Hotashi - Jack’s Blog

If you work as a programmer then you know as well as anyone that you just can’t work so many hours in a row. For myself, I usually have to take a break after 2-3 hours of working max. Programming takes tremendous amounts of brain power, so have to take a breather every once in a while. I spent most of my free time reading blog posts, and I find it easier to use an RSS reader so you only have to go to one place to get all your blog-reading fix. I personally prefer using Bloglines, their interface is great — especially the new beta version. Another good choice is Google Reader, which you can actually incorporate into your iGoogle portal page. There are many others out there, so find one your like and use it. Now for the good part. :)

I’m gonna list the blogs I frequent the most, ordered by my visiting frequency.

1. Lifehacker: Hands down my favourite website to read. You get “tech tricks, tips and downloads for getting things done.” Some tips require a more technical-minded reader, but overall the instructions are pretty straightforward. This is IMO the #1 website to increase your productivity in life.
2. Racialicious: A blog dealing with racial issues in the US. Although the focus is mainly on American issues, most of it applies to Canada too. And it’s always good to know what’s going on in our neighbour south of the border.
3. Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters. This is purely a geek site, so if you’re not “into” the whole geek thing maybe you shouldn’t visit ;). It many topics, including gaming, new technologies, and politics. I find that I skip over most of the stories, but there are some great ones on there. Be sure to check out the comments too, I actually enjoy reading those over the actual articles themselves a lot of the times — RTFA!
4. Gizmodo: A website dedicated to gadgets. I think that pretty much says it all. It’s a place I go to, to see all the cool, shiny gadgets that I probably wouldn’t be buying. Did I mention they’re shiny?
5. Coding Horror: A must-read for an programmers. Jeff Atwood writes about coding horrors that programmers create, aka the “human factors.” He provides great insight into many problems, including ones that seem trivial at first glance, like writing an algorithm to shuffling a deck of cards.
6. Joel on Software: Joel is one of the most well-known programmers out there. He heads Fog Creek, the company that makes FogBugz. The must-read post is his talk on Computer Science and Software Engineering that he gave at Yale (parts 2 and 3 too!).
7. Ajaxian: Probably the best blog to read for any developers working with Javascript, and of course Ajax (as the name suggests).
8. RedFlagDeals: Deals on many different products for the Canadian buyers. They have have many deals added everyday, including deals on many electronic products.
9. The Daily WTF: Readers submit their WTF stories working in the tech industry. Mainly just for laughs.

All of the above sites provide RSS feeds, so you can subscribe to them using your favourite RSS reader.

I finally got around to installing Greasemonkey and Stylish for my Firefox. For those that don’t know, Greasemonkey is an extension that allows you to run custom Javascript scripts for pages that render in your browser. Stylish is basically the same thing, but for CSS not Javascript.

I haven’t gotten around to doing anything with Greasemonkey yet, but I’m pretty sure a week from now I’ll have a bunch of scripts running. :P The very first thing I did with Stylish is to hide all ads on the website. I think the social ads was a horrible idea for facebook. I’m so tired of seeing an ad in my newsfeed that tells me so and so is a fan of x and y. This little script below will eradicate all known ads on facebook!

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain(”facebook.com”) {

#ad_0, #ad_1, #ad_2, #ad_3, #ad_4,
#ad_5, #ad_6, #ad_7, #ad_8, #ad_9,
#ssponsor, .advert, .ad_body,
.ad_capsule, .ad_media,
.comments_ad_image, .sponsors,
.sponsor_absolute, .social_ad,
#new_stuff_content, .nextstep { display:none !important; }

}

Quick and dirty does it! Goodbye facebook ads!

Proof that Bill Gates is cooler than Steve Jobs!

Okay, that was a joke so don’t flame me. But the video was pretty damn funny, and shows that Bill isn’t afraid to embrace his geekiness.

Video: Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip

I just saw a really cool demo of a product called Photosynth. It’s a new way to link and present digital images on a computer. There is also a demo on the Live website, so you can check it out yourself.

I am an undergrad no more! I finished my last exam on Friday and came back home to Thornhill that night. I don’t feel any different from when I finished exams in my previous terms. I think the fact that my undergrad career is actually over hasn’t sunk in yet. Overall, I had a pretty enjoyable term. The courses that I took were pretty interesting. Well, most of them anyway. The two courses I enjoyed the most were SOC 101 (Intro to Sociology) and CS 486 (Artificial Intelligence).

Sociology allowed me more insight into what is happening with the Canadian society, as well as brief discussions on societies in the global scale. I never really understood why Ams liked sociology that much, but now I have come to appreciate this field of study as well. The turning point for me is when we looked at myths that are widespread in our society, but are in fact all false. For example, people tend to have the belief that homeless people are lazy and have only themselves to blame for their situation. However, this belief is generally not true. We are socialized to be very individualistic, and the capitalist society awards individual achievements. So when we see people with problems, or if we ourselves have problems, we have a tendency to blame it on the individuals — but in actuality the problem is most likely a social problem.

My favourite course this term is AI. I’ve always had an interesting, or fascination, with AI. I think the challenge of having machines performing complex tasks that are usually done by humans is very interesting. It was cool to see the different techniques that AI researchers use to solve different problems. I enjoy computer science not for its practical values, but I love the theories behind everything. If I had to choose between a situation where I am in a situation similar to Bill Gates of Microsoft or Steve Jobs of Apple, or a situation where I’m just a researcher (in computer science) getting paid 60K, I’d take the research position without hesitation. I’m not faulting anyone for wanting money, but personally I just want enough to get by. I find more satisfaction in doing work that I find interesting than getting paid a six figure salary working a job I’m not very interested in. I’ve always enjoyed problem solving and puzzles. The feeling I get when I complete a proof or solve a very hard problem/puzzle is one of the most rewarding feelings I get.

Anyway, I still waiting for all my marks to come in. I have a good feeling about this term, and I’ll see if my good feeling is justified or not. :P