Saturday, April 23, 2005
Early weekend update. Cool stuff has happened!
1) IT'S OVER! IT'S ALL OVER! NOEL WINS!
The unlikely has happened, I'm done with my two-class stretch. This wednesday I presented the results of my cochlear implant improvement study to my professor and the class in what he called 'adversarial review'. Which basically means that either he or a couple of his buddies could interrupt us at any time and ask us questions. He absolutely tore into the first guy. He did have some problems, though, too many slides, not a well-put-together presentation, he went too long, etc. It also may have been that the teacher was just getting the rest of us scared. :) Either way, I really expected him to do pretty much the same to me. I mean, I knew I had the time thing down, because I had timed myself, but my slides, I thought, were lacking the focus he really wanted from us.
Well, I needn’t have worried, the presentation went great. He interrupted a few times, of course, but I was able to handle each interruption in stride and make my way through all my material. There was a question session at the end with all the students, and I was able to field all those questions quite well, too.
But what’s most important is that I’M DONE! THE CLASS IS OVER! IN YOUR FACE, USC!
My Prof did manage to make a good point, though, that perhaps it’s not in my best interests to just drop this thing. At the very least, I owe it to my expert, Dr. ‘S’, for helping me out (and giving me the thing in the first place) to at least show him what I have. And there’s a good chance that with some work, I could make the algorithm successful. That would be awesome. I could write a paper or some such. According to the Prof, I could probably patent something of this nature, but I think we can all agree it’s in my best interests, long term, to publish something like in…whatever you publish papers in, because then you get recognition, and such. And you can put that on your resume. Bam.
Well, either way, I’m keeping away from that stuff for now. I’m bloody tired of it. I’ll worry about it later.
2) Weekend Volleyball
During the summer, a bunch of fellow Raytheites gather on Manhattan beach every Friday and play some amateur volleyball. It’s amateur because most of us are really pretty bad. But it’s fun, we get to get some exercise and some sun and run around on the beach and, generally speaking, have a huge amount of fun. And since school as tuned down, I get to go now! Weehee!
3) The other project
I’ve started work on my other project, due May 3rd. It’s a project for my pattern recognition class, and it’s really looking to be a lot easier than the Adaptive project was. For serious. I’ve already started on it too, and so once that’s done, it’s just a final and then another semester has been slam dunked.
I’m considering buying myself a PSP in celebration, I’m also considering not buying myself a PSP in celebration. Also perhaps going shopping for clothes, because I haven’t been in a year-plus.
You know, every time I think about buying stuff, I keep thing I need to get rid of some of the stuff I own. I just have a lot of stuff I probably don’t need. (Once again: happy with less, happy with none, just happy.) That’s probably a good project to take up after the semester. I can reward myself if I clean up :)
4) Kung Fu Hustle.
Here’s my review of this movie. Go see it. Now. It’s fantastic. Easily the best movie I’ve seen since…mmm…I’m gonna say ‘The Matrix’. And that was a good movie (and quite a while ago, too.) I was also smart enough not to read anything about the movie, so *everything* was a pleasant surprise. I liked that.
5) Running
Mom made a prediction last week. I had been off running for a few weeks as my project whipped me into shape, and I went running for the first time last week. Something like a 35:50 three-mile time. Down from my previous best of 32:20, I set that record probably about a month ago, and that was before I slightly extended my path a tad (making it more like an actual three mile track), adding approximately 40 seconds to total run time. Which makes my previous best 33:00, equivalently. Mom predicted that I would beat that time this week.
Mom was right (go mom!) I ran 32:30. I’m making mom my personal trainer from now on. She’s spot on.
6) Neat stuff that I've seen on the internet:
High Speed Movies. I love stuff like this.
Keith Schoefield music videos. My favorites were '3 ft Deep' (rap) and 'Loud and Clear' (RnB). Definitely check them out if the music is your thing (even just a little, good music, too), the're really creative music videos.
The greatest mating dance in all of nature. Heck, I wish *I* could move like that.
So, with that, I’m going to sign off. I think my simulation should be done running by now.
-N
1) IT'S OVER! IT'S ALL OVER! NOEL WINS!
The unlikely has happened, I'm done with my two-class stretch. This wednesday I presented the results of my cochlear implant improvement study to my professor and the class in what he called 'adversarial review'. Which basically means that either he or a couple of his buddies could interrupt us at any time and ask us questions. He absolutely tore into the first guy. He did have some problems, though, too many slides, not a well-put-together presentation, he went too long, etc. It also may have been that the teacher was just getting the rest of us scared. :) Either way, I really expected him to do pretty much the same to me. I mean, I knew I had the time thing down, because I had timed myself, but my slides, I thought, were lacking the focus he really wanted from us.
Well, I needn’t have worried, the presentation went great. He interrupted a few times, of course, but I was able to handle each interruption in stride and make my way through all my material. There was a question session at the end with all the students, and I was able to field all those questions quite well, too.
But what’s most important is that I’M DONE! THE CLASS IS OVER! IN YOUR FACE, USC!
My Prof did manage to make a good point, though, that perhaps it’s not in my best interests to just drop this thing. At the very least, I owe it to my expert, Dr. ‘S’, for helping me out (and giving me the thing in the first place) to at least show him what I have. And there’s a good chance that with some work, I could make the algorithm successful. That would be awesome. I could write a paper or some such. According to the Prof, I could probably patent something of this nature, but I think we can all agree it’s in my best interests, long term, to publish something like in…whatever you publish papers in, because then you get recognition, and such. And you can put that on your resume. Bam.
Well, either way, I’m keeping away from that stuff for now. I’m bloody tired of it. I’ll worry about it later.
2) Weekend Volleyball
During the summer, a bunch of fellow Raytheites gather on Manhattan beach every Friday and play some amateur volleyball. It’s amateur because most of us are really pretty bad. But it’s fun, we get to get some exercise and some sun and run around on the beach and, generally speaking, have a huge amount of fun. And since school as tuned down, I get to go now! Weehee!
3) The other project
I’ve started work on my other project, due May 3rd. It’s a project for my pattern recognition class, and it’s really looking to be a lot easier than the Adaptive project was. For serious. I’ve already started on it too, and so once that’s done, it’s just a final and then another semester has been slam dunked.
I’m considering buying myself a PSP in celebration, I’m also considering not buying myself a PSP in celebration. Also perhaps going shopping for clothes, because I haven’t been in a year-plus.
You know, every time I think about buying stuff, I keep thing I need to get rid of some of the stuff I own. I just have a lot of stuff I probably don’t need. (Once again: happy with less, happy with none, just happy.) That’s probably a good project to take up after the semester. I can reward myself if I clean up :)
4) Kung Fu Hustle.
Here’s my review of this movie. Go see it. Now. It’s fantastic. Easily the best movie I’ve seen since…mmm…I’m gonna say ‘The Matrix’. And that was a good movie (and quite a while ago, too.) I was also smart enough not to read anything about the movie, so *everything* was a pleasant surprise. I liked that.
5) Running
Mom made a prediction last week. I had been off running for a few weeks as my project whipped me into shape, and I went running for the first time last week. Something like a 35:50 three-mile time. Down from my previous best of 32:20, I set that record probably about a month ago, and that was before I slightly extended my path a tad (making it more like an actual three mile track), adding approximately 40 seconds to total run time. Which makes my previous best 33:00, equivalently. Mom predicted that I would beat that time this week.
Mom was right (go mom!) I ran 32:30. I’m making mom my personal trainer from now on. She’s spot on.
6) Neat stuff that I've seen on the internet:
High Speed Movies. I love stuff like this.
Keith Schoefield music videos. My favorites were '3 ft Deep' (rap) and 'Loud and Clear' (RnB). Definitely check them out if the music is your thing (even just a little, good music, too), the're really creative music videos.
The greatest mating dance in all of nature. Heck, I wish *I* could move like that.
So, with that, I’m going to sign off. I think my simulation should be done running by now.
-N
Monday, April 18, 2005
Yikes,
It’s been too long since I’ve posted, which might lead you to think that I’m way too busy to post. That’s not quite right. Mostly it’s just that the semester has finally began to ease back and and I’m taking the time just straight relaxing. Hmmmmmm. Presentation is this Wednesday, and that’s pretty much all the work I have to do for class. Well, okay, class is either this Wednesday or next, but at least the project is over. I’d really rather go this week.
I guess I just have time for some highlights:
K and Dad came down to visit and college shop, I had a great time with them and got to hang out and eat food and watch movies and enjoy my time immensely. Thanks for coming down.
I got three games:
Sid Meyer’s Pirates. When I first started playing this game I played it until 5 in the morning. I haven’t done that in so long. It felt great. It get repetitive after a while, though.
Far Cry. I don’t like this game. How can you have a first person sneaker without a quick save option? It doesn’t even make sense.
God of War. A lot of fun to play. Just finished it. Yeehaw. Great stuff.
Yeah, project is pretty much ready to go. Got the power point presentation ready, got the report typed. Remind me to throw it up on my website sometime, you can read it over and scratch your head.
I haven’t shaved in weeks, at first just because I didn’t have time, and now because I want to shave after adaptive processing is over. You know, a metaphor n’ stuff.
Yep. Hate to distill the past couple of weeks like that, but there be ‘yer highlights. I’ll get more verbose in a few weeks. Probably.
-N
It’s been too long since I’ve posted, which might lead you to think that I’m way too busy to post. That’s not quite right. Mostly it’s just that the semester has finally began to ease back and and I’m taking the time just straight relaxing. Hmmmmmm. Presentation is this Wednesday, and that’s pretty much all the work I have to do for class. Well, okay, class is either this Wednesday or next, but at least the project is over. I’d really rather go this week.
I guess I just have time for some highlights:
K and Dad came down to visit and college shop, I had a great time with them and got to hang out and eat food and watch movies and enjoy my time immensely. Thanks for coming down.
I got three games:
Sid Meyer’s Pirates. When I first started playing this game I played it until 5 in the morning. I haven’t done that in so long. It felt great. It get repetitive after a while, though.
Far Cry. I don’t like this game. How can you have a first person sneaker without a quick save option? It doesn’t even make sense.
God of War. A lot of fun to play. Just finished it. Yeehaw. Great stuff.
Yeah, project is pretty much ready to go. Got the power point presentation ready, got the report typed. Remind me to throw it up on my website sometime, you can read it over and scratch your head.
I haven’t shaved in weeks, at first just because I didn’t have time, and now because I want to shave after adaptive processing is over. You know, a metaphor n’ stuff.
Yep. Hate to distill the past couple of weeks like that, but there be ‘yer highlights. I’ll get more verbose in a few weeks. Probably.
-N
Monday, April 04, 2005
I think school is trying to kill me, these weekends aren’t good for my heart.
Okay, bad news first. My adaptive processing project completely fell apart this weekend. Essentially I discovered that, contrary to what I had originally thought about my project, there really wasn’t anything that could be done with an adaptive filter. I was after a fix for two problems that can crop up in cochlear implants, one of which turned out to have a solution so simple it’s essentially trivial, and the other of which didn’t have a solution at all, nothing could be done to solve it. This meant that I really didn’t have anything to do in my project, which meant that all of my effort on my project up to this point had been a complete waste. I might as well have not even thought about the project until two weeks before it was due, because it looked for a while like I was going to have to start over. I destroyed a textbook in frustration, but it was a cheap one.
Well, I talked to my expert today, and he gave me some hope. He gave me a *third* thing that can go wrong in cochlear implants, and this one *can* be solved, at least in theory, with adaptive processing. So that’s great then! I have a project again.
I’m still struggling with some other aspect of the project, though. I need to figure out a few adaptive algorithms to throw at the problem, but I have access to so little data that there essentially aren’t any adaptive algorithms developed. I have a couple little ad-hoc thingies I threw together, but nothing that has any sort of proven track record. I’ll talk that over with my professor on Wednesday. He gave me some suggestions last wee, like using a blind algorithms, but even blind algorithms assume you have access to the output signal, I don’t even have that.
Past that, too, there’s also the problem of hearing the difference between two sounds. I’ve done some preliminary tests, and I can tell you that it’s actually quite difficult in many instances to tell which of two sounds is ‘better’ or ‘more recognizable’. I got some help with that from my professor, too, though, so that’s good news. It looks like I’ve gone from ‘completely doomed’ to just ‘not looking bright’, and I can take not bright. I get a C in this class and I will march forward with my head held high. This has been a really grueling semester, I won’t feel bad to see it go.
Other things, briefly, I gave blood on Wednesday and nearly killed myself eating a couple of times this weekend. As it turns out, I really just can’t eat food in volumes like I’m used to. So a couple of times I was just munching happily along on something before I realized that I had passed ‘full’ and ‘stuffed’ a while ago and was now rapidly approaching ‘immobile’. I guess I just have a smaller stomach than I think. Gotta keep an eye on that.
Okay, back to work. It’s a good thing I’m used to this by now…
-N
Okay, bad news first. My adaptive processing project completely fell apart this weekend. Essentially I discovered that, contrary to what I had originally thought about my project, there really wasn’t anything that could be done with an adaptive filter. I was after a fix for two problems that can crop up in cochlear implants, one of which turned out to have a solution so simple it’s essentially trivial, and the other of which didn’t have a solution at all, nothing could be done to solve it. This meant that I really didn’t have anything to do in my project, which meant that all of my effort on my project up to this point had been a complete waste. I might as well have not even thought about the project until two weeks before it was due, because it looked for a while like I was going to have to start over. I destroyed a textbook in frustration, but it was a cheap one.
Well, I talked to my expert today, and he gave me some hope. He gave me a *third* thing that can go wrong in cochlear implants, and this one *can* be solved, at least in theory, with adaptive processing. So that’s great then! I have a project again.
I’m still struggling with some other aspect of the project, though. I need to figure out a few adaptive algorithms to throw at the problem, but I have access to so little data that there essentially aren’t any adaptive algorithms developed. I have a couple little ad-hoc thingies I threw together, but nothing that has any sort of proven track record. I’ll talk that over with my professor on Wednesday. He gave me some suggestions last wee, like using a blind algorithms, but even blind algorithms assume you have access to the output signal, I don’t even have that.
Past that, too, there’s also the problem of hearing the difference between two sounds. I’ve done some preliminary tests, and I can tell you that it’s actually quite difficult in many instances to tell which of two sounds is ‘better’ or ‘more recognizable’. I got some help with that from my professor, too, though, so that’s good news. It looks like I’ve gone from ‘completely doomed’ to just ‘not looking bright’, and I can take not bright. I get a C in this class and I will march forward with my head held high. This has been a really grueling semester, I won’t feel bad to see it go.
Other things, briefly, I gave blood on Wednesday and nearly killed myself eating a couple of times this weekend. As it turns out, I really just can’t eat food in volumes like I’m used to. So a couple of times I was just munching happily along on something before I realized that I had passed ‘full’ and ‘stuffed’ a while ago and was now rapidly approaching ‘immobile’. I guess I just have a smaller stomach than I think. Gotta keep an eye on that.
Okay, back to work. It’s a good thing I’m used to this by now…
-N
