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

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Friday, December 4th, 2009
1:58 pm	Einstein says... Obviously I don't see myself on Einstein's level - I still don't feel I properly understand Special Relativity, and I've never even tried General - but I really love the way he wrote, and I have to say that on philosophical, nonphysics matters, I have never seen anyone write so many things with which I wholeheartedly agree or can empathize. Here's my new favorite. I've often looked for answers to problems (programming, math, etc.) and found that no one had solved them before, or at least not published the results. I had to take them on myself, with varying degrees of success. Einstein says: Zur Strafe für meine Autoritätsverachtung hat mich das Schicksal selbst zu einer Autorität gemacht. Auf Englisch, "As punishment for my contempt of authority, fate has made me into an authority myself." Current Mood: exhausted (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
1:23 am	Noise In the immortal words of the Ron, "How 'bout shut the fuck up?" I can't stand these dumb fuckaz who get drunk or high and then go out into the parking lot and have a shouting match, or tonight, a horn-blowing match. Seriously, multiple cars were blowing their horns in the parking lot of this place. Curse. Current Mood: annoyed (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
4:14 am	More war I'm tired of the wars. Enough already with the wars. I still like Obama, though. I figured, before his speech, that I could still support him with a straight face if his proposed 30-40k troop increase was for less than two years. He gives us a year and eight months. I don't like the plan, but I think he understands the world better than anyone I've seen before. I'm still voting to re-elect. BTW, a job would be nice. In other news, I finished a document spec for a dude in England. The project was budgeted for six days, and I started four hours before the deadline, finishing 20 minutes before. Damn I'm smooth. Current Mood: exhausted (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
10:49 am	Brutal A lot of things have worn smooth lately. I had really been looking forward to game night last night, but we couldn't even muster the energy to finish Cranium, and the sign game and Apples to Apples weren't nearly as funny as they were in the past. Perhaps the low point was when I drew "Miserable" as the judge for Apples to Apples, and out of eight or ten cards, I was given "my body," "my love life," and "my mind." I can't blame them for that, since the point is to submit a card with which you think the judge will identify. Any single person is likely to pick "my love life." I was leaning toward "my mind," but Lisette lauded the greatness of my mind so earnestly that I went with "screeching" instead. I hates me some screeching. Had anyone picked leaf blowers, there'd have been no contest. Because leaf blowers, real and metaphorical, are what makes my mind miserable. The women were mostly not as hot. Fewer and fewer of the group are single, and I think last night it was all dudes. I hope that at the coming blues party those things are all different. In five weeks, we slam the door on this decade. I've made a lot of good friends in the last ten years. I've changed radically; at least it feels that way. I've mostly beaten shyness and I'm winning the war on being overweight. I feel like I have a strong professional history, though evidently not strong enough to get a job just now. I did too much dealing with broken cars, too much circular introspection, and not enough travel or dating, considering how immensely I've enjoyed both when I made them happen. But that's what happened to me (and, to some extent, what I did). The world at large has been through hell, as Time's cover story accurately describes. What they don't do, out of cowardice or blindness, is put a name to it. But the name is obvious to me. It's been ten long years of disasters, excess, greed, poor judgment, and more than anything else, willful ignorance. Goodbye, Decade of George W. Bush. From hell's heart, I stab at thee. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
12:10 pm	Oh yeah. Oh YEAH! I stayed up all night to get my 5-day project done with 70 minutes to spare. It didn't even take much caffeine, but now I'm insanely wired. I've got the reflexes of a cat with legs made out of cobras. However, I feel a little like I might die of adrenaline shock, like history's rhinoceros. So no exercising. Duh nuh nuh nuh! Current Mood: bahahaahahahahahaaaaaaa! Current Music: Reel Big Fish - Everything is Cool (Comment on this)
11:35 am	Crazy You gotta know when you're crazy. Cognizant schizophrenia is really one of the best things going. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 20th, 2009
2:44 am	Comedy Dancy McDance tonight had some amusemanship. Heather was sitting in a chair and Milton came and started rubbing her shoulders, but then immediately stopped for some reason. Htr: Tease! (gets up and walks away) Milton then began rubbing my shoulders, which was funny, but he kept on doing it, past the point of it becoming awkward. However, I live in an Aristocrats world, so I didn't say anything. Eventually Frank noticed: Frk: What the hell? Mlt: I'm giving James a man-ssage. Jmz: Before you said that, it was only a little gay. Speaking of The Aristocrats, Heather got some strong guffaws from me when Rob and I were discussing how people don't put the tape back on the packing tape dispenser properly. Rob: Why do people always mess this thing up? Jmz: It's a very complicated machine. It has zero moving parts. It's just a handle and a blade, like a machete. Rob: Or an axe. But we learned that axes have how many parts? 28? Jmz: I think it was 36. That's a hell of an axe. Htr: What do you call it? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
4:35 pm	Best FaceBook status update EVAR If there's one thing you should do after showing up to work stoned, it's get all self-righteous and lament how unappreciated you are. If there's another thing you should do, it's act confused about what they mean by "high." On a peripherally related topic, I applied for what looks like a dream job. iPhone development, Fort Lauderdale, crazy pay, and they want what I've got. Wish me suerte, amigos! (Comment on this)
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)