Mozy Awesome Process

I received this email from Mozy (online backup solutions), and since they choose to send this email and stressed that I should spread the word, so I think there is no problem in sharing. I found it quite hilarious.

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Sometimes people come up to me and say, "Paul, how is it that Mozy has created such an unrelenting output of Awesome?"

Today I have been authorized to share with you some of the unique facets of the Mozy Awesome Process that until now have been tightly controlled trade secrets of Mozy, Inc. It all starts with giant robots (virtually perpetual sources of raw Awesome). We attach them to special Awesome Siphons of our own design and pipe the yield directly into our engineers' development workstations. Further, peripheral Awesome needs are farmed from old He-Man reruns, a roomful of ninjas wailing on electric guitars, and our captive Happy Fun Ball.

The crude Awesome is skillfully transformed by Mozy engineers into powerful software and hardware configurations, then carefully inspected and regulated according to a host of eldritch acronyms: SWAGs, PMQs, PRDs, and the ever-inspiring CFRRCs. Once a successful creation is stamped with the Seal of Acronymic Approval for Mozy (SAAM), it is subjected to final endorsement by the mystical, revered Mozy Leprecorn*. Finally, a highly trained team of Box Monks put the new Awesomery into place in the Mozy systems, where it becomes available to you, the user.

Our rigorous Awesome Enforcement Policies and Magical Oversight have brought us to what we believe is the most Awesome-efficient development process in the world of backup software.

Be safe,
Paul Cannon
Mozy Software Engineer

*Leprecorn (noun): a rare but phenomenal creature; half Unicorn, half Leprechaun, and all magical.

You are a Marrow Match!

Yes! My tissue type has been found to be a match.

A couple of years back I volunteered to be part of a Marrow donor program and submitted my DNA samples. I know what you must be thinking DNA sample?? but it was just a cotton swab rub on the inside of my cheek, a saliva sample infact, nothing fancy. So a few days back I was contacted by the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), stating my tissue type has matched a patient.
What does this mean? This means after a few more tests if I am found to be a match, then my blood will be able to help someone recover or atleast stay healthy from a disease like Leukemia. I had to answer a long list (~50) of questions which ranged from past medical history to tattoos and piercing. Finally an appointment was made for blood sample collection for further tests. Today a blood sample (a really big sample ~ 100 ml) was collected from both my arms which will undergo some more tests for the second phase of matching. There are still many ifs lurking around. They will check for any infectious disease and the HLA (Human Leukocyte antigens) match. A document was given explaining the procedure and relevant information. Now I have to wait for a few weeks before the test results are in. At this stage there is a 8% chance that I will end up being the donor.
I am both excited and scared to some extent. The donation will be made using one of the two process.

1. The Bone Marrow is collected using a hollow needle, from the pelvis bone while the donor is under anesthesia. The recovery time is about 3 days before normal physical activity resumes. The marrow is replenished in 4-6 weeks.
2. The second procedure called PBSC (peripheral blood stem cells) requires injecting the drug filgrastim 5 times (once daily) before the day of collection. This increases the stem cell production. The blood is then removed from one arm, passed though a filter to collect stem cells and then returned in the other arm. There is no anesthesia and the donor is all set soon after the procedure.

This would be my first major medical procedure and its making me a little anxious, but the fact that I would be able to contribute to someone's well being in such a direct manner is a great feeling. But as I said there are still many iffs lurking around. I sincerely hope the patient finds the right match, whether it be me or someone else and recovers soon. Due to their privacy laws neither the patient or the donor is given much information about the other. I might know the age, sex and the disease of the patient and that's about it.
Lets wait and see.
Thanks for reading and I encourage you all to be part of such volunteer organization. Donating money is one thing, but donating a part of yourself to save someone is a feeling which just cannot be expressed in words. Its no longer a passive after thought, but an act of being human and feel human. All it needs is some commitment.
Join here

All the information is available on their website too:
http://www.marrow.org/DONOR/When_You_re_Contacted_as_a_Pos/index.html
http://www.marrow.org/DONOR/When_You_re_Contacted_as_a_Pos/How_Donors_Are_Selected/index.html
http://www.marrow.org/DONOR/When_You_re_Contacted_as_a_Pos/Medical_Guidelines/index.html
http://www.marrow.org/DONOR/When_You_re_Asked_to_Donate_fo/index.html

100 Pushup Project - Update

	Description	Date	Pushups	Total	Rest (sec)	Total Time
	W2D1	Monday, July 14, 2008	12,12,9,7,19(max)	54	60x4	6 min 30 sec
	W1D3	Friday, July 11, 2008	15,13,10,10,18(max)	66	120x4	11 min
	W1D2	Wednesday, July 09, 2008	12,12,10,10 (finger tip),17 (max)	61	90x4	--
	W1D1	Monday, July 07, 2008	10, 10, 8, 6, 22(max)	56	60x4	--
	Initial Test	Wednesday, July 02, 2008	28 (max)	28	NA	--

100 Pushup Project - Week 1 Day 1

Date: July 7 2008
Rest between sets: 60 sec
Pushups: 10,10,8,6,22
Total: 56

The first day seemed quite manageable.

100 Pushups project - Initial test

This entry is to keep track of my progress on my personal challenge to train for 100 consecutive pushups in 6 weeks following the routine outlined here http://hundredpushups.com

My usual conditions would be morning 8-9 am, empty stomach, with some warm up.

Phase	Date	Rest Period	Level	Target	Achieved
Initial Test	7/2/2008	NA	1	Max	28

Learnings from Masters Thesis

I just gave my Masters thesis presentation a week back and think its a good time to record my experience, in case I decide to pursue higher studies.

1. Literature review: Its like a chicken and egg problem. Unless you do literature review you don't know what is out there and what needs improvement. But unless you choose a topic how do you do the literature review. So my advice is to pick an area and read the basic few papers. See what interests you and then use google scholar to find related papers. Look for which other papers referenced the papers you have already read. Always keep copy of the papers you read and maintain a summary. Keep adding them to your reference library. Be prepared to be surprised. While writing my final paper I came across an article published 3 years ago with the exact same work as mine. That added another month to my work (and delayed my graduation by a semester) as now I had to extend my work beyond what I had already done.
   
2. Research Topic: Don't worry to much about the research topic. Being flexible is the key. Do decide on a title but its not written in stone until its published. So don't worry, let the research take its course.
   
3. Documentation: This is very important specially if there is various different codes and datasets. Keep track of naming conventions. Give meaningful names.
   
4. Backups: Take regular backups. If possible sign up for a online backup service (like mozy) and point them to your important files and folders. Take a full backup after anything significant happens, like sending your file for review. You might have the actual file in the email, but if the file is not self contained (like LaTeX files) having a copy of the supporting file is a good idea. Memory is cheap now a days.
   
5. Presentation: Keep a separate power point file or word document where to record any significant ideas, graphs, links, commands, references, change of course etc. For important plots save the editable graphs, as some annotation or label change etc. might be needed if its decided to include it in the final report.