Glenn Willen

gwillen @ 2008-08-11T10:39:00

2008-08-11T14:42:35Z

New Yorkers / Cory Doctorow fans: Who wants to attend this?

http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000367.shtml

Thursday, August 21 at 7:30 PM, at the Helen Mills Theater (26th St). Cory Doctorow will be talking about his book Little Brother. Apparently DJ Spooky will also be there talking about whatever DJ Spooky talks about. I don't know who he is but he sounds cool. ;-)

I already have a ticket (costs a $20 donation to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.)

Travelling!

2008-08-09T21:36:34Z

I will be in Mountain View next week (arriving Monday evening, leaving Sunday morning), and New York the following week (arriving Sunday evening, leaving the following Sunday morning).

If that interests you, and you would like to hang out with me while I'm visiting wherever you are, leave a comment. :-)

gwillen @ 2008-08-08T15:01:00

2008-08-08T22:27:07Z

Someone pointed this out to me, and I felt the need to share it with you all.

Massive disclaimer: I don't agree with everything on this site. I find the tone condescending in some places, and the logic flawed in others. Certainly he should use the word "argument" instead of "proof", but presumably he wasn't targeting mathematicians when he made the site. And I have no intention of defending the site or its arguments in the comment thread, I just found it interesting. :-)

Note also that the contents of the site should be completely clear from the URL, so if you click it you can't say I didn't warn you.

http://godisimaginary.com

Highlights: #3, #5, #7, #19, #24, #28 (a classic), #30 (especially if you're female), #43.

Edit: This is pretty hilarious: http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.php

gwillen @ 2008-07-26T06:13:00

2008-07-26T10:15:28Z

EDIT: There are now (either present or soon-to-be-present) two mattresses + box springs, a floor lamp (EDIT: appears to be missing a bulb-holder piece), a computer monitor, and a slightly-broken futon (could be repaired with welding skills), on the curb in front of 5521 Wilkins Ave. Everything else was taken (yay!)

ETA: Oh, and an ancient Apple Laserwriter Select parallel port printer, with Centronics-to-DB25 cable included.

gwillen @ 2008-07-07T01:13:00

2008-07-07T05:14:10Z

Hey everybody, use this thing instead of Twitter: http://identi.ca

It has functioning IM, so unlike Twitter it is useful to me! (Also it is better because it is made of Open Sores.)

That is all. :-D

gwillen @ 2008-06-05T01:14:00

2008-06-05T05:15:06Z

I hear that Lea's pretty cool, and her popularity level on the Internet is rising.

But she doesn't like hockey.

Dear Californians and interested others...

2008-05-24T17:04:35Z

Apparently you can call the office of Gov. Schwarzenegger and express your support the recent pro-gay-marriage Supreme Court decision without even having to talk to a person. From a friend at work:

"""
To vote in support of the Supreme Court ' s decision on LGBT marriage:

1. call 1-916-445-2841
2. press 1, 5, 1, 1
"""

I just did that. I suggest you do it too!

Dear Pittsburghers...

2008-05-11T16:01:24Z

I'm still looking for a housemate!

I live in an apartment on Wilkins Ave. near Beeler (5521 Wilkins, #4) -- it's a 12 or so minute walk from campus, right near a CVS. (It's also about a 15 minute walk from squill, which is nice.) Going to be $432/mo + utils for a room in a 3-bedroom apartment, with me and Kartik being the other two. It's a very nice place -- if you want to come check it out I'll be happy to show you the place.

The space will probably open up in August, but if start date is the only thing keeping you from living here, let me know and we can work something out. (I can sleep in the living room if I have to. :-P)

Any takers, or potential takers? Email me, or comment here. Or if you know anyone I know, or anyone whose character you're willing to vouch for, who is looking for a place, let them know about it.

P.S. I'll have to go to misc.market next... please don't make me do that. ;-)

You should all come to ...

2008-04-25T22:46:37Z

The CMU KGB Puzzlehunt Spring 2008 - A Maze of Twisty Passages!

Registration

Facebook event

You should come! If you don't know who you'll team with yet, register yourself to help us get a headcount, then make sure to register your team before the event (or just show up and we'll set you up with one).

It will be glorious! :-)

gwillen @ 2008-04-10T13:22:00

2008-04-10T17:24:22Z

It's probably too late for any of you to get to this, since I just heard about it and it's in half an hour, but it's so asinine that I thought I'd better post it just in case.

From Pittsburgh bloggers, via sleepsong:

Please come to the public hearing in Pittsburgh on Thursday, April 10th and tell Pennsylvania Senate Members to vote NO on Senate Bill 1250.

Senate Bill 1250 is a Constitutional Amendment which would ban gay marriage AND civil unions in Pennsylvania. On Thursday, April 10th there will be a public hearing in Pittsburgh to discuss the impact this amendment would have on the Commonwealth. In past hearings, supporters of this discriminatory bill have been extremely active and vocal. It is crucial that we outnumber them this time around. We urgently need people to come to the hearing so senators know that people from the Pittsburgh area don't want our General Assembly to legislate hate.

Date and time: Thursday, April 10th, 2:00 pm

Location: Allegheny County Courthouse, Gold Room 437 Grant St., Downtown Pittsburgh, Corner of Grant and Forbes

*** We will have lapel stickers at the hearing. Please be sure to pick one up to show your opposition to the marriage amendment***

Call (412) 681-7736 for more information.

gwillen @ 2008-04-05T20:45:00

2008-04-06T00:48:38Z

You should all take a listen to NPR's Intelligence Squared, a (new?) debate program which I find quite interesting.

gwillen @ 2008-03-29T00:09:00

2008-03-29T04:10:40Z

I am going hiking with Ivan and the Explorers' Club this weekend.

I say this mostly because it explains why I'm going to be off the Internet for the next couple days.

:-)

gwillen @ 2008-03-23T19:13:00

2008-03-23T23:16:01Z

[I am currently reading Pierce, and] I'm starting to think much of the difficulty I have had with category theory is the fact that, between any given pair of objects, you can have a whole shitload of arrows, all different, all of which look the same in diagrams.

And similarly, from an object X to itself, you can have a whole mess of arrows, and only one of them is the identity arrow. But every one of them composes with an arrow from Y to X, giving an arrow from Y to X; it's just that the identity is the only one that gives you back the SAME arrow from Y to X as you gave it.

I think I'd like the diagrams better if they were color-coded, or something.

REMEMBER!

2008-03-19T19:00:49Z

KGB/ex-KGB members:

Remember to register for / come to the KGB Anniversary Party!

Last possible registration is TODAY!

In case you were on the fence, let it be known that All The Cool Kids Are Doin' It.

gwillen @ 2008-02-05T09:50:00

2008-02-05T14:58:00Z

Just in case I still have a chance of influencing any Sooper Tooseday voters, I want to officially jump on the Elljay Obama bandwagon. Please, if you're still not sure who you're voting for, vote for Obama in the Democratic primary; and if you're voting for Hillary, think long and hard about your vote before you cast it.

Rather than post my reasoning in detail, I will instead suggest you search my friendspage for 'Obama', and read the many appeals that my various elljayfriends have made.

Here's one that's well-considered and well-written, and contains a link (first link) to the argument I forwarded to my mother, which also has both of those characteristics.

And a final appeal: If you're eligible to vote for Obama today and you were planning to stay home: PLEASE VOTE! This goes double if you are young, because we need to show the US political system that the young voters -- who generally stay home in droves, but this year are coming out in support of Obama -- matter, and they had better listen to us.

gwillen @ 2008-02-03T01:35:00

2008-02-03T06:36:30Z

I don't normally elljay about things that happen in my life. However! Today I both learned to solve the Rubik's Cube, and wrote the Game of Life in Javascript. I feel like that makes it a day worth documenting.

That is all.

Facebook

2007-12-29T00:18:24Z

Stupid Facebook apps.

The "social profile" app tells me the following:

"1 people said it would date you. more..."

I can't tell if this is a real "people", or if they just make that up to get me to add their application (which I did.) I can't see any way to get it to tell me who... mind you it made me tell it who I would date before it would refuse to tell me that. :-P

So if you know how (or if it's you! ;-) ) feel free to let me in on the secret!

Fuckin' Facebook. :-P

gwillen @ 2007-12-08T16:26:00

2007-12-08T21:28:12Z

The following thing intrigues me: If one of my hands is warm and one is cold, when I press them together I have trouble figuring out which is which. (Hint: The hand whose nerves are yelling "warm!" is the cold one, and vice versa. For some reason this is terribly counterintuitive...)

WikiVandalism

2007-11-24T17:15:57Z

I just fixed some subtle vandalism on the Wikipedia article Somniloquy. Way back in February, someone (with a user account, even!) swapped "REM" and "NREM" with no explanation, leaving NREM linking to the article on REM sleep. It disturbs me that nobody spotted it for 9+ months. (Possibly people have spotted it but been too unsure to fix it -- it's reasonably obvious that it was wrong if you know the difference between REM and NREM, but most people probably don't, and I didn't even notice the wrong link until after I went to make the edit.)

One thing this says to me is that there should be an easy way to view Wikipedia pages color-highlighted or something with what changes were submitted together, and let you mouseover to get edit summaries. The first thing I did when REM and NREM looked backwards, was go see whether they were swapped in an edit that did nothing else, without explanation (yep -- actually two separate edits).

I generally assume that if something 1) looks wrong to me, and 2) was changed from the thing that looks right to me to the way it is now, in the recent past, by an editor who did nothing else to the article, and left no explanation, then it's probably vandalism. I can balance (1) and (2) -- obviously the whole process starts with something that looks wrong to me, but the less I know about the subject, the more I rely on the fact that the vandalism stands out as anomalous in the edit history if I decide to revert it.

Usually I discover that the recent past is about 2 days -- this is the first time I've had to go back months to find the change. (On the other hand, it was still only a page of changes -- I generally won't search back further than that. So maybe, to account for article obscurity, we should model how long vandalism stays up as a function of the number of edits, rather than the passage of time, since it occurred. That does seem to make the most sense, and the idea that most vandalism doesn't last past a page of changes would be nice to know as far as the reliability of Wikipedia goes (versus the activity level of the article you're wondering about).)

It also seems like there should be a place where people can report apparent instances of subtle vandalism; but since the existence of such a page would undoubtedly be a catalyst for more subtle vandalism, possibly to the page itself, let me instead give a plea: If you see what you think is subtle vandalism, and you're not sure enough to fix it and/or you don't want to binary-search the history for evidence, let me know and I'll look at it. :-)

gwillen @ 2007-11-23T07:08:00

2007-11-23T12:09:02Z

It is snowing!

This totally makes up for the 4 hours I just spent debugging the fact that upgrading to the latest sys-apps/baselayout fucked up my system.

A Maze of Twisty Passages: KGB Puzzle Hunt Fall 2007!

2007-10-23T20:41:00Z

Hi all,

If you're in Pittsburgh, you should go register for A Maze of Twisty Passages, KGB's puzzle hunt. It's taking place on Saturday from 1 PM into the late evening (wrap-up meeting shooting for 8PM.) Teams are up to 4 -- you can register with a team, or we can put you on one if you prefer.

More information
Register!

If you aren't in Pittsburgh, read about our glorious puzzlehunt, and be sad that you won't be here. ;-)

gwillen @ 2007-10-21T20:11:00

2007-10-22T00:27:53Z

I just slept for about 40 minutes (by accident, mostly).

I had a dream involving:

- Someone lying down, for some reason having to do with the CIA;
- Chrisamaphone getting her hair chopped off, apparently while asleep, by someone somehow involved in donating hair, who had done something involving a tape recorder to forge her consent (I told her to punch him in the face);
- A monkey, which acted a lot like a cat, walking up to me and then climbing up on my shoulder when I leaned over.

I bet anything the monkey is related to the discussion we had at lunch/dinner about "monkey-picked" something. (EDIT: wjl reminds me it was tea.)

Also when I awoke from the dream (which was just after the Chrisamaphone bit I think, I told those out of order), I had a bit of sleep paralysis. (For those unfamiliar, Wikipedia has an article on it, and you should know that I get it a lot, so it's not a terribly creepy or unusual experience for me.) It was somewhat interesting because I was able to verify the reality of the experience more than usual -- I was aware that I was looking through my skewed glasses and seeing my arm (on which my head was resting) through them. (I hallucinated some text being reflected on the lower edge of the lens, and wondered for a brief moment what it meant, but I can't recall the text now.)

Also, near the beginning of the experience I wiggled my hands/arms, and felt my right hand/arm start to tingle somewhat rapidly as feeling was restored. (It seemed to have gone numb from sleeping on it funny.) The arm was still tingling slightly when I finally ceased to be paralyzed, which is the first very convincing evidence I've had that I'm not merely dreaming when this happens. (That and the fact that it's a documented phenomenon, but I always like to experience evidence myself.) It's also evidence as to the approximate length of the paralysis -- probably a couple of minutes? That's about how long it feels subjectively, but it's hard to tell.

Also somewhat interestingly, I tried to uncross my legs (lying face down) and while I could wiggle the top leg slightly, I could not at first move it enough to uncross my legs; but I managed it after a minute or so. This may be evidence that movement returns gradually (which I do believe it does); it may also be evidence that at first I wasn't trying hard enough. ;-)

Actually "trying hard enough" is interesting, because I didn't have the usual experience of fear (which for me is usually mild, but other people get it much more strongly); instead it was almost entirely frustration. I kept trying to move my limbs, and becoming frustrated with them at not moving, and then figuring I wasn't trying hard enough and trying to move them again. Interesting how dumb I am when I've just woken up. :-) (Although I think sleep paralysis must have more than just physical effects, as it always feels subjectively like a dream state in which I'm unable to think clearly, and that always dissipates quickly with the end of the paralysis.)

gwillen @ 2007-10-12T13:54:00

2007-10-12T17:55:00Z

Avenue Q tickets at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh are on sale starting today! If you want to be in on a group purchase, leave a comment at cmukgb and we can arrange something! I'd like to do the buying by early next week, since I suspect they'll sell fast. (If you think they'll sell faster than that, let me know.)

I'm currently shooting for Friday night, Nov. 23, at 8PM. That would mean a conflict with the KGB event; if there are plans to hold an event (and not just dispense in favor of Avenue Q), I would go for Saturday the 24th, at 8PM. Neither of those is eligible for group discounts, but buying as a group would let us sit together, which is why I'm posting instead of just grabbing a ticket.

Details are here: http://www.pgharts.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=8634

For the nights in question, prices would be $62 for awesome tickets ("Orchestra/Director's Circle"), $51/$56 for middling tickets, $23.50 for what I assume are far away tickets. I'm personally planning to buy awesome tickets, unless everyone I want to go with chooses otherwise.

(X-post: cmukgb. Will eventually make one to skibo once I'm convinced everyone I like has tickets. :-)

gwillen @ 2007-10-10T22:29:00

2007-10-11T02:42:55Z

EDIT: Ok, I was apparently exaggerating with "reasonable views on almost all subjects"; apparently it's more like "reasonable views on the few subjects the mainstream won't even touch". He's apparently pretty wacko. But I still might vote for him if I was sure he wouldn't win...

I am indecisive about Ron Paul. He appears to hold reasonable views on almost all subjects, and has (apparently) an incredibly broad base of support.

The "holds reasonable views" issue is much more awesome than it sounds -- while he's a bit in the wacko-libertarian direction on some issues, he seems very freedom-oriented, which is quite unusual for a serious presidential candidate. (See, e.g., here -- that's one of his campaign posters, it seems.) In particular, he wants to end the "war" on drugs, as well as the War on Abstract Concepts.

He wants to disband the Department of Education, which strikes me as a cute if probably practically disastrous symbolic gesture (his desire to outlaw the income tax strikes me roughly the same way, although frankly I've never understood why the income tax, more than any other taxes, angers the libertarian crowd -- I'm pretty sure they acknowledge that you can't have a government without _some_ taxes to keep it running, and I know they don't want to completely outlaw the government.)

The main thing that gives me pause is that he's a dedicated and staunch pro-lifer, and wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade. As a libertarian-type, he wants to give abortion-regulating power (as well as marriage-regulating power) to the states, and I'm of two minds about that. On the one hand, California (where my family lives) would certainly be positively affected by such a change -- it's the bluest state in the Union. Hell, people do pot there (medicinally, of course...) with the knowledge and consent of the local police, who refuse to help the DEA in enforcement (and are in fact prohibited by state law from doing so.)

On the other hand, though, it would mean a definitive splitting of the Union into the blue and the red states, the abortion-legal states and the not-even-in-case-of-rape states, the gay-marriage states and the reenact-the-sodomy-laws states, and I'm not sure I'm okay with that... people in red states have rights too, even if the majority doesn't agree with them.

gwillen @ 2007-10-02T10:34:00

2007-10-02T17:37:56Z

I am back in Mountain View! (For those who were confused by my previous such post, let it be known that I actually work for Google Pittsburgh; I was just in Mountain View for orientation before.) This time it is for meetings, from today until Thursday (I'll be flying back Friday during the day.)

I feel somewhat like I have come home to the motherland. This obviously means the chip in my head is working.