tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38637812011-04-21T14:52:59.078-07:00Wesley Tanaka's BlogSquishy fuzzy yummy thoughtswtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comBlogger3621100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1165403356466466802006-12-06T03:09:00.000-08:002006-12-06T03:09:16.486-08:00Pet Rabbit Perched Precariously on Beijing Air Conditionerwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1155214338513618062006-08-10T05:52:00.000-07:002006-08-10T05:52:18.516-07:00I haven't laughed out loud so much in a long time.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1153847670622613902006-07-25T10:14:00.001-07:002006-07-25T10:14:30.630-07:00Detachment vs. Productivitywtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1153847644168076472006-07-25T10:14:00.000-07:002006-07-25T10:14:04.173-07:00Detachment vs. Productivitywtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1153750450439508262006-07-24T07:14:00.000-07:002006-07-24T07:14:10.440-07:00Very Cool Birdy Nam Nam Videoswtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1153669392139542722006-07-23T08:43:00.000-07:002006-07-23T08:43:12.146-07:00Upmarket Yak Cheese and Yak Fashionwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1072329065297939982003-12-24T21:11:00.000-08:002003-12-26T20:28:56.123-08:00I've moved my blog to livejournalwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1072322524465078722003-12-24T19:22:00.000-08:002003-12-26T20:29:55.390-08:00I think I may move to livejournalwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1072316813955067772003-12-24T17:46:00.000-08:002003-12-24T17:48:55.076-08:00Ever want to look homeless?
On the 22nd, I went to the post office and mailed to my father a garment bag, a suitcase, and a carryon full of clothes that cost more than the round trip postage and some sentimental things.
People stared at me. There were two young women in front of me who were surely discussing me in Japanese. I think that people do not usually see someone mailing a suitcase andwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1072316362455985232003-12-24T17:39:00.000-08:002003-12-24T17:43:25.670-08:00As I'm thinking through my pack "inventory" one more time (and writing it down), I'm noticing that there are a lot of things I already realize are a bad idea to put in the pack. I'm putting them in only because I can't stand to throw them away yet can't justify asking someone to store them. I suppose that I still haven't been able to let go of my worldly posessions, in the buddhist mental sensewtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1072301755815292852003-12-24T13:35:00.000-08:002003-12-24T13:37:18.403-08:00I find that I can't type "cv". I always end up typing an extra "s" through sheer muscle memory.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1071872804481349942003-12-19T14:26:00.000-08:002003-12-19T14:28:35.403-08:00I discovered a "Pacific Grove/Pebble Beach map and shopping guide" in my room as I was packing. I have no idea where I might have gotten this map. Maybe it was from ditch day north.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1066257198133182242003-10-15T15:33:00.000-07:002003-10-15T15:33:17.863-07:00There are all kinds of different life philosophies, with their cool taglines: "Work Hard, Play Hard." "Balance." "There are things in life that are more important than work." "It's important to be passionate about what you do." "simple life." "seize the day."
They make all these different philosophies sound good, and provide the means for people to behave how they want and then slap on the wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1065949295841725672003-10-12T02:01:00.000-07:002003-10-12T02:02:25.350-07:00After hearing some comment about mapping out C. Elegans neurons, I started thinking about computingwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1064724326756021352003-09-27T21:45:00.000-07:002003-09-27T21:45:26.290-07:00I thought it was sadly funny when the portly yet studious looking white guy sitting near me yelled "NO" really loudly at the sprightly black guy that was asking for donations for some battered woman shelter. But perhaps the shelter was actually some scam that I don't know about.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1064723840513346272003-09-27T21:37:00.000-07:002003-09-27T21:43:57.070-07:00When I got to the BART station today, I noticed someone giving directions to someone else -- gesticulating and pointing at the system map. As I approached, it dawned on me that one of them was speaking in Chinese, which was very surprising to me, especially since this was one of the things I had just been talking about with Niniane. I asked him in Chinese where he wanted to go. I hope the wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1064723641642100492003-09-27T21:34:00.000-07:002003-09-27T21:34:13.500-07:00Niniane mentioned seing the video of my butterfly that I put up here. After I viewed it, I realized that I had done much better ones since then:
http://ofb.net/~wtanaka/video/mvi_1856.aviwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1063867767250994322003-09-17T23:49:00.000-07:002003-09-18T02:16:13.410-07:00I just sold my Europe Lonely Planet! I'm so excited! This is the first time I sold something online! In fact, this might be one of the first times I've sold something to someone I don't know! It's not the fact that I'm getting money that's exciting -- it's the new experience!wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1063602547455553432003-09-14T22:09:00.000-07:002003-11-04T22:51:45.920-08:00http://www.freshsensation.com/samorost.swf is greatwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1061538281166219612003-08-22T00:44:00.000-07:002003-08-22T01:25:36.580-07:00At least I'm not falling down every time anymore.
http://ofb.net/~wtanaka/video/mvi_1774.aviwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1061502407397476492003-08-21T14:46:00.000-07:002003-08-21T15:48:07.350-07:00I have a phone conversation scheduled with a Microsoft recuiter for some kind of software development job in their natural language group. I'm not sure if the job will provide the kinds of opportunities that I am looking for, in particular I'm looking for the time to work on and the ability to publish papers about new and interesting natural language processing topics that come up while I am wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1061404815188591012003-08-20T11:40:00.000-07:002003-08-20T11:40:15.096-07:00I just noticed that I get spam from Taiwan and from Korea, but almost never from Japan.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1061272711348746982003-08-18T22:58:00.000-07:002003-08-18T22:58:31.156-07:00Cynthia (one of the coaches at oakland ice center) told me that i have a pretty good butterfly going. I'm so tickled. Of course I still need to land it cleanly.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1061246085347711272003-08-18T15:34:00.000-07:002003-08-18T15:34:45.316-07:00I wonder if Iraq is going to have the same long term instability that Israel has had.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060979977505273692003-08-15T13:39:00.000-07:002003-08-15T13:39:35.573-07:00I'm going to a tutorial session -- some kind of introduction to bayes nets and inference. There is a "reading list" that came out with the announcement of the session, but actually have no idea if it is a "prerequisite reading" or a "extra reading" list.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060962663265471492003-08-15T08:51:00.000-07:002003-08-15T09:13:05.450-07:00Over the course of the next four months, this is what I want to do:
September 15: Buy plane tickets to (say) Kunming
November 15: Get visa for china
October 15: Apply for scholarships and fellowships
December 10?: Apply for graduate schools
August 25: Study for GRE
October 1: Take GREwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060927553863333062003-08-14T23:05:00.000-07:002003-08-14T23:11:51.826-07:00This evening I went skating. Last lesson of the session. I think I might stop taking lessons after this.
"Why," people ask? My answer: I always wanted to do the butterfly, and now that I've almost done it, why continue? I wonder when they plan to stop. They probably don't.
One lesson that I learned tonight -- landing frequently on the ice will eventually make your pants wet if the weather wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-106092747901404582003-08-14T23:04:00.000-07:002003-08-14T23:09:05.983-07:00Last night, I watched "he loves me... he loves me not" with Shoko and her friends from school (this really nice couple). The movie was surprisingly good, but would have been spoiled had I known even a little bit about it first. Also, Audrey Tautou is really cute.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060816662563084322003-08-13T16:17:00.000-07:002003-08-13T16:22:25.903-07:00It turns out that the form I need, one "Concurrent Enrollment Form" is not even available until next Monday, and the fears that I was too late to give my money to Berkeley were misplaced.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060814682443959932003-08-13T15:44:00.000-07:002003-08-13T15:49:25.950-07:00Off to figure out how to take this Statistical Learning Theory class.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060801839542850832003-08-13T12:10:00.000-07:002003-08-13T12:15:25.090-07:00The butterfly is coming along. Yesterday evening, out of all of my attempts, I fell down only about half of the time. And although I still had to put my hand down on the ice on most of the remainder, there were a few where I managed to stay on my feet.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060801763399287122003-08-13T12:09:00.000-07:002003-08-13T12:14:08.950-07:00Every time I see amaretto, I think: "that probably tastes good." After all, I like almonds, I like almond extract in desserts, I like vanilla extract straight. It can't miss, right?
The last time I tried drinking a bit of amaretto, it was awful.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060456663741951842003-08-09T12:17:00.000-07:002003-08-09T13:11:48.113-07:00As a child, I couched the world in terms of "good" and "bad." I dogmatically believed that characters in movies and TV shows belonged in one of those two categories. If a character was difficult to classify, it was simply because they did not show their true colors during their time on the screen. It never occured to me that the classification system may have been inadequate for modelling wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060102278245817852003-08-05T09:51:00.000-07:002003-08-05T09:54:04.543-07:00today:
return car
finish generation code
clean up
sign up for berkeley extensionwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1060038691780454202003-08-04T16:11:00.000-07:002003-08-04T16:11:31.773-07:00http://ofb.net/~wtanaka/photos/viewthumbs?k=family+reunion+2003wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059607492443705402003-07-30T16:24:00.000-07:002003-07-30T16:24:52.413-07:00Car: Rented
Two questionably legal parking maneuvers: Executed
Questionably Useful GRE Book: Purchased
Meeting with advisor: Done
Code: Unfinished
Clothes: Unpackedwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059579053511673092003-07-30T08:30:00.000-07:002003-07-30T08:30:53.446-07:00Last night, Sherri gave me a pointer on how to enter the butterfly, and this other instructor (I think the director of the figure skating school) came up to us and said "what, are you teaching him the butterfly?" Sherri explained that I had been working on it for several weeks now, and this other instructor proceeded to say "well, there are other ways to do it" and tried to demonstrate somethingwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059510689423986362003-07-29T13:31:00.000-07:002003-07-29T13:31:29.430-07:00It's weird, how much I'm looking forward to showing my frightening-looking butterfly attempts to Sherri tonight. Back to work..wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059499586750395072003-07-29T10:26:00.000-07:002003-07-29T10:26:26.723-07:00I think I've written more code in the past two days than I have in the past two years. No, actually that's an exaggeration, made simply for the small mental pleasure of writing a parallel structure in the sentence. But I have written a lot of code. I feel like my life has turned into a programming competition.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059279832994015832003-07-26T21:23:00.000-07:002003-07-26T21:26:04.576-07:00The sickness today progressed from stiff & nauseous to sweating & sore-tongued. It's like a sore throat, except under my tongue. It's that dull kind of pain that just gets worse when you add pressure (unlike some sore throat pain, which you can make feel better temporarily with the acidic joy that is orange juice. or lemons. or hydrochloric. Not that i've tried that, I'm just imagining it wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059242657449876532003-07-26T11:04:00.000-07:002003-07-26T11:04:17.326-07:00Sometimes, when I exert myself too much, I end up throwing up afterwards. I feel like that right now, even though it's a good 13 hours after I stopped skating. I ate some noodle dish that I cooked, since I couldn't tell if my stomach was nauseous or hungry. I still feel pretty awful.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059201778012925482003-07-25T23:42:00.000-07:002003-07-25T23:42:57.880-07:00I'm excited! I did this butterfly thing on the ice. The landing is still a bit sketchy (read: I fell down spectacularly, each of the 30 or 40 times that I tried it away from the wall), but I think my legs are moving through the air the way they should. Once I am actually able to land it, I'll try taking a video.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059115873081758302003-07-24T23:51:00.000-07:002003-07-24T23:51:13.050-07:00Today I went skating. I ended up arriving 1/2 hour before my lesson started and there was an army of little kids on the ice taking their lessons so I tried to practice left-hand first one-hand cartwheels. I ended up on one attempt putting all my weight on my right hand left pinky and ring finger. Now they don't bend all the way, and they hurt.
BUT That's Not All! I also tried to practice thewtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1059085534186120652003-07-24T15:25:00.000-07:002003-07-24T15:26:34.000-07:00Vague yet ticklingly amusing description of results quoted from http://susan.psych.cornell.edu/home/docs/ImageSchemaCogSci.pdf
Gibbs, Strom and Spivey- Knowlton (1997) carried out empirical work querying subjects about their mental images of proverbs such as 'a rolling stone gathers no moss' and found a surprising degree of agreement even about fine details such as the stone bouncing slightly wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058941180001399262003-07-22T23:19:00.000-07:002003-07-22T23:19:39.960-07:00While talking to Claire just now, I realized something. There seems to be two different ways that people interpret other people's actions:
A) IF someone {wants to be my friend, likes me, loves me, cares about me} THEN they will {write to me, invite me places, spends effort communicating, etc}
B) IF someone {writes to me, invites me places, spends effort communictating, etc} THEN they {want to wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058701652945117132003-07-20T04:47:00.000-07:002003-07-20T04:47:32.793-07:00In an attempt to practice Chinese, I'm going to try to make the blog entries that I can in Chinese in a new blog that I created just for this purposewtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058560149714548322003-07-18T13:29:00.000-07:002003-07-18T13:32:17.270-07:00I practiced doing some cartwheels (I even managed some flimsy looking one-handed ones) last night.
my first attempts
some one handed attempts
I also tried to practice some on-the-wall butterfly exercise.
Actual videos of me trying to do jumps can be found at http://ofb.net/~wtanaka/skate/wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058559955456721742003-07-18T13:25:00.000-07:002003-07-18T13:25:55.416-07:00The instructions given to me (typewritten on a prescription slip):
MIX EQUAL PARTS OF HYDROGEN
PEROXIDE 3% AND WARM WATER.
RINSE MOUTH AFTER EATING AND
AT BEDTIME.
So I tried this for the first time last night. Peroxide has got to be one of the worst things I've tasted. I almost threw up, and I hadn't even swallowed any of it. Then, when I spit it out, it came out as this rabid-looking foam.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058465137539617732003-07-17T11:05:00.000-07:002003-07-17T11:05:37.486-07:00The anesthetic is starting to wear off. This is going tobe unpleasant.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058463910314866782003-07-17T10:45:00.000-07:002003-07-17T10:54:43.000-07:00Well, I went to get this bump removed from my lip this morning. It ended up costing $400, which is a little bit more than one month of CORBA coverage was costing. I think that health insurance is only really cost effective if you get really really hurt or sick and need to stay in the hospital.
I now have some stitches in my mouth, and my lip is numb. I also am supposed to rinse it with wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058403948664697032003-07-16T18:05:00.000-07:002003-07-16T18:05:48.640-07:00The plan seems to be:
1) Apply to grad schools (yes, still haven't done this yet)
2) Finish project at Berkeley (first need to 'start project')
3) Move to China (Dec 2003-Aug 2004)
4) If rejected from grad schools, stay in China (-Aug 2005). I'm actually kind of half-hoping for this.
5) In the meantime take one graduate class (probably at Berkeley) to increase chances of grad school admission.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058380166397047232003-07-16T11:29:00.000-07:002003-07-16T11:33:07.140-07:00I found more videos of the aerial cartwheel and the butterfly, which I'm trying to do on ice skates:
Aerials and Butterflies
2h, 1h, Aerial cartwheels
Shepherd Clark Butterfly/Back Spin
Nancy Kerrigan Stars/Butterfly
Elvis Stojko Butterflies
Butterflieswtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058334513524453362003-07-15T22:48:00.000-07:002003-07-15T22:48:33.380-07:00I realized that one of my criteria for places that I live is the number of stars visible to the naked eye on a typical night.
0-11: 0 points
12-50: 1 point
50-100: 2 points
100+: 3 pointswtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058244183350750972003-07-14T21:43:00.000-07:002003-07-14T21:43:46.470-07:00"jtr" is the username of one of my classmates from Caltech. We both worked at iSpheres for a while.
(21:31:34) Wes Nelson (home): then there are people on the other end of the spectrum, like JTR.
(21:31:59) Wes Nelson (home): the "I would wear a bathrobe on an airplane" vibe
(21:32:30) Wesley Tanaka: I think that's the "fashion sense & drive to use it" axis.
(21:32:51) Wes Nelson (home): wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1058041631179084992003-07-12T13:27:00.000-07:002003-07-12T13:27:11.150-07:00From: http://www.oaklandnet.com/budget/Web_budget_PDF.pdf
Oakland is fondly referred to as the bright side of the Bay because the sun shines over bright, clear skies almost 365 days a year. Rand McNally has ranked Oakland No. 1 for climate, perhaps because the sun shines during 73 percent of daylight hours, temperatures range in the low 50 s and upper 60 s during the winter months and the 70 swtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-105777853413704122003-07-09T12:22:00.000-07:002003-07-09T12:22:14.143-07:00Going to the doctor to get my last Hep A/B vaccination shot. Hopefully they have the right thing -- I remember now having a conversation with the doctor about whether or not they actually had Twinrix. We'll see.. :Pwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1057774293444435462003-07-09T11:11:00.000-07:002003-07-09T11:11:51.413-07:00I read this article which mentioned a "Cotton Patch Bible" which "places the biblical narrative in the context of the South in the United States. This version apparently translates the Jordan River as the Mississippi."
I like the idea. It opens the imagination to the "outer space bible" or the "castro district bible," or even the "Lhasa bible" or "Mecca bible."wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1057733497172245252003-07-08T23:51:00.000-07:002003-07-08T23:52:34.406-07:00Hopefully soon I will be able to do a "Butterfly" on ice skates. Perhaps not as impressive looking ones as these but I'll try... Apparently step #1 is to be able to do a left-hand first cartwheel. I can see how that would help. I used to be able to do right-hand-first cartwheels, but that was 10 years ago.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1057728562294782272003-07-08T22:29:00.000-07:002003-07-08T22:29:22.200-07:00Wes Nelson sent me this link. http://www.ntv.co.jp/channel/asx/hkzkt10.asx. It's the best ping pong match ever.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1057650747522534492003-07-08T00:52:00.000-07:002003-07-08T00:52:27.353-07:00I met a Tibetan girl while I was in the Chinese town of "Shangri-la." She was one of young people working at the guest house I stayed at. At the time, I remember thinking she was cute. There were actually three girls and one guy working there, and all of them were pretty nice. None of them spoke much English, but were all pretty patient in trying to understand my Chinese and trying to wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1057648700561362902003-07-08T00:18:00.000-07:002003-07-08T00:19:49.050-07:00Pictures from "Ditch Day North":
http://catandman.com/pictures/Ditch_Day_North_2003/
http://ofb.net/~wtanaka/photos/viewthumbs?k=ditch+day+2003wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1057039505834673752003-06-30T23:05:00.000-07:002003-06-30T23:08:37.386-07:00The weekend turned out quite well. Highlights included:
Hanging over the edge of a bridge, several hundred feet above the beach on the coast, in order to dangle clues beneath the bridge.
Kayaking out into an estuary to dump several cinderblocks, chained to a PVC pipe full of clues and a hand-made orange-spray-painted buoy.
Sliding down a cliff face to a completely deserted beach where we wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-1056638874309512382003-06-26T07:47:00.000-07:002003-06-26T07:47:54.136-07:00I chatted with my research advisor today. He mentioned that he has an outreach
project that is aiming to teach Java to kids in Ghana, and wondered if I would
be interested in helping by mentoring some of the kids remotely. I told him
that the outreach aspect of the program seemed really exciting to me, so he
said he'd send me an email with more information about the program.
I got that, and wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-957987012003-06-18T11:02:00.000-07:002003-06-18T11:02:45.076-07:00Niniane used to use "egg plant" as her full name in the from field of her email messages.
One day, she got a mail from someone starting:
"Dear Mr. Plant,"wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-956900822003-06-15T11:11:00.000-07:002003-06-18T11:09:22.000-07:00While visiting India, I lived for over a week with a monk that I befriended at the airport. During my time with him, I learned that he wanted to start up a "center for the poor" in southern India. Of course, building a "center for the poor" requires money. To raise that money, my friend was considering recording an album of Tibetan and Nepalese songs that he sang.
His ambition impressed me. wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-956644502003-06-14T10:05:00.000-07:002003-06-14T10:05:54.906-07:00I'm listening to "Ethnic Majority" by the group "Nightmares on Wax." It overflows with hip funk.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-956643752003-06-14T10:02:00.000-07:002003-06-14T10:36:41.000-07:00Yesterday I was walking from the office to the Downtown Berkeley BART station, the entrance of which is an escalator descending underground covered by a steel-grey circular metal... tent.
A blind man thirty feet in front of me, walking stick extended, was also heading toward the station. A nearby girl stopped her conversation with a guy friend of hers to take the man by the arm and help him wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-953398702003-06-05T12:37:00.000-07:002003-06-05T12:38:28.000-07:00So I just received the transcript that I requested the other day. As I expected, my GPA was low: a disappointing 3.2. I think it has something to do with the C grades that I got in applied math and the F that I got in some EE class that I got bored with and didn't finish, as well a bunch of Bs in the core physics classes.
So I decided to try out the time-honored method of looking for the my wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-951137762003-05-31T00:39:00.000-07:002003-05-31T00:39:59.000-07:00Every so often, when I'm lucky, I can just lose myself in some music. The chatter in my brain will stop long enough to let me just be as I experience the music.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-950548022003-05-29T16:05:00.000-07:002003-05-29T16:05:17.243-07:00I've been productive today. I wrote the introduction to a research proposal. Hopefully it will not have to be completely redone.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-949658162003-05-27T18:14:00.000-07:002003-05-27T18:25:44.000-07:00I'm going to be peeling from the sunburn I got on Memorial Day. I have some pictures.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-948766852003-05-25T17:52:00.000-07:002003-05-25T17:52:53.470-07:00My $50 t-mobile rebate is due by the end of this month.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-948750382003-05-25T16:51:00.000-07:002003-05-25T16:51:23.426-07:00Well, the postscript file *did* load up fine. I converted it to a .jpg, just in case.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-948741302003-05-25T16:17:00.000-07:002003-05-25T16:17:54.000-07:00Monty showed me this webpage the other day:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-948738682003-05-25T16:08:00.000-07:002003-05-25T16:08:28.280-07:00I bought a hard disk the other day. I spent most of the day yesterday after it arrived getting my computer working and copying my old disk to the new one. Now I need to send in this rebate. Unfortunately, I printed the rebate to a file a while ago, and the last time I tried opening it, my postscript reader said that it was not a valid postscript file. My theory is that I printed it while my wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-948736872003-05-25T16:02:00.000-07:002003-05-25T16:02:41.000-07:00I decided to do some cooking today. First: some teriyaki chicken in preparation for tomorrow's barbecue.
Second: some chicken for stir frying tonight.
Third: some eggs with ginger (today's "what's in the fridge?" experiment). It makes the eggs have a "fresh, crisp" taste that doesn't quite seem right. Perhaps next time I will try eggs, sugar and ginger. That might work as a desert.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-939814992003-05-08T02:55:00.000-07:002003-05-08T02:55:23.110-07:00Afterwards, I met with Prof. Feldman at ICSI.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-939786192003-05-08T01:01:00.000-07:002003-05-08T01:01:15.120-07:00Went to see one Dr. Moyce about the bump on my lip. He seemed certain that it was a clogged salivary gland. He said it's pretty common. His recommendation is that I get it removed, by him. There's a 2-3% chance that it (or another one like it) will spring up in its place.
After this 2 minute consultation, I needed to go make another appointment. The first available time they had was June 17wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-939689912003-05-07T20:47:00.000-07:002003-05-07T20:47:41.676-07:00The "start here" icon in RedHat 9 is labeled "从这里开始" which I believe means literally "from here, start." So I decided to rename "wtanaka's Homedir" to "我住在这儿": "I live here."wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-937307882003-05-03T20:05:00.000-07:002003-05-03T20:05:38.623-07:00I've been reading a lot, from "Dune" to "American Gods" to "Fire, Women, and Dangerous Things" to "The Metaphors we Live By," to some draft book of some Berkeley CS prof. I've been working on an art project: http://ofb.net/~wtanaka/projects/dcent/
but progress has kind of stalled as of yesterday.
Going clubbing tonight.
What I need to do is take my GREs and send in some applications. Law wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-936750812003-05-02T15:02:00.000-07:002003-05-02T15:02:48.000-07:00Went to one of these NTL group meetings. The professors were not there. Going to meet with Jerry Feldman next week. Think I'll work on this image montage zoomer.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-936307392003-05-01T19:44:00.000-07:002003-05-01T19:44:04.610-07:00so I'm reading through this chapter of a draft book:
http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~jfeldman/Book/09.words.htm
which is actually pretty interesting
and i come across:
"Notice that "uhoh" only makes sense for someone who plans and expectations."
I think the sentence still works without the "plans" part, but the sentiment still struck me as deeply true.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-936132802003-05-01T13:07:00.000-07:002003-05-01T13:07:25.363-07:00Went to the dentist this morning to get my teeth cleaned. Not too bad. Afterward, I went to IKEA again to pick up the wastepaper bin that I saw a while back. I ended up buying a small yarn rug too.
For the people that get there a little bit before they open, IKEA has some complimentary cinnamon pastries and coffee, which I thought was kind of nice of them. Not quite as nice as had they wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-935564832003-04-30T14:56:00.000-07:002003-04-30T14:56:04.876-07:00image montage zoomer project is looking "good" in that it works now. There's a lot of cleanup and making the program more robust that needs to happen.
I'm going to start on this reading now.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-935203292003-04-30T01:45:00.000-07:002003-04-30T01:45:23.146-07:00Does my impression of someone change how attractive I think they look physically? Yes, very much so.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-935197652003-04-30T01:23:00.000-07:002003-04-30T01:23:22.526-07:00I think tomorrow I'm going to do some NLP reading.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-935184152003-04-30T00:32:00.000-07:002003-04-30T00:32:57.206-07:00tried going to IKEA today to buy that trash can, but they were closed early for inventory.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-935164472003-04-29T23:26:00.000-07:002003-04-29T23:26:52.106-07:00Been working on this image montage zoomer project. Looks like we're making good progress.
Met with Nancy today to talk about Berkeley and the NTL group. We ended up talking at Long Life Vegi House for more than three hours. We were walking back to the Berkeley BART station (which is on the way to where she works) and kind of got sucked into this Gelato store, which was good. We didn't leave wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-933776732003-04-27T20:57:00.000-07:002003-04-27T21:06:01.000-07:00So two days ago while I was taking a shower, I was thinking through a list of things that I find attractive. I wrote it down in my phone and now that I'm back near my computer, I'm writing it down here.
I'm attracted to women that are cute enough that I have the urge to look at them so much that I feel like I'm staring.
I'm attracted to women that are confident enough that their opinions are wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-933770642003-04-27T20:45:00.000-07:002003-04-27T21:05:20.000-07:00I was chatting with Gladys this evening. I get the feeling that she is hinting things at me. When people hint at me, I tend to get frustrated because they set up expectations that I will understand, when whether or not I understand depends on so many factors:
How well I am listening (which depends on many things)
How well are they communicating
What kind of shared experiences do we have that wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-932135312003-04-24T18:53:00.000-07:002003-04-24T18:57:55.000-07:00From now until the end of this coming weekend, I want to:
* Get my inbox down to 50 messages or less
* Go to Friday Night Skate on Friday
* Call some people
* Go to Dev's Birthday Party on Saturday
* Read about the Semantic Web
* Come up with a list of questions about Grad Schools so that I can get as much info as I can out of lunch with Nancy
* Buy a trash canwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-932133432003-04-24T18:49:00.000-07:002003-04-24T18:49:50.886-07:00I just played a bunch of Monty's records again. I'm a lot better now at beat matching them together. As in, I don't run out of time where the track ends before I'm ready to start playing the next one.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-932078142003-04-24T16:51:00.000-07:002003-04-24T16:51:24.546-07:00I got a referral to see a doctor to get some sort of cyst removed from my lip. I called the doctor's office.
"No, there's nobody with that name here. There's a Dr. Cory though. . . "
"uh, thanks"
I call back Brenda at Asian Health Services. Oh, she says, let me call your insurance company again since their records are not up to date, and I'll call you back.
A few hours later, after playingwtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-932076092003-04-24T16:46:00.000-07:002003-04-24T16:46:47.660-07:00As yet unbeknownst to Monty, I practiced my DJ skills (or lack thereof) on his turn tables today. There are two songs of his that I really like. I think he really likes them too. They're just cool.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-931906732003-04-24T11:14:00.000-07:002003-04-24T11:14:14.130-07:00Moved into a room in the same building that Monty is in. Everything except my computer is in there now. DSL should be arriving sometime on Friday I hope.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-931447102003-04-23T17:17:00.000-07:002003-04-23T17:22:11.000-07:00I've discovered a page on Pattern Based Translation Technology.
The Language Translation page also has a reference to "example based and context based processing" which seems interesting and might fit well with my non linguistically oriented background.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-931435972003-04-23T16:53:00.000-07:002003-04-23T17:03:41.000-07:00Yesterday, I poked through the Berkeley, Stanford, MIT and CMU Computer Science Graduate School web pages.
Now I'm reading papers. I listened to The Usenix Technical Conference 2002 keynote address by Lawrence Lessig, which was somewhat interesting.
I read Intelligence without representation which gives me the idea that the original grandiose visions AI research has been stonewalled for many wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-930738392003-04-22T15:35:00.000-07:002003-04-22T15:35:12.483-07:00I think as long as I plan on not having kids, that this early retirement desire of mine can come true. At work, you get exposed to a lot of people that already have families or are headed toward them (even if they don't say that they are, you can tell).
That correlation is there partially because, *if* you do have kids, you pretty much need to be working at a steady job in order to support wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-930735352003-04-22T15:29:00.000-07:002003-04-22T15:30:21.000-07:00I went Ice Skating again today for the first time in quite a while. Saw Beatrix and Yoshi again. Talked about all sorts of things over some lunch. It was weird to be skating again, and I couldn't land a loop jump out of a mohawk anymore. But that was the last thing that I really learned how to do, and everything else, surprisingly, I was rusty at but able to do.
I also picked up this "wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863781.post-930213872003-04-21T19:58:00.000-07:002003-04-21T20:07:25.000-07:00Today I went to the dentist. Since it wasn't too far from the MacArthur Bart Station, I decided to walk. Unfortunately about a minute after I left Monty's place, it started to rain. Also unfortunately, I thought I might be late for the appointment and so I did not go back to get an umbrella. Fortunately, I walked quickly and kind of hid under awnings that I passed, so I didn't get too soaked.wtanakahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01005549700972945737noreply@blogger.com