I have moved

My blog/website is now located at http://ianli.com/. It features a new web template and has more content, including my art works, designs, and projects. Bye!

Brand-spanking new

After being in grad school for a year and a half, I finally created an academic profile web site. Check it out at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ianl/. Note also that as a challenge, I did not use tables to create the layout, only CSS stylesheets. Try increasing and decreasing the size of the font; you'll notice that the layout and images also resizes with the font size. Way cool!

You can also check out my undergraduate web site which currently has more content albeit old. Soon I will move the undergraduate content to my current web site.

Super

Today, Johnny and I became superhuman, impervious to the attacks of three deadly powers: hepatitis A, typhoid, and yellow fever. And to add to our newfound indestructibility, the immunization clinic provided The Mighty Grip, the most handy versatile tool with 100 and 1 uses. It is practically a Batman tool belt in the form of a yellow rubbery disk. I guess they provide this super tool to accompany your transformation to a superhuman.

Becoming superhuman was hard work. We had to wake up early, which is very hard for Ph.D. students. We also had to various clues and dead ends, but we found the immunization clinic secretly tucked next to an Arby's. Hah! They thought we would be foiled by their little camouflage.

Becoming superhuman is also slightly expensive, Johnny and I dispensed $150 each for the opportunity. And our transformation is not done yet, we also need to become invulnerable to malaria. Oh well.

Anyway, Ecuador, here we come!

Letters to the future

While listening to Weekend America today, I heard about a website called FutureMe.org. The idea is that you write yourself a letter that will be sent to you in the future. I wrote myself a letter today that my one-year older self will receive. The web site also has some public entries that makes for some interesting read. Here are some interesting entries I found during my short venture through the archives:

• Hannah
• I love you.
• hey
• Reclaim
  

One man's trash is another man's treasure

Instead of throwing something you don't need anymore and creating more landfills, why not give it away? I found this great grassroots organization called Freecycle. Freecycle is a collection of people in most home towns that have things to give away. Membership is free. To apply, find the website of your local branch. I am a proud member of the Pittsburgh branch.

Today, I got a free winter coat from Jamie. Next, I'm going to give away a big stuffed tiger.

A prayer is finally answered

Gmail finally has a delete button without using a Greasemonkey script. Now Safari and IE users can enjoy having deletion be just a click away. No more scrolling down the drop down list form. Yippee!


picture courtesy of Google.com

Sternest uses keywords (FINALLY!)

Sternest Meanings now allows the use of keywords to provide various services. Type ":help" when talking to Sternest to discover the different services.

You can also have Sternest speak Swedish Chef and Pig Latin by adding the keyword ":cheffmeuneengs" and ":ternestsay", respectively, before your message.

Coding sucks (a lot of time)

Aarghh! I started coding three days ago to add features to a gibber bot programming toolkit and I'm still not done. I would add a feature and it would get in the way of another feature. Then I would try to introduce another feature that I saw from another implementation then I would change my mind. Then I would make a decision then later become dissatisfied. When is this madness going to stop? Aarghh!