mahalo.

wow, we lost big time tonight. it was atrocious. guys left open on the doorstep all night… considering that i can only remember 2 goals from relatively far out, that means that 6 goals were scored from in close. a travesty.

i also didn’t really do jack at work today. couldn’t get going… i found out that you can actually play that power grid game online on some german online gaming site. fhm’s online site also has a cool link to the 100 best online games, of which there are a couple pretty amusing ones.

i also did a lot of looking into UCLA’s concurrent graduate degree program for MSCS and a MBA. it’s very tempting, and i think i should start preparing to try and get in for fall 2006. the good thing about the program is that you don’t need a cs GRE to get in, however, the vocabulary on that is somewhat vague about how it affects (if it at all) your chances of getting in. also, andersen school of management isn’t exactly a slouch… their admission rate is 16% of applicants. i’m basically banking on my experience at a start-up to help get me in there, most notably my observations and interest in the big shifts in business strategy that quicksilver took over the last year.

surprisingly enough, the admission rate for CS is 36%… that seems unusually high, so i’m hoping that my grades will be enough there to get in. my main weakness there is lack of research, however it seems like the joint program mainly defers to the admission criteria for the MBA side of things. so hopefully, being able to give the impression of having a genuine interest in business strategy and valuation will help get my foot in the door there. i have to give some thought to taking the optional interview. main concern there is, well, obviously, i probably don’t interview as well as most people. and i don’t think they’ll take mercy on your lack of communication skills just because you’re an engineer.

another thing i’m wondering about is the multiple deadlines they have for applicants. you can start applying for fall 2006 in september of 2005, and then after that, there are four different periods within which you can submit your application, and according to during which period you submit your application, it’s guaranteed that you will be notified of your acceptance or rejection according to pre-specified dates corresponding to each timeline. so basically, someone who submits their application during an earlier period, will receive notification of their acceptance/rejection earlier than someone who submits their application in one of the later periods. i’m assuming that they don’t have a quota for each period, because that would just really blow… leaving applicants to try and load-balance the applications submitted per period.

i’m going to go watch the empire strikes back and fold my laundry.

played a pretty hard core board game last night. the rules are here… i thought they were a little difficult to understand. power grid rules

watched garden state this weekend. by choice. really. and i liked it. natalie portman’s cute and the story had this nice little cynical edge to it. anyways, it was good stuff. zach braff as the main guy was pretty funny too because he’s just not one of your typical leading men sort of guys. which made the “are you really retarded?” scene all the more believable and funny.

saturday night i finally had ethiopian food. pretty sad considering that i lived by blue nile for four years in berkeley and never went. it was really good. not sure what more to say about that. we went to some place called “axum cafe” in san francisco.

today i was in berkeley for lunch, and i grabbed some naan ‘n curry and old tea house boba. it makes me realize how lucky i was in berkeley and how much easier it is living around there, in terms of finding food. there’s just all types of good food in a small area. the problem with oakland now is that yeah, there are probably a bunch of good restaurants in oakland, but it’s just not as easy to find ones that you really feel safe eating at. you never know if you’re going to stumble into a place where a rat crawled around the meat or a little roach accidentally got mixed into your dumplings. there just isn’t the easily accessible word of mouth that existed while at a university like berkeley.

when i got home, i started watching the star wars trilogy documentary and episode 4. the documentary was okay. obviously it talks a lot about the hardships that the cast and crew went through trying to make the trilogy. what i would have expected to be included in the footage was something about scenes where they had to improvise to meet budget constraints or just practical little things that they had to do to make things work, but there wasn’t any of that. there was actually a lot more talk about how lucas was a perfectionist and went out of his way to make sure that scenes appeared just how he wanted it. i’m guessing that sort of effort didn’t go into episodes 1 and 2 considering how the more “feely” scenes turned out. but maybe he just wasn’t as clear as to what he wanted for those scenes. especially since what he is trying to convey in episodes 1-3 is a broad, background story that was developed to support episodes 4-6. but i still have a lot of hope for episode 3. it seems like what is supposed to happen in revenge of the sith was already pretty pre-determined by what happens in episode 4-6, so we can expect a certain set of questions to be answered through events in 3. plus, from reading theforce.net, the quotes seem to indicate that 60-70% of the movie will be fighting… which hasn’t been too bad in any of the movies. and watching some of the episode 3 footage from the trilogy dvds, it looks like anakin will be a lot more powerful and fight with a lot more swagger. they also made him look bigger and older with longer hair, so he’s actually starting to look a lot more menacing, which i think is a big step up from his more weakling, youthful look in episode 2. i’ve also always wondered why it was that jedis didn’t just hurl their lightsabers more since they can just force pull them right back, but it looks like anakin might be doing some of that in episode 3. hopefully this time around i’ll be able to keep myself away from the script. although i’m still not sure if reading it has ruined my experience much… though part of the reason i’m not sure is probably because anytime i’ve anticipated a movie that much, i’ve never held back from reading the script ahead of time. self-control. going to exercise self-control.

i’ve been spending too much time in front of screens. at least i went to the gym both days this weekend. legs are nice and sore. hopefully tomorrow i’ll feel the abs burning. for some reason i can never get my shoulders sore though…

anyways, going to shower and try to read some more of the 9/11 commission before bed. it’s time to do some more constructive reading. there are a bunch of books that i have that i need to finish reading. in no particular order:
1. the 9/11 commission report
2. super system
3. seven habits of highly effective people

4. cryptonomicon
5. angels and demons
6. mere christianity
7. the gospel according to jesus christ
8. darwin on trial
9. postwatch - the redemption of christopher columbus

10. a brief history of time
11. the practice of programming (was actually a text book in college that i never got around to reading, but seems like has some pretty practical stuff in there).

there’s a spider crawling on my blinds that i need to take care of now.

bought the trilogy at fry’s today. i know a lot of people have given up, but i’m still excited about episode three. i think it’s going to be cool. anakin and obi-wan kenobi’s duel, senator palpatine/emperor’s use of the dark side of the force and his lightsaber, grevious, mace windu… it’s going to be a lot of action… which has always been the cool part of star wars… for me at least. and i’m hoping that obi-wan is going to mess up. that he’s going to show that he isn’t always so disciplined… i think hayden christensen definitely looks a lot more menacing with the long hair too. hopefully it all pulls together to be something awesome.

some update 24 casting imdb. You can see the characters slated to appear for 2005. the fact that the secretary of defense appears makes me feel a little better… was a little worried that jack bauer would be doing a lot of nothing this season. apparently this kim raver girl is supposed to be his new love interest.

tonight was looking to be real slow, but it ended up being bearable thanks to TV.

i was just pretty tired tonight, so i didn’t really want to go out, but at the same time, i was bored at home - however, i refused to sleep that early (before 9), so i turned to the tube and lo and behold, the miss america competition.

i had never actually watched the entire competition before, so i guess it was sort of interesting. they start off with 52 contestants (50 states + DC + virgin islands), and immediately whittle it down to 10, based on ratings in preliminary events that occurred before this finals broadcast.

with the 10, they go through the casual wear competition and the swimsuit competition, and then they narrow the field to 5. with 5, they do the evening wear competition and the quiz competition, from which they narrow it to 2. with the final 2, they do the talent competition to determine the winner.

i’m wondering how this works though… because they keep mentioning that there are “scores” and that these scores are based on the weighted sum of the individual events. like, the thing they try to point out is that the swimsuit competition is worth only 10% of the contestant’s final score. it seems to me that these scores only really matter for determining the final winner between the finalists. because let’s say, someone does really well in the swimsuit competition and casual wear, which is i think 10% + 15% of the final score? they get to move on to the final 5, but someone who doesn’t do so hot and gets eliminated after those two stages, might have done better in quiz and evening wear (20% + x%) doesn’t get their weighted score taken into account. so it seems possible that someone who has the highest weighted score overall, might get eliminated in the early stages and never have a change to place in the finals.

or let’s just put it this way. if you’re trying to send the message that talent (talent), poise (evening wear, interview) and brains (quiz) are more important than looks, then you shouldn’t be putting those competitions last, when the competition has already eliminated the those eligble contestants based on looks. that says, “yeah, your brains and talent are more important to us than looks, but we won’t even consider how smart you are if you don’t look good in a swimsuit.”

anyways, when that ended at 11, i did some brief channel surfing and found guster playing on channel 9. excellent. i picked up how to play “fa fa fa” on guitar.

and now i finally have some energy to continue working on my resume. but not before i did some more thinking on a little poker theory.

i’ve been reading dave sklansky’s “hold’em poker for advanced players” and also “super system” by doyle brunson. sklansky’s approach is much more mathematical while brunson’s is just much more aggressive and he relates more on a psychological level. one thing that he mentions, is that he is always willing to play into a player as long as he has a fair number of outs - he mentions the double gut shot draw… basically the same odds as an open-ended straight. an example would be when you hold a 7,9 and the board is 3, 5, 6. you would hit your straight if a 4 or 8 falls.

anyways, reading it, i was thinking that this approach doesn’t really make sense, probabilistically. in “solid” poker play, if you suspect that your opponent is on the draw, you want to bet into him to make him pay if he doesn’t make his draw, because the odds are that he won’t, so this would be the correct play in terms of long-term expected value. i mean, to take the example of the open-ended straight draw, you’ll hit the straight approximately 1 out of 6 times. if you have two overcards, you might tack on a pair 1 out of 7 times (which would be useless against someone who caught a set, or had an overpair on the flop), so overall, you’ll improve your hand 1 out of 3 times. as the person playing against your hand, i would definitely bet with an overpair because i’ll win 2 out of 3 times. so this whole aggressive posture wasn’t making too much sense to me.

but then i realized that you have to add in the fact that most people will be more willing to throw away their pat hand when they’re forced to call an all-in bet. so you have to take in the odds that the person will fold. say a person will fold the currently best hand against an all-in bet 1 out of 5 times (and that would be pretty darn loose, i’d say), your odds improve from improving your hand 1/3 times, to 1/5 + (4/5)*(1/3) = 7/15 almost 50%. say they’re a little tighter and will fold 50% of the time (will probably fold the pair, maybe call with the two pair, probably call with the set), so you’ll only win if you catch the straight, then you’re up to winning by forcing them all in on your open-ended straight (1/2) + (1/2)*(1/6) = 7/12 of the time - better than 50%. it takes some knowledge of how your opponent plays, but i do understand why it actually end ups being a good move… if you have the stomach for it.

sad thing about updating my resume. it’s great that i have lot of experience to list. it’s sad that i have no vocabulary to describe it all. i think a lot of software engineers run into that dilemma. i challenge you to find a software engineer with a pretty experience-heavy resume that doesn’t have words with the root “implement” and “develop” at least twice on their resume.

been pulling a lot of late nights the last couple of weeks. the CEO and CFO are heading off to japan this weekend to pitch the company to a couple of companies over there. the CFO wants to demo the thing that i’ve been working on. unfortunately, it wasn’t anywhere close to presentable when this came up. so a lot of work has gone into it, but i do have to say that it looks pretty good now. it’s a visual editor for our hardware platform, written in java. it’s really been pretty interesting for me. first of all, it gives me experience with UI, which should be a useful skill, secondly, it uses the eclipse platform, which is growing in popularity nowadays, and I get to say that I worked on an extension to an IDE.

i left work around 6:40 today, which is the earliest i’ve left all week. went and had rojo’s with sri, had an interesting conversation about the upcoming election, and then played some hold’em with steph (briefly), allen, calvin, andrew and sri. the buy-in was a pretty intimidating $1 (for sri, but i think it worked out pretty well… once you just have chips in front of you it all feels the same). i ended up at $1.55 for the night, so not too bad. i think allen was over $2 and sri was at $1.56. andrew and steph were out and i think calvin was up a small amount.

they forgot one benefit. that you don’t have to taste the nastiness… at least i think you won’t, i’m not positive though, given the connection of taste to your sense of smell.

alcohol/oxygen bar?

i bought bad boys and bad boys 2 for $20 at fry’s this weekend. watched bad boys last night and bad boys 2 tonight… despite other’s opinions, i still think bad boys 2 was better.

i also finished putting up another bookshelf in my room. for someone who doesn’t read much, i sure have a freaking lot of books. it’s not secured to the wall right now, so if there’s an earthquake tonight, i’m screwed.

i’m starting to get at least one per day now. this is the first time i’ve decided to make use of outlook’s junk mail filters. in retrospect, i should have started using it while i was in school because i was getting a lot more spam on the uclink address, but anyways, it’s starting to get annoying.

i’ve also been thinking about what i think about stem cell research and abortion. for the time being, i’m liberal about it and support both. mostly because both can potentially save lives, with the former having the potential to save many lives in the future.

but as a christian, i’m not sure where to draw the line on what can be sacrificed for the benefit of humanity. the first question is, should this even be a question? what i mean is, should taking human life even be considered for the benefit of another. should the person that would be benefited never have considered the aid from the option even a possibility? is it selfish to consider accepting that you knew arose from the sacrifice of another human being?

another question is, is it even human life that we’d be taking? i’m not clear on this, but isn’t removing stem cells not even really removing something that is human? it has the potential to be human, but doesn’t it have the potential to be a lot of things? and does removing a single stem cell even guarantee the end of a human life?

the problem is that i don’t recall many examples from the bible where this sort of dilemma comes up. on one hand, i can see abortion being acceptable because maybe it is what you have to do to ensure that your family is provided for, and as a responsible christian, that is a priority for you, i forgot where that was mentioned. on the other hand, is murder an acceptable course of action for that assurance, because surely you’re not supposed to kill. jesus wouldn’t even let peter strike the soldiers that were coming to take him away to be crucified. but to knowingly let someone you love suffer, is that right? that doesn’t seem right to me, and i also don’t really remember anyone faced with that sort of moral dilemma in the bible. but again, do you have the right to end life? but… does it ever say that you don’t?

i think for sure though, that people who burn down abortion clinics are out of their minds. i know that might contradict some of the train of thought i had going up there, but i’m just going to stick with that meeting violence with violence in that case, is not right.

for stem cell research, i mostly started thinking about it because i was looking into exactly what george bush decided to do about stem cell research. it turns out that he isn’t exactly not supporting it. he just isn’t supporting any research being done on stem cells extracted from embryos that have the potential to become human life. his remarks are here: President Bush’s Remarks on Stem Cell Research. But he is supporting ongoing research on existing stem cell lines which are self-sustaining, and stem cells extracted from umbilical tissue. given that, i realized that the issue wasn’t so black and white. at first i thought he was just on crack for giving up on stem cell research altogether, but it turned out his decision was more motivated on again, the question of what respect is due to human life.

i’m not sure what to think of it. i’m actually starting to think that he made the right decision. although to say so might also being saying that it is okay for some suffering to continue. again, that also doesn’t seem right. why is it that i can’t recall any decisions where the consequences of making the right decision (with exception to blasphemy… i.e. job) caused not-portrayed-as-evil people to endure terrible consequences?