Category Archives: School

Paper Submission +1

Posted on 2009-09-29 by pappp

Got another conference paper out last night, half an hour before the deadline. I’m again the third author, but this time I am there for contributing content, not just huge amounts of editing. This is a better paper than the one that didn’t make it in at SuperComputing; our focus is more on the theory behind the LARs desing and it’s many interesting implications, and the polish is much better. The venue is also more appropriate, this paper is out to IPDPS, who have a better track record taking things as “out there” as this one, both because of their editorial process and focus.

It’s great to be working with committed people; both my co-authors and our advisor were there and working to make it better until 11:45 at night when we finally got it squared away and submitted.

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David Shippy Talk

Posted on 2009-09-26 by pappp

The David Shippy talk in my last post was quite good; it featured a solid mix of business politics, and computer architecture, which drew a room-filling audience. That said, a LARGE portion of the audience was made up of EE280 students, who were apparently there in place of class. This is not a bad thing; conditioning the underclassmen to pay attention to seminars is an worthy goal. It also means the level of the talk was very well suited, if the audience had been a bunch of specialists on the topic (and a non-trivial portion of it was) it would have been inappropriately general, but for the spectrum of people in the room I would say it was pretty spot on.
I hung around afterwards, both to ask a question and because there were some very interesting conversations going on among the stragglers. As for the question, I wanted to know about the relationship of the PPC based Cell PPE and Xenon cores, to the things Nintendo uses…He was also in charge of the Gecko and Broadway chips that IBM makes for Nintendo to use in the GameCube and Wii respectively as well; and they share a common lineage but not a common design. Some of the straggler conversation was the expected material about computer architecture (especially historical stuff) which was informative, but there was one about engineering education that I found VERY interesting. I’m not sure that I should be quoting it, but suffice to say there are apparently solid numbers that confirm the suspicion that a high GPA (in high school or college) or SAT/ACT scores are not strongly correlated with success in EE/ECE programs at UK.
All in all, a cool talk, with lots of encouraging side factors.

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Decent Seminars!

Posted on 2009-09-24 by pappp

UK (and the college of engineering in particular) is surprising me with the quality of seminar speakers this semester, Bruce Schneier last week, and tomorrow David Shippy , chief architect for of IBM’s microprocessor team for games (the people who designed the Broadway, Cell, and Xenon processors inside all three of the major game consoles at the moment), and co-author of The Race for a New Game Machine: Creating the Chips Inside the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3 will be speaking. His hand is on so much of the buzz in the tech news it should be really interesting to hear from him first hand, especially if we get a seminar-appropriate highly technical version. I’ve seen reviews of the book that gripe about lack of technical detail (and writing style); hopefully an in-person presentation to a known technical audience will take care of both problems and get things up to good material + good presentation.

The seminar is at 1:00PM in CRMS (I forget the room number) which brings me to the other thought…
folks need to work on their seminar announcement system. No email (to the seminars list). No updated websites (there is a seminars link on the department website …which is about 6mo out of date), just some posters hanging on the walls around Engineering. There were regular, highly visible announcements for the uninspiring dreck last year, why isn’t there publicity for the good stuff now?

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Preaching to the Choir

Posted on 2009-09-18 by pappp

The Bruce Schneier talk in the previous post was quite good; he is an excellent and entertaining speaker (an hour without any sort of slides or visual aids!), but was a little disappointing because he was very much preaching to the choir. Most of the (nearly auditorium-filling) audience was made up of upper-level CS students, and CS/EE faculty who are for the most part well versed (especially the many attendees with cognitive science background) in the high level conception of the perceived security/actual security/security model paradigm he discussed. The talk would have been excellent for a less focused audience, but I would have enjoyed hearing his thoughts on some interesting specific topic, either technical (his work on Skein?), or high profile (Chemically improbable liquid bomb plots? C6H12O6 + H2O2 ===> 6CO2 + 18H2O does not an airliner-destroying bomb make…), or a topic which he has not thoroughly saturated the geek news channels with his thoughts on. Several of the other attendees I spoke with afterward felt the same way. This is just a particularly strong instance of a general problem; the people who would get the most from a high-generality talk don’t know to come, and the people who do know to come already know the material. I have no idea what the solution is, finding and engaging the potentially interested on campus is nearly impossible (the noise levels are too high), and offering only highly technical seminars seems to violate the egalitarian ideal of public talks.

In other announcements, DorkbotLex#6 will be this Saturday (2009-09-18) at 4PM in room 101 of the Reynolds Building (349 Scott Street), with the following topics:
* “Twitter Cutups” Patrick Morissey
* “Propoganda Machine” Aaron Miller
* “Biofeedback software” Matt Ward
as always, it should be cool.

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Bruce Schneier Lecture at UK

Posted on 2009-09-16 by pappp

To quote the announcement that went out to the mailing lists:
September 17th, 2009 at 5:30p.m
W.T. Young Library Auditorium

“Reconceptualizing Security”
Bruce Schneier
Chief Security Technology Officer, BT.

In a startling change of pace from the usual uninspiring speakers UK tends to bring in, Bruce Schneier, one of the world’s foremost security experts, will be giving a lecture tomorrow night. It sounds like it will be about the perceived security/actual security idea (this is the person who coined the phrase “Security Theater”) he often talks about, and it should should be VERY cool.

I’m definitely going to be there, and there is some talk that it will fill up quickly, so I would suggest showing up early if you plan to come.

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Class Impressions: Fall09

Posted on 2009-08-27 by pappp

I’m taking two (rumored to be extremely time consuming, hence only two) courses this semester, and in keeping with the before and after impressions from last semester, I’m going to state my impressions and expectations after the first meeting of each, so I have it stored for comparison at the end of the semester. It is interesting to think that I have taken the undergraduate versions of these courses (EE480 and CS450 respectively), so it should be interesting to see how much the graduate versions are enriched (or not).

EE685: Digital Computer Structure/Heath
This is rumored to be the most time consuming class offered by the ECE department at UK, and 1/3 of the grade is derived from a single project. I’ve only had one class with the instructor, and didn’t have a terribly positive experience with him. The biggest day-to-day issue is he has a number of mannerisms that drive me slowly insane (”favorite” example: “In this case” is NOT a flavoring particle). There are few enough English-speaking instructors in this field it would be really wonderful if the native English speakers actually did so. I also find some of his grading policies grating, I once had a concrete example where more points were awarded for syntactically correct, algorithmically incorrect solutions than algorithmically correct syntactically flawed solutions on an exam. This is what highlighting editors are for. The other snag is that the tools we will be using for the big project (Xilinx’s ISE and MentorGraphic’s ModelSim) are both big, hateful pieces of software, which are incredibly ponderous to use, and will do all manner of unpredictable things with your input, sometimes changing behavior after simply restarting the program. I am not looking forward to spending more time with them. Gripes aside, it IS a topic I really, really love, and the opportunity to play with it in depth is highly desirable, and further instruction on the underlying theory should be useful for my research.

CS655: Programming Languages/ Finkel
I took CS450 (same basic course) from the same instructor (who is a VERY interesting person and a fairly notable figure in computing) a few years ago. It was quite a bit of work(program in a new language every 2 weeks on top of the theory!), but it was the CS prefixed class I feel I gained the most from as an undergraduate, so I have very high hopes that this will prove invaluable as well. It appears to be structured the same way: language theory supplanted by rudimentary forays into various examples, which should be fascinating, I just hope the theory is a little more in depth and implementation-focused for the graduate version.

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LLVM FTW

Posted on 2009-08-05 by pappp

I’ve settled the direction for the next step in my master’s project this summer: I will be using the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure as the backbone of my LARs compiler.
The decision to work with an existing compiler rather than going off and writing tools from scratch carries some pretty significant advantages. The biggest is that some of the dark corners of the C specification make writing a complete, useful C fronted a very, very daunting task, so in order to not be compiling a “toy” language (or cheating with CIL or something) it is nearly the only choice(C, or C-like, is the obvious and preferred choice for input language, but pretty much all languages have similar concerns). Using an existing compiler also saves writing a whole bunch of ancillary code: in addition to the fronted, features for manipulating DAGs and performing optimizations and such are all there to be used and modified. Unfortunately, using LLVM also binds me to some design decisions made by other LLVM developers, and potentially exposes me to upstream weirdness. Thus far, I have found no serious cases of either, but suspect later in the process some interesting thorns will appear in my side as I more fully understand LLVM’s innards.
LLVM is a compiler infrastructure, rather than merely a complier because of it’s modular design. This modular design is also what makes it most attractive (among existing free, open source compilers) for my purposes, for a huge variety of reasons. The three big ones are:
First, the modular codebase helps with accessability. In many traditional full-scale compilers, the learning curve is nearly unsurmountable. In particular, the dominant free open source compiler suite, GCC, has a learning period measured in months or years before one can make substantial modifications, and requires mathematical concepts like the delta function to accurately express the learning curve.
Secondly, modularity allows me to, in a relatively straightforward way, drop in a new back end that emits code suitable for (but not complete, it’s going to take one HELL of a fancy assembler to be useful) for the proposed LARs design.
Third, the modularity extends unusually high into the structure of LLVM, which allows me to simply turn off, replace, or modify optimizations and features which are inappropriate for an architecture with LARs’ peculiar features.
My start on applying the (fairly thorough) manual for porting LLVM to a new architecture has already shaken out some new ambiguities, concerns, and omissions (some intentional) in the LARs design. This has lead to several sessions on one of the more exciting (in my twisted mind) parts of working with compilers and architectures: making and studying high-level decisions that affect both the hardware and software in a system, in potentially complex ways. Onward to more exciting adventures in computing and academia!

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FOCUS!

Posted on 2009-06-20 by pappp

This is now the longest consecutive span I’ve not been enrolled in a class since the summer between my sophomore and junior years of highschool (in Kentucky, you can take college courses for keeps after your junior year. I did.) I’ve forgotten how to make myself do anything while living a fully unstructured existance. I can’t focus on anything. I’ve lost my drive to be productive… and oddly, I haven’t lost my reserve, so I’m not partying, I’m just frittering. Mostly on the interwebs. It’s kind of freaking me out. That said, it is rather relaxing, even if I would like to be doing other things, or letting loose for a bit(either would do nicely). The failure to blog is related to the failure to focus; I haven’t been forming or sitting down to articulate the kind of cogent meditation on topics that make for good blog posts.
Projects-wise, In addition to the pile of projects which have been mentioned in the past on here, almost none of which are complete, I’ve picked up an additional physical computing effort. The collexion folks have a bourbon barrel to be gussied up for a charity auction, in the same vein as the various horrible fiberglass animals that have been popular for such things. Being electronics people, we are making it into an electronic, musical bourbon barrel. The hoops will be touch sensors, connected to solenoid strikers with xylophone tiles (keys? I’m not really a music person). Someone else has taken the lead on design, but I’m now getting involved for the “Making it work” and “Making sure it won’t hurt anyone” processes. I’m hoping having one project with some form of external pressure will help me to focus on others. In a related note, I’m half-seriously becoming tempted to start carrying a pocket-sized DMM around with me. Practically every time I’ve been out of the house this week there has been something I wanted to poke with a DMM to figure out. I’m refraining from looking seriously into finding a baby (pocket size) DMM because 1. I already carry too much crap around with me and 2. Even I would fell like a horrible dork doing such a thing.
On the topic of dorkery (dorking?), the great summer reading project continues; I finally have my sought after copy of Joseph Weizenbaum’s Computer Power and Human Reason, and have set to it. I’m a little afraid from the portion that I’ve read that it won’t live up to my expectations; some of the portion I’ve read reads like Weizenbaum covering his ears and chanting “I want there to be a soul, I want there to be a soul”, and a few of the “Can/Should computers do this” questions posed in the book (written in the mid 70s) have long since come to pass, and worked out fine. It is however, as I understand, still the seminal work on human/technology interaction, and is therefore well worth reading simply because it is the framework for discourse.

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Endings

Posted on 2009-05-10 by pappp

At the beginning of the semester, I wrote up my expectations for classes, so I would actually have them at the end of the semester to compare. The semester is over, so now it’s time to compare.

* Digital Controls (EE572) /Walcott
– Expected: Its going to be hard. Its going to be a lot of work. Its going to teach me a whole new model for thinking about things, and make me actually learn the signals material I half-learned in Signals and Systems (EE421). Every expectation that it will be a good course.
– Actual: I’m actually a little disappointed. I didn’t feel like I had the prerequisite knowledge for the class, and spent the whole semester struggling to catch up. Also, everything was abstract enough that it would be difficult to apply to the kinds of situations I wanted it for. I should have bailed to the applied controls class, the people who went that way showed me what they did and it was more applicable (and easier). Oh well, this was reasonably interesting anyway, and it’s good to stretch ones self.
* Solid State Electronics (EE661)/Hastings
– Expected: The graduate version of EE360 “Introduction To Semiconductor Devices”, which I didn’t really feel like I absorbed as well as I should have. I’ve heard good things about the class and good things about Dr. Hastings’ handling, so I have high hopes.
– Actual: I pretty much guessed right, I actually understand semiconductors reasonably well now. It’s a shame they try to sterilize the quantum mechanics out of the undergrad version, this are actually easier with limited portion of quantum than trying to hand-wave around it. It would have been nice if it got a little more into fabrication, but there isn’t time, and my interest is mostly because the way UK’s fabrication class is taught doesn’t appeal to me (boo industry focus).
* Introduction to Cognitive Science (CS585/CGS500) /Goldsmith
– Expected: Definitely going to be a fun course. Lectures are going to be scattered, and the material may not be of much utility, but it will definitely be interesting and fun, and shouldn’t be too time consuming. Looking forward to being able to do some non-technical writing again.
– Actual: Called this one pretty well too, it was really fun, Dr. Goldsmith is a VERY interesting and well connected person. I got play with things I can’t usually justify spending time on, and accelerated the expansion of my ever-growing reading list. I’d recommend this class to just about anyone reasonably smart and interesting.

In another ending, the assured broadcast run of Dollhouse also ended Friday. It was not a satisfying ending, but it was a perfectly good plot development episode. I’m sadly not hopeful that FOX will continue it. Maybe we’ll get a movie like last time this happened (to make the disclaimer I always feel the need to put on such comparisons, Dollhouse is no Firefly, but if you aren’t judging it against Firefly it’s a perfectly good show).

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Overcommitment…

Posted on 2009-05-06 by pappp

Is a state of being and a way of life. Better to be interesting than sane, right?
I may have done myself in this time though, I don’t think I can get an honest feedback-employing controller running on my XY Table by Friday… but I can probably get something that sufficiently resembles one to get away with it. Again.

As far as the specific case of burying myself for fun, I designed and understand an algorithm, I’m just finding myself unable to implement it in a timely manner; I haven’t worked with an ATMega chip’s timers in too long. I know what I need is to run my pair of 8bit timer/counters so that the full 255 count is 2kHz (1uS high, 1uS low, 50% duty cycle square wave) set the output compare registers so it actually runs at about 1500Hz (toggle and reset on match), and use the (scaled) difference in the output pulse train and the pulses from the encoders to adjust the output compare registers up/down to accommodate missed steps. I’m just being dumb with BOTH the encoders and the timers, so it doesn’t work.

EDIT: Toggle at TWICE the desired output frequency, not half. Dumb.

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