Public Notice

This blog is still alive. Sort of.

As you may have noticed, there haven't been any updates here in a while. I've been enormously busy the past two-three weeks with work and study. I don't forsee taking the time to update this very often in the next few months, so I'll just post what I had drafted back on the 23rd:

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend UCO Edmond's "Shakespeare in the Park". They were presenting "Love's Labor's Lost" by William Shakespeare. We arrived late, so we didn't catch the beginning, but that didn't seem to affect the show - I didn't figure out what was going on until shortly before the intermission, and then had to look up the play after we got back to make sense of it.

Pretty interesting, huh? I think the next play (next weekend?) is Romeo and Juliet. I had been thinking about going to it, back before crunch time came, but it has since been moved to a much lower priority.

In other news, I was up really late last night (This morning? 3:30ish?) studying. Since I didn't wake up until 10:30, I didn't go to church. Instead, I listened to a sermon by A. W. Tozer on "The Menace of Religious Movies". It was interesting. He had seven points why 'Religious movies' were a bad thing. I'd like to go back and listen to it again and take notes. The sermon can be found on here, along with a brief summary. I think Tozer's definition of 'Religious Movie' would include the Left Behind movies and The Passion of the Christ.

Assets v. Liabilities

Well, the summer cold and flu season has arrived. Yes, I got hit by it.

In other news, I recently discovered a 'new' viewpoint on personal wealth: Things are predominately assets or liabilities. Wealth comes from buying assets, lack of wealth comes from buying liabilities. I'm going to put some more thought into this one...

I think time can be viewed in the same way - either we spend time on something that has value, or we spend time on something that doesn't. However, it can be difficult to quantify what activity "has value" and what doesn't. For example, writing in a blog can have value- it provides an avenue to learn how to articulate thoughts, it provides an opportunity to communicate, and it can provide a bit of impetus to journal or keep a diary. Ergo, blogging can be an asset. However, reading cases and studying for Law School is also an asset. Since there is a limit on how much Law School study time there is, the Law School study is a greater asset than blogging.

Looking back at what I just wrote, the example provided is pretty clear-cut.

Well, back to studies!

Long Two Weeks

With the advent of my blog, I've found that I have a bit of an obligation to post regularly (i.e., at least once a week). I just didn't expect the excitement to wear off quite so rapidly. :-)

A bullet-point summary of the past two weeks:

On July 02 (Saturday) I had the opportunity to go see the Thunderbirds perform. It was incredible. It probably would have been even more impressive if we had left on time, and made it to the AFB where they were performing, instead of watching them fly overhead from my car.

July 04 we had a pizza party! A group of us, 7 I think, got together for pizza and games starting around 6:30. At 9:15 we left for Bricktown to watch fireworks. We found a great spot just east of where they were being launched from, so we were able to enjoy quite the view - not many other people had discovered that particular location, and there was plenty of room with no crowding.

Since then, I've been working furiously to catch up with my studies - there's an atrocious amount reading for Constitutional Law, and I have a Legal Writing assignment due by the end of the week.

Emergent Behavior

Earlier this week I read an article about a game/simulation/research project wherein virtual robots were trained to effectively fight enemies. The robots were programed with a simple learning algorithm, and the training would consist primarily of a reward/punishment system for encouraged/discouraged behavior.

By compounding desired traits, such as "move towards the enemy", "shoot the enemy", "don't get too close to the enemy", "Don't clump together", etc., the robots would learn how to effectively fight an enemy. Additionally, after a certain time period, some of the robots could 'teach' their acquired skills to new robots, and impart a time-compounded education.

Individually, the bots' behavior started out pretty simple. Move towards the enemy, don't get too close, and shoot it. However, when there was a whole squadron of similarly trained bots, they could be taught to work together, and those that were most effective could be selected to 'train' subsequent generations of bots, and eventually develop unique attack styles as individuals or teams.

This got me thinking: About two and a half years ago I read an article on using emergent behavior in small real-life robots to develop a higher sort of intelligence (in the form of "Swarm Intelligence"). One white-paper application (similar to this one) was to send a swarm of robot ants, about 6-8 inches long, to Mars. Once there, they would interact with the martian landscape and each other, serving as an exploration rover of sorts that would potentially be much more fault-tolerant than a larger single-unit rover. Since the bots would also be interacting with each other, sharing data etc., a higher form of A.I. would develop. I wasn't able to find the original article, but the concept is outlined here and here.

An existing example of emergent behavior is Conway's Game of Life. With a few basic rules concerning which cells reproduce, lie dormant, or die, complex patterns can arise from an initially random field.

Another example that's a bit more globally dispersed is an ant colony or bee hive. Individually, an ant or a bee might not appear to have a great deal of smarts - they react in certain ways to certain situations, and are (individually) weak. However, when the ants or bees are viewed as a colony or hive, they are very resourceful. They can eliminate threats, store up supplies for winter, regenerate (repopulate) the unit, and adapt itself to changing conditions.

It looks like emergent behavior will probably be the organization of future A.I. units. The basic principle of simple routines leading to complex behavior is already well implemented in computer programming in the form of subroutines and Object-Oriented programming, so it's not too much of a stretch to take those principles and apply them to a logic type processing unit.

Things are going to be interesting.

Tech Project updates

Update 1: This week's project.

Friday (Thursday night?) I attempted to import all my recent financial transactions into Grisbi. This would normally be a short process-- log in to my bank account online and "download transactions" into Money or Quicken. Since I have accounts with three different banking institutions (One in Michigan, one in Oklahoma, and Ing Direct), this should have only taken a few minutes.

However, I found out that while Grisbi imports data just fine, there's something funny with the way my Michigan bank exports the data. It just isn't formatted correctly. Combined with the fact that there aren't any Ing Direct transactions yet, I was only able to import from my Oklahoma bank. My Oklahoma bank is phenominal. The online interface is clean and professional, it supports at least 3 different export file types (They do CSV! Brilliant!), the monthly statements look much more business-like than any other that I've ever seen (which isn't saying too much, actually), and it has an export history of about 90 days.

After I imported and categorized the last three months of transactions, I discovered that I go to Wal-Mart WAY too much. More on that below.


Update 2: Last week's project.

Last night I uploaded some pictures to Walmart.com for one-hour photo processing. After being impressed with their regular one-week processing, I thought it would be good to have something to compare it with.

I uploaded the pictures (finally! It was a bit of a struggle. The uploads kept timing out. It took three or four tries before it worked) at about 7:30, and planned on picking them up sometime around 8:45. My thought was that I could find the pictures I wanted to print after dinner, upload them, study for about an hour, then go pick them up.

I left at 8:35, got there shortly thereafter (more on that later!), and found that the 4x6's and the 5x7's were all ready to go. However, the 8x10's weren't - somehow the on-site photo lab had missed them, so they were not ready for me until this morning. On the bright side, since the goof-up was on their end, there was no charge for them!

Update 2.5: Last week's project, extended

Since I was going in to Walmart this morning anyway, I decided to try out their onsite "Instant Print" photo processing.

The pictures I wanted to get instaprinted were from about 4 different cameras- including a print from a four year old, .81 megapixel Polaroid PDC-700. The results were true to the advertisement in that they were very quickly printed out. However, probably because of the quick-print photo printer they use, the colors were a tad on the blotchy side. The paper was also a lower quality than the paper they use in the big machine.

The print quality was probably about the same as you would get of a home printer on photo paper, and really not too impressive. I think I'll be using their one-hour in the future. The one-hour is also a bit cheaper  than the instant print at about two-thirds of the price.


Update 3:  ...

Earlier this week a friend of mine flew out to San Francisco to take the California First Year Law Student's eXam. Since he drove up to the city and flew out, he left his car with me for the week he's going to be gone.

His car is very nice. It's a royal blue '03 mustang. and it drives smooth.

Since he left instructions regarding it's availability ("it's available"), I took it for a drive last night.

Wow. It's a lot harder to drive within the speed limit than it is with my car.  :-)

Tech Progect of the Week

As I referenced earlier, I have (generally) weekly technology projects. They have recently included re-installing linux on my laptop, starting a blog, and a semi-remote ubuntu installation on a semi-networked computer system.

This week, I'm trying out some accounting software. Specifically, Grisbi.

Grisbi is a single-entry accounting system designed for home users to track their income and expenditures. It was originally written in France, and although it has been completely translated into most of the major languages, it retains it's euro-centric roots (i.e., default currency is the euro, support for multiple currencies simultaneously , each account can have a native currency, exchange rates are used to calculate account values in different currencies - it's kind of neat). It was initially written for linux, and released under the GPL as Open Source. It has been ported to Windows and, I think, Mac OS X.

I had tried out Grisbi under linux several weeks ago and found it to be rather... obtuse. I hadn't used a personal accounting program since Quicken for DOS several years ago. Yesterday, however, I ran across a newsforge article concerning Grisbi and it explained how the process worked. The brief tutorial was very helpful, and I was able to get started with it without much difficulty.

I'll be trying this out for a few months to see how well it works - I don't have much to compare it with, so it'll probably come up favorably. It supports transaction importing via MS Money export files, so I'm able to download transactions from my bank. I can see this working out very well for me.

Last Week's Tech Experiment

Last week I conducted an experiment into territory hitherto unexplored by myself or my family: I tried out an online photo processing service. Specifically, the walmart.com online photo processing service.

The results were very encouraging. I ordered a combination of 8x10's, 5x7's, and 4x6's. For the 8x10's I ordered duplicates in the smaller sizes to do a print quality comparison. The quality of the printing is very good. Three different cameras were used to take the pictures (Cannon EOS 10D, Canon PowerShot A60, and something else), so there was some minor variation in picture quality due to differing qualities of camera, but they all were quite adequate for the 4x6's. When we compared the 8x10's, we noticed that the pictures looked great until they were examined closely - then 'image artifacts' would appear, for example, a slightly blotchy look in areas of similar colors (i.e., oklahoma granite), and distinct melty-looking lines along the high-contrast edges (i.e., oklahoma granite against a bright grey sky).

Despite the slight shortcomings of the two lower end cameras, the EOS 10D pictures were phenomenal. The difference didn't wouldn't show up unless you looked at the 8x10's, but if you did, WOW! The quality difference was incredible. That's not to knock the other two cameras, they were more than adequate for the 4x6's, and probably okay for the 5x7's, but they were completely blown away in the 8x10 arena by the EOS 10D.

Oh, the print quality: The pictures were printed on glossy Fuji Fujicolor Crystal Archive photo paper, and appeared to be at a quality level comparable with traditional film prints. There was nothing wrong with the colors. The blues were blue, the reds were red, the yellows were yellow, and the blacks were black. The print quality was fine.

The price was pretty good too. The 8x10's were $1.96 each, the 5x7's were $0.58 each, and the 4x6's were just $0.12 each. Since I had them delivered to a store for pickup, there were no shipping charges. It did seem like the turn-around time was a bit long, clocking in at about 8 days, but for 12 cents a print, that's a discomfort I'm willing to live with.

Next up: Walmart.com's One Hour Photo. Results will be posted.

Theory Continued

Well, this morning I had the opportunity to test my theory of running:
I got plenty of sleep last night.

So far, the theory is working-- I got tired out faster than I have on
the past few runs. More testing to follow.

Thursday Night Storm

Thursday night we had a sudden storm hit.

It was very nice out early in the evening, not at all the sort of weather you'de expect a storm to arise from. It was sunny, and there was a gentle breeze. It was of course warm, but I found it not too warm to be unpleasent. I had retired for the evening and was in my room when I heard a sharp rap on my door. It was about 10:40 in the evening:

"Do you have a car here?" the question came. It was posed by my neighbor, an older gentleman who was in the possession of a NOAA certified weather radio. "I do," I replied. "Well, you'de better get it under cover. There's a big storm moving in, and it's about half an hour away. There's reports of golf-ball sized hail, and winds up to 125 miles an hour. And lots of dust and rain." He continued "There's still room under the canopy out front - maybe enough for one or two more cars."

Immediately I put on my boots and grabbed my keys. I could not let this warning pass! I had never actually seen golf-ball sized hail, but I have had the misfortune of being caught by high speed golf-ball sized apples. I didn't want to see what the effect of a similar volume of ice moving at a similar speed would be on my car. As I left my apartment I could see my neighbor moving down the hall, warning the others of the impending peril.

My car was in the back, so I didn't see exactly how much room remained in the front until I had pulled around there. There was another person in front of me, who looked at the remaining space and decided that there would be better shelter alsewhere. AsI drew closer, I saw that there were already three full sized vans and three minivans assembled under the cover of the solid canopy. The covered area was not square, and in consequence the space was not utilized as tightly as it could have been were the protected area more vehicle-shaped.

After a breif reconnoiter of the remaining space, I determined that I could fit between one the minivans and the fron entrance. This was actually more straight-forward then I initially thought, as the angle of the minivan made it easy to manouver around.

I had just gotten my car carefully parked when I saw the incoming wave: two, three, then FOUR other vehicles were pulling around to the front in an attempt to find shelter. It looked like it was going to be a very tight fit, and it was. However, with the amount of talent that was on hand in the form of driving ability (no, not mine) all three cars and a jeep were able to fit - without scraping - under the canopy.

Then the storm hit.

More accurately, the lightning hit. Lots and Lots of lightning,. We could see the front approaching - it was already dark, being about a quarter past eleven, by the sky grew ominous.More accurately, the sky became onimous, but that's beside the point. We watched the lightning move in from the west, and move generaly around us to the north- most of the lighting appeared to be the cloud-to-cloud type, but this did not diminish the ferousity of the bolts that did make it to earth.

I don't recall ever seeing tuch a great amount of lightning. There were frequent large blasts - there was one blast that turned the whole western sky green. Not an electrical arc type of green, but a bright, vivid, traffic light sort of green.

After about five minutes of watching the lighting move in, the rain arrived. It arrived in great sheets, driven forth by the wind. More accurately, the rain arrived in clouds as great masses of water vapor, which then congealed (ok, condensed) around dust particle whipped up by the wind, which probably did not reach 125 in our location. At any rate, there was a great quantity of rain, and it fell in varying degrees of force as the wind changed directions- first from the west, then from the north, then north-east, then west. It would have been a circular argument to say that the rain only came from one point of the compass.

There were three or four of us that waited out by the cars to watch the storm. It stayed predominately dry under the canopy, but we were bold enough to venture forth into the storm a few times, and I got positively soaked. I was completely wet except for part of my shirt that was covered by my Carhard(tm) brand coat. It was incredible.

We waited out there and watched until about 12:30. We did not go running Friday morning.

News Flash: Continued

One of the other things I got last night was a can of beverage containing an innocuous looking leafy plant on its label, with the caption reading "Pennywort Drink". I wasn't looking for this specifically, but it was in the checkout aisle, so I made one of my first checkout-lane-impulse-buy purchases. I put in the fridge right away, so this morning when I would have been eating breakfast if I were to eat breakfast I tryed it out.

Since I was sitting at my computer anyway, I decided to google "pennywort drink" before I drank it. I didn't know anything about it, and had only learned of it's exsistance as a beverage last week, on my previous excursion to the asian market. The results of the search were not encouraging:

http://www.toomanychefs.net/archives/001136.php
http://www.jackenergy.com/pennywort.html
http://www.exoticsoda.com/penny.html

After reading the above websites, I decided to try it anyway. I'm glad I did- otherwise I probably never would have known of the exotic grassy/broccoli/kholrabi/celery/sugarcaney/green humusy flavor that it has! Unlike several of the reviewers, I drank it right out of the can (remarkable hefty, that can. Thick walled, too, unlike it's american counterparts) and was not bothered by the brackish brown/green color.

Generally, it was okay. Definately not something I would go out of my way to avoid, but also not something I plan on keeping stocked up on, unlike Dr. Pepper...


Also this morning, I went running. At 6:15, after less than 5 hours of sleep. The experience of running a full mile without stopping or walking has, I believe, given new life to my theory of running. Someday, I hope to try a negative test, and see it's harder to run when I've actually gotten enough sleep.


Also this morning (I think I like this list style of communicating- it's very orderly) I finished my paper!! It really felt good to get it sent in, even if it was a week and a half late. Since it's done now, I can post an abbrieviated outline of the assigned topic:

Apply Common Law principles to the Terri Schiavo incident. Specifically:

Now that there is a precedent for removing a vegetative patient from life support, how could a judge apply Common Law principles to a similar situation?
Under the Common Law principles, was the legislation granting the governor the authority to issue a stay on the court order to remove Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube a valid law?
What should the government's role be in such situations?

It was really interesting to apply the principles I've been studying this semester to am actual (politically charged) situation and see what the result is. It'll be equally interesting to hear what my professor thinks about it, as it makes of 40% of my final grade for this course.