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It’s Peanut-Butta Jelly Time!
Actually, it’s not, but I couldn’t think of a title. Okay. I just got home from work, it’s Finals Week, and there were about… ten people taking calls. That’s friggin’ scary. We normally have a staff of something approaching thirty, and Mondays (along with Wednesdays) are the busiest nights of the week. You couldn’t even hang up before the next call buzzed, and calls were cut off at the half-hour mark. In other news, the swelling in my toe hasn’t gone down a bit, so I’m still wearing one tennis shoe and one slipper when venturing outside of my residence hall. How is it that bruises can make your hairs…
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On Physical Things, Part Deux
I decided I wanted to restart lifting weights. I haven’t done it since being here, just because the SRC is a daunting place for me–people look at you and watch you, and I like to work out in peace. At any rate, I head down to the SRC and get my palm-print recognized and coded so I can get in and I head into the weight room. Oh. My. Damn. Lemme explain something first: at my place in Charlotte, there are simple weight machines; you put the peg in the hole for the weight you want, then use the machine. Simple. And there’s one machine that can do the exercise…
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!!!
A quick note before Calculus: I worked really, really hard on this essay for Richard Powers’ Galatea 2.2 that I just got back from my prof today, right? (I’ll be posting the submitted draft soon.) What’s cool, however, is that my prof suggested that I submit this essay for the Humanities and Social Sciences Essay Contest later this year. My response: (!!!). (This means lots of squeaky happiness and jumping around and waving the essay around.) I’m so on a cloud right now. All the drama of my roommate and her friends, all the difficulty of working with Hitler incarnate on a Logic Design project, and all my worries over…
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Richard Powers’ Galatea 2.2
Featuring the author as the main character, Richard Powers’ Galatea 2.2 is an exploration of the potentials of both artificial intelligence and humans to adapt. The lines defining intelligence and consciousness are challenged and blurred, as are the lines defining the main character’s life. Essentially, two storylines unfold in this novel. The first is the development of a series of artificially intelligent computers, using bottom-up, connectionist techniques, for the purpose of passing the Master’s Comprehensive Exam, an exam given to those going for Master’s degrees in literature. Each implementation is more capable of adapting and learning than the previous, and culminates in the creation of Implementation H, or Helen. Whether…
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Thanksgiving.
It would appear that I will be going home for Thanksgiving. My mother called yesterday and said, “Do you really want to go to Cincinnatti and stay with your Aunt Peaches and all the people she wants to pass you around to?” I told her that, sure, I didn’t mind (although I hate moving from place to place in short jumps–I can’t do hotel-living, even if it’s someone’s house). She asked me if I were given a plane ticket, would I come home. Right then, I felt so bad that I hadn’t at least pretended to be homesick for a while. It’s not that I think she’s been spending her…