Generic Update

So I've been here for two weeks now, and I must say it's going quite well. My project is to make a small internal webapp so that someone with a scanner can walk around datacenters scanning barcodes on racks and power supplies, which I'll put in a database linking power supplies to which rack they are supplying, which someone much smarter than I will eventually use to optimize power usage across Google. This, of course, sounds awesome, although my hand in it is pretty minimal (techies only: I'm writing in in Python with Django, which is super-awesome). I should have this project done in the next week or two, at which point my host is having a baby, so he'll be gone for about three weeks, and I have no idea what I'll do with my time once that happens.

Our apartment is pretty nice, and we've got a bunch of furniture and stuff (queen-size beds!). I also got to borrow a bike from Google for free, which is a lot nicer than anything I would have bought with my own money. The food is, as usual, plentiful and delicious.

I've also started working on something outside of Google with Mattt (we worked on it for pretty much one night only so far). We're not ready to release it yet, though if you know some places to look, you can probably find it on your own (and it will look like crap right now, so please don't). Don't worry, it's not that cool. We are hoping to do lots of these projects over the summer though, so if all goes well, we will have some cool stuff for you all to play with by the end.

I saw a presentation on the Android today. I can't really say anything about it (although nearly the same presentation was given at Google IO, and the project is supposed to be open source at some point, so you can probably find or wait for the details), but it is quite bodacious, and I am excited.

Sayonara!

I'm back, babydoll!

First day of the summer was today. I'll be keeping this (probably slightly less) updated (than last year). Welcome back, me.

This is the end

Well, I've been back for a while now, and just finished uploading pictures of my trip (See link 1 and link 2). I miss it already.

Thanks for watching!

Joyeux anniversaire à moi!

I'm now a year older than I was three hours ago! Woo-hoo!

I also got to see Subtle tonight, a band I've wanted to see for months and never thought I'd see. They were _incredible_. What a night.

Pictures!

Two quick stories about pictures:

One, tonight, two interns, a full-timer, and I were sitting in a cubicle talking. One of the interns (Boris) asked the other (Cyrus) if he could copy Cyrus' Pictures folder to use as a slideshow screensaver. Cyrus said no, that he'd spent too many long hours scanning deviant art for pictures he liked and that he wouldn't have Boris leeching off his effort. The full-timer (Paul) said that since the computers are all running off of networked drives, that Boris could simply copy them directly. Cyrus decided he would remove read permissions from the folder, so Paul immediately opened a terminal and tried to copy them out before Cyrus could do it, which made it look exactly like one of those old hacker movies. Cyrus ended up beating Paul, but while he was distracted by his success, Paul simply copied them out of Cyrus' snapshot directory (the contents of our /home directories are backed up every hour), which honestly was a pretty brilliant move. Fun times.

Two, although I've had my camera back for a while now, until last week I did not have any memory cards on which to store pictures from it. That has changed, and since then I have taken some, which will be up as soon as I can so you can see stuff. Cheers.

IIFIFFIFPFIIICCCIICIFPPCFIIC

Since 12PM European time on Friday (3AM here), I've been working on and off on the ICFP contest (http://icfpcontest.org). It is a "functional programming" contest by name, but just a difficult programming puzzle by nature.

The general idea is that we have a blob of text (containing only I, C, F, and P) about 7.5MB long, that we have to get a picture from. First, there is a procedure in which the text is read in chunks, and then modified (by prepending), until it is all gone. During this, a new stream of text is created, which must be parsed into instructions for how to draw on a 600x600 canvas. Once we can do this (according to some given rules) correctly, we have to figure out how to create an almost completely new image by adding some prefix to the original blob and running it through again.

It is a pretty intense puzzle, as they've basically created a virtual stack machine in machine code written in 4 characters, but the cool thing is that after two days, we've begun to understand a significant portion of it. It's pretty cool being able to look at a bunch of seemingly random characters (see title) and actually see form and semantic meaning come out.

Box of Sunshine?

I awoke today to a smell that seemed familiar, but from a place and time far away, as if it was a commonplace sensation in a past life. It was somewhat disturbing, but faint, and I paid it little mind.

I found its source when I walked outside. Into rain.

What.

(It was gone by lunchtime, don't worry.)