Andy Morrow's Blog

I’ve had yet another good week. This Saturday, however, I finally got outside and went hiking. It was wonderful to get out from behind a desk and stretch my legs. My friend Adriana and I hiked Squaw Peak, the mountain on the northern side of Rock Canyon. It’s an easy three mile one-way hike with a 2700′ elevation change. I broke in a new pair of hiking boots and managed not to get a single hot spot, let alone a blister. The forest on the top of Squaw Peak is unlike anything else I’ve seen in Utah. It reminded me of the forests in California – somewhat sparse compared to the East Coast, but very green and full nonetheless. I took a few good pictures, which you can see here. Because we were there in the middle of the day, the lighting wasn’t ideal; however, I think a few of them turned out nicely regardless. Feel free to ask for originals.

I didn’t have any homework to do at all yesterday. I finished everything that’s due until Tuesday night on Friday. It was great, because I didn’t have to feel guilty on Saturday about putting off homework or anything like that. I was supposed to go grocery shopping and I didn’t, which luckily did not cause a problem this morning (fast sunday), but I think Keaton and I can take care of that tomorrow afternoon. I really enjoy shopping at Costco. Things are cheap, and the samples are a definite attraction.

The first set of midterms has started. I took my first test for Physics 121 on Thursday, my first math test is in-class on Monday, and I have an exam for CS240 on Friday. I feel very confident about the physics exam, and I think I’ll have no trouble with the math. None of my classes have been very difficult thus far – they’ve simply required a lot of time. CS252 will become difficult, I believe, but we haven’t gotten there quite yet. I’m fine with that. It’s nice to ease in.

I’ve been reading some about exciting developments in the web world. HTML5 is coming nearer and nearer to full standardization, and many browsers are already supporting large parts of the yet-unfinished standard. Safari 4 / WebKit is the most important one, since Google Chrome and the browsers on the iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre all use WebKit. HTML5 will bring web applications closer and closer to competing with desktop applications. It makes Apple’s initial recommendation of “developing for the iPhone using the web” sound almost reasonable, especially when you look at jQTouch. It’s a jQuery plugin for getting an iPhone look-and-feel UI practically for free. Between that and HTML5 offline and animation support, you can build a web app for the iPhone that’s almost as cool as a native app. Just not as fast. I know this is all old news in the tech scene, but I get so busy with homework that I don’t have time to follow all this. It’s exciting for me.

Well, I need to go to bed. It’s going to be another long week, but I’m looking forward to it. See you all next Sunday.

No joke, no lie, no exaggeration. Kyle & Mr. Baughan’s tents. I don’t know if Mr. Baughan really slept out there last night, but there’s the evidence to say he did. I’m trying posting a photo from my phone. We’ll see how it works out.

I’ve just seen my friend Tyler, who I roomed with for most of Fall semester last year. He’s heading into the MTC today at 1. He and his family are in Provo for the day, so they stopped by to say hello and we went out for a brief dinner. (Everything in Provo closes at 9:30, and they arrived rather late, so we wound up at Arby’s.) He’s headed to Rosario, Argentina, and seems quite excited about it. It was fun to get to see him again.

Speaking of missionary-related items, I’ve just had my interview with the bishop in my ward here. He also said that the medical paperwork is all in order, and he is submitting his recommendation to the stake president. Hooray! I’m one step closer to having my paperwork into Salt Lake. Theoretically, it could have been turned in on the 17th, since my availability date is the 26th. That’s alright, however. I’ll still get my call and everything will work out as the Lord intends.

It’s been another good week. Time has positively flown, and I feel like I don’t have a terrible lot to report. I’ve decided to post something here every weekend. Chances are good that it will be Sunday night, so checking Monday will usually be worthwhile.

I’m absolutely loving CS 252 and Math 313. The computer science class is on the fundamentals of computation theory – the concept of mathematically defining what a computer does and creating models that are useful in answering questions regarding what a computer can and can’t do. It’s very directly applicable, however, to real-world, day-to-day problems. It’s a large part of what motived my earlier musings on actually being a scientist and not simply a coder.

Math 313 (elementary linear algebra) is also fascinating. It’s almost as mind-expanding as calculus was. The title is a bit demeaning; my friend Matt and I were feeling rather sub-par that we were initially having so much difficulty with an “elementary” class dealing with nothing more than the algebra of straight lines. How much easier could it be? In reality, however, it’s incredibly powerful, and almost all of the things we’ve studied have direct applications to computer science in that a computer could solve these problems without difficulty. There are developed algorithms and proofs in many cases. I’m tempted to write programs to solve some classes of problems just as an interesting exercise. There are excellent libraries for Python to deal with these sort of mathematical problems and constructs. I’m becoming more and more fond of Python the more I use it.

This past week, I met one of the most impressive people I’ve met in a long time. Justin was the primary web designer and programmer in the Chemistry CSR office for a number of years before I was hired. He’s since graduated and works for an online luxury retailer in New York. He’s personable, very intelligent, and a Mac guy. I’d enjoy working with him.

I’ve finally received a calling. I’m the Spread the Gospel chair for the second elder’s quorum. I’ll be working with the ward missionaries and the members of the quorum to push forward the missionary effort in our ward. We may live in Provo, but there is still plenty of missionary work to be done. I was told that I was called to do this specifically to help prepare for my mission, so I am going at it with all my enthusiasm.

Well, I’m exhausted. I’ve been up too late too many nights in a row. My social life has not been suffering whatsoever as of late. I’m still finding the right balance between social, work, and school. Obviously school needs to take priority. It is clearly the most important. However, the other two cannot afford to be neglected. I think I have enough time to put school first and finish everything completely with plenty of time left over for the other two. I’ll work it out.

It’s been an incredibly busy week. So many things have happened that I barely have time to write about it all. I’ll go in the order of the title.

Last night, my coworkers and I met to discuss the future of our instrument scheduling project. After finally deciding to replace the existing one, I began investigating possible starting points so that we wouldn’t have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. The other three web programmers and I then got together and came up with a final plan. During the course of our discussion, we got sidetracked and began talking about the future of my office. Christian, Jeff, and Dave (the other three programmers) will all be graduating in roughly two years, right as I’m arriving home from my mission. One of the other old-timers, Brad, is quitting this week because he can’t make enough money with us to get both his wife and himself through school. (He got married over the summer.) Furthermore, the newer employees haven’t fully absorbed the office culture yet, making for what will soon be a marked discontinuity. The final straw, however, is that Robert may be forced to leave the department. He’s been working with the school on a worker’s comp case (he was run over on BYU campus whilst riding his motorcycle) for roughly four years now, and it’s coming to a head. He may be forced to sue the school. Obviously, were that the case, he would no longer be employed here. Our other supervisor, chief programmer, and server guru, Michael, would certainly quit if Robert were no longer there. If that were to happen, the CSR office would likely be dissolved and the campus-wide Office of IT would come in and re-do everything we’ve ever done at enormous expense. There’s a hiring freeze currently, however, so there’s no way the department could hire two new full-time CSRs to replace Robert and Michael and thereby avoid succumbing to OIT. The fate of the office is very much up in the air. I have no worries about job security for the semester, but I may find a new place to work when I get back off my mission. We’ll just have to see!

On to the mine trip. My friend Adriana and I hiked up on Monday. It’s a fairly intense hike to begin with, and I got slightly misdirected for the first quarter of a mile or so and sent us on a track through some fairly thick brush. In my defense, we avoided a lot of steep gravel; however, we took the hard route. Regardless, we got up there and saw more of the mine than I’ve seen before. That was quite a surprise for me, as I thought I’d explored every nook and cranny with James that can be accessed without a rope. It turns out that I missed a low side-passage that leads to a long tunnel on the first floor with another vertical shaft dropping below it. I don’t know where it leads, but there are rock bolts in the wall next to it. Somebody’s been down there. I want to learn Single Rope Technique this semester and rappel down the various shafts in this mine. We also saw roughly a dozen bats (something I hadn’t seen before in this particular mine) and about a dozen other people (also something new – it’s been deserted every other time I’ve been up there). It was a great trip. I’m glad I got to get back up there.

On to the sushi! We went to Asuka, a fantastic sushi/steakhouse in Provo. The all-you-can-eat sushi is only $17 in the evenings, and the sushi is actually quite good. I definitely got my money’s worth. Between Keaton, Dustin (a new friend I met tonight), and I, we ate around 70 pieces of sushi. It was fantastic.

Finally, on science. I’ve been musing on the title “Computer Science.” I recently read a short paper by Edsger Dijkstra on bringing math into everyday programming. My musings prior to reading his paper had been that the parts of Computer Science you can’t learn effectively on your own are the scientific parts – the math and theory. You have to attend a university to learn these things effectively. Reading this paper by Dijkstra reinforced that opinion and bolstered my determination to make the absolute most of my theoretical studies by applying them in what I do on a day-to-day basis. I am gratified by the idea of being a “scientist,” not a “coder.” A well-known article by Paul Graham entitled “Hackers and Painters” is brought to my recollection. Graham argues that “computer science” is a poor term for the field of “hackers” – those who build fascinating software in a less professional environment, often to scratch their own itches. Graham doesn’t think it fair to slap the title of “science” onto what he considers an art more along the lines of painting. I see myself presently as a bit of a “hacker” in Graham’s estimation. I write neat little bits of code to accomplish a goal. However, in the long run, I’d really like to be more of a scientist. I think it’s marvelous to be able to produce something incredible without the need for science; however, I begin to see the potential of taking this kind of coding intuition and adding to it a thorough theoretical understanding of the mechanisms at play. I don’t believe that the science and art of programming must be mutually exclusive, as Graham suggests. The art of it can never be taken away, but like in driving, the scientific understanding must be present in order to accomplish anything truly great. In summary, I much prefer the title “scientist” to “coder,” so I’m going to earn it.

Well, that’s all for this week. I’ve got big plans for tomorrow – homework! I’ve got a lot of math and a project for CS240. If I can get it all finished on time, I’ll go to the (free!) broadcast of our football game against Tulane. It ought to be a good weekend.

The week is approaching its close. I’ve completed all the homework due by Friday, and, thanks to Labor Day, don’t have anything more due until Wednesday. My friend Matt and I switched math sections last night because we couldn’t understand our previous math professor’s lectures. His English was not the problem – it was that we couldn’t follow his train of thought. Matt informed me that our new professor leaves somewhat to be desired in his personal habits (messy office, stained shirt) but that it seems he teaches well, and online reviews concur. Here’s to hoping.

I’ve been having smashing success with cooking thus far. For the most part, that is. I attempted Krusteaz mix pancakes last night and was disappointed to say the least. I believe I added too little water and stirred too much. The process was complicated slightly by the fact that we don’t seem to have a whisk. There are a few cooking utensils which may necessitate procurement.

None of my classes look to be extremely difficult. CS252 will be challenging and CS240 will require an affluence of time. Physics 121 will not be as interesting as I had anticipated. I delay passing judgement on Math 313 until I’ve endured at least two lectures with my new professor and completed more of the homework. Regardless, I am enjoying all my classes so far and expect to fully continue doing so throughout the end of the semester.