So I got a migraine last night.

I was doing a little work on the computer, and all of a sudden realized that, as I was typing, I couldn't see the letters that I had just typed. I had a small blind spot just off to the left of where I was focusing. Immediately I got that feeling of dread, like "I know what's coming."

When I was younger, migraines felt like a death sentence. I had some medicine, but nothing that really worked very well. The only thing I could do was lie in bed, literally moaning in agony, for about 6 hours. The pain was deep and throbbing, but at the same time, it felt like my brain was hot... like my brain was actually heating up. So, you can see why I get a little panicky when I first notice a blind spot.

Last night, as soon as I noticed the blind spot, I took my medicine. 50mg of Imitrex and 2 other pills that are some mix of caffeine and some pain killer. Then, nothing to do but lie down in a dark room and wait for it.

The blind spot grows, starting out as a small spot on just one side of where I'm looking, and expands towards the side of my vision, moving sideways as it grows, until it's a weird big flashing crescent.

Try this: put your left hand straight out as far as you can reach, straight out in front of your face. Keep your eyes looking straight, and move your hand about 1.5 feet to the left and waggle your fingers. Even though you're not looking at them, you can still easily see them out of your periphal vision. That's about where the blindspot starts. Now move your hand more to the left, still keeping your eyes straight ahead. You should be able to still see your waggling fingers until your hand is just about straight out from your sholder. During the migraine precursor, for me, most of that vision is gone.

So if I can't see, what's there? It's weird how your brain fills in the blind spot with information. If you've never done it, try this blind spot test. The affected visual area kind of flashes and pulses. It's definitely not a big black area, that's for sure.

And as quickly as it started, the blindness goes away. Without medicine, the pain then would start. With medicine, that agonizing pain is reduced to a moderate discomforate. Last night I got in bed, buried my eyes under the covers while Diana worked on the laptop next to me. My head still gets a bit of a burning feeling, and I get a moderate headache, but totally manageable. That lasts for about 2 hours or so (by this point, though, I was asleep for the night).

Today, I called in sick and have just been lazing around all day. My head hurts if I bend over or if I sneeze, and I generally feel a little foggy, but nothing that can stop me from playing some Guitar Hero or doing the dishes. By tomorrow, I should be right as rain.

So, there you go. Everything you didn't want to know about getting a migraine.

It struck me recently why I have such happy memories of high school. I had a lot of friends. Some were "best" friends, and some were just friends, and some were just acquaintances, but regardless, I got to see those people every day. As a grownsed-up person, the idea of having lunch with all my best friends, all together, every day of the week, is pretty much the coolest thing ever. And pretty much impossible, unfortunately. I don't remember any really significant problems or bad times in high school... just a lot of fun times with good friends.

After work on Friday, I met Diana at her school and we went out to dinner and killed some time before heading over to the Torrey Pines Homecoming football game. Just the week before, we were driving by TPHS and stopped in and walked around the campus, and it brought back a flood of memories. Going to the football game that night was a lot of fun. Not only did TP kick butt, but it's fun to watch the kids be kids, and to revel in my own nostalgia. I loved going to the football games back in the day, and cramming into the stands with all my friends. We'd do silly cheers, and have a million inside jokes, make fun of cheerleaders, and generally be self-centered jerks (which is actually a really fun thing to be until you develop a consciousness that is bigger than yourself... after that, it kinda sucks). Anyways, Diana and I stayed until about half-time, and then bailed out.

And speaking of good friends, I had a great night on Saturday night. A whole group of us got together pretty spontaneously on Saturday night for dinner. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Eryn had just gotten back from a torrid Brazilian vacation, and was the fuel for a lot of "over-under" wagering and general joking around (I hope he didn't think this joking was at his expense, because I don't think it was intended that way at all!). After dinner, we headed back to Little Buhr's pad and played some games. The first was a game where a trivia question is asked, and everyone writes down an answer. Everyone reveals their answer, and then wagers can be played, roulette-style, on the various answers, and the correct answer wins you money. A nice, light game. We then played a game of RoboRally, which is possibly the nerdiest game ever, involving "programming" a robot (by playing cards on it), and trying to maneuver through an environment, touching flags in order. With 8 robots all trying to touch the same flag, chaos ensued. I think everyone was having fun, but the game was dragging a little and it was getting late, so we threw in the towel. All in all, though, my cheeks were sore from laughing and smiling all night, and it was from nothing more than being around some folks that I enjoy (half a dozen drinks spread out through the night didn't hurt, either! :) I just felt giddy the whole night. If I had my way, my friends who are outside of San Diego would all move back, and we'd all get together every day for lunch and games... But until that happens, I'll take what I can get when I can get it.

So I recently pre-ordered a game called "Defcon". I'd read about it recently and thought it sounded interesting. Pre-orders were only $10! What a deal.

Defcon is ripped straight out of the movie WarGames (which is going right to the top of my Netflix queue, so help me!), and they nailed it on so many levels.

In the movie WarGames, our hero Ferris (whatever) is a high school gamer who can't wait for the next big game to come out. So he attempts to break into the software company (online, not physically) and grab an early copy. He finds some computer system with games on it, and assumes it's the right one, and begins to play "Global Thermonuclear War" ("How about a nice game of chess?" the computer asks. "No... I want to play... global... thermonuclear... war" Ferris responds, speaking as he types. "Fine" says the computer. Classic!).

The game that subsequently begins is the basis for Defcon. A huge world map, drawn in vector graphics, scrollable and scalable. Each player controls one of 6 territories, and begins by placing radar, missile silos, airbases, and naval fleets. And then the Defcon counter begins counting down, from 5 (peace) to 1 (let the nukes fly).

Both games (Defcon and GlobalThermoNuclearWar in Wargames) simulate a full-world nuclear war. Defcon simulates WarGames' primative vector graphics and glowing screen. There is this really creepy mood music playing, and you can't help but imagine that you're in a secured underground bunker somewhere. The tension builds during the game, as players create and break alliances, secretly move hidden subs right off each others coastlines, and eventually all hell breaks loose as Mutuall Assured Destruction comes to pass. When a nuke hits a city there is a white glow, a single, brief piano note stands out from the constant mood music, an almost inaudible rumble, and a message pops up: "London hit, 5.1m dead". The juxtaposition between the massive violence of the game (if measured by "body count") and the graphical quality of that violence (which is to say, completely non-existant) is really moving. It's eerie.

In WarGames, the game that Ferris started running was actually a military simulation, and that simulation begins looking for the winner of a nuclear war, trying tactic after tactic. The simulations run faster and faster, the screen going crazy with flashing lights as the world destroys itself over and over again.

US first strike. Winner: none.
Soviet first strike. Winner: none.
China first strike. Winner: none.
China-US versus Soviet. Winner: none.
China-Soviet versus US. Winner: none.
India (Soviet ally) vs Pakistan (US ally). Winner: none.
Israel vs an Arab state. Winner: none.
... and a hundred more.

Finally, the screen goes dark, and the computer says "A strange game... The only winning move... is not to play."

A Defcon game ends after everyone has shot their nukes off. There are a few different game modes which modify how a winner is determined (either most kills, most survivals, or a hybrid of both). As the game ends, we are left with a mostly obliterated world map, glowing green fallout clouds covering most major population centers, and the message that no one really wins the game as much as everyone loses, but someone loses the least, becomes clear.

I've played games where I've killed zombie demons with chainsaws or gunned down UN security forces trying to defuse the C4 bomb that I planted, and worse... who'd have thought one of the most thought-provoking images of violence would be a single spot of white light on a map?

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I was listening to the radio on the way to work, and there was a commercial for real estate loans. A while back, they'd advertise how low their rates were, especially getting an adjustable rate mortgage at like 3%. Now, they say "Stuck with an ARM that is going through the roof? Refinance now with our low 30 year fixed..."

Those guys are bastards.

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For the past few days, I've been obsessively thinking about this Netflix programming contest. The idea is that they want to improve their recommendation system. They are offering $1 million to anyone who can improve their user->movie prediction by over 10%, or $50K a year to anyone who can improve it by 1%. To do this, they provide 100 million data rows looking like (userID, movieID, rating). They also provide a test... that is, about 3 million users and movies, but withhold the ratings. Our job is to try to predict what the users actually rated the movie.


The main strategies appear to be as follows (given user U and movie M)

1) Find other users who have similiar tastes as you, based on ratings over common movies, and find what those users rated M. Take the average of that, and there you go.

In other words, if I trust my boy Iwan (meaning, we share a lot of common ratings), and Iwan tells me he really liked movie M, I will probably like it too.

and/or 2) Find movies that are similiar to M, and find out what users rated those. In other words, if movie M is a lot like movies A, B, C, and D, and I liked all those, I'll probably like this one as well.

Pretty interesting stuff. It's an easy problem to wrap your brain around, but not easy to solve. The first obstacle has been dealing with 100 million data points. The second obstacle will be finding solutions for 3 million rows. If my algorithm takes 1 second per row, that's still over 3 days of processing time. Ugh.

I have a date with a workboy tomorrow to see what we can come up with. I've got some good ideas, and he's a pretty smart guy, so we'll see how it goes.

Ciao.