These are my annotated tweets for the week of 21 September 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
2008-09-21: I finally finished listening to an audio book of The FountainHead, by Ayn Rand. I just can’t buy into Rand’s fatuous philosophy.
This was a long book, actually written pretty well. But nobody acts like that, and nobody should.
Current Bioinformatics Projects
2008-09-21: I worked 68 hours this week and managed to finish a BIG project. Now I’m only four weeks behind in my work. Postponing vacation….
I’m Too Close to My Neighbors
2008-09-22: At 4:30 AM, the next door neighbor is puking in his bathroom with the window open, waking up the entire neighborhood. So delightful….
Was it something he ate? Or was it something he drank? I still don’t know.
Autumn Running
2008-09-22: I did a good three-mile run this morning, my first run in three weeks. Autumn is perfect running weather.
I’ve been working too much lately to have time for running. Work-life balance has been difficult lately.
I’ll Always Be A Graduate Student
2008-09-23: Pizza for lunch today at work, provided by the company. My graduate student training — free food! — kicked in, so I’m still full.
When I was in graduate school at Berkeley, our lab was just down the hall from the seminar reception room. I never missed coffee and cookies at 3:30 PM on Wednesday afternoons.
Don’t Try To Do Your Own Bioinformatics Or Statistics
2008-09-24: @tharris @neilfws Too many research groups try to do their own bioinformatics and statistics without really knowing what they’re doing.
Printing Problems At Home
2008-09-24: Printing at home has become a disaster. Old HP 6MP AppleTalk printer won’t connect to network, and newer LaserJet has become unreliable.
2008-09-27: I got my old HP 6MP AppleTalk printer back on the network today by sacrificing two goats to the AsanteTalk Ethernet to LocalTalk adaptor.
We own an old HP 6MP printer that has an AppleTalk network interface. When my last Mac with an AppleTalk port died, I bought an AsanteTalk Ethernet to LocalTalk adaptor so I could plug it into the network. The adaptor is flaky and often won’t initialize itself correctly.
The solution was to disconnect the adaptor from the network and connect it directly to my MacBook Pro via the ethernet port. This let me initialize the adaptor by setting up the printer on the AppleTalk network, after which I plugged the adaptor back into the main network.
Housing Prices
2008-09-25: Housing prices are falling nationwide, but zillow.com’s model says houses in Somerville and Cambridge, Mass., are holding their value.
Anathem, By Neal Stephenson
2008-09-25: I’m the last nerd in my neighborhood to buy Anathem, written by Neal Stephenson. I’ve read 18 pages, and it’s as good as everyone says.
Somehow Leo Laporte got a copy before the publication date. Some of us just have to wait.
Registration Fees For Races
26-Sep-2008: active.com is unpleasantly greedy. They increased their processing fee when I made an extra contribution while registering for a race.
I registered for the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5k, and I decided to contribute an extra $100. active.com increased the registration fee for the contribution; they must work on a percentage basis.
Beer As A Cure
2008-09-26: I felt crummy all day at work. Tonight we went out for beers and now I feel fine. If only I could have had a beer at 10:00 a.m….
Learning JavaScript
2008-09-27: I need to learn JavaScript for a project I’m working on. The question is, which JavaScript library to use? jQuery looks promising.
September 28 2008 | Microblog | Comments Off
These are my annotated tweets for the week of 14 September 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.
Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
2008-09-14: I’m reading Brideshead Revisited before I watch the PBS miniseries. Next is Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, recommended by my wife.
The reviews I read for the new movie of Brideshead Revisited recommended that we watch the PBS miniseries instead. Somehow, I never saw it when it first came out, so I recently bought the series on DVD.
iTunes Genius
2008-09-14: The iTunes 8 Genius feature is going to cost me a lot of money. It keeps finding good songs I’m surprised I don’t already own.
I’m sure that’s the idea.
Slashdot Notices Stack Overflow
2008-09-16: slashdot.org finally noticed stackoverflow.com today, but the original poster didn’t even have the courtesy to get the story correct.
Two-Finger Scrolling
2008-09-18: I’m a Mac, not a PC. I keep trying to scroll my Windows PC with two fingers on the touch pad, but it never works.
And it never will….
Richard Owczarzy
2008-09-18: I spent the day reading papers about how to calculate the Tm of DNA oligos. Richard Owczarzy et al. at IDT do really nice science.
Twitter Has Changed
2008-09-18: Twitter just changed its format. I thought it was bugs until I saw the box that says, “Notice something different? Read about the changes.”
EMBOSS Site Is Hosed
2008-09-19: What’s going on with EMBOSS at sourceforge.net? The site is serving text/x-server-parsed-html files; Firefox chokes on these.
60-Hour Weeks
2008-09-19: So two weeks ago, my manager said he didn’t want me working 60-hour weeks. Since then, it has been, yes, 60-hour weeks.
I’m trying to finish a big project.
Steal This Idea
2008-09-20: GUI windows need a button that maximizes the height of the window without maximizing the width of the window, to enhance readability.
Sometimes I want taller but not wider windows.
Gloria
2008-09-20: I’m listening to 14 different versions of Gloria. Best is by Popa Chubby, but other covers are excellent, too.
I went on a binge and bought these a few months ago on iTunes. But somehow I don’t have the original by Van Morrison.
September 21 2008 | Microblog | Comments Off
These are my annotated tweets for the week of 7 September 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.
Tropical Storm Hannah
2008-09-07: We had lots of rain (although not as much as originally predicted) but no damage from the passing of tropical storm Hannah.
Programming With R
2008-09-07: I’ve been reading Software for Data Analysis: Programming With R. At last, I understand functional programming as implemented by R.
2008-09-08: More systems administration today on our Linux box. I compiled and installed R 2.7.2 after compiling and installing external prerequisites.
Software for Data Analysis: Programming With R was written by John M. Chambers, the principal designer of the S programming language, of which R is a dialect. For me, at least, this book replaces the old S Programming by W. N. Venables and B. D. Ripley, which did not cover R adequately. Chambers provides a good explanation of how functional programming works, and this made it instantly clear to me why I was writing some of my code incorrectly; I was not following the functional programming paradigm.
Star Stryder Banned By Google
2008-09-08: I can’t find Star Stryder’s web site using Google, but Yahoo has it. For once, Yahoo has a better search engine than Google.
It turned out that Star Stryder’s site had been hacked, and Google had banned her site because of the keywords present in the hacked material. Now that she has cleaned up her site, she has to wait for Google to review it and re-enter it into their indexes, which could take weeks.
I enjoy Star Stryder’s blog, podcasts, and tweets.
BBEdit Upgrade
2008-09-09: 9 days after paying $30 to upgrade BBEdit to 9.0, I got an email saying that since I was a recent buyer of 8.5, my free upgrade was ready.
Well, BBEdit is still worth it.
iPod touch or iPod nano?
2008-09-09: Decisions, decisions…. Do I buy the new iPod touch or the new iPod nano? I’m disappointed, though, that there’s no new MacBook Pro.
I need a new iPod once my iPod mini dies (and its battery lasts only about six hours now), and my wife needs a new MacBook Pro for her business.
Documentation for RPM Package Management
2008-09-10: Neighbors woke me up by being noisy, so I’m reading documentation about the RPM package management software. Good documentation is sparse.
It’s easier for me to compile from the source code than it is to use RPM. I need to figure this out so I can save time.
Scary Intersection in Cambridge
2008-09-10: The intersection of Sidney St. and Mass. Ave. in Cambridge is scary now that the reconfiguration is finished. Someone is going to get hurt.
I was watching this intersection while sitting outside with friends at The Asgard. Many drivers were running red lights and making illegal turns or going straight ahead in the right turn only lane. This is not to mention the foolhardy bicyclists, who typically break every traffic law while riding.
I Live Too Close To My Neighbors
2008-09-13: It’s 3:49 am. Who are all these people driving up our street, parking, slamming car doors, and talking loudly? Hey! I know where you live!
Get off my lawn!
Jobs at 454
2008-09-13: Received from a friend who just started a new bioinformatics job at 454: A list of 40 open positions there. I already have a good job….
Beatles on iTunes — When?
2008-09-13: What happened to all those rumors about the Beatles’ catalogue becoming available on iTunes? Still not there…. It’s OK — I own the CDs.
I’ve owned the Beatles on vinyl, cassette tapes, and now CDs.
Berkeley Alumni
2008-09-13: I went for a long walk in the city today wearing my Berkeley T-shirt. I was greeted by two strangers, Berkeley alumni. “Go Bears!” indeed.
The Berkeley Alumni Association is really big on the football games. I hated the football games because on game day students couldn’t park on campus. Since I worked in lab every Saturday, on game day I’d have to take BART instead of drive.
September 14 2008 | Microblog | Comments Off
These are my annotated tweets for the week of 31 August 2008. Follow my microblog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/conrad_halling, then come here for the expanded version.
Data Visualization
2008-08-31: NY Times article about IBM’s many-eyes data visualization site.
The human brain can pick out patterns from visual data that a computer can’t see yet. But we’re limited to three dimensions. Eventually, computers will “visualize” multidimensional data in ways that we can’t. I predict this will lead to scientific breakthroughs.
Moving Day in Boston
2008-08-31: This is the weekend everyone in Boston moves. It’s a shame that I’m so “busy” that I don’t have time to help my friends and relatives.
Hurricane Gustav Disrupts Republican National Convention
2008-09-01: The silver lining in Gustav’s cloud and big break for McCain: Speeches by Bush and Cheney at Republican National Convention are canceled.
I despise Bush and Cheney and everything they stand for.
Perl Programming
2008-09-01: It’s a holiday, so of course I’m working. Today I’ve been writing three new Perl modules from scratch. It’s boring writing accessor methods.
2008-09-02: w00t! I solved a programming problem today using recursion. Some days I wish I had more formal training in software engineering.
Lights Out In Boston
2008-09-03: It’s about time we quit wasting energy lighting the interiors of skyscrapers at night. Lights out in Boston.
Light pollution is horrible here; I can see only the brightest stars at night.
Journal Club
2008-09-03: I just finished getting ready for tomorrow’s journal club. I read several extra papers for background, and I prepared 26 slides.
I like to provide lots of background before I get to the hard stuff.
Systems Administration
2008-09-05: I’ve been doing systems administration this week. I installed EMBOSS 6.0.1 yesterday; today I set up a subversion server.
A bioinformatician wears many hats.
Twitter Is Improving
2008-09-05: Twitter is improving. I have seen no fail whales for many weeks now. And today I could read 14 pages of tweets instead of 10.
Traumatized by Education
2008-09-06: Early this morning I had one of those recurring dreams where I’m taking a final exam but I don’t know most of the answers.
Programming with R
2008-09-06: Today I purchased Software for Data Analysis: Programming with R, by John M. Chambers. This book is an up-to-date guide to R programming.
September 07 2008 | Microblog | Comments Off
