May 29, 2003
Exploring the Matrix & Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It
Today I finished Exploring the Matrix, and interesting look at several aspects of the Matrix. There is coverage of some of the Science Fiction sources the movie draws from, which for someone who is mildly knowledgeable about modern science fiction, but not an expert, is definitely worth reading. There is an essay on Woo-Ping, Martial Arts and wire shots, which is fascinating. More importantly there are several essays about why the Matrix is as popular as it is, (e.g. Neo...
Posted on May 29, 2003 03:59 AM
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May 27, 2003
iTunes 4.0.1: No more internet sharing
By now others have commented on the release of iTunes 4.0.1, but this morning I was probably one of the first users to download it. This also meant that I was unable to listen to shared stations anymore, because most users had, and have still, not updated to this version. While this removal of features is definitely not good news, I understand Apple's decision. I still think it is wrong, to kill particular features, only because they could be potentially...
Posted on May 27, 2003 06:15 PM
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May 27, 2003
Some Random Polls: Once and Only Once
I know I shouldn't post polls to a serious blog, but I will make an exception once. I took the What Matrix Character Poll, and got the following: You are Neo, from "The Matrix." Youdisplay a perfect fusion of heroism andcompassion. What Matrix Persona Are You? brought to you by Quizilla I find myself agreeing with the answer and explanation. Neo is definitely my favourite Matrix Character. Determination and Intelligence are important to me, but so are compassion and love....
Posted on May 27, 2003 01:39 AM
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May 25, 2003
Why I'm Glad I didn't go to Frosh Fest
Today was apparently the day of one of the biggest campus parties of the year: Froshfest. I am very glad I went to see The Matrix Reloaded instead. I don't really like the big organized parties where everyone says it's going to be great, and all these supposedly great things will happen. The 10 minutes we spent at the Slav party yesterday were fun, because it was kind of a spontaneous thing of some Loro people trying to get away...
Posted on May 25, 2003 01:44 AM
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May 25, 2003
John McCarthy & The Matrix
Warning small spoilers ahead: Don't read if you haven't seen the movie! A student in my seminar with John McCarthy had a theory that the architect in The Matrix reloaded was modeled after Professor McCarthy. From what I hear, he liked the idea, although I had to miss class that day. I am, however, a bit sceptical about the whole thing. Professor McCarthy looks similar to the architect, and like him is one of the fathers of AI, but that's...
Posted on May 25, 2003 01:37 AM
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May 21, 2003
ISIS RSS and BlogTalk
Tristan has been working for a group called ISIS for quite some time now, and today I went with him to their meeting, to help with setting up RSS for their website. ISIS manages events.stanford.edu, which offers information about everything that is going at Stanford. It is a really innovative project with lots of creative people. Hopefully I will be able to set up a first experimental version by the end of the week. Stay tuned for updates. In other...
Posted on May 21, 2003 01:17 AM
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May 21, 2003
Academic Advising & John McCarthy
Professor John McCarthy told us today, that he would accept two of us as his advisees. Given that he has not done this in a long time, and has only one PhD student, this is a great honor. I am seriously considering the offer, but I'm not entirely sure, whether it is exactly what I want. Unfortunately, I do not have too much time to decide. Any advice?...
Posted on May 21, 2003 01:00 AM
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May 21, 2003
Philosophy of the Matrix
Today I found this great quote, about how our world itself is deceptive, and how in science and everywhere else, things are not as they appear. It compares our struggle against this deception, to Neo's struggle to make people aware of the Matrix.
Posted on May 21, 2003 12:50 AM
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May 20, 2003
Philosophy, Faculty Night and Randomness
Before I start, I wanted to say that Nora got a blog today. I am pretty excited, though she said I should wait some time till I publicize her URL. Stay tuned for updates. Today was mostly spent in class, at faculty night, and in front of the computer, listening to the Matrix Reloaded soundtrack and Massive Attack....
Posted on May 20, 2003 01:46 AM
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May 16, 2003
If you had to write The Matrix, what language would you use?
Yesterday I was wondering what language the Matrix would be best, if one had to write something like the Matrix. This seems like a good thought experiences, because it is in somesense the ultimate large scale computer system. Although speed would be important, using low level languages seems like a very bad idea. Programs have to be changed rapidly, usually while they are running. And for such an incredibly complex system, with so many different difficulties, compiled languages do not...
Posted on May 16, 2003 05:00 AM
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May 14, 2003
UNIX Networking
I have been feeling very unmotivated today, for a number of reasons. The last half hour, however, I have been reading about UNIX Networking. Although the article was very brief, I am fascinated by it. Fortunately I already have Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment and the TCP/IP Illustrated series, and I will read it this summer, if I find a bit of time, during the first few weeks. I am very much looking forward to learning more about this,...
Posted on May 14, 2003 03:21 AM
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May 13, 2003
Babylon 5 all over the place
Yesteday I watched a Babylon 5 episode, in which G'Kar reads a poem by Yeats, that we read in IHUM section the same day: The Second Coming. I was excited enough to send an email to my TF, but this new revalation is just insane. Last month I went to a beach in Julia Pfeiffer State Park, near Big Sur in California. In Babylon 5, the captain of the station has a picture of exactly that beach, which in my...
Posted on May 13, 2003 11:10 PM
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May 13, 2003
BTree and C++
BTree is quite a difficult assignment I must agree. I am very glad that the iterator part was made optional, because I have been getting tired of working on this assignment. I finished most of the assignment and tried my hand at writing the iterators, and while I think I could finish them without too much work, I have gotten tired of it. I am very much looking forward to programming in Java again. Although I love C I think...
Posted on May 13, 2003 04:55 AM
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May 11, 2003
New Speakers and A Bike
I finally decided to buy a pair of speakers with a bass and I am very glad I did. I got the JBL Creature speakers in silver. I am now programming, watching Babylon 5 and enjoying the amazing sound. I slightly regret not buying speakers earlier, but it did not seem like a good idea at the time. In an even more surprising move, I finally bought a bike. Although I will not use it all to much this year,...
Posted on May 11, 2003 12:00 AM
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May 10, 2003
Shared String and BTreeMap
I just finished Shared String, a string that is exactly like a normal one, with the only exception being that lexically identical strings will share their memory. The assignment was quite simple, although it took me some time to figure out that I cannot call one constructor from another, like in Java. Fixing that only took a few seconds. I now have to do BTreeMap and it promises to be difficult. The assignment was so long that Professor Cain said...
Posted on May 10, 2003 01:29 AM
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May 08, 2003
Baylon 5: Return to the Future
In 8th grade I started being a Baylon 5 fan. I watched lots of episodes, tried to built model Babylon 5 ships, and the summer before 9th grade, learnt HTML just to make a Babylon 5 website. It took me 3 months of daily work to make the website look good, and several more months to improve it. I improved my HTML skills, improved my English, learnt physics better than anyone I know. Some time during the end of that...
Posted on May 8, 2003 03:15 PM
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May 08, 2003
Draw number: It's gonna be close
Our group got our draw number today: 1194 out of 2000. It could be a lot better, but I know people who suffered a 1946, so I guess we are lucky. I was very sad about this at first, but I am starting to be more positive. Right now our first choice is Toyon, which has triples. After that it get's complicated. Although I was at first feeling very very bad about the situation, I now feel more positive....
Posted on May 8, 2003 03:47 AM
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May 06, 2003
Six Degrees of Everything
Tristan was looking at my AIM list today and was surprised to find someone on my AIM list, I added when I was admitted to Stanford. I only added the person because of his interest in Cryptography, and never ever wrote him. It turns out he was in my CS 106X section for three months, and I never knew he was on my list. The story continues..........
Posted on May 6, 2003 01:20 AM
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May 05, 2003
Learning Cocoa and Writing BattleFungus
My progress in learning Cocoa has been acceptable. I have been programming in it for about a day now, but there are lots of things I do not yet know. Many things are very interesting, some I like a lot, some will take a bit of time to get used to. Right now I'm having a problem with the debugger. I cannot debug properly when the window of the app displays itself. I'm not exactly sure, what the reason for...
Posted on May 5, 2003 09:38 PM
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May 05, 2003
Midterm Madness.....
I got both my CS 103 B and CS 107 midterms back. The results were mixed. Both midterms were only worth 20% of the final grade, which was a good thing. In CS 107 I barely scored above the mean, because I mistook an array of 2 short pointers as 2 shorts and generated the wrong assembly code for them. I also messed up some things with char **. Low level C is still something I need to practice more....
Posted on May 5, 2003 09:14 PM
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