You may be a hardcore engineer (or PhD student) if you

For those who are not engineers, this can serve as a handy guide to sniff out those of us around you. For those who are, but may be questioning your credentials or trying to play down your nerd card, this is your wake up call.

If you apply engineering principles to your regular life? I.e. the noisy channel model to dating, optimization methods to arranging your dishwasher, minimum entropy to your porn, you are likely a hardcore engineer.

Perhaps you solve “interesting” problems just to solve them, not for any possible benefit – grades, pay, extra credit, impress your boss/adviser – just to see if you can do it. If you regularly use up what is likely scant resources of your time and brainpower on problems that have a very low chance of actually paying you back something later, you are probably a hardcore engineer.

Or maybe you’ve having a conversation with a friend about something you’ve been working on and they ask for the “simple” explanation. And after you give them what is arguably the elementary school (in your head) explanation, they ask you to dumb it down some more. Until you end up saying, “well, pretty much I’m trying to *verb* *noun* much more {efficiently, cheaply, faster, simpler, to use less resources} and only then is when they nod and make that ‘aahhh’ noise that says “I still don’t understand but you’ve probably reached the limit that you mind will allow you to simplify this problem”, you are most likely a hardcore engineer.

Do you have boxes, parts, notebooks, and files on projects that you started in the past, where you were really excited about what you were going to do, but somehow never finished because you started on another project that had similar potential, but you never throw them away because one weekend, after you’ve caught up on the work you’re doing now, you’re going to go back and finish? You are definitely a hardcore engineer.

Did you read this and spend the whole time thinking, wow, this is all so familiar, but in actuality you spend your days teaching kids how to draw, or designing purses to be made out of eco-friendly fibers, or writing copy for a news article? If so, you are likely a hardcore engineer’s girlfriend.

There are no Correct Decisions

Well, I’ve returned to singledom. After months of being in an exclusive relationship, I found that she was not for me. This is a pretty hard decision to make because we still care a lot about each other. Sure, there were arguments and fights from time to time, but nothing I’d especially consider bad warning signs. There was hardly any bringing up of past wrongs, so most fights were on new things.

But as much as I would want, it just wasn’t there. Perhaps it is something that I could grow into or perhaps not. I think maybe not, at least not with me the way I am now. I want something else, someone else, and I need to be able to answer myself whether this something else (that I can’t obviously put down in words) actually exists with someone else.

Of course, the danger is that I’m wrong, and then I’d have ended a relationship that was otherwise going well. In these situations, no amount of list making and rationalization can help. Gut feelings is where the solution lies and my gut says I’m doing the right thing.

The Three Stages of Relationships

Quick disclaimer, these three stages DON’T include engagement/marriage. However, there will be a slight discussion following that addresses why engagement and marriage should logically be considered one and the same stage.

So, relationships can be tricky to navigate these days. People progress at different rates. Sometimes one wonders “just where are we?” I mean, one is less likely to schedule whole blocks of time off or go through driving hours just to see someone who “is just talking”. I think typically, we either want the other person to be at the same stage that we’re in, or at least have the decency to let us know that they’re not quite that serious when we start talking about planning joint vacations.

This issue is further complicated by our general need to hold the upper hand and limit how vulnerable we can be. Relationship-wise, this generally means the topic of “where are we” is taboo, at least for the first few weeks or months (depending on just how often you’ve been “seeing” each other).

So, what are these stages and how can I recognize them in others (well, probably just your friends when they talk about those of the opposite sex in their lives who are not relatives, classmates, co-workers, or people who have already been turned down [there is NO such thing as platonic friendship])?

1. Hanging out. Also known as “just talking”, “seeing each other”. This is the stage where you’ve just met and are feeling each other out. There is mutual attraction and perhaps some interest. Certainly fun. But heck, I already have fun with my friends and likely don’t need more, so, the point of this is to see whether the other person captures our interest long enough for us to consider moving to the next phase:
2. Dating. For those who don’t know or are confused, dating is the stage where you evaluate long term (and for most, exclusive) relationship potential with a person. You are no longer “just talking”, a stage where either person can cancel without worry about anything because there is nothing invested. See, in stage 1, you spend time together when it is convenient. You both happen to be free, in the same place, etc. Dating requires allocating time to be together out of your regular schedule. Now, this evaluation is just for the next stage:
3. Boyfriend/girlfriend. Yes, that’s right. That long term exclusive relationship is NOT marriage. In this stage, you are now a couple. You meet friends, maybe parents. While you may “hang out” with many people or date a few, you tend to only be in this stage with one other person. The goal here (for some) is to evaluate the other for a permanent commitment – marriage. This is where you root out conflicts like number of children wanted, religion, financial plans for the future, career conflicts, etc.

Once you resolve these issues, you are then ready to move on to (what’s supposed to be) the final stage, marriage. Now, why do I lump engagement together with marriage. Logically, when you ask someone to marry you or agree to marry someone, you are in fact saying, “Yes, we can get married tomorrow”. The only reason that there’s even an engagement stage is to give you time to plan a wedding, setup a common home, finances, etc. If you think that engagement is a time for you to discover any last lingering issues, you have made a very bad mistake.

Alas, many fall into this trap because they don’t actually follow through on the previous stages. Yes, the further up you move, the harder it is to end a relationship, but if you are actually serious about the progression – if your end goal is to be married, then you need to use each stage for what it is. If your end goal is a bf/gf, and you suddenly find yourself accepting (or giving) a marriage proposal, something is wrong. You are not equipped to make a good decision on that front because up to then, that has not been your intention. You’ve not done the due diligence on that front.

Anyway, live and learn.

Mattress Factory: Art and Social Networking Collides

So, it’s Friday afternoon. and due to scheduling, presence of food, and probably the positions of the moon and stars, our Wednesday noon seminar is moved to Friday at 3pm. The good thing, today, there’s actually going to be refreshments.

So, I’m listening to what’s actually an interesting discussion of a guy’s PhD dissertation in the field of power electronics, interesting for a couple reasons, I took a power electronics class last year where I met someone who would become a pretty good friend who’s Master’s work is in power systems.

Anyway, I’ve got my tablet with me and decide to check out a couple of my usual reads (VSB, C&L) and once that’s done, curious to see what’s going on at iHeartPGH.com. As soon as I’m there, the Mattress Factory post catches my attention: new exhibit, free admission to social networking blogging (geeks). Why geeks? Well, it’s implied in the signup page when they say ”and all the WiFi one can handle”.

Naturally, I sign up, then get busy txting and IMing those within my network (strangely ironic considering that I did not utilize any of the social networking tools mentioned on the site to communicate this) about the event. This is interesting because I’d actually been thinking of staying in tonight and getting some reading done or finishing up projects.

So, because I am the kind of guy who’d carry around his laptop at such an event, it will be present. I’ll likely not be updating this in real-time, but perhaps we’ll get input from other goers vis-a-vis the tablet.

*********************

Well, we got there, laptops in tow, and being too lazy to wait in the online registration line, used our CMU ids to get in. Even though there seemed to be a lot of people who took advantage of the online registration, it became immediately obvious that either everyone else didn’t see the part about free wifi or were were the only true nerds to show up. (There is some irony in this because earlier today I’d been considering revoking my buddy’s geek card).

With the exception of a couple, most of the exhibits were a bit more technology based than the others I’d seen in my last visit to the Mattress Factory. One exhibit I thought created an optical illusion, turned out that the color changing and flashing lighting were just part of it. Due to the even being what it was, there was definitely a lot of interaction, discussion, and chatting than my last visit which felt more like walking around (a very interesting) library and perhaps smiling (or at best nodding) to the other patrons.

Of course, being engineers, at any computer related exhibit, we took the time to figure out how to replicate the artists efforts. Some good did come out of this, a plan for a prank to be played at the beginning of the next quarter has been devised. Whether it will be executed still remains to be seen. I will say though, that the Mattress Factory still remains a good place for a date.

My Deepest Fears

Watching the Office today, I think I finally discovered the identity of my deepest fear: Situations over which I have absolutely no control or ability to influence. Some situations may not start out that way. For example, the last time I was pulled over. Apparently, I’d interrupted a very busy officer by pulling into the road as he was hurtling down. Of course, I was at fault for recklesssly not checking traffic and must have just come from buying drugs despite pulling out of a Post Office parking lot because I needed to be asked several times in different conversations from whence I was coming.

Ok, so perhaps not all situations where I feel a loss of control or influence results in fear because I became increasingly angry and had a much harder time biting my tongue or saying anything other than, “Ok Officer” when he slams my door shut and tells me to go because there is literally nothing for which he can cite me.

But anyway, how did the Office reveal this deep hidden recess of my very wonderful soul? I’m glad you asked. You see, the Office is full of cringe-worthy moments of awkwardness between a few characters. And in watching today, I was reminded that I have the same reaction, typically when watching comedies that make any attempt at telling some sort of romance. Essentially, I have a hard time actually watching such things happen. In fact, it got so bad with the Office that I was forced to cut the office.

For those who didn’t get what happened, the blogger utilized a metaphor oft seen in the drug trade or any where substances are diluted with another to describe an evening where watching one episode of the Office required that one or two episodes of another show be watched in between.

Though perhaps that’s normal. After all, embarassing moments are exactly that, ones where we feel extremely vulnerable. 

So, a few notes about this post:

1. I made a modest attempt to follow grammatical norms. What this actually means is that I made an attempt not end sentences with a preposition. (Yes, i realize that last sentence is both ironic and ends with a prepositional phrase that also serves as a pun. Grr, this reminds me of a few weeks ago where a blog post I was reading caused me to think of a sentence that was both sarcastic and ironic. From there, I looked up sardonic but the meaning does not convey a true unification of sarcasm and irony. Anyway, the annoying part of this is that I did not write down my sentence and must now wander the halls of my mind trying to come up with something new that meets the criteria.
2. I’m not sure why I’m writing a post where I attempt to elucidate my deepest fears. I’m afraid I didn’t even do a good job. Haha.
3. I changed the sentence preceeding this list from saying a couple to a few but after writing #1 I could only remember #2 but now I’m too proud to change it back. More irony. (I will NOT type le sigh no matter how many times I see other people using it).
4. Anything you read within parenthesis is to be taken as off the record.

Confessions of a Bad Student

My pen name is Kamakula, and I’m a bad student. Perhaps even a bad person.

Let me explain. For the past two weeks, I’ve been waking up later and later in the day. I’ve done very little for my TA assignment – arguably one of the cushiest, an open ended project where I have latitude to plan and spend to my hearts content. The only constraint is that I devote 20 hours per week to this as per my contract as a TA. I doubt I’ve even accumulated a TOTAL of 20 hours on this project 5+ weeks into the semester.

Meanwhile, I’ve been waiting till the last minute to do homework. Last week, I was unable to complete the homework for one of my classes. It was sacrificed so that I could finish work in another. This week, last minute work plus a dying battery and having to find a place to plug in resulted in my not completing the hw for another class.

Theoretically, a good student could recover from this missteps. After all, the assignments are fractions of 10-15% of my grade, not enough on their own to take me down. However, I already know I’m not a good student. Then, with all this going on, I’m taking the weekend off. Driving up to my alma mater. This means that there will be no work accomplished from Friday until Monday.

So, it can be shown I’m a bad student, but that does not necessarily mean I’m a bad person. Well, for that to be true, that would mean that the majority my “person” qualities are bad. So, if we define person qualities as the set consisting of

• Student quality
• Son quality
• Friend quality
• Citizen quality

We’ve already demonstrated I’m a bad student. What about son? My dad has been getting emails asking him to sit on decision boards for several fellowship foundations. He’s been encouraging me to apply to these (and I’ve been saying that I will). Because of my (anticipated by him) participation, he must recuse himself from serving – conflict of interest issues.

Now, most of these programs have deadlines at the end of this month or beginning of November. Given the catch-up I’ll be playing, my likelihood of applying decreases which means I’d curtailed my dad’s ability to serve on those boards. This will cause my parents to be disappointed in the future when they learn I did not earn any additional funding while I continue to be a (non-producing) financial burden to my department.

Also, I’ve been “encouraged” to choose a thesis advisor this semester. I’m not sure which category this falls into. Essentially here is the problem. My field of interest is robotics. Specifically, I’ve come to decide that I want to conduct research in the area of reasoning and decision making systems. There are two professors who do work in related areas. One is primarily a pattern classification guy. I’ve taken one class from him and currently I’m taking a second. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I CANNOT work with this guy. It’s not just that what I want to do is not really pattern classification or that he doesn’t really work with actual robots, but based on having him as a teacher, I know we’re not compatible.

The other option is my current advisor. He’s a young and rising star in our department. However, his focus is in biomedical robotics. Now, I’d admit that I haven’t read much of his work, so perhaps there’s more areas of convergence between his work and what I want to do, however, from talking to him, he’s reluctant to take on a new student. Now, I’ve learned that I have department funding for about two more years. More than enough time for me to get involved and work out an RA in the future. I’m not sure if he’s just unaware of this, or if there is more to it.

I knew coming in that there were few professors in my department who were actively doing research in my areas of interest. The other schools that accepted me had more opportunities (or stronger ones) however, I chose UPitt because I was awarded a fellowship, my best friend lived here (at the time), and I’d be closer to CMU (and somehow entertained fantasies of working there while being a UPitt student).

Hmm, citizen-wise, I routinely break speed limits. I’m not talking 45-50 in a 40. I’m talking 100mph in a 30. This typically happens tuesday and friday nights . . . nevertheless. I’m also driving an uninspected car. I know it will fail inspection, there is at least one thing that I need to fix before I even attempt to have it inspected, probably more. But I’m hoping I can get some sort of exception for the other issues.

So, how am I a bad friend. Well, there is a group of us who have loosely joined together to develop ideas for a potential tech company. The nominal head is currently busting his ass at an 80hr/wk job where he’s getting first hand experience with the running of a startup. Others are working hard at jobs or school. I’m viewed as one of the major technical drivers of the group. This means that I’m one of the two or three who’d be expected to do the major hands-on work converting our ideas into an actual working project. Yet based on things, I’m probably the laziest and least motivated one. I’m letting my friends down by not working hard at school, to complete my degree in a timely fashion, to take advantage of my schooling to make me highly qualified so that when our resumes are shown to prospective investors, they can feel safe investing with a group of people who have a proven track record of academic excellence and demonstrated capabilities of taking projects from start to finish.

Possibly though, my biggest failure as a person is recognizing my failures and still not actually doing much of anything to correct them beyond the useless tactic of writing about it. If I review my blogs and other writings, this is a recurring post. This means over the six years since I’ve graduated from high school, there’s been essentially zero personal improvement. I’m pretty much the same 18 year old except I have more responsibilities, more debt, and know a bit more about my field.

It’s ironic. I want to create rational artificial decision making agents yet I’m unable to make rational decisions in my own life. Fucking blind leading the blind. Or in this case, blind leading himself.

The Newest Insult to Hit the Streets!

You arugula eating, soca berry drinking, peanut infused oatmeal-granola health bar chomping, three day a week gym exercising, people of the world love engendering, multicultural, non-conformist.

Seriously, all the kids are already joaning on each other using those words. I know I’m out of the game. But if you even come back to me with a word that relates thirteen and pastries, I’d be forced to call you a greyhead.

Just letting you know.

The VSB Post I Never Wrote

Hmm. I’ve been thinking about some things that have come up in the past couple days. I’m not sure if I should post this on VSB. In fact, I’ve decided not to post it. Perhaps I’m way off. But while I’d like to get a lot more feedback on this than posting it here would garner, I don’t quite feel its ready for a bigger audience. Perhaps I’m still feeling out my thoughts on this and don’t think it’s finished. Or perhaps I don’t want to ignite something or further shade the way people interpret my posts on that site. I’ve always known that people color what they read based on their perception of the person saying it. So, I usually attempt to present myself as neutrally as possible though for the most part I’ve not made any attempt to disgender the kamakula personality. Anyway, no more prefacing . . .

Black Nationalism (BN) to me is a response to the feeling that the best things can become is separate but equal. That while black peope may be able to wrest equal rights and treatment out of the government of the USA, blacks will never be accepted as equals. I feel this is a fundamental basis for BN and feel that this is flawed. Therefore, any further deductions will also be flawed though more or less self-consistent. I think it’s critical for some to realize that a flawed argument can still be self-consistent. Everything will hold together, it’s just an underlying assumption that would be shown to be wrong. Perhaps that’s what makes it hard to address those who are in the BN camp.

There are some who approach the argument (or perhaps another one altogether) from the point of preservation of black culture. I think I can make the argument that it’s a pretty big stretch to say that there is a black culture (or white culture) in the United States. When I think of culture, I think of something uniquely defined by language, religion, art, literature, customs, modes of behavior, and physical locality. If two groups of people have several of these things in common, I’d be hard pressed to say that they are different cultures.

Now, before I continue, let me get a dictionary definition of culture. This is the defintion of the sense of the word from merriam-webster:

5 a: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time <popular culture> <southern culture> c: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization <a corporate culture focused on the bottom line> d: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic <studying the effect of computers on print culture>

Black people don’t have a unique language or different language from the rest of the country. Black people don’t live in a different region of the country than everyone else. In fact, if I try to pin down the ways in which blacks as a people are different from the rest of the country, I’m left with just looks, the shared history of being oppressed by slavery/racism and the hiphop/rap music subculture. The remaining differences – art, other areas of music, and possibly behavior – I believe stem from regional variations and are not strong enough to stand on their own as a basis for identifying a separate culture.

So, in the context of my belief that our country is moving towards a more or less unified state where race does not matter, it would seem to me that not only does a black culture not really exist, but the natural progression of things will ensure that one does not emerge. The forces that push black people together into one group for common survival, interaction, and general enjoyment of life.

Yet, there is a flaw in my argument. Black people definitely look different from the rest of the country and while we’re attempting to minimize the effect of race on society, that is a strong cultural indicator. I don’t think that the context in which I frame this argument is strong enough to overcome this. I’m not sure it should.

Mundane Mundo

This is probably the blandest post this blog has ever seen. Why, because it’s just an snapshot of what is going on at the moment. Not that the others were not, but here I’m not really going to talk about my motivations, fears, plans, thoughts, or emotions. I’m just going to state what’s been going on.

So, I’ve been on the job for three days now. Unfortunately, yesterday was the start of a cold that has since gotten worse. I knew something was wrong when I woke up more than 2 hours later than I expected with no recollection of hearing my alarms. Then today that became 4 hours later.

I feel confident that by the end of this week, I’ll be past the initial warm-up period as I get acclimated to the new environment, people, and work I’ll be doing. I must say that CMU has a weird computing system in place and (in my view but probably I’d do the same if I was their master sys admin) draconian usage policies for their internet. Once again, I’m reminded of how superior RIT’s system has been compared to every other university that I’ve been a part of.

Car-wise, things are moving along. I’ve found a garage that I can rent for $25/mo. So, the car will be towed there this weekend. I’ve also located a replacement engine that I can get for about $150 less than I’d expected to pay. If things go smoothly, I should have the car running in time to drive to DC as I’ve planned in July without my parent’s ever knowing something was wrong. Well, I’ll likely tell them, but it will be after things are fixed.

My reading pace has dropped off since I was in high school. However, one thing being carless has afforded me is time to read. On the bus ride to and from work, I have about 45 minutes of reading time. The plan is to consume a book a day during the week (since weekends will be mostly me working on the car and being too tired and too dirty to pick up a book). I wonder how many kids of the current generation check out books the way I do now, much less the way I did when I was younger?

I’m Going to Do It. . .

What is that it you may ask? I’ve been frequenting this nightspot that has an open-mic night. In general, things like that tend to motivate me if I hang around long enough – I almost convinced myself to attempt some stand-up comedy before I left TLH. According to a friend of mine, it was a good thing that was never inflicted upon the world.

Perhaps at some point, I’d do the composition here. But for now, this feels more complete to me . . .

The lyrics to a song go “I know you think that i shouldn’t still love you or tell you that. But if I didn’t say it, well, I’d still have felt it, where’s the sense in that? I promise I’m not trying to make your life harder or return to where we were”.* Those are the first few lines of the song. I’d always liked it, never understanding the resonance it had with me, not knowing why it stayed on my playlist.

But after meeting you, I see why. Somehow, the words conveyed a meaning, a meaning of words before their time, echoing between the void of space and time, taking me to a place, not that I’d never been before, but I was destined to tread, to walk, a bit more jaded, not quite baring my soul as before, but yet, putting myself there, making myself vulnerable, exposing that part of me which in foolishness was unprotected.

Unlike Achilles, I was not dipped into the river of immortality by someone with a firm grip on my heart, instead it was the work of chronos, in the heat of my formation, my period of learning, growing, yearning, thinking that life was perfect, reasoned, wrapped up, and under my control, yes, I too was arrogant. However, unlike the ill-fated Achilles, when my weakness is revealed, it is not by accident, it is with a purpose.

Others cannot get close as long as there is a shield up, a force field in their way. Invisible yes, impenetrable, I’d like to think no. Like the cells that make up our body, it is semi-permiable membrane. Under the right conditions, some molecules can make their way through, gaining access to the very core. However, these barriers can also be lowered under conscious control. And so, that’s how you got close.

Your smile set the mood, eyes glittering like the reflection of fire in sapphires, the combination catching my attention, spiking my interest already aroused by the curvy of your torso, from bottom to top teasing the eye with the sensualness that your attire tried to hide, but could not
suppress. The dichotomy further drawing my attention, my smile, and so I respond, teasing you in conversation, wanting to hold your eyes on me, keep your voice tuned to me.

If our attraction sounded the first bell anouncing a weakening of my defenses, it was the verbal sparring that tired me. Your pedigree preceeds you, your intellect scintillating, yet we did not chat of technical matters, no need to focus on work or play, those pieces of the puzzle can come readily enough, yet even as I talk, elicit your laugh, your smile, the twisiting of your hair in your fingers, drawing my attention to reach over, an excuse to touch, to linger, to experience, I find I cannot read you.

Where others are an open book, you are closed. Despite our growing closeness, there is a void I cannot breach, a gap I cannot close. Others may well be foiled, but it is too late. I’m vulnerable before you, before your look, your touch, your smile, your laugh, your words, and there is one
thing I must know. The answering would just be throwing a single rope across the chasm. Dangerous it would be for me to attempt to cross on so tenuous a holding, but the prize is worth it.

Yet the timing is not right. Perhaps you don’t have a line to cast, or the ground is too loose on your side to secure it. Nevertheless, “I will go down with this ship. I won’t put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door”.

Perhaps I may add a bit more, but I’ve always been a write once kind of guy unless forced to revise. Still, mayhap it deserves a bit more attention. Maybe Thursday evening, I’ll have more reason, more motivation, more experience to draw on, for which to add, to bring it to final completion.

In terms of technicality, I think I’ve given up on attempting to make thing rhyme. Here, I did that a bit, or at least I established a rhythm which can be easily seen in the writing or heard if I read it aloud. I’ve been told my face is pretty expressive. I know my voice can be, but I’ll be nervous reading this much of myself out to people, so I’m not sure how much of the meaning I’ll be able to communicate beyond the text.

I think that is what draws me to creative mediums. I feel that my skills in subcommunication are lacking. Yet this is the richness of life. Meaning beyond words. Meaning infused in the inflection of our voice, the raising of our eyebrows, the curl of our lip, genuflection of our hands.

I hope this experience, if it will be as transient as anything else has been in my life, will be one where I make some improvement, some measure of something that stays with me. That even when not active, is still there. Then like riding a bicycle, when I need to turn to the skill, in a moment of despair, a moment to connect, a moment to prove myself, it is there, reassuring and uplifting.

*The song is White Flag by Dido.