Most of the time, my little hacks are command line apps, without much flash. But lately I find myself doing more and more artsy side-projects.

Aside from my one at work (which is pretty cool!), I’ve been working on writing a Getting Things Done webapp here at home. I named it Sencha after my favorite green tea at Samovar, and the time when I feel most in charge of things.

After designing and implementing the data model, I’m now spending some time on the interface. I sketched this on the BART to work a few days ago. Tonight I finally got to a stage where I’m seeing some resemblance!

It’s just weird that it’s a role I’d never thought I’d like playing or have any talent for. It’s also not something they teach you in engineering school (though admittedly, I never took 160 or 169, but am not sure what level of detail they go into)

And, I mean, me? With a sketchbook?

Note to Emily — if you’re reading this early, we’ll be calling you tomorrow to wrapup — so avoid the spoilers

So Monday was my 23rd birthday and today was the celebration.

Something was clearly up with Mari and Patrick — I was to keep this afternoon free to do… something…, and after Lindy on Sproul, they hand me a CD case, the cover being a lot of blank spaces and a USB drive and say “here it is!”

Unbeknownst to me, in the past 3-5 days, Mari, Patrick, Bryan, Chantae and Emily put together a full mini-hunt for my birthday party, complete with antepuzzles, a proper round of 5 puzzles, and a meta.

Sadly, I couldn’t scare up much solving help at Lindy on Sproul.

At the end of it all, it was a lot of fun! And I have awesome, smart friends! The party itself was only so-so, but the solving was worth it.

Spoilers and the full hunting story after the jump

Spoilers begin here.

So the USB key contained a mixtape audio file — listening to it provided songs and band names which fit nicely into the blank lines on the CD case, providing in the one specified vertically aligned row “TAIFXUL” (had a little trouble getting the X) but as I pointed out halfway through “well, with nothing else to go on, I betcha it’s a Twitter feed”

(It was clear that this was designed for me, so a lot of little stories or preferences of ours showed up from time to time. Such as using Twitter)

The Twitter feed required campus knowledge I didn’t have; but looking around Flickr found the answer: Taif Xul — which is Fiat Lux reversed (the UC Berkeley motto) — appears under the awning of the Campanile.

So Mari (who’s been following me) and I go there, meet Patrick, who hands me two sheets of paper (Paper Puzzles, or PP as I refer to them later) and that three other puzzles will appear in the Twitter feed (Twitter Puzzles, TP).

And so I begin to hunt. Mostly alone.

I get pretty far on my own, with the authors around me bouncing and trying not to spoil anything. Bryan has the great idea that I should be momentarily uncertain of the answers, and to call them in via Twitter (which seemed fitting)

The Paper Puzzles

PP1 (designed by Emily) was Shakespeare (and one Alexander Pope) identification, which was pretty straightforward. They were all “interesting” names in that they were fairies or other ethereal creatures. As it works out, they are also the moons of Uranus (a great twist moment!) and the one “major figure” missing from the “literary firmament” is the one missing major moon… OBERON

PP2 (designed by Chantae) was “Poetry in the Information Age” — quickly I identified the text as Jabberwocky — with errors. So I start to look at the errors. One word doesn’t match in length, and that’s clearly the “magic” word, with errors. All the errors provide a nice set of letters… which happen to be associated with letters on a phone (eg, only A, B, and C will be switched with each other). This provided a great moment when I made the connection (by drawing lines between the sets) and yelled out “PHOOONES!” (prompting rounds of “KHAAAN!” and “STELLAAAAA!”)… a quick regex search for 6 letter words with these replacements through /usr/share/dict/words yielded WELKIN

Twitter Puzzles

TP1 (designed by Bryan) was the Freebase puzzle. Seen in the Twitter feed, it was a check written out with conspicuous replacements — a lot of the numbers were in hex, prepended with 0s and the owner of the check was “RDF” — These are clearly Freebase GUIDs. Looking them up gave you a set of things that referred to weird sayings (to wit, an odd Earl aka “Bell the Cat”, a song called “Don’t Cry Wolf”, a particular kind of “sour grape”) — this was, also the best funny/punny/groaner puzzle they came up with, in particular, a reference to the stock ticker LION (“lion’s share!”). And just to make me pull out the MQL, the date on the check is a full timestamp, of the creation of a link from “Injury” to “Insult”. All of these are sayings that come from fables, in particular, AESOP.

TP3 (designed by Patrick and implemented by Mari) was the most MIT-hunt like puzzle. It was letter substitution (letters to numbers) into dates/numbers of webcomics I read, and associated pictures from those comics with the text blacked out and one word underlined. The underlined word fits with the greek letters that follow. Following the flavortext, (a reference to the Bob Dylan song “Desolation Row”), where the other thing Einstein does is “recite the alphabet” — you recite the GREEK alphabet, this spells something in the mapping. Doing the same for the letter substitution earlier gives you a Questionable Content comic, the title of which (combined with the phrase in the greek) refers to Frances FARMER

… and it was here that people were arriving for my party. So we party for a bit, but invariably people start to ask about what’s been going on so far in this mini hunt. Now I have help!

Finale

All that remains is TP2 and the overall meta.

so TP2 (designed by Emily), which I looked at only briefly, seemed to be, at first, merely Lorem Ipsum text repeated. But there seemed to be extra things added, particularly a stray C. So, finding a “canonical” Lorem Ipsum on Wikipedia, Roger (now I have help) insisted that I diff the puzzle text agains the canonical text. There are purely Latin insertions in the text, which indicates the right track. Each set of insertions, looking up the definitions online, clue what seem to be illness symptoms. When we get to the very last one (A butterfly rash) Laura calls out “OH! That’s a symptom of Lupus!” We all look at her funny for a second and she explains she recently has been reading a story where someone exhibited this symptom. So we look up the symptoms of Lupus and sure enough these are the symptoms. So I tweet in LUPUS, but the proper response (other than the latin clue) should have been “It’s never Lupus!” — Chris turns around and says “Oh, so in English, that’d be WOLF”

So now we have OBERON, WELKIN and AESOP, WOLF and FARMER. Everyone is crowded into my office by this point. This only took 10 minutes with people, most of it just me at the conn. Googling “aesop wolf farmer” (Twitter puzzles) eventually gets to an Aesop fable: “The Wolf, the Farmer and the Plow”… so “Plow” is a good working term. As for the Paper Puzzles, Oberon and Welkin, well, Google clues Shakespeare again, so I grep for it in my digital Shakespeare, and Oberon says “welkin” once… “The starry welkin cover thou anon”. Plow. OH. There’s the local Berkeley bar, “The STARRY PLOUGH”.

The plan initially was to be done by 7:30 — assuming I had help — and to have a drink there before the party. (1) They underestimated their writing talent! It was genuinely hard! and (2) I had no helpers for most of it. They’ll still buy me a drink there soon.

I woke up this morning, early, for the first time in a week, to get in early, to skip lunch, to leave early, to buy Obama/Biden buttons from the SF street vendor outside the BART, to vote, to get food and to go to Katie’s election night gathering.

And you have to understand something when it comes to hanging out with Katie and Erin — they are a witty, fast, talkative pair. To be certain, their friends (many of whom I met for the first time) are likewise fun girls.

I played bartender, pizza was ordered, and a good, loud time was being had by all, until the polls closed in California

And MSNBC called the election for Obama.

I hope never to forget it. We looked at the screen like, “what?” — we didn’t know what to think. We checked Fox News, figuring that if they agreed, it had to be true.

It was.

The room was dead silent.

And we waited. A few snarky comments here and there, as McCain conceded, and waited. We were shocked; we couldn’t quite believe it. And as Obama gave his victory speech, becoming President-Elect, we collectively teared up.

No, that’s not a point of shame, it’s a point of pride.

For every election since I’ve considered myself politically aware, I have not known what it feels like to believe in my country. Every time, I get hopeful. Every time, my hopes are dashed. Prop 22, a precursor to tonight’s Prop 8, I think, was that first election; when I believed in something and felt it was wrong.

An interesting fact about me: I have never once said the Pledge of Allegiance under the Bush administration. Nor have I saluted the flag during the national anthem; I stand in respect for the latter but refuse to recite or salute. For 8 years, for a large portion of my life, ever since I was 14, I have held the firm belief that my government did not represent me. When I marched for peace on February 15, 2003, my government called me a ‘focus group’, and went to war anyway. When I voted for Kerry in 2004, my country, to my chagrin, decided on four more years of corruption and lies. I have felt my civil liberties corroded. I cried in frustration the first time I had to deal with airport security after 9/11; that my bags could be searched without warrant or cause, that I had no right to protest; it seemed that every last right I had as an American citizen was hampered, taken away, or simply ignored.

Except the right to vote.

(And let it be known that’s no cakewalk either — officially, today, I voted provisionally because my polling place moved)

And as I sat there, watching Obama give his victory speech, the tears I felt were hopeful. Which is a weird feeling to those who have never felt it. No, things aren’t perfect. No, I don’t expect Obama to fix everything with some wave of a magic wand. But I feel, for the first time, his first hundred days are going to be my hundred days. That government that I have chosen is coming to be.

That is empowerment. That is why Obama carried young voters in a landslide.

And after the tears, cheers and disbelief was over; after the cheap champagne had been poured and the party began anew, for tonight, our government worked.

As I drove home, both Telegraph and Shattuck were filled with people celebrating. I hear the City is even more crazy — Twitter tells me of spontaneous celebration filling the streets. Scott Beale (@laughingsquid) summarizes it best: “San Francisco is erupting with spontaneous patriotism”

San Francisco and the Bay Area has always been patriotic. We’re crazy, but contrary to the Bush administration, we’re not terrorists. Or communists. Or godless atheists. Or hippies. Or homosexuals. Or Asians. We are all and none of these. We are Americans.

After Obama is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2009, I will again say the Pledge of Allegiance. I will again salute the flag.

My country, tis of thee.

So I landed in Boston and caught the last T out from the Airport (win!) met with the Green Line over to the Red (win!)… and then watched the last T to Kendall Square leave (fail)

I’m feeling good though; I’ve been in Boston enough before to know where I am and my savvy paid off in late-night T navigation. I figure I can handle this leg of my adventure.

So, I hailed a cab, having cut the fare in half by being quick. At this point, my friend’s place in Cambridge is a pin on a Google Map to me.

So the cab lets me off and the lights are on at the place — and there are people up. I walk in the (open) front door and a tipsy fellow greets me. I ask if I’m at the right place.

A gal in the living room says “Oh, you must be Spang’s friend…”

It finally hits me that I’m not in Seattle anymore.

“What’s the story behind this place?”

“This is Pika,” I’m told.

Turns out it was a frat that went co-ed and eventually broke away and became an official MIT co-op. It’s all on their website.

Fortunately, being from Berkeley I know what the gig is. I’ve been by the co-ops. I’ve lived in a frat. This I can handle.

I’m told there are couches to crash on in the TV room downstairs. That being about what I signed up for, I head on down… open the door… and run into someone else.

“Um. Hi! I’m Barak!” I say awkwardly. And repeat my story.

“Oh, she worked out a room for you upstairs. The fellow who usually lives there is in California right now.” Fitting, I think.

I get directions. And that’s where I am now. My friend’s light is off, and she said she’d be jetlagged, so I let her be.

Am having flashbacks to my first trip to Boston, in which I crashed at Random House, thanks to a friend of a friend..

Life’s best as an adventure… had you asked me at my layover in Philly what was going to happen next, I would never have guessed…

Am writing a substantive blog on the plane. Have this weird feeling of “Aw, adventure over” and “Yay new adventure” at the same time.

Right here

Meanwhile, I have a new place to live (pretty sure) in North Berkeley! I am building a server so as to retire my current one and reduce the number of boxes I have… and life continues.

Also — Wordpress 2.5 == w00t.

And PicLens is AMAZING if you want to view photos.

My thoughts on standard nightclubs:

I’ve never been a fan. Maybe I’ve never been to a good one. Over time it’s become less of the wretched-hive-of-scum-and-villainy feeling that makes me distrust it; it’s just the fact that I don’t see the fun. Let’s be blunt for a second: getting drunk and rubbing up on people seems generally slimy (for men and women equally). If that’s what you’re into, sure, go for it, but take that away, and what do you have? A crowded place taking itself way too seriously with overpriced drinks and DJ Generic with his phat beatz.

(The place we were at on Friday had a particularly generic DJ. That or I’ve been spoiled by good ones (such as the one who ran the late night in Sacramento two Fridays ago))

Last night, through tutorial by a friend of mine, I figured out club “dancing” a little more, in partner dancing terms. I’d call it a drunken two-step. Oh, and the girl leads, unless you’re a real slimebucket. It’s kinda standing there and bouncing to her rhythm. Proper weight shifting optional. I say that like it’s a big revelation; of course it’s not. Maybe I had higher hopes that there was some rhythmic styling I wasn’t seeing.

So, what then to do on a Friday night, other than partner dance?

Answer: Find a small bar (like we hit up afterward) with pool tables and a friendlier, laid-back atmosphere. Going out should be about chatting and laughing; ostensibly, the reason we go to Sparky’s after 920.

I’m more Cheers than A Night at the Roxbury.

You can find them here.

I also ordered myself 14 prints, of photos new and old, off Flickr to hang on my wall.

Woot!

I got myself down to SOMA to go to a justin.tv tech-talk. Sure, they were talking about OAuth (which is pretty much a nice standard for authenticating to share data on the web) but of much more interest was who “they” are. But let’s back up.

The point of my going down there was to answer the question Dad asked me at Thanksgiving:

“Where do you want to work?”

I hadn’t really thought about it in the sense outside of “depends on who wants me”. It started to grow on me, and when I heard about this talk through Karen through Facebook, I found an outlet. Over time, it’s gotten in my head that, (a) there are a lot of tech startups in the City, (b) they do either cool or lame things, or some of each (depending on the startup) and (c) the lifestyle is vaguely like being a pirate: you have a small crew of dedicated folks; much riskier life, but also more rewarding in other ways.

So I figured I’d test the waters.

I found myself chatting after the talk with some of the people I’ve read about in tech blogs and whatnot; people who do crazy and interesting things. I rode back on the BART with a similar sort of buzzing feeling as when I first visited Berkeley as an eighth-grader, and it lasted all afternoon. I may not know exactly with who yet, but I think I’m starting to figure that I’m understanding where I want to work. Or at least how it should feel.

On the other side of the coin, I’m flying up to Seattle in a few days to be shown around Amazon. Amazon strikes me positively in other ways — the benefits of a bigger, more established place. My take on their “corporate culture” as I can see it from here is that it’s roughly a looser, friendlier Microsoft; though part of the goal of going up there is getting a very solid read on it, and what exactly they’d want me to do. They may really surprise me, and I may come back really jazzed.

But now they’ve definitely got that buzzing feeling I got from the cool kids* in the City to compete with. Which is good for all parties involved; if I really want to work at Amazon, I’ll know.

The rest of Thursday was cool in that I helped a friend-of-a-dancing-friend with his computer troubles for an hour or so; and for my time, he helped me brush up my piano skills and showed me how to improv some blues — cause this is what he does for a living. I’ve yet to record myself, but it sounds pretty good when I plunk on my keyboard here.

And then I went to 920, as always. All in one day!

*I say “kids” — I was probably the youngest one there, but the vast majority were 20-something, so I didn’t feel out of place at all.