Nameless Rantings

New Digs

2007-10-08T23:27:00.000-04:00

For those of you who haven't seen the new blog yet, you can find it at http://daddydoctorate.blogspot.com/. The title is "Daddyhood and a Doctorate," and it focuses on (you guessed it!) impending daddyhood while pursuing a doctorate. Enjoy!

Irony is Beautiful

2007-04-09T16:59:00.000-04:00

I really hope this screenshot is readable because it is dripping with hysterical irony.

Abstinence Feels Good offers links to two different Florida-based abstinence education programs that offer such helpful advice like the "Freaky Fact of the Month." On the Hillsborough page, there's a poll that asks, "When should someone be sexually active?" One of the options is--and I am dead serious--"Never."

I just have no words...

On 10,000 and 300

2007-03-30T11:15:00.000-04:00

This week, I hit the 10,000 mile mark with my beloved Prius. Let me repeat that a little more clearly: I have driven 10,000 miles in the 4 months I have owned this car. Egad. If I keep this pace up, I will break 100,000 miles in the 3-4 year time frame. That is simply insane.

Looking back on the 10,000 miles, I love my car. It's comfortable, roomy, and it has some cool features, like the video screen where I can keep track of my mileage average. And that brings me to a quick point of discussion for the car.

When I tell people that I get an average of probably 45 mpg with it, they seem shocked. After all, the commercials say 60 mpg. However, the 60 mpg rating is for city driving, while 99% of the driving that I do is highway miles. The highway rating is 51 mpg, so I'm not far off. In fact, I could get 51 mpg if I drove 55 mph. But instead, I drive 75 or 65, depending on what part of my commute I'm on. Also, I've noticed that the weather affects the mileage. During the cold streak a few weeks ago, I was getting about 42-43 mpg. Now, I'm up in the 47-48 range. To make a long story short, based on my experience with the Prius, I do not believe that the mileage numbers are as inaccurate as some news stories suggest.

Another question that people ask is how much money I have saved in gas. That's a pretty easy calculation to make. Averaging 45 mpg over 10,000 miles means that I have used 222 gallons of gas. I'm not sure what the average price of gas was over that time, but I would say that $2.30 is probably not far off. That means I have spent $510.60 in gas since getting my Prius.

As a means of comparison, I used to have a Honda Accord. It was the 4-cylinder model, which meant it was very fuel-efficient, as far as non-hybrids go. I was getting somewhere between 25-30 mpg. I would say 27 would be a good average. Over 10,000 miles that would be 370 gallons, for a total cost of $851.

Thus, in four months, I have saved $340.40, which comes to $85 a month. That yields a 40% savings in gas costs alone. And that's when compared to a vehicle that is already very good with gas.

Net result: I love my car.

Full disclosure: There was a recent report that claimed the Hummer was greener than the Prius when you consider the total cost over the course of the lifetime of the vehicle. As with any report, you must look at the assumptions made. For starters, they calculated the estimated total lifetime on the Hummer was over 300,000 miles, while the total lifetime on the Prius was 109,000. In fact, the ~100,000 figure is Toyota's estimate of how long the hybrid battery would last, not the car itself. To date, no hybrid battery has had to be replaced, despite the fact that there are stories of Prius owners putting well over 200,000 miles on their vehicles. However, even if the battery did need to be replaced at 100,000 miles, does CNW believe that replacing the battery requires replacing the car? There are other problems with the report, as well, but let me just say this: Bad assumptions = bad science = good press.

So that was the 10,000 portion, now let me move on to 300. If you are not familiar, 300 is inspired by the Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartans led a small army of Greeks (estimated at 7,000), using the natural terrain of a narrow pass, held off the invading Persian army (estimated at 200,000) for three days while other Greeks to assemble their forces. In the end, a local resident betrayed the Greeks and told the Persians of another path, which the Persians used to attack the Greeks from both sides. The Spartans and an additional 700 Greeks fought to the end, while the rest were sent away. The battle was crucial in the Greco-Persian War, which was eventually won by the Greeks. This marked the beginning of the Golden Age of Greece.

The movie 300 is based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller. For those who have seen the commercials, you can tell that the movie remains true to its roots. Watching the movie is like seeing a graphic novel come to life. And the result is fantastic.

Let me state clearly that this is not intended to be a movie with Oscar caliber acting. In fact, the characters were all fairly trite cariacatures. You had the valiant king nobly fighting for his country, the invading tyrant, the scheming politician, the pitiful hunchback, etc. However, that was not what this movie was about. This movie was a masterpiece of visual imagery, plain and simple. The vibrant red of blood splattering contrasts with the brooding, lifeless, gothic, background of the landscape.

If you enjoy genres that bend the rules of reality in favor of visual effect, you MUST see this movie. The battles are violent, but beautifully done. The costume designs are as elaborate and exaggerated as any that you will find in a graphic novel. For instance, you can compare the ornate piercings of Xerxes with the simple robe of Leonidas.

300 was brutal and unapologetic in its orgy of violence. And it was magnificent.

Idiotic Patent

2007-03-19T11:21:00.000-04:00

I thought I had seen some very useless patents before, but this one really takes the cake. Someone applied to patent the linked list in 2002, and it was awarded in 2006. For non-geeks, a linked list is one of the simplest data structures that computer science students learn. A class in data structures is one of the first classes CS students take. Linked lists are the very first thing you learn about. As you can see from the WikiPedia page, they were first developed in the '50s. So why on earth is someone getting a patent for "inventing" a variation of it 50 years later?!? I've read through the text of the patent, and the variation is pretty trivial. This is why we geeks like to scream for patent reform...

Thriller on YouTube

2007-01-27T23:36:00.000-05:00

The wife and I stumbled across some funny stuff on YouTube a little bit ago. So here they are, three versions of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." First, the original:

I had to post that one because Brianne had actually never seen the video. Of course, considering how young she was when it came out, I guess that's understandable. However, the real reasons for this post are these two funny versions. First, someone recreated it (including the big dance scene), with Legos!!

The one that really made us laugh, though, was this last video. It's not the music to Thriller, but it is someone from India doing a variation on the dance. This had us rolling!

OK, time to end this. It's almost midnight on a Saturday night and we're both on our laptops. But at least I'm not reading about acrocentric chromosomes and centromeres!! :-)

First Letter to the Purdue Paper

2007-01-25T12:54:00.000-05:00

I picked up the Purdue Exponent for the first time the other day and found some of the typical hot-button topics on the opinion page. In particular, there was a letter that stated (among other things):

Marriage is a religious institution first. Every major religion has some variant of it. It just so happens that for reasons of inheritance, taxes and custody, the government keeps a tab on it. Let's just keep in mind that real marriage is a religious thing.

The "marriage" found in government hardly rises above the level of other government controlled entities. For instance, to get a driver's license you must meet a certain set of criteria[...] Few would call their license a "right." To call the legal status of "marriage" provided by the government a human right is probably giving it a little too much credit.

Here is my response:

Steven O'Keefe's letter regarding the gay marriage debate was perhaps the most arrogant and flawed argument regarding the topic that I have read. In Mr. O'Keefe's words, “real marriage is a religious thing.” According to his letter, since every major religion has a form of marriage, then every marriage must be religious. This argument assumes the converse of the original statement, which is logically unsound.

Mr. O'Keefe also inaptly compares civil marriage to a driver's license, which requires demonstration of ability and knowledge concerning driving. What unique skills must one show to get a marriage license? None.

Even more to the point, why does Mr. O'Keefe think he can be the arbiter regarding what qualifies as a “real marriage?” I have friends who were married by a justice of the peace in a secular ceremony. Would Mr. O'Keefe argue for denying them civil recognition since their marriage is not religious and, therefore, not real? I consider my own marriage to be an emotional, moral, and loving union, not a religious one. Mr. O'Keefe has absolutely no right to speak about what my marriage is and is not.

The point is that marriage means different things to different people. My Unitarian Universalist church performs religious marriage for gays and lesbians. The fact that federal and state governments decide which of these marriages qualify as authentic seems to be an encroachment of our right to freely exercise our religion.

Civil marriage offers many protections that help to strengthen a couple's bond. Denying these benefits to same-sex couples implies that their relationships are not worth preserving. Mr. O'Keefe needs to realize that his edict that all real marriages must be religious is inaccurate, arrogant, and very insulting to this married, spiritual person.

As a side note, I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the quality of writing in the Purdue paper. From what I've seen, both IU's and Michigan State's papers were better.

The Hiatus and an Update

2007-01-16T15:44:00.000-05:00

So, my lovely wife pointed out that I need to update my blog because I haven't done so in almost two months. Considering I've gone through a week of finals, a move from MI to Ft. Wayne, a move from Ft. Wayne to Zionsville, a minor surgery (with some pretty nasty recovery time), a lot of work to get the house settled, settling into a new school (with an hour commute), and a ton of reading for wireless mesh networks, OS, algorithms, C, and data structures, I think the hiatus was rather called for. :-) That was a lot of work just listing all of those things.

Now that I'm here and looking at my class load, I must admit that I do feel slightly overwhelmed. There is a definite difference between grad classes here than at my old school. Prereqs for MSU grad courses were essentially optional. The grad material was either completely different (e.g., the advanced OS course focused on algorithms for distributed systems instead of actually OS material), or the grad class covered the undergrad and grad material (e.g., my hellish AI class that had about a 1200 page reading assignment). At Purdue, the profs assume that you have actually taken the prereqs or are comfortable with the material. So my algorithms professor is not covering basic algorithms material (e.g., sorting, data structures, basic analysis, etc.), and my OS professor expects that we have a solid foundation of C and assembly language to start writing low-level constructs right away. It's fun and exciting, but it's going to be damn challenging.

In addition to those classes, I'm a TA for the undergrad course in data structures. That was one of the courses at IU that I definitely liked due to the mathematical nature of the material. I'm also working with my advisor on a research project. To get started, I'm looking into something called wireless mesh networks. It's pretty new stuff, so there's a lot of work to do.

Having said all that, I need to get on the road since my office hour is over. I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to post again, but now you understand why!

I'm Free!! ...Now What Do I Do?

2006-12-01T09:51:00.000-05:00

It is now official. Yesterday was my last day working for a particular corporate entity (think of the color blue). I have always been loathe to blog about my employer for many reasons, such as basic professionalism and concerns about job security. Even though they are no longer my employer, I have no intention to change my practice other than to offer a brief retrospective.

When I was hired in December 2000 (started work in June 2001), I had no idea that my career would follow the path that it did. I was going to work as a web developer creating dynamic pages using Java Server Pages. My experience creating PHP, Perl/CGI, and PHP applications in my undergrad years would dazzle my new employer and they would be falling over themselves to put me to work on a project. Or so I thought. Needless to say, the reality was quite different. In my first year, I got to put some PowerPoint slides together and do a little bit of testing. And I got to see exciting Iowa. I did eventually get to develop some JavaScript presentations and do some HTML development with a creative team.

I was not happy with my first year in the "real world." In fact, I hated it and had no idea what to do about it. Then, an opportunity fell into my lap. A co-worker pointed out a project in Vermont where the only required skill was Perl, my favorite language. It turns out that they did not even program in Perl, but that's another story. I eventually landed the position and worked in semiconductor engineering from June 2002 until yesterday. It was a rather odd position for me, as I had no experience with hardware, never took physics beyond high school, and never had an engineering class. But I got the position and did well.

Looking back, I'm certainly proud of some of the things that I accomplished as an engineer. I got to work on some interesting projects and learned more about computers than I could have hoped for. I also learned an extensive amount about myself, my capabilities, my interests, my passions, and my limits. I don't want to say that I am a completely different person than I was five years ago. Rather, I've found the person that I always was and should have been. That is my greatest accomplishment (well, besides snagging the most wonderful wife in existence) of the duration of my career. And now, it is time to move on.

It's rather odd that I am leaving my job at essentially the same time that I am leaving MSU. I did this intentionally so that I could have a clean break before starting Purdue. Certainly I have my trepidations. Am I making the right choices for my career and my life? Will I enjoy Purdue as much as I think I will? Can I succeed as a security researcher? I've spent much of my life believing that I am capable of more than what I have been doing. I remember my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Timms, told my mom that there's no reason I shouldn't get straight As, except that I hadn't put forth the effort. Part of the reason for that is that I relied on others to provide me with the necessary motivation. Give me a project to solve and I'll do it. Now, I want to sever the ties of motivational dependency. I have things I want to learn, new skills to try out, and new projects that I want to work on. It feels odd not having the obligations I previously clung to, but it is incredibly liberating. Thus, I am very excited about what the future holds.

So farewell, corporate behemoth. Thank you for the experience and for your support in my personal growth. As all employers do, you have your problems and you have the things in which you excel. After over five years of your ups and downs, I have learned that you are not where I belong, at least at this point in time. I wish you well, and hope to see more innovation from you in the future. I'm off to learn about security protocols and wireless mesh networks.

Zombies

2006-11-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

I must pass this one along. When I first watched this earlier today, I got the song stuck in my head because it's a catchy tune. The song is "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton. "All we want to do is eat your brains // We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes." I just laughed when I heard those lyrics. I especially liked when the video started showing clips of zombie movies and videos, like Thriller, Shaun of the Dead, and 28 Days Later. Anyways, here's the video already:

State News Letter

2006-11-14T18:50:00.000-05:00

I just submitted a letter to the MSU State News in response to this piece by Andrea Byl. I should stop reading Byl's columns because I feel compelled to respond every time. Here's what I submitted:

Andrea Byl's recent column, “Get ready for Clinton, McCain in '08,” was a horrible piece of right-wing, biased rhetoric. First, she disrespectfully refers to Senator Clinton at one point as, “Hill.” Would Byl refer to Senator McCain in a column as, “Johnny Boy?” The article just gets worse from there.

Ms. Byl characterizes Senator Clinton's moderation as nothing more than a political tactic. On the other hand, Senator McCain's centrist tendencies made him “perfect,” giving him “the potential to nab Democrat, Republican, and independent votes alike.” Furthermore, Senator Clinton's reputation has gone from extremist liberal to moderate centrist. The same cannot be said of Senator McCain, who has moved steadily to the right in recent years. Moderates trying to win centrist votes do not pander to the Religious Right by giving commencement addresses at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

Ms. Byl also decries Senator Clinton's inability to launch any “great projects,” ignoring the fact that the Republicans controlled the Senate, House, White House, and Supreme Court. As a member of the ruling party, anything that Senator McCain proposed was inherently more likely to be enacted. As for his accomplishments, I find it rather disturbing that someone should be lauded for legislation that states that torture is bad. Has the Bush Administration made our expectations this low?

I also found Byl's reading of history ludicrous. Kerry lost in 2004 because he was “far-too-liberal.” Apparently, it had nothing to do with the Republican tactic of linking everything to 9/11 and terrorism, the use of dissembling proxies like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and Kerry having the charisma of a turnip.

Byl then says, “the American public has shifted,” without offering any analysis as to how or why. I would suggest she look up Jack Abramoff, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, “macaca” Allen, “man on dog” Santorum, or “heckuva job” Brown. She also may want to take note that the number of American troops killed in Iraq is quickly approaching the number of victims killed on 9/11. The American public has shifted because they
have learned that the current Republican leadership is grotesquely corrupt, and more interested in partisan politics and keeping power than in actually governing.

Ms. Byl, as you are a journalism senior, I hope that you are applying for jobs at Fox News. Your right-wing bias and inability to deal with facts will be put to good use in their “fair and balanced” reporting.

A Must-Read

2006-11-09T18:44:00.000-05:00

OK, I shouldn't be doing this. I should be working on my cognitive architectures assignment and trying to get a single full-night's rest. But, I am just too distracted by election results. Now that George Allen has conceded, the Dems have seized control of both houses of Congress. For the first time in six years, I'm actually thinking there may be hope for a sane future.

While surfing around for more commentary, I stumbled across this piece by the repugnant Ann Coulter. It really is an amazing work of denial. According to Ann, seizing control of both houses is a sign of the "death throes of a dying party." Wow. My favorite quote of all, though, deserves it's own blockquote:

So however you cut it, this midterm proves that the Iraq war is at least more popular than Bill Clinton was.

How do you respond to someone who takes a statement like this seriously?

Huzzah!!

2006-11-08T12:05:00.000-05:00

Ahhh, sweet, sweet victory...

I Think I Voted

2006-11-07T18:09:00.000-05:00

I pressed the buttons and saw it on the screen. But the machine was a Diebold, so there was no paper trail. I just have to hope that there's no programming glitch.

My First YouTube Post

2006-11-06T19:56:00.000-05:00

Via Andrew Sullivan:

A Fox News reporter willingly undergoes waterboarding. Notice, of course, that they let him up as soon as he starts to struggle. Somehow, I don't think the inmate at Gitmo are let off quite so easy.

"We don't torture," says George W. Bush.

Do a search for Yukio Asano, who was sentenced to 15 years hard labor for war crimes that included torturing U.S. soldiers by waterboarding during WWII. The Khmer Rouge, the Soviet Union, the Nazis. Is this the type of company that our country wants to keep?

"It's a no-brainer," says Dick Cheney, when asked if waterboarding would be acceptable if the U.S. government thought that an enemy combatant may know something of use.

What I think is the most chilling thing about that video is how calmly the reporters discuss the merits of waterboarding. The discussion includes this quote: "As far as torture [emphasis mine] goes, at least in this controlled experiment, to me this seemed like a pretty efficient mechanism." This is the reporter that underwent the demonstration. He minces no words and calls it what it is.

If the Dems fail to reclaim at least one of the two houses of Congress, I will cry. Because everything that made this country great will either be dead or, at best, comatose.

Crooks

2006-11-06T17:42:00.000-05:00

I found this thread on Slashdot, where conspiracy theories are not uncommon. But it links to several outside sources, like this one.

Here's the gist: The National Republican Congressional Committee have been placing automated calls to people who live in areas of competitive races for tomorrow's midterms. First, the automated calls to people on do-not-call lists are illegal in New Hampshire and other states. So the NRCC is blatantly ignoring state laws in their phone campaign, claiming that, as a national entity, the NRCC is not bound by state laws.

So the NRCC is harrassing people on do-not-call registries in arguably illegal ways. Here's the twist, of which only the NRCC is capable: The recordings at first give the callee the impression that they are coming from Democrats! In the New Hampshire calls, the first words are, "Hello. I'm calling with information about [Democratic candidate] Paul Hodes." If you hang up at this point, your number will be dialed again later. So it appears that Paul Hodes's campaign is harrassing potential voters. You only learn that this message is from the NRCC at the end of the recorded message!

Sneaky, vicious, immoral, and potentially illegal. The National Republican Campaign Committee at work.

Quote of the Election Season

2006-10-31T11:38:00.000-05:00

From a WaPo column discussing the proposed amendment to Virginia's state constitution to ban gay marriage:

A defender of traditional values quotes an anthropologist who believed that sexual orientation often changes over the course of a lifetime, and an advocate for gay rights rests his case on the idea that the church is better suited than the state to judge the quality of human relationships.

Is this a great country or what?

Strange times we live in...

New Members in the Family

2006-10-29T23:00:00.000-05:00

No, Dad, we're not expecting. :-) But we do have two new members of the family to celebrate. The first is my beautiful new Toyota Prius. Such a fun car, and it gets likes 500 miles to the gallon. OK, it only gets about 50 miles to the gallon. That's all...

Second, and more exciting, the wife and I reached a deal to buy a house!! We made an offer on Wednesday, followed by 6 counter-offers. We finally agreed on a price, which means we will soon have a home to call our own. No more back and forth trips to Michigan. No more explaining why we have multiple apartments. Just the two of us in a beautiful house in Zionsville. Woo hoo!

And the added twist that makes the whole story funny... The call informing us of the counter-offer which we accepted arrived while we were signing the papers for the car. So yes, we bought a car and a house within about 15 minutes of each other. Well, ignoring all those details like closing and inspections, but you get the idea.

Such an exciting weekend. I don't think I can take many more of those.

In Better News

2006-10-17T18:04:00.000-04:00

Google is going green by using solar power for their main campus. Cool!

Habeas Corpus

2006-10-17T11:52:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. You had a good 800-year run.

I Got In!!

2006-10-14T12:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning, I went to check my email and found a new message waiting patiently in my inbox. It matter-of-factly informed me that I had been recommended for admission into the Purdue Computer Science Department, and I would be receiving an official offer from the Graduate School for admission as a Ph.D. student! I have been initially assigned to have Dr. Christina Nita-Rotaru as my advisor. Her research focuses on security aspects of wireless networks, a very interesting subject. This is fantastic news, and I cannot wait to start in January.

About a week and a half ago, I got a very promising fortune when eating at Panda Express. It was something along the lines of, "You will share good news with everyone you love soon." Indeed I have.

Now comes a whole range of life changes. First, Brianne and I will begin looking to buy a house in the Zionsville area so that our commutes are manageable. Then, we have to move everything from my school apartment in Okemos, MI, and our apartment in Ft. Wayne to our new home. In addition to that, we took a Toyota Prius out for a test drive yesterday and loved it. So it looks like I'll be trading in the Accord pretty soon. So many things happening all at once, and all of them are exciting and fun!

Unlucky Friday the 13th? Heh. Quite the opposite for us.

Update: The silver Prius has been reserved and should be arriving mid-November.

The End of an Era

2006-09-12T17:29:00.000-04:00

Today is the last day of my third decade of life. It's kind of hard to believe. I was filling out something earlier today that asked for my age, and I had to pause when I realized it would be different tomorrow.

Melodrama aside, I like to take advantage of life events to do a little introspection. For this instance, I started by attempting to sum up my entire philosophy into a single sentence:

There are no absolute truths.

Anything that I was taught growing up to be "truth" was in fact a clever, superficial construction masking the uncertainty beneath. Murder is always wrong. But I don't know that I'd be able to convict someone for killing Osama bin Laden. "i" before "e" except after "c". Either I'm dumb or I just legally broke that rule. 2 + 2 = 4. Not true in Z mod 3.

I'm playing semantic games, I know. However, that is the point. Every truth that I have ever learned is nothing more than a construct to describe something in relation to a particular frame of reference. None of them hold given across all environments. I.e., there are no absolute truths.

Yet, there's a problem. I have just asserted an absolute truth. Thus, my statement is specious. However, I cannot assert that there must be an absolute truth. In order to make that claim, I must have a hunch as to the nature of that truth. For starters, it must be tautological. That's great, but it doesn't really tell me much about the truth itself. However, that's all I can say given that I am trying to describe an absolute truth without loss of generality. Thus, this line of reasoning does not accomplish much.

So I could attempt to find an absolute truth. I must confess that I believe this is beyond my ability. As I described above, all truths I have thought I knew turned out to be lacking. Just as the word "table" is only an abstraction of this piece of furniture upon which my laptop rests, every thought seems to be a symbol of the underlying concept.

Some may accuse me of solipsism at this point, but that is not my goal. Instead, I simply want to express how amazed I am by everything. This may seem like a non sequitur, but I feel that our society (or perhaps all?) idolizes childhood and innocence too much. I am thinking specifically about the way that children can be awestruck by so many things. Try explaining the concept of a million to a six-year-old and you'll probably here something like, "Whoa! That's a lot!" We conflate "purity" with "goodness," and children are the purest of all.

However, it is the loss of purity that allows for a richer understanding. When that six-year-old says the word, "Whoa," the concept of a million is no longer a foreign thing. Instead, their mind has now been tainted in an irreversible way. The mental processes that associate "million" with "a large quantity" will not go away (barring exceptions like mental illness or death, but those are tangential discussions anyway). And that child's understanding of the nature of the universe has expanded. They can now use the idea of a "million" as a building block toward other pieces of knowledge that they were previously unable to grasp.

Obviously, concepts like "thought" and "knowledge" have been on my mind a lot recently. I guess being enrolled in an Artificial Intelligence course does that. My other class is Computability & Formal Language Theory. Both have been fascinating. For example, most people understand the idea of a computer program. You double click on your Mozilla Firefox icon, the computer does some stuff, and you can read this blog. But what is a program? What does it actually do? Is there anything that cannot be solved by a program? My Computability class deals with these types of questions, and, consequently, lets me understand things about programs that I had never thought of before. The more that I work with computers, the more I start to get a glimpse of how little I have actually learned about them.

Thus, we arrive at the point I've been struggling to make this entire time. In 30 years, I've learned a lot of facts. I've memorized formulas, written papers, tasted coffee, smelled dead skunks, gone crowd surfing at a concert, loved, proven that the square root of 2 is irrational, laughed at Monty Python skits, wept in the rain with a broken heart, read all 1400 pages of Les Miserables twice, felt the thrill of performing in front of 30,000 screaming fans. None of these things, in and of themselves, make me exceptional in any way. Yet, there is not, and never will be, another person who will experience this particular combination of events. And that does make me unique.

But all of those experiences and facts are just that. They are not wisdom. They are not truth. My perceptions of them has contributed to my understanding of the way the universe works. And yet, my understanding is nothing more than my own mental construct that serves as a mental abstraction of some underlying thing. What that underlying thing is, I cannot say. Is it an underlying ultimate truth? Is it God? Or is it actually nothing at all? I have no idea, and never will. And yet that does not detract from my pursuit to do so.

And we are back at the beginning. On the eve of my 30th birthday, the closest thing that I can say to sum up the collective wisdom of my time here on earth is this:

I know nothing.

On a Personal Note

2006-08-29T18:17:00.000-04:00

So, how much difference can a week make? As I have now learned, a lot.

Last Monday and Thursday, I made a couple of trips to visit Purdue. They have a large group of people that specialize in the field I'd like to join, computer security. I essentially made the trip to get a semblance of whether or not I had a snowball's chance of getting in. After meeting with six professors and one administrative person, I'm feeling pretty good. In fact, two of the professors strongly encouraged me to apply for admission in the spring of 2007 instead of fall! And one of them even invited me to have chocolate cake with the people in her lab. :-)

Two weeks ago, I was worried that I would not be accepted to any of my choice schools for a Ph.D. Now, I feel that I have a very strong chance of getting into one of the best security programs in the country. Of course, this is not a certainty. I still have to apply and impress the admissions committee. However, I feel much more confident now. Now, instead of spending the next eight months in a very undesirable situation where I must be apart from my wife, it seems possible that, in four months, I could be starting work toward a Ph.D. while seeing my wife every day!

The next several months are going to be extremely interesting...

Schneier on the British Terror Plot

2006-08-29T18:00:00.000-04:00

I found this post by Bruce Schneier to be extraordinarily interesting. It wasn't that there was anything there I hadn't heard before. What struck me as interesting was his use of the phrase, "pissed off." I've been reading his blog daily for about 9 months now. He is not the type of person to toss out borderline obscenities unless something has gotten very far under his skin. In fact, I think it may be the first one he has used since I've been reading.

As he points out in his post, the timing of the arrests seem to have resulted from the U.S. government, possibly for political reasons. Yet we have heard very little of this here. Instead, we get to hear story after story about a guy who didn't kill a little girl but thinks he did.

I share Schneier's anger about the arrests. I like the term that he frequently uses, "security theater." It refers to actions that make us feel safer while adding no real security. I'm sad to say that I think that's exactly what we'll have to accept until January 2009 at the earliest.

Congratulations!!

2006-08-19T17:29:00.000-04:00

To my wonderful wife, Brianne. This morning, she completed her first triathlon! It was a 500 yard swim, 10 mile bike ride, and 3 mile run. I am very proud of her.

Terror in the Skies?

2006-08-17T22:55:00.000-04:00

Remember that big terrorist plot about using some liquid explosives to destroy multiple planes? Turns out, it was highly unlikely to have succeeded.