some latex constructs

here are some common constructs i use that i find myself frequently looking up. the first is the parallel symbol used in the Kullback-Leibler divergence. just using a pair of vertical bars squeezes the arguments together, but the \parallel puts the necessary space before and after the bars. below is the definition of skewed Kullback-Leibler divergence.

D_{SKL}(p,q) = D_{KL}\left(p \parallel \gamma p + (1-\gamma)q\right)

a similar problem occurs with conditional probabilities. \mid takes care of that. the next example uses Bayes' theorem, with a little \frac business for flavor.

P(A \mid B)=\frac{P(B \mid A)P(A)}{P(B)}

i use an old homework to show how to used the cases environment. each line can have only 1 &, which separating the result and the condition. not that the "amsmath" package needs to be loaded, or else you'll get funky "Misplaced alignment tab character &" errors. i use the \text command to get normal script in the math environment. (in the homework, i was referring to Prototype-driven grammar induction, by Haghighi and Klein)

P(p_{ij} \mid X) =
\begin{cases}
0.6                &    \text{if $p_{ij}=X$}\\
\text{uniform}    &    \text{otherwise}
\end{cases}

that's it for now. if any latex stuff comes up, and i think it's interesting (or that i might need it for future reference), i'll be posting.

latex

so, as a result of my total immersion approach to \LaTeX for the last couple of semesters, i've grown rather fond of the typesetting system.

actually, i've wanted to post a couple of items about latex, or at least that included latex. that blogger doesn't handle latex natively has held me back, though. that and laziness. (the internet was all the way over there, and i was all the way over here.)

but i finally searched and found something to facilitate the scratching of this itch. yourequations.com provides a javascript latex render. color me excited. so, here's me stretching my muscles:

{n \choose k} \left( r(1-r)^{g-1} \right)^k \left( \sum_{i=0}^{n-k} {n-k \choose i} (1-r)^{ig} \left( r^2(1-r)^{g-2} \right) ^{n-k-i} \right)

this added ability has also necessatated an update of the blog's look. i liked the black background, but i'll survive.

of course, i say that i'll post more often, but this is in no way suggestive of actual change, nor is it in any way legally binding.

people or powers?

another sleepless night. i could read, as if i'd get anything out of it. so i'll write something instead. it'll be a little stream of thought.

i saw push the other day. i enjoyed it. it was entertaining and pretty. i have yet to see what's so great about dakota fanning, but that's beside the point.

it seems to me that there's a lot of stuff featuring super-powered people with real lives. ok not really a lot, but plenty enough. so i'm thinking about the different aspects of these different offerings, and what's important and what's not and whatever. i come to the conclusion that perhaps the central (assuredly subconscious) consideration for stories of this genre is whether the people or the powers are more important. the idea generalizes to other genres too; for example, with respect to sci-fi, are the people or the technology more important.

i don't think placing more importance on one necessarily takes away from the other. nor do i believe that a preference for either is necessarily better. perhaps some examples are in order.

• x men is definitely about the powers. there is the obligatory talking, "character development", but we just want to see wolverine kick someone's ass and storm fly through a big ol' thunderstorm, sending lightning bolts into the bad guys.
  
• batman (with bale) is more about the people. the powers (if they can be called that; mostly toys i guess) tend to be (spectacular) extensions of each person's character.

i couldn't really come up with a third example. i wanted something that balanced people and power that wasn't lord of the rings.

i suppose, ideally, a balance should be sought.when they're well done, powers are the shiny glitter that gets people interested in a story, and people are what keep people interested in it. it might be a cop-out to just shift gears between people parts and power parts. at least i think so.

i'm not saying to do away with strictly people parts or power parts. i'm suggesting that some effort should be made to tie the character development to the use of powers. for instance:

• the character learns a secret he could not have learned had he not used his power
• the mere fact of having a power changes the character's personality and/or how everyone sees him
• the nature/effectiveness of the character's power changes as he grows
• the character despises his power and/or refuses to use it

of course, these ideas could be handle in an unbalanced way. but to get any balance, it's necessary to make at least some link between the person and the power.

if we ever move again on the rule of three, i think i'll keep more of an eye out for this balance. i think so far we've done well, but it's been a while.

so, whacha doing?

i should find a way to distinguish which entries are for which project. this entry, for instance, is more of a journal entry than a project update.

so, what have i been doing? well, when i'm not reading for school, i'm reading Nausea. It's a short book (only a couple hundred pages), but it's a slow read. a crazy person who's always referring to french places is just a little hard to follow.

also been wasting a bunch of time on facebook playing mafia wars. i don't know why, but it's pretty addictive. i can't wait till i get tired of the game. it's basically a dressed up numbers game, so i don't expect to in it's thrall much longer. Check this, and this.

a new distraction is making demands on my attention. not much to say, since i haven't started, but i'm thinking about learning to draw. for real. i'm thinking about buying supplies next time i'm on campus.

as far as writing goes, not really feeling it. i'm basically on hold until rodd finishes the first draft of the screenplay. i tried to do something on another project (darla's world), but there's a ton of work to do there: political environment, religion, alternate ontologies, etc. soooooo, that's gonna come as it comes.

late rant

so. i haven't felt much inspired to write, nor have i had anything i felt was worth posting. but it's 4am friday morning, i can't get to sleep, and blah, this is better than lying in bed for another couple hours.

they say if you want something done, have a busy person do it. well, the converse is also true. don't expect a person with nothing to do to do anything. that may be the true sign of age: the inability to appreciate free time. here i am, with nothing to do, and i'm sick of it. and it ain't even that i have nothing going on in the academic/secular way, which i don't. meh.

my lack of motivation is epic. apathy, despondence, with a dash of bitter...

wow. god, that was a bit of mental apoplexy. glad this ain't no video blog. or a telepathic blog. so, uh, as i was saying...

what's getting to me? nothing. absofuckinglutely nothing.

this thing still on?

yup. looks like it still works. so now that i'm done with school, i'll be adding more chaos theory stuff. or string theory. one of those two is the working title for harriot's world.

ok, so for the last ten minutes, i've been looking for something funny or cute to post. my interest in that is now exceeded by my desire for a cig and ps3. so no joke for you.

love.

impending research

well, just about all of my time for the next 2 weeks will be spent maintaining my impeccable school record (as in my work doesn't quite justify kicking my ass out of school). so this will probably be my last post until november 3.

i think it'd be nice to have read the books that harriot's read--considering i intend to write her. just because i need a starting point, i looked up sci-fi/fantasy writers on wikipedia and made a list of any who were published in the 1950's or earlier, some of whose works i may or may not have read already. below is a list of 38 such books (winnowed down from like a million).

before i get to these books, though, i've got three other books to read first: Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, and The Watchmen by Alan Moore. i'll need to finish these before getting to the research.

the plan is to post synopses of the books as i read them, with analysis as to how they relate to harriot and my story. i suppose i'll practice with the three books i mentioned above (when i get to them, of course).

and now the list:

1. The Snow Queen - Hans Christian Anderson
2. Peter Pan and Wendy - JM Barry
3. The Little White Bird - JM Barry
4. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
5. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
6. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Land that Time Forgot - Edgar Rice Burroughs
8. The Pirates of Venus - Edgar Rice Burroughs
9. A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
10. Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice - James Branch Cabell
11. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol
12. The Man Who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton
13. Rogue Queen - L Sprague de Camp
14. The Worm Ouroboros - ER Eddison
15. The House on the Borderland - William Hope Hodgson
16. Two Sought Adventure - Fritz Leiber
17. The Screwtape Letters - CS Lewis
18. Out of the Silent Planet - CS Lewis
19. The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
20. The Call of Cthulu - HP Lovecraft
21. Lilith - George MacDonald
22. Silverlock - John Myers Myers
23. Portrait of Jennie - Robert Nathan
24. Star Man's Son - Andre Norton
25. The Crossroads of Time - Andre Norton
26. Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
27. Land of Unreason - Fletcher Pratt & L Sprague de Camp
28. Immortality Inc. - Robert Sheckley
29. Citizen in Space - Robert Sheckley
30. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
31. The Night Life of the Gods - Thorne Smith
32. Turnabout - Thorne Smith
33. The Lady or the Tiger - Frank R Stockton
34. Rudder Grange - Frank R Stockton
35. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
36. The Dying Earth - Jack Vance
37. The Island of the Mighty - Evangeline Walton
38. Witch House - Evangeline Walton

5 minute rule; part 2

i like the poetry (irony? serendipity? whatever...) of using the five minute rule to explain the five minute rule. while i've been questioned a couple of times about it in the 10 years, i think it could stand concretization.

the first time i was kicked out and readmitted to college (about 10 years ago), i was forced to take a student development course. they discussed time management, study methods, etc. as you can imagine, i was daily riveted.

one (and only one) concept stuck with me. the idea behind the five minute rule is simple. if you need to get something done, tell yourself you'll do it now, but only for five minutes, after which you can stop. of course, five minutes come and go, and you're already working, so might as well continue. and the reason you keep using the rule is that, this time, you really will work for only five minutes. the reason i like it so much is, i think, that it resonates with my personal motto: self actualization through self delusion.

with respect to this blog, i use the five minute rule to just write something (like this post), no matter how irrelevant. this gets the motor running, and i can then direct that energy towards stuff i actually care about writing (like the groundwork for this story i'm working on). so in the future, post titled "5 minute rule" will probably be random nonsense. (at least, they'll be less pointed than this post.)

an application of the 5 minute rule...

hmmm... three weeks since my last post. i need to work on that.

today is just a list of things i'm thinking about doing. can't say i'll get to 'em all. can't say they're all the same scope, either.

ultimately, i want to do research in creative ai. just gotta find a starting place.

i came up with a technique for analyzing feature models for application product lines for a project last semester. i should do a more formal treatment for it.

i think i can jump onto some natural language processing research. maybe.

there's this writing project with rodd. for a start i might throw some character sketches here.

i want babies. 3 of them. girls. Alice, Megan, and Sarah. it'd be nice if i can get married, but if i have to buy some surrogates, then i will.

i'ma goan gradumate and get me a job. sumday.

making some dinner sounds pretty good right now.

random thoughts

my sister made a comment a while back that there was no such thing as random. with my cs background, this almost sent me into apoplexy. but i think i knew what she meant: any event follows from it's context, so it can't be called random. i posit that an event's randomness requires recognition by an observer, who may or may not be aware of it's context. she says (i'm paraphrasing) an event's randomness is independent of observation, and so is it's context. thus it can't be random.

the argument looks to me like the question of the difference between fact and truth. however, in this case the point in contention is whether an event may be classified as random in the absence of observation. i suspect this parallels any kind of classification of events.