I’m thinking of going back to school to get a master’s, in computer science. I didn’t think I would after I finished undergraduate; I was burnt out from Rice, and I thought a master’s in CS would just be overly theoretical, rather than something I could use on the job. But now, I can get some of the tuition paid, so I figure, why not. After working for a few years,  I’ve a little bit of an idea what might be useful to study. When I read how many problems we face in the future: cybersecurity threats, environmental crises, advent of the driverless car, etc,  I feel like it would be a good idea to be a bit more educated and useful. Perhaps it increases my chances of not ending up in a job where I’m just making webpages and enterprise software; nothing wrong with that, just not what I’m interested in. I’m still trying to steer clear of programs that are more abstract than practical. So, while University of Chicago might be highly ranked, I don’t know if their department is necessarily more practical-based than others in Chicago. I’d be happy going to, say, DePaul, if it’s convenient and flexible and not as competitive as Rice was.

Meanwhile, I’ve been sinking into hobbies, since I have a job with pretty good hours. My Friday evening de-stressor is to try to pick up something on my keyboard. One evening I’ll do a preliminary sight reading, the next week I’ll practice over and over and do a little bit of improvising, and 3rd week I’ll try to commit  to memory. I can do U2, Elton John, and the Police. I can also do retro game music (which, yes, I know is geeky). Here’s a rudimentary attempt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr-E7LUBsFI. Sound/video quality isn’t good, and my play still need quite a bit of polishing, so hopefully I can upload a better one in the future. This video was just taken with my smartphone; I’m thinking of getting a better HD camcorder, as well as a microphone and some proper lighting. I may need a better keyboard as well. This weekend, I’m trying out Adobe Premier, for video editing. I’ll start by editing out the mistakes in this video, and then see what other effects I can play with. I’ve been looking at the making-of videos for some of the web shows I like, like Angry Video Game Nerd and Nostalgia Critic, to see what I can do. I might try doing my own video reviews. As I gradually pick up the skills and tools, I’ll post more updates and videos on this blog, documenting my progress.

I’ve been going on OkCupid on and off since my time in Chicago. For me, it’s really more about just meeting more people and having a good time, than trying to find  my future wife. Some people are like,”Abhi, don’t do OkCupid, you should meet people at a bar or something”. That is the more traditional and cooler way. But I see the idea of online dating as more efficient. While I probably won’t decide someone is a soulmate just by reading her profile, I can sort out the people that are obviously bad matches pretty quickly. I don’t  have a lot of dealbreakers, since I’m pretty laid back, but there are still a few. Like, if a girl was all “Palin for President 2012!!” or “let’s ban vaccines – they cause autism”, that might be a red flag. And that kind of stuff might come up in the profile, whereas trying to meet someone at a bar, it might not come up till the 3rd date. Plus, I can control that crucial first impression. Meeting someone at a bar, the first impression will always be that I look like I’m 14, something I can de-emphasize on OkCupid, while emphasizing my personality.

So,that’s in a nutshell what’s been going on with me as of late. If you’re interested in catching up with me, shoot me an email!

But, like all long-running American TV shows, things got a bit silly. This last season was a mess. Cliche religious nutjobs played took the role of the villain of the year. Filler subplots abounded (hey, we have to know what’s happening between Angel’s little nanny sister and Masuka’s creepy intern!!!). Dexter is basically just Batman now, as opposed to the twisted borderline sociopath of before. The plot always seemed to want to go in an interesting direction, like the return of Dexter’s brother, only to puss out in the end. And, those voiceovers, damn, those voiceovers. They were awesome earlier when they were more sardonically funny, and Dexter himself was an unreliable narrator.  Now, the voiceovers arejust saying what’s there, and along with the ghost of Dexter’s dad harping on him, there’s this constant barrage of exposition on-screen.

While that ending (if unearned) seemed to take the show in a very exciting direction, I’m kind of dreading how it actually turns out. I half-expect season 7 to start off something like this.

DEB: Fucking grandma cock balls fuck, Dexter, you sick fuck.
DEXTER: This isn’t what it looks like, I can explain…
VOICEOVER: How am I going to explain that I just killed Travis?
DEB: Oh, no need to. Everyone at Miami Metro Homicide has known this for a looong fucking time.
VOICEOVER: Could it be? Could they know about my dark passenger? Could they know that I am a serial killer who hides in plain sight?
DEXTER: Known about what?
VOICEOVER: I need to know just how much she knows.
DEB: We know you’ve been killing these bad guys! Do you honestly think we’re that stupid? You’d have to be a fucking idiot not to see it. You don’t think we’d noticed you missing at sea the same day Travis does a tableau at sea? That we’d never put two and two together over the Trinity Killer and you? Ice Truck Killer and you?
VOICEOVER: So she knows. It seems that my dark passenger is not so hidden after all.
DEXTER: Why didn’t you say something? Why did you let me continue to do this?
VOICEOVER: I need to know why they didn’t say something, why they didn’t interfere.
DEB: Holy shitballs on a cracker, you have to ask? No trial, no paperwork. We can drink and fuck everyone else in that department because we know you are out here doing this. Speaking of which, I’m running out of coworkers to fuck, and I’m choosing you over the chubby Latina guy with a lisp and the creepy Asian. So, fuck me … literally
VOICEOVER: that means she wants to have sex with me.
DEXTER: Uhhh, yeah, I’d be up for that.
GHOST OF HARRY MORGAN: Now, Dexter, are you sure you want to do this?
DEXTER: I do …
GHOST OF HARRY MORGAN: This isn’t part of the code, Dex.
DEXTER: This isn’t about the code. This is about what I want to do.
VOICEOVER: At last, I can be who I want to be. Perhaps the mask can finally come off.
GHOST OF ICE TRUCK KILLER: *appears on Dexter’s left shoulder, wearing a devil costume* Kill her, Dexter. Strike her down in all your hatred!
GHOST OF DOAKES: *appears on Dexter’s other shoulder, wearing an angel costume and halo* Surprise, motherfucker!

In the last year or two, after it got particularly bad, I put some conscious effort into controlling it. This means just being determined, and always having it on the back of your mind, during every conversation. I have to pay attention to my arms and lock them in place, before they spin out of control. I have to keep myself from thinking that what’s coming out of my mouth is unimportant, even when it’s small talk. Sometimes, I’d practice by videotaping myself with my webcam, and give a conversational-style speech, the kind I’d have with a cute girl, or my boss. I’d speak slower, and that would keep my body relaxed. I did not do the King’s Speech technique of putting headphones over my ears while I’m talking, but maybe I should try that sometime; it could work. My brother helped me through a lot and gave me some guidance.

It did work, for a while. I felt … normal, happier. I started to think I had conquered the problem for good, and that I’d just broken some bad habits, and wouldn’t have to exert myself so much now. But this month, I’ve had a lot of stressful situations, and made some tough decisions; my mind has been elsewhere, and I’ve gotten lax on controlling myself. So my body goes haywire, like I’m being electrocuted. I don’t think it’s a lack of confidence, though it appears that way; I actually think I have worthwhile things to say to people. It’s probably just general anxiety and deep-rooted habits. There’s not going to be an easy answer, other than continued attention, care, and vigilance. I know that well by know; when faced with some deficiency (as we all have), you just have to constantly work a little harder to compensate.

I haven’t really talked about this with many people, but I think so many people notice by now, I might as well air it out and explain my behavior to people. My apologies to those who have to put up with these bad habits of mine, and much thanks to those who can look past it.

The idea excites and intrigues me. I think it’s in our not-too-distant future. We’re already subtly transitioning into it, with increasingly smart cars with the latest collision avoidance technology. This technology is actually making a difference. Automobile-related deaths are going down each year (though still unacceptably high).

And yet, when I bring it up with people, they seem hesitant and not really eager. Well, this is American, land of NASCAR and sprawling suburbs, and car culture is so ingrained in our psyche. You’re not truly a man until you own a car that you can pick up your date with. Vroom. This is probably the biggest roadblock to the driverless car becoming adopted. Still, at the very least, it’ll probably spread like wildfire in places like Europe or Japan, where it’s a bit more socially acceptable to take public transportation. And perhaps when insurance companies realize how safe driverless cars are, the insurance rates of people-driven cars will skyrocket, making the driverless car more appealing.

There’s a bit of a morbid, dehumanizing attitude we have towards driving, how easily we accept 40,000 deaths a year in the US, because driving is just such a necessity, without even thinking of possible solutions. Even people who do get injured in an accident, will accept it. You think they’d have some PTSD crippling fear of getting into a car ever again, but a couple months after their neck heals, they’ll be back behind the wheel. If the city has no public transportation, they really have no other choice. I still drive when I’m visiting  the south and have to rent a car. In many movies (especially Indian films), a fatal car crash usually occurs to represent an act of God/fate/destiny, rather than something that could have been prevented.

Admittedly, it’s a bit odd and contradictory that I love the idea and yet despise a nanny state that would place security over personal liberty. After all, I think airport security should be drastically reduced to just a single walk-through metal detector, and I think we shouldn’t restrict nuclear power despite the fears over Fukushima. You just have to take these risks on a case-by-case basis. A meltdown is an acceptable (and tiny) risk, given our drastically dwindling fossil fuels, until renewables catch up. Airport security makes little difference, as long as you lock the cockpit door. But the sheer number of fatal accidents every year is IMO a very high price next to the fun and freedom of driving a car. Call me anti-freedom if you must. Most people don’t even enjoy commuting that much anyway.

I guess there’s personal bias. I kind of hated growing up in the suburbs, isolated from the rest of the city, not being able to go there on my own. I’m clumsy and uncoordinated, and have poor reflexes, and one-eye vision. I can barely get through a day without running into a wall, or bumping my leg on my coffee table. Makes me believe the human body wasn’t naturally designed to operate 2 tons of steels flying at 60 miles per hour. And the number of texting drivers out there is a good argument that many people are too goddamn  stupid to be allowed to drive.

Nowadays, we consider life 200 years ago to be harsh, brutal, and barbaric, because the lack of vaccinations made most people die early deaths from disease. Maybe, similarly, in a hundred years, we’ll consider today’s society similarly harsh because we had to drive.

Presenting the Walt Disney Pantheon of Short Male Comic-Relief Emasculated Buffoons:

Then, Shrek by Dreamworks came along, with it’s short Micahel-Eisner – like villain with a Napoleon complex.  And while this could be seen as contradicting Shrek’s whole message about beauty being on the inside, I tend to think it was just satire on the Disney short-male stereotype. The guy who just can’t accept himself for who he is, unlike the good guys.

Darn it, Disney!

This is an incredibly true statement, and it applies very much to the current firestorm over Netflix. Recently, Netflix has been making some foolish business decisions, no doubt, splitting it’s dvd-by-mail service into a separate company, and a somewhat large price hike recently. But more striking than Netflix’s shortsightedness is the over-the-top negativity of the customer base and the public as a whole. Stock  prices plummeting, vitriolic letters to CEO Reed Hastings, people threatening to cancel their service in indignant outrage!

Let’s put things in a bit of perspective. Sure, people have to pay more that before, by now paying for 2 separate plans, while before, we were getting streaming practically for free. The price of the DVD-only plan will now be $11.99 / month, unlimited, 2 out at a time. However, in 2006, when I first joined Netflix, I had to pay $14.99 / month, unlimited, 2 out at a time, and there was no streaming at that time. So, people are actually bitching about the price of something that’s actually significantly cheaper now than it was, 5 years ago. Does that seem a little ridiculous to you?

Streaming itself is still incredible value. I don’t think people realize how good they have it now. When I first graduated from college in 2006, being a TV junkie, I might have wanted to spend a month watching season 4 of King of the Hill, Firefly: The Complete Series, and 1 movie on each Friday night. If I wanted to do this legally, I’d have to get the 3-at-a-time deal or buy the box sets and DVD’s from Amazon,which would be pretty expensive. Now I can do that for $8 a month. Oh, and watch any episode of Futurama, Arrested Development, LOST, The Office, etc, etc.

Is having 2 plans inconvenient? Yes. But let’s flash back to 1995. I wanted to watch a movie, I might first call the library to see if a movie is available. Probably not. So then, I’d have to get my parents to drive to Blockbuster, and hope the movie was there, and if not, then I’d have to choose something else. Then I’d have to wait in line. Then my dad would complain about having to pay $5 for a rental.  Then we’d drive back. Then, after watching, I’d have to put it in my to-do list to make another trip to Blockbuster to return the DVD by the return deadline. My point is, let’s stop gnashing our teeth for 5 minutes, stop fucking whining, and think about how goddamn ridiculously good we have things nowadays.

I don’t even think this is that a bad idea; just an idea that was jumped on too soon before streaming had the chance to become so widespread. If we’re going to blame somebody, why not the dinosaur content providers that have been making it difficult for Netflix to secure reasonable deals?

Criticism of corporate policies is all well and good, but this seems more than that. The outrage is more our own sense of spoiled self-entitlement, how much we hate change in general,  and our expectation that the whole world bends to our whims and desires.

This was absolutely a tragic incident. I’ll give a moment of silence to the 3000 New Yorkers who perished that day. However, while I do that, it’s only fair to also give a moment of silence to hundreds of thousands of dead civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, who died over the past 10 years in the bombings, drone attacks, and ground warfare that resulted from our reaction to 9/11. It’s not just a single attack anymore; it’s been a decade-wide conflict full of senseless deaths.

Hopefully with the 10th anniversary passed, the media can move on and stop reminiscing every year, instead of treating this like an open wound that will never heal, in all its cloying sentimentality. Instead of talking about how things have changed forever since the attacks, why not talk about changing a few things back?

The US media and leaders does like to display an awful lot of victimhood and hubris to the rest of the world, when this should be a quiet day of mourning to those who actually lost someone close in the attacks. The whole Park 51 debacle last year was a perfect example of this. Some people were offended by the idea of a symbol of Islam close to Ground Zero. Well, I did some research on Google Maps, and found there were about a dozen McDonalds locations in Hiroshima, and dozen more locations in Nagasaki, a couple of them a few blocks from where the bombs detonated. Didn’t hear of any controversy over those. If the Japanese are OK with these symbols of American capitalism over where their people were killed by Americans (justified or not), then Americans should be OK with a mosque / Islamic center next to Ground Zero.

Personally, I do do some code hacking outside of work, and have a couple of little projects in the pipeline, but not as much as a lot of other software developers might. Many times, when I get home from work, the very last thing I want to do is look at another line of code, for the rest of the evening. Does this mean I’m not a true programmer at heart? Even though I’ve already dedicated my entire career to programming? I do have a lot of free time on the weekends. But there are other hobbies I like to pursue. I like to spend the time biking along the lake, reading books, playing/writing music on the keyboard, writing silly blog posts, traveling, watching/nitpicking loads of movies, and even on occasion socialize. And that’s not even taking into account the time I’ll eventually fall in love with someone, and have to take care of kids (why do you think I keep delaying this?). There’s little time left to work on pet projects without sacrifices, and I’m wary of the idea of being a 1-note computer programmer. Basically, I’m skeptical of the idea that a software developer absolutely [i]must[/i] partake in outside work, though it’s admirable if they do; it is possible for someone to be a wiz programmer in his day job, but still see it as nothing but his day job. Like the dentist who’s good at his job, but doesn’t treat people for free outside of work.

Still,  I really do want to be more involved in the open-source community, and I’ve recognized the benefits of doing so. Many software developers are inherently creative people, and many developer jobs, while satisfying the programming itch, stifles some of the creativity. The software developer has to stick rigidly to the requirements determined by the client or managers; even the code architecture is often determined by the tech lead. He often doesn’t have a say in which technology/language to use, and in the worst case, is bound to a language he knows isn’t appropriate for the project. Pet projects are a good way to pursue programming interests that would make lousy career choices, such as game development. The developer gets a better understanding of the balance between usability and well-written code. Sometime I think that programming would have sufficed as a fun hobby (on the side of, say, becoming a doctor), rather than my whole career.

As someone who sometimes finds difficulty mustering up the motivation to keep coding, I’ve found it helps to kill as many birds with one stone as possible, to make me feel I’m really accomplishing something with my pet project. I decide on a language that I anticipate might pop up on the job or prospective jobs, say, Ruby. I start up an appropriate Ruby project, and read the books side-by-side as I program. I then tailor my project based on whatever my hobbies are at the moment. This makes me feel like, through programming, I am complementing my other interests, rather than interfering with them. So, as an example, if I am into playing/writing music for my keyboard, I could write a graphical program to ease the process of writing the music. There are probaby already programs for that on the Internet, but most of these programs are not very usable (after all; they’re open source), which means there’s lots of room to expand on them, even if the idea isn’t original. And then aim anything working that can be added to a portfolio for upcoming jobs.

Just some things I am trying to keep in mind for the following weekend. That is, if I don’t end up having a weekend viewing marathon of LOST. :p

Don’t think it even had anything to do with ethics. I downloaded plenty in college, when all the income from summer and part-time work went to essentials, and I didnt want to be completely culturally illiterate. Now,  when there’s the option to download legally and cheaply on ITunes, I still don’t have much desire to. I always prefer having the hard copy. I still download music since I haven’t yet returned to the habit of CD-collecting, but I am glad to have TV/movies on my DVD bookcase.

When it comes to, say, music, I think some of the songs I really liked when I was younger were ones that I grew to like slowly.  Not necessarily the most accessible ones, but ones that took many listens to get into. After spending money and time to get the songs, I felt like I wanted to get my money’s worth,  so I’d listen to the songs over and over.

Nowadays,  I download music, but when I give a cursory listen and don’t like it straight away, it’s easy to let it just vanish into the hundreds of other songs on my hard drive, and just move on to the next song on ITunes. Even if they’re probably great songs that might have been my favorites had I devoted the attention to it.

It’s kind of a downloading culture of instant gratification. Why feel the need to watch/listen to something if you haven’t worked for it? How can you appreciate something if you don’t give yourself to it?

To be fair, most recruiters will see [i]some[/i] code at some point in the interview process. The interviewer will usually write code to reverse a list on the whiteboard, or code a sorting algorithm verbally over the phone. Simple 10-line functions. Which is fine; it gives the recruiters a sense of the candidate’s understanding of algorithms, and his ability to optimize solutions for efficiency. Still, whiteboard-coding with someone breathing down your neck introduces a high stress factor,  in a situation not really encountered on the job unless the company advocates pair-programming. And sometimes the solution is something you just have to know. Like a certain Silicon Valley company’s infamous problem of finding the number in a list that occurs an odd number of times (and the best solution is to XOR every number,  kind of, how an electrical engineering major might solve the problem, rather than a comp sci major).

I’m talking more about a reasonably lengthy code assignment, which the coder takes a few hours to complete, then submits to the company, to be reviewed. Doing so can demonstrate a lot about the coding skills? Can he come up with a flexible design? How deep and current is his knowledge of the language? Does he use software engineering practices like testing and build scripts? Is his code extensibille? Is it readable? Things you can’t really tell in a whiteboard-coding assignment, but are very important in programming. The code reviewers look at the code and ask themselves “would I want to work with someone who writes this kind of code?” We did do this in Thoughtworks, and it was a very efficient way of weeding out so many mediocre programmers who can’t code worth shit. OK, I’m kind of mediocre too, but some of these programmers, you wonder how they ever got programming jobs before! I mean, damn, they break some of the most basic rules of programming. Perhaps they actually are good programmers, but didn’t take the assignment seriously, and assumed the assignment was only checking for correctness, in which case the company should make its intentions clear. Almost everyone’s solutions submitted was at least correct; getting the program correct is downright trivial; crafting it well was the difficult part.

There is one huge downside to the code review process; it’s hard and time-consuming for the applicant! You have to take several hours of your day to write up the solution. It’s a huge hurdle, and hurdles tend to attract desperate people, the kind who will jump through all sorts of hoops, whether it’s submitting a code review, or allowing the interviewer to kick his legs throughout the interview. If a good programmer can get any job he wants, why would he go for the company that asks him to sacrifice his weekend? I suppose that’s the main reason code reviews haven’t gained widespread acceptance.