Anwar Mamat

I read 2-3 books every night before my daughter sleeps. The princess stories, Bear snores on and Ferdinand the bull etc, we have read many times. She remembers every single word in those stories. After the bedtime stories, she hugs me, gives me millions of kisses, and counts to 100, then I can go. Tonight, after the story reading, I tried to make the count-to-100 time shorter. I asked her if she can count by 2s to 100. She started count by 2s. It usually takes her a minute to 100. Counting by 2s did not make the counting any faster. She doubled the time counting by 2s. Sometimes, a little trick does not really help. I’d better go with the normal count by one. That is easy and fast.

Compiler construction was the worst course I took in college. Frankly I did not learn anything. When I was working in Xinjiang University, once I even asked Ghalip, a friend of mine who teaches compilers, how he could teach that horrible, boring class. After almost 10 years, I am taking compiler class in this semester. The instructor has very good reputation. I am also much more confident about the class, since I think I learned a lot about formal languages and automaton. I like those regular expressions and DFAs. I often play with the regular expressions too. As I expected, this time compilers class is fun. It is nothing like the compilers class I took in college. I liked the lectures. But I especially liked the projects, in which we build a real compiler. First project was Lexer and Parser. 2nd project was building the AST. 3rd project was type checking. Yesterday, I have finished the 3rd project. Now, I can parse a program, build the AST representation, traverse the AST, collect the symbols, and statically type check. Basically, if you have “i=1;” in your code, I can tell the assignment is not type correct because the “i” is boolean.  The projects are interesting, but time consuming. I spent many nights for the 3rd project. I really feel “To Iterate is Human, to Recurse, Divine” now. Think about “x=b.i.k.j+a[a[a[a[c]]]]  != foo()”. Right hand side of the assignment is an expression, which includes 3 expressions. What if foo() return null? How about the field expression  “b.i.k.j” or the array a[a[a[a[b]]]]? Recursion made it easy, or possible if I am not wrong. Now, I can read a source code and rewrite it with beautiful indentation from the internal representation of the code. Isn’t it cool? Before I took this class, compiler is about translating the source code the the machine code. I was wrong. I learned so much stuff, but we even did not talk about the code generation yet. It is just one stage among those many stages we are learning. Next project is posted. With that project, I can tell the “x=1” in your code is never used, Eclipse tells you anyway.  Maybe I can do more. I can’t wait to start the next project. I am ready to spend many days with frustration, feeling otiose, joy, anger and pleasure of achievements.

Railgul could not renew one her textbooks from our library. She asked me buy one from Amazon. I did. The arrived next day. I always like their service. When I opened the book, I found that it was not the she asked. I ordered “Vector Mechanics for Engineering: Dynamics” instead of “Vector Mechanics for Engineering: Statics”. See the difference. It is just one word. Two book have exactly same cover, same authors. Just one word, and that one word is in different color, not an obvious color to my eyes. What can I do? yes, there is only one way: return for refund. I ordered the correct book and called Amazon, thinking if I can exchange to the other book, since they are same price. Usually I am very reluctant to call customer service. In July, when the travel agency bought my France tickets, they put my last name and first name in reverse order. I called United airlines for that. It took me 10 minutes to speak to a human. The machine just made me crazy.  I say “Nebraska”, the machine says “ Did you say Alaska”. Ruined my day, I can say. But ,this time, calling Amazon is different. No “Please hold, next available …..” . It is like calling my friends, instant respond. A very friendly lady answered the phone. I can see her smile on the phone. It was such a pleasant talk with her. She said I have to return this for refund, as I expected. I don’t have to pay for the shipping. ( Actually it will be deducted from the refund). I knew the process. I could have done it through their website. I was just happy because of the friendly telephone conversation. Talking to a human, who speaks plain English. I liked it. “How may I help you” maybe good. But there are better ways to start the conversation. “May I have the last 4 digits of  your social?”, “May I have your first and last name”, “What is your maternal grandmothers maiden name?” maybe ok. But how about “Are you calling from phone number xxx-xxx-xxxxx”? In any case, talking to a machine, is the worst experience. 

My Dell XPS M140 laptop screen can only stay upright within 45 to 90 degrees, or maybe 90+45 degrees. I remember it became wobbly once and I fixed it just by tightening 2 screws on the bottom of the screen. This time the trouble is bigger. The hinge is loose. I looked at some youtube videos and tutorials. It seems not very difficult to take apart the dell laptop. I also found the manual from Dell’s website, showing me how to take apart the laptop step by step, with illustrations.  The manual is very useful. http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xps140m/en/sm/hinge0.htm#wp1123881

After I open the hinge cover, I found that a piston ring kind of thing on the hinge came off. On ebay, they are selling the hinge for 13$. I did not want to buy that. Maybe I can put the ring back on the hinge. I removed the hinge, tried to put the ring on the ring on the axis. I could not do it with bare hands. I went to the lab, thinking the vise may help. I clamped the hinge, put the ring on the axis, and used a small hammer to push it back on the axis. Yes, I did it. It was just easy with the vise holding the hinge tight. I reassembled the laptop, and now the screen can stay in ay degree. I saved 13$ and 1-2 weeks waiting time.

Yesterday, we went shopping for father’s day. My daughter bought me a “World’s greatest daddy” t-shirt from Target. It was a nice gift. After that, she said she wanted to buy some stuff for herself. I told her it is my day, not her day. She said:”It is father’s day. Today you must be happy. If you are happy, you should say yes to whatever I ask”. She was making me an offer I could not refuse. She is only 4 years old. It reminds me of godfather, who does not refuse any request on her daughter’s wedding. Making me happy on father’s day, she bought cupcakes, books, goggles (she is in swimming class for summer) and some other stuff for herself. She seemed quite excited about her trick. When we went back home, she told the story to everybody. She even said:”When it is children’s day, I must happy. So I will say yes to whatever you ask, daddy”. That would be great if I buy whatever I ask and she pays for that. But I don’t think it will a children’s day.

Do you have any idea what “WC Dames” means? Yesterday, I went to the France consulate in Chicago. When I was waiting there, I asked for restrooms. I went to the other side of the hallway, where I could see some small doors. There was a sign on the door said:” WC Dames”. Somehow I know “WC” is restroom. So I just went inside. I found it funny that the restroom does not have urinals, which actually I did not pay much attention. When I came out, a guy at the reception desk said:”That is ladies”. Embarrassing moment. Thanks god, there was nobody inside. Only after that I realized “WC Dames” means “ladies room”, or restroom for women as I understood. Why on earth do they(women) need urinal? I checked the dictionary. “dame” is an English word too. I should have remembered that. Too bad. I need to pick up some vocabulary now. Damn. How did I forget “Notre Dame”? So remember not to go to the “WC dames” in the France consulate.