Sam's L33t Journal

Sure has been a while since I did one of these, but here are a few recent tidbits.

Teach A Kid to Argue: On why teaching kids good argument skills is a better idea than you might think.

The Upside of Ugly: On plastic surgery and technological solutions to social problems.

Jay-Z’s "99 Problems," Verse 2: A Close Reading With Fourth Amendment Guidance for Cops and Perps: Musical "life lessons for cops and robbers".

The Problem with Witness Testimony: One thing people should keep in mind, especially if they ever serve on a jury in a criminal trial.

The Toothbrush That Saved the ISS: Low-tech solutions in a high-tech setting.

Six Thoughts on the Case of the Breast Feeding Professor: The discussion prompted by this story is way more interesting than the story itself. Also, this.

Why Greece's Neo-Nazis Are So Popular: Not so different from other historical occurences.

Life Spans Shrink for Least-Educated Whites in the U.S.: Dimitri Orlov saw this coming.

The Spiritual Crisis of Zionism: A fascinating essay in response to Beinart's The Crisis of Zionism.

Unfortunately, that last post isn't all that's been on my mind lately. The news has been rather depressing (and/or alarming):

On Monday, a woman was crushed by a three-ton piece of falling concrete in one of the Big Dig road tunnels. Investigators have since found that the tunnel is totally falling apart.

Yesterday, 174 people were killed and 464 injured in a series of bomb attacks on trains in Mumbai.

Today, Israel attacked Lebanon in retaliation for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah guerrillas (backed by Iran). Israel struck hundreds of targets (including the Beirut airport). They've mobilized their reserves in preparation for an attack, and claimed that the terrorists plan to move their hostages to Iran. Sploid has an excellent summary of these events (complete with tinfoil-hattery), cheerily titled World War III.

The price of oil is currently $79.99 a barrel (it hit a peak of $78.35 today).

Today, we give our presentations and pack for the trip. Tomorrow, we depart for the desert. Because of popular demand (and the fact that people were banned from leaving during the last week of work, ruining some people's plans) we will be stopping briefly in Jerusalem, instead of just viewing the city from afar. Yay!

Still doing random Magic stuff... I found a deck with an interesting strategy and modified it so as to make this deck: Red Fattie Speed

This link should open in a new window, do you prefer that or do you prefer my previous style of links?

I will write again when I get back.

Eilat was awesome! This will be another long entry, so I'll dive right in.
*dons livejournal snorkel*
*SPLASH!*


Two Days Ago: Friday, July 16

On Friday, we left the village early in the morning. I was really craving mango, so I had some mango juice on the bus (the driver sells various beverages). We had breakfast at a small restaurant along the way (the food is good, but I'm getting sick of eggs, which we have far too often).

A little later in the morning, we stopped at a store at Yutveta, a dairy farming kibbutz in the middle of the desert. In an amazing coincidence, I met Lee Reis there (I recognized him as someone I knew, but I could not figure out where I knew him from; he remembered me, however). Lee is traveling around Israel with a USY tour. I had not expected to meet someone I knew who was not in our group during the trip, so it was a pleasant surprise. (Xave, Lee sends greetings.)

We arrived in Tel Aviv and had lunch at the field school. (Note: I was mistaken about the nature of the field schools that the group is staying in. The Field Schools, despite their name, are not affiliated with the Weizmann Institute in any way. Rather, they are a series of hostels run by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. We will also be staying at a Field School, the Ein Gedi Field School, on our final, long trip to the desert.)

After lunch, we went swimming and snorkeling in the Gulf of Eilat (part of the Red Sea) at the beach just across the street from the Field School. The coral was beautiful, and there were fish of almost every imaginable size, shape, and color. The day was very hot and windy (felt like 45° C (113° F) with wind heat factor), so the cool water was very refreshing.

Afterwards, I took a walk with some other participants down to a local store for a snack. (I got a mango smoothie.)

In the evening, we went to the Texas Ranch for dinner. The ranch was a movie set for some old western. Afterwards, it was purchased by its current owners and turned into a restaurant and tourist attraction. The town looked like something straight out of the stereotypical Wild West, but with camels and Israeli food. After dinner there was dancing, disco style. I really wasn't in the mood for dancing, but the music was good (although it made me really miss DDR, especially since they played "Long Train Runnin'" and "Heaven").

At about 10:30, we went downtown to enjoy Eilat's night life. There was shopping, food, and even a miniature amusement park. The decision of whether to get something alcoholic (as some of my peers were doing; the drinking age is 18 in Israel) was made easy by the fact that I didn't have my ID (I had removed it from my wallet when I went to the beach, as a precaution in case I lost the wallet). I got another mango smoothie instead (I really ODed on mango that day). I also went on a spinning swings ride (swings hang down from a circular base that spins, it was like the "Yo-Yo" at Geauga Lake / Six Flags Ohio before Six Flags removed it). The ride was fun, and the nostalgia made up for the fact that it was a little expensive (although I probably was the only one on the ride who was over the age of ten).

We returned to the Field School by bus (although a few participants stayed out later and took a cab home), and went to sleep.


Yesterday: Saturday, July 17

On Saturday, after breakfast at the Field School, we spent most of the day on a cruise in the Gulf of Eilat. The morning was spent touring the Gulf. Some people, not including me, went tubing (riding rubber "tire tubes" pulled behind a motor boat) or riding on banana boats (rubber cylindrical tubes pulled behind a motor boat). After a while, the boat stopped, and there was an opportunity for swimming off of the boat, which was a lot of fun. Lunch was served on the boat, and it was quite good. After lunch, I and some other people went parasailing. (Parasailing is flying on a harness under a parachute pulled by a motorboat. By changing the length of the line between the boat and the parachute and the speed and direction of the boat, the driver of the boat can control the altitude and motion of the sailing person.) The ride was an incredible rush, gliding down to skim the water and then shooting up to look down at the town from above, and well worth the cost (120 NIS ≈ $30 US). I'm not a roller-coaster person, as I dislike rides that make me feel like I am falling, but I love rides that make me feel like I am flying. Afterwards, the ship headed in, and we saw dolphins swimming just a few meters from the boat as we entered the marina.

After the cruise, we returned to the field school, packed, and headed "home." We stopped at another field school above a gigantic crater in the desert for dinner and to view the crater from an overlook.


Today:

Only a few days of lab work remain. I am working on image completion again. My lab partner came up with a different algorithm for image completion that is incredibly efficient, so I am doing some further experimentation with this algorithm. This afternoon, there is a lecture on "Chaos in Science."

Today, I finished the motion recognition program, updated my lists, and read back-issues of Penny Arcade, which is very funny.

Tonight is Israeli night, which means falafel and Israeli dancing, so that ought to be fun.

We leave for Eilat Friday morning.

In conclusion, Tycho is a Kender rogue.

I had an interesting debate about free will today. I've thought a lot about the subject in the past, and my conclusion is that free will does not exist, but that people are unable to not believe in it. Fortunately, even if free will does not exist, the illusion of free will serves the same practical purpose. Never stop thinking that you are able to choose.

Today was mostly uneventful. I made more progress on my image completion work, but its still a long way from done. I feel proficient with MATLAB now, although I still don't fully understand the theoretical component of what I am working on.

In the afternoon, the group visited the Garden of Science (another link), the World's only fully outdoor science museum, located right next to the "village" where we are staying. It was a lot of fun, and I recommend that you visit if you are ever in Rehovot. The Weizmann House, which we visited on our initial tour of the campus, is also good if you are interested in that sort of thing (I sort of am, but I didn't enjoy it as much because I had already seen far to much of that in Boston with my family).

Tomorrow, we travel to the North of Israel to the Sea of Galilee and the surrounding area. I don't know whether I'll have Internet access there, but I'll post again when I can.

Only two days remain before my birthday.

Two magic decks I worked on today: Big Affinity and Tempting Whispers

Today was pretty relaxing. I got my kit of stuff, which includes a map and a really nice hat.

The group spent the morning attending lectures on the different research projects, and the afternoon interviewing with the project coordinators who will make the project assignments.

I interviewed with the Mathematics and Computer Science Coordinator. My top 5 project choices were:
1. Image Completion Using Multiscale Interpolation (Computer Vision)
2. Using Genetic Algorithms to Solve a Simplified Version of the Protein Folding Problem (Genetic Algorithms)
3. Reconstructing Motions from Data Recorded from a Sensor Glove (Data Recording)
4. Identifying Objects in a Database from an Image Despite Arbitrary Lighting (Computer Vision)
5. Proving that a Simplified Version of a Game of Minesweeper is NP-Complete (Complexity Theory)

The interviewer seemed impressed by my ComSci knowledge (I think I am the only serious Computer Science person in the program, or at least one of a few) and offered me number 3 as I was telling him my choices (It wasn't mentioned in the lectures, and I only had four projects chosen at the time).

After my interview, I took a walk to get my glasses fixed (I lost a nosepiece). The walk was long, and I wasn't sure of the directions, but I was finally sucessful. The walk would have been really nice, except that it is so hot and humid here (remember: hat, water bottle, sunscreen). At least the buildings are all air-conditioned.

( Extended Weather Forcast )

Tonight, a party. And project assignments will be revealed.