Science, Bitches

Interactive Machine Learning

2010-06-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

Don't let the title of this talk (Interactive Machine Learning) mislead you. As Dan Olsen says, "I am not a Machine Learning guy, so if you say Laplace in front of me, I will look at you with a blank stare". What the talk is about is HCI.

"[HCI] - why is it interesting?.. Every time I think about computer science and I think about the future I always think about Moore's Law. Mainly because as I tell my students: if you choose a problem for which Moore's Law will solve it, why are you wasting your time. If we've got exponential growth in computer speed; if we've got exponential growth in memory, we've got lot's of available data. The one thing that isn't growing is human capacity. The ability to concentrate, the ability to see, the ability to touch, the size of our fingers, those things are not changing."

"Nobody wants to become the borg. People want to live the lives they live and they want to be assisted by their computing technology, they do not want to be dominated by it."

-Dan Olson (Interactive Machine Learning)

Good design principles from...

Image Processing with Crayons, a drawing application where you don't have to stay within the lines:

- Painting is the fundamental metaphor.
- Users can become semi-proficient in ~ 4 minutes.
- ML algorithm must train in less than 10 seconds, preferably 2.

How long can I neglect my robot, an experiment to teach a robot what is safe and what is not safe:

Digital input device a:
- You look at where you want to go and you go there.
- A great advance over the joystiq?

Digital input device b:
- Scribble what is safe in blue and what is unsafe in red.
- You can teach anyone how to do this in ~ a minute and a half.

"It cannot take days to train, it must take seconds. Otherwise you don't have an interactive loop." There is a user with some kind of user interface (e.g., painting with crayons - drawing on transparent layers) who labels some artifacts (e.g., pixels). Convert that into features, train a training algorithm, apply it to a bunch of unlabeled artifacts and provide feedback to the user. This the loop. Focus on it.

Driving robots are being funded by the military?

Apple nano Money

2010-04-05T23:38:00.001-07:00

Finding checks in the mail is always fun, but if I knew it would take this long to get my Apple iPod nano scratch settlement money, I would have asked for $40.00 off the purchase of a new Apple iPad.

The End of Anonymity, The Beginning of Privacy

2010-03-13T13:08:00.000-08:00

Contrary to what the movie Fight Club may have you believe, you actually are a unique snowflake. For evidence of this, just take a look at the Netflix Prize dataset (it contains 500 thousand records - users, and about 200 movie ratings per record). Statistically speaking, 90% of the records do not have a single other record that is more that 30% similar to it. In other words, the vast majority of Netflix users have rated a very unique set of movies.

Netflix, being very concerned about the privacy of their users, has removed or anonymized so called personally identifying information (name, email, age, address, etc) before releasing the dataset. However, the very notion of personally identifying information is flawed. In fact, all information can be personally identifiable. That is, any information could be used to identify an individual.

Taking a look at the Netflix dataset again, we find that on average, two movies is enough to reduce the candidate records to eight. And four movies is all it takes to uniquely identify one record. Another way to put it is, if you know just four movies that your friend has rated and you know that he is in the Netflix dataset, then it's very likely that you can find his record and learn the other movies that he has rated. This could be potentially embarrassing (gay porn) or dangerous (politically charged movies) for him. In fact, people have carried out attacks like this by linking the "anonymized" Netflix data with publicly available IMDB rating data to learn the identities of several "anonymized" Netflix users.

Previous definitions of privacy that were based on personally identifying information (quasi-identifiers) were flawed for this reason. k-Anonymity (syntactically transforming the dataset so that quasi-identifiers must appear in at least k records) does not guarantee privacy. Privacy is not a property of the data, but a property of computation carried out on the data. A better definition of privacy is differential privacy. Differential privacy basically means that including or not including a particular record has no significant effect on the computation result. Or in other words, your privacy has the same chance of being violated whether you participate in the computation or not.

[Reference Video]

Computational Developmental Robotics

2010-03-09T19:09:00.000-08:00

[Comic: Toothpaste For Dinner]

At first glance, human babies don’t seem that bright. They eat, they sleep, they cry. But they also learn at an astounding rate. While they are still in the womb, they learn proprioception, where their limbs are in relation to themselves, and how to move them. When they are born, they need to quickly learn how to breathe (just-in-time learning, if you will). They also get access to an entirely new sense - vision. Babies learn face recognition, structure from motion, and depth from stereo faster and better than the state of the art computer vision algorithms. Similar things can be said for a baby learning how to move about and manipulate its environment (robotics), learning how to understand and communicate with others (computational linguistics), and learning how to enjoy music (beat detection). Even more incredible, is that all this learning is going on while the baby’s brain grows from a single cell when the baby is in the womb, to the complex network of neurons in a developed brain. It’s like learning how to fly a plane as it is being assembled from parts all around you.

Artificial intelligence is a field with a lot of cool stuff happening. We have computer programs that can beat human grandmasters at chess, spam email filters that operate at over 99% accuracy, and programs that can compose piano music indistinguishable from the greats. But, how much of this can we actually call artificial intelligence, and how much is hand-wavy fakery? Can Deep Blue learn how to play Go? Can a spam filter learn to love? Why is it that a baby can learn to solve any problem and adapt to any environment, while we haven’t even come close to creating a robot with such versatility and adaptability?

The problem may be that artificial intelligence has been too focused on advanced behaviors like game playing (chess), classification (spam filter), and rule breaking (computational creativity) and less so on fundamentals like motivation, environment modeling, and agent self-introspection. After all, you must learn how to crawl before you can run.

tl;dr – Babies are awesome. We need to learn how they learn.

Don't Pepper Spray me Brotender!

2010-03-04T11:53:00.001-08:00

This is what happened last night. My friend David and I went to Trinity nightclub in downtown Seattle at around 9:45pm (Wednesday night is free cover and $3 beers). We go in and the bartender immediately checks our IDs. The bartender notices I have a half empty plastic bottle of Cha Dao Black Tea and Coffee Yin Yang (awesome drink by the way), and asks me to hand it over. I don't really understand why, but I reluctantly do so. Then I jokingly say to David, "I guess they have a no tolerance policy here". The bartender overhears this and gets really angry. He basically says if we don't like it we can leave. I feel the bartender is being a dick, so I ask to see his manager. This seems to piss him off even more. He says that it's not possible and then tells us to get out.

At this point, I feel the bartender is being a total douchebag. I go with David past the bar area and walk to the dance floor area looking for someone less dickish that I can talk to. To my utter surprise, the bartender has followed me and he's carrying a bottle of pepper spray and is threatening to use it on me. I really don't want to get pepper sprayed so David and I quickly leave.

I realize that you're only getting my side of the story here, but I just want to highlight two things that can be confirmed by the other patrons and David:

The bartender chased after me with a bottle of pepper spray in his hand and threatened to use it on me.
I never made any threats, or even hinted at violence or getting physical. I made it clear to the bartender that violence was the last thing I wanted.

tl;dr - Bartender at Trinity goes on a power trip and threatens to pepper spray me. I never once indicated a desire for violence or physical confrontation.

On a lighter note, I find it funny that I seem to be prone to bad luck whenever I go out on my birthday.

4 Things the Post Office Can't Do

2010-02-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

The post office recently failed to deliver a package to me. In trying to understand why, I've discovered 4 things that the post office simply cannot do.

1. Deliver my package.

This is the online tracking page for the package in question. Notice how it made it all the way to Bothell, WA (where I live), but it was never actually delivered to me. Instead it was marked "Return to Sender" without my knowledge.

2. Explain why they can't deliver my package.

So I called my local post office looking for an explanation. After getting tossed around their phone tree a few times, the response I got was: generally, a package getting marked "return to sender" means there's something wrong with the address.

3. Help me figure out what went wrong.

That's alright I think, mistakes happen. However, when I then ask what the incorrect address was that caused the package to be marked "return to sender", nobody can answer me. I'm beginning to smell some BS. I also checked with the seller later, and they confirmed that they shipped it with the correct address.

4. Fix the mistake.

I don't really care whose fault it is, I just want my package delivered. So I ask them to correct the address and deliver it to me. The package is literally in the same town as me, so I figure this can't be that hard of a request. It turns out this is impossible. After getting escalated three times, the response I got was along the lines of: our system is not capable of doing such a thing.

Well, thanks post office, I hope you're happy. The sender is now sending me the package again, this time via Fedex.

Things That Don't Exist in Reality, Suck

2010-02-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

I've been searching for a certain poster from the movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". It's the one with Nikola Tesla being a badass rockstar. The artist, Pete Oswald, has kindly provided a digital version on his blog.

But I really want to buy a real-life version to put on my wall. So far, the closest thing I could find is in the top-right corner on the back of the Cloudy Artbook.

Update: I'm not the only one that wants it apparently.

Droid Navigation

2010-02-05T22:42:00.000-08:00

I sold my old iPhone and got a Droid with car dock from Motorola. Google Maps Navigation on the Droid is well designed. The car dock is not.

The dock holds your phone - and that's it. If you want power, you need your own usb car charger. If you want audio from the phone to the car stereo, you need another cable. One nice feature though, is that it allows for easy rotation of the phone between landscape (useful for navigation / watching YouTube videos) and portrait (useful for calling people / web browsing) orientations.

Google Social Circle

2010-02-02T20:29:00.000-08:00

Normally when I do a vanity search, I use my full name. Today I did a search for just "Andy" for fun. I wasn't expecting this:

At first I though Google Search was broken. How could this story about me be on the first page of search results for "Andy"? Then I realized I was looking at a new feature, called Google Social Circle.

It's quite ingenious actually. While Facebook and Twitter are first building a social network and then building (or in some cases hacking) search on top of it, Google is approaching the problem of social search from the opposite direction. They've built a rock solid search engine, and now they're experimenting with the social side of search. I think it boils down to this: people are going to be more likely to visit a link that is recommended, written by, or is in some way associated with one of their friends.

Disclaimer: I work at Google (on unrelated projects).

Depressing Chart

2010-01-16T19:38:00.000-08:00

Source: [OkCupid Blog]

Time-Lapse IKEA

2010-01-12T03:49:00.000-08:00

I've watched my fair share of time-lapse IKEA videos on YouTube, but let me tell you, this one makes all those others look normal-speed.

And the reveal...

6 Things to Do in Australia

2010-01-12T01:31:00.000-08:00

1. Watch the New Years Eve fireworks in Sydney.

2. Learn how to play cricket.
(and then lose to my sister)

3. Try boogie boarding at Bondi Beach.

4. Have some kangaroo on the barbie.

5. Buy "CANDY posing pouch".

6. Go to jail. :(

But not necessarily in that order...

Disappearing Christmas

2009-12-23T23:12:00.000-08:00

When I say Christmas can disappear, I'm not talking in the metaphorical sense, like your parents forgot to buy the Christmas presents. I mean that it is possible to experience a shorter version of it, or in the extreme case, no Christmas at all, due to travel around the Earth.

Let's look at an example. Flying from Los Angeles to Sydney takes about 15 hours. A flight leaves at 6pm Christmas Eve. In 10 hours it crosses the international date line. Just before the plane crossed the line, the time was 4am Christmas Day in Los Angeles (GMT -8), however for the passengers on the plane, the time was 12am (midnight) Christmas Day, since they were at GMT -12, just to the east of the international date line. When they crossed the line, time jumped ahead by 24 hours and it is now 12am December 26. Continuing to travel west, the plane will arrive in Sydney at 3am December 26 local time (GMT +10).

As you can see, the passengers on the plane have no experience for any time between midnight Christmas Day to midnight December 26.

Computer Games

2009-12-23T02:52:00.000-08:00

When computers finally managed to beat us at chess, a game of ingenious human invention, we did not say they were now officially smarter than us. What we did was give computers another game - another puzzle to struggle with.

Go is a board game that is a magnitude more complex than chess. Whereas computers could memorize well studied opening books for chess, such a strategy is unmanageable for Go, since there are 361 possibilities... for the first move alone. Today's fastest computers with the best Go algorithms are still beaten by human players with a few months of experience - mere novices.

I believe that computers will one day manage to beat us at Go. But that is a discussion for another time. Now I want to talk about what game, what puzzle we will toss future-computers after that, to assuage ourselves that NO - they are still not smarter.

Settlers of Catan is a board game that is a magnitude more complex than Go. Whereas future-computers only had to think about winning or losing for Go, a binary 1/0 that they are familiar with, such a strategy simply doesn't work for Settlers, since bartering between players involves the hazy variables of human psychology that computers are ill-equipped to define. First there is the game. It is played on a board, which has over a million different possible configurations - and that's before any player has had a turn.

Then there is the meta-game. It involves players bartering with each other, forming alliances, and knowing when to stab their former partners in the back. To give you an example of how complex the thought process can be, we need to take a quick diversion.

From personal experience, I've seen a human player propose an ingenious trade, that would have given her an enormous advantage. To fully understand the significance however, you first need to understand more about the game. Victory in Settlers is achieved when a player has 10 victory points. There is a longest road development card, which is awarded to whichever player has the longest road* of at least 5 segments. It is worth 2 victory points.

You also need to understand more about this particular instance of the game. There were four players. The human player and another player (let's call him the opponent) were both just mere points away from victory. One of the two other players currently held the longest road card. However the opponent had two large sections of road, and if he was able to connect them, held a good chance of gaining the longest road card for himself.

The human player proposed that she refrain from building a road at a position where it would block the opponent from connecting his two road sections in return for him giving one of his resource cards on every turn to her for the rest of the game (like a tax). Right as the opponent was about to agree to this outrageous deal (remember he still might not have gotten the longest road card), the human player realized it was better to take away all possibility of the opponent gaining the longest road card, and she built the road anyway.

What will happen when future-computers beat us at Settlers of Catan? That's when we can say they are officially smarter than us - and be right.

* The length of a road is the longest possible segment, not counting branches.

Keyboard Cat Piano

2009-12-21T23:29:00.000-08:00

What better way to test a new piano?

P.S. - I'm testing my new HD camera at the same time. :)

Running the Seattle Marathon

2009-12-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

About three months ago, my friend David and I decided to run a marathon. Neither of us had run so much as a 10k before. Although it was a spontaneous decision, we took it seriously. I found a beginner's training schedule and we stuck with it as best we could. Rain or shine, night or day, oncall or not, we ran.

Marymoore park was our preferred training location. We would always start at the park, run out half our training distance, turn around, and try to make it back to the car. I had blisters on my feet, sore joints, and aching legs, but we would always made it back. We ran that trail so many times, that it became a part of me; I learned every twist and turn, and every mile marker. We could run it with our eyes closed, and sometimes we did, in the pitch black of night.

The night before the marathon, my roommate cooked. I went to sleep with a belly full of pasta. I was woken up at 4am by an unexpected text message. "What are ya doing man?" it read, but I was too bleary eyed and preoccupied with the marathon to reply. I needed to get going anyway. When we hit traffic driving to Seattle Center, David kept busy by measuring the rate of raindrops hitting the windsheild. "It's slowing down," he told me.

We managed to park and walk to the race start with a few minutes to spare. My Dad had come to support me and take pictures. It was the first time I had seen him in a month. He didn't say anything about my hair. The raining stopped just as we came to the start time.

The first half of the marathon flew by for me. Seeing everyone else running with me, and hearing the spectators cheer us on really got me going. At that moment, I felt like I could run 100 marathons. We started near the back, but we kept passing runners. As we ran across the I-90 bridge, we caught up with the 4 hour 45 minute pace runners. We managed to stick with them through the halfway point, giving us a split time of 2 hours 22 minutes.

At mile 15, things got a lot harder. Pain and fatigue caught up with me and I couldn't keep up my pace. I had to slow to a walk, and the aching that was masked by endorphins really kicked in. It was the worst I felt during the entire race, and perhaps my entire life. I wondered how I could ever finish the remaining 11 miles. Giving up was so tempting. But I remembered the guy at mile 9, holding up the sign that read "Pain is temporary, pride is forever". I remembered the smile of the little girl at mile 12, cheering and making more noise with her little cowbell than anyone else. I remembered the man with the loudspeaker at mile 7, saying how he was so proud of all us. I remembered all the reasons that I had to run. And I kept going.

Each mile after that was a struggle. The time between mile markers grew and felt like an eternity. At mile 20, my Dad called me, wondering how I was doing. At the time, my phone felt like a brick in my hand. He asked if I wanted him to come pick me up. "No", I said without hesitation. I had made up my mind. There was no way the day was going to end without me finishing what I had started.

Just short of mile 25 I heard David yell out in pain. I turned around and saw him holding his leg. It had cramped up. David told me to keep going without him, but I wouldn't have it. I wasn't about to abandon my friend. Not when we had gone so far, and were so close to the finish. I waited for David to recover. Then we limped/walked/ran/sprinted the final mile.

It took me 5 hours 42 minutes and 10 seconds to run my first marathon. So why did I do this? Why did I choose to put myself through such pain? For me, it's more than just being able to say I've run a marathon. It's about pushing the limits of my ability, experiencing new things, and most importantly, achieving something that I really want.

420 Possibilities

2009-11-14T15:37:00.001-08:00

1 black 4x2 bookshelf from Ikea + 2 blue bins + 2 red bins = 420 possible arrangements. What you see above is the one that defines me as a person.

Chef

2009-10-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

I found out that being a chef has its perks. And I'm not just talking about scaring little kids with your big bloody knife. I went to a busy Indian restaurant with some friends after work, and was still wearing my chef's outfit (though I had put away the knife). I had a feeling our service was a bit faster than usual. We were seated immediately while others had to wait. Our plate of rice and glasses of water were always refilled quickly. Our food was very good. Not only that, but after the main course, we were presented with complimentary tea and desserts. Right before we were about to leave, our waiter asked me what I had thought of the food. He looked disappointed when I told him I wasn't really a chef...

You

2009-10-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

I never thought a cellphone comercial would make me want to cry...

Worst Song or Best Song?

2009-10-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

Scientists have carefully constructed the most unwanted music. However, in a weird reverse-Frankenstein, the 22 minute song is actually pretty good. The same auditory elements that are so undesirable, when combined together, actually make for a pretty awesome song. And yes, there is opera rap.

Luther Burger

2009-09-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

The Luther Burger is the pinnacle of human invention. It combines the succulent juiciness of a cheeseburger with the soft and chewy goodness of a glazed doughnut. There are some who may call it an unholy flavor abomination, but they have obviously not yet experienced this culinary orgasm. One bite of the Luther Burger is enough to convince anyone that it is the food of the gods. The only way it could be better is if you had two of them, or if it were deep-fried. If it's a choice between a Luther Burger, and a myocardial infarction, I choose the Luther Burger every time.

Passport Upgrade

2009-09-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

According to Wikipedia, my old PRC passport allowed me to travel to 41 countries visa-free, while my new US passport allows me to travel to 155 countries visa-free. Ironically, China is not one of the 155 countries. In fact, Americans must pay a higher visa fee than anyone else. I guess it's China's way of punishing me for defecting. I still love you, China.

GRE Vocabulary

2009-09-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Some new words I learned while studying for the GRE:

Perfidious
Craven
Cosmopolitan
Tortuous
Sedulous
Inexorable
Ineffable
Phylogeny
Calumniate
Doldrums
Demur
Ponderous
Artifice
Countenance
Polemic
Eclectic
Phlegmatically
Perfunctorily
Abrogate
Noisome
Capricious
Rapacious

And one word that describes what I want to do with the Powerprep GRE study software:

Defenestrate

Flambé

2009-09-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

One of the perks of having a classically trained French chef as a roommate.

We do what we must, because we can

2009-08-18T02:10:00.000-07:00

Back in college, I had a roommate who would go for hour-long runs two or three times a week. One night, I spontaneously decided to go running with him. It soon got so painful that I had to stop. I was only able to run for fifteen minutes that night. When he returned to the dorm (after completing his run), I asked him how he could keep running like that; did he not feel the pain? His simple answer surprised me. Yes, it was painful, but he endured it.

Today, I registered to run in the Seattle marathon.

I've never tried running a marathon before. Or even a half-marathon. But I didn't sign up for this because it was going to be easy. I signed up for the same reasons that I leaped off a 40ft high bridge. I signed up for the same reasons that my friend tried out for (and got accepted into) the Navy SEALs. I signed up for the same reasons that the United States chose to put a man on the moon.

I signed up because "we do what we must, because we can".

Citizenship

2009-08-11T21:29:00.000-07:00

I knew all that US history I learned in school would pay off one day...

If your friends jumped off a bridge...

2009-07-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

...would you jump too?

Fuck Yeah!

Mount Si

2009-07-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

How high is Mount Si?
Let's just say, one misstep and you will probably die.

^ ^

My Dream Come True

2009-06-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

I can finally download a car.

"Distract him with this shiny CD"

2009-05-18T19:34:00.001-07:00

I went to the USCIS building to get my fingerprints taken this morning. I was there for 3 hours, and I spent 95% of the time waiting. All the employees were extremely nice however. I watched one girl politely try to explain the concept of a maiden name to an older woman for almost five minutes before she finally got it. After I got my fingerprints taken, I was given a study booklet to help prepare for the interview. When I opened it, I was surprised to find an audio CD with all 100 questions and answers that could be asked. I could not believe they were giving these out for free. Then I remembered I paid $675 for the application fee...

Also, my favorite question is:
56. When is the last day you can send in federal income tax forms?

Bike to Work Fail

2009-05-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

So I tried to bike to work on Friday. I really did. You see, after my bike mishap two weeks ago, I was ready to give up. But I don't like quitting things, especially ones that are important to me. So I went online and ordered a new set of innertubes and tires. I watched videos online to learn how to change an innertube and got the tools I needed. I trained on the stationary bike at the gym the week before.

The day of the event, I was ready, or so I thought. I'm about 1 mile into my planned 14 mile route, when I notice my rear tire feels weird. I pull into a parking lot and find a rusty nail-like object sticking out of my tire. This sucks, I thought, but I had prepared for this. I take out the spare innertube in my backpack and change it in the parking lot. It takes me about 20 minutes. After a few spins around the parking lot to make sure everything feels right, I continue along the planned route. Not two minutes afterwards, I hear a loud pop, not disimilar to the one I heard two weeks ago. My tire's completely blown. I'm out of spares, and just too far from my house to be able to drag my bike back.

Next time I'll buy a real bike instead of a $70 piece of junk from Walmart.

Business Card

2009-05-12T23:45:00.001-07:00

Look at that subtle off-white coloring.

The tasteful thickness of it.

Oh my God, it even has a ~~watermark~~ QR Code!

Closed

2009-05-10T01:12:00.001-07:00

Wow, homedepot.com and lowes.com are both down right now. Does nobody want my money?

Tire Pressure

2009-05-03T17:20:00.001-07:00

It's just not my day today. Not only did my new super efficient, save-the-world, lightbulb of the future die after a grand total of 5 hours of use, but so did my bicycle tire.

I was riding along, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I hear a sharp crack. The sound ambushes me like a sniper I didn't see (which doesn't normally happen). I literally jump off the bike. I find it hard to believe that my bike could have made such an deafening noise so I look around, thinking someone may have fired a gun or set off some firecrackers or something. All I see is my neighbor looking up from his yard work, staring at me. I examine my bike closer, and sure enough, see that the rear tire is completely deflated (like my dream of biking to work).

Looks like I'm going to miss Bike to Work Day again, but I guess there's always next year.

Light Bulbs of the Future

2009-04-25T01:31:00.000-07:00

These are the light bulbs of the future

90% less energy than incandescents
50% less energy than CFLs
Cool to the touch
Lasers (actually no, it's just LEDs)

Update: Okay, it's been less than a week and this lightbulb is already dead. I switched on the light, it flashed for a second, then went out, never to come on again. So much for energy efficiency.

Home Theater 2.0

2009-03-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ever since I did my first living room upgrade, I've been meaning to get a surround sound system. After six months, I felt like I've waited long enough. I went with the Onkyo HT-S5100 7.1 home theater in a box system because it was pretty inexpensive. More pictures here.

Both my HTPC and XBOX360 output 5.1, which the receiver can expand into 7.1. The only gripe I have with the receiver is that the HDMI inputs are pass-through only, meaning they can't be used for audio input. So whereas with my TV, I was able to connect one HDMI cable from my XBOX360 for both audio and video, now I need to connect one HDMI cable for video, and one optical S/PDIF cable for audio. Onkyo's higher end models do support audio over HDMI, but I wasn't going to pay an extra $200 or so for this extra convenience.

I hate visible wires about as much as Steve Jobs hates buttons (just look the latest shuffle), so I tried very hard to balance wire management with optimal speaker placement. The center speaker is on a wall shelf that is just above the TV. The front speakers are wall mounted with wires mostly hidden behind the TV. The surround speakers are on speaker stands with wires hidden under the thing that runs along the bottom of the wall (I have no idea what it's called). The surround back speakers are also on speakers stands with the wires hidden under the floor in the crawlspace (I hope I never have to go down there again).

Some movies that really show off the audio system:

Transformers
Cloverfield
Children of Men
Independence Day
Terminator 2
Iron Man

Building a Home Theater PC

2009-03-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

For the past few months, I've been using my Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop to steam video to my home theater. It works well for 720p videos and below, but totally chokes on 1080p. Also, it only outputs stereo audio, and I wanted to output 5.1 channel surround sound.

That's why I decided to build a HTPC. Ii needed to decode 1080p video, so a fast CPU was a must. The video card was less of a concern. I also wanted it to fit nicely in my TV stand, so I went with the smaller microATX form factor motherboard and case. The case is also shorter than normal, which means only low-profile cards will fit in the expansion slots (not a problem since I'm not using any expansion slots). Loudness was also a concern, but not a major factor.

Update: More pretty pictures! (with comments inline)

The components that I bought (total cost around $500):

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3GHz
GIGABYTE motherboard with NVIDIA GeForce9400 graphics
hec microATX case with 270W power supply (has HDMI and optical S/PDIF outputs)
Seagate 1.5 TB hard drive
USB wireless adapter

The components that I had lying around:

2 x 1GB memory
250GB hard drive
Optical drive (borrowed to install Windows XP)

After getting it up and running, I found that it's able to decode 1080p video just alright (high action or noisy parts still result in some chopiness). The integrated GeForce9400 graphics kind of sucks. While I haven't tried playing any games, the new iTunes visualizer (which is very GPU intensive) doesn't seem as smooth as on my laptop's GeForce6800 (mobile version). And my laptop is almost 4 years old now.

I was hoping to get better performance by overclocking the CPU (Intel Core 2 CPUs are nicely overclockable), however I ran into some problems that I think are caused by the integrated GeForce9400 not being able to keep up with the faster FSB. The end result is that the system failed even a minor overclock from 3GHz to 3.2GHz. Compared to building my first computer, which I was able to overclock from 2.4GHz to 3.3GHz, this is terrible.

Coke Can Dating

2009-03-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

I was exploring my house's crawlspace (the shallow, unfinished space beneath the living space used for visual inspection and access to pipes and ducts), and found this old coke can lying there. There's no date on the can, but assuming it was left there when the house was constructed, I'd say it's from the late 1970's. The list of ingredients corroborate this: it has sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, which means it's from before 1985, when Coke made the switch.

Doorbell Hacking

2009-03-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

What's the first thing a thief does when he's casing a house? Ring the doorbell to see if anyone's at home, right? If someone answers, he can play it off like he's a door-to-door camera peddler or some kind of religious fanatic. If nobody answers, it's a good sign that the house is empty and ripe for the picking. The burglar proceeds to break in and steal everything that catches his fancy, including the ancient Chinese sword, the antique Italian restaurant menu, and the highly-valuable anime pencil-sketches. Meanwhile, the owner comes home to find all his shit missing, but there's nothing he can do because the perp is long gone.

Well, it's a different story when it comes to my house. Shortly after the thief rings my doorbell, I get an SMS message on my phone. I then rush home as fast as I can, where I find him struggling to lift the TV. I quietly grab my can of mace, sneak up behind him, yell "Surprise Motherfucker!", and get him good in the eyes (which are the testicles of the face). I am called a hero by my friends and neighbors.

This is how it works: My house has an oldschool mechanical doorbell. Normally, pressing the doorbell closes a circuit that activates an electromagnet which slams the chime against the tone bar. I bought a 12V reed relay from Radio Shack and hooked it up in parallel so that pressing the doorbell also activates the relay. This sends a signal to my computer (I'm glossing over this part because it's a bit complicated and involves a Phidget, not to be confused with a midget).

There's a program running on the computer that listens for the signal and makes a status update to Twitter user baic_house using Twitter's REST API. My main Twitter account follows baic_house and is set up to recieve an SMS message whenever baic_house makes an update. The whole process from pressing the doorbell to SMS message recieved on phone only takes a few seconds.

Red Elephant

2009-03-07T14:31:00.001-08:00

Is it just me, or does the cutout on the pull-tab of cans of Red Bull look like an elephant?

Christian Bale goes American Psycho (in Real Life)

2009-02-03T13:43:00.001-08:00

The Dark Knight is one of my favorite movies. And Christian Bale makes for a pretty good Batman. But after seeing Christian Bale in American Psycho (a movie that I definitely do not recommend to anyone), I've never been able to think of him in the same way. I mean, that movie was just grusomely violent in a Hostel or Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of way. Is it possible portray a character disturbed enough to stick a kitten in an ATM without having a few issues yourself? Well, the answer is apparently "no" as demonstrated in this audio clip of Christian Bale losing it on the set of his latest movie.

I guess he wasn't acting in American Psycho after all...

Newspaper Falls for Chain Email?

2009-01-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

I found this image with statistics about the 2008 presidential election in my local newspaper. The data implies that Obama stole the election. It didn't seem right to me, and a simple Google search found that it was indeed a hoax that originated as a chain email. Professor Joseph Olson, who was quoted in the article, even has a disclaimer on his website that says,

"There is a series of e-mails floating around the internet dealing with the 2008 Obama/McCain election and the 2000 Bush/Gore election, remarks of a Scottish philosopher named Alexander Tyler, suicide rates, or ANYTHING ELSE. Part of it is attributed to me. It is entirely BOGUS as to my authorship."

So it's pretty apparent that the whole thing is false - something that took me about five minutes to discover. The real question is whether the Mill Creek View has a right wing bias, or if they're just stupid enough to reprint anything they get in an email without any fact checking at all.

Why I Hate Benjamin Button

2009-01-13T20:03:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: This is all my opinion. People are allowed to have different opinions, so don't get upset.

The only thing curious about "Benjamin Button" is how so many people consider it to be a great movie. For me, it was slow, uninteresting, and lacking depth. Most disappointing is that this should have been a great movie. When I heard that the main character is a guy who ages in reverse, I thought of "Memento". When I heard that the director is David Fincher, I thought of "Fight Club" and "Se7en". When I heard that the writer is Eric Roth, I thought of "Forrest Gump". When someone who saw the movie told me that she cried her heart out, I thought of movies that have made me cry (I won't list them here). The point is, all of these are great movies because they are wonderfully deep and thought provoking at a philosophical level. The problem is, when you see "Benjamin Button" with these gems in mind, you're going to realize you're not watching another gem, instead you're looking at an ordinary lump of coal.

Note: Mild spoilers after this point.

My main problem with "Benjamin Button" is that you don't feel anything towards any of the characters. I was really hoping to gain some insight into how aging in reverse affects someone. After watching the movie, all I've learned is that they would be a pretty normal, albeit a bit boring, guy. Where's the drama, the excitement, and the conflict in this movie? When someone told me that you can kind of see there's going to be problems from the premise of the movie, I thought she meant a large, complicated, and involved problem. I didn't realise the "problem" she was talking about was the totally obvious one that Benjamin gets younger and eventually dies. That's really what the main conflict in this movie was about! And honestly, how is it any different from him growing older and eventually dying? It's so obvious that a blind man could have seen it coming!

The whole movie is like a collection of loosely related events. It watches more like a dry documentary than a Hollywood blockbuster. You'd think, with how slow the movie is, there would be amble time for character development. But the events do little to explain the characters motivations or thought processes.

I'm not a particularly insightful guy, but this movie failed to surprise me in the good way. And honestly, was anyone really surprised by the "surprises" in this movie? Was it not obvious from the moment you heard his name, that Mr. Button was Benjamin Button's biological father? And was it not obvious that the woman reading the diary was going to be his daughter? What did surprise me however, was all the plot holes. I'm not even talking about the impossibility of the whole premise. But didn't it seem odd that throughout Benjamin's whole life, no one was really curious about his condition? No reporters or doctors inquired about him at all? And why did he never talk to his sister. Did he really hate her that much? I don't know because of the complete lack of character development!

With all that said, I actually had a wonderful time watching "Benjamin Button", but for reasons entirely tangential to the movie itself.

Homemade Chili with DS

2008-12-18T15:32:00.000-08:00

I was working from home today due to snow, so I tried my hand at cooking chili with the help of my Nintendo DS. The whole process was surprisingly easy. I marked the ingredients in the chili recipe that I didn't have, and the DS created a shopping list for me. I brought my DS with me to QFC and checked off ingredients as I got them.

When I was ready to start cooking, the DS read aloud every step of the recipe for me. All I had to do was follow the instructions and yell "continue" when I was done. If I wanted, I could yell "more info" to see details about a step (like watch a video showing the proper way to dice an onion). Before I knew it, I had made chili!

Okay, so there were some minor difficulties. The pan I used was too small, so some liquid spilled over the side. Also, I had never used cayenne pepper or paprika before, so I wasn't sure how much to use, resulting in a slightly spicier chili.

More pictures.

More Snow

2008-12-17T22:31:00.001-08:00

Good news is I have running water again!

Cold and Waterless

2008-12-16T20:03:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you don't really appreciate something until it's gone. Running water is definitely one of those things. I got up this morning to discover that all the faucets in my house were kaput. I suspected frozen pipes, and I went to work hoping they would thaw on their own. No such luck (see picture of still frozen gutter drain).

At least I have plenty of bottled water...

Image Editing with Java and Excel

2008-12-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice 2560x1600 image I found the other day. I thought I had the perfect desktop wallpaper, except there was this unsightly dark rectangle on the left side of the image. I'm the kind of guy who gets irked by dead pixels on my monitors and TVs; I can't enjoy a movie unless the picture is perfect. So, there was no way I could use this wallpaper as is. However, it seemed like such a travesty to waste an otherwise perfectly good image.

First, I tried trusty old Photoshop. I selected the dark rectangle and applied the brightness/contrast filter. But alas, it seemed like no combination of brightness and contrast values did the trick of completely removing the rectangle.

After a little thought, I realized that the dark rectangle is really just a function, mapping the original pixel value to another pixel value. If I knew what that function was, I could apply the inverse function and restore the original pixel values! Finding that function is the tricky part. If I could only get a good sample of original pixel values and corresponding dark pixel values, I could approximate it however. Then it hit me; I could look at the right edge of the dark rectangle. Pixel values generally don't change too much over just a few pixels, so I could take the pixel just to the right of the edge to be the original value and take the pixel just to the left of the edge to be the corresponding dark pixel value! Of course, JPEG artifacts and high texture areas in the image would make the data a bit noisy, but the idea should still work.

I wrote a quick Java program to get the data. The program went down the edge, making a map from original pixel value to a list of all corresponding dark pixel values. When finished, it would output all the original pixel value it had seen, and the average corresponding dark pixel value. I had it only output the original value if it had seen it at least 3 times (to reduce noise in the data). I then imported the data into Excel, made a scatter chart, and computed a liner regression.

I created another Java program to apply the inverse function to the rectangle. This is the final result. You can still make out the outline of the rectangle, but it's much better than before.

Dual 30" Monitors

2008-10-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

Living Room Upgrade

2008-10-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Before

After

See more pictures

After deliberating on whether to fill my empty living room, I actually did it. Originally I was just going to Ikea to look at stuff; I wasn't going to buy anything. But you know what they say, "You never leave Ikea empty handed." Somehow I ended up leaving with a new coffee table, end table, TV stand, lamp, and candle holders. I would have also left with a new leather sofa and loveseat, but they were too big to fit in my car (they were delivered on Monday).

If this wasn't enough, I then went to Fry's and bought a 52" Sharp LCD TV. The next day I bought an Xbox360. For comparison, you can take a look at my temporary living room setup last year (32" TV and Wii).

I also plan to build a Home Theater PC to play my video collection, but I have a feeling I should lay off the credit card for a while...

Wendy's Dollar Menu

2008-09-27T02:09:00.001-07:00

It's clearly awesome.

Dependency Graph

2008-09-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

In order to play Tales of Vesperia, I need an XBOX360.

In order to use an XBOX360, I need an HD TV and a TV stand.

In order to enjoy the TV, I need a couch and a coffee table.

In order to acquire a couch, I need to rent a truck.

I think I'll stick with PC gaming for now.

Dell 3008WFP Input Lag

2008-08-25T23:40:00.000-07:00

I've been watching the 3008WFP monitor like a hawk on Dell's website, and it's price has never dropped below $2000. I've also called Dell to order it twice, but gave up after only managing to negotiate the price down a measly $50. Even after pointing them to this forum thread where people were getting $400 discounts and more. I'm pretty bad at negotiating.

So I'm about ready to just give in and order the 3007WFP HC, which can be had for $1200. It doesn't have as wide a color gamut, and it only has DVI input, but other than that, it's about the same. In fact, you could say it's better since it has less input lag. That extra 30ms input lag could mean the difference between life and death when playing TF2 right?

I know, sour grapes...

Ubuntu

2008-08-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yet another reason why Ubuntu 8.04 is teh awesome.

Rock Band

2008-08-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

OMG this game is addictive. After the first time I played, I had a crazy dream about playing the Rock Band drum set. The very next day (a Saturday), I went to work with some friends just to play Rock Band. We must have played for about 10 hours straight.

Camp Muir

2008-08-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

The 4.5 mile, 6 hour climb up to Camp Muir was a long excruciating journey, but I did it!

Some lessons I learned:

Get more than 3 hours of sleep the night before.
Bring only the essentials. No more, no less.
Waterproof boots are essential.

Pictures to prove it.

Java Color Console

2008-08-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a Java snippet that prints color output to the console (in a VT100 emulating terminal, i.e., in linux only):


for (int i = 30; i < 38; i++) {
System.out.println("\033[" + i + "mHello " +
 "\033[1;" + i + "mWorld!\033[m");
}

It works by "printing" special terminal control commands that change the color. There are other VT100 terminal control commands that let you move the cursor around, clear the screen, and other things.

Who needs Swing, when you can make old-school ASCII interfaces, right? No fancy libraries required either.

Water Sport Progression

2008-08-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last few weekends doing various water related activities.

As you can see, I'm trying progressively more extreme activities. The logical question is: what even more dangerous activity involving water should I do next?

Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony

2008-08-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

...was pure awesomeness! I think the people complaining about how fake it was are just jealous. More high res photos.

Mashable Party

2008-07-13T12:59:00.002-07:00

I went to the Mashable party in Seattle on Saturday with David and Candy. Actually, it wasn't really a party, but more of a product fair with alcohol. All the sponsors had tables set up and were pitching their products. Most of these were pretty boring, except for the MySites table, where you could get free drink tickets by solving puzzles.

Chinese Wedding

2008-07-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

I was the photographer for my Mom's wedding. See the full album here.

Retaining Wall

2008-06-28T16:17:00.000-07:00

After three weeks of manual labor, I've finally completed construction of my wall. The next step is to prepare the area for planting, which means pulling grass and tilling the soil. I'm using tarps to kill the grass by starving them of sunlight. View the album to see more pictures.

Hyundai Sonata ESC-Off Light

2008-06-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

I took my Hyundai Sonata to the dealer on Monday to get an oil change and to get a light bulb in the dashboard replaced (the ESC-Off light). The Sonata's Electronic Stabilization Control (ESC) system has two lights: the ESC light comes on when the system actives, and the ESC-Off light comes on when you turn the system off. My ESC-Off light doesn't come on when I turn the system off.

I thought it would take an hour or so to fix at most. I didn't expect them to not even be able to fix such a simple problem. Note that this is after I called them about the problem weeks ago and had them order the necessary parts. Now they want me to bring the car back for a full day, which is exactly what I wanted to avoid. The reason I waited until my scheduled oil change to get the light fixed was so I wouldn't have to make an extra trip to the dealer.

At least it's covered under warranty.

Jelly Belly

2008-06-18T14:48:00.001-07:00

We just got containers full of Jelly Bellys at the office. This isn't
going to be good for my diet.

Cloverfield

2008-06-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching Cloverfield and found it unexpectedly good. The film's unique style kind of reminds me of The Office (just the style, not the plot), while the long uncut action sequences are amazing and remind me of similar sequences from Children of Men.

Bot Hell

2008-06-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

I noticed something interesting today. Firefox wants to spell correct "Bothell" to "Bot hell". Maybe my computer is trying to tell me something...

180 Blocks

2008-06-11T23:00:00.001-07:00

I came home to find the 180 concrete blocks I ordered had arrived. I was pleased that they were placed to the side of my driveway, and not blocking it. They will be used to build a small retaining wall in my backyard to cordon off a garden area.

However, spending 2 hours hauling these blocks around has made me wonder just what have I gotten myself into.

The Truth About the 3G iPhone "Price Drop"

2008-06-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

To no one's surprise, Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone at WWDC yesterday. 3G, and GPS are the two big features.

There was also mention of a $200 price drop, from $399 to $199. But unlike the first price drop from $599 to $399, this one is all spin and BS. This price drop is due to the phone being subsidized by AT&T, and you're actually going to be paying more in the long term. What Jobs didn't mention at the keynote is the 3G data plan is $30 a month, which is $10 more per month than the Edge data plan. Over the lifetime of the two year contract, that adds up to an additional $240. Hmm, that price drop now looks like a net $40 price increase.

If you're thinking about just buying the iPhone, and unlockling it to go with another carrier like T-Mobile, you can forget about it. Apple has changed their activation policy. You now have to active the iPhone at the store. No more at home iTunes activation, no more online ordering. Looks like AT&T has gotten smart to all the unlocking that's been going on.

Nightmare at the Office

2008-06-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

It's late evening and I'm working at my desk at the office. Suddenly my screen goes black. I notice the room has gone eerily quiet. The light from outside the window seems somehow brighter even though the sun is about to set.

"Damn it!" I hear one of my officemates yell. The frustration in his voice is clear. "SHIT!" I hear someone down the hall scream out. Initial confusion is turning into panic as the realization hits people like a damp sponge.

They warned us about disasters like this. Most of us even know the precautions that should be taken to minimize the damage. I always hear people tell horror stories about friends who have lost everything. But none of it does any good. You're never prepared when it happens to you.

People are starting to accept it. What they lost - some more than others unfortunately. But there is an even more pressing concern. One that few have yet to understand. The smart ones are already slowly, quietly making their way to the exit.

Someone must have whispered a little too loudly. Maybe someone overheard. All I know is one moment it was relatively calm. The next, it was chaos. The panic spread like wildfire in a drought. Everyone's running, trying to get out before it's too late. No one wants to be trapped.

People are stumbling around. The hallway is so dark. Somehow I make it to the stairs. I hear dull thuds and metal clanging echo up the stairwell. I was on the top floor. Fear starts to set in as I realize I must be one of the last ones left.

I quicken my pace. Maybe too quick. I trip over something soft. I thought I heard a groan, but it's hard to see with the dim EM lighting. I have no time to stop and check. I need to get out before it shuts and never opens again.

I made it down the stairs. The trip felt like an eternity. The underground lot is even darker than the stairs, but I'm close now. I just need to find one thing. I try to remember where I left it. But each moment I stand here is costing me valuable seconds.

I need to start moving. Fortunately, I quickly find what I was looking for. I hope my luck lasts. Now, there's just one more obstacle left. I make my way towards the exit and pray... Yes! The gate is still open! I must be feeling lucky!

I just escaped The Blackout.

Pimp My Bike

2008-06-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

I've been riding my bike for a week now and it hasn't fallen apart yet. I still need to re-tighten the front and back brake pads after every ride. It's surprising there's still material on the brake pad to wear down.

I made a few upgrades for my bike:

Replaced the seat with a more cushioned seat.
Added headlight and blinking taillight.
Added water bottle holder.

I'm still just riding around my neighborhood. Maybe next weekend, I'll try riding on a street with traffic.

Mike's Cocktails - Not Good

2008-06-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

I found these drinks at QFC the other day. I like Mike's Hard Lemonade, so I thought I might enjoy these. Boy was I wrong.

The lemon drop was the only one I managed to force myself to finish. By no means did I enjoy it. The mike-arita was horrible. The mojito was the worst. It tasted like vodka mixed with mint toothpaste mixed with some sugar.

Anyone who likes these must be crazy.

How Good is a $70 Bike?

2008-06-03T08:00:00.001-07:00

As a test run, I rode my bike to QFC and back, about 4 miles round trip. I tried to stay off the main roads as much as possible, as I'm still scared of cars. Overall it went pretty well, with some exceptions.

The seat was really uncomfortable. It felt like I was sitting on a bumpy, sharp rock. Not fun.
The brakes wore down to the point that they were unusable. I almost hit a fence going down a hill because fully squeezing both brake levers did hardly anything.
Finally, my 18-speed bike is more like a 6-speed bike. Let me explain. I have a left shifter labeled 1, 2, 3 and a right shifter labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 for a theoretical combination of 18 speeds. In practice, I'm not supposed to use the extreme gear combinations where the chain is not in a straight line. This eliminates 8 combinations: 1-4, 1-5, 1-6, 2-1, 2-6, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3. Then, to make matters worse, I've never been able to successfully shift the left to 3 or the right to 1, eliminating another 4 combinations: 1-1, 3-4, 3-5, 3-6. This leave just 6 combinations that I can use: 1-2, 1-3, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5.

Buying a Bike at Walmart

2008-06-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

I finally got a bike! I considered getting a cheap one off craigslist, but most of them were surprisingly expensive. So I got this 26" 18-speed mountain bike for about $70 from Walmart.

Shopping there was painful, as usual. The bike I wanted was on the top, and it was apparent no associate was going to offer to help me get it down. The woman I finally drafted to help me did not look happy about the job at all. She got a ladder, realized it was too short, then disappeared for 15 minutes to get a bigger ladder. Once she returned, I offered to just use the ladder and get it down myself, saving her the trouble, but she said it was against store policy. While she was trying to get it down, I seriously worried for her safety and wondered why a more in-shape associate wasn't doing this.

All together, it took 30 minutes to actually get the bike down. Then while I was riding the bike to the cash registers, another associate told me it was against store policy to do so. How else was I supposed to test it? Finally, as I'm walking my bike out of store, another associate tells me to stop. At this point, I just want to leave the store as quickly as possible, so I ignored her, knowing that I have no legal obligation to stay in the store. She actually ran outside after me and grabed the bike to stop me. I considered arguing with her, but instead just showed her the damn receipt.

Did I mention how much I hate Walmart?

Squirrel Holes?

2008-06-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

The other day, I saw two squirrels in my backyard and quickly snapped some pictures from my kitchen window. When I looked at the pictures later, I saw something strange: two brown patched in my yard that look like dirt. So I go out for a closer look and see this:

What in the world? They're definitely holes, but I'm not sure how deep they are or where they lead. Then there's the mystery of how they got there and what made them. Was it the squirrels? Invisible gophers? Malicious neighbors? Rare geological phenomena? Tiny mole people? Aliens? I'm definitely keeping a close eye on the happenings in my backyard from now on.

Bike to Work Day

2008-05-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to join the fun and bike to work today. The weather was perfect and the traffic on 405 was horrible. There was an accident that caused long delays, which doubled my normal 20-minute commute.

To make myself feel better, I came up with the following excuses for my non-participation:

I don't have a bike.
I'm afraid of annoying/getting hit by cars.
13.5 miles is a long way to bike.

Could I Have OCD?

2008-05-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

I think I may have OCD.

Last night I was making some modifications to my car. A few months ago, I installed a third-party car stereo with line-in so I could use my iPhone to play music in my car. The problem is the iPhone creates audible interference whenever there is data transfer going on. At first I didn't mind, but now it is getter more annoying. Thankfully I found a solution: ferrite beads.

First, I cut up a cable to extract the ferrite bead. This was not easy. The cable I used encases the bead in about half an inch of plastic. I whittled away at a corner with a knife for five minutes before I saw any ferrite at all. I decided to give up and just keep the plastic in place.

Next I tried installing the ferrite bead in my car. This is when I made my biggest mistake. I had removed the stereo so I could tape the ferrite bead to the speaker wires. Before I could do that however, the bead slipped out of my hand and into a cavity in the stereo enclosure. Instinctively I reached for it, only to push it further into the dark nether reaches of my car's interior.

Here's when I think my OCD kicks in. All I can think about is this freakin ferrite bead being stuck in my car. I'm not thinking rationally anymore. I worry the additional weight will decrease my gas mileage, or that it will rattle when I drive. I try for half an hour trying various methods of extracting it with no success. I seriously consider disassembling the entire front panel. I really can't get anything else done for the rest of the night. I try to fall asleep, but I lie awake for about an hour thinking about my car.

Not So Stimulating After All

2008-05-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

I got my tax stimulus payment of $600 direct deposited into my bank account last Friday (^_^). Today, I got my homeowner's insurance bill for $595 (T_T).

Looks like I have $5 left to stimulate the economy. I wonder what I should buy?

Homemade Apple Pie

2008-05-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

I recently rediscovered how delicious apple pie can be and decided to try my hand at making one myself. Here's the recipe I used. The pie turned out great, though the crust was a bit hard.

LEGO Light Switcher

2008-04-28T23:12:00.000-07:00

This video demonstrates how the LEGO light switcher I made works.

Rest assured, I did not damage my home's electrical or structural integrity in any way. As you can see in the video, the device can be easily removed and the light switch can be used the old-fashioned way. Why anyone would want to do that when they have this awesome device is another matter.

In the video, I'm controlling the light switcher with the RCX remote, but it can also be controlled from my computer via NQC commands (See this earlier post). It will soon become apparent why this method of control is useful...

Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-04-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

Mmmm, homemade chocolate chip cookies. (recipe)

Homemade Hamburger

2008-04-20T17:06:00.000-07:00

Hamburger recipe followed.

Cost of ingredients for hamburger from QFC: $15

Patty Ingredients: 1lb ground beef, 1 handful bread crumbs, 1/2 chopped onion, 1/4 cup beef broth, 1 egg, salt, pepper, spices.

Mix together.

Shape into patties.

Toppings.

I can has Hamburger!

Seattle Snowstorm

2008-04-19T03:15:00.000-07:00

This is what we call a blizzard in Seattle.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

2008-04-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big baseball fan, but with a little arm twisting, I was ~~dragged~~ convinced to attend my first baseball game last Tuesday. The Mariners beat the Kansas City Royals 11 to 6. Apparently, they also set a record for most suicide flys in a game or something. I'm not sure because it was difficult to follow what was happening due to the fact that I was freezing to death the whole time.

Experiments in Weed Control

2008-04-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

The rocky area next to my driveway is infested with weeds. I thought it would be a cinch to move the rocks, put in some landscaping fabric, and then move the rocks back. Of course, it's always harder than it sounds.

Three hours of backbreaking labor later, I'm not even a quarter of the way done. I discover the fabric is all used up, due to me greatly underestimated the size of the area. I also find that I need to buy more rocks in order to cover all the fabric, and I have no idea where to buy them.

There may also be a problem with the fabric. When I bought it I chose the one that said most durable or something of that nature, thinking it would be the best at stopping weeds. I didn't realize this would also mean that it would prevent water from seeping through. I guess I'll have to wait until it rains to see if I created a very large, shallow pool.

I probably should have just used roundup.

How Not to Buy Dance Pads

2008-03-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

I wanted to play StepMania the free, open-source, awesome dancing rhythm game for the PC. In order to do so properly, I needed a dance pad (playing with a keyboard doesn't count). Here's where things start to get complicated.

Instant Gratification

When I get an idea into my head, I like to act on it right at that moment. That's why the first thing I did was drive to some brick-and-mortar stores. I went to Fry's, Best Buy, and Walmart, hoping they would have dance pads - and I was right - just none that were compatible with the PC. So I go home and order from Amazon. I order a cheap Red Octane PlayStation 2 dance pad, and I also order a PlayStation 2 to USB converter.

The Worst Present Ever

You know that feeling you got when you were a kid right before Christmas? Anticipation mixed with anger over why you can't have your present now. That's how I feel whenever I'm waiting for a delivery. Of course, none of it matters when the day finally comes and you're holding the package in your hands, ready to rip it open. That moment, is the best moment of all - except of course, when you get clothes instead of an xbox360, or in my case, the thing doesn't work.

I plug the dance pad into the PS2 to USB adapter and plug that into my PC. I configure the inputs in StepMania and then use the pad to navigate to and start a song. So far so good. When I'm trying to play the song though, I find I'm missing all the left-right and up-down jump steps. Thinking it's a problem with my dance pad, I try to smooth it out, but no luck, it's still broken (or so I thought - more on this later).

Two for the Price of Two

After waiting for a week for my dance pad, only to find that it doesn't work, I get a little angry. I'm not the best decision maker when I'm angry, so in hindsight, driving back to BestBuy and buying another dance pad may not have been the best decision. But anyway, that's what I did.

Faulty Diagnostics

So I'm back home with my new dance pad ready to play some StepMania and what happens? The dance pad I just bought doesn't work either. It has the same exact problem. Since I had bought a different brand and the bug was too similar to be a coincidence, it can only mean one thing. It wasn't the dance pads that were faulty, it was the converter!

After the euphoria of my great revelation wears off, I'm even more upset. This means I bought an extra dance pad that I don't need, and the worst part is I have to order another adapter (since no conventional stores seem to have it), which means another week of agonizing waiting! By this point, I'm ready to give up, I don't even want to play StepMania anymore.

Google is Your Friend

Just for kicks, I do some searching, not really expecting a solution to my problems. How wrong I was to underestimate the power of the internet. StepMania has a wiki, that wiki has a page devoted to all the different USB converters, the one I purchased is on there with a comment talking about my exact problem and a very simple fix.

The fix?

Press the Up, Start, and Select buttons for 3 seconds to put it in multistep mode. -o-

Cop Avoidance Device

2008-03-08T19:33:00.000-08:00

My friend Kevin Chiu got me this cop avoidance device (i.e., radar detector), seeing as how I've had problems with them in the past. It's too early to tell if it actually works...

Building My First Computer

2008-01-19T10:44:00.001-08:00

My 2.5 year old Dell Inspiron 9300 was beginning to show signs of its age (i.e., not being able to play Crysis at a decent framerate), and I felt it was the right time to get a new computer.

The processor and video card were easy decisions:
* Q6600 @ 2.4GHz (OC to 3.3GHz)
* 8800GT w/512MB

For components that were harder to choose, I usually picked what was relatively cheap and popular on Newegg:
* Gigabyte P35 motherboard
* PC Power & Cooling 610W power supply
* Antec 900 case

For the hard drive, memory, and optical drive, it didn't really matter what brand I got, so I just went for what was cheapest:
* WD 1TB hard drive
* 2x Crucial 1GB DDR2 800 memory
* Samsung DVD burner

I got most of the components from Newegg, and I went to Fry's to get the case. The total came to around $1300.

Go here if you want to see more pictures of the computer assembly.

AMIP

2008-01-03T20:22:00.000-08:00

I've been searching for a way to make using iTunes more bearable. There are only two reasons I keep it around: I need it to sync with my iPhone, and I need it to keep track of my playcounts (I don't rate my music, I just use playcounts). It's a terribly slow and bulky music player, and I would ditch it for Winamp in a heartbeat if not for the reasons I just mentioned. Winamp is much much faster and has features I need like, global hotkeys, jump-to dialog, better visualizations, and smooth fade on play/pause.

Thank God there's AMIP. AMIP is like the Swiss Army knife of plugins - it can do almost anything and is compatible with every popular music player. You need to download the version of AMIP for your player and the AMIP Configurator. Out-of-the-box you get the extremely useful search/jump feature, much like Winamp's jump-to dialog. Just press the hotkey to bring up the search/jump box, start typing the song you want and see the results filter down as you type, then hit enter to play the song and make the box go away.

AMIP's original purpose was to automatically announce the song your were playing to IRC, which is something I have no interest in. I am however, very interested in AMIP's ability to act as a server and the SDKs available to write your own client. In particular, the Java SDK makes it extremely easy to write a Java AMIP client.

You may be wondering what this means. Who cares if AMIP can act as a server? Why would you want to write a client? Well, it means that you have a substantial amount of control over your music player. It means, if you want, you never have to look at your player's slow ugly UI again; you can just keep it minimized and interact with it through your own homegrown frontend, personalized to show exactly the info you want with only the controls you want. It means you can log much more about your music listening habits, not just how many times you played each song, but when you played it, what other songs you played it with, and how much of it you listened to. It means you can control your player over a network, across your house on your LAN or across the internet (if you really wanted to).

Car Wash

2007-12-31T16:33:00.000-08:00

Lego RCX Programming

2007-12-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

I have two Lego RCX units sitting around as part of a large Lego collection. When I first got them about four years ago I played with them intensely. I would look at other people's designs online and then spend hours building cool things with them. This was about six months before I started college, where I didn't have access to them at all. Since I graduated, I have my Lego collection again, but I haven't really had time to do anything with them. Until now.

Four years is a long time when you're talking about technology. While I though my RCX units were the coolest thing ever four years ago, they've now lost some of their appeal (due to Lego releasing their second generation NXT based robotics kit, and me getting older among other things). Four years is also enough time to make the serial port virtually obsolete (try finding a modern-day laptop that has one, mine certainly doesn't). Of course, a serial port is exactly what I needed to connect the IR tower, which communicates with the RCX, to a computer. Luckily, I was able to find a USB to Serial adapter at Fry's for $25.

After hooking everything up and installing the Lego software, I was reminded of how outdated it was when I saw the unskippable intro movie with the terrible compression and the lame 3D graphics that was considered cool back in the day. Even four years ago, I felt Lego's programming language and IDE was overly simplistic, meant more for the 8-14 age group. Now, after three years of school to get a CS degree and half a year of working in the industry, there was no way I was going to program my RCX by dragging brightly colored blocks around, listening to a voice guide me through the tutorials, and watching that cheesy intro movie every time I wanted to edit my program!

Thankfully people have made several of their own languages for programming the RCX. NQC or Not Quite C is one such language based on a simplified version of C. I was surprised to find that the nqc binary not only lets you compile and download programs to the RCX, it also lets you sent raw commands via IR, which basically allows to remotely control everything about the RCX if you know the right opcodes! Good thing someone has compiled a list of opcodes.

As an added bonus, nqc is a command line program, so it can easily be called from other programming languages, like Java, my language of choice. This definitely opens up a whole slew of interesting possibilities.

DIY iPhone Car Stereo

2007-12-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

So I really wanted to listen to the latest episodes of my favorite podcasts on the road without having to burn them to a CD. In an earlier post, I lamented how the stock Sonata stereo doesn't even have a line-in jack, which I could hook up my iPhone to.

Well, the days of podcast-less driving are over. I bought an after-market head unit and mounting kit for about $150 from Car Toys (it was the cheapest one with a line-in jack). Installing the unit myself was easier than expected since I already had experience removing the existing unit. The most annoying part of the process would be having to solder about 20 wires together.

Opening the little storage compartment door makes a good tray that I can put the iPhone dock on. The dock is then connected to power and the head unit. It looks a bit messy with the wires, but it gets the job done.

Controlling the iPhone while driving is actually harder than I thought it would be. Since it's a touch screen, I have to actually look at the iPhone to make sure that I'm pressing the right button. Also, it's very easy to mess up and hit the wrong part of the screen. I think I could get used to it with practice though.

Snow in Bothell

2007-12-04T20:03:00.001-08:00

From last Saturday.

Verizon Sucks

2007-12-01T11:09:00.000-08:00

Okay, all the things I said earlier about Verizon having good customer service are hugely offset by this. I just looked at my credit card statement and discovered that they charged me $158.88 for the FIOS in the month of November. It should be $49.99 like all the previous months. I have no idea why I was charged an extra $108.89. This has been irritating me all morning and I haven't gotten any answers.

My FIOS information doesn't show up when I log into my account at verizon.com, probably because they did something screwy when I canceled my landline with them a few months ago. I've been on hold with their customer service number for a good half hour. I guess they don't have anyone to work on the weekends.

Phoenix Wright

2007-11-26T20:13:00.000-08:00

The Phoenix Wright games may not seem like much at first glance, but they are, in my opinion, the best games available for the DS. The games' captivating storyline, unique gameplay, colorful characters, and superb localization combine to make it one of the most enjoyable portable gaming experiences ever.

There are 3 games in the Phoenix Wright trilogy:
Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney
Phoenix Wright - Justice For All
Phoenix Wright - Trials and Tribulations

In the game, you play a defense attorney, Phoenix Wright, who must defend your clients who have been convicted of various crimes (usually murder). Each game includes 4 or 5 separate cases, where each case takes around 2 to 6 hours to finish. The cases are all different, and played in order, they reveal a captivating backstory that rivals that of many films and novels.

The final case in the last game was so gripping, in fact, that I managed to stay up until 4am without even realizing it. Let me just say: it was awesome!

Podlinez

2007-11-15T22:22:00.000-08:00

Podlinez is a useful service that lets listen to podcasts from you phone. Just enter the url of a podcast feed on their website and you will get a telephone number. Just call the number anytime to listen to the latest episode of that podcast.

No More Long Office Episodes

2007-10-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

After 4 consecutive hour-long episodes, I thought that my favorite TV show, The Office, had made a permanent switch to this wonderfully longer format. Unfortunately, I was misled, for the 5th episode of the season is back to the regular 30 minutes.

You know how your brain adapts to drugs like caffeine and morphine, so that you need higher and higher dosages to cause the same effect, and if you decrease or stop you dose, bad things happen? Yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now.

Hatsune Miku

2007-10-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

Hatsune Miku is the latest singing sensation to hit Japan. What makes her different is that she's not an actual person, but created from vocal simulation software Vocaloid2 from Yamaha. I think it sounds pretty good. Could this replace real singers someday?

Here she is singing Fly Me to the Moon.

Missing Candy

2007-10-17T23:13:00.001-07:00

I went to the store to do some grocery shopping. There was a bag that caught my eye advertising 155 pieces of assorted candy goodness. That's a lot of candy - so I bought the bag.

When I got home, the first thing I did was sort and count my loot. Here's my candy distribution:

Hershey's Milk Chocolate        20
Jolly Rancher Hard Candy Stix   27
Jolly Rancher Double Blasts     46
KitKat Crisp Wafers             20
Twizzlers Mini-Bars             20

Notice anything strange here? The total is only 133 pieces! That's 22 pieces or almost 15% less than the advertised 155 pieces! Now why would the Hershey's Company advertise such a specific number, but deliver 15% less than promised? Is this an innocent packaging mistake or are they purposely cheating all of their customers thinking no one is going to bother counting their candy?

IOV - Internet Over Voice

2007-10-17T18:00:00.001-07:00

You know how there's VOIP (Voice Over IP) right? Well, why isn't there Internet Over Voice (IOV). I'd imagine it would be something like this:

Dial 1(800)INTRNET

IOV: Calls recorded for quality.
IOV: Welcome to Internet Over Voice!
IOV: What URL or search query?
You: Prison Break.
IOV: Prison Break, top ten results from Google.
IOV: Number one, Fox broadcasting company, Prison Break.
IOV: To select number one, simply say number one or press one.
IOV: Number two, Prison Break, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
IOV: Number three...
You: Number two.
IOV: Number two. Prison Break. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about a television series. For the act of escaping prison, see, link, prison escape, end-link. Remember, you can follow the most recent link by saying, follow link. Prison break is an...
You: Follow link.
IOV: Following link, prison escape. Remember you can go back by saying, go back. Prison escape, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A prison escape or prison break is where a prisoner leaves their, link, prison, end-link, through official or illegal ways, and almost always results in an effort to recapture them by...
You: Go back.
IOV: Back to Prison Break, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia......

Verizon FIOS Service

2007-10-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

I had a remarkably good experience dealing with Verizon FIOS (their fiber optic internet service) customer service the other day.

Last Thursday, I was having internet problems. Access to the internet would be down intermittently, corresponding to the WAN light on the Verizon supplied router turning off. After this kept happening, I got annoyed and called Verizon - at 12:30 in the morning. Fully expecting an automated message, I was surprised when a human picked up the phone within seconds. He spoke clearly, knew his technical stuff, and was pleasant to talk to. He explained that Verizon was doing scheduled system maintenance in the Bothell area that night, but would be happy to send me another router, via next-day-air, free of charge.

Although the problem seems to have fixed itself, I am really happy with the service that I received.

Portal Song

2007-10-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

Portal is one of the best video games I have ever played. It has everything you could ever want in a game: a gun that bends space, a quirky AI character, and the promise of a cake party. After beating the game, I witnessed what is probably the most awesome ending credit sequence ever.

One component of that awesomeness was the song. Of course I wanted to listen to it over and over again. If you find yourself in the same situation, here's how you can extract the portal song, Still Alive, from the game files:

1. Download GCFScape, a tool for exploring Valve's .gcf files.
2. Use it to open Steam\steamapps\portal content.gcf
3. The file you want is portal\sound\music\portal_still_alive.mp3