The Assistant to the Chair of my department, so my supervisor's supervisor, informed me today that my facebook status updates (which she can see because she FB friended me when I started grad school here) were not cool. I had been posting funny quotes overheard on campus, see the example below. Here's my question, do I block her from seeing the status updates, unfriend her completely, or just delete the statuses and not post such things again while my job is here (so until May 2011) or some other option I haven't thought of?
The post that made her speak to me: Most memorable quote of the day, "I tried to find the HR department but all I could find was the HR department, like the normal HR, not the HR major. They're who I want to get my masters with."
In my opinion, absolutely definitely positively without a doubt to not let anyone who you work with - especially supervisors - have full access to seeing everything on your facebook. You never know when you'll get tired and post something that someone takes the wrong way or something worse. Just start a limited profile setting and dump anyone and everyone you work with (even people who aren't supervisors) into that category, and set it so they can't see anything other than your basic work/school/networks/etc information. One year while I was home for the holidays and had time on my hands I even went as far as starting a "limited profile" group and a "semi limited profile group." The first can only see the basic work/school/networks/etc information, and the second can see most of my stuff but never my statuses unless I specifically change that for a particular status message.
That's just my $0.02. Even though I am very careful about what I put on fb, I'm extremely paranoid about letting people see everything, especially if it is someone who I don't know extremely well or someone I work with or a professor. I feel like declining their "friend invite" or whatever it's called looks as though I'm trying to hide something, but accepting it opens up way too much sometimes. I got on fb back when it was just college friends. I kinda wish it could still be that way... But I guess even facebook had to grow up, didn't it. haha.
She just left my office after confronting me about limiting her view of my FB profile. I was informed that she had said the earlier comments as a friend and that it was sad that I had blocked her from seeing my wall. Though she commented that it was "your right" to do that. I apparently can't win today with her.
You should post a status message on your fb wall making sure it is uncovered for her to see it and write about "how sad it is that someone at work chose to pass professional judgements on you based on your personal fb wall."
Or if you want to keep your job, probably don't... but that is what I would really WANT to do. haha.
Considering how innapropriate my comments while I'm actually at work are. I really could care less about what I put on fb. Not that I put much of anything on there anyway. Though occassionally I think I should have refrained from saying things in reply to other people.
With Josh on this one, if the quote is random and not hurtful to a specific person in the department who cares. And too bad for that person if they do eventually see it.
The problem arises when someone in a position of authority cares. You might not invite your boss to that party of drunken debauchery, so why give them a sans context window to it on the internet? Better yet, why leave an insecure trail for future employers/family/networking? I'd rather err on the side of caution and keep shit locked down to avoid unwanted situations.
I don't think it's a question of 'who should care' so much as 'who will care'?
Nicely worded. I think that is really true. I do wish that we weren't judged in a professional context by the things we do and say in our own personal time, but unfortunately we are... I can't even tell you how often I hear of or see people being thrown out of consideration for something they are applying to because of something someone sees on their facebook page. In my mind I see facebook as a means of keeping in contact with friends, but also in some ways, I see it as a way of building an online character. I'm definitely not perfect at doing this, but I try to at least consider if someone who doesn't know me well were to see my profile somehow, who would they think I am? The answer to that most likely is that they would think I'm an uptight boring human being who is 25 going on 65, but I guess it's better to have a forgettable profile than one that is memorable for being problematic. haha.
Interestingly enough a guy I worked with here, was not considered by a med school because they tried to look him up on fb and saw it was completely baren and locked down. They looked at other social networking sites as well and saw the same thing. The guy was told that he wasn't going to be considered because they wanted applicants to have some kind of social like outside of worrying about whether or not they could get into med school.
This pissed they guy I work owith off, I laughed. Turns out this conversation came out after a few drinks.
I didn't think it was possible for me to hate the med school system more than I already do, but wow. That seriously makes me just want to hurt something or someone - particularly a med school admissions board person. What school did this happen with? And did they really say that to him verbatim? Or is that just what he is hypothesizing?
I was just talking about this with Dan, and I was reminded that this isn't the first time I've heard of someone being judged for NOT having a crazy FB profile. One of my friends here in DC was involved in hiring summer interns at the place she works, and she was telling me about how the look each of the candidates up on facebook to see what turns up. They have turned down some applicants who have really scandelous or innapropriate profiles totally open to the public, but she was also saying that some of the other reviewers would get suspicious if they couldn't find a person at all on FB. They looked at it as though the person had something to hide. My friend said she got into a heated debate with her coworker at one point and tried to argue that it is better if you can't find the person because that means the took the time to lock their profile down and be responsible.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I guess... Is there even a right answer!?
As inconvenient as it may seem, and I understand the lack of retaliation I would have against an employer or boss, If I get fired for what I do on my own time at home that is perfectly legal and it ends up on facebook. I really don't think that boss or company is for me.
If I get hammered on the weekend and it does not affect my work, it should not be their business. Currently I work at a place where that is fine, and is fine with my boss. They really don't give a shit about what I do when not at work, and on top of that I don't really do anything that poses a risk anyway. In the future that may no be the case, but I will not stop doing what I do or the way I do it even in the threat of being fired.
Unfortunately, some people don't have the luxury of departing or hopping into a dream job with tech savvy, understanding middle/upper management. There are certain social hoops to jump through from time to time, especially if you want to pay the bills or meet a personal objective. [Ex: I'm going to work at this upper tier but stuffy design firm so I can build the resume required to work for the XYZ firm I'd prefer to]
No one is questioning how you spend your personal time, I think the debate is the idea of advertising it on a veritable public forum. Maybe your twitter account celebrates your depraved (but legal) sexual fetishes, or even something more innocuous as a political agenda. If that is something you don't mind sharing with employers, great. But I think the point is that there may be repercussions for your actions. Some people may take greater stock in a snapshot of your character, others might take a more realistic approach.
I'd rather err on the side of caution, and keep my work and personal life separate.
I guess its hard for me to care more, because its not an issue. I befriended my boss of fb before he became my boss, and I didn't bother changing anything after that happened. Nor do I do anything worthy of censorship. I basically maintain fb so my mom can occassionally see pictures of shit john and I do. Though of course there are other things there as well. Social networking is only dangerous if you use it.
Its also not like I have some kind of luxury to get fired and find some dream job. I'd have a rather difficult time I'm sure finding new work. But I'm just not the personality type to try to act like a different person in order to gain employment.
Made two batches of beer on Sunday. The first was an all grain attempt at an american brown ale. Should end up nice an dark with a little bitterness and good hop aroma. Currently the yeast are seriously going to town on that shit and its pretty fun to watch through the side of the glass cardboy. Our other beer which is a clone of Pyramids Snowcap winter ale, had a great start to it, but seems to be faltering on the fermentation end of things. Granted I had to improvise an airlock by shoving a damp rag in the top to keep out air bacteria from spoiling the beer. While I doubt that would affect fermentation I'm still madly trying to obtain another airlock and perhaps another batch of yeast to toss in there in hopes to keep in from going bad. At any rate in about 8 weeks we'll have beer, either 4 gallons or 9 gallons in all that'll be ready for drinking.
If it turns out ok I'll bring a couple bottles up for christmas.
Hopefully the Snowcap is rescued. An extra heavy dose of yeast seemed to get it going last night and I further improvised the airlock to better keep out contaminants and vent fermentation gasses. Now it consists of a jetpuff marshmallow wrapped in seran wrap acting as a stopper for an actual airlock. Will be obtaining an actual stopper today, but I may just leave the marshmallow in there so I do have to keep exposing it to outside air.
At least the fermentation process has finally begun.
I keep hearing of friends brewing their own beers at home, but I've never seen it done. Just out of curiosity, what all do you need to make it happen? How does it compare in price to buying it? Dan and I were kinda toying with the idea using home brew for our wedding to keep costs down, but I've never looked into the safety issues of it to know whether there would be any risk of a public health catastrophy.
Well, cost wise I personally already invested about $150 in hardware that would allow me to brew about 15 gallons of beer at a time. Maybe it pushed $200. To make two batches of beer this last weekend it cost $90 for all the ingredients and took most of the day. Most ales will take a week to ferment before bottling and another 6-8 weeks to bottle condition before drinking so you're looking at two months or so before you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. All told we will probably bottle up about 8 gallons of beer, since I only made two 5 gallon batches. All told it comes out to be a little bit cheaper than buying cases of microbrew in the store. Not by a lot and that is only counting the cost of the ingredients, but since I've already made a couple batches of beer and cider before I think I've paid off the hardware already.
Safety wise I would have no concerns. The liklihood of pathogenic bacteria or bacteria that produce toxins harmful to humans getting in your beer is pretty much zero. Mostly because of how the beer is made and the ingredients used. The greater concern is just a bad batch happening where wild yeasts that happen to be in the air, or wild bacteria get into the beer and hijack the fermentation to produce something undrinkable.
If you happen to know anyone who brews and is pretty good at it, it can be an awesome and unique way to celebrate your wedding. Its possible to have a beer made specially for you that is unique for the occassion. But it will probably be more expensive than a keg of bud light. Though a lot less than an open bar.
hmmm.... interesting... i'll admit the original idea wasn't mine. It actually came about because one of Dan's best friends has been brewing his own beers for years now, and was joking about how he'd just make us a bunch of beer as our wedding gift. After a minute of laughing we realized it really wasn't a bad idea at all. haha.
That's good to know about the safety issues, though. That sort of scare would definitely not be how I would like to thank our friends for coming out.
Even if a keg of bud light were to be cheaper, I don't think I could inflict that sort of crapiness on our wedding guests. If we have beer available, it is defintely not going to be piss-water that I would have had at a college rugby drink-up.
My stepdad has one, and he seems to like it pretty well. The only problems he has had have been related to Vista, not the laptop itself. But I had a friend who had one when I was in college and she hated it. The only reason she had it was because her dad was some bigshot with the company and got it for free or something. So maybe they have gotten better over the years.
i have it in my possession. I'm still learning the ins and outs but all in all it seems like a sweet machine. And the other thing I can't believe is that even though I haven't really paid attention to computers and etc. for the last two years, this seems like it got tons more advanced very very fast. jeebus.
This is pretty cool: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/ (www.thewildernessdowntown.com)
Essentially, you enter the street of address of where you grew up, and it makes a music video out of the street view and satellite pictures.
This is probably the first example I've seen of HTML5 kicking Adobe Flash's ass in terms of interactive content. Kinda hope things go this way in the future.
A holdout from the previous version of idkfa, the "<#Recent>" counts in the list of discussion items is something I put into v2 without really much consideration, and into v3 with even less.
I never really asked anybody if they got anything out of it. At a glance, its intent is to let you know the quantity of recent posts in each of the sections to let you know what sections most likely have new content for you to read. However, with the introduction of reading histories (read/unread posts), this has been somewhat obsoleted.
I've since replaced it with the "[# Unseen]" count, where each item, while you're logged in, will indicate how many post are in each section that you haven't read. Clicking on the number will give you a search of the unread posts in the corresponding item.
The "<# Recent>" feature will still exist, but only when you're browsing without logging in.
They were selling these (www.wdc.com) at Costco a while ago. My dad has one. They're pretty decent for playback performance and quality, and one of the few DLNA-type devices I've seen that support MKV files, as well as can do 1080p, and subtitles to boot.
I think it requires an ethernet connection, but they make pretty long cables.
Also, last I looked, there was sort of a "hacker" community around rooting the boxes and turning them into embedded Linux boxes. Might be a way to get a web browser on it, if that's important.
Do you know of any sharing issues from W7 to XP? I set up the network sharing on both my desktop and my old, old, old laptop. I have no problem reading files from my laptop (running XP pro) on my desktop (running W7). But there seems to be issues going the other way. I am merely typing in the IP address and it's giving me a list of the shared folders. When I click on one of the shared folders it says I don't have permissions. I have attempted to remove all security barriers but maybe I am missing something. Is this just W7 being "smart?"
I've never really understood Window's network file sharing security model very well. Every time I end up trying to get it to work, I either set up an account that explicitly has every access right possible, and then put those credentials in the client's keychain, or do like you have, and try to remove all possible access restrictions.
If I recall, there are permissions both for the filesystem, as well as for who has access to the share. I want to say share permissions are checked first, and file permissions second, however, I could be wrong.
If you're getting access denied messages, maybe try to check out the event log on the serving machine to see what user it thinks is accessing the files. That should at least be a start.
Has anyone here had any of the vodka's made by Alaska Distillery? While I was home I got a bottle of Permafrost vodka to bring back with me. Since I finally finished one of my big certification exams today, I decided to crack it open as a celebration. I have to say, it's pretty effin good! Though, I haven't tried any of the other flavors, and I probably will never try the smoked salmon flavor. The only bad part was that it was insanely expensive. I mean, seriously, $31 for a bottle!?
They're carrying it at Costco now, too, though it's still about the same price as Brown Jug. And if you like Permafrost, the distillery's also making a cheaper version--Frostbite. Same basic recipe with a little grain added. And that also comes in raspberry, blueberry, birch syrup (which is delicious with Dr. Pepper), and probably some more I've forgotten.
And the Smoked Salmon vodka is actually really good! You have to try it in a Bloody Mary, though. Not a vodka for doing shots.
alaskadistillery.com and www.permafrostvodka.com
Suggestion-complaints:
AN IPHONE APP. Or at least a mobile skin, a la tumblr. This is hard to read on phone.
I have trouble reading the italics in the recent comments box/search returns, but I'm also viewing on either a TV from far away or a phone. And I have awful eyesight. So maybe an "old person" skin with larger, less italicized fonts?
How about a feed in myidkfa like google reader where you can organize unread posts by user or topic heading? I like the "view all unread" option, but I need a better thumbnail to browse by.
More graphics, less text. How about images for root/latest/up/search/reply instead of all text?
Something I don't like about avatars, but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe an option to enlarge, a la twitter? Or a full version/thumbnail version, a la that-one-social-networking-site-that-dare-not-speak-its-name-here?
Also (I'm typing from the preview page now), it seems like when I double space after a period it sometimes line breaks between spaces, like in graph 3, line 3 above (although this could change I guess when I post). Do I have to break myself of my double space after a full stop habit, or can you clean this up?
Love you!
It's not enough that it renders exactly the same on the computer as on the iPhone, but you want a skin dedicated directly to your own personal browsing device? Hmph. Yeah, I thought on it. It's sort of hard to do, but it's a future "nice to have."
The more I read the italics, the less I like them as well. I wanted to visually distinguish "idkfa" text versus "user" text, but I'll have to figure something else out.
Because myidkfa is simply a searching tool, and because you can click on "RSS Feed" whenever you search, any search you care to implement can then be turned into an RSS feed. You're welcome. The only caveat is stuff that requires you to be logged in (read/unread posts) won't work when accessed via Google Reader, as Google has no idea what your idkfa logon is.
More graphics? I'm not a graphic designer. In the hands of a talented artist, sure, idkfa could be an aesthetically pleasing and artful read. But in my careless stewardship, it would be like if Gandalf took the One Ring from Frodo, in that through the ring, I would be an instrument of evil that would undo our Middle Earth. Also, I talked to 5 or 6 people to get their opinions on the current idkfa skin, and they mostly told me politely that it just "wasn't it." I can only retract my olive branch-hand back so many times covered in claw and bite marks before I stop caring and tell people to write their own damned CSS.
I could do graphics on the root/latest/etc. stuff. Not sure how I'd depict those notions in a space less than 10 pixels squared.
Avatars != profile pictures. They are just icons to distinguish your posts from everybody elses. Josh smash.
And what the hell? Did you learn to type on a typewriter? I'm pretty sure all strings of space or spacing characters (newlines, etc.) are reduced to single characters once they're posted.
As regards the italics issue, still waiting on that.
As regards the avatars, I'm sorry that I briefly intimated that anything on your site could possibly be related to any feature on any other site ever invented, particularly Twitter or the-social-networking-site-that-dare-not-speak-its-name-here. But my point is that for these avatars to be useful, they have to be so small that you can't see what the picture is. With the exception of yours and perhaps JD's I can't really see what is going on in these pictures, rendering them useless. I like Twitter's convention of being able to click on the photo (from the user info page) and enlarging the picture to full size.
I like and appreciate your small but notable inclusion of some non-text based interface. We'll make a graphic designer out of you yet!
The avatar/profile picture stuff on Twitter/Socialbook isn't necessarily a bad idea, just more complicated than what I have currently. Right now, I only have to store simple, small images. If I were to implement being able to enlarge avatar pictures, I would have to store multiple versions of it at various qualities, spend time during the upload process making each version, and provide some relationship in the database between the user and their multiple versions.
It's not impossible, just more complicated.
Here's what I can do: I've increased the quality of the still images to 100%. This means that if you re-upload the avatar, your picture of dear Jean-Luc will no longer be mottled by compression algorithms.
I specifically took out the spellcheck feature that was part of the comment box code because it would actually slow down the browser if you were on a slow connection that couldn't dial out to a mysterious spellchecking service somewhere on the Internet.
Isn't it enough that Safari tells you that you spelled it wrong?
Ah, that is good to know. I've grown use to Chrome, which just lets me right click misspelled words and grab the correct spelling. At one time it would have been enough to just identify misspelled words, but these days I like the convenience of correcting things on the fly without having to look them up.
Pros and cons, I guess.
I like the convenience of "what you see is what you get" this comment box business provides, but I don't like how large a shadow it draws over the rest of the page. I liken the capturing of right-clicks to when people try to stop you from looking at their precious HTML source code by popping up a "Not allowed" message when you right click anywhere on a page. It's infuriating, and ultimately gets in the way eventually.
Though... hmm. That gives me an idea.
Be judged!
No, no. Seriously though, I realize proofreading is tedious and a spellchecker makes it less so. However, I do appreciate good writing, and that usually involves some proofreading and analysis on what people are trying to say. Spelling, to me, is just the first part. I read a couple hundred emails a day from intelligent, technical people who, for their spelling and grammar mistakes and their inability to form ideas into words, shouldn't have passed high school English.
I attribute this to the rising popularity of spellcheckers.
(Also, I make mistakes all the gd time. That's why I made a preview button.)
(Fun side note: I once corrected a family member on Facebook on one of her status updates. At first she responded cheerily, laughing at her mistake. Her response had a spelling error, and was in text speak. I mentioned this. She responded more abrasively. Her response had another error. I mentioned this. She has now blocked me from her status updates.)
hmmm... Well, alright then. From here on out, I will make certain to pre-write each of my idkfa posts in Word and copy/paste them here to prevent mistakes...
I guess in my mind, a forum limited to friends who know me ought to be a place where I should feel comfortable to make mistakes without being judged, but I'll reassess that now and just approach this means of communication as I do communication with basically all my other friends groups.
As for the "Preview" button... I – like everyone here – am not incapable of proof reading my writing. However, I spend seemingly endless amounts of time editing and rewriting things that matter for work or school or otherwise. So, when I come on idkfa (or facebook, or any other online sources I use for mental breaks) I don't really intend to spend a lot of time writing long eloquent editorials; I usually just come to take a few minutes away from thinking about whatever I'm doing at the moment and interact in a fun way with friends. But I guess the "Preview" button is more important to others than it is to me, so I'll keep that in mind.
As for your family member who fell victim to your comments, I can't really say I would have felt differently about that. Especially if it is a person who doesn't make those types of mistakes frequently, I would understand that type of reaction.
Enjoy idkfa however you like, I appreciate that you find the time to visit in the first place. I've just become a card-carrying member of the Language Nazis in my old age, don't mind me.
And to be clearer, I disabled the embedded spellchecker portion of idkfa because it would send what you were typing to a third-party site I don't trust, and left it so the Firefox, Safari, and Chrome built-in browsers would take its place.
Grammar Nazis: http://www.youtube....atch?v=N4vf8N6GpdM (www.youtube.com)
(better if you've seen Inglourious Basterds).
The formatting I do is to ensure:
- Proper rendering of what you're typing on all browsers.
- Proper rendering within idkfa's display constraints.
- Restrictions on what kind of terrible things even the least-skilled hackers could use to insert malicious content into posts.
- Restrictions that people don't overload or fill up the idkfa database with blank spaces or excessive newlines (which won't render correctly in HTML in the first place, even if they are intended).
- What you see as you're typing in the comment box is as close as possible to what the post will look like when you're previewing the post or after you're submitting it.
I like to err on the side of caution rather than have the ability to display ASCII art.
Cure for non-deterministic code behavior: $1.39 coffee and two single-serving Hazelnut creamers from the gas station across the street. Tasty, and grants the user Kwisatz Haderach-like abilities for a brief period of time.
where to start....
This time last year I had just come off a horrible job assignment on a construction site. I was worried about my job.
So, in March I jumped ship and left CH M H LL. I was able to finagle it so that I was done with them on the day before I left for a weeklong vacation with the family to Kauai, which was amazing. My first day back from vacation was my first day starting at C ffman Eng neers.
It's been an awesome ride. I've been busy, nonstop, since I joined them. I've lost track of how many projects I've worked on. Every time I finish a project, a new one is there to pick up. It's one of the best decisions I've made in my life.
This past year I was part of the Leadership Anchorage program, put on by the Alaska Humanities Forum. It was a 10 month long intensive leadership development program. I was able to have a state legislator as a mentor, and we were able to meet for breakfast for several months. Totally sweet insight into Alaska politics and the sorts of things that happen in the State Legislature. I was also part of a community service project group, and we helped a local nonprofit come up with a marketing plan for a recent program expansion. We also had some larger sessions with the full class where we would hear from a leader in the community on a topic of leadership and also do some group development activities. It was a great experience, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'd also highly recommend it to anyone here.
It was also another year of soccer. I finally got Josh and Lee to try it out. Hopefully they didn't hate it so much that they won't play again.
It's also been another year of classes. Last fall I took Alaska Native Politics, and learned many (more) intracacies of Alaska Native Corporations, 8(a) eligibility and corporations, and history about the state through the eyes of ANCSA and ANILCA.
Then, I had the bright idea that, since I've been taking all these classes at UAA anyways, I'd do it "for serial!" So, last semester I took a prerequisite for the MBA program and learned all about Fundamentals of Finance, and that not many people in the class can understand addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Over the summer I took the GMAT, which is a test tailored for MBA students. I was very happy to read my test scores, where I got 90% correct on the math, and 75% on the verbal. Then, I kept reading my test report, and my heart fell when I found out that I was in the top 25% of test takers with my verbal score, and the bottom 25% of test takers on the math score. The numbers are so skewed because most of the examinees are Indian engineers, who have a limited idea what English is, but ace a math exam in their sleep.
Just this week I started my first two for serial classes. One of them, Intermediate Finance, is taught by an Indian professor whose classroom student behavior requirements make me feel like I'm living in my college's classes again, what with all my Indian professors there and the caste system they had set up there. Oh yeah.
I'm already thinking about the PE exam, which I take next fall. October 2011. I won't be taking classes that semester. Right now my plan between now and then is take this semester of classes, take spring semester classes, and then once spring classes get out, immediately start studying for the exam, all the way up until exam day. So, I've got an interesting year to look forward to.
Anyways, that's all I have time for to write. I leave for Seattle tonight to be a best man for one of my college roommates. I'm coming down with a cold today! It sucks! Right before the wedding!
Well, I think it works. I had to add hooks into my pretty_die routine to detect whether the HTTP headers had already been sent, and based on that, decide whether it needs to take it upon itself to generate the banner and navigation. All in all, script death will be more robust, elegant, and with dignity.
I hope you're happy.
I think the cycle is complete. I started out fresh, and new, wanting people to enjoy using what I built, toiling to satisfy their every whim. Years later, I am worn, grizzled, hands callused from repeated keystrokes. I now curse the user for their capriciousness, for their wanton clumsy stumble through my beautiful, elegant machinations.
And choose a damn avatar, you hippy. And stop riding your bike through my lawn.
So in the comment box, in the bottom right corner is the window expansion thingy. For me at least, on my work computer it doesn't seem to work correctly. It expands the inner white part without expanding the outer shell. Making the text fit the inner white box and and thus hiding the rest of the text, and since the expansion bit is part of the inner white box that is out of view as well making it impossible to change back unless I go to preview at which point I get the normal comment box again.
For fear of this section closing I figure I ought to go ahead and do this now. It’ll be easy actually.
Since I can’t really remember where I left off last year I might as well start somewhere around last fall. The only major thing to happen really was that I did in fact take the entrance exam and fill out applications for dental school. I was slowly but surely rejected from all of my school choices, and in the case of UW apparently forgotten about entirely until the day before my birthday at which point they finally remembered to send me the rejection notice. I think this was equal parts not having stellar grades and also not spending a huge amount of time observing a dentist.
It’s not that I found the rejection discouraging, I just really wanted to take time again to prepare and also do something fun. So I decided not to try and apply again this year. Instead I’ve been getting ready to do some real mountain climbing. In June my dad and I took a week long class in the north cascades that taught us proper packing, good gear lists, crevasse rescue and general glacier and mountain skills. Out of this I thought I learned how to hike, backpack and camp better in general. And now when I look at mountains I feel like I could actually go out and climb about any one safely. The pinnacle of all this work was climbing Mt Rainier two weekends ago, the pictures are linked somewhere else on idkfa. 14,412 feet of mountain with my dad, though only about 9000 feet that I personally had to walk. Dad was a little worried he wouldn’t be able to make it, and a couple of times it was hard to get him up and walking towards the summit again, but we did it in good time and aren’t much worse for the wear of it. Now I’m looking to do some more summits and maybe even take on Rainier again with another climbing partner.
Job wise I’m doing the same thing. Earlier this year my old boss quit right about the same time as I had been discussing moving to another scientists group, which was a little awkward. My old boss caught wind of my move to a different group and was a little unhappy about it, since I initiated the move before I knew she was leaving. Anyway I work on leprosy vaccines now though I still moonlight with TB and generally am an all around kind of guy. I did finally learn how to do flow cytometry and intracellular cytokine staining. Kinda still slow on it and I get confused by the intricacies of the flow machine program, but basically not much has changed for me at work.
I just finished captaining my second season of corporate ultimate Frisbee league with a perfect record for our team. And by perfect record I mean 0-10 all losses. Still we had the most fun of any team out there and were awarded for most team spirit… tied with REI corporate actually. In a few weeks I’ll be starting a fall league and also riding 160 miles in a MS fundraiser.
At home things are pretty much the same. John is going into the second grade at a new school. We really couldn’t handle the Christian school anymore, with any and all of John behavior problems there being blamed on Katy having a job that did not include popping out babies like the Dugger family. That and the final straw for me was when John told me that only god/jesus can cure leprosy, and did not believe me when I said that there were pretty good antibiotics out there… I really don’t need John telling his teacher even in a misguided way that I’m trying to cure people like jesus.
That is pretty much it, more than that really. It’s not like much has happened in a year, I just have a slow afternoon at work today.
That last paragraph is priceless. Oh how I just love crazy Christians. I mean, it is quite obvious that you and Katy are not fulfilling your purpose for being put on earth: procreating nonstop. But to say that Wizards is evil is just wrong. Seriously now... it keeps quite a few shut ins from becoming serial killers.
A little context, if you're curious: http://idkfa.com/ec/2010/08/26/when-config-files-have-dire-consequences/
Pretty much everyone suggested that as a more serious punishment for not biking enough. Dealing with computers, for which sudden power loss can have catastrophic effects, it didn't seem like a reasonable design choice.
Then people started suggesting that the bike shock me if I went too slow. I asked them how they planned to eventually have me stop.
Then I realized they were all mocking me.
A brief update:
Future improvements:
Fun discoveries:
Another update:
The "pause" mode could potentially be used for cheating, I guess, to rest at the same time your video is paused, but you still lose time / steps trying to get the magnet into position, and time also waiting for it to get into pause mode.
Further progress:
A big problem, however, is that the spare computer I'm using is my sister's old laptop. It's running a sort of recent version of Linux, which helps in terms of making it usable, but it's otherwise about the shittiest computer I've seen in a long time. It has absolutely no processing power, and for what little it has, it can't keep itself cool enough to run for more than a few minutes while performing something like a system upgrade. As a result, I can hear the system fan over my exercise bike. Ridiculous.
That said, I need something else downstairs to power and listen to the microcontroller. I'm debating bringing my NAS device over closer to the device, as it has a few USB ports and a Linux backend, but the thing works too well to start screwing with it.
If I was feeling particularly industrious, and frivolous, I could spend an extra $50 and get the Ethernet shield for the controller. I'd have to rewrite the code I have now, but it'd mean I could control VLC directly from the microcontroller, without need for an extra computer in the mix.
I'll have to think on it.
I'm running across a problem.
I have a 10 millisecond poll cycle on the device. This means in a given second, I will check the state of the sensor 100 times.
This might not be enough. I'm finding that no matter how hard I pedal, I can't get above ~250rpm. It could very well mean that I'm just not going that fast, but even when I have the friction off the wheel, I'm not able to make it go any quicker. I think this is because in 100 polls a second, there are only so many "up-down" states it can accurately measure before the detection and calculation for one bleed into the detection and calculation for another.
I may have to rewrite my software to use an Interrupt Service Routine to maintain state. That is, rely on a hardware mechanism that can detect signals asynchronously from the normal line of processing, and even halt normal processing to detect a signal properly.
Well. It appears that I'm not the biking machine I thought I was. Or the programmer.
After some careful rewiring, poring over some documentation, and some recreational coding, I found that due to the position of the magnet on my wheel, I was actually receiving not one but up to four signals for every single pass by the sensor.
The only reason I didn't notice this was actually because of how inaccurate I was previously measuring passes. Also, that I was delaying 10ms between sensor polls meant that at least one or two of the signals would be ignored, with slightly improved accuracy as the magnet went by faster.
Now I think it is a little more realistic. I fiddled with the magnet on the wheel so that 9/10 times it will only signal once for every pass (best I can do). To account for that erroneous 1 time in 10, I put in a 100 millisecond ignore state. This means I can't have more than 10 sensor reads a second. But I don't think these legs will ever push that wheel around more than 10 times a second. Know your limits, Master Wayne.
I re-implemented the interface I had with the computer to do both the counting and the pausing I had before. Trying it out briefly, I found that I'm not actually hitting 250rpm, actually closer to 175 to 200rpm while going "balls out." The program feels a little more responsive, though I'm not sure if I should be able to notice a difference unless I'm going full speed.
Oh man.
Spent $700 on a new computer then spent $30 on a lengthy HDMI cable so I could get all the computer, cables, and signals going where they needed to go and needed to be.
I've been coding at the thing for two days. I keep getting bizarre terminal errors, where things inexplicably stop working, or my program refuses to respond to commands, or where the program completely refuses to register signals coming from the bike.
Here's some knowledge for you. Unix operating systems treat everything as files. Even weird things, like hard drives, screens, video cards, devices that aren't really files like you're used to. It makes some sense to treat them in this way. After all, all you really need to know in a computer is where a "place" is in the computer, either in memory, or otherwise. Reading and writing from a file is based on the same principal as reading and writing to a screen, or the mouse, or a keyboard.
Except when you use things wrong. Horribly wrong.
Long story short, I had stuff misconfigured. I had my exercise program running, then opening up and treating the device that represented the terminal I was working in as the exercise bike. This means all sorts of weird things... but essentially, it didn't work.
Note to self: /dev/ttys00* are not serial devices.
So here's my new problem. In addition to the bike, I've got a rowing machine that I like a lot. I've thought about figuring out how to hook it up to the system I've got here, but with the lengths of the tiny wires and such, I've decided it would be easier just to have an entirely different Arduino setup.
In the meantime, what I'd like to do is set up the bike to be able to both a) pause the exercise entirely including the video ("phone call" mode), and b) pause the exercise, but keep the video going ("other exercise" mode).
This sort of goes against my original thoughts on the project: it should incentivize you to keep going at all times, and at least be annoying enough if you do need a break. However, in the case of the rowing machine, it's a brutal 15+ minute workout with nothing but the sound of my fan to keep me company. I'd like to have the video playing, but have the ability to resume on the bike whenever I'm done on the rowing machine.
So my idea was to add another sensor. Currently, if I leave the wheel over the sensor for 10 seconds, it goes into "phone call" mode, and pauses everything until I start biking again. This is what I've been doing to pause for calisthenics, rowing machine, etc. The second sensor would behave similarly, except if I left it over the second sensor, I would go into "other exercise" mode, and keep the video playing.
Here's where things went downhill.
I tried putting together a circuit that would effectively provide a signal for both the sensors, and another signal that would trigger the controller to say "Hey, look, I've got either signal, I should check to see which one." Apparently, I'm not that great at electronics. I wasn't able to get this working. And in addition, I:
After fiddling for two hours, then spending 45 minutes getting it back to a working state, I went back and read some documentation, and found that an extra port on the Arduino controller actually takes care of this, such that I wouldn't have to provide the "Hey, look..." circuitry myself.
So, it's possible. A little bit more coding, and more spare parts, and I should be able to continue watching while rowing.
Now I just have to wait for everybody's inventories to restock from the Christmas onslaught.
I'm... I'm angry and frustrated. I want to be angry at something. At someone. At people who use Windows to get anything done.
It took me four hours to get my exercise bike setup working on Windows, specifically, Windows Vista. This, purportedly on:
Drivers leave the COM3 port such that you can't access it lest you are running the command prompt as Administrator.
Win32::SerialPort module behaves ever-so-slightly differently than Device::SerialPort, in that it gladly returns undef values rather than blocking and then timing out, creating fun busy-wait-and-maybe-fry-your-USB-port loops.
The oldtelnet module on VLC in Windows behaves slightly differently than VLC on Linux and Mac, forcing me to have to tediously go back through and rework the "looking for response X" states I used successfully on two other platforms.
I feel like someone should answer for this. That Microsoft has created a platform that defies programming, development, and basic systems diagnostic information at every step, and said platform continues to be successful at all... it just blows my mind.
In addition: http://msdn.micros...8v=vs.85%29.aspx#12 (msdn.microsoft.com)
Where a comment says:
Note: Using Windows XP both administrators/standard accounts don't require administrative rights to obtain a device handles.
This has changed on Vista, Windows 7 (UAC) where you MUST have administrator rights to obtain device handles.
1) Use a service
2) Use COM elevation moniker
3) Use Manifest
UAC, in my opinion, was a pretty bad idea. The fact that it imposes arbitrary access restrictions without giving you the ability to specifically override / disable them tells me that Microsoft decided it doesn't trust its users enough to give up control.
So, my laptop died, either due to total battery failure cascading into the power supply refusing to boot the computer. I like to think that this is because I forced my laptop to run Windows for an extended period of time, but alas, correlation is not causation.
Regardless. I got a few more components in. Specifically, a big ol' bag of reed switches.
In about 45 minutes of rewiring, burning out the rest of my LEDs, and reprogramming, I had my "other exercise" feature working.
And it works pretty well. Because I now have two sensors at different positions on the wheel, I can get more accurate reads with less chances of things like sensors "bouncing" and double-counting a rotation. The only way the controller will now mark a rotation is if it passes by both sensors in succession. Hovering just above the sensor's sweet spot and going back and forth is no longer an option for cheating (though, arguably, this is harder to do than just pedaling normally).
The "other exercise" feature itself is sort of fun. It means I can go and use my rowing machine for a bit before getting back on my bike, and still be able to watch something. However, it's not just an easy out: in order to have it be playing normally while I'm in "other exercise" mode, I have to have been meeting the required RPMs while on the bike, otherwise I'll be playing at less than 100% speed while on the rowing machine.
Still, the "other exercise" feature, I feel, is still vulnerable to abuse or slacking. One could very well just start the exercise, get tired/bored, and leave it in "other" mode while they went and got a snack.
What I might implement is a timer for the "other exercise" mode. Essentially, it will put an upper limit on the amount of time one can spend in "other exercise" mode before you have to get back on the bike. Could also be nice if you wanted to let the user know how long they had left in the "other exercise" before kicking you back into pause mode, or normal mode.
Had a few hours to kill. Started looking at the rowing machine.
Already part of the rowing machine is a small LCD clock/computer. I never got it to work, for the reason that it had a few dead/decaying/leaking batteries that I was loathe to deal with. Finally getting up the nerve to replace them, I found that something had at some point gone wrong with its internals, only emitting a long, mournful, R2-D2-esque scream before turning off.
However, taking out the batteries, I realized that there were two plugs for the rowing machine: one for the batteries, and one attached to the shaft on which the seat glides. The cord is like what you'd use for a microphone jack. Thinking for a bit, if indeed the rowing machine computer had a signal going to it from the rest of the machine, it would have used this.
I start further taking things apart.
I take the time to listen to the seat as it glides. Mid-row, I notice a familiar click. It's the same click that the reed switches make on the exercise bike. I look at the underside of the seat. There's a suspicious-looking piece of black metal placed in a suspicious-looking position just below the seat. I throw a screw at it. It sticks to it. Then I immediately regret throwing a screw at a hard-to-reach magnet, and spend 20 minutes trying to dig out the screw.
I strip the wires of the original headphone-type cable. I attach it to a AA-powered LED bulb to a flashlight I got years ago. I contort my body so I can precariously attach the LED bulb to a AA-powered circuit while I slowly push the rowing machine seat down its path with my foot. In the same position I heard the reed switch clicking the bulb lights up as well.
I'm waiting for a breadboard in the mail. Once I have that, I'll have another piece of exercise equipment I can use in my system.
Alas, I am too late.
"Method and device for measuring rotation speed of rotating equipment"
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=36&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=bicycle&s2=video&OS=bicycle+AND+video&RS=bicycle+AND+video (patft.uspto.gov)
"Exercise system with graphical feedback and method of gauging fitness progress"
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=25&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=bicycle&s2=video&OS=bicycle+AND+video&RS=bicycle+AND+video (patft.uspto.gov)
"System and method for pacing repetitive motion activities"
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=47&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=bicycle&s2=video&OS=bicycle+AND+video&RS=bicycle+AND+video (patft.uspto.gov)
Googling around initially I knew that some companies had done things to provide metrics on bicycles. I didn't think people had already patented things so absolutely specific to what I'm trying to do here.
Oh well. It's a fun hobby, I guess.
Well, I think I've reached a milestone.
Three times I've been able to rebuild and/or replicate my setup in the span of about two hours. It works on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows (mostly). While it's not the most user friendly, it's educational, and pretty cheap to implement (compared to gym memberships, new and expensive intelligent exercise equipment, or a personal trainer). Most homes in the U.S. (or every house I've been into in the last 5+ years) have larger LCD screens to view things, some have spare/old computers that can play movies, and have equipment that, if you can glue something to it, it will most likely apply pretty well to the exercise.
There may be some philosophical problems with the idea, though, which may speak to why I've only had a few people show interest in the project (either on idkfa, or elsewhere).
First, it's something you do alone. My original exercise, cycling, is by nature a solitary act (you usually aren't talking or cooperating with somebody in order to succeed at biking). Combining biking alone with TV as entertainment doesn't exactly engender the same feeling as just watching television. Just watching television, or a movie, or a show, is intended to be a relaxing act. Having to ride the exercise bike while doing it would potentially take your attention away from the show, in addition to providing none of the social elements usually associated with sports or exercise.
Second, trying to ride the bike while you're watching with someone else has the added anxiety of going fast enough to keep up with the show so as to not disappoint the other viewer. There's also the added annoyance of the noise of the bike, and the person you're watching with cheering/jeering you on.
Third, if you look at a cyclist chugging up a hill, you never look at them and say "That looks like fun." You instead make fun of their bike shorts, and wonder how much their ass hurts, and then make a joke about Lance Armstrong having one testicle. I bike because it's good exercise, it's a great way to be nowhere, and because I have stupid ankles. I enjoy it a lot, but I'm also a loner who tinkers in his basement and writes about it on his website (which he also built).
My point is: there is no inherent "cool" here with this project. There's momentary novelty, followed by the realization that you will still be spending hours on an exercise bike. That the evil machine will keep you on it while you're trying to catch the latest episode of Biggest Loser is not a plus for most people.
Anyhow. It works for me, I guess. Keeps me going when nothing else does. According to the logs I've taken, I've traveled 182 miles since August (based on the radius of my exercise bike wheel), in the span of 26 hours.
If you perhaps wonder why I have not kept up with any given show, just remember that my TV watching has consequences. Otherwise, I'll trouble you no more with development updates.
182 miles / 26 hours = 7 mph. This is meaningless, however, since there's no way to qualify this in terms of work. Need resistance settings for your bike. Perhaps kinetic friction coefficients? Then calculate work. This is actually somewhat of a tough problem until you get to steady state.
Yeah. Obfuscation is sort of a hobby of mine.
The first rule of improv, so I'm told, is "Always say yes," in that no matter what game you're playing, always go along with what your other players are doing. Something about keeping the energy of a scene, and allowing for sequences to play out rather than stall or otherwise descend into shittiness.
well... tonight is my last night in Anchorage until the holidays. to those of you who I had the pleasure of seeing while I was here, it was wonderful to see you! leaving behind this beautiful weather is going to be really difficult too. (see! I told you all I'd bring some sun back with me! it just had a delayed arrival so it didn't arrive with me. :) )
ADN.com: Airplane with 4 aboard missing in SW Alaska; plane carrying 3 Katmai Park Rangers
http://www.adn.com/...board-missing.html (www.adn.com)
Bill Edwards is a Park Ranger in Katmai for the summer. I hope you're okay out there, Bill.
Frustrating:
Iterative and empirical processes where you don't know if you have the best answer or the right answer until you've gone through all permutations.
Josh, I'll contract your personal company. Build me a pipe modeling and sizing program that actually works and highlights the path of greatest friction.
I think this fits here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/marriage-anyone-it-took-me-http://www.cracked...me-a-minister/ (www.cracked.com)m)a funny article, though with angry undertones. Also I just enjoy cracked.
