Alpertopia » Alpertopia

01-15-10

Hulu Desktop + Wiimote

I learned today of Hulu Desktop, a way to watch Hulu without opening the web browser. I had just bought a Bluetooth dongle with the hope of using it as an interface device, and this was the first opportunity to do so!

Using Jason Smith’s Wiimote Presenter, I just remapped some keys to make more sense for Hulu. The Hulu configuration file for Wiimote Presenter is here.

Windows 7 also comes with Bluetooth support in-box, so all you have to do (if you have a BT dongle or laptop) is right-click the Bluetooth icon in the system tray, go to add device, press 1+2 on the wiimote, click the wiimote in the device list, and select the option to pair without a code.

01-10-10

Stupid Norton: IPv4 autoconfiguration error

I spent two hours trying to figure out why, whatever the configuration settings I threw at it, a laptop would not connect to a wireless connection. Turns out the culprit was Norton Internet Security. Only by running the Norton Removal Tool was I able to fix the computer.

Basically, ipconfig /all would give me the following message:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::ed42:547:5d1b:20ef%9
Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.32.239
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Ooooh, how fun, they say. 169.254.x.x is the IANA-defined black-hole. Oops. Of course, rebuilding the IP stack or turning off IPv6 didn’t help. Sigh. Probably recommending that everyone remove Norton now now that MS Security Essentials, AVG, Ad-aware, etc etc do a better job without destroying the computer while updating.

12-07-09

Overlake Double-take

Can someone tell me what the Sounder is doing at Overlake Transit Center? I wonder how heavy rail will annoy people working around that area, heh.

11-18-09

Transit hacking – polylines

After attending the King County Metro developers conference earlier in October, they awarded each of us with a CD of the current dataset and also a GTFS copy of the data. I had been having troubles trying to figure out metro’s shape data (apparently it was some form of GIS awesomeness), so I was sooo happy to find out that Google’s format has shapes defined by a list of lat/long points.

After adding all the data to a sql server instance, I hacked together a C# program to extract the lat/long points for each shape and encode Google Maps polylines, with the help of an implementation Mark Rambow did in java. That put info back into the database, so I exported it into mysql and put it up on Alpertopia.

It seems to work pretty well! There’s a wacky issue with some routes completely screwing up the map though; so if a route doesn’t display, you’ll have to reload the page. I haven’t pinned down the bug yet.. One of the coolest things here is jQuery, which everyone on the internet says is awesome. I really didn’t like the syntax at first, but my then-roommate Chris was using it in his research and was extoling the virtues of it. Looking at the code of my hacking above, I’ve gotta admit that it’s pretty nice

Those shape IDs correspond to individual trips that the buses take, so that a bus can have more than just two trips (allows for express, weekend, snow routes). That’s the next step, hopefully.

If there’s any interest in the code behind it to generate the polylines, I’d be happy to make it available.

09-23-09

New Research & Moving On

Though there’s been a little bit of a hiatus at Alpertopia, we here like to think we keep the ball rolling. We sort of do!

I have graduated from the University of Washington and am now working with Microsoft in Windows Core! It’s an interesting transition as I’ve been in academia for nearly all of my life as the expectations, responsibilities, and obligations are different, and free time is radically different (only in the evening, usually not on my terms!). I’m working with a great group of people, and they’ve been really accommodating to me.

For my senior thesis, I wrote a little bit about quantum computation. You can learn more about it by clicking on the image on the right-hand side or by browsing to the projects page. It went pretty well, but I’ve been rather anxious at how quickly it ended; I feel like I need to actually complete the research in order to tie it off!

I recently trundled down to the SDOT warehouse in SoDo to pick up some surplus signs. I took a couple pictures with my phone and some pictures of the spoils! Greenwood Ave., Sand Pt. Wy., Fremont Ave., and Newton St. all made the cut! See the pictures below or at the Flickr set.

I’m hoping to get a lot of backpacking in this fall, keep your eyes posted for pictures soon.

10-14-08

Moving Hosts

Hey all -

I’ll be moving hosts in the next couple of days, so this post will serve as bookmark whether the domain has propagated over to the new site or not. This way, I’ll know it has not if I still see this post on the front page!

04-16-08

Site Redesign!

Hey all -

I’m in the middle of redesigning the site, hopefully to give it a better look than it looked like before! I hope to use this to keep old friends and teachers up to date on what’s happening in my life and to touch base with other people interested in public transit, chemistry, and quantum computation.

Hopefully by the beginning of May this will be up and rolling; for now, it’s time to edit those darn Wordpress templates.

09-03-07

Alpertopia is open!

Hello everyone, I’m happy to say that this blog has been something that I’ve wanted to open for a long time, the main structure is pretty much done, but certain aesthetic features will be changed and added in the near future. Welcome to Alpertopia.

The main impetus for this blog is to join the Seattle transit/transportation blogging community, but this will definitely have a personal shift of goings-on in my life and the communities around me. Look for specific sections to come soon.

I wanted to discuss the Shoreline School District just north of Seattle. Currently, the teachers’ unions SEA and SESPA are negotiating a pay increase relative to the increase of the cost of living in the greater Seattle area. They’re asking for a 4.3% increase in all areas of spending, synchronous with the state’s cost of living adjustment (COLA), currently staged at 3.9%. After lackluster funding over the last couple of years and the numerous layoffs of teachers for budgeting reasons, the union is asking for 4.3% in all areas, 0.4% more than that mandated by law. More detail can be found here.

The total cost to the school district is $1.4 million dollars. Through government mandated expenditures, $1.04 million can be covered by state money. The school district is hesitant to pay the remaining $429,000 to meet the terms set forward by the union (SEA seems to be pushing it more). The school district is currently in the red $1.7 million dollars even after a $149.5 million dollar grant was approved last year for facilities improvements. The school board plans to alleviate this discrepancy by removing several school programs, including, but not limited to, reduced bus routes/stops, elimination of all sports “C” teams, and elimination of the school’s traffic safety program. Additionally, the school district has saved (just) $1.4 million in closing two elementary schools (one of which I attended), and $4.7 million in pay cuts to all employees.

The $149.5 million dollar grant is specifically stipulated by law to only apply to program and facilities improvements, and the school district claims it cannot use those funds for primary purposes such as employee payroll. The refinishing of Shoreline stadium’s track and field as well as Shorecrest High School’s retrofitting of its field to astroturf was paid for by this grant.

It’s difficult to find discussion about this, but it’s frankly very appalling that our teachers have to fight over half a million dollars when we approved an eighth of a billion dollars to the very same school district. Some linking to other discussions would be awesome.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend!