Binary Candies

Spectator’s Guide to the Chicago Marathon

Princess — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 18:49:36 +0000

I wrote this guide to help my friends track me during the 2010 Chicago Marathon but it contains information that can be used generally for most races or for people to track any of their friends.

Expo
The Friday and Saturday before a major race, there is often a Health and Fitness Expo where participants can go pick up their bibs and packages. It is a way for sponsors and vendors to sell merchandise, and for participants to get last moment equipment. Also, often times they have the elite runners or other VIPs coming to give talks or presentations. This event is for the participants but it is also open to the public and it is a great way to get into the excitement of race day.
The expo for the Chicago Marathon is always located at McCormick Place on Friday from 9 to 8 and Saturday 9 to 6.
Transportation to McCormick Place as most know, seriously sucks. There are several shuttle buses or public transpiration methods that one can take to the expo but I think the best one is to go to the Chinatown Red Line L stop and take the bus from there.

Pre Race
While it is fun cheering on the runners, it is even better when you can cheer on specific people. Problem is, with 45,000 people running, it is very difficult knowing when your friends will be running by. To minimize the chances of missing your friends you should sign up for runner tracking.

This system sends you a text message when your friends passes key points along the route giving you a good idea of when to look for your friends. Problem with this is that given all the people around Chicago during this event, it is possible for cell phone towers to fail. Often you would have to do some guessing where your friends would be. To help with that is to know the pace your friends are running at and with some simple math, you can know about where your friends will be given the starting time. Starting times will vary a lot because it takes quite a while for all the people to cross the starting line. There are pace leaders who run carrying signs representing the total finishing time they are pacing and groups of people who run with those numbers also attached to their backs. If you know your friend is aiming to finish in 4 hours 30 min, when you start seeing people with 4:15 on their backs running by, it may be a good time to start paying attention. Make sure you communicate with your friends exactly where you will be located, mile markets and side of the street so that they can try to position themselves to be seen. Know exactly what your friend will be wearing so you can spot them and try to bring signs or something that will help them see you. Signs, balloons, printed faces attached to long sticks etc are common ways to stick out in the crowd.

Race
There are so many ways that you can cheer on your friends. Some run around the entire city to see their friends multiple times, some go to cheering areas, some hang around the start/finish lines and some people buy kegs of beer and setup beer stations for the runners. (I counted 4 beer stations last year)
If you are going to chase your friends around town, you have to know the course. Good locations to catch your friends are anywhere from miles 2.5 – 13 due to the fact the north and southbound paths are separated by 3 blocks or less through this area, you can catch your friends twice while doing minimal movement. Around Mile 8 is particularly fun due to the party neighborhood of lakeview and mile 4.5, 10.5 on North Ave is also a great area. Chinatown mile 21 also is a great place to cheer and then there are all the cheer zones marked on the map. If you want to see your friends cross the finish line, make sure to get there much earlier than your friend does. Due to the large crowds it is particularly difficult to get your way to the finish line to see. Remember if you are trying to move about the city to see your friends, the CTA, especially the red and brown lines are your friends!

Post Race
Make sure you know where you are meeting your friends at the end. Most runners run without their cell phones or leave them at gear check so try to plan ahead.

ME!!!
The most important part of this article, me!
If you guys wanna track me, my bib number is 11180 and I am planning on running at about a 9 min mile pace. That puts me at about 3:55-4:00 to finish so look for me when those groups pass by.
Before and after the Marathon I am going to be at the CARA room at the Congress Hotel.
I am going to be wearing a blue shirt with gray shorts and blue shoes.
Please let me know if you guys plan on coming out to cheer me on so I know to look for you!

Running in the Rain

Princess — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:22:00 +0000

The other day, a few of my running friends were talking about running in the rain and were worried about the oncoming storm. I jokingly told them that running faster would get them less wet. Now of course there was a Mythbusters episode that went over this, but in that episode, they only experimented and went over the statistical data, to show that running faster makes you less wet, and given their experiment and sample size it is really hard to say the results were conclusive. While statistics is a very reliable method of proving things, often times it is hard to see why things occur, and it only shows that things do occur. Instead I decided to write up a mathematical proof that shows exactly why it is better to run rather walk in the rain.

Now this proof does make some assumptions.
The person who is running is shaped like a Cuboid with each face a rectangle.
The rain drops are all spread uniformly through the entire area.
Each drop of rain hit by the person adds the same amount of water to the person.
And the rain falls at a uniform rate through the entire area.

Given that the the rain is uniformly distributed, we are going to treat the drops of water that the person hits and the area of space that they occupy as the same thing.

Let’s say that…
x = the width of the person
y = the depth of the person
z = the height of the person
t = time passed
w = distance traveled
v = velocity

And let’s split the problem into 2 parts.

Drops of water that the person gets hit from above…
How wet the person gets is dependent upon the number of drops hit, which is obviously proportional to the top surface area of the person, and how long the person was exposed to the water.

x * y * t

In this case, obviously the longer the person stays out in the rain, the wetter they will become. Idealistically the person will be in the rain 0 sec, or is super skinny square shaped such that they would get hit by 0 drops of water.

Drops of water that the person gets hit by from the front…
With each unit of movement the amount of area the person goes through from the front is proportional to their front surface area.
While the rain is coming down so the space that collides with the front of the person changes shape but the space is in the shape of a Cuboid with 2 sides of a parallelogram and the other 4 of rectangles.
To get the volume of this area, we simply take the front surface area of the person and multiply it by the distance traveled.

x * z * w

Or alternatively we could take do this as a function of speed(v) in which case we get

x * z * v

which indicates the faster we go the more we get hit by the rain.
It is true that the faster we go the more distance we cover and therefore the more we do get hit by rain, but we are not out in the rain for a constant period of time but a constant distance ran.
Velocity (v) may be variable but so is time (t). Distance (w) is constant in our case because we need to get some place and because v * t = w the entire area we go through is also constant.

Hence then the total amount of rain we get hit by is

x * y * t + x * z * w

All variables constant besides t, which indicates the longer you are in the rain, the more wet you become.

Alternatively, we can do this with a bit of calculus instead.
If you know calculus, and you followed my logic above, you should be able to figure out how I came to the following equation…

x * y * dt + z * x * v * dt

Nerds and Geeks

Princess — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:01:52 +0000

The past few years, everyone seems to have started referring to themselves as a nerd or geek.

People seem to forget that in the past that these were derogatory terms. People who these terms were used on were outcasts. 80′s TV shows, Movies you see bullies beating up on them, and them being the butt of all jokes, and now everyone wishes to be them.

So, what does it mean to be a nerd or a geek?

According to Wikipedidia, a nerd is a person who avidly pursues intellectual activities, technical or scientific endeavors while a geek is a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things. Now if you look at so many of these people who are now referring to themselves as nerds, most of them has no clue what the point of Calculus is, and then geeks, while they tend to have odd hobbies, almost never are overly obsessed over it. What is it about this image that is so attractive then? It is doubtful that people are masochistic enough to to actually want to become like the stereotypical outcasts of the 80′s being thrown into the nearest trash can by the random jock, or is it that they would rather be trashee than the trasher.

People these days are far more in touch with the hardships of those who are not as fortunate as they are. While the general public may not be ready to stand next to them and live out those hardships, they want to be able to relate. By taking on the title, I think that people are taking steps towards accepting each others hardships. Not only that but as they grow, people realize that the nerds and geeks of yesterday are the engineers, programmers, doctors and professors that lead the way into the future.

After a difficult childhood of being an outcast and taking years to accept that being different isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I have learned to hold these labels with pride. And while it does bother me that so many people who hasn’t gone through the rite of passage just give themselves the title, it does make me happier to know that it is not only I, but society as a whole that has come to accept us.

But then again there may be an even bigger geek/nerd out there who thinks the same thing about me. If you are out there and reading this, I am sorry that I am using this title while being unworthy.

Marathon Thoughts

Princess — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:38:45 +0000

I can easily write a full book of my thoughts and experiances brought to me from the training and the marathon, but the most importaint thing to me is the support I received durring the entire ordeal.

The Organization for Autism Research who gave me a spot after registration was closed, and all the people to donated to the organization.

Chicago Area Runners Association who provided the marathon training program which without, there would have been no way that I would have been ready in time.

Mark and the other group leaders who pushed the training group to our limits every single weekend.

All my friends and family who despite thinking I was out of my mind, supported me the entire way.

All the spectators who came out to watch and cheer. The energy of everyone really was amazing.

Cherryl from the training program who was my running buddy for a good majority of the race.

And most importaintly, my sister who met me at 4 seperate locations through the course, including mile 21 where I was in so much pain, I was doubting I could even finish. Just knowing that she was there waiting for me at mile 21 kept me going and made that point my favorate of the entire race.

This race truely was not just me, but an accomplishment of us all, and I thank you all for everything.

English and Gender

Princess — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:46:11 +0000

The other day the topic came up in english, using male form of words to generically refer to all people. Using the word “guys” for a group of people, or “mankind” to refer to all humans.

A friend referred me to this article that used was written using “white” as a generic term for all people instead of “male”.

To me the article was a real eye opener. I began to understand how women feel when being refered to as a guy when in a group of people.

On the other hand tho, there was one thing that I did not agree with at all in the article. The term “white” is not at all in any way shape or form meant to include any other races, while the terms “guys”, “mankind” are.

I can understand how women, when refered to as a guy would think to themselves, “I am not a guy, I am a woman”. I can understand what it would feel like to be refered to as something that I am not. But the thing is, women are guys, women are a part of mankind. I belive that women have the unique ability to be a guy and also a woman.

Men are only men and cannot be anything beyond that. There are no gender specific term that really singles men out that is used commonly.

This is largely a flaw in english that male forms of words are used to indicate general and while that is unfair for females, it is also true that female forms of words are used to indicate specifics and the lack of that is unfair for males. To compenstate one can use words such as “people”, “humans” or “everyone” but using these terms are not very common and often requires extra care to structure one’s sentence to be able to use them properly.

English is not setup against women, it is setup against all people, and requires specific cultural teaching to properly phase out this way of thinking.

Roomba

Princess — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:08:14 +0000

Recently I bought a Roomba and this weekend I finally had the chance to open it and try it out. Oh the joys and happiness that this little robot has given me in the past 3 days. I realized why the roomba made me so happy. I don’t have to choose between cleaning the entire house by my self and relying on my straight boy roommate for help. Things I love about my new roomba: It cleans! It cleans up things when I ask it to! Doesn’t wait till later but cleans then. It keeps my cats entertained… or freaked out! It cleans my bathroom floor and all the kitty litter that the cats kick out. Things it doesn’t do so well: The first few days the brushes needed frequent cleaning with the carpet, my hair, cat fur tangling up in it. It seems to get lost if it makes it to the other end of the house sometimes, or it runs out of batteries before it finds the charging station again. It doesn’t do well under my desk where all the wires are… I wish it also mops the floor but it doesn’t. At some point I will actually read the user manual to see how to actually properly set up the roomba, but as of today, I am happy to have someone that will reliably help me clean the house.

Rock n Roll Chicago Half Marathon

Princess — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:16:51 +0000

On Sunday (August 2nd) I completed my 2nd half marathon, and what an event it was!
The race was called the Rock and Roll Chicago Half Marathon, and it was by far the coolest race I ever been in. There was live bands playing on the course, every 2 miles at the start and towards the end, every half mile. 14438 people total were running the race and it was great to run along side so many great people.
I finished in 2 hours 8 min and 16 sec, a full 5 min faster than my first half marathon time, and my average pace was 30 sec per mile faster. Not only is that a huge improvement, I ran the race without feeling like I was about to collapse afterwords. Last race had me lying down for a while with my legs in the air and in pain, but this one I was totally fine! Maybe that is a sign that I should have pushed myself more…

Regardless my final results: http://results.active.com/pages/oneResult.jsp?pID=63073971&rsID=81915&pubID=3

And in case anyone wants to read about the half marathon or would be interested in doing it next year, http://chicago.competitor.com

Chinese Real Money Traders(RMT)

Princess — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:10:16 +0000

The Chinese government has declared it illegal to buy and sell virtual goods for real money. (http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218101859)
For the most part I am against everything the Chinese government is doing to police the internet but I am really happy about this one. It may be a bit hypocritical of me to be saying so because I have myself engaged in my share of “morally questionable” online activities, but for some reason I draw the line on this one. It might be due to the fact that I have seen the social and economic toll that RMTs bring to games.
RMTs cause an easy way to get money in game which promotes spending, which in turn causes high inflation. If the price of an item was high before, just spending a small amount of money and buying in game currency lets the player easily buy the item vs hours of farming, which causes the sellers to slowly mark up the prices.
Eventually the RMTs are usually banned from the game and then all the currency in their accounts are also removed from the game causing a depression.
Now of course one can argue the RMTs bring about economic boom and that it helps people who sell goods because they can sell for higher prices and eventually the effects trickle down to everyone. Also, is the depression caused by removing the RMTs actually the economic equilibrium of the game? And how exactly do the RMTs produce so much currency?
Basically how it works is, RMTs spend minimal amounts of money on their characters. Using the cheapest gear possible they max out their characters and then they go after boss mobs for item drops and farm other things that they can sell for game currency. All while spending minimal money on their own characters. They generally use numbers or time to make up for their lack of gear. For the most part time spent in game the more value a character has, sometimes in the form of currency or gear or levels. By having minimal gear, RMTs amass a large amount of currency and then sell it. Now by doing so the rest of the game community suddenly has more money per character than before and this is what causes inflation. Next though, the RMTs start to take advantage of this inflation charging higher and higher prices for items that they farm and sell. At some point their production gets to a level so high that they can actually control the economy and they start to amass even more currency.
The biggest problem is these economic swings of inflation and deflation that the RMTs create. Once RMTs get banned from the servers, the economic downfall is so huge and has so much momentum it passes the equilibrium point and causes a depression where no one has spare currency to spend and people who do don’t want to spend it thinking it will be so much harder to build up their wealth again.
I think the solution is for the game development studios to let people buy in game currency directly from the game. Not like the way most free to play games make money from micro transactions. Have an economist control the rates to adjust for the economy. Also maybe have 2 types of currency, one that is from in game items and the 2nd which is bought using real money, and have the best gear in the game not for sale with the latter.
China making buying and selling virtual goods for real money helps the problem but it is no where near a solution. RMTs will always be around and it is up to the game development studios to make it so difficult and unappealing to deal with RMTs that people won’t do so.
I am looking forward to seeing how future games deal with this problem and hoping that a good solution is found soon.

Chicago Marathon

Princess — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:57:04 +0000

I started running the summer of 2004. My friend Diane wanted a workout partner and I wanted to lose some weight so I started running with her and quickly got addicted to it.
Since then I have been a casual runner. At my absolute best, I ran 4 miles a day around 5 days a week, but running started to get a bit boring. This year I decided to try something special and I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle. It was an 8k race that I ran and absolutely loved.
After the Shamrock Shuffle I started running more often, faster and longer distances. I started to run 5-8 miles at a time frequently, and I decided to sign up for a half marathon.
The half marathon was amazing, and I did so well on it that I started thinking that maybe I could do a full one.
After weeks worth of pondering I finally signed up for the Chicago Marathon.

Because by the time I decided to run the marathon, normal registration was closed I signed up for the marathon through a charity that requires me to raise a certain amount of money for them.
If you believe in the cause or if you want help me out please donate!

http://www.firstgiving.com/sangyoonlee

I’ll have additional information in regards to the charity soon.

Also, even if you can’t donate and want to wish me luck, please tell me. Words of encouragement goes a long way.

I have also attached a file showing the path of the marathon if anyone wants to know exactly how big the course is.

Ultimate Father’s Day Gift

Princess — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:57:23 +0000

Check out the ultimate father’s day gift!
That is… if your father is a transexual.
Or maybe the chick is the gift to your father…
Maybe with the purchase of a canteen the chick comes free!
That must be it… The chick is the “chic carrier” that the ad is talking about!