5/30/17: The Life of an Academic Socialite

1. 5/30/17: The Life of an Academic Socialite
1. Crazy day! Starts off slow, I wake up late and start on work; but it heats up real fast. I go to a Theory talk that Prof. Suciu mentioned, which is really really fascinating. It’s about extracting information from untrusted data; more precisely, suppose some fraction alpha of your data is drawn from a distribution whose parameters you want to learn; but the rest of your data is either 1) drawn from a different distribution with some constraints or 2) adversarially chosen; the very worst case. Under which circumstances can you recover the parameters of the target data with high accuracy? The game gets even more interesting if you get a constant-size amount of data that you know is drawn from the target distribution. An example is, you have a big pile of Amazon reviews and you want to extract the preferences of the student demographic. But you don’t know which reviewers are students. Turns out, if enough of the reviewers were students, and enough reviewers reviewed multiple products, you can hire a constant number of students (much much smaller than the size of the review dataset) and extract accurate estimates of student preferences even on products that none of your hired students reviewed--all without attempting any classification of the reviewers into students and non-students--using methods in matrix analysis. I thought it was crazy.
2. I talked to Akshay for a bit, then stayed late to ask the fellow a question. He answered me, but then had to go to the Theory lab for the next section of his visit. I shook his hand at the door of the lab, almost left, but then I thought, what am I doing? Why would I pass up this opportunity?!
3. So I crashed the Theory lab, met a bunch of cool people, including one guy Jaden from Thomas’s grad real analysis class and a girl Swati from swing dancing working in convex optimization.
4. From there I wrote an email, changed into nice clothes, and headed to physics to get inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma, the honors society associated with our department :D, along with (of course) Jacob W., Yujin Park, Justin Bureau, and Isaak Nanneman. The one outlier was a dude named Felix Leeb, who I’d never met. Prof. Olmstead ran the ceremony, where we signed our names in a red book from the 30’s--the entertaining bit was that we all couldn’t figure out how to use the twist-tip pen that we got as inductees, to sign the book :D
5. After the ceremony, we dined on delicious food--I got to talk to Logan, a really bright grad student headed to CERN, plus I got to meet Felix. Then Prof. Cobden and research assistants showed up to get the free food, and I got into a good conversation with him and PhD student Boris about the computer vision project. I also managed to ask him about getting paid; unfortunately he says he’s struggling to pay his grad students this summer. I also got to meet a freshman who wants to take grad quantum his first quarter, which is pretty awesome.
6. Dropped off a tray of antipasto at the SPS; took 3 bags of brie, delicious meat rolls, and fresh fruit home; then went to the Glee Banquet (crying laughing emoji)
7. The Banquet fortunately didn’t involve all that much food. Good conversation though! And officer elections for next year were hilarious. I ordered a beer, which was fun.
8. Hit the gym for some awesome games of hoops :D
9. Returned home and started writing down what Jacob and I had come up with for classical mechanics.

5/29/17: Memorial Day Brunch and a Watery Ride O'er Liffy Swells

1. 5/29/17: Memorial Day Brunch and a Watery Ride O'er Liffy Swells
1. Brunch with the Mercer crew! I hustle to pick up my bike from West Campus and then bike back north to get cheap produce at Rising Sun.
1. Pick up Gaya at Terry and proceed to Mercer, where we immediately start cracking (eggs). I delegate the processing of all my veggies to a swarm of eager threads and begin blackening peppers and tomatillos for salsa.
2. Gaya takes up the noble “potato captain” role and busily turns a mountain of diced potatoes into a delicious mountain of cooked and seasoned diced potatoes. Meanwhile, I finish the salsa (will it blend??); my threads terminate with piles of bell pepper and mushroom for the eggs, which Trevor expertly cooks alongside Gaya and myself.
3. We chow down on the eggs and potatoes, as well as a huge pile of waffles Meera has been tossing out from Trevor’s waffle maker.
4. We hang out after for some Cards against Humanity with Gaya’s set.
2. I run over to Maple for tutoring with Shana. We find a study room facing out over the courtyard where a raucous carnival is taking place, shut the window, and get to work. Shana, organized as always, has a long list of problems and concepts to review. It’s a lot of fun, and I pull down a good $33.
3. Head to Terry and study on the roof with Gaya. Then I realize the IMA is closing too soon for me to get in some hoops and become disconsolate; together Gaya and I come up with the tremendous idea of renting a canoe! We go down to the waterfront and rent one--after me getting my Husky card at the gym and randomly running into Professor Domingos; plus an amusing incident where I put my bag on top of a bunch of lockers and it falls behind, so I have to climb up on the lockers and extract it with our canoe paddle’s hooked handle ;P
4. We get out on the water! It’s a beautiful hot day, perfect for splashing each other. We cruise out to the Edgemoor coast, stop in at a posh garden party to ask the time, round the point for a panoramic view of more wealthy neighborhoods (and Rainier), and then row top speed back. Make it back to the Waterfront Activities Center 5 minutes before 8; just before pulling in, I jump out of the canoe and climb back in :D
5. Part with Gaya and bike home soaking wet. The rest is dinner and homework--Classical Mechanics with Jacob in the SPS, which is actually really fun--we learn a lot from each other.

5/28/17: A Beautiful Sunday

1. 5/28/17
1. Spend the Sunday in Bellingham! Have an incredible brunch of eggs Benedict, continue the discussion from yesterday about what research is and how to use it ;) take a NEW HIKE near our house with the family involving a fun conversation with I about her future ambitions as a high school and community college double agent.
2. Return to Seattle. Realize I left my Husky card at the gym, and have to go to Uwajimaya to buy an apple to get cashback to take the bus. Bus back to campus, immediately meet Gaya, who has tried to get at-the-door tickets for a crazy play. But the yokels running the play sold the tickets earlier than announced. We make a lightning dinner of tikka masala eggs and tacos with refried beans, check back at the theater--no cancellation tickets for us--and decide to go to Volunteer park. We pack blanket and frisbee and embark on a bus ride--Gaya convinces the bus driver that I’m a UW student and to let me on for free :D
3. Get off, walk through a beautiful neighborhood to the park. Watch the gorgeous sunset, which Gaya’s logistical genius has set us up for perfectly. Run into Maxwell from CSE, the nice grad student who talked to me about research and ETH. Throw the disk with Gaya and are just about to pull out the Cards against Humanity extension she gave me when we are besieged by storms of bugs. Flee the park swatting and sidestepping. Again, Gaya does the talking and gets me on the bus; back at the U-district, we use the bonus cash to get a giant sampler ice-cream bowl at Full Tilt. Eat it walking to 2104, where we study for a bit; then I walk Gaya back to Terry.