Cranial Meltdown

Not that I update this much, but...

Sun, 4 Mar 2012 12:46:11 CST

I figured I should update it. I've been busy busy busy. I'm learning Objective C and programming iPhone apps now: kind of ugly simplistic ones, but sometimes they actually turn out to be halfway useful.

I developed one called JobTortoise that plays off of jobtortoise.com (my academic job search site). Nothing extravagant, but it allows you to keep track of search agents (sets of keywords to search for) and saved job lists (any number of them), and lets you email selected jobs from either of these lists any time you want. Basically it's useful for browsing new jobs on the go (bus, between classes, during office hours, waiting on a prof, etc) and then sit down and investigate/apply later when you have more time.

I'm now working on a geographic alarm app that will let you set alerts to wake you up when you get near to bus stops, locations along a road trip, or just walking down the street. Not sure how marketable it'll be, but it's a fun way to learn about mapping and explore the various features and tools so more.

As I program these, however, I'm also realizing that, although there are definitely good times to actually program an app per se, many applications out there would actually make just as much sense as well-crafted web sites with mobile-friendly web layouts.

How to push your journalism career off a cliff:

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:49:20 CDT

Alyssa Bereznak, an intern for Gizmodo, wrote a pretty harsh article about a disappointing OkCupid date with the world champion of Magic: The Gathering (MTG). Why is this problematic? Well for one thing, she was just plain mean. Without any substantial explanation of any other shortcomings, she describes her disappointment to find out that he engages in this activity, and follows up with an article on a popular web site in which she ridicules his interest and lumps him into a broader group of "nerds"before making generally negative comments about them. She goes so far as to imply that he should have disclosed this activity in advance, as if it were a child from a previous marriage or something.

Sadly, even more damaging to her career is the fact that she posted this article on a site that is popular among exactly the demographic that she lumped her date into while making broad-reaching negative statements about nerds in general, bringing her a lot more negative media attention than she probably expected. In fact, it turns out that even some folks at Gizmodo weren't exactly happy with the article, which may be why she's now a 'former' Gizmodo intern.

Correction: According to her Twitter stream, her internship simply ended, and she wasn't fired. Oh well. I'm curious where she'll land next.

Life since Spring

Thu, 4 Aug 2011 09:38:12 CDT

Since I actually took the time to post something again, I thought I'd follow up with a life update, just for the record (as if anyone really reads this):

I live in North Carolina again: I got a job as an Applications Analyst at UNC, and I'm doing a ton of object-oriented PHP and JavaScript lately. It's fun. The product isn't a barrel of laughs (medical terminology lookups), but the code behind it is challenging and fun.

And the $22,000 raise wasn't exactly a disappointment.

I had my thyroid removed April 27. In addition to feeling 1000% better (I can breathe normally, don't lose my breath nearly as often, have slightly lower blood pressure and feel less anxious), it also made my relationship skyrocket: she dropped everything and took care of me despite some serious frustration and stress of her own, and I learned to calm the fuck down about my own reservations and worries. I'm going to marry the shit out of her.

I haven't been running much, so I've dropped back down to suffering through 3-milers instead of coasting through 6, but I'm back on a diet and exercise routine that I'm very happy with (work keeps me distracted anyway), and I want to get back down to where I was last spring (I'd lost 35+lbs, but gained 15 back). I HAVE been swimming regularly, so I haven't been a complete bum... but I'm afraid my low thyroxine, combined with a little more eating and a little less exercise, contributed to some weight gain for a while. I'm on a more appropriate dose now, exercising regularly, and eating reasonably, so I'm optimistic that I can comfortably return to what was starting to feel like a much healthier weight and fitness level.

Other than that? Hmm... older brother's in Ireland (again) - no idea what the hell he thinks he's doing... avoiding responsibility? Younger brother got a PhD in Math (Topology) from UCLA and moved to Houston for a job at Rice with his new wife.

Things are a-changin'.

In North Carolina? Actually reading this? Look me up.

JavaScript Currying

Wed, 3 Aug 2011 10:27:36 CDT

Being event-driven and more than a little finicky about running through coded instructions without much of a way to pause and wait in any regular way, getting event listeners right in JavaScript can be a little tricky. I had to learn about function currying to achieve a few things for a a project involving reordering within multiple sets that I'm working on at work. It's really useful: you pass not only the function to call and the arguments, but also the scope on which to interpret 'this', so that you can simple refer to "this.whatever" within your arguments and rely on them to work when it's actually called. Take a look at the jsCurry code in the JavaScript in the example listed above. Super simple, yet super useful.

(Been a LONG time since I've posted anything, eh?)

I wrote this on someone's wall, and thought I'd post it here for the record too.

Mon, 23 May 2011 07:25:09 CDT

It's not terribly refined, but it's my first gut reaction to a Facebook post that included the quote: "..Camping's false prophecy could have bigger impacts on religion. It's given people who hate Christianity an excuse to hate it even more," she said. "People can just paint with broad brush strokes."

We non-believers don't get to have the comfort that believers do of assuming that the other guys will realize their error when they die, because we don't necessarily rely on a scenario after death in which someone will have that chance. So perhaps we feel some (possibly childish?) desire to preemptively take out our "I told you so's" in smaller, more frequent increments rather than waiting for life ever-after. Anyway, I didn't exactly "hate Christianity" to begin with. Sure, I don't think I've kept it a secret that I think it's silly to believe something so specific based on millenia-old literature composed by man, but this incident hardly makes me "hate" anyone, much less a broader group of Christians who largely didn't even buy into this prediction. If anything, it just strengthens my resolve that faith is a fallible social product of mythology, and makes me feel sorry for the people who have recently had to learn the hard way that sometimes man can lie, even when he's talking about God. THAT's the lesson that I hope Christians (or any strong believer in a specific religion) will take with them as time continues to tick by after May 21: man can lie, and you have probably only really heard any detail about God through man. To be 100% resolute in your faith is your choice. To judge us by it, or expect us to invent our own faith based on your words is to assume that you can't, as man, lie about God� and this recent news blatantly contradicts that assumption. In other words, the failure of the rapture to happen doesn't prove it won't. It simply chisels away at the already weak base of evangelism.

Pastor Jed Pwnd?

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:57:43 CDT

Wait for it... (audio file):

The most important local issue facing us today, and a proposed solution.

Wed, 9 Mar 2011 11:15:26 CST

This is one of many reasons why I hate 9 out of 10 recruiters.

Wed, 9 Feb 2011 08:02:34 CST

Good Morning,

I feel you may be a good fit for a Sr. ColdFusion Development position with one of our direct clients in McHenry, Illinois. This is a 3 month contract to hire position with an enterprise level corporation. Please review the job description and corresponding requirements listed below. If you would like to move forward with this opportunity, please respond to this email with your updated, Word formatted resume...

Hi,

Thanks for your message. This looks like it could be pretty appropriate. Can I get some information about the industry and the anticipated pay rate?
Here's my most up-to-date resume:
http://thewebdevelopment.com/resume/jetweedy_resume.doc

Thanks

Jonathan

Jonathon,

Based on your updated resume, I do not feel that this position is a strong match for your skill set and background. The client is looking for a resource that has focused the last 5-7 years on ColdFusion development. I will keep you in mind for future positions. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Regards,
(Typical clueless recruiter)

Wait... so you contact me... presumably based on my Dice.com resume indicating 7 years of CF experience. I send you an updated resume indicating about 6 years of university employment (using CF), but now I'm not a strong match because you need someone who has used ColdFusion for the past 5-7 years? Please don't contact me again if you're just going to waste my time.

Fortunately there are a few that are half-decent. I'm talking to a guy in North Carolina that my aunt referred me to, and I've run across a few around Indy who seem to actually know something about web technology (like what PHP or JavaScript are, even if they don't know how to code it) and are willing to spend a few minutes looking over my resume and not just lurking on Google and Dice.com. You just have to learn to spot the bullshit in early emails so you don't waste your time with the other 90%.

The "hardest logic puzzle ever"...?

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 03:13:44 CST

There are three gods: TRUE, FALSE and RANDOM.

They answer yes/no questions as their names suggest.

Note that RANDOM will not just utter a random answer... he answers with truth or falsehood in mind based on the actual true answer. (This is somewhat significant, even though it seems like the same thing at first.)

Since they're Gods, you can imagine that they're omniscient. You can also assume that they understand your question if asked in any language, and that they will respond consistently with their name-affiliated patterns. TRUE will tell the truth, FALSE will lie, and RANDOM will, depending on the flip of a coin in his head, answer either truthfully or falsely.

Here's the catch: you don't understand their language, so you don't know what "no" and "yes" are. All you know is that they all speak the same language and all answer with the same two words for "no" and "yes".

Go crazy.

Or just cheat and look it up on Wikipedia. (But maybe try and figure it out first? It's actually not really THAT difficult if you can sort out knights and knaves, determine what color hat the woman facing the wall is wearing, etc... but not knowing their language presents a little more of a problem. You might try figuring it out without the linguistic barrier first, and then see how you might go about sorting that bit out.)

Solution?

A quick logic problem: 3 women and 5 hats

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:35:48 CST

Three women are standing facing a wall, one behind the other, and each wearing a hat. Each can see the one(s) in front of them, but not their own hats:

WALL <- WOMAN 1 <- WOMAN 2 <- WOMAN 3

WOMAN 3 knows what color hats #1 and #2 are wearing.
WOMAN 2 knows what color hat #1 is wearing.
WOMAN 1 knows nothing (yet).

Someone tells them that the collection of available hats include 3 GREEN and 2 PINK. They then ask WOMAN 3 what color she's wearing, and she answers "I don't know". They ask WOMAN 2, and she also answers that she doesn't know.

If all three woman have perfect reasoning skills (that'll be the day), and trust each other entirely (that will be the day), what color is WOMAN 1 wearing?