The Twilight Report

you

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 00:21:00 GMT

I was watching the Daily Show and the Colbert Report about Time’s lamest person of the year award ever: “you”, and today I walked past the newsagent and saw the cover which confirmed it really was as lame as I suspected. It also reminded me of an episode dating back to the New Mexico Super Computer Challenge...

When I was in high school, there was this thing were computer nerds got together from all over the state and competed to write scientific applications on the super computer hardware available at the national labs in New Mexico. It was sort of an academic decathlon for computer nerds, so it was the über in überdorky.

So there I was having lunch with my computer geek friends at the “challenge” and I says to Ellen (more or less out of nowhere), “did you hear what Jeff said about you?”

Nick thought this was hilarious, for reasons that I couldn’t fathom, but instead of admitting that I just nodded and agreed like I knew what was so funny. I mean, I had meant it as a joke, but it wasn’t that funny.

Then Ellen threw a piece of pie at Jeff, not because she was particularly mad at Jeff (who had not, in fact, said anything about her), but because someone had dared her to. That’s what wonderful upstanding young citizens we were in those days.

Later, I figured out that Nick thought that I was making a pun based on this Chinese girl that we knew whose name is a homonym for “you”. Still not very funny, but the joke became legendary for some reason, and I never admitted to anyone that I hadn’t intended it that way and anyway I didn’t even think it was that funny.

“You” was one of those classic over achievers. She was taking all AP classes, but did that make her smart? I saw what she did for her AP Computers final and it showed a complete misunderstanding of the technology that she was supposed to be learning. I also saw what the computer teacher wrote about her in his recommendation for her (pesky Unix permission bits). I don’t think she deserved the praise she got from him. I could see her being smart in English or Math or Science, because I didn’t see her perform in that capacity, but on the other hand, I could just as easily see her being good at taking tests. That would actually describe most of the people that I knew in high school.

My point is, I am much happier thinking that Time chose “You” (the person I knew in high school) rather than the second person plural as there Person of the Year.

Japanese Food and iPods

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 22:54:00 GMT

Went to a “Japanese” restaurant with some co-workers. If I were in the states and with my friends or family I would probably call it a “Sushi” place, but that didn’t seem to be the term used here^[1]. This place had a conveyor belt and you just picked up the stuff that you wanted as it went by. This concept has always seemed cool in theory, but also a little bit sketchy in terms of health, but the fish turned out to be quite fresh, and I would probably go back again.

The good news is that my co-workers are actually pretty cool. I keep telling people that there are no Jeffs where I work now (my adventures with jeff were chronicled here, here and here.

Jeff

There are many things that I miss about working at The Company, but Jeff is not one of them. I do miss my collaborations with Adil, Tiffany, Ed and Ed a lot.

I was excited yesterday because my iPod finally came back to me. I wasn’t sure they would actually do it, but they replaced it, so this is actually my third iPod (I checked and it has a different serial number), my second replacement by the same warranty, so that extended warranty was actually worth it for once. Would I get another iPod? I’m not sure, I mean I love having the thing and it is super simple to use, but as far as reliability it doesn’t score well. My friend e and her husband both have iPods and both are giving them trouble at the moment (one sounds like it has died, the other is having the same sort of problems that mine did before it finally died). Theresa’s died recently too. In my own experience their ability to fix things appear to operating at only about 66%, and you only get a good result if you call up and yell at them. I was actually super courteous both times because Theresa used to work in a call centre and people who work in places like that don’t deserve to have abuse hurled in their general direction, you do (however) have to be insistent when block your path with red tape. On the other hand when I actually have a working iPod it is hard to imagine life without it! I think I would actually get another iPod, but I’d get the AppleCare Extortion Plan up front this time, because although there was more hassles than there should have been, they did fix things in the end. That does count for a lot.

I think traditionally Sushi refers to the rice or something, but Americans at least usually use it to refer to the whole thing

New York

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 03:45:00 GMT

My last week in New York is pretty much over. I'm not ready to go, I could use at least another week. However: ready or not, I'm driving out of here on Wednesday (weather permitting). I am going to disassemble my network tomorrow, which means my access to the Internet will be spotty at best until I get to Salt Lake.

My friends took me out to lunch on Wednesday. Everyone has been buying me lunch lately. It makes me feel special, and it is a reminder of the good friends that I have made here. There are so many people that I am going to miss. I'm even going to miss Jack. I won't miss Jeff, however.

I forgot to invite the cute Indian girl to my going away lunch a week and a half ago, but I had lunch with her on Thursday -- this was probably better :) I'm sorry that I hadn't gotten to know her better before I quit The Company. She's smart, is interested in cameras and understands computers. Maybe we can keep in touch via the Internets.

I tell my friends that they should come and visit me in Australia. I know some of them will, but many of them will not. To Americans, Australia is impossibly far away; it might as well be on the moon. To me, Australia is such an important part of my life, I can't imagine not going there. I'm not saying I can't imagine not going to live there either; if it weren't for the fact that I am moving I couldn't imagine not visiting.

ex-IBMer

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 15:14:00 GMT

I've been an ex-IBMer for a couple of days now. I may therefore reveal that "The Company" = IBM. I am pretty sure that comes as a surprise to nobody.

Today is the first day that I would have gone to work if I hadn't signed those papers on Friday. My last day I felt oddly detached. I was immune to things and people that ordinarily bother me, like my manager and Jeff. On the other hand I went around and said good-bye to people. It's harder to go wrong with that.

My going away party was on Saturday at Brian's house. I will be seeing people this week, but it is probably the last time that I will see "everyone" together. (Not that it could really be everyone without Sherry, Megan, Joanna and Padraic). I got to say goodbye to Sherry over lunch a week or so ago, and I hopefully I will get to visit Joanna and Padraic in California before I leave.

Everyone should come out and visit me in Salt Lake City for a ski holiday (I'll be there about 6 February to 8 March, with a short trip to New Mexico sometime the week of 22 February), or in Australia (anytime starting May 2006).

2005

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 20:23:00 GMT

2005 was supposed to be the year that Decepticon's attack Autobot City on earth (as chronicled in The Movie. I took this as a sign that it was time to quit my job at The Company and go back to school and study computer graphics and distributed computing and maybe one day get a job at Pixar. I still think even being a "lowly" system administrator at Pixar would be a fun job. Being a software developer for the rendering farm would be awesome.

Appropriately enough, last Thursday, the last Thursday of the year, I went to the MoMA with e and they had a special exhibit on the art of Pixar. Most of what they showed was models and sketches that were made before anything gets done on the computer. Seeing the artists' names and countries of origin clearly labeled by each piece, one is reminded that computer animation is not just a form of entertainment, but also an art form. It's fascinating to me, because I have always been passionately interested in the interaction of expression and technology.

Highlight had to be seeing the early sketches of the Edna "E" Mode character from The Incredibles, who has been my favorite Pixar character since I saw the movie because of her energy and humor. I had one of her quotations engraved on the back of my iPod to remind me that "I never look back; it distracts from the now." In the gallery e told me she was her favorite character, to which I responded, "really? Me too."

Anyway, 2005 is coming to and end, and Unicron never attacked Cybertron and as a result, the Decepticons were not driven off as was for told in The Movie, and I'm not going back to school, just yet, but I am on my way back to Australia. (many more words and things...)

It was all Jeff's fault

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 23:45:00 GMT

Parallel Abstraction works again. I got such a rush when we figured out what was wrong and was able to fix it. The icing on the cake was the fact that it was a bug in Jeff's code so I get to be all self righteous about it.

This time when I check in the code I'm going to do it without the hack which allowed Jeff to check in his buggy code in the first place. I blame myself for not getting rid of it sooner.

Jeff

Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:09:00 GMT

Jeff is the kind of guy that you just know got beat up and locked into his locker when he was in Junior High. When ever you say something to him, he puts this pained expression on his face as though you are scraping your finger nails across a blackboard. He then proceeds to explain to you some item of minutia, which is either so obvious because you do, after all, work in the same field as he does, or so irrelevant to the situation that you didn't bother to even bring it up. The thing with Jeff is, you just cannot have a short conversation with him. He is incredibly smart, he knows his shit, and The Company is stronger for having him. You just wish he would shut the hell up sometimes.