After bailing on our planned expedition to Omaha at the Iowa border, we had a very relaxing Christmas day. We went in the early afternoon to catch the first showing of Black Swan, which was incredibly intense. I understand why some reviewers accuse Natalie Portman's acting of being passive, but the visuals combined with the music kept us both on the edges of our seats.
We went back that evening to see The Fighter, which was a good movie, but not a surprise, since you rather expect things to go the way they do. The sisters had to be the best part of the film, sitting on the couch, complaining and organising trouble...
This has to be the first Christmas in years we haven't been up to our ears in family members. I don't expect to set a precedent, but it was a welcome change.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Grades
For anyone who found this and is concerned, I managed to get a 4.0 this (Fall 2010) semester at UIC. In the words of the internet:
Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.
Unknown
So now I am dying to see what it can feel like when I'm in over my head. Registered for 16 credits again, and informally auditing another 3 credit course. So I should be set with Intro to Adv Math, Linear Algebra I, Macroeconomics, Programming Tools, Intro to Probability, and Financial Mathematics. That's 2 graduate level courses and 4 undergrad. Hope it all goes as well this time
.Project Euler
I just advanced to level one on Project Euler, after solving the 25 easiest problems. (Actually, 1-23, 25, and 48).
I'm pretty happy about that, and will be calling it a day right now. I need time to digest these amazing bit-field sieves, where membership is binary. That is way faster than my naive listing of all members and their values...
I'm pretty happy about that, and will be calling it a day right now. I need time to digest these amazing bit-field sieves, where membership is binary. That is way faster than my naive listing of all members and their values...
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Latest Readings
Shame on me for stumbling on something wonderful. I sure am a sucker for koans. (I'm especially a fan of ones where Sussman is the apprentice). But these are fine, too:
Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors
Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Who's your friend?
Anyone who supposes that Facebook's users are its customer has got the business model precisely backwards. Users pay nothing, because we aren't customers, but product. The customers are the advertisers to whom Facebook sells the information users hand over, knowingly or not.
You may think that your Facebook friends care what you're up to, but they'd drop you like a stone if it cost them money to learn you had just become imaginary mayor of an imaginary town, or even that you had just had a row with your mother and slammed the phone down. The only people to whom that information is worth even a fraction of a penny are those who want to take advantage of it to sell you something you don't need – except, that is for your real friends, but imaginary ones are so much more reassuring.
Guardian original article.
You may think that your Facebook friends care what you're up to, but they'd drop you like a stone if it cost them money to learn you had just become imaginary mayor of an imaginary town, or even that you had just had a row with your mother and slammed the phone down. The only people to whom that information is worth even a fraction of a penny are those who want to take advantage of it to sell you something you don't need – except, that is for your real friends, but imaginary ones are so much more reassuring.
Guardian original article.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Full Page Preview
Google Support Forum
I have to say I'm glad I found this. And I'm sad that it's come down to blocking google. This was a major headache as I often scroll through the results using the keys, and each time a new page pops open on the right, which certainly wasn't expected, and nowhere is there a button in search options to disable this. I understand google is under some pressure to be friendly and helpful, but really, a clean simple interface is good for the world, and was google's biggest success. I might have had to find an alternate search site if this was not fixable.
Score one for ad block plus.
urbanrocker
Level 2
11/17/10
The only thing I can suggest is a solution that unfortunately only works for Firefox users however it does in fact work like a charm.
If you have Firefox, you'll need to install the "AdBlock Plus" add-on as well as the ABP 'Element Hiding Helper' extension companion. Once installed, restart and search for anything on google (i.e. "bonsai trees"), then go to the ABP icon in the upper right corner of FF. Click "select an element to hide" and hover over any result on the page or click the magnifying glass icon, a red box will show up over the icon; click it and voila! It's good riddance to this godawful page preview.
Alternatively you can press ctrl+shift+k, hover over a search result until the preview shows up, click on the preview until the red box shows up over the entire thing, click it and all subsequent previews are gone for good.
I have to say I'm glad I found this. And I'm sad that it's come down to blocking google. This was a major headache as I often scroll through the results using the keys, and each time a new page pops open on the right, which certainly wasn't expected, and nowhere is there a button in search options to disable this. I understand google is under some pressure to be friendly and helpful, but really, a clean simple interface is good for the world, and was google's biggest success. I might have had to find an alternate search site if this was not fixable.
Score one for ad block plus.
urbanrocker
Level 2
11/17/10
The only thing I can suggest is a solution that unfortunately only works for Firefox users however it does in fact work like a charm.
If you have Firefox, you'll need to install the "AdBlock Plus" add-on as well as the ABP 'Element Hiding Helper' extension companion. Once installed, restart and search for anything on google (i.e. "bonsai trees"), then go to the ABP icon in the upper right corner of FF. Click "select an element to hide" and hover over any result on the page or click the magnifying glass icon, a red box will show up over the icon; click it and voila! It's good riddance to this godawful page preview.
Alternatively you can press ctrl+shift+k, hover over a search result until the preview shows up, click on the preview until the red box shows up over the entire thing, click it and all subsequent previews are gone for good.
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