sindylee.com » Technology & Computing

Trick Play

sindy — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:25:28 +0000

I don’t know why I thought of this recently, but back in the late 80s, my family got a second TV– a small thing, maybe 15″ at the most. It was around 1988; I distinctly remember watching coverage of the Bush-Dukakis presidential race on this TV that lived in my parents’ room. The TV came with a remote, something novel for us since our living room (and recently only) TV was still a big thing encased in wood and with a manual dial for changing channels, a task with which the youngest child (me) was usually privileged. The new TV’s remote had a button labeled “RECALL.” I thought this was such a smart and amazing feature: the ability to “recall” what you had just watched. Clearly, this button would replay the last few minutes of whatever was on TV in case, for example, you hadn’t been paying attention, had to step put of the room for a moment or just wanted to re-watch whatever amazing programming you had just seen.

This feature is now part of what TiVo calls “trick play”– the ability to pause live TV and play back up to the last 30 minutes of recently viewed TV. And of course, this feature was not actually this feature in 1988; the recall button was actually a “last channel” button, automatically changing the channel to the previous or last channel viewed. Never having had a remote, much less a TV that was capable of remembering what the previous channel was, I thought this amazing new TV– small, but with the channel displayed on the screen in neon green digital numbers and shiny silver buttons that silently changed the channel up and down (instead of a plastic knob and dial that clicked as you turned it)– was surely capable of “recalling” the last few minutes of precious TV.

But no, it would be at least a decade before somebody out there thought of this idea, along with a long list of other great ones, and came out with the first public trials of TiVo, debuting in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998, around the same time I first came out to the Bay Area myself (and have yet to go back). Busy, busy, busy.

Toggl

sindy — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:00:06 +0000

During my masters program, we had to keep track of how much time we spent on various tasks– reading, development, testing, team meetings, etc.– and submit weekly “effort logs.” We would either just keep track of the time by looking at the clock, using a spreadsheet with VB Script voodoo where you could hit a start button, work, and then hit stop to record the elapsed time, or just plain guesstimation. Effort logs were submitted as spreadsheets and team coaches or mentors (faculty/staff) would have to tally up each team’s total hours by wading through spreadsheet after spreadsheet for each student and team.

Because of the challenges and general annoyances the above caused, when it came time to develop our own software product as part of our curriculum, our team decided to build an effort logger– namely, the “Surreal Effort Logger,” or SEL for short– to better address the above need. (Our team was called “Team Surreal.” From what I remember, when faced with the always troublesome task of coming up with a team name, we used a random word generator, stumbled across the word “surreal” and went with it.) SEL was built as a webapp where you could hit a button to start the clock, work, hit a button to stop the clock, and then enter what you had worked on– the “task”– and the webapp would log the amount of time spent. SEL let you see the totals for individual and team effort for a given period of time.

As it turns out, somebody actually went ahead and built a “real” version of SEL called “Toggl, It’s complete with a timer, start/stop button (rendered as a shiny red power button), task, project and client tracking, and reports. I think the need to track software development time was the impetus, but the system can be used for any type of work that needs easy and accurate time tracking, especially when having to calculate billable hours and generate reports to be used as invoices.

Toggl is a “use anywhere” tool since you use it to track time for projects,There’s also a desktop version so you don’t have to have a browser window open to keep the timer going– you don’t even have to worry about logging out. and for Mac OS X users, a dashboard widget for greater convenience. (The widget was developed by a Toggl user– not by Apprise, the Estonian company behind Toggl– and was released today, which is eerie, considering I was thinking of developing a widget myself today.) You can even embed it as a gadget in iGoogle or GMail.

More things that are great about Toggl: there is a free version that has “minimal limits”; for example, you can have as many projects and tasks that you want. The “premium” (for pay) versions also include features like support for planning ahead, avoid having to end tasks before your session

I couldn’t find the exact date, but Toggl was created some time before 2007, so it was out before my CMU team built it, probably even conceived of the idea! Now, if only Team Surreal had thought to take SEL to the next level…

Flight of the Conchords: The Humans are Dead

sindy — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:53:43 +0000

All of this is great, but fast forward to 1:26 to hear the binary solo:

Jimmy Fallon Head Swap

sindy — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:58:52 +0000

From Late Night with Jimmy Fallon:

96% Nerd, 61% Geek, 13% Dork

sindy — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:09:07 +0000

I joined OKCupid on a whim (mostly because it’s free). They have personality tests like most dating sites do to better match you with other members. I took one today called “The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test.” I apparently scored 96% Nerd, 61% Geek and 13% Dork, amounting to being a “Modern, Cool Nerd.” Which is good, I guess.

More interesting is the breakdown of each word/category:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

In true nerd form, I found this interesting and worth sharing.

The Missing Sync

sindy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:12:55 +0000

Oh my God. How did I not find out about this sooner?

The Missing Sync for BlackBerry from mark/space.

So much better than that piece of crap PocketMac– syncing my Mac and my BlackBerry actually works now! And I can even sync over Bluetooth! Totally worth the $39.95. In this case, you really do get what you pay for.

Stephen Cobert (x2) on Off-Shore Drilling

sindy — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:50:31 +0000

On The Colbert Report last night, Stephen Colbert faced off against himself in “Formidable Opponent” to discuss the high price of oil, the weird practices of oil spectators, and off-shore drilling versus alternative energy plans:

Another example of his great talent for explaining complex issues so that more people are aware of and understand these issues (and have a laugh while you’re at it).

Another show that’s great at this: The Daily Show, of course. Remember John Hodgman’s piece on Net Neutrality? Genius.

Another Amusing Google Search: “How to Get into Stanford”

sindy — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:58:54 +0000

Once again, I’ve made it to the top of an interesting Google search: if you search for “getting into Stanford,” one of the top list of results is my 2005 post on How to Get into Stanford. Makes sense, given the handful emails I’ve gotten from prospective students asking for tips, especially from an alumna. I always point people to the Undergraduate Admissions website and especially to the very helpful FAQ, but I hope my post gives people some helpful advice.

(And of course, I’m still one of the top hits for “ragtotes.” w00t!)

Job Spam

sindy — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:34:49 +0000

I get a lot of job spam– unsolicited emails asking me to submit my resume and/or apply for jobs. Most of these emails are from recruiting or head hunting firms and almost always, they concern positions that I’m not interested in at all (and usually have little to do with my professional experience and career history). They usually say something like “We came across your resume and based on your background and experience, we have some job opportunities you may be interested in.” They then describe some of the available positions (usually at one or more corporate clients of the recruiting/hiring firm) and immediately follow that up with “Please submit your resume” or “Apply online at [insert some website].” I assume that these recruiting firms are sending these emails to thousands of people (basically, anybody who might be in any minuscule way a good fit). Although seemingly inefficient, they only need a small fraction of these people to respond so that they can sift through applications and provide their clients with a manageable pool of applicants to review. This is basically the same principal as regular spam as well as telemarketing and even political pooling– contact thousands, millions of people and even if you only get one or two percent return, that’s a sizable number of respondents and potential new customers.

Yet, the thing that actually annoys me about these emails is that they contacted me, but their emails come off as if it was the other way around, telling me how to pursue them. “Send us your resume.” “Apply here.” They are interested in me based on my background, experience and qualifications, but then I’m supposed to go to the trouble of applying or submitting my resume (which they already have since that’s how they found me in the first place). It’s like going up to someone and saying, “I really think you’re attractive and interesting. I think you’d be interested in going out with me. Here’s my number– please call me and I’ll consider a date.” I’m not saying that they should automatically make me a job offer or even guarantee me an interview, but they contacted me– a better approach would be, “We came across your resume and think you would be a good fit for some job opportunities at [insert company]. We would like to talk to you further if you are interested,” etc. From my experience, only a handful of recruiters do this and they’re usually internal recruiters from the company. In the end, I may not be interested, a good fit, or even qualified, but if they’re reaching out to random people on job websites and the web in general, they’re looking for more and/or better candidates than those contacting them and even the semblance of trying to “woo” the applicant wouldn’t hurt.

However, an interesting thing happened today, which is why I’m bothering to write about it at all. I received another one of these unsolicited recruiting emails today, but after receiving the message, it was quickly followed by another email from the same company (but different recruiter) and even with the same subject line that started with the following sentence:

While conducting an online search we came across your resume. It appears that you are over qualified for our positions.

Ha! They go on to mention executive positions posted by their clients that may be more applicable. They still end up telling me to submit my resume (“for free”), but it’s a start!

The Stanford Copyright Integrity Initiative

sindy — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:38:54 +0000

If you follow my blog, you’ll know that I’ve commented often on file-sharing, copyright, and universities certainly more than a few times and while my blogging has been sparse lately, today’s announcement of “The Stanford Copyright Integrity Initiative” deserved spending some time on a blog post. The initiative was apparently “introduced by Stanford University to demonstrate the university’s leadership in efforts to strengthen the integrity of copyrights and intellectual property.” As early as a little before 10am this morning, my department (Student Computing/Residential Computing) received an email from a worried student– after reading the announcement on the front page of The Daily, the University’s student newspaper, the student visited riaa.stanford.edu (as directed in the article) and after entering his name, found that Stanford “has likely reported” his name to the RIAA, MPAA, or ESA. The student was both confused and worried– you see, after receiving his first copyright complaint a little while back, he hasn’t illegally downloaded a single song, movie or anything else! Has his computer been hacked? Did file-sharing somehow get accidentally enabled on his computer?

This truth is that this clever little stunt was part of the annual fake Daily published by the Stanford Chaparral (or the “Chappie” as it’s affectionately called), Stanford’s student humor magazine. The article is actually quite well-researched and well-written, including references to actual facts, such as the highly publicized “three strikes” policy” in which students not only face increasingly severe disciplinary actions for repeated DMCA violations and complaints, but are also charged increasing amounts of money through associated “reconnection fees.” The article also says that over thirty students have reached their third strike in the past year with settlements with the complaining record companies totaling over $100,000. While the numbers are about right– over thirty students and settlements totaling about $100,000 in the past year– they actually apply to the results of the record companies’ “pre-litigation letter” campaign that started in 2007 and in which they target college students all over the country with the threat of lawsuits. As part of the new “integrity initiative,” the article explains, Stanford is now scanning its network for DMCA violations and actively reports the culprits to the “RIAA and other appropriate authorities.” In the first day alone, the article continues, “78 unnamed students” have already been reported and the University’s IT organization “predicts that approximately 34% of Stanford undergraduates will be contacted by the end of Wednesday.” (That’s approximately 2,274 students.) The article goes on to direct students on how to find out if they’ve been flagged (via riaa.stanford.edu) and in turn, find legal help (the EFF gets a nod).

The article itself was pretty funny– Stanford, like other universities, has been spending increasing amounts of resources dealing with illegal file-sharing and copyright and personally, I think it was a good jab at how ludicrous the effects of the DMCA and intimidation tactics of the entertainment industry have become.* Just last week, I was summarizing the results from the annual undergraduate computing survey and many students commented on their dissatisfaction with the University’s handling of file-sharing and copyright issues, wishing Stanford would take a stronger stance against the RIAA and the MPAA’s efforts.

The website though… I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but aside from probably breaking some basic network usage policies (for setting up riaa.stanford.edu, use of the Stanford seal, etc.), the website took it a little too far. The reality is that since the first lawsuits targeting students (circa 2003), the University really has been stepping up their efforts to stop illegal file-sharing and punish repeat offenders and something like this initiative isn’t completely impossible. The reality is that over thirty Stanford students– peers and perhaps even friends of the Chappie staff members– really have been sent pre-litigation letters and really have had to pay approximately $100,000 in settlement deals. The reality is that the entertainment industry really is targeting college students– people who have little knowledge of their legal options and/or resources to defend themselves. When you enter your name and hit submit at riaa.stanford.edu, it looks like they use your name to randomly** give you either a thumbs up (you haven’t been reported) or thumbs down (you’ve already been reported and look forward to a letter in the next three to four weeks). I would hate to think that a student who’s already paid out thousands of dollars because of a pre-litigation letter was tricked into going to the website and got a thumbs down.

I don’t know how long the site will stay up and working, so if you’re curious, here are some screenshots, etc.:

Notes:

* If you’re curious about Stanford’s actual policies on file-sharing and copyright, check out my department’s FAQ on File-Sharing & Copyright (also used by the General Counsel’s Office as well as the Information Security Office as the University’s “official” FAQ on the issue).

** It’s pseudorandom– the algorithm they’re using is deterministic. Unfortunately, no matter what Leland Stanford, Jr. does, he will always show up reported to the authorities.