Monthly Archives: August 2010

Class Impressions: Fall ’10

Posted on 2010-08-31 by pappp

Another semester has begun, and it is thus time for my class impressions post. The chain to previous semesters’ before/after posts begins here. I have only the one class left toward my masters’ degree, plus working on the project, and teaching.

EE611: Deterministic Systems/ Zhang
This class is looking a lot like a warmed over version of the first 2/3 of controls, which I took several semesters ago as EE572 Digital Controls from Dr. Walcott. It took me about half the semester to get the hang of things in there, so another opportunity to solidify my understanding of systems manipulation isn’t a bad thing. The early indications are that the lectures are …discombobulating… rather than useful, but between the book, notes, and materials from last time I think I can handle it anyway. It doesn’t look to be unreasonably difficult, and the elastic grading policy puts a safety margin in place in case it turns out to be. Somewhat disappointingly, this class glosses over the modeling process too; I’d love to actually learn how to formally develop models of existing systems so the analysis/control techniques are actually useful, rather than just elaborate exercises in linear math.

EE281:Digital Logic Lab /Me (+Jeff Ashley)
Based on feedback from students and faculty, I seem to have the system down pretty well for running this lab, and actually do feel like I have a pretty good handle on it. With a few changes to the class to address problems that cropped up last time (no, you can NOT start that lab from 5 weeks ago that you never made up…), I think things should run pretty smoothly. Dr. Ashley has indicated he’ll be a little more hands off this semester, and I think I’m up to the greater autonomy. I’d like to make a few changes on the same scale as last time, and now that I have some of the nontechnical matters situated more to my liking (ex: my nice formal (work saving) grading scheme), the changes can be more material-oriented. Perhaps getting HD44780 character displays (nice, simple parallel protocol with good visual feedback) into one of the later labs, or some similar practical tools with good theoretical underpinnings. I have every expectation that I will be spending an absolutely obscene amount of time in the lab again, but I actually feel good about the whole thing. I really rather like teaching.

My research is starting to make decent progress, I’m optimistic about teaching, and the remaining class looks perfectly tolerable; it should be a good semester.

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New Laptop!

Posted on 2010-08-27 by pappp

My new laptop arrived thursday, and it is a beautiful thing.
t510t60p_sm.jpg
(It should be pretty apparent which one is the new one…)

It is a Lenovo ThinkPad T510 (4313 Chassis), with a Core i7 620M (2 cores at 2.66Ghz, Hyperthreaded to 4), 8GB of RAM, a 15.6” 1920×1080 LED Backlit screen, Nvidia Quadro NVS 3100M graphics, 500Gb 7200RPM HDD, and lots of doodads)

Like a good geek, the first two things I did, after booting it up to check that everything worked, were opening it up to poke around and upgrade the RAM (Like all OEMs, Lenovo WAY overcharge for RAM), and blowing away the included Windows Whatever(tm) install for an ArchLinux system (and a smaller partition with a …”fixed”… copy of Windows 7 for games and such).

It is tentatively named “Ahu” in keeping with my “Man made stone structures” naming scheme for full sized computers. (Current active machines are a Lenovo T60p named “Monolith” and a used, modified Dell Optiplex GX280 named “Dolmen”)

Just to keep them together:
Things I like:
* The screen is GEORGOUS, bright, good colors, and 1920×1080 is a whole lot of pixels. Way, Way better than the T60p, even when it was new.
* This thing is a powerhouse. Not “Mindblowing” fast, but close, and 8GB of RAM covers a multitude of software sins.
* nVidia graphics, simply because the nVidia drivers are a lot less of a hassle than the ATI ones under Linux.
* SD Slot – I have lots of SD-using devices, it seems to be the defacto standard, having one built in is super handy.
* Build quailty – It feels sturdy. Actually, even sturdier than the T60p, no squeaks, rattles, or flexing.
* Rounded edges – They screw with the classic Thinkpad aesthetics a little bit, but it means the angles where the palm rest has a sharp edge in your wrists are gone (except for one spot on the right where the latch sits).

Things I dont’ like:
* The textured, flush touchpad is TERRIBLE on first use. It is clumsy to use (different resistance pushing and pulling), feels bad, and doesn’t have recessed edges to put your finger against when scrolling. I’m one of those weirdos who actually likes touchpads, and the one in my T60p is excellent, so this is quite a disappointment. I seem to be acclimating, but it still isn’t as comfortable as it’s predecessor.
* The machine is bulky; If I could have a new 4:3@15” with decent (>1050 vertical lines) resolution I would have gone for that, but they simply don’t make them anymore. 16:9 is a stupid shape for computers. Unfortunately, all my stuff is sized for 4:3@15”, so despite my careful purchase of a matching sleeve, the damn thing doesn’t fit in some of my normal bags and accessories.
* There is a cutout in the palmrest for some part I don’t have, I think a pantone color calibration sensor? or possibly the fingerprint reader? with a blank cover in it. My fingerprint-reader-less T60p has a smooth palm rest with no slot, I was hoping for the same.
* No ThinkPad goodie bag. My T60p came with a variety of extra Trackpoint (eugh) nubs, some “security” (Torx) screws, and some other trivial accessories. It was a nice touch, that is now gone.
* Exposed optical eject button: This thing is so well designed it’s really noticeable that there is an oversight in that the eject button is placed where it is pressed when picking the laptop up by the sides.

Most of the gripes are incredibly minor, and I’m really, really pleased with the machine. I’m Currently in the process of taking it from “shiny new piece of hardware” to “home,” which takes a while for me. Most of the configuration is working well, even the parts I’m doing differently (trying to avoid tpb and use direct acpi or xfce features). Convienently, Arch just added a proper multilib repository (literally the day I got the machine), so none of the old 64 bit OS disadvantages are asserting themselves.

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23!

Posted on 2010-08-17 by pappp

Another year older and… roughly the same.
Last year’s birthday entry still holds, with some additional support: Now I KNOW I like teaching well enough to do it in the long term, and I have a “real” publication out the door based on my masters project (which is actually progressing, albeit slowly).
To put it simply, I’m still enjoying what I’m doing, I’m still being rewarded for doing things I enjoy, and I should be able to continue in such a state for the foreseeable future. That last step does, however, involve starting PhD applications, which is terrifying.

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Brauner

Posted on 2010-08-01 by pappp

I picked up a new and excellent bad habit from Vienna: The Brauner. Vienna is famous for it’s coffee, and Austria in general is more into their coffee than even the stereotypical French and Italian coffee cultures, meaning I got to indulge my excessive affection for coffee while I was there.
A Brauner (lit: “brown one”) is a shot of espresso, served with sweetener (usually sugar, sometimes chocolate) and cream (usually on the side), and a glass of still water. It is basically the perfect expression of coffee. In Viennese dining culture it is perfectly normal to have one after every meal… and for the most part, I did. The best way to go about consuming a Brauner is to splash cream in until it’s roughly 1/4 of the volume, stir, taste, and then adjust. If it’s a preternaturally perfect shot and good cream, it won’t need any sweetener, otherwise sweeten until it has the same creamy, rich, and slightly bitter aspect as good dark chocolate. Most cafes offer Kliner Brauner and Großer Brauner as separate items, for one and two shots respectively, although drinking a double with every meal would be a truly unmanageable amount of caffeine.
This is how they usually come at a cafe (already started in on that one before I thought to take a picture, sipped the crema off) :
brauner_sm.jpg
And this is what I’ve been having with breakfast almost every morning since I got back:
mybrauner_sm.jpg
I even went and bought some proper espresso spoons because I was afraid I was going to break something mixing in the little 2oz cups. Easy to make (If you already have espresso equipment), and very, very tasty.

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Summer Projects

Posted on 2010-08-01 by pappp

I haven’t been posting much lately, most of my time has been sucked up by a variety of summer projects, both personal and school related, and most of them haven’t been terribly externally interesting or photogenic.

Several of the projects derive from the research group inheriting a heap of hardware from the departure of the last member of UK’s Cluster Fluid Dynamics group, which we are currently in the process of sorting out. One part of the heap is 30 little Dell SX260s (cute li’l SFF Pentium 4 boxes from 2003 or so), and some associated server and network hardware. I’ve spent a couple afternoons building and configuring a portable (ish) cluster from the pile, and the result is PIK (Pentium/Intel Cluster in Kentucky, following our current naming scheme):
pikfront_sm.jpg
And check out my OCD wiring job:
pikback_sm.jpg
Unfortunately, six of the small nodes and one of the servers seem to be dead, all apparently due to bad capacitors… which is sadly entirely unsurprising on for hardware from around 2003. There is still a discussion if it would be worthwhile to replace the caps, it is apparently not too difficult on these motherboards.

On another front, I still haven’t managed to get my 500-some photos from Vienna sorted out; I think only a few of those will end up getting posted as they relate to other things — the urge to just shoot with a little digital and a large memory card creates a really unmanageable number of photos.

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