Published!

My first paper has appeared on the Electronic Colloquium of Computational Complexity. Check it out, if you like.

Goodnight Battlestar, Goodnight Haymarket

Last night, we head over to the 404 to watch the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.

There was a good crew to show up this season. It's tough, seeing how this group started in 2006 when Jesse and I first roomed together at the Grainger building. That summer, we attempted to watch the old series before giving up halfway and watching the first season of the new series on DVD. When Jesse moved over to the Hardy, we started watching season 2 on TV.

Then, I moved into the 404 with Jesse and the BSG parties continued. They've stayed at the 404 since I moved out last July. In May, Jesse is moving out. That's why last night felt like a combination goodbye to BSG and to the Haymarket.

Of course, I'll still stop by for some Lazlo's or Ivanna Cone. However, it will no longer be the same as in my college years and first year of grad.

Thank you, Haymarket, for giving me a great college experience. Time to grow up, I suppose.

For now, I'm happy to have grown up. The house is great, and I love my wife. It will be nice to have Friday nights to spend with her instead of driving downtown. We both look forward to some Blu-ray release of season 4 (or the whole series) so we can watch it together.

iPonder

How hard is it really to make a sensible podcast app for the iPod Touch? The recent iPhone 2.2 update allows for "device-driven" downloads of podcasts, so you don't have to sync with a computer to get your latest podcasts. I was excited, and hurriedly subscribed to all the old podcasts I liked, but had stopped listening to as the sync took too much effort. However, the software did not meet expectations.

The way it works: all new podcasts are uploaded to your iPod. You then go to the podcast directory, select a podcast, and then select an episode. When you are done listening, you see a "Get More Podcasts" link at the bottom of the episode list. This is their new feature. It links you to the page on the iTunes store so you can select individual episodes to download.

There are multiple things wrong with this scenario:

• If you did not have any new episodes of a podcast when you synced, that subscription is nowhere to be found on the iPod. So, when I sync on Wednesday, I cannot download Monday's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" without downloading it to iTunes and syncing.
• More on this syncing issue: the sync must be with a single version of iTunes on a single machine. So, I plug my iPod into my work machine to charge it, but I can't sync it there without erasing everything. Either open this up, or make the device stand on its own well enough.
• I have to select each episode to download from the iTunes Store. There is no option to "get all new episodes" or even "get most recent". After selecting the episodes to download, you're stuck in the Store app, and have to navigate back to your podcast starting from the Home screen.
• This next shortcoming is the most unforgivable: there is no "play all new podcasts" selection. How hard is that? I just want to listen to the new episodes for today, and will skip any that don't sound interesting at the time.

Normally, Apple does wonders with its interface design, but this is an example of horrible failure and utter disappointment. These are the very simple features that I would like:

• A "Play all new podcasts" button at the top of the podcast directory.
• All subscriptions to be uploaded, even if there are no new episodes.
• A "Download most recent podcasts" button that pulls the most recent episode form the iTunes server if it has not been already.
• An option to remove old podcasts from the device.

This has been a gripe session, brought to you by Apple.

Stretching It

The final notes and revisions were made to a research paper today, before it either 1. gets new results added (ha!) or 2. gets reviewed by my advisor's collaborators. It was a little odd near the end, sticking extra results that are not really meaningful, but show at least a little reason for writing proofs with generality. For instance, if you draw a graph on n vertices with a log(n)^k number of layers and each layer happens to be a planar acyclic digraph with log(n)log(log(n)) sources, then you can decide reachability between vertices using log(n)log(log(n)) space. The most hilarious part is, even in this incredibly restricted situation, the algorithm isn't even polynomial time! It runs in 2^{O(log(n)log(log(n)))} = n^{O(log(log(n)))}.

Anyway, welcome to a view of my life you may not have seen before, and probably never want to see again.

Smarter than the average dog

Our new puppy is relatively intelligent, compared to most dogs. Recently, she figured out that some doors aren't closed all the way and can be pushed open. Now, whenever I go to the bathroom, there is a soft thud shortly after I close the door. Good luck next time, Cici.

You suck at Rock Band 2

You know why you suck at rock band? Because you can't play the drums! What is eluding you? You sure can hit those colored pads, but you can't pedal worth a darn! That little piece of plastic doesn't bounce the same as a real drum pedal! No wonder Tom Sawyer gives you nightmares! Here is the solution: take a real drum pedal and hook it up with a reed switch and some magnets! My good friend and Hendlee Stolerson counterpart, Nate, built a similar design a year ago. However, I stole some of the "lessons learned" from that experience to make the most AWESOME drum mod you have ever seen or used!

Rock Band 2 Impressions

Yesterday, Rock Band 2 was released for the Xbox 360. I was very excited to pick up my copy and begin playing. The first Rock Band has been great fun for the past year (thanks for sharing, Nate!) and I really look forward to having my own instruments. Especially the new drum set. In lieu of their release, I played some guitar last night. Here are some impressions, especially on the changes.

• The new, streamlined song listing takes a while to get used to, but is absolutely fantastic for navigating the huge library of songs. I now have the Rock Band 1 tracks as well as a good chunk of downloadable content, so it is very important to navigate these 150+ songs.
• The World Tour mode is now combined with the solo tour, so even when playing alone, I am advancing my band through cities, playing gigs of ever-increasing importance. The aspect of playing developer-chosen, random, or self-made setlists was sorely missed when playing RB1 by myself.
• My good friend Yuliy (yes, that Yuliy) gave me a friend invite from Fargo. We played on his tour together, and I ended up with the West-coast rocker achievement, even though I did not have the tour bus to cross the country. Helping him advance through some mystery sets was loads of fun, even if it does not advance my own band. I hypothesize that sometime in the next few months the Endless Setlist will be destroyed via online. That is, unless I actually make it up to Fargo sometime (here's hoping!)
• I'm really hoping that this online business will bode well for me. Once I get the drums, I will be a hot commodity. The drums are the hardest instrument to play (in Expert mode, the hits are one-to-one with the real drummer) and I can get by well enough on most songs. I've also completed the Expert Vocal career on RB1, and few people enjoy singing. If you need a band member in these areas, add stoleetech to your friends list and invite me!
• There has been mild success in the past of getting my wife to play guitar on Medium as I sing. Hopefully the drumset will arrive soon and she can stop complaining about how awful that sounds. Then, she'll actually enjoy playing, perhaps?

Overall, this game is incredible. If you already have the RB1 instruments, what are you waiting for? If you only have the Guitar Hero controller, grab a copy and get some drums later. If you have nothing, perhaps you should wait for the super-duper pack of drums, guitar, and mic. Otherwise, you're missing out. Also, if you buy that other music simulation game, you're part of the problem and should be ashamed of yourself.

Scanning on OS X with a Canon LiDE 30

I've owned a Canon LiDE 30 scanner since high school, and it has been an excellent piece of hardware. However, it has not had the greatest software support, especially with the Intel macs and OS X.5. With some Googling, I found this blog post with very informative comments. Here is a summary:

The Canon driver download is essentially a Photoshop plugin. If you do not have Photoshop, you must download VueScan software, which has only a free demo. There may be other methods, but I could not for the life of me get TWAIN-SANE to work with the GIMP to scan anything.

Good luck to anyone else who tries this!

Got the No-Pay-Per-View Blues?

If you want to keep track of the score of the Nebraska vs. San Jose St game today, but don't have the fancy-pants TV package for it, you could do the following technique to get a score bubble on your screen (if you have OS X).

First, put Dashboard into dev-mode. Then, open Safari to ESPN College Gameday Scoreboard. Select File->Open in Dashboard and select the appropriate scoreboard. Click "Add" and Dashboard will load your requested widget. Click and hold to the widget and hit F4 (or whatever gets you out of Dashboard). Being in dev-mode brings the widget to your desktop!

Now, you can at least track the score while doing other things throughout the day. Yes, it would be nice if this game was important enough for ESPN 360, but it is sadly not. Oh well.

Headset Replacement

Recently, my Xbox headset broke since it is a cheap piece of plastic. Tonight, I took a knife and some tape to my over-the-ear headphones and inserted the microphone and speaker. Now, I have a fully-functioning headset with the bonus feature of game audio in the standard-quality headphones. This benefits me in several ways. 1. I have my Rock Band microphone back. 2. I can play RB without making a lot of noise (outside of my humming). 3. I can play video games without disturbing the wife.
Thanks to babblin5 for his wonderful instructable that gave me the idea to do this in the first place.