04.14.07
Posted in books, music, personal at 12:25 am by danvk
Albums:
- A Tribe Called Quest, The Low End Theory (1991)
- R.E.M., Murmur (1983)
- The Velvet Underground, Loaded (1970)
- Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1962)
Some albums are just inextricably associated with times and places in my life. Loaded wins that award for summer 2006. It’s hard to say how long you have to wait to know, but the early returns have Reasonable Doubt as the sound of starting at Google.
Books:
- Kenneth Browser, The Starship & the Canoe (1978)
- Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar (1997)
Hopefully I’ll write more about both these books in the next week or so.
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04.10.07
Posted in personal at 9:07 pm by danvk
I noticed my wallet was missing after racquetball this afternoon, and despite some semi-concerted efforts searching, I wasn’t able to find it. In retrospect, I should have checked my bank account immediately…
04-10 *DEBIT AUTHORIZATION
AT 23:02 ALMADEN CINEMA SAN JOSE CA $ 25.50
04-10 *DEBIT AUTHORIZATION
AT 22:38 Jack in the Box 34 San Jose $ 8.19
04-10 *DEBIT AUTHORIZATION
AT 16:03 SUNNYVALE SUNNYVALE CA $ 49.00
04-10 *DEBIT AUTHORIZATION
AT 15:31 TARGET SUNNYVALE CA $ 8.64
04-10 *DEBIT AUTHORIZATION
AT 15:15 SUNNYVALE SUNNYVALE CA $ 68.00
So the good news is he only got $200 (including ~$40 cash in the wallet) before I canceled the card. It gives me some peace of mind that his last purchase was movie tickets, since he won’t be doing too much purchasing inside the Almaden Cinema.
I’m OK considering this a $200 lesson learned. What’s most annoying is that now I need to go get my debit card and driver’s license replaced.
On the off chance that whoever’s got my “DANIEL H VANDERKAM” Mastercard is reading this, you’ve got the address to send my DL. Be a nice person. It only costs you 37 cents…
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03.18.07
Posted in personal at 12:35 am by danvk
File under “feeling old”… I got a copy of TurboTax today and started filling out form after form after form. Some thoughts:
- The Instant Data Entry feature is cool. You fill out your employer and total wages, and TT downloads the rest of the information from its database. Google participated in this, but Rice did not.
- TT asked me if I qualified for the “Ottoman Turkish Empire settlements” deduction. Ottoman empire? How many people could qualify for this? Some sleuthing turned up the story.
I kept thinking about what a nightmare this software must be to write. Nothing about taxes generalizes cleanly. It must be a tangled mess of “if A and B then go to C”. It’s the epitome of wizard-style programming.
It reminds me of a cool Atari ROM visualization I saw a few months back. It shows the control flow in the code of various Atari games. The line that stood out to me at the time was “Pac-Man, most complicated of the bunch, what with all the AI for the ghosts.” No doubt true, but what struck me was that AI is used as a synonym for “if statement”.
So not only does TT need to have an if statement for Armenian descendants of Ottoman citizens who were insured by New York Life, it needs to have equally complicated logic for all fifty states and probably even some cities.
In short, I’m glad I work for Google and not Intuit.
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02.23.07
Posted in books, music, personal at 12:11 am by danvk
The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy
Fun history of hip-hop and breakdancing in particular.
Modern C++ Design, by Andrei Alexandrescu
If ever you thought you understood C++…
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami
A much easier, faster read than The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but I prefer my darkness alone in the bottom of a well rather than in a subterranean cavern with a plump 18 year-old who may or may not be a sex interest.
King: Man of Peace in a Time of War
A look at Martin Luther King’s principle of nonviolence in the context of the Vietnam War. The extended clip of King on the Michael Douglas show was fascinating. In the future, we’ll be seeing more and more legendary figures in down-to-earth contexts like this.
Malcolm X, Directed by Spike Lee
Malcolm X’s life forms a fascinating counterpoint to Dr. King’s, and this is one hell of a movie.
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02.15.07
Posted in personal, politics at 10:17 pm by danvk
I enjoyed listening to some of NPR’s Intelligence Squared program on the way home from work, “Is America Too Damn Religious?” A gem from the first speaker, Rev. Barry W. Lynn:
After every major school shooting in the United States, members of Congress insist that, if we posted the ten commandments on every schoolroom wall, we would stop the next violent student uprising from occurring. They’re never willing to talk about gun control, they’re never willing to even talk about spending money to work with avariced young people but decalogue display is the panacea. But you know, if proximity to holy words really made us better people then the presence of Giddeon Bibles in night-stands in motels would have ended adultery long ago but it has not, it is not that simple.
Full program here.
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