Dr. Jonathan Geisler

Dr. Geisler (right) in grad school.

What can I say that's enlightening? I'm not as funny as Dr. Brandle, so I think I'll just be plain and tell you a bit about myself.

I'm a Taylor CSE grad (Dec. '94), so I've been involved in the department since 1991. I took a couple years off to work at Argonne National Laboratory before attending Northwestern University for my PhD. Technically, I'm a Computer Engineer, so I work with the Physics department to make sure that program is up to snuff. I also get to teach a bunch of fun classes and assign cool, geeky assignments. You can check them out on the Projects web page if you like.

Enough of me professionally, here's some more personal stuff. I've been married to Debra since April 2001. She's a counselor here, too. She gets to work with students who are trying to work through issues in their lives to become what God wants them to be. Those issues have many different faces: overbearing parents, absent parents, roommate problems, eating disorders, career uncertainties, etc. I'm glad she has that job, because she knows exactly how to work with each student's individual needs.

We have a daughter (Blessing Leigha) born on my birthday, 2004. It's kinda weird to share your birthday with someone in your family, but it was an awesome present from God! I'm guessing it will continue to be special as the years pass by. She's a bundle of joy and lots of work. We're really happy to have her in our lives

We also have a dog (Dutch). It's mostly a black lab, but probably a mix of some other breeds, but we can never figure them out. I think they may be rabbit, mountain goat, and cheetah. :) Seriously, Debra once saw another dog that looked exactly like her and discovered that the other dog was a full-bred "field lab." I'm not sure what the difference is between that an a lab retriever and I haven't bothered to Google for the answer. Maybe I'll get to it one of these days...

Questionnaire

Favorite book?

Ender's Game

Most famous person you ever met?

Greg Gagne (shortstop for Minnesota Twins during late 80's and early 90's) and I got to touch his World Series ring!

Favorite part about your job?

Summer break ;)
Seriously, the constant renewal of semesters and that if things get dreary, I know the end is on its way. I like the rebirthing process that is inherent in each new semester.

First computer you had or used?

IBM PC (8088 version) and Apple II+ around the same time. My dad had the IBM and school had the Apples. I spent more early time on the Apple IIc than any other computer and then took a LOA until I came back to Taylor and used the VAX and Sparcstations here quite heavily and bought my first PC (33 MHz 486).

First program you wrote? In what language?

Some BASIC program trying to learn the language. The first "real" program I tried to write was a Bible program in BASIC. At the time, I didn't understand I/O, and so my program looked something like:

   10 PRINT "Genesis 1:1"
   20 PRINT "In the beginning..."

Vim or Emacs

vi is the one true editor. I already drank that kool-aid long ago. vim is its child and like all children thinks it is better than its parent, when in reality it is just different.

Worst bug you had to track down?

A lot of code I wrote at Argonne National Laboratory was very difficult for me to debug because it was multithreaded and multiprocessor code. The most difficult times I had were race conditions that would go away when I added printf()s or dropped into the debugger. The only debugger that worked was my mind and a sheet of paper or whiteboard to trace events. It was during that time that I scared myself most:

I was having a terrible time tracking down a bug and so I decided to call it a night around midnight or so. When I went to bed, I started dreaming about the code I was debugging. I, then, proceeeded to run gdb on the code in my head and found the error. When I woke up the next morning I made the fix in the code that I had identified while sleeping the night before. How in the world did my mind know enough to correctly run the program and drop into gdb and print out stack traces and variable values?! And correctly enough that I discovered a real error in my code!

Preferred operating system?

Un*x. Is there any other?

Distribution of Linux you use?

Gentoo.

Linux windows manager you use?

fvwm that's pretty tricked out compared to the default installation

Preferred programming language?

Use the right tool for the right job. My jobs tend to lend themselves to Perl and C++ the most.

If you were a bit, would you be a 1 or a 0?

I would be a quantum bit in superposition so that I could be both 0 and 1 simultaneously.

How does your relationship with God affect the way you use computers?

It affects the core of my use because it affects the core of who I am. My personal aim to show excellance to others in the area God has gifted me most: computing. I want others to say, "I could be a Christian" because of how they see me in a computing context.

Favorite quote?

Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Where do you get your computer news from?

www.slashdot.org

What's the most prestigious thing you have done in the computer science / business field?

Worked on a thing called I-WAY. This was an experiment in 1995 to see if something called Grid Computing could really work. Needless to say, it succeeded. I just saw today that the head of group is now considered the 23rd most powerful man in Silicon Valley and he lives in Chicago.

I worked on the communication mechanism for the project pioneering work on something called "multimethod communication." Basically, it allowed programs written to the MPI standard to communicate using the fastest communication method between the processors whether TCP/IP or a vendor supplied communication library. Up to that time, people used one or the other and never both. My library provided real speed benefits because they didn't have to communicate with TCP/IP as a lowest common denominator if they didn't have to.

If I had it to do over again, I would have continued pursuing this research for my dissertation. It is more interesting and useful in my mind, but that part of my life is done.

When did you first know you were interested in Computer Science? What attracted you about it?

Fourth grade when I used my first computer. I immediately knew I would work with computers and never considered anything else. I remember answering the question, "What will you do when you grow up?" as follows,

"I'm going to be the President of United States. At night, I'm going to be a computer programmer creating video games that everyone will want to use."

Cat or dog person?

Dog. I've decided that normally you get a good dog and are unlucky when you don't; it's exactly the opposite with cats: you're lucky when you get a good cat. I've had 2 dogs in my life and 4 cats and was most attached to one of the cats, but dogs are just a better wager.

Who do you admire in the industry?

Steve Jobs and Larry Page.

E-mail client you use?

mutt 1.5.6i It's the best command line client I've found, but I'd love to see better.

Favorite type of cheese?

Pepper-jack is becoming my new favorite over American. I grew up on the sharpest cheddar for everything, so I like more mild varieties.

Favorite nonprogramming language?

English. I can speak it. Wish I knew German better, but stopped learning/using it after high school. My ethnic heritage is Germanic.

Favorite place to visit?

Ever? Grand Canyon
Regularly? North woods of MN, WI, and MI

Do you prefer Next Generation or Original Star Trek?

TNG is the only one I could watch regularly. I've tried them all and they just can't keep my attention. Maybe that's because I read the old generation Star Trek books before watching the shows and like all good books, they were better than the shows.

Favorite author?

Orson Scott Card, maybe.

Favorite SciFi author?

Same.

Favorite fantasy author?

Tolkein

Favorite smell?

Burning wood from a wood-stove during the fall

Puns: good or bad?

Good if I haven't been involved in their creation; bad otherwise.

Coffee or tea?

Tea. Coffee is much too bitter and I never got a taste for it.

Favorite beverage?

Apple juice. I'd drink it all the time if it weren't so expensive.

Write the following code in C++ in your favorite coding style:

    def countOutLoud
        for i := 1 to 100 do
            print "Number: " . i

    void countOutLoud() {
        for (int i = 1; i <= 100; ++i) {
            std::cout << "Number: " << i << std::endl;
        }
    }

Favorite *nix shell?

tcsh is the only one I've really learned and don't want to spend time learning the newer zsh which seems to be the "hot" shell.

Favorite computer science text/reference book?

_Introduction to Algorithms_ by Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest is by far the best. A close second is _The Design and Evolution of C++_ by Bjarne Stroustrup.
Others I really like are:

_Applied Security_ by Bruce Schneier (read it in one sitting)
_Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools_ by Aho, Sethi, and Ullman (aka the Dragon book)
_ANSI Common Lisp_ by Paul Graham
_Programming Perl_ by Larry Wall and Randall Schwartz
_Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface_ by Patterson and Hennessy
_Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach_ by Hennessy and Patterson

Microkernel or macrokernel?

Microkernel seems to make more sense to me. I wish Linus weren't such a donkey's *** on this one.

FSF or OSI?

OSI

Python or Perl?

Perl because I just can't find the time to learn Python properly. I'm really intrigued by some of the new things Larry has put into version 6 of the language. Now we'll just see if it ever sees the light of day.

Do you pronounce SQL as "sequel" or do you say each letter?

es-queue-ell. Sequel is a different programming language whose name has been maligned by the alternative pronounciation.

What's your opinion of SQL as a language?

It's a language. And it even does its job! If only other languages could have the same said about them. When I work with databases I'm happy to have SQL, but I don't tend to use them outside of IAD.

Favorite programming paradigm?

OOP from familiarity; functional from aesthetic

Favorite branch/area of mathematics?

Statistics or Calculus

Favorite physical science?

Physics

Favorite TV series?

Dukes of Hazzard. Oh, you mean current? 24

GPL or BSD license?

moving away from BSD to GPL. The virus really is important.

If Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, Bill Joy, and Dennis Ritchie got in a brawl who would win and why?

Bill Gates would beat Linus because he fights dirty. Jobs would try to use the optimal fighting style only to find everyone else copies it more efficiently; RMS is a pacifist; Larry is still recovering from his stomach condition of last year; Joy is irrelevant; and Ritchie is too old.

Favorite CPU architecture?

alpha was the first, best thought out, and fastest 64-bit processor. Too bad DEC, nee Compaq, nee HP was running the show instead of AMD or Intel.

If you could have a super power, what would it be? Why?

Stopping time because I never have enough of it.

If you could either fly or become invisible at will which would you choose and why?

Flying is cooler and invisibility would be most used for deception and I'm not a big fan of lying on a regular basis.

Favorite Monty Python movie or comedy sketch?

Holy Grail movie with witch sketch

When you go to a restaurant and they serve you a beverage, do you use the straw or take it out?

I eat at restaurants that think straws are tacky. ;)
Actually, I eat at restaurants that are too cheap to serve me (think McDonalds) and so straws are mandatory. If I do eat at a sit-down, I drink directly from the glass.

If you take it out, would you consider using it to throw spit wads at the table across the aisle?

No. The truth is that I was hit by a spid wad propelled by a rubberband during Junior High. It slightly damaged my eye and I missed two days of school recovering.

What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

European or African?

Favorite band/composer/artist?

Matt Redman, maybe. I'm really partial to my 90's CCM and have been busily ripping it to my computer this summer. I really like using xmms-imms to have to remember which songs I listen to most. According to it, I listen to the following songs the most:

"I've Found Jesus!" by Delerious!
"Rose Colored Stained Glass Windows" covered by Jars of Clay
"Tributary" by Twila Paris
"Bad Reputation" by Fleming and John
"Break my Heart" covered by 10 shekel shirt
"Carry You" by Sixpence None the Richer
"Song of Blessing" covered by 10 shekel shirt
"I'll Carry On" by Rich Mullins
"78 Eatonwood Green" by Rich Mullins
"Watermark" by Enya
"Perfect Circle" by Out of the Grey
"On Your Shore" by Enya
"Sing for Joy" covered by 10 shekel shirt

The problem with this is that I've only put in my albums from M-Z and haven't put in A-L (except for select ones like Enya and Fleming and John), so this isn't an accurate picture of my favorites, but is close enough.

What is your opinion of the Dungeon Monkey?

Good idea, but the freshmen never find out out about it, so it dies through atrophy.

The following space has been left empty on purpose. Improve upon its emptiness. (blatantly stolen from the Google Aptitude Test)

My aptitude needs testing.

I'd like to fill this out with more stuff, but you should really read my blog at my blog.

Oh, you tried to reach that already? I've only enabled access from localhost to my Apache server, so you must login to jgeisler directly so that you can make the request from localhost and see the results.

Oh, you tried to use ssh to login? I've disabled ssh access to my machine becauase no one should need to log in to it without having console access. You need physical access to the machine to log in.

Oh, you broke into my office? I've brought my laptop home so that I could work on lectures for tomorrow.

Oh, you broke into my house? I've enabled a locking screensaver because I was reading Larry Wall's most recent state of the onion that used various screensavers as slides. It was most entertaining (as are all of his talks), and I recommend you read it. I decided to leave it enabled because I can leave my laptop sitting around in class without worrying about someone casually trying to break in.

Oh, you know my password? Is that why IT keeps telling me I've got 1000 Websense denied proxy logs per day? Or is it why my credit cards are maxed out? Or is it why you've got A's in all my classes?

What ... is your GPG fingerprint?

1626 70C0 889F 06F9 8CA4 B7F9 63D7 BE65 39A4 0557

How many messages in your inbox?

625

What ... are your plans for J-Term?

vacation^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hplanning for Data Comm .... ahhhhhhhhh