Peace For All

Spent a lot of time researching various aspects of linear computation, at the expense of a headache.  The ability to pick up a topic rapidly comes with its downsides as well…

Items to Accomplish       /    Percent Complete

• Choose Platform:  100% (Done)
• Setup Platform: 90%
• Choose libraries:  65% — Research started on second library, learning about options available
• Integrate libraries into project: 0% — Need to finish choosing libraries first
• Program base algorithm:   10% — Algorithm code outlined
• Choose test case:  5% — Some thought has gone into it, but it needs more investigation
• Program test case:  0%
• Choose performance measurement tool: 2% — I have heard of some of these, but need to investigate them more
• Integrate performance measurements:  0%

I am working on a project, of which I am not going to go into details about.  These blog entries serve to mark my progress.

Items to Accomplish       /    Percent Complete

• Choose Platform:  100% (Done)
• Setup Platform: 80% — Need to finish minor details, but ready to start development if another hour or so does not lead to results
• Choose libraries:  40% — I have one library in mind that I have used previously, but I need to investigate it more to see if it can handle the load I am going to be placing on it.  I need to start looking for the second library still
• Integrate libraries into project: 0% — Need to finish choosing libraries first
• Program base algorithm:   0%
• Choose test case:  5% — Some thought has gone into it, but it needs more investigation
• Program test case:  0%
• Choose performance measurement tool: 2% — I have heard of some of these, but need to investigate them more
• Integrate performance measurements:  0%

Looking for some good music, but don’t want to get sued by the RIAA?

www.live365.com is cool if you want to find a digital radio station that closely resembled a regular radio station, complete with DJs and call in lines (in some cases, other stations just play music, no talk!)   Live365 does have ads occasionally, but it typically is just one 30 second ad every four or five songs.

www.pandora.com creates customized radio stations that you customize by telling the site a song or artist that you like, and it starts building a station up based upon that initial artist or song.  You than thumbs up or thumbs down songs that play, based on if you want more or less songs of that type.  It sounds a bit strange, but it works really well!

Anyone who read my blog from last year (hosted on blogger.com) knows that in general I like posting lots of pictures.

Why so few pictures this time around?  Well, work place policy.

Boeing does not allow Cameras at work.  Secret documents and all that.  Mind you, we have laptops that are taken home every night and we are given USB memory keys, so I think that the fear is more from accidental information leaks than from anything else.  A company has to trust its employees (if it doesn’t, that is a separate article about corporate stupidity… Thankfully Boeing does), but that does not mean it is going to put faith in its employee’s ability to perfectly frame a photography shot!

There is an increasing tendency for acne treatment regimes to include some form of moisturizer.  The reason for this is quite simple:  If your skin is dry, your body will start to produce more oil.

This is why, that no matter what topical treatment you are using, you should not ever over wash your face. Your skin will become irritated, and may eventually start pouring out oil at an insane rate. This is also why it is not good to wash your face right before you go to bed at 11pm and then again when you wake up at 5am! As a general rule (and this will vary per person), try to leave at least 10 hours between face washings. Even products with moisturizers may invoke a negative reaction from your skin if your skin keeps getting all of its oil stripped off by cleansers.

Remember:  your body naturally maintains itself.  When you get hot, your body sweats to cool you down, when you get cold, you body shakes to warm you up. When you get sick, your amazingly complex lymphatic system works around the clock to cure you. Cut yourself, your body jumps into action to clot the wound and start healing. This extends to even smaller items. Do a lot of hard work with your hands? Watch your skin get tougher as you develop calluses. Play guitar, and your finger tips will develop calluses as well. Well, no surprise here, if you keep drying your skin out with chemicals, your body works to produce more oil, to help keep your skin moisturized. This means that chemical treatments that just dry your skin out may work for a short period of time, but after awhile your body will adapt and start producing even more oil than normal, possibly making your Acne even worse.

Here is an excellent tip that will save your face a lot of problems, and also keep you stylish to boot!

While the “kind of scruffy” 2 days worth of facial hair growth style is mostly dead now, if your gal likes it, here is a way for you to keep your hair at mostly the same length all the time, without having to buy some strange beard trimmer or such.

The trick to all of the above is corn starch. When lightly powdered over a dry face, corn starch removes excess oils from the face and hair. It works amazingly well. It also makes shaving extremely easy.

How easy?

You don’t even need shaving cream.

Powder your lower face with corn starch, then rinse of with water, dry well. Repeat if you feel like you need to (just to be sure). Now, taking your Gillette Mach 3^[1], preferably Mach 3 Power, and lightly shave your face,  just skimming over top of your hairs.  You should not be pushing down or even touching your skin.

Rinse out your razor often, and shake it dry before resuming shaving.

If you want a smooth shave, simply dust with corn starch, rinse off, then shave as normal.  Your hair will come off a lot easier and with less irritation.

No matter which style you want, (clean shaven or rugged), corn starch is an excellent way to help reduce the irritation from shaving.

Extra Note: Don’t ask me how I know this, except that I made a stupid bet/promise.  But if you are insistent upon sugaring (a form of natural waxing that hurts a lot less) your face, do the corn starch thing first.  If you don’t, it will hurt badly and no hair will come off.  Maybe I’ll write a separate article on sugaring later if need be, but it is not really related to acne, and as stated, the only reason I know is that I made a stupid promise and ended up with a seriously sore face (after which I found out about the corn starch thing…)
[1] You do have at least a Gillette Mach 3 don’t you? If you are using cheap disposable razors to shave, STOP RIGHT NOW. If you use a cheap razor you do not know how nice a good razor is, and the second you use a good razor, you will never want to go back to cheap single use disposables again! I know that the newer razors cost more, but…. Trust me, they are worth it. With a good razor I can shave with almost no skin irritation.

Want to seem like you are ALWAYS up on reading your email? Want to impress people and get that read receipt back to them within seconds of your receiving their message?

Create the following filter in outlook:

Apply this rule after the message arrives
where my name is in the To or Cc box
mark it as read

Your perceived productivity will skyrocket!

(Note: I am NOT suggesting that anybody actually do this! For one thing, everyone will wonder why you have read all of their messages and not responded to any of them…)

I chose to fall in love.

I had spent years learning to control my emotions.  No angry, no great sadness, stoic, centered in the world.  Able to observe, and influence so well.  I feel sad and sort of empty remembering that time, I cannot explain what it is like to have that sort of…. control.

The one thing control did not give me was motivation.  Motivation to succeed, motivation to move forward.

I saw that I was going no where.

To who I was then, love was an economic choice.  Hard to say, but true.  Love would enable me to reach a higher potential; I have not gone as high yet as I hope for, but still I strive.

I knew, that by letting free the base primitive emotions that I had fought so hard to control, I would be able to use the instincts born in to me by nature to fulfill a greater purpose, to aim for higher goals.

By giving up control, I gained something.  A switch in my mind, flipped by my hand, told me to fall in love.  To let free motions long held in reign.

Rarely I regret it, when I realize how dangerous of a game I play, when my anger rages out of control, when my emotions run free and visions of hate and violence dance freely in my head.

But without letting loose, I could never achieve what I have today.  I would not be in this chair, in this office(cubical…).  I would not be respected by those around me for my intelligence and working spirit.

Still, love has not completely given me control over my mind’s tendency to stray wayward from its goals, but greatly reduced by many orders of magnitude have such tendencies become.

Odd, be it that your situation differs so greatly from mine in the gender roles employed.  I lament that the one I love is not capable of complete sacrifice of body for love of another, that she does not sway the thought of I as I sway at the thought of her.  Her definition of love can be broken up, still maintains its economic basis, yet such was the agreement I knowingly bound myself to when I promised my love to her, fully informed by her as it was.

(On advising to a friend on what to do given her lovers lack of ability to know the emotion of love) What I advise is such:  Send the one you love to meditate for durations lasting of at least an hour a day, every day.  If such length cannot be maintained, mayhap instead half an hour a day for 7 days a week.  While such a habit is most easily acquired during the months of the summer, for then is it most pleasant to be out amongst the gardens and the sky, reflecting on what splendor nature has created for us, much can be found to occupy a mind during all seasons of the year.

The goal of such an activity would be for the one whom you love to acquire a greater understanding  of who he is and how he relates to the world.  To come to grips with emotions, past experiences, and to further develop his introspective abilities.  I highly recommend that he initially attend a workshop of some sort that will give him the basic tools of the mind necessary to complete such a journey with ease, for there is no sense in him roughly traversing the simple pathways that have been traversed many times before.

No, this is not nonsensical new age balderdash.  The mind itself works on principles which we have barely discovered.  Yet our mind, our very intelligence, is what makes us alive, what lends personality, behavior, curiosity, emotion, and understanding.  The bodies we possess are easily augmented, improved.  From simple tools to cars to prosthetics, our bodies are merely controlled by our consciousness through some process which we do not understand as yet but a very small fraction of.

Just as we, mankind, have gained control over our surroundings in the physical, I believe that  that we must also gain a control over our intellectual capabilities.

The first step to gaining control in a new environment is to fully understand what resources are available to be utilized.  Walk into an office to start a new job, upon being shown your desk, is not the first question you ask: “Where may I find a pen?” (or some similar variant there of).  Assessing ones environs and gaining both control and understanding of them is critical to success.  Tis not a needed task, for verily many do work years ignorant of the systems around them, but for those who wish success in life, such ignorance is known to be unwise.

Yet, how few have attempted such control over their own mind?  To explore the resources therein shall lie a great many surprise.  Much of what you take for granted in life, and this I promise you, need not be as it is.  Pain need not be felt in all but the most dramatic of circumstances.  Sweat need not flow but when it is of the utmost importance.  Adrenaline may run through your veins when ever you will it to be so.

We are our minds.  Understand who you are.

If the one you love can achieve even a fraction of such level of control, then it will be a matter of simplicity for him to understand what love is.

I could, in but a few short words, describe love to you.  Lay bare all of its most fundamental secrets.  Gaining such understanding of any emotion was once a simple matter for me, and I have carefully maintained in my mind the knowledge I previously fought so hard to discover.

But, dear lady, I have too much heart now.  Better that some things left unsaid, for though you likely have an understanding of the true meaning of love, that understanding, though lip service is given quite readily and easily, to ponder it at length, or to see it exposed in such bluntness as I would subject it to, is not something I would do to you.

Imagine there is this material floating in front of your eyes.

It is almost perfectly clear, 98% or more so. No color distortion, beautiful clarity, and its sole job is to correct your vision.

Oh, did I mention? The material is stronger than polycarbonate. Almost unbreakable.

That material is Trivex. Made by these fine people right here.

Really, I don’t know much about them. Maybe they eat kittens? Once again, I do not know. What I do know about them is that they make one excellent material for eye wear.

You may be asking yourself right now: Why didn’t my optometrist recommend Trivex to me last time I got new lens?

Well, the answer is that there is an actual polycarbonate industry (I know, an industry for cheesy $20 lens…) and they lobby heavily to keep the price of Trivex up, and the availability and knowledge about it low.

If you need to get new lens or glasses soon, or just want to experience a HUGE difference in clarity of vision, get Trivex. Pay for Trivex. They will cost you around $70-$90 more than Polycarbonate (maybe less if your current eye glass shop is ripping you off for polycarb lens…). You will have to shop around to find them and to find them at a good price.

It is worth it.

If you happen to live in Seattle or Kirkland, I highly suggest you visit Dr. Kerry Atkins and his kick ass artisan, Maham Rajabi. You can visit their website here or here.

Oh, and Maham will set you up so you are looking so damn sexy that the new frames alone will firm your ass, tighten your thighs, and removal 80% of the wrinkles from your face.

No, not really. But they will look so damn good that you’ll feel like all that has happened, and emit a positive attitude of self confidence that shows.

Those cool eye glasses that Morpheus wears in the Matrix? Those are Pince-nez and Maham can custom make them for you. (Not what I got, but if you want them, there they are!)

Letting bugs pile up is bad. This should be obvious.

My internship last year was lucky in two ways. The first was that the company was in a bug squishing phase, so I could count on feedback to my bug reports sometimes in a manner of hours.

The second bit of luck was that as a developer, I was able to gain a comprehension of the underlying foundations of the system. Using this comprehension, I was able to break the system in many creative and painful ways.

Examples include realizations that a particular operation was not truly atomic (DB corruption issues), to my favorite when I caused a buffer overflow by installing the Japanese Language Pack and started writing hiragana characters in to fields that expected just English text.

The Japanese exploit was my favorite one, if solely because it allowed me the opportunity to witness first hand (but not have to be involved in the fixing of!) the results of making assumptions about a user’s nationality, and about something so simple as how big a char should be. Using Unicode 100% through an application can be difficult, it only takes a single call to a function in some API that assumes 8 bit chars to break everything. Of course everyone knows that by now, but who actually tests it to that extreme?

Giving bug reporters quick feedback is essential for a programming team to do. QA is your enemy, and they are also your best friends. Remember that QA’s job is to poke you with a sharp stick now, so that you do not end up blowing off your entire leg with a shotgun later on down the line!