Jim Roepcke's weblog have browser, will travel (est. 1999)

Soma cubes, Latin Squares, k-subsets, shells and more…

I'm really enjoying school so much this term, even though the workload is brutal and so is the material, because I'm taking some seriously cool courses. I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, I'm taking 5 courses this term, the most I've ever taken. I'm not working this term.

Soon I will be writing a program to enumerate the solutions to the 3x3x3 Soma cube.

This term, I've already written a Python program that enumerates all the k-subsets of {1,2,...,n}, a Java program that determines the size of the largest component of an undirected graph on n vertices where the probability of an edge occurring between two vertices is p (varying n and p to determine the relationship between n, p and the size), and a simple UNIX shell in C that supports foreground and background execution and terminating background processes. I got that running on Mac OS X and Linux.

Oh, and Latin Squares are cool. Started learning about those today.

Thinking like a Mathematician

Epsilon-Delta: Programming Like A Mathematician I: Closures

I don't have time to read this right now, maybe even this week, but I will. This is crucial stuff.

Ovechkin Collection – Google Video

Google Video: Ovechkin Collection

Google Video is great! I did a search for Ovechkin and found quite a few nice ones. Here's a great collection of Ovechkin highlights.

To be honest, I think he's my favourite (active) hockey player right now. Ovechkin is a dominating force. He deserves the Calder (top rookie) and the Hart (MVP) trophies this year, not only for the excitement he brings every time he's on the ice but for carrying a bad team on his back and still having fun doing it.

If I was an NHL GM, I'd give up anything and everything to have him on my team. If you live in DC, go to a Caps game, this show he'll put on is worth the price of admission by itself.

The rookie crop of 2005-06 is phenomenal... Ovechkin, Crosby, Phaneuf (good Edmonton boy, too bad he plays for the Flames), Svatos, Jokinen, Prucha, Miller, Vanek. This year the NHL saw so many legends leave the game, but it looks to be in good hands with these kids.

Re: Log out every day? Not going to happen.

When I got home from school today, I saw an IM from Seth suggesting he thought I being cranky. Really? He said:

Oh boy, here we go again. My emails are often misconstrued as being angry or overly critical. Not sure what it is, but words can be a bitch. Unfortunately, (at least) one of my readers missed my point entirely, as it appears I did when I read Seth's article.

Seth made some assumptions about his readers that I didn't see, so I read his post more literally and generally than he was expecting. (Not only that, I'm apparently not in the post's target audience, so his advice apparently doesn't apply to me ) The assumptions lead to some logic getting reversed in his argument. If you want the details of my interpretation of his post, read my reply to Seth's reply of my original post. One major point I'd like to make here is that your Mac will run maintenance tasks overnight if you are logged in, as Seth confirmed.

Seth explained that quite a few "regular" Mac users he encounters have reliability problems with their Macs. I believe him of course, but it surprises me, because I don't have problems, despite "asking for it" with the kind of stuff I ask my Macs to do for me.

So am I offended in being told to log off? Of course not!

As I said, "I won't dispute that logging out and in 'cleans things up' and wouldn't hurt the reliability of your computer". As in, I agree. What offends me is the idea that computer users should accept having to log off their computer every night (regardless of the benefits), just as it offends me that Windows users are told to accept fighting spyware and viruses every single day.

Computer users shouldn't have to put up with spyware, viruses, or unreliable software.

Seth felt I sounded "cantankerous" (def'n: bad-tempered, quarrelsome) by saying I'd switch to Linux if I had to log off every day. I would be bad-tempered if I had to put up with an unreliable computer! How many bad-tempered, quarrelsome people do you encounter (in person or through the media) in a day? (Recall that Windows is the primary operating system used in roughly 90% of computer systems)

Reliable computers lead to good-tempered people.

Log out every day? Not going to happen.

Over on Seth's weblog, he suggests Mac OS X users log out once a day.

One reason cited is:

So if you're logged in, cron doesn't run overnight tasks? Why not? Which tasks don't run?

I've been running Mac OS X full time since 2000, and I've never made it a habit to log out daily, or even "regularly". The number of times I've rebooted my Mac OS X computers is on the order of the number of times I've logged into my Mac OS X computers. When a program exhibits some "weird behavior", I would quit it and re-launch it.

The only time I log out is when something in Apple's WindowServer / CoreServices goes awry, or when I need to reboot, like for a kernel update. I think logging out every day to let your applications "start over" gives developers too much leash to write crappy software. I've had Firefox or Mail or NetBeans or Eclipse or iCal open for weeks at a time without restarting it. I expect software I use to perform reliably for at least that long without re-launching it. The only software I purposely quit as soon as I can are Microsoft Office apps and other apps that take up too much CPU/RAM when idle.

If I had to log out of Mac OS X every day I'd switch to Linux. If logging out lets cron run nightly tasks, then I think that's a bug (subject to me finding out which tasks won't run when I'm logged in), and I would much rather fix that bug than log out to work around it.

I won't dispute that logging out and in "cleans things up" and wouldn't hurt the reliability of your computer, but I will suggest that users should expect more of their computers. Windows users put up with crap like that, rebooting several times a day (though I'd hope it's not as bad now as it was 5 years ago), restarting apps regularly, putting up with crappy software, registry problems, spyware, viruses, swiss cheese security, etc. Mac OS X users should not put up with crap, period, especially not for the money Mac owners shell out for their computers compared to Windows boxes.

Why does Paul Allen hoist the trophy first?

One thing I have never accepted about the NFL is, after a championship game, the owner is brought to the center of the field, and given the championship trophy to raise above his head in triumph.

Actually, I don't mind that the owner gets to raise the trophy, what really bothers me is the owner raises the trophy before the players. The owner is a businessperson, period, the team a way to make money, or maybe a hobby, but by no means did the owner "win" the trophy or deserve to be treated as such. The coach even gets to raise the trophy before the players. At least the coach is a part of the team, but I think it is still condescending to the players. They are the ones that work their butts off all year, but they're third in line to hoist the trophy they put those butts on the line for.

If the owner, no, if the NFL respected the players, the owner would take a back seat, stay in the background, and let the players keep the spotlight. They've earned it.

This is an example of the NFL's extreme "wargame" mentality. The owner plays the Commander in Chief, the Coach is the General, and the players (the ones the fans actually adore and pay to see) are mere foot soldiers. (the mentality may be a microcosm for the United States)

I think the ceremony with the owner suggests more respect is given to the money that backed the sport rather than the sport itself, and for me, that's backwards.

If you want to see a trophy ceremony that respects the players and puts the sport before the money, watch the NHL Commissioner hand the Stanley Cup to the captain of the winning team, on the ice itself. The captain hoists the Cup, then hands the trophy to the rest of the team. The players take turns hoisting the Cup and show their appreciation to the fans. Where's the owner when the Stanley Cup is presented? I don't know, maybe on the ice, but I honestly wouldn't know, because the cameras aren't on the owner, the owner isn't given a stage to stand on. Most likely, the owner is in the stands or on the bench, applauding the players... respectfully.

Jolie’s Weird arm veins

pop pop pop on Flickr - Photo Sharing! (via ben barren)

What's with Angelina Jolie's arms is these pics? I've never seen veins like that...

WebKit (Safari) finally gets a DOM Inspector

Surfin Safari: Introducing the Web Inspector (via Stepwise)

One of the biggest reasons I used Firefox almost exclusively before going back to school was the DOM Inspector - I spent a lot of time dealing with DOM/CSS issues in Plone sites and the DOM Inspector was the best tool to debug / explore DOM situations. Now that I'm not doing web work regularly, and especially since Tiger came out, I've been using Safari. The odd time I found myself doing some Plone stuff I'd whip out Firefox. I'm sure I'll still need Firefox to test compatibility, but now I'll also be able to do the heavy lifting in Safari.

My T610 has a growing blob of yellow pixels

My Sony Ericsson T610 has developed this weird yellow rash. A couple of days ago I noticed a few "stuck pixels", yellow, in the middle of the screen. It's been growing and changing since then and now there's got to be at least 35 yellow pixels on the screen. At first I thought it was just dead pixels, but when it started growing and changing over time I wondered if I had a virus.

I did a Google search and found a few people have described the same phenomena!

Applefritter: T610 stuck pixels...

Mobiledia: T616 Virus? - Sony Ericsson Talk

But then this person actually found a way to get rid of them.... unfortunately I don't understand what was done to make it happen:

myForum: T610 with yellow pixels on screen

What is silver paper, and why was it used, and how was it used? I did a Google search and looked in wikipedia, and nothing turned up (though I can buy it from a number of shops)

This problem is becoming really annoying so I'd definitely like to solve it.

Guy Kawasaki loves hockey?

Guy Kawasaki: New Mac laptop plus 2 other things

WTF?

NHL.com: Nothing ventured,
nothing gained (via Guy Kawasaki's blog)

Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? He's smarted than I thought (and I thought he was pretty darn clever to begin with).

I was reading his interview being really impressed, then I read this:

Awww... I did not need to be reminded how much I wanted to go to that game. The guy has been into hockey for 3 years and he takes his whole family up there. I've lived and breathed Oilers hockey since I was 4 years old, practically offered my left nut for tickets, and I didn't make it. Sigh.