Transneptune

I sat in on a seminar at Berkeley. Fantastic. I feel like a fish back in water, my mind latching on to novel approaches to familiar problems—the Problem, really. Human language, what is its form? What are its possible forms?

There are reasons I love Cyteen.

The department seems to offer the most wonderful mix of field work and cognitive theory. The brain is most certainly not a Von Neumann architecture computer, though I think that the arguments for considering it a species of computer are compelling. And to talk of Language, of course you need a broad spectrum of data.

Posted in life, linguistics. Tags: berkeley, cognitive science, cyteen // 1 Comment »

First impressions: I like this place a lot more. It reminds me of Cambridge, MA: the urban environment is vital, not kept at arm’s length, and has and independent life. Also, the area is denser with people I know—not something to sneeze at.

Yesterday, went to a ling department colloquium, and had great fun there and at the post-talk reception. It had a pervasively academic feel.

I’ve come away from both visits with more targeted ideas of how to write my Statements of Purpose. That’ll be good. If you catch me on I’M the next week or so, yell at me to write. I don’t expect I’ll take much cajoling.

Posted in life. Tags: academia, berkeley // 1 Comment »

Good:

• Awesome research happening here; chances to do grammar induction with sparse data, or, more accurately, work on it.
• They sure have funding.

Bad:

• Beautiful lawns with no one on them.
• Feels like southern California.
• Definitely exclusive; will my patent application make up for my lack of published work?

Posted in life. Tags: california, graduate schools, stanford // 6 Comments »

Well, I feel like I’m officially in the future, now that I have a smartphone.  I got the Droid, a bit of nice Motorola hardware running Google’s nice open-source OS Android, and carried by the icktastic Verizon.  So it goes.

Posted in computers, life. Tags: connectivity addictions, future, phone // 2 Comments »

I spent much of today rewiring the house (with my dad’s assistance, or, more accurately, I was assisting him).  Lots of drilling, crawling in the basement, getting dusty, trying not to inhale fiberglass insulation.  I found it quite fun, but it’s not a usual thing for me, which I suppose makes a difference.  But there was something exciting and satisfying to that kind of work—a nice combination of manual work, and basic network set up of a sort familiar to me.  Satisfying work is satisfying.

Posted in computers, life. Tags: networking, real work // Add Comment »

I am here at Swarthmore, doing some work for Professor K. David Harrison.  It’s fun work, and going well—which is always profoundly satisfying when dealing with programming—but that’s not quite what I’m thinking about.  More interesting to me is that this is the first time I’ve been back on campus not explicitly for a social visit.  In fact, the campus is nearly void of people I know, or at least seems so, after the social busyness of senior year and the fact that every visit in this past year has been filled with other people from my year visiting too, and all of our various friends in 2009 being on campus.  I know relatively few people in 2010.

It’s interesting.  Kinda satisfying.  There are things I like about this place independent of the people, but I can also feel free from it.  I will mull over these thoughts more.  Unsure of them yet.

Posted in life. Tags: swarthmore, visits, work // 6 Comments »

I’ve just rediscovered an old love: Skulls Unlimited.  It’s still fantastic.

Baboon skull

We used to get their catalog, when I was little. It was the best thing ever.

Posted in life. Tags: skulls // 3 Comments »

Yesterday: thirteen vultures circling above us, as we stood on a hilltop overlooking the river, watching the trees turn golden.  At our feet, a dead snake with its head crushed.

On the way home, a fox.

Posted in life. Tags: foxes, omens, snakes, vultures // 1 Comment »

Sometimes, life causes you to make it.  In this case, no Toronto/Montreal trip.  I was in a car accident yesterday.  I wasn’t driving, no one’s hurt.  The car lost the front driver’s side wheel.  That’s what you get when an SUV veers into your lane, and clips you.  And the SUV had only a scratch.  Makes me hate ‘em. The people who drove it were very nice, though.

In any case, thanks for the suggestions on Montreal, and when next I’m there, I’ll act on them.  As it is, this week will be good for getting done all the things I was hoping to defer.

Posted in life. Tags: car accidents, the unexpected, travel // 6 Comments »

I’ll be in Montreal in about a week.  This will be the tail-end of a trip which will include seeing friends in Toronto beforehand, and I know what to do in Toronto, but Montreal is all unknown to me.  What should I do there?  Let me know what’s cool in Montreal.

In other news, vests.  More vests.  Working pocket watch.  I need more nice shirts and ties; I love my black-on-black paisley tie dearly, but I need some variety.  Toronto should help for this.  Perhaps Montreal also has good vintage and used clothing stores?

No news, of course, on the real activity, which is grad school applications.  No news on that for a while, I suppose, which is the frustrating thing.

Posted in life. Tags: grad school, travel, vests // 1 Comment »