Unfortunately, while at the driving range yesterday, my relatively new driver decided to break. Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time I’ve busted my driver at the driving range. Last year, at the same driving range, my halfway decent driver broke and flew farther than the ball I hit.
This past Tuesday, I finished my Parallel Computing class at RIT. Oddly enough, the quarter went by rather quick and I really enjoyed taking the class. Also, we had to take an interesting problem, parallelize it and then present the material to the class. For our project, we decided to parallelize the Game of Life, a popular evolutionary game which shows how living cells evolve in an ecosystem when some set of governing rules are applied to them. For the most part, our group did an awesome job working together and presenting our results. If you’re interested, we have a Google Code Project at: http://parallelgameoflife.googlecode.com
Since I have a lot of free time with school ending, I decided to start two new books. The first book is The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley, brother of IDEO founder, David Kelley. If you know anything about IDEO, you know that they’re an innovative, fun company with creative processes that produce wildly imaginative products. Their thought process and ideology really sets them apart from others, and I can’t wait to learn more about their unique practices.
Secondly, I bought my first Mac (Programming) Book to start development with OS X. For all of my life, I’ve purely been a Windows Developer and have never really dove into the likes of a Mac-centric world. However, since buying an iPhone months ago, I’m really looking to start coding on a new platform. It’s not to say that I’m completely abandoning my Windows PC, but I guess it’s something new. I’m the type of person that likes to know a little about a lot, and I think this will be an excellent opportunity to try something different. Oh yeah, one more little issue - I don’t have a Mac yet! So, since RIT’s CS Computer Lab has quite a few Macs (and is open during the summer), I plan to make frequent trips to campus to write some sample programs. I can’t wait!
Finally, in a little over a week, I’m leaving for the Microsoft Developers Conference in Orlando. Just by scoping a few of the sessions they’re offering, it definitely seems to be a valuable experience and I can’t wait to get down there!
Yes - Last week Wednesday, I bought the new 16gb iPhone. Since last year, I’ve had a Motorola Q through Verizon, which worked great, but its design could have been better. Also, because I was in the market for a new iPod, I found the iPhone to be the perfect solution. Again, it’s not like the Q was horrible, but little things like - no hardware switch for vibrate mode, no keypad protection, and about a day battery life, were the deciding factors for me to ditch it.
Of course, the main thing I like about the iPhone is its touch screen GUI. The menus are very easy to navigate and also the touch screen lock ensures numbers are not dialed while in my pocket. With the iPhone, I guess the biggest pain was porting my music from my iPod (which just took a while). Other than that, I’m on the basic AT&T plan, which I think will provide me with more than enough minutes, text messages, etc. At one point, I did consider the new 32gb iPod touch. But then I changed my mind when I thought about carrying around both my Q SmartPhone and an iPod touch device. It just makes things so much easier to consolidate everything into one unit.
Right now, I’m only using 5.5gb of iPhone space, so I still have a long ways to go. The iPhone is just plain neat and at this point, I really don’t think any commercial phone competes with its eye candy.
Finally, I grabbed the Sleep Through The Static, the new Jack Johnson album, from iTunes. Jack Johnson has just such a mellow, fresh tone and I think this newest album even tops In Between Dreams. I would highly recommend it to anyone. Also, Matt Costa, who sometimes performs with Jack Johnson, just released his new album, Unfamiliar Faces. Matt’s last album, Songs We Sing, really put him on the charts and from what I’ve listened to so far, Unfamiliar Faces rocks even more.
While on my vacation to Florida, I had a chance to read The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson. The Medici Effect is perfect for any go-getting entrepreneur that may be stuck in a specialization rut. To summarize, The Medici Effect discusses the benefits and difficulties when exploring a so-called intersection of ideas over multiple disciplines. Throughout the book, there are a plethora of examples relating to real-life idea intersections that lead to innovative ideas. The book is a short, but excellent read and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone.
Throughout The Medici Effect, there are numerous book references scattered within each chapter. In particular, a reference to The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christenson caught my attention. A quick Amazon search and $13 later - now I’m the proud owner of The Innovator’s Dilemma, which should be arriving any day. Although its fun to read countless technical books, it’s very refreshing to explore different subject areas - especially about innovation.
Finally, before I left on my Florida vacation, I bought Donavan Frankenreiter’s 2004 self-titled CD from iTunes. I first saw Donavan on The Abbey Road Sessions, an MTV/VH1 special. Simply put, this guy rocks. His sound is fresh and I think his music is produced by Jack Johnson’s record company, another of my favorite musicians. Maybe in another week, I will buy Move by Yourself, his latest album - I hear it’s even better.
Over the weekend, AllPosters was running a 25% off special on their website - so, I decided to snag a few framed pictures to hang in my apartment. Since I already had a few decent sized pictures, I decided to go with a couple smaller surfin’ ones.
To counter some of the “beachiness” in my pad, I was also lurking around a Sports website for Buffalo Bills Posters. After a little searching, I settled on a panoramic photo of Ralph Wilson Stadium from the old Jimbo-Thurman-Reed-Smith days. And even though the Buffalo Bills completely stunk on MNF, I still have to show some love to my hometown.
In other exciting news, my RIT graduate class is winding down. Since we’re only on 10 week quarters, it seems like time is flying by. After this quarter, I’ll only have one “core” class left (Programming Algorithms). So, since I’ll still be working full-time and taking a relatively difficult subject, I’ll probably settle with only one course.
Finally, Rock Band is dropping on November 23rd! In the past, I’ve only played Guitar Hero at friends’ houses or parties, but I’m definitely buying the entire guitar, drum, microphone setup for the 360! Once I’m a little less busy, I also want to squeeze in some more Bioshock. Bioshock is really a well-crafted game, and I’m disappointed to say that I haven’t had time to play it.
Next week Wednesday, I have RIT orientation for the day. I think I mentioned I’ll probably be enrolled in Theory of Computation for the Fall Semester. Even though theory classes can be blah, one class at the Brick City shouldn’t be too bad.
Man, I just keep thinking how fast time flies by. This time last year, I was coming home from California - Last fall, I was still rockin’ UB - and at the end of this month, I’ll be at my job 7 months now. It’s just weird to think we’re I’ll be next year - a beach would be nice, but I’ll settle for somewhere warm.
Yesterday, I just turned 22, summer’s almost over, and it seems like I haven’t got a lot done. At work, we are on 4/10-hour day work weeks (with Fridays off) - but the days just seem to blend together. In about a month, I’ll be starting at RIT for my Masters in Computer Science. Hopefully, it should only take around 2-3 years to complete while working full-time. Anywoo, I once again got some new (well new to me at least) beats on iTunes:
Andrew Kenny & Ben Gibbard - Home Vol. 5
Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat
Both albums are pretty decent. Ben Gibbard usually lays down some pretty nifty tracks so I wasn’t worried. Ask for Jenny Lewis, she’s pretty talented herself. A few years ago, she was a featured female vocal on The Postal Service’s album, Give Up. To be honest, I think she has a new CD out now, but this one definitely was download-worthy.
In other news, my Aunt & cousins gave me NCAA Football 2008 for the 360 on my birthday. So far, I’m impressed with the 60 FPS gameplay, but I think EA Sports games do not need to be re-released every year! I’ll be the first to admit that I continually buy every new Madden, NCAA, etc. version that is released. But, doesn’t it make more financial sense to create a year-round, downloadable content/update system for those game types?
Hmm, what else is happening in Rochester? The weather is great, and this weekend, August 3-5, is the Park Avenue Festival. From what I hear, the Park Ave. Fest is all about Arts & Crafts, but hopefully there will be some decent entertainment there. Considering I live only 5 minutes away from Park Ave., I think I would consider myself way lazy if I don’t at least stop by for one of the days. Ehh, back to focusing on this MIT lab paper on holo-video displays. Yeah, I must have a lot of free time!
A few weeks ago, I got accepted to RIT’s Computer Science Masters Program. I’m super stoked and can’t wait to start in the fall! Even though I’ll probably be doing one class per quarter, I think everything will go awesome.
Other than that, we start summer hours at work soon - which means 4 / 10-hour days (Friday’s off!) This should be especially handy when I feel like golfing again!
A few weeks ago, I got an invite to Joost, the new online video service. It has a super clean UI and the video quality is definitely above average. Instead of relying on a central content server, Joost streams its video parts through other Joost users as they become available on the network. This leads to lower bandwidth costs for them and such.
Since they’re still relatively new, they don’t have every possibly TV show - but, I’m sure a lot more will be added after it takes off. For me, I’ve been checking out those SoCal, sun-bathing, beach ladies on the Laguna Beach re-runs. Man, I wish I was back out there - especially since I never got a chance to spend time in SoCal.
Anywoo, I’m also looking for some new tunes. I tried looking on iTunes, but I’m still undecided on what to rock out to. The Maroon 5 CD looks pretty good, so I might buy that one. If anyone has any suggestions, definitely throw them my way. I’m down for anything.
I was rockin’ out front row to Ben Folds @ RIT on Saturday. For the opening act, Sara Bareilles played a few tunes which were awesome. I wish I could have known about her before the show so I could have enjoyed it more. But all in all, she was great. And then the man himself, Ben Folds played for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours before calling it a night. 
He opened with a little melody, followed by (in no particular order) Trusted, Annie Waits, Jesusland, Zak and Sara, Brick, Still Fighting it, Landed, Bitches Ain’t Shit, Army, Bastard, Kate, Such Great Heights (The Postal Service cover), Carrying Cathy, and couple more I can’t remember. Being it my first Ben Folds show, it was an amazing performance. In the middle of the act, Ben even did a special RIT-thank-you-for-the-free-coffee improv beat which was pretty sweet. 
The only thing that is worth complaining is that I wasn’t dead center front row, I was slightly behind him (still right against the fence though). It’s not just the fact that he’s a great performer, but the dude is a great entertainer and was fun to rock with.