W

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:00:00 GMT

Yeah, gunna go see this. I think the back story of one of the more controversial Presidents in the history of the United States will be quite entertaining. Besides, [[YouTube video]]

Cuil

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:15:00 GMT

Yup. Google can take a hike. I've had a growing dislike for Google for a while and was grumbling at the lack of a suitable alternative. Yahoo!'s search is a joke and Ask is equally useless. Enter

LyX/LaTeX preamble & if only...

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:18:00 GMT

If only? If only. What a world. Some secrets and advantages aren't. Eyes wide open. At the end of the day, I'm open for business and quite happy, winner take all.Every so often I end up recreating various PDF options for \usepackage[pdftitle={Document Title},pdfauthor={First Last},bookmarks, bookmarksopen=true, bookmarksnumbered=true,colorlinks={true},linkcolor=blue]{hyperref}

Firefox 3: Release Day

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:31:00 GMT

By any definition, this is a good thing... sucks that they're effectively down, but I'm pleased to see them being crushed with demand.

How true is this?

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:10:00 GMT

The more believable reason for why bugs take a long time to get fixed.

gettimeofday(2) == bad; clock_gettime(2) == good.

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:46:00 GMT

Finally, a technical post I feel worthy of commenting on."Performance of my application changes from time(3) to gettimeofday(2). Why?"--Joe Open Source DeveloperDoh! Really common question and should be an FAQ at this point.... or it is, but an under-published FAQ that only the performance wonks seem to know or run into as an issue. In short, I wrote a % ./bench_time 9079882 | sort -rnk1 Timing micro-benchmark. 9079882 syscall iterations. Avg. us/call Elapsed Name 9.322484 84.647053 gettimeofday(2) 8.955324 81.313291 time(3) 8.648315 78.525684 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_REALTIME) 8.598495 78.073325 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_MONOTONIC) 0.674194 6.121600 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_PROF) 0.648083 5.884515 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_VIRTUAL) 0.330556 3.001412 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_REALTIME_FAST) 0.306514 2.783111 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_SECOND) 0.262788 2.386085 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_MONOTONIC_FAST) Last value from gettimeofday(2): 1212380080.620649 Last value from time(3): 1212380161 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_VIRTUAL): 2.296430000 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_SECOND): 1212380338.000000000 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_REALTIME_FAST): 1212380243.461081040 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_REALTIME): 1212380240.459788612 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_PROF): 185.560343000 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_MONOTONIC_FAST): 5747219.271879584 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_MONOTONIC): 5747216.886509281Absolutely not what I was expecting, but very interesting none-the-less. I wrote a small variation to the above program that % ./bench_clock_realtime 9079882 | sort -rnk1 clock realtime micro-benchmark. 9079882 syscall iterations. Avg. us/call Elapsed Name 9.317078 84.597968 gettimeofday(2) 8.960372 81.359120 time(3) 8.776467 79.689287 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_REALTIME) 0.332357 3.017763 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_REALTIME_FAST) 0.311705 2.830246 clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_SECOND) Value from time(3): 1212427374 Last value from gettimeofday(2): 1212427293.590511 Equal: 0 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_SECOND): 1212427460.000000000 Equal: 9079878 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_REALTIME_FAST): 1212427457.656410126 Equal: 9078198 Last value from clock_gettime(2/CLOCK_REALTIME): 1212427454.639076390 Equal: 0 % irb >> tot = 9079882 => 9079882 >> eq = 9078198 => 9078198 >> tot - eq => 1684 >> time = 3.017763 => 3.017763 >> (tot - eq) / time => 558.029242190324

The Machine is Us/ing Us.

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:25:00 GMT

Probably my favorite online video.[[YouTube video]]

Weezer

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:41:00 GMT

Excellent satire. Props to all the geeks and nerds that were geeks and nerds before it became chic.[[YouTube video]]w00t

SHDH 25...

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:30:50 GMT

"OMFG, Sun has turned SHDH into a Chuck E. Cheese for blowhard wannabe programmers.... this is Slashdot in real life."--Yours truly, 2008-05-17Brilliant on Sun's part, it really is, but the event has been ruined for those who don't give two shits about free food, Wii games, or other knickknacks/musings at Sun's EBC. If I had the opportunity to talk with Jonathan Schwartz, I imagine it'd go something along the lines of, "what's it like to manage the expectations of a company that's competing in a shrinking market place and attempting to sell commodity goods?" It may be gruesome in the marketplace for Sun, but watching engineers play Wii in their EBC will certainly solve whatever fundamental problems Sun has, I'm sure of it. Kinda. Ok, kinda not. Brilliant marketing/advertising, however. Life moves on, status quo. Sun's still on a path of self destruction. Roasted dolphin, anyone?

World's coming to an end: Hell froze over...

sean@chittenden.org (Sean Chittenden) — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:36:00 GMT

Let me throw some political commentary out for enjoyment now that it appears Bush has lost what weight he had left and I've had a chance to agree with individuals I historically disagree with. First, the painful statement. I agree with Bush's desire to veto the farm/food bill, yet disagree with Schwarzenegger's plan to either raise sales taxes or to attempt to increase the performance of California's lottery. Despite them both sharing an (R) after their name, I put those two people on opposite sides of the isle. Generally speaking, I think pretty favorably of Schwarzenegger and have less than pleasant thoughts of Bush, but given this week I found myself disagreeing where I normally agree and visa versa.The Lottery is a tax on people who never took statistics. Having the state's top elected official openly try and promote flawed spending habits isn't a good message to send to the public. Ugh. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The only redeeming thought that I've had is that Schwarzenegger knows he's "selling" lemon asset that won't perform better, in which case it's brilliant. Problem with that being, both the sales tax increase and the lottery target the lower end of the economic spectrum. Doh. Back to thinking it's a bad idea. Were there no alternative ways to help fund the rainy-day fund (a very good idea, however)?Then, the food/farm bill. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad... and yet I find myself thinking the same things that Bush is saying (I can't think of more painful words to write). How's this for an idea: Bush should come to California and buy a lottery ticket thereby fulfilling his role as an intelligent role model while he still holds the office of President of the United States of America. After all, this President is largely known for doing and not thinking, so it would seem fitting to have Schwarzenegger give 'ole Bushy a call and say, "can you do me a favor and come buy a lottery ticket on camera?" An uneducated guess on my part suggests that the lottery does better in Red States, which means this photo op would likely poll for a 2-5 point bump to Bush approval rating and would possibly generate new tax revenue. Actually, how cool would it be to see W as the spokesman for the lottery? That would be weapons grade fail and would perfectly suit my image of Bush.And then, the political highlight of my week. A perfect example of the demon spawn that has taken over AM radio. I give you Kevin James, a new Internet phenomena (at least he'd better be).[[YouTube video]]The scariest part? I bet this Kevin guy has decent ratings.Let me half-heartedly examine both sides of Kevin and attempt to defend his actions (and fail, btw). I only remembered Chamberlain's name, not