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Pig Data @ UW CSA

Our paper, The Barnyard of Pig Data Research: A View from UW CSA, was presented at PoCSci 2013.

Abstract

A new interdisciplinary program in Computer Science and Agriculture at the University of Washington is breaking down fences between diverse computational, scientific, and agricultural fields to cultivate research on disruptive Barnyard Computing technologies that will radically grow the impacts of emerging Pig Data applications. In this paper we plot the UW CSA view of Barnyard Computing and Pig Data, outlining high-priority research efforts within our immersive Pig Data agenda, our educational efforts to produce a new Pig Data workforce, and our innovations to leverage organic growth in this sector via a novel research funding model. These are exciting times at UW CSA!

Read our white paper (local draft for now, publicly available soon), peruse the slides, or (eventually) watch the talk video:

Publications

Into the Clouds and Back

Stehekin to Stevens Pass, July 20 - July 26

With my feet toughened, body rested, and food more wisely selected, I left Stehekin with a lighter load and more spring in my step, ready for another 100-mile section of trail heavy on snow and light on humans. The PCT arcs to the west around Glacier Peak, the most remote of the Cascade volcanoes, before running ridges south to Stevens Pass. While the northernmost section of trail along the west end of the Pasayten Wilderness lies partly in the weather shadow of heavily glaciated peaks to the west, this section lies more directly in the northwest weather's line of fire. The snowpack is heavier here, lingering lower, deeper, and longer than up north and rather than mostly cruising in the high country, the trail climbs up over ridges running off Glacier Peak and plunges into deep river valleys between them.

After a wet first day out of Stehekin, I was treated to a gorgeous sunny day mixing some high country with plenty of cruising through low valleys choked with lush old growth forests and home to rivers roaring with glacier- and snow-melt. Enabled by my new feet and smooth snow-free trail in the valleys, I covered 24 miles that day, my first day in the twenties on the trip. The day ended with a climb back up into the snow and a high camp, where I was treated to a great sunset and a unique sunrise above a low layer of clouds in the valleys and below a higher layer just above the peaks. This was one of those places in time that answer the "why?" question. Life was grand.

These sunrise clouds soon closed in and kept everything above 5500 feet or so bound in thick mist for two days. Snowpack was still lingering as low as 4500 feet on north aspects and I had two 6500-foot passes to cross, smothered in clouds and approached from the north over at least a couple miles of snow. The purported beautiful views at Fire Creek Pass and Red Pass were curtained by visibility that dropped to less than 100 feet. My field of view was restricted to a small and mysterious world drawn entirely in shades of almost white.

Marmots whistled from behind the curtain. Occasionally a dark form would loom out of the bright murk, slowly gaining enough definition when approached closely enough to become a lone rock outcrop, a clump of trees, or a patch of bare ground carpeted with glacier lilies.

The trail was certainly nowhere to be seen and big vertical spaces loomed beyond. Time for a navigation test! I followed visible features until climbing into the clouds, and then stayed oriented with compass and (old-fashioned analog) altimeter from there, hitting the height of land within about 100 feet of the trail both times. Huzzah! Suddenly a clear trail tread appeared, winding down the south side of the pass through carpets of glacier lilies, lupines, and more before disappearing into the snow again. I promised Glacier Peak I would return to see beyond the curtain, and hopefully for a summit bid too.

The sun broke out the day after I crossed Red Pass, in time for fantastic views back to Glacier Peak from the ridge run south to Stevens Pass. The trail here was still largely covered with snow, but sometimes the snow gave way to brilliant fields of wildflowers. My last night before Stevens, I happened upon a beautiful open knoll just in time to witness the fiery afterglow of sunset fade behind familiar landmarks (Glacier, Sloan, Monte Cristo, Columbia, Kyes...). In the morning, I opened my eyes to see sunrise illuminating Glacier Peak, and a mob of mosquitoes gathering to collect their fee for the beautiful bivouac site.

Beyond the bookends of this section, I saw only four people: two backpackers on the Buck Creek Pass-Lyman Lake-Spider Meadows loop, and two goat-packers on the ridge north of Cady Pass. I did also hear voices and smell a campfire at Indian Pass, but I never saw their source for all the fog. More sweet solitude and solitary adventure. A few miles north of Stevens Pass, I ran into my first northbound thru-hikers, Mouse and Insane Dwayne. They were a fascinating pairing, and on pace to finish their hike in under three months, having done 44 miles the day before, hardly an average thru-hiker's pace!

Thunderstorms and Vacation

Harts Pass to Stehekin, July 13 - July 20

Before being startled by the Harts Pass caretaker four days in, the bear at Castle Pass was still the most "company" I could claim on the journey so far, but Harts Pass turns out to be a veritable hub of civilization. Twenty minutes after my short chat with the caretaker, I ran into two hikers sprawled across the trail eating lunch. More southbound thru-hikers! Steve and Kristen were as surprised to see other people as I was. We walked and talked for half the afternoon. They had done the trail southbound before and trained to hit the ground running this time. My feet were still going downhill (more often figuratively than literally) and I fell behind by the next day.

From Harts Pass, it took me three days to cover the 40 or so miles to Rainy Pass and Highway 20. The heat wave was breaking, and the blue skies had become steely with clouds. The snowclad peaks, soaring up between deep, glacier-carved valleys were no less impressive in this light. Thunder rolled in the distance all afternoon and passed overhead with brief downpours overnight. The trail was, on average, freer of snow here, but some long and difficult snow sections remained, with a dainty traverse over steep hard-surfaced snow slopes and a six-foot step up over an eroded cornice between Granite Pass and Cutthroat Pass. Fortunately the slopes were gentler and the snow softer beyond, petering out on the descent towards Rainy Pass.

At the road, on the morning of day seven, a Sunday, I stepped into a foreign world: the road-accessible Pacific Northwest Weekend! After meeting three people in just under a week, I passed by dozens in a couple hours. Day hikers, weekend backpackers and mountaineers, teen backpacking programs, and a couple rangers swarmed the area and the valley down into North Cascades National Park. With these throngs past, I was treated to hours of drenching by a few waves of ferocious thunderstorms, as I spent the afternoon alternately hunkering down for lightning and squelching on down the Bridge Creek valley at full speed. The shuttle to Stehekin, my first resupply stop, was just a dozen miles ahead.

Vacation in Stehekin

The requisite first stop was the bakery on the way into Stehekin, and it certainly lived up to its reputation. But by the time I had set up camp in the free campground, picked up my food drop at the post office, and hit the laundry and showers, I was hobbling along at something like a half mile an hour, trying to walk as if I was casually strolling around, embarrassed that I, a thru-hiker, would have such trouble walking. I had started to perfect the use of my footwear system (light wool socks, Gore-Tex oversocks, and non-waterproof trail runners) too late, and my feet were reeling from a tough of week of near-constant wetness and continued side-hilling on snow. Under the ball of each foot, I had a juicy, partly open blister the size of two or three quarter-dollar coins. Worse, they looked slightly funny colored and I was worried they might be on the way to infection. A stop in at the NPS visitor center to get an opinion on this turned out to be a very good decision, even though they weren't infected. EMT Ranger Kate, who had actually thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail the year before (trail name True Grit), was immensely helpful, unafraid of hiker feet (at least they had seen the shower), and when she discovered the first-aid cache was out of epsom salts, went searching around "town" to find some for me. (Thank you!) It didn't take much to convince me to spend a few days lounging and salt-soaking in town to heal up the feet and my short town break quickly turned into a full-blown vacation from hiking. I was grateful that my needs and the perks of Stehekin aligned so fortuitously.

All in all, Stehekin is a great place to be stuck for a few days in midsummer. I had extra food from the first leg of my hike and had shipped more than I would need for the second leg. Between this and some indulgence at the restaurant and store, I was set. The camping was free. There were gorgeous views and great sunsets on the shores of Lake Chelan. I started to follow the daily rhythm of ferry arrivals and departures. (Perched at about a thousand feet above sea level, at the northern tip of 55-mile long Lake Chelan, and surrounded steep mountains reaching six to eight thousand feet higher, Stehekin is not reachable by road from the outside.) I even got to look on during the government-sponsored relocation of a rattlesnake that had been squatting near the visitor center. It got downright hot at these low elevations, but all I had to do was soak my feet or snooze the shade. The only downside of this forced vacation was that I did not make it to the bakery again until stopping in on the way out of town. It was a mile up the road -- a mile too far for my hobble -- and I couldn't justify the fee to ride the shuttle up and back or rent a bike.

Four days and lots of salt soaks did wonders for my feet and they were now nicely calloused and ready to go. They were unfazed by another thunder/drenching cycle that hit not five minutes after I was back on the trail, plus several more days of snow travel. In fact, I would not have any notable blister issues again except from an extended road-and-rail walking detour over a thousand miles later, and these were nothing in comparison to that first week of wet feet.

Alone

Canyon Creek to Monument 78 to Harts Pass, July 8 - July 12

"Hi there!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Despite the beat-up old Subaru at the Harts Pass caretaker's hut, the first human encounter of my nascent adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail certainly took me by surprise.

Four-and-a-half days ago, Tom drove out of the Canyon Creek Trailhead and back towards Seattle as I strode purposefully into the evening woods wondering if I had forgotten some essential item, if ditching my crampons had been a good idea, if I would soon find myself hitching a ride back to Seattle, having run up against the cracks in my hasty last-minute preparations.

Work on my paper submission had dragged on a week past my (most recent, adjusted) anticipated departure date, followed by 48 frenzied hours of pulling together all the uninteresting details associated with a multi-month trip: preparing my apartment for use during my absence, checking and rechecking my gear manifest, buying food for my first two weeks on trail. Naturally, I had been over the interesting, dreamy details any number of times already, but preparations dragged on until mere minutes before my first step, with 2700 miles of maps organized in the car and two weeks of food sorted and repackaged at the trailhead. Nevermind that the most exercise I had gotten in the past five weeks was my (mostly) daily 3-mile round trip walk to campus and back.

As twilight descended twenty minutes later and a mile or so up the canyon, none of these worries -- nor the fact that the only spot flat enough to camp was the trail -- really mattered. The darkening forest and the roaring creek had quickly swept away such trivial concerns of the civilized world. I was there, alone, on the other side of that first step that would have been so easy not to take, to leave as just another perpetual aspiration. The details would sweat themselves.

My route the next day took me up several thousand feet along two little-used trails gradually more obscured by brush, downed trees, stream banks washed away, precarious logjam crossings of snowmelt-swollen creeks, and lingering snowpack. A nearly week-long heat wave had just rolled in and my pack was heavy with a week's worth of food that would actually last at least ten days. I was sweating plenty without sweating the details. Each day I rose early and walked until around sunset, still quite late at this latitude and proximity to the summer solstice. Sometimes I walked fourteen or fifteen hours a day, but the snow pace was a slow pace, especially while getting in shape.

The northern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail at the U.S.-Canada border paled next to the two-and-a-half-day adventure to get there. The trail descends gently under forest cover along the side of the Castle Creek valley, zig-zagging through a pair of short switchbacks before dribbling out into the bizarre swath of clearcut that slices off in both directions along the forty-ninth parallel, indifferent to the grain of the land. The border cut and monument are strange and arbitrary human punctuation, inconsequential in context of the surrounding landscape. Nonetheless, this piece of trail is here (obscured as much of it is by the lingering snowpack), so I might as well make the quick, geopolitically significant side trip. My route is, after all, manufactured by humankind, though it does follow roughly along a feature of nature's making. The scenery along this short detour certainly does not disappoint: a stunning 360-degree view from Lookout Point over the spiky and seemingly endless North Cascades; a harrowing traverse between Rock Pass and Woody Pass, over steep, hard-packed avalanche debris spilled by craggy Powder Mountain into the head of a fantastic glacial valley; snowy alpine views over a serene meadow just south, painted with a mix of lingering snow and vivid new green, punctuated by bright yellow glacier lilies and everywhere gurgling brooks of snowmelt. Being in somewhat familiar territory, it was gratifying to pick out distant peaks: Baker, Shuksan, Jack, the Pickets... I was traversing big country, and I had not seen a single person since starting. Could the Trail deliver any better than this?

Turning south to become a southbound PCT thru-hiker, I was greeted by an enormous black bear bolting up the slopes above me at Castle Pass. It looked big enough to be a grizzly (there are a few here in the North Cascades, though sightings remain exceedingly rare), but all I could see was a fast-moving backside, so I was happy to believe it was just a black bear. From here, the snowpack seemed unrelenting. I quickly realized the folly of traveling southbound through this snowscape: I slogged up the steep, snow-covered northern slopes only to slog -- or splash -- my way back down the sun-bathed southern aspects, where much more snow had melted off. A northbound traveler could stroll up the southern slopes and glissade with a whoop of glee down the snowy northern slopes. Thunderheads lined up cordially each day, staying just east of the Crest and leaving my path in the grips of the heat wave. Mexico was my destination now, so there was no more turning around to take the easy way, and I was having far too much fun in this adventure to quit.

I arrived at Harts Pass tired, hungry, and sweaty at the end of my fourth day out of civilization. My feet were in bad shape after these days spent side-hilling, stomping footholds in tenacious avalanche debris, plunge-stepping, climbing, and descending the wet July snowpack straight out of the starting gates. Growing, soft blisters were proof that my feet were not conditioned to being wet most of the day. I decided to take a half-day off at Harts Pass in hopes of some healing.

Heading out the next day, I was ready to leave behind this small seasonal outpost of "civilization" still without having met any other humans, but I could not help but notice an well-traveled old Subaru parked in front of the caretaker's hut that had been chased up the dirt road by a big dust cloud earlier that day.

PCT 2012: Canada to Mexico

Between early July and early November 2012 I walked solo from the Canadian border to the Mexican border along the Pacific Crest Trail, covering over 2700 contiguous miles by foot. I am still compiling writings, photographs, and videos from the trip here. Check back in or subscribe to follow my time-shifted reflections.

General Reflections

• Video: a brief stroll along the Pacific Crest Trail, from Canada to Mexico in under 7 minutes.
• More to come...

Washington

Looking back on Lakeview Ridge, Jack Mountain in the distance

I started at Canyon Creek the evening of July 8, reached the Canadian border and turned around on July 11, and crossed the Columbia into Oregon on August 10. Along the way, I experienced four contiguous days without seeing another human, 200 miles of largely snow-covered trail, chewed up feet and a vacation from hiking, navigation on snow in whiteouts, heaps of fantastic snowclad alpine scenery, clearcuts, Goat Rocks with friends, friendly trail towns, and my first 30-mile day.

• Washington photos
• Alone: Canyon Creek to Monument 78 to Harts Pass, July 8 - July 12
• Thunderstorms and Vacation: Harts Pass to Stehekin, July 13 - July 20
• Into the Clouds and Back: Stehekin to Stevens Pass, July 20 - July 26
• More to come...

Oregon

Mt. Shasta and Mt. McLoughlin over the Crater Lake rim at sunrise

In Oregon, I walked from volcano to volcano, stretched like a line of massive cairns along the Crest. By this time, I had hit my stride and I crossed the state comfortably in about three and half weeks. My appetite was also up to speed, and I demolished meals left and right: an enormous Lebanese meal at Nicholas in Portland, an even bigger lunch at Timberline Lodge, multiple rounds at Mazama Village, and much more. Throughout the state, I met northbound thru-hikers regularly, usually several to a couple dozen each day. I ran into my first forest fires and many shoes-full of dust. In the Sky Lakes Wilderness, I was detained briefly and interrogated by a SWAT team member dropped in by helicopter.

• Oregon photos
• More to come...

Northern California

Lassen Peak from Hat Creek Rim

In Northern California, I met more forest fires than northbound thru-hikers, bringing my total for interfering fires to seven and my total fire detour mileage to well over 100 miles, a majority of which I had to construct myself. Accompanying the detour doldrums were cattle grazing in the wilderness and the most extensive active on-trail logging operations on the whole PCT. This all caught up to me here as the NoCal Blues. Northern California was the most psychologically and emotionally difficult part of the trip. Nonetheless, the section was punctuated with scenic high points, friendly town stops, and about one black bear encounter per day for a long stretch.

• Northern California photos
• More to come...

Sierra Nevada

Tyndall Basin

The Sierra Nevada picked me up high after the doldrums of Northern California. In Yosemite, I had a brief nighttime standoff with a bear, saw no one for a couple days straight. This spell of solitude was broken when I ran into Andrew Skurka and Brian Robinson guiding a crew in the Yosemite high country. Andrew even gave me an avocado (rarefied trail magic!). Early October in the High Sierra offered clear and crisp weather, eye-popping scenery, and a decided lack of summer crowds. I raced a snow storm out of the high country around Forester Pass and Mount Whitney.

• Sierra Nevada photos
• More to come...

Southern California

Above Whitewater Canyon, Mt. San Gorgonio in distance

Parts of the desert were serenely empty, many stretches of trail passed through pleasant forest, and other parts were crowded by countless wind turbines. I once carried water for 40 miles, twice met the same trail crew member who knew my cousin, and thrice ate at McDonald's! Town stops became less leisurely, but not for lack of friendliness. I met four other long-distance hikers going southbound (the first since Harts Pass) and enjoyed the company of hiking with two of them off and on in the last 500 miles. In four weeks of dry, sunny, and often hot, SoCal weather, it misted on me for half a day north of L.A. and rained my last night and day on the trail. I reached the Mexican border with a fellow southbound traveler around sunset on November 9th, and was greeted by dark, threatening clouds and a biting, cold wind before being spirited off to San Diego in a blur.

• Southern California photos
• More to come...

Epilogue

I spent several days visiting in San Diego and Joshua Tree National Park before returning to Seattle by train. After taking four months to walk the distance, a four-hour return trip by plane seemed too abrupt. Forty hours on the train was trying, but the order of magnitude helped ease the return trip of the mind.

My walking outfit is stowed away, but not for good.

Lonely Cathedral

A Spring Ski Loop in the Pasayten

The idea of a long ski traverse across the Pasayten Wilderness has been stuck in my head since sometime this winter. I pictured an east-to-west-then-south traverse constituting roughly one hundred miles with all the winter-time approaches, mainly through the northern tier of the Wilderness. That is still on the books for the future, but timing, the lack of a partner, and mediocre ski skills suggested a shorter solo objective this spring. I headed to the Cathedral area on the sunny first weekend of May.

Amphitheater, Cathedral, and unnamed northern neighbor

The route was a counter-clockwise loop of 40-45 miles, starting with an afternoon road walk from the Andrews Creek trailhead up the Chewuch valley to Thirtymile, continuing up the Chewuch trail (camp one), then up the Tungsten Creek trail to the old tungsten mine area, west over Apex Pass, across the Cathedral Creek valley, through Cathedral Pass, then down the gentle slopes to Spanish Creek (camp two), up to Andrews Pass, and finally down the Andrews Creek valley returning to the Andrews Creek trailhead.

This route is low-angle, with a couple short exceptions (e.g., the steep, heavily treed descent from Apex Pass to Cathedral Creek) where I removed skis. Generally, in the daytime sunny snow conditions, the patterned base on my skis was sufficient for most of the climbing I needed to do. Only on some particularly hard-crusted slopes (prevalent in the morning, but lasting all day in places) did I need to boot it. (I did not have skins.)

Cathedral Peak

I met a pair of bicyclists along the road walk. Their tracks turned around at Thirtymile, the last visible signs of post-autumn human presence. I was probably a dozen or more miles from the nearest humans once I was out in the high country. It was easy to imagine I was the first human to visit these parts in months. Sweet solitude.

The lack of human tracks was offset by plenty of others: elk or moose, bear, coyote (I think, since I also saw a coyote, though the tracks were melted enough to be plausible as any range of possibilities and I am not knowledgeable enough to know sizes: wolf? lynx? wolverine?), hare, and plenty of smaller company.

Rough seas at Cathedral Pass

Having spent the spring largely indoors rather than practicing lugging so much weight on each foot, the trip was harder work than expected, and I skipped a couple optional extensions out to Horseshoe Basin and Bald Mountain. Melted, burned, and deadfall-choked approaches with skis on or off the pack no doubt helped slow me down. Snow level varied dramatically depending on aspect and tree cover, but in the two major valley floors (Chewuch and Andrews) mostly-consistent cover started at 4200-4500 feet.

Remmel looms

The striking mass of Cathedral Peak brought a certain Debussy prelude to mind. (Here's a recording if you don't have a favorite.) The Cathedral-Amphitheater-Remmel area offered sweeping views. The long gentle descent in the upper half of the Andrews Creek valley (especially after finding the trail) was the most fun. The snow-free, deadfall-choked Chewuch and the snowy, muddy, loggy, brushy, and soupy flat miles in the middle of the Andrews Creek valley were the most taxing.

Andrew Peak

The Pasayten in a thick coat of white is company worth revisiting. Next time I will aim for fuller snowpack (earlier in the season) and less deadfall (non- or less-burned routes) on the approaches. The altering power of fire is stunning. As physically unforgiving as a burn is, there is a stark, strident beauty in the truth left behind, intensified by scale and the awaited transition to living forest. A desolate burn is an imposing gatekeeper for what lies beyond and a vivid cautionary tale for the visitor.

More photos

A less sloggy section of the flatter miles midway down the Andrews Creek valley

RADISH at ISCA 2012

Our paper on RADISH, a hybrid hardware-software dynamic data-race detector that is sound and complete and fast enough for many deployment situations, will appear at ISCA 2012.

Cloud Types for EC

In summer 2011, I interned in the RiSE group at Microsoft Research with Sebastian Burckhardt, Daan Leijen, and Manuel Fahndrich. We adapted the Concurrent Revisions model to provide language support for eventually consistent storage in simple distributed systems such as smartphone applications sharing data through the cloud. The resulting paper will appear at ECOOP 2012.

Publications

Connecticut AT border to border

Time at home for winter break allowed me to take a short trip through some of the familiar stomping grounds of my youth. I spent almost 48 hours around the winter solstice traversing the full Connecticut section of the Appalachian Trail 52 miles from the southernmost crossing of the New York-Connecticut border near Hoyt Road shortly after dark on the 21st to the Connecticut-Massachusetts border and 3 miles out Paradise Lane and the Undermountain Trail to Route 41 before dark on the 23rd.

Reaching

Each night, I walked well into the dark before camping, then started walking with the sun in the morning. The trip was somehow both intense and relaxing. Along the trail, I met a total of 8 people (5 of them near the north end of the Housatonic river walk in Cornwall Bridge), 3 bald eagles, 4 hawks, a dozen deer, various small birds, and many busy squirrels.

Clouds buzz Mount Everett

The weather hardly felt like winter, with fog, downpours, and thunderstorms the first night, rain the second, and no temperatures near or below freezing. Nonetheless, short daylight hours, low sun (when it was out), and the austere beauty of a land after leaves and before snow offered some poignant scenery.

More photos

Greedy Coherence

Greedy Coherence is a simple mechanism for best-effort avoidance of sequential consistency violations and small-scale atomicity violations. It works by delaying responses to coherence requests for recently used or in-flight memory addrseses.

Publications

Tracks