While I am becoming a student with a concentration in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), I have been for at least 4 (non-contiguous) years a student of Professor-Graduate Student Interaction. I think trying to decide how to interact with your professor is an interesting problem. Coming from industry, I know more than I ever thought I would about image management. Do I want my professor to know my like my framily know me? Like my coworkers know me? Like my bosses have known me? Of course this is also dependent on to what kind of relationship the professor is open (grammar?).

As I move toward becoming a professor, I will also have to think about the kind of relationship I want with my students, and other colleagues.

Quick notes on manipulatives to help teach data structures and algorithms:

• tinker toys for trees
• fish bowl for set
• baby beads for linked list
• stacking cup for sorting

In case you don’t stalk me all over the web… I have updated my VT page.

I was hanging @ The Great House with Shun and Nathan, and Emily was over and Griffin was over, and Lucy was there, and the fire was going, and it just felt like a nice family. Me and Emily went and (spent too much money) getting lights for the house and a fake tree and some lights for the tree and a few ornaments (we’ll get more from the ones we made as kids). I’m working from Tampa a lot right now, so I don’t see them as much, but it’s very nice when I’m there with them, and ab;e to visit others. At least the guys (and the weather and accommodations for that matter) in Tampa are very nice.

Saturday morning I woke up and went downstairs and found Emily, Shun, Griffin, Eric, Chris, Melissa, Gregory, John, Trey, Bryant, MomP, Jasmine, Becca, Adria, and Steve in The Great House. They were surprising me for my birthday! It was my first ever surprise birthday breakfast! Many people helped cook and/or brought groceries. We had pancakes (I had some dark chocolate chip+banana pancakes, and there were also blueberry, and pecan, There were omelets and homefries, it was delurshurse! It was so nice to see everyone. MomP got me a watch, Jasmine got me Monk Season 3, Shun and Eric got me Harold Crick’s Watch (from Stranger Than Fiction), Emily gave me 3 of her favorite DVDs, cooked me her favorite menu (Chicken Spaghetti, corn and green beans, and fruit salad), and burned me some of her favorite music. *UPDATE: on my birthday/Christmas list, among other things, i ask for “your favorite anything” so it’s not like emily got me a bunch of stuff she’s been wanting, she got me stuff she already had or copies of it.

I found out today that I’ll be in Tampa next week and the next, and then most of the M-R in January-February. Working in FL is like being on vacation, except having to go to work. The nice weather and the palm tress and eating on an expense budget and the whole-living in notTGH thing makes it seem like vacation. The guys down here are really nice and I’m learning a lot, but I miss everyone in NC.

I’m in Tampa for work, and I’ve got to say, I have the most miserable accommodations here at Post Rocky Point (corporate) Apartments in Tampa, and it’s the most miserable weather: 75 and sunny with perfect humidity. I’m very busy, and am working tons of hours, but the people are great, and the area is too.

P.S. this is a good way to change the extension of all files with one kind of extension in a particular directory:
for old in *; do cp $old `basename $old`.jpg; done

so here’s this: *Maybe it’ll exist by the time you read this, I failed to notice prior to posting that it didn’t post my video as soon as it finished uploading ["Uploaded (processing, please wait)] it tells me!*

oh btw, youtube has capture abilities…d-oh! i’ll try that next time!

So, I started a new job on Monday June 18 at 9:30. I am a consultant for Amentra. We are a consulting firm, we help companies solve their enterprise computer system problems, or to increase the efficiency of their existing solutions. Amentra is unique in our consulting style in that we use a mentoring approach, and as we implement a solution for the client, we train their existing staff to be able to update and otherwise maintain the new solution.

I work on the 21st floor of the Interstate Tower which is at the intersection of Trade St. and Tryon St. It’s kind of neat to work in a skyscraper.

I am a little unsure as to how many people from work will read this and exactly how much I’m allowed to say, so if you have questions you can feel free to email me, but I may not go into much detail here.

All the people at work are cool. So far there have been 12, I think. The sixth or eighth of the floor that we have is essentially a square doughnut, or if you prefer, a squagel. The entrance is in the middle of one side, and there is a large Amentra sign on the wall of the squhole facing the door. The squhole is basically the server room and a kitchenette (free soda, snacks and coffee, w00t!). We have a corner space, and so we have 2 sides with windows. The far side, which is all offices and the right (from the entrance). then to the right of the squhole are several desks in the open space at which some of us work. Those who desire or require a less distracting or more private environment work to the left of the squhole in cubicles. Our offices are not very big as the majority of our time we are working on site. I have spent these 2 weeks learning what technologies to learn and how to install the tools so that I can install them and begin to learn to use them to actually do things.

From where The Great House is located, I walk 5 minutes to the bus stop and then I can ride a CATS directly into the city. It takes approximately 30 minutes, which is maybe 5 or 10 minutes longer than driving, but it’s $112 cheaper (we’re welcome Amentra), I don’t have to drive, and best of all, it’s an ecologically responsible way to get to work.

“Extreme” I told a friend she was being a little “extreme” in her conviction (or steadfastly held, and emotionally supported decision) to not “use” facebook (at all, she will not even hold an account). As with anything else in life there are a variety of ways to experience facebook. I use it to keep in touch with people, stalk others, and to manage large get-togethers (their invite system is decent/easy). Some people use it insanely, they can sit on it for hours and just…read it and edit things…wow. Anyway, I did not hold the same connotation for “extreme” as my friend, who took it as an insult and took it to mean, like an extremist or fanatic. In my opinion extreme has very little connotation that should incite emotion. I simply mean it as the opposite of moderation. And as she will not even open an account with facebook (again) she fit my description.

Her reaction made me think about two things: my reaction to my reactions, and my amazement at our ability to ever communicate even a distortion of our intended message to others. I have this thing which I’m sure I am terribly inconsistent at doing: I try to pay attention to what affects my emotions. Not that I think I am unique in this, by any means, but when I notice myself getting upset, excited, happy sad, or elated, I try to think about why. And I think this has helped me to learn about myself. I once overreacted when some friends suggested irresponsibility on my part as a bit of a joke. First of all I hadn’t realized that they were joking which is odd, because I usually have no trouble detecting sarcasm, but I was getting really upset about it, and even though it was just some trivial circumstance and had it been an oversight, would have hardly been reckless, I realized how important it is to me that people who matter to me think I am responsible. Some years later, Melissa was recounting her moving day (from The Great House [and Garage] to her apartment), and I realized that it wasn’t just responsible, it was dependability as well, and trust (learned that when Ms. Sivey thought that Jenny would be more trustworthy than I one instance in High School. So I have realized that I want people to know that they can trust me with not only information, but also their possessions, their emotions, and …I don’t know what else, but I like to be a person that people know will be there in a pinch (and hopefully more often). In fact, on the surface it irks me when someone who I haven’t spoken to in forever calls me and thinks that I will do them a favor, but somewhere deeper, I appreciate that they know that even after years, they can depend on me. This can be a bit of a problem, because this combined with my lack of discrimination in interests, yields over-extension and exhaustion. I tend to gain relationships of responsibility and to like collect them, just so I can be depended on. I have been thinking on and off for a few years about why this is and have yet to figure it out. While I wish I weren’t extreme in this, wishing that all people felt like they could trust in and depend on me, I think that I like to find this quality in others, and in my interest in working toward a reality in which optimism is more realistic than pessimism, I think that a world wherein people assume that they can depend on and hold high expectations of others, people would have a nicer time.

I must sleep, editting in the morn.

So, when I started working for IBM in January, they were talking that day about going to a conference in LA, and Ms. Laws, now known as “Boss Claws” after a brief stint as “Cathy,” asked if I would want to go if she could get my travel approved. I told her that I would need to check with my calendar and course syllabi (Firefox’s dictionary had “syllabuses” but that sounds awkward to me, actually, is it ok to say it “sounds” awkward, when I actually didn’t hear it? like, i wrote it, and said it in my head, and I didn’t like it…w/e). So accept for a test that was tentatively scheduled, there were no assignments to prevent me from attending CSUN!

Well, eventually, Cathy came back to me and said she’d managed to get approval for me to go to LA! All praise be to Boss Claws now and forever, none can say tha he or she is more generous, and there would never be one as just in the eyes of any, as Boss Claws in the eyes of all.

So, I got on a plane at like 6am, THANKS BERT! The Farm Bureau (in its entirety) was in the RDU airport when I entered, so it’s a good thing I’m paranoid about missing flights, b/c if I weren’t this time, I would’ve. The flight there was ok, the stop in Charlotte was stupid, but allowed me a chance to get some breakfast.

Got to LA at about 11 their time (and I was ready to go to sleep). So, I checked in (Hilton @ LAX), set up my room, I even used the little luggage holder thingy that I never used to understand. I had my Wii set up, my clothes hung up, dewrinkling, and was down stairs again (even after pottying) in like 20 minutes…yeah, I was sweatin. So then I met Pete for a sandwich in the hotel, this mediocre turkey sandwich was like $8! There were 2 guys behind the counter, both brown, one of a hispanic, or at least spanish-speaking variety, and the other…looked black, but sounded to me (I’ve never met anyone from Louisiana) like he was from the Bayou. It was the latter who rung us up, and he was like, “phat hat man!” and I smiled and said “THANKS!” and maybe I said it to emphatically, but he then went on to explain to me that “that’s how we say we like something, like it’s cool, or hot…it’s phat” and I was just like, “yeah…ok, thanks!” I know what phat means! After all, those of you who thing the my middle name is “Great” must recognize that in all actuality, my name could never be spoken for the fraction of it that has been converted into speech would take 37×5 lifetimes to speak, but of this, The first two names are indeed “The” and “Great” and the last is “Michael” but obviuosly, right in the middle of infinity, “Phat” is my middle name.

Anyways, after a quick sandwich, we went over to the IBM suite in the neighboring hotel (NO idea why the IBM booth and suite were in the Mariott, while we were all staying in the Hilton). Here I met most of the members of my team, almost all for the first time in person. I think this went pretty well. After the rest of the day was used to have everyone update each other, we went to dinner, and some Mozilla folks tagged along.

So unfortunately this is way after I went so I have forgotten many of the interesting points (yeah, yeah, “I can tell” you’re saying from the above, well, sorry).
The sessions each day were not particularly interesting. Some were, but on the hole, I would say the best part was meeting all of my team members and getting to meet people @ Mozilla, and getting to meet people from all over who use or produce enabling technologies.

Having a per diem (a daily food/expense budget) was really neat, and while $40 doesn’t go too far in LA, my only expenses were meals, so I could eat a little better than I eat here, and pay much less.
Ultimately the week was a wonderful experience, I liked meeting all of my coworkers and several people who I correspond with about PyXPCOM/XULRUNNER issues, most with Mozilla. It was very hard however to have had 2 weeks off, one of which a 40 hr, wonderful work week, and then come back to papers and math hw, and etc. So, now (this post was started like…weeks ago at this point), i have only 8 more days of class, and i can’t wait to get back to charlotte, and to begin 40 hr work weeks! I even began a wiki (Democratic Greatness) to houste (host + house) our decision-making process/info gathering about which house to rent, etc. (it’s user read-only, I’m afraid, if you want a user, lmk, after all, no point in us compiling all this info on rentals in Charlotte, just for some quick degenerate to come along and rent our favorite candidate!)

I have many drafts in my database (beginnings of posts) just waiting for me to write about this issue or that, and I can’t wait to graduate and (I hope [naively?]) to write or speak about these interesting matters.

*EDIT* In the airport (in Vegas) I played a slot machine once and I didn’t know what I was doing, but I risked my whole dollar all at once, and then cashed out immediately…I won $.75

Here follow 2 pics from LA, both with me in it, darn I’m sexy as a Man in Black (shirt).

So, this happened a while ago, but it keeps poppin up, so I thought I’d write about it. So, many people as cool as I…many people whose coolness poorly approximates Greatness, would not post about this out of pride, while I am the essence of Greatness, I am also beyond this pride thing…somehow. Anyways, I was having a VERY weird issue, and I was trying to ensure that nothing other than a script I was testing was running, b/c it appeared to me that something was stealing my mouse events…so I removed many environment variables (not only for this reason, but also b/c I had polluted it with entries that seemed to piss each other off such as 3 versions of MSVC and various MS platform SDKs (none of this was for fun, it was all part of my arduous [odious?] endeavor to compile XULRunner with PyXPCOM), so anyways, I got rid of many of the entries (all but like python’s path) in my Path variable… turns out none of this was the issue.

If ever you are running some console app/script and are having mouse events randomly hijacked…this may be your issue:
If QuickEdit Mode is enabled, or if you have turned Mark on for the open shell (right-clicking on the shell’s title bar and going to properties will show you a checkbox indicating the status of QuickEdit Mode, and if the cursor is not a blinking underscore, that is, if it is a box blinking, and the box should be the full height of a line in the shell, then Mark is on) this will steal your mouse events! This seems obvious with me near-perfect hindsight, but I enabled this by default b/c it never cause me any problems, and I frequently needed to copy/paste out of the shell, so I didn’t even think about it being there when I was having troubles with my program.

Anyways, I was running a batch file that checked for installation of Python 2.5 by doing something like reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.5" and it was failing even though python is installed…well, reg wasn’t recognized as a program b/c blah\blah\system32 wasn’t in my Path…d-oh!

*edit: I didn’t include this earlier b/c I didn’t have permission, but now that I’ve met him in person, and asked… Steve Lee is the cool guy who got XULRunner built against PyXPCOM and whose batch file I was running

Briefly, I want to ensure all you avid readers, and frequent update-checkers-for-ems that I do not plan on going this long w/o an update again, but you should just subscribe to the rss feed anyway.

So, there exist these viral (copyleft) licenses for software. And, to make a long story short, I read some (and started to use it in my work for IBM). SO I get an email Friday morning to the effect of, “Michael, you are now what IBM considers ‘contaminated,’ please do not talk about your code with anyone in IBM, or look at anymore virally licensed code.” So this is a little ridiculous because as far as anyone within 3 levels of me (in the IBM Hierarchy of Power) is concerned, my work is to be open source and licensed under at least BSD, if not some other copycenter license. So, this was drama drama drama, and now it doesn’t seem relevant, either it will go away or I will have to edit my code, and then doublethink it.

Thurs, I interviewed with Amentra, and hoped to be able to say today that they had offered me a position…they haven’t contacted me yet, so I will call them tomorrow. I really hope to get an offer, because Amentra seems like an excellent company and an excellent opportunity for me.

So, in other happenings, I will be writing soon about Oppression. I have read Marilyn Frye’s take on it, and I feel that she is pretty much right with her birdcage. (more to come)

Ok, this is also from my Moral and Philosophical Issues of Gender in Society class, (which I think they renamed and shortened since I enrolled, but I’m sticking with the long, accurate title) should medicaid pay for birth control? So, for me, I’m all about women’s rights to their bodies, so I think so, also this would enable women on Medicaid to eliminate the possibility for unplanned pregnancies, so the conservatives out there, should be like “hellz yeah! fewer tax funds to the poor!” But the problem I am also wondering about is this, couldn’t this be called a sort of eugenics movement? That is, if we (the people) provide free birth control to only women on Medicaid, aren’t we saying, we REALLY want to reduce the number of offspring to poor families? If all insurance companies had to provide it it might be a little better, but even then, I think it would be most ethical to provide it for all people, the only detriment I can foresee is the cost, and a few religious collisions (that can be avoided on an individual basis by practitioners of forbidding faiths). Dr. Boxill wanted to bring up the fact that Medicaid (and may other insurance companies) pay(s) for ED remedies, which I don’t think is too cool, but ultimately less interesting than my question (-:. Oh, thanks to Boss Claws (boss @ IBM), I have started to write smilies backwards when possible, it’s neat, i think i like the wink better this way (-;