Thursday, June 29, 2006
7000 clicks later
At some point in Castaño's past, some imbecile thought it would be a good idea to install a "Fire Alarm Equipment" control box in a student room instead of a closet, just because the room would be reserved for deaf students and thus had extra fire alarms. When I (not deaf) moved in this week, I found the box eminating a loud clicking noise approximately every sixty seconds. Just a quick little "tick-tock"; 2880 clicks a day. After a couple days of frantic complaining, technicians came in and replaced the black control box on the wall by the ceiling with an even bigger red control box. But it's silent as, um, a charm.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Kat's in Vermont
Kat landed in Burlington. (Vermont has an international airport? Who knew?) The Middlebury language pledge doesn't kick in until tomorrow, so we're still in touch. I've changed the description of the link to her blog. I think it's cute, but I'll change it to something else if she doesn't like it.
She'll be posting videoblog (or "vlog", as the a-little-too-web-savvy call it) entries in Russian throughout the summer. I'm hoping to find someone willing to do freelance translation and captioning, but otherwise I'll have to rely on nonverbal cues.
I'm sad that she's gone, but I'm not too worried. She's going to be awesome at Russian and, in the fall, Russia.
She'll be posting videoblog (or "vlog", as the a-little-too-web-savvy call it) entries in Russian throughout the summer. I'm hoping to find someone willing to do freelance translation and captioning, but otherwise I'll have to rely on nonverbal cues.
I'm sad that she's gone, but I'm not too worried. She's going to be awesome at Russian and, in the fall, Russia.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Done with all work
Now it's just packing and saying not goodbye but goodnight to K. Home Thursday night.
Friday, June 09, 2006
T-minus 2 hours
I just finished another complete problem. This morning I was only able to solve part of another problem. That brings the total to (out of 8 problems) 4 solved completely and 2 solved partially. That's gotta be within passing range, but I'll see if I can finish one of the two false starts or, if I'm very lucky, solve one of the other two.
Update: T-minus 11 hours
Another 150 minutes, another problem solved. This one had a kinda funny graph full of blue and green lines and red circles as its punchline. Also, after I finally finished coding the program and waited for it to execute, I looked up and realized that the sun was already up. Birds are chirping. Garbage trucks are rumbling faintly through the earth, occasionally puncturing across the distance by dropping something large. Students lie unconscious and unready mere feet away from the alarm clocks that will prematurely evacuate them from their beds and send them to the first exams of Spring quarter, 8:30am Friday morning.
Also, Shane has fantastic taste in music. Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy" is a great song and a great music video (directed by the same guy who did my beloved Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" video). No, really, everyone must see the surreal music video. Tell me, am I wrong? (That's a throwback to Shane's musical tastes, by the way. He hooked me on Keb Mo's "Am I Wrong" last summer. My brain works really weird after 6am. Good for blog posts, bad for mathematical proofs and computer programming.)
Last thought before I work/sleep. For the first time in so long that I can't even remember how long, I have a celebrity crush: comedian Sarah Silverman. (Kat's words; and K says she supports the SS adoration.) She's a comic genius, and, although I'm not particularly interested in what she does in music, she's a pretty amazing singer. Thanks to her I have now seen the best and only stand-up comic joke involving vocal harmonies. Stop me if I'm wrong, stop me if I'm wrong. (Shane also tried to introduce me to The Streets, but I'm sorry to say it didn't take until my dad pointed me to "Don't Mug Yourself".)
[Edited at 6pm for a few typos.]
Also, Shane has fantastic taste in music. Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy" is a great song and a great music video (directed by the same guy who did my beloved Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" video). No, really, everyone must see the surreal music video. Tell me, am I wrong? (That's a throwback to Shane's musical tastes, by the way. He hooked me on Keb Mo's "Am I Wrong" last summer. My brain works really weird after 6am. Good for blog posts, bad for mathematical proofs and computer programming.)
Last thought before I work/sleep. For the first time in so long that I can't even remember how long, I have a celebrity crush: comedian Sarah Silverman. (Kat's words; and K says she supports the SS adoration.) She's a comic genius, and, although I'm not particularly interested in what she does in music, she's a pretty amazing singer. Thanks to her I have now seen the best and only stand-up comic joke involving vocal harmonies. Stop me if I'm wrong, stop me if I'm wrong. (Shane also tried to introduce me to The Streets, but I'm sorry to say it didn't take until my dad pointed me to "Don't Mug Yourself".)
[Edited at 6pm for a few typos.]
Update: T-minus 13.5 hours
Things don't look too good. These problems are hard. Heh. Who knew?
I've got 2.5 out of 8 so far. On the last one, I knew what I needed to do but not how to do it; curling up with the textbook on my bed, bouncing back and forth from the index, table of contents, and the text, following links and references, I finally found what I needed.
I've got 2.5 out of 8 so far. On the last one, I knew what I needed to do but not how to do it; curling up with the textbook on my bed, bouncing back and forth from the index, table of contents, and the text, following links and references, I finally found what I needed.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
The following takes place between 5pm and 5pm
I'm 2.5 hours into my 24-hour take-home final for EE 364 (Convex Optimization). I'm optimistic so far that I'll do well enough to receive credit, but it's not clear yet how much time I'll have for sleep and/or my CS 224N (Natural Language Processing) final project (due Saturday, also at 5pm).
I'm "going dark" until the mission is completed. I'll try to check back into the world briefly Friday evening.
I'm "going dark" until the mission is completed. I'll try to check back into the world briefly Friday evening.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Jeremy's plan for foreign languages
As inspired by 8-bit Theatre, I want to learn how to say "Sorry, I don't speak $language" and "I wish I could explain, but I can't, because as I said, I don't speak $language" in as many languages as possible. In a global world economy, it pays to be a polyglot smartass.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Many things are awesome
Stanford CS is awesome -- awesome enough to take an extra year to do more of it. I just got accepted to get a coterminal Master of Science degree in Computer Science. As of this September, I'll be a grad student! Whoah!
Roble 06-07 is awesome. The staff is a terrific group and really fun to be a part of. The dorm is going to be ni-i-ice after this summer's renovation. The one ":-(" in the proceedings is the six singles that are being used as doubles next year in Roble's center wing. (They needed to fit more upperclassmen here to compensate for the doubles-made-into-singles in construction-surrounded Serra and Zapata, and for the Roble rooms that won't be ready in the fall.) Sadly that meant that some unhappy juniors are in doubles and some unhappy sophomores are in mini-doubles. Still, Roble radiates awesomeness and they'll all be happy about it soon enough.
My girlfriend is awesome. She's learning how to write and speak a language with some weird letters and some misleadingly familiar letters, then she's going to be paid to live at Stanford and write about deep things, then she's going a country where everyone's middle name is their parent's name plus "vich" at the end. And she does amazing things with a tripod. I must begrudgingly admit that she's added a lot of cuteness to my world, and that it might just be a little bit awesome as well.
Turning 21 is awesome. Just so I can, y'know... get a regular-looking drivers license... loiter near the slot machines in Las Vegas McCarran Interxl Airport without feeling like an outlaw... rent a car from the on-campus Enterprise at a cheaper rate... and so on.
Coming soon: my family is awesome.
Roble 06-07 is awesome. The staff is a terrific group and really fun to be a part of. The dorm is going to be ni-i-ice after this summer's renovation. The one ":-(" in the proceedings is the six singles that are being used as doubles next year in Roble's center wing. (They needed to fit more upperclassmen here to compensate for the doubles-made-into-singles in construction-surrounded Serra and Zapata, and for the Roble rooms that won't be ready in the fall.) Sadly that meant that some unhappy juniors are in doubles and some unhappy sophomores are in mini-doubles. Still, Roble radiates awesomeness and they'll all be happy about it soon enough.
My girlfriend is awesome. She's learning how to write and speak a language with some weird letters and some misleadingly familiar letters, then she's going to be paid to live at Stanford and write about deep things, then she's going a country where everyone's middle name is their parent's name plus "vich" at the end. And she does amazing things with a tripod. I must begrudgingly admit that she's added a lot of cuteness to my world, and that it might just be a little bit awesome as well.
Turning 21 is awesome. Just so I can, y'know... get a regular-looking drivers license... loiter near the slot machines in Las Vegas McCarran Interxl Airport without feeling like an outlaw... rent a car from the on-campus Enterprise at a cheaper rate... and so on.
Coming soon: my family is awesome.
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