Internet is becoming more and more polluted with junk-mail, people selling crap, and businesses which don't know their place on the net. They're all trying to make this wonderful place (i.e.: the net) in to hell (i.e.: real world). Internet should be viewed as a place of imagination, creativity, and most of all: fun. Internet is not some really advanced tool for searching for people to rip-off. It's about searching, and finding, things which are useful, helpful, and promote the sharing of ideas. This is what this site is striving to become.

U.S. Vice President Biden to mark transfer of U.S. command in Iraq. So... who won...this war on terror?

- Alex; Wed Sep 1 07:39:53 EDT 2010
September 1st at wikipedia...

...got a class to teach next Spring (2011) at Brooklyn College :-)

- Alex; Sun Aug 29 23:04:56 EDT 2010

Finally got to my laptop to unload all the `news & rants' updates from vacation (Aug 14 through Aug 22).

In other news, will likely be teaching CISC 3110 (old CIS15) at Brooklyn College this Fall semester. Yey!

- Alex; Wed Aug 25 06:59:32 EDT 2010

Day 9 (20100822):

Got up 8am, and was at Heathrow at 10. So much for the "trouble of getting there". Could've spent a good afternoon (my flight is at 4:45) in London as opposed to sitting in an aiport starbucks eating a starbucks sandwedge. Meh. Talked to AmericanAirlines rep, and they weren't very helpful in getting me on an earlier flight---they didn't seem to have a concept of "stand by".

The Heathrow departure gates are like a shopping mall. No joke. The path to the gates curves around shops! There's literally hundreds of shops around here. The VAT taxes must be amazing, 'cause they advertise that you can save 39 pounds (~$60?) on an iPod if you buy it here.

Got a plate-sized chocolate chip cookie.

Found a pretty good pub---with gin & tonic! :-)

I'd like to mention the huge amount of security---first went through UK security then through US security, and (prolly 'cause I'm traveling alone with no checked in luggage) was singled out for extra questioning each time. Kinda annoying. The same happened when I went to Hawaii. Do I really look all that suspicious?

- Alex; Fri Aug 22

Day 8 (20100821):

This being saturday, the major lines of Underground are not operational---makes traveling a major pain in the neck.

Got to King's Cross station ~10am... and due to a f*cking long line to get tickets, missed *two* trains to Cambridge. Finally got tickets, and was on train ~12pm. Got to Cambridge ~1pm---what a weird town. It's like colleges built upon other colleges. Like you walk a block, and suddenly it's another realy old school... kings college, walk a block and it's queens college, walk another block and it's trinity college, etc. Overall, a fun place to visit---not so fun that every place charges admission to just walk about.

My luck of "taking a random bus" ran out... when I took a bus and it took me "somewhere else"---have no idea where. I was expecting to end up somewhere near train station back---but it took me to another side of town. Thanks to my google phone data plan... mavigated my way back to the train station (more walking).

On way back, got off at Piccadilly Circus and enjoyed a long (very long) evening walk through London back to Hotel. Got a bit drunk on the way---again. Pubs in London are great...and I find it kinda amusing to order a "Pint of Beer"---that's like 2x the size of a normal serving of beer you get in US.

Upon arriving in hotel, discovered a (I guess) complementary bottle of wine, chocolates, and fruit basket. That went down well. Then back to hotel pub for yet more beer...

- Alex; Fri Aug 21

Day 7 (20100820):

Took the ~10am train to Blechley Park (from Euston). Walked about the place where electronic computers were invented---where Turing worked---the hut where Enigma was b0rken, etc. Great trip.

Got back to London around 7pm---took train to center of town, and walked about (pubs!) until 12am---and walked back to hotel.

- Alex; Fri Aug 20

Day 6 (20100819):

Got up at 4am---took cab (those funny looking black ones) to King's Cross station to take Eurostar to Paris.

In Paris, my primary plan was to get a Moulin Rouge baseball cap---so walked there first. Experimented with the those public rest rooms---they're on every corner... you press button, they open, you walk in, they close, you do your business (upto 20 minutes, allegedly), and once you're done, the whole toilet (allegedly) watches itself all inside (including walls and floor). Pretty damn neat if you ask me.. wish we had those in NYC.

Moulin Rouge didn't have baseball caps. They said those sell out fairly quickly. So there goes my whole point of being in France.

Walked to that big cathedral on the hill overlooking Paris. Bought a ton of..amm..crap from street vendors. They're not very good at (or maybe I'm totally wrong about this) bargaining. I came up to a dude and asked how much those statues of Eiffel tower were... and he said "1 euro each..." and I was about to say "great, I'll take a dozen".. .but then he just blurs out "3 per euro..."---so I still bought a dozen, and a buncha other things. It's great---any price the street vendor gives you, you half it, and walk away---they chase you and take the euros.

Whole of Paris seems to be in a way worser shape economy wise than Britain. It's like folks in Paris are really desperate for euros---a euro goes way farther than a pound goes in Britain.

tip: don't change money at the train station---you get crappiest rate. I changed $100, and got 61 euros. I then went to the exchane place by the Opera House (same one I used 10 years ago) and got 75 euros for $100.

Went to climb that big arch thingie, then walked to Eifell tower, and climbed that too. The trick (eh, again with the ticks): don't stand in line---go for the staircase ticket. The line there is literally 10 minutes long---as opposed to 3 hours---and you get to jump up stairs until 2nd "floor". On 2nd floor, you get another ticket (also about 5-10 min line) for summit... then wait (with everyone else--even those who waited downstairs for 3 hours) for about 30 minutes for the elevator to summit. From getting to the site, to getting to the top, I managed to do it in 1 hour---and anohter 20 minutes getting down. If I waited in the usual line, I wouldn't have made it there on that day.

Right after coming down, I spotted a 3-wheeled scooter and bargained for a ride to Notre Dam (20 euros)---in that noisy open scooter speeding across Paris. Great experience.

After Notre Dam (eh) took taxi to Louvre and... my camera battery died after like 2 pictures of Mona Lisa. Walked back to train station...through a street of nothing but "sex shops". Stopped by a pub to enjoy the best Guiness I've ever had (those folks really knew how to pour it---they mixed the Guiness with Guiness Draft to get it to be...perfect).

Got two train station with about an hour to spare.

Got some overpriced cappuccino, icecream, and a sandwedge---sat down to enjoy it... a whole hour to kill. Then I found something amusing---the clock on the wall said 20:03...and another clock waid 20:03... and my watch said 7:03pm... amusing, no? Both wall clocks must be wrong---day light savings or something.

It was not daylight savings. And they were not wrong. That hit me like a brick. Still woozy from the beer-on-an-empty-stomach I realized I'm missing my train back. Who would've thought that clocks change by 1 hour between London and Paris??? I've been walking about the whole day no even realizing I was 1 hour behind---I might've skipped the louvre had I known.

In anycase, ran to the train... "checked in" at 20:09 (train leaves at 20:13). Then was stopped by security---spilled my cappuccino all over the floor by the metal detector. Filled out the form to enter Britain---and then ran ran ran... and... train left. Without me. Technically, I was about 1 minute early---but the train doors closed and it left. Good folks at Eurostar re-booked me on the following train...first class---right next to the bar... got a bit more drunk from all the wine.

- Alex; Fri Aug 19

Day 5 (20100818):

Started day with The Tower---eh, nothing particularly interesting. Much of London is a tourist trap--and The Tower isn't an exception. It's a particularly good tourist trap. Interesting bit (after a *long* line and movies that I didn't much care for) were the crown jewels. You walk into a vault with the crown and all sorts of fancy diamonds and gold thingies all over. Pretty nifty---to see all those priceless thingies just sitting there (behind thick glass and many inches of steel).

Then made my way to Benkingham palace---and got the "see everything" ticket---the muse, etc. Not sure what folks find interesting about these places. It's like everyone is walking about and "oh, ah, oh, ah" on every single room. Like they'd stand by a chair and say "oh, would you look at that... isn't that an amazing piece of furniture"... or something along those lines. I never found such things interesting, so ended up pretty much running through the whole thing. Got icecream before existing the palace :-)

Met my niece and spent the evening entertaining her (crappy greek restaurant, then fairly good "The Anchor" restaurant).

- Alex; Fri Aug 18

Day 4 (20100817):

Got to hotel at 7am-ish (them early mr0nin trains sux). Took a nap and by 11am was out and about walking towards 221b Baker Street---Sherlock's place. After that went through the park---and saw actual real life black swans---even took a picture. Then started my walk towards Karl Marx's grave (yes, this is a joke---a friend of mine said "why don't you visit Karl Marx's grave"---so I did!). Saw some Chinese folks there talking pictures---everyone wanted to be in the group picture by Karl Marx's headstone---so I took the group picture :-)

Got to ride a double-decker bus... a random bus that just happened (by total chance) to go exactly where...err...I wanted to go. Or at least I realized I wanted go there once the bus took me there---the Benkingham palace. Apparetly they stop admission at 3:45pm or something---so was a bit too late for that. Walked about that whole neighbourhood before starting the long journey back to the hotel (again, talking for *hours*).

Visited the hotel bar---it's great beer they serve there.

- Alex; Fri Aug 17

Day 3 (20100816):

Got up at 5am. Walked to Underground station, took Piccadilly line to Heathrow (eh, again). Rented car from Avis---which they didn't have. They upgraded it to a sporty BMW for free---not that I'd complain. In any case, the car was great. You press gas, and it just zooms beyond 70mph like it was made for it (speed limit on highways is 70mph in UK).

Driving on "wrong" side of the road... felt weird at first... and later... but after maybe 3-4 hours of driving, it felt "ok". One thing to get used to: No speed limit signs (or at least very few). You gotta know what kind of road you're on, and know what the speed limit is on that road. e.g. some roads are limited at 60, and there's no sign that says "60" (or at least I didn't see those). I mostly relied on the GPS speed limit thingie [which beeped evertime you went above speed limit---also warned you about speed cameras]. TomTom... worked great. I wasn't expecting it to be helpful but it was great.

The Brits are a bit toooo fond of round-abouts. Every intersection (or so, it seems) is a roundabout. Imagine you're going on a highway, and..bam, there's a round-about where you have to slow down to go in that circle. And that repeating every 5 minutes for hours.

Drove to Stonehenge. Walked about, took some pictures. Great sunny day. Then drove to Barnstaple to meet a relative---got to ride in one of them headgehog one-lane mountain roads. Then drove back to London... or so I thought. Apparently "home" on GPS wasn't set correctly (to Avis). It was set to a gastation near Oxford---where I ended up at 2am (about 100 miles off course). Then figured out the address of rental place, and went there instead.

The car is great... at night with nobody on highway, I (yes, I know, it's stupid), decelerated to 20mph, and then slammed gas, and it took off at 90mph in just a few seconds. This is the first time I drove a "sports" car---kind of a weird experience... my SUV (Toyota 4runner) doesn't accelerate like that---where you're pushed into the seat.

Eventually got back to the rental place (with a few stops at "services" stations---to refill, and enjoy Burger King). Avis shuttle took me back to Heathrow, and since Undergroud is closed (first train starts running at 5:12am), I spent the night in a Costa coffee shop browsing the web.

Speaking of which, Costa coffee is... like a Starbucks in US. It's on every corner. It's not bad coffee, but is similarly overpriced. I tried to avoid it simply 'cause my starbucks card doesn't work there (and starbucks card works in starbucks :-).

Also, my expectation about ever-present internet was all wrong. My hotel has no internet. There's wired (!) internet that you can use for 15 pounds per day(!). There are no open access points anywhere (I haven't managed to find any). Even the starbucks near Tower Bridge... you connect, but then nothing really works. In any case, the best way to get internet is to get a t-mobile sim card (10 pounds at heathrow vending machine), then put some money on it, and buy a 5-day unlimited data plan for 2.50 or something. I then tethered my laptop to phone---great thing for Android :-)

- Alex; Fri Aug 16

Day 2 (20100815):

Upon arriving (9am), arranged with Avis to rent a car (cheapest automatic transmission they had).

I genuenly tried to learn the British way of commuting. Apparently, a subway that just goes places isn't enough---they needed to get creative so split it into 6 zones, each with different fare. But the coolest bit is that you can take train anywhere you want... but to get out of the station, you'd need to pay the difference. I still haven't figured out how that one works---so far, I bought one way ticket from heathrow, and was shocked when upon exiting the underground (ehh), the machine didn't return it back!

Anyways, due to construction, and 'cause I dunno the underground system, and due to all those same-looking colored trains (the train lines.. in NYC we use letters/numbers. There (London) they use "names" for line, and a color. If I wasn't color blind, I'd find that very useful---red and brown look identical to me (or at least I think it's brown). Ended up Exiting at Green Park station. And my hotel is on Rotherhithe---very very very very long walk.

In any case, I got to walk (my luggage/backpack) for a huge chunk of the day towards the hotel---good thing the passage took me through many landmarks.

Got to hotel (Hilton, London Docklands) around 5pm-ish (that's after getting to Green Park at 10-ish am---been walking all day).

The first thing I tried to do is get into a shower... and... it was b0rken! That little knob that turns on the tower just came off. Then the whole shower assembly sorta collapsed on itself when I tried to hang a towel onto the curtain thingie.

Anyways, went outside---asked the receptionist to fix shower---went to ride the London Eye (that huge landmark Ferris wheel, that's open until ~8pm). The trick is not to be stingy and just pay for the "express ticket"---it's only ~10 pounds more, but you get it immediately---and not stand in line for an hour. I literally got to ride it within 10 minutes of getting there.

Walked back to hotel (eh, again, more talking)---on way back found the nearest Underground station by the hotel (~30 min walk). The hotel swapped rooms; when I went to pickup my stuff, the note on the door claimed they fixed the shower... I went in and checked... it wasn't fixed (the knob still came off in my hand). In any case, new room shower worked great.

- Alex; Fri Aug 15

Day 1 (20100814):

Luckily I decided to leave an hour earlier (in addition to the customery 3) to JFK. For whatever stupid reason, I took the worng train, and ended up on he wrong station. Not only that, but after backtracking and taking the correct train... I got out at the wrong stop!

After a few times of this, got to JFK, where apparently a buncha boarding terminals went offline. So boarding was delayed past departure time. I had the middle seat in the middle of a middle row. Suckiest seat. I asked for isle seat, and stuardess gave me the *front* middle-row seat (right behind first class)---with literly nobody on either side of me, and enough leg room to stretch out or cross legs. Flight was great---watched IronMan 2 (movie sucked :-)

- Alex; Fri Aug 14

Oracle files suit over Android's use of Java. Wow.

- Alex; Fri Aug 13 07:18:13 EDT 2010

Went hiking (and camping!) up Mnt.Marcy this last weekend. It was great. Longest walk I've had in a while (took the whole day, from dawn till dusk---pretty much). Also stopped over at ausable chasm---to tube down the river.

In other news, End of the World Production, LLC., will not be merging with anyone in the near future. One of the contracts fell through [wtf is a `last minute hiring freeze'?]. There are also apparently unforeseen complications of having a partner in an LLC as opposed to a c-Corp---like actually being "partners" in the face of the IRS and the law and not just shareholders. So, eh. Though hopefully in the next few days my would-be-partner will form "New World Production, Corp" instead (completely unrelated to my corp :-)

- Alex; Thu Aug 12 07:59:00 EDT 2010

Google pulling the plug on Google Wave. I'm kind of not surprised. Well, I'm surprised they're doing it this soon (I'd expect the product to be completely out of the media---but this is fairly recent and quick). I've never managed to figure out what exactly it is that Google Wave does... maybe that's why it failed... nobody really knew what it was...? Saying it's like email, IM, and youtube all rolled into one isn't saying much...

Decided that I'm gonna be driving in England this vacation---if I can find an automatic transmission (gear box?) car that I can rent (err..hire) outside of London :-)

- Alex; Thu Aug 5 07:02:06 EDT 2010

Booked tickets to London for a week (and daytrip to Paris)... in 2 weeks (will finally see stonehenge... :-)

Uh, oh... The Sun Unleashes CME at Earth!

- Alex; Tue Aug 3 07:55:04 EDT 2010

Saturday hiked a slice of Devil's Path... [gps path]. All in all, the terrain is more difficult than Mnt.Mansfield or Mnt.Washington; great hike!

Today went to the beach, and cut my foot on b0rken glass :-(

- Alex; Sun Aug 1 20:11:55 EDT 2010

Chances are high that End of The World Production, LLC., will merge with another corp sometime next month. The resulting corp will retain End of the World Production name, so in other words, I don't have to do a thing to the website :-)

...well, I might have to do something to the website... like revive the forum...

- Alex; Fri Jul 30 07:01:56 EDT 2010

Taking things out of context... and jumping to conclusions (and watching too much Science Channel); Solar sails: ``since light provides a small amount of thrust, this effect could be used as a form of space propulsion requiring no fuel''... ok... so imagine a universe with just 2 atoms in it, happily sitting some distance away. Forget dark matter, etc. One of the atoms is slightly excited (would't you be?), and releases a photon---that photon hits the 2nd atom, exciting that one in turn... and ``provide a small amount of thrust''???

So in a universe of just two atoms, there's a thursting force between those two atoms? Now, gravity will try to squish the two atoms together, so it creates a force to push'em together... while that action of bouncing light between'em pushes them apart. So at what point does one overtake the other? Are they perfectly balanced? (like, the two atoms will remain perfectly where they are---but then solar sails wouldn't work!). Is dark energy simply this thrust provided by every bit of the universe sending information (light) to every other bit of the universe?---it wouldn't work on small distances (like it wouldn't rip apart galaxies---those have gravitiy working for them) but between galaxies space is flat enough for this light to provide a non-substantial accelerating force... expansion of the universe?

But but but... that thursting force moves things *through* space---as far as we know, galaxies aren't moving through space---(all clocks run at the same rate---even though galaxies are accelerating away)---space itself is expanding. Or is it? What is space---the fabric of space-time?

- Alex; Thu Jul 29 07:56:08 EDT 2010

Apparently my WindowsXP is totally clean---no service packs, no updates, nothing. It works great---except now due to some beurocratic nonesense, I need to update to IE7 (my VPN won't work---'cause they disabled VPN---and now I can only use Citrix, which refuses to work right unless you have IE7---the most secure browser on the planet). Anyways, did you know that it's very difficult to *find* IE7 update anywhere? And Updating to IE8 doesn't actually work on a clean WindowsXP box... you need service packs... but... did you know... that to upgrade WindowsXP to service pack 3, you need to have installed service pack 1? And everytime you search Microsoft for a service pack, only 3 comes up? That's damn frustrating... If this is supposed to be an "easy" user experience, I dunno what Microsofties consider confusing and frustrating.

Finished reading Speaker for the Dead. Pretty damn good. Not great (not something I'd ever re-read), but very very good. Will leave the 3rd Ender book for my Hawaii vacation...

In other news, booked airplane tickets to Hawaii---for January. Plan-so-far: rent a Ford F150 from Harpers (only renter that actually lets you go "off-road" in their off-road vehicles) and drive around all the inaccessible places. Oh, and hike up Mauna Kea.

- Alex; Tue Jul 27 07:52:14 EDT 2010

If 1 million folks draw a circle, none of them really draws a "circle"---you just get a million approximations---some good ones some bad. And yet everyone concieves of and knows a "circle" when they draw their approximation.

Similarly, billions of planets, stars, black holes, etc., all approximate a sphere, and yet they're not spheres. Think about that. A black hole cannot possibly be a "sphere" since there's no such thing as a perfect sphere (PI is irrational, no way to actually "make" a perfect sphere in this universe---the black hole surface *will* have some non-smoothness (probably Plank scale) that makes it non-circular). And yet why do stars in different parts of the universe still approach the same spherical shape? A "sphere" doesn't exist as far as the universe is concerned, and yet every star approaches that shape as closely as possible.

Similarly, 1 million civilizations may build a computer, yet none of them really builds a `computer'. They'll just get millions of approximations of the universal computer---the turing machine, or the like. Physical reality does not perfmit a `computer' to be built---and yet I'm sure all those millions of civilizations that build mechanical devices to perform calculations can convieve and know what a "computer" is.

Which brings us to brains... we got billions of them---what exactly are *they* approximating? Is there some univeral model of conciousness (whatever conciousness happens to be), that all brains (including aliens!) are approximating? A roach and goldfish have some similar brain behavior (they both wanna live, and avoid being eaten or squished), and yet they're not as sophisticated as say a cat, or a dog, who have similar behavior and yet also have much much more. Same for humans---I'm assuming we're smarter than cats 'cause we can tell if it's "us" in the mirror and not some other human (who keeps staring at you, wondering how he ever got into the mirror to begin with).

What would be the key properties of this universal conciousness process? Can there be multiple distinct instances of it or is there only one that everyone approximates (e.g. can there be multiple perfect "circles", or multiple integers "7", multiple *different* universal computers?). Does it require memory? Infinite or finite memory? How complicated is the logic (you can imagine building a universal computer in a few dozen lines of ``code'' [logical expressions]). What limits its physical construction? Is there something like quantum, infinite memory, or irrational PI that limits the precision of how close a simulation of universal conciousness process we can achieve?

Not to get theological, but if you asked that universal conciousness a question, what would it answer? :-)

In other unrelated news, my 7-year-old puppy had a leg spasm; couldn't walk for much of the day; took him to the vet, who said that's probably a residual thing from his spine surgery last Fall. That's the new (abnormal) normal. Vet gave him some pain meds and said to restrict his movement for the next two weeks. Puppy seems `ok' now (the new `normal')---can get around on his own. Maybe he ran around a bit too much this weekend... eh, who knows.

World of Warcraft Can Boost Your Career. So all that time...is spent building up my career---speaking of which, guess who just got 4k gear score on freshly minted warrior this week... def and hit capped :-)

- Alex; Thu Jul 22 07:41:02 EDT 2010