Degrees, papers and short people

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Jan 312007

So I was just told that in order to get my degree, I have to go to Sproul between 1pm and 4pm. Seriously, were they expecting that their recent graduates wouldn’t have jobs?

And I wanted to share some wise words from my darling Sean:
“Physical stature is an important intimidation tool. Your opponent is more likely to concede an argument if you appear to be bigger than he is. Shortness is associated with children, who are dumb, while tallness is associated with authority figures who know better”

Hahahaha. This immediately brought to mind, “You mean your leaders are just TALLER?!”*

I am currently experiencing nostalgia for academia. I just printed out “On the Computational Practicality of Private Information Retrieval” (posted by ) and I’m looking forward to digesting it in the next few days. And if someone would be so kind as to point me to a list of papers, I am always looking for new reading (particularly in theory). I vaguely recall ajaffe’s having made such a list when he was moderating the theory discussion group, but I have no idea where I put that.

*from the completely brilliant cartoon Invader Zim

Posted by Karen at 10:22 am Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

That red techshell is looking mighty appealing

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Jan 222007

…only because a red macbook would look slick.

Looking at the techshell web site, I realized that they don’t have a designer. So, there’s always been this “tension” between artist students and engineer students (you know what I’m talking about…) and there are some engineers who understand ui, aesthetics, and “look and feel”, but generally not as well as someone who is trained this field. Techshell would benefit a great deal from a good designer. There is about 50px of wasted space at the top of the site, the background is really dark which makes the page seem closed and squishy. There’s not much text on the home page, yet it’s tiny, and every link I click opens a new window (my personal pet peeve). Since they sell mac accessories, the site should look cleaner and more open (like the apple site).

More pertinent to the product itself, they expanded their line by adding new designs. I remember looking at the rose design and thinking it was cheesy. It was a repeating rose pattern over a white background; it looked like cheap wallpaper. The strawberry design will give you an idea of what I’m talking about. It looks like, well, like a geek picked out some patterns he though girls would like.

I’m not trying to be mean; It’s just that designers are sometimes undervalued. The solid-colored shells are awesome. It’ll be a while before I get one if I do. They don’t have shells for the 17” yet and I’m still debating whether or not it’s worth dropping $100+ on it. I wonder if I can expense it…

Posted by Karen at 11:30 am Tagged with: , ,

Macworld movies

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Jan 182007

It’s really hard to film random event stuff and then make a movie out of it. I’m going to think about how to make these types of movies more interesting to people who didn’t go.

Anyway, here’s one of justine and me running around

and a summary of the event
jumpcut movie:macworld rundown

Posted by Karen at 6:30 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Lovemakers tomorrow

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Jan 182007

I have 1 extra ticket because CARL LARSSON decided to flake on me. It’s gonna be fun! Any takers? Are Bri and Icka still going?

Posted by Karen at 9:59 am Tagged with: , , ,

sick at home today, so i'm blogging

apple, technology, web 11 Responses »
Jan 172007

Jumpcut is a giant piece of poo. Seriously, it is painfully slow (worse than last.fm) and I will not be surprised if we loose users over this. The fix is coming, and I can’t wait.

Macworld was a lot of fun. I bought this pink jelly keyboard cover for my mac. It dampens the clicky noise and keeps crap off of the keys. There were a ridiculous number of ipod accessories. I don’t need 1,000 ways I can cover my ipod, but I guess some people do.

I’m crying because all my photos are 640×480. I had changed the resolution on my camera last week for a stop animation movie I was doing (I gave up. It was too hard), and I never changed it back. I love having big photos because I want the option to print them large (also I have a huge screen so I want large photos in case I want to use any of them as a background).

macgirls prison break
I made some movies, but Jumpcut is broken right now so I’ll post them later. I got to hang out with (congrats!) and for a bit but I spent the majority of my time with ijustine and ashot. Justine is the first person I’ve gotten to know online and then met IRL. We got along beautifully. I had a blast running around doing silly things with her. I think my coworker was mildly amused at how emotional and weird I can be. I think the reason why I like ijustine so much is that she’s very comfortable with herself.

The one unifying trait about all of my friends is that they (you) are a bit weird (I mean that lovingly) and very much ok with it. The world ‘comfortable’ has some negative connotation in that it suggests contentment, or no desire to change. To be precise, I mean ‘someone who can express his thoughts or emotions without crippling paranoia of societal judgment.’ There is no denying that we are social creatures and the opinions of others matter but there has to be a reasonable point at which one stops caring. The people I surround myself with are both supportive and constructively critical. I appreciate being called on my shit.

Posted by Karen at 9:30 am Tagged with: , , , ,

sick at home today, so i'm blogging

web No Responses »
Jan 172007

Jumpcut is a giant piece of poo. Seriously, it is painfully slow (worse than last.fm) and I will not be surprised if we loose users over this. The fix is coming, and I can’t wait.

Macworld was a lot of fun. I bought this pink jelly keyboard cover for my mac. It dampens the clicky noise and keeps crap off of the keys. There were a ridiculous number of ipod accessories. I don’t need 1,000 ways I can cover my ipod, but I guess some people do.

I’m crying because all my photos are 640×480. I had changed the resolution on my camera last week for a stop animation movie I was doing (I gave up. It was too hard), and I never changed it back. I love having big photos because I want the option to print them large (also I have a huge screen so I want large photos in case I want to use any of them as a background).

macgirls prison break
I made some movies, but Jumpcut is broken right now so I’ll post them later. I got to hang out with (congrats!) and for a bit but I spent the majority of my time with ijustine and ashot. Justine is the first person I’ve gotten to know online and then met IRL. We got along beautifully. I had a blast running around doing silly things with her. I think my coworker was mildly amused at how emotional and weird I can be. I think the reason why I like ijustine so much is that she’s very comfortable with herself.

The one unifying trait about all of my friends is that they (you) are a bit weird (I mean that lovingly) and very much ok with it. The world ‘comfortable’ has some negative connotation in that it suggests contentment, or no desire to change. To be precise, I mean ‘someone who can express his thoughts or emotions without crippling paranoia of societal judgment.’ There is no denying that we are social creatures and the opinions of others matter but there has to be a reasonable point at which one stops caring. The people I surround myself with are both supportive and constructively critical. I appreciate being called on my shit.

Posted by Karen at 9:30 am Tagged with: , , , ,

I just had to try it

Uncategorized 2 Responses »
Jan 112007

I’m inside the microsoft blogger lounge…blogging. Oh yea… I wish someone would talk to me.

Posted by Karen at 3:31 pm Tagged with: , ,

What to do with leftover candy canes.

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Jan 082007

My latest movie:

I really enjoy making these short movies. It’s so much fun to film and edit and I’m learning a lot.

This movie was much faster to film but took a few hours to edit. I used my digital camera and my isight to shoot it from 2 different angles (multiple cameras are awesome), but the result was that I had a ton of footage to sift through. It was difficult to make the editing look smooth since I made the angle shift every few seconds. The titles make that smoothness unnecessary for the most part, but here is the non-title clip that better illustrates my attempt at smoothness. I’m a little annoyed that in one of my shots the framing doesn’t give me enough space above my head, but it worked out fine.

Big things I learned in the past few days:

- putting a light behind the camera is a cheap and easy way to light up your whole scene.
- review all shots before cleaning up, because you might want to film something again.

-the isight is a little shitty because:
– resolution and framerate are low(ish)
– not enough feedback on whether or not you’re recording. one of my movies was never made because I ended up recording the parts I didn’t want and not recording the parts that I wanted.
- the isight is great because:
– you can see yourself on the screen which helps a lot with framing
– clips are instantly imported into imovie

I’m also giggly-excited about going to macworld, and meeting ijustine(!!!!!) I am so completely enamored with her.

Posted by Karen at 1:41 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Macworld!

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Jan 052007

WEEEEE! Ya. Here’s how you get a discounted rate:

And remember, if you tell a friend about Macworld Conference & Expo, they will receive their Exhibit Hall Registration for only $25! Give them PRIORITY CODE: E-BFF and ask them to register today at

http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/register

Of course, my adventures will be documented :) My camera doesn’t have an external mic jack so i’m going to take my powerbook and a mic, along with my camera. One of my movie ideas is to make a karoke-style movie for a few popular songs (which have yet to be chosen.) and then convince people to sing to the isight while recording them dance. The resulting movie will look something like this except with more people.

Posted by Karen at 10:31 am Tagged with: ,

Music anybody?

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Jan 042007

Kid Beyond and The Lovemakers at the Independent Jan 19. How exciting! Two performs I like playing at the same show. Kid Beyond is a badass beatboxer (he performed at Evilution if anyone remembers that far back).

Is anyone interested in Snow Patrol and Ok Go at Bill Graham? I’m conflicted because the tix are $35 + $9 (fucking livenation…). I like both bands but is it worth that much at Bill Graham?

Posted by Karen at 3:15 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
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