#so i swapped computer science with mathematics

[sketchalicious]

decided to take the layton sona thing a little seriously lol

lots of fun trying to see how id be in this time period while also trying to add character. favorite part of making "sonas" isjust seeing how well of a plot you cuold make while still keeping yourself visible.

vv is an alt of like the antagonist thing idk

ouuugh i love being cringe but free...i have a steampunk rabbit hat and phantom of the opera esc mask n i thought it'd look cool in a villain design

idk ,,maybe something something to be an antagonist this character would've fallen into their own creation in an attempt to reach some goal n is now just evil and mean and angry.havent fleshed it out but its fun to draw. kinda wanna make a friend make a sona/find someone else's to draw them as homies lol

[gamingavickreyauction]

An epistemological gap in maths

There's something I find really philosophically interesting about mathematical formalism. The fact that the infinite variety of objects we talk about in maths, and all the facts we can discover about them, can all be attained by assuming some basic facts about these things we call 'sets'. Every enlightening concept, every stroke of genius that grants us some new proof can be boiled down to a sequence of symbols so mechanical that a computer can verify it - that a computer could discover on its own, eventually, given infinite runtime.

This game of manipulating these symbols on a page somehow does the same thing as the intuitive visualization of a polyhedron having a side removed and being squashed onto the plane like a slut. That these two modes of thought (can it even be called thought?) are so different, yet identical. One's rigid, mechanical, one so smooth, alive, yet both meaning the same thing. It's like fucking a machine.

Yet I can't help but feel there's some sleight of hand going on with this 'meaning' - what does it mean for something to mean something? Consider the theorem that a+b=b+a. You can prove this rigorously by induction, first defining the set N, then the successor function, going through the Peano axioms, etc. to produce a proof so watertight, infallible, that no conscious thought is needed to check that it is right. Yet if you showed this to a 6-year-old who was unconvinced of this fact, would that help them? Of course not. I think even if we imagine an infinitely intelligent 6-year-old, whose program of math has worked from the ground up, and has an expert knowledge of set theory but no arithmetic, this still wouldn't work.

The way you would convince them would be along the line of 'suppose you have 3 things in one hand and 5 in the other, the number of things you have is 3+5. Now imagine you had the 5 and 3 things in the opposite hand. That would be 5+3, but it's the same things, so the quantity must be the same.' This appeals to intuitive facts about the world - that objects continue to exist when we move them around, that they can be swapped and still be the same, that this notion we have of 'quantity' isn't something that depends on where things are. And I think these intuitive notions are indispensible if you actually want to convince someone of this.

When you do the proof with sets, you are proving things about sets. We can prove that the Peano axioms are true of this set 'N' and intuitively reason that the Peano axioms make something a good model of what we call 'quantity', but you're still just proving something about the model. It takes an intuitive, unverifiable leap of intelligence to get from a truth about the model to a truth about the world. A leap that I don't think you could convince a complete skeptic to take.

This, on the face of it, is similar to science. You can prove model planets with points and mathematically predict their trajectories and where they should appear in the sky as a result. But these flecks of light we see in the sky will only actually show up there if the model is accurate enough. But I don't think it's the same, because addition - the intuitive version, in the real world, not "+: N^2->N" - is still an ideal object, not something in the real world - you can't have 10^1000 of something, but it's an intuitive object that we somehow all arrive at, and all seem to agree on how it works, even in the case of numbers that we can't possibly come across in the real world.

And we arrive at this consensus without any rigorous proof to show us what is correct - this is a necessary step before we can even apply rigour - but because we all have the same experience of the world, and somehow all extract the same concept of addition from that experience. But we don't even think about the fact that we're doing it. How does this epistemological leap get made?

We face the same problem, even worse, when we come to the real numbers, and how we take this as a model of e.g. 'things a thermometer can show', or how we construct more objects, like circles, from it, and take this set {(x,y) in R^2: x^2+y^2=1} as a model of our pre-existing ideal concept of a circle. I say this is worse, because R is even more epistemically fraught (you tell me there are these numbers which take an infinite amount of information to describe, so you can't possibly define them, that can be found in all the 'gaps' between the numbers we can describe, and these numbers are somehow more numerous than infinity? and you expect me to believe they exist?) and it takes a lot more to comprehend what is going on with them, set-theoretically, so it takes more intelligence to make the leap from our intuitive understanding of circles to the symbols on a page describing circles in ZFC.

Whenever we prove a theorem in ZFC, like 'the area of a disc of radius 1 is half its circumference' we are proving something about these ZFCircles, not our primordial conceptions of circles. We only accept that it's true of primordial circles because we accept ZFCircles are a good model of them. But when we do a pre-rigorous proof of this fact, like by cutting the circle into smaller and smaller triangles, we are proving something about primordial circles, directly. Maybe this relates to why proofs like that are more satisfying than pushing symbols around.

I think that the equivalence of the symbol-pushing proof and the intuitive proof contains a similar irreducible conceptual leap as the jump from primordial circles to ZFCircles. We have to accept that the rules for manipulation of symbols in ZFC accurately model valid truth-finding procedures in actual thought. And we have to accept that some complicated statement about measures involving the set {(x,y) in R^2: x^2+y^2=1} with about 20 layers of nested definitions is an accurate model of the statement 'the area of a disc of radius 1 is half its circumference'. And I think this conceptual leap is fascinating and terrifying. However much we convert maths to the mechanical, we need a leap of faith to be able to confirm that the mechanical result even gives us anything of meaning in the first place. For a machine to be genuine sex, we have to find it at least somehow similar to sex with humans - this epistemological gap terrifies me.

I think that this is often what is being talked about when people have concerns about the 'truth' of the axioms of ZFC, but I also think that notion is used to describe other things too, and that causes confusion.

This is a leap that is crucial for human society - we need to accept that some complicated set of equations are an accurate model for the laws of physics, and the shape of a planned suspension bridge, and we need to trust that computations which those equations giving us an outcome which we interpret as 'not falling down' correspond to the bridge in real life not falling down.

But something else concerning is happening here. The leap from addition to ZFC addition requires some intelligence. The leap from primordial circles to ZFCircles requires more intelligence than that, and the leap from the bridge to the equations that we say describe it requires a great deal of understanding, which is part of why engineers need to be trained.

It seems like the more complicated the things we want to do with maths, the bigger this gap of intelligence becomes, to the point that very few people can actually understand it well enough to be able to judge whether our model corresponds to reality. It seems like as society becomes more complex, we have to take more on faith, not just as individuals trusting other individuals, but as society as a whole.

[wisteriamusic]

Horror definitely knows his stuff about mechanical engineering and stuff like he did try and figure out a way to fix the core wrote across every surface of the wall if he didn’t know a thing about anything before he certainly does now.

I think Killer is scarily good at mathematics but it isn’t his passion just something he happens to be very very good at you don’t even need a computer to run data when Killer can do it by hand.

Also had to say this cause I feel very strongly about this but I think Swap Sanses should be interested in science stuff as well more then Swap Papyruses but both skeleton brothers can find enjoyment in science like you can’t tell me any version of the skeleton brothers isn’t itching to share their hobbies and passions with one another. Papyrus liking basketball seeing how it’s his date outfit Sans wearing basketball shorts and he has like a canonical plushie or Art I forgot of him wearing a basketball vest. I like to think most Papyrus tinker in engineering usually electrical or mechanical mainly for their puzzles while Sanses enjoy thinks on the more theoretical side of science.

Sci probably knows a whole bunch of different sciences only because people are always coming to him with their problems despite not being that kind of doctor or scientist so he has to up and learn a new science only for someone else to come along needing help with something once again he has no idea about

Killer probably also knows a bunch of science some is just some left over knowledge from when he was Sans while the rest were those he pursued science is one of the few things from Sans he still finds enjoyment in a way to connect himself to his past without erasing who he is now. He learned mostly just from having extra time at night when everyone else sleeps and being curious he didn’t have much to do in his fr

I need more Sanses to be able to be absolute nerds. Like, the non Swapped Sanses all have PHDs, they're scientists, canon Sans has a bunch more hobbies too (he likes stars, he reads car magazines, even if it's just for his brother, he's a comedian).

Like, these guys have gotta be passionate about what they like.

Like, imagine Color having in depth knowledge about the history of photography. Delta being an absolute nerd when it comes to metal welding. Epic is just a nerd from every point of view. Killer has a knack for biology, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of everything regarding cats, and he's interested in coding. Dust to me feels like a probability kinda guy (he's gonna be a nerd about it when it comes to playing card games) and also a chemistry kinda guy, he probably makes drugs in his basement. Horror I don't know, but whatever he's a nerd about is gonna be freaky.

Man... I need to write these guys forget that not everyone else is obsessed with their specific interest. I need them to be cringe (affectionate)

[annabethy]

Not quite a role swap but like artistic Annabeth and STEM Percy AU? Just fluff and that couple dynamic but not in the way it’s normally done I think would be immaculate

in which Percy’s good with numbers, but Annabeth teaches him the importance of art,, percabeth

Percy’s good with numbers. He sees the world from a logical point of view, and he always has. Math is something that makes sense to him — he prefers it over everything else because he finds that with numbers, there’s always an answer. He isn’t fond of the unknown. He prefers a set process that has a definitive answer. It’s the life of engineering that’s followed him into his personal life. But with Annabeth, he finds he prefers the unknown.

There’s something artistic about Annabeth, Percy can’t help but think. It’s the way she focuses on each piece she creates, entirely consumed in the beauty of it. It’s the way she bites on her tongue that just pokes through her lips with every brush stroke. It’s her paint-splattered clothes and messy ponytail that make her seem like a masterpiece, handcrafted from the heavens above.

He finds beauty in her and the things that she creates. There are no logistics in art. It’s open-ended, with infinite possibilities, and he quickly learns to appreciate the perfection of all things that have no definitive answer. He wants to venture into the unknown and see what it creates when he gives it the opportunity to.

Annabeth, just like the art she creates, is unpredictable. No amount of math or science can ever do things in the way that she does, one paint stroke at a time, and he doesn’t want it to.

From where Percy’s seated in the art studio, he can see the way sunlight pours over Annabeth’s body. They’re high up in the New York City skyline, and it’s only appropriate that the background is as breathtaking as Annabeth is in this moment.

She’s covered in paint, as usual, but it just makes him see her as a work of art. There’s a smudge of grey on her cheek from where she’d attempted to scratch an itch, though he doesn’t tell her that. Her hair glows golden, flyaways visible against the illuminated skyline.

He shifts in his seat on a table clattered with art supplies, and Annabeth shoots him a scolding look.

“Don’t move,” she warns him, but there’s a playful tone to her voice.

“It’s not my fault you refuse to put a couch in here,” he says, pointedly shifting again. ��I’m going to break my tailbone against this table. And really, is it that bad of an idea to have some furniture in here? I spend almost all my time in this place.”

“You’re welcome to go to the library with all your other engineers,” she sneers, lifting a wet paintbrush at him menacingly. “Maybe you should have chosen a better major.”

“I like numbers,” he defends. “With numbers, you can be sure. With numbers, there’s always a correct answer. You just have to be smart enough to find it.”

“I can’t believe I’m dating someone who like calculus.”

“All I’m saying is that I like being sure.”

Annabeth lifts the corner of her lips as she resumes painting against the canvas. He cranes his neck to see what she’s working on, but it’s no use. She’s turned too far away from him to properly see anything besides a blur.

“I like art,” Annabeth says softly. “Are you sure about me?”

She says it with a calm voice. It’s a light comment, and he thinks that she’s just messing with him, but it still kills him to think she may feel he’s unsure about her when she’s the one thing he knows he needs.

He stands up from the table, clearing a spot for his computer that had been on his lap. He has to step over various canvases and piles of things he couldn’t even begin to name before he makes his way to her side. He immediately pulls her against him, lips pressing against her paint-covered cheek with a featherlight touch.

“You’re the one thing I am sure about,” he whispers into her ear, pressing a kiss to the shell of her ear. He can practically feel the shiver that races its way up her spine, and it makes him smile. “You, Annabeth Chase, are a work of art. You make me see the world in a way I never did before. If there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that you’re it for me.”

Annabeth turns her face so that she can look him in the eyes. She looks so cute from close up that he can’t help but kiss the tip of her nose.

“You’re it for me too,” she tells him. “Even if you like doing math for a living.”

Percy laughs into the crook of her neck, nuzzling the soft skin there. He breathes her in, cherishing the smell of her and a mix of paints and primers.

He stays there for a moment, hugging her by the waist with his face pressed into her neck while she begins to finish what she’s painting. He likes being with her like this, against her warm body that smells so much like his home – like the home he wants to come back to every night and wake up to every morning.

When he does lift his head, he sees her entirely devoured in finishing what she’s created. Up close, he can better see the way her eyebrows scrunch slightly, and the reflection of the canvas popping with color. Her eyelashes are curved to perfection, framing the gray irises he’s fallen in love with.

And he remembers why he fell in love with those eyes now; it was the first painting she’d gifted to him after he told her about his fondness for the ocean. He’d told her about his days spent at Montauk, watching the waves crash against the shore, feeling the sunlight burn his skin. And he remembers that she’d told him how she prefers the rainy days where thunder can be felt shaking the ground, where it pours so hard the power goes out. It wasn’t until weeks later that she showed him what she’d been working on, and it was an image of a storm along the coast of Montauk. A symbol of the two of them coming together — the storm in the sea. Annabeth had come clean and mentioned spending a few weekends at the beach he grew up along, how she had spent hours trying to get it right. The dark clouds above the sea she’d painted had matched her eyes – the violent waves crashing against the rocky shore symbolized the fierce emotion he sees every time he looks into her eyes.

It was that second that he fell in love with her, pulling her in for a kiss because it was the only way he knew how to show her just what he was feeling. It was something he couldn’t put into words. It was something that only her painting could encapsulate. It was wonderful and perfect and them and—

It was art.

“That’s beautiful,” Percy tells her now, watching as she paints before his eyes. It’s an image of the two of them, and one that he recognizes all too well. It’s the picture he knows is sitting in his wallet right this second.

The canvas is filled with whites and grays and blacks and everything in between as the two of them are standing beneath the rain on the beach, tangled in each other’s arms. Their hair is soaked, and rain is pouring around them hard, but they’re standing amidst it all, lips locked, to prolong the moment.

“Do you remember that day?” she asks. “I couldn’t possibly forget.”

“I miss it,” she says. “I know it started raining, and we couldn’t really do much, but it was just…”

It was perfect.

Percy kisses her forehead. “I know.”

He isn’t sure how long he stands there with her, watching her finish the painting in silence, but he doesn’t care. He is intrigued by the way she perfectly portrays the emotion behind it. All he can think about is how amazing it is, watching a scene unravel before his eyes.

Percy will always have a love for math. It’s what makes him comfortable. Numbers and equations do not fail so long as you know what to do. A part of him will always prefer the mathematics behind life.

The other part of him finds he needs the beautiful creation that comes with not knowing.

Annabeth is his polar opposite and his other half.

She is the art to his science. She taught him what it means to really sit back and let life create something beautiful. And he supposes it really did create something amazing. It brought her into his life, let them grow a love so strong no math can ever begin to explain it.

Percy used to think that letting go of control was the end of everything. He’s just now learning that it was truly the beginning.

[make-them-laugh]

For @yoshistack for Code Swap 2021! They wanted some Ulrich/Aelita BroTP!

Ulrich scowled at the cast on his leg before looking out at the soccer field where his teammates were playing. He glanced over when a blur of pink sat next to him and sighed.

“C’mon, Ulrich. You’re just making yourself feel worse, sitting here and watching everyone else play.” Aelita crossed her ankles and smiled softly. “They’ll still be here when you’re healed up. Why don’t you come hang out with me instead and I’ll try to take your mind off it?”

Ulrich bit the inside of his lip and looked away. “They might not be...”

“What do you mean?” Aelita inched closer and put her hand on his back.

“My dad wants me to give up soccer and focus on my schoolwork as long as I can’t play right now,” Ulrich crossed his arms and sighed. “He really doesn’t want me to bother with soccer when ‘it’s not doing me any good’...”

Aelita stood up and when Ulrich looked at her, he saw a fury on her face he’d only seen a few times. “Wait here, Ulrich. I need to go ask Jim something.”

“O...kay?” Ulrich watched as she hopped down the bleacher steps to approach Jim. When she got there, he could see she folded her hands behind her back and she was smiling again, the picture of innocence, and nothing remaining of the furious Aelita that had just left his side. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, only saw Aelita hug Jim before running back to the bleachers and skipping back up the steps with a triumphant grin.

“Jim says that if I help you get your grades up while you’re in the cast, then he’ll let me sit out of gym class to keep helping you, so that by the time you’re healed, the only reason he can take you off the team is because you ask him to. He doesn’t have to no matter how hard your dad pushes for it.”

Ulrich’s eyes widened, and he looked at the hand Aelita extended to him. “Wait, really?”

“Of course, Ulrich! Now c’mon, I’ll help you get caught up, and then there’s gonna be no reason Jim can take you off the team!” Aelita grinned as Ulrich took her hand and she helped him up and handed him his crutches.

Ulrich chuckled softly and followed her to his room to grab his books, then to her room so they didn’t disturb Odd’s video game marathon. She pulled out a card table from behind her wardrobe and set it up along the bed, so they could both sit on it.

“This is easier than clearing off my desk for all our stuff,” Aelita laughed as she placed her books on one side and scooched in so Ulrich could sit down as well. Ulrich sighed as he set his books down and looked at them, lost.

“Okay, let’s start with making a list of all the assignments you’re missing. Do you have the gradebook app on your phone?”

“No, there’s an app for that?” Ulrich pulled his phone out, unlocked it, and handed it to Aelita. She typed a few buttons, and smiled as she handed it back.

“The login is your student number, and the password you use to get into the school computers,” Aelita rummaged through her bag for a notebook.

Ulrich started typing, and hesitated before he hit enter, looking at Aelita warily. She just smiled softly and put her hand on his arm.

“We’ve been really busy with XANA. I’m not going to judge the grades I see,” Aelita rubbed his arm gently and scooted closer. Ulrich took a deep breath and hit enter. Aelita glanced at the grades and nodded. “Okay, click the top one first, and we’ll figure out what you’re missing.”

Ulrich did as he was told, and scrolled through the assignments. Aelita jotted down the assignments as they went, and she did this for all the classes, writing class names and assignments in her large, bubbly script. When they had the list, Aelita smiled.

“This isn’t so bad! We’ll be able to knock this out in no time!”

Ulrich looked at the list warily and then to Aelita. “You’re sure?”

“Of course!” Aelita pulled out the first book they’d need and tore the assignment list out of her notebook so Ulrich could write in it. “Let’s get started.”

-----

Ulrich stared in shock at the grade report in front of him.

History - B

French - A-

English- B+

Physical Education - A

Computer Sciences - C+

Mathematics - A

He looked over at Aelita next to him, and he could see she was dying to see. He waited until the teacher’s back was turned, and slipped it to her. She unfolded it carefully, and he watched as her eyes lit up. She turned to grin at him, and he grinned back as she passed him his grades back.

After class, he hugged her tight and laughed.

“I can’t believe this! I got an A that isn’t in PE, and nothing is a D or F!” Ulrich looked at the grade sheet again, and sighed. “Thank you, Aelita. This is...this is awesome.”

“Hey, you put in the work yourself, Ulrich, I was just there to help.” Aelita smiled. “And now that you’re getting your cast off in a few days, you can go back to playing soccer without a worry.”

Ulrich nodded and put the paper in his bag. “Hey, would you want to maybe learn to play soccer or do Pencak Silat?”

“I would love to do either of those!” Aelita nodded. “You and I need to spend more one on one time together.”

“We really do, studying with you was actually pretty fun,” Ulrich smiled. “Now, if I remember breakfast right, you actually have a coding date with our other resident genius, so I’m gonna go show my report card to Jim, and you can go work with Jeremie and figure out how to do...whatever it was you were trying to do.”

“Sounds good,” Aelita smiled. “See you at dinner?”

“Only if you two lovebirds don’t lose track of time,” Ulrich chuckled, and laughed harder when Aelita gently punched his shoulder.

[punkscowardschampions]

Mattie & Lulu

Mattie: [So my vibe for it, she just shows up without knowing because by this point it’s been like 2 years since attempted contact so you wouldn’t think to check like, where do they go to school, especially if Chloe swore the grandparents to secrecy vis-a-vis the teacher situation because she would, so you probably think they’re still in Switzerland, and then I think we should say that one of them is in her form and one of them has her as a teacher for either Physics or Computers and whoever we pick as the form one could see her first and if that was Dolly she could tell Lulu to try and get in with her]

Lulu: [That honestly feels the most legit to me too, I was gonna say maybe put Lulu in her form so they have to spend more time together lol but your idea makes the most sense in terms of like starting this convo, also love you not being the 1st to know since you spoke for them both in the last convo so]

Mattie: [And if you had her for both subjects, you’d still see her a lot so it’s fine, also lessons are longer than form time but you’re meant to like, talk to your form teacher if you need something so we can say that Dolly is without having to do it obvs, so then my vibe for today is she obviously took Dolly to one side and was like I don’t know how this happened but I’ll follow your lead like if you want to swap forms you can but also you can stay and we don’t have to make a big deal of it. Mattie would have to let the School know like they’re my half-sisters btw, didn’t know they were here, but we had kids who were taught by their literal mums so it’s not like she has to leave or they have to move classes, just as long as you aren’t hiding it ‘cos that’d be weird on her part, so maybe we can say Lulu didn’t have either lesson today so we can do this like Dolly has just told her but Mattie hasn’t had enough time or reason to come find her in person?]

Lulu: [That’s so clever boo, such an excellent way to get around having to RP with yourself and yeah she could totally be taught by her for both lessons so that is probably more time actually like you said]

Mattie: [Okay so our vibe for form is it’s about 30 mins at the start of the day, after breakfast for boarders and before lessons, and there are 4 girls from each year in the form (year 7-13) so the energy is very look after the little ones and go to the older kids for advice and help, as well as your form teacher being your go-to teacher for things you need that aren’t related to your subjects, you probably also have a matron-esque person for things related to boarding; Definitely doing houses also and you get points for good behaviour, academic achievement and clubs and sporting, can also be taken away for poor behaviour and performance, Dolly and Lulu are in the same house just not form. HOUSE TEA, after research it seems like forms and houses are separated by boarding and day students as well as sex, so only boarding girls in your form/house, you literally live with your house if you board, it’s about 60 girls, and there is the housemistress (and her whole fam and dog lmao) a matron, the tutors of the forms in said house and then head girl as well as 6th form girls being prefects, absolutely can think of what the housemistress, matron, head girl and other tutors who live in are like; MORE TEA, school starts 8:25, chapel, assembly or form time, four lessons before lunch, after lunch from about 4:00, 2 clubs a day, sports, drama, art etc until 6:00, final reg ‘til 6:15, then there’s the ‘cultural hour’ til 7:15, prep aka homework for AT LEAST an hour after dinner assumedly, Saturday is chapel, three lessons, lunch, then sports all afternoon depending how much sports you do, there are like 150 clubs so get at it]

Lulu: [NGL love this, I’d be fuming if my mum worked there and I had to live there too but like such a fun vibe for us and it makes sense that you’re gonna end up getting close to Mattie like it or not]

Lulu: [okay so Lulu studies Physics and Computer Science with Mattie and then Mathematics makes sense to go with that]

Mattie: [Dolly Drama & Theatre Studies, German & Religious Studies]

Lulu: [Okay so Lulu’s clubs cos you have to do a sport I’m gonna pick Tennis as a throwback to your old school, Drama as I’ve mentioned in this convo, Model UN likewise as a throwback, Chess cos we love it and that Curie Society thing where they just chat about scientific discoveries and D of E]

Mattie: [Dolly’s clubs are Drama, Archery, Running Club, Chapel Choir, Cross Country & Swimming, will do Creative & Literary Society when we are in a better place but not like right away]

Mattie: [I think we can start this convo now we have an idea]

Lulu: Dolly told me you’re her form tutor… that’s unexpected

Lulu: how long is your placement here?

Mattie: Yes, very

Mattie: I had zero idea you two weren’t still in Switzerland

Mattie: Believe me when I say if I planned to initiate contact between us again, I would have gone for a more direct, far less convoluted route to do so

Mattie: The placement is 8 weeks, I’ve had to let the head know and I was going to come find you to see how you wanted to proceed

Mattie: Dolly was happy enough to stay in my form and not make a big deal about it, her words, obviously this is a shock for us all and I’m not going to minimize that for my own gain

Mattie: But I am taking you for Physics and Computer Studies, so you would actually be seeing more of me than Dolly, so that’s… a thing

Mattie: There is another Computer Science class in your year but Physics is already a small class with just me… I could see if there’s a possibility for a Physics teacher from one of the other years to swap with me, if that’s what you would like

Lulu: Of course you wouldn’t be aware of our move, and of course Dolly doesn’t want to make a big deal of you being here now that we are, similarly I’m not going to make a fuss about you teaching me, that’s all you’re supposed to do, professionalism is also a… thing and 8 weeks is bound to absolutely fly by

Mattie: If you’re sure, Lulu, then that’s absolutely how I am happy to proceed too

Mattie: It really isn’t long, in the grand scheme of things

Mattie: You aren’t obligated to share any more than you would with any other teacher, but I have to ask why the move?

Mattie: You seemed to really love that place

Mattie: Even though it seems very impressive here too

Mattie: I just hope you’re okay, is really all I’m trying to say with that question

Lulu: There’s no big secret, it was just time for a change, which is how you jolly well may feel after you’ve spent 2 months here 😅

Mattie: Oh no, you aren’t enjoying it here? Or just a bit of a culture shock

Mattie: It was for me too, my last placement was an inner-city comp

Mattie: but it’s different being this side of the student-teacher divide regardless, that’s for sure

Lulu: I’m not a student you have to try to find common ground with, you aren’t my form tutor

Mattie: How are you getting on with yours? She’s the Drama teacher, right, funny how that worked out

Lulu: Marvellously, it’s been one of my extracurriculars since year 7

Mattie: That’s great, and you get to spend time with your sister, now you don’t have your lessons together

Lulu: Yeah, Religious Studies isn’t my thing

Mattie: I can’t say it’s mine either 😅

Mattie: Also the man who teaches that scares me a bit but 🤫 I’m sure he looks more off-putting than he actually is

Lulu: It’s his 🐛 brows but your first impression and instincts are spot on too, he’s v intense

Mattie: I’ll break the ice by asking him to come get them threaded, that’s a great idea

Lulu: I’m extremely clever and that was a elaborate ploy to prove every idea I have is A* to you as my new teacher and earn house points as I’m so devoted

Mattie: I sadly think I know how the head would feel about merit points for beauty reccs but admire the dedication, that’s definitely a core value they want to promote here so

Mattie: Not not worth some ++

Lulu: It’d be beastly not to pass the vibe check after all this time, the most relief ever that I’ve worked out this place’s core values

Mattie: I think I still have the introductory pamphlet, should you ever need a refresher

Mattie: Core values, Latin Motto, the lot…

Lulu: [Whatever the school Latin motto is cos I tried to make a sassy one up but was cockblocked] I’m fine, but thanks

Mattie: Impressive

Mattie: Okay, I will see you in class tomorrow

Mattie: Potentially around the house before then but I’ll do my best to give you both space

Lulu: It’s called making an effort, which you’ll see me do in class too

Lulu: okay but don’t give us a lot of space or everyone’ll think we’re in some huge bind over you and like Dolly and I have both said, it’s not that big of a deal

Mattie: Pleased to hear it

Mattie: Understood

Mattie: I more meant it as a warning that I too room there so you might see me around, but I won’t make a point of showing up in your dorm

Lulu: I don’t honestly know what makes you think I would need a warning but thanks again anyway

Mattie: I’m not trying to make your transition here any harder than it needs to be

Lulu: You’d have to be a horrific teacher to make that sizeable of an impact, we’re both settled, the newbie here is you

Mattie: Well that remains to be seen

Mattie: QTS will either be achieved by the end of this or not

Mattie: It’s a lot bigger than your last, your house has as many pupils as the entirety of Surval did, that’s a big change

Lulu: So was co-ed and day students, note my past tense though

Mattie: Right, and your subjects at A-Level are, sadly, pretty boy heavy

Mattie: You’ve got it all worked out though, I’ll be sure to ask for help if I get stuck

Lulu: Not something I expected to have to deal with, pre-fresh start, but I don’t have to teach them, only get on with my own work

Lulu: yeah, I could give an A* tour

Mattie: I’d call you lucky if I didn’t know personally that the workload is going to be intense

Mattie: but I’ve seen your grades so I’m not worried for you, you’ve got this

Mattie: I might take you up on that offer, though if you can secure one of the cute dogs I see running about, that turns might into a definite

Lulu: 😊

Lulu: Oh, this is the moment to let you know Skipper loves me

Mattie: I think Skipper nearly ran me down this morning

Mattie: assuming he’s the GIANT one that rarely listens to his owner 🤭

Lulu: He is 🥰💖 but he doesn’t realise 😆

Mattie: The best kind of dog 😌 It’s so cute

Lulu: My biggest soft spot is for little dogs who think they’re VIP as in v important humans, but we have one of those at home, for the best of both worlds

Mattie: Okay, yes, that’s a mood too

Mattie: What’s his name?

Mattie: Being currently without any pet I need all the surrogates, obviously

Lulu: Monty

Lulu: [show her a picture of him obvs]

Mattie: Oh, he’s a doll 😍

Mattie: a definite plus for being in England is you can go visit him more often

Lulu: Not really, I’m still boarding

Mattie: The 6-day schedule is intense

Mattie: I can see the benefits though, as long as the child is here because they want to learn, and not because their parent paid for an extra intensive education just because it’s the ‘best’

Lulu: Both can be true and mostly seem like they are here

Mattie: By your age, if it wasn’t suiting, you wouldn’t have made it, I don’t think

Mattie: At least you have Sundays

Lulu: You’ve seen my grades, who could fake making it that hard?

Mattie: I wasn’t accusing you of not being capable, not at all, sorry that wasn’t clear, just musing aloud that the people who aren’t suited to this model won’t make it past IGCSEs to A-levels

Mattie: but that kind of thing would fall under unprofessional, I imagine so let’s pretend I didn’t say anything

Lulu: It’d only be unprofessional if you shared who you think shouldn’t be here, which I’ll totally pretend you didn’t say after 🤭

Mattie: 😅😶 I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that and slip the list under your door when I’ve made it

Lulu: 🤫 to not turn you against an absolutely ridiculously high percentage of both your classes before you’ve taught them

Mattie: Definitely not the aim of my placement 😰

Mattie: Although someone has to be the teacher nobody likes, right?

Lulu: You could try that approach, but unless this tête-à-tête happening is what’s faked, I can’t see you making it work for 8 weeks

Mattie: Thanks, that’s almost encouraging 😌😜

Mattie: Over the initial shock, it’s good to see you both doing well here

Mattie: And if you do happen to need anything, you can let me know

Lulu: You’re almost my teacher, calling you a bitch wouldn’t get us off on the right foot

Mattie: I don’t think I can downgrade you for that, but no, I see that

Mattie: Professionalism works both ways, as it were

Lulu: And I could need an extension at any time, my lab partner is a perfect dunce who should be on your reject list 😓 I’d be pretty gassed if you would actually re-assign us, do you have that much power? 🤔

Mattie: It’s a possibility

Mattie: I like to switch it up anyway, you’re such a small group, it stops it getting clique-y, so you can all work together and swap around whilst I’m your teacher

Mattie: When you get a permanent teacher after I leave, they might see it differently but they’ve all been enthusiastic about my ideas thus far, though I just got here

Lulu: After you leave is after you leave, I feel seedy now and look like 💀 if you want to do anything about it

Mattie: What’s the problem with him, beside the dunce thing we’ve already covered?

Lulu: Isn’t that enough bad luck? I’m doing everything by myself while he’s high fiving his friends for getting partnered with me, like some incel

Mattie: Right

Mattie: Let me see it for myself and then perhaps I can do something about it, if it is that blatant

Mattie: You don’t need the teacher’s pet rep any more than I need accusations of baseless favouritism just because we’re related

Mattie: I believe you, but I’ll deal with it in class and in my capacity as your teacher and his, not like this, yeah

Lulu: I’m letting you know what I need, which is what you just told me to do

Mattie: Okay, I’ve heard you, I just want to make sure you understand that if you come to me with things related to class, then they’ll be dealt with in the proper channels

Lulu: 😬 sorry if you got the impression I’d come to you with anything unrelated to class, we’re not there

Mattie: You didn’t, I simply offered

Lulu: Grandma will be buzzing

Mattie: I’m not doing it to score points, or make a statement

Mattie: and undoubtedly you won’t come to me but I’m going to offer in case you need to, and because that’s what feels right to me to do, that’s it

Mattie: No hidden agenda

Lulu: Offer it to Dolly, that’s your job

Mattie: I have, Lulu

Mattie: Don’t worry

Lulu: Meaning?

Lulu: my sister is fine, I don’t have to worry about her

Mattie: Meaning just that

Mattie: I have a pastoral role as well as an educational

Mattie: If any pupil in my form needs help, they’ll receive it

Lulu: She doesn’t

Mattie: Glad to hear it

Lulu: You’ll have an easy time of it from both of us

Mattie: As long as you’re having a good time of it too, that works perfectly for me

Lulu: Il n’y a pas le feu au lac, as my previous mistresses were devoted to saying

Mattie: My French is limited to being able to order dinner with minimal side-eye from the waiters

Mattie: but I’ll take your very pretty words for it

Lulu: Whoops, I shouldn't have assumed, what language did you do?

Mattie: Mandarin, which was a huge plus on my application, with the college in Malaysia and the Mandarin course they do here

Lulu: Wow, how difficult is it? I’d love to have learned

Mattie: It is challenging, but a fun one I’d say

Mattie: It’s a shame they only have the one teacher, so they can’t make it a club too, they’d be run ragged

Mattie: I could teach you the 101 basics, I’m confident enough to do that much

Lulu: You didn’t want to be accused of favouritism and I don’t want to make an ass of myself

Lulu: I’ll have to move there and hope it’s not yonks before the immersion and fluency, I’ve only ever learnt a language that way, I don’t know if even the basics are doable otherwise 😟

Mattie: Well that’s certainly the best way to learn but not the only

Mattie: I wish I was here longer so I could commit to starting a club for the pupils like you who are interested but it wasn’t viable to pick as an A-Level

Lulu: I’ll download an app or something, delete it if it’s too embarrassing

Mattie: I’ll check in to see how you’re finding it

Mattie: You do have a wealth of extra-curriculars, you have zero reason to be embarrassed

Lulu: Only one of those is new and I get to talk in English on subjects I’m never out of my depth with, so yeah, that’s a reason

Lulu: I don’t have time to pick up Chinese Chess either 😭 maybe I can if I do move there

Mattie: The world is seriously going to be your oyster, you can do whatever you want to do, wherever you want to be

Lulu: Is that, like, your teacher catchphrase? 😅 totes inspirational

Mattie: I’ll get a poster made ASAP then 😏

Lulu: Do you need me to draw you a map to art first?

Mattie: Oh, absolutely

Lulu: [do draw her a little map of the key places in the school even though it’d obvs be really simple which might make it more confusing than the actual map cos we’re missing stuff out]

Mattie: [when you didn’t think she would and you’re lowkey touched lmao]

Mattie: That’s perfect, I should actually show up on time for our lesson tomorrow now, thanks for that

Lulu: I draw the line at teaching myself [a thing from both subjects she’s struggling with or doesn’t like lol] as well as Mandarin

Mattie: Now that we can 100% get down before my placement is up, that I can guarantee 😊

Lulu: so you’ve guaranteed yourself a thrilled student quote for the poster

Mattie: Everything’s coming up me 🙌🙌

Lulu: 🤞🏻 you keep that energy going tomorrow

Mattie: I’m not going to oversell it to you, but I do know what I’m doing, in terms of having me as your teacher, I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed

Lulu: They wouldn’t have you here as a teacher if that was your vibe, overselling is honestly closer to what they’re about, you must be worthy of 🙌🏻

Mattie: Bragging is never my vibe but I got the placement here for a reason, and I’m glad I did, so I won’t be wasting the opportunity

Mattie: I went to a good school, but the boarding lifestyle is something I’ve never experienced

Lulu: And I’ve never not, how odd, but you won’t have to experience it that hard as a teacher, they don’t even make you share or suffer through the indignity of inspections

Mattie: My room is a mess of notes and first-day outfits currently so that is definitely a good thing 😬😅

Lulu: The second-day outfit is much less pressure, especially in a class that’s v boy heavy

Mattie: Is that a promise you won’t judge me? 😏

Lulu: I’d come off worse, this uniform is not a mood, they never are

Mattie: At least there’s no boater, the full fantasy

Lulu: It’d add some interest, at least, to how plain everything has to be

Mattie: Thank Goodness for Sundays, you can express yourself then

Lulu: Are you promising not to judge me back? Awww! We’ve got a pact happening

Mattie: As long as there are no sacrifices or blood oaths I’d say that’s above board

Lulu: Sunday’s the chapel’s busiest day and without an altar what are we doing? 😬 Bad luck

Mattie: I do keep forgetting we’re CoE, I’ll have to carve that into the nearest tree or whatever so I don’t arouse suspicion with any 🔮ness

Lulu: Or 🤔 you could use the ⛪️🙏🏻 time to mentally outfit plan for the week if you’re for real awfully nervous, null and voiding the demand for the pact and witch vibes at all

Mattie: You’re very sensible

Mattie: though lesson planning is ultimately the best use of my time, if the big man upstairs is cool with that

Lulu: I use mine for [idk whatever maths or physics shit she could do in her head] and I’m blessed to have not been struck down yet

Mattie: 😅 Well I approve even if the jury is out with the 😇😇s

Lulu: Thanks

Lulu: did Grandpa teach you to play chess too? I need to practice

Mattie: He did, clearly very serious about passing on his chess knowledge 😌

Lulu: Relatable honestly if he just got sick of telling Grandma how the horse and castle move over and over for years 🙄 I tried to teach this boy once and never again

Mattie: Poor Grandma 🤭🤦‍♀️ Is that a boy from home?

Lulu: Golly, if that was how I spent my hols 🙈 No, his mother was a music mistress at our old school

Lulu: he tried but didn’t manage to teach me guitar either

Mattie: Oh, that makes a lot more sense

Mattie: I know the sort

Mattie: Everyone here seems to have little kids or grown-up kids right now, some of the little ones are super cute

Lulu: What sort?

Mattie: The walking-talking Netflix teen heartthrob type

Lulu: Yeah, no, you don’t know him, or me

Mattie: I didn’t mean anything by it

Lulu: And I meant what I said, I’m being welcoming and chill as it’s your first day, but you don’t know me like that

Mattie: Okay, I apologize

Lulu: It’s fine, I’ll see you tonight, not to ruin the surprise but there are other welcoming first day dorm traditions I have to be there for

Mattie: Oh, okay, cool

Mattie: When you want to practice Chess, let me know, we can do it after prep time

Lulu: Okay 👋🏻 for now

[nxfury]

Rolling Custom Cryptographic Systems: Part 1

Cryptography- it's always the hot debate topic regarding computers, with society trying to perserve it and ensure ciphers are extremely hard to crack, to aid in the preservation of privacy (thus ensuring free speech). Governments often oppose cryptographic ciphers because of their difficulty to crack, making investigations and research on other people harder.

However, there's no denying that such systems seem very arcane and tough to understand, and this series of posts intends to shed some light on how cryptographers implement systems that are extremely hard to crack.

This post series exists to help educate people on the importance of cryptographic research and how it corresponds to your privacy online, and how you can better protect yourself in a high risk environment. I would like to give credit where it's due, as I learned most of this content from "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier.

Like a Lightswitch: Boolean Logic

So let's quickly cram an intro to computer science class into a couple paragraphs to preface this all... Boolean Logic is just a fancy term for the ability to do math with nothing more than true or false statements and a few special operations. This is achieved through the use of the binary number system, which behaves very much like the decimal system in the sense that it has a "place" for digits of a certain value. However, instead of having a 1s, 10s, 100s, etc. place, the binary system has a 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, etc place. A binary digit is called a bit and a number that is 8 binary digits long is called a byte.

Like normal math, we can do addition, subtraction, etc to the binary numbers... But we can do more than that since binary 0 is "False" anything other than 0 is "True". We can use AND, OR, XOR, NAND, and NOT operations on our numbers now. AND, OR & NOT are all pretty self explanatory in how they work (they take inputs and you perform said operations on them). NAND stands for NOT AND, so you basically perform AND and then invert the output value. XOR will only output true if only one input is true.

Cryptography Basics

So what is cryptography? In the most perfect sense, a cryptographic function is an algorithm that can only be reversed using one method, and is impossible to recover the original contents using any other method. However this is often not the case, and this is why security experts say nothing is 100% secure, because there will always be unknown holes in your cryptographic functions and systems.

When cryptographic functions work through taking a message and a single "key", performing a series Boolean operations and mathematical operations to use the same key to encrypt and decrypt the message, it is called a symmetric encryption algorithm. Some of the leading symmetric algorithms (in terms of security) are AES-256, CHACHA20 and SALSA20.

If there's 2 keys, one for decryption (called a private key) and one for encryption (called a public key), it is called an asymmetric encryption algorithm. Some of the leading asymmetric algorithms are RSA and EC-Diffie Hellman.

Finally a hashing algorithm is one that takes a message as input, performs a series of operations on it, and outputs a bunch of garbled information- but if you input the same message again, you will get the same output. This is common for storing passwords and login information. Common hashing algorithms are SHA256 and SHA512.

Keys require random numbers to be created, and often times cryptographic systems rely on programs to generate random numbers for keys. The ongoing problem is that computers are incapable of being random, so there is ongoing research to produce Cryptographically Secure Pseudo-Random Number Generator software (CSPRNG). Alternatively, some people opt for Hardware-based Random Number Generators (HRNG) for producing their crypto keys.

Planning our Cryptosystem

Let's say Bob and Alice want to email each other, but they fear Eve- our eavesdropper- might be listening in. How can we securely share secret cryptographic keys in such a manner that it's impossible for Eve to get them?

Using Multiple Systems

Using some code, it's entirely possible to stitch together multiple algorithms. So it's possible that we could send EC-Diffie Hellman encrypted messages, but encrypt our public and private keys with AES-512 encryption and a personal password. So it's not theoretically possible for "Eve" to intercept the encryption and decryption keys without having to trick Bob and Alice.

To do this, we need to understand what EC-Diffie Hellman keys go where. The public key encrypts the message, while the private key decrypts the message. So for this to work, Bob would need to have Alice's public key and his private key encrypted with AES-512, while Alice would need Bob's public key and her private key encrypted also with AES-512.

To simplify this... 1) Bob and Alice generate public and private keypairs 2) Bob and Alice swap public keys. 3) Bob encrypts Alice's public key and his private key. 4) Alice encrypts Bob's public key and her private key. 5) When they wish to email, they unlock their keys. 6) After unlocking their keys, they encrypt their messages. 7) To decrypt the message, Bob or Alice unlocks their keys. 8) They then use their private key to decrypt the message.

This seems rather complex, although most of the process is automated and running behind the scenes. Software like this would manifest itself as a "keychain" or "keyring" in major programs.

The Plan

The first step, which will be shared in the next post, will be to implement a CSPRNG and a hashing algorithm so we can generate keys.

The second step will be to implement a EC-Diffie Hellman cryptographic function, using hashing algorithm and CSPRNG to aid in the generation of keys.

The third step will be to implement AES-512, which will complete the cryptosystem, and allow for encryption of the keys.

The last milestone of this project will be to provide a simple and clean interface so an end-user can encrypt their emails.

References

Schneier, B. (2015). Applied cryptography: Protocols, algorithms, and source code in C. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.

[takeaseatkaren]

Lost & Found

A Paterson ficlet

You surveyed the table, simple but elegant, a small floral arrangement in the center. A spring assortment, bright colors popping against the dark mahogany of your small kitchen table. You’d taken out the Fiestaware that had been your grandmother’s. Simple, but colorful. You’d picked bright yellows and reds and greens to match the flowers.

It was silly. All of this to have a guy over for dinner. Guys didn’t care about flowers and plates and table settings. You tweaked the position of the silverware. You wanted it to be perfect anyway. This was already a second chance you never thought you’d get. You shook your head, still amazed that fate had seen fit to make you the lucky one.

He’d been the first boy you’d ever paid much attention to. He had been in your English class, always sitting in the desk next to you. He was already far too tall for 9th grade, and it was obvious he felt awkward in his body from the way he carried his lanky limbs. He tried to hide his large ears with knit caps, or sometimes the hoodie of a jacket. All of his features were large, most notably to you his eyes, which you found warm and inviting when he spoke to you. He smiled with his eyes, when he smiled.

He was quiet, and smart. “The kid with the notebook”, they called him, referring to the ubiquitous notebook always in his possession. The other kids, forever looking for someone to take their own insecurities out on, focused on him. You didn’t feel sorry for him, though. Not you, with your glasses and your braces and your thick, curling hair that refused to be tamed. But while he seemed to be a target, for some reason (maybe his size, or his refusal to acknowledge them), you were completely invisible. Actually, he had been the first boy to ever actually see you at all.

He forever had that notebook of his in front of him, pen in hand, writing. Always writing.

“Can I read?” you had asked one day, and he had looked up at you, startled. You had fully expected him to say no. You had fully expected him to tell you to mind your own business, and why shouldn’t he? You weren’t really friends, although you were friendly. But much to your surprise, he had looked at you, then down at his notebook, then back at you.

And then he handed you the notebook, without a single word.

You almost didn’t know what to do with it. What would you find when you leafed through the pages? Everyone said it was probably crazy stories about murder, or maybe lists of all the girls at the school and what he wanted to do to them. You were almost scared to open it. What if it were something horrible? What if it were something you couldn’t unsee?

Dad asked me to clean the garage.

I was angry. I wanted to read.

He said I read too much and to go make myself useful.

I found my childhood in the garage.

The first bicycle I learned how to ride,

The blanket that was on my bed - the one with fire engines on it.

A big box of LEGOS.

I wanted to keep it all.

Instead, I boxed it all up.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

It would bring a smile to some other kid.

I found my childhood in the garage.

I gave it all away.

Poetry. Pages and pages and pages of freeform poetry. It was beautiful, and deep. Sometimes he would change styles, as if he were toying with cadence and rhyme. You read and read and read, and were startled when the bell rang.

You handed the notebook back to him, searching for words, but unable to find any. He shoved the notebook in his backpack and turned to go.

“Thank you!” you said suddenly, maybe a little too loudly, but you couldn’t just let him walk away. He turned, you smiled, and he nodded.

And that was how it began.

Friends at first, you grew closer as the months passed. Freshmen year ended, and your summer was spent hanging out, talking for hours on end, swapping books, watching movies on the TV in your parent’s basement. He would write poetry, and read it to you. He valued your opinion. He valued your friendship. He valued you, as no one ever had before.

Sophomore year, things changed. You changed. Your braces came off, your mom took you to get contacts, your skin cleared up and you learned how to tame your mass of auburn curls. Other boys began to pay attention to you -- boys the other girls chattered about. You went on a few dates, and found each and every one of them to be remarkably boring, silly, and far too excitable. You would complain to him every time, and he would always say the same thing.

“You’ll find the right guy eventually. Someone perfect for you.”

The summer before Junior year, your heart had been thoroughly broken by a boy who had used you for one thing. Your confidence was shattered, your innocence was lost, your self esteem battered and bruised.

You had ended up at his house, before you even knew where you were going. You didn’t knock, but he somehow had known you were there. He didn’t even have to ask, he knew what had happened, and without a word, he took you in his arms. With your face hidden in the crook of his neck, your hands fisted into the front of his t-shirt, your sobs so deep they were silent, you had asked yourself a single question inside your head, over and over and over.

“How could I have been so stupid?”

He had been there, right in front of you, the entire time.

Junior and Senior year belonged to the two of you. Strangely, once you were a couple, kids no longer teased or taunted. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. You were both so happy, so completely in love, so complete.

Not once had he ever asked you for sex. He seemed content with just having you near him. There were nights in his car, or at a party, or on the sofa when your parents weren’t home where your kisses had become so deep and heated that you’d ended up tangled together, breath quick, hands quicker. When you had finally decided to be with him, it was a mutual agreement. It had been sweet, and slow, and soft, and he had made sure you were comfortable. You felt so loved.

Mid-way through Senior year, it all came crashing down. You had been accepted to CalTech, your first school choice. You wanted to study computer science and engineering. He begged you not to go, not to leave him. You told him he was being selfish. You argued almost every day. He hadn’t been accepted to the schools he chose. He didn’t have a scholarship, or money to relocate. He was trapped, and you were free to fly.

You tried to keep in contact after you moved across the country. You were successful at first, but there was no way it could last. Day by day, week by week, month by month, your school work and social activities and new friends took more and more of your time. You talked to him less and less, and soon, you didn’t talk at all.

You regretted it. You missed him. You missed what you had. But what could you do?

Time passed like a flash of lightning. In a casual conversation with your mom one summer evening, she told you of the engagement. He was marrying an artist, she told you. Of course you googled her. Of course she was beautiful. Exotic, with dark curling hair and ebony eyes. She suited him.

You had cried for the rest of the night.

When you moved back home to help tend to your aging parents, a position teaching applied mathematics at the nearby university already in your pocket, he was the last thing on your mind.

And the first person you saw when you went into town.

Fate is funny that way.

You stopped by the local cafe to pick up croissants for breakfast the next day and there he was, cup of coffee in front of him. And his notebook. You stood still, staring, unable to move or speak or breathe. You wanted to run, hide, but before your limbs would cooperate, he had already looked up to see you standing there.

He smiled. He stood. You hugged.

You spent the rest of the evening talking. It was as if you’d never been apart, and the last six years were a fraction of a second. His wife had already left him. You didn’t ask the details, but told him you were sorry. He shrugged, as if it were just one of those things.

You invited him for dinner at the little house you were renting not far from the homes you grew up in. He agreed. You smiled. You stood. You hugged again.

A knock at the door whisked you back from the memories that had consumed you. You opened it, and there he was, tidy in his button down and khakis, a bottle of wine and a single pink rose in his hand. They had always been your favorite. His notebook was tucked under his arm.

“Paterson.” you greeted him, holding open the door for him to enter. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

[hciadoption-blog]

The Future of Computational Chip - Human Brain User Interfaces Considered

Recently a person contacted me from overseas, researching on the human brain, particularly computer interfaces. The Professor of Neurobiology was doing a term paper and also showed to me that; "it is possible for a computer/human interface tool in the future." Now after that, yes, well, I would agree with what he is claiming actually, lots of future implications in all of this.

It shows up to me that using the semantic network and also adding in a computational chip to convert mind signals to ones and also nos is possible for thought-swapping. And also, of course, add-on memory such as a Ph.D. in physics, mathematics, as well as engineering on a chip as well as attached to the Internet enabling a human being to seem all-knowing like IBMs Watson. The applications are unlimited, not just for managing cars and trucks, aircraft, tools, wheelchairs, appliances, computers, but also for human interaction "Arthur C Clarke 3001 'area cap' design" too.

One thing that must be thought about is the challenges with the future of "mind hacking" and mind control, although human beings nowadays seem to be pretty good at that without this innovation today. Nano-tech, as well as Moore's Legislation, will certainly help in developing nodes and motes which will find locations to lodge themselves to check out and also translate as well as user interface, also provide nutrients and extract bio-threats to the brain which have slipped by the blood-mind barrier.

There is so much science in all of this from many different locations all merging as we speak. So, I informed my associate that; "I have numerous ideas on every one of this, I barely recognize where to start our dialogs. Yet perhaps, you wish to lead off on a certain topic, and also we can hem and haw that subject and also develop something dazzling for your thesis, something that could be a future innovation in this specific niche of clinical endeavor?"

Just to give you a concept of just how quickly all this is progressing; there was an interesting post in the science information lately where a scientist at Cal Technology had actually produced a gadget, a neural network made from DNA, the article showed up in SpaceDaily, and also described a paper that simply showed up in Nature. The SpaceDaily short article was labeled; "Caltech Scientist Develop the First Artificial Semantic Network Out of DNA," by Staff Writers in Pasadena, CA (SPX) as well as showed up on Jul 27, 2011. You truly need to go look up that short article if this subject passions you.

The short article stated; "This is a significant step toward producing fabricated intelligence-not in a robotic or a silicon chip, but in a test tube. Although brain like behaviors within artificial biochemical systems have actually been hypothesized for years, they seemed really difficult to understand." As well as, yet, they are almost there, a minimum of confirming the principle that is. It is only a matter of time now.

Now after that, back the point I was making, this is another of many incremental steps forward, pressing the bounds of possibility. That future is coming, which's what I would certainly like you to please consider and also think on.

[bennetsandbowties]

Tips For Smarter Decision-Making

Each of your days involves hundreds of decisions, the majority of which are so small that they're gone before you recognize that you've made them. Definitely wearing the socks of the bears today. Also, there are the ones that keep your awake at late at night. This includes considering career opportunities and job options, and deciding whether to buy, rent, or begin a family, or move to another place. The fact that you may have a partner makes matters more complicated. The most crucial decisions will be based on cooperation.

Take responsibility for your own biases.

To free our cognitive resources for more complicated decisions, we do most of our decision-making autopilot. Human brains have developed several heuristics or rules of thumb. These mental shortcuts are effective most of the time and are not apparent when driving to work, or deciding what to make for dinner. Sometimes, however, that awareness is vital. It's crucial when the police are making an arrest or when a leader is making the decision to make the best investment option or whom to hire. It's a virtual roll the dice developed by FlipSimu (FS).

Ask the correct questions.

If you're trying to decide between two options, some of the most crucial questions to consider are your own metanarrative of your goals to achieve in your life today as well as in the future. What are my top things? Then , you can begin asking "How can these positions work with those goals? Do you have any requirements I don't want to deal with?

Run it by an acquaintance

When you're making decisions about the place you'll live in or the career path you want to take It's helpful to turn to people who are the ones you trust. Every person has a story to tell about the decisions we're taking and the reasons behind them. Sometimes, these narratives are rooted and influenced by our beliefs and who we are. Sometime, they're founded on a partial reality or fantasies about the future.

Calculate your numbers Check your gut.

Imagine a disease that's life-threatening but exceedingly rare; only 0.5 percent of people suffer from it. And let's say there's the test that's 99 percent accurate at detecting whether the person is suffering from this disease and has a minuscule 1 percent false-positive percentage. Now let's say you get screened for it during an annual physical and test positive.

Good decisions go beyond the numbers.

Most of the crucial decisions you make will have an impact on other people. Sahami is on the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society's advisory committee. He is a lot of his time contemplating the ways that computer science and probabilities can be utilized to make systemic and structural choices in the society.

Be prepared to review your plans

A common error is to misinterpret the probabilities of events that are linked. The majority of people think of the probability of an incident as if it happened in isolation. They don't realize that other events may have an impact on the final outcome. Mathematically, the circumstances differ quite a bit.

Don't be a victim of assumptions.

If you're trying to make an informed decision in either a group or a couple do not assume that you understand the perspective of someone else. An associate professor of organizational behavior whose research examines the way teams make decisions, discovered that even minor misunderstandings could turn into extremely dysfunctional decisions simply because people make assumptions about the behavior of others. FlipSimu (FS) Dice makes virtual roll a die.

What's best for managing and mission also applies in other scenarios. Sometimes, in a partnership there are situations where one person is required to make choices and the other to follow. A flight of stairs would not be the best spot to talk about the most efficient way to get your new washing machine into your home, for instance. However, for a good decision-making process, that power dynamic needs to alternate between partners, with each partner swapping as leaders as well as sharing the responsibility for other choices, such as what appliance to buy.

[roguelike-theory-blog]

Pure waste of bandwidth

A few Girard-inspired, mathematical-theological stories for my friends.

Voting for itself. Girard dismisses the Hilbert’s programme, comparing the attempt to prove mathematics using mathematics to “the parliament voting for itself”. It is a correct comparison, yet its value as a criticism is ambiguous. As a french logician, Girard might actually know that the French Republic – and arguably the modern politics – has actually been founded with the parliament voting for itself. In 1789, the new-founded National Assembly of France was concerned with the question, whether it actually does represent the general will? This question was resolved affirmatively by the notorious Abbé Sieyès, who took the structure of his argument from the catholic thinker Nicolas Malebranche.

Malebranche was concerned with proving prothestants wrong, as catholics usually are. The problem was, whether the Catholic Church, that is, its body of cardinals was the one, unique representation (in the yet religious sense, from which we will later found the legal concept of representation) of God on Earth – as opposed to the possibility of the multiple, partial, conflicting representations of his will favored by the protestants. His thought experiment was simple: “Say we gather all of the cardinals together and let them take a vote, whether they, together, do or do not represent the god’s will. The ones who say ‘no’ are obviously not real cardinals: you can’t be a cardinal if you don’t believe in the institution. So everyone who is a real cardial will say ‘yes’, thus determining by unanimous vote that the Catholic Church is indeed the one and unique representant of God”.

Now let us postpone the matter of the obvious begging-the-question; let us also not indulge for now in the beautiful ways with which Malebranche tries to fix it; let’s focus on how this argument is still at work in our very lives. Abbé Sieyès used this very same argument to prove that the Assembly is the real representative: if your particular will is against it, you’re just not of the Republic and your will doesn’t count. The whole seeming ridiculousness of the argument pales in comparison with its incredible effectiveness: the modern politics was born with all its representative-democratic weirdness. There’re likely philosophical ways to ground this idea onto something more fundamental, yet the notoriousness of such an ouroboric event is clear, and the break that happened here is on the level of a new self-supporting thought from which, however, the ‘real things’ are being created on a daily basis.

Can’t we say that Hilbert’s programme is the same type of event, just imposed kind of retrospectively onto the history of mathematics? The mathematics voting for itself, let the naysayers be damned into luddistic hell? In this case we can go on living with its theological form while embracing the fruitful mathematical content it gave us. And then our next move, the move of the ones who dares to respect and use mathematics without believing in it, should obviously be to look for the heretics and the heretical thoughts. We should not be content with those who just dismisses mathematics altogether (the boring, impotent atheists) – the real heretic is the one who is of the mathematical practice, but questions its belief structure. How do you call the hagiography but about heretics? Heretography?

Hysterizing the computer. Now one of those heretics is Brouwer, whose whole project was about questioning the givenness of the a priori. Insane idea, completely against Kant, of course, as it questions the very distinction between thinking and praxis. A priori as something completely given assumes some kind of a collapse of the process of thinking in time, with all of the theorems already there somewhere, indeed nothing more than Anselm’s ontological argument, but about mathematics. Brouwer scouted this a priori and found his own fixed point theorem, which states that there’s something that exists but can’t be found. Now that’s unsettling for Brouwer who is, by the way, of a Schopenhauer’s persuasion. To question the whole thing, Brouwer looks for the most extreme point of this a priori givenness, and it’s nothing else but the law of the excluded-middle: it’s only there if you can always do the anselmnian jump to the farthest conclusion. Brouwer slows down this seemingly instantaneous jump by denying it, inventing the intuitionistic logic, and actually somehow manages to get pretty far with it, reformulating even a part of topology in this new light. However this heresy was not approved by his holiness Hilbert, already too influential on the continent – isolated Brouwer loses his mind and dies, never seeing any hope of his work being useful.

A different development was up at the same, however, concerned a piece of metal to be called computer. There were a few of those machines already, and it was obvious that there’s going to be more. On the other hand, it didn’t actually take very long for people to notice how incredibly useful the intuitionistic logic was for this machine: much more than the ‘classical one’. The computer became the redeeming object of Brouwer’s logic – he never saw one, never even thought of one, yet turned out to provide the most important concept for its study. The depth of Brouwer’s premature contribution to Computer Science is beyond the wariness of tertium non datur: his work predicted the notorious problems with the floating-point numbers, and his topology turned out to be a weird tool to study computable functions, which is a cross-sub-disciplinary link of strange awesomeness for the easily excitable people like me.

So if we’re desperately looking for any escape from the horrible weight of the Kantian-Hilbertian mathematical theology, shouldn’t we look into the computer? One of the weird things about the computers is how easily we all were persuaded, not so long ago, that everything in the computer is “virtual” (not in the sense in which philosophers use the epithet, but in the sense the marketers use it), that is, not exactly material… Which is nonsense, a structure of disavowal, which has to be thoroughly contradicted on all the levels, starting on the level of primitive processor instructions which, according to the simplest laws of thermodynamics, can’t perform any destructive operation – can’t forget any value of any variable – without wasting some energy, emanating some heat. This kind of thought is as material as it can be.

Right here, right now, I can show you how the materiality of computer affects our everyday life in a very noticeable, annoying fashion. Let us recall that to study the whole population of computers a special concept was invented, ‘the Turing machine’. It was a strange abstraction, seeking to provide an ideal type for those machines, a link between their real bodies and the computable functions which are performed by them. It is used in science, yes, but it is also used too much in the arguments between the adolescent programmers, if you ever dared to talk to them – “C and Lisp are the same thing because of the Turing machine”... But let’s leave them be. Where’s the Turing machine’s fault?

Turing machine is imagined to have an infinite time and an infinite memory space. That’s what we can sometimes believe about our computers. When our computers run out of time – that is, we subjectively feel that they are slow – we’re annoyed and happy to fix it. The existence of the computer as a time-consuming device is obvious and we’re perfectly equipped to notice it; every second it’s slowing down we’re feeling it, I think, already at the level of our bodies; yet there’s no realistic limit to how long a computer can run. What is harder to notice, yet much more objective, is the limit of its memory: the computer runs just happily, using as much memory as it can, until there’s no more memory at all. Then strange things begin to happen.

What does exactly happen when the computer is out of memory? Of course, it can just kill the hungry program: it’s not part of the algorithm’s mathematical abstraction, but at least predictable. Usually, however, stranger things happen. One of the ways the computer pretends to have more memory than it actually does is by “swapping”: using the HDD instead of the RAM to store whatever is to be stored in memory. HDD is 10k times slower than RAM: when it’s used for memory too much, nothing crashes, but everything is suddenly very slow. We hear strange noises. The computer starts misbehaving. Random things crash because of the timing issues brought by the lack of speed.

Now we can allow ourselves to see this “lack of memory” in the aristotelian-lacanian light, as something that is material by being actively opposed to the (mathematical) form, not-reducible to it (if only to escape the attempt to inscribe the whole OS, other programs and the hardware into one big ad hoc mathematical structure making any mathematical study of the algorithms pretty much useless). I say “lacanian”, faithfully to Lacan (his Real was Aristotle’s matter), because this is indeed the very point where the subjectivity of computer in the lacanian sense is obvious: it lacks memory (desire) – it acts out (hysteria). If we consider how hackers use a similar problem, the buffer overflow, to do whatever they want to the computer, the analogy becomes rich enough.

The materiality of the neural network. In 1892, one W. E. Johnson described “symbolic calculus” as “an instrument for economizing the exertion of intelligence” (btw, Johnson is described by Wikipedia as “a famous procrastinator”). Far from enabling new types of intelligence by itself, the thing was to save on the wasted expenditure of the old ones. With this I want to introduce another dimension of the materiality of the computer: the one which I’ll describe from a paranoid-marxist perspective, following the Adorno’s belief in the truth of the exaggerations.

Neural network is an amazing shiny new thing, it economizes our exertion of intelligence all right, yet the weirdest part of it all is that we kinda have no idea how it works. We can describe the output (in our terms which we impose on it), and we can describe the inner structure (it’s all matrix multiplication), but there’s no translation between the output and the inner structure except for the one that is by running the neural network themselves. The neural network’s thinking, in general, lacks the conceptual content we’re so much used to, it doesn’t exactly distinguish the parts of bodies and stuff like that. It operates on a belated, not-yet-conceptual level. We can actually through pain identify some general things that it actually notices on the images and stuff like that, but only partially and constantly recognising that it’s we who’s pulling the vague ideas of the NN to this conceptual level.

To illustrate how the NN works there’s no better example than the notorious network which draws cats upon sketches of cats: http://affinelayer.com/pixsrv/index.html . Try it out, you can do it online. Now, what are the concepts with which the neural network thinks about cats? It’s… well, it knows an eye, but that’s more-or-less it. Everything else is more like a texture of a cat, in a very weird sense of a texture, the one available to us after we discovered the 3D rendering.

So there’s knowledge of things in the NN, yet it’s either not on the human level, or it’s somehow hidden. To explain this, Schopenhauer comes to mind: “an entirely pure and objective picture of things is not reached in the normal mind, because its power of perception at once becomes tired and inactive, as soon as this is not spurred on and set in motion by the will. For it has not enough energy to apprehend the world purely objectively from its own elasticity and without a purpose”. That is to say: NN understands cats exactly as much as it needs to (with the need imposed by its operators, most of the time the Capital), and no more.

Now the paranoid-marxist intervention: what is this lack of knowledge? Who has it? Is it not the proletariat? If we have a training set of thousands of pictures, on which a neural network is trained to recognize dozes of features, those features had to be tagged beforehand by some pure workers (most likely from India, am i right?), who themselves were likely constructed through a cheap-labor marketplace such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (the name familiar from Walter Benjamin), pretending to be machines to create a neural network which pretends to do the human work. Can’t we say, exaggerating, that the neural network is a labyrinth of numbers in which anyone looking for the human [labor] is to lose his track?

[phantom-le6]

Film Review - Chaos

Ok folks, time for another film review before I start tackling my TV series reviewing backlog (which may be delayed depending on when my latest Amazon order arrives).  Sticking with the films I got for Christmas 2020 but shifting away from superhero animation to a live-action film in the action genre, this review is going to take a look at yet another action film headlined by British action star Jason Statham.  Ladies and gentlemen (and anyone outside of those two options), please enjoy my review of Chaos…

Plot (adapted from Wikipedia):

Seattle PD Detective Quentin Conners and his partner Jason York are implicated in the death of a hostage taken by a carjacker named John Curtis. After a fellow police officer, Callo, testifies against them, Conners is suspended, and York is fired. In reality, York tried to shoot John, but accidentally killed the hostage. John in turn fired back, but Conners killed John in self-defence.

Sometime later, Lorenz and four other criminals take hostages in a bank. Lorenz has only one demand, to negotiate with Conners. Conners is reinstated but put under the surveillance of a new partner, the recently-graduated Shane Dekker. Conners is given control of the negotiations, and after a bank teller is shot, he orders a SWAT unit to cut the building's power and go in. During an explosion, the criminals flee during the ensuing panic and chaos. 

Dekker and Conners learn more about each other at a local diner, slowly building a friendship, but Dekker disapproves of Conners' "cowboy cop" methods. Dekker explains that during negotiations, Lorenz was making many cryptic references to chaos theory. As they leave to examine new evidence, Conners puts a ten dollar bill on the table for his share of the bill. Dekker swaps the ten for a twenty of his own. A TV camera caught a shot of one of the criminals, who is arrested together with his girlfriend at her home, where banknotes are found with a scent used to mark evidence collected by the police. The banknote serial numbers did not come from that day's robbery, but had been placed in police storage and signed out two weeks earlier by Callo. He is found shot dead in his home, together with incriminating evidence linking him to the heist. 

When reviewing video footage from the bank, Dekker notices one corner of the bank is deliberately shielded from view. In that corner, they find the bank regional manager's computer. Fingerprints on the keyboard reveal the identity of a hacker that Conners himself had arrested, but whose conviction was overturned after the shooting on the bridge. Conners and Dekker want to question the hacker, but he is shot dead by Lorenz, and a gunfight ensues, during which Lorenz manages to escape. Dekker questions the hospitalized bank robber identified in the news footage and finally breaks him when he casually explains the impact of a massive overdose of morphine while slowly injecting something into the suspect's drip. An amazed Conners watches and later calls him a hypocrite. Dekker responds by explaining he only injected more saline solution.

The suspect reveals Lorenz is Scott Curtis, the brother of John shot earlier, and Conners leads a stakeout at an address where all the gang are to meet that night; Scott's house. Forced to go before Scott arrives, a shootout results in both suspects' deaths, and a bomb blows up the building while Conners is inside. Dekker is devastated but realizes that Callo's signature requesting material from the evidence storage was forged by the evidence custody officer, who reveals that Scott is actually York. In a flashback, York stands on the bridge and fires the first shot, killing the hostage in the opening sequence. Tracking Lorenz/York's mobile phone, Dekker surprises York at a diner, and York takes a woman hostage in a reversal of the standoff on the bridge. Dekker chases and eventually kills York. 

When Dekker pays for his coffee at the diner, he discovers the banknote Conners used to pay for lunch with is also scented, which means Conners was also involved in taking the money from police evidence. Dekker finds a copy of James Gleick's Chaos: Making a New Science in Conners' house, showing he had faked an earlier ignorance of the mathematics. On a hunch, Dekker looks for airplane tickets booked in Gleick's name and runs to the airport. 

During a mobile call between the now disguised Conners and the searching Dekker at the busy airport, flashbacks reveal how the seemingly unconnected events in the film form a pattern, just as predicted in chaos theory. Conners reveals that he placed his badge on the corpse of one of York's henchmen before the explosion. Conners and York recruited a group of ex-convicts from their past. Callo was framed for being a dirty cop. Conners ends the call, walks casually to a private jet, and takes off while sipping champagne. 

Review:

One thing I’ve learned about action films like Chaos is that sometimes you can be attracted into buying it for the sake of trying out a new action film based on the cast, and then find you’ve acquired something less-than-brilliant (In the Name of the King being a key example). As such, I didn’t put this film on my Amazon wishlist until I’d had the chance to watch it on TV, and a few months back the folks at Film4 kindly obliged by having it on their schedule at a time when I wanted to stay up and watch something.  Fast-forward to now, and the film is now in my Blu-Ray collection. 

So how does Chaos stand out from other films in the same genre headlined by Jason Statham?  As long-time followers of my reviews will know, I’ve reviewed a fair bit of this actor’s work, including his early days in films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and its remake Snatch, as well as some of his more franchise-based work like The Transporter and The Mechanic.  The first thing that differentiates Chaos before you even watch the film is the cast that joins Statham as the film’s headliners, namely Wesley Snipes and Ryan Phillipe.  Snipes would certainly have drawn a lot of people to this film when it was originally released back in the ��00s due to his then-recent headlining of the Blade trilogy, and Philippe was a well-known actor of teenage characters around this time, with films like Cruel Intentions being somewhat par for the course where he was concerned. 

To this trio of well-known actors, Chaos then adds a lot of things that go beyond the basic, obvious kind of action-film tropes. First, it ends up set in Seattle rather than the more stereotypical US locations like the cities of California or the US eastern seaboard, and then the nature of the film itself changes as the story progresses.  What starts out as an apparent hostage stand-off style of action film ends up turning into a bit of a mystery thriller, and for the intellectuals watching, the film ultimately reveals itself as a kind of case study in chaos theory, from which the film’s title is actually derived. 

It’s this combination of intrigue, genre-shifts within the film and the three big-name stars being supported by some fairly decent but lesser-known actors that helps Chaos to stand apart from the other Statham-headlined action films that have been produced over the years. It’s also interesting to see all the instances where the concept of loyalty between police officers arises within the film, now we’re watching it in the midst of the Black Lives Matter activism.  The idea that loyalty to one’s fellow officers surpasses any adherence to the law, and that officer need to ‘bend’ rules when the system ‘fails’ as a means of ‘compensating’ for those failures is part of a culture that has undoubtedly existed for decades and almost certainly enabled the kind of irresponsible use of force that BLM has rallied against.

From this perspective, Chaos can also potentially be seen as a kind of warning sign, showcasing a very dangerous attitude in policing that no law enforcement institution in any nation should allow.  Loyalty and dedication to doing the right thing is admirable, and I can certainly agree that in some extreme instances, laws have to be bent or even broken to do the right thing.  However, when someone is employed with upholding the law, when it is their duty to always do the right thing from a legal perspective regardless of whether the law is right or wrong, that person cannot also take on the role of vigilante.  If the concept of police as enforcers of the law is to retain its value, no officer should take it upon themselves to disregard the laws they are supposed to enforce and uphold.  It’s when we lose sight of this that we get heavy-handed officers acting against the public interest, including discrimination-based uses of excessive force. 

Factoring in this kind of inadvertent relevance to a major societal issue that has existed for a long time before its recent highlighting, Chaos is a mostly great film.  Frankly, though, Statham’s efforts to put a slight Americanisation on his accent and the relative lack of a build-up in action throughout the film (the first act felt more climatic than the third act) make the film fall short of a maximum score.  My end score for this one is a respectable 8 out of 10.

[pinoyscientists]

Meet Daniel Stanley Tan, machine learning / deep learning researcher

1) What do you do?

I am a computer scientist specializing on machine learning / deep learning research. I am currently working on designing a model that can change visual attributes (such as hair color, age, gender) of a person in an image and still retain their identity. I am also interested in exploring robotic perception problems such as autonomous visual navigation relying purely on ordinary cameras.

Deep learning has spread wide across several industries -- if you've heard of FaceApp’s face aging / gender swapping, Facebook’s automatic face tagging, AlphaGo, and self-driving cars, deep learning is what made these possible!

2) Where do you work?

I am currently taking my Ph.D. in Computer Science at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Previously, I was a faculty member at the College of Computer Studies at De La Salle University.

3) Tell us about the photos!

[Top]: (A reflection of) me working on the visual attribute model. The figure on the screen shows some preliminary results on a dataset of flowers.

[Bottom]: Neen, my girlfriend from the Netherlands, recently visited me here in Taipei. She’s also a programmer (front-end software developer). We enjoyed biking around Taipei and went to see the massive wind-damper/building stabilizer inside the insanely tall Taipei 101.

4) Tell us about your academic career path so far. 

Elementary/High School - Philippine Cultural College, Manila

BSc & MSc in Computer Science - De La Salle University, Manila

PhD Computer Science (on-going) - National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei

I was never a star student back in elementary and high school, but I did excel in Math and Science. Funnily enough, I was always placed in the star section only because I was one of the students who always gets chosen for math and science competitions. Apart from the two, I only had average scores in every other subject. I consistently ranked among the lowest in my class due to being lazy and playing a lot of games as most typical boys do at a young age. This lasted all the way until the final years of my bachelor’s degree.

In college, I qualified for the ladderized/straight Master’s program where I could take graduate units during the final years of my Bachelor’s degree. Because of this, I finished both degrees in less than 5 years. I got lucky because my newly-gained Master’s degree opened up a faculty position for me in DLSU, which I took right after I graduated. (This was during the time when the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) mandated that every college teacher should have a Master’s degree to teach.)

I never knew the joys of research back when I was a student, and I admittedly originally had plans to just go into a corporate job after a year or two of teaching. It was only after being exposed to an actual research institution (A*STAR in Singapore) where I discovered my love for it. I got to meet great researchers and learn about the cool things that they do. Needless to say, I was really inspired by them. I realized what I could potentially do and the impact I could make in the world with my skillsets.

After coming back from this short visit in Singapore, I started collaborating with other faculties in the Biology and Mathematics department in DLSU. I also started applying for a PhD position and got a scholarship in my current university.

5) Anything else you’d like to share?

To relieve stress, I play the violin, piano, or play video games depending on my mood. I also enjoy watching animated films in my free time. I would never turn down an invitation to eat good food! I just LOVE to eat.

My interest in programming and artificial intelligence started quite early as a result of my addiction to online games. I taught myself how to code to write AI (colloquially called “bots”) to play the games for me during high school, and I earned quite a bit of money selling in-game items for cash. It is here I learned that working on an actual project is a great way to learn.

[lthmath]

Mathemagic: Exploring Sudoku and Other Magic Squares

Hello everyone! Today we are collaborating with Judee Shipman from Education.com to show you an interesting and creative math-activity to use in class. Enjoy!

Grade Level: 6th & up;

Objective: This activity explores the properties and uses of “magic squares.” The purpose of this activity is for pupils to experiment with magic square design while also finding more about the history of magic squares and their different uses.

Questions: At the end of the lesson pupils should be able to answer the following questions.

What is the history of magic squares?

What are their applications, other than Sudoku puzzles?

Research: Before starting any type of activity with your pupils, you need to research the topics for yourself. From my previous experience, you don’t have to stress too much if you don’t know everything. As a change, it is a great experience to learn something new from the pupils.

A magic square is a mathematical construct in which symbols (usually numbers) are arranged in a square, so that the numbers in all rows, columns and diagonals add up to the same amount. No symbol can appear more than once in any row, column or diagonal. Magic squares have been known to mankind for thousands of years. Artists, architects and designers have been fascinated by this mathematical construction (a good example is Albrecht Dürer and his painting Melencolia I). In contemporary culture, they most commonly appear in the form of the ever-so popular puzzles known as Sudoku.

Materials:

Computer with Internet access;

Color printer;

Digital camera or phone (just in case you want to take some photos of your lovely pupils and their work);

Typical office/hobby/hardware/craft supplies (paper, poster board, glue,etc);

All materials can be found in your home, at school or at local stores.

Lesson/ Activity:

Start by talking a little about magic squares, show them some images or a short video. This is the perfect time to talk about other people (not mathematicians) that have worked with them (example: Albrecht Dürer and his painting Melencolia I).

Next step is to actually give them some examples of magic squares that they can work with. Also, it is a good time to talk about Sudoku and give them some examples to try. Depending how much time you have, you could focus more on this or just go over the examples very quickly with them. At this point, use your flexibility (school timeline) to see if you can spend more time focusing on this. Generally, this type of activity helps pupils with basic operations; it develops their understanding of numbers and problem solving.

Ask the pupils to create their own magic squares. Encourage them to use colors, shapes, letters, emoji (anything else, but not numbers). Show them an example, if they are struggling. The best thing for this activity (it helps with time management) is to have templates ready for those pupils that might struggle, or that need a little impulse.

After the pupils have created their own magic squares, you need to find a way to check them. One idea would be to check them yourself after school and give the pupils feedback next day. Otherwise, you could ask the pupils to swap their work and complete a short feedback form for the magic square in front of them.

What else can you do with this activity?

You could create great posters with their work.

If you have taken photos of pupils’ work and their final pieces, you can create a science fair display (a good focus on STEM subjects).

Be creative, let us know what else you have in mind. We would love to see/read about your ideas.

Further reading:

Wikipedia topic: Magic Square

About magic squares

Internet searches of your choosing. Search words or terms listed here, or make up your own phrases. Click on any results you find interesting. Have fun surfing the net!

Hope you enjoyed this collaboration. Let me know if you would like to see more posts like this. It was a pleasure working with them and I enjoyed doing this type of content for you. Let me know in the comment bellow what other things you would like to see. Have a great day.

[guncontrolessayintroduction622]

college papers

About me

No 1 College Paper Writing Service

No 1 College Paper Writing Service For no matter cause, you find yourself needing to write an entire analysis paper in a really brief period of time. While procrastination isn’t perfect, extenuating circumstances could have brought on your timeline to get pushed back. Your own time period paper’s word count is one thing that is dictated and determined by your particular person class professors. In general, however, you'll be able to count on any average term paper to comprise about 2,000 plus phrases. He makes a speciality of understanding why college students can find yourself doing poorly in college, as well as what could be done to deal with the problems. Some schools have a subset of their total graduation requirements or curriculum that requires a number of writing intensive programs. These needn't be all English lessons, and courses in humanities, behavioral science, or different areas could also be designated as writing intensive. The school’s web site or your Advisor can give you a listing of these classes which might be designated as writing intensive, and they're usually indicated as such when you register for classes. This is a spot for folks and college students looking for assist for issues in school. Problems with grades, transfers, planning, transitioning, and more. He has worked with college students, families, faculties, and other professionals for more than 10 years. It should be less than a dissertation however undoubtedly longer than a normal weekly essay or writing project. A perfect time period paper example will show how a time period paper is usually comprised of three different sections, these being the introduction, the physique and the conclusion. The aim of the introduction is to set out what you're planning to discuss and questions you need to reply in your paper. Thankfully, for those who don't like writing, there are programs that by design have no writing. Mathematics programs similar to College Algebra, classes like Microeconomics or Macroeconomics, and Computer Science normally mean no writing. Unfortunately, Professors make up for this by assigning tons of homework, normally within the form of drawback units. Some of these classes could have end of time period tasks (vs. papers), particularly Computer Science, so that you received’t fairly escape those end of term deadlines although there is no writing. From working with students immediately for many years at giant and small colleges, as well as public and private ones, I can give you a better thought of what to expect past the report. Each sub-topic should be juicy enough to have the ability to write a lot about it. The subtopics are your supporting paragraphs which fill the physique of the analysis paper. They should basically be mini essays within themselves. Once you calm yourself of the anxiety of getting to finish a 10- or 20-page paper in a single night, organize your plan of assault. First, you should designate an area free of distractions so as to focus. The actual writing process is somewhat completely different for everyone, however this is a basic overview for tips on how to write a 20-page paper, or one that is shorter. Once you’ve chosen your topic, then try to pull three-5 subtopics from it. So, right here you're, looking for the way to write a ten-web page paper or the way to write a 20-web page paper in one night. People do not publish complete versions of time period paper examples as it might merely be copied or plagiarized. While preparing on your research paper, you are not allowed to only copy other people’s time period paper examples, due to this fact you don’t personal the rights to it. The only time you personal the rights is when you pay a writing company to produce a term paper for you. This means you'll be able to legally put your name to it, and you might swap it, alter it, modify it, and even sell it for a revenue if you want. In most circumstances, the word count of a term paper example will be just an extract of the general paper. It will show the define and headings and maybe some paragraphs of the textual content. Aside from a couple of breaks and snacks, it’s best to arrange a comfortable place to put in writing. Give your self some time to stipulate and find/cite research. Once you know the way you’re going to method the subject, then you can begin drafting. It goes without saying the easiest way to write down a paper is to provide your self sufficient time to outline, draft, and edit. Take heed of those greatest tips and tips to arrange your ideas and get your thesis on paper as fast as attainable.

[essayformat306]

college paper

About me

The Scholarly Paper

The Scholarly Paper It must be lower than a dissertation however definitely longer than a standard weekly essay or writing project. A good time period paper example will present how a term paper is mostly comprised of three totally different sections, these being the introduction, the body and the conclusion. Unfortunately, Professors make up for this by assigning tons of homework, often in the form of downside sets. Some of these lessons could have end of time period initiatives (vs. papers), particularly Computer Science, so that you won’t quite escape these finish of term deadlines despite the fact that there isn't any writing. From working with students directly for a few years at giant and small schools, in addition to private and non-private ones, I can provide you a better thought of what to anticipate past the report. The actual writing process is slightly different for everyone, however it is a general overview for the way to write a 20-web page paper, or one that is shorter. Once you calm your self of the anxiousness of getting to complete a ten- or 20-page paper in one evening, arrange your plan of assault. First, you should designate an space free of distractions so that you can focus. Aside from a number of breaks and snacks, it’s greatest to arrange a snug place to write. Give your self a while to outline and discover/cite analysis. Once you know how you’re going to approach the topic, then you can start drafting. For no matter purpose, you find yourself needing to write a complete research paper in a very short period of time. While procrastination isn’t ideal, extenuating circumstances could have triggered your timeline to get pushed again. He makes a speciality of understanding why students can find yourself doing poorly in school, as well as what can be carried out to address the issues. Thankfully, for individuals who do not like writing, there are courses that by design haven't any writing. Mathematics courses similar to College Algebra, courses like Microeconomics or Macroeconomics, and Computer Science often imply no writing. The only time you own the rights is should you pay a writing company to provide a term paper for you. This means you'll be able to legally put your name to it, and you could swap it, alter it, modify it, and even sell it for a profit if you want. In most circumstances, the word count of a time period paper instance will be simply an extract of the general paper. It will show the define and headings and possibly some paragraphs of the text. Your own term paper’s word count is one thing that is dictated and determined by your particular person class professors. In general, nonetheless, you possibly can expect any average term paper to comprise about 2,000 plus phrases. The goal of the introduction is to set out what you're planning to discuss and questions you want to reply in your paper. The body ought to be a series of paragraphs the place you current your argument with evidence and references. Finally, the conclusion ought to be a agency and confident summary of the information and concepts you argued for or against all through the educational writing project. The section that helps your thesis ought to be the rest of your time period paper. So, here you might be, in search of tips on how to write a ten-web page paper or the way to write a 20-page paper in one evening. People do not submit full versions of time period paper examples as it may simply be copied or plagiarized. While preparing in your analysis paper, you are not allowed to just copy other folks’s term paper examples, subsequently you don’t own the rights to it. Depending on the other sections you need to include, the physique of your paper ought to be about three or 4 pages . The paragraphs have to have matter sentences that subtly refer again to the main argument you proposed within the introduction. The supporting particulars and examples want embody references to high quality research to show strong help in your argument.