Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Missing Out

I was sitting in class today, listening to Bob give a
tremendous and beautiful overview of the course so far. I
noticed that some students were reading, or doing other
homework. I was so annoyed that they were not paying
attention, and were missing such beautiful lecture. I then
smiled at myself, and wondered how many (hundreds of) times
I have missed beautiful things occurring around me because I
was looking elsewhere (or not looking at all).


"Tell me and I will forget
Show me and I will remember
Involve me and I will understand"
--Confucius

Monday, February 21, 2005

Britten

There's a wonderful public library next to CMU called the
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. It has a good collection,
really nice reading spaces with cushy black chairs, and even
a cafe! More importantly, they have a really good music
collection. I've been listening to a lot of chamber music
lately. I kind of exhausted the collection (which now
resides on my hard drive...) and so recently I grabbed some
cds I didn't think I would like, mostly out of my innate
greediness. I was right about most of them, but I was
floored by Benjamin Britten's "Simple Symphony". Listen
to "Sentimental Sarabande". It's so transparent and, well,
simple, but so beautiful...

"What is that?" Alessandro asked, pointing at a huge, round,
plug-like, hide case bound with straps.

"That's my suitcase," Orfeo replied, as if Alessandro were very stupid.

"Yes, but it has hair on it. I've never seen a suitcase
with hair on it."

"Untanned hides are the strongest," Orfeo replied. "These
are the kind of suitcases Americans carry,but Americans leave
the heads and tails on."

-- Helprin


At the aviary...

Friday, February 18, 2005

Weird

So I really messed up yesterday. There's a reall nice
woman across the hall from me in Wean. She's always super
nice and we talk from time to time. It turns out she's into
numerology and astrology, so she asked when I was born. I
wrote an email to my mom asking her.

From: seanmcl@cs.cmu.edu
Subject: birthtime
Date: February 15, 2005 4:17:13 PM EST
To: cjhumphreys@earthlink.net

Hi Mom,

I have this kind of weird friend who does numerology and
stuff and wants to know when I was born, clock-wise. Do you
remember? How's everything going. I'm falling behind in
school again ((sigh)) See you soon!

Smiles,

Sean

When she replied, of course I forwarded the answer. Doh!
So my friend replied with "So do I qualify as your weird
friend?". Obviously I hurt her feelings. So I'm a
jackass. But I started thinking about it. It's just not
nice to call people "weird" or whatever, even in what was
meant as private communication where she was not suppose to
be involved. I'm a little disappointed in myself that I
have such labels attached to people in my mind. In this
case, it's not a big deal, as there's nothing wrong with
being "weird". In fact, probably most of the people I
admire most can have that word applied to them. But in
general, I think I have flippant epithets labeling people
who I genuinely like and care about. Maybe everyone does
this to some extent, but I need to be more careful about
what I say. But that's the point! It should never even
occur to me to say mean things about other people behind
their back. Grrr... I'm really embarrassed about this.

On a lighter note, I was with a friend at blockbuster. We
were trying to pick out a movie, and it was clear she didn't
really care. I kept trying to make her decide though, so I
said "OK, I'll give you a choice of 3 things I want to see,
and you can pick one."
"OK"
"I-Robot, Return of the King, or the Crow". (I was in an
escapist mood).
"Um... how about I give you three choices and
you can pick one"
"Great!" (Finally, some display of interest.)
"I-Robot, Return of the King, or the Crow".

Ha! I'm still smiling about that.


"A number of my fellow religious-studies students--muddled
agnostics who didn't know which way was up, who were in the
thrall of reason, that fool's gold for the bright--reminded
me of the three-toed sloth; and the three-toed sloth, such a
beautiful example of the miracle of life, reminded me of
God."
--Yann Martel, Life of Pi


Panther Hollow in the fog.


Amazing sunset on the way home...


Everglades buddies.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Helprin

Alessandro's father is dying in an Italian hospital. De
Roos is his doctor. From "A Soldier of the Great War".

"You see, Alessandro, what it all comes to?" he asked,
glassy-eyed.
"Papa," Alessandro said. "Forgive me."
"For what?" his father asked, as his head rested on Alessandro's
shoulder and Alessandro grasped him forcefully.
"For being young when I'm old?"
"Yes."
"I won't forgive you for that." His father took a breath as
the thermometer was withdrawn, fell back, and looked at his
son.
"It's my salvation."

De Roos took Alessandro aside and they spoke in the
considered manner of young men who are given the task of
controlling events that they do not yet comprehend and that
they do not yet know are uncontrollable. The attorney
Giuliani understood this, and had seen it a dozen times
before. He didn't blame them for their efforts. To the
contrary, he was seduced by the hope that seemed to come to
them so easily. He knew that to guide themselves when they
couldn't see, to be firm in the face of the unknowable, and
to do what was right when they didn't know what it was, they
-- even the doctor -- had to posture. When he saw that
Alessandro was trying to do the impossible, he realized that
Alessandro was moved by love. He understood that Alessandro
knew, and yet did not know, that they would soon part
forever. Above all, the posturing alerted him. He
recognized the tone into which Alessandro had been forced,
for, once, a long time before, he had been forced into it
himself.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Desultory

I subscribe to the Merriam-Webster Word-of-the-Day.
Today's is:

desultory \DEH-sul-tor-ee\ adjective

*1 : marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose
2 : not connected with the main subject
3 : disappointing in progress, performance, or quality

Example sentence:

"His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has
amassed a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge which would
astonish his professors."
(Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet")

Did you know?

The Latin adjective "desultorius," the parent of
"desultory," was used by the ancients to refer to a circus
performer (called a "desultor") whose trick was to leap from
horse to horse without stopping. It makes sense, therefore,
that someone or something "desultory" jumps from one thing
to another. ("Desultor" and "desultorius" are derived from
the Latin verb "salire," which means "to leap.") A desultory
conversation leaps from one topic to another, and doesn't
have a distinct point or direction. A desultory student
skips from one subject to another without applying serious
effort to any one. A desultory comment is a digressive one
that jumps away from the topic at hand. And a desultory
performance is one resulting from an implied lack of steady,
focused effort.

Besides being interesting, (and having a quote, not only
from, but about Sherlock Holmes!), I feel that my own
education is decidedly desultory. Especially college. But
perhaps, that's what college is for. I'm still so spread
out in life, not sure what to spend my time on. On the one
hand, there is so much interesting stuff out there, on the
other, it is the deep, not the broad that change the world.
Do I want to change the world? No, I don't think so. I
just want to love what I'm doing. I'm not all there yet.

I had an interesting dentist appointment today. I was
getting some fillings replaced. My dentist has a great
bedside manner, looks me in the eye when speaking to me,
always shakes my hand when I come in, etc. He has some kids
on Wall Street that are raking in the dough. (That piqued my
jealousy a bit... Me? Wall Street?) But while he was doing
the filling, he kept chewing out the assistant for not doing
things exactly right. So I was conflicted about this. On
the one hand, he's a totally competent and serious fellow
who knows how to do a great job. On the other had, he was
pretty brutal to her. (Indeed, even I could tell she wasn't
very facile with the tools...grrr...) I just felt really
bad for her. She started to get defensive, which was the
wrong approach, because he is indeed the master of the
situation. I'm just not sure if I like how he handled it,
or not. I wanted her to be doing the right thing, believe
me, so perhaps she needed to be scolded. But I still
squirmed a bit. It was thought provoking anyway.
My teeth feel great too...:)



"In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French;
I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own
language." -- Mark Twain

The sunrise out my window...

Friday, February 11, 2005

Gross

OK, I don't mean to be gross, but this
sex book
needs to be read by all.
Chapter : Gnarly Sex Germs
A letter to the author:


"Dear Paul,
I'm a pretty responsible and selective guy. I get tested
for AIDS every year and make sure that my partners have
been tested too. Is there any need for me to use condoms?


Dear Clean,
I just returned from a speaking engagement at Portland
State University, where campus health workers estimate that
fifty percent of the student population has a sexually
transmitted disease known as papilloma or HPV. One of the
problems with papilloma, besides the fact that there are
more than seventy known strains of it, is that it causes up
to 95% of the cases of cancer of the cervix and it has been
linked with cancer of the penis and cancer of the head and
throat.
Another study in Balitmore found that 40% of inner-city
teens have chlamydia, which is also a sexually transmitted
infection. So if you are traveling to Portland or
Baltimore, you'll probably want to put a condom on in the
morning, right after you put on your socks."

Yikes! Do I know any one from PSU?

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Teaching

Teaching is hard. I just had a difficult TA session. The
topic was "Algebraic Logic". The point is to model
constructive proof theory in lattices or algebras and prove
things about the theory using the model. There are nice
results, and beautiful mechanics, but I don't think I was
very convincing of the fact. I tried to give a motivation
for why we do this stuff at all. That inevitably turned out
to be too general and handwavy. I'd then try to give
explicit examples, but these usually didn't captivate the
notion well. Thus, I kind of floundered between the too
general and too specific. I thought Bob's presentation was
immaculate yesterday, but many students claimed today not to
have understood what he was talking about. It started going
better, I think, when we started just doing basic symbol
manipulation exercises. But that's kind of a cop-out, for
you needn't understand anything to play with symbols, though
it seems on the surface like you're doing something. I need
to plan more. On the positive side, I'm getting used to
making mistakes at the blackboard and being corrected
without losing my train of thought.


I'm listening to Karajan's

St. Matthew Passion
right now.
It's a bit slow and languid in places, but damn,
some of it is just spectacular, eg. the bass arias.


An amazing picture of the sky with a "second sun". How did
that happen!?!.


My favorite photograph of all time:

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Birth Control



In my bathroom is an excellent and funny book about all
aspects of human sexuality. I just read a poignant quote
about birth control:


"Researcher Meg Gerrard spoke to college students about sex
and birth control. Later, she gave a series of follow-up
tests about what she had presented. She found that students
who felt less comfortable about their own sexuality
remembered significantly less about birth control, even if
they were A students in other subjects. On the other hand,
students who scored highest on measures of sexual
self-esteem wee able to remember the most about birth
control.


These findings were just as true for men as for women.
Gerrard found that while being uncomfortable about sex is not
enough to keep a person from having sex, it is enough to
keep him or her from using birth control."
--The Guide to Getting it On



Here's a good site for a little blurb about most methods of
birth control.


Saturday, February 05, 2005

Hormander

I'm spending the next 10 days in a frenzied attempt to
finish the Hormander real quantifier elimination algorithm
in HOL-Light. John is coming out with another release next
week and I want this to be in there. I spent all day, minus
a beautiful walk in Frick Park, working on it. I'm thinking
another 8 12-hour days and I'll be close. This project is
so typical of my innate procrastination. I was always
afraid to start/continue it because it takes me so long to
understand what is going on. If I just sit down and do the
darn work it goes smoothly. Well, at least there's visible
progress. More discipline needed...


I went to the Frick automobile museum during my walk
through the park. It was awesome! The first room has these
amazing old horse-drawn carriages. The second is full of
old Rolls-Royces and other early fancy cars. I won't forget
my camera next time I go.


"Paradoxically, then, William's great gift--for
confabulation-- which has been called out to leap
continually over the ever-opening abyss of amnesia--
William's great gift is also his damnation. If only he
could be \textit{quiet}, one feels, for an instant; if only
he could stop the ceaseless chatter and jabber; if only he
could relinquish the deceiving surface of illusions--then
(ah, then!) reality might seep in; something genuine,
something deep, something true, something felt, could enter
his soul."

--- Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat


A lucky shot out the UHaul window when I was moving to Astoria.

Friday, February 04, 2005

Randomness

I went running today! It was the first time since I
sprained my ankle hopping down the Wean stairs last Monday.
It's been years since I've gone 10 days without running.
Spraining my ankle turned out to be somewhat of a blessing.
I started doing yoga and pranayama in the morning. Plus,
I've been going to bed at 10 and waking up a little before
7. Almost 9 hours of sleep! I'll have to cut myself off
pretty soon, as it seems a bit extravagant, but my schedule
is good. Yoga until 8, then work 8-12. Then I go to school
and my productivity is shot until about 6. I've been
getting a couple of good hours in before 9:30 when I shut
the lid. It feels great to be on a schedule.


I had to guard the door tonight at the Google TG. I've
decided I don't really like having power over others. (Or
maybe it's responsibility I'm afraid of...) I liked
Minsky's comment about running the AI lab at MIT.
Something along the lines of, "It was nice to have John
(McCarthy) or some other director around. We had to tell
perfectly good people that we didn't want them any more.
I'd just hide and get some work done while they did the
dirty work. I hate having power. I've met some people that
really like it. I advise you to avoid those people at all
costs..." It was really funny. His talk was one of the
strangest I've ever seen.


I'm happy with Amnesty International. It feels like I'm
doing something when I write to some senator or government
official (last week was Condoleezza Rice). I know it's not
much, but writing letters seems like a direct way to be a tiny voice
of the republic; a way apart and in some sense totally
different than voting.


Enough randomness for one night... It's almost 10!


Sara on my new yoga mat.


No, really, I sprained my ankle.


The trees in some park where Allie and I went hiking. (I forgot the name...)



Thursday, February 03, 2005

"sorry"

I was helping Stephanie learn gdb in my office hour today.
I set up two monitors and keyboards so we could both type
and see the same emacs window. I was having trouble getting
afs give me correct file permissions so I could run gdb on
her file. I was swearing at my monitor. She quickly
started typing and the word "sorry" came up at the bash
prompt. It was so unexpected and cute... :)

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

glass

I've got a piece of glass in my toe. I can't get it out. I googled to try to figure out if I should be worried. I came upon this funny story: The dangers of broken glass...

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Mistakes

I'm a TA for
Robert Harper's
course in constructive logic. He is
probably the best teacher I've ever had.
(For the cognoscenti, he is an author of the definition of
Standard ML ,
a founder of

logical frameworks
in their current form, and is a
pioneer of many other concepts in programming languages.
I had him for a
type systems course last semester. He spends hours
preparing each lecture, and has the entire scope of each
course prepared in his mind before he begins the
semester. The homeworks and final exam for type systems were all
inspired. I learned so much. Perhaps that's why I was so
shocked when he got mixed up today. He was lecturing on
normal derivations. He got some of the rules mixed up in
the beginning and was caught by the other TA shortly
thereafter. (I was frantically writing the next homework
assignment, so wasn't paying much attention at this point in
the narrative.) He recovered from that, but got mixed up by
some repeated questions by students further on in the
lecture. The questions all centered around the reason for
distinguishing normal proofs in the first place. He started
explaining, and stopped. Started a different way... and
stopped. It was really interesting to see his response.
He asked someone in the class to help him out. He could
easily have waved his hands and gone on. I'm certain no one
would have noticed. But instead, he apologized for
confusing people (after one question, he prefaced his answer
with "I'm the reason you're confused"). The class happened
to end at this point, and we adjourned. At the TA meeting
later that day he explained what he was trying to present.
He had actually solved the problem at a much deeper level,
but knew he couldn't use his solution. An easy one existed,
though, and he didn't come up with it. Noticeably
embarrassed, he told us that once
you lose your focus in lectures it can be hard to get on
track again.


This experience was thought provoking for a number of
reasons. First, it's nice to know that even people as
brilliant as RWH and as well prepared as I know he was
makes mistakes! That is probably the shallowest
observation however. The beauty of it was how he humbly
asked for help from the class. There was no sense of
egotism. He was very honest in the fact that he had
confused himself, and promised to present a clear account at
the next lecture. He immediately revised his notes on the
web, and told us (the TAs) how to present the problem
tomorrow. I was, again, thoroughly impressed with how he
handled the entire situation.


I saw the Kalichstein, Laredo, Robinson Trio play Mozart,
Danielpour and Brahms last night. Jaime Laredo played and
recorded with Harold Wright at Marlboro. It was cool to see
him in person. Kalichstein was my favorite by far. I
haven't heard him since I saw him at Carnegie Hall playing
Schumann. The Danielpour was my favorite of their
performances. The piece was called "A Child's Reliquary"
(1999), commissioned for their trio. It was really
fantastic. It was an interesting contrast from the
Gondoliers (community theater) this weekend ((sigh)).


I accidentally listened to Leon Fleisher play Mozart with
Szell and Cleveland. I forgot what a beautiful player he
is. I was so inspired to practice.


I reorganized my room so that I can do yoga. It's working
pretty well. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up a home
practice this time.


"... I feel myself a naturalist and a physician both; and
that I am equally interested in diseases and people;
perhaps too, that I am equally, if inadequately, a
theorist and dramatist, am equally drawn to the scientific
and the romantic, and continually see both in the human
condition, not least in that quintessential human
condition of sickness--animals get diseases, but only man
falls radically into sickness."
-- Oliver Sacks, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat"