Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in James' LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
2:47 am	Splish splash, I was on a train We all know the underground railroad, but what about the underwater railroad? Just got on the subject because I'm working on an iPhone app using maps. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
12:03 pm	Rejection never makes sense I've learned one of the most effective ways to waste time is to try to understand someone else's motivations. When their actions don't make sense right away, usually I'll never figure it out. Even knowing this, it's hard not to try. I put in a bid at RentACoder. My bid included a screenshot and a movie of the app that the guy wanted. It was already written! Then he chose another bidder, who offered to do the job for twice as much. Possible motivations are too many to count. It's as bad as dating! But just like dating, I'd like to experience some success in the future, so what could have gone wrong? 1. The other bidder wrote a more appealing bid 2. He liked the other bidder's profile better 3. He liked the other bidder's reputation (23 completed jobs) better than mine (new to RentACoder). 4. The other bidder appeared to offer an Expert Guarantee (this seems to appear on all finished bids though). 5. He started corresponding with the other bidder and made the decision before I made my bid. 6. Buyer was a flakazoid. Here's the winning bidder's profile and here's mine. I don't think it could be 2 (the other guy speaks some serious Engrish) or 3 (he also turned down a bidder with an even better reputation). It's unlikely to be 6, because the buyer has a good rating on the site, but I suppose it's still possible. That leaves us with 1 or 4. I have a tough time believing either one, considering I wrote the entire app, included a demo, and my bid was written in fluent English, and we're talking about such a small amount of money that the Expert Guarantee couldn't amount to much. I guess I'm left with 5, which is the business equivalent of "she's not available." Guess I need to bid faster. Here's the process from my end. Maybe I did something obviously wrong and horrific? ( Advertisement, bid, and response ) Current Mood: blah (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
6:34 pm	Committee I went with a list of things I wanted to clarify, change, accomplish or prevent at tonight's Green Energy & Environment Committee meeting. I won every round. It feels good. Current Mood: accomplished (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:42 am	The comedy My rate is good. People probably laugh at nine jokes out of ten, and I send them out with some swiftness. But I still hate it when I make jokes that I'm really fond of, and they fail to bring down the house. It's like how Bein Stein was never as worried about losing his whole $5000 as he was about looking ignorant. The power was out for two hours this morning, and my Facebook updates concerning running low on ammo, the immediate presence of zombies, and being forced to eat the neighbor's dog fell flat. Maybe no one appreciates a disaster joke. Gilbert Gottfried had that experience. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
6:52 pm	Job search I found a job that looks like a great fit, but you have to know webservices, that is, SOAP and/or REST. These are really not complex at all, but I've barely used them. Kind of reminds me of XML (of which they are a subset), which kept me out of programming jobs for quite a while, because I thought I must not get it. It seemed so simple, yet there were lengthy books on it, and the jobs wanted "experts." Guess what? Those books were crimes against nature (trees), because XML is as complex as bookends (which is basically what it is). I won't be intimidated this time, but I need to know what to say about these silly simple "technologies." (Comment on this)
2:39 am	Reminiscing I had a rule in the car business: Nelson is always right. I learned this too late to save my dealership, but what can you do? I don't miss hundred hour weeks, 200 mile days, auction tans, greasy hands, (legally) floating $8000 checks, scams, the scum of the earth, or the fact that every used car seemed to have a unique smell, and only a small number of those smells were good. I do miss having an office, though. That was fun. Another thing I don't miss is the racism. Nelson advised me very early on (advice I never took) to put a picture of myself on my web site so people who saw it would know they were dealing with a white guy. I didn't like that advice, not that I was mad at Nelson for it or anything, but it made me a bit disgusted. But I think he was right, because he always is. And being Hispanic and black, he no doubt has more experience with racism than I do. So now I'm applying for jobs, and I am aware of ethnic profiling on resumes. I'm also aware that my name (at least my last name) sounds black. And so I'm very seriously considering putting a picture of myself on my resume. Thoughts on that? I've just done it on my rentacoder profile. It's a new profile, though, so there's no test to be made. I guess I could be grasping at straws, too, blaming hypothetical racism when I'm really just bad at writing cover letters. Current Mood: sleepy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 26th, 2009
1:23 am	Exercise 40 pushups and 100 stomach crunches tonight. I will try to go spinning tomorrow. Apologies if typos; my contacts are out and I'm wicked blind. I remember a tabloid headline from like 15 years ago that said the fattest man in the world ate 14 chickens and 80 beers every day for breakfast. First off, beer for breakfast? Then, wouldn't that be expensive? I guess being the fattest man in the world pays well. (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
3:59 pm	Green Grass and High Tides That's my new white whale on Rock Band. Never heard it before, but it's my kind of music and it's incredibly difficult. I got 80% on the first try. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 19th, 2009
2:05 pm	Uh huh. From a CNN article: 20. Computer software engineers, applications Do this: Build computer applications software and code; ensure that all software projects adhere to a company's technology and business standards. Get paid: $87,900 I think either they're out of touch or I am. Some of the iPhone jobs I see in NYC and California are like that, but generally no. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
3:57 pm	Assumptions Learning is fun. This week I learned Karatsuba's algorithm, which is a faster way to multiply multi-digit numbers (on a computer, giant numbers in the form of arrays of numbers) than the conventional method. Here a-d are placeholders for digits, and putting them next to each other does not mean they are being multiplied, e.g. ad = (10 × a) + d ≠ a × d. Conventional ab × cd --------- 10 × (a × d) + (b × d) 100 × (a × c) + 10 × (b × c) So ab × cd = 100 × (c × a) + 10 × (a × d + c × b) + (b × d) Karatsuba ab × cd = 100 × (a × c) + 10 × ((a + b) × (c + d) - (b × d) - (a × c)) + (b × d) This works because (a + b) × (c + d) = a × c + a × d + b × c + b × d. So to get the same ten-term as the conventional method, we have only to subtract the two values from this ten-term that we don't want, which we coincidentally have to calculate anyway for the one-term and the 100-term. Thus, on a two-digit number, the Karatsuba method takes you from four (n2) multiplications to three (3log2n = nlog23) - the 10 and 100 ones don't count since those are digit shifts and are trivial. Obviously, the difference gets better with larger numbers. On gigantic numbers, this is really helpful. For instance, multiplying two 16384-digit numbers (arrays with that many elements) will only take about 43 million multiplications with Karatsuba, instead of 268 million with the conventional method. Better yet, there's the Schönhage-Strassen algorithm, which would allegedly only take just over a million, but I don't know how to do that one yet. Using (I think; the source for BigInteger is complicated) the conventional method, my Java program found another gargantuan prime number, 3 × 220909 + 1, which is ( a 6295-digit number ). The test for that number took 896 seconds, around 15 minutes, on my Macbook Air. Considering the primality test I'm using, assuming it's currently using the conventional method, that represents about 35.7 billion multiplies. So the Karatsuba version would take 11.1 billion and run in 279 seconds (4:39), and the Schönhage-Strassen version would use 1.2 billion, and run in 30 seconds. Gotta try that out. The long-term goal, a number on the order of 24,000,000,000, would seem to take, all assumptions being correct, 67,601 years to test. Too long. Must go faster. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
12:16 am	Allow me to beat you verbally, good sir I threw a funny comment onto a friend's FaceBook post. This got me subscribed to the reply comments to the original post, which became ideological to the point of self-contradiction. Eventually I made the mistake of not being able to let that go anymore, even though I mostly agreed with the ideology at hand. So now I'm locked in a comment match with a poorly informed, deeply uncharismatic true believer. I can't use either of the standard internet tricks, flaming or ignoring, because I know the guy in real life, though he's part of the scene rather than someone I ever hang out with or normally speak more than five words to. Of course, this is probably the first time in recent memory anyone has had much to say to him, so I imagine he'll milk it for all it's worth. Bother. Heh heh heh. Whilst arguing minutiae, he accidentally conceded the larger point, so I don't have to talk to him anymore. Shweeet. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
2:59 am	Burn it into your forehead Have this 666-digit prime number, equal to 3(22208) + 1: 141694071860561302568150267782788646685958349951984298414186036781942748596295579140231104356741371780743856723023662125819001424520984882414188483071705875887708275306889295062630025022952661720895385762427015323038415941269391819065465776094579478168682173573460111062256298902362388236366364521257046716570759439948201910918398315889887002694045096213499843728485479242141098275348972126364763059714902963774446743785725195920698922415072974097713801537471441328567623208542401097376341505151066896365589870792984775242447059533614566960215089867448404116033597749622976342044860407220413197878187408149054066170558931511745299886445747105400040271777922986016769 You see what happens instead of sleep? BTW, there's nothing special about the number; I'm testing numbers in that format, and that's the last one to come through in the last several minutes. Testing between 3(22400) + 1 and 3(22500) + 1, for instance, turned up no primes, but took 189 seconds not to do so. (Comment on this)
Friday, September 25th, 2009
11:51 pm	The first step is admitting you have a problem iBum got published today. Heather noticed problems in publishing your own sign, so I set about correcting the issue (apostrophes) immediately. I am at Disney World right now. That's how you know when you're a workaholic. No computer, just an iPhone, at Disney World, and I manage to edit the php on the site so the app works. Obviously I can't let it go down in flames on its first weekend, though. Hopefully no more work until Monday night. Current Mood: WTF (2 Comments |Comment on this)
1:59 am	Why yes. Yes I am. The ulcer is back with a vengeance. Before 4 tomorrow, I'm meant to write two apps from scratch, fix one, submit one, pack, get ulcer medication, and take a plant and its caterpillars out west. And I'm currently exhaustifried. So after the dance, ulcer hurting, I suggested to Rob that we go to Primante Bros. for pizza. Also suggested this to Nicole, who brought along some UM kids she had driven up with. Perhaps it's relevant that Kyle (sp?) is a girl. A cute one, too. Kim: So what do you do? Jmz: I don't really know. I guess I'm an iPhone developer. Kyl: Cool. What have you written? Rob: Show her the level. (I show them) Kyl: So, you're a genius, then. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
1:27 am	Growth This monarch caterpillar is, I think, about a week old (a week out of the eggshell). The growth rate of these things is astounding. He's about the length of my little finger. He should become a chrysalis pretty soon. Check out how small they start: This one hatched 5-10 minutes before I took this picture (I found the egg and realized it was ready to hatch). He's currently engaged in eating his eggshell, which they like to do. They also eat their molted exoskeletons (aka skin). For a sense of scale, consider that his body is about as wide as the distance between the ridges of my fingerprint, visible in the bottom of the picture. Pretty sweet, huh? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
1:42 pm	Observing and noticing Hearing is different from listening, and looking is different from seeing. However, evidently not in German or Malayalam (the Ewok-sounding language). I remember Steffi once told me "I hear lots of music," and Ruben once pointed out a dozing colleague with "See Jerry," and now has a link up on FaceBook saying "Hear this." Maybe he's retired navy - Kiz, do they still say that, or is it just in those old movies? It's funny how there's implications in one language that are missing in another, like permanency in Spanish - "es/está" - an odd thing in a language that only seems to have one word for most things, and to reuse the same words a lot. (There's probably no such thing as a Spanish thesaurus.) I'm surprised the Republicans have never tried to rename the Statue of Liberty the "Freedom Statue," especially going into Iraq, when they were so anti-France. Maybe they didn't know that the word "liberty" is from France. I wonder if they know about the statue. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
1:57 am	Hungry hungry creepy crawlies I had to go out and get a new milkweed plant this morning because the caterpillars completely defoliated the first one. It looks like I'm doing the same thing tomorrow morning. There are at least 19 caterpillars here, and several appear ready to pupate at any moment (so they're eating a lot). But there's also at least one that came pre-installed on the new plant. It reminds me of when you have milk left over from eating your cereal, so you put more cereal, but then you need more milk... Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
2:44 am	Wow This is pretty awesome. It's almost worthy of Jon Stewart, and it's.... Rick Sanchez? With this, maybe we can forgive him for his time at Channel 7. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/09/18/nr.sanchez.on.fox.news.cnn (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
11:26 pm	Always a good policy I have lists up for the two apps on which I'm currently working. The lists are combined bug/missing feature/test case lists. For instance, both have state persistence (feature) and airplane mode (test case). But one has the simple, elegant "Don't crash." (Comment on this)
1:45 pm	You know what time it is! Sto lat, sto lat, Niech żyje, żyje nam. Sto lat, sto lat, Niech żyje, żyje nam, Jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz, niech żyje, żyje nam, Niech żyje nam!