Gigapixel Printers

Work was reasonably interesting today. Reading up on the specs for the poster printer we use, I saw that it can print at 2400x1200 DPI (dots per inch). Considering that it can print posters up to 24x72", that equates to 1728 square inches. Thus, the printer can print up to 4,976,640,000 (almost 5 billion) dots on a piece of paper. Putting it in terms of digital cameras, that's like a 5,000 megapixel photograph (most digitals cameras don't exceed 12 megapixels).

As you know, my job is to stress test the photo kiosk. We try to make it break. So, I think I'm going to shoot a 500 image panorama, stitch the separate images in Photoshop, then try and print the result on that printer. It will be interesting to see how detailed the final image actually is. If the result is good, I'll probably buy the poster and frame it for one of the many blank walls in my apartment.

The weekend is finally here, which is great, but I'm probably going to spend it studying. I've got finals next Tuesday, and I need to score at least a 90% to avoid needing a retake of classes in the fall. For this reason, I'll cut this entry short and get some sleep.

Food, just food

Wow, it was cold today. Low 40's as I was walking to work this morning, plus a non-insignificant amount of wind chill. It managed to warm up to a balmy 52-degrees by late this afternoon. Despite the clear indications of global warming, I'm looking forward to driving to work tomorrow.

I've got a nutrition question. Since I've got so much empty freezer space, I was thinking about getting several loaves of bread and keeping them frozen until needed. Are there any nutritional drawbacks to doing this? Basically, I've got three options.

1. Pick up a loaf of bread each week and store it at room temp.
2. Pick up a couple loaves of bread every couple of weeks and store unused bread in the refrigerator.
3. Pick up a month or more of bread, and store it in the freezer.
   

Personally, I'd like to buy bread in bulk, since freezers operate most efficiently when they've got food inside. However, if the freezing process kills the nutritional value of the bread, I'd rather go with option #1 or #2. Just thought I'd ping you before I splurged. By the way, Franz makes some pretty mean bread. I got a loaf of their Columbia River dark whole grain bread, and it's really good.

By the way, I wanted to reassure my dad on a couple of items. First, I'm ventilating my apartment every day after work. Second, I'm turning the light on while cooking and doing dishes. Third, I made my first goulash last night, containing mushrooms, onions, rice, eggs, and spices. You should be proud.

What's with all the food discussion in this letter? It's what I get for writing before dinner. Taco time!

The Liberal Mindset

I just received two letters in the mail. One from Abigail and the other from Dad. Unfortunately, I'm sorry to report that Dad's letter was far less soothing than Abigail's. His first mistake was including the "Letters to the Editor" page of the Oregonian. I'm afraid my blood pressure is several levels higher than when I came home from work. A few illogical arguments I came across:

1. "Compromise between liberal and conservative values is usually disastrous."
   
   Agreed. But to then say that a moderate liberal is more likely to pass trillion dollar stimulus bills than a left-wing liberal is baloney. Obama is the most left-wing leaning president we've ever had, and... surprise!, he's already spent more than any of his predecessors.
   
2. "We want a governor who puts people before corporate interests..."
   
   Dare I say that a governor who encourages corporate investment does right by his constituents? Conversely, dare I say that a governor who encourages corporations to relocate elsewhere does poorly by his constituents? I'd better stop, my apartment is probably bugged by the leftist weirdos around here.
   
3. "The time has come for the United States of America to stop naming war machines after any group of people that they conquered or will conquer in the future." [referring to the AH-64 Apache helicopter]
   
   Point #1: The people who "conquered" the Native Americans didn't name the helicopter.
   
   Point #2: The people who did didn't approve of the mistakes of their predecessors
   
   Point #3: The people who did didn't intend to demean the Indians by naming the helicopter such.
   
   Point #4: The statement assumes that the past, present, and future goal of the United States is to conquer other nations. This seems (to me anyway) to be antithetical to the actions of the United States over the past century.
   
   Point #5: Some people need to start being more patriotic and less SENSITIVE. (sorry for yelling)

I shall now endeavor to transfer the heat of my anger into the rice that's simmering on the stove.

Plastic vs. Paper: the Eternal Question

My devious mind was at work again this morning. Living alone, one starts to realize that one doesn't need to do things the same as at home. Now that I'm doing laundry, I'm hyper-sensitive about fabric use. For example, I realized that every time a dish rag touches another physical object, it accumulates dirt, and comes that much closer to needing a wash. So, instead of drying dishes by hand, or even setting them on top of a rag to dry, I'm just going to let them dry in the sink while I'm at work. And hey, it works! Who knew...

As I was walking to work this morning, I was thinking about this evening's activities. Namely, grocery shopping. Normally I'd just come home from work, jump in the car, and drive to Fred Meyer or Grocery Outlet. However, as I was thinking on these things, I passed a Safeway to my left across the street. Hey. I thought. Sure, Safeway's a little more expensive, but I can save time by picking stuff up on my walk home instead of taking a separate trip. In FACT, by carrying my groceries home, I can get a little upper-body exercise! Well, as with most things, there were positives and negatives to the idea, and I'd naturally focused in on the more positive factors. In hindsight, I can see a few small negatives:

1. Safeway is quite expensive, I spent $45 on a week's worth of groceries. (about three bags worth)
   
2. Even though Safeway is only a third of a mile from my apartment, that's as the crow flies. After you've navigated the parking lot, found the sidewalk, gone through three busy intersections, and staggered the rest of the way, you've ended up carrying those three--now very heavy--bags for about fifteen minutes. While that may not sound like a lot, them shoulders start to feel it. Also, I realized while I was waiting for the second light, that it's not the arms which give out first... it's the fingers. While standing there, watching my fingers turn the color of a corpse, I pondered the age-old question: plastic or paper?

One thing's clear, the guy who invented plastic grocery bags sure didn't use them.

Cities: Rat Mazes for Humans

It was a very good Saturday for me. This morning I worked on a video montage for the Awana Awards Night, went for a run, and started a section in math on conformal mapping. This afternoon I wrapped up the video montage and math section, and even had the chance to take a shower along the way.

Let me backtrack to my run for a minute. Being a country boy used to running on country roads, my idea of a run is as follows:

1. Run straight for a mile
2. You hit your first fork, make a decision... left or right
3. Run straight for another mile
4. You hit a four-way, make a decision... left, right, or straight
5. Repeat steps 1-4 until done

Now, running in the city is a different matter entirely. The sheer number of available pathways could cause an indecisive person to have a nervous breakdown. I'd guess that the number of possible routes in a square mile is practically infinite. From the perspective of the air, it probably looks something the human version of the infamous rat maze, though I'm hoping my running style is more stately than the rat.

I'm looking forward to church tomorrow, as it will be great to see some familiar faces. Still, this will be the longest commute (1 hour) to church I've ever taken, so we'll see how it works out in practice.

Psycho Photo Kisoks

System #10 at HP is haunted. Either that or it hates my guts. All I know is that it seems to derive a fiendish delight out of my struggles for dominance. I tried enlisting the help of the resident geniuses, but the machine easily shrugged off their feeble assaults. To be honest, a person can only take so much abuse on a Friday afternoon. I ended the day by ceding the battle and pledging to win the war on Monday (my optimistic side at work).

The walk home was uneventful. The evening was calm. Nothing else of importance to note. I love weekends.

This was a short update, I know, but I'm tired and it's late. Besides, my dreams will probably be filled with a cacophony of maniacal laughter from system #10, so I'd better ready my mental defenses.

Letters from Home

I received an envelope in the mail today, replete with a "2010 Census: Mail It Back" stamp on the front (thank you USPS... but I digress). Inside the envelope was a tri-authored note from home. My response(s) are as follows:

Grandma: Thank you for praying about my work. Pray also that I don't get a TV, because whenever I watch the Blazers, they lose.

Abigail: I miss you too, but I'll see you Thursday, so we'll remedy that problem shortly. Tell Dad that if the van's too light, he can pick up my dirty laundry to help weigh it down some.

Lydia: I love you too. By the way, your handwriting is so good, it's humiliating. See you Thursday.

Last night I found out that most of this week's math homework was canceled, which made me happy. On the flip side, I had done everything I could think to do (including eating) by 7:30, so I'm beginning to go stir-crazy (bad). As soon as I get my sneakers, I'm going for a 10-mile run, rain or no rain.

My three coworkers at HP are quite interesting. Two are recent college graduates (with a CS and CE degree, respectively). The third will be graduating this June with his EE degree. All of them are really smart cookies, and--just like me--expected to leave college and immediately get a software engineering job. It seems that brains and a good education aren't always enough to get what you want. Still, we all agree that work's work, and QA work is better than most (better than Lingo, in any case).

Signing off for now.

The Space-Time Continuum and HP

The spaghetti's boiling, so I'll try and be quick.

I walked to HP this morning. It took me about fifteen minutes going and thirty minutes coming back (thirty because I got lost on the way back and accidentally circumvented the entire campus, more on that later...). Work was good, I spent much of the day setting up what's called a Premiere Plus Instant Print station. Basically, it's a conglomeration of printers and software that allows a person to walk into Walmart and self-service print anything from wallet-size prints to 24x72" posters. Think of the photo kiosk at Fred Meyer, then add convenience, flexibility, and ease-of-use, and you've got the HP solution.

So, as we guessed, the HP campus is huge. Apparently, at the peak it serviced 15,000 employees (currently only 3,000). Since the buildings are primarily 2-story and not near as compact as Intel's buildings, the campus sprawls like crazy. Yesterday, I almost didn't find my car after leaving for the day... today I had trouble even finding Circle Blvd. Anyway, I trust I'll get more familiar with the campus by the end of my contract. For the record, I think it's a neat place to work. Quieter than Nike and less bland than Intel.

One thing I'm learning is that deferring tasks doesn't save time. For example, if I've got breakfast dishes to clean, I could wait until getting home from work to clean them. However, it's going to take the same amount of time, so time spent in the morning will mean time saved in the evening. Just a thought I had this morning.

Say, any chance I could pick up some eggs on Thursday? These white store-bought things are lacking.

First Day on the Job

Day #2 has come and gone, and I'm still alive.

No, actually, everything went just about perfectly today. I got up around 6:30am, had a leisurely shower and breakfast before undertaking the arduous 5-minute drive to HP. Most everybody there dresses very casually, so once I get my sneakers from home, I'll probably do likewise.

The work day at HP was... interesting... to say the least. I was left pretty much to my own devices all day, so I spent it coming up to speed on the technology. Basically, they had me printing 8x10" glossies all day long on $500,000 printers to get familiar with things. It's almost sacrilegious the way they use ink over there. If my initial thoughts are correct, this has the potential to be an interesting contract. It all depends on how close I can get to the test automation side of things (and away from manual testing).

After work I stopped by Fred Meyer to pick up the remaining supplies on my list. Took me forever to find the olives, butthe nice thing was that there happens to be an in-store Chase, so I was able to stock up on quarters without making an extra stop.

It's amazing how far a tank of gas goes in the city.

Until next time,

I Hit Reality

So here's my first update from the Big City. I spent most of the afternoon setting up and arranging the furniture, which is now done. At 6 o'clock, I went to Grocery Outlet on a shopping excursion. It took me about an hour to get everything on my list, but I found out a few interesting things:

1. I won't be needing to go to an amusement park, because my incessant circling of the aisles qualified as a free merry-go-round ride.
   
   
2. Grocery Outlet is primarily a bulk retailer (i.e. my only option for fruit was to get a five-pound bag of apples and a three-pound bag of bananas... guess I'll be making smoothies for awhile)
   
   
3. It's a pretty inexpensive store. I only spent $55 total for a cart-load of food. Heck, if I hadn't forgotten the lettuce, I would have probably needed another cart.
   

After I got back, I tried out the blender. There's no two-ways about it, Kitchen Aid makes a pretty mean blender. I threw in two whole apples, a banana, yogurt, milk, and ice, and the whole mess was liquified in about ten seconds flat (seeds and all). I'll be trying carrot purée tomorrow morning, but I'd love to try killing some frozen berries as well.

Another piece of good news. The water here is actually quite excellent, so I won't be needing bottled water.

Well, that's about it for now. Tomorrow I'll be starting work and getting the rest of my stuff unpacked. One question: is there any harm in combining my lights and darks? I don't really want to run two loads each time I do laundry.