Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

The Internet Is Epic

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

I’ve been trying to figure out what this video actually says. All that I’ve come up with is that it gives me a vague sense of hope about the possibilities of the Internet, but it is not a very meaty intellectual chunk. I feel that this could have been a short film about the wonders of flint, and that as long as it is set to a techno sound track with clever editing it will give the viewer a vague impression of a message. The message being "Humans Rule."

I mean to belittle neither flint nor the Internet, but I feel that more should and could be said about the Internet. Sure the Internet is a fast communications network, and we’ve never had anything like it before. People are communicating on a mass scale never before seen. That is the "What." I don’t feel that any assertions were actually made about how the speed, and massive size of this communication is effecting culture.

Here is a different video.
I think I tend to agree with the response. On the whole I feel like not all that much has changed.
However, this is coming from someone who grew up with the Internet.

I will make an assertion of my own:
Whatever ‘sea-change’ is/was/will be upon us with regard to the Internet, it will not be extensively commented on by members of my generation. Yes the Internet is a good tool, but it is as much a matter of course as the automobile. With respect to the life of the heart we’ve been the same old humans from antiquity until now.

Senior Seminar / Final Quarter Chapter 4

Saturday, February 10th, 2007

On Wednesday I gave my senior seminar presentation. It went well.
I am pleased with the effort I put into it, and I am relieved that that part of the class is over.
It was exciting to talk about something that I am interested in. I also feel that  my understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform has deepened.

Senior Seminar:
Now all I have to do is write a 10 page paper. I have begun it all ready.
The next step is to finish reading Virtannen, to begin understanding polyphonic source separation algorithms.

Real Analysis:
I have a midterm on Monday. This weekend I will study.
Homework is due on Wednesday. I will do some homework.

Latin:
Homework due on Monday.

Senior Seminar / Final Quarter 3.5

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

Senior Seminar:
I’ve finished my presentation, and practiced it a few times.

Real Analysis:
I’ve finished my homework for tomorrow.

Latin:
I’ve finished my homework for tomorrow.

For the first time in a long while I feel that feeling from earlier in school when all your homework is done and you can do whatever you want for the rest of the evening. So relaxing. I’m going to go get some ice cream and then go to bed.

Senior Seminar / Final Quarter Chapter 3

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007

Hello Everyone. My senior seminar presentation is on Wednesday of next week. Here is my current progress:

Senior Seminar:
    I have 16 slides in a power point presentation, and a written outline of what I want to talk about. This weekend I’m going to go home and put the finishing touches on the presentation by adding pictures, and maybe creating some example waveforms.
    While I still don’t feel like an expert on the Fourier Transform I feel like I have definitely learned something, and it will certainly be an informative talk to anyone who hasn’t learned anything about DSP or related topics. I am looking forward to it. I’m going to wear a tie.
    I have started writing the 10 page paper that is due at the end of the quarter. I wrote an introduction paragraph. I am excited to do my best on what is really my final project of my undergraduate career. Oh well, I shouldn’t celebrate yet. I will report on how the project went in a week.

Latin:
    I’ve been keeping up with homework pretty well. I should start reading the stories more often, but other than that this class is going fine.

Real Analysis:
    I’m doing well in this class also. I started the homework on Thursday (it is due on Wednesday). I hope to finish it soon so that I don’t have to worry while I put the finishing touches on my presentation. This class is really interesting. We learned the definition of a limes superior, limes inferior, and open sets today.

Have a good weekend.

Senior Seminar / Final Quarter Chapter 2

Saturday, January 27th, 2007

This week has been busy, but rewarding.

Senior Seminar:
   This week I met with my professor on Wednesday. I showed him a possible outline. He thought it was too much for a 30 minute talk, so I am pairing down the focus for the talk to just the Fourier Transform.
    I began reading a book entitled "The Discrete Fourier Transform" by D. Sundararajan. It is pretty clear so far, and seems to be a good starting point.
    I started making power point slides on the Sampling Theorem before I met with my professor, so I will have to go back and edit the presentation.
    I  took a break from reading Virtannen this week. The paper for the class will still be about polyphonic source separation, but for now I need to focus on the talk.

Latin:
    I got caught up. Practiced declensions, and read the stories from chapters 21 and 22.

Real Analysis:
    I did another homework assignment.  We had a quiz on Wednesday. I got 9/10 on the quiz and 8/10 on the first homework assignment. Hopefully this trend will continue. This class is really interesting.

Things are coming together.

Senior Seminar / Final Quarter Chapter 1

Friday, January 19th, 2007

Hello everyone. I’m Mike. I’m studying mathematics at University of California at Santa Cruz. This is my last quarter and I have a talk that I have to give, and a senior project that I have to do.  The idea of these posts will be to track my progress on this project, and my progress in my other classes. I hope that this will help motivate me to do my very best in my last year in university.

Here is the class rundown in order of difficulty:
   Senior Seminar
   Real Analysis
   Latin 2
 
Here is the broad view:
   Senior Seminar:
       Give a 35 minute talk on a mathematical topic, on February 7th
       Turn in a 10 page paper on the topic by the end of the quarter.

    Real Analysis:  
       Weekly homework. Due Wednesdays.
       Reading.
       Tests.

    Latin 2:
       Homework for class 3 times a week.
       Reading.
       Tests.

Listing these is already starting to make things feel more manageable.

Now for some more details on my Senior Seminar:
    I want to study polyphonic source separation algorithms. Through what little research I have done so far I have realized that this is too broad a topic to fit into a 35 minute talk. So, my first task is to narrow down what I will talk about. As it stands right now, maybe a short talk on the Discrete Fourier Transform would be good. Right now, the basic structure might go something like this:

1. Explain in broad terms how digital audio works.  Samples, sampling frequency, possibly the sampling theorem, Nyquist frequency, etc.
2. Explain the mathematics of the Discrete Fourier Transform. Maybe, talk about the Fourier Transforms uses in other branches of math and science.
3. Explain what polyphonic source separation is, and how the Fourier Transform is used as a tool in polyphonic source separation algorithms.

    Somewhere in there I want to talk about psycoacoustics, and cognitive science, but maybe there is not enough time to do that and I will have to save it for the paper.

In conclusion I will leave a list of things that I need to do in the following week:
    Senior Seminar:
       Continue reading Tuomas Virtanen‘s thesis on polyphonic source separation.
       Write a possible outline, and bring it to my professor on Monday.

    Real Analysis:
       Complete homework assignment. Do at least 1 problem every day.
       Finish reading chapter 1. Begin Chapter 2.

    Latin:
       Catch up on backlogged homework. (Tomorrow!)
       Stay caught up. Do a little every day.

Next time I will review my accomplishments, and I will describe a technique developed by my parents to help get ideas down on paper.

-Mike

Hackfest 110011 Mortem

Thursday, October 19th, 2006

19 October 2006 – rainy night

Greg and Brett and Mark here, and Alex and Graham.
Also Larry the soon to be graduate and percussionist, and Martin and Lauren.

New Scheme spec – R6RS.
Mark is coding javascript using the IDE IntelliJ.

Trying to decide if iTunes Applescript, iTunes COM, or Songbird extensions are the future of SWIMM.

JACOB might be an option for talking to COM from Java.

Hackfest 101001 Postmortem

Sunday, July 2nd, 2006

29 June 2006 – colo + controversy

Since Last Week:
Vinny -startup work on a C++ performance coding problem.
 -made a prototype for Inliner, his cross-platform outlining application.
Graham -putting together VirtualPC images for testing.
Luke -got an apartment!
 -started working on a non-forking daemon to fix fork-bombed geh.

This Week:
Vinny -packaging Inliner.
 -suggests Graham and Alex integrate SWIMM with Songbird.
Graham -installing phpdev article to work on collaboration site.
Luke -geh admin issues.

Hackfest 11111 Mortem

Thursday, April 20th, 2006

20 April 2006 – Happy Birthday Ginny and EK!

Since Last Week:

Vinny-
Researched Lisp MOOs and played with scsh-surflet.
Listening to CS61A at UC Berkeley – SICP, Video of Abelson and Sussman.

Erik-
Subwey- control security circumvention for iframes.
Social bookmarking software sucks – once you give feedback it should disappear.

Graham-
Relearning web service clients on win32.

This weeks plans:

Vinny-
Reading about Lisp reflection – Translucent Procedures, Abstraction w/o Opacity. Rozas ’93 (MIT)

Erik-
Subwey- working on algorithm for efficiently traversing DOM tree.

Graham-
Simple web client.

This week’s reality:

Vinny-
Nobody on #scheme knows about scheme reflection. Reading and writing closure might break Rees security model. You could bypass any code that protected variables in the closure.

Erik-
Fixed a crapton of bugs. Started with the DOM traversal algorithm.

Graham-
Tried using the Sam Ruby Atom client, but something’s wrong with auth.

new environs

Thursday, April 20th, 2006

the hapax legomenon of the week is "turquila".  this is a drink i made up: a blend of wild turkey 101 and patron silver.

i find myself in a strange place, surrounded by walls and distraught with idle dreams and carrots.  there, on the wall, was a picture of a burger.  the zero remains steady.  the pulley in its rarefied forms.

i’m working as a contractor developing code in scheme.  the sicp rests proudly on the new desk.  i’ve got a laptop!  and my friends are all here now:

 – mr. lobster, who has recovered excellently from the loss of a primary limb.
 – the warbling parrot-head, which always speaks the truth when i’m down.
 – the four blind mice of the rubbery apocalypse
 – mr. hermit crab, type SR 128 – 001X.

and new friends, too:

 – mr. turtle, who can stretch like the fabric of space-time.  he will make for good stress relief.
 – and last but not least, the smoking orange bunny with the k on its forehead.  when i see the smoking orange bunny with the k on its forehead, i know exactly what to do.

they help make the hours go by as i get ready to bumble through a magical journey of lambda inspired refactorings and dodge industry buzzwords with 18 month lifespans.

if you haven’t seen it on the radio, you’re not thinking hard enough!