adam.oliner.net

Comprehensive exams are over, with relatively positive results. I passed 6 of the 8 that I needed, which is sufficient for me to advance to Ph.D. candidacy and which constitutes me making “reasonable progress” through the end of my second year. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “reasonable progress” is the vague metric by which the Department, University, and my fellowship determine whether I’m actually worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars they are paying for me to be here. Making reasonable progress is good, and I am.

The last few weeks have been a bit surreal, actually. Aside from taking 13 hours of exams, I also meditated with the Dalai Llama while he visited Stanford, met Orkut (of orkut.com fame) at a bar in Mountain View (I believe my companions were more excited about this than I was, but that’s another story), celebrated International Jane Weekend, and a number of other minor adventures I’ll have to save for another time (because one of them is a surprise… shhhh). I was very impressed by the Dalai Llama, by the way. He was friendly, good-natured, intelligent, and, for someone whose English is by his own admission “a disgrace,” quite well-spoken. Had he not been selected at age two to become the religious leader of a third of a billion people, he said he would like to have been an engineer. His answers to audience questions (including one about genetic engineering) were structured with a respect for science, logic, and practical concerns. He talked about how, as a young man, he was obliged to memorize an ancient Buddhist text that exhaustively accounted for the movement and position of the heavens in a way that was meticulous, precise, and “completely wrong.” To paraphrase his conclusion, there was no sense ignoring what the world was telling us; blindly following the words of a religious text despite the evidence of your own senses is silly. He laughed heartily, and always a little longer than the situation merited. The world could use more religious men like him.

More tidbits: I’ve officially aligned with a research advisor, which roughly means that my bribe check cleared. But seriously, Alex Aiken has agreed to guide me through the doctoral jungle. From my few interactions with him so far, he lives up to his stellar reputation. I am very excited for the opportunity to work with him. I have temporarily put him on hold, however, to work on some residual topics related to my Master’s thesis. In particular, I am preparing a paper for a December 9th deadline. I am also working on a post about torture; keep an eye out for that, because I know you have nothing better to do. Tomorrow, I fly to Boston to spend the week with my girlfriend (Amanda-face!) and family for Thanksgiving. Can I get a “hell, yeah”?

I knew that I could. Time for me to retire now, and become a duck.

Stories are wily. They twist and splinter, twinkling as they refract and bend truth through the retelling. Such is the case with the tale of how I got this cut on my nose. There are two accounts of the event. I will recount them for you, and allow you to sift the truth from the muck.

Account #1: I was minding my own business at the bar, when a brute with disproportionate shoulders decided to engage me in some verbal fisticuffs. His motivation in this regard was unclear to me, but I was certain that he intended to solidify on public record certain facts about my loved ones and, indeed, my momma, to which I took exception. Bars are busy places, and in the aftermath of the scuffle it was not agreed upon who swung first. I maintain that this ruffian, upon hearing the entirety of my disagreement with him, struck my nose with his fist, cutting my face with his ring. After a moment’s shock at having been so shamelessly assaulted in public with no warning of the kind that would be expected of a gentleman intending to challenge another man’s honor, I responded in kind. The ensuing brawl took as casualties a couple of pint glasses and the majority of a young man’s martini. I was left the victor, with no further injuries past my initial cut. My opponent stumbled out, bleeding and beaten.

Account #2: My friend accidentally let go of his paddle when we were playing doubles ping-pong and hit me in the nose. I fell on my ass, mumbled I was fine, and went to go find a band-aid.

I leave it to you, dear reader, to discern the likely reality.

In the mean time, Comprehensive Exams are going. I’ll leave that sans adverb for the time being; I won’t know for a while which ones I passed. I’ve taken 4, and I have 8 more to go. I’ve purchased tickets home for Thanksgiving break, which is nice. I fly to Boston the 17th and return the 25th. Someone mentioned to me that my five year high school reunion might be that day, but there’s not much I can to do remedy that unfortunate timing conflict. My round trip tickets cost me a whopping five bucks, thanks to frequent flier miles accumulated through school visits and conferences. Going to Japan didn’t hurt.

Lastly, I wanted to record for posterity that I am basically no longer carded for proof of age. In particular, I have apparently reached an age when I will actually be singled out from the group as someone that need not be carded. It happened most recently when I was having a drink with Daniel in San Jose while he was here interviewing with Yahoo. We ordered beers, and the waitress asked for Daniel’s ID. Given that we are the same age, I was perplexed. The first time, however, was in Vegas. Several of us wandered into a casino and a couple among us decided to feed the gambling machines. A waitress approached us and asked for other peoples’ IDs, but not mine. “Don’t you want to see my ID?” I inquired. “No,” she responded, “I can tell. It’s in the eyes.”

Do my eyes betray the residue of experiences beyond my years? Are they sagging with the burden of a thousand memories too heavy for younger mortals? Perhaps the years of bar fights have finally begun to show, etching in my eyes, and on my nose, the lines and creases characteristic of a watering hole warrior, squandering away my time in Northern California’s seedy underbelly.

“So, what the hell,” you ask justifiably, perplexed by the conspicuous silence following my arrival in California. “Suck it,” I tactfully respond, sympathetic to your heartfelt concerns for my well-being, “I’ve been busy.” That’s the whole of it, really. Over the next 16 days, starting today, I am taking 13 exams. A dozen of these exams fall under the umbrella of tests known as the Comprehensive Exams; the last one is a midterm this evening in Programming Languages. The Comps, as we affectionately call them as though the relationship were not abusive, begin next week. I plan to take them all, because I believe myself to be above such examination prerequisites as knowledge of the subject and other piddling matters. I’ve never taken a course in Graphics or Databases, but if attending a student-run review session and browsing the notes allows me to convince someone over the course of an hour that I am acceptably competent in the material, then I consider it an hour well-spent. You can track my progress through this carnival of quizzes by consulting the official Comps schedule.

I just did respectably on a practice midterm for PL, so I’m having a beer and listening to some Pink Floyd. Specifically, The Wall. I’ve never really paid a great deal of attention to the lyrics before now. I’m not positive, but I think it might be an allegory. Seriously.

I just learned that my critical event prediction paper from a few years ago has made it onto the reading list for a course at the University of Waterloo. To the students of CS 848: enjoy!

I am excited to announce the completion of my Master’s of Engineering thesis, titled Cooperative Checkpointing for Supercomputing Systems. This thesis is the result of work done both at IBM as part of the BlueGene System Software Group and at MIT under the advisement of Larry Rudolph. It was my honor and privilege to work with them, and I am grateful for everything they did to make this thesis possible. I acknowledged a bunch of people in the document, but I hardly get started. Putting just my name on the byline seems almost dishonest; thank you all, again.

Still another bit of good news: in addition to my fellowship with the DOE, I have also been selected as an Honorary Stanford Graduate Fellow.

To reflect all these changes, I’ve done some spring cleaning on the site. The About page is now a bit more accurate, though perhaps premature. I updated the Writings page to include copies of all my publications, including my thesis. Furthermore, I posted a short novella I wrote a couple of years ago, called Glitterbug, that somehow never made it online.

Enjoy!