Tuesday, April 7, 2015

UW Update Monday 4/6/15

1.     UW Update Monday 4/6/15
a.     Woke, breakfasted on Raisin Bran with chocolate milk quietly as Jamie slept, and went to physics.
b.     More stuff on experimental results leading to quantum mechanics.
c.      Went to linear. Turned out Devin from the SPS camping trip is in my section—chatted a bit before class began. Went through some applications of linear systems, mostly stuff I had figured out doing the exercises or seen before, but I kept alert trying to hone my intuition of how systems behave. Amazing simple algorithm catches all the weird things that can happen with linear systems, if you know how to interpret the results.
d.     Hung out in the CSE atrium (realized why it was so nice in there. Massive skylight composed of transparent roofing panels). Worked through the supplemental reading Garcia made to explain Fourier series. Interesting stuff.
e.     Grabbed lunch at the BBQ truck and headed down to Lunchbox. Unfortunately, the visiting professor had missed his flight and Lunchbox had moved to Wednesday. Picked up John, who was hanging out in the SPS for the seminar, and joined Brandon (who had committed to be at the HUB every weekday at 12:30 on the Physics 12xB Facebook) at the tables outside the HUB. John had some interesting tidbits about the ways different browsers behave under very low memory conditions (he had accidentally maxed out his swap memory with too many chrome tabs). Also chatted with him about housing.
f.      Went to CSE. Ayush was sitting in, so I talked to him and set up lunch for tomorrow. Chatted a bit with Irena. Lecture was about Boolean algebra—an interesting way to encode logic in quasi-arithmetic.
g.     On the way out, talked with Johan, who convinced me to sign up for the DubHacks hackathon on the weekend of May 17th.
h.     Returned to dorm, read through Garcia’s interference supplement (mostly review).
i.       Went down to the Comotion Makerspace with Brandon for a safety orientation. Really nice space—they have art materials as well, and lots of tables that would be nice for studying while working on a project. Checked out the shiniest tech—3D printers, as well as this crazy laser cutter machine that can cut super intricate patterns out of materials as solid as quarter-inch plywood.
j.       Returned to dorm. Hung out in lounge. Chatted with Eleanor and August, read Mindstorms, and watched the beginning of the NCAA finals (nobody else was watching L).
k.     Texted Issa, and we grabbed some dinner at the 8. Talked about housing, the Gwern Homelessness Journal, the Math 33x series, and some Quora personalities (one of whom was visiting Issa this evening). Issa showed interest in talking to Chase since he’s seen me talking to Chase a couple times.
l.       Watched the end of the NCAA finals. Super dramatic, and a lot of people were there.
m.   Went to Badminton Club. Hadn’t been there for a while, but actually got into several games and played pretty well. Why is it that when I take a hiatus from a sport (this happened to me with fencing a couple times) I return better than I left? Talked to Derek, who I learned was trying to get into CS, super friendly guy. Met a few more people: Enki, Sarah, Mike (who gave me a few tips).
n.     Returned to dorm the long way, along the Burke-Gilman trail. The trail is dark and majestic, and few joggers perturbed my walk. Grabbed a shake at Rick’s (Milkshake Monday! $0.50 off!) and enjoyed it while finishing The Gwern Homelessness Journal.
Took a shower, then wrote this log and let my mind diffuse into the void. 

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