There aren’t many high-paying software jobs here in Oxford. We briefly considered moving elsewhere, but ultimately decided to stay in Oxford, at least for now. Most of you will recall that Cassie does not work outside the home, so it was a little scary until I got an actual job offer.

Luckily, there was a timely opening at the University, and I’ll start today as a High Performance Computing Specialist for the Mississippi Center for Supercomputing Research (MCSR). We have two SGI Altix supercomputers and a large Linux cluster. I’ll be working with researchers from all of Mississippi’s public universities to help them utilize the supercomputers, provide training, etc. I’m looking forward to it, and it’ll be nice to be back on campus where I have several friends from previous stints as a student and as a Network Administrator for the Computer Science department (my first “real” job).

There’s also a research component to my new job, which I’m hoping will accelerate my PhD research. I haven’t been very productive in that area lately.

Hopefully I’ll find a little more time to blog and tweet as well, but no promises.

CSci490: Embedded Development
Instructor: Ben Pharr
M W 5:30 PM – 6:45pm
Weir 235

Embedded systems are all around us and are becoming more common by the day. Embedded systems typically perform a few dedicated functions as part of a larger system such as a vehicle, appliance, vending machine, etc. They are often resource constrained in some way, yet must respond in near real-time to events happening in the physical world. Obviously, developing for these systems can be quite different from developing in Java for a desktop application.

This class will use the Arduino hardware to explore embedded development. The Arduino is a development board powered by an Atmel AVR ATmega328 microcontroller. It runs at 16 MHz and has 2kB of SRAM and 32kB of flash.

Instead of the usual Arduino language, we will use ANSI C in order to build skills that are transferable to other embedded platforms.

Topics will include:

• The C Programming Language
• Data Representation
• Computer architecture
• General Purpose Input/Output
• Basic electronic concepts
• Timers
• Pulse width modulation
• Analog to Digital Conversion (ADC)
• Interrupts
• Serial communication
• Embedded debugging and troubleshooting

Textbook:
Introduction to Embedded Systems: Using ANSI C and the Arduino Development Environment
Morgan and Claypool Publishers (July 12, 2010)
ISBN: 978-1608454983

Related links:
http://arduino.cc/en/
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno

For the past month or so I’ve been spending every spare moment studying for comps. I started studying a long time before that, but really didn’t get started in earnest until about a month ago. Cassie and the kids gave me a few weekends to myself so I could get a lot of studying done.

I was most concerned about the Theory and Programming Languages tests (the latter due to the Automata section), so I spent most of my time studying for those. Of course, I ended up feeling really good about those, but trying to cram the night before for Software Engineering and Systems. While I managed to stress myself out over the last two, and missed a fair amount of sleep from the cramming, I ended up doing fine on them too.

Studying for comps was an interesting exercise on its own. I learned and relearned a lot. I also convinced myself that I’m definitely in the right field. I found virtually everything I read to be fascinating.

It’s quite liberating to have comps over with. They’ve been looming for a few months now. Now I can spend time on other things…like my really tough Machine Learning course. I hope to find a little time for some ham stuff and some backpacking soon too.

I’ll finish the coursework for my PhD in the spring. I also hope to propose a topic for my dissertation in the spring. If I can stay motivated, with a little luck, I’ll defend my dissertation in spring of 2012. It’s certainly an optimistic schedule, but that’s what I’m shooting for.

On the other hand, we did score 28 points in the fourth quarter. But, then again, we’re still talking about Memphis here. A lot of Ole Miss fans would have been very depressed if not for that flash of hope in the fourth quarter. I was a little pessimistic before the game, and I haven’t seen anything to calm my fears yet. Our next game is Southeastern Louisiana in two weeks.

Elsewhere in the SEC, Florida dominated Charleston Southern, Kentucky looked impressive against Miami (Ohio), South Carolina won, but looked weak against NC State, Tennessee blew out Western Kentucky, Vanderbilt blew out Western Carolina, Georgia lost to a tough Oklahoma State, Alabama looked sloppy at times, but beat a good Virginia Tech team, Arkansas beat Missouri State, Auburn looked a lot like us against Louisiana Tech, LSU looked sluggish against Washington, and Mississippi State looked decent against Jackson State.

Nationally, No. 6 Ohio State just barely beat Navy at home. No. 3 Oklahoma was beaten by No. 20 BYU, and their QB, Sam Bradford, was injured. No. 14 Boise State beat No. 16 Oregon at home and everyone is acting surprised. Boise State, you’re obviously pretty good. Could you perhaps join a real conference so I don’t have to listen to people be surprised when you win?

Finally, if you haven’t heard about the punch, please get out from under your rock. Blount was suspended for the year. Too much? Maybe, but not by much.

After our 9-4 season last year (with the bowl win), it’s going to take at least nine regular season wins to keep the fan base happy. We have a reasonably soft schedule, so If we’re anything like as good as they say we are, 8-4 in the regular season should be no problem. Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, and LSU will be a little tougher, but are all beatable.

We’ll know a lot more after the Memphis game. I’m hoping for a blowout. Anything other than a solid win and we start dropping in the rankings.

I had planned on taking it easy the first semester and just taking one class. However, I was asked to teach a class, which comes with a partial tuition waiver, so I’m going to take advantage of that. I’ll be taking Dr. Rice’s Computer Audio course, ENGR596, as well as an independent study course. I’m not sure what the independent study course will be just yet, but hopefully it’ll help me decide on a topic for my dissertation.

The class I’m teaching is CSci103, which I have always described as the “this is a mouse” course. In the past I’ve always taught courses for sophomore or higher Computer Science majors with a few MIS majors thrown in (CSci223 twice and CSci323 once). They tend to take the class somewhat seriously. This time I’ll be teaching mostly freshmen, most with “non-demanding” majors. It will certainly be different.

In addition to teaching a class and taking two classes, I’ll be studying for comprehensive exams (to be taken in a year or so) as well as researching and trying to get published so I can get hired as a professor when I’m finished. It’s fair to say my hobbies and my family will be neglected to some degree.

When will I be finished? I’m going to say four years, which will have me graduating in the Spring of 2013. I could finish a little sooner (or a lot later), but I think that’s a realistic timeframe if I keep on task.

The University of Mississippi Amateur Radio Club (UMARC) will be setup in the Circle on campus from approximately 1pm on Saturday to 1pm on Sunday. We’ll have three HF stations setup, two on voice and one on CW (Morse code).

The purpose of Field Day is to practice setting up stations “in the field” and showing off our capabilities to the public. Mainly it’s just fun. For those of us without radios of our own, it gives us a chance to get in lots of quality operating time.

If you’re curious about ham radio, stop by and give it a try. If you’re not in Oxford, have a look at the Field Day Station Locator and find a club setup near you.

David Cutcliffe’s last two years we virtually had no recruiting, no signing of people who could play. It was pretty natural to go for the person who was viewed as the best recruiter in the country. What we didn’t realize was that Ed was going to have so much difficulty coaching.

Who said that? Some random sports commentator? No, that would be a quote from Dr. Robert Khayat, our chancellor for eight more days. He seems to be opening up a bit in the waning days of his administration. What he said is common knowledge among Ole Miss football fans, but I wouldn’t have expected to hear it from him.

A sports post? I didn’t see it coming either.

Link to yet another feel good article about our upcoming football season. Why do I feel like we’re being setup for a big letdown?

At first I couldn’t think of why Obama might be sporting an Ole Miss bag, but then it occurred to me that the first debate was here, and it seems likely that Ole Miss would have given the candidates free stuff. It still seems odd that Obama would actually use the bag, but, then again, it is a nice bag.

Khayat is an interesting fellow. As an undergraduate at Ole Miss he was elected to the Student Hall of Fame and played on the football and baseball teams. He led the nation in scoring by a kicker in 1958 and 1959. As catcher, he helped the baseball team win SEC championships in 1959 and 1960. After leaving Ole Miss, he played for the Washington Redskins for four years and played in the Pro Bowl in 1961. After his stint in the NFL he returned to Ole Miss for law school. Three years after graduating he was hired as a law professor.

For more information, the Oxford Eagle has a couple of good articles.

Even before Florida had beaten Oklahoma, some were arguing that Utah should be the national champion. They convincingly beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and were the only undefeated team in Division I football. I don’t have much sympathy for that claim. If you look at their schedule, they only played three top 25 teams. Florida played four top 10 teams and two more top 25 teams. Could Utah beat Florida? Maybe, but we’ll never know. If they had a stronger schedule maybe we would have.

Should we have a different way of determining the national champion? Yes, we need a playoff. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon. Utah’s Attorney General has announced an investigation into whether or not the BCS runs afoul of antitrust laws. This could get interesting.

The last AP poll of the season came out today. Florida is No. 1, Utah is No. 2, USC No. 3, Texas No. 4, and Oklahoma dropped to No. 5. Ole Miss came in at No. 14, making it the fourth highest ranked SEC team. Does anyone know how we were ranked after Eli’s senior year? One of ESPN’s prognosticators has Ole Miss at No. 12 in his list for next year. Don’t get your hopes up too much, but there is a lot of promise there.

In The 29th Annual Lafayette County Bowl Pick, I placed 35th, tied with 41 other people. (They didn’t bother breaking ties past the first few people.) Not too shabby. I picked 23 of the 34 bowl games correctly. The winner picked 27 correctly and won $9,196. Even though I’ve done this before, I’m still amazed at how tough it is to pick these things. We weren’t even picking against the spread.

To all you sports haters, that should be all the football for a while. Be glad the NFL doesn’t interest me that much. College baseball does start in a few weeks though. :)

Things didn’t look good right off the bat. With over five minutes left in the first quarter, we had given up a fumble and an interception, and Texas Tech was up 14-0. However, with a little more than a minute left in the first half, we took a 24-21 lead and never looked back.

Not only was this win a great way to end the season, but it’ll help us a lot going into next season too. You can’t underestimate what it’ll do for our recruiting.

But wait, there’s even more good news! Last week it was announced that Ole Miss football team was the best in the SEC, academically. We were also 13th best in the country.

I don’t try to hide the fact that I hate the University of Alabama; particularly their football team and their fans. I realize it’s not rational, but I can’t help it. I was taught to hate them from a very early age. I can remember pulling for Miami, against Alabama, in the 1992 national championship when I was only 11 years old. All that said, I had decided to pull for Alabama in the Sugar Bowl Friday night. I’m not sure why really. Perhaps it was because no one gave Utah a fighting chance? Of course Utah would stomp them. That’ll teach me to cheer for Alabama.

As for the Lafayette County Bowl Pick, I was doing great through the first twelve games. If I remember correctly, I was 33rd out of 576. However, then things went bad. I missed several picks in a row. I’ve done a little better over the last few games (despite my picking Texas Tech and Alabama), and as of tonight I’m 92nd. I’ve picked 20 out of 31 correctly. There are currently two people tied for the lead, and they have picked 24 correctly. Only five people have picked 23 correctly. Picking bowl winners is a tough business.

No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Florida played for the SEC championship this past Saturday in Atlanta. Florida beat them 31-20. Oklahoma beat Missouri 62-21 in the Big 12 championship. Florida and Oklahoma will now face each other in Miami for the national championship. I’ll be pulling for Florida, but it should be a good game. I think the BCS guys got it right by picking Florida and Oklahoma, even though Texas beat Oklahoma and has the same record as them. But, we’ll never really know for sure. Too bad we don’t have a playoff.

Incidentally, some guys at ESPN put some thought into how this season would end up if college football had an eight team playoff to decide the national champion. It sounds good to me. Also, here’s a list of all bowl games.

Tommy Tuberville, a former Ole Miss coach, resigned from Auburn last week. Something’s a little fishy though, as the school will be paying him his $5 million buyout, even though he wasn’t “fired.” Auburn’s athletic director said it was “the right thing to do.” Really? You couldn’t find anything better to do with $5 million? This has led some to speculate that Tuberville was actually fired. His mom says he was. If he was, Auburn made a dumb move. Tuberville is a good coach. Houston Nutt doesn’t care. He and his assistant coaches got a raise out of the deal.

Football news should be slow for a few weeks until some decent bowls get going. Go ahead, celebrate, James.

The win puts us at 8-4 for the regular season, our best season in a long time. It moved us into second place in the SEC West behind No. 1 Alabama, and moved us into No. 22 in the AP poll. My dad follows Ole Miss football closer than I do, and I haven’t seen him this giddy about anything in a long time. Things really do look bright for the future of Ole Miss football.

My money is still on us going to the Cotton Bowl. We certainly won’t go to anything worse. However, there’s a slim chance we could be picked up by the Capital One Bowl, which would be a huge deal. Georgia, who had been predicted to be in the Capital One Bowl, lost to Georgia Tech Saturday. While they still have a better record than us at 9-3, the Capital One Bowl could choose us over Georgia. Unlikely, but possible.

We would most likely face Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl or Michigan State in the Capitol One Bowl. Strangely, the better bowl would be easier to win. Texas Tech is ranked No. 8 while Michigan State is ranked No. 21. The BCS and conference tie-ins make for odd bowl pairings. That, and the Big 12 being incredibly strong this year. We should know where and who we’ll be playing late next weekend.

As for the national championship game, it looks like it’ll be the winner of the SEC Championship Game (Alabama or Florida) against Oklahoma, assuming they can beat Missouri in the Big 12 Championship Game. If they lose, things get interesting, but no one really expects them to. I expect to see Florida and Oklahoma play for the national championship.

It’s interesting to note that Oklahoma will probably go to the national championship game, despite having been beaten by Texas and both teams having only one loss. You can read more about that here.

As it turns out, we didn’t just beat them, we beat them very solidly, 31-13. It could have been worse too. At the end of the game we went to the “victory formation” inside their five yard line. We missed another good opportunity to score when we intercepted the ball on their end of the field. It was just a well-played ballgame all the way around on our part. Ole Miss football teams have a tendency to fall apart in big games like this, but we didn’t. A lot of credit for that has to go to Coach Nutt. He has a lot of big game experience. His Arkansas Razorbacks beat LSU at home, in triple overtime, last season. LSU went on to win the national championship.

Saturday’s game was the first annual “Magnolia Bowl.” Also, we are now ranked No. 25 in the country in both the AP and Coaches polls.

Assuming we beat Mississippi State next Friday, we’ll get a spot in the Cotton Bowl. I don’t see any way around it. On paper, we beat Mississippi State every time. You can never be sure about rivalry games though. We better not overlook them.

The last bowl game we went to was the 2004 Cotton Bowl. It was Eli Manning’s senior season. The Cotton Bowl is a good, quality bowl, and Ole Miss fans should be thrilled. I know I would have been happy with the Music City Bowl at the beginning of the year.

This weekend there was one game with definite national championship implications. That was Oklahoma vs. Texas Tech. Texas Tech came into the game ranked No. 2 in the country, and Oklahoma was supposed to be somewhat of an underdog. The Sooners crushed Texas Tech 65-21.

I’ll spare you the “in-depth” analysis, but my prediction is we’ll see Florida vs. Oklahoma in the national championship game. Texas is ahead of Oklahoma in the BCS rankings right now, but that should change if Oklahoma beats No. 12 Oklahoma State next weekend. Oklahoma State is not a gimme by any means, but I expect Oklahoma to pull out the win. That would put Texas in the Fiesta Bowl, and Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl.

Yes, that’s right, we’ll be playing Texas Tech, an 11-1 team (after they beat Baylor next weekend) that was one win away from being (beaten by Florida) in the national championship game.

With any luck there will be a lot of controversy over whether it should be Oklahoma or Texas in the national championship game, and we’ll move a little closer to finding a sane method to select a national champion in college football. The BCS is definitely not it.

We play No. 20 LSU next Saturday in Baton Rouge for the Magnolia Bowl, and Mississippi State at home the day after Thanksgiving for the Egg Bowl. My State friends have already conceded the Egg Bowl, though you can never be sure with that rivalry. What Troy did to LSU in the first three quarters yesterday should give our players some hope. I give us 50-50 odds, which is pretty good considering we’re playing in Death Valley. LSU comes into the game having beaten us six games in a row.

Now that we’re bowl eligible, which bowl are we going to? We probably won’t know for sure until after the conference championships are finished, but we can prognosticate, which I will. Most bowls now have conference tie-ins, which makes predictions easier than it was in years past. The SEC has tie-ins with the Sugar Bowl (#1), Capitol One Bowl (#2), Cotton Bowl (#3/4/5), Outback Bowl (#3/4/5), Chick-fil-A Bowl (#3/4/5), Liberty Bowl (#6/7/8), Independence Bowl (#6/7/8), Music City Bowl (#6/7/8), and the PapaJohns.com Bowl (#9). This year, the SEC champion will most likely end up in the national championship game. That would essentially move us up a bowl game. Looking at the SEC standings, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia will all be taken ahead of us. LSU, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt have similar records to us.

Let’s assume for a moment we beat Mississippi State. If we beat LSU, we would have a good chance at the Cotton, Outback, and Chick-fil-A bowls. If we lose to LSU, they would presumably go to the Cotton Bowl and we would be competing with South Carolina and Vanderbilt for the Outback and Chick-fil-A bowls. South Carolina is currently 7-4 (4-4 in the SEC) and still has to play Clemson. Vanderbilt is currently 6-4 (4-3 in the SEC) and still has to play Tennessee and No. 24 Wake Forest. If we lose out on both those bowls, we’d most likely go to either the Liberty or Independence Bowl. We’ll know a lot more after next Saturday.

What happens if we lose to State? Well, that gets ugly and I don’t want to think about it.

In others news, Auburn continues to lose. No. 20 LSU beat Troy 40-31, which wouldn’t be news except for the fact that they had to score 40 points, at home, to pull it off. Vanderbilt became bowl eligible for the first time in 26 years by beating Kentucky 31-24.

Looking at the teams still in the hunt for the national championship, No. 1 Alabama beat Mississippi State 32-7, No. 3 Texas beat Kansas 35-7, and No. 4 Florida crushed No. 25 South Carolina 56-6. No. 2 Texas Tech and No. 5 Oklahoma were off this week, but will play each other next week in a game with huge implications. See last week’s football post for a more thorough look at the national championship race.

Luke and my dad at the game.

Those are 53 out of the 343 I took. Consider yourself spared. I turned up the saturation on a few of the wide shots. It makes them look more like a painting than a photo. Look for the radioactive green grass. I would have loved to have had a longer lens to take pictures of the action on the field. (Christmas present, anyone?) It’s for the best I suppose. I don’t really need pictures of the action on the field. It’d just be something else to process. I spent around two hours processing these pictures. I will have to acquire a long lens before Luke starts playing sports though.

Wide shot with lots 'o saturation. To me it looks like one of those paintings they sell on the Square. Needs a little Gaussian blur I suppose.

Luke didn’t pay much attention to the game itself, but as you can see in the pictures, he loved being around all the people. He took a quick nap during the second quarter and halftime, but woke up for the good part. I was amazed he went to sleep when he did. He normally needs to be at home with nothing going on. He didn’t have a nap the day before, which might help explain it.

Luke resting up for the second half.

As part of the pre-game show there was a demonstration by the Air Force Parachuting team and a fly-by by two F-16s. I’m sure parachuting into a stadium is not terribly safe, but they made it look effortless. The F-16s were impressive as always.

A member of the Air Force Parachuting team prepares to land on the field.

A few of my favorite pictures:

Luke shoving apple bites in his mouth.

Luke clapping for the Rebels.

Luke getting a better view of the action.

Cassie and Luke back at home after the game.

A win against Louisiana-Monroe in two weeks would make us bowl eligible. A win against LSU or Mississippi State would nearly guarantee us a bowl game. Wins against both of them might even get us a decent bowl. I feel fairly confident about Mississippi State. Rivalry games are unpredictable, but they’ve had a horrible year. LSU hasn’t had the best of years, but they’re still ranked No. 15 in the country. It’d definitely be a big upset if we beat them, in Baton Rouge no less.

The big news this week is that No. 7 Texas Tech beat No. 1 Texas. Also, No. 8 Florida beat No. 6 Geogia 49-10. I had predicted Florida would beat Georgia, but I would have never suspected such a blowout. The new BCS poll has Alabama at No. 1, Texas Tech at No. 2, and Penn State remaining at No. 3. Texas Tech jumped right over Penn State from the No. 7 spot. Texas is at No. 4 and Florida has moved up to No. 5.

I was glad to see Texas Tech jump past Penn State in the polls. Penn State is undefeated, but their schedule hasn’t been too impressive. Texas Tech’s schedule hasn’t been that impressive either until beating Texas. We’ll see if they’re the real thing in their next two games against No. 9 Oklahoma State and No. 6 Oklahoma. If they continue winning, they’ll have to play Missouri in the Big 12 championship. If they win out, they’re in the national championship.

The same goes for No. 1 Alabama. However, I predict they will lose to Florida in the SEC championship. They have to play No. 16 LSU next Saturday, too. That won’t be a cakewalk. Losses by both Alabama and Texas Tech could allow Florida a shot at the national championship. That’s what I’m hoping for. I don’t think I could put up with Alabama fans if they actually won another national championship. And if they did make it to the big game, I might actually have to pull for them. I’d just prefer Florida beat them so I don’t have to worry about any of that.

Arkansas cut the lead to two points with 1:07 left to play. Needing the ball back in a hurry, they tried an onside kick and appeared to recover the ball. However, the referees said they recovered the ball out of bounds and that it was our ball. The replays they were showing on TV made it impossible to tell what happened. Upon review, the referees reversed their call and said Arkansas had recovered the ball inbounds. While it was probably the right call, I don’t see how they could tell that from the video, and I certainly don’t see how they could say there was “indisputable video evidence” that Arkansas recovered the ball inbounds. Luckily, we were able to keep them from scoring.

Next weekend we face Auburn at home. We’re planning to go. It’ll be our first game in two seasons and Luke’s first college game period. There are a lot of Auburn fans on my mom’s side of the family, and they’ll be coming up for some tailgating. Auburn has had a rough time of it the last few weeks. They’ve been beaten by Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and West Virginia, all teams they should have beaten. Here’s hoping they’ve got one more loss in their system.

Barring some big upsets, it looks like Alabama will be playing the winner of the Georgia/Florida game for the SEC championship. Both of those should be good games.

The top 5 in the AP Top 25 remained unchanged this week. No. 1 Texas still has to face No. 8 Texas Tech in two weeks. They would most likely face No. 15 Missouri in the Big 12 championship game.

No. 2 Alabama plays No. 13 LSU in three weeks, and plays Auburn the last game of the season. While Auburn has had a horrible year by their standards, they’ve beaten Alabama for the past seven seasons. As mentioned, they would also play Georgia or Florida in the SEC championship game.

No. 3 Penn State played what will probably be their last ranked team of the regular season this weekend. They beat No. 9 Ohio State 13-6. However, Michigan State is 7-2 and could pose some trouble. The Big Ten does not have a championship game.

It would be very interesting if Alabama continues to win, only to get beat in the SEC championship game. Penn State, who didn’t have to play in one, would almost certainly get to play for the BCS championship. That’s just one of the hazards of playing in a good conference like the SEC I suppose.

Remember that our coach, Houston Nutt, had been Arkansas’s coach for many years until they ran him off at the end of last season. Arkansas hired Bobby Petrino, the former Louisville coach coming off a bad year as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. I’m guessing a lot of Arkansas fans would like their coach back.

We need to win three of our remaining five games to be bowl eligible. Arkansas, Louisiana-Monroe, and Mississippi State are all very winnable games. We should be able to beat Auburn too, but they’ll be though. Beating LSU would be a big upset, so I’m not going to count on that. In short, we need to beat Arkansas this week.