jmp 0xSeattle

Wow! So that was one helluva flight. Actually, the flights were nice, since the Uni hooked me up with Quantas (I am a cheapskate and probably would have gone with a cheaper option if it were my wallet being genocided-upon by the airline industry). I finally got the chance to watch The Social Network and Tarintino's more recent Django Unchained. All I gotta say is that I was thoroughly entertained and I think I need to see more Tarintino flicks. Anyways, I am in Seattle for the Memory Systems Performance and Correctness (MSPC) workshop to present our research into garbage collection and region-based memory management, black magic, and the digital alchemical fusion of these two aforementioned dark sciences. Anyways, I think I'll go stroll around this city! My stomach cannot hold any more caffeinated beverages.
-Matt

Monkeys like Logs

So I needed a way to fight boredom this weekend. So I decided to start work on a new side project. I had an idea that evolved into a pretty simple concept, to create a console program that monitors text files (log files) and displays their most recent line. It was an excuse to do more curses hackery and to take a break from garbage collection and memory management (which I still hacked on anyways :-). With that said, I have an alpha version of the aforementioned log-viewer TreeTop which you can snag here. "Monkeys like trees, climb to the top."

-Matt

Seattle and Nacho

Well, the paper my advisers and self have been laboring over was submitted and accepted to the ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Memory Systems Performance and Correctness (which is in Seattle this year). More so, I wrote the original draft (with some incomplete pieces). It ended-up being rewritten by my advisers (and a ton of things were added!). Needless to say, it represents hours and hours of work, and composes ideas from their genius. It was great to work on this paper with them, and I am humbled that it was accepted. I have been implementing code for ages now to represent these ideas, basically a combination of region-based memory management and garbage collection.

On another front, I have been working on more PDF hackery. I wanted to make a PDF-grepping utility. I have a basic implementation cooked-up but the key piece is the simplistic PDF text-extraction library that I wrote (note that it is not fully featured and does not account for all encodings and compression schemes). I present upon the world libnachopdf because it ain't yo' PDF. Well, maybe it is your PDF, but that doesn't matter. Get 'yo nacho on over here.
-Matt

I miss industry...

So many of you are probably wondering, because I know I am the keystone in your lives, what is Matt up to? Well, not much, just some thesis writing and stuff. Yes, I am being vague. Anyways, I am ready to knock this PhD out. I have had fun, but personally I find industry more fulfilling, and I long for the day where I can return to that. With that said, here is what trying-to-get-a-PhD looks like.
-Matt

UniWireless and ArchLinux

No, this is not a memory-management related post. With that said, I decided to actually spend some time and try to get my Linux box running on the the University of Melbourne's wireless network, as they do not have much help regarding low-level settings, at least I didn't seem to find too much help on the aforementioned site. The links at the end of this post are what got me rocking. Personally, I run ArchLinux with netctl (as a replacement for netcfg). The syntax that both of the aforementioned network configuration utilities use is similar. Simply, here is my config, I have a feeling this is going to be similar for many other institutions. Please note that I have not spent any time to tweak or remove any redundant options below.

Interface=wlan0
Connection=wireless
Security=wpa-configsection
IP=dhcp
ESSID=UniWireless
WPAConfigSection=(
    'scan_ssid=1'
    'ssid="UniWireless"'
    'key_mgmt=WPA-EAP'
    'eap=PEAP'
    'identity="MrSexxy"'
    'password="ILikeGoats"'
)

And that's it. Of course, you will need to use your proper uni username and password (the same one you use when logging into the library's online database). Please make sure the permissions on this file are proper so that any-old user cannot read your password.

The uni's website mentions that students can use either a manual or automatic proxy. I choose the manual, which will also request your username/password again. With that said chromium supports both th automatic (pac) proxy configuration and the old-school manual configuration (as follows):

chromium --proxy-server=wwwproxy.student.unimelb.edu.au:8000

... Now fire them torrents up (oh, yeah, I'm pretty sure you are being watched).
Special thanks to these very insightful/helpful posts.

• https://github.com/joukewitteveen/netctl/blob/master/docs/examples/wireless-wpa-configsection
• https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=150701

-Matt

From the Mothership

Last night I went to see the god of funk, George Clinton, along with the Parliament Funkadelic at Billboard. Fantastic show. It's funny, I was thinking, due to being asked: What is it about funk/soul that I like... I mean, I am a metal head, love some blues, and have an inner hippie in me (I dig jam rock). Well, I don't think humans know why they really like something. Sure, I like music that was generated using some bit of talent, and sprinkled with creativity. But, really, why does a person really "like" something? I think it's hard to answer in words... "I like it just because!" It's probably the result of some brain/chemical order in the head.

-Matt

Bird Trajectory Miscalculation

I personally believe that we as humans take many things in nature for granted, or we just totally ignore them. I have to say, I do not believe that many people consider how awesome birds are. But, they are not perfect. Have you ever wondered: do birds ever screw-up? Surely they must. They are not born bad-ass fliers. They have to learn. They are animal, as we are too. With that said, I am sure that even the most experienced of our avian friends mess-up their calculations on occasion. I am sure that it is not uncommon for an experienced bird to over-correct, or possibly approach a landing site too fast. Do their wings ever get cramped mid-flight and just stop functioning like a Boeing 777 down a man and running on one engine? Sure, they are animals, and subject to some kind of mean-time between failure. Well, as I was leaving uni today a bird just hit me in the head. It wasn't firm or painful, more like a bump. Maybe it was an accident? I should have contacted FAA. Anyways, my hair is a bit frazzled, but it doesn't really look like a nest. Now, it is common for magpies (and other birds) here to attack dogs and people (especially cyclists). In fact, the gov't maintains a "Swoop-off" website where you can download eye pictures to put on your cycling helmet. Often, you will see cyclists with zip-ties sticking out of their helmets for protection from the swoop. Well, I was walking, no helmet, and no eyes on my head. This little bird either decided to attack me, miscalculted one of the numerous variables required for safe and accurate flight, or got a cramp. Either way, I was humbled as nature ran into me.

-Matt