I was just pleasantly surprised to find a free wireless network here at the Pittsburgh Airport. Let's hope that enough of these free networks pop up to make charging for wireless access seem like a silly idea.

I found these two columns on gay marriage in The Tech to be pretty thought-provoking: The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage and the response, The Economic and Social Case for Homosexual Marriage. It's nice to see some writing that is somewhat distanced from the emotions of the issue. Also, from a while ago, a Michael Kinsley column that takes a different point of view.

AJ wrote about memory associations with music, specifically about remembering when you listened to a certain song a lot. I feel the same way, but I have even deeper associations with pieces I've played. I was feeling kind of tired and grumpy this morning, and then Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue came on the radio. It's a piece I love dearly, as I spent my entire junior year of high school working on it and performed the two-piano version with my teacher at a school concert. I still have some of the really nasty parts in my hands, and I can almost physically feel how they go as I hear them (btw, it's interesting how some of those parts are completely overwhelmed by the orchestra). Anyway, it really cheered me up. Now if I could only get some work done...

A look at the comments in the leaked Win2K source; some pretty funny stuff.

A fascinating article on Mahler's "retouchings" of the Beethoven symphonies. I think that if you're performing with an orchestra configured far differently from those of a composer's time, these kind of changes make perfect sense. I wish I could hear recordings of these reworked scores.

Looks like a software bug contributed to last summer's blackout in the Northeast (via Ars). Not very surprising, but disturbing nonetheless.

Sometimes, I'll listen to a "great" piece of music many times, thinking that it's nice but not really seeing what all the fuss is about. Then, for no obvious reason, on some listening the piece will come together for me in a whole new way, and I'll be completely blown away. I can distinctly remember having this experience with Mahler's 2nd Symphony as I was riding a train across India a couple of years ago. Yesterday afternoon and this morning, it's been happening with Wagner's Parsifal; it's like I was listening to a completely different work before. Why does this happen? Maybe my brain had to be reconfigured in some way by the first few listenings to really be able to absorb the piece? Anyway, it's very cool when it does happen.

For a true measure of the devotion (insanity?) of some Big Lebowski fans: Lebowski Fest. In spite of how many times I've seen the movie, I think I'd truly be out of my element there.

Looks like there are a bunch of good concerts this month in the Bay Area. If only I could be a professional concert attender; I'd love to check out all of these shows.

I just got a new Rio Karma MP3 player to replace my Nomad Jukebox 3, which I unfortunately broke recently. I've been very impressed by the Karma's size, functionality, sound, and battery life. There's also a nice user community on the web to tip you off to firmware updates, tips and tricks, etc. If you're looking for a large capacity MP3 player and don't want to pay the premium for an iPod, I highly recommend the Karma. I found a good deal on PriceGrabber.

Another unfortunate thing about my old Jukebox is the software for transferring files from it doesn't write back the ID3 tags when you move an MP3 to your computer. Luckily, others have had to deal with this problem; this command-line tool looks like it will fix things up nicely.

A nice collection of short reviews of restaurants in Berkeley. Looks like there are a bunch of promising places I have yet to try.

While it's up, check out some of the articles in the State of the Union section of the current issue of The Atlantic. I've read a few of them, and they've all been thought-provoking. Too bad I left my print copy of the issue on a plane; I think those pockets in front of plane seats are designed to make you leave stuff in them.

Oh, and check out David's account of one of the most ridiculous restaurant experiences I've ever witnessed.

My trip to Boston was a lot of fun, in spite of the unbelievable cold. It was weird to be looking back on MIT. On the one hand, it was nice to see the place again and relive some great memories. On the other hand, I knew more than ever that staying there for a Ph.D. would have been a mistake. The only real downers of the weekend were not being able to see a couple of good friends and the Eagles' pathetic effort on Sunday.

I finished reading East of Eden on the plane ride to Boston. It was a great book that really got me thinking about some fundamental philosophical issues. Anyway, this review matched my interpretation of the book pretty closely, and this gives a bit more information on the Hebrew word timshol central to the moral issues of the book.

So I'm back in Berkeley, trying to get back into doing research after the teaching hiatus...man, it's tough. There's just not enough pressure right now, which makes it much more difficult for me. Well, the deadlines will get closer and closer, and eventually they will start to scare me into working.

Went to see Juan Diego Florez on Tuesday, and the performance was amazing, as expected. My brother saw him in The Barber of Seville last night at the Met and said he rocked the house there too. Speaking of which, I'm going to Barber at SF Opera tonight; should be a good show.

I'm off to Boston next weekend for my first visit since I left to come here at the end of the summer of 2002. I'm really looking forward to it; I have a lot of good memories from there, and a few good friends that I haven't seen in quite a while. It will be weird to walk around campus not being in my standard lack-of-sleep daze from my undergrad days. I hope the good old Thai food truck is still outside the CS lab; I haven't found anything here in Berkeley to match the quality $3 lunch I could get there.

No updates in a while, yet again. Well, I am at home now, the semester is over, and I have nothing but time to do things like post. Unfortunately, I don't really have any crazy cool links to post. I hope you're all still checking NewsDog for thought-provoking news and commentary. Oh, and regarding my previous post, WatchThatPage works great; I highly recommend it.

So, the semester ended up being a great one. Teaching was a great experience that taught me a lot and added another twist to the long-term industry vs. academia decision. In some ways, I wish I could start over with the experience I have now and do a better job. But, I guess nothing teaches you like actually doing something, and there had to be a first time for teaching. I don't think the students suffered too much from my early shakiness, either, so overall there isn't much to regret.

AJ and I also got some really cool results on our final project for our math class. It's amazing how sometimes you luck out and do something cool even after totally procrastinating and basically blowing off a task; definitely not a phenomenon to rely on. It is fun to do work in young fields (eg. computer science and combinatorial game theory) where even a mediocre idea can still get you good results. I guess even in established fields like physics, there are probably new subfields that have the same property. A better way to do things is probably to find an area like this, take your time, have a good idea, and then just own the area. Oh, which reminds me of one cool link I can share: my old advisor Daniel Jackson's lecture notes on succeeding in research. You sort of had to be there to get the full experience, but there are still some valuable things to glean from the slides.

So, if we haven't been in touch in a while, drop me an email; I'll definitely have time to respond in the next few days.

For those fellow compulsive web surfers who hate wasting time checking those infrequently updated pages for an update, a potential solution: WatchThatPage. I haven't actually gotten an email update yet, but if this works, it will make me very happy. Recommended by Ilya.

Hrm...so no new posts in a while. Is anyone still reading this thing? Anyway, things have been busy, but good. It's hard to believe the semester is almost over. I've got a bunch to do before the end, but it's definitely in sight. As much as I enjoy teaching, I am really looking forward to having time to actually get some research done. Oh, one other thing to look forward to: I'm doing the last lecture for the class I am TAing. I'll be talking about language security, and I hope to include some slides on this really clever attack on JVMs. It will hopefully be a good experience.

I managed to make 3 of the 5 performances mentioned previously. The SF Symphony concert conducted by Robertson was pretty good; I especially enjoyed the Steve Reich piece they did. Emanuel Ax gave an amazing recital, and Don Carlos was much more comprehensible with English supertitles (I previously saw it in Paris with no supertitles). I missed the Berlin Philharmonic because of poor planning, and Lady Macbeth because of opera exhaustion after Don Carlos.

I finally started to do some singing again. I'm starting to work on the first song in Schubert's Winterreise song cycle. Depressing subject matter, but incredible music. It's been nice to work on some new music; once winter break hits, I hope to find a new voice teacher and make practice a habit next semester.

Well, maybe I'll post again over Thanksgiving break since there probably won't be much else going on (I'll be home in PA).

Just heard from my old friend Decker, who is now down in LA with his band, Remy De La Mora. I listened to some of their stuff this morning, and it's pretty good. Check it out, and check them out if you're down in the LA area.

See my thoughts on this whole leaked Senate intelligence committee memo here on NewsDog. Also see this TNR article on the news media. It makes some good points on how being too "even-handed" can obscure facts.

Performances to check out this month:

Robertson conducts Stravinsky

Berlin Philharmonic

Don Carlos

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Emanuel Ax

Didn't do too well last month on concert attendance, but I'm definitely doing at least 2 out of these 5, so it's looking better.

I just got a surprise gift from Ilya, a CD course on Mahler from The Teaching Company; this looks so cool! I haven't listened to any of it yet, but apparently other courses from this company have been really good. There are tons of great-looking courses on that site that are sold pretty cheap. This could potentially be a huge time-waster...