It's kindof annoying to have to work on weekends... but there are projects that people want me to keep working on from school... and it's hard to say no. Especially when there's no clear "stopping" point. Perhaps if I were still in academia, it wouldn't be a problem to do this stuff during the week.

Anyway, I have 3 projects on the stove which have nothing to do with work, and I spent all day today (Saturday) working on one of them. I guess today's plan was to implement a simple idea I had, and see if it works. If it did, then I could package everything together and say "I'm done"... but although the idea probably helped, it didn't make much difference. So now I'm stuck with with this project, trying to get results where none are forth coming. The worst part is that I'm beginning to wonder whether this is just going to turn into some long term, never gets finished, type of project. Where do you draw the line and say "I've done what was expected of me, if you want more from me, then hire me as a consultant"? I don't know.

And then, I discovered this week that my thesis has not yet been approved by the grad office. I don't know why... but it's been sitting there for several months now, and as far as I can know, it should have been approved. But the person I need to contact has not responded to my emails or phone call.

See I think part of my thesis research produced some pretty interesting results... and I submitted a paper on it. The problem there is that since my advisor's name is on the paper, I should probably wait for him before I submit my corrections. But he *still* hasn't responded to my requests for direction, and since he's out of the country, I can't just walk over to his office to get things done. Whether or not my thesis represented a good idea, I do want credit for it, either with my paper, or with my thesis. But both are stalled in the pipeline!!! :-(

Arg. At least my week-work is fun and interesting.

What happened to the simple world I used to know and love?

1) I'm working for a startup company that's just now setting up it's health insurance plan, and it looks like I'm being given a bit of a choice for what kind of health coverage I want. I have a pamphlet describing like 20 difference choices, with all these tradeoffs between various deductibles and coverages etc. All my life, I just had to go to the school clinic for whatever I needed. No problem, no hassle! So how am I supposed to pick? HMO vs PPO vs HSA? Too many choices.

2) My washing machine should probably be replaced because it doesn't centrifuge-dry the clothes; they come out soaking. That hasn't been a major problem because I put up a short clothes line to drip dry them before putting them in the dryer. Well, I *could* spend 300$ to 1500$ for a new machine! So how do I choose what I want? On one hand, my landlord will reimburse me up to ~500 (exact figure not discussed), but it turns out that reasonable quality low end machines start right around there. Craigslist doesn't list a lot of choices in my area. But whatever I do, I have to worry about delivery, installation, and disposal of the old unit. What hassle! I think I'll just deal with the "hassle" of a clothes line for a little longer!

3) other stuff

So last night, I finally moved all my stuff out of my campus office. I finished getting it all in my car by about 1 am, and I hadn't really had dinner... so I decided to stop at Jack in the Box, which is on my way home. I pulled up to the drive through, and saw an image very similar to this one.

MMMm!!!!! Looks tasty!!! This should fill me up when I get home! Ok, I'll take Lemonade. You don't have that? How about Dr Pepper. You don't have that either? Fine, just give me diet Coke. 7$ later, I was on my way home. I spent 30 minutes unloading my car, and then sat down to enjoy my meal. Here's what I saw:



First, let me enumerate what I saw that isn't obvious from the picture. The "toasted sourdough bread" was probably sourdough, but I couldn't really tell because it wasn't toasted, it was fried (the outside was "wet"). The french fries included the crust, as you can see, but it turned out they were oily and limp. I was so surprised opening the wrapper, that I immediately took the picture, without altering it at all aside from opening it up because it didn't look like it had anything from the side.

Now look at the advertisement picture. It looks like you get 2 slices of steak, that the two of them together are about the same width as one of the slices of bread, and that the diameter of the meat is larger than the bread. Instead, all I got was a few scraps of meat in a puddle of cheese paste. Look at the meat, it looks like it only covers about half the sandwich.

In summary, complete ripoff!
It took me 3 guesses to pick a drink, the fries were wiggly, and the wet blob didn't fill me up.

Colours


The other day I was trying to find a Christian Jazz album that I remembered owning a long time ago. Actually, I probably still have it in a cassette suitcase somewhere... Anyway, the problem was that I couldn't remember anything other than what the cover looked like, and that the title had the word "night" in it. Well, I finally found it today, and what do you know, it's on iTunes! Turns out the title was "Colours In The Night" so there was no way I was going to find it... anyway, I remembered one of the songs that was on it, and that was enough. But now, typing that title into google, I found, and now remember, that there was a whole series of this kind of music:


Colours | A Time For Peace: Ivory Sessions
Colours | Christmas Colours
Colours | Colours In The Night: Saxophone Solos
Colours | Praise Beyond Words: A Colours Collection
Colours | Reflection: A Colours Sampler
Colours | Spectrum: The Colours Sampler
Colours | The Colours Of Praise Two
Colours; Bennett, Rob; Bennett, Gilly | I Love You Lord/Classical Guitar Praise
Colours; Howard, Tom | Solo Piano
Colours; Howard, Tom | The Harvest
Colours; Keene, Tom | Classical Praise Piano
Colours; Rogers, Harlan; Price, Smitty | Hymns In Colour
Colours; Rogers, Harlan; Price, Smitty | Praise
Colours; Rogers, Harlan; Price, Smitty | Timeless: Hymns In Colour
Colours; Thompson-Clarke, Robin | Classical Praise Cello


which is an incomplete list. Turns out most of these albums are not only discontinued, but unless iTunes has them they've become somewhat expensive on Amazon. On the other hand, some of the songs from one album were re-released. For example, "The Harvest" has a bunch of the songs from "Spectrum"... I think...

The songs weren't amazing... but they do bring up a lot of memories, good and bad.

I accepted the job, which I'm really excited about. It's just a small startup right now, but they have guaranteed funding for 2 years, and they (or should I now say "we") have big plans for the future. Part of the reason this job is so good for me is because there's very little commercial value for people who do computational physical-chemistry, whereas there is significantly more for computational bio-chemistry, which this job is all about. So, it will be good for helping me to expand my horizons.

And, of all the places in the world where I would like to live, staying right here is a favored destination because it means I get to keep the friends and networks I have and, after all,
I love Los Angeles.

I have a word of advice, for the 0 people who care. It's a tidbit from the nerd world that I think is relevant to the real world, now that the debates are becoming quite heated over health care, obamacare, whatever.

In online communities, debates happen quite often, as one might imagine. Whether they're over trivial or serious matters, people discover quite quickly that they, just as everybody else, care a lot, and have lots to say, etc. Emails or newsgroup posts or blog posts just get longer and longer until people give up from exhaustion. However, there's general consensus about one argument that legitimately can terminate any argument.

Several years ago, we learned about Godwin's Law, which states

"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

where Usenet can be interpreted as email, blog, etc, and for the mathematically uninclined, "1" means 100%. That is, it doesn't matter what the argument is, how trivial it is, eventually someone will compare the other's argument to the Nazis or Hilter. This argument could be called Reductio ad Hitlerum.

It seems quite obvious to me that there is nothing in the USA today that can legitimately be compared to Hitler+Nazis. Anybody who doubts this needs to stop and think about it. It's not that we don't do anything that is comparable, because I'm sure the Nazis had a lot of policies to compare with. However, just because you do something that can be compared with the Nazis, you CAN NOT conclude that we will end up doing everything evil that they did. Therefore, if you ever make a reference to Nazis or Hitler or the likes, you instantly loose the argument. Period. At least in my mind, I denounce you as a rabble-rouser, and you loose any respect I have for you. That's Godwin's Law.

I call Godwin's Law on you, Rush Limbaugh and anyone else.

I'm getting more and more worried about privacy on facebook. Why? I understand that facebook is trying to figure out how to make a business, and I can appreciate their need for advertising. However, there are lines they must not cross, and they haven't convinced me that they understand my concerns.

Here are some concerns of mine, lines they must not cross:
#1 I don't want to ever be embarrassed by facebook using my name or likeness to advertise a product that I do not endorse. I don't have a problem with the principle of using me to advertise something, but I want complete editorial control!
#2 I don't want facebook to use my network (either my address book or my friend list) to spam or otherwise bother people.
#3 I do not want my contact/personal info to be available to the public.
#4 I do not want them to retain info without my explicit permission. For example, they're allowed to store what I currently put on my profile, because that is an example of explicit permission.

And here are some examples of how they've crossed the lines:
1) They refuse to give me control about what shows up on my wall. There is no way for me to prevent people from posting their quiz results to my wall. I can hide or block an application, but only AFTER I've looked at it at least once. This is a clear violation of principle #2.
2) Whenever they introduce a new privacy setting, they have a choice for initial setting. They always choose the least private option, until I turn it off. At the very least, they could have left me a notification indicating that they had changed something. Instead, I'm forced to visit the privacy settings every once in a while to check it out for myself. I just turned off ANOTHER option that would have allowed them to use me to advertise to my friends. This is a violation of principle #1, because they give me no way to control how they use my name. And no, my profile must not be interpreted as this kind of control.
3) Facebook provided very convenient tools for finding friends, by my allowing them to access the contact list in my gmail account. Thanks! The page clearly stated that they don't retain my password. Great! What I didn't realize until recently, though, is that the password doesn't matter so much because they KEPT that list, unless you EXPLICITLY tell them to delete it!!! That is a violation of principle #4, because I was willing to let them use the list for a short time, but NOT forever!
4) Facebook let's me block applications. The text says: "You have blocked the following applications. This means they cannot access any information about you or contact you"... Because I don't trust facebook with regards to what I give them explicit permission to do (see the previous issue, 3), for example), I interpret that text to mean that unless I block the application, they CAN access information and contact me. This is a clear violation of principles #3 and #4, and potentially #1 too.

Facebook keeps doing other things that bug me too, even though I don't have a problem with them principle. One problem is that some friends talk a lot, which fills up my news feed with clutter that I don't appreciate. It's not that I don't like these people, I just don't care about all the things they have to say. My only option is to completely hide them, which means I get nothing. On the other hand, lost in the mess are the few posts from people who talk very little, but it's probably interesting. One idea I have is to set up the news feed so that people's status messages only show up on my news feed once they get a certain number (that I choose) of likes or comments.

Also, I need a way to "unsubscribe" from receiving notifications on some topics. For example, maybe I want to post a comment, but I don't want to be told every someone else posts a comment after me.

I don't want to get any application invites. If I want an application, I will go find it myself. Unfortunately, the only way facebook gives me to control whether I get invites is by ignoring application inviters. So, anybody who's ever invited me to an application has been added to the list. What I want is a way to add everybody to the list by default, but maybe approve some people to send me invites. Opt-in, not opt-out. As mentioned, same story with blocking applications; block them all by default, unless I give them permission to do whatever.

Facebook gives me control over what email notifications they send me, but not over what notifications show up as red flags in the lower right corner. Why not?

Navigating the privacy+settings+etc is so complicated. You have to review the settings for every application... and then it's hard to find what you're looking for.




I have another, unrelated gripe about facebook. When I first signed on, pretty much the only application I was interested in was the "Where I've Been" application, which allows you to indicate where in the world you've been. Unfortunately, the developers of that app took a good thing and turned it into trash. Now I can't even figure out how I'm supposed to be able to update my map, and I've tried both Safari and Firefox. The rest of it has turned into 99% advertisements.


anyway, i'm getting tired of complaining... the summary is that I don't trust fb