This is a test
This is a test.
New Job
On Monday I started my new job at National Instruments. I'm a software engineer for their LabVIEW development environment and compiler, focusing on performance and concurrency issues. It's a very different environment from my previous job, though with many of the same qualities. So far (three days) I really enjoy it :)
Satan's coffee!
If you're ever at Thunderbird Coffee in Austin, order a regular Honey Nut Latte and a regular Thai Iced Coffee...IF YOU DARE! The price is apparently your soul.
CouchSurfing
A while back, we got turned on to couchsurfing.com. The idea of the site is to connect a) travelers looking for a place to stay with b) people who will let the travelers stay there for free. So if you're traveling to, say, Peru, you can look for couchsurfing hosts in Peru, thereby getting not only a free place to stay but also, possibly, a local to show you around. Sweet :)
The idea is both brilliant and generally well executed by the couchsurfing developers. While the concept relies on a certain amount of faith in the decency of your fellow man, couchsurfing helps by allowing to folks to recommend other folks (e.g. "I stayed with Bob and his couch was comfy"). They also have a verification system which requires a buy-in ($25) to the program...it's not mandatory, but provides you with a certain level of authenticity.
We had our first couchsurfing guests last weekend, and it was, if anything, a non-issue. They were polite, quiet, clean, and friendly, and my sense is that this is par for the course with couchsurfers. Most people in the world (esp. non-rich travelers) know the value of a free bed and want to keep the system viable.
I hope that couchsurfing is here to stay. We're looking forward to more guests and, one day, being guests ourselves :)
This guy is really pissed at Iaian.
Rulers of the Kingdom of Leon
I don't know where Leon us, but you apparently become king by rocking.
This rope-saw is a brilliant idea! We had a large limb break off of a tree in a storm, but it didn't come off all the way. It was higher than our pole-saw would reach, so we used one of these to cut it off. It was simple, easy, and a reasonably good work-out, too.
I also think that Hollywood should make a slasher flick about a guy killing campers with one of these.
Faith in your equipment
Quorn Pwn!
If you're vegetarian or just looking for meat substitutes for your recipes, you owe it to yourself to check out Quorn. We've used several of their products and have always been amazed at the flavor. As relatively new vegetarians, some of our historically favorite recipes call for meat, so we're always looking for ways to use those recipes without meat.
We used their chicken breast to make chicken piccata the other night, one of the recipes we thought we'd have real trouble replicating. The Quorn version was excellent, with all of the flavors that we expected and in the right proportion. Yum!
[I apologize for the title...I am weak and, thus, couldn't resist]
More questions from Google
What else does Google want to know? It sounds simple, but it's deep (unless, I guess, you've heard it before): Find the minimum and maximum values in an array of integers. The naive approach, comparing each element to a current min and max, yields O(2n) runtime (two comparisons for each element). The more savvy solution, however, gives you O(3/2n) runtime, a 25% improvement.
The 3/2n solution is quite simple. You look at each pair of elements ([2*i, 2*i + 1] for i in 0 to n/2), comparing them to one another. The smaller of the two might be the new min value, so it should be compared to the current min. The larger might be the new max, requiring comparison to the current max. This gives 3 comparisons for each 2 elements, or 3 * (n/2) = O(3/2n).
I eventually came to the correct answer, but it was not an easy road. I was at the end of a long day (we're currently doing part of a large test), so my brain was a bit drained. Excuses aside, though, I made some silly mistakes while also getting a lot of things very right. I did very well comparing two roughly equivalent versions of the above algorithm, a looping v. recursive version. This might be what saves me (if I get saved!)
Anyhow, I should know more in a few days. The next step, if I make it there, is an on-site interview. I'm not sure if that will be here in Austin or in Mountain View.