Older blog entries for jcv (starting at number 19)

I came up with a new product idea.

22 May 2002 (updated 23 May 2002 at 19:50 UTC) »

On Mother's Day (TM), I went to visit my mom in Thomasville. We ate lunch, chatted, and about an hour into the visit, Mom noticed that I had put an earring back in my ear. Now, I'm a pretty clean cut, all American kind of guy, and most people equate that with "conventional" and "boring". Mom likes me that way. So, after noticing, she rolled her eyes and groaned without putting up too much of a fuss.

Later in the day, my 14 year old niece Halley, Mom and I were sitting around when Mom re-noticed the earring (1/2" diameter, 16 gauge captive bead, in case you care).

"I can't believe you put that thing back in your head," she bemoaned.

Halley enjoyed the subject as only a 14 year old could, and chimed in with "Maw", (short for `GrandMa', I think), "What did you think when Uncle Chris got his nipple pierced?"

As my mother choked on her glass of Ernest and Julio Gallo Pinot Noir spiked with two packets of Sweet & Low, it dawned on Halley she had said too much, and blushed a shade not unlike Mom's wine.

19 Apr 2002 (updated 19 Apr 2002 at 22:23 UTC) »

Friends

Had this weird conversation on irc.openprojects.net...

[15:49:22] <jcv> When are you coming to town, ayan?
[16:48:16] <jcv> Mebbe he dun lefted.
[16:51:42] <cmiller>   Maybe so.  I doubt it, though.
[17:41:40] <jcv> Mebbe he went blind
[17:41:58] <jcv> You know doing _that_ will cause you to go blind.
[17:42:42] <jcv> AYAN! ARE YOU BLIND?
[17:42:58] <jcv> (you have to shout at them when they go blind)
	
13 Apr 2002 (updated 15 Apr 2002 at 01:37 UTC) »

Graduate School

The University of Central Florida has managed to recruit their newest graduate student. A further financial award came in the mail this morning, and that combined with last night's email from UNC letting me know they weren't going to be extending me an offer have sealed the deal. In a few short months I will be a PhD student.

What am I doing?

...some time passes...

Well, I've talked with lindsey, my mom, and my sister, and they all think I'm making the right decision. I tend to agree, and I have a growing peace with it. Now, I'm just nervous. It's a good nervous though.

12 Apr 2002 (updated 13 Apr 2002 at 05:06 UTC) »

What a Week

I couldn't bring myself to call UCF and turn them down. Every time I thought I had my mind made up, some well meaning person said something to make me reconsider. Yesterday, my dentist said "Ok, they offer you paid tuition and a stipend. What's the choice here?"

So, I'm going to think on it, and pray on it this weekend and make my final decision on Monday. If I don't die of an anxiety attack before then. This is soooo stressful.

  1. Can I go back to communal living?
  2. Should I wait for UNC? Update: They rejected me, so this is a non-issue. I was two months late getting my application in, though
  3. Do I really want a PhD?
  4. Will I be happy programming .NET at $SOME_LOCAL_COMPANY?
  5. Will Margo tell Jack she's really having John's cloned baby?

Wait, that last one isn't me.

All you PhD computer science students here... give me feedback!

Computing

I'm trying to extract a cpio archive made on a SCO box using a Seagate Travan drive. I'm trying to extract it using a HP SureStore T4 Travan drive on my Redhat Linux box. So far, nothing's happening other than the tape is winding forwards and back a lot. I'll let it run for a while and check on it tomorrow. I may have to take more drastic measures.

Update:cat /dev/st0 > archive.cpio seems to have gotten the data off the tape! Now, I've gotta do something with it.

7 Apr 2002 (updated 7 Apr 2002 at 12:57 UTC) »

Home fixin's

cmiller and his lovely bride Mary Ellen came over yesterday to help me work on my kitchen. I've been stripping wallpaper and spackling and sanding and generally making a mess most Saturdays for the past two months, all because I didn't like the wallpaper and wanted a nice yellow paint in the kitchen. That'll show me!

I'm so glad to have friends like that who will show up and help. We didn't get much done though. I'm not sure why.

Hey! You know on the bucket of drywall mud where they emphatically state "Avoid Sanding!"? They aren't just blowing drywall dust up your hiney. It will enter most other orifices, though.

Most of the problem was that I had to sand some of the patches I had made in the drywall, and airborne gypsum ain't fun. We took a couple of hours cleaning it up. Then we spent a couple of hours masking stuff off, and then we tried the "rolled on plaster of paris texture technique" someone had recommended. It looked really bad, so we didn't go forward. Good thing I tested it behind the refridgerator.

So, then we ate steaks off the grill. I love my friends, even if I'm a bad host.

Daylight savings time

Who the heck thought this was a good idea?

It's summer, it's hot. Who the heck wants to save daylight? I'm all for donating it to less fortunate countries, like Alabama.

My Trip To UCF

The most interesting thing was this statement by Dr. Hua.

As a undergrad, you are taught how to solve problems, and when you graduate, you should be able to solve any problem in the world, thoretically. As a PhD student, we teach you to be a trouble maker.

So, according to Dr. Hua, asking interesting questions is more important than giving interesting answers.

I sorta like that.

UCF

Dang! It's early for me! I'm leaving in about 30 minutes to go visit the University of Central Florida, and Dr. Kien A. Hua specifically. I'm more nervous than I should be.

I've got my handy GPS, though, so directionally, I should be fine. I've gotta stop at the bank on the way out, since there are numerous toll booths along the way.

3 Apr 2002 (updated 3 Apr 2002 at 16:10 UTC) »

tk

Re:Delitalk - angelfire is disallowing your links into your x86 and src directories, so the two links under your "Download:" section don't work.

It's funny, I've had similar ideas about a true OO operating system. I haven't written much up about it, but here is what I said in my grad school application personal statement:

I am interested in object oriented operating systems for their potential to reduce application complexity. The current abstractions we use for interacting with the computer do not do enough to manage repetitive and error-prone tasks. For example, should application developers have to worry about persistence at all? An object oriented operating system could handle that. Application developers would simply request an object from the backing store, manipulate it in some way, and forget it. There is no need to keep track of different types of memory, such as disk and RAM; virtualizing all memory and having the OS deal with the difference between volatile and non-volatile storage reduces complexity for all software using its services.

lindsey

Programming is art for people who can't draw. :)

2 Apr 2002 (updated 2 Apr 2002 at 20:05 UTC) »
criswell

Regarding how to take donations for your web site. It isn't quite the same as PayPal (ie: people can change their mind and get a refund automatically), but Amazon.com's Honor System sounds like it will do exactly what you want.

Personal

Well, I'm pretty hopped up on caffeine right now. Of all the legal mind altering chemicals, it's my favorite.

I'm planning a trip to Orlando to see the UCF CS department. I'm honored beyond belief by their offer, I'm just still debating and praying on what's right for me right now. I'm going down there Thursday. If any UCF CS grad students are reading this... any of y'all want to give me a real tour?

Yay! Band practice tonight!

10 older entries...

New Advogato Features

New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser code is live. It needs further work but already handles most markup better than the original parser.

Keep up with the latest Advogato features by reading the Advogato status blog.

If you're a C programmer with some spare time, take a look at the mod_virgule project page and help us with one of the tasks on the ToDo list!