Tag: reflections

At the lab, I share an office with two folks working in Push Singh and Marvin Minsky’s Common Sense Computing artificial intelligence research group. The group has recently been looking at finding new corpora of data for helping to teach computers common sense. Recently, someone had the idea of using blogs as a source. My officemate, Dustin, decided to try out Livejournal.

Now LJ has something of a reputation for being a place where angst-ridden and depressed teenagers vent their spleen. From a small random sampling of data, Dustin seems ready to conclude that:

1. LJ’s reputation is not as fully undeserved as some might hope.
2. LJ is probably not the best source of data on which to build the future’s artificial intelligences.

These snippets are from the first 5-6 random posts:

Certain people think I suck, but others don’t. Feel free to be the judge.

…

And I’m going to slaughter the person who gave me whatever it is that I have right now. As soon as I find them. And I’m about to be one of those people who go to work sick because I need money.

…

My thoughts of late have been pretty scattered and off the wall. But the last few nights have been very rough on me. My dreams, actually nightmares, have been of death, violent death. Death of myself, both body and soul. As a result, I am in the process of making a will. I don’t want to sound morbid but I feel that this is something I have to do. I’m not sure why and maybe I’m just in a wonky mood.

The Hitch Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy anyone?

It seems that the new exclusive Cambridge, Massachusetts social space The Acetarium is having it’s grand opening at the same time and in the same place that I’m having my house warming party.

Both parties are tomorrow (Saturday September 17th) at The Acetarium.

If you’re interested in coming to either event, contact me. The time to show up is 8pm or later if you’re interested in just drinks and earlier (4pm on) if you’re interested in making or eating sushi.

The MTA runs the subway, buses, and some commuter rail lines in New York City. It runs 24 hours a day and every day of the year. I can say without hesitation that is the best public transportation system I have ever used.

In addition to all of those things, the MTA also runs a beta version of a Weekend Service Advisory notification service. Because the subway does not close at night, most maintenance work is done on weekends and there are always strange service changes or interruptions (e.g., subways may run only local or express, be replaced by buses, etc). Normally, you find out about these by reading the signs posted in the stations.

The MTA Weekend Advisory System aims to put an email interface on all of this. You can log in with an email address and select the train lines that you want to know about and then changes made to those routes are emailed to you every Friday. From a technical perspective it sounds pretty simple.

If you visit the advisory site you will see uninterpolated VBScript at the top. You will soon understand how absolutely appropriate this is.

After the two weeks where the site didn’t allow me to sign up, I got my first email. It began something like this:

 Dear NYC Transit E-mail subscriber:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

It’s basically it’s been that way every since. Every week I get an email full of what looks like Microsoft specific uninterpolated XML variables. I’ve been wondering for months how they can send these out week after week and not notice that they are completely unreadable.

I think I’ve discovered why. The advisories use a multipart/alternatives mail and the HTML looks file. The reason that I (and everyone else I know) has been seeing the garbage is because we all read text/plain if it’s available and the brokenness is hidden if you read the HTML. Apparently, the MTA developers have not ever read their own text/plain advisory.

I would unsubscribe from the advisories now that I have moved away from New York except that:

1. I’m sort of curious as to how long it will take them to notice and fix this (I reported the bug weeks ago).
2. I have absolutely no faith that I will be able to do so successfully.
3. I somewhat enjoy the chuckle I get each week as I read this error.

Thanks to Andres, Ari, and Alana, I’m mostly moved into the Acetarium. People’s who name did not start with "A" were also invited to help but, for a number of reasons, universally failed to do so. Mika, Micah and myself (Mako) helped load the truck in New York. Andres also helped in New York. This was unfortunate for the purposes of alliteration but was appreciated in general.

So far, it is treating me quite well. Mika arrives tonight.

There are three things that relate to my home that I think I should mention.

First

Some people have asked me about the name of The Acetarium. In Latin, acetarium means salad. Clint has was taken back and asked if I lived in a salad. Of course, this would be ridiculous. I don’t live in a salad. I live in the salad.

Second

It turns out that I was incorrect in my previous post. The building that I live in does have a name and that name does include a definite article. This is above the building’s threshold:

In fact, the full name of my apartment is:

The Acetarium at the Cantabrigia

The presence of two definite article makes me happier than many might imagine.

Third

If you live in Boston, there are a couple upcoming events at The Acetarium you might be interested in. The first is a Grand Opening (i.e, house warming) which will be on the evening of Saturday the 17th. Mika and I will be making sushi so if you want to help or learn, you should show up early. This is an open invitation and I would love to meet new people in the area but please call ahead and please make sure I know you are coming.

We’re also planning a party for folks displaced from Seattle. Perhaps with geoduck on the menu and certainly with other Pacific Northwest drinks and dishes. If you have live in Boston and miss Seattle, you should come.

Please watch the website or the rss feed for information on these and other events.

I recently transported Betta-Max from New York to Boston. He rode in the cup-holder: In both his permanent and temporary homes, he has a little fake plant in his tank. People claim that the plant is designed to make the tank feel more like the fish’s natural environment and to put the animal at ease. I believe that in most cases, the fake plant is not for the fish at all, but for its owner.

At college, I was a frequent users of the college library’s Inter-Library Loan (ILL). In the last few years, I have missed the feature sorely.

At last, I have returned to the academy. My license to ILL has been restored. It feels good.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve always been interested in the way that fancy buildings have definite articles in their names. They also frequently have websites and fancy Latin names. I’ve never been able to live in such a building.

Until now.

So while the one bedroom apartment in Harvard Square, Cambridge that I’ll be sharing with Mika, Cambridge not be too fancy. We’re going to make sure that it sounds fancy. Without further ado, I give you:

The Acetarium

The website is complete with an rss feed of upcoming events and parties at the house and a strong recommendation from Paris Hilton.

I’m going to be carrying our couch and some boxes into the house this Saturday around midday and will have a crate of Corona for the occasion. If you are in Boston and you want to help out by riding an elevator for half an hour and enjoying a whole load of beer, please contact me about the timing. We’ll have a good time.

Well, I’m in Boston now.

I called up NSTAR, the local gas and electricity provider, to have them schedule to transfer the utilities into my name so that they are not turned off when the previous tenant moves out.

The person on the phone asked, "do you want to transfer both the electricity and the gas into your name." While the idea responding with a no is mildly amusing, I’m not entirely sure that the question needed to be asked.

Although many people suggested that it was impossible, I am forced to admit that one of my greatest fears has come to pass. That’s right, I am no longer the person in my apartment with the largest sunglasses.

My only consolation is that I remain, thanks to the generosity of Marcell Mars, the person with the longest-billed hat.

Last weekend, I attempted to fix an ailing member of my stable of IBM Model M keyboards after wearing out a buckling spring. I do this frequently enough that I have purchased both extra springs and a special tool for opening and closing the keyboard.

However, while popping heat rivets off the bottom of the keyboard, my hand slipped and I managed to lacerate the top of my right index finger’s knuckle against the side of the steel backplate. It was a nasty cut. While I didn’t get stitches, I probably should have.

Seth pointed out that this was a second order typing injury.

Since Sunday, my finger has been wrapped tightly in gauze and my finger has been in a series of homemade splints to keep the knuckle from bending under the cut. Typing without my right index finger is awkward and is straining my hand and causing soreness.

Seth suggested that this was a third order typing injury.

I’m less sure. It sounds a bit like a first order typing injury instigated by a second order injury. Perhaps though, this is just the natural process of typing injuries coming full circle.

It’s an old adage that "lightning never strikes twice." It’s becoming increasingly clear to me with time that this is bullshit.

Last week, the switch in my building (and everything plugged into it) was struck by lightning for the second time this year. Last time my whole computer needed to be replaced. This time, it was only the on-board Ethernet that seems to be fried. It means that my workstation is a much less effective router now but it beats buying a new computer.

Wikipedia has this to say about the whole thing:

The saying "lightning never strikes twice in the same place" is frequently disproven. The Empire State Building is struck by lightning on average 25 times each year, and was once struck 15 times in 15 minutes.

The Wikipedia page authors’ were also quick to dispel another hypothesis that, I’ll admit, had crossed my mind:

Some repeat lightning strike victims claim that lightning can choose its target, although this theory is entirely disregarded by the scientific community.

My IRC nick-highlighting is such so that today, all messages directed toward a new person named imako on #ubuntu triggered my attention. While this is easy to fix, it made me consider how frustrating IRC with nick-highlighting must be if you have a nick that is also a common word in a language you communicate in.

I spent a few moments on Freenode today with nicks including the, and, is, it, to, an, as and a.

I was surprised that everyone of those nicks was registered with the nick server. I was not surprised that all were available at the time I tried and that all but the and and had been untouched for the better part of the year.

Let’s face it, if your nick was it, you wouldn’t enjoy IRC very much either.

There are at least two things funny about this (non-staged) desktop screenshot that a friend took a year or so ago:

The background image is a picture of myself and my brother Nate. We were cold and less than completely comfortable and trying to convey this feeling through body language.

The first funny thing is the degree to which my friend has embraced the Windows folder naming conventions as illustrated by this closeup:

I’ll let you all speculate about what the funny things might be on your own.

Greg Pomerantz recently purchased a light bulb called a "black body bulb." When he told me this, I misheard him and thought he said he had purchased a "black hole bulb."

A small electrically-powered black hole that could be installed into a lamp is not only more technically challenging than building a light bulb. It is also, when you think about it, exactly what a light bulb isn’t.

Many people have probably followed the plight of the Russian sailors stranded 190 meters under water in a mini-sub. It was nice to see militaries around the world put aside their differences and come to the mariners’ aid.

But it’s worth pointing out this article lest anyone believe that the air of camaraderie in crises diminished the sense of machismo, competition, and old fashion "mine is bigger than yours" boosterism that is so central to our militaries. I quote:

Britain, responding to a request from the Russians, was sending a Scorpio remote-controlled underwater vehicle capable of descending 925 meters.

A U.S. Navy spokesman said a Super Scorpio, an unmanned deep diving submarine capable of reaching a depth of 1,515 meters, would be airlifted to the scene from San Diego naval base in California.

I’m glad to see that nobody was distracted from singing the praises of their expensive toys’ 900 meter plus diving capabilities by the fact that the stranded mini-sub in question was only 190 meters below the surface. It’s a shame that the British did not have time to arrange for an "Ultra-Scorpio." Something like that could have really saved the day.