February 5, 2012

Potential
What bright days come? For surely there is something like the hush of all hopes that captivates the soul. It was Wednesday night, after having stayed up the day and night before, at 10pm, when I felt tired enough to go to bed for a planned 16 hour sleep. Then the mind started to activate, and I stayed up an hour more, in complete darkness except for the glow of the iPad. Then some sleep... Then at 1am, Krisher tried to call me, but I was not fit for human interaction. Then at 2am, a strange dream woke me up, whereupon I started to work again, in the dark, with the iPad. And there I formulated the remaining specific implementation plan for the main logic. Booyah!

So perhaps this is the last of the cycles (theory, implementation, find something missing, theory, implementation...). That line in the sand I drew back in October of last year is holding fast. I have not added one more thing to formulate for the prototype to include. I am coding again, carefully, now, that the spell is not broken. Hopes are high, but you know what? I have always had hope, praise God. Sure, there were those pits in the road along the journey, where I wanted to chuck the whole thing, where I thought the problem was just too hard, where I thought it couldn’t be done by anyone at any time, but here we are. You pick yourself up when you’re thrown down.

In other news, there was a rockin’ get-together here in the apartment Friday night. And I entered the party, up from my pad below, at about 9:30, and there was a line to give me a hug hello. Yeah, they’re all my roommate’s friends, but I know them all well enough now, too. So one of them has a new girlfriend, who happens to be Korean, so I asked her if she would think of me to whomever she knew, and she said she would mention me to her sister, who’s supposedly a good looking structural engineer. Who knows? Maybe nothing will come of this, but whatever. That was a fun night. I actually can interact with other human beings if I am so inclined. Imagine that.

In which the potential of the moment is off the scale.
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February 3, 2012

Cannot Unsee
What scientists say in research papers vs. What they actually mean
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Funny
TOR TV: A New Meme
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February 2, 2012

New York at Twilight’s End

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February 1, 2012

Expansive
The Lord of the Rings Family Tree Project
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Cool
Nice pics of animals
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January 31, 2012

doubt
i will plant this seed of doubt
for its flowers are rare
whose scent is science
whose form is philosophy
so easily forgotten in the bud
uprooted from its soil
by some distracted exploration
for its enemy is not faith
as it drinks of curiosity
like the void in a cup its use
and properly plucked, in season
has it salved the soul
expanded the vision of pilgrims
who sought to know it
what lay in the darkness
just beyond our grasp’s reach
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January 30, 2012

Interesting
Math-Blind AI Teaches Itself Basic Number Sense
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Hmm...
Anonymous Threatens to Take Facebook Down, But Can It?
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January 29, 2012

Happy Year of the Dragon!
Do you see it?

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January 28, 2012

Quote
Lord, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and blind us to the mote that is in our brother's. Let us feel our offences with our hands, make them great and bright before us like the sun, make us eat them and drink them for our diet. Blind us to the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own eyes and in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method of him in whose words of prayer we now conclude.

– Robert Louis Stevenson
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January 27, 2012

State of Tech #1
Race to serve up artificial chicken for a $1m prize
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State of Tech #2
How Speeding The "Most Important Algorithm Of Our Lifetime" Could Change This Modern World
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January 26, 2012

Count
So things are progressing pretty well. I don’t know if I’m making loose schedules or loosely following whatever schedules I do make up for myself, but I have a bunch of details now hammered out. Any hour now I will start putting it down into code, into the hard difference of function. I am still(!) trying to fully recover from the cold I’ve had since last month; these things seem to last forever and a day, but I am hopeful I will be out of its grasp soon. What else? Things are real good, at one point good enough to think how the rug can be pulled out from under me when I do think cruise control on this flying carpet is working properly. I can suppose it’s all good. Count it all joy.
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January 24, 2012

History
When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?
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Science!
Why Does Our Universe Have Three Dimensions?
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January 23, 2012

Random Awesomeness 16

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January 22, 2012

plot
within the plotline
the characterizations mix
as the party goes on
to forget the complications
until the midnight rings
the princess revealed
and then the twist
when the masks come off
and the villain is time
and everyone has grown old
realizing the truth
we wrote the whole thing
no one else, no one, to blame
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January 21, 2012

Yes, Really
Waterproof your iPhone with nanotechnology
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The Saint of the Atheists
Norman Borlaug — seriously, he did a *lot* of stuff
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