Building a Better Voting Machine

Building a Better Voting Machine is a short and interesting article about voting machines (via Slashdot).

I've been meaning to print a copy of Rivest's Third Ballot Voting System and read it while I take the bus to work, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

21 Grams

The next movie in my Netflix queue is 21 Grams (which was recommended by Ramanan).

Netflix said it would arrive on Saturday, but it was late and didn't arrive until today. Just now I opened the envelope to pop it into my DVD player and the disc has a massive crack the size of its radius. Needless to say, it does not play. Thanks, Netflix. Now I will go an entire week without a movie. :-(

My first year with them went without a hitch, but this is the fourth time this year that I've been screwed, so I have a nagging suspicion that their quality is deteriorating.

Interesting Articles

A few interesting articles:

• Google's unknown artist has huge following [CNN] via Slashdot


• This cabbie needs no map [Toronto Star] via Funkaoshi


• Tut's gem hints at space impact [BBC]

Funny Links

• Real-Life Recreation of The Simpsons Intro (via Funkaoshi).



• Calvin & Hobbes: Writer's Block



• $39-Dollar Experiment (via Metafilter): I was sitting around one day, skimming through a pile of bills that I needed to pay. I looked over at a new, unopened roll of stamps that I had sitting in front of me, and I thought to myself, "$39... for a roll of stamps? Geez... You can't get much for $39 nowadays. Or can you...?" ... I decided I was going to try something — I was going to take my roll of stamps and send 100 letters to 100 different companies, asking for free stuff.
  
  For example,
  
  Dear Sir or Madam:
  I have to tell you – I love your chicken. It's the best fried chicken around. The breading... I could eat a bucket full of just the breading. Breading and skin. That's the ticket! Anyway, your chicken is outstanding. If I weren't afraid of being arrested, I'd go to KFC to lick other people's fingers – that's how much I like your chicken. Please send me a coupon for a free chicken, so that I do not have to resort to licking strangers' fingers. Thank you in advance,
  Tom Locke, fried chicken enthusiast

Programming Languages

Programming languages and their relationship styles (via Funkaoshi) .

How to Do What You Love

How to Do What You Love is an thought-provoking essay by Paul Graham. [Via Funkaoshi].

Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you're practically there.

Right now there are things I like about my work, but there are also things I really hate. So I don't think I'm doing what I love. I'm not even sure that my destination is in sight yet. I guess this is something else that I'll need to reflect upon. (e.g. If I decide to go to grad school, applications for fall 2007 are more or less due this fall).

Fog of War

I watched Fog of War last night. It is an interview with Robert S. McNamara about eleven "lessons" that he learned from his involvement in World War II with the Air Force as well as the Cuban Missle Crisis and the Vietnam War as Secretary of Defense.

For some reason I thought it was about Henry Kissinger. [How can you rent a documentary and not know who it is about, you ask? Well, it was playing at the Princess Cinema last year, but for some reason I never went even though it looked interesting. I know Ram went and said it was good, so that's sufficent :-)].

I found it to be interesting and thought provoking. It is also fairly topical. (i.e. It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to apply what he says to current US foreign policy).

It was good, but listening a single person talk for almost two hours stretched my attention span a little. Overall, I'll give it 3/5 stars. (3.5 if I wasn't limited to an integral amount of stars).