To learn, to Create, to Think

To learn: Surround yourself with people who know more than you. Can't find any? Try another topic. Whatever you do, don't stop.

To create: Think about different things at the same time.

To think: You'll have to figure this one out on your own.

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:wq

Miscellaneous things on my mind today.

There's a striking similarity between hidden markov models and neural networks. For a 1st-order HMM, you could map it to a 4-layer (1 input, 1 output, 2 hidden) feed-forward ANN by having a single input (what symbol you're facing), making every known symbol a 2nd-layer node, with a simple input value of 0/1 (the first layer's node signals the input of the corresponding second layer depending on which symbol corresponds to that node). Use the set of known symbols for the 3rd layer as well, and the mapped weights from the 2nd to the 3rd layer corresponds to the state change probability in the HMM.

I don't think this is necessarily an efficient way to do it, but I think it might be an exact mapping. Cool. :)

If you want a second-order Markov model, use two nodes in your input layer, and use S1,S2 pairs for your 2nd layer, with a single-symbol set for your third. Definitely not a space-efficient way to do it, but also an exact mapping. If, after training (you have to get your symbol set from somewhere, which means you're going to grow your ANN as you build your symbol set), you're comfortable with the idea, you can cull your absolute weakest relationships from your 2nd-order set. Only cull as space limitations force you to, or you'll lose weak-but-significant relationships.

A 3rd-order Markov model would have three input nodes, and use S1,S2,S3 tuples for the 2nd layer, and a single-symbol set for the third. Again, cull as required.

For particularly interesting results, you can use a three-dimensional matrix I1 going to a 1st-order ANN mapping, I1 and I2 going to the 2nd-order ANN mapping, I1, I2 and I3 going to the 3rd-order ANN mapping, and map to the same output node for all three orders. (Or higher orders, if you have unbelievable processing and storage capability...)

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I'm happy.

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If every piece of software got as much detail-oriented attention to it as Toyota's code is getting right now, but *before* disaster struck, there'd be millions of happier developers out there, software wouldn't suck as much and development and debugging tools would be absolutely incredible (far beyond anything I've even heard of, including things like valgrind, lint and VS2010's rather impressive debugging aid feature set) as a result of finding ways to reduce developer time spent in analysis and bugfixing. If software were nearly as difficult to consider "ready for release" as hardware is, I think you'd see something akin to Moore's Law occur in software utility. (As a mixed metric of performance and feature set.)

People got used to mediocre software. They hate it, but they got used to it. As a result, software pricing models more or less standardized around writing mediocre software, and people get sticker shock when they hit a requirement for non-mediocre software. Put another way: "Fast, well, cheap" -- except that popular priority heavily weighs toward fast and cheap.

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Flashbacks to Ender's Game when I accidentally try to call CString::GetBugger(). See also, Start->Run->%APPDADA% instead of %APPDATA%. Dargo, resolve his %APPDADA% for him!

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:wq

Things on my mind today...

Prime words. If one were to present thousands of people with the words in the dictionary, and ask them to replace the word with a small set of simpler words with near-identical resulting meaning, would a set of fundamental, or "prime" words result? What would they be? Some circular definitions might result, but their presence might help identify fundamental concepts.

What happens if you could influence the Shadow ships' pilot with LSD or PCP? (If you haven't seen through Season 4, don't bother guessing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then nothing's spoiled.)

What happens if a vampire or lycanthrope bites a bio-tech vehicle?

I need to make a habit of going to work earlier so I can get enough hours in before early afternoon. OTOH, I've got a ton of vacation hours saved up, and that would be a worthwhile way to spend them. :)

I broke someone's nerd-o-meter today. I feel good.

I seem to be discovering something akin to alchemy and herbal remedies, but using fast and processed foods for ingredients. That can't be a good sign.

SanDisk seems to have abandoned the SD+USB product area. [trope]BigNo[/trope].

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:wq

Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it.

Gotta do some thought-out codin'
but my heart is all a'flutter.
Wrote a line of code
but I can't write out another.
Gotta get my brain in gear
but it's slippin like it's butter.
If I don't seee Firefly soon,
I'll be drinkin' like a Mudder.

There's one kind of argument I particularly hate to have

...and that's rationalizing. Typically, it occurs when the person I'm arguing with has a gut feeling about what's Right, but can't maintain a logical defense of the position. I can chip away each path of apparent logic they use in defense of a position, one at a time, and then they'll come up with some new path, or switch back to an old path with a different tact.

What's frustrating about it is that it tells me there isn't a logical basis behind the defense of their position, but an emotional one, and logic is simply the mechanism being used to defend it. That means that they're exceedingly unlikely to ever change positions, unless and until that emotional basis is identified and resolved. That's pretty difficult to do when the person holding the position can't acknowledge the basis behind their core position.

The particular argument inspiring this rant was my expressed frustrations that AdBlock Plus is overly aggressive, and blocks the queries that build Amazon referral links--I was going to use those links in-line in on-wiki citations and user-recommended resource links. With ABP running, one gets a big, fat, red "Unable to retrieve data" blob of text. I'll have to mod the MW extension to deal with the error case.
I can understand wanting to block distracting and attention-grabbing advertising content. Blocking referral-building and search AJAX queries strikes me as going rather far, and smells of anti-commercialization intent rather than simply consumer protection.

HSV remixing some of my photos

Tried some simple stuff on one photo, liked the results, tried it on several more.









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:wq

2.5" -> 3.5" internal bay adapter

I know 2.5" -> 3.5" bay adapters exist, but do any exist that allow you to put multiple 2.5" devices in the same 3.5" bay? I'm specifically pondering replacing a single 3.5" spinning disk drive (my root disk) with two 2.5" drives (one for root, and a small SSD to put mysqld on; I'm disk-bound, and the lifetime and safety of the data is less interesting than the speed it can be manipulated at.)