#how to convert from string to number
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How many worms on strings must it take to fill a trench coat so they are able to buy a movie ticket?
spectacular question.
first we need to know the average volume of a standard worm. keeping in mind that a worm is generally less than a gram in weight, that volume could be really small if you sincerely compressed it—so for these measurements, we are assuming that none of our worms in the trench coat are compressed. we're not packing them in there like straw, they're all standing on each other's heads to puppet the trench coat.
assuming this, then, i divided up a single worm into eight segments that could each be approximated to be about the shape of a uniform cylinder, calculated the volume of each of those cylinders, and then added the total volume up. in all, our uncompressed worm came out to about 38.27 cm^3. diagram below:
(a string was used to take the circumference at the midpoint of each segment, and these were then used to calculate the diameter of each segment for the volume calculation.)
okay. we're going to say that the worms are occupying your average adult male-fit trench coat. they would be looking to fill about 80kg worth of space there, 80,000 cm^3. (1 kg = 1,000 cm^3 at human body density). but we need to subtract the legs, because they are most certainly going to have the trench coat drag on the ground. so:
one total leg would come out to about 13.488 kg of your body. double that, and we are subtracting 26.976 kg from our estimated weight. they also would not fill out the hands, so we're taking off a tiny bit more in the form of 1.04 kg. we're leaving the head in the calculation, because i presume they will be filling out an inconspicuous hat too.
put together, this gives us a volume of about 51,984 cm^3, or a final answer of 1,358.35 worms to fill a trench coat!
this also means that you're able to calculate how many worms you are total so long as you know how many kg you are. take your weight in kg, convert it to cm^3 by multiplying it by 1,000, and then divide that number by 38.27. all together, i am approximately 1,306.50 worms large.
#ask#worm on a string#squirmles#worm math...#if my worm math is off feel free to roast me in the replies. i'm a biology nerd. not a math nerd#keep in mind this is not how many worms you *weigh*#this is how many worms would fill up a you-sized container#without compressing them at all#we sort of have to pretend these worms are about 38 grams. which they are not. they could be compressed to the width of a sheet of paper#they are mostly air#but let us indulge in the whimsy
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Hi I'm here with a nice and comprehensive guide on how to convert binary :)
This is inspired by @the-art-ghost and his story and @just-a-domesticated-cryptid and their posts about the Caesar cipher codes :)
So I had to learn about binary for school back in middle school, so I can explain how to do this pretty easily AND WITH PICTURES :)
Nerd blurb under the cut ^^
So binary is a computer language made up of an eight-number string of 1s and 0s. The value of binary goes from 0-255 bits, with 256 being 1 byte. You read binary from left to right, but the value of each place goes up by times 2 as you go right to left, starting at 1 (00000001) and ending at 128 (1000000).
In order to convert binary into something readable like letters, you need to translate it first into something easier to remember other than a long string of 1/0. For this we're going to use the ASCII index.
The ASCII index is another computer language that assigns numerical values to things like of course numbers and letters but also symbols. Every ASCII value is unique to the letter/number/symbol.
Anyways, so first to translate it into ASCII, you need to be able to read the number. Here's an example:

01001101 is simple enough. There is a 1 in the second, fifth, sixth, and eighth place. That means you add 64+8+4+1 together, which comes out to 77.
NOTE: If your binary string ends with a ONE in the eighth place, it is ODD. If it ends with a ZERO, it is EVEN.
After giving your binary string it's numerical value, you then have to look up the ASCII index value for that number to get it's letter/symbol associated with it.
The ASCII index divides the alphabet into two separate versions: the UPPERCASE alphabet and the lowercase alphabet.
UPPERCASE on the index is numbers 65-90, and lowercase is numbers 97-122.

Using the example from before, 01001101 has 77 as it's value, on the ASCII index makes it UPPERCASE M.
01110011 follows the same logic just different numbers. Second, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth all have 1s, which means you add 64+32+16+2+1, which gives you 115. The index says it's a lowercase s.
When making your sentences, you use SPACES to separate words. The space also has its own ASCII value and binary number:

If you're too lazy to go looking for the ASCII index (I don't blame you I am too), I have a cheat sheet here :3 including letters, ASCII index number, and their binary forms.


I'm not going to decode the text description where the binary is featured because I find decoding it yourself to be much more rewarding so >_O
#HI ART GHOST :)) I HOPE YOU ARE OKAY WITH THIS#I KNOW HES ONLY IN ONE RIGHT NOW I GOT EXCITED XP#creepypasta#puzzles
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I desprately need someone to talk to about this
I've been working on a system to allow a genetic algorithm to create DNA code which can create self-organising organisms. Someone I know has created a very effective genetic algorithm which blows NEAT out of the water in my opinion. So, this algorithm is very good at using food values to determine which organisms to breed, how to breed them, and the multitude of different biologically inspired mutation mechanisms which allow for things like meta genes and meta-meta genes, and a whole other slew of things. I am building a translation system, basically a compiler on top of it, and designing an instruction set and genetic repair mechanisms to allow it to convert ANY hexadecimal string into a valid, operable program. I'm doing this by having an organism with, so far, 5 planned chromosomes. The first and second chromosome are the INITIAL STATE of a neural network. The number and configuration of input nodes, the number and configuration of output nodes, whatever code it needs for a fitness function, and the configuration and weights of the layers. This neural network is not used at all in the fitness evaluation of the organism, but purely something the organism itself can manage, train, and utilize how it sees fit.
The third is the complete code of the program which runs the organism. Its basically a list of ASM opcodes and arguments written in hexadecimal. It is comprised of codons which represent the different hexadecimal characters, as well as a start and stop codon. This program will be compiled into executable machine code using LLVM IR and a custom instruction set I've designed for the organisms to give them a turing complete programming language and some helper functions to make certain processes simpler to evolve. This includes messages between the organisms, reproduction methods, and all the methods necessary for the organisms to develop sight, hearing, and recieve various other inputs, and also to output audio, video, and various outputs like mouse, keyboard, or a gamepad output. The fourth is a blank slate, which the organism can evolve whatever data it wants. The first half will be the complete contents of the organisms ROM after the important information, and the second half will be the initial state of the organisms memory. This will likely be stored as base 64 of its hash and unfolded into binary on compilation.
The 5th chromosome is one I just came up with and I am very excited about, it will be a translation dictionary. It will be 512 individual codons exactly, with each codon pair being mapped between 00 and FF hex. When evaulating the hex of the other chromosomes, this dictionary will be used to determine the equivalent instruction of any given hex pair. When evolving, each hex pair in the 5th organism will be guaranteed to be a valid opcode in the instruction set by using modulus to constrain each pair to the 55 instructions currently available. This will allow an organism to evolve its own instruction distribution, and try to prevent random instructions which might be harmful or inneficient from springing up as often, and instead more often select for efficient or safer instructions.
#ai#technology#genetic algorithm#machine learning#programming#python#ideas#discussion#open source#FOSS#linux#linuxposting#musings#word vomit#random thoughts#rant
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Literally teaching myself to read guitar tabs so i can transpose them so i can play em on Webfishing's guitar...
My attempt at Riebeck's portion of Travellers from the Outer Wilds OST
My process (incase any one was curious how i did it) + The finished tabs for Travellers will be under the cut!
Okay so the process of how i did all this (as a guy who took maybe a few months worth of guitar lessons when he was 10 but knows basic music theory) goes as follows:
Step 1 - Find a song you like and grab the tabs for em.
For Riebeck's portion i got them from this youtuber i found named ortemigyrr
Step 2 - Learn how the fuck to read guitar tabs the way Webfishing has them laid out
This was my first draft. I took a screenshot, rotated it so it would match up with Webfishing's layout, wrote QWERTY over top since those are the keys you use for each string, and then started writing out what keys are pressed and where they are on the guitar.
Step 3 - Make sure you keep track of the notes
Just writing down the keypresses like wrtr ttrrrrr won't be of much use if you don't remember how fast and how long they should be played!
For my example here's the first 2 bars of 'sheet' music. I made single-spaced notes quarter notes, doubled notes are eighth notes, and the period next to the quarter note makes it a dotted quarter note.
3 0 0.0 | 10 20 24 0 W R T.R | TT RR RR R
You won't actually be using this to play, its just good to keep a hold of while you work!
Step 4 - Pick out what chords you need
Since Riebeck's songs has very quick switches on the same key so i grouped the chords together based on how easy it would be to switch between! (i chose 6 7 8 for this example but you can use any number from 1-9, this was just the most comfy for my hands)
Chord 6 030000 Chord 7 000210 Chord 8 002430
Step 6 - Convert the 'sheet' music into a readable tab
Once you have all your notes and you know what chords you will be moving between, mash them together to make a tab for Webfishing!
The finished tab for Travellers looks like this!
Hammer is = (shift key), Same chord is - (no change)
6------ 7=6 7=6 7=8 6 W R T.R TT RR RR R 6------ 7=6 7=6 7=8 8- E R T.R TT RR RR TR 8 6---- 7=6 7=6 7=8 6 E R T.R TT RR RR R 6------ 7=6 7=6 7=8 8- E R T.R TT RR RR TR
I hope this is like coherent enough, my brain started shutting down half way through writing this so i am praying it makes sense!
Been in bed sick all day so once i feel better i'll try to record me playing it (i will warn you i am slow and BAD at Webfishing Guitar)
but for right now if you read all the way to the bottom ily and thanks for listening to the rambling of a strange man obsessed with a fishing game :}
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well that was a fun exercise.
i have this old function made for reading multiple bytes in an array as one big number, and not only is it a total mess, but it requires bytes to be passed in as strings in a 0x00 format, which is just... really weird, don't ask me how i landed on this months and months ago
well now i have this instead
instead of messing with converting strings and stuff, everything is numbers from the start, lol. and it can handle little endian if i want! the thing i'm actually using this for is big endian 99% of the time but still, why not. i feel like i learned a good bit doing that. that was fun
whee!
#ayano was here#ayano.txt#programming#originally i wrote this with bitwise operators but#changed it to Math.pow and stuff because#js's bitwise stuff defaults to 32bit signed integers and it was just easier to do it this way instead as a result
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@sxrgeant from natalia. or nadya lmao
A series of numbers buzzes into the Moscow office. The cable is determined to be KGB and routed to their cypher office, triply-decoded by a book with arithmetic that determined which numbers should be dropped. The code clerk gets the original string, in groups of digits, runs down the book and uncovers the message in Cyrillic:
84736 89044 37892 28017
Chester | Philips | near | Metfabrik
The officer, just like the other non-defectable clerks, with no elbow tattoos of their allegiance to Hydra, consults his own records and converts the base name to its real location, Feldberg.
Just half a day’s journey from them.
Nadya doesn’t need an imagination. General Krasnov would be mad. Irritated, that even with their highly placed sources, Americans had come so close to one of their largest assets.
The relationship she had forged in the Metfabrik facility with the Winter Soldier was the substance of her fondest memories.
She’d said her name was Natalia when he asked. His files showed him her code name. There were 11 others he didn’t know about.
The muslims called this Al Ghurba. The state of being a stranger. The twelve character covers she accessed at any one time, all of whom were closely relatable. Of course, she could never replicate the bond between Yelena and Dreykov.
But she -- Natalia -- and the Soldier were forever bound by their trauma. By years of terror separately and together. She could never obtain and understand the agenda of the files given to her, but how long the hands of fate had been controlling her have kept her spellbound. Consider the first time she ever felt that death had overtaken her, anesthetized to the guns constantly pointed at her and the terror she had known as a child is something few adults would have felt. Nadya cannot feel now -- except in the extremes.
Nadya’s eyes flare alluring, her hair a deep, dirty red. A decade hasn’t scribbled lines on her cheeks, maybe that’s what he finds comfort in. Youth and beauty. She puts the message in his hand, a piece of paper from General Krasnov delivered by another spy, telling them to get out of Munich.
‘ When we get there--- ‘ Her gaze meets his, her shoulders round, less proud; graceful, practiced, because she’s done this hundreds of times. Because their bodies know one another, and the promise of a tease in the darkest times always seems to linger between them.
‘ They will tell you who to kill. ‘
#sxrgeant#( voice ). natalia romanova#jesus don't feel like you have to return the word count#i wouldn't lol
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Admit One Dev Blog: Update 70 - Display Resolutions
This week I did a bunch of setup to allow for the Player to save their game settings and some functionality setup for changing Display Resolutions.
Got things set up so the game can detect the different resolutions compatible with the Player's display and then populate a drop down menu with the options. Unreal already orders these from the lowest to highest resolution, so we can grab the largest one and automatically apply it! This is then saved to Game User Settings so the next time the game starts this the previous resolution is automatically set.
When a new resolution selection is made, we're able to grab the choice's String/name, split the String, convert the remaining String numbers to an int and then plug those into our Set Screen Resolution, Set the Fullscreen/Window settings and then Apply the final Resolution Settings
It's also worth noting that the best way to see the how the game's resolution settings will actually behave is by using the Standalone Game play mode from the dots drop down menu. You can still notice appropriate behavior in the New Editor Window mode when things are set to Windowed mode but Fullscreen mode gets some strange results.
That's it for this week, glad I was able to find a programmatic solution for listing out the display options, the alternative would have been pretty tedious, thanks for reading!
#survival horror#admit one#horror#video games#soulslike#roguelite#roguelike#game development#game dev blog#resident evil 4#indie games#indiedev#gamedev#indiegamedev#unreal engine#solodev#indie game dev#survivalhorror
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So many crimes in so little time.
No, I didn't watch the Grammys. They almost never nominate the right artists in each category. It's a popularity contest, not a reflection of quality. For example, Lola Young released this past year one of the best albums in a decade and how many nominations did she get? ZERO. Also, The Beatles are nominated? They broke up 54 years ago! (P.S. I am told they won. I love the Beatles but give me a fucking break).
+++++++++++++++++++++
So what the fuck is happening to our government? The Treasury Department has been taken over with the skill and aplomb of one of the later Die Hard movies by a South African import and a child from Canada who calls himself "BigBallz". Hope you weren't expecting your social security or Medicare payments to be on time - or to ever come. They want to covert the treasury to blockchain - i.e. bitcoin.
For fuck's sake Musk is an actual Bond Villian. There are only two reasons to convert the security of our nation's currency into bitcoin: 1) to destroy it or 2) to steal it. He could bankrupt the country and every bank in the nation in just a few seconds if he were to make that change. They would all be his hostages.
Not to mention that there have been two plane crashes and a third that caught fire in the past 5 days, and all press releases will now come through Elon Musk's "X" platform. It already appears that press releases for other agencies will only come through X as well. Also, anyone critical of the new administration will be banned from X. So sez the self proclaimed "Free Speech Absolutist". Did he lie? Yes, he did.
Oh and by the way, he's suing several companies for NOT advertising on X. That's not a crime, Apartheid boy.
This fuckhead has illegally taken over the purse strings of our government. The crimes have been committed and I would like to think we're going to start arresting people.
But probably not.
What else... oh yes! We're going to invade Mexico. We bombed a low-level thug in Somalia who mostly just blackmailed people.
The State Department has appointed as Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, i.e. the department mouthpiece, a known white supremacist who was the person who started the rumor that the FBI was behind the attempted insurrection of January 6, 2021.
The Department of Education hasn't done much yet, other than eliminate all diversity education and policies, dismissed every complaint about book bans (believe it or not, a LOT of people complain about books being banned in schools) and celebrated "school choice" - i.e. vouchers and home schooling.
The tariffs have begun! By the way, this is in violation of the USMCA Treaty. You know who signed that one? The very man who is now in violation of it. I would like to think we're going to start arresting people. But probably not.
And then after I wrote the previous paragraph we suddenly aren't imposing tariffs on Mexico (and also Canada after a couple more hours pass) for the next month! He did manage to crash the stock market though, so I have to wonder how many short-sells he had in his pocket. Remember, he hasn't divested from anything.
The CDC has been told to hold all publications for review, to make certain that specific words that are now forbidden are not used. Those words include "Diversity", "Gender", "Transgender", "Pregnant person" "Pregnant People" and just about any issue involving the LGBTQA+ community. Oh, and have you seen the latest press briefings on Bird Flu or perhaps the greatest outbreak of Tuberculosis in this country in a century? Of course not - there haven't been any.
Can you say censorship boy and girls?
And have you noticed how many government websites are now simply gone? Welcome to book-burning in the Digital Age. The people who burn books are never the good guys.
Our first Concentration Camp will be at Guantanamo, which is pretty far away from any prying eyes. You can't call yourself a decent person and not be outraged by this. Given the number of American Citizens that have been swept up in raids that have already taken place I am certain that American Citizens are going to wind up in Cuba because of the color of their skin, or because of their fluency in Spanish. And we're apparently using the same law used to inter Japanese in WWII. Which was also a crime.
You know who would be against all this bullshit? The Republican's beloved Saint Ronny. He even gave a radio address about it, which you can hear at this link.
I think even Reagan would break his own 11th commandment when it comes to this bullshit.
Legislation has been introduced to ban all porn, and the definition is so wildly broad that Romance Novels will be affected. As in the authors will be sent to prison. Hell, the bible could qualify as porn under this definition. Also included is the end of no fault divorce, medical abortions, drag performances that can be attended by kids, cash incentives for covenant marriages... as if The Handmaid's Tale were an instruction manual and not a cautionary tale.
Just ask all of the women in Texas and elsewhere currently in prison for having had miscarriages.
The Pentagon has informed the press corps that NBC, the New York Times, National Public Radio and Politico will be "rotated out of the building" to give space to the New York Post, Breitbart, OANN, and HuffPost.
The Defense Department has paused observances of MLK Day, Pride Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance, Juneteenth, Women's History Month, Black History Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, and more. Some of these are Federal Holidays.
USAID has been shut down, according to Musk, who you might recall is not a government employee. I can't even count the number of laws he broken by not only doing this, but announcing it on the social media platform he owns. It's enough to put him in prison for life, if anyone has the spine to do it. Yes, the new/old guy will pardon him, but do it anyway.
And at least someone in the Senate is finally fighting back.
They tried to fire everyone at the FBI who worked on a January 6 case. The acting Director said no. So the hero of the moment is a guy who looks like he's called "Drizz"? And actually IS called Drizz? Shucks Scooby, I didn't see that one coming.
So what is happening to our Government? The same thing that happened to Twitter. To quote legal expert Sam Bagenstos, "move fast, break things (with “things” very much including the law), and then dare folks to try and do something about it. Their expectation is that people will be too overwhelmed, and the law will move too slowly, to stop them from doing what they’re doing."
You know, fake it 'till you break it.
Doing this to a company, either large or small, eventually end with bankruptcies and business closing down. Doing this to a government leads to the collapse of a nation. And a failing nation led by hypocrites and psychopaths and people with no business running a country will lash out. Germany did. Rome did. We will too, and we have nukes.
Oh, and apparently we're going to punish South Africa for ending Apartheid.
And hey, please note that when Mike Flynn threatens you over treason respect the opinion. He's committed it often enough that he's an expert.
You don't want to be called a racist? Don't be one.
You don't want to be called a fascist? Stop hanging out with them. Stop emulating them. Stop listening to their advice. If you can't do all of that, you are already a fascist.
And one last plea from an ex-pat living in his own country: Instead of just saying "it's illegal" what they're doing, start FUCKING ARRESTING PEOPLE WHO COMMIT CRIMES!
Please.
For example, a disgraced radio host is already boasting that he has illegally received classified information. That's a crime for both parties - and the other party is the new/old guy. That's like, you know, treason.
And can we offer a round of applause for this move by a Canadian?
Taken from the blog "Whatthefuckiswrongwithyou?"
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what does your name mean in binary
You figure it out yourself.
How to read binary:
1. Split up the string into eight-character segments, eg. 01000001.
2. Check the first three numbers. If 010, it's a capital letter. If 011, it's not. If something else, it's probably some other character. Skip it and figure it out via context clues.
3. For the five other numbers, convert from base-2(what we're using here)to base-10 (normal counting system). Going right to left, every number represents a doubling. Eg, 1 means 1, 10 means 2, 100 means 4, 1000 means 8,etc. Then add together the base-10 numbers. In my example, only the 1 position had a 1, so the answer should be 1.
4. Take the answer and convert to text: Now, this part is genius. The number corresponds to a letter in the alphabet. Eg. 10 is J, as J is the tenth letter in the alphabet. In the example given above, we have 1. Now the first letter of the alphabet is A, so this spells out A. Remember to apply the upper/lowercase given in the first three numbers.
5. Continue untill all eight-character segments are decoded.
P.S. If you didn't understand this perfectly, search "Tom Scott convert from binary". Hopefully you'll find the video I learned it from.
Leave what you got in the tags!
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Week 2 of university done!! It’s been a pretty successful week, with 100% attendance and all caught up with work :)
Things I did this week:
Got my engagement up from partial to good! My lecturer keeps pushing the importance of engagement, and he is pushing it hard. He pretty much says that ‘if your engagement is below good, don’t bother coming to class or trying. You are likely to fail’. I understand that this is true, but the engagement algorithm that the university uses does not consider things like: students living off campus, being ill, downloading material beforehand and not accessing the learning environment, students taking the weekend off, etc. It is very demoralising to see your engagement only being marked as partial, just because its the weekend, and you have the textbook downloaded...
I don’t live on campus, so I don’t get the free points from just being connected to the university WiFi, but when I am on campus, my engagement hits the high level. I am, however, still consistently above average!
My daily planning is very useful! I plan out pretty much every moment of my day, and this week, as a part of my academic skills module, we had to hand in a time log, so I essentially got a free 10% on the module, because I do that anyway. I showed the lecturer to ask if it was acceptable to hand in, and he took a look at my work, safe to say, he was a little shocked. My planning comes across as a little insane, which, I guess, it is! I need a fairly rigid plan, otherwise my brain does not think of tasks as urgent, and will put them off till the last minute. For me, this includes things like: eating, showering, going to the toilet, taking medication, brushing teeth. I require a visual reminder of things (hence the reason I carry my water bottle everywhere, I am very prone to dehydration).
This weeks coding work was pretty easy. We use a language called processing (which is pretty much just Java). All we had to do was copy an image of a house using primitive shapes in the language. Took me about 40 minutes because I literally colour selected the proper colours from the image, and even found the exact co-ordinates. I’ve always found co-ordinates hard, something about them just doesn’t work in my brain, but processing works weirdly; it reverses the Y coordinate. Imagine a four quadrant graph. When faced with a co-ordinate with two positive numbers, you would assume the top right quadrant is where the co-ordinate would fall. But no, in processing it falls in the bottom right. As the Y co-ordinate gets larger, you move downwards...
The computing theory this week was difficult, simply due to the fact of how long the binary numbers were! We had to convert a string of binary sent in hamming code, find the error, and then convert the hamming code to regular UTF-8 binary code, then to UTF-8 hexadecimal code, and then find the character it referred to (which was an obscure Ethiopic symbol, might I add). This left lots of room in copying errors, which happened to me… twice… I got the methods correct, just issues copying down the initial number… My assessed theory problems were much easier, as the numbers ASCII and not Unicode! We have been assured that the binary numbers in the final exam will NOT be Unicode!
In my numerical methods module, we have been working on a quiz for the past 2 weeks, and mine finally got marked! 100% in every problem!! Woo hoo! I’m not so good at maths, but I’m working hard to get the top mark!
Finally, I bought myself some makeup as a congratulations for this week! People who know me from elsewhere will know that I ADORE a clear gloss, so I brought a new tube of my favourite Rimmel Oh My Gloss, and I am trying out some new products: The Revolution Pro Hydra gloss (Shade Mode; clear of course) which, I’m not sure I like, as it is a plumping lip gloss, never really been my thing. The applicator feels strange, and the texture is… unusual. And my new favourite Revolution lip oil (Shade Bitten Kiss; once again, clear)! I adore this oil so much. It’s from their Halloween range, so it looks like a vial of centrifuged blood! I migh have a look if they have other shades next week, and I’ll keep and eye out for the lip tint! I also bought a new Nyx Epic Ink eyeliner, in black of course. I adore the brush applicator, and I think this is my new preferred eyeliner. :)
Go check out my instagram for frequent updates through the week!
#studyblr#study blog#study motivation#studyspo#study aesthetic#studying#studygram#student life#university#computer science#computer scientist#college life#pink aesthetic#pink#stem#women in stem#stemblr#stem student#stem academia#science#technology#computer#coding#programming#beeatrixi weekly reflection
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The Elegant Math of Machine Learning
Anil Ananthaswamy’s 3 Greatest Revelations While Writing Why Machines Learn.
— By Anil Ananthaswamy | July 23, 2024

Image: Aree S., Shutterstock
1- Machines Can Learn!
A few years ago, I decided I needed to learn how to code simple machine learning algorithms. I had been writing about machine learning as a journalist, and I wanted to understand the nuts and bolts. (My background as a software engineer came in handy.) One of my first projects was to build a rudimentary neural network to try to do what astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler did in the early 1600s: analyze data collected by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe about the positions of Mars to come up with the laws of planetary motion.
I quickly discovered that an artificial neural network—a type of machine learning algorithm that uses networks of computational units called artificial neurons—would require far more data than was available to Kepler. To satisfy the algorithm’s hunger, I generated a decade worth of data about the daily positions of planets using a simple simulation of the solar system.
After many false starts and dead-ends, I coded a neural network that—given the simulated data—could predict future positions of planets. It was beautiful to observe. The network indeed learned the patterns in the data and could prognosticate about, say, where Mars might be in five years.

Functions of the Future: Given enough data, some machine learning algorithms can approximate just about any sort of function—whether converting x into y or a string of words into a painterly illustration—author Anil Ananthaswamy found out while writing his new book, Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI. Photo courtesy of Anil Ananthaswamy.
I was instantly hooked. Sure, Kepler did much, much more with much less—he came up with overarching laws that could be codified in the symbolic language of math. My neural network simply took in data about prior positions of planets and spit out data about their future positions. It was a black box, its inner workings undecipherable to my nascent skills. Still, it was a visceral experience to witness Kepler’s ghost in the machine.
The project inspired me to learn more about the mathematics that underlies machine learning. The desire to share the beauty of some of this math led to Why Machines Learn.
2- It’s All (Mostly) Vectors.
One of the most amazing things I learned about machine learning is that everything and anything—be it positions of planets, an image of a cat, the audio recording of a bird call—can be turned into a vector.
In machine learning models, vectors are used to represent both the input data and the output data. A vector is simply a sequence of numbers. Each number can be thought of as the distance from the origin along some axis of a coordinate system. For example, here’s one such sequence of three numbers: 5, 8, 13. So, 5 is five steps along the x-axis, 8 is eight steps along the y-axis and 13 is 13 steps along the z-axis. If you take these steps, you’ll reach a point in 3-D space, which represents the vector, expressed as the sequence of numbers in brackets, like this: [5 8 13].
Now, let’s say you want your algorithm to represent a grayscale image of a cat. Well, each pixel in that image is a number encoded using one byte or eight bits of information, so it has to be a number between zero and 255, where zero means black and 255 means white, and the numbers in-between represent varying shades of gray.
It was a visceral experience to witness Kepler’s ghost in the machine.
If it’s a 100×100 pixel image, then you have 10,000 pixels in total in the image. So if you line up the numerical values of each pixel in a row, voila, you have a vector representing the cat in 10,000-dimensional space. Each element of that vector represents the distance along one of 10,000 axes. A machine learning algorithm encodes the 100×100 image as a 10,000-dimensional vector. As far as the algorithm is concerned, the cat has become a point in this high-dimensional space.
Turning images into vectors and treating them as points in some mathematical space allows a machine learning algorithm to now proceed to learn about patterns that exist in the data, and then use what it’s learned to make predictions about new unseen data. Now, given a new unlabeled image, the algorithm simply checks where the associated vector, or the point formed by that image, falls in high-dimensional space and classifies it accordingly. What we have is one, very simple type of image recognition algorithm: one which learns, given a bunch of images annotated by humans as that of a cat or a dog, how to map those images into high-dimensional space and use that map to make decisions about new images.
3- Some Machine Learning Algorithms Can Be “Universal Function Approximators.”
One way to think about a machine learning algorithm is that it converts an input, x, into an output, y. The inputs and outputs can be a single number or a vector. Consider y = f (x). Here, x could be a 10,000-dimensional vector representing a cat or a dog, and y could be 0 for cat and 1 for dog, and it’s the machine learning algorithm’s job to find, given enough annotated training data, the best possible function, f, that converts x to y.
There are mathematical proofs that show that certain machine learning algorithms, such as deep neural networks, are “universal function approximators,” capable in principle of approximating any function, no matter how complex.
Voila, You Have A Vector Representing The Cat In 10,000-Dimensional Space.
A deep neural network has layers of artificial neurons, with an input layer, an output layer, and one or more so-called hidden layers, which are sandwiched between the input and output layers. There’s a mathematical result called universal approximation theorem that shows that given an arbitrarily large number of neurons, even a network with just one hidden layer can approximate any function, meaning: If a correlation exists in the data between the input and the desired output, then the neural network will be able to find a very good approximation of a function that implements this correlation.
This is a profound result, and one reason why deep neural networks are being trained to do more and more complex tasks, as long as we can provide them with enough pairs of input-output data and make the networks big enough.
So, whether it’s a function that takes an image and turns that into a 0 (for cat) and 1 (for dog), or a function that takes a string of words and converts that into an image for which those words serve as a caption, or potentially even a function that takes the snapshot of the road ahead and spits out instructions for a car to change lanes or come to a halt or some such maneuver, universal function approximators can in principle learn and implement such functions, given enough training data. The possibilities are endless, while keeping in mind that correlation does not equate to causation.
— Anil Ananthaswamy is a Science Journalist who writes about AI and Machine Learning, Physics, and Computational Neuroscience. He’s a 2019-20 MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow. His latest book is Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI.
#Nautilus#Mathematics#Elegant Math#Machine Learning#Mathematics | Mostly Vectors#Algorithms | “Universal Function Approximators”#Anil Ananthaswamy#Physics#Computational Neuroscience#MIT | Knight Science Journalism Fellow
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So, after hearing Lils butcher about how much actual drama is going on here, I feel like I need to intervene.
Everything started with the Portals. They're kinda changing people - not in the Italy-zombie-apocalypse-way - but people who are near a portal tend to get some sort of benefit from it. Like improving health and vitality. Old people are getting rejuvenated and stuff. But it only happens with certain Portals. Yes, you probably heard that Portals also had valuable resources, which they do, but old rich people nearing death will sacrifice their fortune just to get a couple extra years of life.
The Portals I'm mentioning almost seem to reverse aging if you're around them long enough, sooooo they're a really big deal.
The BIG companies like Jungle, Edison, Macrohard (not sure why they made the name change recently), and Pear made a move on these specific portals all over the nation. And because of some loopholes in the law and the fact Companies can effectively have a standing army in the form of a "security force", they took many of those properties by force. This naturally led to several disputes between Companies.
As for Cassiel Manufacturing, we practically own Wisconsin so we didn't really have to lift a finger. None of my family needed to fight. And companies who tried to start one - cough, Edison and kryffin Musk - got run out of town. Their Cybertruck plant in the area, after it was abandoned, suffered an explosion. They're trying to sue my dad, but my dad made the argument that Musk's stuff tended to fail explosively anyway and the argument stuck.
However, the whole fighting across the globe by companies and governments translated to worsening civil unrest, which meant more fights between superheroes and so-called supervillains.
Companies start hiring more meta-humans to act more of a military arm, which the government responded to by barely passing an emergency meta-human registration act. It's currently under appeal. I asked my dad to do something about it cause it's going to mess with Ava, but apparently there's so many interested parties involved that he can't pull strings to just get the law repealed outright.
The Nameless City is taking the brunt of the chaos, even compared to capital cities like D.C. or Seattle. Because there's always been a huge superhero - supervillain scene, popularized by the rumored Batman and his sidekick. Except now the rumored Batman hasn't been seen in months aside from some imitations. The chaos got so bad that Blackgate Prison was broken into and taken over by a bunch of supervillains - and that the supervillains themselves are amassing an army of their own.
At least until a good number of them couldn't control their own ego and ended up splintering the army apart. One of them destroyed a bridge on the way out, which led to the food shortage because the port is half-capacity - and the other bridge has been broken from the start.
There's a lot of secret fighting involving the Eastside Ports between companies, because whoever controlled the port essentially controls the City.
Sato's retainer already shut down most of the supermarkets in the city because of the very real danger except for the one near the Inn, which got converted to a food bank. They're also using it as a means to distribute seeds to other people for their own planting.
I got permission from the retainer to add another building for my little Cult aspirations - 57 people! - after the people who got displaced from being "laid off" from the supermarkets joined. I suspect people aren't taking our setting as seriously as they should, but they're at least wearing the Sun-Moon-Star, so I can't complain lol. We've started farming on the rooftop and side areas.
And that, my friends, is the city's current situation.
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It's that time again for me to put things down in writing to see where my character is and has evolved from. (Template by @alannah-corvaine )
×—ʙᴀꜱɪᴄꜱ—×
ɴᴀᴍᴇ: Laure Sombremont
ɴɪᴄᴋɴᴀᴍᴇ(ꜱ): Professor of Death, Prof. (by his students), giraffe
ᴛɪᴛʟᴇ(ꜱ): Professor
ɢᴇɴᴅᴇʀ / ʜᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇʏ ɪᴅᴇɴᴛɪꜰʏ: Male, He/Him
ʀᴀᴄᴇ: Elezen
ᴀɢᴇ: 32
ʙɪʀᴛʜᴅᴀʏ: Winter
ʙɪʀᴛʜᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ: Garlemald
ɢᴜᴀʀᴅɪᴀɴ ꜱɪɢɴ: Indifferent
ɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟɪᴛ��: Garlemald by birth, Ishgardian on paperwork
×—ᴀᴘᴘᴇᴀʀᴀɴᴄᴇ—×
ʜᴇɪɢʜᴛ: 6'9" (no I didn't plan on that number, it just happened to be that when converting to feet from the FFXIV scale)
ᴡᴇɪɢʜᴛ: Average
ʙᴏᴅʏ ᴛʏᴘᴇ: If he weren't so tall, he would look very bulky. Muscular, on the hunky side, but often is covered from head to toe so he looks lean.
ʜᴀɪʀ ᴄᴏʟᴏʀ: Warm brown with hints of amber highlights
ᴇʏᴇ ᴄᴏʟᴏʀ: Green flecked with gold
ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇxɪᴏɴ: Warm-tan, yellow to mid-tone, doesn't burn easily
ʙɪʀᴛʜᴍᴀʀᴋꜱ: None (his blood family is a providence of Garlemald, not from the bloodline so he has no third eye)
ꜱᴄᴀʀꜱ: Nothing major. He's a skilled fighter and always takes care to wear proper armor so battle damage is at a minimal.
ᴛᴀᴛᴛᴏᴏꜱ: None
ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ 🇺🇳🇮🇶🇺🇪 ꜰᴇᴀᴛᴜʀᴇꜱ: Bite marks from his two Viera mates... in the future (RP of this still happening at the time of this recording writing)
ᴄʟᴇᴀɴʟɪɴᴇꜱꜱ / ɢʀᴏᴏᴍɪɴɢ: Spartan clean, but likes to relax after long days or missions in a long bath. He's not overly fussy, but he keeps his beard well maintained, his face is clean, and his clothing is always pressed (only because there are housekeepers on property that do the laundry, but his military side would force him to make sure he looks sharp).
ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴅᴀʏ ᴄʟᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ ꜱᴛʏʟᴇ: Academic; collared shirts, vests, jackets, slacks, loafers. He adorns many traditional clothing of a man of Ishgardian upper working class, but isn't flashy with it. Although he doesn't have to panic to purchase a new suit when going to a soiree or dinner party; he has a handful that can tide him over through the seasons' different events.
ᴀᴄᴄᴇꜱꜱᴏʀɪᴇꜱ: Wears glasses, prefers gold rims but switches it out not and again, and he always wears a gold ring on each hand. Sometimes he will wear multiple rings and chain bracelets or a watch. Laure has a key on a string around his neck.
×—ʜᴇᴀʟᴛʜ—×
ᴀʟʟᴇʀɢɪᴇꜱ: None that he knows of, but slight aversion to carrots might be an allergy
ɪʟʟɴᴇꜱꜱᴇꜱ: None
ᴅɪꜱᴀʙɪʟɪᴛɪᴇꜱ: None
ᴇɴᴇʀɢʏ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟꜱ: His energy is even leveled, but is better with stamina than short bursts. He can fight for a long period of time utilizing even control of his weapon and magic, and can exhaust himself into the night studying tomes and grading papers yet still able to wake with the sun.
ᴇᴀᴛɪɴɢ ʜᴀʙɪᴛꜱ: Laure doesn't indulge often, and he is fine with coffee, tea, and a sandwich. Understands the benefits of a healthy diet, so will nibble raw fruits and veggies if they're on hand, but doesn't cook often. Has a soft spot for an evening treat while reading of cookies and milk.
ꜱʟᴇᴇᴘɪɴɢ ʜᴀʙɪᴛꜱ: Pops up like a daisy in the morning regardless of how late he has stayed up. While his nights often consist of a ritualistic calm down for the night (hot bath, reading, warm milk) he can just as often end up falling asleep at his desk late into the night when he gets engaged in his work.
ꜰɪᴛɴᴇꜱꜱ: Very healthy. For being as nerdy as he looks, Laure is, in fact, a jock. Laure partakes in the family's training grounds often with the sell swords on property. Enjoys a morning jog.
×—ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴᴀʟɪᴛʏ—×
ɪɴᴛʀᴏᴠᴇʀᴛ / ᴇxᴛʀᴏᴠᴇʀᴛ: Introvert, but he has been branching out more as of late. Probably has something to do with two beautiful buns at his side.
ᴛᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴀᴍᴇɴᴛ: Socially he is between calm and anxious but he has been working on overcoming his anxiety. When he's in his element (teaching, an excavation site, training) he is instead a calm-confident. He has surprised himself as of late of a strong confident self that is blooming as he spends more playtime with his fiancés. He is still quick to blush, however. His students have begun to notice the nerdy professor is actually kinda hot with this growing self-confidence which has upped the attendance of his classes. Laure is oblivious as to why, but he's thrilled to have more minds to mold!
ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ꜱᴛʏʟᴇ: Laure is quiet and doesn't approach people without reason. He's dreadful with small talk. While teaching, he is a decent lecturer, keeping the class engaged if only from his own enthusiasm, but when it's chitchat time he doesn't really follow the flow of things. He hasn't exactly caught on to the student's teasing as flirting yet, and get blushy and flustered when they do it in front of everyone.
ɢᴏᴀʟꜱ / ᴅᴇꜱɪʀᴇꜱ: Laure is merely enjoying life and spending time with those he loves, and doing the things he enjoys. He has no hard pressed goals other than watching his family prosper. This can sometimes leave him in a slump and forces his work into the foreground of his mind until he overdoes it.
ᴠɪʀᴛᴜᴇꜱ: Loving; Laure has a big heart and takes care of his family very well. He's the go-to guy when someone needs a ride in the family car or need an errand run. He is gentle in his approach to people, never wanting to harm anyone. And he is kind to strangers. Laure tends to not judge others on first sight, or even what they have done.
ꜰʟᴀᴡꜱ: Laure is riddled with anxiety in a crowded room, and will either freeze up or blather about his work to compensate (which isn't always wise to babble about because his work is about the study of death). Laure also compensates trauma with happiness; when he is triggered, or another person speaks of their own trauma, he moves on to happier thoughts and subjects, so much so this has been accumulating into a sexual deviance. When overcome with emotion, he releases it with desires which, while fun, isn't exactly that best coping mechanism.
ꜱᴛʀᴇɴɢᴛʜꜱ:
ᴡᴇᴀᴋɴᴇꜱꜱᴇꜱ:
ꜰᴇᴀʀꜱ:
ᴏʙꜱᴇꜱꜱɪᴏɴꜱ:
Qᴜɪʀᴋꜱ / ᴛɪᴄꜱ:
ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛꜱ: He used to be ashamed of a certain body part of his. Kids in school used to make fun of him for it, and his first couple of experiences with men, Laure ended up hurting them. So he thought he was gross and deformed for a very long time. While he is still careful of his appendage use around his lovers, he knows better now on how to use it and how to make sure his partners are ready for him.
ʀᴇɢʀᴇᴛꜱ: Staying with his former fiancé for as long as he did. He knew he was cheating when Laure was off with his high education classes or with a mission for the Empire, but he stayed with him anyway. It wasn't until tragedies collided that he had enough.
×—ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱʜɪᴘꜱ ɪ—×
ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ: Laure's mother sacrificed a lot for he and his brother, to make sure they had enough to eat, and later, an education and a future. Being beaten down from a noble stature, forced to become a street walker to survive, and later exchanging the pleasures in the bedroom to a duke to put her sons into military school. She lives with the rest of the Sombremont family as a secret refugee in Ishgard.
ꜰᴀᴛʜᴇʀ: Unknown, but an likely an Eorzean elezen
ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴘᴀʀᴇɴᴛᴀʟ ꜰɪɢᴜʀᴇ(ꜱ):
ꜱɪʙʟɪɴɢ(ꜱ): Younger brother, deceased. It was his brother's first time leading a squadron, while Laure was leading another. His brother's squad ended up in crossfire and died due to friendly fire from Laure's squad. Logically, Laure knows that it was no one's direct fault, although officially it was blamed on his brother's poor management of the situation. Because the autopsy could not identify the shooter, only that it was from a Garlean bullet, Laure still has nightmares that he was the one that shot him.
ɢʀᴀɴᴅᴘᴀʀᴇɴᴛꜱ: Laure's grandmother is a lovely, delicate woman that will whoop your ass in chess, reads poety, and teaches the children to play piano. She is a well respected matron of the family, and she tries to spend as much time with each family member as she can. She and Laure bond when she asks for him to take her on an afternoon drive in the family car when the weather is nice(Laure is one of the few that can drive).
ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ: Biologically, Laure has a five year old son. He is the spitting image of Laure! Legally, he is his nephew, as Laure donated since his brother could not procreate. Sadly, Laure's brother died shortly after his son was born. Laure maintains himself as his uncle, but the boy is not lied to of how he came into being. Despite not being blood related, when the Sombremont family was pulled from Garlean territory to safety, Laure's sister-in-law came with them and is treated as family.
ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ꜰᴀᴍɪʟʏ: The majority of Laure's living family (to his knowledge) are all living under the same roof at the Sombremont Estate in Ishgard. This includes three aunts, one uncle, and several cousins of various ages. He is closest to his uncle, who is the proprietor of the house until his son comes of age, and his uncle's daughter.
×—ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱʜɪᴘꜱ ɪɪ—×
ʀᴏᴍᴀɴᴛɪᴄ / ꜱᴇxᴜᴀʟ ᴏʀɪᴇɴᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: Homosexual
ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱʜɪᴘ ꜱᴛᴀᴛᴜꜱ: Engaged to two beautiful viera that make him very, very happy.
ꜱᴘᴏᴜꜱᴇ: SOON!
ᴘᴀʀᴛɴᴇʀ/ ꜱɪɢɴɪꜰɪᴄᴀɴᴛ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ(ꜱ):
ʟᴏᴠᴇʀ(ꜱ): While he and his lovers have an open relationship, Laure isn't as eager to take other lovers. Not that he doesn't enjoy playtime, but he isn't as physically adventurous as his fiancés. He loves it when they are with another man or woman, and likes to hear their stories of conquest. Their only stipulation thus far has been that if one of them wishes to get into a relationship with one of their bed partners, that they discuss it with the trio so they can welcome their partner's new partner!
ᴄʟᴏꜱᴇꜱᴛ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅꜱ: Codex and Cheren
ᴀᴄQᴜᴀɪɴᴛᴀɴᴄᴇꜱ: Laure has a difficult time branching out. He keeps to his home with his family and lovers, and he might know people in time spent at venues, but not too often does he go beyond his comfort zone when meeting people.
ᴄᴏᴡᴏʀᴋᴇʀꜱ/ᴄᴏᴍʀᴀᴅᴇꜱ: Laure gets on fine with his co-workers at the University of Ishgard. Although his own subject of study is taboo, he used to get a lot of flack and upturned noses at the forensics sciences he taught. Lately, however, he has been gaining a new flock of students that is making the others snotty at him. He gets along best with the other science-related teachers.
ʀɪᴠᴀʟꜱ: A professor in the literature department dislikes Laure, and it took Laure a long time to realize why. They got along fondly at first, doting over poetry together in the library and in the faculty lounge. It wasn't until she realized that Laure wasn't going to be more than just friends that she began to give him the cold shoulder. Now that he's gone from shy nerd to attractive nerd with a constant gaggle of doe-eyed students following him does she now scorn him.
ᴇɴᴇᴍɪᴇꜱ: The lunch lady...
×—ʟɪꜰᴇꜱᴛʏʟᴇ—×
ᴏᴄᴄᴜᴘᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: Professor of Thanatology and Forensic Sciences at the University of Ishgard
ꜱᴏᴄɪᴀʟ ᴄʟᴀꜱꜱ: Upper working class, thanks to his own profession and the manipulation of his uncle's, the Sombremont family is seen as well off within the upper crust community, but clearly not nobility.
ᴇᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: Laure's mother spent a lot of time making sure he and his brother had the basics of education and taught them herself. Then, at 10, they were put off to military school where they spent the rest of their educated life. Laure did pursue forensic and related sciences through the Garlean military educational programs.
ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ʀᴇꜱɪᴅᴇɴᴄᴇ: Sombremont Estate's guest house. He is the only family member not in the house proper because his work takes him out of sync with the rest of the household. However, he and his fiancés are planning on getting a place together soon.
ʜᴏʙʙɪᴇꜱ: Laure enjoys tinkering with the family car, and his own motorcycle. He likes to play music with his family (preferring brass instruments, although he is learning the guitar and piano). Laure also enjoys putting together model airships. Although it is job related, Laure really enjoys when the local authorities call on his expertise with magick related deaths to help solve homicide cases.
ᴠɪᴄᴇꜱ: Sex is a good thing, normally, but Laure uses it as an emotional shield. He is horny almost all the time these days, turning his anxiety into hormones. It's... frustrating at times. He's also into the idea of prostituting his fiancés, which while fun on the surface with everyone in on the game with joyous consent, it digs deeper into a place of his youth; of watching his mother paraded around by her pimp. Of a power that he doesn't usually hold.
ᴄʀɪᴍɪɴᴀʟ ʀᴇᴄᴏʀᴅ: None
ꜱᴘᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ ʜᴀʙɪᴛꜱ: Most of his money goes into his exhibition dig sites. If it is not university funded, he will often sponsor his own digs to study human remains and the effects magick and society had on their culture (and ultimate demise). He hopes his studies help prevent similar things to happen in the future. Otherwise, he spends what is left on books, tomes, airship model kits, and drinks at venues his fiancés work at work want to visit.
ꜱᴏᴄɪᴀʟ ᴏʀ ʟᴏɴᴇʀ: Leaning loner, but definitely not lonely. He enjoys his quiet time to work on his mind or body, but he isn't adverse to conversation or the company of others. Only his circle of those he will reach out to speak with is very small.
ꜰᴀɪᴛʜ / ʀᴇʟɪɢɪᴏɴ: None
×—ʟɪᴋᴇꜱ & ᴅɪꜱʟɪᴋᴇꜱ—×
ꜰᴏᴏᴅꜱ: Laure isn't big into food in general. Healthy and simple is his philosophy. He doesn't really enjoy sweets but likes his evening milk and cookies. He prefer raw vegetables and fruit over cooked or steamed or having them in a dish (like apple pie). Laure dislikes brussels sprouts and (he has yet to admit to his viera lovers) he dislikes carrots.
ᴄᴏʟᴏʀꜱ: Laure says his favorite color is green. It's the kind of green of a tree in late spring/early summer, where the sun is past midday but not yet into evening, so the light is yellow on the leaves, yet there are grey storm clouds overhead that dampen the brightness of the leaves. That's his favorite color.
ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇꜱ: Laure isn't adverse to many places. He is calm and adaptable when he can blend in. He has dipped his toe into more social events like bars and clubs, but it's not his favorite unless he's with someone he knows. He hates crowds where he is expected to network or socialize.
ꜱᴏᴜɴᴅꜱ: Laure LOVES the sound of the Sombremont house. It's always busy and loud with children and family members and workers. Music is almost always playing in the parlor (either on an orchestration radio or an instrument). He likes the sound of a good engine on a bike or car. But Laure also likes the quiet murmurs of a library, or the light chatter at a cafe near the university. Laure dislikes silence. Even when alone, he tries to have music playing. Silence usually meant hiding from a raid or his mother's pimp or the quiet anticipation before a battle.
ꜱᴍᴇʟʟꜱ: Oil. Yes, Laure likes the smell of oil as in slide/value oil for brass instruments, oil from a vehicle, cooking oil fresh on a pan, or lubricant oil for the use of lovemaking. It might not be the most lovely of scents, but to Laure it's a scent of life and creativity.
ᴛᴇxᴛᴜʀᴇꜱ: He likes the feel of warm skin against the pads of his fingertips.
ᴡᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ: When Laure was young he loved the few months that Garlemald had without snow. That's why he loves green, it means warmth and life! But he does have a quiet fondness for fresh snow days that aren't bitterly cold. Being a city dweller in his youth, fresh snow was rarely seen, as it was often brown and grey in the streets.
ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ:
×—ᴄᴏᴍʙᴀᴛ—×
ᴊᴏʙ / ᴄʟᴀꜱꜱ: Red mage
ᴀʀᴍᴏʀ ᴛʏᴘᴇ: Caster
ᴡᴇᴀᴘᴏɴ(ꜱ): Rapier
ꜰɪɢʜᴛɪɴɢ ꜱᴛʏʟᴇ: While Laure is good with a gun, he doesn't touch them anymore. However, his training has made his mage work and aiming a precise practice. With the combination of close contact and far-reaching magic, Laure is able to utilize his many skills and compensate where he lacks. This helps his ability to fight for longer periods of time and use his high stamina trait.
ᴍᴇʟᴇᴇ ᴄᴏᴍʙᴀᴛ ꜱᴋɪʟʟꜱ: Rapiers are not slicing weapon, but ones meant for precise strikes. Laure is very good at this, being a jock in a nerd clothing, he is strong yet smart.
ʀᴀɴɢᴇᴅ ᴄᴏᴍʙᴀᴛ ꜱᴋɪʟʟꜱ: Is all magic based. His magick skills are late bloomed, so he knows he cannot rely fully on those skills.
ᴏꜰꜰᴇɴꜱɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴀɢɪᴄ ꜱᴋɪʟʟꜱ: He is best as elemental magicks and has to build up his attacks before giving a devastating blow, unlike other mages where the first shot can be lethal.
ᴅᴇꜰᴇɴꜱɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴀɢɪᴄ ꜱᴋɪʟʟꜱ: His healing isn't great, but he has the basic abilities to keep one from death unless the wound is too severe.
ꜱɪɢɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: He loves corps-a-corps, in and outside battle. And he keeps his rapier in an eather pocket rather than at his person; it makes him feel cool when he busts that bad boy out of nowhere!
×—ᴍɪꜱᴄᴇʟʟᴀɴᴇᴏᴜꜱ—×
ᴘᴇᴛꜱ / ᴀɴɪᴍᴀʟ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴɪᴏɴꜱ: Laure has no pets, nor does he want one. Although he does like his fiancé's companions very much.
ᴘʀɪᴢᴇᴅ / ᴘʀᴇᴄɪᴏᴜꜱ ᴘᴏꜱꜱᴇꜱꜱɪᴏɴꜱ: Laure tries not to get too attached to material things as he knows it is fleeting. As a man that studies death and dead civilizations, he knows just how little they will mean in the end. He wears a key around his neck that means something to him, but it might get lost some day. He has first edition books, but knows that they will one day rot and fall apart. The rings on his fingers will denigrate over time. What he cherishes most is time, because it will never be returned to you, so he uses what time he has with those he loves.
ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇꜱ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ: Although not a linguist, Laure is well versed in many languages, either written or spoke or both. This was first taught to him by his mother, then pushes to keep learning when in military school for negotiation tactics (know thy enemy!), and then when learning old and dying languages.
ꜱᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ ᴛᴀʟᴇɴᴛꜱ: He excels at the euphonium, and is very good with trombone. Laure is also... uh... pretty damn good in bed. Like most things he does, he's very passionate in that area.
ᴘʀᴇꜰᴇʀʀᴇᴅ ᴍᴇᴛʜᴏᴅ ᴏ�� ᴛʀᴀᴠᴇʟ: He enjoys his bike, but he's not offended when others prefer non-mechanical means of transportation. He, himself, isn't fond of long distance travel with aetherits.
ɴᴏᴛᴀʙʟᴇ ᴀᴄᴄᴏᴍᴘʟɪꜱʜᴍᴇɴᴛꜱ: There are several papers published by Laure, and while he's is proud of his magicked findings from his excavation sites and forensic work, and even uncovering a long forgotten civilization, he's also glad that it's such an obscure area of study that people don't hunt him down to do presentations or rub shoulders with the fancy, old money 'scientists' that really just want to network.
ᴀɴ ᴇxᴘᴇʀɪᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜱʜᴀᴘᴇᴅ ᴡʜᴏ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇ: When Laure's brother died, Laure was forced off duty because he broke down in front of his squadron. The army tried to keep him on active duty but there was no recovering so he was sent off in disgrace. This brought him home early to his (at the time) fiancé's surprise, who Laure caught in bed with another man. This all accumulated into a turning point; his years of loyalty to the Empire was not returned in his time of need. His love was spat back into his face for a man he devoted his heart to. It was just before this that his Uncle Frederique reached out, finally finding lost family members that were scattered 25 years prior by a bad man's debt, to help him seek out other and get them out of the Garlean Empire and into the safety of a false name and rank in Ishgard. Laure took up that call, and spent years finding and trafficking his family and friends out of a drying Empire's clutches.
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me @the stuff i have to do this week
day 50-56 // 100dop && day 29-35 // 100doc
saturday/sunday: finished lab report and data structures lab, spent what felt like a really long time trying to understand the instructions and distro code for speller.c and wrote lots of notes and some pseudocode for the load function.
monday: finished 2 and a little bit of a 3rd section of chem chapter. wrote drafts for the load, check, and unload functions in speller.c but it's returning the opposite of what i should be getting. ☹️🧐
tuesday: it seems i have to accept that as the semester wears on, my study space will inevitably become very very messy with scrap paper (note to self to sift through them tmr and keep only what i need rn)... finished 2.5 sections of chem chapter but didn't take notes on everything yet (halfway through the chapter whooo 🙌). answered tutorial worksheet. also, for some reason i didn't have to change anything except for some minor things in unload and load and check50 works for everything now???? now all that's left to do is figure out why my size function is not returning the same number as the staff's solution and improve on that dreaded hash function...everything i've tried so far takes longer than the one already in there... 🤔 in my impatience to move on, i started the python lecture (YAY PYTHON 😁💗 i'm so ready to be done with C for now)
wednesday: OMG i wasn't expecting to be able to finish speller today but i DID!!!! i thought it would take me much longer to figure out that hash function - i owe it all to cs50's reddit (and stepping away from it and doing smth else when stuck) 💗💗💗 now i can REALLY enjoy myself w python (my beloved XP) and not have that unfinished problem hanging over my head ☺️ also almost done making notes for the sections covered yesterday and finished 3/4 practice assignments.
thursday: i woke up at 12pm 😑☹️ finished all except 1 section of the assignment bc i haven't covered all of the chapter yet. i haven't even finished taking notes on...several things, it's kind of all over the place and i'm just trying to learn enough to do the assignment and then go back in more detail once i'm done bc that's how bored and overwhelmed i feel rn (did not know it was possible to feel both at the same time until uni XD) 😅 watched a little more of the python lecture even tho i should be prioritizing chem rn... still got the lab report to write and a quiz to do after the assignment 😵💫😑 (it'll be fine, ik, but if i'm being completely honest, it would be soooooo nice if those things could just do themselves and i could download all the info i need into my brain and instantly understand it and be calculator-fast at the math and not make any mistakes 😤)
friday: finished practice assignment, actual assignment, writing all of the lab report except the intro and references, and the python lecture. got through the remainder of the chem chapter but still gotta write notes on it... it was late at night when i got to the python problems and gaaahhhh coding is sm harder on a sleepy brain, i only finished hello.py XD also dunno how much time i'll have to spend on 100doc this weekend but at least i was able to keep up the streak through the weekdays this time!!
saturday/sunday: finished lab report, notes on chem chapter, quiz, and mario.py. am now working on credit.py and uuuggghhh i did not read the instructions carefully for the checksum!!! 😡 i just followed their example but not all credit card numbers are like the one in the example, so...i have to redo and rethink what seems like a lot of stuff so i basically just wasted all of that time getting confused as to why it wasn't working XD aaaannnddd idk if i should be doing this but i keep converting strings to ints back to strings and then back to ints as needed cuz i lovelovelove iterating through strings but also it seems kinda messy? it also feels super weird writing in python after writing in C for a while...
#not your typical#study aesthetic#studyspo#stemblr#studyblr#chemblr#stem student#stem academia#codeblr#progblr#100dop#100 days of code#100 days of studying#100 days of productivity#cs50#mittonstudies#heyfrithams#heyharri#heyzainab#heydilli#altinstudies#benniscup#python my beloved
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day 7 of 100 days of productivity 💌
No photo today because I was just in the house all day and nothing too interesting happened. But today I worked on a bit for each subject.
Maths, I worked on my homework which was just second derivatives and therefore pretty easy, and a bit of mechanics but not much.
In CS, I spent an hour and a half trying to write a program to determine if a number is happy or not (basically means that, the digits of the number, when squared and added up, and repeated, eventually reach 1). I did not succeed. I looked up how to do it, I understand now, so I’m going to let it marinate in my head a bit then return to it.
Honestly, trying for so long to write that was really frustrating. I first tried converting the number to a string then using a for loop to iterate over the digits, convert them to integers again, then square and sum them, but I had issues when it came to getting that to repeat with the final number churned out and stopping the loop if it reached 1. Then I tried using recursion, which is fairly new to me. I’ve only used subroutines once before this so it was a bit daunting. I felt like I was getting somewhere with recursion but the math just wasn’t mathing and I kept getting Recursion Errors or Local Variable Errors. But it’s okay, I get it now.
For physics, I finished the foundations of physics booklet like I said yesterday! However, I got into the physics problem set and honestly it was bringing me close to tears. The problems are important because it’s an entrance exam for a club of sorts which would be an amazing supercurricular to show for myself when applying to uni, so this is the only opportunity I have to get in. The last 6 or so problems I can’t fathom the method for and they account for over 50% of the marks,,, hurrah you need just over 50% to get in. I’m going to ask my physics teachers on Monday because I refuse to let this chance slip from my grasp.
Regardless of those obstacles, I’m proud of myself for really giving both of them a good go. I’m going to give it another crack tomorrow and ask for help afterwards.
- J
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your colour seperating program, I made something basically identical a few years ago in Python, would love to hear an in depth everything about it, especially how you made the spinning gif
Sorry for the delay I've been kinda busy. I also had various reasons I didn't want to share my code, but I've thought about a better/different way so here it goes (but for the time being I'm as far away from my computer as I possibly could)
I used processing, which is, as far as I remember, based on java but focused on visual media
Starting with the gif part, processing has the save() and saveFrame() methods that save the image displayed, and it also has the "movie maker" that allows you to make GIFs (and others but I don't remember)
I don't know about other languages but processing runs setup() when it starts and draw() every frame
In setup() I load an image as a PImage (processing's image data type like an array or string) and access it's pixel list. Using that I fill a 256x256x256 int array where every color corresponds to a place in the array. This 3d int array is filled with the amount of times each color appears
Lastly I use a log function to convert those numbers into the dot size
During draw() I run through this array and use the point() method to draw every dot (I can define a dot's color using stroke() and it's size using stroke weight() )
There are some optimisations I don't have the patience to explain at the moment
Processing has various render modes. I've made 3d images using the 2d render but I didn't want to repeat the feat (pov: you make 3d in 2d and then your teacher explains the existence of 3d to you). It also has the translate() that moves the origin and rotate(), rotateX() rotateY() and rotateZ() that allows you to rotate the image
I don't know how much you know about processing so sorry if you don't understand or if I'm explaining things you already know
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