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The NY Times has changed their web site so that each article has a link to the next article in its section. Has anybody else noticed what a difference this makes? It's huge: suddenly, the online version feels much more like flipping through the paper version.
In February, I wrote about choosing simple problems to solve since they're hard enough. But what I didn't know was how to find the research challenges. Someone would suggest a problem, and I'd take a look, see the obvious solution, and conclude there was no research to be done there.
Today, as I draw closer to having a dissertation topic (or else quitting the program to start an enterprise network security company), I've started seeing the hard parts, what some network researchers call the "impedance mismatches" (because we network researchers are all descended from electrical engineers, but we've long since forgotten what any of that electronics stuff is about, we grab random terms from electrical engineering and use them improperly). The key is that I've finally internalized an idea of what it must be like to operate a network. Let me make this maximally cheesy for emphasis: Walking a mile in the user's shoes, getting to know how he really solves problems with the tools at his disposal, has helped me see why simple problems aren't so simple.
I've been trying to understand how a network operator deals with things like assigning machines to VLANs in an ethernet network. How does the operator decide where a PC belongs? It could be based on the physical port where the PC is plugged in ("Ah, this new PC is connected from the engineering wing, so it must belong in the engineering VLAN."). It could be based on the PC's ethernet address. It could even be based on which user has logged into the machine. Making all of these a reality is ostensibly simple, but the problems arise in the details. For instance, that idea of assigning a VLAN based on the user: this means the machine needs to be in a VLAN (to get an IP address) for the user to authenticate to the network, but the proper VLAN for the machine can only be determined after the user authenticates. Just an odd little thing, really, but suddenly my simple problem has some depth.
Two caveats. First, there's a point in all this where I have to step back and say "yes, that's hard, but is that how someone really wants to solve the problem?" And often, the answer is simply "no." It's rarely the case that an operator wants to assign machines to VLANs based only on the user logging in. But that's ok -- it's just time to look for another odd thing to worry about. And the second caveat is that I still don't have a dissertation topic, so I'll have to let you know how all of this really turns out in the end. And finally, I admit, I didn't tell you how I internalized the experience of being a network operator. I don't really know, but I used to watch Pretender a lot.
Odd thing: This morning, someone claiming to be from Ameritrade called to say that mail they'd sent me had bounced, and could I please provide my new address? Ok, I think, this could be fake, but it sounds real enough (I'd moved about a year ago, so my one year of mail forwarding could have run out).
When I agreed to go ahead, the first question from the Ameritrade rep was: "Who's your current employer?" Why do they need my current employer to update my address? I told them I'd handle the update via their web site and hung up. So I logged on and, oddly enough, it turns out that all my Ameritrade information is up to date. But then, maybe the caller's authentic since the area code and exchange of the number from which I was called match Ameritrade's contact information.
So, nothing conclusive either way to say it is or isn't a legit call. Too bad that I have no way to authenticate callers - just the hint of an attempt at an identity theft gives me the willies.
The fiancee: "It's like going deep sea diving with sharks, wearing anchovy-flavored scuba gear." This was, by the way, her description of hot air ballooning.
Just saw a Rolling Stone magazine cover whose two largest headlines were about Johnny Depp and Michael Jackson. I wondered why anyone would leave a 20 year old Rolling Stone sitting around, but then I checked the date and found out it's from February '05. Eeek!