Michael Brundage

Feed Validation Errors Fixed

Michael Brundage — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 15:11:00 PST

One of the many hazards of rolling your own RSS feed is that you need to be diligent in checking it for RSS validation errors. Sorry that my feed has been broken for awhile in some RSS readers (notably RSS Bandit). Now I need to decide whether this is another reason to jettison Safari as my RSS reader, or another reason to start using a real set of blogging tools.

Enjoy It While It Lasts

Michael Brundage — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 20:16:00 PST

W00t! I'm currently ranked #1 in the world at Hexic (timed mode; I'm also #2 in marathon mode). J's ranked 18th and 6th respectively - nyah nyah! Well, I'll enjoy it while it lasts -- which probably won't be beyond Tuesday, if that long :-)

XboxFan

Honor Systems

Michael Brundage — Mon, 7 Nov 2005 23:56:00 PST

Ed Felten recently wrote about honor systems, and I think he absolutely nailed one of the reasons the Caltech Honor System has been successful:

Caltech has ... a student culture that features less student versus student competitiveness than you might expect. Competition there tends to be student versus crushing workload.

The Caltech Honor System is enforced by an undergraduate committee called the Board of Control, of which I was a member my junior year and Chairman my senior year. Most of the academic cases I saw involved students who had cracked under pressure (usually external pressure, such as from parents). Often they reported themselves out of guilt days before the cheating was detected by their professors. Paradoxically, many were already getting an 'A' in the class without cheating, but essentially self-destructed.

College is a game like any other. The participants enjoy different aspects of it. Some just enjoy playing nicely with others. Some enjoy winning, at various costs. Some enjoy breaking the rules; others enjoy making them. For an honor system to be successful, it has to have clear benefits for everyone playing the game, regardless of their goals -- and not only the students, but also the faculty and staff (whose perspectives I'll not discuss in this article).

Cheating at Caltech is mostly an exercise in futility. If you understand what you're doing then you don't need to cheat, and if you don't then cheating is like trying to pretend you speak a foreign language in front of native speakers. Good luck faking that! The answers are rarely to be found in books or your peers, who are generally just as lost as you are. If a professor is lazy, you might find answers in previous years' exams. You might also be able to team up with a graduate student teaching assistant. Either way, your work is readily identifiable as plagiarism -- believe me, I saw several such cases.

Cheating really only helps your GPA, but almost nothing you could want at Caltech (other than the grade itself) depends on your grades. Awards don't depend on your GPA: I won the institute's highest undergraduate award, and my GPA was a pitiful 2.8, barely a 'B minus'. Jobs don't depend on your GPA: Employment comes from establishing contacts with your professors and peers, and they're all evaluating you on your raw intelligence and competence, not your grades. Again, good luck faking that! Graduating does depend on your GPA (somewhat), but Caltech makes dropping a course a much easier way to escape a failing grade. If you're failing a required course, you're going to re-evaluate your major. If you're failing a core requirement, you're going to re-evaluate the choice to attend Caltech at all. Indeed, most of the academic cases I saw involved freshmen and their core classes, and for some of them expulsion was a visible relief.

As Ed wrote, at Caltech, it's really you versus the exam (and the exam's probably going to win). I don't remember ever running out of time on an exam, but I do remember often having a lot of time left and way too many unanswered questions.

So for undergraduates, the expected value of cheating at Caltech is nearly zero, against the risk of severe consequences (including expulsion). But even if cheating at Caltech might have some reward, the Caltech Honor System would still appeal to the undergraduates. Among other reasons, the Caltech Honor System is a social contract with your peers; breaking it is tantamount to declaring yourself an outsider. But part of the appeal of Caltech — a large part of why you're there and not at a less expensive, less demanding university — is that you're finally surrounded by people like you. The Honor System helps you fit in, and helps you feel secure.

All this is not to say the system's perfect. It depends pretty heavily on the individuals who enforce it, especially the Dean of Undergraduate Students (who chooses to enact or override the Board's recommendations) and the Chairman and Secretary of the Board (who choose which cases receive a full board hearing). The students tend to judge each other pretty harshly, perhaps more harshly than the faculty would. Because of the (necessary) secrecy surrounding the Board, the community at large doesn't have a lot of insight into how it really works, and so the system relies heavily on trust. Obviously some cases go unreported and undetected.

As Chairman of Caltech's Board of Control, the problem that bothered me the most was a flaw I've noticed in most judicial systems. When convicted of an offense, the guilty who completely own up to their mistakes tend to receive some leniency, while the innocent who vehemently deny their guilt (even in the face of a guilty verdict) tend to receive the harshest sentences. On the one hand, this is completely sensible; a guilty person who accepts their guilt is clearly more ready to be a functioning, trustworthy member of society than a guilty person who is still in denial. On the other hand, this means that a wrongly convicted innocent person will often be punished above and beyond the already terribly mistaken verdict. And what alternatives are available to the innocent convict, other than appeal? (Or plea bargains, which generally don't exist in the academic context.)

Time Sinks

Michael Brundage — Mon, 7 Nov 2005 22:23:00 PST

It's been too long since I last posted here, and as much as I'd love to blame the imminent launch of our console and all the hard work our team has been doing to prepare for it, the truth is that I've been playing entirely too much Guild Wars! Brian and Jeff are to blame for this.

I've actually written several articles during this time, but I want to polish them a little more before I post them. I've been learning a lot at work, but it's been a challenge to find ways to write about it without disclosing proprietary intellectual property or delving into topics that are too esoteric. However, some of it consists of generally applicable concepts. Some of the topics I'll post about in the coming weeks include:

Understanding file IO performance
Using memory efficiently
Designing software with debugging and performance measurement in mind
Understanding the impact of kernel operations on your software
Debugging versus troubleshooting
Distributing work across hardware and software threads

Musical interests

Michael Brundage — Mon, 20 Aug 2005 21:44:00 PST

I have "varied" musical interests. I'm probably the only person to have ever purchased in the same iTunes shopping cart both Lisa Loeb and Black Eyed Peas. But that's not actually what I want to write about today.

In 6th grade, my mother forced me to take band lessons. Band was the height of uncool, an extracurricular activity that took up the lunch hour -- so it simultaneously interfered with socializing and eating. I hated the idea and resisted it mightily, but in the end she prevailed (and was ultimately proven right).

Well, if you have to be in band, the only instrument that doesn't completely suck is the drum, right? In theory, that is. I and the two other "percussionists" in this "band" were AWFUL. We were ten times worse than whatever you're imagining. Despite the lack of skills or talent, I enjoyed it enough to not only stick out the year but to do it again the next year (without arm-twisting). By the end of seventh grade -- well, I was still completely awful.

But then something happened: We moved to a new school where there were like a hundred students in the band, a dozen of them in the percussion section. I immediately saw that I was a very little fish in a big pond. Ahh, but only two of these students were playing *mallet* percussion.

Mallet percussion instruments -- xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, chimes, and so on -- are unlike most drums in that they produce not just rhythm but also melody. The marimba in particular can be used to perform pieces normally played on the violin or piano. You can play them with one mallet held in each hand, just as you would play a drum with sticks in each hand. Or you can hold two (or more) mallets in each hand, and play them more like a piano. I barely had any idea how to play, but I knew that I could be second place instead of tenth, and that was something.

One of the two mallet percussionists in this band was a complete loser, so that they didn't even bother with tryouts before making me second place. The other was a girl -- and we all know girls pose no challenge to misogynist thirteen-year-old boys, right? Mallet percussion it is then!

Oh, but wait. This girl was not merely good but actually excellent, a really top-notch mallet player. For the rest of the year, every time I challenged her for "first chair", she completely wiped the floor with me. It rankled more than you can understand to lose so completely to a girl, and in that weird adolescent logic I simultaneously had a huge crush on her. Everyone knew it, and also knew that I had no chance (at either task). It was a highly amusing situation for everyone but me.

I talked the school into loaning me a xylophone for the summer. We lived with my grandmother and I occupied a small room, which the xylophone and bed more than filled, but I could get in and out of the room by climbing under one and over the other, so it was ok. I practiced the xylophone every day, sometimes all day.

The new school year brought with it band tryouts, and then something truly magical happened -- I didn't suck. I didn't win either, but the girl (Andrea) was shaken up, and the rest of the year our duels were close and closely watched. Andrea still held first chair most of my 8th grade year (she was excellent, after all), but I took it from her often enough to keep us both on our toes. Competition is a wonderful thing.

Andrea was a year older so she would have moved on to high school that next year, but unfortunately her family was military and moved away. For all of ninth grade I held first chair unchallenged, but continued to practice hard every day, so that by the time I reached high school (10th grade), I was the best in the state. Literally -- I won the statewide competition that year, and got my choice of being in the Oklahoma All-State Orchestra or the All-State Band.

I had never heard an orchestra live before, so that was my choice. I don't regret it, although the experience wasn't all it could have been (the other kids all came from higher socioeconomic classes, orchestra music rarely has much for the mallet player to do, and the director was a complete ass). In its first rehearsal, the orchestra played Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5 while I stood mesmerized in the percussion section behind it. It's really something to listen to a live orchestra (even a high-school one) from zero feet away. An unforgettable experience.

I kept playing competitively throughout high school, but eventually I had to choose between music and other pursuits (math, science, etc.). I chose the latter. Caltech had a crummy music program, and after two years of that I abandoned performance music altogether.

Eight years passed. I was finally able to afford my own marimba, which now sits in our living room. I'm nowhere near as good as I used to be (and probably never will be), but I'm able to play a few songs well enough that I and others enjoy them, and I guess that will have to do.

In quiet moments, I sometimes ponder the path not taken and the odd circumstances that led up to it. If not for a pushy mother... if not for a new school with too many drummers... if not for my desire to win... if not for a girl...

I work on...

Michael Brundage — Mon, 15 May 2005 21:18:00 PST

Now that it's been announced at E3, I can finally reveal that the Xbox 360 feature I work on is...

Xbox 360 Revealed!

Michael Brundage — Thu, 13 May 2005 02:30:00 PST

It's been awhile since I last posted, first because we were on vacation, and then because I've been completely swamped at work.

I'm so excited that today we've revealed the Xbox 360!!!

Unfortunately, I can't yet write about the Xbox 360 feature I work on. Much, but not everything, has been revealed. But I've heard my feature will be announced at E3, so maybe soon.

In the meantime, it seems everyone's talking about the hardware, but personally I think the experience is far more about the software. I love what we've done with the system software, and check out some of the launch titles -- wow! I hope they show a lot of these (and more) at E3, so that everyone else can share the love.

I've seen demos of about six launch titles so far, and most of them really blew me away. Halo 2 and Jade Empire are great, but I wish I could play Gears of War RIGHT NOW -- I expect to spend many hours glued to that game. At HD resolution, Ghost Recon 3 looked like a live news feed. It was so photo-realistic that I had difficulty accepting it was just a game. It certainly ended any doubts I had that this will be a new generation of gaming experience. If these are on display at E3, I'm very jealous of anyone who gets to try them out! :-)

Essential Mac Software

Michael Brundage — Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:00:00 PST

My friend Steve asked me for a list of essential Mac software to go with his new Mac-mini.

Working at Microsoft

Michael Brundage — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 01:00:00 PST

It seems like there's a lot of public interest in what it's like to work at Microsoft. Here's my personal persepctive on the good, the bad, and the in-between.

Optimizing loop stride

Michael Brundage — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 23:00:00 PST

A useful optimization technique for a common (and commonly overlooked) problem.

Random number generation

Michael Brundage — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 23:00:00 PST

A look at two fast, high-quality random number generators: the Mersenne Twister and R520, with source code.

This is not a blog

Michael Brundage — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 23:00:00 PST

This is not a blog. Blogs remind me of an early Web phenomenon. Then, as now, it seemed like everyone had something they wanted to say — even if they weren't quite sure what it was.