Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in MALBONULO's LiveJournal:

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Friday, November 4th, 2005
2:02 pm	Two years on, growing out of LJ It's been two years since I created my first blog here. It's time for me to move on. LJ is simply too restrictive, and the community too juvenile (y'all excluded). I will likely post here from time to time, for a while, but most of my new posts will be appearing on my Blogger page. I will maintain this account to post on friends' journals as necessary. I would create a syndicated account, so LJ users can "friend" my new blog, but it seems LJ wants you to pay to do this. ...just like everything else. Case in point. Current Mood: tired Current Music: Placebo (Kidney Thieves) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005
1:39 pm	Mirrormask, robots, and Google, oh my! Went to see Mirrormask on Sunday with a big group of friends. SEE THIS MOVIE. If they had had DVDs available for sale on the spot, it sounds like everyone in our party would've bought one. I haven't done any robotics work in close to three years. In that time, the technology has gotten cheap, and I've gotten a job with a regular paycheck, so I'm restarting my research. About twelve years ago I developed a drivetrain that would allow a wheeled robot to move in any direction, change direction at will, and rotate while moving in a straight line. There were some holes in my design — namely, it would be a bumpy ride — but, hey, I was 11. At some point in the past decade, someone else has had this idea, and has made the parts available. This makes my life so much easier, as I lack a machine shop. They even fixed the bumpy ride problem (with a solution that made me slap my forehead at its obviousness and elegance). So, they're getting some of my money, and I'm getting some really strange-looking wheely bits. Sure beats my originals, which were built out of old lawnmower and Rollerblade wheels. Nobody seems to have built my "magnetic hamster drive" yet, which means it either won't work, or is so incredibly off the wall that I'll have to do it myself. I have a feeling it's the latter. So, since everyone is still asking, here's my dialog with Google over the past week or two. Me: So, when you said you'd get back to me in the "near future," were you using the geological time scale? Recruiter 1: Oh, crap. I thought Recruiter 2 already contacted you. I will remind him. Me: ... Recruiter 1: No, really. He exists. Me: ... Recruiter 2: Hi! I'm Recruiter 2. Me: Hi. You exist. Recruiter 2: Yes, I exist. Want to come back out to Mountain View? Me: After the last interview, when I said "This was fun, can I do it again?" — did you take that literally? Recruiter 2: Well, here's the thing. Feedback on your interview was strong enough that we're considering you for a different position. Me: ...yeah, I think I already knew that... Recruiter 2: A better position. Me: ...okay, that answers that question. Recruiter 2: So we'd like to have you come interview with people outside of the billing department. Me: Why do I have the feeling this will involve a lot of irrelevant math? Recruiter 2: Don't worry, we'll try to keep it grounded in reality. So I fly out on the 10th or so. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Big Swing Face (Buddy Rich) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 20th, 2005
12:26 pm	Google update: there is no update Just so folks don't have to keep asking: Google emailed me today to say they'll email me next week. Yes, this is what they did last week. I was informed that they've changed which position they're considering me for: now a more general Java Engineer, rather than a Billing Engineer. I have no idea if this is good, bad, or neutral. Current Mood: annoyed Current Music: Nightmare (Razed in Black) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 11th, 2005
6:34 pm	First day back at work; reviewing a book Well, I'm done with my first day of work since California. I contacted a couple other departments in the company to see about openings; if I don't get the job with Google, I want to make sure I have options. At least one of them said they'd love to have me, but they need someone immediately, whereas I'm not willing to move within the company until at least December. (Got stuff to wrap up.) That's within the company, of course, where I don't want a reputation for leaving things unfinished. I'm not sure I'd be so firm with Google. In other news, I'm reviewing a pre-publication copy of Java Concurrency in Practice. This is neat to me for a couple of reasons. 1. Considering its subject matter, it's a pretty good book. 2. The author thought I'd have constructive input. Hee. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Love and Hope (Ozomatli) (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 8th, 2005
8:22 pm	Mountain View update I've finally gotten enough downtime to update everybody, since many of you asked for updates. I spent Thursday bumming around Mountain View, eating Indian food, and watching back episodes of Firefly. The interview went well, near as I can tell. I'm not sure how specific I can be under my NDA, but suffice it to say, the interview lasted five hours and as many interviewers. I completely covered, then erased, then again covered a wall-sized whiteboard in code and diagrams. (Well, 'wall-sized whiteboard' may be inaccurate. The wall was a whiteboard.) I was asked to answer an interview question that my dad used to use in the early 80s. I learned some new puzzles and some new solutions to old puzzles. And, I'm happy to say, I taught some of the interviewers a thing or two. (I'm not sure they'd ever encountered a Biffle brain before — or, for that matter, anyone that can see aspects of number theory.) I also suspect I was the only person on the Google campus wearing a suit and tie. One of my interviewers, for example, was wearing an old t-shirt and jean shorts. Becky appeared (surprise!) on Friday night. We went out for Thai with Jason from Yahoo, which meets my preposition quota for the evening. The Thai, like all the non-fast-food here, was incredible. Mountain View has a Castro St. that, while rather unlike its twin in San Francisco, is a really pleasant place dotted with excellent restaurants. Saturday morning I went hiking in the mountains near Cupertino, with a couple Googlers I'd met at JavaOne. As hiking parties go, this one was reasonably receptive to my griping about Java, since one wrote a good portion of the standard libraries, and the other, the compiler. Later, I had lunch with Becky using my standard Mountain View food-discovery algorithm: walk into the first place that catches your eye. (I have yet to be disappointed.) We then stuffed her onto a train for Berkeley, to meet up with some college friends, while I went out to dinner with the aforementioned compiler author and his family (who are a hoot). (Meaning that they're entertaining, not that they're owls.) Now, I'm haunting a coffee shop on Castro, listening to a jazz trio. They're doing an excellent job playing a song I don't normally like (Rodgers and Hart's My Funny Valentine). I won't know about the job until Friday at the earliest; I'm sure you'll all hear about it shortly after I do, either way. In all, the most difficult puzzle I got this weekend came from a 12-year-old girl. Q. A 5-year-old is pushing a large 1930s car down the street in front of a hotel. Why? A. She's playing Monopoly. Maybe you've heard it before, but I hadn't. Current Mood: relaxed Current Music: My Funny Valentine (some jazz trio) (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 6th, 2005
12:25 pm	Sitting in the airport, la la la. I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight. I'm a safe-looking white US Citizen, so I got through the entire airport process in about 10 minutes flat. (Now, watch me get searched on the way back.) So, I fly to San Jose, see how wrinkly my suit got in transit, interview ALL DAY tomorrow, and then figure out what I'm doing this weekend. Current Mood: nervous Current Music: Woke Up This Morning (Alabama 3) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 5th, 2005
11:52 am	Work, California, people, and music At work, we've got this system we call Initiate (because that's its name). Its job is to decide, given info about two people, whether they're the same person — so that if, say, our phone operator typoes your name or address, we still match you up with your correct account. It's a bit too aggressive, deciding that if two people have a similar address, phone number, and last name, they're clearly the same person. I spent a few minutes this morning delivering a satirical tirade on how Initiate is "attacking traditional marriage" and "eroding family values" by encouraging people to cohabitate without marriage. (However, as a coworker pointed out, it might be exactly the opposite: it tends to have us issue credit cards to the husband; perhaps they don't think the wife should have one.) I fly out to California on Thursday at 1:45ish PM. I've got my paperwork and references in order. Wish me luck. I'm already vaguely nervous, which is unusual for me. Jeannette, the ex of whom many of you may have heard, has reappeared. We're taking a shot at being friends, assuming one of us does not kill the other. She may appear at some of our social gatherings, since there are a lot of people around (Becky included) with whom I suspect she'd get along. As a direct result of nntt's reappearance, I've been exposed to some new music, the highlight of which so far has been Alabama 3. Neat stuff. Current Mood: nervous Current Music: Sax and Violins (Talking Heads) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 2nd, 2005
12:25 pm	Web flashbacks! In cleaning out my web server, I ran across an amusing bit of nostalgia. Fourish years ago, I wrote a program to render images into colored text. Useless, yes, but an interesting mental challenge. So, from Halloween later that year, here's some example output. Warning: it's a big page, and may make browsers unhappy. If you're having trouble making out the picture, hint: unless I am mistaken, it's the lead character from Space Channel 5 stealing the key from the main character of Adventure. But I may have my halloweens mixed up. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Air Batucada (Thievery Corporation) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 27th, 2005
3:13 pm	TUESDAY OF DOOM I'm flying to Mountain View on the 6th, interviewing on the 7th, and coming back on the 9th. Leaving a full day for mischief. Mmm, mischief. "Mischief" in this case will probably mean "investigating the mass transit system to see if living in San Francisco might be practical." Well, as practical as living in SF can be, anyway. Amusingly enough, Choice seems to have figured out my skillset, and I'm currently rewriting their credit card handling policies for them. Today I spent about an hour writing some software that prevented them from having to buy a $1499 package. Yay me. Also, Moskau by Rammstein is not a cover of the Dschingis Khan song. Too bad. Current Mood: relaxed Current Music: Frozen (Collide) (Comment on this)
Monday, September 26th, 2005
3:30 pm	Ironic police names As reported all over the damn place today, Cindy Sheehan, everyone's favorite grieving mother, was arrested today while protesting outside the White House. I'm not clear why they were arrested, really — but then, as far as I'm concerned, it should be legal to hold a "Blow up the White House" rally outside the White House as long as no actual blowing-up is attempted. And that's why I'm libertarianish. But, good news: the article has a funny bit: Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests. One man climbed over the White House fence and was quickly subdued by Secret Service agents. ... Sgt. Scott Fear, spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said about 370 protesters were arrested over four and a half hours. Who better to subdue a peaceful protest than SERGEANT FEAR? Current Mood: amused Current Music: Don't Take Your Love Away (VAST) (7 Comments |Comment on this)
11:57 am	23 September: Weird Email Day I should have checked my email on Friday. First, an email from an ex I haven't heard from in a few years titled "A nervous email I probably shouldn't send." That was unexpected. I skimmed it enough to determine it wasn't about pregnancy or venereal disease; I'll read it later. Second, on a lighter note, this: Hi Cliff, I spoke with the hiring team and we would like to fly you to oh, aren't you clever for on-site interviews (given that you have already had two phone interviews). Please let me know your availability for an on-site interview for either the week of October 3 or the week of October 10 (assuming one of those weeks works for you). Please also let me know your travel preferences (airport, if you want to fly in the day before the interview, etc.). Thanks! amazing hidden text I'm being coy to protect the innocent with my quoting above, but you can probably figure out which company this is. Hope they have a sense of humor, since my reply included this: > Please also let me know your travel preferences (airport, I would prefer to travel from an airport. My street is not straight enough to land anything bigger than a Sopwith Camel. Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: Go It Alone (Beck) (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 22nd, 2005
11:00 pm	"Liberal"; and Catholic Gay Priests Must Find New Jobs In a journal I follow, someone made a post critical of US foreign policy. An anonymous responder fired back with a sort of post I'm rather familiar with: "You fucking liberals are all the same." Yadda yadda. It seems the entire field of political science is wrong: "Liberal" means "Someone who disagrees with what Bush is doing right at this moment." Who knew? *cough* In the news today, I heard mention that the Catholic church may bar gays — including celibate ones — from the seminaries. "Seminary" jokes aside. Evidently this proposal was floated in the aftermath of the abuse scandal. Most people that have studied social psychology are aware of this, but I know we have some neo-cons in the audience, which means some people haven't studied social psychology. So: The vast majority of men who molest boys are straight. Yes, you heard me right. Homosexuals are men who are attracted to men, sexually, and for relationships and such. Child molesters are people who molest children. These are different concepts, though they're difficult to separate if you think of homosexuality as a paraphilia. Am I saying the Catholic church should allow gays to be priests? No. First, that's their decision. Second, their religion pretty much states, flat out, that gay men are screwed, spiritually speaking. There are some translational ambiguities in Leviticus, but Romans is pretty damn clear. I'd argue that celibate gay men are not actually violating any rules in Christianity, but a Catholic scholar I am not. What I am saying is that this will not fix any child molestation issues they've been having. Only accountability and transparency will do that. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 8th, 2005
11:35 am	"Gay marriage" So this is interesting. Here's an article on the California same-sex marriage bill, written by the Baptist Press and published in the Christian Examiner. It's rather more balanced than I expected from these two institutions, which is good. Except for one oddity: any time the terms gay marriage or same-sex marriage are mentioned, they're in quotes. Consistently. Bias can be so subtle. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Queer (Garbage) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
1:11 pm	¡Tómala! Becky, who rocks, gave me a mate and bombilla from Argentina. I've been drinking mate (the drink) for several years, but I'd been doing it wrong (as the Argentines at my work continually remind me). Now that I have a mate (the container), they're referring to me as "little gaucho." Which is amusing, since they're all about five feet tall. (They're thinking in Spanish, where "gauchito" doesn't imply anything about size like it does in English.) Current Mood: happy Current Music: Bus to Beelzebub (Soul Coughing) (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
3:38 pm	IR Webcam You may remember, some months ago, when I put an IR filter on my cameraphone and posted weird purple pictures. Well, I got a better idea. I'm not willing to crack my phone open and modify it to improve its IR usability, so I bought a cheap webcam. Five minutes with a screw driver, X-Acto knife, and infrared filter material later, I had an IR webcam. Here's my office, shot through my cubicle periscope: Here's me. The fluorescent lights don't put out much infrared, so this is taken using my LCD monitor as a lamp. Turns out it's plenty bright. And, as it turns out, eyes like mine are creepy as fuck in IR: (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 27th, 2005
2:20 pm	Yay work! Cliff's work day 10:00 - arrive. (Late. Alarm clock crapped out.) 10:30 - get distracted reading blogs. 11:00 - pull up list of assigned tasks for the September 16th deadline. 11:45 - complete all tasks for September 16th. 11:50 - purchase teriyaki. 11:55 - noisily consume teriyaki while reading about noun cases in Bantu. 12:10 - check with boss for more work. 12:15 - field a series of questions about data security from another team. 13:00 - find a major security hole in our application. 13:10 - fix security hole. (Boss wants to delay the fix until a future release. Sad.) 13:15 - consider buying new iBook. Decide against it. 13:30 - re-read archives of webcomics. 14:00 - naptime! 14:20 - post on LJ. It looks like this is basically what my life is going to be until at least September. Oh, except for days like yesterday, when one of our entertainingly clumsy programmers breaks everything and I have to fix it. This might be okay for those who enjoy Slack. Personally, it infuriates me. They're wasting my time. I'm-a go write a paper on something, I think. Current Mood: bored Current Music: American Car (Mike Doughty) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
10:52 am	Eerie artist parallels So Mike Doughty, former leader of Soul Coughing, has a new solo album out. I picked it up on iTunes (can you really say 'picked it up' in that case?) and am seriously digging it. Dave Matthews, who is apparently a big fan of Doughty, guests on one track. Note: it is not a Soul Coughing album. However, it's clear how much of Soul Coughing's musical prowess came from this one mind. Go listen to it on iTunes. Or, I suppose, buy it stamped into shiny plastic, if you're into that. So here's the eerie bit. The link above goes to Doughty's blog. If you remove the gigging entries, the past month or two runs basically parallel with me, albeit on the other end of the country. See these posts, for example: M. Doughty becomes hypnotized by the same soap ads that distracted me greatly in SanFran. Same girls in the ads, even. M. Doughty loses copies of some of his recordings and winds up buying them off iTunes. I did the same thing recently with some of my old techno. (Though not from iTunes.) The part of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that most amuses M. Doughty is DEEP ROY! (Perhaps only Becky will get this one.) M. Doughty puts out a plea for sound samples. My collection, too, is growing. Ikea. Nuff said. It's weird. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
8:43 pm	Holy fuck, redux Here's a non-technical rewrite of one of the problems Google had me solve on the phone. I did this for Becky's benefit, but others might find it entertaining. Let's say you have a list of numbers. Millions and millions of numbers. Far too many for one person to read through in a sitting, and certainly too many to remember. These numbers are not in any particular order and have no particular pattern. You need to find the median of these numbers. For any list of numbers, there exists one number that is greater than half of the list, and less than the other half; this is the median. Since you can't possibly read through all these numbers, or even carry them on paper, you have a room full of assistants. You can give each assistant instructions on what to do with some of the numbers, but they aren't superhuman — they'll each have to get a single part of the list. So, write the instructions to each assistant that will find the median. (They don't all have to have the same instructions, but they can.) Oh, and the room will get very noisy, so the communication between assistants must be kept to an absolute minimum. Yeah. So, apparently I pulled it off, because I have a second interview. Yay! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 19th, 2005
3:10 pm	Holy fuck. A Google interview apparently consists of being asked to solve several major computer science problems on the spot, on the phone. Like, problems that have no actual "solution" to check against. Now I just have to hope that my solutions were adequate. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 16th, 2005
10:48 am	Phone call results Spoke with Google yesterday, as predicted. I have a phone interview on Tuesday. We'll see. (Comment on this)