I've been working on a computer science problem for a week now. I finally got the whole thing written out (800 lines of C++) and got it to semi-work. But, the results are not at all what I expected. So I decided to walk to the lagoon with a bag of sunflower seeds and sit pondering it. Figures that *just* as I get to the bench and open up the bag of seeds I solve the problem. So I sat there idly for a couple minutes then walked back. Gah.

Time to go fix my mistake.

EDIT: So now it's working better and I have a few hundred thousand data point to plot... Excel only takes 69,000 or something. Gah.

Who'da thunk that I'd find a bible passage I actually like? Why is it that all the good ones are already overused? (Apparently parts of this one are said at weddings).

Anywho, this update is *PUBLIC* so don't post snide comments that you wouldn't want the world to read.


1 Corinthians 13-14

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.


My favorite part: "it keeps no record of wrongs."

Snaps anyone?

If you're ever stuck on a computer without music, but have a decent internet connection:

http://www.live365.com/index.live

Right now I'm listening to:
http://www.live365.com/stations/gamersradiodotcom

So far it's not that great... but I have high hopes.

I never disliked Walmart before, but now I hate them - they're destroying Dixmont (the asylum I had wanted to go to). My dad sent me pictures (which I'm too lazy to put up) of it - they tore out the forest around it, and will tear down the beautiful old building. If I need another way to not study for finals, I might put up the pictures.

Now we'll never get to go. I had explored that place so many times in my dreams. Oh well. F-Walmart.

So... I tried to write a public entry today, but in the end it turned into a private one (meaning only I can see it). So yeah.... maybe tomorrow I'll finally get a public one out there.

So I was thinking - I should probably write more posts that are open for all to see, not just one or two people. Then I realized I have absolutely nothing to say (other than what I just did). So... yeah. Class. Eventually I'll get back to this.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

I could be mistaken on one or two in the north-east

Stolen from Mandy:


1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

"Thus we find that 8629 and 8641 are prime numbers, but 8633 factors as 89 * 97, so it is not prime. For larger numbers such as m = 113736947625310405231177973028344375862964001 and n = [another really big number I'm not gonna type out] it is too much work, even with a computer, to try all possible divisors up to the square root. However, we saw in Chapter 16 that it is not very difficult (on a computer) to raise numbers to very high powers modulo very large numbers."

It's from the math text book I was just doing homework out of. Yes we're learning about primes. Yes it's really freaking hard.
A Friendly Introduction to Number Theory
Third Edition
Joseph H. Silverman

I have been using the weight update function from Russell and Norvig's AI book:

Wj <- Wj + alpha x Err x g'(in) x Xj

Where g' is the derivative of the activation function (I think it can be ignored?), and alpha is just for scaling the amount of change. Xj is the j'th input bit. Err is the difference between the expected output and the output produced by the current weights.

(all the js are subscript, and alpha is the greek character).

This is for updating one node attached to all inputs, with one output. It will generate correct weightings if the function it is solving for is linearly seperable.

If I have many feed-forward nodes, how do I update the weights for all of them? If I try using the same function, what will the error me? What is the correct output for this one node? It isn't the same as the overall output, or do I just take the opposite of what it did as correct if the entire network gave the wrong answer?


EDIT: Yeah, so this was intended for the Computer Science community. Oops. I'll leave it here anyway, and repost it there.