Dana

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:46:28 GMT

This week I planned, picked out, and assembled light fixtures for the living room all by myself. I'm quite proud! Dave and I installed them, and now we have three little hanging lamps above the couch. They give good reading light and match our Peruvian wall hangings. Score.

I've also learned how to poach eggs, which brings me one step closer to homemade eggs benedict. Double score.

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:11:37 GMT

Today at 6:30pm I was making my way down I-80 north of Sacramento, towards two people I'd only met through Craigslist, trying to figure out how to conceal several hundred dollars in cash on my person considering the high likelihood of bra removal.

An hour later I was heading home with a wedding dress. : ) They have a very cool business selling discontinued and secondhand wedding gowns out of their house, and I got a gorgeous dress for way less than I was expecting to pay. I'm not going to post public pictures here of me in it (got to save that for the wedding!) but here's the stock photos.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:08:22 GMT

I have decided that in most cases, something that is either cute or delicious becomes more awesome when it's made to look like something else that is cute or delicious. Examples below the cut.

Delicious --> Delicious:

Cute --> Cute:

Delicious --> Cute:

Cute --> Delicious:

See?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:33 GMT

I haven't made a real post in a while...still here, enjoying my job as a farmer's market bread seller, but looking for something on a higher pay scale. Figuring out whether I should go back to school within the next few years, if so how I'm going to get in and pay for it, and if not what my career plan is going to be. It feels good to have some direction. I'm becoming more convinced I'd like to work with plant sciences, probably applied, probably with crops and agriculture. I'm certainly in the right town for it!

Note about wedding dress stores: I would go into more of them if they all didn't want you to make an appointment and have someone dedicated to helping you the whole time. I could see that you need someone to help you put the dresses on, since they're pretty cumbersome, but I would prefer to browse without feeling like I have to make headway towards buying something or else I'm wasting a salesperson's time.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:42:39 GMT

I really liked this comic...

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:02:22 GMT

13:48 My online bio class describes lysosomes as "a place of degradation in the cell". So it's like the organelle version of a shady nightclub? #
13:49 Field Botany Crash Course: "Students will have a rare opportunity to internalize the 'jizz' of hundreds of species." Who proofreads these?? #
13:59 I can hear cheering, loud horns and sirens coming from the direction of campus. Time to investigate! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:21:38 GMT

So! I have two crazily work-intensive but awesome ideas I am currently working on. One is pursuing a career in botany, probably plant physiology in particular. The other is making my own wedding dress. Any crafty and/or planty people want to share their experiences?

Writer's Block: Nothing to fear but fear itself

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:45:30 GMT

What is your biggest fear? Have you tried to overcome it?

Submitted By teammccracken

View 1475 Answers

I guess my greatest fears are extreme pain and untimely death. Mediocrity is a close third.

Speaking of fears, I read a magazine survey a while ago in which a substantial minority of women said they'd rather eat a live bug than be naked in a fully lit room with their romantic/sexual partner. I found that really sad and disturbing. (Just now I Googled "eat a live bug be naked" to try and find a link to it, and the results were funny and awesome.)

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:54:20 GMT

My biggest personal question right now is whether to continue with programming or start working toward a new career, and if a new one, what it should be. I'm hoping to get advice from as many people as possible, so please respond in the comments if you have any ideas or words of wisdom. : )

The things that really get me going in a job are a) feeling like I'm advancing science or technology in some beneficial way, b) intellectual stimulation, c) lots of social interaction, and d) being outside and/or having some amount of physical work. Obviously these don't match up very well and I probably won't end up with all of this in one job, which is fine, but I like knowing what the ideal is to start with. Oh, I forgot e) making enough money to pay the bills and generally get by. That's important.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:34:04 GMT

I never make long journal entries anymore...they end up coming out like a series of Twitter entries, which I like better than actually using my Twitter account for some reason. Anyway!

Today, Dave and I have been engaged for two weeks. It feels longer, in a good way. We're already doing a little wedding planning, but anything serious will have to wait until we figure out a budget. He's starting school and getting busier, but won't be as hectic as last year.

Dave and I recently finished Neon Genesis Evangelion (the anime series), and it had good and bad points up to the end, which was pure awful. All the interesting things you expect to get explained in the final episodes not only don't get explained, nobody even mentions them. Goodbye, mystery monsters the entire plot revolved around. I won't say more in case anyone else was planning to watch the series, but be warned!

I have already made an exhaustive Internet search for a wedding dress, even though I'm not buying one anytime soon and would much rather buy in person than online. It's not so much shopping as ogling pretty pictures. I know I want something white that doesn't touch the ground even if I wear flats, but everything else is up in the air. I like lace. Suggestions and links are appreciated!

I've also been playing with electromagnets. The strongest one I made yesterday can barely lift its own weight (not even counting the battery in the weight of the magnet), and I'm trying to figure out why they are such wimps. I found one online that weighs 8 ounces, operates on four AA batteries and can lift almost 8 pounds, so I'm going to try and make a mini version of that same design.

Working with wires and batteries and stuff is satisfying in a different way than programming. With software, if I make something useful, I can distribute it instantly and make any number of copies with no effort, which is one of the things that attracts me to it. With hardware, I get to feel the weight in my hand, and the heat and buzz of the electric current. In both cases I spend time visualizing patterns I can't see, but with software the patterns are purely symbolic, and with hardware they are magnetic and electical fields that exist right in front of me; I just can't see them. Anyway, it's fun.

I think I've decided to be either a wolf or a bat for Halloween. Ooh, or a wolfbat! Best of both worlds.

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:15:48 GMT

Big news! Dave and I are now engaged. Don't have time right now for a long post, but wanted to make the announcement for folks who I mostly keep up with through LiveJournal. We're thinking a fall wedding on the east coast, either next year or the year after. Woo hoo! I've been bouncing off the walls for a few days now...

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:29:35 GMT

One of the fun things about working at farmer's markets is that at the end when people are leaving, a lot of the stands will trade goods with each other. It's midway between a barter and gift economy - much of the time someone will bring something over without actually asking for anything, and then they might come over for some bread later or they might not want any, and I do the same thing. It feels very neighborly. Yesterday I got a dozen eggs and two really beautiful bunches of flowers, and the day before I got a pumpkin pie and a bag of vegetables.

I haven't posted a recipe recently, so here's some instructions for Farmer's Market Stew.

Ingredients:
1 big pile veggies you got for free the day before at the farmer's market
1 can beans, whatever kind go well with your current veggies (I use a lot of chili beans)
1 can diced tomatoes, only if there aren't any fresh tomatoes this time
spices, to taste

Set aside any vegetables that don't go well together. Chop the rest and put in a pot along with the beans and can of diced tomatoes, if necessary. Cover and cook on low for about 20 minutes. Drizzle with olive oil before eating. Serve with delicious bread you also got for free because it was a little squashed.

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:08:26 GMT

Good things this week!

I am gainfully employed again. I sell bread part-time at farmer's markets in the Davis area and also work part-time at UPS. It's nice to have the money worries off my back, although neither job pays much and I'll have to budget more than I did at either of the full-time jobs. For right now, I'm kicking back and recovering from the crazy stress of job hunting, but soon it'll be time to figure out the best things to do to get back into the programming market. Thinking of taking the Java certification test.

I started a modified version of the South Beach diet (cutting out most sugar, white flour, and certain starchy foods) and lost eight pounds in about a week. I was pretty shocked, especially since I'm not being as strict as the official version of the diet, but my guess is some of that is actual weight loss and some is water loss or natural fluctuation or something. Twelve more to go.

My scale ran out of batteries today, so now when I stand on it, it just says "low". How's that for encouragement! : )

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:05:08 GMT

Well, I didn't get the job. I'm surprised, but it was never a sure thing. The final interview was a group of 30 people all being considered for 15 positions, who had been selected out of more than 300 applicants. So I don't feel that bad that I made it into the 10th percentile but not the 5th. Still, it sucks. There was one other job I'd been considered for and waiting to hear back from, but there were some red flags and I researched the company, and it turned out to be a scam. Back to the drawing board.

I did find temporary part-time work for a bakery, selling bread and cookies at farmer's markets. It's fun and well-rounded work, and I get a serious workout from lifting trays of bread and cookies. So, some moolah coming in for now!

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:31:01 GMT

Things I am doing this week:

Being completely tied into knots about whether I'll get a particular job I interviewed for last week. Things went very well, but anything could happen, so I'm trying to not fixate on it too much.

Trying to resolve some of my personal programming projects into finished, usable forms, since they're all in various stages of not-done-ness right now. Most of them require some extra training or research on my part to complete, but it's all fun training and research.

Going to my first Scrabble Club meeting. They sound pretty hardcore. The leader has business cards printed just for Scrabble Club that have an index of all the legal two-letter words on the back, color-coded by which edition of the Scrabble Dictionary they first appear in. I hope I can hold my own. I've never even seen a Scrabble Dictionary.

Getting interested in genealogy again. A bit less than half my ancestors are from Calabria, the southern tip of Italy (the toe of the boot), and the rest are Swiss, Irish, English, and who knows what else. I started an account on a genealogy site, but no interesting matches have come up for my family names yet.

...ok, I'm not doing that great on not fixating on the job. I just checked my email and when I thought I had new mail, I got so excited my foot fell asleep. Seriously.

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:16:20 GMT

After watching all of Project Runway Season 4 in ten days while also learning about the mathematical structure of plants for the video game project, I really want to design a set of clothes with the shapes and patterns inspired by the Fibonacci sequence. I've broken out the paints and will try and figure out how to scan if I come up with anything cool. Of course one of my favorite contestants on that show was the guy who made clothes out of human hair, so I may not come up with anything wearable in normal society.

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:17:56 GMT

I've still been playing around with video game stuff in some of my spare time, and am close to being able to generate 3d game terrain using actual topographical data of the United States. Or anywhere else, but the U.S. government website has free data of excellent quality and most other places don't. I'm very impressed with the level of detail you can get - a resolution of 10 meters, with the tops of trees and buildings somehow removed by the satellites so you just get the ground.

If I do start working on a real game, I already know I want to use the landscape of central California, where I'm living now. Driving around through the hills and flatlands is very inspiring; I could take a walk on the actual land and then go work with it in the game. It has the requisite ocean, mountains, and desert (if I extend the map to western Nevada). For some reason every RPG-esque video game landscape must have those three things. I was thinking it would be a monster raising / breeding / battling game, since those are my favorites to play. Anyway, that's far in the future, and for now I'm just enjoying getting the land set up.

A setup with that much landmass (even if I have to cut it back somewhat for data storage reasons) will definitely require procedural generation for vegetation, which is another fun thing I'd like to do. Procedural generation in gaming means you write the rules for what goes where (with some randomness thrown in), and then the program does it for you. Variations among invidividual plants of the same species are done in the same way.

I have several things in life that are higher priority than this project, mostly family visiting, job hunting and setting up the apartment for a new housemate, but if I get anything interesting done I'll be sure to post it.

Here are some photos of the yellow hills that are my favorite landscape ever, and happen to be a half hour drive from my place. They're very peaceful and look like the perfect place for a picnic.

.

Writer's Block: Pick and Stick

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:26:18 GMT

If you could only eat one kind of cuisine—Mexican, Thai, French, Italian, Indian, Chinese, etc.—for the rest of your life, which one would you choose?

View 504 Answers

Italian. Second choice Thai, third choice Mexican.

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:59:53 GMT

I've been messing around with Project Darkstar, a framework for making online games in Java. If any of you have an interest in online game development, I'd highly recommend it - it automatically handles data saving, server crashes, multithreading, distributing the server over multiple machines, and people logging in.

After only a few hours of setup and tutorials, I now have my very own game server! It goes "boop". Well actually, it prints the word "boop" to a console screen once a second, which is much less annoying than actually going "boop".

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:36:04 GMT

I found a really cool math site - it's a series of very intuitive, easy to understand articles on stuff from basic arithmetic through calculus. I never understood the point of e and ln (natural log) in calc. They were just symbols with their own special rules to occasionally complicate my homework, and I think I'd been using them for a while before I realized they had actual numerical values. I just breezed through a couple articles on them and have a much better understanding of why we use them. Working on imaginary numbers now.

Check out the site here. It also has programming and business sections.

(Haha, I'm writing from Dave's laptop and almost accidentally posted to his journal...)

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:11:11 GMT

I learned something interesting today: when deciding a prison sentence, a judge is expressly forbidden from considering the monetary cost of imprisoning the person for that length of time. I think I'd assumed this all along, but actually thinking about it raises some questions. For example, here in California it costs about $31,000 to keep someone in prison for a year. Three convictions for petty theft (items worth under $400) can land you 25 years in prison, costing a total of about $775,000 in tax money, for a series of thefts that totaled $1,200 maximum.

At that point, what is it we're buying with our public funds, that could be going to new roads, better schools, etc? The literal security of not having that person performing petty theft for the next 25 years? The opportunity to set an example so others are less likely to commit crimes? The satisfaction of knowing justice was served, whatever the cost?

As for that third one, I don't think it should be the government's obligation to make sure that when people do bad things, bad things happen to them back. It satisfies a very human desire for society to revenge itself upon an offender, but it doesn't actually make life better for the citizens.

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:58:35 GMT

Death to pie charts!

From ProcessTrends.com:

Data Visualization Perspective - What's Wrong With Pie Charts?

The pie chart is a good example of how Cleveland's research fits into data visualization . Many data visualization writers like Edward Tufte, Stephen Few, Naomi Robbins and Howard Wainer do not use Pie Charts. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA's) Guidelines for Statistical Graphs, a useful resource on statistical charting, shares some thoughts on pie charts. Selected excerpts:

Edward Tufte, in The Visual Display of Quantitative Data, wrote "the only worse design than a pie chart is several of them."
Howard Wainer of the Educational Testing Service stated in a 1987 Independent Expert Review of EIA Statistical Graphs policies that "the use of pie charts is almost never justified" and that they "ought not to be used." Wainer recommended to EIA that dot charts be used instead of pie charts in EIA products.
William Eddy of Carnegie-Mellon University, formerly vice chair of the American Statistical Association (ASA) Committee on Energy Statistics, said of pie charts at the April 1988 ASA committee meetings in a session on the EIA Standards Manual, "death to pie charts."

Cleveland's graphic interpretation research helps to explain the poor quality of pie charts as a communication device.

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:57:40 GMT

My interview went very well. It was with an IT staffing company that had me in mind for one particular job, and also wanted to have my resume and such on hand for future opportunities. I talked a little too much on some questions, but overall it was great and I got a good vibe from the place. Let's see if it comes to anything.

I don't feel like hashing out the interview itself, so instead you will now hear more about my adventures shopping for interview clothes than you ever wanted to know. Dana's Shopping Epic behind the cut. : )

When we'd gotten it scheduled, I did a happy dance then realized I have no interview-worthy clothes appropriate for warm weather, except the pair of slacks I'd gotten a few days ago for that reason. I cruised through Davis's two clothing-oriented thrift stores, where I tried on what felt like every single thing in my size and realized that maybe people bring new-looking clothing to thrift stores because there's something off about the design. There was just something odd about the fit of almost everything I tried on. Finally I came back with a second pair of slacks, black shoes, brown shoes, and a top, everything new-looking except some minor wear on the shoes. Total: $20. Sweet.

Having only one top, and about a million concievable ways I could disfigure or destroy it in the next 24 hours, I headed to the mall to look for a backup top. There was a huge Forever 21, so I headed in on an impulse and was soon capering through it in a state of fashion ecstacy. There were piles of things I wanted to try on, but none of them were the professional type, so I decided to come back on a day that I actually had spare time and money.

Macy's seemed like my best bet. It was enormous. The clothes just went on forever. Eventually I got a cute crinkly blouse with colorful stripes. It has one of those scarves that's attached to the collar and made of the same fabric as the shirt. The tying options for this seemed to be a simple fold-over almost like a tie, or a cute puffy bow. I decided that cute and puffy did not project the image I was looking for, so tie it was. I also found a belt that is now one of my favorite things ever, because it holds my pants up without feeling like it's squeezing me. It's wide and stretchy, so the pressure is more evenly distributed or something.

The Macy's had the strangest mannequins. Instead of legs they had creepy little pinchers. I'll have to see if there's a picture online.

That's about all. Anyway, the interview was good and now I won't have to go emergency shopping next time I have one. Whew.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:15:09 GMT

Wheeee I have an interview!

*dancedance* doin' the interview dance!

Okay I've been a little cooped up in here.

Writer's Block: Set the Scene

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:33:37 GMT

Empty parking garages, roadside motels, dark caves, dank basements, overgrown forests—what kind of setting makes you feel nervous?

View 501 Answers

Huge underwater pits. There's a spring in Florida I love that is basically an enormous pit (I think the biggest one to have a spring over it in the US, but I'm not certain) with a shallower section roped off for swimming. The shallow section is probably thirty or forty feet at the deepest and has friendly fish that let you hang out with them if you're polite. If you go out to the edge of the safe zone, you can peek down into the horrible yawning abyss where the faint shapes of huge pike are swimming back and forth. The water is so clear that the shadows in the pit look just like aboveground shadows, and are the only thing blocking your vision. Whenever I look over there, I have a strong urge to swim as fast as possible in the opposite direction. They take scuba groups down there. One day I'll go with them.