Catholic Church says Bible might have flaws

Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible - Times Online

I'm going to have to disagree with them on this one, given that they presumably (and heretofore have) accept(ed) the passage saying "All scripture is God-breathed and is suitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness." from Timothy. Given that scripture is inspired by God, I can't believe it would have a flaw, nor can I believe that the "secular" parts of the Bible in Gen. 1-11 are legendary or false. A short while ago, the church would have realized that some critical analysis of such passages, as well as a critical look at evolution/creation/design will not reveal any particular scientifically provable deficiencies in scripture. On sheer probabilities, I find the Bible at least a little easier to believe.

Boston is 2nd most expensive place to rent

Most Expensive Rental Markets In America 2005 - Forbes.com: "a"

Boston has made the top ten list... #2, actually, behind NYC...
Apparently 35% of people rent, and avg. "Class A" cost is around $24/sf. wow!

A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping

New Scientist Breaking News - Arguments dramatically slow wound healing

Apparently, if you argue, your wounds will heal slower. So pray for a good marriage...it'll be better for your immune system!

Christian facebook/friendsters

I've come upon two Christian networking sites, essentially working to bring together a Christian social network. This is something I've been thinking about during the last week. I'd like to see it take off. They are:
www.5loaves.net
www.christianster.com

Just for kicks, a sudoku solver

Well, this puzzle has really fascinated me. I love how quickly people have taken to it. Swept the entire globe since about last May. So I made a solver.
It's not entirely complete in all possible complexity (there is some need for set logic for the very few complex puzzles), but this can generally solve most sudokus.
For some examples, visit here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,18209,00.html
Sudoku Jigsaw - click here: http://www.sudoku.org.uk/jigsaw.asp

For a more-complete logical solver, here: http://www.sudokusolver.co.uk/index.html

For the code:
grid.cpp
grid.h
main.cpp

Coming home soon!

Dear Friends -

Seems like the semester has flown by, and yet the last couple weeks have been so slow. I have been applying for jobs and would ask you to forward on my resume to anyone you know in a Software / IT / Finance type of job. I'm sure that's one of the best ways I can find a great place to work.

My internship will be finished next Thursday. I have enjoyed the time and recently established more of a rapport with my boss than before (it still seems a bit cold & professional), and I've got mixed feelings on the consulting industry. Probably not somewhere I would want to start unless I can really use my technical degree. Finance, IT both sound interesting. And then there's computer vision... which would probably require some grad school.

I will be arriving back in Boston on the 15th around 5pm, and spending a night there before heading home (8 time zones from here) for a month off! I can't wait to see my family, as I've missed them since MAY. While in Boston, I hope to round up some friends for a party, including you, as long as you don't have a final the next morning (even if you do, if you study in advance).
I'm praying about doing a summer project before going to work. Pray that I'll have some clarity on that. Mostly, I could use your prayers for my job search, that I'll choose the right location, employer, etc.

I will go to a rugby game (London Wasps) on Sunday. I will present my research to my team, then go out for a British Christmas dinner on Monday. I will be seeing A Christmas Carol this coming Tuesday. It's nice to hear Christmas music again. Finally, on Saturday morning, I head to Germany for a few days... Can't wait to visit Imke and see a quaint German village... Then I'm back for a class, a final, and a trip back home!

Hope you've all had a great fall/winter. I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone.

God bless
-Brian <><

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Brian Patton
http://people.bu.edu/bjp/
http://people.bu.edu/reallife/ourstories.html

Looks like Google is going to the moon

Our new goal is to "organize all the useful information in the universe and serve it to you on a lightly salted cracker."
http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html

CSS to print webpage different from rendering

<link rel="stylesheet" 
media="print" 
type="text/css" 
href="http://img.thisismoney.co.uk/style/print.css" />

Using that line for a special print-only .css file, you can control how the page will print. Then, users don't have to click a "Print this page" link. Check it out...

Look at
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=404961&in_page_id=2
and then click file->print preview

ROI and the death of business

I found this article insightful, given that all they teach us in B-school is about management by numbers (you can't really teach intution & genius, anyway): Google's cached copy

And then there were none

^^ That's the name of the Agatha Christie novel-turned-play that I went to see last Friday night. Pretty intense and scary, but really a fun show.

It's been a good few weeks since you last heard from me. I've made good progress on the presentation I'll soon be giving to some investment management consultants on the state of the European investment management market at KPMG. Meanwhile, I've started looking for jobs, which has got me stressed to the max! I can't decide where I'd like to live, which company would be the best fit, what the right trade-off of intrinsic vs. extrinsic benefits is, and it's got me altogether flummoxed, to use a fun word. Nonetheless, I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing some of the companies that are out there in the marketplace, developing what they can, marketing it in completely different sectors, and generally having a great past couple years. It's a great time to get hired right now (apparently), especially for qualified CS majors. They say technical degrees are in high demand and that there aren't enough qualified people. The problem is, the qualifications presented by some companies are so complex that I'd be surprised to meet any perfect individual. There are plenty of smart people looking for work, if you'll give them a month of training time!

In case you're wondering, I am a computer science major, by the way. Business minor, loved working on a computer vision project and would be very interested in an AI/computer vision job. The problem is, I would probably be equally interested in an IT/development job with an investments firm, and those are two very distinct fields I'm thinking about. Pray for me, please.

I will be trying to go to 2 church services tonight, so that I can hear John Stott speak (at the second one) at All Souls. It will be an intense 3 hours of church/travel/church, whew!

I visited the Tower of London and Kensington Palace last weekend. Both were fun places, the tower with its devices of torture, the palace with its dresses and fancy state rooms. The Lord Mayor's show was last weekend... basically, a fancy-dressed guy rides a BEAUTIFUL gold-gilded carriage, behind a 2-mile-long parade. The parade was a kick, all kinds of Britons old and young, variously dressed and including creatively decorated cars, driving couches (thank you Intel), decorated buses, and marching bands. That night there was a dramatic fireworks show. Pretty enjoyable weekend, last weekend.

The prior weekend, I went to two fireworks shows for Guy Fawkes day. It's the closest the Brits get to a 4th of July, and it takes place on the 5th of November. Remember, remember the 5th of November. A group of (persecuted) Catholic rebels planted some dynamite in the basement of Parliament and Guy Fawkes was to light it. Unfortunately for him they found him out, tortured him (the rack) and then he was drawn and quartered, sent to the corners of the UK (like William Wallace). So they celebrate the day they caught him, but they name the day after the terrorist himself... interesting people, these. Did I mention they burn his effigy in huge bonfires all over the country every year?!

I'm working today and tonight on assembling a portfolio for my internship, so I must go. Hope you all are having a great November and enjoying the warmth and coldness of your respective locations. Oh, and congrats to my friend Olga from Central Asia, who just got engaged!
-Brian

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Brian Patton
http://people.bu.edu/bjp/
http://people.bu.edu/reallife/ourstories.html

The printer will become the new water-cooler

My hypothesis is that the printer may be becoming the new water cooler about which important conversations are had and networking is done.

A few notes

1) Sauerkraut might cure bird flu, in case you get it. Anyway, apparently cabbage is good for your immune system. Might have to do an overhaul of my eating habits :)
2) Went to a presentation on London/services marketing last night. Apparently London just passed NYC for international business transactions. The Rt Hon Lord Michael Heseltine of Thenford (Minister of Commerce & Industry under Margaret Thatcher) gave a presentation on what he sees as the future of marketing, which will increasingly strive to sell services and beat out India & China. He used four R's:

• Reach
• Responsiveness
• Relationships
• Renewal/Revision

Interesting descriptions accompany each, although I hesitate to include the renewal process in marketing, thinking it falls more into organizational culture/change/operations.

Thinking...

Been thinking a lot recently, praying about some stuff:
1) What am I supposed to do? Go back to a major investments firm? Go very technical with some place like Google or MS? Go to BAE and design defence IT systems? (note the British spelling)
2) Where am I supposed to be? Boston? Central Asia summer project? Home?
3) What is baptism in the Spirit in the book of Acts (yeah, I know kind of random relative to the others, but relevant nonetheless)?
Pray for me on those.

Pictures posted

Posted a handful of within-the-last-month pictures on http://bjppics.blogspot.com

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Brian Patton
http://people.bu.edu/bjp/
http://people.bu.edu/reallife/ourstories.html

Back in London and busy again

Greetings from London!
Well, as you might have guessed from my incommunicativeness over the past couple weeks (is that even a word, incommunicativeness?) I have been busy!

Since returning to London, I have (a) started an internship with KPMG, an international business services company specializing in audit, tax, and advisory. I fit in to the UK member firm's financial services advisory/performance management block. It's been a fun couple weeks of learning my way around, which is how it always goes with a new job. Nice people. Admittedly, I felt a little lonely after a week and a half among British speakers. However, I have admitted to myself that I'm American to stay, and I feel much better about my American-ness now :) In fact, I even met another guy who started at KPMG US and is now working for the UK firm.

I got to go out for curry with my immediate (Investment Management) team last night. It was fun. We had a meeting where everyone summarized what they've been up to and what clients they're on/hope to secure. I met a couple partners (who apparently rake in the dough, around £ 200,000 min per year in salary + bonus/profits) and a lot of people whom I haven't even seen in the office (they've been putting in 130% client time). We had a meeting Monday night called "Cascades" as in, information cascading down the chain to the little guys on the bottom, which includes me. Apparently the division I'm in grew by some huge proportion and the company as a whole has done really well this last year. They set the bonus pool to £ 59 million this year, a big jump from last year. Of course, that doesn't compare much with the Goldman Sachs bonuses of up to 200k. Their traders went out that night to a ritzy bar and asked for the most expensive cocktail available - TEN OF THEM. Well, at 385 pounds a piece ($700ea), those added up, and the Crystale and other drinks they got brought a two-man bill up to £ 13,000. Ridiculous. Yeah. These people are absurd. Send a bit of that my way (at least pay me for working! ;-)

Those people would be described as POSH. The origin of the posh term is this: when British women used to go to India, they would faint with their huge dresses and corset if they were on the side of the boat that faced the sun. So when they ordered tixx, rich women would order P.O.S.H. tickets, meaning Port Out Starboard Home, which would put them on the left (North) on the Eastbound journey, and the North on the way home. Both ways in the shade. There's your etymology for the day.

I am thoroughly enjoying my current class, which meets Fridays only. The professor makes the class what it is (great!). He's very relaxed, brings in food every week, and is very well-read when it comes to thinking about international management. It's funny how much I could loathe an Organizational Behavior class under Prof. Zenger-Baker but love a nearly-OB class on international management, organizational structure, change, leadership, etc. under Prof. Lang. I guess that's a sign that the teacher has a large impact on student perceptions of the subject. I gave a presentation today, on a case study about Acer, Inc. the Taiwan-based computer maker. We have fun discussions about how outrageous prices are here in the UK, and how the professor always orders off ebay US, buys in Germany (his car!), or asks his sister-in-law to send goodies over from the US. He recently got an iPod which he loves. Did I mention we share a birthday, which happened to be the first day of class?! Yeah, he brought me a bottle of champagne (from Champagne, France) the following Friday. I don't suspect he anticipated it, but I brought him the chicken and bacon sandwich he had requested, so we did a little gift exchange a week late.

My birthday, by the way, was a kick. We went to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub that dates back as early as the late 1500s. Our table was near an original copy of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It was a nice experience. I suppose Rome was a bit older, but this did the trick. I had a nice chunk of lamb and was given Phantom and Josh Groban in concert DVDs, as well as a Phantom mask just for kicks :)
I am, by the way, still a little in awe of Les Mis, in case you were wondering. Saw a crude play called On Tour. It was small & intimate (i.e. ~100 seats), but yeah just dirty.

My roommate got back from Croatia/Bosnia alright. All his limbs intact. Fortunately he had hired a translator/guide, 'cause he said he almost stepped on a mine, but the translator stopped him.

I'm going to a Man City v. Fulham football game tomorrow afternoon. Don't have any particular loyalties, but it should definitely be a good time.

I'm going through this course called Alpha, which is a course discussing the very fundamentals of Christianity in a pretty intellectual environment. It's kind of taking the world by storm, as in, around 10% of the UK population have been on Alpha, and it's definitely getting big in Boston/elsewhere in the US. I might have a hankering to lead a course next semester. We'll see how that pans out.

Hope this gives you some rough overview of what's going on with me. Send me food or chocolate or cards if you like :)
Love you all.
-Brian

Brian Patton
43 Harrington Gardens
London, England
SW7 4JU
UK

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Brian Patton
http://people.bu.edu/bjp/
http://people.bu.edu/reallife/ourstories.html

Colourful theatre and a trip around Europe

Wow! What a fast couple weeks it has been. Please note that the spellings in the title are proper British spellings :) Two weeks ago today, I saw Les Miserables. It was absolutely incredible! They'll be in Boston in Feb/March, so if you'd like to go you can definitely have my company! The music is great, the dancing and stage/set are incredible, altogether an amazing show.

I'm writing you from Barcelona at the tail end of my week off in Europe. Traveling about with my friend Carolina, I have visited Venice, Florence, Naples, Rome, and Barcelona is our final stop. It's been a whirlwind adventure of seeing Europe. Venice was beautiful, with canals lacing the city left and right. We took a traghetto across the Canal Grande, which served as a nice 30-second gondola experience. I really enjoyed the city. With good gelato, walkable distances, and streets with no room for cars, what more could you ask for?!

In Florence, Marco was the manager of our hostel, a very friendly and helpful person. We had a nice dinner there, a two course meal with salad for dessert (interesting thought, the salad after the meal :) We visited some nice gardens, saw a great panoramic view of the city, and enjoyed it quickly, after which we headed to Rome.

We found it quite a hard time getting into our hostel in Rome. Ended up spending the night in a nearby B&B for a little over 1.5 times the price :( Luckily we got into the hostel for the next night. From Rome, we took a train to Naples where we visited a small town that had an ancient Flavian Amphitheatre. Unfortunately, all the archeological sites in that town were closed on Tuesdays ... grrr. Anyway, at least it provided a wonderful panoramic view of the Terranian Sea/coastline. Naples had some great seafood, then we were rushing to make the train back before our 24-hour ticket expired, so we got to see some old buildings down the main drag of the city very quickly!

Rome, of course, was amazing. We visited the Colosseum first thing in the morning, and took a tour that was definitely worth it. It started to rain, but then let up for a while as we explored the Palatine hill area and the Roman Forum. The history there dates back as far as 430-something BC. AMAZING. It rained again as we made our way to the Vatican, where we arrived (most unfortunately) as the Sistine Chapel closed ... grr again. It closes very early at 4.15/4.30. Anyway, we got to see St. Peter's basilica, where they purport to have his ashes in a little box beneath the floor...you can look in and see a sign that says this is St. Peter, but I'm amazed if they really know it's him. The church is a little bit gaudy in that it has inscriptions on the floor saying how large several other large cathedrals/basilicas are, and making the clear point that this is the biggest.

We cruised around Barcelona a little bit in the rain yesterday, but that made it kind of a bummer afternoon. I'm praying for sunshine for today or Saturday morning so that I can hit the beach once before getting back to work. I'm looking forward to jumping into a pool starting Monday and starting to get in shape for the end of the season upon my return to BU. I'm looking forward to seeing the famous Gaudi cathedral, the zoo, and some other Barcelona attractions, but the sunshine is definitely what I want to experience, so that our "Sea Point Hostel" will be worth the walk (it's right on the beach, a ways from the city!)

Please pray for a job for my mom, a sunny day for Barcelona, strong friendships in London, and a good internship experience.

Let me know your mailing address if you desperately desire a postcard from Rome or London!

Stay strong and do keep writing...I enjoy reading your emails :)

-Brian
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Brian Patton
http://people.bu.edu/bjp/
http://people.bu.edu/reallife/ourstories.html

London, Scotland, etc.

Hi all :)

I've been enjoying myself here in the UK, getting to know London, the Tube, the TV stations, Scotland, the national rail system, and loving the 1.84 exchange rate (not really!). I'm taking a class in European capital markets, which has been very interesting. I finished applying for BU's nomination for the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships for two years of further study (in economics) here in the UK at Oxford, LSE, or St. Andrew's. I had a telephone interview with such figures as Sheldon Glashow (Nobel in Physics) and Jon Westling (former BU president) earlier today. Pray that I have made a great impression on the selection committee so that I can progress further in this.

In the past couple weeks, I've found a church I'd like to attend regularly and met a weekly small group not far from where I live. I went to see a play with them last Thursday night (Pericles, Prince of Tyre) at Shakespeare's recently-rebuilt Globe Theatre. Tonight I will watch Playing With Fire at a venue closer to the West End (London's theatre district). The show at the Globe, by the way, was really impressive. I was a groundling and got slowly soaked by a very light drizzle, but their use of the theatre was incredible. We went to The Anchor, a pub, afterwards and relaxed for a few minutes in the warm place that Shakespeare's men used to use as a changing room (a pub since the middle ages!).

This past weekend, my flatmates and I traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland. We stayed at a hostel there that wasn't incredible, but it was a bed. We climbed Arthur's Seat, a mini-mountain on the first evening and barely missed a huge rainstorm, approaching from all sides, then scattering into a beautiful, 180-degree rainbow (2 of them, actually). The next day we visited the Museum of Scotland, then caught a train out to Stirling, where William Wallace won an important battle in the 1300s (cue Braveheart music). We visited Stirling castle; not very impressive relative to Windsor and Buckingham, but a fun time nonetheless. That afternoon, we walked briefly around Stirling, visited the oldest townhouse in the area (quite melodramatic!), then caught a local bus to a couple cities away to visit Alva. Even Edinburghers don't know exactly where Alva is, but we found out that there was a local festival, the Alva Glen Illuminations, going on and we just had to see that :) Actually, we thought we might hike there; the Illuminations were an afterthought. We got in there too late to hike, but we did get to see the end of the Second Duck Race (kids racing rubber duckies down a creek), enjoy dinner at a local pub/B&B with a lovely Scottish lass as our waitress, then head back out the the Glen for the real Illuminations events. A band of local pipers (including a little 8-or-10-year old) played some great tunes, I bought some assorted homemade cakes in a baggie (these were yummy), and then we walked through the glen to see much of the vegetation lit by candles (historical) and halogen lights (not too historical). Got some fun pictures of a guy juggling fire; he breathed it too. Listened to a local band play some older and recent hits. We got a bus back to Stirling, where we walked around the town for a little while (I got some McDonald's for the first time since I've been here). Not much of a night life at all there; actually pretty dead at night :) We caught our train back to Edinburgh and got to sleep shortly thereafter. The next morning, Sunday, I took off on my own to see a bit more of the city; I bought a Claymore, the sword William Wallace used, and am enjoying swinging it around and seeing how shiny it is :) Don't worry, it didn't cost a ridiculous amount, although I did think it unusual that I would buy such a thing, wise a spender as I am.

I'm enjoying classes; working hard on occasion, doing reading and writeups. Most of the time, enjoying the city. Will probably end up working with an accounting firm or an investments firm. Hope all is going well back in the states. Let me know if you have any London friends I should meet.

-Brian

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Brian Patton
http://people.bu.edu/bjp/
http://people.bu.edu/reallife/ourstories.html

London

I am in London for the semester. Send me an email if you care to find out how it's hanging.
Call if you really want to hear my voice (probably better to pre-arrange this; I'm 5 hours ahead of the East coast): 011 44 207 590 7005

Mario Music

This is amusing:
http://homepage.mac.com/mrspleen/iMovieTheater6.html

Carlton St.

I'm all moved in now, Dave's a good roommate, we've visited our roof (accessible via fire escape), and I've bought food so I can eat this summer. I posted my mailing address in my last post, please send me a letter or something.
I've now worked for a week. Really fun people to work with. I'm learning stuff that BU computer science just doesn't teach, but which is really important to actually getting an information-systems position out of school. I work downtown in the financial district, which is a new experience. People are more dressed-up (myself included) and faster-paced than home, or even back at BU.
Watched Star Wars 3 last night with Derek. Great movie, tied up all the loose ends for me; Derek and I will be watching Star Wars 4 tonight, to see what other loose ends got tied up for us :) It's pleasant to be here, but feels a little more lonely and tiring than last summer, perhaps because more traveling is involved in getting to work. The weather has been bummer until today, also. That's probably a big part of the whole tired-out thing. Today is beautiful and sunny, was cloudless all morning. I got some fruits & veggies at Haymarket and all is well.
Hope your Saturday is beautiful as well.

Phantom! Mailing address

I'll be living with David Hill this summer, at the following address:
Brian Patton
45 Carlton St. #8
Brookline, MA 02446

I saw Phantom of the Opera last night with Ellie, Derek, and Rob (see pics). It was as incredible as I had ever imagined it could be! And then some. What a show; I love the music, and having scenes to put with that music now makes it even better than ever.

Some of my favorite lines, sung by Raoul as he proposes:
"Then say you'll cherish me: one love, one lifetime.
Let me lead you from your solitude.
Say you'll need me with you, here beside you.
Anywhere you go, let me go too.
Christine, that's all I ask of you.

...Love me, that's all I ask of you."

Finals halfway done

Well, I'll be in town for the summer, which is pretty exciting. I'm excited for the guys who will be in town (girls too, I guess :) because I think we'll be able to learn a lot from each other in a more relaxed environment that summer brings. I'm so excited for my job. It was completely unanticipated, but God provides in mysterious ways.
I'm going to miss a bunch of Boston people after this week :( so I have to be saying my goodbyes this week. Also, SMG just informed me that I can't take the Management & Finance core class while I'm in London since I haven't taken SM323 (Core). Maybe I can get signed into the class once I get to London, 'cause I would really like to take it "European Institutions & Enterprises"... That's all for now. Time to get coffee with a friend soon.

Finals Week!

Ah, the end approaches. This year, I'm kind of wishing the end didn't come upon me so soon, as I'm thinking I'll miss Boston a lot during the fall :( I'll be studying abroad in London, which should be a really fun experience. But I'm bummed to miss all that's going to be happening with BU Real Life and all my junior friends that are returning to campus.
Alas, I guess this is how college goes. At least Carolina and Kathleen and others will be in London, when I need a good American accent :) I will miss this year's seniors. Of the past three years, (obviously) these are the seniors that I've gotten to know the best. I'm excited for the summer. I have a job at Fidelity in Investment Operations Systems, and look forward to hanging out with all my Boston friends and making new ones over the summer. I pray that it will be a powerful time of growth and maturing. I praise God for the job, and for the friends in Central Asia that I will be able to bless because of it. I pray for huge change on my campus, that people might resist the temptation of academic ignorance. That people might think critically about what they view as success and what they will build their lives around. I will get to live with David Hill this summer, which is an exciting opportunity. Certainly, big things will be happening in Boston during summer-fall 2005!
May your summer be blessed as well.

New pics blog

Click the link in the title or here

See my BlogMap :)

Be sure to click the number (currently 57) - not the map.

UPN!!

United Praise Night was last night! It was amazing. Seeing the whole body together as one is an amazing experience, and meeting believers from all over campus rocks my world. Praise God that he has set us apart to be at work for him.

Worked on CS all afternoon, like last Sunday. At least this assignment seemed a bit more manageable, or perhaps I had a better attitude about it :) Continuing work on bronchial tree detection/modeling in 3d, which is pretty fascinating. I'm looking into course 6.170 on MIT's openCourseWare so that I'll better understand the buzz words thrown around in SW engineering. Also trying to pick up Java and Perl on the side of all my classes :-\ whew!

Sweet, 3.0% :)

Sweet, my savings rate went up again. If you're not in on the fun yet, now's a better time than ever to dump that old savings acct. and get an ING Direct account. It's even FDIC insured up to $100K (do you have that much?). Drop me a line and I'll refer you (you get 25, I get 10 bucks). Or get it yourself at ingdirect.com

Gmail accounts are (theoretically) infinite (big grin)

Gmail has one-upped the world of web-based email accounts once again. They've now given me 2061MB of online mail storage space (more than I can imagine using), and this is increasing at a rate of about 1KB per minute (visit www.gmail.com). If you want a gmail account (Trust me, you do! It even works w/ any POP3 email client like Outlook Express), you might be able to simply register at their site, or you might still need an invite (of which I have fifty to give away). Let me know if you're interested.

CS is taking over my life

I've been putting off quite a bit of CS homework over the past couple weeks, and, admittedly, it's wearing on me. Our last assignment for CS332 was pretty brutal (I spent all Sunday afternoon working on it :^( ). We have (outstanding) a pretty tough assignment for my CS410 class, in which I'll have to do something with multiple processes, multiple threads, matrix multiplication, and a shell prompt (all in one assignment). The thing I'm currently most interested in getting done is our CS585 project, but the CS585 homework of computing disparities between stereo images must have my attention for the current week. That could be painful, we'll see starting in a few minutes.

I'm excited about United Praise Night, which is coming up this Saturday night. It was big my freshman year, and I'm hoping it will be just as huge now. Please pray for it if you read this posting. Have a great week!

Life, 2.80%

Applying for a bunch of stuff in the next few months...
Marshall & Rhodes Scholarships (!)
Summer Jobs (still looking?!)
CAS Merit Scholarship

These are the priorities. Now, let them be accomplished!
In other news, I posted some pics on Snapfish from America Easts 2005... let me know if you'd like to peruse them.
Our new pool is still amazing :)
My savings rate just went up to 2.8%... not a bad return for a risk-free investment.
Let me know if you want into ING Direct (you get $25, I get $10)

New Pool!

Well, at long last I finally got to swim in the new pool yesterday, and what a beautiful experience that was! The natural lighting, quality lane-lines, 7-foot depth, and wide lanes will all combine to make our pool certainly the best in the conference, one of the best in Boston/Cambridge, and probably the third- or fourth-nicest pool I've seen. It will be an exciting season!
After swimming a bit, I gave myself a quick tour of the rest of the facility. This is a great place, with basketball, squash courts, an elevated track, tons of workout machines, and pretty much every amenity you could dream of. Perhaps the saddest part is the lazy river, which comes at the expense of a 50m pool (we get like 42m instead), and isn't intensely interesting in and of itself. Hopefully, someone will enjoy the 30yd-long river quite a bit :-\ Altogether, a beautiful BU construction, and it looks to be quality that will last.
That's all for today.

Check your credit (finally) for free

(from http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/11/freecredrpt.htm)
November 23, 2004

Credit Bureaus Announce How Consumers Can Access Free Credit Reports

The three nationwide consumer reporting companies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – today announced the Web address, toll-free telephone number, and postal address consumers can use to request a free annual credit report. Beginning December 1, 2004, consumers in 13 Western states will be able to begin making requests by visiting www.annualcreditreport.com, calling 877-322-8228, or mailing a standardized form to Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. The 13 eligible states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

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(from http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.htm)
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Home

I'm home for Spring Break... Good to see the family... Will be working on an exciting project this semester involving segmenting the bronchial tree from CT scans of the lungs. Just got it to compile under VS.NET, which is an upgrade from VC++6. Enjoy your spring break :)

Rates went up!

Savings rate just went up a notch...Great News!

On February 25th, we increased the variable annual percentage yield on your Orange Savings Account to 2.60%!

That's my ING bank :)
Let me know if you want in on the nice interest. You get a free 20 or 25 bucks just because a member refers you!

Is MS going down the right track?

Microsoft (MSN/Hotmail) just sent me this email:
Recently, Hotmail® announced that in order to improve customer experience and reduce spam and junk e-mail abuse on MSN® services, Hotmail will no longer allow new e-mail accounts to be accessed via Microsoft® Office Outlook® and Outlook Express.

We are pleased to inform you that because you are an existing and valued customer, at this time your current Hotmail and MSN account(s) are exempt from this restriction and you will be able to continue enjoying access to those accounts from Outlook or Outlook Express. However, any new Hotmail or MSN accounts you create will not be accessible via Outlook or Outlook Express.
(red, bold text mine)

Now, I have no intent of paying for an email account, and if Microsoft decides that they'd like to charge me and make me stop using Outlook Express one of these days down the road, two things are true:
1) I won't do it - I'll use only my GMail account, which allows me to access the account using POP anyway.
2) MS becomes truly evil in my mind. I will admit to some level of dependency on my Hotmail account. I use it for almost any purposes except personal/professional ones. Anyone who might spam me, Hotmail. Anyone who needs my email for their frequent flier club, Hotmail. To make consumers dependent on your service and then, several years later, to start charging, is both a brilliant and completely unethical idea. I love it and hate it!
More on this subject if that highlighted red text above ever goes out of effect!

Also, if you want a GMail account (www.gmail.com), I have 50 referrals to give away now, so just drop me a line!

AMAZING Times!

Well, I'm almost done with my events (I swim in the 800 free relay tonight), and both have been amazing. I swam the 500 in 5:10.72, which breaks way past my previous personal record of 5:13 or so. Similarly, in the 200 free this morning, I smashed past my previous 1:51.82 to drop down to 1:51.52. Hopefully a relay start will give me an incredible split tonight. Thank God for an amazing end to my season despite my lack of fitness at the beginning of this semester!

Conferences are here!

So... Since I'll be completely shaving my head tomorrow night, I let Carolina have a little fun with it tonight. She went pretty much all out, doing a flower on the back, and stripes on the side :)
...Enjoy the pic :)

Central Asia girls

Just IM'ed with the girls from central asia! It makes me miss being there a little bit more than I did just 10 minutes ago :( Praise GOD for what he's doing over there with the Student Conference, where a crazy number (143!) of students had the opportunity to hear the gospel... How awesome to hear it!
I learned that the LXG title of the CD I bought means League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a conference at which the band played last year. The band's name is "Special Opinion". It's so funny because I had just put on their CD when the girls started chatting with me. I'm glad to hear that everyone's healthy and happy, and we are missed as much as we miss them :)
...Maybe I can go back sometime :)

I've sold out to free stuff : )

Haha... So, I'm making such quick progress toward my free iPod Shuffle that I decided to sell out and sign up for the free desktop PC as well, just in case you're not a Mac mini fan. We'll see if I actually make much progress on the PC - you have to get 10 referrals, same as on the Mac... only three for the iPod Shuffle.

Irony

It's funny that, in my last writing, I was talking about patching Windows using a ISO-to-CD program, when I'm now running in Linux (which I burned with that program). BU Linux 4 (Bossanova) is based on Fedora Core 2 Linux, available from RedHat. Of course, it's not Fedora Core 3, which I did think looked very pretty. But this will do :) Anyway, I've been slaving away at figuring out how to make my own static library that plays with BFD (binary file descriptors) on an x86 machine (mine) for CS410. It's been a journey. Also working on getting something like the Mac "dock" going, but that's been a pain to try to install. We'll see. Have a good week :)

Patching up Windows

I've got to give props to Alex Feinman, who wrote this utility, which allows you to capture and burn ISO images from/to CD-R/RW's. Weird that Windows would have such a shortcoming, huh? It's no shortcoming - Windows uses image files itself - MS just didn't want us to have access, I guess! The program runs like any Windows wizard (a "Power Toy"), and is accessible by right-clicking ISO files and CD-Drives... Enjoy.

School

Well, I'm back in the swing of things back here at school. I've enjoyed reading up as to what exactly can be done with a free Mac Mini, including this cool synthesizer setup... As for the iPod Shuffle, well, you only have to get three referrals, so even if you don't like it... it's not like it set you back.
I have a digital camera coming :), to replace the one I lost :( in Central Asia... Can't wait to get it.
I've set my family up to get VOIP (Voice over IP). If you want it, email me and let me "refer" you to their service ($19.95 a month for unlimited USA calling) and we'll both get a $25 bill credit!
As far as other stuff goes, I only have one big concern, and it's something you should be informed about... Phishing. Apparently the latest scam, you should read up and make sure you're not going to be a victim. The problem is, I'm now worried as to whether anything coming from my bank is a legit email. Even the phone is suspect now!
I, of course, was already a FireFox fan, not only for the tabbed browsing, but also because you can see what address you're REALLY at in the address bar, a coverup to which IE and FireFox, Safari, Opera, etc. are apparently vulnerable. Anyway, you can still play it safer with FireFox. Take any "threats" from your bank, eBay, Hotmail, or any other company you respect, with a grain of salt - are they really going to suspend your account? Doubtful! ... and forward that message (as attachment) to reportphishing@antiphishing.org or to whatever company's getting imitated. And always remember to look for the little SECURE logo ON YOUR BROWSER, not the webpage!
That's all for now.

Other (non-IE) browsers gain ground (on my site)

I have a little picture on the bottom of my home page that keeps some simple stats on who visits the site, what continent they come from, and what browser they're using. About a year ago, Microsoft's IE browser held almost a 100% footing. Now, non-Microsoft browsers have a 6.6% hold, which is partly a result of my switching to FireFox, the next generation (open-source, public license) browser. This browser gives you tabbed browsing, security, extensions, themes, and standards compatibility that Microsoft hasn't matched. There's something about everybody contributing to it that seems to work better than a few engineers. With 21 million downloads yesterday, and counting, FireFox seems to be spreading.

Life & Death

Well, I headed out on another whirlwind adventure, a 1-1/2 day trip to home and back from Wednesday evening through early Saturday morning. My grandpa passed away this past Sunday, so I flew out for the viewing, funeral, and to see the family. It was a stressful situation, planning travel two days in advance and notifying teachers, trying to register for classes at the last minute, returning books, and then actually flying in all hours of the night (both ways). Once there, it was nice to not be able to go to class, which let me relax a bit and sleep in.
However, I found out this morning that regardless of sleep, in-shape-ness depends on not being a month out of shape. After a month off for traveling over Christmas Break, no sleep on the red-eye flight from Portland to Boston, and the foolish decision to take a 2-mile treadmill jog w/o shoes on (!?, giving me blisters), I had a very poor meet. Anyway, all in a days' work.
The new Agannis Arena at BU is BeaUtiful; I went to a winning (3-2) hockey game vs. Providence tonight. It was hot. Quite the place. I hope to hit up Stars on Ice later this year.

Smart Money (2)

I mentioned here the ING account that I have, which earns 2.35% a year currently, but that brough up an add in the Google ads for a 3%-earning account, here with Emigrant Direct, which seems to be based out of NY. Now, you can't get $25 just for joining with them, as far as I know, but maybe someone will let me know if they have the same refer-a-friend program.

$5 off a textbook

Get $5 off a textbook on eBay's www.half.com
Use coupon code TEXT5 at checkout.
Maybe you'll buy a book from me :)

CraigsList

Another one of those great sites on the internet:
www.craigslist.com
CraistList has local classifieds, and everything's free except for job classifieds in LA and NYC, which apparently funds the entire operation. Get a bike, camera, or most anything on the CraigsList for your city.

The people of the Central Asia trip... I enjoyed these!

kim moreland...you brought hope
eric..you brought ambition
liz...you brought buoyancy
caroline...you brought comfort
brian myhre...you brought love
dave...you brought faith
brian patton...you brought zeal
crissy...you brought novelty
abbie...you brought strength
chris...you brought resilience
alicia...you brought tenacity
jessi...you brought poise
heather...you brought honesty
kim adams...you brought conviction
angelin...you brought encouragement
tiffany...you brought dedication

(thank you melanie...you brought joy and smiles :)

Smart Money

So I guess I may as well put up any great ideas I have...
I keep my savings in ING Direct, where I earn 2.35% interest instead of the measly 1/16 percent or whatever my other bank would give me (and then charge fees on top of that).

If you're interested, this bank does all its operations online, using Automated ClearingHouse (ACH) transactions from your typical checking account (any checking will work). Drop me an email asking how you can get an automatic $25 for signing up for a new account, after you check out their site.

Free Mac Toys

Alright, so I've never really been a big fan of Mac, in large part because they strike me as too expensive. However, if their products are finally cheap enough to be offered on these free offer things, I'm game to have a look. Here's what I've come up with:

• Free Mac Mini - a little mac, about the size of the optical drive it comes equipped with
  - That's 6.5" x 6.5" x 2" tall, if you're curious - this is a slick tech toy.
  
• Free iPod Shuffle - a little iPod the size of a USB flash disk
  - This weighs less than an ounce and hangs on a lanyard - another cool idea by Mac - seems Microsoft is having trouble copying them on the hardware stuff
  

How cool would it be if I actually got one of these things? I'd be a switcher :-/ :-)

Integrated

Nice, this little toy is neatly integrated into the webpage now. Enjoy watching my life unfold online (yeah right, I'm probably going to update this somewhat rarely).

First post

This is a test, first post on the blog.... bla bla blog I can't believe I signed up for this :)