My friends have gotten used to some of my very opinionated statements and know that I don't really quite mean what I say when I say things like "Living in Maryland has made me a racist." They know that (a) I'm not a racist and (b) I'm referring to people who live up to a stereotype rather than past them. What it leads to is first a story about someone I ran into the night before followed by discussion about how stereotypes, hatred, and racism come about. Eventually, it evolves into an interesting conversation, but it starts with my making some offensive but only quarter-true comment.
Having grown accustomed to hanging out only with my friends who understand this strange evolution of my conversational skills, I don't make an adjustment when talking to people who don't know me well.
So I made a Tax Day Resolution and have vowed to try to return to a less confrontational and offensive conversational style. While I will still pursue the interesting conversation, I won't do it by trying to insult everyone I'm talking to.
]]>In fact, when there are sensors located in the road to detect the presence of traffic, stopping that far behind the white line would actually prevent the sensor from noticing the presence of a car.
They must be stupid, which seems to be the same explanation for most of the other idiotic behaviors Marylanders do.
]]>"So what did you think the movie was about?"
"Why us? Why Americans? What makes us different that we can't handle having guns?"
I finally meet someone who understood the point of the movie. To the hottie, thank you for not living up to the hot chick/dumb slut stereotype, and here's to creating a new stereotype of hot chick/smart slut.
]]>How would you attach it to a wall?
Answer: four screws out the back into drywall so that when someone tries to work on the electrical outlet underneath, the jarring impact of unscrewing the socket cover and prying out the receptacle shakes the cabinet down and almost kills him.
If you happen to read this, ye jackass from whom I bought this house, suck a dick. Preferably your girlfriend's you dickless s.o.b.
]]>Hooray for the interweb.
]]>When implementing a retry/timeout scheme for a network client, it'll usually look something like:
for (try = 0; try < MAX_TRIES; try++) {
sd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
if (connect(sd, (struct sockaddr*) &a, sizeof a) == 0) {
do_something();
break;
}
sleep(1);
}
+---------+ ---------\ active OPEN
| CLOSED | \ -----------
+---------+<---------\ \ create TCB
| ^ \ \ snd SYN
passive OPEN | | CLOSE \ \
------------ | | ---------- \ \
create TCB | | delete TCB \ \
V | \ \
+---------+ CLOSE | \
| LISTEN | ---------- | |
+---------+ delete TCB | |
rcv SYN | | SEND | |
----------- | | ------- | V
+---------+ snd SYN,ACK / \ snd SYN +---------+
| |<----------------- ------------------>| |
| SYN | rcv SYN | SYN |
| RCVD |<-----------------------------------------------| SENT |
| | snd ACK | |
| |------------------ -------------------| |
+---------+ rcv ACK of SYN \ / rcv SYN,ACK +---------+
| -------------- | | -----------
| x | | snd ACK
| V V
| CLOSE +---------+
| ------- | ESTAB |
| snd FIN +---------+
| CLOSE | | rcv FIN
V ------- | | -------
+---------+ snd FIN / \ snd ACK +---------+
| FIN |<----------------- ------------------>| CLOSE |
| WAIT-1 |------------------ | WAIT |
+---------+ rcv FIN \ +---------+
| rcv ACK of FIN ------- | CLOSE |
| -------------- snd ACK | ------- |
V x V snd FIN V
+---------+ +---------+ +---------+
|FINWAIT-2| | CLOSING | | LAST-ACK|
+---------+ +---------+ +---------+
| rcv ACK of FIN | rcv ACK of FIN |
| rcv FIN -------------- | Timeout=2MSL -------------- |
| ------- x V ------------ x V
\ snd ACK +---------+delete TCB +---------+
------------------------>|TIME WAIT|------------------>| CLOSED |
+---------+ +---------+TCP Connection State Diagram
Figure 6.
Years later, these same people have somehow earned licenses and been allowed to control multi-ton vehicles capable of traveling at high speed and equipped with brakes that slow them down with equal ease.
What did I do back in high school? I learned to recognize the behaviors and signs of people who had a tendency to pay little attention to the world around them and planned appropriately.
There are the stoppers who suddenly decide that they need to talk to their friend or check their bookbag. If I'm walking behind one, I stay slightly to one side (usually non-locker side) and watch for oncoming pedestrian traffic. When that person makes his sudden stop, I'm ready to just ease around, turning sideways a bit to slide through if necessary.
Also, there are the flailers who don't know what they want and just turn and move abruptly. Maybe they just noticed a friend they wanted to talk to, but after tapping him on the shoulder, decided that was enough and tried to continue on after you've already tried to step past. These, you got to know because they'd wander back and forth as if drunk while meandering toward their eventual destination. Their attention is constantly darting to and fro like a nervous bird. With these people, I made sure to get around them and to do it quickly. If I didn't, they were prone to plowing directly into me after I'd thought I had safely passed them.
The speeders were an interesting if small subset in the hallways. They tended to have heavy backpacks and treated the passing periods like a World Rally Challenge. They also tended to have pretty good grades, but that's neither here nor there. The speeders would aim for any small gap between people that they thought they could fit through (forgetting the extra mass and volume of their overstuff backpacks) and move jerkily through the crowded halls. Due to their almost hilarious levels of coordination, these movements were often met with collision and the inevitable fall to the floor. Everyone would stand around and stare for a few seconds before going about their business, letting the humiliated individual gather up the books they couldn't fit into their bookbag. I looked out for the speeders and helped them make it through whatever gap I thought they were looking for to avoid being the one to send them to the floor.
So who are all those crazy nuts on the road threatening your life with their cars? You used to be confounded by them in the hallways of your adolescence. You just never learned how to deal with them which is why they still bother you now. Understand where they come from and you're better armed for the daily drive.
]]>When learning to drive, I was told "use your signal when you turn or do lane changes", but that's really minimal guidance. The original reason was probably for drivers to use the signal to give other drivers fair warning of their intentions. Problems arise with the multiple interpretations of "use your signal when you turn or do lane changes."
Some people will take the phrase to mean that using a signal reserves your right to perform the action. Others use it to signal that an action is in progress. Others realize it often means nothing to other drivers and don't use it at all while others see that people will try to prevent a lane change if they see a signal blink on. Since the "use your signal" instruction was so vague in its intentions, this has lead to inconsistent usage and confusion on the streets.
So given these issues, what policy do I apply to my signal usage? Always seeking to maximize efficiency, I have a few simple rules for when I do and do not use turn signals.
When preparing to turn, I will see if there's traffic behind me, and if so, signal before I apply the brakes. What this does is let the person behind me know why I will be applying the brakes soon. This way, if he or she chooses to go around, they won't have to worry that I'll just gun the engine and cut off their merge back into the lane. Also, they'll know not to get too close and cut themselves off from their options and not to try to pass me on the wrong side.
When changing lanes, I almost never use a signal because it warns other drivers of my intentions. In Indiana, use of a signal was a courtesy and there was usually so much space between cars that lane changes weren't an issue. In Maryland, the overcrowding has lead to highly territorial behavior in its motorists who guard their car and a 10 foot cushion all around quite zealously. Therefore, signaling a lane change has become akin to telling someone you're about to steal from them.
So instead of signaling my intent, I usually just take what I want which is usually 2 or 3 seconds of lane time before I exit from the road. This also gives the driver I'm getting in front of no time to try to speed up to prevent the lane change.
This may seem rather arrogant and incredibly annoying to most drivers, and that is a point I will concede. But knowing my personal driving habits, I am also quite tolerant of people who lane change without signaling and I'm more than happy to let people merge in front of me. I am an optimist when it comes to mergers and lane changers and believe that they will try to match the speed of traffic when possible, therefore posing no detriment to my forward progress. When I think that someone will merge into my lane and prevent me from continuing at my current speed, I will quickly look for routes around and lane change out of the situation if possible.
If you'd like to test this out, by all means, merge in front of me. Just don't be mad if you were going too slow and I pass you soon after. I won't tailgate, I won't honk, and I won't give you the finger because that's just a waste of time and effort.
See you in my rearview mirror.
]]>During lunch, I somehow implied that I could tell a lot about a person based on the food he ate, so one thing lead to another and I was asked to analyze one of our lunch compatriots' food selection and make statements about his life. Situations like these are perfect occasions for oral foot insertion. So, after noting his selection of chicken wings, I said "He doesn't care about staying in shape, drives an American car, and has 3 pairs of shoes." I didn't mean to be offensive with the "staying in shape" comment, but I was right about the other two.
I didn't care about the shape I was in until recently, so for the last 4 months, I've taken no care in the food I ate, and nor was I appalled by my complete lack of physical activity. So, I didn't expect my first guess to be so mean, but it was. As a result, I now do care about my appearance and will be hitting the gym as often as possible.
]]>Mr. and Mrs. Smith have a party and invite 4 married couples. While mingling at the party some people shake hands with some of the other people. No one shakes hands with same person more than once and no one shakes the hand of his or her spouse. Mr. Smith asks everyone at the party how many hands they shook and no one gives the same answer. How many hands did Mrs. Smith shake?
I have always had difficulties with brain teasers because there's always a clever solution that I always assume smart people will find that I never will, but there are those occasions when insight is granted, even to me. Those brief moments when a problem is suddenly picked open are the ones I live for, regardless of their context.
]]>After reading someone's "I'm hot. your not." t-shirt. Of course I understood what you meant. It isn't that I can't understand you; it is that I don't like being reminded that I'm surrounded by idiots.
]]>Vowel frequencies for this passage are:
a: 10.53%
e: 12.03%
i: 4.51%
o: 7.52%
u: 3.01%
So that seems reasonable. What would be interesting is to look at letter subsequences in everyday English and compare that to the passage. I don't encounter "yg" since I'm not often writing or reading about sphygmomanometers, or hygiene (etc.) Plus, it was a Singaporean girl who set the record, shattering the previous record set by a Briton.
I'm not sure who came up with this as the definitive test of txting speed, but I struggle with short phrases like "sweet. go vikes." and "I need a ride." The world record standard passage took me a few minutes, lots of cursing, and a thumb cramp.
]]>