2/28/04 -
Why forgetting you left a Dr. Pepper can in the freezer is a BAD Thing.

2/28/04 -
Bill Gates spoke on campus this Wednesday. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any photos of him, but I have a few Gates related photos.

2/1/04 -
I went to SCS Day this Saturday. I played in the chess tournament but didn't do too well. I was beaten by a 6-year-old. :) He was a CMU professor's son, and was actually pretty good so I don't feel bad about losing. I was even sort of hoping he would beat me, because winning a game against a 6-year-old is no big deal, but losing a game to a 6-year-old, now that's something worth telling about.
I also took a lot of photos, which you can see here: SCS Day 2004 photos

1/17/04 -
I've created a new page that lists the Weirdest search engine queries that led to my site.
I've also linked this page in the "Humor" section so you can find it later.

1/7/04 -
I did some site redesign over winter break. I updated the navigation categories in the bar at the left to make more sense, and split the Photos page into multiple pages since it was getting too long. I've also added a section on projects I've done.
And I've posted photos from winter break.

12/10/03 -
I've added some photos to the general robotics album. They're from the final competition which took place today.

12/6/03 -
One of the reasons cited for abolishing the death penalty is that innocent people are commonly put to death. [ACLU reference]
But, why does no one ever point out what this means for the entire justice system? If we make mistakes with death row, wouldn't we also make mistakes with prison convictions (maybe at an even higher rate, since the death penalty has a much longer appeals process). Doesn't this bother anyone?
I think sending an innocent man or woman to prison for life is just as bad as putting them to death. The Shawshank Redemption provides a good summary of this whole issue.
All the campaigning against the death penalty on the grounds that it makes mistakes is missing the real issue. The real problem that needs to be addressed is that the justice system makes mistakes so often.

12/5/03 -
This week's Stupid Health News:

• Study: Smoking Cannabis Causes Damage to Lungs
• Red Wine May Protect Against Breast Cancer
• Cocaine and Ecstasy Cause DNA Mutation - Italy Study
• Aspirin thwarts stomach cancer
• 'Alcohol shrinks the brain'

Okay, so now we know that pot, cocaine, and ecstasy are harmful to your health (as if we didn't know that before), you should take a lot of aspirin, and drinking wine may prevent you from getting breast cancer, but it will shrink your brain.
Great. Thanks guys.

12/4/03 -
jpdavin.com got a lot of hits today because Ryan Necas (the martial arts guy) posted to misc.market and mentioned that you can find pictures of him by searching on cmu.edu or google.
The search turns up my site, but doesn't necessarily link to the photos. So if you're looking for the Necas pictures, they're in my SCS Day photo album.

12/1/03 -
I've added a few photos from the annual Thanksgiving family reunion.

11/17/03 -
For those I haven't told, I've been accepted into CMU's 5th year master's program. :) So I'm going to be here for another year.
I've posted some photos from my robotics class project.

11/8/03 -
This is only of interest to CMU students: you may remember that last year someone had a "CMU Machine Usage Statistics" page at ion.res.cmu.edu which listed andrew IDs and the IP addresses that they logged in to the unix servers from. That's no longer available (maybe he graduated), so I made my own.
It's the same as before except that I put a search function on the page so that you don't need to actually download the entire page (which is very long).
It's at jpdavin.com/ip.php.

10/31/03 -
I've posted some fall photography I did, mostly from my bike rides in Schenley and Frick.

10/31/03 -
Today there were pro-lifers out on Forbes in front of CMU with signs showing dead babies. I took some pictures. One woman wanted to talk to me because she saw me taking photos. She said that we need to make lots of babies so that they'll be able to pay our social security when our generation is older. I sort of laughed and said the social security problem certainly can't be fixed by having more babies. Haha. That makes no sense at all. And the worst part is I think she was actually serious.

10/29/03 -
I've always wondered why there are actually people who choose careers in statistics. I mean, how could you possibly like doing statistics your whole life? Stats is certainly important, but most people only use it because they have to. Because they need it to analyze the results of their work.
I almost feel bad for my statistics professors because I don't see how they could possibly be happy with their job. But my stats prof this semester is the first one I've had who actually seems to have enthusiasm for his job. I don't know how he does it.

10/17/03 -
One of my favorite musicians died yesterday. :( Elliott Smith, at age 34, is reported to have committed suicide.
His music was in Good Will Hunting and The Royal Tenebaums.

10/17/03 -
I like how Yahoo and various newspapers writing about the national obesity epidemic often include photos of fat people with their articles. I'm sure they felt they needed a photo in case I didn't know what a fat person looks like, or in case I've never seen one. Thanks Yahoo, now I know.

10/13/03 -
Carolyn came to visit Pittsburgh this weekend. We had lots of fun. We visited a lot of museums - Phipps, Carnegie Museums, Soldiers & Sailors. And on Saturday Leslie and I went up to Geneseo with Carolyn. It was cool getting to see her campus, and Letchworth State Park (which was beautiful with all the leaves changing colors).
Photos are posted.

10/13/03 -
I made a script that counts how many photos I have in the albums on my site. I currently have 1,450 photos. I'm amazed that I have that many.
The photo count is displayed on the main photos index page and will be updated whenever I add new photos.

10/5/03 -
When will people realize that if you die because you smoked cigarettes, it's YOUR fault! Not the tobacco company's.
This guy died because he smoked 60 cigarettes a day, and now his widow is suing the tobacco company.

10/5/03 -
Blah. My bike got a flat tire today. :( It had a little staple in the back tire.

10/5/03 -
Check out the world's nicest public bathrooms.
Also: Dave Barry is funny, but he's even better when he makes fun of telemarketers.

10/3/03 -
This is the funniest article I've read in a while. Lal Bihari, who was legally declared dead in India, won a 2003 Ig Nobel award for creating the Association of Dead People.

10/1/03 -
Okay, it's time for me to talk about how great Google is.
Most people would probably already agree with me that Google is by far the most useful site on the web. But some of you may not know all the cool things Google can do. Besides being the best search engine on the Internet, and summarizing most of the world's important news for you, it can also search the web for a product you want to buy and return relevant results with product images, and ordered by price.
They recently added a pretty sophisticated calculator feature which lets you type an equation into the search box. So, you can type in 5+2*2 and it'll return 9. That might not seem that impressive, until you learn that you can type in something like "4 hours * 80 kilometers/hour in miles" and it'll return 198.8 miles.
Today I was cooking and needed to measure out a tablespoon, but I only had a teaspoon. So I typed in "1 tablespoon in teaspoons" and it told me that 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons.
I don't know what I'd do without Google.

9/28/03 -
For the last several days, there has been a preying mantis hanging out in the hallway on our floor. Sometimes he's at the end of the hall, near the window, sometimes on the ceiling, sometimes the wall. A few hours ago he climbed onto the light on the ceiling ten feet down from my room.
Just now I went out to check where he was. I couldn't find him. I checked everywhere. I looked up to the wall above our door, because he had been there earlier today. He wasn't there. So I stepped out into the hall and let the door close. Then I heard a scratching noise behind me. I looked back, and he was on the door! He was moving around because I had disturbed him.
I had to get back into my room so I quickly opened the door and slipped by him. All this time he was still moving around - I was afraid he was going to jump on me.
Here's a pic of him from yesterday.

9/25/03 -
Minor new addition: If you wish, you can now use a shortcut to get to my photo index page: typing photos.jpdavin.com will get you there.

9/21/03 -
Ta Da... You will now find me at jpdavin.com. Less typing and easier to remember than andrew.cmu.edu/~jdavin.
In a few days I'll probably take this page down and just make it redirect you to the new site.

9/14/03 -
I now have all my photo albums back up, with some of them on my new web host - TotalChoice Hosting. I may be moving more stuff over there soon. And if you have any ideas on good domain names (eg, jdavin.com, etc) send me suggestions.

9/1/03 -
I've posted photos from my trip to Vegas with Leslie.
Also, as a random aside, last night while attempting to open the door to the hallway in Fairfax annex, I pulled off the door knob. It just broke off. I hadn't even pulled harder than normal. Here's a picture.

8/15/03 -
I went on a family vacation to Vermont last week. Pictures are posted here.

7/22/03 -
There were some great fireworks hosted by the Navy last friday. I took some photos.

7/15/03 -
Over the weekend I went to Block Island for some bike riding. I have a few photos up here.

7/10/03 -
I have to confess that I'm sometimes disappointed that I don't get more spam. I get less than 1 spam per day on average. Is it just that my spam filter is good enough to block most of the spam? I don't think so, because some people get much higher spam counts. Is it because I haven't responded to any of the penis enlargement offers and they just gave up on me? I doubt that too. Well spammers, I'm offering you a chance to try and get past SpamAssassin (CMU's spam filter): my email address is jdavin@cmu.edu and it's also on other pages of my site. Spam away!

6/23/03 -
Andrew, Colin, Allison, and I went to Mystic Seaport over the weekend. Photos are up here. And here are Colin's photos of Newport + Mystic.

6/23/03 -
Funny article on affirmative action. Also, read the latest news.
And in a similar vein to that NBA article, I made a guide for high school students on how to get into their top schools. More valuable than any SAT book they'll ever buy.

6/18/03 -
Natural selection at work: 1 2
And in other parts of the world, government keeping its citizens in line: funny photo

6/12/03 -
Introducing, my new photo album generator: JAlbum. It's a pretty good (and free) Java-based program that gives me a better page layout, and makes the whole process more convenient. You can check out the new album style by clicking on either of the links below. Only those two albums are converted so far though; I'll find time to do the others later.
I've added some photos to my Newport photo page (the last two rows).
I also have a page of photos from my Ocean Ave photo-journalistic bike ride.
Correction from my last post: The rumor about the Real World being filmed here turned out to be false. I was told that the crew was here, but that it was cancelled because they couldn't get permission from Newport to have more than 5 people in a house (anti-brothel laws).

6/11/03 -
Yesterday I went for a long bike ride on Ocean Ave. It goes along the ocean (duh), and I saw (and photographed) some really nice houses/mansions.
While I was biking, 3 stretch limos and one normal limo passed me. I'm pretty sure one was for a wedding, but the other two stretch ones were together - so maybe they had some celebrities in there. Yay, celebrities checked me out while I was biking! ;) Or MAYBE it was the Real World cast. The next season of the Real World is being filmed in Newport this summer. The cast is going to be staying in one of the mansions on Belluvue Ave.

6/6/03 -
Every summer I like to do a little redesign work on my website, because that's the only time I have a chance to do it.
This summer it's going to be a new photo album display system. I found a great open source thumbnail generator program that I'll be using. So stay tuned for some nice new photo album pages soon.

5/30/03 -
I'm in Newport (RI) now, working for the Navy (Naval Undersea Warfare Center) as I did last summer.
The first week here wasn't too exciting, but it should pick up soon since Newport is generally a fun place in the summer. I'm living with 3 other interns in a house a little south of the Newport downtown area. I took some pictures of the house.

5/14/03 -
Wow, I've had so much fun these past few days. Went to Phipps Conservatory, and Kennywood (two things I've been meaning to do for a long time).

5/4/03 -
WOW: a tribute to the HUB's inordinate incompetency [Correction: I found out it's actually Housing Services's fault]. Apparently I, and everyone else in Fairfax annex, is being charged for every room in Fairfax! So my bill for next school year, without even adding in tuition yet, will be 2 * $63k, or about $126,000. Haha.

Well, at least there may be some positive points: Given that I'm paying 24 dorm activity fees, I should be able to participate in 24 times as many activities. And, since I'm paying over $126k for one year of college, I should qualify for loads of money in need-based scholarships!

5/3/03 -
We're in the middle of the RoboCup American Open here at CMU. It's pretty cool to have so many robots here in Pittsburgh. Way more than Geneseo. ;) Plus it's fun being involved in the Simulation competition.
See the CMNews article for background on RoboCup, or read my short Tartan brief.
I have a lot of photos of ASIMO and RoboCup stuff.

4/22/03 -
I've decided that my IQ goes down some number of points for every hour of sleep that I miss. So since I've only had 6 hours sleep in the last 48 hours, I'm pretty stupid right now. Time to nap!

4/19/03 -
This summer is going to be so much fun. I'm working in Newport (RI) at the naval center again. The work is cool, and Newport of course is a great place in the summer. But I have to find housing there. That's the hard part.

4/11/03 -
Yesterday was really fun. I went to buggy races, which were very exciting. This year we had some additional excitement such as President Cohon getting pied, and an interview with Leslie and Sean Mintus on WRCT.
I took lots of photos.

4/11/03 -
And Carnival begins... Buggy was cancelled this morning due to rain. :(
But I've got MOBOT photos. Check them out.
I also have some photos from Midway last night.

4/9/03 -
Look, the historians are already writing fables about me:

There once was a CS major named John
Who likes to pretend he's real smart.
But when it comes down to it
And there's XP to be installed,

he f**ks it up completely because
he doesn't understand the exacting requirements
of installing Windows, suddenly realizes
he has done it all wrong, and then blames Bill Gates
for his own inabilities to comprehend the
advanced world of installing a microsoft product.

Hey wait, that's not true! Okay, well maybe a little tiny bit.

3/28/03 -
Today I went into the city. I went to the American Museum of Natural History. Spent three hours there, it had a couple cool exhibits. I also walked around Central Park, and then visited the WTC site (because I hadn't seen it yet). I took some photos but I have to wait till I get back to CMU to edit and upload them. Photos are now posted.

3/24/03 -
Yesterday I slept for 18 hours! That's a new personal record. I slept from 10pm to 4pm. It was a great recovery from my lack of sleep over the last week.

3/22/03 -
I love Red Bull. It keeps me awake. Most of the time anyway.
Today I saw people on Wean roof cleaning off a message that had said "Wean against war."

3/21/03, 5am -
No sleep for me today. This week is crazy. Last night was 3 1/2 hours rest, and the night before was the same, and the night before was 5. Good thing spring break is only 28 hours away.
On Tuesday I went to the Kevin Mitnick lecture. See my Tartan article on him for background if you don't know him. He gave a very interesting lecture, with lots of funny anecdotes from his past. I have photos posted.

3/16/03 -
There was a big anti-war and anti-anti-war demonstration on Forbes today. Everyone at DU (the frat) was out front of their house with signs saying things like "Bomb Iraq We Want Oil" and "I drive an SUV." They were waiting for the war protest which was marching up Forbes past their house. The war protest crowd had probably 500 people (rough guess) and they clashed with the DU guys a bit. No fighting though. There were at least 10 police cars.
I got some good photos.

3/12/03 -
Today I ate stale pizza that had been sitting out for 3 days. I feel like a true college student now. :)
On a different note, today I received a reply from Housing Services on an email I sent them nearly a year ago. Haha. I had emailed Tom Brooks last March with a question about the apartment I'm currently living in. Hmm, I think he's gotta work on his turnaround time!

3/2/03 -
I am now 21. :)

2/21/03 -
Next Sunday (3/2) is my 21st birthday! I can't believe I finally made it. :) I'm pretty excited.

Not because I will be able to legally drink, but because I will be freed of the last anti-young-person law. On my 21st birthday, I will finally be granted a privilege that was owed to me 3 years ago. A right - which I was unethically deprived of - is being restored to me. I will be liberated of the last remnant of the shackles American politicians place on younger people.

(See my page from last year on Why the drinking age should be 18.) Did you know: A brewery was one of Harvard College's first construction projects so that a steady supply of beer could be served in the student dining halls. more unusual facts.

And to all you conservative old-fashioned politicians who believe the drinking age should be 21: Next Sunday, I will instantly be transformed into a mature adult who can responsibly handle fermented beverages. For the last three years, I was a completely irresponsible and reckless person. I was incapable of making intelligent decisions. Wow, it's a good thing you made it illegal for me to drink! Gee, thanks guys! I'm so happy I have you here to tell me what I can do! ;)

2/17/03 -
CMU has a snow day today. For the first time in like 8 years!
I did some snow photography today, mostly of the houses on Devonshire Street, which I've always wanted to photograph.

2/15/03 -
This semester is turning out to be surprisingly extremely busy. I thought that since I don't have OS anymore, I wouldn't be as crazy busy. But I still am. Only now it's divided up into different things, like my classes and job.

In other news, the hard drive on my desktop computer is dying. It has slowed to a snail's pace. I ran the diagnostic "90-second Quick Test" today, and it took over 3 hours. Haha. Time to get a new hard drive.

2/8/03 -
I went to SCS Day today. It was really fun. I played in the chess tournament, which was the first chess competition I've been in. Won one game, lost two. I need to brush up on my skills.
The Talent show was great. My photos are posted. They had Danny Sleator's juggling troupe (Sleator is the prof who invented splay trees).
A freshman CS major, Brian Thompson, did a recitation from memory of 1,024 (2 to the 8th power) digits of pi! While juggling three balls! It was totally amazing. He received a standing ovation.
Ryan Necas, the CS freshman who is the leader of a 4,500-year-old elite martial arts order named Order of the Guardian, gave a martial arts performance. It was fantastic. See the article on him in The Tartan for his background story. He has learned how to alter his heart rate, metabolism, and some hormonal levels, through meditation.

1/26/03 -
I went to the peace rally by Pitt's Cathedral of Learning today. There were lots of people there. And I got lots of photos.

1/24/03 -

I have just finished Atlas Shrugged.

1/22/03 -
Read my Tartan article about the RIAA.

1/14/03 -
I'm back! The cruise was an amazing and very fun/relaxing week. We did lots of stuff. We went to the performances on board the ship, went swimming with stingrays in the Cayman Islands, went to the beaches, and had great food every day.
It's a big change going straight back to Pittsburgh. It feels like a different world. :)
I have now posted photos from the cruise. It's my biggest photo update ever - almost 80 photos. I now have 645 photos on my site!

1/3/03 -
Tomorrow I'm leaving with my family on a cruise to the Caribbean! It should be great fun. I will take lots of pictures and report back in a week (I'm getting back on Jan 12 and taking a plane straight back to Pgh).
I won't have access to email, so if you send something, don't think I'm ignoring you if I don't have my normal 12-hour response time average. ;)

1/2/03 -
I've posted a list of my favorite movies.

I've been kept busy recently working on my 3-D Tic Tac Toe program. I'm working with someone from SAIC to develop a version that we can market. I'm porting the software to Windows and doing some redesign.

12/24/02 -
Yesterday I went into the city (NYC) for the day. I went to lots of places: Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller Center (to see the Christmas tree), NY Public Library, Grand Central (I saw the 3-D show they had projected on the ceiling), Central Park, 5th Avenue window displays (Lord & Taylor, Macy's, Saks), and FAO Schwarz.

I also saw an Internet cafe, which was cool because I had never seen that many computers (hundreds) all in one place. It was only $0.55 per hour - for the price of McDonald's fries you could get two hours of broadband net access!
I couldn't get into the NY Public Library because it was closed. Apparently the mayor has decided to close the library on Mondays now to save money. I think that's pretty stupid. It's one of the biggest libraries in the country and they can't even keep it open seven days a week.

The Guggenheim was interesting. I liked the architecture of the building a lot. The museum itself had a lot of modern art, which I didn't spend too much time on. They did have some real art though. My favorite was the exhibit of flower photography, by Peter Fischli and David Weiss. They used double exposure - they would take a picture of flowers and then a picture of something else on the same slide. They had some magnificant photos.

My favorite example of modern art, and which sums up my esteem for the entire genre quite nicely, is the painting they had titled "Homage to the Square." It was a picture of a few different colored squares. I hope they didn't spend more than $5 on that.

I have pictures up, most of which are from the wax museum.

12/15/02 -
I went to the Carnegie Museum of Art / Museum of Natural History today. They have an amazing gems and minerals collection. Hundreds of beautiful minerals filling over four rooms.
Their art collection wasn't bad either, though I didn't like the panopticon presentational style. Having the paintings going all the way up to the ceiling made them more difficult to see. But it still created an impressive view.
I strongly recommend that if you haven't been there yet, go there. It only took me two hours to go through the entire two museums (I do have a fast museum pace though). Thanks to CMU's deal with Pittsburgh museums, we can get into most of them for free. Not enough students take advantage of that. I think I'll go to Phipps Conservatory in the spring.

12/14/02 -
I am done!! 100% done with this semester! Yay! :)
No more OS, no more Algo. It's a big relief. This semester was great, but sooo time consuming. I want to have time next semester to actually do stuff (besides os coding).
I have posted my schedule for next semester.