Why women shouldn't vote! (Men do stupid things)

In reading what is good about men? this early morning due to a bit of insomnia. It was an interesting read.

I'd like to apologize now for the link-bait title. I actually encourage women to vote (even more so now), and I have no problem with whatever feminists do. Also, for brownie points, I took women studies in college; primarily because I was seeking to understand why so women are so sparse in computer science.

In the "What is good about men?", if you take it as an axiom and ask follow-up questions. What are the consequences. What about women and voting? Why have women not had/have a vote? Why have men been against it? Why do men oppress it?

So, I was thinking about that when I was trying to get myself to sleep. It's interesting.

I think I got it. Initially, women didn't want to vote so they were not responsible for the stupid ass decisions the men were taking. That's nice, but why the aggression against it?

Well, I think the story goes like this. We are the children of victors. Once the victory is achieved, the peace settles in. A generation is born in peace and corruption and the conflicts moves inward. This corruption enables weaker men to gain prominence and weaker men need to put people into submission. That's where the differential is introduced.

As to laws and aggression, most people fear change and will fight based on that notion alone. Strong men embrace change because change is different, interesting, contains glory, and fun. Weak men fear change because strong men come out on top.

In any-case, I should return to sleep now. I thank HN for bringing it my attention whilst I desperately try to sneak back into bed.

So, I was going to go to Mac

but then I started to look at the price and power of the laptops...

Compare: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230103

and this http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/configure/MC721LL/A?mco=MjEyOTY5MDM

the mac book has same processor, 1/3 of the memory, 1/3 of the HD, smaller screen, 1/3 of the video memory. Argh! So, maybe I'll just build one like codinghorror. Gauh.

Morning Choice: Video Game or Code

Every weekend, I have a choice.

Do I play a video game? Or code?

Today I choose coding. Videos games are getting old.

And, I'm busting out ocaml because I'm going to try something very hard. I'm going to work on an asynchronous state machine compiler where you write code synchronously that turns into an optimized state machine.

First Joke of the Morning

I'd like to talk about whole foods

The thing about whole foods is this: you need to read everything. The other day, I wanted some Parmesan cheese. So, I grabbed some at whole foods. It wasn't Parmesan. It involved sheep milk, and I was not amused. My hamburger helper like meal tasted like feet.

Comedy

Delivery is very hard, so I've written jokes that are hilarious. Well, to me at least.

One is based on a very funny yet embarrassing experience from my child-hood. In a casual setting, telling people makes them LOLz. However, trying to stand up and tell it to people. Woah, that's hard. Well, its hard for me because I'm a hard-core introvert that lives in my own fantasy world. Interacting with the outsiders tends to be a messy process. Fortunately, I've learned ways of dealing with it.

For instance, I used to have a deep fear of talking in front of people. So, I taught at college. That beat the fear out of me, and so I can go up and talk in front of people. It's oddly easy when the subject is boring like math, programming, or business.

What about messy and embarrassing past stuff? How do I not crack up during delivery?

Back to comedy: How do i take a personally embarrassing moment in my life and turn it into a deliverable routine?

To the twitter mobile!!!

Update: twitter was a failure. How about quora?

Why I just give up on Linux Desktop

I've been an advocate for computation in general for the majority of my life. I have no real preference for either Apple, Microsoft, Google, or open source derived products. I measure products on their own merits.

For servers, computation, scalability, performance, expressiveness. Linux wins by far. This makes a great deal of sense when you consider the market. The Linux market is by developers for developers.

For enterprise-y shit like Outlook and Exchange, I'll trust Microsoft hands down compared to an advertising company (Why I use Google Apps for personal stuff? Well, ..., I'm lazy and cheap).

For finding shit, I can trust google.

For my phone, I love the iPhone since it is best product on the market that addresses my needs. Android? LOLz. Maybe... that depends on iPhone fucking up their momentum or another company building something that makes people happier than the cracked out iPhone.

Now, for a majority of my life, I've used both Microsoft Windows and Linux as my primary operating systems for Desktop. I give up on Linux in the Desktop, and while I like it for developing... It will probably never by my primary one at home. Why? I'm old now. I have things to do. I want my shit to work out of the box. It's just that simple. I don't want to tweak my usb wifi stick to work; I just want to plug it in and have it work with out me configuring a bunch of shit.

So, I'm abandoning Linux on the desktop since I primarily just have a ridiculously number of terminal screens open. Do I need an OS for that?

Besides, with all the cloud shit that people are producing, does the OS really matter anymore? I have been meaning to checkout a chromebook...

Now, let me think about Windows? do I want to live in the Windows world? FUCK NO. Windows is great for two things: Outlook and Video Games (I would say Visual Studio, but I don't drink that kool-aid any more).

Now, having seen the WDDC key-note, I have to say: Lion + iCloud = win. If all I need is Internet, then I'm golden. It should work out of the box without problems. For my consumer needs, I'm good.

So, that just leaves me with Games. While some of my favourite games are available on the Mac, I find myself leary of jumping the boat entirely. Maybe I should. I don't have time to play all my games anyway. Maybe this is the part where I grow up, and stop playing games entirely? Some weeks go by these days, and I don't touch a game at all.

OK, let's do a systems check on the games I'd probably sell a kidney for: I have a 360. Ok, so I'll be able to play Mass Effect 3. Diablo 3 will run on Mac. Ok, so far good. Portal 2? Check. Combine that with iPhone/iPad, and I should be set. If not, then I can use that bootcamp shit with one of my Window 7 dvds.

Ok, so I've decided. my next computer is going to be a mac. Now, should I get a laptop or a big ass machine? Hrmm... well, my ego and male obsession with bigger points me to the big 12 core bastard. Now, my wife would want one too. So, I have to be willing to get two of them.. Maybe not since that would heat up my apartment like crazy. So, let's plan on getting a laptop.

Going old School; first epic walk in seattle

So, I like to walk. One idea I had which would be cool for runkeeper to do is to have fitness achievements based on GPS. Like, walk from A to B and explore the city. It could be a lucrative business for dense city markets.

Anyway, I was getting into the loop of "Oh, I should build that and turn it into a product" rather than walking. Instead, I'm going old-school. I'm going to use the printer and use a pen.

So, I'm looking at this map.

Then using gmap-pedometer, I plot out my course. Once I complete a few of these, I'll give my thoughts on it as a service.

Update. I failed at my original course, and I made a new one in real-time. It's even more epic. I did ~10 miles.

Booyah.

I'll post a few pics in a bit after my legs recover.

Gas + Commute = Bad: Before and After the move to Seattle

On March 21st, I left Overland Park, KS where I was driving an hour a day to work. Coming to Seattle, I wanted to live close to work, so I do. I can walk to work in less than 10 minutes. If I hustle, then it can be done in five minutes. I don't even need a bus. I'd like to share some numbers from my mint.com regarding gas usage.

January	$363
February	$402
March	$293
April	$39
May	$0

The gas tank will be empty on June 1st, so I put $40 in it. I expect that to last until the end of june (at least). The only reason I have been driving recently has been due to my wife's check ups for her broken ankle. Beyond that, we can live in harmony without a car. Which is good because traffic in Seattle can suck it hard.

Now, you may be thinking, but I like saving the money by living in the burbs. OK, great. But, I get to have that smug feeling that I'm better than you because I don't use gas. That's way better. That combined with my wife's obsession to recycle means we are a green family with our heads planted firmly up our asses. It's awesome.

The Engineer and the Artist

I've noticed a pattern emerge amongst my friends and myself.

Many of my highly technical friends are computer scientists, mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. They would be the canonical examples of left-brain thinkers. Most of them have married (or in an active relationship) with an artist of some kind. The significant others are the canonical examples of right-brain thinkers.

The pairing is perfect.

Since I'm most familiar with my wife, I'll share some things I've learned about my wife and life in general.

My wife inspires me.

Before my wife, I was a methodical machine producing code. I try to change the world and make it better. Engineering, science, math are the ways we organic clumps of meat transform reality to make our lives better. Life is messy, and its our job as engineers is to clean it up. Why?

Once I've constructed the perfect reality where I sit in the middle of a vast plane of mathematical perfectness sitting on my throne of enlightenment, then what? Seriously, once I achieve the perfect state of the universe, then what? Once I've made all the money in the world, then what? Once I've built what I wanted to build, then what? Once I've built the ships to carry us out to conquer the universe, then what? Once I've conquered the universe, then what? Once I've reduced all existence to a single dense form, then what?

Explode, break it, and fuck things up. That's what.

Engineering is the way we improve our lives, but it is not the answer to the meaning of why we live. People find meaning in all sorts of ways. This is when I discovered art. Why is that pretty? Why does that move me? Why does a song sound beautiful? What are these emotional things? Why are the cracks in the pavement interesting?

These questions are the ones that turn a black and white reality into a messy pile of grey.

Who employs my wife? me. Now, if I could just get her to sign the damn employee agreement! Artists!

Seriously, I love my wife. Everyday, she teaches me what it means to be human. She breaks the mechanical barrier that I have around my heart, and she inspires me to be better. Not better in the engineering sense, but better in the sense of being a human being. Without my wife, I would probably turn into some troll.

Life needs more love.

I think engineers are attracted to artists for this reasons. If you are an engineer, then you have to deal with the shitty facts of reality. Like the speed of light. The speed of light is a mother fucking bitch. I hate it. Laws of thermodynamics suck too. Gravity, oh its a mother fucker! Seriously, life is full of shit that some engineer has to go in and work around.

Why do we deal with all this shit? Well, because life is harsh without engineering.

Now, I'm not saying that engineering is devoid of art, engineering can be an art. However, at the end of the day, the things engineers build have to work. This means that engineers can not wave around magic wands and make life better. It's slow methodical work that requires team-work.

Art fundamentally does not answer the ultimate question of life. This question, which spawns religion, is in my mind unanswerable using any formal reasoning system. I have no methodical way of exploring this question, so I don't. Art however is a great way to keep our minds off that question.

Meeting an engineer's significant other generally will generally tell you everything about them. My wife is the kindest person I've met. She feels bad for stepping on flowers. She's sweet and kind. She changes my world view much to my infantile protests. I swear, she doesn't have a mean bone in a body. She even recycles hard-core!

She inspires me to try to write poetry, and she opens my heart in a way that I can't express. I can't engineer a feeling, but her existence is like poetry.

Instead

of hacking away at some bitcoin-bazarr, I spent the majority of my day making my wife happy, writing a love letter to my wife, and reading.

What did you do today?

Me the philosopher

I'm thinking about life and death and stuff; does that makes me a philosopher?

Yeah?

Sweet! I'll add that to website.

WeUseMath, so do I; I love math

I like math, and I used to own mathsex.com; I was trying to sell math a long time ago. I used math yesterday to see if I was about to blow smoke up my own ass. I like math because it's not bullshit. Fuck, my alias is mathgladiator.

Now, here is what I understand. The US has severely fucked up math education. Like, SERIOUSLY fucked it up. What does math need?

A new fucking name! I mean brand. The brand is toxic, and we should dump it. People hate math, and this is a religious zeal. I don't think it can be saved by smart people; it needs to be solved by good marketing.

Let's re-brand it as "hacking the universe of truth" or something like that. I wonder...

Routine

Get up between around 8AM, deal with morning shit, walk to work, eat breakfast, get crackin' on work to set a context, walk to whole foods, eat an epic meal, walk back to work, get crankin' on work, go home, cook dinner, bed activities, sleep

Adventure into Pike Place Market

OK, I am establishing my weekly routine/framework. Today, I'll post about my Saturdays. I'm on the slow carb diet, so every Saturday I eat some protein when I wake up (this wakes up the metabolism and prepares it for destruction), and then I head off to Pike Place Market for absolute destruction on some poor helpless carbs.

So, I walk from my place to westlake and mercer where I jump on a S.L.U.T (ok, SLU street car). I watch the road pass and see the space needle (pic). Getting out of the SLUS (not as fun acronym), I see a statue of some dude (pic). Walking down to the market, i see a nice sign and fumble around to take a picture with me in it (didn't see how with instagr.am to use the front camera). If you don't want to see my face, there here is a picture of just the sign.

Round one: Mac and Cheese (best ever). This mac and cheese is so good it makes all the other mac and cheese I've ever had a distant memory. This includes the mac and cheese from nicas cafe (very sorry byran...) and McCoys public house. Look at the picture again and tell me how it doesn't look amazing.

There is a cheese festival going on and I see a tent with a bakery (and this related to cheese how?). Ooh, brownie! That was tasty and sinful. Moist and fresh. That bakery services several places in town, but I've never had it that fresh before.

Round two: Since I managed to get out the door early today, I got to Piroshky-Piroshky early and had an Apple Cinnamon thing made by real Russians with really think Russian accents. Normally, the line is crazy big, so I'll come back next week to get things I've missed.

With enough carbs so far to choke a small child, I find a place to admire the view.

Moving on, need to destroy more carbs. I go look at the donuts, and I have a heartattack just thinking about them. However, today, I promised myself to try new things, so I moved on. After having a visual orgy of donut goodness.

Did you know that they have flying fish? Next time, I'll try to be quicker in dealing with my phone. See, I walk pass and see a fish fly. Then i wait and nothing happens, so I move on. I should take a chair.

Now, there is a hole here because I wander down the merchants. I also ate two chocolate covered pretzels. Unfortunately, they were consumed faster than I got get my camera out. My bad. There is some cool stuff that you can buy here. I fantasize about owning it, then move on realizing I'll have to carry in my next move. I got to the end of the street where there is a park. Pigeon!

The carbs have hit me now, and I need to sit down and stare. So, I look at the mountains. I get up and look over the side and HOLY SHIT A TRUCK. I also have the desire to own (or rent) a boat. The park (I suck as a tour guide, what is the name, oh well). A totem? Yes, a real totem. Also, there were some meditating Chinese people protesting in a non-violent way.

By accident, I discover that instragr.am has the ability to switch to the front-camera so I took a better picture of my head (oh, and the sign too).

Now, moving on, I get my wife some stuff. She loves seattle's food scene because it serves the gluten free market several orders better than kansas city. I get her two cookies.

Before I eat a cookie for myself, I drink some chocolate milk. That was the best damn chocolate milk I ever had.

Round Three: Cookie!!! NOM-NOM. That's a man size cookie. I eat one and get one to go.

Now, there are many interesting characters at pike place market. For instance, there is a metal man. Check him out. I give him a dollar and move on to buy some stuff for my wife.

I found a shop that has settlers of america? what, settlers of catan with an american map? and more resources?? wha... AWESOMENESS is this.

The carbs take me down and I get tired, so I head on home on the S.L.U.T.

Now, dinner is going to be interesting...

Mastering programming and the role of deliberate practice

If you want to master programming and become the best that you can be, then it requires a lot of practice. However, writing lots of code or following lots of tutorials is not going to do it. You need to be deliberate. Being deliberate in your practices means you do the following four steps

• Set a goal
• Work
• Reflect honestly
• Pivot

and then you repeat...

Setting goals

If you don't have goals (and many don't), then you are going to fail. This is why I would say curiosity is a precondition to mastering programming. "How do I do ___ ?" Once you have a whole bag of those questions. Answering these questions and scratching the itch is how you set goals.

Setting effective goals

I think this is the hardest aspect of developing skills, and I think this is where getting a mentor makes the most sense. If you are fortunate, then you can set your own goals and figure out a strategy on achieving them.

Goals are recursive, and your ultimate task is to turn your goal into a series of actionable steps.

My general strategy is to pick the most ambitious goal you can think of that interests you and then start breaking it down. For instance, I wanted to build a computer algebra system. That's a daunting goal.

Daunting goals are good because they provide an end-game and generate many goals which you can iterate and improve on. You'll learn more from trying something big than trying a number of small exercises out of a book (This is my thesis statement for the future project I'm toying around with).

Let's say you've picked your daunting goal and you have no idea how to begin? This is the role of a mentor to look at your goal and say "first you need to do ___"?

Work

After you have your first goal, the next step is work hard. I'd like to say work smart, but that probably isn't going to happen. I say pick a time period and commit to working on it until that time period is up (or finish if it is going to be a success).

A combination of study, design, coding, testing will eventually pay off in either a failure or a success.

Reflect

Why did you fail/succeed? What was a complete waste of time? What felt like the most productive? What are you missing? Are those resolvable? A mentor can help you through these questions, but you need to first be ready to hear the results.

The more honest reflection you can give to your work, the better. Everything I do, I write postmortems for (both successes and failures). Some are one-lines and some are multi-page reports. I do this because I fuck up (a lot).

Pivot

Integrate your reflection and thoughts to help pick your next goal. Do you need to try something else? Do you need to try again after a refreshing bubble bath? Should you move onto to a different project? Did you get inspired to work on something else?

As long as you continue to practice something related to programming, then you will be successful.

Becoming a Master?

We often like to conflate being a master with being a monk like god where we have 1000 steps to reach our hut on top of the mountain. The reality is: being a master is more like being a self-aware student. You can look at a goal and then plan out how to tackle it. Being a master doesn't mean you can do it or accomplish it.

I think computing is becoming a lot like medicine where the things we build and study are escaping our grasp to fully comprehend. Instead, after some schooling and some resident program, we become practitioners.

Entrepreneur to Amazonian : The Amazon Vortex

So, I used to be an entrepreneur/super consultant until I realized it wasn't making me happy. Happiness is a precarious thing. Ultimately, happiness boils down to aligning your calling with a profession that earns your keep (See Dan Pink's book Drive). The reality is that I'm not so much an entrepreneur as I am an inventor. Fundamentally, my callings are inventing, optimizing, educating, studying, building, proving things, using math, having fun with computers, and being right (a lot).

One day, I read Hamming's speech via pg, and it reminded me of why I was in academia: I want to work on great problems. I left academia to work on a super problem, but that failed. I thought about returning to academia, but I would have probably become a crank with gray hairs working on some crazy type system complaining about something.

Instead of writing papers that few will read, I want happy customers that benefit from my work. So, I decided to try an new job. I traced from my recent work and passion in Big Data and worked back-words, and get a job.

The first company on my list was Amazon Web Services, and now I work there. I'm working in the S3 team.

This means three things: (1) I have a Big Data problem (really big), (2) I'm under an NDA, and (3) I'm working with Protoss again.

So, like the Google Vortex, I'm now in the Amazon vortex. This fundamentally means my blog is going to change. I'll probably stop writing on technical things for a while. When I head to the mountains, I'll post pics.

Disclosure

I'm an amazon employee. Nothing I say or do on this blog is an official amazon thing. I don't speak for the company at all.

I am a Red Nova Labs shareholder.

I'm awesome.

2.2 month review of slow-carb diet

1.3 months in : results (December 26th to Feburary 7th).

Lost 40 pounds.
LDL and Triglycerides lowed.
HDL raised.
Leaner profile.
better sleep and regular.
No guilt on Saturdays.

0.9 months off : results (Feburary 8th to March 5th).

No weight gain.
No change in cholesterol.
Terrible sleep.
Bloated.
Guilt for enjoying.

First week back on : results (March 6th to March 10th)

Feel amazing.
Lost 4 pounds (mostly water and colonic change).
Sleeping like a baby with regular sleep.

Thoughts

I really like the slow carb diet, and it works for me; it also improves my mood. I went off of it for two reasons.

First, I've heard people on carb-free diets gain their weight back quickly, so I tested that hypothesis. This is a completely bullshit excuse that my rational mind created to make the emotional side seem less of an idiot. The real reason was because I'm changing cities and I wanted to suck Kansas City dry of its BBQ. I made sure to enjoy my favorite places like Jack Stack and Arthur Bryants. Again, this is another bull-shit excuse, but I'm going with it.

Seeing how it affected my mood and sleep was enough for me to say "fuck this, I'm going back on".

Barefoot in a Blizzard; Vibram FiveFingers in winter

Those that know me know two things:

• I'm insane
• I wear the same clothes everyday (shorts + a t-shirt).

Just because there is a ridiculous blizzard out doesn't mean I'm going to change anytime soon (definition of insanity?).

Well, I wish I had pictures as my testimony will have to suffice. I'm a barefoot nut and a cold nut. I'm that guy wearing those fancy vibram five finger shoes, and I like to jump in freezing water. Today, I got to do both. Yay!

I was driving to my fiance's work so that I could pick her up since her corporate overlord decided the weather was bad enough to let people go home. Well, I lost control of the car and I went off the curb and I was half way between the street and some grass.

Fortunately, I had the good sense to have gloves in the car.

Unfortunately, my fiance brought the possibility of me being stranded in to the universe and the fucking universe obliged her. Well, ok, let's take a step back. It's basically my fault because I took her to work in a t-shirt and shorts and that prompted her to comment on my lack of survival sense.

So, there was I stuck. Since I slid into position, I had no forward or backwards tracks. I have to admit the actual process of getting stuck was very fun. Actually, it was the best fun I've had all year. That being said, the moment of "oh shit, I'm really stuck" was not exactly fun.

So, I go out in my handy-dandy five finger shoes (which suck against snow for periods of time greater than 27.3 minutes (again, I know these things)), and I start digging with my hands (note to self: get a portable shovel [editors note: how long have you fucking lived in kansas]).

So, after 34 minutes of alternating digging, trying to rock, pathetic attempts of pushing the car; I resign myself to failure and hang my head down low and call my fiance to tell her to get emergency road-side help.

After about 2 minutes of pure shame, I realize "fuck this self-pity bullshit, and I try some more".

I dug more, and I dug more. Here I am, a guy wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and basically barefoot playing in the snow. I have to admit, it was fun.

Final try, I get enough momentum to make serious progress. I go forward and then launch myself until I gain enough control and get off the curb. From here, it was simple patience that got me rolling.

The point of the story: never give up.

Look a quote:

"People think I'm crazy to put myself through such torture, though I would argue otherwise. Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. Dostoyevsky had it right: '"Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.' Never are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in. There is a magic in misery. Just ask any runner." - Dean Karnazes

Today was fun.

Barefoot walk in snow (Vikram five finger) testimonial

http://runkeeper.com/user/mathgladiator/activity/23264937

Oh yeah, 17 degrees out and 80% of the walk was in 1/2 foot of snow.

Do I recommend this to you? No.

"Ok, wait, what is the point of the post?" you ask?

Well, I like to push limits. I've been pushing my body throughout 2010, and I'm continuing in 2011. Cold is a personal study to me. Do you know how long you can last in the snow? In pants? In shorts? Naked? Naked in water? How long until you show signs of frost-bite or hypothermia? These are questions that I have answers too.