Author Archives: Mathias

About Mathias

Software development engineer. Principal developer of DrJava. Recent Ph.D. graduate from the Department of Computer Science at Rice University.

Summer Updates

It’s been a while since I’ve written here last. I’ve gone to Finland, I’ve come back. And there have been some pretty dramatic changes in my life (not all to be detailed here and now). Normally, this would be the … Continue reading

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Rebuffed by Snow Lake Yet Again

I made my second attempt this year to reach one of my favorite spots in the state, Snow Lake (and ideally, Gem Lake). Yet again, I turned around before I could reach Snow Lake. The first time was a snowshoeing … Continue reading

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Google Maps with Lane Guidance and Traffic

I’ve complained a lot about the Google Maps app on Android lately. Offline maps were gone, the nice navigation interface while driving was gone, favorites were gone, simple access to alternate routes was gone, distance measurement via ruler was gone. … Continue reading

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Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers

Dr. Moshe Vardi at Rice tweeted a really cool link today: Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers on Arnetminer. It lists the most-cited papers that were published at one of many conferences, and then also which paper received the “best … Continue reading

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DeLorme InReach SE

I recently bought a satellite communicator, the DeLorme InReach SE. It can send an SOS, and it’s a two-way communicator, so rescue personnel can tell you they’ve actually received your message. Of course, you can also use it to text … Continue reading

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Transcendence

I watched a pre-screening of the movie “Transcendence” today. Some cliches, like wildly flashing and scrolling consoles and computer-generated voices, as well as the somewhat rapid end aside, the movie was well-made and thought-provoking. Below are some thoughts that occurred … Continue reading

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OneNote for Mac, One Caveat

In my last post, I claimed that OneNote for Mac didn’t exist. That’s actually not true. My friend Chris informed me that about two weeks ago, Microsoft released OneNote for Mac. That still doesn’t help me, because OneNote for Mac … Continue reading

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Goodbye Old Work Laptop, Hello New Work Laptop

At the end of last week, I turned in my old 3.5 year-old work laptop, my rugged, trusted Lenovo ThinkPad T410. When I started using it at work, I didn’t like it. I was using the MacBook Pro I had … Continue reading

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Daily Yoga

For most of this year, I have done yoga every day. I still go to my class at the gym, but five to six times a week I do yoga at home using the Daily Yoga Android app. It’s fun, … Continue reading

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Avalanche Class

At the beginning of the year, I attended an avalanche awareness class at Mt. Baker, organized by KAF Adventures. The class consisted of a three-hour theoretical introduction here in Seattle, followed by a whole day spent out in the snow … Continue reading

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When Random Food Appears

Isn’t it weird how readily we eat food that randomly appears at work, even though we have no idea who put it there or where it came from? If I found food outside, I wouldn’t eat it. If food randomly … Continue reading

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From Dijkstra to Me in Four Papers

I haven’t written in a while. I at least wanted to write about going snowshoeing while attending an avalanche class. I’ll get to it some day. Today I found a website that computes distance between computer scientists. Kind of like … Continue reading

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More Mt. St. Helens Summit Pictures

Here are some more picture from my trip to summit Mt. St. Helens. Like I already mentioned, it took me about 4 hours up and 3 hours down. I had taken 4 liters of water with me, and I ran … Continue reading

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Summited Mt. St. Helens

My wild hair and I summited Mt. St. Helens today. It was a hard hike, but it was worth it. I climbed about 4500 ft (1,372 m) — that’s over 340 floors in a building! — and hiked 5 miles … Continue reading

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New DrJava stable version: drjava-stable-20130901-r5756

Corky Cartwright, my PhD advisor, released a new version of DrJava today. He writes: Dear DrJava Users: We have made a new stable version available: drjava-stable-20130901-r5756 You can download it from the DrJava website at http://drjava.org/ or from SourceForge.net by … Continue reading

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Sleep Time

Mostly out of curiosity, I downloaded the Sleep Time app for Android yesterday. It’s an alarm clock that uses the accelerometer in the phone (which has to be placed on the mattress) to determine one’s sleep phase. Based on that … Continue reading

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New Phone: Samsung Galaxy S4

In January 2011, I switched from my old Pam Treo 755p to an Android touch screen smartphone. At first I was skeptical about not having a keyboard, but boy, that was the right decision. I’d had the HTC EVO 4G … Continue reading

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Healthiest On-Call Week

At work, every engineer has a pager. Every few weeks, depending on the team, an engineer is on-call and needs to respond quickly in case something breaks in the team’s products. The week ending today was, fortunately, very quiet. There … Continue reading

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A Professor’s Prayer

From PhD Comics:

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Snorkeling Pictures

I finally got the snorkeling pictures from last month developed. I think they call it “developing” — it’s been a while since I’ve used real film.

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