Dentists

Dentists aren't all bad. I learned that today. I went in for a filling, and had a relaxing, painless time. Good dentists do exist.

Haircut is Complete

The topic of my hair has been discussed and commented on in a previous post. The verdict: very short, but not bald. The haircut was completed tonight, here are the results:

Before	After

Tommy boy also got his hair cut, and had more guts than me and allowed me to shave his head:


Thanks for all the input.

Good Looking Guy

I just had my first full-blown eye exam in about 6 years and everything's good. I still have 20/15 vision and my retinas are intact. My better-than-perfect vision is beginning to slip, as I had to focus in order to read that bottom line instead of just casually glancing (as I did before). My pupils are so incredibly dialated that I am having trouble seeing the screen right now.

I hate blogger by email

I attempted to use the blogger email-posting feature today, and I then spent almost half an hour fixing all the new lines and garbled HTML. I apologise for any out-of-order posts and typos. It won't happen again (the email-posts, not the typos and generally poor-written content).

Christmas Celebrations

I went to Waconia, MN to visit my mother's side of the extended family and have the last big Christmas celebration until next year. On the way back, I was able to type the last several blogs in an email editor (I'm trying my post-by-email feature). Hopefully everything worked out okay. I apologize for length, but I also hope it makes up for my recent infrequency. Not a lot has happened until gifts started coming up and then I was busy enjoying them. Enjoy my thoughts so far, and don't forget to comment on To Shave, or Not To Shave.

To Shave, or Not To Shave

Today marks a unique opportunity in my life. I have just finished the last of my Christmas celebrations. This means I no longer require decent appearance. I won't need to look remotely decent until the spring semester starts in two weeks.

I have not cut my hair since October, I think. Maybe longer. It's getting long, but has mostly passed the point of incredible annoyance and is getting more manageable every day. The front is just over my eyebrows when pulled straight and the sides can be tucked neatly behind my ears if necessary. The back can almost touch my collar when sitting normally. My hair is rather curly/wavy and effects what I could do with it. I have three choices that will decide my fate for the next couple months.

1. Let my hair grow out. I have two weeks to change my mind, but mostly try to learn how to manage the long hair. I could even get a trim on the top to make it more balanced for a long look. I have no idea how to work with longer hair, so any tips would be much welcome.

2. Get a stinkin' haircut already! I could cut my hair to the normal length, or slightly shorter. Nothing exciting, but no fear of embarrassing my Design Studio team in a client meeting.

3. Shave my head. There may be one day when I have no hair left on the top of my head, and I may want to just go clean. However, I have a lumpy head, so it would be nice to know what that would look like. I'm going to be pretty much secluded at home for the next week until I spend a week in Utah on the slopes, so my head would be covered. My hair could grow back to a short buzz cut by the semester start and I'd get a chance to look like a white supremacist for a week. I could get a decent look at my noggin and not need a haircut for even longer. Plus, it's easy to do and does not require paying a professional. However, this has the most chance of me looking like an idiot next semester.

I've been balancing these options in my head, and they match up pretty well in their own way. I just need the final ingredient to any important decision: peer pressure. Give me some comments of what you think I should do. Anything is good. Call me crazy, call me a fool, call me a genius. Do whatever you have to do in order to influence me one way or another. I need to choose by the end of tomorrow.

Star Wars: Clone Wars

My older brother gave me both volumes of the animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars. Andrew and I both regard Samurai Jack as one of the best animated shows ever. Samurai Jack's creator produced these shorts depicting the war that spanned between episodes II and III. The show (especially in volume 2) do an excellent job of depicting the transition of the entire galaxy between the films and no fan of this fantasy universe should go without it. It does a very good job depicting Obi Wan and Anakin's friendship, the role of the jedi in the clone wars, and the events that took place directly before episode III.

I claim this is a must-watch. Even those who are not entirely interested would be entertained for the two hours they last (about an hour each).

The Browncoats Await

Due to a wonderful family of relatives who gave me an Amazon gift certificate, I am patiently awaiting the arrival of the Firefly box set and Serenity. I'm excited to have my own copies of these examples of a great series that had everything right (good plot, good characters, good presentation) except for ratings. I'm sad to hear that there will not be the trilogy that was expected, but I am glad to know what has been done has been done well.

Java Fun

It has been a while since I have had the chance to work on some personal projects I've been wanting to work on.

The first is reinvestigating B Trees. We learned about these the fall of my sophomore year, but did not have to implement them if we chose to do the much easier AVL Trees. I chose to spend my time making the specific form of B trees called the B+ Tree. The wikipedia article that is linked is not very good, and at the end of my investigation I plan to revamp it completely. This data structure is very interesting to me, especially because I must understand it in order to create an R tree (a descendent of the B tree that manages n-dimensional spatial information), which is crucial to the research I must complete this summer. Not only must I make an R tree, but I must optimize it to my specific problem. All this could not occur if I did not have a thorough understanding of B trees, which cannot come by any other way than implementing it.

That is my honest opinion about most subjects of computer science. You can listen to lectures, and you can study a book over and over, but you cannot fully understand all of the computation needed until you have rigorously translated the algorithms into a computational language, whatever your choice may be. In this case, I'm using Java 1.5 (5.0 to those who can't count). I have taken a liking to their adaptation of C++ Templates, dubbed "Generics." This allows me to make a general class that can be reconfigured at compile time of another application to only accept a certain object type and automatically output that type without previously necessary casting. That's a very nice idea, and C++ failed at it's use. Templates were a disaster to work with and Generics fix this mostly. So far I would really like a way to do multiple generic types, type inheritance (I want my generic on any Type that implements Comparable, for instance. That way I know that all compareTo methods would work properly regardless of type), and proper array specification. When you make an array of generic objects, there are two ways to do it that will both compile, but both give errors:

GenericClass<Type>[] array1 = new GenericClass<Type>[size];
GenericClass<Type>[] array2 = new GenericClass[size];

If only one of these would work completely instead of giving me meaningless warning messages or requiring me to cast (which is what generics are supposed to avoid).

Then I have my other project: Sudoku. I've longed to get into this type of puzzle, due to it's naturally solvable nature. However, I have trouble making decisions because I like to follow strict algorithms for solving puzzles and this is an NP problem. I say NP because there is no polynomial-time algorithm to find a solution from scratch of any given problem, even though a possible solution can be checked in polynomial time. This is the basic principle of Non-deterministic Polynomial time classification. NP problems are either a pain to implement or a pain to execute, but usually both. I've gone ahead and designed a Sudoku app that allows for input of values and updates the possible values of each square. However, I have yet to begin the solution algorithm. The previously linked wikipedia article has a great description of the alglorithm, which I will probably mimic. Right now, I'm stealing UI ideas from Alias Sketchbook Pro as seen in the image. When clicking on a space, you see a number wheel of possible numbers to place. This is a useful feature to never place an illegal value and even help with solutions by knowing this information. I'm also working on a way to see the possible numbers on every spot at all times. This is a good strategy for developing solutions manually. However, my real goal is to finish the algorithm, but an application to help solve tough puzzles is always nice.

Chronicles of Narnia

Another gift I received this Christmas season is the Chronicles of Narnia set. All 7 books in their revised, chronological order. I read all of these books back in middle school but remember very little about them. The best part about the series is that an adult can read each book in 2-3 hours. I've completed the Magician's Nephew and the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

I'd forgotten how much of C.S. Lewis's narrative is self-aware. It seems that he is constantly referring to his inability to describe something of awe-inspiring nature, or the fact that the characters told the stories long after, or that the "people" of Narnia wouldn't understand his description involving some human-made invention. This was distracting at the start, but has since been phased out by the stories that have yet to become completely familiar, but certain parts strike a bell. Generally, the stories are too short and basic for me to appreciate them individually as I do Lord of the Rings, but the anthology tells a grand tale that fancies my old interest in Mythologies. I am very interested in knowing the full story, the twists, turns, climaxes, and resolutions that make the story unique. The medium defines how that is presented. It could be in printed word, comics, film, or otherwise and the story is constant. That's what I want to know. That way my imagination can fill in the gaps that the medium could not present.

Millions

My Dad must have really liked Millions (and gotten a deal by buying it in bulk) for it was his gift to pretty much everyone. I had not seen this movie before, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

I was not expecting to enjoy this movie. The movie is hailed as the best "family movie" of the year. When I think of family movies, I think of horrid formulaic comedies with poor child acting and boring cinematography. None of those things describe this movie.

The story itself is presented in a very original way. Things happen, and the reasons they occur happen later. The plot is always keeping the audience guessing, but without confusing it with missing details. If you miss something while watching, it's only because you didn't need to know that information yet, and you didn't notice. That's my kind of storytelling.

The main character is a young boy who is obsessed with saints. He just wants to do good while dealing with the loss of his mother. His interactions with his older brother, who is dealing with their loss in a different way, are perfectly executed. The performances of all characters ring true and kept me enthralled.

My favorite part of this movie is the cinematography. It turns out that Millions was directed by Danny Boyle, who did Trainspotting (and two other films I own on his list). You should recognize Trainspotting as the stylistic drug film that is in every way opposite of Millions except for the cinematography and british accents. That's probably why my Dad likes it so much. He managed to appreciate Trainspotting even though he normally detests that subject matter. He could see through the horrible details of what it portrayed, but understood the excellence of that portrayal. Millions is a film for a moviegoer like him.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone, and I'm glad to have it added to my collection.

Grades are in

I have all of my grades for this semester. Except for the first two 1 credit courses, they went exactly as planned. I'm pleased, for the most part.

I must say, I'm glad this semester is over, and I'm not in a huge hurry to get the next one started either. Until then, I have a few projects to work on.

Grades come trickling in

As I patiently wait for grades, a few come in here and there. I was very happy to see an A in Combinatorics. That class was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed all the work I put into it. I'm glad my grade reflects that. It also means I got better than 93% on the final that I was so worried about. I also got my first C+ ever, in the physics honors topic course: a worthless 1 credit class that has completely arbitrary grades on it's three worthless assignments. If the class wasn't so worthless I might complain.

I'm still waiting on grades for Design Studio. The business faculty for that class is notorious for getting grades in late (see: lazy). This isn't a surprise, but you'd think that I could get feedback on a grade that had all necessary material for grading before dead week.

Time has no meaning

When I am at home, especially in the winter, time is meaningless. The sun is out for 6 hours of the day, and I never go outside or talk to people or anything. I sleep until I can't sleep anymore, then I wander around for consumables and do whatever may entertain me for a while. Today this included my Dragon Quest workout routine, a review of linear algebra, my daily internet browsing, and a good dose of Anarchy Online. My life is very exciting.

Home, Again

Yep. I'm still here. It's true.

Not much is happening, especially because I'm incredibly lazy. Over my day I have gotten my family "hooked" on Arrested Development (they like it at least, and will probably watch some more), I've started a free trial of Anarchy Online, and worked towards my fifth Dragovian Trial in Dragon Quest.

As for Anarchy Online, it's no World of Warcraft. I'm very disappointed by it, especially with the interface and camera. The poor graphics are either because I'm on a worse machine or because the game is a few years old, so I don't hold those against it. However, I'd rather pay to get my lv. 26 priest back in WoW (but more likely start a new tank/ranged character, maybe even horde). I probably won't have any time next semester for either, so I'll stick with free or offline for now.

Tomorrow I may attempt to call people and get out of the house for a while. I'm very lazy, though. I anticipate sleeping in and going to bed relatively early without ever wearing shoes, which would be necessary outside. There is snow in this northern winter wonderland. I enjoy looking at it. I can do that from inside.

My Mom Spoils Me

I was successful in getting someone else to do my laundry the last two times. Of course, the first was over Thanksgiving, and the second was yesterday. I managed to last three weeks on the same load of laundry, which was a feat I feared I would not accomplish near the end. However, I am now home with most of my wardrobe in a clean state. I get to rest, wait for grades to trickle in, and watch movies (and Arrested Development) with the family.

A Great and Horrible Feeling

I just finished my Combinatorics final, which means the semester is finally over. I need to clean my dorm a little and then Tom and I will head up north. I think Tom still needs to sleep some, so I'll start on the dishes without him.

My combinatorics final took me little over an hour to complete. I handed it in after checking through it twice. When I gave it to my professor she asked me "Are you serious?" That's never a good response to getting a test done early. That makes me feel like I did something really stupid and failed it. However, I studied harder than I've ever studied for a final before ever since I heard I had a chance at an A. All the questions had solutions jump right off the page in a very nice way such that I could write them down as fast as my hand could move. However, I got 10 points off my first test for a similar reason, rushed through it and gave an improper solution that I didn't catch until I was halfway back to my room. Well, I'm in my room and I still think all my solutions were right. I think I saw through the questions into the purpose she had in mind when writing them.

Oh well, I'll find out next week how well I did. Time to clean.

Next Semester Enjoyment

One more thing I can look forward to next semester: the return of SciFi Fridays. How long have I waited to find out what happens to the Pegasus (Battlestar Galactica)? How much longer can I wait for Stargate SG-1 to be good again? What happened on Atlantis? Seriously, I can't even remember what the mid-season cliffhanger was in Atlantis. Something about taking out a hive ship or something... maybe...

Oh well, I look forward to looking forward to Fridays again for reasons other than frisbee. It always makes me sad when I get done with frisbee knowing that all I have to look forward to for the rest of the evening is a shower.

Graph theory gets me going

I really like graph theory. I like the structure, the visual representation, the data structures, the algorithms, everything. I'm very excited to take MATH 450: Graph Theory next semester. I'm even more excited about a new opportunity I recently was presented. I could audit CSCE 924: Graph Algorithms. That's right, I may sit in on a Ph.D. level course.

This is exciting for a variety of reasons. One, this lets me investigate the world of graph theory even more. Two, I may pick up on a few things that I could use for the international programming competition. Three, I get my first glimpse into what graduate-level courses are like. I'm not talking the 400/800 level courses that are the same except grad students write an extra paper. I'm talking 900-level rigorous Ph.D. candidate courses. This will let me know where I stand on my path towards grad school. Am I ready? Will I be ready in three semesters? Who knows?

Finance Is Over

I just finished my final for finance, which marks the end of the class. I now have only one business course left to take in my college career: Avanced Topics II, which pretty much is a collection of different professors giving small bits of info into their sections of the business world. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's nice to see an end in sight. Also, next semester will be the first semester in college where I'm NOT taking a business class which excites me greatly.

I found something good

For those music lovers out there, I found a neat album. It's called American Edit, mixed by Dean Gray. This guy took the Green Day album American Idiot and spliced it with songs from many different artists into a very pleasurable auditory experience. It's not heavy into techno, but sorta teases your ear with a rich palette of styles and familiar tunes at the same time. The best part: it's free. Dean Gray has put his incredibly original work on the internet for no commercial benefit.

I emphasize "original" because this is a lot of personal creativity on his part to make this music. The tracks themselves all use the Green Day songs as a base, but very little of them actually remain in the tune. The album is far from a replacement of the Green Day album, and does little but promote it's content.

However, it's not a great surprise that Warners is trying to censor the album by sending cease and desist orders and whatnot. I really think this is digging them into a hole. Mirrors are being put up around the web (search Google for dean gray american edit and check it out yourself) and the content they provide is being publicized by the "scandal" that has been created. Maybe this is Warner's way of selling more albums of Green Day: create a buzz about something they don't have to pay for, possibly get some money out of that, and get more people interested in the mashup album which drives more sales of American Idiot. Brilliant, I tell you.

Speak of the Devil

This morning I discussed product placement, only to find an article tonight about how DVRs have increased the amount of product placement causing writers and actors alike to complain.

"SPEAKOFTHEDEVIL" was also an answer in the crossword puzzle I worked on during lunch.

Oh Happy Day

They had chicken fried beef steak at Selleck today. That's my favorite food item there and it always makes my tummy happy, which makes my day happy.

On Product Placement

Product placement is an efficient marketing tool. It gets a product into a consumers view without forcing them to recognize that it's there. Of course, I'm assuming that it's done right. Most of the time, product placement sticks out like a sore thumb.

My favorite kind of product placement is the kind that makes fun of the fact that there is product placement. This happened in Arrested Development, when Tobias and Carl Weathers eat at Burger King and hail the restaraunt for it's free refills. Another example is last night's Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode, entitled "Boost Mobile." The entire show consisted of Frylock and Meatwad getting annoyed by Master Shake and his Boost Mobile Phone friend reaching to the youth demographic while being hustled by the marketing department. It was quite hilarious.

Why can't advertisement be more like this? I don't mind watching commercials if they are entertaining, and product placement can be done properly. I'm more likely to actually consider a product if I think the company pushing it was clever enough to keep entertaining me instead of interrupting (Boost mobile, excluded).

Time to crack down

Finals week has officially begun in my mind. My first final isn't until Wednesday, but I have to finish grading the freshman assignments before I can start studying. I have a lot of things to catch up on. Most importantly, Dragon Quest needs to be set aside so I don't lose precious hours that could be spent studying.

Do They Eat Pudding?

Every time I hear about the new movie "Brokeback Mountain" I think of the Sundance episode of South Park. You know, the one where all indie movies are about gay cowboys eating pudding. I need to know if they actually eat pudding.

Oh Christmas

I just realized that this Christmas break will be the longest break I've had from classes since last Christmas. That's quite sad. I shoud probably refrain from summer courses this year. I may listen to myself.

.Mac on Trial

I am the proud owner of two Apple computers. I have a G5 as my desktop machine, and a powerbook as my portable. I use both very frequently, but do a horrible job at keeping track of my address book, calendar, and documents because I do half on one machine and half on another. This always causes problems, so I never even attempt to keep track of these on either machine.

However, I have been to lazy and too poor to try Apples' .Mac (Dot-Mac) service. It normally highlights it's public Web storage for personal sites of stupid people who can't find something cheaper, or it's autoformatting of content like pictures from iPhoto or movies from iMovie. However, it's real strength is in it's remote syncing of bookmarks, contacts, calendar events, and email settings. Now I can make a change to any of my settings and it will reflect that on both machines. I can put my schedule into iCal knowing that I can see it at any time without entering it twice. My junk mail will be filtered only once.

Of course, I just started this yesterday, but it already makes me very happy. I have 59 more days in my free trial before I have to shell out $100 for the service, but I'll see if it is actually worth it. If anything, I can sync more permanent things like bookmarks and contacts while I can.

Frisbee on Sunday?

Yesterday, some Kauffman friends and I crashed the Neihardt (honors dorms) Frisbee Tournament. We got a single team of 4 guys, 3 girls, and no subs together and got there just as the brackets were being drawn. They didn't complain because we were the 8th team. We ended getting 2nd in the double-elimination tournament to a very stacked, but well matched team. Not having subs hurt us a bit in the last few games, but it was a good afternoon of frisbee.

Putnams

Yesterday was the Putnam Exam. I missed the morning half because I slept in, but it seems as if the problems would be too hard for me anyway. I think I could have had a chance at one of them, but I have been too lazy to attempt it and see if I actually could. The afternoon session was better, and I got one problem finished and another started until I forgot an identity about the binomial coefficients:

Σ_i=0ⁿ _iC_k = _n+1C_k+1
Oh well. Maybe I'll do better next year. Maybe next year I'll actually prepare for it. At least I have an idea of what the problems are like.

On Sleep

I have two related tales of sleep adventures.

The rest of my semester seems pretty lax until finals week, so I'm taking advantage of my extra time. On Wednesday, I sat down to play Dragon Quest right after team time. I kept playing, because I'd reach an objective and want to explore some more. I'd finish exploring and complete another objective. I would give myself reasons to keep playing, as I am addicted to it now. Finally, around 5AM I started falling asleep at the controller and called it quits. I woke up at 8:30 the next day for my 9:30 class. No harm done, right?

Wrong. Last night about 7 I fell asleep in someone else's room until 9, when that person returned forgetting that I was in there. I then left and passed out on my futon until I awoke this morning. It all balances out, though. I feel better today.