Whatever you do don’t play Desktop Tower Defense. I’m totally addicted. If I don’t graduate next year, I’m betting this is the reason. If against my advice you decide to play anyway, post your scores to the “cs.umd.edu” group. That way I’ll know I’m not alone in my addiction. Some scores: Finished the Easy levels …
Author Archives: sandro
Late Nite Catechism
I had the great pleasure of seeing a production of Late Nite Cathechism at the Olney Theatre tonight. The one woman show casts the audience as the students in a “Sunday School” class on Catholic belief. Covering everything from chewing gum in class (don’t) to the ramifications of Vatican II (the Church will never be …
In the classroom again…
I’m supposed to teach a new systems class at Georgetown this spring. My goal is to cover the basics of systems hardware that every programmer ought to be familiar with. I want to provide a basis for the students to evaluate their code for efficiency. I’ve created a first-draft curriculum. Your comments and additions are …
In the classroom again…
I’m supposed to teach a new systems class at Georgetown this spring. My goal is to cover the basics of systems hardware that every programmer ought to be familiar with. I want to provide a basis for the students to evaluate their code for efficiency. I’ve created a first-draft curriculum. Your comments and additions are …
Comment Spam
The photoblog is being hit with a massive storm of comment spam. Most is being filtered by Akismet, but quite a few messages have gotten into the moderation queue this weekend. What’s odd about this is that I have comments “turned off” for old articles (and everything in the photoblog is old. Even weirder is …
MythTV vs. TiVo
I’m hooked on TiVo. If you’ve never used one, I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, the company’s insistence on charging monthly for TV schedule information, means that I turned to other sources when I got an HDTV and wanted TiVo-like features. Specifically I turned to MythTV (or MythTVHD if you prefer). Being a bit of a …
Existential Freak-Out
I feel like I have a deep case of depression that’s having a knock-down, drag’em out with a bunch of caffeine–somewhere deep down in my soul. I’m thinking that this is some sort of reaction to whatever happy-juice they pump into the water in the Magic Kingdom… This sucks.
Crowd Adverse
Sometimes I manage to seem like a completely normal person (stop laughing). But occasionally, I go into full freak-out mode. Increasingly, large groups of people (or even small but dense groups) cause me enormous amounts of stress. The phenomenon seems to have been getting worse since high school, and I’m probably starting to avoid certain …
Bike Geek
I love bicycling. And I hate to admit it, but I’m also a bike geek. While the latest and greatest bike technology is always interesting, I mostly ride older, used bicycles. I especially like mid-1980s vintage bicycles. (But I’d still like a new 2008 Trek Madone 5.2). You can see my line-up of bicycles in …
Tapia 2007
I’m just back from the 2007 Richard Tapia: Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. I had a good time, and the weather in Orlando cooperated nicely. I met a lot of great people, found out about a bunch of post-graduate positions, and enjoyed several excellent presentations. Part of the conference included a backstage tour of …