October 16, 2003
Two Days in the Alley
I stayed in the computer lab for just about 42 hours straight. It was most enlightening. The smell was some bizarre combination of cum, feces, and spicy funk that makes one have nightmares of anal sex between cave men.
In reality, we've been forced into programming for 24 to 48 hour sessions every day for the last week in a small, cramped room with windows that don't open. The only foods regularly available are coffee, bean burritos, and wheat crackers. The former provide for frequent urination and flatulence, the latter for regular bowel movements. We don't have time for showers.
One of the guys in the lab left for the bathroom. He came back a few minutes later smelling faintly of sex. The people involved in these sorts of things never get mentioned. Their identity does not leave the lab. I suppose that marines have a similar code of conduct surrounding the combat jack: it is assumed that a participant has the decency of washing his hand before picking up his rifle again, in case someone else might need it later on. I try not to think about it as I put my own hands back on the keyboard...
Anyway, we finished the project...we as in the "royal we" or the "editorial we" and finished as in "it didn't work but it looked cool anyway." The TA seemed to appreciate the fact that our implementation was completely different from anything ever done before. Basically, everybody else just copies each others' code. That would be an impossibility in our case...I don't think anyone in their right mind would make all kinds of additional data structures inside the kernel just to get a scheduler working.
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Previous Trips...
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Hiking Mount Whitney, 2007 
Spring Break in West Virginia, 2005
New Year's in Paris, 2003-2004
Coming to America, 2003
Protesting in Berlin, 2003
Prague Bier-Tour, 2002
Dresden, 2002
Recent Reading
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The Curve of Binding Energy
John McPhee follows famous physicist Ted Taylor in this piece that was -- and probably still -- ahead of its time.
Originally published in 1973, McPhee outlined the coming security and environmental issues surrounding the plutonium enrichment processes. For the most part, though, McPhee invites the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, although he does point out the ease with which any number of people could obtain the material (though not necessarily the manufacturing prowess) to make an atomic weapon.
The question still sits in my mind after reading -- are we being too paranoid, or not paranoid enough?
Rated 
by reid
on October 01, 2007
by reid
on October 01, 2007
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Zodiac
Zodiac touts itself as an 'eco-thriller,' and it is just that. Told from the first-person perspective of ST (or Sangamon Taylor), the book recounts a roughly six-month period of his life busting big corporations for violating environmental laws.
Not the tree-hugging political activist type, ST is equipped with chem labs, scuba divers, maps, and an organization (GEE International, the Group of Environmental Extremists) that masterfully brings the press into the fold to scare the public with the very real dangers posed by illegal dumping. It's sort of a Sierra Club member's wet dream -- a band of ecowarriors that actually get things done.
ST finds something odd happening in Boston Harbor during his tale: a new form of pollution that could poison everyone on the planet in a matter of weeks. His quest to uncover exactly who and what is causing the latest spike in toxins goes all the way up to the President of the United States, and could end up costing him his own life.
While a neat and fast-paced tale, the novel drags on a bit toward the end, begging disbelief from even the most forgiving sci-fi folk. While not as good as his latest offerings, it's still a great read for those that enjoy a good Stephenson novel (or even those who don't).
Rated 
by reid
on July 17, 2005
by reid
on July 17, 2005
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Cat's Cradle
A few years ago, I attempted to woo an online datee, and she immediately criticized me for my politics. I protested the war on Iraq, which was "a shame." She defended her position of complete noninvolvement by standing behind Vonnegut.
It may seem odd to open a review that way. My assumption is now not that she was an idiot, but that she had only read Cat's Cradle, and only with a rather odd viewpoint.
Cat's Cradle looks at a cold-war world where the personifications of religious, political, and scientific single-mindedness collide to destroy the world.
Vonnegut tells a masterful tale, but it makes me wonder what one person's indifference would do to prevent us from all dying? So for now I will continue to unblindly stop unjust wars, even while I'm only reading.
Rated by reid
on July 17, 2005
by reid
on July 17, 2005