Mauricio Vives' Journal

9:55pm: "Social Networking"
Happy (belated) New Year, all!

I am quite late to the whole "social networking" scene, but better late than never.  I've been on LinkedIn (for work) for a little while, and I just joined Facebook.  Strangely, I am having a lot of trouble finding people on Facebook, so if you are on there, look for me.  There are actually several "Mauricio Vives" (if you can believe that), but I think I show up first in a search.   The "Discover People You May Know" actually finds nobody that I know.

EDIT: And it begins... thanks all who replied already!  That was fast.

5:06am: Randy Pausch Memorial Service
Yesterday CMU had a memorial service for Randy Pausch on campus in Pittsburgh.  I was invited to attend, but I couldn't make it.  However, it was broadcasted live at ABCNews.com, so I watched it from home.  The site now has it ready to watch, right here.

Each of the speakers did a great job presenting some facets of Randy's life.  The best Randy advice came via Jesse Schell: "You can do more than you think!"  But the best overall line came from Don Marinelli... watch it and see for yourself!

12:23pm: Randy Pausch Passes Away
As some of my LiveJournal friends noted, Randy Pausch passed away last night from pancreatic cancer.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/07/25/obit.pausch.ap/index.html

Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers.  He will be sorely missed.

"It's not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you."

4:21am: Smart People - Update
So I did end up seeing this movie with the wife, also a CMU alum.  It has a lot of campus footage, including several interior scenes at Donner Hall.  And the university isn't given a fictional name... it is actually called Carnegie Mellon!  (unlike other films shot there)  The movie itself was OK, very similar in many ways to Wonder Boys.  Like the earlier film, it revolves around an English professor that doesn't quite have his act together, and is trying to write / publish a book.  But the plot didn't matter much for us; we just spent the $10 each to see some campus footage.

2:47am: Smart People
It looks like there is a movie out this weekend that had a lot of filming done at CMU and around Pittsburgh: Smart People.  It has gotten "decent" reviews at Rotten Tomatoes (44%), though not great.  Let me know what you think if you see it.  I think the last film with this much CMU footage was Wonder Boys, starring Robert "Iron Man" Downey Jr.

Next weekend is Carnival... see some of you there!  (10 years already...)

2:38am: Time Management, Randy-style
(OK, so this is another one about Randy Pausch.  I don't have much of my own brilliant insight to offer on this journal right now, so I will just talk about him some more.)

My wife Holly and I just got back from a crazy road trip to see Randy Pausch give a lecture on time management at UVA in Charlottesville, VA.  The trip was 20 hours driving round trip, over the course of about 48 hours.  Despite work obligations and the "wisdom" of cramming that much driving into so little time, I felt compelled to go, knowing that there was a good chance it would be the last time I see Randy.  Besides, he was meeting us halfway.  (OK, not really halfway, but still quite a bit closer than either his home or Pittsburgh.)

We were lucky to be invited by Dr. Gabriel Robins, who put the event together and made it a wonderful experience.  This was not your typical lecture, if the audience is any indication: a packed auditorium of almost 900 students, faculty, and miscellaneous (e.g. us), and the staff had to turn people away at the door after it filled up.

Video of the lecture has been posted at Google Video, and it runs for about 90 minutes.  I recommend watching it for anyone who wants to get more out of their time, which is really everyone.  There are a lot of useful tips in there, and they are all delivered with Randy's signature humor and honesty.

Also of interest is the announcement of Randy's huge book deal.  This little tidbit left me speechless when I heard about it at UVA.

10:53pm: Randy on Oprah
Randy Pausch appeared on Oprah on Monday, and you can find a summary of it here at Oprah.com.  For those of you who couldn't find time to watch the full lecture, he gave an abridged version of it on the show, only 10 minutes.  Definitely worth watching: just click the link on that page.

10:15pm: Randy
Wow, I haven't written here in a while.  I need to rectify that.  For starters...

Here is a follow-up to Randy Pausch's lecture at CMU two weeks ago:

http://www.mauriciovives.com/randy

12:49am: Latkes
A couple of nights ago, the wife decided to make latkes for dinner, in celebration of Hanukkah. Now this is not terribly interesting in itself, except that we have never had them before, and we are Catholic. She also really likes dreidels; go figure.

Anyway, apparently you are supposed to eat latkes with either sour cream or applesauce as a garnish. I thought she was kidding when she told me this, but the Wikipedia article confirmed it. So we had sour cream and applesauce on hand, and we tried them, but it wasn't working for me, so I suggested using ketchup instead. It turns out that latkes are pretty good with ketchup.

Now there is probably something in the Torah against eating latkes with ketchup, but fortunately, like I said, we're Catholic.

Shalom aleichem and Happy Hanukkah to all! Or Merry Christmas! Whatever works for you.

8:43pm: *Ding!* Your laundry is done.
In case you are too lazy to get up and check your laundry or want to know when a machine is available, and you happen to be at CMU, try the following: www.esuds.net. (They did it for soda machines... so why not.)

9:12pm: Dance Game / Pad Recommendations?
Hey folks,

I know some of you have used DDR-style dance pads at home. Do you have any recommendations for a good PS2 dance game and dance pad to go with it? There are quite a few different pads and versions of DDR out there and I am wondering what you have had the best luck with. Thanks for any suggestions!

4:52am: Sci-Fi TV Series That I Somehow Missed
Hey folks,

Does anyone have an opinion on one or more of the following sci-fi TV series: Babylon 5, Farscape, or Firefly? Somehow I managed to get through most of my 20s without watching a single episode of any of these series.

I ask because I am in need of some summer viewing: TiVo is not recording much for me at the moment; Smallville and The Simpsons aren't airing new epsodes, of course. However, these series can be quite expensive to buy: $75 per season for Babylon 5, and a shocking $130 per season for Farscape. Firefly, having the shortest run, is a relative bargain at $35 for the entire run of 14 episodes.

Thanks for any opinions!

4:56am: Tell me something I didn't already know...

LOOK OUT! ïòð

mv2s is a radioactive squirrel!!

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

3:04pm: Grand Challenge Results
Yikes... it looks like The Grand Challenge didn't go well for any of the participants. Have a look at the status board and news from CNN. To Red Team's credit, they did make it the farthest (and the fastest) along the 150-mile course... at seven miles before being disabled. Most other competitors barely made it a mile. The Grand Challenge will be repeating (annually?) until somebody can do the whole course. Better luck next time!

2:09am: DARPA Grand Challenge Tomorrow!
It's almost race day: tomorrow is the DARPA Grand Challenge, a race across the desert from Los Angeles to Las Vegas... except the racers are autonomous vehicles. Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to this, except that the race favorite, a modified Hummer, was built by a team from CMU. In fact, earlier this week, the CMU entry was the only one to complete the qualifiers! According to an article at Wired, DARPA had to amend the rules slightly to allow the other teams to proceed to the actual race.

So congratulations to Red Team on their accomplishment so far, and best of luck tomorrow!

2:34am: "Are Modern Games Too Easy?"
Yesterday Slashdot carried a story begging the question... Are Modern Games Too Easy? And that got me thinking about the Metroid remake for GBA I recently finished playing, Metroid: Zero Mission. ( Here's my two cents )

4:43am: Photo Gallery
I have finally set up a proper photo gallery on my web site. The first albums include photos from my trip to the new Air & Space Museum annex and the assembly of the LEGO Imperial Star Destroyer I got for Christmas (yes, I must still be 10 years old). Here it is:

http://www.mauriciovives.com/gallery

Let me know what you think!

1:07am: Giant Robots in 2004
For those of you who grew up on giant robots, this is an important year! 2004 is the 20th anniversary of both Transformers and Battletech (a.k.a. MechWarrior). My favorite Transformers character is this monstrous fellow and my favorite BattleTech mech remains this inefficient beast.

It it well worth nothing that a slightly smaller "robot" was also introduced in 1984.

8:31pm: The final episode of Futurama is this Sunday (August 10) at 7:00 PM on FOX. With any luck, the entire run of the show will eventually be released on DVD; season 2 is available later this month. More info on this high quality show at www.gotfuturama.com.

1:35am: SIGGRAPH 2003
My impressions of SIGGRAPH 2003 last week in San Diego:

http://www.mauriciovives.com/siggraph03

11:27pm: Futurama Video Clips
Hey folks, I have been collecting a bunch of Futurama video clips recorded with the camera on PDA (Sony Clie NX70V). You can find them here. They are in QuickTime format, though I must admit that the video quality is pretty bad (hey, they are recorded directly off a TV screen at 160x120... I guess you can't expect much).

If you have any interest in Futurama, take a look. Well, even if you don't have an interest, take a look anyway... it's a great show, and it's a shame that Fox won't be renewing it.

1:06am: Peer Pressure
After much prodding from some friends who are on LiveJournal (notably bk3c), I have finally set up an account with the obvious username of mv2s. Well, it's obvious for CMU graduates who had the old four character email addresses (yes, it was archaic). That's all for now!