two pieces of software i recently came across, might make my future e-life a little easier to manage. one, this free bit called AM-DeadLink nicely detects dead links and duplicates among my Firefox (or IE) bookmarks. i had a spaghetti mess of nearly 800 bookmarks, which were cut down to about 500 after i ran this, and tracked things down. score 1-0 for New Year's resolutions of oh-cee-dee-ness. two, i've been looking for some way to label my ever-growing collection of PDF references (research papers). putting them in folders seems like a crude peg-in-a-square-hole solution, what i want is more like a Gmail-type labelling system. i haven't tried it yet, but Tagg seems to be the only option here. somewhat disappointing... software developers, hello?!
- posted by Eric @ 1:48 PM

 
i had been idly looking for a simple personal financial software for a while. i considered quicken, msmoney, moneydance. but, really all i wanted was an online app that could consolidate all my accounts and (this is the key part) automatically update them by polling my credit card, savings account, student loans, etc.

it turns out there are a number of free web 2.0 apps out there (some more beta than others) that are trying to do just this. i first tried wesabe, but for now i am sticking with yodlee. someone wrote a pretty comprehensive review of the latter, so i'll spare you the details. suffice it to say i was very impressed when it automatically pulled all my transactions, and even grouped most them into categories on the first try (recognizing, for example, that shell and arco are both "auto/gas" transactions).

surprisingly, i didn't find a lot of press out there describing such online services (perhaps because many are so recent), so i will list here some of the others i've come across: foonance, mo.neytrack.in and billmonk. if you prefer a spreadsheet that sits on your computer vs. online accounting, then check out pear budget, a simple but attractive and well laid-out excel spreadsheet.
- posted by Eric @ 4:37 PM

 
every now and then a killer mix comes my way... killer song selection, killer mixing, killer vibe. mr. blentwell likens this to the "moment when a live grenade comes skittering across the [dance] floor and eases to a halt." this month's killer mix is Frequento's Bouncing Floor Bomb, straight outta Leipzig, the (East) German city oddly cited as one of the cheapest in Europe (clearly, they did not survey cities in Romania). and if you thought Leipzig would produce a minimal techno mix, check this Bomb out... dripping funk and mashed-up hip-hop. thanks earplug for the tip.
- posted by Eric @ 11:43 PM

 
i saw the movie Proof last night and Gwyneth Paltrow's performance blew me away. what's more, i have yet to see another film which is nearly so "pitch-perfect in its command of how academics talk and live" (thanks, Roger Ebert).
- posted by Eric @ 5:56 PM

 
if becoming a prof doesn't pan out, i figured out what my next-favorite job might be. not a dj or music producer (those might take honorable mention), but the job of the guy who picks the music for commercials and movies. of course, i'm not sure where the ph.d in ee would come in there, so we'll chalk that up to "alternate universe." and since there is an infinite number of parallel universes, i'll use up my second one for Jon Stewart's job.
- posted by Eric @ 12:24 PM

 
strictly for the record... i spent thursday night in the detroit airport after missing my connecting flight to providence due to bad weather. thus i have learned that when weather is at fault, the airline (here NWA) will not supply a complimentary hotel room for stranded travelers.

somewhat related... while booking a recent trip i discovered that if you really set your mind to it, you can fly from San Francisco (SFO) to San Jose (SJC). to complete the absurd trip, Travelocity will politely route you through LA or Vegas, while charging about $700 for the 30 net miles traveled.
- posted by Eric @ 12:41 AM

 
my new (university-assigned) roommate is fresh off the plane and still jetlagged from italy. he says he learned english by downloading entire episodes of futurama and the simpsons from file-sharing networks. a few hours later, i realized he didn't know what bagels were, but when i showed him one he said "hmmm, donuts!"
- posted by Eric @ 1:25 AM

 
with 9 days left until my thesis defense, i found some inspiration for preparing my talk in an unlikely source: barack obama's speech at the democratic national convention.

- posted by Eric @ 11:02 PM

 
what's in a song? i had a few long, tired, blue days this week, so one thing i did was get a lot of sleep last night. my alarm radio woke me up bright and shiny today to bob marley's "get up, stand up: stand up for your rights ... don't give up the fight!" which i thought was exactly what i needed. [yeah, i know i probably sound like a deluded fourteen year old as i write this]
- posted by Eric @ 10:30 AM

 
what a difference a day makes. the stanford campus was alive, teeming with tens of thousands of people at yesterday's graduation. today, the only reminder of the crowds are the trash and recycle bins, filled with cardboard box carcasses, discarded microwave ovens, dirty mattresses and other junk. the student center is mostly empty, no lunch lines, a few amused grad students sitting around. welcome to summer quarter.

completely unrelated, but my theory of the day goes something like this: you don't know how well you're sleeping until you wake up.
- posted by Eric @ 5:05 PM

 
the new XLR8R got here a few days ago. this magazine simply kicks. the cd sampler that comes with every issue is alone worth the subscription. i'm listening to it right now, aural bliss, month after month. packed with new gems, many unreleased, each with its definite, head-nodding beat. music that sets you free. so i'm feeling inspired, to the point that instead of spending my day blowing up electrical connectors 500 times thinner than the human hair, i'd rather spend my day making music. you could say creating something, rather than destroying it, i guess. trouble is, i'm facing a problem similar to the one i had when moving to the US more than a decade ago. so much to say, and no vocabulary. maybe i'll go make a mix cd, cause at least i can beatmatch.
- posted by Eric @ 3:03 PM

 
today, in stanford's tresidder gym (i counted) six out of nine girls were wearing identical shorts, the ones with "stanford" written across the butt. have people run out of ideas for what to wear at the gym, in a campus this full of smart, creative people? as if they all bought the same shorts (ok, a few different colors) at the stanford store next door, just before entering the gym. 6 out of 9, i ain't kiddin'!
- posted by Eric @ 10:38 PM

 
went to the dna lounge last nite, for the "alumni" party, mainly featuring pre-1994 acid house and techno. the music was wicked good ("fierce" as my buddy jack would put it): djs markie mark, spun (and later doc martin, although he wasn't on by the time we left at 3am) played an awesome selection... house music like i haven't heard in SF in a while. yeah, i guess i am getting tired of deep and prog house, it tends to make me yawn these days.

someone took a cool picture of me "grabbing" a laser beam and was nice enough to mail it to me.
- posted by Eric @ 10:44 PM

 
i just came across an insanely comprehensive (yet brief and to the point) guide to electronic music. check it out!
- posted by Eric @ 2:34 AM

 
this is such a bizarre-sounding headline: "head of UCLA cadaver program arrested in body theft case." [story]
- posted by Eric @ 11:28 PM

 
i voted today, for the first time in a US election. got to exercise this privilege of my still-recent US citizenship (really, the one big thing separating my US citizen status from my old green-card holder status). otherwise, i'm still kind of hung up on this two-party system, the electoral college mess, and how people are often afraid to vote for a certain candidate because s/he is "unelectable" or it may "waste" their vote. it squeezes out diversity. but still, c'mon people, rock that vote.

ps: i wish the local media had more coverage of the voting issues affecting the bay area.
- posted by Eric @ 11:30 PM

 
a friend who recently returned from a trip to London writes "I [...] did see curry-flavored condoms for sale in a pub bathroom in London. Another flavor on the list was kangaroo."
- posted by Eric @ 1:00 AM

 
today i saw Santa Claus playing the mandolin outside Meyer library.
- posted by Eric @ 5:56 PM

 
the public art project that is my car got a third contribution a few days ago (this one from, uh, a friend). tired of all the attention i got driving around like that, i finally went to the car wash yesterday. a clean car is a stealth car, at least in california.
- posted by Eric @ 4:24 PM

 
today my computer died in a creative way. the screen was littered with console errors, but only random letters were showing: "warning" would appear as "w ni g." i wish i'd taken a picture of it. turns out the fan died, so the cpu was overheating and shutting down. this, in the Stanford microscale heat transfer group... aaah, who said irony was dead? i avoided a trip to Fry's and fixed it with a soldering iron. i knew those EE degrees would be useful one day.

i do have a picture to post today. this is how my officemate ties her hair with electrical connectors.
- posted by Eric @ 4:32 PM

 
after several dirty tahoe trips, my car's becoming sort of a public art project. the drawings were added by different random people.
- posted by Eric @ 2:06 PM

 
rant mode on.
finished the world's nastiest postdoc app today. had to upload umpteen different word (not pdf) files of past and proposed research. but you can't upload a resume, noooo, that info you have to tediously build from pull-down menus item by item. also needed was my naturalization date, which is conveniently not listed on the citizenship certificate, and the naturalization number. now get this, there are two serial numbers on said certificate, so which one is it?! add on top of that four references, in sealed envelopes from the recommenders back to me so i have to mail them in, because it would make too much sense if the recommenders (think those who are across the country) mailed them in themselves. all this through an insecure website, http not https, unlocked icon at browser bottom.
rant mode off.

naturally, after i hit that submit button i was ready to get out like a certain part of janet's anatomy on superbowl night. my luck started turning around dinner time when a friend called and mentioned he had an extra concert ticket. so i saw The Shins at The Fillmore. it was sold out and i was surprised to run into so many stanford kids there. i guess i really did, uh, misunderestimate the campus crowd.

freeeeeebiiiiiiiird!
- posted by Eric @ 2:09 AM

 
did anyone notice how the FCC launched an immediate inquiry into the janet boob thing, yet the goverment has taken months to even start looking into the disclosure of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame? i say hurray for boobs, not bombs.
- posted by Eric @ 9:05 PM