Friday, December 26, 2008

Action Jackson in Action


Hornets Game 014
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.
As promised, I took my mom's camera to tonight's Hornets game versus the Rockets. Again they showed Tom's font, Action Jackson, and this time I got pictures. (There are about 14, ranging greatly in quality.)

You be the judge. Does it match this?

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Hornets Lakers

Last night I went with my parents to the New Orleans Arena to watch the Hornets play those jerks from L.A., the Lakers. Going to sporting events with my family is one of my favorite things to do when home! Unfortunately, the Hornets lost. In fact, the game was a little painful to watch because, even though the Hornets are pretty good, they played a bad game last night and were never seriously contending. It was pretty frustrating to watch the Hornets run no offense whatsoever. When you run no offense and you shooting is cold, as was the Hornets' last night, it's pretty hard to make a game out of it.

On the bright side (?), last night did solidify my dislike of Kobe Bryant! I still think he's an annoying primadona who gets every single call from the NBA refs and doesn't try very hard unless he thinks he's going to score.

Something else amazing happened at the game. As you may know, at most NBA games they play a lot of annoying, distracting music during play. Such was the case last night when the folks at the stadium began to play that, "Clap Your Hands" song that used to be in the McDonalds comercial. Well, the first time they played it, I looked up at the jumbo-tron to see an amazing site: Tom 7's font, "Action Jackson" and the words "Clap Your Hands." Here's a fascimile:

Clap Your Hands

Needless to say, I was in shock. I am about 95% sure it was his font, so I texted him and he knew nothing about it. I'm going again this Friday and I'm going to try to sneak in a camera so I can take a picture. Wild!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Vacate

I'm in New Orleans for the holidays! I'll be back to Hittsburgh right before New Year's, and looking for something to do, but for now, I am taking it super, super easy. TV? Yes. Food? Yes. Book? Possibly.

In Hillary Clinton news, I can't really understand why a U.S. Senator would want to be the Secretary of State. It just doesn't seem like much of an upgrade to me. I mean being a senator in this country is more or less a life-long position, unless you really screw it up. It seems unlikely now, but it's always possible that she could be looking for a new job in four years, or even less. Moreover, a senator has actual, constitutionally-granted legal powers. Hmm...

In more political news, Good Ole' Louisiana became the first state to elect a Vietnamese-American to congress! Take that, so-called progressive states.


Update:
Okay, so I know I'm an idiot. The link I posted lead to William Jefferson, who is a representative, not a senator. For examples of senators who "really screwed it up," how about this guy? or perhaps you perfer him?

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

News x2

 I've got two items of good news that I've kind of been sitting on for a bit, mostly because I didn't want to jinx them. But today they both fell into place!

Today I Scheduled My Proposal!
Today I scheduled my thesis proposal. It will be early next semester, January 27th at 9am. It will be at 9am. I am so sorry for the early time, but my external member is in India which is 10:30 hours ahead during the winter. It should be a rad time. Full details are forthcoming, since I don't have a location yet, but other than that, all of my committee members have committed to a time, and I have written my proposal document. Sweet!

Today I Signed a Lease!
I am moving to Bloomfield! My apartment is basically here. I am very excited to be moving to Bloomfield, where I can still get to school via bus or bike, but where I have a little more variety in terms of restaurants and bars. I looked around for a while and didn't find much, but the last apartment I looked at was very nice. It's also very reasonably priced and has parking. Hard to lose. Stay tuned for the obligatory "new apartment" pictures and the housewarming party. I can pretty much move in today, although I'm waiting until I get back from New Orleans.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Sick Riduculous Presents: Gig Ridiculous


party time excellent
Originally uploaded by oatmeal2000.
Sick Ridiculous and The Sick Ridiculous has its (their? our?) first gig! Mark your calendars this instant:

Tuesday January 13th, 2009
8pm-ish
The Rex Theatre (1602 E Carson)

We are participating in a "Local Artist Showcase," which means basically that it's a Tuesday night and you don't have to pay any money to get in. We also will most likely play two separate sets, which should be fun too. If you need more details, let me know!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Reading about OO Verification

I've been going back to read up on OO verification, and I found a very well-written paper entitled, Modular Invariants for Layered Object Structures. Peter Muller and Gary Leavens are co-authors, which comes as no surprise.

The thing is, this was a very easy to read paper that covers a lot of things about Ownership and OO Verification that I had sort of picked up along the way, but had never seen described in a comprehensive way. I guess that's partially due to the fact that it's a journal article, although frankly kind of a crazy journal. This paper uses Universe types, an extension of Ownership types, to prove class invariants. It's very similar to the Boogie methodology, or any of the papers on JML and verification, but this one actually takes the time to explain "classical" OO verification, which motivates the use of ownership.

I should have definitely read this a while ago considering this is basically what my own work is based on, but I guess I had been avoiding Ownership types for a while.

If you are at CMU and you want to check it out, our library has electronic access: here.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Course Cast

Whoa!

This course at Waterloo is reading a paper that I co-authored while at Microsoft last summer.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Adventures in Apartment Hunting

 I am currently searching for an apartment. It's hard work.

One thing I've noticed is that every single apartment is filled with "professionals," or at least that's what the landlord always says. There sure are a lot of professionals in Pittsburgh. Of course I prefer degenerates...

Today I actually saw a great apartment. It was in Friendship. It was huge, and not too expensive. I got really excited. Then, just by chance, I saw the name of the management company on a sign before I left. I looked them up on apartmentreviews.com. Good idea. The reviews are horrific. The phrases "slum lord" and "lawyer" are used far too often. You should really take a look at all of them yourself, but I found this phrase to be both representative and humorous:

"I literally cry at least once a month because of how awful it is to live under Lobos."

Wow.