Hulu

So, I'm not a huge fan of Flash Video. Personally I think the quality is not the best, and it is only playable if you are connected to the internet and are using a web browser. However, given all of that I was recently Invited to the private beta of Hulu. This is an interesting attempt to put full length TV shows on a website that is not owned by the TV station. Also they allow embedding episodes into blogs, websites, etc.

For your viewing pleasure I present a sample of embedded Hulu video. This is an episode of House (currently the most recent one aired on TV) called "Games"

Cake

At work today we had a Christmas celebration for a great year. Unfortunately I wasn't as responsible for the great year since I've only been here 6 months. You may be wondering what's up with the cake. Well, you can get custom pictures put on a cake. Most people use pictures of their children or spouse, my company chose to use a graph. The graph signifies unfixed defects. The good news is that the graph is going down. This was our reason to celebrate. We went to a bowling alley and played a few frames. I actually did pretty well for myself. I scored a 152 on the first game and a 112 on the second. Not bad for not playing in a while.

DeSoto

My Dad is selling his 1946 DeSoto Sedan. He's had it for quite a while, but apparently now it's got to go. It's a really cool classic car, but my Dad just can't put the work into it that it needs. Anyway, it's up on craigslist with some photos.

http://nh.craigslist.org/car/478176042.html

Anyone interested?

HDTV

Recently I had an opportunity to record some HDTV on my computer. I did this with a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950. I was quite impressed with both the strength of the HDTV signal here and also of the quality of the video. Here's a frame of a recent broadcast. I can't wait till I can afford a 1080p flat display (either plasma or lcd is fine for me :)

Yay!

Yay!

Aiden vs. the Fan

Aiden seemed really interested in the fan. Don't worry, no animals were hurt as a result of making this film.

Work

Just a quick one, but I ran across the "public"/marketing version of the website of the product that I work on. Here it is in all its glory.

Free Flow Print Server (formally DocuSP)

For those that don't know (and a clarification for those that do) I work on a DFE (Digital Front End) for Xerox production quality printers.

Graduate Studies

Yesterday I finally finished my application for graduate studies in computer science. In case anyone is wondering, I applied at RIT, and here's the link to the program I applied to [link]. I've slowly become aware that a BS degree is just not enough in todays world. Also, I have some sort of strange pull toward education and all educators need graduate degrees. The best part about all of this is that this time I won't be attempting this one on my own. I'll have the help and emotional support of my lovely wife and the financial support of my employer . I only hope that I am accepted and can continue my studies.

New England Foliage

Recently I was able to visit my parents in New England. While I was there I took a few pictures from the outside of my parents house. I've done this many times before, but never have been able to stitch the images back together again once I made it home. Photoshop to the rescue. Photoshop made it ridiculously easy to align the images and blend the colors. As proof I present this:

Coding Puzzle

Supposedly this is one of the Google Interview Questions:

There is an array A[N] of N numbers. You have to compose an array Output[N] such that Output[i] will be equal to multiplication of all the elements of A[N] except A[i]. For example Output[0] will be multiplication of A[1] to A[N-1] and Output[1] will be multiplication of A[0] and from A[2] to A[N-1].

When I first looked at it I didn't know what to do with it. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was busy with work and didn't take the time to think about it. So today I was driving and came across an answer. Here is my proposed answer written in ruby (the machine I'm doing this on didn't have a C complier but it did have a ruby interpreter). Pardon my ruby style, I'm still new at it.

Also, it has a bit of unnecessary code to print out the multiplications that are happening (proof to me that it worked)

#Total O(2n) = O(n)
def SecondArray(orig)
 arr2 = Array.new(orig.length,1)
 strArr = Array.new(orig.length,"")
 #First Loop O(n)
 arr2.each_index do |x| 
      if(x != 0) 
       arr2[x] = arr2[x-1]*orig[x-1]
       char = ""
       if( strArr[x-1].length > 0 )
        char = "*"
       end
       strArr[x] = strArr[x-1]+char+orig[x-1].to_s
       end 
     end

 temp = 1
 i = orig.size - 1 
 tempStr = ""

 #Second Loop O(n)
 while (i >= 0 )
  arr2[i] = arr2[i]*temp
  temp = temp*orig[i]
  char = ""
  if( strArr[i].length > 0 && tempStr.length > 0)
   char = "*"
  end
  strArr[i] = strArr[i]+char+tempStr

  tempStr = orig[i].to_s+char+tempStr
  i = i-1
 end

 i = 0
 strArr.each do |x|
     print i,":",x,"\n"
     i = i+1
     end
 print "\n"

 arr2
end


arrSize = 10
arr = Array.new(arrSize){|idx| idx+1}
#print arr
arr.each{|x| print x-1,":",x,"\n"}
print "\n"
arr2 = SecondArray(arr)

#Print the resulting Array
i = 0
arr2.each do |x|
    print i,":",x,"\n"
    i = i+1
    end
print "\n"

Maths

I always loved Maths. That's why I wanted to post this video about it.

Frog

I found a frog. Unfortunately I had to let it go (well, if I must be honest he hopped away)

Labor Day

Finally. For the first time in quite a few years I get Labor Day off. As a student of RIT we were regularly exposed to the joys of a first day of school on Labor Day. Most schools have the decency to make it a vacation day, but we were not so lucky. Beside the point, this year my current employer has decided to make Labor Day a vacation day, and with that my wife and I are planning a trip to Salem, MA. She's been there before, but not in quite a while and I've never been. We're planning on camping just outside the city on the ocean. In fact, here's a map of our trip (I just wanted an excuse to use the new embedded map feature of google maps)

The Sky

Today Google Earth was updated to allow the viewing of the sky. This is a nice update to a favorite application that now allows one to view the beauties of the night sky, and also learn more / get more detailed images of heavenly bodies.

This is an example shot of the new appication:



I think it's nice, but my current favorite night time sky application is Stellarium which gives a nice perspective of the sky from anywhere on earth (it was really helpful in my astronomy class to help identify stars, constellations, etc..).

Also worth mentioning is Celestia however, I have never found it to be quite as useful.

Large Family

I found this today, a pretty good story about a larger than average family shopping. Oh the joys!

Shopping for Pokemon Cards

Also, the woman has a blog here

Cats

Today's Joy of Tech
I think this one is a little too close to home.

The funny part in all of this is that the cartoon of the cat looks very similar to my cat Aiden.

Compiling

Hello world!

A brief introduction is obviously underway. My name is Isaac Case (duh) and I'm a Software Engineer. Currently I am employed in Rochester, NY by a company that will at the moment remain unnamed for their privacy. I have lots of interests so I won't go as far as to name a few of them here but they most likely will come up again and again in various posts.

I think I plan on using this space as personal comments on various aspects of life in general. Since that is a broad topic don't be surprised to find entries on things ranging from computer science to music to social interactions.

As far as I'm concerned, this is probably too much information already, so I'll leave the rest to be discovered as we go.

have fun!