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It’s official. I have now been at RIT for 6 years. Not 6 full years, but, enough that I finally have 6 separate stickers on my car. A momentous occasion when I got my next sticker in the mail.

Yes, I know its hard to see the sticker from 03-04 (it was mounted inside the window), but it’s there!

So. Here I go again. The goal is only to be around for the fall quarter, but it’s entirely possible I might need to stick around for the winter as well. I know I’ll be in Rochester until I finish my capstone. I have a new place to live (more on that later), and a complete lack of having any idea what I am doing!

Well, 6th year at RIT. I’ve graduated from you before, and I’ll do it again.

PS: Sorry about the long delay in writing, I’ve been helping remodel the new house and really haven’t been in a writing mood lately. Should have some more posts soon!

dave education, life

First off, my appologies in the long delay in posts. I’ve had a rough few weeks - and I am sure the next few won’t be much better. These rough weeks have given me a lot of opportunities to think about what is keeping me sane. Friends.

Friends can take many different forms. Some friends are buddies, while others are companions. Others can be lovers, and some can be confidants. The only real requirement for friendship is that two people actually care about one another. The level of caring can vary, but there must be some minimal form.

Now, I am fortunate to have some great friends. Over the years they have come and gone, and that happens in life. I’ve only had two people whom I have considered ‘best’ friends in my lifetime, and unfortunately distance and time has made those friendships wear away. However, I am very close with several friends, and I want to quickly mention two friendships that have helped me past the few weeks more than I could have asked.

It’s strange, I’ve known one friend for 7 years, and the other for about 6 months… but how long I’ve known them doesn’t matter. The key with why they have been such great friends is simple: They were exactly what I needed, at exactly the right time. I couldn’t have asked for anything more from them.

Sometimes just being able to hang out isn’t enough. Being able to have a friend that can be there, and care, truly care, can lift your spirits beyond that of anything you could expect.  The friend might have a role that isn’t just a bar buddy, or a hug pal. They may be there for you physically, or maybe virtually. The friend needs to have the qualities that help supplement you in the moment, and make your life, and theirs, better.

The reason I wanted to mention my two friends is because I have also had to say goodbye to them in the past week. Sure, I’ll stay in touch, but they are both moving farther away, and remaining as close of friends will be difficult. However, they will still be friends - just their role will change. They know who they are - but I want another chance to tell them thank you. Thank you.

So, seize the moment and remember to appreciate the friends you have - it becomes easy to forget how important they may be in your life. I know that sometimes I forget. So, in the past few weeks, I have tried to make it a point to tell my friends how much they’ve helped me through. Sure, it sounds corny, but I think its something that should be said - especially if I want to be a good friend back.

dave friends, life, relationships

I have had a lot of time lately to try to figure out who I am, but really, I only have questions.

Am I a Developer? Am I an Academic? Am I an Industry Professional?

I don’t even know anymore. As the summer is starting on it’s downward slope, I’ve realized that I am not going to finish all of my grad work before my intended “start working again” date, which means I might need to make changes to my plans. This scares me because I am all about the plan.

Am I a Planner?

I understand that sometimes it’s better not to have a plan, or to let the wind take you wherever you may go, however, I also realize it is critical to have a plan. When is it appropiate for each one?

In the development world, you need to have a plan. People that code from the hip generally fail as the project scales. At the same time, I will be the first to tell you, that if you spend all your time trying to figure out the plan, nothing will ever get done. For me, my development plans tend to be short, major goals to accomplish and some general ideas of how to do it. Designing the plan needs to be simple, but loose enough to allow for change.

Am I a Designer?

The problem is, when designing the plan, you don’t always know what is coming up. However, if you specifically define something in the plan, you need to be able to follow through with it. The designer has a picture of what they want, a set of requirements they are looking for. The plan can be a set of requirements, for software it tends to be measurable goals and tasks that can be met. What about real life? Can you set requirements as a part of the design plan?

Am I Breaking Requirements?

What happens when a requirement changes? Was it dependent on something you had no control over (Loss of job, Loss of relationship, Gain of opportunity, Gain of responsibility)? If the dependency fails, are you at fault for the breech of requirement? Does it even matter? Sometimes having overarching requirements is helpful in life and in software design - but we can’t always forsee the best path to reach them.

Do Requirements Define the Project?

In software development, I say yes. In Life? Maybe? My top requirement right now is to finish my Master’s Degree. The path I need to take to do this can go in many different directions, some easier than others. Finding the right path is the hard part, and has been giving me a lot of sleepless nights lately. What is the right path? What process will be the most efficient in development? What process will be most efficient in life?

Is Life a Project?

We spend our lives committing ourself to making life better, as least, I hope we do. I tend to want to look at life as something that we are continually working at to achive our goals. This however, implies that we have clear goals. If we can assume that we live life to accomplish our goals, and we know that the goals are the requirements of the project, how do we define those requirements?

How do we Define Ourselves?

Is how we define ourselves based off our previous projects that we have already accomplished, or would it be better to define ourselves by our requirements that we have set for ourselves, and how we plan to accomplish them? Maybe that’s the question.

dave life, rambling

Finally back to drawing. It’s been a rough few weeks with my girlfriend on the west coast, so I decided to draw about what I feel. I suppose that’s what art is about, right?

It’s painful learning that *hug* just isn’t the same as the real thing.

dave comic, relationships

A few days ago I talked about hyperconnection. I claimed that it could be considered an addiction.

So, when my internet at home cut out this morning, I laughed.

I felt very… disconnected. It was strange, and I felt frustrated. I called up Time Warner and they have said a technician will not be able to make it out until at least tomorrow.

Then I did what an addict has to do, I found a fix somewhere else. I drove to RIT to make sure I have the internet. I have been here for a few hours now, and I am just trying to get everything done that I usually do during the day. There is a comfort in staying connected. Usually I rely on my phone to handle lapses in internet connectivity, but knowing that I won’t have the connection for a prolonged time is, well, scary.

It almost makes you wonder what would happen if a larger scale loss of internet occurred. How many people would feel like I do? What would the reaction be?

I am an addict. Of course, I am also really not that ashamed.

dave technology

*buzz*

Off goes my cell phone again with another text message.

I have an addiction. My addiction is to data, to communication, to the internet, to technology. This is not uncommon for people that are in the computing industry. The real question is how dangerous is this addiction? The ways we socially interact have changed. We connect in a virtual space, on a virtual medium all the time now. I am not sure if this is good or bad, but it is what it is.

I am apart of the iGeneration. We are wired, connected, and on the tubes constantly. I got into a discussion with my mother the other day about packing. I basically told her that the only things I must make sure I bring on a trip are my wallet, my cell phone, my keys, and my laptop bag.

To be fair, a quick glance inside my laptop bag includes these items:

• Wacom intuos tablet
• Garmin nuvi 350 GPS
• PowerShot SD630
• Thinkpad T60p
• A bunch of power adapters

This is what I consider essential to my being. Notice how I didn’t mention clothing. That was not a mistake. While having clothes is nice - I don’t feel that I need to have them packed, since I can purchase them if I forget anything. Yes. I travel with clothes, I just don’t get worked up if I forget a pair of socks or a shirt. The point I guess is that more then half of what I really care about when traveling is technology… ways to stay connected.

This is hyperconnection. A reliance on the technologies that keep the world connected. As a people, our world has changed, and some of us have latched on to all the technology and can’t let go. We must have our instant gratification technologies… We tweet, we facebook, we instant message, we subscribe, we text. We do all of these things and this is what life is for us: Technology, Communication and Information.

Try this: How many times do you check your cell phone a day? How many times do you check social network? How often do you check your Google Reader? E-mail?

How do you feel when you are without one or all of your technologies? Do you feel like something is missing? Do you feel perfectly fine? If the former, you might be hyperconnected. Don’t worry. Being hyperconnected isn’t necessarily a bad thing. By it’s nature you are accustom to digesting massive amounts of information quickly. You tend to be more in tune with recent happenings of your areas of interest. You are also usually in touch with more people in your social network then others. The quality of the relationship may not be as great, but you are certainly more aware of recent updates then others.

What do we lose when we are hyperconnected? The short of the answer is fullness. We become masters of the connection, but not the node. While we might be able to accept more information in a shorter time, we have less time to really process all of that information. Think wider not deeper. While still connected to your social network - how much value is in every relationship you have? I try hard to keep meaningful relationships with everyone that is in my social network, but the truth is I only have a few good friends, but hundreds of acquaintances. Sure - if I run into someone at a party, I’ll be able to make conversation, but I won’t be able to hold much more then that. Of course, if someone asks me about someone in my social network - I might have a remarkable amount of information about that connection.

This concept has been running through my head for years now, and I hope that I will find more time to write about it. I gave a talk at BarCampRochester3 and received a lot of feedback talking about just the differences in the generation gap between e-mail and instant messaging. This topic is ripe for discussion, and I hope to continue it. Let me know!

Are you Hyperconnected?

dave life, rambling, technology

I guess one of the upsides to being on the west coast is you are up late enough to hear these stories BEFORE you goto bed.

George Carlin has passed away. (Link 1, 2, 3, 4)

George Carlin was the comedian that got me to like stand up. I still remember seeing some of his early HBO specials on VHS tapes when I was younger. I still consider him one of my favorite comedians, and always had a hearty laugh when I heard his jokes.

He was real, to the point, and not afraid of offending. Although crass, he is one of the few comedians that could bridge the generational gap. Both my parents and I found him funny. This world has lost a great comedian.

Rest In Peace Mr. Carlin.

dave rambling

So, I have been wanting to blog more, but my recent traveling has been making that difficult. Right now I am in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This is now my second trip to Vegas, and it really has been a good time. Last time I spent a lot more time gambling, this time I have spent a lot of time at shows and also a few moments at The Amazing Meeting 6. Although, I did enter my first Texas hold-em tournament today, and took 2nd place. Not to shabby!

In all this post is really just an minor update, and a prelude to more to come. I have a few comic ideas that I want to sketch out when I get back to Rochester, and also some topics I want to write about. So, my apologies about the lack of new content lately, but my summer has been a little hectic. I plan to be writing more when I get back from Vegas next week.

dave travel

Recently I wrote a few new algorithms for a college blogging site that I am apart of called The College Blog Network. I went to lunch and had a few beers with Dan (the lead developer), and basically discussed with him the good and the bad of TCBN. The site is a great idea, and has a lot of potential, but we both agreed the scoring algorithms needed some work.

So, with a little discussion, I had come up with a couple algorithms. One of which has been implemented already, and one that will be implemented in the near future. I have outlined the general workings of these algorithms, but left out some of the details to prevent unforeseen exploitation.

Hot Topics Algorithm

The main goal of this algorithm is to score a blog entry based on how “hot” it is. Hotness is essentially popularity and freshness. Even if a posting was one of the most popular, 3 months later, it is no longer considered hot. At the same time, a post that has been popular for the last week should still be considered hot, even if it has been around for a few days.

The solution was simple, apply a weighting system to the score that is used to calculate “hotness”. The main factor is time or “freshness value”, which is an adjustable value that can be changed to accommodate TCBN as it grows.

As shown in the graph, full weighting will be applied to newer posts, but over time, the weight a post has will begin to degrade. Lets say your initial weighted score on your post is 10 initially. After X time, it will degrade to 5. To maintain a weighted score of 10, you will need a unweighted score of 20. This will allow for consistently popular posts to remain hot, but only initially popular posts to fade away quickly. Thus maintaining an accurate “hot list”.

Overall Blog Scoring Algorithm

The second algorithm I worked on is much more complex. The goal of this algorithm is to try to calculate the “goodness” of a blog. Currently the overall blog score is calculated by adding all blog “bumps” together, then removing the blog “dumps”. In the case of a tie, the blog “views” are used. While providing an decent ballpark estimate, this score is not easily changeable (you must specifically go out of your way to bump a blog), does not account for postings, and can be exploited positively and negatively if a group of people bump or dump all at once.

The main goal of this algorithm is provide accurate ratings for blogs. The requirements were that a visible score would still need to be generated, it would still be primarily based on user feedback (bumps/dumps), and would be less susceptible to exploitation.

Simply put, the new algorithm breaks down to this:

Base “Goodness” + Posting “Goodness” + Viewability

I can’t reveal all the details of how each value is calculated, but here is the gist of it:

Base Goodness is essentially the current rating system, with some minor changes to make it a little more robust.

Posting Goodness takes consideration of posts scores (which will be more apparent when post bumping and dumping is added in the next TCBN revision). This value considers all posts. If one post in a great while is “good”, your score will not be as high as if most posts are considered “good”.

Viewability is a non-user controlled value that takes unique post views into account. A post that never gets bumped, but is viewed a lot will contribute a small amount to the overall score of the blog.

Overall these algorithms were a fun little side project for me, and hopefully will come in great use for TCBN. Tweaking might occur once we start to see how the scores turn out, but these are the basic principles behind them.

dave coding, friends

This comic sums it up. Steve Jobs makes an announcement, people go crazy for no good reason.

I suppose this is about right, although, I embellished it a little. I highly doubt there would be nukes dropped.

dave comic