February 2012
60 posts
1 tag
Day 1 of thesis: Read intro chapter on history of NLP
Day 2 of thesis: Read an actual content chapter
Day 5 of thesis (day of advisor's office hours): Realize I should draw up a syllabus for myself so I actually finish the dang thing/have some sort of progress to report. Whew, that was hard, I need a coffee break.
4 tags
My “Speech and Language Processing” textbook finally arrived in the mail! Which means I can start my honors thesis!
…which means I have to start my honors thesis…
Step one: make a syllabus for myself with incredibly vague due dates.
2 tags
recursiverecursion:
I get legitimately excited about truth tables. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been as excited about learning something as when I learned how stunningly clever and simple indirect truth tables are.
Truth tables are the best.
3 tags
Classes with CS Majors...
Math Prof: I'm not sure if this version of Bayes Theorem works for Spam filters, I think the authors of your textbook made too many simplifying assumptions.
CS student: No, we proved it last semester in Artificial Intelligence.
Other CS student: Yeah, empirically it works just as well as the full version of Bayes formula, and it's way more computationally efficient.
Another one: The accuracy you gain by applying the full version is so small that it costs more to apply it than not to.
Math Prof: Oh. Well, I'm still not convinced, but I guess if you guys say so.
2 tags
Classes with Math Education Majors...
Abstract Algebra Prof: Another example is with Big-O notation. Now, Big-O notation is,... well... how many of you know what Big-O notation is?
I: enthusiastically raise hand
Other students:
I:
Ohter students:
I: Oops, this isn't a computer-science class... (put hand down embarassedly)
Prof: One person...?
“Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is...”
– Immanuel Kant, Preface to the First Edition of The Critique on Pure Reason (via mcdona)
“Happiness is rooted in misery. Misery lurks beneath happiness. Who knows what...”
– Tao Te Ching 58
3 tags
Vowels
English Professor: Elementary question to ensure that you learned the things you should have learned in grade school: How many vowels are there in the English language?
Linguistics Student: Oh! I know this! Depends on your accent, but most commonly argued somewhere from 12-15. But I've also heard the argument that we have as many as 20 vowels!
English Professor:
Linguistics Student:
English Professor:
Linguistics Student:
English Professor:
Linguistics Student: ....Oh whoops. English class.
Linguistics Student: a e i o u
Linguistics Student: Five.
3 tags
Why is graduate school looking way, way too inevitable right now?
4 tags
“And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will...”
– God’s love is unconditional, except when it’s not.
2 tags
3 tags
“Grief is the other side of love. […] Perhaps grief is an internal doomsday...”
– Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works
2 tags
“No sharp line divides thinking from feeling, nor does thinking inevitbly precede...”
– Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works
1 tag
2 tags
2 tags
“The notion of causality is simply a lame way of connecting the various stages of...”
– Alan Watts, “Tao: The Watercourse Way”
2 tags
“In trying to figure out the brain, the obstacle is that we have no finer...”
– Alan Watts, “Tao: The Watercourse Way”
“ya khotela zabyt [tebya]
я хотела забыть [тебя]”
– Tatu
1 tag
I work with college students, and sometimes they...
Student: What's your major?
I: Math and Linguistics.
Student:
I: Yea, I know--
Student: wow.
I: They're really not that different though.
Student: Really? I hate math. It's so illogical.
I: What makes you say that?
Student: Well, for example, sometimes an equation can have a solution, or sometimes two solutions, or sometimes no solutions!
I: (do not go into math-major mode. It is inappropriate to lecture clients at work. DO NOT go into math-major mode, just nod and smile.) "Yeah, well kind of. So what's your major?"
Crisis averted.
1 tag
1 tag
“Genuine science is pedantic, expensive, and subversive”
– Steven Pinker, “How the Mind Works”
A Rendezvous of Questions and Question Marks:... →
intellectualvalentinesday:
macfoto:
Valentine’s Day Pick-up Lines from your Favorite Philosophers
thesociologist:
Anselm: You’re the greatest conceivable being, baby. I’m glad you exist.
Aquinas: Hey remember when I said, “As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the...
3 tags
“Science is my lady!”
– Leonard
2 tags
france: ten
france: twenty
france: thirty
france: forty
france: fifty
france: sixty
france:
france:
france: sixty ten
world: france what are you do—
france: four twenties
world: france stop it
france: four twenties ten
world: france that doesn't even make any sense
france:
france:
france:
world:
france:
world:
france: hundred.
2 tags
“For natural scientists, [abstraction] is the very core and essence of what they...”
– Charles C. Pinter
3 tags
Playing Beer Pong....
George: Which cup should we take away? The key is to break up clusters, so probably this one or this one...
I: If we take away this one, the resulting clusters are smaller than if we take away that one.
George: Yea, and they're also offset at a greater angle.
Casey: Hey, why did we put the two math nerds on the same team?
George: I am not a math nerd, I'm an ENGINEER!
I: You're a computer scientist. Close enough.
George: Computer ENGINEER.
2 tags
3 tags
2 tags
“The reality of that cup is that it is there and it is not me.”
– Sartre; and so begins my adventure into Being and Nothingness
2 tags
1 tag
“Rebellion comes from the mind. You can’t create it, you just are that way.”
– SLC Punk
1 tag
“You don’t live your life by lyrics.”
– SLC Punk
“My landlord doesn’t take me seriously… Maybe it’s because I...”
– Ìgè
“I’m holding on by letting go of you”
– All-American Rejects
2 tags
Raj: Let's just go walk around and see what's what.
Sheldon: That's a semantically null sentence.
1 tag
3 tags
“Our brains were shaped for fitness, not truth. … We are apt to want our...”
– Steven Pinker, “How the Mind Works”
4 tags
1 tag
2 tags
“Every group is a group of permutations. This great result is a classic theorem...”
– Charles C. Pinter, A Book of Abstract Algebra.
Mathematicians, they know a good time when they see one.