A nice face

IMG_0022
Originally uploaded by wildmansmee.

I am experimenting with posting photos taken with my new camera.

More excitement

Here is a text mining presentation about trying to automatically tag website bias.

I'm done!

!!!!!!!

Text Segmentation Presentation

For all of my fans that like to keep up with what I'm doing in my classes, here is a presentation about text segmentation evaluation, probably a pilot study for my thesis.

Re: Re: Stay young

So this week two items of junk mail slipped past my mail reader's filter. You know why? They stole my idea! It looks like they're using a Probabalistic CFG to generate a soup of sentences.

Any fancy mobile phone calculates.
The tall balloon arrives as soon as whose shining slopy door run or maybe mine green purple ram sleeps.
Her well-crafted expensive red golden gun stands-still.
Her daughters red camera lies while his brothers soft boots makes sound.
Her little purple noisy car is thinking.
Our children little recycle bin run.
Mine hairy bra stares.
Their fancy table stares and perhaps the beautiful picture calms-down the time that his golden baby stinks.
Mine stupid camera stinks or any given well-crafted silver hairy bottle is angry.
His brothers round shining round-shaped baby stares.
Any given smart noisy silver beautiful mp3 player falls the time that our red computer fidgeting however, their small bluish soda calculates.

How do things look to a color blind person?

http://www.vischeck.com/

The examples labeled 'deuteranopia' look just like the originals to me.

Two and three quarter pairs of old pants for sale, $60 each

I worked an inventory at Hollister's today. If you're as uncultured as I am, you probably haven't heard of them, but they're kind of like Abercrombie only with barely any lighting. Among other things, they had a big display of jeans with holey knees, ragged cuffs, and paint splotches all over. Most of them were priced at $79.99. I have to wonder, who is buying these jeans and why? Perhaps, not realizing their future need of such things (quite understandable i would think), they threw out those holey jeans that were sitting in the bottom of their drawer for two and half years, and when they went to the salvation army, there wasn't anything quite ratty enough, even after wearing them to art class and paintballing. And apparently they now need some properly destroyed jeans quite urgently.

So I'm selling my collection of holey jeans at a special discount, if you were thinking you need some of those. I think one pair even has a seed crop of paint splotches.

RE: stay young

I swear, the temptations in this field can be overwhelming sometimes. First job prospects in marketing or with Microsoft, and now this.

I bet it would be pretty fun making up those little post-modern novellas at the end of junk mail. I could make a little script that puts them together automatically! Take these two for example:

our address is in hyperlink above along with gone from db
The sailors squatted in the loops, and Rob swung the vine over his shoulders and turned the indicator of the traveling machine to up.
As they slowly mounted into the sky the little sailor gave a squeal of terror and clung to the boy's arm; but the other, although seemingly anxious, sat quietly in his place and made no trouble.

D--d--don't g--g--go so high! stammered the little one, tremblingly; suppose we should f--f--fall! Well, s'pose we should? answered Rob, gruffly. But their journey was almost over, for in a short time they reached a small cave from which there was no further outlet.

insulted past forgiveness."Now she's mad. Oh, dear, I wish I hadn't asked
you to speak, Mama," said May, looking `It's the wisestthing to expect, and
the likeliest. But I think their withdrawing is in your favour.
of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no more: but left them--so like
each other in feature, so unlike each other
minerologisen 10 neitseest 51 nimellni lehdisthotelli ministerin

I think it would be pretty fun developing a little machine that cranks these out. It's like madlibs!

Some pretty pictures

Here are some pretty pictures of website networks:

Political news sites
Political blogs

warning: they are somewhat large files (like 3MB or so)

They don't have the dumbell shape we're hoping for, but at least in the news sites you can see the conservative and liberal sites clumping together on opposite sides of the graph.

I think it's Friday

It kind of snuck up on me this week, but I think it's Friday. Which means I don't have anything I need to do by tomorrow. Nor, come to think of it, do I have anything I need to do tomorrow. I don't have tutoring, my laundry is going right now, and I have food in the fridge. In other words, I could spend all day tomorrow programming! Or I could go for a hike or something. Hmmm.

Important news

I have two items to report. The first is that according to a recent public service announcement, "Beeeeep. Beeeeep. Beeeeeep Beeeep!" Second, slowlane and I have decided to travel across the US during Christmas break as itinerant greeting card salespeople, and you all are invited to come with us. This way, we can visit lots of this country while making enough money to buy plane tickets for the summer. I believe it was mom's suggestion that we might consider making it a family motorcycle trip, and create the greeting cards while riding the motorcycles.

Moving

So today I'm finally moving. It's a smaller room, for higher rent, but it's closer to school, I get space in the garage for my moto and tools, and I can do laundry right there in the garage, instead of driving far far away. And there's a couple of very friendly, well-behaved dogs.

The space in my room is a little confined though. Slowlane, would you like a Piume?

I'm a real programmer now

I just submitted a bugfix to a real program! Check it out!

Guess what

I found out tonight that when my professor was told about my text mining group's project idea, he said "If this works we're taking it to the media." Not sure if that means this is an exciting project or an impossible project.

Housing

Perhaps I'm just crabby because I'm tired and I forgot to eat dinner until just now, but I think I've come to a profound breakthrough. In addition to wanting to find a place where I don't have to drive a mile and a half in my truck to do laundry, I believe I'm also trying to find my people, you know, the cool people like me. And what I think I have realized is that there aren't any people like me, and I'm not going to find them on the 'rooms available' board.

So, Matthew, you wouldn't perhaps like to commute from san diego, would you?

Partying like it's 199999.9

Today, at the corner of Buena Vista and Mission Greens, my truck turned 200000. w00t w00t! I wish I had a picture for you, cuz it was a sight to behold. All the little dials, in a row, turning in not-quite-unison. Even now, actually, while the tens digit is firmly on '0', the '2' is peaking over the lip rather hesitantly, with the bottom of the '1' still hanging down. The truck did not collapse on the spot, and in fact seems just as spry as it did 1000 miles ago.

News Flash!!! Blogging might not make you rich!!!

Caedmonstia, slowlane, and all the other masses of people reading this blog, I just think you should know that blogging may not, in fact, be your ticket to fame and fortune. And patiunky especially, since you are no longer even making any new entries!!! Apparently, after much investigation, AP network news has determined that blogging isn't as much of a money maker as you have expected. Terribly disappointing, I know.

Playing Fish

Next time you are out on a boat with some big fishing poles you need to try this game. It's called playing fish, and it's not at all like playing go fish. First, cut the hook off the line (very important). Then make a loop on the end of the line. Then grab the loop, dive into the water. Then fight like a fish to swim away from the boat, while your friend fights like a fisherman to pull you in. For variety try playing with more than one fish or more than one fisher.

Okay here is another good one

(I finally found it, beeker)
Here are the first two of "Seven Poems of Joy Amid the Fields", also by Wang Wei.

I leave through the mass of gates and doors,
Passing among the villages to the north and south.
In the city hall, does the chatter have a point?
On Kongtong Mountain, who has unkempt hair?

When I return, you let me rule over a myriad households.
When I report before you, you give me a pair of jade plates.
But no! this keeps me from plowing the southern acres.
What is like that which lies high in the eastern view?

And the last of the seven:

Pouring wine, I may look down upon the brook.
Clutching a lute, I will lean against a tall pine.
In the southern field, the dew-covered sunflowers turn towards the dawn.
In the eastern valley, they will be grinding grain by nightfall.

This is a Field and Garden Dream

So I was going to paste in a poem that would explain the field and garden dream, but I couldn't find any one poem that would do. But here you can read a bunch. And here too.

Okay fine. Here is one poem.

Fields and Gardens by the River Qi (by Wang Wei)
 
I dwell apart by the River Qi,
Where the Eastern wilds stretch far without hills.
The sun darkens beyond the mulberry trees;
The river glistens through the villages.
Shepherd boys depart, gazing back to their hamlets;
Hunting dogs return following their men.
When a man's at peace, what business does he have?
I shut fast my rustic door throughout the day.