Stephen Witherden’s Website :: Other

This weekend I went to see a play my brother Scot was acting in: “Compleat Stage Beauty”. Apart from watching Scot in his many and various roles, I was also fortunate enough to see a man acting as though he was a man playing the part of a woman who disguised herself as a man. Add to that the sublime vulgarity of the period and it was a great bit of theatre.

The thing that fascinated me most, however, was not the magnificent gender-bending performance of the lead actor, nor even the embarrassingly realistic gay sex scene. Rather, it was the references to the person whom we have to thank for recording this complicated subtext to the restoration period.

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As I have no doubt mentioned before, one of the perks of my job is I get to work with some very smart people. People who got degrees in pure mathematics because they were simply so geeky they couldn’t help themselves. So, what does a Maths geek do when he/she goes out into the workforce? Well, they program targeting systems for ships, perform calculations that allow us to know exactly where the bomb needs to be dropped, or, in the case of, George Dantzig (uber mathematics geek of the 1940’s) develop the simplex algorithm, for the very purpose of optimizing logistics for the US military during World War 2. Maths is sexy, and maths can kill.

So, it’s always exciting to have a discussion with one of the maths geeks at work. On Thursday, a colleague (who, I am told, actually has programmed some pretty dangerous stuff) showed me this cool construct which is his computer background: a Mandlebrot set. All the diagrams here, I drew myself.

Ok, so anyone can look at a Mandlebrot and say “wow, that’s pretty. But really, what does it mean? Why do mathematics geeks get all weak in the knees when they see one? Why doesn’t he have sexy women or cars on his background? To understand that, we need to delve deeper into the mathematics. Come on, join me, it’ll be fun, pretty and exciting.

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Today I did something I haven’t done in a very long time: I took a bath. No, don’t look at me like that, it’s not what it sounds like, what I mean to say is: I had a bath rather than a shower, as I normally do (regularly, with soap). I can’t remember when my last bath was, but it must have been at least 6 years ago, before I turned 21, because at around that age I moved into a place with no bath and never went back. It’s funny, I assumed that when I stopped bathing it went out of fashion the world over, but that’s decidedly egocentric of me, it just went out of fashion for me.

So, why did I take up this alternate approach to personal hygiene and (perhaps more pressing) why do you, gentle reader, absolutely have to know?

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I think I may have mentioned that Stephen is a writer. It’s his only passion in life and the only thing he currently seems to have any motivation to do. He recently finished a short story and self-published it online using a service called “Lulu”. It’s a dark story, based on Stephen’s actual life story. If you ever get a chance to read it, the bits that seem so outrageous, so scary that they must be fiction are most likely true, it’s the mundane things that he embellished.

You can get a preview of the first chapter here. If you want a copy and you’re in New Zealand, you don’t need to get a physical copy, you can get a downloaded copy for just a few bucks. It’s not the sort of book I would usually read, it’s too dark for me, it smacks of fight club in that it deals with mental illness, among other things.

It’s both interesting and scary that the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech shootings was an English major and also wrote dark stories. The difference is, Cho Seung-Hui simply wasn’t treated.

I love my car. I know I have said this before but let me say it again: I love my car.

I wish I could say that I always wanted a hybrid car since I was a child, but that would be lying. As a child, what I really wanted was a car that could fly. I designed one with Lego. It was basically a helicopter car and mobile home all in one. I would have preferred jet propulsion but my logo set didn’t allow for jets.

In my dream world, I had my flying car parked outside my own little corner store that had a secret elevator leading to my subterranean home which doubled as a self-sufficient bomb shelter. I planned on living off yoghurt, protected from the world by complicated layers of water and lead shielding. I never imagined wanting a wife but I always assumed I would need one for the purposes of having kids or something.

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Those of you who know me will know I am a creature of habit. I tend to do the same things over and over again for days, weeks, months, years on end. I remember fondly the time when I used to cook spaghetti bolognaise (my favourite meal) for dinner every night. I did it so often Sarah can’t stand the sight or smell of it anymore.

This is not restricted to my own cooking, I tend to do this when I eat out too. I can think of many examples. What generally happens in any service industry is I become a “regular”. Being a regular has its privileges (like free food or preferential treatment) but the most important one of all is that human connection you develop with the people behind the counter. You see, by virtue of my predictable behaviour, I have a habit (pun intended) of becoming a fixture in other people’s lives. They actually look forward to seeing me, they expect me. It’s like seeing an old friend, or being visited by the milkman. Often we don’t exchange anything but a smile some pleasantries and some money, but I have come to realise that this relationship is as important and as meaningful as any other.

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People have been asking me to post more. The only thing is, I am saving up for my trip to Vegas over Christmas, so I am not really getting up to much in the way of wacky hyjinks. That said, perhaps a little social commentary on food mixed in with the mundane minutiae of my daily life will do. Despite the rather enigmatic title to this post, this post is mostly about food.

One thing I can immediately say about the food here is that Texans don’t really know the meaning of “portion control”. The image on the right is of some nachos I had in Austin. This sort of dish is what’s known as “tex mex“. Mexican food, done the way Texans like it. That is to say, not authentic like mamá used to make. Tex-Mex usually carries with it negative connotations of “lower class” food. To be honest, Tex-Mex ain’t so bad.

The curious thing about this particular dish, though, is that it was the entrée! I specifically asked the waiter how big the entrée was and he said it was “quite small”. I had about half of them then got up to find the waiter.

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This past week, I have travelled 455 miles (732 km). That’s over 100 km more than driving just 100km shy of the distance from Auckland to Wellington. It equates to about 65 miles (104 km) per day.

That includes 5 trips to work and 2 into Dallas (both about 30 miles each way). I filled up with 9.88 gallons (37.4 litres) today which cost me $28.25 ($2.86 / gal) and means that I achieved around 46 miles per gallon (19.55 kilometres per litre). A single tank of gas, will last me over a week (I estimate my tank to be about 11 gallons).

Yes, that is my steering wheel. I needed a cover because it gets so hot here

I will be away from the Internet for up to a week while I move into my new place. It will take me a while to set up high speed Internet there, but I hope to do it ASAP!

So, I was on my way to Denver at last!

Once in the departure terminal, I had a quick change of clothes and some McDonald’s chicken nuggets (they taste the same everywhere). I also indulged in a little email at the Internet kiosk there. I love email.

I then got my boarding ticket (Seat 26C), sat down in the departure “lounge” and soaked in the ambiance. Some people may have told you stories about Los Angeles airport, well, I can say that most of them are probably true. On the whole, it just feels kind of grotty.

Little things like the fact that the toilets don’t have hooks on the backs of the doors (for hanging up jackets or bags) just mean that it feels kind of dated, kind of unfriendly, kind of grotty. Compared to large international airports like Singapore, Johannesburg and Frankfurt, it sucks. Then again, I guess Terminal 7 must be a domestic terminal, in which case, the grotty-ness is in keeping with the quality of New Zealand’s domestic terminal, which has next to nothing in the way of amenities. (more…)

Something I forgot to mention last time is the first thing that happened to me on my arrival to Los Angeles was that I had a digital photo and fingerprints taken. No, it wasn’t my idea, they do that to all non-citizens now apparently. I don’t know why they bothered because they took my fingerprints when I applied for my visa too. I didn’t really care so much, I was just happy to finally be on the ground.

After obsessing over whether or not my baggage would arrive in one piece, I am sure you can appreciate that it was with a great deal of relief that I picked up my baggage and headed out of the arrivals area. (more…)

Just a quick aside and then we will resume our usual broadcast.

I drove to work today. Well, I did it at 9pm, but I drove there anyway since I need to practice for tomorrow morning. It is 29 miles from where I am living to work. That’s 46 km, or 30 minutes at an average speed of 60 mph (96 km/h). The speed limits on the interstates here are 65mph or 70mph (112 km/h) but everyone does about 5mph over the limit as usual.

I really enjoy driving here in the US. Even though I keep using the windscreen wipers to try indicate and I always grab to my left for the gear / hand break, driving on the right-hand side of the road is not all that difficult. I just need to keep reminding myself and I am ok. It turns out that two facts about American drivers really helps a lot:

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My hands are still shaking with adrenaline as I write this. Sarah & I were coming home from lunch down Triploi road (A), past a primary school on our right and a dairy (tea room) on our left. I passed a rather unremarkable car on the side of the road. It was a dark blue station wagon. Later Sarah tells me it was probably a Subaru Legacy, one of the most popular cars in New Zealand. He looked like he was meaning to turn out into the street, but he didn’t have his indicators on, so I passed him. Click on the map to the right to the the details of our little trip with markers.

As I passed, I realised he was pulling off in spite of me. So I sped up a little so as to take over smoothly and indicated to the left to signal my intention. Instead he speeds away, Sarah yells “careful!” and I shift over to the right as he bolts past me. I hear his engine hum impressively as he motors past and I try to avoid hitting the oncoming traffic.

“Holy fuck!” Sarah commented sedately as he sped away “Yeah, that was fucking weird” I said. We were considering reporting him to someone when we suddenly saw something that made our blood run cold: the passenger’s door flew open and someone tried to jump out, gave up and closed the door again, or perhaps they were pulled back (B). (more…)

Ok, I have an eclectic taste in music. At work the sounds pumping through my good headphones cycles through Billy Joel, Gorillaz, REM, Coldplay, Motzart, Meatloaf, all on shuffle, which can make for an interesting play list. There’s more music I like but I am too lazy to rip it.

Anyway, I recently rediscovered some old techno: Robert Miles, Darude, Sash. Oooh, this brings back memories of programming in Turbo Pascal and belting this stuff out till your ears bleed.

I just had a conversation with Alton. The quiet old guy in the corner of the office. He’s close to retirement (65, I think). I used to consider him the “access guy” because he was the only one who would willingly work on the Microsoft access projects.

My how my opinion has changed.

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The image on the right is what a developer workstation looks like. Lookie, it’s got them new fangled flat screens and there’s two of them to boot! Yee haw, what will these crazy computer geeks think of next eh? Mice with lazers in them, I’ll bet. Or holographic screens I’ll wager.

Now I know it seems petty and unrealistic. I mean, I have a perfectly good 17 inch CRT at work, the refresh rate doesn’t give me a headache and it complies to OSH standards. I am even getting a brand new chair any month now, so as I can hold my mouse in the right position to appease the gods of occupational health and stave off the end of my career from carpal tunnel syndrome a few years more.


But.. but… It just doesn’t feel the same. I’m not asking for much, it’s not like I want two screens or even three. I would just like a single LCD screen to call my own. The image on the left shows three screens, but it’s not really fair. The third screen belongs to Andrew’s other computer. So I suppose you could say he only has 1.5 screens per computer and he has to use two keyboards which I suppose could be confusing. Yeah, confusing.

I guess you’re right. I suppose I’m just being greedy. I mean no one really uses LCDs, they’re far too expensive, aren’t they? Aren’t they?

Well, at work we received a present from Dean Maguire. A master chief action figure. There’s not much more to say, really, except that Pikachu didn’t stand much chance against a guy in body-armour.

I should point out that that the idea of Pikachu getting sodomised by a master chief action figure was that of Dean Heard’s!

In other news, I made Pikachu’s glasses with a paper clip, cute eh?

Cécile from Beca had her birthday recently. I took the opportunity to chronical the steps required to ice a cake in fondant.

Requirements:

• Cake
• Cake leveller
• Icing sugar
• Butter & Milk
• Fondant
• Fondant applicator

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So, for many reasons I quit my job at Cecil and started working for Beca.

It turns out that developers are the same, no matter where you go. They all have the same purile sense of humour and similar approach to things. This is strangely comforting.

On the right is my development team leader Dean Heard. He took an instant liking to my Pikachu hammer.

In this image he’s approaching an “unsupecting” Richard Adlard (another senior developer) with the hammer behind his back. Reminicient of Tom & Jerry, wouldn’t you think? I wonder which one is Tom
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I have a keen interest in Artificial Intelligence. Mainly because if it can be achieved it poses interesting philosopical questions. Unfortunately I have neither been trained in AI or Neurology, so it’s pretty much like trying to read a language you’ve only ever heard.

That said, I do, however, believe the following:

1. AI is possible in my lifetime
2. It is only possible through a bottom-up approach
3. Neural Networks will have to be understood and mastered in order to achieve this
4. Current Artificial Neural Networks fall short in a number of ways

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