Matt’s Blog

There’s a lot of bad press about Vista.  Mostly consumers frustrated with inability to find support for drivers, problems with their upgrade, and some wondering what the benefit for upgrading is.  I wish I could believe that it’s a harbinger Microsoft’s future, but I doubt it.  Microsoft is to monolithic to be unseated.  What we lack is something better.  There is Apple, which is certainly capable of taking Bill’s place, but it’s really the same thing, same philosophy of computing.  Linux is kind of a step in the right direction, because it supports a standard for operating systems, letting users at least pick from different distributions, while still being able to run the software they need.  But the problem there is that it’s free.  I know that seems weird to complain about something being free, but I don’t think it will work with the philosophy that we run with our country in the long run.  I think Microsoft’s existence is the only reason it has experienced any success.  I’m certainly not saying that Microsoft helped develop Linux, it certainly didn’t, but it’s the fact that windows existed that gave people the desire to do something different.  It’s fueled the passion to bring Linux into the mainstream. If Microsoft vanished tomorrow, I would push for a commercialization of Linux distributions.  Honestly, corporations aren’t going to take anything seriously that doesn’t cost money.  It just doesn’t compute in the corporate persona.

Anyways, knowing that will definitely never happen, we need some sort of mind blowing change in the very fundamentals of computing, that makes the whole world all different, and then we need to make sure Microsoft doesn’t get a hold of it.

I spent much of the weekend installing a linux box.  I went through several iterations before I got to one that worked well, finally settling on Fedora Core 6.  And I really liked it, so I was all excited to log on to the blog and post something from the machine.  It was a rather riveting post all about the marvels of open source software.  I went on and on.  And then when I submitted it, the network just slowed way down, I don’t know if it was the box, or the web server or what, but the post vanished into the dark matter of the interwebs.  So I’m writing this from my windows laptop.  What a drag.  I’m sure I’ll figure out the problem.

I finally finished my grad school application.  It took me much longer than I expected.  Chasing down letters of recommendation would have to be my least favorite part.  I honestly don’t know if I’m going to get in.  Parts of my application are strong, but I’m afraid they aren’t the parts the college considers of greatest importance.  Hopefully I know soon one way or the other, so I can figure out what’s going to be happening in my life in the next few years. Wish me luck!

Well, I’m taking the computer science GRE tomorrow.  I haven’t studied a bit.  I had full intentions to do so, but I decided that if my full time experience in the field isn’t enough, then it’s a stupid test.

Really, I think I’ll do fine.  I did very poorly on the practice test, but that’s because I didn’t know that you’re penalized for wrong answers, so I put something down on every question, even if it was a guess.  Now I know better.  I’m kind of excited, I really like test taking.  I like a chance to prove myself and be rated among others.  It’s probably stupid.  I’m never as high as I want to be.  Maybe it’s because I never study.

Regardless of how well I do tomorrow, I don’t think it will change my life goals significantly.  I’d still really like to be doing something else, which is writing.  This little blog is about all I write, and it’s pretty pitiful.  I’ve always promised myself that I wouldn’t be one of those people who goes around saying they’re going to do something and never does it.  So I rarely talk about writing anymore, hoping one day I find some desire to actually do it.

Still, I would like to do well and have a chance at going to the University of Utah, perhaps working on the minibus there.

Wish me luck!

I stumbled upon (using StumbleUpon of course) a few articles about futurists, and one of the main ideas I found were essays about “the Singularity” Put simply, “the Singularity” is a theoretical period in time when our inventions, generally computers, become so intelligent that they are able to recreate themselves without human intervention, doing so faster and better than we ever could. Thus the time to intelligence curve becomes extremely exponential. A post singularity world would be made of the stuff of science fiction movies. Super intelligent humans (assuming we’re invited to the party) would interface their minds with computers and understand the physics of the universe with such clarity that none of the human problems that exist today would trouble us.

I have no problem with optimism, but I’m also a fan of reality. Some futurists predict singularities in a spectacularly short amoun of time. Maybe they should watch the futuristic science fiction movies of the eighties, and see if any of those predictions came true. The problem with the whole idea in my opinion, is that the whole thing is based on an exponential learning curve. Moore’s Law is no law at all, it’s already failed. Advances in computing power are going to start coming at high prices. We’re going to have to start using our brain power to maximize computer use, instead of just relying on next years processors.

No human has ever learned anything exponentially. You learn the easy things first, which feels exponential, and then things level off, and you get into the unexplored territory where you have to struggle to pick up anything, which is when most humans give up. Learning curves are logarithmic for us, and they will be for computer intelligences if we ever manage to create them.

The whole thing is kind of fun to think about, but leave it for the movies.

I worship vi.  It’s the greatest software ever written, though I’m sad to admit that it didn’t make it in the last “25 Greatest Applications Ever Written” list that I happened to stumble upon.  Alas, vi has fallen out of favor recently.  Most probie programmers coming out of college don’t even know a dd from a pp.

A friend and I have bandied around the idea of adopting the command/insert mode of vi for use at the keyboard level.  Then you could have the advantages of vi in any application!

I’ve just launched a new website, Daily Cribbage Hand

It’s just a small thing, every day it puts up a new hand, and you can submit what you think you would do with the hand. The results of the other users are shown as well, kind of like a poll. Check it out!

I recently discovered Project Gutenberg while browsing the Wikipedia. It’s a project started in 1971 by Michael Hart with the goal of creating and distributing e-texts. There are probably thousands of volunteers adding e-texts daily to it. Today there are more than 20,000 texts in the collection, and they can be browsed at gutenberg.org. I’m constantly amazed at the passion for knowledge that some people possess. The volunteers are literally typing in these books for this project. Just to make sure that they are preserved. It’s a breath of fresh air in today’s commercial jungle.

I’m writing this using the dvorak keyboard.  I am quite impressed with the layout.  The most useful keys are on home row: aoeu htns  I think I will definitely make the switch!

I only wish that the curly braces were in the same place

I was recently digging through some old files and happened across a project I did while in college. It’s a cellular automoton modeling the interactions between predator and prey. Much to my surprise, it was still functioning. The application itself is pretty fun, it lets you enter in settings for populations of prey and predator, and then runs the simulation with a graphical view. No awesome 3d graphics though, just colored dots. Download the application here: PopSimApp.zip You’ll need to install the .NET Framework 2.0 if you don’t already have it.

If you’re still interested, you can look at the source code here:  PopSimSrc.zip

And if you like pain, you can read the boring report that I wrote to go along with it: PopSimReport.zip