The Grublings of a Grue

I can has job

2009-08-25T11:25:15Z

Zomg!

2009-06-07T03:28:16Z

I can has roommate.

California

2009-06-06T01:08:01Z

I've been in San Francisco for two weeks now, though the last week has been somewhat of a blur and I'm not really convinced that it's Friday yet. The city is really amazing, and I can't believe I waited this long to get out here for reals. I think I'm going to make a life here.

Tim is finishing classes in Iowa which is a strange experience. This is the longest time we've been separated since we first went out, causing me to realize how amazing our constant conversations were. We have a somewhat interesting relationship in that we're both academic, and we approach all problems from an academic standpoint. Most of our casual time is spent coming up with crazy hypothesis about the world we live in and attempting to defend them with data. I'm getting increasingly excited and impatient waiting for him to join me.

The people out here are very weird. I was never the most liberal person in Iowa by any stretch, but people that were more liberal were few and far between. Out here, people are unabashedly more liberal than me -- to the point I'm almost conservative. There have been more than a few times that conversations have been taxing for me because I realize that my viewpoint comes from an entirely different worldview than someone born and raised in Northern California. That said, I haven't met anyone I didn't really like, and overall everyone seems nice enough.

I finally met midendian in real life. It's been weird meeting someone I've been online friends with since 2003 and somehow avoided meeting until now. Adam has been pretty much awesome, in fact he may actually be cooler in person than online.

Please help

2009-06-05T22:45:47Z

I made the following recipe and I have no idea what asian cuisine it most closely resembles.

Stock
1 head and 1 tail of mackerel (use the flanks for other dishes)
1 quart water
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon thai chili sauce
1/2 tsp "Seasoning" (from Japan)
dash salt for flavor

Put fish in water, bring to rapid boil and remain at boil until stock reduces by about 1/4. Add whole garlic clove, thai chili sauce, seasoning, and salt to stock and continue reducing until only 2c remain. Remove from heat and strain liquid of all particles.

Soup
1 handful peas in pod
1 clove garlic (cut into 8 strips along fiber)
1 squid cut into ring pieces

Bring stock to rapid boil, add peas, garlic, and squid. Continue to rapid boil for 10 minutes. Serve.

It tastes delicious, but I have no idea what to call it =p.

(As a side note, I normally use much more normal ingredients, but my new kitchen is severely under-stocked so I'm forced to be creative)

Two things.

2009-06-05T20:49:07Z

I'm currently foaf browsing for interesting people in the bay area. If you have been friended today it's because your journal was found interesting. Don't feel compelled to friend back unless you find my journal interesting (it tends towards uninteresting).

I discovered last night that I'm a goal driven individual. Without concrete goals, I float through life aimlessly. I don't like myself when I'm floating.

How to prepare squid.

2009-05-30T01:16:28Z

I was highly disappointed in the available squid preparation instructions on the internet, so here goes...

0. WASH all squid in a bath of cold water before you begin to remove ink. If at any point ink or dark digestive tissues get on your hand wash under cold water until clean again.

1. Separate head from cap with minor force. You may find it useful to use a knife or stick your finger into the cap. If the head breaks off just above the eyes, that's fine. Optimally you want about 1 to 1 & 1/2 heads worth of tissue to come with the head.

2. Remove ALL yellow stuff from any tissue connected to the top of the head. It's part of the digestive system. The only thing that should be extruding from the top of the head are two "tube like" muscles -- they taste quite yummy.

3. Cut a small incision on both sides of the ink jet, squeeze the head between the eyes until ink bladder pops out. Set bladder aside.

4. Remove backbone. The cap should have a point at the bottom -- if you pull down a translucent bone similar to a shrimp skeleton will come out in one piece.

5. Stick finger or (very) dull knife into cap to loosen all the organs. It will feel like mucus, just keep playing with it until everything is dislodged. Remove everything.

6. Wash both pieces of squid under running cold water. You want to run cold water into the cap. If any organs or waste can be seen continue removing it until the cap is only one outer muscle (the "skin").

7. Place head in the cap it came from, it is ready for cooking.

To cook:

1. Separate head and cap. Place both on a medium heat frying pan with liberally applied oil (olive or sesame or whatever). Watch tentacles, if they start to burn, rotate head. When head has been cooked on all sides remove from heat. Keep cap on heat (flipping every few minutes) until it just barely starts to contract into a circle (it should have been flat when you started frying).

2. Place both pieces of squid together so it looks like it did before cleaning. Serve.

You have got to be kidding...

2009-05-25T16:42:15Z

Listing: Looking for multiple Interns: Compliance QA Engineer

Requirements: 1-2 years experience doing the job listed.

I am on my way to san francisco.

2009-05-24T10:18:38Z

I will be arriving at noon today. I'll be living in Berkeley (Tim's doing summer school there). If you want to hang out please message me on aim or call.

Sean

/etc/hosts

2009-02-17T20:18:06Z

Or, how I manage to keep myself from wasting hours reading on the internets.

I have a terrible tendency to spend hours reading pointless web forms. It started with /. and over the years has moved through various forums as /. went downhill. Most of the time, I am able to avoid the habit for months or years at a time, but it seems that when I get a lot of "free time" I fill it up with pointless web browsing.

As a solution, I have learned to update my /etc/hosts (or C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) to be the following:


##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1	localhost
255.255.255.255	broadcasthost
::1             localhost 
fe80::1%lo0	localhost
127.0.0.1	reddit.com
127.0.0.1	www.reddit.com
127.0.0.1	facebook.com
127.0.0.1	www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1	fark.com
127.0.0.1	www.fark.com

Then, in my Apache document root directory on my local machine I put the following file:


<html>
	<head>
		<title>WTF SLACKER</title>
	</head>
	<body>
		<h1>GET BACK TO WORK</h1>
	</body>
</html>

Then, when slacking time comes, I simply use ssh tunneling to my webserver to get past my local domain lookup.

As an aside, while preparing this code I found the nifty osx command pbcopy used in cat /etc/hosts | pbcopy

Packrat Parsing and PEG

2009-02-16T04:20:54Z

I just ran across this and this paper.

If you're interested in compiler front ends at all you should find those interesting reading. If you're not, you'll likely find those to be quite unreadable :).

Companies to avoid: vonage

2009-02-13T22:38:19Z

Timeline: October 16th -- I call to cancel service

November, December: Vonage charges me $19.95 for service (I don't notice it on my CC -- I'm terrible about reading everything -- I probably assumed it was the cancellation charge when I saw it)

December: I lose my old credit card and report it lost, changing my number

January: Vonage billing starts calling me without leaving a message because automatic billing failed. I ignore random 800 call-and-hangup number assuming it's some sort of scam.
Feburary 13: Vonage billing calls me again, I call back to see what's up.

==> Noon: I call the billing office and get directed to account support to resolve the conflict
==> 1pm: I finally find out that there is no record of me canceling my account
==> 1.10: I am told to contact email support as they can verify my records and apply my already-paid unauthorized monthly fees to the cancelation charge
==> 1.30: I email customer service explaining the problem
==> 4pm: Customer service emails me back, citing some nonsense from their terms of service for why they can't cancel my account for non-use
==> 4.30: I email customer service back telling them that if they don't get this fixed soon I will stop recommending their service and never consider it for future use.
==> 4.30: Customer service emails be back, they cite more terms of service. They still have not even canceled my account.
==> 4.35: I send email informing them to contact my lawyer if they intend to collect and that my account is unilaterally cancelled in writing (cc: my lawyer). Further that any future direct contact from their company or any representatives will be considered harassment.

So the conclusion: Don't use Vonage.

Where I rant about programming languages.

2009-02-12T13:46:55Z

I'm looking around for a programming language to do a compiler in (as a toy project) and I decided I hate all the programming languages I know. I shall now proceed to write an incoherent rant about them.

1 .net you are beautiful, but unstable. Microsoft having control over your development and release makes your virtual machine a dangerous target as they have a strong track record of abruptly killing programming environments. Your lack of support for pure functional programming in C# means lots of solutions are off limits. Your static template type generation severely limits the ability to do type programming. Your annoying static typing is annoying. Your lack of type inference is lame. Your method call syntax is ugly and uninformative. Your libraries are pointlessly different than the Java versions because you like to show off operator overloading. Your syntax is bloated. You are obsessed with curly braces to the point that it makes code nearly impossible to read for the whitespace.

2 Java, you are slow. Your syntax sucks and is bloated. Your static class system is lame and doesn't allow any type programming. Reflections are absurdly slow and make metaclasses a toy. Your libraries are extensive but surprisingly hard to do many common tasks with. You don't have first or second class functions, and even if you did I wouldn't want to use the syntax anyway. Your virtual machine sucks. In general, I hate you and view you as cobol 2.0.

3 Objective-C. You are blazing fast. It makes me happy to see a reasonable syntax on a fast language. You have beautiful method call syntax. You have header files, wtf? Header files. Seriously? You don't have first class functions or closures. OpenStep is pretty awesome when used with Interface Builder, but it's honestly one of the ugliest libraries I've used for windowing if you don't use IB. Your use of the delegate pattern vs the inheritance pattern is inconsistent and poorly thought out. Your garbage collector feels weak. You have no solid books on advanced usage. You don't have a lex/yacc port (how?). You have header files... You are missing basic support for regexes and other simple language constructs.

4 Python. You are slow. Very slow. You have amazingly clean syntax for human reading, but your insistence on whitespace makes me feel dirty and pretty much destroys automatic code formatting. If you were fast and had end of block markers, you would be pretty awesome. However, your lack of arbitrary parity lambda makes you a pain to use without massive currying hacks.

5 Objective-J you have no libraries. You constantly leak javascript because your evaluator doesn't have a clean language barrier. You are slow. You do not have native support for closures (though can hack using JavaScript closures). You do not have first class types. You have one of the worst development environments I've ever tried to use. Your interpreter has some show stopping bugs in it. You show so much promise, and then manage to break every promise one at a time.

6 D. You rock. You're fast. You have everything that one could want except closures. Then you get to your type system. You attempt to implement type programming, but you use templates from C++ as a model. Why would you ever do that? You don't have first class types or syntactically useful lambda. Your module and namespace system is leagues ahead of C++ but still feels weak. Your obsession with curly brackets makes your code nearly unreadable. Your obsession about being clever with foreach loops makes them unusable. Your obsession with trying to beat the STL for performance makes your libraries hard to use and often require massive hacks to beat into submission.

7 C++. hahahhahahahhahahahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahha. Suck it. You have TWO books written about how not to break basic language features. It's practically impossible to write decent code without reading those books and a few others. You get a whole ball of wtf when it comes to syntax. Header files... wtf. You are blazingly fast and your aggressive inlining and unrolling makes your native code awesome. You have no garbage collection, lolwut? Don't even get me started on template metaprogramming, otherwise known as abusing compiler errors.

8 C. WTF were they thinking? I mean, I know computers were slow when you came out. But seriously. You still have a unhygienic preprocessor? You still use unsafe #include statements? You have header files. Header files. I mean, I can understand why that made sense 30 years ago, but seriously, compiler memory is free now. Get over it and update to have modules. Every single problem with C could be fixed without changing the code generation phase, and yet it doesn't happen. Lamest community ever.

9 ML. You start as a beautiful gem. And then you sort of turn into a jagged diamond that forces it's way through your eyeball and embeds itself somewhere in your brain that you can't quite access. Your syntax is arcane and demanding. Your type system is beautiful, but because it's not safe with side-effects it becomes amazingly tedious to do a vast majority of complex tasks. Your implementation leaves about everything to be wanted for. Using the standard libraries causes massive pain on any platform I've ever developed on. Your runtime semantics are poorly thought out and obviously not intended to be used for real programs.

10 OCaml. You somehow make ML ugly. I don't quite know why. I just don't like you.

11 Haskell. See everything I said about ML, and then toss in a community that has a perpetual hardon for using monads to emulate state. You are quite possibly the most annoying language ever.

12 Delphi / Pascal. Garbage collection? Seriously guys, it's 2009. This is completely unacceptable. Your syntax is ugly and your type system suffers all the flaws of Java without any of the benefits. You seemed so beautiful back when I only knew a few programming languages, but now I can't believe that you don't have any concise syntax options.

13 Scheme. You are fast. Your syntax is clean. Your macros are awesome. You can compile to native code with some effort. You are also bloated beyond belief by your parens. You have no (usable) type system. Your libraries are hard to use. Your insistence on purity severely cramps the ability to do basic things involving state without massive code hacks. When you are not fast, it's nearly impossible to figure out why without massive thought.

/end annoyed rant

The state of internet tv, 2009

2009-02-11T14:02:33Z

There seems to be no shortage of startups that want to deal with hosting, indexing, and providing ads for internet TV. Recently, Tim and I have started using casttv to find tv episodes when we want to view a series.

We watched Firefly last week, hosted by hulu, supported by ads. It was in amazing quality, displaying acceptably on my projector. I was really excited that perhaps internet tv had finally happened.

Then we wanted to watch Heroes. We haven't watched any Heroes, so we needed to find the first season somewhere. It is nowhere.

Alas, I shall again resort to piracy in order to watch television. Sometimes I wonder if the big studios trying to not make money from my demographic...

All hail the new web2.0 overlords

2009-01-29T20:35:48Z

I think it's fair to say that I've been apathetic to the whole web2.0 nonsense. However, yesterday I ran across Cappuccino which changed my whole perspective.

This is web 2.0. No more re-implementing basic drawing features for every application. No more massive dom hackery. No more time wasted dealing with oddities of CSS/DOM.

While running through the tutorials I created this toy application using this code. Interested readers will note that I did absolutely no web programming to get that webapp up.

Web 2.0 has finally arrived.

Early thoughts on XCode/Interface Builder

2009-01-27T03:46:45Z

Early thoughts about XCode and Interface Builder. (on my programming-oriented blog)

Goat Cheese

2009-01-21T15:43:46Z

No substance to this update, simply that I have discovered that goat cheese omelets are amazing.

Goat Cheese Omelets for two
4 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp salt
2oz goat cheese

Break eggs and mix with milk in medium bowl. Add salt and pepper. Whisk until air is suspended and eggs start to froth. Allow to approach room temperature before cooking. Crumble goat cheese (simply cutting it into thin slices will crumble it)

Lightly sprinkle large frying pan with olive oil. Heat pan on high until oil just smokes. Pour entire mixture in and immediately drop crumbled goat cheese onto half of the omelet. Lower temperature on stove 20% and let cook for 2-3 minutes until top starts to firm. Rotate pan so that goat cheese half is away from you, then fold egg in half with a single motion. Turn heat up and let cook for 1-2 minutes until bottom is dry. If fold went poorly (common for me) flip omelet over in pan and allow exposed egg to cook for 30-40 seconds before plating. Cut in half and plate.

The rest of the meal consisted of organic coffee made in a french press, local sourdough w/ blueberry jam and butter, and a herb salad with goat cheese crumbles and homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Yay absurdly overdone breakfasts :).

The world is a brighter place

2009-01-10T01:04:32Z

Since the beginning of January I've been invariably happy. This is a welcome change from 2008 where I spent the entire year depressed and grumpy.

Here's to hoping that I have an entire year of enthusiastic and happy!

New webpage finally up

2009-01-10T00:21:29Z

I switched to a new host with my name change and managed to nab sean-mcquillan.com. I had put off writing a page for it not knowing what to do, but I finally decided that I should put something up.

Presenting my new and honestly not very improved webpage

Zomg, I dropped off the face of the earth.

2009-01-08T03:25:51Z

So, I should probably update this thing. As I always do after long breaks I'm going to put bullet points to summarize the recent events.

1. Since the Iowa oral arguments we've become a lot less popular in the press (thank god) and while we'll likely be called for a statement after the SC ruling comes down we're probably done with that whole nonsense forever now. I can't really understate how much of a relief it is to not feel sole personal responsible for marriage equality in Iowa anymore. We did our part, now the task moves on to the real activists.

2. Christmas @ the parents went remarkably well this year, though having gone to the parents two years in a row now we're hopefully going to have them out for Christmas next year wherever we are.

3. Visited friends in the town of Elkader, Iowa for new years, was an interesting time.

4. Now that the SC Oral Arguments are done I'm now free to consider my options out of state. I'm evenly torn between corporate work and going to grad school, so I'm applying to both and seeing which one comes up with better options =p.

5. I'm moving to the SF bay area sometime next month (with, or without a job lined up).

6. Job applications begin tonight, for real jobs, that I actually want, at companies I don't hate. This is a mildly terrifying experience.

3sat

Defense counsel says...

2008-12-12T01:33:44Z

According to the defense counsel in the IA SC case I went to Tuesday "marriage is over 4000 years old." While that line didn't seem to impress the justices any more than saying "slavery is over 4000 years old" would I thought it would be fun to explore it.

What do we know about marriage from 4000 years ago:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)

Going to the supreme court!

2008-12-09T08:30:24Z

This morning at 10 am we'll be at the supreme court. I am quite nervous :).

Why does anyone still give money to these clowns?

2008-11-19T22:39:07Z

See here

Also here

People have been willfully covering their eyes to these people for years. It's gotten kind of tired.

Gamble and you will lose, support discrimination and share the blame.

They finally defined what they mean...

2008-11-17T18:41:06Z

Apparently, Focus on the Family decided that they would finally sit down and describe their version of Christianity. If you have anything but firm answer to any of these questions, you are not a Christian. Of note, if for any question you provide a nuanced reply that mitigates the entirety of your 'belief', you are not a Christian. "Correct" answers inserted after questions. Any differing answers means your faith isn't real and it does not deserve respect.

1. Do absolute moral truths exist? (Yes)
2. Is absolute truth defined by the Bible? (Yes, and only there)
3. Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life? (Yes)
4. Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe, and does He still rule it today? (Yes)
5. Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned? (Yes?)
6. Is Satan real? (Yes)
7. Does a Christian have a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people? (Yes)
8. Is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings? (Yes)

Tolerant bunch, aren't they? Apparently, according to them, I'm not a Christian. Neither is my minister. Or my Christian church.

Listening to these clowns ramble about religious tolerance for the last week has been one of the highlights of my life.

What is marriage?

2008-11-15T22:32:42Z

Our prepared speech for the Des Moines, Iowa rally 11/15. Tim read it because we decided that people like his red hair :).

So I was writing this speech last night, thinking of how I could explain the meaning of marriage. I was a little bit tired, and I had just seen Wall-E, so my mind kept wandering back to my childhood and all of the other similar coming-of-age stories that filled my world: We've got "The Little Mermaid", "Lion King", "Beauty and the Beast"-- you know, the Disney Trifecta. And at the end of each of these stories--these coming of age stories--what happens to the main character? They fall in love and get ... married. And in fact we see that common theme echoed again and again in our society: to find someone you love, marry them, and live happily ever after.

Last August, Sean and I were granted the opportunity to take the last step in our own coming of age story. On that day, we unintentionally made history by becoming the first, and so far, only legally married same-sex couple in Iowa. We were not seeking a role in history, but it turns out that the realization of our story had found us one.

It is our own story and the story of so many others: two young kids from Iowa living the American Dream--going to college, falling in love, marrying each other, and starting a life together. But although this seems a common story, it is the very improbability of ours that symbolizes everything we work for. What we work for today, like so many others years ago who started this movement, is to make an invitation available to all future generations. An invitation not just to see this story unfold and lament its passing, but to fulfill, honor and carry forward this most sacred of traditions given to us by our parents and society.

I'd like to tell you what my husband and I have learned about marriage over this last year. We have to admit that it's a little difficult to explain, mostly because it feels so different from anything else in our human experience. What I feel is the unmistakeable sense of security when you have someone by your side, capable of making up for all your shortcomings. More than that, the decisions you make take on a different perspective; instead of "What should we do tomorrow night or this weekend?", you think "What should we be doing 10 years from now?". But most of all, and I think this tops the cake, is the inescapable clarity when you tell someone you are married; because it tells them, without the slightest hint of ambiguity or doubt, that you are committed to each other and you intend to spend the rest of your lives together, as one.

And we've learned that this coming-of-age story can apply to all Americans--and that is what we are fighting for here and across the nation.

Thank you everyone for being here today, to show your solidarity and support for those in California who've had their stories cut short. Thank you.

It is interesting to me that we don't have the ability to denote cadence and crecendo in written english. P3 ends with crecendo, as does P4. P6 is spoken abruptly.

Off to the rally.

2008-11-15T16:45:55Z