Neural Net Development

3-credit project for the quarter: Implement a neural net in Java. My choice was to implement a Java net based off of a C++ design. The "Class page" is here.

I've gotten underway. This will become my weekend life after SOGO ends this Sunday (Sample of SOGO). It's gonna be intense, especially while doing C++ programming in another class. Two nuisances I can foresee from having to switch between these similar syntaxes: (1) It's 'String' in Java, 'string' in C++. (2) Never done Java file I/O before. Looks difficult at first glance, but it should be interesting. I hope. I've develloped a sour relationship ever since having to do I/O in Haskell, which was hideous, I tell you what...

I've been having a somewhat interesting life lately. I've written little journal bits, semi-but-not-quite-publishable. I will start posting backblogs at some point, probably after graduation (on June 10 I get a Piece of Paper, w00t!); I'll have 2 weeks off before I start work full-time. In short, what has happened this week:

*I watched a guy dislocate his shoulder, unintentionally. Saw a cute firegirl with the crew that showed up in the little Fire Ambulance. There's something sexy about huge (fire)pants and a tiny torso. I wonder if I have a secret poofy-bottom-dress fetish I don't know about?</Matty> =)
* I made an Asian buddy at Evergreen's "Swing Underground." She wants to have lunch on Monday, an "English Buddy" system for her class.
* Oly Spring Swing Fling Thing's tonight. I've missed the Balboa class (silly coding), but the dance should still be fun. Sorry Leah, Cassie & Meredith! I'll miss Fools Play tonight.

Well, I have a concert tomorrow, it'd do me some good to get some practice in.

Secrets by Post

I was reading BoingBoing tonight, and found a website to give one pause.

From the site:

"When I heard about your website on NPR it floored me. I've kept my secret for so long and many times I was so desperate to tell someone that I considered sending my secret to any random address in America. I cried when I learned that I could finally share it with someone. Reading everyone else's secrets I was surprised to find that I wasn't judging them. I realized that no painful secret is worse than another. It's the shame we all carry with us that makes our secret the worst."
-Florida

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

"I decided to tell my five closest friends about your site one night, and I asked if they wanted to each write down our biggest secret, put it in a hat, and then we could anonymously read them all. After much hesitation, nervousness, and fear of regret, we all did it. It was scary how much we hid from the people we were supposed to be able to tell everything to, but it was even scarier how similar what we hid was. By the end of the night, we each personally announced which secret was ours, for the first time ever we talked about our secrets openly. We decided it was better than any therapist session, any guidance counselor, and any medication...It was raw human self finally being released. By early morning, after many tears and much self disclosure, there were no regrets. Thank you for this opportunity, for myself, for my friends, and for everyone else."
-Maryland

I'm not sure Katie would be proud.

The last time she was in town, she left instructions with a few folks at The Abbey to have me sacked if I didn't make it out to dance at least once a month. Lucky(?) for me, I usually can't make it out to the Tacoma dances, so sacking shan't ensue.

I've filled my quota for the month, though. Last Saturday was an OCO concert (with Mozart's Musical Joke, with a clown), so the orchestra got this week off. I took the chance to get out to the Tuesday dance and finally get ahold of that girl who lead me to SPSCC on an off night. Her name's AshleyGoes to NTHS, and her friend who was with her at Mekong is Sam. That's more a note to myself, since I should make it a point to not forget the name of anybody who asks me to a formal.

Turns out, someone did to her what she did to me; told her there was a Jitterbug Club meeting that night. At least, according to her. I'll believe her, but I reserve the right to give her some grief about sending me to a closed campus on April Fool's Day. I didn't ask her to dinner, as I had thought I would a few weeks ago; too damn much to do, once again.

I danced again Thursday, with quite a small crowd. I hope the Evergreen Swing Club doesn't succumb to the same fate as the Jitterbug Club when I was there (that is, losing members to sunlight in the evening). Oh well; the people that are there are fascinating. There are two people of great note: One is a girl who spent 5 years miming, including going to contests. She's incredibly skinny and limber; she can tuck her foot in her rib cage. Kinda creepy, but in a good way.

The neat guy is young and spunky, and acts a bit under his age, but he's fun. He is a <Drumroll!> Professional Yo-Yo-er. I kid you not. Those exist. He even had a gig at a library before the dance Thursday. Sure, it doesn't pay the bills, but formally, he has the most random of occupations (alongside studenthood).

His car is also worth great mention; perhaps even photographs, which will come in a Thursday or two. It has a few random bumper stickers on it, which isn't too out of the ordinary; it has a Klingon "Honor before Death" sticker from the TNG era (even with a pic of Kronos! ...Qu'onos?), which is a bit less than ordinary. But the kicker is the yearbook-style decorations done with Sharpees all about.

He has his friends sign his car. There is no greater sign of personalization. He inundated friendship on me by giving me his bag of Sharpees; after a few minutes, I wrote on his roof. I'll get a picture of that, maybe in two weeks; next week, I'd like to go to Stomp! instead of dance.

Speaking of instead-of-dance's...I'm missing Blues Underground as I type. And I'm missing darling Katie's Luau; C++ assignments build up quite quickly if you don't look at them for a week or two. And, I may have to implement Graph, Vector and Matrix classes in Java if I can't figure out how to install the Javax packages; I need those classes to do a neural net application. I may write about that soon, too.

With luck, I'll get out to Olympia's Spring Swing Fling...Thing. Saturday the 30th, this month. Must remember.

Harr, dee, harr.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=115

Not a bad comic strip. It pokes fun at what I hope to be: A free-footing, free-fooding, free-floating, but carefully not free-loading, grad. student. The pregnancy during Ph. D. Thesis Defense season (this week's strips), though, I intend to avoid.

Wonderful distractions. They're why I don't sleep much; time well spent, I say.

I'm a scam target! w00t!

Not actually me, but my dad.

Here's what the history of this game of phone tag has been: This phone number from "NEW YORK" according to the Caller ID consistently calls my house every few days, at 4:45 in the afternoon. The person calling, who sounded East Asian to me at first, asks for my dad by first name. I tell him my dad can be reached if contacted an hour later; he says OK, hangs up, and that's it for the day.

The second time he called was the day after the first time. Because it sounded like the same guy, and had the same Caller ID reference, I assumed he had some sort of business with my dad, so I asked him who or what he was calling on behalf of. "Federal Government Grnuthua," I would hear; I never got the third word out of him, because I just heard the first two and thought, "OK. Supposedly feds. If they want dear ol' dad, they can take the time to call back later; hell, they're there this late already (7:45 East Coast)."

This has gone on for a few weeks; we're up to about ten calls from them now. I finally asked him again today, again, who he was calling on behalf of. "Federal Government Grant Service," he told me in an accent that I could now further identify as not Pacific Rim, but Indian.

"Grant Service? Really? What for?"

"Harold is eligible for 35,000 dah-lahs."

"...Ok, in a grant, I can probably see that. What's the grant for?"

"Evahry year, the federahl goverrnment picks 20,000 Americans who have been good citizens, ahnd paid their taxes, ahnd we give them grants."

(Mental math: $35,000/American * 20,000 Americans = $700 billion. Really. So, war's over? Refunded, even? Has been for years, ya say?) "Ok. I see you've tried to call us several times, but have never had the good luck to actually get Harold. Tell you what, can I have a callback number where he can reach you?" And here's the final tip-off:

"hOh-k. 18." Pause. "66." Pause. "844." Pause. "8193."

Limited as my culturing may be, reading off numbers two digits at a time implies a European telephone scheme, if I recall correctly. So, with his failure to recognize that Americans rattle off "1866" and "18hundred" to prefix phone numbers, without breaking, and his eagerness to get a Grant for Stuff to my dad, I've come to the conclusion: It's time to fuck with this one.

I did cal my dad about it. I gave him the above details. "They're obviously a boiler room operation," he affirmed with me, "And not a very good one. Tell'em I'm dead."

The next time I see New York calling, I intend to answer "Nelson & Nelson Tombstone Service. You stab'em, we slab'em." But, I'm here to take requests.

Hi

Cortni reminded me that coming up for air every now and then is nice to see on a blog. At least, I think.

I've found myself struck with a great ease of distraction since Spring Break. Working at home is becoming much harder to do, partly because I have Thunderbird installed and generating all these articles to read, from Slashdot, BoingBoing, the usually very interesting blog of that woman who shot up testosterone ("The Man Project," if you're interested)...all in all, home life has been highly unstructured, and hard to focus in.

But, I've started regular things again, like lawn mowing (not weedwhacking, need to find goggles), and exercise. I did 30 situps and 25 pushups this morning, and even biked around a little. The goal now is to wake up early enough to do that every morning before breakfast - that should start to give my days the structure I think they need. At least, I think exercise should be done before breakfast – you'd want to exercise at a time when blood isn't going towards digesting food, right?

I've been trying to make writing here a bit more regular, too. But, the most recent things I've written came out sounding depressing (pointed out once at a student board meeting, believe it or not). My writing may be trying to tell me something, which I'll just observe out loud now and be done with.

I'm starting to feel stressed from the work I'm falling behind on, and there's a vicious-cycle loop that makes me not want to think about that work. I don't have much time to "Enjoy" going through this cycle, either: Besides everything on this schedule that isn't green (which is every course I have assigned now), I have a full work day Friday, and I play viola Sunday through Monday night, a different group each night, with a lesson Wednesday afternoon. I've thankfully found a place to dance Thursday night, even at Evergreen; it's on brick, though, so I won't want to bring my Bleyers (shoes) again. Dancing in sneakers'll be good for my triple-stepping, anyway.

The hope for the quarter is that I'll get the hang of doing homework in the afternoon. I've been abominably bad at homework since Spring Break, often not even looking at the assignment until late the night before it's due. This could become quite a bad rut.

Ah, but I should assure this entry doesn't turn out to be entirely that depressing flavor I've had and not posted recently. So, here are two wonderful foods that happened today:

A coworker went to Mexico for a week, last week. He brought back some bottles of Mexican vanilla, and it made wonderful French Toast, compared with the completely rarefied Madagascaran vanilla (bought right before the natural disasters wiped out that nation's crop a year or two ago).

Also of great delight, my aunt made chocolate chunk cookies. She had asked us (my brother and I) whether we wanted chocolate chip or chocolate chunk a while ago; we both said "Chunk" in unison, to her confusion. My uncle needed to explain to her why it was such an obvious choice for us – the chunks are bigger.

Some day soon, I shall walk to Bayview Thriftway from work (4-5 blocks). There, I shall get a pack of little cubes of dried fruits – mango, papaya, and something else – that just looked too good to pass up. And there was a cheese that seduced me from behind a glass veil: White Stilton with mango & ginger. It ran something like $16/lb., so I won't be getting much, but it sounds as equally unpassable as the bag of dried fruit bits.

I shall soon have snacks to kick the butt of that somehow-unsalted batch of Kettle Chips. Soon. But, I should get back to my homework. I hope I can start working blogging back in as a regular distraction; I can use a bit more frequency in trying to write something amusing. I apparently had a half-stressed post, that's still listed under Echoes, where I mentioned posting a letter on the Incompleteness Theorem. I ended up writing that letter to El Jimbo, along with submitting a copy to my professor. I'll probably post it once I look into the comments my professor wrote on it; I was apparently good just up to a point in the second page.

Hey, I know what'll be fun: A few mindfucks. As Jim and I shall make a habit of saying to each other in math discussions, "Care for some lube?" Incompleteness, Arity Transformation...yeah, I'll try to get one of those bad boys out Tuesday. 'Til then.

Three Things that Went Well Today

I was walking to class, passing by Red Square on the Evergreen Campus. It's a huge expanse, which lets sound travel well. I was hearing ... Fitzgerald? Ella Fitzgerald? Huh? I even saw people doing ... swingouts? What the luck?

Evergreen has a swing club. I never knew about this; obviously, they're failing to advertise to the hardcore Computer Science crowd. They apparently meet on Thursday nights, 6-8; half-lesson, half-dance. The teacher doesn't know Balboa, but he looks like a nice guy, I'll try the club Thursday night.

I stopped by SPSCC to get our stand to Damian. We're in an octet that gets together on Mondays, and I've managed to have other obligations on the first two rehearsals; I still haven't seen the music. Oh well. Violas can somehow get by with this.

Besides delivering the stand, I had an ulterior motive of seeing Dr. Newsome. It's been a few quarters since I've had a chat with him, and I thought there wouldn't be a better time than after he promised a girl who lead me to a phantom dance would be sacked. (He got my e-mail from Friday.)

I missed him on the first pass by his office, but instead found Julie (from the Oly/Tacoma dances), and Leia. I had a pleasant chat and foosball round, not respectively, then I walked by Oli's office on a whim after I decided I should go home and get some homework done. By golly, he was there; yay for whims (sorry Leah).

Oli's impressed with me, getting out of college in two more months; he's equally impressed with Susan ("That girl who kept getting scholarships...what was her name...?" -Oli). He's urging grad. school, after I have my "Breather" year; he encourages me to tango, when time starts permitting; but most of all, he'd just like to continue hearing from me as the years go on.

This is going to be harder after he retires at the end of next year.

The last bit of good news for me today: The SOGO executive board voted me in. I start in July. I'd celebrate my first executive board membership with a glass of bubbly, if only I drank crabonated liquids...and, uh, if I could drink. Oh well; a good day, today.

/. Discussion: Sony and Law by Precedent

Here's something to mull over.

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=144204&cid=12087488
The first forum item, and the first child are what I'd like to emphasize.

In reponse, here's an idea, though I'm just a lowly math/compusci-focused 'Greener: Why not have these laws by precedent be set only by cases won through judgement, not through mere victory in court? Victory in court, by my understanding, allows victory by defaulting (ie the defendant can't pay for any more).

Or is there something fundamental about our legal system I should know but don't?

La Poisson d'Avril

Du nez, je la semble.

For lunch today, I went to Mekong with three coworkers. The phud thai was good, but the stir-fried vegetables could've been better. But the lunch wasn't the interesting part of Mekong; I saw someone walking in. Dark, maybe black hair, tall frame, half-Asian face...I remembered her from somewhere, but couldn't place her. I found out at the end of my meal she was a regular at the Eagle's dance scene – and she had a friend with her.

I'd never gotten back to that girl who asked me to Tolo a few weeks back. The impending due-ness (easily typoed as duem) of something on consecutive Wednesdays necessitated humongous amounts of work Tuesdays; so, nothing happened on that front. Today, she walked by the table that was the site of four empty plates and four full tummies from LGAN.

"Hi, Alex. Are you going to the dance tonight?" I was taken completely by surprise.

"Hi! ...Wait, it's Friday...Where...?" I tried to think of where she'd be dancing on a Friday. Blues Underground was a week or two ago, so Seattle was out, if she'd ever been there...

"SPSCC."

"Ah! The Jitterbug Club?"

She nodded.

"Fabulous! I'll try to be there."

Satisfied, she walked off with her friend. I told the other guys at the table that that was a girl who asked me to Tolo. "What's Tolo," they asked; I then filled them in on that it's a high school dance, yes she's a high schooler, and no, I don't know which school. Don't even know her name; that's not a great thing, since she knows mine.

So, they were impressed that at a random lunch, a girl whose name I didn't know just asked me if I was going to a dance that night. I'll chalk that one up for youth.

The rest of this story, I've already written in a letter to Oli Newsome, about the Jitterbug Club.

…

I showed up at SPSCC tonight with my brother, at about 7:50. The SUB was locked, the Gym was locked, and the parking lots were barren. It occurred to me that this is the tail end of SPSCC's Spring Break, and I haven't heard a thing from the Jitterbug Club since you wrote about Nuevo Tango, I believe. I think I made the mistake of listening to someone on April Fool's day. Did I? Or was there a Jitterbug Club meeting in some obscure location I didn't think of?

…

If it weren't for OCO rehearsals, I'd go to the Tuesday dance and ask her what she meant by "Dance" at "SPSCC." Oh well; I'll have to make do with not seeing her until we chance on each other again.

I take people too seriously to survive this day unscathed (lost 10 miles' worth of gas to that gag). I'll chalk that one up for gullibility.