to skype me my user name is dsignoff.

CNN.com - Airport screener misses butcher knife in purse - Feb 14, 2005

Wow...

CNN.com - Airport screener misses butcher knife in purse - Feb 14, 2005

The New York Times > Business > Your Taxes > Review: So Much Software, but So Little Time

Kind of interesting:

The New York Times > Business > Your Taxes > Review: So Much Software, but So Little Time

Antivirus Software

I asked several of my friends at MIT what antivirus/antispyware software they recommend for people running windows. Note that only one of the four actually runs windows (the other three use a combination of mac os x and linux).

The number one suggestion is go buy one of these:
Apple - Mac mini

If you are not willing to do that, the next best thing is to make sure you are running firefox instead of internet explorer and if you can use webmail (such as yahoo or gmail). If you cannot use webmail, use Thunderbird instead of outlook. And of course run windows update regularly!

Once you have made those changes you can get/buy some software to help out. For antivirus it is not that big of a deal which one you get (McAfee and Nortan are the two most popular), the important thing is to pay for the update service and keep virus definitions up to date.

To cut down on the adware and spyware, you can get Ad-Aware and SpyBot off the web (I believe both are free). Be warned that they are a little over sensitive and might report that you have thousands of questionable cookies, you can just ignore those warnings and tell it to clean up whatever it can.

If you have any other suggestions please hit the comment link and leave a message.

Thanks to Susanna, Max, Steve, and Mike for their recommendations.

Google Maps

Google just came out with its own map service, I think it looks a bit better than mapquest.

Google Maps

Boston.com / News / Local / Mass. / Fraternity to face alcohol charges

Well, I figured this would be best coming from me...

Boston.com / News / Local / Mass. / Fraternity to face alcohol charges

The article is somewhat sensational and plays down some rather key points. I was not at the party, but what I hear, and definitely believe is that nearly everyone at the party were North Eastern students who are renting out about 1/2 of the house.

I am rather shocked at the amount of alcohol, but again what I hear is that nearly all of it was in a locked cabinet and the guy with the key was not even at the party...

Well, in the end, I'm glad I'm in my large, clean room across the river from all of that.

Chip is in fab

As of Feb 2 the chip I worked on at Teradyne made it to the fab! (aka the chips are being made)

Blog

For those who are curious about what a blog is...

Weblog - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Skype - Free Internet telephony that just works

Skype - Free Internet telephony that just works

This is a great piece of software. It's an instant messaging client, but in addition to text to you can just like a phone call and as they say on their website it just works.

If you ever want to talk you can skype me, my user name is dsignoff.

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification

If you are running windows you will probably want to run windows update on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Bush's Social Security Plan

I think it is fairly clear that Bush just learned that if you increase the risk you are willing to take on you can increase your expected earnings and that no one bothered explaining to him the down side of an insurance plan taking on more risk.

But regardless of how you feel about his new plan, if it goes into affect and you have the option to privately invest part of your social security money would you do it? Leave a comment, I'm curious what everything thinks.

Take a stretch break

I was looking around for free stretch break programs. If you are at MIT then you can get one from IS. Otherwise this is the only free one I found, for mac os it wants to use classic mode, I have not seen how well it works for windows. If you try it in windows leave a comment and let me know what you think of it.

Desktop Yoga from e-stretch - RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

Trip to CA

I am headed out to California, that will be the 7th time in 7 months! This time I am going to San Francisco to interview with two companies. I am flying out on Feb 20 and I will get back early Feb 23.

Real First Post

Hi to everyone reading this.

If you want to use RSS add http://dsignoff.blogspot.com/atom.xml
If you use firefox and want an RSS reader go to sage.mozdev.org

I am not really sure what I am going to post here or how often it will really happen, but maybe something interesting will pop up every once in a while.

Right now I'm working on writing my master's thesis, well really at this moment I'm procrastinating from writing it by writing this blog.

I've also been starting in on my taxes - interesting little fact, if you want to use turbotax to file online you'll save $6 if you go to taxfreedom.com instead of turbotax.com

And classes just started, just taking one class this term, 6.776 (High Speed Communication Circuits), and TAing 6.101 (Intro Analog Lab).

First Post

I got the first post!