It's always fun to daydream about things you'd love to do one day, and if I write down those daydreams I could win the $500 Budgets are Sexy giveaway, sponsored by Life Insurance Finder.
So here goes. My bucket list:
1) Buy and live on a boat for a year, travel from dock to dock.
2) Visit the Medeterranian
3) Spend a couple weeks in a foreign country, alone, learning a new culture
4) Rock climb outdoors
5) Skinny dip
6) Visit Bora Bora
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Friday, September 11, 2009
NASA's Risk Aversion
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4330356.html
Part of me REALLY wants to agree with this article. Going out and exploring new frontiers is the American way and I'm about as patriotic as a girl can get. I've also always been fascinated by the idea of space and hope that I can go into space sometime before I die.
But the bigger part of me is the computer scientist who knows how easy it is for bugs to show up and knows how guilty I would feel if a bug introduced by me or my team were to cause a fatal accident. Someone at work the day mentioned how he can't even comprehend what it must feel like to be one of the analysts who had to say "I didn't see it coming" after 9-11-01. I feel the same way about Therac-25. Astronauts and Pilots may know that they're risking their lives, but living with the death of another person on your hands would be difficult.
NASA's had it's fair share of errors (missing hyphens, unhandled exceptions, rounding errors, metric conversions). It's a very visible organization. Fatal errors in the DoD will fly under the radar unless a reporter gets his hands on the story, but even small bugs NASA runs into are immediately visible. And if NASA runs a mission and there's a mission-critical error (camera won't operate, safety issue, etc) it would be far more expensive to waste a mission than to spend extra money getting it right the first time.
Another problem NASA has is testing. There is no test system and production system. They have to deal with mockups and pray that they got it right before something launches. NASA's development model is so vastly different from the real world because they're not working with the same types of systems found elsewhere.
All in all, I feel like my opinion is "yes, they are over-averse to risk, but I can understand why and I won't balk much"
Part of me REALLY wants to agree with this article. Going out and exploring new frontiers is the American way and I'm about as patriotic as a girl can get. I've also always been fascinated by the idea of space and hope that I can go into space sometime before I die.
But the bigger part of me is the computer scientist who knows how easy it is for bugs to show up and knows how guilty I would feel if a bug introduced by me or my team were to cause a fatal accident. Someone at work the day mentioned how he can't even comprehend what it must feel like to be one of the analysts who had to say "I didn't see it coming" after 9-11-01. I feel the same way about Therac-25. Astronauts and Pilots may know that they're risking their lives, but living with the death of another person on your hands would be difficult.
NASA's had it's fair share of errors (missing hyphens, unhandled exceptions, rounding errors, metric conversions). It's a very visible organization. Fatal errors in the DoD will fly under the radar unless a reporter gets his hands on the story, but even small bugs NASA runs into are immediately visible. And if NASA runs a mission and there's a mission-critical error (camera won't operate, safety issue, etc) it would be far more expensive to waste a mission than to spend extra money getting it right the first time.
Another problem NASA has is testing. There is no test system and production system. They have to deal with mockups and pray that they got it right before something launches. NASA's development model is so vastly different from the real world because they're not working with the same types of systems found elsewhere.
All in all, I feel like my opinion is "yes, they are over-averse to risk, but I can understand why and I won't balk much"
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Congress Can Actually Tackle a Problem the Right Way?!
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1912284,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
So this is a subject that hits very close to home for me. Statistically, I should have been an abortion. My birthmother got pregnant at the age of 17 in 1985. She chose the hard route of putting me up for adoption. I was adopted by the most loving set of parents a girl can have, and was given all the attention and discipline that a strong-willed child like myself needed. And now I'm a happy and productive member of society. I work towards saving lives! In the grand scheme of things, I matter in this world. All because Loretta loved me enough to let me live!
I can not support the idea of abortion as "the easy way out." I'm not against abortion for religious reasons. I'm not too religious to begin with. I really would like to see required education before abortions (side effects, other options, psychological impact) and I would like to see mandatory therapy after. I don't think of abortion as an all or nothing. I see it more like gun control, where it's allowed, but we want to do everything possible to prepare you for this so you're not jumping in blind.
I think this is the first time I've really seen the government think outside of the box on an issue and create a bill to help reduce what causes the political issue instead of just leaning towards one side or another.
Here's a summary of the bill:
So this is a subject that hits very close to home for me. Statistically, I should have been an abortion. My birthmother got pregnant at the age of 17 in 1985. She chose the hard route of putting me up for adoption. I was adopted by the most loving set of parents a girl can have, and was given all the attention and discipline that a strong-willed child like myself needed. And now I'm a happy and productive member of society. I work towards saving lives! In the grand scheme of things, I matter in this world. All because Loretta loved me enough to let me live!
I can not support the idea of abortion as "the easy way out." I'm not against abortion for religious reasons. I'm not too religious to begin with. I really would like to see required education before abortions (side effects, other options, psychological impact) and I would like to see mandatory therapy after. I don't think of abortion as an all or nothing. I see it more like gun control, where it's allowed, but we want to do everything possible to prepare you for this so you're not jumping in blind.
I think this is the first time I've really seen the government think outside of the box on an issue and create a bill to help reduce what causes the political issue instead of just leaning towards one side or another.
Here's a summary of the bill:
- Support contraceptive use
- Teach parents how to talk to their kids about sex
- Educate the public about adoption
- Home nurse visits for low-income mothers
- Expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Facebook != Twitter
I read an editorial today discussing the updates to Facebook and they said something to the effect of "Facebook is the new Twitter"
Facebook will never be like twitter because there isn't an API where users can customize facebook to their whims. I can post my twitter status updates on my web page, I can update twitter from a browser plugin, and I can view twitter updates without being in a browser at all. Facebook will never loosen their reigns to allow this, and unless they do, they won't be able to take over Twitter's niche in the market. User's can update their facebook status from Twitter, so owning both accounts isn't even an inconvenience to users.
I'm pretty busy today, so I know this is poorly written and apologize for that. Maybe I'll come back and edit later, but you never know haha!
Facebook will never be like twitter because there isn't an API where users can customize facebook to their whims. I can post my twitter status updates on my web page, I can update twitter from a browser plugin, and I can view twitter updates without being in a browser at all. Facebook will never loosen their reigns to allow this, and unless they do, they won't be able to take over Twitter's niche in the market. User's can update their facebook status from Twitter, so owning both accounts isn't even an inconvenience to users.
I'm pretty busy today, so I know this is poorly written and apologize for that. Maybe I'll come back and edit later, but you never know haha!
Monday, October 27, 2008
Salsa in Atlanta!
Sorry this is so late in coming, I saved it as a draft ages ago and forgot about it! Election post to come soon.
So the Salsa trip was amazing! I had so much fun, and made a lot of high quality new friends. I even made friends that are either living in Roanoke, or come up to visit a lot!
I didn't really learn a lot, like I did on the last trip, but I'm totally fine with that. I do hope I can make the next workshop on rueda. I really want to know what the calls are so I'm not a bumbling idiot on Wed nights.
So the trip went down like this. I made about 8 dozen cookies to share with everyone. Most of them were eaten, and if I'd left them on the counter instead of in a box, my guess is that all of them would have been devoured. I picked up my passengers and we started our long-ass drive down. The weather wasn't awesome, but I had great company and many laughs were had :)
When we got there we had to put our gears in motion and get ready for dinner. We arrived at 730 and had dinner reservations at 9. We went to a Tapas restaurant that played Salsa music, and had AMAZING food. I tried goat for the first time and fell in love! I also had some tamarind chicken, a couple of steak items, and some duck. There were lots of plantains too. Yum yum!
After dinner the performance team went to a ballroom to try to perform while the rest of us went to a club called Sanctuary. The club was in the suburbs and kind of dead, but we were a huge group, so we made it fun!
I had a few too many shots of Patron (I think 1 is too many when it comes to tequila!) and was hurting the next day when Kamal, Chanda, Thomas, and I went to the Aquarium. It was still a lot of fun. I got to see sleeping river otters, and some playful sea otters, and lots of sharks! Some of the sharks were HUGE! One of them decided to take a dump in front of this wall sized window into the tank while a lady was giving a talk. The whole room was cracking up and I don't think she knew why, haha! We also saw this amazing Beluga whale, who used to be a performing whale, so he was showing off the whole time :)
That night we got some Chipotle for dinner (when can we get one up here!?!) and went to this amazingly fun club called Loca Luna. It was packed and I had a lot of guys hit on me, which I'm not really used to. I avoided alcohol that night after the night I'd had before, but still had a blast, even if it was too crowded to dance Salsa.
I'm already excited for this winter's trip! I've heard rumor of Philly being our destination! If so it very well might be the first time I ever venture north of the mason-dixon line! It's gonna be fun no matter what though :)
So the Salsa trip was amazing! I had so much fun, and made a lot of high quality new friends. I even made friends that are either living in Roanoke, or come up to visit a lot!
I didn't really learn a lot, like I did on the last trip, but I'm totally fine with that. I do hope I can make the next workshop on rueda. I really want to know what the calls are so I'm not a bumbling idiot on Wed nights.
So the trip went down like this. I made about 8 dozen cookies to share with everyone. Most of them were eaten, and if I'd left them on the counter instead of in a box, my guess is that all of them would have been devoured. I picked up my passengers and we started our long-ass drive down. The weather wasn't awesome, but I had great company and many laughs were had :)
When we got there we had to put our gears in motion and get ready for dinner. We arrived at 730 and had dinner reservations at 9. We went to a Tapas restaurant that played Salsa music, and had AMAZING food. I tried goat for the first time and fell in love! I also had some tamarind chicken, a couple of steak items, and some duck. There were lots of plantains too. Yum yum!
After dinner the performance team went to a ballroom to try to perform while the rest of us went to a club called Sanctuary. The club was in the suburbs and kind of dead, but we were a huge group, so we made it fun!
I had a few too many shots of Patron (I think 1 is too many when it comes to tequila!) and was hurting the next day when Kamal, Chanda, Thomas, and I went to the Aquarium. It was still a lot of fun. I got to see sleeping river otters, and some playful sea otters, and lots of sharks! Some of the sharks were HUGE! One of them decided to take a dump in front of this wall sized window into the tank while a lady was giving a talk. The whole room was cracking up and I don't think she knew why, haha! We also saw this amazing Beluga whale, who used to be a performing whale, so he was showing off the whole time :)
That night we got some Chipotle for dinner (when can we get one up here!?!) and went to this amazingly fun club called Loca Luna. It was packed and I had a lot of guys hit on me, which I'm not really used to. I avoided alcohol that night after the night I'd had before, but still had a blast, even if it was too crowded to dance Salsa.
I'm already excited for this winter's trip! I've heard rumor of Philly being our destination! If so it very well might be the first time I ever venture north of the mason-dixon line! It's gonna be fun no matter what though :)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Skating Chronicles Part I
So I bought a pair of inline skates yesterday. They were slightly used and half the price of what they cost new. So after I bought those and the pads, I spent less than I would have on new crappier skates at Dicks.
So I put them on just to see how much I remembered from being a kid. Dog on the leash + me in skates for the first time since I grew out of my old pair at 10 = a disaster. The dog was terrified of me in the skates! Probably cause I had no balance or coordination. I'm not gonna take her on a walk with them again till I get a little bit better at not looking like an idiot, and after I learn to stop!
Luckily, David offered to help me learn this weekend after Day Away. I'll post a progress update later!
So I put them on just to see how much I remembered from being a kid. Dog on the leash + me in skates for the first time since I grew out of my old pair at 10 = a disaster. The dog was terrified of me in the skates! Probably cause I had no balance or coordination. I'm not gonna take her on a walk with them again till I get a little bit better at not looking like an idiot, and after I learn to stop!
Luckily, David offered to help me learn this weekend after Day Away. I'll post a progress update later!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Parents Need to be Parents!
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/C8A4053D0406FFDA862574DC00109BD1?OpenDocument
I'm sorry, but why aren't parents doing their jobs anymore? Just because kids dress like grown ups doesn't mean that they have the discipline, judgment, and maturity of a grown up. Mom and Dad need to stop being friends with their children and actually impose rules. Parents should know what their kids are doing online, they should know where their kids are, they should choose who their kids are allowed to spend time with. Kids aren't born with the god given rights to a car, a computer, and a cell phone. These privileges should all be earned, and once earned, that doesn't mean that they should have free reign!
I'm not saying parents should go through a kids room and read their journals, but if you're footing the bills, you make the rules.
I'm sorry, but why aren't parents doing their jobs anymore? Just because kids dress like grown ups doesn't mean that they have the discipline, judgment, and maturity of a grown up. Mom and Dad need to stop being friends with their children and actually impose rules. Parents should know what their kids are doing online, they should know where their kids are, they should choose who their kids are allowed to spend time with. Kids aren't born with the god given rights to a car, a computer, and a cell phone. These privileges should all be earned, and once earned, that doesn't mean that they should have free reign!
I'm not saying parents should go through a kids room and read their journals, but if you're footing the bills, you make the rules.
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