Random Stuff

Well, OK. It’s not an accident. I decided to experiment around with writing a search engine. I’ve run into a few problems and still have quite parts I need to implement, but all in all, it has worked a lot better than I had planned.

http://rwack.com

There are the usual problems when you start looking at something big like this. Horsepower of the machines you are using for this, or in this case, machine. Memory is needed because databases are memory intensive. Drive space is needed because you are storing so much data to make this happen.

I did try to make it scalable. It is set up so that I can start adding more machines for doing different tasks as well as load balancing coming in from users doing searches. A real test of this, though, won’t happen unless I add more machines. That won’t happen unless I magically start making a lot of money off the Google ads running on the side.

There is a lot of work going forward. I’ve got some ideas about ranking web page relevance that I’m going to play around with. I need to work on the crawler and how it scans and stores links, also, this one part isn’t quite working how I want it to when I run multiple copies of it.

Another problem I have, which is mostly related to resources, is that I keep running into the big players on the internet. When I run into a site like Microsoft or Ebay, the crawler winds up spending all of it’s time indexing the thousands of links these guys have to their own sites. This wouldn’t be a problem with unlimited resources, but I want a more diverse collection of pages. And coming up with an exclude list is not a guarantee the results will be different. Imagine trying to come up with a list of all of the large sites on the internet?

So there it is. Search on a very tight budget.

Can’t talk about it, but had to at least say it. I’m excited.

Working for a start up company is all about Risk vs. Reward. Typically working for a start up means that there is a fair chance you will lose your job when the company folds. Or perhaps the company has too high of a burn rate and has to lay off a people because that last round of funding didn’t come in when it was expected, or perhaps that contract that would have made the company a couple of giant bags of cash was given to someone else.

There is also the chance that a start up company you work for makes it big time. You see the product you work on spread and become the center of the known world, or even a part of it.  You become part of something big. Hopefully all those stock options you got when you signed on were all worth the effort.

It is because of the above points you need to look at how you view your employment. Is it a job or an investment? Anyone can work for a company and do 9 to 5 work. But what is the payoff? Even at big companies, you won’t get far just putting in your time. Those that make the big pay checks are the ones who go the extra mile, take risks, and put in the extra time.

I look at who I am working for as an investment. Because of this, I look at the amount of risk I am taking versus the amount of potential reward. Will the payoff be big enough to justify the sacrafice of time, the stress of knowing I may be sent back home when I show up one day because the company ran out of money? How much sacrafice does my employer expect me to make and how much is he going to reward me?

Payday is one thing.  I can collect a paycheck anywhere. Does my employer expect me to make extra sacrafice for just a pitance and be happy with the knowlege I have a job? If the company sold tomorrow, what would the return be for the founders? Would the return on my investment match the amount of work I put in?

These are all things I have on my mind at the moment. When I started working for my current employer I made it clear that I viewed this job as an investment. Right now that investment is weighed.

I’ve been interested in search engines since I was first able to get results out of the WebCrawler. When looking at just what the web crawler did, I thought “I could probably do that some day!” but lack of time, resources, and most of all knowledge, I never did. I’ve kept an active interest in search engines, but getting real info was hard to come by. WebCrawler no longer does indexing, rather they aggregate information from other search engines now. But it started the search revolution as a project from University of Washington.

It’s at this point I really need to learn more. I need to go back to school. Why? Well, for the most part, I am self taught. The only formal education I’ve had in computer progamming were all in introductory classes about stuff I was already quite skilled at and using on a daily basis. I need hand holding. I do know some SQL (a language used for accessing databases), but anything outside a simple query is right now beyond my reach without more understanding of what lies underneath.

But back to the topic at hand. Off and on over the last few years, I’ve been working on my own crawler to index web pages and follow links. While toying around with this tonight, I stumbled on the original paper written by the founders of Google when they were at Stanford. When I started reading it I was fully expecting to be confused by all of the complex information presented. In actuality, it is clean, simple, and thorough much like the Google search interface itself.

So I sit here looking at the simple genius in that paper and wonder if I can come up with anything like it. I don’t know that I can, but it is still fun to toy around and solve problems for myself as a means of satisfying my curiosity.

What do you wish a web search engine would do?

Something my employer has done is on my mind. I’m irritated. Failure to follow through on a statement that was made. Not a broken promise, but close enough to break trust.

People there are still great to work with but I have lost respect for those in charge.

Comment from Debbie to Jake “You’re going to be just like your father aren’t you?”

Jake replies “I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”

This is an experiment in using mencoder and ffmpeg to create a time lapse video.

I simply put my camera on my tripod, hooked my remote up, set the camera to auto fire. All other settings were on automatic. It came out to 287 frames between the two views in the video.

I then resized the images on my linux box using the imagemagick “convert -resize” tool to 640×480.

I then used mencoder (which in turn uses ffmeg) to convert the jpegs into this short clip.

I would like to make a couple more but I need to figure out how to improve the quality. There are a lot of compression artifacts in the video that are not in the individual pictures.

Today I put down new carpet inside the car, put the back seat back in, put in one of the front seats.

I also bolted the transmission to the bellhousing, spend some time figuring out what clutch fork to use and how it is mounted. Tried to locate some dowel pins for the clutch, but no luck there.

And now that dinner is settling, I’m headed back out to work on it some more.

Part of the reason I’m doing this is gas prices. Running around using up gas is not in the picture. It just costs too much, so much so, that I am going to start riding the bus. So rather than sitting around bored, I decided to start putting the car back together.

I need to buy a clutch equalizer bar pivot and locate those dowel pins before I can go further on the transmission. So now on to the interior while I can’t work on that.

I just got off the phone with the IRS. After several levels of voice menus, and then a hold time of about a half hour, I got to talk to a very pleasant lady. It turns out when they reviewed my tax forms, they missed the little box that says the income and tax from all of my securities sales is already reflected on my w2.

Since the notice also included an overpayment of Social Security tax, I now get a check from them for almost $400. That should make up for the lack of sleep this caused last night.

All others pay cash.

I got a bill yesterday from the IRS saying I misfiled my 2006 taxes and owe them $3800 by July 2nd.  Actually it says I owe them $3000 + $835 in interest (and they say loan sharks are crooks).

I don’t think I misfiled. They are adding my stock awards to my income, which is already stated on my w2 as part of my income and appropriate taxes withheld, effectivly saying I made $15,000 more than I really did. It’s happened before, and I can see where the error is.

Problem is. I am in a position of having to pay someone to straighten to prove I don’t owe them more money. But that won’t happen before the bill is due. So I have to pay up front, then pay some more to get it back. Losing situation all the way around.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you have to pay someone to figure out how to file your taxes correctly, or pay someone later to prove you filed your taxes correctly.

My sources of income aren’t that complicated either.
$$ Salary
$$ Stock Grant Sale (already declared on w2 as income, 33% withheld)
$$ Stock Purchase Sale (on company discount, already declared on w2 as income, 33% withheld)
Deduction for mortgage
Deduction for Kids
Deduction for Car Tabs
Deduction for Medical bills
and in WA, deduction for sales tax.

That’s it.

I just noticed that several letters on my keyboard have worn off so if you didn’t know what letter the key was supposed to be, you’d have a hard time with it. Also, all the keys on my keyboard used to have a matte like texture to them. A good majority of them are now smooth and shiny. You can tell where my fingers land on the keys, like I tend to use my left thumb more than my right when hitting the space bar, so it’s only shiny on one end.

This keyboard is only a year old.

Gas Prices are killing my budget. $75 for 16 gallons this morning. That covers about 4 days. For the first time I’m going to be riding my motorcycle out of necessity instead of pleasure. Time to buy a rain suit.

I wound up leaving a party last night a bit early. It was for a friend who is shipping out to Iraq in a week. Debbie wasn’t with me, but my friend’s parties are usually quite safe. Attractive single women have not been commonplace at any of his parties in the past.

There was an open pit fire going in the back yard where a couple of people were keeping it well stoked, so it was a nice place to hang out while others from the party filtered by and chatted. It was also a good bit quieter than inside the house making it a good place for conversation. I got to meet and talk to lots of different people as the night went on.

Joon and her friends showed up, my friend introduced her to those of us sitting around the fire.

“Kobanwa.” she said with a slight nod to the head.
“Kobanwa.” I responded back in the same manner. Kobanwa is a Japanese way of saying Good Evening.
“Ah! You speak Japanese!” she said in Japanese
“A little, but not very well.” I said back in Japanese. Then I followed up in English that I didn’t know any more than that. Next thing I know, she is sitting on my left and we are talking about Japan and Okinawa.

Soon after Tina showed up. She was a neighbor of my friend from just up the street. A couple others from the party were openly trying to pick her up and failing miserably. It wasn’t long before she had that “Get me out of here” look on her face. I was watching this when she looked my way. I couldn’t help but smile, an acknowledgment that I knew what that look was. But then she smiled back. I actually turned my head and thought “Shit, I shouldn’t have done that.” Next thing I know she is sitting on my right.

The conversation was enjoyable, but they started to get a bit obvious. The hand on my arm when making a comment. The slap on the shoulder when I made a joke. The scooting closer and closer on the bench. I think the most interesting was I now had an entourage of two when I went up to get myself a drink. It was flattering. But as they both became more obvious as well as competitive for my attention, I decided to call my exit.

That’s the first time I’ve actually been uncomfortable with the attention I was getting.Flattering yet, but I was just looking for conversation. Had I been single I most definitely would have stayed and I suspect it would have been quite interesting to say the least. But I am not single.

I called my girlfriend as soon as I was back in my car and on the way home.

It’s a joke with my girlfriend that I can’t help it. Just being me is what “it” is and I can’t turn that off.