[Kylan's Blog] CptS 562 Final Project Proposal

I just completed my half-page final project proposal for my fault tolerant computing class (CptS 562). You can view it if you want.

[Kylan's Blog] TraCS Logo

I've created a new logo for the transmitter control simulator (TraCS) program I'm working on:

[Kylan's Blog] The Cougars and God -- faith in basketball

This article from the Spokesman Review talks about God's role in this year's Cougar Men's Basketball team. With this in mind, it's easy to see where the team gets its composure, maturity, and humility.

If you enjoyed this, I also suggest that you check out Why We Play, an article by Peter Leithart, a pastor in Moscow, Idaho.

[Kylan's Blog] Snow!?

Pullman is getting dumped on. This is a lot of snow, especially considering the fact that we're half way through the last week in March.

[Kylan's Blog] Weston Visit

Weston's back on the Palouse this week with a spring break missions team from Western. He's leading the group, which will be doing contact evangelism at U of I. They're pretty busy, though, so my only chance to see him was last night at Chi Alpha. It was good to see him, although we didn't have much of a chance to talk about anything in depth.

[Kylan's Blog] Spring EP Released

You can now download Jon Foreman's new Spring EP. I suggest getting it here, because it's cheaper. I listening to the first track right now, and it's very springy. A full review is coming, so stay tuned.

[Kylan's Blog] Tourney Update

After two rounds, my bracket has 42 points on Facebook and 46 on Google. I've had a lot of problems with the Midwest and the West, and that will continue to hurt for the rest of the tournament. The South didn't do very well for me in the first round, but everything got corrected in the second round. Finally, I'm 100% in the East. Let's hope that streak continues, especially since I have WSU beating UNC to get to the Elite Eight!

[The Ministry of Culture] The Complete History of Valiant Isle, Chapter 3, Part 2

On the Fifth Day of Dengar, the Fifth Month, of 964 B.C. Lathos I was crowned before all of Xenoz and a fleet of ships in Royal Harbor. The Regal Dynasty of Lathos was initiated, known as regal because of its beginnings in the regent's decision.

Most of Lathos I's work was directed toward reinstating the validity of the Kingship and its power. In the 41 years of his reign, Lathos disciplined the troublesome and divided Mesaica into efficiency and proper counsel and representation. He toured the whole of Valiant Isle and its outlying domain, excluding Galbrethi, but paying special favor to the Nine Silver Islands and the new province they had turned into, Ixisanda, or the "Land of Silver." These islands were the main producers of metals and raw materials in the Konai Realm, and Lathos I made sure that the Konai mining industry prospered during his time in the throne.

As part of the Age of Power, Lathos I held a certain amount of respect because of the might of his kingly will. He was not a hard man, but expected that the things he decreed would be followed. Under Lathos I, the military no longer fulfilled the police powers that they had been expected to deal with before, but an entirely new civil police force was developed as a semi-militarized order. It greatly increased the order and greatly reduced crime without the excess effect of repression in the masses.

When Lathos I died in 923 B.C., his son, Garandor the Good succeeded him to the throne. About this time, rumors of the illegitimacy of the Lathos line began to spread and the Begai attempted to re-corrupt the Mesaica, but most of the new royal counselors were true to the crown. In reality, Bedencor, the son of Begas III, had begun a traitorous campaign to overthrow the king. But Garandor the Good, so named for his legendary high morals (he reputedly would not lie to anyone, even his enemies), had secured his throne through honesty and integrity and by that method was unshakable by the surrounding nobles.

Bedencor then took the Begai and left the Mesaica in rebellion, burning helpless towns on the way back to Galbrethi, creating the infamous "Road of Fire." Garandor, upon hearing the news, decided to do what many of his forefathers had avoided; the king declared open war upon the Begai and all their allies. In light of this, Garandor increased the power of the military and created the Royal Archers, an elite unit of soldiers that were created to protect the kingship and defeat the hordes of Galbrethi.

Thus in 910 B.C., Garandor arrayed his forces in the southwest of Valiant to bar any attack from Galbrethi, and launched assault upon the rocky fortress year after year for nearly 20 years. With a naval blockade surrounding the rock fortress as well, Galbrethi was under a massive siege. Bedencor had been prepared for this even though, and had been able to hold out for the two decades. In 880 B.C., Bedencor launched a counter assault upon Hathanda with a secret force that had been built up over the years.

With Bedencor leading this surprise attack, his army took the small farming town Theron, in the center of the island, the central source of grain to Xenoz. Garandor marshaled an attack force of Royal Archers to take the town, but not before leaving his young baby son, Lathos II, to a maiden upon the edge of Xenoz, saying, "If my crown shall fail in this task, my son's crown will continue. If this city is taken, make haste to the palace of Xenoz-Ramba and present him to the Keeper of that place. He shall know what to do."

Garandor and the Archers came with force unto Theron and besieged Bedencor and his Black Soldiers into one of the storehouses of grain at the place. But Bedencor, in deceit, left the storehouse and made for the Great Mill of that town.

Garandor drew his sword and pursued the Dark Master to that Mill. Unbeknown to Garandor, a second force had been hidden within that place. When Garandor entered, he was shot by ten arrows into the chest and stabbed by Bedencor's curved blade in his back. Bedencor then spoke to the King with a crafty voice, saying, "And so you die and I shall succeed the Honest One, so honest that he could not see my deceit. And with this host of weapons I shall scar the very last seconds of your pure life."

But Garandor, still conscious, but in great pain replied, "And with a single weapon, I shall scar the rest of the pitiful years in your life." Then Garandor took his drawn sword and stabbed Bedencor in the leg, brought the blade back to him and then cut the rope line holding the upper millstone in its place bringing the grand rock down upon Bedencor's hand, which he had been using to support himself as he nursed his leg. Garandor then brought up his sword for a deathblow, but was shot down. He fell dead.

The Royal Archers had found the dark army too powerful for their skill and fled south to hide in the farmlands of Jaksanda. Later the Archers would move their base to the Cavern Cathedral to join with the Blue Order.

Thus crippled in his leg and hand, Bedencor nevertheless rode into Xenoz with an ill spirit and set upon the throne. Several Mesaica members were killed because of their loyalty to the true crown, while others submitted to Bedencor in fear for their lives. Under these conditions Bedencor I crowned himself as the Dark King over Valiant and proceeded to subjugate the people to the dictatorial rule of his crushed hand, using his Black Army as shock police. For sixteen years the ruler allowed the fearful Mesaica to organize the government while he luxuriated in his stolen palace.

Meanwhile, the loyalist forces of the Royal Archers and the Blue Order organized in the Cavern Cathedral under the leadership of Thedro, Keeper of Xenoz-Ramba who was also acting as the Regent to young Lathos II. When Lathos II was seventeen, he led the Loyalist Alliance to surprise attack Xenoz ending in victory. Lathos II nearly killed Bedencor I, but stayed his hand in mercy toward the wicked king. But Bedencor I, when limping alone from the recaptured capital, he was stabbed in the back by an old woman, the same woman who had taken Lathos II when he was young. With his last breath, Bedencor I pronounced a curse on Lathos II's children, to die a mysterious and senseless death. Then Bedencor's son, Begas IV took his body to the Pyramid Shrine of Galbrethi and drank his ashes spread in wine, a superstitious practice of most of the Begai Lords.

Lathos II reigned for 27 more years in a relatively peaceful time. He established the Ninety-Three Watchtowers that guarded the island for a long time afterwards, in light of the Galbrethi threat that always lurked around the corner. The Konai and the Begai were still technically at war, and would be for nearly eight hundred more years. Lathos II died in 842 B.C. and his son Lathos III took the throne at age twenty.

Lathos III was typically unimportant because of the lack of important events that happened in his period of reign. Everything in the Konai Civilization had been stabilized, including the growth of the now healthy military. Lathos III had little initiative for civil projects due mostly to his bad health. He did not marry due partly to this deficiency and that was the reason for the end of the Lathos line. Lathos did finally exile Begas IV who had been harassing the Mesaica periodically for retribution for his father's death. One evening in 812 B.C., Lathos III had been walking upon the Ro Peninsula, when a lighting storm struck and a bolt of lighting hit him. He died upon that day, and with him, the Regal Lathos Dynasty and the Age of Power.

[Kylan's Blog] Palouse Discovery Science Center

Sometime last fall, EECS decided that Project Fuji's work would be good material for a display at the Palouse Discovery Science Center. A few weeks ago, Dr. Pedrow emailed me with some questions regarding the project. I told him what I knew, and offered to help in any way I could. Today we visited the science center with Dr. Mohamed Osman and Patricia Arnold. We spoke with the executive director, Victoria Scalise, and discussed the possibility of an EECS-sponsored exhibit. It was very helpful to get a tour of the science center and get a feel for what kinds of exhibits were there. Maybe I'll come up with some conceptual drawings for the new display this weekend.

[HiPerCoPS] A New Direction

I'm nearly finished with my two's complement multiplier. For a long time, I couldn't figure out why multiplication of negative numbers didn't work. On Tuesday, though, I sat down and fleshed it out by walking through the algorithm step-by-step. This means that I'm almost ready to move on to some new things. I need to implement an unsigned multiplier, and I might even take a shot at the hierarchical multiplier. Once those are all finished, the multiplier corner of this research will be pretty much exhausted. Dr. Delgado has suggested that I might be able to write a paper on what I've done so far, but we need to find a journal that is appropriate for this topic.

With the multiplier business coming to an end, it's time to start moving in a new direction. In my fault tolerance class we're required to do a term project, so I'd like to kill two birds with one stone by working on adding some kind of fault tolerance to the Washington architecture. I'm not really sure what shape this project will take yet, but I'll figure it out over the next few days.

[Kylan's Blog] Literature Survey

Over spring break and the past week, I've been working on a literature survey for my fault tolerance class. Well, it's finally done!  Here it is, in case you want to read it. Now I can get on with the rest of my life.

[Kylan's Blog] Georgia on My Mind

Dang, my Cinderella team didn't even make it past the first round. Oh, Georgia, your were doing so well! Now my bracket is already ruined.

[Kylan's Blog] My Bracket

Here's my bracket for the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Go Cougs!

[Kylan's Blog] Silo Sandwiches

This week WSU reopened the Rotunda dining center, with new food options, modern architecture, and a new name - The Southside Cafe. Before leaving for spring break, I saw an advertisement for new features being offered at Southside. It championed these things called "silo sandwiches," which seemed strangely familiar to me.

Before going on, I have to tell you about The Staggering Ox, a Spokane restaurant Kristen and I ate at last semester. I really liked the novel idea of "bread tubes" that hold sandwich fillings. In fact, I liked it so much that I asked the employees about how they make them. They informed me that their company holds a patent on the bread pan and corer tool design, so their franchise is the only company that can produce these sandwiches.

From what I can tell, silo sandwiches are same thing as what's sold at the Staggering Ox. Considering the Staggering Ox patents, how can Southside legally make and sell these sandwiches? If they haven't made the necessary arrangements, WSU could be sued and lose a lot of money. If I were the Staggering Ox, I would license out the pan and corer for a cut of the dining center profits. If they could get 5 or 10 cents per sandwich, it would be a great deal.

I wish there was an easier way to find out more about this whole situation. Maybe the Daily Evergreen could run a story on it.

[Kylan's Blog] Spring EP Release: March 25th

Jon Foreman's Spring EP, the third of four he's releasing this year, will be available for download on March 25th. You'll be able to purchase it from the Amazon.com music store, or from JonForeman.com. The preview clips are very promising, and I anticipate that the last three songs will be the best.

[Kylan's Blog] Basketball Signage

I know this is belated, but I'm still very happy that the Cougars beat the Huskies last Saturday. It was the perfect way for our beloved seniors to go out. I think they stretched the game to two overtimes just to prolong their departure. I just wanted to note that our student section was displaying some great signage at the game. I even saw two "Allez Les Cougs" posters, which I especially appreciated. My favorite, though, was one directed to the Huskies and their fans:

Just Face It:
You're A
Football
Basketball
Volleyball
School

[Kylan's Blog] Home for the Week

Today Jaron and I traveled to the west side of the state for spring break. We got an early start and arrived home just before 1PM. It's nice to be back over here again, and it's especially good to see my folks. Both Mom and Dad seemed excited to see us. Tonight we had salmon for dinner and went over to the Pasquans' to watch Premonition.

My dad is working on moving his classroom to a new campus, and one of his goals is to get a working transmitter simulator his students can use. He asked if I could write some software to simulate different types of transmitter-related alarms and I said I could give it a try. Since I've been really happy with NetBeans lately, I decided to take my first shot at GUI programming in Java. So far it's going pretty well, and I'm gaining a lot of exposure to Swing and AWT. One thing I still need to figure out is how to play sound clips to represent alarms. There doesn't seem to be any super-simple way to do this, so it might have to get creative. Once I get a little further along I'll post the code along with some screen shots.

With this new project, I now have three major goals to accomplish over spring break:

1. Write a 20-page literature review
2. Work out all of the kinks in my research simulator
3. Finish at least a beta version of my transmitter simulator

Should be a busy break.

[Kylan's Blog] Tolerating Hard Faults in Microprocessor Array Structures

Last Thursday I made a presentation to my fault tolerant computing class. It was on a paper entitled "Tolerating Hard Faults in Microprocessor Array Structures" by Fred A. Bower, Paul G. Shealy, Sule Ozev, and Daniel J. Sorin. My slides are here. It went pretty well, although I wish I could have found a topic that's more in line with my research.

[Kylan's Blog] Invitations in the Wild

Last weekend Vic and Karl visited Pullman, and they helped us assemble our wedding invitations. Even with so many hands working feverishly, the project still took over 5 hours to complete. I was in charge of numbering the response cards, applying stamps, stuffing the envelopes, and licking them shut. Yesterday Kristen dropped them in the mail, so be looking for them to arrive within the next few days.

[Kylan's Blog] My February Songbook

This year, the end of February means the end of FAWM and the RPM Challenge. From the start, it was clear to me that I probably wouldn't be able to complete the RPM part of my goal. I just can't play enough instruments, I don't own any fancy recording equipment, and Jaron and I weren't able to get together often enough to lay down tracks. I did have high hopes for FAWM, though. That is, until this past week of school buried me alive.

I'm sad to say that I only ended up with 9 complete songs, but I'm happy to report that this is still a major accomplishment. Remember, prior to this month I had never written a song in my life. It was a completely new experience, and it helped me understand a lot more about music. For the most part, I'm pretty proud of my songs, too. Here they are:

"The Reason for Pain"

If our God is a God of Love
what's the reason for all this pain?
Our days are long, our lives are rough
we're just tired of toil and strain

Chorus:
The truth is that we're sinners
and we deserve so much worse
Father, save us from ourselves
forgive us, wicked and perverse

Almighty God, consume our hearts
apart from You, no one is good
We still do what we should not do
and keep avoiding what we should

But God alone has the power
to transform and renew your life
Call on Him to receive freedom
and meaning deeper than your pain

"If We Lived in Mexico"

I wish we lived in Mexico
I'd write my songs in Espanol
It'd be so fantastico
If we lived in Mexico

We'd spend all day in a siesta
Then at night have a fiesta
That's the life, it'd be the best-a
If we lived in Mexico

Play a game of street futbol
Drink tequila alcohol
Hear Arturo Sandoval
If we lived in Mexico

We'd invite good ol' Vicente
Yes, the former Presidente
To our humble little partay
If we lived in Mexico

"How Awesome Are Your Deeds"

Shout with joy, all the earth
Sing the glory of His name
Come and see what God has done
the awesome works on our behalf

Chorus:
How awesome are your deeds!
So great is your power
all that hate you cringe and run away
And all the earth bows down
they sing praise to you
They sing and shout and yell praise to your name

He turned the sea into dry land
They walked across on foot
He rules forever by his power
His eyes watch o'er the nations

Test us, O God
Refine us like silver
(x2)

"Think About These Things"

Chorus:
Whatever is true
Whatever is noble
Whatever is right and pure and lovely
Think about these things
Whatever is admirable
Whatever is excellent
Whatever is worthy of your praise
Think about these things

The enemies of the cross of Christ
Their destination is destruction
They are ruled by their stomachs
Shame is their glory
Their mind is on earthly things

Do everything without complaining
that you may become blameless and pure
children of God without fault
Shining like the stars
Holding out the word of life

Rejoice, show your gentleness to all
The Lord is near, so do not worry
Present your requests to God
And the peace of God
will guard your hearts and your minds

"To My Fiance"

I promise you will always know
how much I love you, baby
My love for you will always grow
no ifs or buts or maybes
Cause when I look into your eyes
or see your smile I realize
Our loves the kind that drives out fears
keeps up together throughout the years

I remember when we became friends
we spoke so long after the movie's end
We both like someone else
so we were free to be ourselves
Then every week we met for lunch
we talked and ate and laughed a bunch
In the hard times we cried
but you were always by my side

Standing that day on that bridge
you didn't know but I sure did
Our lives were about to change
a better kind of change
I said some words, you listened to me
we both looked at the scenery
I dropped down on one knee
and asked you to marry me

I can't wait to marry you in June
you'll be my bride and I'll be your groom
Surrounded by friends and family
It'll be a beautiful ceremony
We'll start a new life, have kids of our own
work really hard and buy a home
Fill it with love and laughter
live happily ever after

"Valentines"

Kristen when I look in your eyes
I feel a love so deep inside

You have a smile that warms my day
And makes my cares just melt away

I love you more than songs can show
But I wrote this so you would know

I am yours and you are mine
We make the perfect Valentines.

"Hear My Cry, O God"

From the ends of the earth I call,
I call you as my heart grows faint;
lead me to the rock
that's higher than I.

For you have been my refuge, God,
a strong tower against the foe.
Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer.

I long to dwell in your tent
and take refuge forever in
the shelter of your wings.
the shelter of your wings.

"Lots of Snow"

Snow snow snow-snow snow
snow-snow-snow snow snow

Oh no! Oh no snow!
Snow oh no! Oh snow no!

Snow is here, snow is there
Snow is even in your hair.

Everywhere. Snow is there.
Who is there? snow is there!

Do you even really care?
You should really truly care?

I just saw a polar bear.
Who what where? A Polar Bear.

Was he at the county fair? No
hibernating in his lair.

Wait that's just snowshoe hare
Stupid boy,
Hey that's not fair!

If you hunt him use a snare
Eat that yellow snow I dare

Snow snow snow-snow snow
snow-snow-snow snow snow

Snow snow snow-snow snow
snow-snow-snow snow snow

The end.

"Like Losing a Friend"

I refused to believe that last spring was the end
We were roommates and pals... you were my best friend
But I should've known better, I'd seen all the signs
When summers came round, you cut all the lines

--- Chorus ---
I miss you my friend, you seem so far away
I wish we could talk, every couple of days
A phone call, an email, a letter or card
You'd think that it wouldn't be hard
You'd think that it wouldn't be hard

--- Verse 2 ---
Now, I'm half to blame, yes I could've done more
More patient persistence, keep an open door
But this time around, the summer is endless
Please tell me now, how do we mend this

--- Bridge ---
We're at a grand canyon, you're on that side
I'm reaching out, but your face you hide
Come back to me friend, we'll turn a new leaf
We'll start over new, and forget all this grief

-- Outro ---
I refused to believe that last spring was the end
But it felt a whole lot, like losing a friend
It felt a whole lot... like losing a friend