Done.

Now I'm just exhausted.

Got my M.S. this semester. Now to rest, celebrate, and re-organize my life. Kevin and I escaped to Rochester for this weekend, so this should be good.

Getting encrypted DVDs to work in Ubuntu - Gutsy

Whoa, this took a freakin' long time to fix! Here was my problem: VLC wouldn't play encrypted DVDs, which was really aggravating. After installing a whole slew of codecs, I think it's only right to finally share what ended up working. First, I should mention it -still- doesn't work in VLC. In fact, the only way I got it to work was to use a different player altogether, gxine. So here is the work around, which I got from this link.

1.) Add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list
##Medibuntu-Ubuntu 7.10 gutsy gibbon
##Please report any bug on https://launchpad.net/products/medibuntu/+bugs
deb http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ gutsy free non-free
deb-src http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ gutsy free non-free

2.) from the command line, run: sudo apt-get upgrade

3.) sudo apt-get install libdvdread3 libdvdcss2 gstreamer xine-ui libxine1-ffmpeg gxine regionset

4.) Make sure your region is set using regionset (set region to 1) -- I suspect most people won't need to do this

5.) from the command line, run: sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh, or simply: sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

6.) Go to System --> Preferences --> Removable Drives and Media

7.) Click on the "multimedia" tab. Under "Video DVD discs" Click "play video DVD discs when inserted" and enter the following for the command:
gxine -S dvd:/

Pop in a DVD and it should work!

---------------------------------
UPDATE: ok... so it -does- also work with VLC now. Win?
UPDATE 2: It works with xine as well :-) Sick. Ok, I declare update this from "bandaid"ed, to fixed!

It's Official

Friends,

I have just been notified that I've been accepted into the PhD Program in Computer Science at Texas A&M University. I will be working with one of the most stellar advisors that a girl could ever hope for in a field that is cutting edge.

So I guess this is it then... I am leaving RPI after this semester (hopefully with a Masters).

It's official.

-Suzanne

New Laptop fun

Got a new laptop: a Lenovo IdeaPad Y410 from Newegg. Excellent stats:

14.1" Widescreen (1280 x 800)
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66 Ghz
250 GB HD (5400 rpm, SDA)
2 GB (DDR-2, 2 1-GB DIMMs)
2 MB L2 cache
etc..

Only problems:
1.) Preloaded with Windows Vista (I'm getting used to it)
2.) Sound in Linux (Ubuntu) doesn't work

Kevin and I spent some quality time today trying to fix 2.), and, as KT Tunstall plays successfully on my linux partition, I would say that we have success. Here are our steps:

Using instructions found here, we did the following (to summarize)

-sudo apt-get install po-debconf debhelper quilt alsa-base libc6-dev

-get latest alsa driver --> unpack this
./configure
make
sudo make install

::eat a cookie::
::look at pretty kitten pictures::

edit /etc/modprode.d/alsa-base:
-add line:
options snd-hda-intel index=0 model=fujitsu

edit /etc/modules:
-add:
snd-hwdep
snd-hda-intel

Also, do the following:
rm /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/ubuntu/media/snd-hda-intel/snd-hda-intel.ko
ln -s /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/sound/pci/hda/snd-hda-intel.ko /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/ubuntu/media/snd-hda-intel/snd-hda-intel.ko

Restart, and sound works! Overall, great laptop.

At least Wireless worked off the bat....

Surreal

Sometimes it feels like I'm moving so fast that I'm simply standing still. The days are starting to blur; I am on a train. I am in a cocoon. If I glance outside my window, an endless stream of people rush past, the days and nights rise and fall in a ridiculous cycle. It's like watching a segment of a movie on endless repeat. It's all very dream-like... is this reality? So I stare back at my computer, trying to accomplish a fraction of what I feel like I should be accomplishing, letting my fingers curl onto my keyboard. They long to type:

When does this end?


All I ever wanted was to feel the way you'd feel
All I ever wanted was a chance to make it real

I'm in love with you
And I can pull it through

All I ever wanted is a place out by the sun
To watch the world go by and take each day as it comes
All I ever wanted was a chance to catch my breath
To see the world go by and lay my ghosts to rest

Give me a chance to catch my breath
So I can lay my ghosts to rest

So ask me tomorrow what I thought of yesterday
There's so many things that I could not explain

I'm in love with you
And I can pull it through

All I ever wanted is a place out by the sun
To watch the world go by and take each day as it comes
All I ever wanted was a chance to catch my breath
To see the world go by and lay my ghosts to rest

Give me a chance to catch my breath
So I can lay my ghosts to rest

All I ever wanted was a chance to catch my breath
All that I ever wanted was to lay my ghosts to rest

All I ever wanted was a chance to catch my breath
All I ever wanted was to lay my ghosts to rest

- Ghosts, Dirty Vegas

Happy Valentine's Day!

Remembered this video today... what a great song...

Why do people become computer science majors?

Thought of this comic today. I miss Project Y.

Life is heading into transition again soon. Will talk about more later.

-Suzanne

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I'll probably have an update post today, but we just got back from midnight mass (and yes, it's almost 2 am!), and I absolutely had to post the most astounding revelation I had while I was sitting in mass tonight:

Love is Empathy.

Isn't that beautiful? Love is Empathy. It all makes sense now.

Have a wonderful night (or morning). Dad and I are waiting for Mom to go to bed so we can surprise her by setting up her gift for her so it's ready in the morning. For safety's sake, I'll tell you what it is later today ;-)

G'night!

Top 10 Viral Videos of 2007

So time has this interesting piece listing (and providing links to) the Top 10 Viral Videos of 2007. It's really worth taking a look at. I was shocked to see actually 5 videos that I hadn't seen before.. hmm; seems like grad school is actually affecting how well I waste my time on the internets. How many did you fail to recognize?

Of note is "Iran so Far", another SNL short starring one of the Narnia cupcake guys. Hilarious, but I can see why the president of Iran hates us so much.

Other Time top 10 lists you may be interested in are:
Top 10 T-Shirt Worthy Slogans
This video from the Top 10 Animal Stories (nothing else is really worth it)

It's the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and I'm busy programming. I'm actually taking a break right now; I may get back to the coding.. but then again I may not. It -is- Christmas Eve, after all. Status report: if I can get one more component fixed, life will be good, and maybe I'll switch gears for a while. If not... meh. Not sure if I care right now. I do need to rest; that is of paramount importance.

Anyways, wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas eve.

Graph Theory + Kitties

My favorite kind of combination.

Check out Chat Noir, a really game that is applicable to some problem within Graph Theory, I dare-say something associated with pursuit and evasion, though I am hesitant to use that label here.

Freakin' Hilarious

9 Most Badass Bible Verses

Read now.

Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon (VPN running)

Back in linux, I follow the link and download the file. After unzipping the tar.bz2 file, I cd in and run ./vpn_install. Magic happens. Next, to start the thing. In the future, I hopefully don't have to do this, since it should be done automatically:

sudo /etc/init.d/vpnclient_init start

Ok, next, I need profiles. Before, when love was on the side of vpnc, I would have to enter the gateway info, and two passwords. This was doable, and ok. Now I need profiles. With a touch of chagrin, I realize that this probably the program that the help desk wanted me to run all along, though the tar file I downloaded was different. Going back to the RPI helpdesk site, I download the necessary .pcf files and put them in /etc/opt/cisco-vpnclient/Profiles/

The following command is then used:
sudo vpnclient connect RPI_External_VPN

Magic happens: user names and passwords are entered, information is exchanged. Sparkles and rainbows shoot out of my terminal. And suddenly..!

Negotiating security policies.
Securing communication channel.

Your VPN connection is secure.


To check, I try to connect to my server. No problems! Hooray! VPN now works!

Ugh. It's been fun, I think. I haven't checked RPI Wireless yet, but something tells me it will work (before it didn't). So overall, a productive and good use of time.

I -am- hungry. Maybe food is in order? That's a good idea. Food, and a hot shower.

Till next time...
-Suzanne

Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon (Fixing VPN)

Now in Windows, I test out my Cisco external VPN connection. After successfully being able to connect to my server (which is now behind the firewall -- another rant), I knew there wasn't anything wrong with External VPN. So one of two things must have happened.

By some hidden magic, External VPN no longer supports vpnc, or by some other hidden magic, vpnc changed somehow from Ubuntu 7.04, to 7.10, in an unproductive manner for me.

I head over the help-desk site and see the package that they have for linux. I shudder I -really- don't want to deal with their shit if I can get things working on my own. Back to ubuntu forums. Sure enough, other people seemed to be having a similar problem.

I now have the following instructions:

You can find the client here:
http://linux-support.hiwi.rz.uni-kon...1.0640.tar.bz2
Extract the file. Make sure, that you have installed the kernel headers and then run
sudo ./vpn_install
Link

h'okay, then, let's see what we get. Reboot into linux.

Ubuntu 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon

So I developed a nasty head cold last night, and as of this morning, am still feeling pretty terrible. I think among the things necessary for a cure are food and fluids, neither of which I've had since my meager bowl of oatmeal last night.

Because I wasn't feeling well, I played on my DS, but eventually got bored. So I decided to upgrade my current system, which ran Ubuntu Fiesty 7.4 to Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10. Flipped open system upgrade, and told it to upgrade to 7.10.

I immediately began having doubts. Usually, when a new OS comes out, there are bugs here and there, and I winced remembering my wireless adventure dealing with my network stuff. Things were working perfectly now, after all.. why change things?

To test how well the upgrade will actually upgrade my system, rather than downgrade it, I authorized the go ahead.

The upgrade was relatively painless; it took about an hour to download the upgrades, and another hour to install all the updates, which was pretty reasonable, especially since I don't have the best of wireless connections here at the apartment. So, I restarted the system to see what it all looked like.

Things were ... mostly the same. Gaim had disappeared, since now Pidgin is exclusively supported. I added the Pidgin Icon to the panel, rearranged it some, and my panel looked as good as normal, save for this weird purple pigeon icon being where my simple, yet elegant yellow man icon used to be. Ah well, I'll get over it. The biggest change was that wireless was no longer working. At all.

SHIT, I thought. This could be for several reasons. 1.) Something different is going on that it was in Fiesty 2.) Something different is going on and it's going on worse because I TOLD ubuntu during the upgrade process to keep the modified blacklist file. SHIT, I thought, shit, shit, shit shit.. Worst of all, at that point in time, I had forgotten that the blacklist file was called "blacklist", so I didn't know where to look.

Rebooted into windows. Came to my blog, saw the notes I made last time about blacklisting goodness. Went back into linux. Located and went into this file:
/etc/modeprob.d/blacklist

After looking at the tail of the list, sure enough, my original changes were there. shit, I thought. So it' s no longer hostap that's the problem... wait, but what if hostap has control, and orinoco is the trouble? A few quick changes to the blacklist file yielded the tail of blacklist to look like this:

#buggy network-manager causes ornico to fight with it for wireless card
#blacklist hostap
#blacklist hostap_pci
blacklist hermes
blacklist p80211
blacklist prism2_pci
blacklist orinoco
blacklist orinoco_pci

With my fingers crossed, I restarted the system. Ubuntu came back up, and lo and behold! Wireless was working! Hooray! Scanning is re-enabled, and things looked like it was full of win. I was pleased to see that vpnc was part of the default install, and that all my previous settings were saved. Let's see if I can connect to the external VPN. A button click and two passwords yielded:

VPN Connect Failure

Could not start the VPN connection 'External VPN' due to a connection error.

The VPN login failed because the VPN program could not connect to the VPN server.


Shit, I thought. Not good. I checked configuration file. No problems seem to be there, since indeed, it was my previous settings. I was able to connect via external VPN no problem since I last checked, which was two days ago. Could something actually be wrong with External VPN connection at RPI? or is it VPNc? Let's check.

System reboot into Windows.

Some fun

For all of those who think that "Codex Carnivorous" may be experiencing a revival, surely you're imagining things...

Florida (Part III) - Bridge Day and Grace Hopper

I was going to have a "Florida Part IV" as well, but I really want to just go back to talking about non-florida stuff

Wendnesday was the "bridge" between the two conferences, aptly called "Bridge Day". A select few of us won scholarships to have guided tours at Epcot and Magic Kingdom, and that's what we did. Three huge groups of girls piled into buses and rotated between a tech talk, epcot, and magic kingdom. We started with the tech talk.

To summarize the tech talk, someone didn't tell Disney that there were a lot of graduate students present. If you want more details, I will tell you later, but it was like pulling teeth for the next hour and half. At least I got chocolate out of it.

Epcot was amazing. We got a backstage tech tour, and learned about the technology that Disney uses. There, we all got to go on the "Mission: Space" ride. At Magic Kingdom, we got a backstage tour as well (did you know that MK is on the second floor?). We also got to go on "Haunted Mansion" at Magic Kingdom. It was fun, especially because Disney has done some really neat stuff with lighting and holograms. All in all, I was pretty impressed, especially with how well they hide their cameras.

Grace Hopper was really cool. Imagine 1400 women in one hotel for three days. Now imagine them all in computing. Ridiculous, eh? Coming from a department with like 30 girls out of 600 students, it was quite something. Grace Hopper was quite, quite classy. I would have probably had a blast, if it wasn't for the fact that I had been interacting with people non-stop over the previous three days. While I can be quite the extrovert, even with that much interaction I need get away. By friday, I had to force myself out of bed, because I just didn't want to see people anymore.

Probably one of the highlights of the week was my lunch with my mentor, Tiffani. We went to lunch, and spent four hours talking about different things, especially things about life. I am so incredibly lucky to have a mentor like her, and she's seriously one of the most dynamic people I've ever met. Biggest take away from the conferences? Finding a sense of balance. Finding a sense of self.

Randy Pausch once said, "my next piece of advice is that you just have to decide if you're a Tigger or an Eeyore". All my life, I've been an Eeyore: incredibly cynical, and somewhat defeatist. At my best, I've been content with the world, but never saw it in a favorable light. But I have a gift; I can talk to people, I can interact with people, I can make things happen. I have enormous potential as a Tigger; whenever I join any organization or club, I somehow wind up near the top. It's happened since high school. I like organizing and leading, and I can. I've always repressed that part of me, since I'm good at it, and it scares me. Also, I'm a Computer Scientist; we're not supposed to know how to interact (some case of peer pressure, huh)! That will all be in the past. Now is the time for change.

Does this mean that I think everything is right with the world? Heck no! I just don't care anymore. I can still make good things happen, regardless of the bad stuff. If I embrace the side of me that is extroverted and aware of my strengths, I can really go places. As long as I have my "bounce" and my passion, I can overcome almost anything. So I'm going to give it a shot, and see where life takes me.

Before I left Orlando, I stopped by the Disney store. I picked up an Eeyore and a Tigger stuffed animal. I keep them on my bookshelf, so whenever I walk by, I can remember the promise I made to myself:
"Never stop, never give up. Inspire and be inspired. And above all - Embrace life"

Time to shift into overdrive. Things will be okay.

Florida! (part II)

I honestly thought I would have been blogging about the (two) conferences more than this, but I've honestly been too busy being exhausted and having a ton of fun. Just a quick recap of the weeks events:

The Richard Tapia conference started on Sunday. It was really good (if for no other reason) for all the people I met. Because it was a smaller crowd (about 400 people), you really got to know and sit down and talk to people. Plus, there were a lot of people from industry, quite a few who seemed to jump on the mention that I do my research in Computational Biology. This is a huge deal. Why, you ask? When I was originally going on job searches, back in Undergrad, at the big career fair, this is usually what went down: I'd find a pharmaceutical company that I thought would be a big name for what I want to do, and walk up to them. The conversation will inevitably go like this:

Me: "My name is Suzanne, I do Computational Biology!"
Rep: "Sorry, we're looking for Computer Science majors only"
Me: [face fallen] "But, I have a bachelors in Computer Science!"
Rep: [lights up] "Oh! Do you know Java? We need programmers in our IT department.."

It was so aggravating. Instead of recruiting people to do research, they all were just recruiting code monkeys, even the companies that were known for research in my field. Sure, it's really important to program, but that's not necessarily the focus of research. It was just so.... frustrating. How nice it was to finally go somewhere, not even looking for an internship, and being asked to sign up, asked for contact info, resumes, etc.

I also met a lot of people at Tapia. If for nothing else, that was so much fun. I played pool with two PhD students from Berkley and TAMU, hung out a bit with someone from Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and just had a plain good time with everyone. I also was really lucky to have one of the sweetest roomies that I could have been matched up with (Lacey, from Auburn U). Plus, there were two other students from RPI (Onur and Jiao) who came to Tapia. Together, we represented RPI CS at a booth for one day during the conference. That was also fun, because it brought back memories of my recruiting days as an Undergraduate.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention! At the conference I remet a PhD student who just graduated from RPI CS, Joel Branch. He is now working for IBM full-time as a researcher. That's just really exciting, so I talked to him about how life was for him at IBM, and some of the pitfalls and trials that a person may face as they are transitioning from PhD to the workplace. I also asked about how "kid-friendly" IBMs policies are, and was very happy to hear the answer. It was very informative, and made me seriously think about going to IBM afterwards and pursuing research. Who knows? Maybe I'll apply for an internship their soon.

Tapia concluded for me Tuesday night. There was an awards banquet that went a little too long, causing some of us to design plans to escape. I went back to downtown Disney for a little bit, before deciding I needed to go to bed. All in all a good time.

Stuff about Bridge day and Grace Hopper in the upcoming posts. I'm just too tired to blog about it now. Also, I probably should get moving, since checkout is in a little bit.
Till then!

-Suzanne

Florida! (part I)

Things learned so far:

1.) The food sold in the in-hotel mini-food-store is only ~$2 more expensive than the food sold at RPI.

2.) The beds at the Hilton are super soft and comfy.

3.) Downtown Disney is fun to walk around in.

4.) I look stupid with mouse ears.

5.) 4-inch heels are not good for walking, no matter how "comfortable" you think they are; 3 hours later, your feet will be in pain.

------------

Just got back from exploring Downtown Disney... there is a whole slew of shops, many of which I took pictures of. Of note was the Lego store, which I had a lot of fun walking through and taking pictures of. I also saw a "build-your-own lightsaber" station in one of the toy stores, which I just -had- to take a picture of (all my pics will be up on Facebook sometime later... during the trip, I'm not sure, but definitely after).

Conference related stuff is going to start around 6pm tonight. Until then, I'm going to relax, mostly, me thinks; maybe tuck into another research paper (I've read at least 5 so far). Or maybe I'll take a nap.. mmmm.. nap sounds good.

Getting Ready...

I'm currently in NJ, getting ready for the Richard Tapia and Grace Hopper conferences that I will be attending all of next week. I'm starting to get pretty psyched, especially about the Grace Hopper Conference, since it's largest consortium of female computer scientists in the country (~2000 last year alone). I'll probably be taking pictures and blogging about my experience while I'm there.
Who is Grace Hopper, you ask? One of the first modern computer scientists, wrote the first compiler, and developed COBOL (which, despite what current people may think about COBOL, was quite a feat). On top of all that, she was a Rear Admiral in the Navy. I found a clip on Youtube of when she appeared on the David Letterman show back in 1986, 5 years before her death:

Grace Hopper on Letterman Show, 1986.

She was also known for her visualizations of nanoseconds and picoseconds (shown in video).

Anyways, enjoy.. I'm going to get back to other stuff...

'Til then.

-Suzanne

23

So I'm 23 today.

I present to you Jakob's First Aquarium, in celebration:
Watch it now

I was hoping that youtube would post this to my blog, but apparently it's been several hours and it has not been posted.