Finals are over, and that’s all I’m going to say about that. We left Champaign last night with two cats and one roommate in tow, arriving in good old Mt. Airy this morning with only a few Otto-related scratches. This update was supposed to come live from the Civic using my phone’s new data cable, but Verizon Wireless stopped working for me last night. Wouldn’t that have been exciting?!
Now, to catch up on photographer and DJ-hunting…
The Illinois chimes were playing “Oh Tanenbaum”, a.k.a. “Maryland, My Maryland” as I walked to school this morning. Ahh, just like old times in College Park, before Mark installed the Alma Mater on the carillon. My Maryland Moment was soon killed by “Frosty the Snowman,” but it was good while it lasted. To anyone who didn’t have the good fortune of walking around Maryland’s campus before 1999, it may interest you to know that the bells used to play our state song, sung to the tune of “Oh Tanenbaum”, on the hour. Maryland clearly has the best state flag, so we’ll afford it some leeway in the state song and state quarter departments.
Meanwhile, back in Illinois: this semester is on the rocks, but at least it’s almost over. Two projects down, one take-home final to go.
http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/symbols/lyrics.html
It was either cable or the mechanical bull…I stand by my choice
And a fine choice it was, both in the song and in the delivery. I just hope future generations aren’t subjected to any more Beatles tunes on that thing.
On the rocks?
No, not really.
Whew!
You think Maryland’s state quarter is bad? Have you seen Indiana’s? It honors the Indy 500.
What else would Indiana put on their quarter? It would be like South Dakota not featuring Mt. Rushmore. Besides, at least the Indy 500 has personality. Maryland’s quarter could have featured a crab, a sailboat, … um, a crab… or maybe even a state outline with a crab. Anything but the boring statehouse, please!
you finally updated your inane page! you used it to do a report on your socks! how sad
It isn’t called ‘inane’ for nothing.
Thanks to everyone who ran my flocking simulator. I have a daunting project report due tomorrow, so it’s time to end this first round of data-collection and bust out my crack squad of monkeys with typewriters. There really is no other way to finish this report while also catching up on the Daily Illini Police Blotter archives. For anyone who’s interested in what the geese have been up to, the paper will be online tomorrow.
In the meantime, I’ve been compiling a list of the search terms that led Internet surfers to my site, as reported by my ISP. Here is the current December list, in order of increasing creepiness.
- fake tuxedos
- “richard gere” glasses rimless
- guestbook on Emu Farmers & Products
- horse shampoo for men
- Paul Hewson + his kids+photos
One project down, one to go. The flocking report is available here.
here’s to hoping the term “boid” will enter into the scientific lexicon!
In a desperate bid to finish one of my class projects by next Friday, I’m kindly asking for CPU time from anyone who can spare it. This project requires a huge pile of computing power, so I’ve adapted it to run across many computers in parallel. If you have a computer with an internet connection and wouldn’t mind running my program in the background next week, I would be forever in your debt. It takes about 0.3 seconds to start up, and it won’t slow down your computer or steal your credit card numbers. Please e-mail me if you can help.
In case you’re wondering, the project is a genetic algorithm to optimize the flocking behaviors of - you guessed it - simulated geese.
The latest version is available here.
Thanks to everyone who responded! The first version of the program is available here, which you can download and simply double-click to run. I may update it a few times between now and Wednesday, in which case the program will display an error message and quit. If this happens, just get the newest version from this site. Also, if your system becomes too slow, just close the program while you’re working. You won’t hurt anything by starting and stopping it at will. Thanks again!
Mine seems to be napping quite a lot.
This has to be the worst video game ever.
Don’t worry if it naps. I will be working on the algorithm today and tomorrow, so the server will be going up and down.
Okay, I am done messing with the program… for now.
so what is it with the geese? why is it always geese???
Geese are one of the few bird species that use aerodynamically-efficient formations. I’m studying this as a thesis topic because:
a) My research group is called “Applied Aerodynamics”.
b) Animal behavior and distributed systems are both interesting topics.
Put all this together, and you’re looking at how aerodynamics relates to group behavior. With geese, I’m betting on a clear relationship.
My geese have been sleeping all day. They’re never going to win the race.
Ah, but they’ve already won.
Comment from Glen on 22 Dec. 2002, 8:22 pm :
Pardon this commercial interruption, but Verizon Wireless has the greatest customer service, ever. They fixed my phone issue in about 30 seconds, which makes them 9 for 9 in successfully handling my inquiries. And they really do have superior coverage. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.