Most, if not all, of us who teach and/or do research feel a certain way about what’s going on right now. It was surreal to see UCOP explicitly call it out in a recent (public) document. It made my heart skip a beat.

Whenever I introduce TCP or other network connections, I introduce the concept with two bros, Connor and Logan. Why? Because not much data is exchanged, yet the handshake is important.

Ultimate nirvana when teaching. This happened for the first time since maybe week 1. Average response time has gone up over the years, but still pretty good if there were an SLA...

Brought to you by the parametric equations,
x = 16 (sin x)^3
y = 13 cos x - 5 cos 2x - 2 cos 3x - cos 4x

This tweet (I removed the rest) was a discussion today in my databases class. What are some other reasons why SSNs might be duplicated: wrong join condition, looking at a table with SSN as a foreign key, SSN is part of a composite key (before 2011 SSNs in rare cases were not unique) etc.

The Palisades Fire from the top of Boelter Hall at UCLA. I used to be on the 9th floor all the time as a grad student but wanted to see the extent of the fire. It is really unsettling.

The view out my back window this holiday weekend. This is 4 hours from LA.

One consistent issue I've had with ChatGPT is its inability to understand words like "uphill" and "downhill." Out of 12 images, only 1 of them oriented the road correctly. (I use a lot of these images in my slides for teaching) #teaching #chatgpt

We're not going back. Or we better not. Very, very long line at the Ventura County Government Center. Never seen that. By the way the red shirt was just a bad coincidence.

The intro to Paxos is fascinating to me: a fictitious part-time parliamentary government on the island of Paxos (the island is real) where legislators must build consensus without always being in the chamber - like processes in a distributed system. New vacay spot? www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #246,872!

I have a bad habit of buying seeds. I need to stop. Like, I really need to stop. I don't have time to plant all of these once the last frost passes. Someone really likes hollyhocks, larkspur and lupines.

On Canvas, each class can have its own logo. Last year I generated a squirrel eating a ginormous cookie. Something I witnessed at UCLA. This year I was a bit more clever. (Sometimes I have to entertain myself)

Happy New Year! We are still exhausted from Christmas...

The class MySQL server crashed and I had to debug using a keyboard-less IPad on a Southwest flight. Here’s how my evening is going. How is yours? #databases #teaching

When I teach databases, enforcing the SQL Standard is a hill I am willing to die on. I get some flack for it, but I stand by it. #SQL #databases

I gave DALL-E the lyrics to the song "Get to Me" by Train, what I consider one of the most figurative, visual and imaginative songs of theirs. These results are incredible.

A photo from back on the first day of teaching this year. This will be my first year teaching all 3 quarters. Fall quarter I teach in the business school which has perhaps the nicest facilities on campus.