Blog
Will Faught
July 2009
It was 105 degrees today in Seattle! It’s almost midnight, and it’s eighty-three degrees now. No one in Washington has air conditioning. These people are completely unprepared for the elements. This place is known for a single element—rain—and people don’t use umbrellas. I’m sitting on my bed, under my only ceiling fan, with my only desk fan two feet away and pointed straight at me. I meant to actually do something with my time tonight, but it was just too hot.
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1 minute
I just realized my shirt was inside out all day today. The tag is plain as day, and highlighted with a colored border. Kind of like a target, so people could conclude from a distance that I’m an idiot. The seams were also inside out. I don’t know how I could miss all that. Come on, Will!
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1 minute
I went on a vacation in Nicaragua in May with my friend Heather. I began writing about it a while ago, but then moved on to other things. I’ll post what I have, but won’t write more. Nicaragua, in case you don’t know, is in Central America, south of Honduras and north of Costa Rica, sandwiched between the Pacific and the Caribbean. Heather invited me to go with her about a month and a half before we went.
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5 minutes
About a month ago, I participated in six sessions with a personal trainer at a gym in Bellevue. It had been a long time since I had seriously exercised, and so I had didn’t have good running shoes or workout clothes. My trainer recommended I go to an athletic store in the Green Lake neighborhood to get some shoes. I found some great ones there, and while I was there I decided to look for some new exercise shorts.
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2 minutes
I just finished watching the extended versions of the Lord Of The Rings films. I’ve had these versions for several years now, and I thought I’d seen them all, but watching them now, so many of the extended scenes felt new to me. Strange. I can’t decide if it’s because I forgot them, or because I hadn’t watched them yet, which would be quite an oversight for a fan like me.
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1 minute
Apple redeemed itself with its awesome store in Bellevue. My MacBook’s hard drive went bad, and I took it into the store to see about getting it repaired. It turns out the hard drive model was known to have problems, and was covered under a special warranty. The tech at the Genius Bar replaced it for me for free in about ten minutes, and that was that. Nice.
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1 minute
June 2009
I sent the following to sjobs@apple.com: Mr. Jobs, I am dissatisfied with my experience of activating my iPhone 3GS. Activation was delayed for four days. Then, iTunes gave me a vague error saying my phone couldn’t be activated without explaining why. Then, I received an e-mail with a phone number to call. I tried calling it numerous times without being connected to a person in a reasonable amount of time. I once waited on hold for about twenty-five minutes.
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2 minutes
I took my car into a Toyota dealership a couple weeks ago to have my left headlight’s wiring replaced and my AC recharged. In their inspection, they found many other things that needed fixing, some large, some small, and quoted me a $4,000 price to do it all. I’ve never dealt with car repairs before (having a father who’s the best mechanic around), so I called my dad to see if they were overcharging.
1 minute
My sleep schedule was shifted back by about three hours for a couple weeks following my Nicaragua trip. I woke up wide awake at about 6 a.m. and I felt sleepy at about 11 p.m. I’m now back to my regular night owl hours. I’ve traveled to other time zones before, but this was unprecedented. I think my trip caused it, but I don’t know how. I was amazed at how easy it was to get out of bed when I woke up wide awake.
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1 minute
I really like the song “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga. The sound grew on me, and now I love it. I especially enjoy the lyrics. The wording is colorful and rich and paints vivid pictures using few words. It’s delightfully dark. Here’s an excerpt: I want to hold them like they do in Texas plays Fold them, let them hit me, raise it, baby, stay with me (I love it) Luck and intuition play the cards with spades to start And after he’s been hooked I’ll play the one that’s on his heart
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1 minute
What’s the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything? Google knows.
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1 minute
May 2009
The cleverest title I’ve ever seen was “My Title Is Clever.” I remember thinking, “Huh, that’s clever,” and then, “Whoa!”
1 minute
My place in Microsoft is within the Developer Division (DevDiv), which makes tools for programmers. Among various things, DevDiv produces a free set of tools called the .NET Framework, and the .NET Framework provides a technology called XAML (pronounced zammel). XAML is a software language that allows programmers to write down complex operations in simple text, and then it performs those operations for them. It’s what I work on. My division recently released a preview version of the next planned release of our Visual Studio product.
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1 minute
It’s amusing that Republican politicians throw around the word “liberal” like it’s a dirty word, an unthinkable state of affairs, rather than the counterpart to their own extremism on the opposite end of the political spectrum. As if the word itself makes their argument for them. They’re just so scandalized by it. I never hear the word “conservative” used this way.
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1 minute
I went to the Mariners vs. Giants game on Friday. I don’t usually enjoy baseball games in person or on TV, but a friend invited me, and I thought I’d give it another shot. The innings went surprisingly fast. I missed a lot of the game because I was chatting or drinking my beer. There was a funny Giants fan wearing a bandana a few seats away from us who stood periodically to silently taunt the Mariners fans behind him.
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2 minutes
I was driving in slow traffic in December when a driver wasn’t watching where he was going, and his car hit the car in front of him, and it hit my car. My neck was jerked back from the impact, from which I have suffered and continue to suffer whiplash. I was in a similar accident a few years ago in San Luis Obispo, where a driver hit me from behind at a stop light on a rainy night.
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3 minutes
April 2009
ITunes Smart Playlist For Unrated Songs
I had never tried to make a smart playlist in iTunes until I recently moved everything to my new iMac. I wanted to make a playlist of unrated songs, but it wasn’t clear how to make a condition saying the rating must be zero stars. The iTunes help was useless, and so was everything I found online. “Just make a condition saying the rating must equal zero stars. Easy.” Not so!
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1 minute
During a speech made by President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, in which he called Israel a racist nation, several national representatives walked out of the audience in protest. I imagined myself there, and feeling compelled to walk out to symbolize my repudiation of what was being said. However, I’d actually want to hear the rest of the speech. Not because I agree with what was said, but you have to admit, it really grabs your attention: a whole country—racist!
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1 minute
Dear Mr. Faught, Thank you for contacting AARP about our membership solicitations. Please accept our apology for any aggravation these mailings may have caused. It’s my pleasure to honor your request. I’ve removed your name from our solicitation lists, and regret that mailings prepared before today’s date cannot be recalled. It will take approximately 4-6 weeks for this process to take full effect. If you should receive solicitations after that time, please call us toll-free at 1-888-OUR-AARP (1-888-687-2277) and a Member Service Associate will be happy to assist you.
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4 minutes
March 2009
A week ago I called Sam Bent, another software engineer at Microsoft, twice for help. The first time went fine, but the second time I had his full name in my head when I dialed the phone, and I opened with, “Hi, Sam Bent.” It didn’t sound like, “Hi, Sam Bent?” as if I was checking if it was him. It sounded like I had used his full name like a first name.
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2 minutes
I was anchoring my bookcase to the wall when I heard these strange sounds coming from behind me. I walked a little toward the sounds, trying to pinpoint their source. I looked up at the window, saw streaks and dots, and realized that it was raining. I hadn’t realized it until then, but I had never heard the rain in my apartment before. Strange, since I live in Seattle.
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1 minute
This recliner has been with my family for as long as I can remember. Sadly, I no longer have a place for it and it must go, finally passing from us to parts unknown. I’m sad to see it go. It feels like a piece of my past will be lost. I wish we could all have museums of our lives, so we could keep all the things that mean something to us when we have no where else to put them.
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1 minute
February 2009
I had a wonderful birthday. Thank you to all who made me feel so special! My parents and Nick flew to Seattle to be with me on the weekend before my birthday. I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good host, as I didn’t know the area very well, and wasn’t very prepared for them. Furthermore, I got lost driving the five blocks to their hotel and almost drove the wrong way down Mercer.
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2 minutes
Former eBay CEO Running For Governor Best quotation: “This would be a great idea if California were eBay.” Arizona Super Bowl Viewers Shown Pornography Best quotation: “That was the only part of the Super Bowl that I understood.”
1 minute
On my flight home for Thanksgiving, I sat a seat over from a cute girl named Rae who was around my age. We eventually chatted, and I learned she studied art history at the University of Washington, she was from California, and she was going home for the holiday too. I was gauging our conversation and toying with the idea of asking for her number, but I chickened out and figured I could find her online later.
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3 minutes
January 2009
That’s F.E. for Furniture Era, the period in which I finally have something to sit and eat on. It’s been a long time coming. I recently went to the closest Ashley Furniture store and furnished almost my entire apartment: couch, love seat, chair, ottoman, end tables, coffee table, dining table, chairs, bed frame, dresser, and night stand. It’s all going to be delivered tomorrow morning. I can’t wait! I hope nothing is delivered damaged or otherwise has to be returned.
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1 minute
I finally posted online pictures of moving into my new apartment. When I took these, my boxes had just been delivered, so nothing was yet unpacked. My apartment looks sparse even now because I still don’t have any new furniture, but it looks a little more lived in with the boxes unpacked. My living room. The entire apartment building is five years old, so everything feels new and seems in good condition.
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4 minutes
I went shopping at the Costco in Seattle for the first time today. They didn’t give me any bags or boxes in which to carry my stuff, so I had to carry a few items at a time from my car to my apartment. On my first trip, I put together an armload of provisions, and thought I could add to it a two-pack of Clearasil facial cleanser, but it was too much.
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2 minutes
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Things have been busy and it’s been hard to find the time to blog. In case you haven’t heard the news, Microsoft laid off 1,400 employees today, 800 of them in the Redmond area. The layoffs reflect the worsening economy and were announced in conjunction with the quarterly financial report released today, which showed that profits are down compared to the same quarter last year.
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2 minutes
Since I moved to Seattle, I’ve wanted to reduce my Coke consumption so that I could sleep better and earlier, and because it’s not healthy. I broke down while at the store last night and bought some Coke. I drank three cans’ worth in a glass with ice—and it was good—starting at 9:30 PM, so I was hopped up on caffeine for the rest of the evening, and I didn’t get ready for bed until about 2:30 AM.
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2 minutes
Apricot-Glazed Pork Roast: A Tragedy
My parents gave me a really good book of crock pot recipes for Christmas, and I thought I’d try one out Wednesday night. I went to the store for the ingredients the night before, and woke up extra early the next morning to put it together. I didn’t have a proper lid for my crock pot then, but I had a heavy metal one that was the right size, so I figured it’d work just as well.
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1 minute
I flew from Seattle to Sacramento on Saturday, December 20. I reserved a flat-rate taxi ride from my apartment to the airport, and it started to snow as I approached the airport terminal. When I later glanced out a terminal window, the tarmac was carpeted with snow, and more was still falling. Earlier flights were delayed, but fortunately my flight was delayed only thirty minutes, so I grabbed a beer. We boarded without further delays, but we didn’t depart until hours later.
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3 minutes
December 2008
My parents threw me a graduation party while I was home for Thanksgiving. It was either do it then or never. They invited lots of family friends in the area, and I invited Heather. My parents assembled lots of tasty hors d’oeuvres and wines and played music and we all stood and sat and chatted and snacked and sipped away the evening. There must have been twenty people there at one point.
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1 minute
I started my holiday vacation this evening! Well, actually I started it around 1 PM since I couldn’t drive to work or work remotely and I realized the latter about then. So I effectively had two extra days of vacation, yesterday and today, but they didn’t really feel like vacation since I felt so bad for being an idiot and not setting up my work computers to accept remote connections in advance.
1 minute
It really came down today. I woke up bleary-eyed and tired, got up later than I meant to, and got ready. I didn’t even glance outside until I was all set to go. I tried logging onto my Microsoft mail remotely to see if there was any mention of canceling work, but the mail servers were so impacted that the web pages wouldn’t load. For a while I didn’t know whether I should try to go or not, so I decided to try and see if I could even leave if I wanted to.
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2 minutes
The IKEA stuff I bought is so eager to become faulty that it started before I even finished setting it up. The dresser I bought was horribly damaged as it was delivered to my apartment, the screws for my dining table — despite my best efforts and aching hands — don’t fit their holes, and a finished surface of my dining table is cracked. I’ll have to return both items. I’m questioning now whether I should let them keep their stuff and go elsewhere for furniture.
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1 minute
Microsoft put me in touch with Angela in Seattle, a rental provider, who helped me find an apartment. (Actually, Microsoft put me in touch with Susan on the east coast, who put me in touch with Angela. Every relocation service that Microsoft provides uses multiple levels of agents who contract the person beneath them, the last person contracted being the one I end up meeting face-to-face. When I was shipping my belongings from Grass Valley to Seattle, I met the driver Boe, who was contracted by Ronnie, who was contracted by Joey, who was contracted by Chanda, who was contracted by Microsoft.
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3 minutes
I’d heard good things about the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle as a place to live, especially for my first year here, so I decided to venture into the city to check it out. I read a little about it and decided to visit Volunteer Park first, which seems to be near the north end of the neighborhood. The park was quite large and green and had an old water tower, a reservoir, an Asian history museum, and a conservatory.
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2 minutes
November 2008
I need to find a permanent place to live soon because Microsoft stops paying for my temporary housing on December 3. For a long time I thought I would look for a place to live in Eastside, probably Bellevue, because I don’t want to deal with the traffic crossing the Lake Washington bridges and I would be closer to work. Lately, after having worked for a couple weeks now, I realize that if I live in Eastside, it’s not as likely that I’ll have the energy or time to drive to Seattle to explore the city, which I really want to do.
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2 minutes
Last week I thought I would cook something that would yield enough leftovers for the week. My cookbooks are still in storage, so I found a simple tuna casserole recipe online that only took about half an hour to make. I later discovered, after hearing it bang around in my car’s trunk for a few days, that I had left out one of the two cans of Cream of Mushroom Soup called for by the recipe when putting the dish together.
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2 minutes
I visited Aunt Deb and Uncle Ron last weekend at their home in Sequim, WA. It was so great to see them again; it had been a while since the last time. I got to take the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston across the sound on the way. The deep blue water was flat and still, and the sky was a lighter blue and dappled with thin, wispy clouds. Some seagulls that were following the ferry at about the same speed were flying just above the top deck where I stood.
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2 minutes
There’s a condition that afflicts many innocent, hard-working people around the world every day. Its victims suffer from light sensitivity, disorientation, lethargy, sleep deprivation, and depression. There is no cure, but some drugs temporarily alleviate its symptoms. Many people manage to live somewhat normal lives through proper treatment. I’m referring, of course, to waking up before 9 AM, which I had to do all this week and expect to continue doing until my body gives out.
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2 minutes
One reason I hesitated to move to Washington was because most of my friends and family are in California. I started college not knowing anyone, but joining a fraternity facilitated making friends and filled my schedule. Once again I’m faced with starting over, and I wonder if Microsoft will play that role of friend maker and schedule filler. I moved up here expecting only to know my aunt and uncle, who live in Sequim (pronounced squim for some reason); Dan, who was in my fraternity and works here full time now; and Tom, with whom I worked on a school project and who works at Microsoft too.
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2 minutes
I drove to downtown Seattle yesterday to check out the Space Needle and the surrounding Seattle Center. I got the sense from my past visits here that natives don’t really do this kind of stuff, so I thought I should get it out of the way before I’m totally submerged in life here and would be too embarrassed to do it. The Needle is quite tall, which gave me a nice view of the sound and the cityscape below.
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1 minute
My apartment has a TV and cable, so I was able to watch the CNN and Daily Show coverage on Election Day. I had to watch it by myself, but I talked with Mom on the phone between McCain’s concession speech and Obama’s acceptance speech and talked with and texted Heather later in the night. I was so happy that Obama won! I couldn’t stop smiling. I was surprised at and pleased with how gracious McCain’s speech was, although I guess it’s no surprise he’d want to end on a good note, since he’ll have to work with Obama as a senator.
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2 minutes
I moved to Seattle! Yes, it finally happened. No, the thesis isn’t done; I’ll have to fly back when it’s done to defend it. Seattle couldn’t wait any longer. I would have written about this sooner, but I’ve felt so tired in the evenings since I moved here. Moving is always such a chore. Thankfully Microsoft made the move very easy by shipping my belongings and car here, providing temporary housing and a rental car, and connecting me with a rental agent in the area.
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6 minutes
October 2008
I was reinstalling Windows for a friend the other day. After the installation, I upgraded everything. Service Pack 2 was giving me some trouble because every time I tried to install it, Windows would freeze half way through. I tried it two or three times before I decided to bring up the Task Manager to watch the processor load as the installer worked. Poof! Like a charm, the problem disappeared. Cooincidence?
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1 minute
For a while I’ve thought that creating artificial intelligence would be straightforward. Regardless of whether the nature of human intelligence will ever be understood, eventually every detail of the physiology of the human brain will be discovered and known. Computers can know the current state of every atom in a brain and compute its next state, thereby simulating the brain. Computers don’t need to understand human intelligence to simulate it, they need only to simulate a brain, and intelligence will arise from that.
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2 minutes
Choice quotations: What hackers and painters have in common is that they’re both makers. Along with composers, architects, and writers, what hackers and painters are trying to do is make good things. They’re not doing research per se, though if in the course of trying to make good things they discover some new technique, so much the better. Now I realize I was mistaken. Hackers need to understand the theory of computation about as much as painters need to understand paint chemistry.
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4 minutes