Miss Piggy Lunchbox

They let me graduate.

So yesterday (Thursday) at about 6:00 I finally finished off the results/discussion chapter of my thesis.  I had been painstakingly running experiment after experiment and validating results every step of the way, but I finally ran “every” experiment I needed.  I actually think my advisor will think of more for me to run and, in fact, I can think of one set of experiments I need to run to demonstrate a certain aspect of my thesis.

So that’s a milestone.  All that I’ve got left to write (for the first time) is the literature review, intro, and conclusion.  Yeah, just starting the lit review now.  I wonder how common that is in academia, to write the part that talks about what others have done before you after you did what you did.  I mean, I don’t expect any surprises…if somebody had already done this my advisor or reader probably would have known about it.

Anyway, the real good news coming out of yesterday (Thursday) is that one particular experiment went the way I wanted it.  See, my implementation approaches the sequence labeling problem with a pipeline of classifiers focused on different entities in the larger information extraction problem.  This pipeline division of labor was created in the spring when a larger team was attacking the problem and we needed to divide up the person-labor.  That made sense for distributing work in the spring, but it’s a ridiculous reason for the design an algorithm.  So my advisor pointed this out and I needed to run an experiment that was essentially the same approach as mine except used a single classifier to find all entities at once instead of multiple classifiers over the pipeline.  I really need the numbers to be worse to justify my entire thesis.  They were.  So that was nice, too.

————-

Okay, so all of the above was drafted Thursday night and planned for publication on Friday.  But when I got home from campus on Friday afternoon and set out to work, I found out that the fan in my computer had given up the ghost and as a result the machine refused to start.

Can you believe that?  Is this out of a movie or what?  On Sunday the server at school went down.  Sunday and Tuesday nights were filled with the Internet connection to our house not working for long but intermittent periods.  And now my machine up and croaks.  All of this happening between one and two weeks before the end of the quarter.  Seriously, life, should I line up my balls for you so next time you can really kick ‘em square?

So I pulled apart my computer and tried to clean out the fan myself, but that didn’t do anything.  I don’t think it’s just plugged with dust…I think it’s dead.  I considered ordering a part over eBay but realized I’d probably screw that up.  So I took it into a place and they said they’d get back to me in three days…with an estimate.  And to get the estimate they only needed the part number.  Which I had because I had taken apart the computer.  But they still said three days.  I also had to sign something that said they weren’t liable for damage to my machine or data due to, among other things, “employee mistakes.”  I pointed out to the employee and could barely contain myself from laughing.  What a joke.  This laywerism gone too far is courtesy of eBits on Capitol Hill by the way.  Whatever.

Then I drove to Best Buy to buy a new machine.  In rush hour.  On a Friday.  In December.  By a mall.

Then I decided I didn’t like any of those machines and felt emotionally unstable anyway, so I took My Baby up on her offer to send a co-worker home with her computer for me to use (she had already left town for the weeKENd).  And I found a buddy who would let me use his, too.  This all came together simultaneously.

So anyway, since then I’ve written the intro, lit review, and conclusion, and put references in all over my paper.  I’ve also implemented the feedback I had on every chapter except one.  I have not run any of those other experiments yet, but finishing those up as well as going through that final chapter are my priorities for tomorrow (Sunday).

As if my emotional management weren’t tenuous enough, not only have I had to deal with this huge hindrance to me completing my degree on time, but even as I’m moving forward again I also have to deal with losing my computer.  It could have been worse, I know.  I had backed up the whole thing last Sunday and had e-mailed out the latest version of the document so I was able to retrieve that.  Still, though, I can’t handle this losing my computer thing.  It’s a symptom of the times were in as well as my lifestyle, but I am directionless and lost without my computer.  It’s how I organize my day, my finances, etc.  All of my reminders are on it in a complex organizational system that keeps me moving forward.  So even if I go get a new computer I’ll have to restructure everything, plus what happens to everything else going on now…that’s information that’s now on My Baby’s backup computer.

Plus just once I’d like to move to a new machine without killing the old one.  After those punks stole our extra computer in September I was looking forward to getting a new machine and moving the one that died yesterday into the role of watching baseball on, but now even with the next machine I’m back to no baseball computer.  That’s not the worst thing, it’s just one more thing.

Anyway, life, you know.

Oh, I did baby laundry for the first time this weekend ‘cuz we got a bunch of second hand clothes.  Apparently there is a law that baby clothes have to have animals on them.  You didn’t hear me say this, but it was awfully cute.  Felt kinda great…I’m sure that won’t last.

So this will probs be my last post for a while.   I hope to be back to tell you about the best albums of 2009 and make some MPL mixes for the year.  And if I graduate I’ll pop in to let you know.  Otherwise I won’t.

Clear as a bell and cold the last week-and-a-half.  I love it.  Feels like winter.

One of the things I always wanted to do when we lived in Boston was to go out and photograph all the Squares I could find.  Which would have been a lot of them.  You see, in the Boston area virtually every intersection, no matter how small, is a Square named after somebody.

A recent article in the Globe tells the story behind a few of them.

Cambridge seems to have more squares than nearby towns, with some intersections accommodating two squares and one corner.

And sometimes that intersection is the corner of Tremont and Tremont.

We’ve had a bit of a problem with the killing of cops here in the Pacific Northwest this fall, and my neighborhood has been right in the middle of it.

The Seattle officer that was gunned down with no provocation was stopped just six blocks or so away from here when he lost his life.  There was a police truck, memorial, and round-the-clock news coverage on the scene 24 hours a day for the next week.

And the one you heard about, the nut who killed those four officers, also completely without provocation, in Lakewood last Sunday was hiding out in one of his family member’s houses a couple of blocks closer to me than where the first cop was killed.  Our neighborhood was shut off all night last Sunday night with a traffic stop two houses away, cop cars and motorcycles speeding past, two helicopters overhead, and the sounds of the police trying to force him out with loudspeakers.  I drove through in the morning on the way to campus just after they went into the house to find out he’d escaped and it was another zoo of police and media.

It sounds like they got their man in both cases, the first alive and the second dead.

I have to have everything signed off on by next Friday, December 18, if I want to graduate this quarter.  It’s not looking likely…I’m still running stupid experiments and writing first drafts of some sections.  The intro, lit review, and conclusion are going to have to be written very quickly, so I’ll need to get a little lucky on those.

At the moment I’m pushing for a 6 PM deadline, at which point my advisor will get on a flight to India, a trip she won’t return from until after the 18th.  She said she’d get me feedback by the 16th.  The signature pages are being held hostage by the department admin until an e-mail comes from my advisor okay’ing my thesis.

The point of this post is that I have 18.5 hours to really get a good version of this thing e-mailed off.

Although I am older than I seem
At least I have some hopes and know to dream
…
You only have so long to live
So surround yourself with friends who can forgive

- “Heavier Than 3 Lbs.”

Remember that band in high school that was sooooo good you just couldn’t figure out why they weren’t huge?  That’s A Man About A Horse…except now they’re not sleeping with your girlfriend because they’re half your age.  On second thought, they’re probably still sleeping with your girlfriend.

The feel of this album is that of youthful exuberance so contagious you can’t help but look forward to everything before you in life.  If the world has produced this out of a set of kids, how can the upcoming generation of musicians, nay, artists, inventors, and statespeople, not completely change everything for the better?

That’s the sort of generational belief an album like this instills.  Every listen reveals some new point of excellence.  There are ten great songs, all with an inventive style that keeps things fresh and hooks that won’t leave you alone spread over 40 minutes of well-structured composition.  The lyrics are just as fantastic and varied.  You’d think that the “how do you talk to girls” song had been overdone, but vocalist Josh Castillo makes you think he’s the only guy who’s ever had trouble with the ladies on “Body Trembles.”  Then there’s the genius simultaneous punch to the gut, slap to the funny bone, and scratch to the head of “Purple Leaf”: “I have only one thing that I can truly give to you/If I could be so bold/It’s not my heart or some bullshit cliche line like that/It’s worth more than my heart/It’s a single purple leaf that grows beneath the Ponderosa tree.” The product really does belie the youth of its generators.

As good as it is, and it’s great, with 17 years between you and high school you can now start to hear maybe why these guys aren’t quite having money thrown at them just yet.  The sound is a little thin and unsatisfying, sometimes leaving a feeling of true greatness lying just out of reach.  Vocalist Josh Castillo’s voice is fine but he’s pushing his range here and can’t always get to where he wants to go.  I find that effect endearing and part of the whole contagious youthfulness thing, particularly on the amazing “Hopeless Bird,” but now I understand it’s not a recipe for general audience success.

It’s still a little mind-boggling that these guys aren’t monster huge, though.  There’s clearly enough talent here to garner widespread appeal.  Camille Paglia has said that rock musicians are America’s greatest resource, and she’s probably right.  Technology has gone a long way toward more efficient development of those resources, but for the second time this year I find myself torn between elation at having discovered a true gem in a sea of mediocre music and cynicism at how hard it is for truly great bands to get their deserved spoils.

Rating:
  
Mixers: “Heavier Than 3 Lbs.,” “Hopeless Bird”
Keepers: everything else
Filed Between: Malfunkshun (Friendship Ring) and Marilyn Manson (Lunchbox)

The best thesis is a done thesis.  The best thesis is a done thesis.

Man, these things take forever.