[	Tags	|	software, work	]
[	Current Mood	|	productive	]

The other day, I read an article from a friend about the Pomodoro Technique. I thought it might be an intriguing thing to try…a sharp counterpoint to my “work continuously until exhausted, take a break doing something only vaguely work related until I get energy (or my caffeine has kicked in), then go back to working continuously” technique. The idea of introducing breaks is counter-intuitive for me, but I will give it a try.

[	Tags	|	makerfaire, penguicon	]
[	Current Mood	|	excited	]

Next weekend, Penguicon will descend upon the Maker Faire amidst a cloud of liquid nitrogen, gallons of dairy, and pounds of sugar. Yes, we are making LN2 Ice Cream at the Faire, and we need your help. If you would like free admission, we would love 5 hours of your time. Please contact Scott Kennedy or myself if you can work one of the following shifts:

• Saturday
  • 10am - 3pm Alex C
  • 1pm - 5pm Curtis G
  • 3pm - 8pm
• Sunday
  • 10am - 3pm Cindy D
  • 12pm - 5pm Geralyn L

Duties: Helping make LN2 Ice Cream, assisting in various experiments (did you know that Siberian Frogs can be frozen in LN2 and will come back to life when placed in room temperature water?), acting as a “gopher”, and generally participating in the fun that we're going to have. Oh, and wandering around the Faire and having fun. That's important too. Be aware, we will be under a tent somewhere in the parking lot of the Henry Ford in Dearborn…so we won't be out in the sun, but we certainly won't be in any air conditioning either. I'll bring deodorant…

So if this sounds like fun, get in contact with Scott or me by our deadline of the 26th of July.

[	Tags	|	rafting, summer, vacation	]
[	Current Mood	|	sore	]

It's been a busy week. Last weekend was MPCon and I had a blast. In typical fashion I overcaffeinated, wrecked my voice, and laid waste to my sleep schedule (such as it is). It was glorious. Some highlights include (in no particular order):

• Getting Randy, Scott, Lucy, and Trevor out finally to see what the fuss was all about (and I think all had some fun out there)
• Neverending Robo Rally with Jimmy, Mr. Beefy, Bossk and Scott. My favorite moment from that game is either the look on Bossk's face after flipping his first card, getting moved, then saying “Wait, that's left!?!” or everyone begging Scott to just go ahead and win to end the game. Several times during this three hour marathon, however, I had laughed until I was crying.
• Neverending Risk:Godswarm with Jimmy, Scott, and Trevor. Jimmy's voice will forever haunt me saying “This board, over here, this is MY board. You kids fight over hell.” The game was nowhere near as fun as the company…seriously, who looks at Risk and says “needs more rules.”
• League of Legends with Joe, Nick (one of the many), and Scott. Seriously, I'd played the similar Heroes of Newerth before, but I'm really having a lot of fun with LoL at the moment. I'm sure I'll be bored in a day or two, but for now, much fun!
• Proving that a real vuvuzela is nowhere near as annoying as the vuvuzela app on the Android plus the PA system. Your vuvuzela might be loud, sir, but ours has a volume knob, and is only at like, 4.

Immediately following teardown on Sunday, I frantically tried to get things ready for Tuesday's trip to NY for a visit with my family and whitewater rafting down the Indian and Hudson rivers.

I (and the whole family) had a great time on the trip. We hit the town of Indian Lake the day before and spent the night, so we got a chance to swim for a bit, try out the local food (dinner at Marty's Chili Nights, a Mexican restaurant. I can review by quoting a local gentleman who stated “there are no Mexicans in Indian Lake”—breakfast at this cute little shop called the Misty Mountain Bakery with a welcome message in Tolkein's elvish on the door and the Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle Earth on the shelf; oh, and some wifi by which I was able to check out any urgent emails really quickly). In the morning, we met up at the North River location of the Adirondack River Outfitters, got geared up, loaded up the bus, and took off.

I knew it was going to be a great time when, as the bus started into motion, a gentleman named “Critter” began our orientation.

“Have any of you done this before?” he asked, then after the chorus of “No”s, he continued, “This is a bus ride…”

The class 1 through 3 rapids were a perfect introduction for the kids (and frankly, for my out-of-shape self) and all of the guides were fun, entertaining, and clearly focused on making sure we had a safe and enjoyable time. BoM (Big Ol' Mike), Gary, Lindsey(?), and our guide Critter were all amazing. Photos will be coming soon, but for now, here's a rough map of our route: Click for a Google map

Now I have to get ready for the AASFA picnic (so, if you're around Ann Arbor way, you should come see us there) and then, it's time to gear up for the Maker Faire at month's end and ConStruct in August. Relaxing summer isn't relaxing all that much, but it sure is more fun than last summer.

[	Tags	|	email, flame-bait	]
[	Current Mood	|	amused	]

The other day I posted some flame-bait about top-posting in email…and I have to revisit it for one fantastic reply. A friend from school, Trevor, posted the following which I adore more than you can possibly imagine—a mathematical proof of the superiority of top-posting:

Interestingly, you can make a mathematical argument for top-posting vs. bottom-posting.

Each method can be modeled as either a stack (top-posting: the last message sent is the first read) or a queue (bottom-posting: the first message sent is the first read). We will ignore that some e-mail clients automatically fold messages and assume that all recipients in the thread leave previous messages unedited. We will also assume that the e-mail thread has at least two messages, and that whichever method (top-posting or bottom-posting) is used, it is used throughout the entirety of the thread. That is, the thread replies will use either all top-posting or all bottom-posting.

We will compare the efficiency of both methods under three different yet common scenarios: 1) you have been part of the thread since the initial message and you remember the conversation, 2) you have been part of the thread since the initial message and you cannot remember what the conversation was about, and 3) you were not part of the initial thread and have no knowledge of what the thread is about^[1].

The situation for each scenario is that you receive an e-mail with the most recent new message. All situations require that you read the subject line to remind you which conversation the thread is about, so this time is omitted as it will have no effect overall. Time estimates are measured using big-O notation, where n is equal to the number of messages in the thread, including the newest reply.

The three scenarios given a stack (top-posting) implementation:

1. You have knowledge of the conversation thus far, and do not need to read any replies other that the most recent. Popping the top entry occurs in O(1) time.
2. You have no idea what this person is talking about, so you must pop and read each reply. Assuming that your memory recollection follows a normal distribution, you will remember what is going on after reading half (n/2) the messages^[2]. At this point you will read each message a second time in chronological order (n/2 * 2) until you return to the most recent. This results in O(n) time.
3. You have no knowledge of the thread contents and must pop and read every reply, then read each message in chronological order (n * 2) in O(n) time.

The scenarios given a queue (bottom-posting) implementation:

1. You remember the conversation, but the restrictions of the queue require you to dequeue and read past n elements to reach the most recent. You can read the new message after O(n) time.
2. You can't remember the conversation, so you begin reading from the first message posted. Even if you remember what the topic was about halfway through, you must dequeue all n elements to read the newest in O(n) time.
3. You have no knowledge of the thread and must dequeue and read in O(n) time.

The results per scenario:

1. You have been part of the thread since the initial message and you remember the conversation winner: top-posting at O(1) vs O(n) for bottom-posting
2. You have been part of the thread since the initial message and you cannot remember what the conversation was about winner: tie at O(n)
3. You were not part of the initial thread and have no knowledge of what the thread is about winner: tie at O(n)

Thus, the overall winner is top-posting^[3].

_____________________

^[1] this is easy to imagine because no one knows how to write a relevant subject line; assume it is "Re: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Hey Quick Question"

^[2] in the worst case (perhaps you are suffering from Alzheimer's) this will take O(n) time. Also note that if you do have Alzheimer's, all scenarios reduce to scenario 3

^[3] it should also be pointed out that scenario 1 tends to be more likely than the others (again, assuming you do not have Alzheimer's; remember?), resulting in a larger lead for top-posting

Yes, there are a couple of flaws (notably, it doesn't account for trimming…but that would be ridiculously hard to account for since you would have to account for time spent trimming, time saved reading trim, time lost referring to threaded emails, time lost using clients that don't appropriately thread emails or reading emails on the road without direct access to the thread, and time lost untrimming to include new individuals...all of which point even further to a top-posting-without-trimming win, so it doesn't really hurt that this is missing), but it is two things that I adore: a) it is stupidly accurate, and exactly the sort of application of math that I love to see (and the sort that makes Trevor infinitely my intellectual superior!) and b) funny as hell.

Enjoy…and laugh a little, I did. :)

PS, this was posted pretty much exactly as found, save for editing for HTML markup.

[

Current Mood

|

pensive

]

I hate the top-posting vs bottom-posting vs interleaving argument. Mostly I hate it because, like religion, politics, or most other contentious subjects, you are never in danger of changing anyone's mind to any real degree; it's an exercise in futility. Of course, I've never been averse to exercises in futility; but convincing someone is not the reason for this post—( I am just going to describe and explain my email use )

In the next installment of Flame War Theater, why Vim is so much better than Emacs!

[	Tags	|	funny, nakedcomedy	]
[	Current Mood	|	tired	]

When dek9 or daddy_guido send you a package, you know fear. You see, it's a well known fact that neither of them have even the remotest sense of proportion. You might pull a prank on them—the practical joke equivalent of the snake in a can of peanut brittle, for example—and in return find an asp in your mailbox one day.

“What!?” Greg would ask incredulously, “It's a snake, get it?”

“Plus,” Dawn would hasten to add, “it was funny…”

Well, they got me there…but I digress, where was I? Oh, right…Dawn or Greg…package…fear… Now mind you, you don't feel terror. No, you always retain that belief that there is a certain limit to the madness, as it were. Like, the asp they would use would have been drained of venom, perhaps. No, instead there is just a vague sense of being ill at ease. Like, hypothetically, if someone were to present you a urine specimen cup filled with a warm, suspiciously urine-like fluid for oral intake. Say, for example, at the closing ceremonies of a convention. Hypothetically. Now, you are sure that it isn't REALLY urine, but even as you throw it back you are reminded of a couple pertinent facts:

1. It isn't like it would be specifically HARMFUL, per se
and here's the big one,
2. It *would* be funny!

So with a huge dollop of curiosity (“Would this person really feed me pee?”) and a tinge of discomfort, you open the package.

Another layer of packaging. I didn't see that coming. Remember that “not terror” thing from before? I lied. There's terror. Heaps of it. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, I was helping Dawn move, and upon finding out that Greg was going to be among those helping unload the truck at the other end, included a box full of driveway gravel for him. It was returned a year later during a convention by being delivered directly into the back of my vehicle. Over a year later, I returned it to him as a graduation gift. At this point it is stalled at his place because neither of us is sure where this ends. This can only go up, now, and really, the next step that both of us, independently, made our way to was a fucking landscaping boulder.

No…sense…of…proportion!

So, I smashed the envelope several times with a heavy book (because, you know, asps), hugged my kids, kissed my wife, and ( opened the scary package… )

[

Current Mood

|

tired

]

As the heavy part of my summer schedule winds down, it is time that I turn my eye to the relaxing and enjoyment part of the season; or Jer_'s World Tour (now with 99% less world, more like Jer_'s Very Local Tour). Here is where I will be this summer, and by extension, where YOU should be this summer.