tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88484443350370251962024-03-05T01:06:42.857-08:00Slightly DelusionalAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-61786620211330839162012-06-24T13:38:00.000-07:002013-04-17T18:05:51.244-07:00Build your CRM in an afternoon with Google Scripts
window.location.href="http://rein.pk/build-your-crm-in-an-afternoon-with-google-scripts/";
We're expanding our private beta at segment.io, and in my dual frontend dev/account manager role I need a time-saving, flexible CRM. I've tried Salesforce and Highrise in the past, but neither one was a pleasure to use - I burnt out on manual data entry pretty quick. Our new solution was quick to Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-32764886537459382232012-06-15T17:13:00.000-07:002013-04-17T18:07:42.645-07:001 Year Since Leaving MIT
window.location.href="http://rein.pk/one-year-since-leaving-mit/";
I left MIT one year ago - I had one year of coursework left as an undergrad in Aerospace Engineering. After [a long story] I co-founded segment.io with @ivolo, @ianstormtaylor and @calvinfo. I'm incredibly happy with my decision, and I want to share some reasons why the decision to leave was right for me.
First: my familyAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-79974059324833372702012-05-30T08:16:00.000-07:002013-04-17T18:08:32.338-07:00Building a Movie Showtimes API
window.location.href="http://rein.pk/building-a-movie-showtimes-api/";
I built TheReelBox.com to demonstrate an easier way to find nearby movie showtimes than Fandango or Google Movies. (More importantly, it generates demo data for showing off Segment.io.)
It turns out that movie showtime data is difficult to get and the APIs cost a lot of money to use: you have to call Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-65157823976412256332012-03-07T19:30:00.001-08:002013-04-17T18:09:40.427-07:00Using the Heap Profiler in Chrome Dev Tools
window.location.href="http://rein.pk/using-the-heap-profiler-in-chrome-dev-tools/";
At segment.io we have a one-page app used to explore analytics data. Good memory management is a very important us, and the Heap Profiler in Chrome developer tools is the perfect tool for the job.... it's just a bit hard to use.
My main use case for the Heap Profiler goes like this:
(1) Find the object that Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-30938244412254068792012-01-02T22:09:00.000-08:002012-01-03T13:57:04.503-08:00How fast could you cross the country (without killing yourself)?Crossing the United States on a train is an incredible experience. North Dakota fields ooze an evil early-morning fog that will make your spine shiver. The Montana Rockies tower suddenly from the endless plains. When you slip by at 40,000 ft in an aluminum tube you are missing this magic.
So why not take the train? Because it takes 3 days @ $208 one-way to get from Boston's South Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-6156053122949349342011-01-17T08:38:00.000-08:002011-01-17T08:38:13.207-08:00Incubomber - Where Bomb Ideas Come to LifeThe Incubomber is a mini-incubator in my dorm room at MIT.
http://incubomber.com/
How does that work?
I lofted my bed, we shoved in two long tables that seat 5 people total, brought in 8 LCD screens for four people, and Colin works in 6th space: the closet. We threw up some posters, got a ton of canned food (entrepreneurship requires sacrifices - cheap food!), and invited a bunch of awesome Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-75718793359974884252010-12-18T17:15:00.000-08:002010-12-18T17:15:41.333-08:00UAV Tested in an Underground Parking GarageAt the end of the Spring 2010 semester, Mark and I built (and rebuilt many, many times) a small UAV. The UAV was controlled with two Arduino microcontrollers and a whole suite of sensors for measuring orientation, airspeed, and altitude. Eventually the craft was able to take off, maintain steady level flight, then descend and land gracefully! Pretty awesome project. Thanks to Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-65756903607703693262010-12-01T16:47:00.000-08:002010-12-01T16:55:03.120-08:00Give My Smartphone More SensorsI've been thinking about what the mobile revolution means. Paul Graham has been too, and I agree with him. Mobile devices are our constant connection to rest of the world, and their capabilities will continue to expand. The question is.... how?
Hardware is the Final Word
While software can do some pretty crazy stuff, the capabilities of a device are fundamentally limited by their hardware. The Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-78809226664968857042010-11-17T15:10:00.000-08:002010-11-17T15:18:17.771-08:0012ft Rocket Onboard VideoThis summer I worked at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA on the Solar Cell Array Tester (NPS-SCAT. ha. ha.) It's a nanosatellite, and it's going to launch on SpaceX Falcon 1E in April 2011!
I also had some fun with the rocket team, working on an autonomous parasail that was supposed to be popped out of the 12 ft rocket close to apogee. The parasail didn't pop out, but there was a Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-50591230385775085152010-11-17T14:51:00.000-08:002010-11-17T14:54:44.998-08:00Datamining News Channels to Determine National InterestsNewsMiner is a C# program that mines CNN, Reuters, Xinhua and RIA Novosti for casualty counts around the world.
The data is aggregated as a list of events: time, latitude, longitude, magnitude. Once the scraping for data is complete, the data is plotted on a world map. The miner is more likely to pick up frequent burst reports than lump-sum reports. For example, mined data from CNN indicates Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-74995367018391651672010-11-17T14:46:00.001-08:002010-11-17T14:46:42.110-08:00Collapsing Binary Star Systems - VisualizationsAs a UROP project I produced some visualizations and audio-zations of gravitational waves, orbits and spin wobbles. Some of the visualizations are for extreme mass ratio systems and others are for binary systems.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-43631902926303085182010-11-17T14:45:00.001-08:002010-11-17T14:45:10.969-08:00Huge N-Body SimulationsDuring high school I wrote C++ capable of simulating thousands of masses and their accretion. Some simulations were designed to model the early universe: see this paper I wrote for math 324 at the University of Washington. Other simulations were designed to model the formation of the solar system.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-2734630286528498642010-11-17T14:44:00.003-08:002010-11-17T14:44:56.417-08:00Particle Accelerator MagnetsParticle accelerators use quadrupole magnets to focus beams of charged particles. I couldn't quite believe the math, so I wrote a little java simulation to see it for myself. You can find it here.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-26262814211014897532010-11-17T14:44:00.001-08:002010-11-17T14:44:40.302-08:00Measuring the Moon's Gravity.... or Seismic Intelligence GatheringDue to a miscalculation, I thought I could measure the position of the Moon using the analytical balance in my chemistry class. By the time I had discovered my physics error, I already had the experiment set up and I was collecting a mass measurement every 5 seconds.
The moon's oscillatory motion didn't show up in the data, but I could tell when school was in session and (probably) when Puget Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-58720149860577398342010-11-17T14:43:00.000-08:002010-11-17T14:43:25.882-08:00Gush++: P2P Collaborative EditorGush++ is a peer-to-peer collaborative text editor with syntax highlighting, live chat and a flexible saving system. Gush++ was developed with the generous support of an MIT Eloranta Fellowship during summer/fall 2010.
When Gush++ was finished I realized that Peer-to-Peer is bad for a number of reasons:
Complexity - It's hard to write P2P applications that work like users expect
Horrible Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-29376362079631786432010-11-17T14:39:00.000-08:002010-11-17T14:39:09.130-08:00GushWikiGushWiki was developed with the generous support of an MIT Eloranta Fellowship during summer 2010. The entire wiki, including data, styling and functionality, is contained in a single HTML file and does not require a server to host the wiki.
For small projects and teams looking for a modern method to document their work, this is perfect. Unlike free wiki's that are hosted online, there are no Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-32717452691075081722010-11-17T14:36:00.003-08:002010-11-17T14:37:22.313-08:00Iomys LabsA startup dedicated to extremely long-endurance aircraft: years not days. The longest flight by a powered aircraft without refueling is just over two days, and for balloons it is just over one month. Our breakthrough system for gas storage and recent advances in solar power make it possible to achieve nearly indefinite flights upwards of two years. We have successfully bench tested a complete Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-32087985087657575302010-11-17T14:36:00.001-08:002010-11-17T14:36:29.374-08:00Semi-Truck AerodynamicsA project to test the viability of boat-tails as a way to reduce drag on semi-trucks. Mark Chodas helped build a 1/27th scale model for initial tests at the MIT Wright Brothers wind tunnel. The tests showed a 40-50% reduction in total drag using the equivalent of a 3 meter tail. This translates to a 25% reduction in fuel consumption, or $35 billion per year in the U.S. if every semi-truck was Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-28819251062969623792010-11-17T14:00:00.000-08:002010-11-17T14:00:08.052-08:00MIT Space Systems LabDuring 2009 I worked on the Exoplanetsat nanosatellite which will point at a single, nearby star for two years in an attempt to discover planets around the star. Since the stars are necessarily nearby to be investigated by a small telescope of this kind, the discovered planets can be studied in great detail with larger telescopes. Here are two videos I created about the orientation and power Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-8322182766893255452010-07-08T23:10:00.000-07:002010-07-08T23:10:20.112-07:00Java Socket EncryptionWhen you're writing a web application that transmits sensitive content, it's obviously a good idea to encrypt your socket connections. How is this done?
Step 1) Open an SSLSocket or SSLServerSocket:
SSLSocketFactory sslFactory = (SSLSocketFactory)SSLSocketFactory.getDefault();
SSLSocket socket = (SSLSocket)sslFactory.createSocket(ipString, portInt);
or
SSLServerSocketFactory sslSrvFactory = (Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-34538132037675046112010-07-01T11:48:00.000-07:002010-07-02T09:53:58.957-07:00Signing an AppletSigning an Applet is extremely useful if your applet needs permissions to make socket connections, do file I/O, etc. That said, it is tricky. Here are some instructions for Windows.
1) Locate your Java JDK directory and it's bin/ subdirectory.
2) Use keytool at the command prompt to generate a pair of keys (public and private). More information on the exact commands to use can be found here:&Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-43472827421733673052010-06-19T20:35:00.000-07:002010-06-19T20:35:38.783-07:00Debugging AppletsDebugging an Applet is a nightmare without Eclipse. That said, if your fully-functioning applet fails to run in your browser, then you have Permissions Issues. This is because the Eclipse environment does not accurately reflect the permissions environment your applet will be thrust into.
You will need to modify your java.policy file (located in something like C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\lib\Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-83299871771986924432010-06-19T20:05:00.000-07:002010-06-19T20:05:01.408-07:00Peer to Peer Collaboration using DropboxOver the last couple of weeks I spent a good deal of time fighting with applet security policies and experimenting with Dropbox uploading/downloading behavior. (I'm also working full time at the NPS developing micro Control Moment Gyroscopes for cubesats, sponsored by the Naval Research Lab and the Air Force Research Lab).
The original intention was to trade messages via Dropbox's sharing Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8848444335037025196.post-79458879557179402562010-06-19T20:01:00.001-07:002010-06-19T20:02:52.180-07:00Live Collaboration on DropboxThe only major shortcoming on Dropbox is that users cannot simultaneously collaborate on their shared project files. Successful integration of live editing applications into Dropbox has the potential to be massively awesome.Dropbox recently exposed a beta API, but after receiving my developer key and researching it more thoroughly, I was underwhelmed. Applications are restricted to using a singleAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05717921401760161939noreply@blogger.com0