computer problems

I should be writing to tell you about all of my nifty adventures. But instead I've been fighting with Windows. I plug my computer in, suddenly the network is flooded. Run a packet sniffer. Hmm, my computer is trying to ping sequential IP addresses... well, that looks suspicious, now doesn't it?? But virus scanner doesn't find anything, and in fact these packets seem to be admitted by no application in particular. Hmm. New firewall rule, disallow ICMP in general. Stop gap fix, anyway... stupid windoze. Anyway, I'm in San Diego at the moment, having fun at the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics. But I'm going to sleep now.

Visiting IGPP

I spent the last two days at the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics in San Diego. It was ``networking'' pure and simple, a chance for me to meet the people working there and to hear about all the cool projects that are going on. My advisor from the summer program in Alaska I did four years ago consults now for IGPP, and he invited me down for the visit.

IGPP is perched on the bluffs overlooking the ocean. You can sit outside and hack away on your laptop, connected to the wireless network, while listening to the waves crash below, looking out at the lights on the pier. Inside the discussion ranges from the formalisms of knowledge systems (and programs in prolog, haskell, and home-brew grammars for describing streams and ontologies) all the way through wireless links to sensors in the field: seismometers, digital video cameras... it's "the information superhighway meets the dirt path" or something to that effect. Cool stuff. I even ran into another Plan 9 enthusiast (who pointed me to the super cool 9grid project) — that's like meeting an Esperantist!

Tomorrow I'm visiting The Aerospace Corporation and a couple people at UCLA!