叫んでも聞こえないこの声

I've got mail!

Tammy remade me as a Southpark character today. This is what I look like:

Sometimes when I flap my arms I really do fly away

Quick recap of recent events: I went to Seattle for a few days (instead of studying for finals) to interview with Amazon.com. They sent me back an offer that's pretty good.

So there's a distinct possibility I'll be moving up to Seattle where I will sit on a reasonable pile of money and twiddle my thumbs.

Anti-public service announcement

It's been brought to my attention that my commenting system was more or less blocking everyone.

That should now be fixed, and I've switched my comment blocking software to use regexes and whatnot instead. For those of you who don't know what regexes are, a quick introduction:

Regexes (REGular EXpressions) are nifty and compact ways to express words/sentences/strings in general. The most common character you'll see in a regex is '*', which means "match anything." For example, dog* will match "dogwood", "dog house", and "doggy" but not "hot dog." Purists will say that it should instead be dog.*, but too bad, we're going with shell globbing rules instead.

So if you try to put in a comment with funky mutations on words like viagra or cialis and whatnot, it's likely your comment will be blocked. For the rest of us non-impotent folks, your comments should go through now. If you continue to have problems, let me know.

This is the part I convince myself that I don't get comments because my comment system isn't working, rather than accepting the fact that I'm just boring.

I'm full of love, joy, and other fine things

To all the women who've ever contacted a guy only because they want something: Fuck you.

To all the guys who've ever had a girl contact them, and had a conversation that went like:

Her: Hey!
Him: hey
Her: (Long time no see!) I think I have a problem with _________, do you know how to fix it?

Either demand compensation in the form of: 1) sex, 2) money, 3) food, 4) cleaning services; or tell them to fuck themselves for breaking your heart 2 years ago and that you hope they drop dead from herpes to the brain (serious aside: is that possible?)

Sometimes, you don't even get the "Long time no see" (or equivalent) part.

Now, to give this entry a slightly more conrete basis:

If you use AIM (or any other instant messaging program), stop clicking the god damn links. Your friends do not say "hey check out my pics (link)" Stop clicking the god damn links. Read the URLs on the link before you decide to randomly click on it. And then don't click on the god damn link. Your friends don't send generic emails to random people on the internet (and if they do, they should be shot). So don't click on the god damn links.

Remember, computer viruses spread the same way STDs do: Interaction with people who are uneducated and/or don't use protection. If you wouldn't have unprotected sex with the person who's sending you a link, don't click it. Even if you would have unprotected sex with the person who's sending you the link, don't click it. In fact, just stop clicking things. Your computer won't break (as often) then.

If you find yourself offended, try to convince yourself that you (really) know how to use a computer*. When you've failed to do that, accept that you don't know the first thing about putting a condom on your computer, and learn how. Then you can play happily with your friends and not worry about transmitting digital veneral diseases.

* A couple quiz questions for those who think you know your stuff:

- What does the hosts file do?
- Where do viruses tend to place themselves?
- Does the URL displayed in IE always corresopnd to where you're really at? If so, since when? If not, why?
- Same question as above, but for Firefox
- Should you click links?
- Should you click links even if you know who sent them to you?
- Should you click links even if you know whos ent them to you and you've successfully had a 10 minute conversation about how it's a safe link and it's not just some automated message?

Erotica in Antarctica

Amazon decided it was worth their while to fly me up to Seattle, so I decided to take a short vacation and wander about the salty air. Get some sun. Wander about without a clear agenda. In short, do all the things I loved doing as a child.

Since long detailed paragraphs relating every insignificant event bore me to death, I'll instead hit on the highlights:

* Went to one of the top 10 steakhouses in the country, Metropolitan Grill. $50 well spent.

* Went to a Brazilian place where they keep bringing out fresh racks of various meats mesquite roasted over real(!) wood.

* Went to the top of the Space Needle, and saw a guy propose to his girlfriend there (complete with tears and hugs).

* Sat on a bench at a park that's right on the beach, where the waves crash in, and watched the sun set.

* Saw the real Pike's Place fish market, where the training video for my work at Rescomp was made. They really do throw fish around!

* Had some really good fish and chips

* Saw the pimpest library I've ever seen...Seattle public library, at www.spl.org

* Amazon's headquarters building is scary looking. It sits on top of a hill, used to be a hospital, and looks like it came straight out of Gotham City.

Lots of insignificant make-you-smile-on-the-inside stuff aside, that was my trip. Regardless of whether Amazon decides to hire me or not, it was a fun trip...and that's what counts.

Money and expectation

They say 9 out of 10 startups fail. If anything, that sounds rather optimistic to me. But for the sake of argument, let's pretend it's accurate.

Let's also suppose that when your startup makes it, you get 20 million dollars. That's not that much money; www.thefacebook.com is valued at 100 million now.

Assuming the chance of you succeeding in a startup is uniformly distributed amongst all attempts, and it takes you a year with each attempt, then it's clear that you should do a startup instead of work for corporate America. Here's why:

The probability of success = .1
The payoff of success = 20 million
Each try takes time = 1 year
The expected value of the amount of money you'll make, E[X], is (.1) * (20 million) = 2 million each year.

Suppose you need to work with 4 other people to keep yourself motivated, get things done, etc. Then your expected return per annum is 2 million divided by 4, or $500k.

If you work for The Beast (Microsoft), as a highly reknown Software Development Engineer (SDE), you'll be rewarded with $100k/year. This is about the max you can expect coming out of college. As you become older, the most you can expect to earn as a software engineer is bounded above by $200k.

Consider that the next time you apply for a job.

When no one's looking, I flap my arms and pretend they're wings

In the next few days (or weeks), I will be flying up to Seattle for an interview. It's a nice free trip to another state.

A few weeks after that, I will be spending a few months on the east coast, either in Harvard or just outside of Manhattan, working on some start-up code.

If anybody knows of any cool places in the area, please let me know.