Paper Part Two

I am still working on this paper, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! The deadline is 11:59pm Apia time on Friday night. Fortunately for me (or is it unfortunately?) Apia is really far away, and therefore my paper is not due until 7am the next morning! The paper itself is actually in pretty decent shape. I just sent off a second draft to my advisor who is on vacaction.

However, I am still working on running the experiments, so there are no numbers in the paper itself. I need numbers. But I'll take care of that right now and until it's done, hopefully. Wish me luck.

BTW, if you're interested, here's another GIF animation of my work! A quick word of warning, however. The file is pretty big since I haven't figured out how to make ImageMajik optimize GIFs, so you may want to download it to your computer before viewing.

Working on a Paper: The Bleh Edition

I just spent three hours trying to fix a bug that dissapeared as in as strange a manner as it appeared. I did a 'make clean' on the whole simulator, and all of a sudden I Linux wouldn't let me create all of the threads I needed. It punked out with some "Resource not available" error. And yet as far as I know, I am creating less than the available max and always have been. Moreover, I don't think I've changed any of the code that would affect thread creation recently. Finally, I hit make enough times that whatever black magic I created was undone.

I don't know how I am going to get things done for Friday at this pace.

I hate C++.

Welcome Home BBQ

Backlighting
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

Now this was at least two weeks ago, if not more, but check out some pictures from the welcome home BBQ that we had at my apartment! It was pretty fun, although I was feeling a little ill from my first hockey practice in many months, and therefore didn't feel up for much. There are a bunch of neat headshots in this bunch. If you think they look really nice, it's probably because I didn't take any of them...

Urban Hike, Washington PA!

IMG_0775
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

I was waiting to post this entry until I got my pictures from the hike onto my computer. I lost my USB cable, but replaced it with something better; a compact flash adapter card (PCMCIA styles) for my laptop.

Anyway, last Sunday was my first Urban Hike since I've been back in Pittsburgh. Washington, PA is in Washington county, the center of the whiskey rebellion for you history buffs. It was a fantastic hike, and the weather was amazing. It was such a quaint little town, and it made the 30 minute drive from Pittsburgh totally worth it. We finished the whole thing off with a Washington Wild Things baseball game. This is an independent minor league baseball team (outside of the whole A through AAA system), but they had a great park and nice fans.

Anyway, I started a Flickr photo pool, so if you guys went along and took pictures, you ought to go ahead and add yours to the mix!

Robots

Today I made some pretty good progress on this paper deadline I am supposed to be working for. Not writing, mind you, but implementation at least.

Keep in mind those are supposed to be robots. This is actually a fully distributed algorithm, so the implementation is non-trivial. Um, also I am going to Cleavland tomorrow night.

Mouth Full of Cowboy

Hey guys,
It just so turns out that my friend Pretus, the rock star, is going to be rolling into Cleavland this Wednesday night with his new band Cowboy Mouth. Okay, it's not so much his band, but he is the new guitarist, and I'm going to go check them out as a way of showing my support. Anyone who wants to do this baby road trip is more than welcome, and I can get you on the list.

Fantastic Fantasy

So for the first time in my life I am playing in a fantasy football league. It's a pro league, and it seems to be a relatively easy-going one, but I know how this things can turn into smack talking festivals. My roommates got me into it because they and their friends have been playing in for a few years. Last night we had a draft, which was mercifully short. I remember my friends spending hours and hours on theirs in high school... Anyway, here's my roster, so you can tell me how I made all garbage picks. I am already a little worried about what seems to me to be the biggest downside of fantasy football; having to cheer for players you hate. Why am I worried? Well I already have one former LSU player, one former UCLA player, and one current Falcon. Will see if I become jaded... Here are the picks, in order of position:

1. Donovan McNabb
2. Brett Favre
3. Jake Plummer
4. Lee Evans
5. Joey Galloway
6. Kevin Curtis
7. Derrick Mason
8. Joseph Addai
9. Maurice Jones-Drew
10. Duece McAllister
11. Alge Crumpler
12. Owen Daniels
13. Chicago's Defense
14. Oakland's Defense
15. Some kickers...