michael@hollinger.net

Top Gear - First Cars

2009-06-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

I'm a big, big fan of the BBC auto show Top Gear. It's funny, witty, and incredibly cool. This week, they drove a Lamborghini Murciélago through the deserts of Abu Dhabi, and raced it against a Mercedes Benz McLaren SLR 722 (i.e. a "Hypercar"). :-)

In the next segment, the hosts tried to pick the perfect "first car" for a teenager. Mine was a gray 1983 Pontiac Bonneville. This was in-line with the cars the hosts picked. ;-) The Pontiac had a V6, AC that worked in the Spring and Fall, wipers that quit (at least twice) in rainstorms, and was that dull gray that disappeared in fog. Unfortunately, my parents did not spring for the optional 8-track player when they bought it new in 1982.

It made it through high school, but gave up the ghost only a month later, the night before a trip to Thailand. We had to have it towed, get home, pack, and get up at 3AM to catch our flight. Wonderful way to start a vacation abroad! ;-)

I liked my car, for all its foibles and quirks, however. It was free, it worked, and it was big enough to fit me plus several friends.

It was, however, a pretty remarkable contrast to my first "new" car, after college. ;-)

I catch up on Top Gear via the excellent FinalGear.com (not affiliated in any way with the "real" shows). Grab a torrent for any episode of Top Gear from FinalGear's torrent archive. Usually I can have a torrent downloaded to my PC, and streaming to my Xbox 360 by 9PM Central Time the same day the show aired.

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me - In Austin

2009-05-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! was recorded in Austin this week. The show's great! It sold out at Bass Concert Hall last Thursday.

Go listen to the full show here. Be sure to play the "Who's Carl This Time," and "Not My Job" segments!

Thanks NPR for providing a slick Media Player on your site!

Active Energy Manager & POWER6

2009-05-16T07:23:00.001-07:00

My friend and coworker Anirban Chatterjee (click the link to go look at one of his demos!) in IBM's Austin, TX Executive Briefing Center asked if I wanted to help create a short video explaining how EnergyScale and Active Energy Manager are married together to create more efficient servers. The video below is the output. AC's the first speaker. I'm the 2nd speaker. ;-)

For more detailed information on how to implement Active Energy Manager on POWER6-based systems, take a look at our whitepaper on IBM.com.

Essence of Inspired Design

2009-05-15T13:21:00.001-07:00

Who needs an Insight or a Prius when you can have the Infiniti Essence? It's a hybrid, rear-wheel drive, and absolutely gorgeous. I wonder when this will show up as a production car?

Because someone, somewhere needs 17.4 ft of car for one person

2009-04-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

The Geely GE is a Chinese "interpretation" of the Rolls-Royce Phantom.

The car has a super-long wheel base, and sports a single seat in the back for the passenger / head-of-state / megalomaniac who owns it.

Really?

My car's just shy of 4 years old (purchased April 30, 2005 w/ 6 miles on it!). I still have a year left on the loan, and assuming all goes well, I'll keep it about a year or two after that. So in 2011 or 2012, I might be in the market for such a fine knock-off as the one above. Or maybe I'll just stick with Japanese cars...

dorkbot @ SXSWi

2009-03-15T15:45:00.000-07:00

Major Props to Nick Pietraniec for organizing and pulling off dorkbot's 2009 show at SXSW Interactive!

I got there a little late, but made it just in time to see the "singing tesla coils" from Arc Attack, and see Nick's interview with the BBC! Check out the article on the BBC's dot.life blog.

- BBC's Interview with Nick P.

Crazy Amounts of Work

2009-02-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

I've averaged at least 70 hours a week over the course of January. I actually got home at about 12:30AM Tuesday morning, after getting into work at 8:20AM Monday. Things are OK, however I'm focused on finishing some deliverables for our team. We've run into random problems throughout the last couple of days, so there's always something to debug. Work, overall, is going well. I've stepped up a bit, and am now coordinating efforts of multiple colleagues. I'm relying heavily on each of them to work independently, and deliver quality software on-time. So far, with one exception, that's worked out well. I'm also relying on my management team to keep me moving in the right direction, as this is the first time I'm responsible for more than just my own individual contributions.

Although I've probably had dinner in my own house maybe once per week in the past week, management at work has been buying us dinner, and usually gives us at least one healthy option. Woo. Sort of.

If only I got overtime. This new position is certainly a "growth experience."

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

2008-12-14T20:07:00.000-08:00

Tux the Linux Penguin

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! Some of us are doing our own thing this time of the year; some are with our families, and some are enjoying just another day.

I've had a remarkable year that's flown by, with successes and failures, ups and downs. I'm glad that I have the friends I have through all of that. Work has been fulfilling, and some of my efforts are starting to pay off.

The house is still standing, though at dinner last night, someone did manage to bend the sliding screen door on my back porch. It's all good though. Aside from that rather humorous moment, it was a great evening. :-)

Have a great holiday, no matter which one you're celebrating!

Birthday. Woo. :-)

2008-09-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday to Me-eee...
Happy Birthday to Me!

As of this morning, I'm 26. The last few weeks have been hectic, thanks to some impending checkpoints at work, and additional responsibilities I've picked up. On top of my "day job" I was accepted into what is essentially an apprenticeship under one of our Distinguished Engineers (essentially a VP of Engineering, the second-highest technical rank at IBM). Part of the deal with this opportunity was that I would still meet all my prior commitments and deliverables, so essentially I volunteered to work an extra four or six hours a week. In addition, I just returned from a recruiting trip to OU, so I've got a few days' worth of catch-up work to do between now and Monday.

So I'm off to work (remotely) for the morning, and will go see a movie with some friends this afternoon.

On a completely unrelated note, I found this graph a bit amusing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Itanium_Sales_Forecasts_edit.png . Itanium launched nearly ten years ago, and was supposed to take the enterprise server market by storm. The plot shows the sales predictions for the Itanium year-by-year. Notice how the slopes trail off as the years go by... ;-)

SeatGuru.com - The power of "we"

2008-08-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

As most of my friends from OU recall, I used to fly fairly often (and still do to a limited extent). Through most of my life I've flown Northwest, and gotten to know the quirks on various aircraft. For example, seat "6D" in the first full row of coach on a DC-9 gets four feet of leg room, since the airplane goes from 2-2 seating in first class to 2-3 seating at this point. In other aircraft, the emergency row may give you extra leg room, but the seats are stiffer, and they may not recline.

SeatGuru.com has tips like this for many of the major carriers. The site shows interactive maps of each aircraft's cabin, along with tips on which seats are most desirable, and which seats should be avoided if possible. Take a look next time you book your tickets, or check in and are given an option to change your seat location.

This site is yet another example of the power of "crowd sourcing." By consolidating the knowledge of the masses of frequent fliers into a single, easy-to-use resource, each of us can make more intelligent decisions.

Time for me to fly home for the weekend. Unfortunately the CRJ I'm flying on has no "good" seats... just seats to stay away from. Adios!

Half a year's worth of updates

2008-07-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

Oops. I've been busy recently between work, the house, and actively Doing Nothing, so here's a summary of the last six months.

I've picked up some additional responsibilities at work, which mean that I get to see the systems I'm working on at a system level, as opposed to focusing on one or two very small pieces of the overall picture. It's fascinating to see how everything fits together at a high level, and also map that into what we, the developers, actually implement. Since my last update, Power 520, Power 550, Power 575, and Power 595 have shipped. Check this video tour of the 595 (I know Pat!) and the Power 575 Supercomputer PR Video. I had the pleasure of contributing in some way to each product. Now I'm back out of the lab and focusing on design work for the future systems.

In other work news, I got a promotion last October, was awarded an "Outstanding Innovation Achievement Award" for my contributions to IBM's EnergyScale technology this Spring, filed seven more patent as of June, and was rewarded with a trip to the National Society of Black Engineers Conference in Orlando in March.

While in Florida at the NSBE conference, a friend from work told me about Warbird Adventures. When I had a free hour Saturday, I got to fly a World War II T6 "Texan" aircraft, complete with acrobatic stunts! I'll post a video as soon as I edit the 30 minute flight down to a good 2-minute video.

The house is great, and it's been about a year since I moved in. I've gotten to know a couple of my neighbors, and like the area. The back garden is a lost cause until October, when I can clear it (again) and replant it. I'm annoyed with my home warranty folks, but I'm waiting until the warranty period is over before I write an entry about them.

By the way, Rodrigo y Gabriela are amazing. Next time they're in Austin I'm definitely going.

Blade's Announced

2007-11-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

P6 Blade's gone out the door... My team's contributions were highlighted on the 4th heading, "Go green by becoming more energy efficient..." :-)

Recessed Lights Installed... lessons learned

2007-10-01T19:41:00.000-07:00

This weekend I finished the installation of recessed lights in my kitchen. I suppose those years of stagecraft and lighting design did come in handy. The 6" cans were arranged to highlight the center island, and also provide general task lighting in the kitchen. Placement is accurate to within 1/8th of an inch. The house itself wasn't built to that precision, since certain walls aren't quite that straight. :-)

The original light was a simple translucent plastic fluorescent fixture. The day after I closed on the house, I pulled the fixture just to force myself to actually do the work. Wires dangled from the ceiling for a month until I moved in and got fed up with the lack of light. The existing fixture was wired through a 3" opening centered on the ceiling, but not on the island. Since I had to enlarge that opening, I did shift it slightly before installing the first light.

Since an opening already existed, I had very little choice in placement of the center light over the island. Since I did use this one, I was able to harness the existing circuits already wired in for the old fixture.

Items needed (total cost ~$100):

Drywall Knife ($5)

Drywall Circle Cutter (recommended, but not required... $8, eBay)

6" IC-rated Recessed Light Kit, 6-pack (~$35)

6" Baffle Trim ($40)

12-gauge 2-conductor + ground wire ($10)

Lessons learned:

Buy a drywall circle cutter. I like the Stanley "Goldblatt" Drywall circle cutter. This can easily be had for $8 shipped on eBay. This model only requires a single hand, and is incredibly easy to use.
Buy more wire than you think you need. 25 feet was just barely enough to wire up the 5 lights I have installed.
Wire lights from below, prior to installing them in the ceiling. Stripping wire and tightening wire nuts in an extremely hot, dark attic while standing on support beams and balancing a flashlight gets hard after light #3...
Buy expensive-looking baffles, but be 100% sure they fit in your fixture! This is the only part of the light that's visible... the ones I purchased attach with springs which should fit most well-designed housings.
Don't forget the amount of heat your new lights will generate. 5 65-watt lamps has raised the temperature in my kitchen a few degrees.

Consider buying a laser level to get "true" alignment on the ceiling, rather than relying on measurements off of imperfect wall edges. If that's not possible, use painter's tape to mask off lines for alignment, using a square to make sure the angles are true.

Wear gloves when handling insulation.

Consider how shadows will be cast. In my case, my stove is well-lit because two separate lights illuminate it from the sides, even when you're standing directly in front of it. However, my sink is dim because a person standing at it blocks the light, since the fixture is positioned over his or her shoulder.
Be sure to use "IC-rated" lights that are safe for contact with insulation.
Once you have your light placement marked on the ceiling from below, drill small holes and poke wire hangers through the ceiling so that you can know the exact placement of the fixtures, and move any obstructions that might be in the way (like AC ducts).

Next up? Under-cabinet lights. :-) I have to repurpose a "dishwasher" wall switch, which might actually require a real electrician since I might need to mess with the breaker box to pull a new circuit...

Happy Birthday to Me!

2007-09-21T05:08:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday to Me-eee...
Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm twenty-five years old as of this morning. Since I'm travelling for work at the moment, I won't have a chance to really enjoy the day until later... now I'm off to an all-day meeting. :-)

Are Political Autodialer Calls to Cell Phones Legal?

2007-09-13T16:11:00.001-07:00

Last year during the 2006 election season, I got roughly a dozen autodialer calls, urging me to vote for my favorite democratic candidate. I'm slightly annoyed by these, for the following reasons:

All of these candidates are running for election in Memphis, TN. I don't live in Memphis. I haven't lived in Memphis in three years.
Campaign staffers aren't able to take me off of the dialer lists.
The dialers are calling my cell phone, using up minutes.

I tried calling the TN election commission, and was lost in bureaucracy. I tried calling various campaigns, and encountered clueless campaign staffers and volunteers. I even spent hours scouring TCA last year to understand whether it was legal. Anyone have any ideas?

I fear that the autodialers are starting again... anyone else have these problems?

Project Big Green

2007-05-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

The PR blitz has begun. For the past year or so, I've been working with a team from across the globe to develop the technologies that bring these features to our entire product line. It'll be interesting to see how it's received.

PowerExecutive software, part of the IBM Systems Director portfolio, will now be available across all IBM systems and storage. Originally designed from IBM BladeCenter and System x, in November 2007 IBM will roll the free energy management technology out across IBM System i, System p, System z and System Storage. It is the only energy management software tool that can provide clients with a view of the actual power used, as opposed to benchmarked power consumption, and can effectively allocate, match and cap power and thermal limits in the data center at the system, chassis or rack level. By enabling power capping, clients can effectively run their systems on cruise control.

POWER6 has several different design features that lets us do things like this natively without having to resort to external measurements or approximations. Since IBM designs the entire system, we have hooks in the processor, system planar, and its management firmware. We also own the entire provisioning stack above that, so look out for interesting products that harness these underlying features in the future. As we begin to ship products, I'll highlight some of the important technical features, and where applicable, explain how it was done.

Work's great, especially when a customer that buys your product saves money in the long run. Oh, and it's good for the environment too. :-)

NoWonder.com's back!

2007-05-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

In the late 90's I volunteered for a technical support service called NoWonder.com. I'm not sure how I stumbled onto that back then (nearly 10 years ago!), but I spent hours of freetime answering people's questions on Macs, Windows 98, "Networking," Modems, and anything else under the sun. Around 2000 they were bought, renamed ePeople.com, and started charging money for delivering support. I could place bids to answer questions, and make $50 / month helping people. It was fun, especially considering I could make some pretty good spending money on my PC, as a 17-year-old.

I just discovered (via Wikipedia) that NoWonder's come back, and free once again! I probably won't sign up for it, but if you need tech support and don't feel like calling a helpdesk, give these guys a try. For the most part, I enjoyed helping people, and my fellow "mentors" and support specialists did a good job. It was fun, but every now and then I'd encounter a "12 o'clock flasher." Watch the video for an explanation. Out of the hundreds of people I helped (A Google Desktop search proves I solved around 150 support issues), I maintained a perfect 5 / 5 rating. :-)

There is nothing that beats the adrenaline buzz of configuring some guy's DSL modem even though he's running windows 3.1 on a 386 with four megs of RAM! - Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie

Cake-Cutting Mathematics

2007-02-22T18:27:00.000-08:00

As is usual in the cake-cutting literature, we postulate that the goal of each person is to maximize the value of the minimum-size piece (maximin piece) that he or she can guarantee, regardless of what the other person does. Thus, we assume that each person is risk-averse: He or she will never choose a strategy that may yield a more valuable piece of cake if it entails the possibility of getting less than a maximin piece.

- Better Ways to Cut a Cake

I had no idea.

"Austin had a little bit of ice and two flakes of snow..."

2007-01-21T23:15:00.000-08:00

"The local news, they showed an icicle hanging off the roof to a fella's house, and that was news here in Austin, Texas!" - Gladys Hardy, Austinite

Watch this whole five minutes, its worth it! I half-wonder if Gladys is a real person. She reminds me of the impressions that Larry the Cable Guy does... Either way, she's funny. Thanks to the JB and Sandy Morning Show guys for playing that last week!

Looks like someone took the video off of youtube. Oh well.

Update: Video's back!

"Repping the Lone Star State, Homey"

2007-01-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

height="256" align="center" bgcolor="black"
pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">

This commercial's been running for months. Go to the title link to see more from TX DOT.

Yo dog. Got a new bling-bling in the corner... Off the hook, dog.

McMansion - n. -

2007-01-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

"McMansion" is a pejorative term for a particular style of housing that, as its name suggests, is both large like a mansion and while superficially a good value, possessing standards of quality (within a developer) and ubiquitous like McDonald's fast food restaurants, lacks "nutritional" value (in the sense that a house nurtures its occupants)... - Wikipedia

Earlier I went to my first OU basketball game, and watched the Sooners lose to Texas away at Austin. I'll let Chris or Daniel explain what happened, since I really don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to basketball. While I was there, someone mentioned they'd read the post I wrote last night before my poker game, and that I'd described a "McMansion." I realized then that I really don't need a 2,200 square foot house just for me, and my stuff, even if it does look impressive. :-) We'll see what I end up with, I suppose.

House Hunting!

2007-01-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

I'm in search of a new home in Austin. The apartment, while nice, is getting old. My financial planner's OK'd my plan for financing the property, so now I need a property. I'm slowly reconciling "what I want," "what I can pay," and "what I should pay."
My dream home:

Two-story
Stone or brick facade (no / minimal siding)
Single "den" -- separate living room / family rooms are kind of a joke
Vaulted ceilings to the 2nd floor roof line in the den
"Drama" in the floor plan, i.e. high ceilings, large windows, open areas with lots of sight lines
Faces West (the Feng Shui book I read says that's most compatible with my "get up late, stay up late" living habits)
Large kitchen
No formal dining area (if possible), or a space that could be used for another purpose instead
Game room (optional -- not sure if I want a pool table or a poker table just quite yet :-) )
Master upstairs
Corner lot, or cove if possible (cul de sac, whatever)
No "poison arrow" chi from surrounding roads or landscaping, (e.g. can't be at the T-bone of an intersection)
Built after 1995 (arbitrary, I'd consider an older home that meets my other requirements)
Greenbelt view

If anyone's selling something like the above, or knows someone that is, email me (I'd use the blink tag if it wasn't deprecated).

Since I'm still not sure about a pre-owned vs. new home, I'm looking at the Austin MLS service, which consolidates multiple lists into a defacto central database for realtors in the area. This reminded me of an article Wired ran about two years ago, discussing, among other things, the "code words" that realtors use in listing a home. I'm looking through the Austin MLS listings now -- I've seen lots of homes that are in "quiet neighborhoods," or described as "cozy," "family-friendly," or as having "room to move."

An analysis of the language used in real estate ads shows that certain words are powerfully correlated with the final sale price of a house. This doesn't necessarily mean that labeling a house "well maintained" causes it to sell for less than an equivalent house. It does, however, indicate that when an agent labels a house "well maintained," she is subtly encouraging a buyer to bid low.

So consider the terms in the box on the previous page: A "fantastic" house is surely fantastic enough to warrant a high price, right? What about a "charming" and "spacious" home in a "great neighborhood!"? No, no, no, no, and no.

- Wired 13.05

And don't laugh about the Feng Shui stuff -- its actually rather useful. :-) Its a great system that I could use to judge the aspects of floor plans, and design features in a home. I'm pretty sure that if I picked up a recent book on contemporary home design I'd find the same things with a different phrasing.

CNBC's "Game On!" Wednesday night, 9PM EST

2006-11-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night at 9PM EST, CNBC's airing "Game On! The Unauthorized History Of Video Games." If you haven't seen a CNBC documentary before, they're actually very well done, and generally show multiple sides of the story, as well a glimpse inside the boardroom at the companies discussed. They produced one about Wal-Mart a few years ago, and another about American Airlines last month.

IGN has an article about the show. Add it to your DVR schedule!

IBM Plays All Sides of Console Wars

2006-11-14T05:54:00.000-08:00

No matter whether Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony wins the video game console war, there already is one huge victor: IBM, which designed and makes the microprocessors for all three units.

While previous generations of chips were always tuned to generate faster and faster processing cycles (known as clock speed, measured in megahertz and now gigahertz), IBM pushed a "multicore" design that stresses the efficiency of multiple factors, such as power consumption or graphics rendering. The setup also enables more flexibility to customize chips for particular customers' needs.

The customized "Power" chips that IBM made for the Microsoft and Nintendo consoles, as well as the "Cell" chip that IBM, Sony and Toshiba Corp. jointly created for Sony's PlayStation, all use multiple cores. Cell has nine such processing engines.

- AP Article (Click to read the full article)

Rock on, Guys... POWER6 Revealed

2006-10-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

I have the great privilege of working with these guys...

"This is the largest unveiling of our new baby," [Chief Architect Brad McCredie] said. "We will impress people. Nobody else in the industry is doubling the frequency (speed)."
In fact, other chip companies, including Intel Corp., have backed off their quest for huge boosts in operating speed because their chips were consuming too much power and creating too much heat.
IBM says it has navigated that problem with a commitment to power conservation that includes varying the voltages used in certain parts of the chip and being able to turn idle sections of the chip on and off in less than the blink of an eye. Much of the work was done by a few hundred engineers at Building 45 on IBM's North Austin campus.

- Austin American Statesman, Oct 10, 2006