Ah. Now that the tyranny that is NaNoWriMo is finally done for me for this year, it is time to relieve a little stress from it all by bitching a little bit more about life here.
So, what has happened in November other than NaNoWriMo? Lots of things. I came to several realisations about my own nature, and have come to terms about some of these rather startling properties. Being the curious l'il reader you are, let me fill you in on some of these startling properties.
Many times in the past I had bemoaned the fact that I was a nice guy and that all the girls didn't like me because I was a nice guy and other random crap like that. Man, that was belly-aching, quite nauseating when I looked back upon what I had written. Here's the thing---upon reflection on who I truly am, I realised that I am no nice guy. No way, not by any degree. If anything, I'm quite bad actually, considering the things I have done, the things I have thought about, the things I have thought of doing, well you get the idea. And no, bad does not mean evil; as far as I'm concerned, there's a distinction. One can be bad and good or even nice and evil---I blame such semantic problems upon the overloading of the term ``good'' and ``bad''. But what I mean to say is that I'm a badass, one who does not take shit from others, willing to hold my ground and fight for the end, though usually I eschew the whole violence aspect and go into 後の先 mode, where I will react when something happens. I think this is what it means to find oneself when one is in one's twenties.
I think I value my independence and freedom a lot. It is not that I dislike human company (that is utter bullshit because I have tried going in isolation---I went quite mad), but that I am more comfortable with me running my own life away from distractions that are not effected by me. Living in an apartment alone with only my brain, my computer, the Internet and various books about seems to be enough to keep me happy---that's good enough for me, really. I crave intellectual stimulation, and most times, am a little more happy with taking part in things actively than to sit around in a passive way.
How do all these factor into this whole person that is me? So far, I don't have a complete answer yet, partly because it is late and I am in need of sleep (I've been up all day), and partly because I do not have an answer yet. Some say that going into research is a way of coming up with new ideas that can benefit mankind, I say that going deep into research has been a getting to know myself better exercise as I figure out the optimal way of expending my energy, effort and work habits to improve the overall efficiency in the way I think. That is the objective function I'm trying to optimise, and that will be the major goal of my life. Everything else is just to make sure my body stays fit enough to support my brain which does all the thinking I want to do.
Alright, I'm starting to ramble again. Also, Blogger is starting to act up, with random 503s appearing all over their website. I hope that it is not something completely terrible that will make me lose this writing. If it did make me lose stuff, I would be exceedingly annoyed.
Till next time.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
NaNoWriMo 2011! Official Winner!
65,502 words later, I am done. Had a good momentum doing it this year though personally I think the story line might be a little bland.
As usual, grab the manuscript from my domain. I'll fill in more details here some time in the future when I have a little more time on my hands.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
One Busted Knee, It Was Busted
At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I realise that sometimes, it is not about how powerful a device you have, but how you actually use it.
I was thinking about this from several perspectives for a while now. Slide rules were of a different power class than electronic calculators, and lots of good work have come out of those (remember the space race? That was fought with slide rules). In a more modern context, ``older'' GPS receivers that still support all the most important functions of a GPS receiver (good satellite locking, accurate multi-lateral computations, good battery life) are still worth as much as any of the new-fangled versions of the same devices. All that colour mapping, touch screen nonsense, ability to wirelessly communicate with other GPS receivers are just flavourings over the basic functionality.
I had been debating internally for a while whether I should get a new GPS receiver with all the new-fangled stuff---larger memory is always a good thing, and coloured screens mean that I have better access to the additional information that may be conveyed by the colour. After walking through a medium-sized nature park for the Journal, bashing through weird terrain, climbing up steep gradient hills and sliding down others, losing my ear muffs and possibly over straining my right knee, I realise that my current Garmin eTrex Vista H is still as tough and as useful as it was when I first bought it. It kept its pace with the satellites above, it never lost track of where we were, it held its signal faithfully even under dense-ish tree cover. In short, it was a Damn Good Device.
After so many adventures with my eTrex Vista H, I feel kind of bad to even consider finding a replacement for it.
Anyway, yes. I went with a fellow geocacher-turning-fast-into-friend to tackle that 5/5 cache. Man, it was as hellish as doing any of the major jungle-bashing caches in Singapore, but it was a different kind of hell. At least in Singapore, the paths we took through the forest/jungle didn't involve climbing really steep gradient slopes and walking through streams/creeks. But yesterday when I was out doing that cache gethering all the clues (there were many of them... we don't even know how deep the rabbit-hole goes), I ended up climbing really steep hills with a full-pack, combat boots. They were so steep that I was effectively doing some weird mountain climbing movements---of course it didn't really help that I was heavier than my buddy and that I was carrying way more stuff than him. I thank my Jujitsu Sensei for all the Taiso that we have been doing---those crazy conditioning exercises we did built enough core strength for me that when I started slipping down the damn soft-ground slope, I could arrest the descent through pure core muscle. Heheheh... you've probably gotta try it out some time to understand exactly what I mean.
So, we hiked about the region for nearly 6 hours, stopping here and there for a break or two, and having lunch atop a rather odd hill. Lunch was a Big Mac and fries, the only ``fresh food'' that I knew would keep really well and still taste similar to when you first bought it without having to reheat the damn thing---draw your own conclusions there. Yet, in spite of all that crazy walking (covering at least 6 miles based on my GPS receiver's reckoning), we still didn't complete the cache. We're going to head back soon to finish the job; we think we are really close, but the failing light (shortened days of Winter) made the going quite suicidal. Also, since the place is forest-y, it's ideal to do it now as opposed to when the temperature is higher, since low temperatures mean that those pesky insects are knocked out cold, i.e. no ticks and mosquitoes. Oh and no poison ivy, of course, which is a great thing.
If this cache type is considered 5/5, maybe we can build something like that for Singapore. But the permanence of the field puzzles will be a major issue, considering that the façade of Singapore changes ever so often---what was a nice jungle trail now can become a tourist-wimp friendly board walk, and what could have been a cool jungle can become a new condominium. Quite scary actually.
Anyway, enough chit-chat. Time to do some meaningful work before finishing up the story for NaNoWriMo.
I was thinking about this from several perspectives for a while now. Slide rules were of a different power class than electronic calculators, and lots of good work have come out of those (remember the space race? That was fought with slide rules). In a more modern context, ``older'' GPS receivers that still support all the most important functions of a GPS receiver (good satellite locking, accurate multi-lateral computations, good battery life) are still worth as much as any of the new-fangled versions of the same devices. All that colour mapping, touch screen nonsense, ability to wirelessly communicate with other GPS receivers are just flavourings over the basic functionality.
I had been debating internally for a while whether I should get a new GPS receiver with all the new-fangled stuff---larger memory is always a good thing, and coloured screens mean that I have better access to the additional information that may be conveyed by the colour. After walking through a medium-sized nature park for the Journal, bashing through weird terrain, climbing up steep gradient hills and sliding down others, losing my ear muffs and possibly over straining my right knee, I realise that my current Garmin eTrex Vista H is still as tough and as useful as it was when I first bought it. It kept its pace with the satellites above, it never lost track of where we were, it held its signal faithfully even under dense-ish tree cover. In short, it was a Damn Good Device.
After so many adventures with my eTrex Vista H, I feel kind of bad to even consider finding a replacement for it.
Anyway, yes. I went with a fellow geocacher-turning-fast-into-friend to tackle that 5/5 cache. Man, it was as hellish as doing any of the major jungle-bashing caches in Singapore, but it was a different kind of hell. At least in Singapore, the paths we took through the forest/jungle didn't involve climbing really steep gradient slopes and walking through streams/creeks. But yesterday when I was out doing that cache gethering all the clues (there were many of them... we don't even know how deep the rabbit-hole goes), I ended up climbing really steep hills with a full-pack, combat boots. They were so steep that I was effectively doing some weird mountain climbing movements---of course it didn't really help that I was heavier than my buddy and that I was carrying way more stuff than him. I thank my Jujitsu Sensei for all the Taiso that we have been doing---those crazy conditioning exercises we did built enough core strength for me that when I started slipping down the damn soft-ground slope, I could arrest the descent through pure core muscle. Heheheh... you've probably gotta try it out some time to understand exactly what I mean.
So, we hiked about the region for nearly 6 hours, stopping here and there for a break or two, and having lunch atop a rather odd hill. Lunch was a Big Mac and fries, the only ``fresh food'' that I knew would keep really well and still taste similar to when you first bought it without having to reheat the damn thing---draw your own conclusions there. Yet, in spite of all that crazy walking (covering at least 6 miles based on my GPS receiver's reckoning), we still didn't complete the cache. We're going to head back soon to finish the job; we think we are really close, but the failing light (shortened days of Winter) made the going quite suicidal. Also, since the place is forest-y, it's ideal to do it now as opposed to when the temperature is higher, since low temperatures mean that those pesky insects are knocked out cold, i.e. no ticks and mosquitoes. Oh and no poison ivy, of course, which is a great thing.
If this cache type is considered 5/5, maybe we can build something like that for Singapore. But the permanence of the field puzzles will be a major issue, considering that the façade of Singapore changes ever so often---what was a nice jungle trail now can become a tourist-wimp friendly board walk, and what could have been a cool jungle can become a new condominium. Quite scary actually.
Anyway, enough chit-chat. Time to do some meaningful work before finishing up the story for NaNoWriMo.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Piecewise Functions
Suppose that you are writing a piece-wise function in LaTeX. How do you go about doing it? The trick is to make use of the
\begin{cases} ... \end{cases} environment within Math mode. This particular environment acts like a n-row by 2-column array generating a big `{' on the left side for the grouping of the piece-wise function parts. Since this environment acts like an array, don't forget to separate each column with `&' and end each line with `\\'.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Mumbles
To the few folks who still ardently follow this little blog of mine, I humbly apologise for the general lack of updates in a while. You see, this is the month of November, and traditionally (for the last two to three years at least) it is the time where I go on that suicide mission known as NaNoWriMo. Some of the more astute among you will probably ask the question that I sometimes ask myself: why? Why do I subject myself to such pain that is completely extra-curricular?
I suppose the answer to this question is the same as the one regarding why do I like training in martial arts, be it Aikido or Jujitsu, or even why I like playing my various woodwind instruments, or better yet why I am in graduate school. It all boils down to interest and love I think.
Once you hit the wrong side of twenty-five and realise that if this were the medieval ages, you would be nearly half-way through your life if you were lucky. Under such circumstances then it becomes a little more clear that we are always running a race against time. There're always new things to try, new things to do, and many many things to keep oneself occupied. But then there's always that time budget that one needs to be aware of. But of course, I'm starting to digress from what I was trying to say, namely because time is short, one should do all that one loves to make sure that the short time we have on this Earth is well used.
Time is a strange thing. When you were really young, you just couldn't wait to grow up and be one of those adults. Then once you get out of college/university and face the real world on your own for the first time without the seemingly invincible protection from your parents, you just wish at times that times were like they were before when you were merely a child. Oh and the whole nostalgic feeling about a simpler past---these things are starting to hit me now, considering that very soon I will hit my three-cubed birthday.
On a random note, I stumbled upon a nice list of common English errors, text file available here and the main page can be seen here. Should make an interesting supplemental reading.
Speaking of reading, I'm currently finding time to digest The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field by Jacques Hadamard. I might write a review on this later on when I have the chance to digest it; should prove to be useful to those who would want to do Mathematics for fun and/or a living.
Okay, that's all that I can spare for now---need to reserve my word budget for my daily 2k for NaNoWriMo. Till the next update.
I suppose the answer to this question is the same as the one regarding why do I like training in martial arts, be it Aikido or Jujitsu, or even why I like playing my various woodwind instruments, or better yet why I am in graduate school. It all boils down to interest and love I think.
Once you hit the wrong side of twenty-five and realise that if this were the medieval ages, you would be nearly half-way through your life if you were lucky. Under such circumstances then it becomes a little more clear that we are always running a race against time. There're always new things to try, new things to do, and many many things to keep oneself occupied. But then there's always that time budget that one needs to be aware of. But of course, I'm starting to digress from what I was trying to say, namely because time is short, one should do all that one loves to make sure that the short time we have on this Earth is well used.
Time is a strange thing. When you were really young, you just couldn't wait to grow up and be one of those adults. Then once you get out of college/university and face the real world on your own for the first time without the seemingly invincible protection from your parents, you just wish at times that times were like they were before when you were merely a child. Oh and the whole nostalgic feeling about a simpler past---these things are starting to hit me now, considering that very soon I will hit my three-cubed birthday.
On a random note, I stumbled upon a nice list of common English errors, text file available here and the main page can be seen here. Should make an interesting supplemental reading.
Speaking of reading, I'm currently finding time to digest The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field by Jacques Hadamard. I might write a review on this later on when I have the chance to digest it; should prove to be useful to those who would want to do Mathematics for fun and/or a living.
Okay, that's all that I can spare for now---need to reserve my word budget for my daily 2k for NaNoWriMo. Till the next update.
Friday, November 11, 2011
EPS-ify Images with ImageMagick
I first talked about ImageMagick some time back here, but I think it is cool to talk about it once more.
So I'm currently using LaTeX as a means of keeping an electronic research journal. I like using LaTeX because of two advantages:
Enter ImageMagick. Assume for the sake of demonstration our scanned file is image.png. Then the following commands will convert it to a [relatively small] EPS file:
That's enough technical talk for now.
So I'm currently using LaTeX as a means of keeping an electronic research journal. I like using LaTeX because of two advantages:
- Everything is text, so I can make use of a version control system to track changes.
- I have the full expression of equations and the what-not in the same manner as I would use to write actual papers, thus saving time.
Enter ImageMagick. Assume for the sake of demonstration our scanned file is image.png. Then the following commands will convert it to a [relatively small] EPS file:
convert -quality 75 image.png image.jpgconvert image.jpg eps3:image.eps
That's enough technical talk for now.
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