And It's December

I just turned in my final assignment. By final I mean final assignment, meaning the last one in my master’s degree. I mean like if my team doesn’t miss more than four out of 16 points I will graduate on the 15th. I mean final like there is a chance for extra credit that is bigger than any other assignment that might mean the difference between me graduating and not. I dislike this class with a passion.

The degree, Master’s of Computer Science at Georgia Tech. The final class, Introduction to Health Informatics. Would I ever suggest taking this course? No, just a straight no. The only reason I can see for someone to take it would be if their job is going to deal with Health Informatics. If they are already dealing with it, forget it, they will be happier not taking this class.

For those of us that were never going to go into healthcare software this is really just an exercise in frustration. The paramount frustration is supplied by the course itself, or rather the original instructor. He essentially describes all the different ways everyone is doing healthcare data, and what a nightmare interoperability is. The tone is set in frustration that even after 60+ years of thinking about electronic health records that it’s still a really hard problem. Just like telling doctors they aren’t doing something right.

The second frustration was how the class was run. It seems that it was mostly TA run because the professors aren’t actually technical, but having taken classes by David Joyner I found their expectations did not normally match their directions and the grade weights for particular sections that were administrative details far exceeded actual content. Missing a name in a presentation was the difference between getting 100% and getting a B in one case.

The third frustration was with our TA, responding to pertinent questions after the assignment was due. Nothing better to make an assignment even tougher.

If there was an alternative, I would have taken it. And throughout the 4 years that I have labored through all of these courses there have been a few that have been promised to whole time, one that would have been interesting is the computational journalism or something like that. It couldn’t have been worse than this one, right?

In some ways I really shouldn’t complain, the main one being that there were no tests. A few courses with tests have been my worst courses. Give me coding and projects over tests, I am just not built for them anymore, who is with google right there?

The amount of time and money that I will have available in the future is sort of daunting. What will I do with all that time? But I think saving the money is going to be pretty obvious for that. I guess I can rewrite my novel, write another, and spend time with my wife. She’ll like that.

Last Class!

One last class! I am a bit apprehensive, but since a large chunk is a group project and I already have seven group members I think that we will be able to do okay. I am not entirely sure what role I should take in the group, everyone responded to my post so it feels like I am coordinating, but I don't necessarily want to be the Project Manager.

I think I see everyone as having two roles, one of PM, Quality Assurance, Video Editor (for our presentations), and then everyone is a developer with a range of different modules/tasks. I think we can start talking about this and maybe formalizing our approach for the next month before we get or choose a project.

It is unlikely that I will post much during this period, hopefully next time I will have a Master's of Science in Computer Science.

Wait, Prepare, Wait

What is probably the worst combination in the history of the world? Promising and procrastinating.

I do this all the time, I promise my wife I will do something, but if I don’t do it right away I forget, or just plain procrastinate. I would like to say that procrastination is doing other things while still having the thing that you need to do in the forefront of your mind, but then I think forgetting about things has just the same effect, although less stressful until you remember. Of course the disappointment in myself is pretty big, but that is dwarfed by the feeling of having disappointed someone else, especially my wife.

Right now, as I write this, I am procrastinating. Sort of. I’ve read through assignment 3 and I need to let it simmer. But I am also waiting for the peer feedback for assignment 2 to be uploaded so that I can get that done for the class. It doesn’t look good for “the drop” tonight. I am also using this moment to write, write “I” enough that I think I might need to edit this.

This is an okay equilibrium at the moment, because it has many layers of preparedness: I am early wanting peer feedback, I have read the assignment a week before it is due and it builds off of the previous one, I am practicing writing which is crucial for this class, and I will update my to-do list before going to practice my cello, then reading and then bed. Right now, everything is under control.

It’s a good feeling, but of course fleeting because this week is going to flit by one way or another.

So is this waiting any better than just getting things done at the last instant? It’s hard to say from this end. Is it temporary motivation that I am chomping at the bit? Have I finally begun to learn discipline? (Note: whenever I think this way I remember all the things that I would like to add to my disciplined schedule and how many things I have failed at already in terms of discipline.)

It’s going to be hard to say from the other end. There is something to finishing something all in one go. Something satisfying about having just finished, and it’s addictive (Wait But Why.) I remember one of my most exhilarating coding days, I knew I needed to write a user interface to test the new receiver in the telescope. I put it off until the day of, and finished, not well, that same day. Here is the description in passing. It made me realize that being an expert at a chosen technology can mean that you can get things out quickly. While that is an awfully nice thought, a better one is getting it done over the course of weeks, consulting with people, and being on-hand for the commissioning.

I still have a problem with discipline at work as distractions are plentiful, but I also can get quite a bit done just being that much more of an expert. Something about having worked for 10 years as of the 21st of January.

There is no perfection in my work. I strive to understand better ways of doing things, new things I come across, but I am much more confident. I wait quite a bit more, but on the other side. I find things to do, things that I should be remembering sooner, and things that may make at least one person’s job easier.

On Why Quitting is Terrible Failing

Cooper's Hawk just down the trail. Just using a point-and-shoot camera.

Many failures may precede success, but failing within an institution is just failing.

I am trying to suss out what is an acceptable level of failure. I grew up with the idea that failing at anything was bad: school, piano, that stupid cake-walk back in cub scouts, and many other venues. I’ll just say that I was so upset at the cake-walk they gave me some consolation pie. But back to the point: failure was unacceptable and very upsetting.

School was and is the prime place of failure being unacceptable. In some ways I envy the kids that don’t care when they fail, but in many others I don’t, since I would be very surprised if they are more successful than myself. Though I am certainly not a paragon of success, just very comfortable.

What does failing lead to within school as an institution? Retaking a grade at the worst save dropping out. I never failed in primary or secondary with my worst grade a C. This kept me from having a free ride through UW. The only fear of failure ever was on specific tasks, and really only on public performances. But also the schools were small enough and loose enough that there were definitely ways of working through failure that a teacher would consider equivalent.

College was much tougher for me. Fortunately I had skin in the game, money, debts, but it still was a very tough thing for me to finish. I had failures and retakes and then I graduated. Did I learn more? Yes, but as much as I probably should have? No. I would have done better in that case.

But that brings me to my master’s degree. I really like the computer science program that I can take online very far away from Georgia Tech. I will highly recommend the program to anyone looking at getting a CS MS. However, it should come with a warning: Gatech will punish you for failing.

Wait a second, of course they should, getting a bad grade because you didn’t understand the material or didn’t do the work or didn’t regurgitate the correct answer on a closed book test, directly leads to punishment, right? Sure, I have bad time management, better than before, still bad, but it’s not quite what I mean: Gatech will punish you for doing better a second time. This is much more controversial.

In the startup world there is a saying of “fail fast” that is, try many different things to see what sticks. In a good company failure is celebrated as a learning opportunity. In normal companies failure is grounds for firing. Not showing up to work? Obvious fireable offense, barring reasons. Trying an interesting project that flops? Should never be punished except when the repercussions can’t be absorbed or mitigated.

But in the world of academics it is a whole different animal. If you fail it goes on your record and that is it, always a mark against you. In some cases a permanent mark against you can be a good warning flag for employers or future institutions: “This person has done very poorly in this area.” But more often it is much more of an indicator of environment and what the person is going through at the time they get the grade. For those persistent folks out there who have perfect time management, I applaud you.

In my undergrad degree  the university had a policy of replacing the first grade with the second if it was better. Then after three attempts they started to average the grades. There was room for big improvements, but then it was tempered to make sure someone didn’t just take advantage of the system. I understand Georgia Tech’s system might want the grad students to be able to discern if they are going to pass the class, but this is nearly impossible when the professors don’t have a good idea of how the grades might be “bumped” or curved.

Either way I have dropped both classes. Failure is tough, freeing, but I can’t get over the fact that I spent money and vast amounts of time on these classes. Fortunately for Computer Vision I am pretty sure that I will be able to use/improve the code from the first five assignments that I did. I am not sure I will take databases again. I learned things, but I don’t want to learn it in a formal way, rather just apply what I need to do my job.

I will probably sign up for one summer course, one fall course, and so on. Very annoying, but at least it won’t kill me in the process.

It does free up time: travel, bird class, fencing, bird watching, archery. So many things plus more writing and actually adjusting and using my 3d-printer.

Failing sucks, and quitting is failing, it just feels worse.

End of Week 5 2017

Already a month into 2017. A glorious future where everyone is happy, or: Everyone is quite happy to be unhappy if given the choice. I really don’t know what to say that won’t enrage you, I would really love to say that no one has anything to worry about from the new way things are, but that isn’t true. However, it is really hard to believe anything, even if my initial reaction is rage my immediate follow-up is skepticism.

That is the way democracy falls, or even republics if you want to avoid anything with the letters “dem” in it. The more we can be convinced to be unreasonably outraged or not care is a win. The first is easy to crackdown on, and the second just lets them do whatever they want. Try to take a second when something strikes you as outrageous. Let the sweet feeling of indignation die down and try to get some corroboration rather than just believing anything you see.

In less divisive ideas: I am nearly a month into two courses. It is quite a bit of work, but I am enjoying my Computer Vision course and I am quite happy with the team I have for Databases. For the vision course I wish I had known all of the information that I know now and what I am about to learn last year at about this time, it would have really helped in the robot competition.

The biggest problem with the classes is free time. If I take too much free time, such as writing this, I am seriously procrastinating. Or even worse is finding a game like Avorion. It is a really well done little game (scales a galaxy), even though it is still in early access. But I should really just quit playing any games until the break, otherwise they will break me. That is a tough thing to write. Maybe in the future I will write about the games I play, though I suppose it might be boring. Just a quick search shows that there are already many people who call themselves “The Boring Gamer.” Weird.

If I can manage these two classes and get through summer and two more in the fall, I can graduate! Then I will have sooo much free time it won’t be funny. Then I can:

• Write more
• Join more things like archery and orchestra
• Play games
• Hang out with my wife without making her feeling guilty about keeping me from homework
• Bird watch more
• Travel
• Run out of time to do things.

Yeah, that sounds great.

Manufacturing Coming to a Place Near You

It’s old news, 3d-printing, unless you just got a printer for Christmas.

The manufacturing hub newly assembled.

I have been following the advent of consumer 3D-printers for quite a while, and they’ve basically revolutionized how an individual (normal, not owning a fab-factory) can think about custom trinkets or replacement parts.

Other than the price why am I excited to get a 3D-printer? While watching them get better and cheaper, it really has to do with two things: Exposure to the tech at COS and a major failure almost exactly 10 years ago.

First a bit of panic about the fact that it has almost been 10 years since the end of my undergrad degree. I guess I am celebrating by taking two graduate courses: Computer Vision and DB systems… Ten years later. It brings up some interesting memories of how bad a student I was, and how my senior project suffered because I had no clue what I was doing. I needed to design a circuit board, get parts manufactured, and write a program that would all be part of a telescope system. Much too much work for one person period, and I was a mess as a human.

I could not stay awake and I was afraid of failing with my project, therefore I did nothing. I think the first part was either just being dumb with sleep patterns or a real chemical imbalance that extended a few years into my first job. My money's on bad sleep patterns, I’ve now found that 7-8 hours really helps me stay awake during meetings, rather than field stripping and reassembling pens just to stay awake. The second part has slowly been remedied, mostly through COS as I explain in an earlier post.

There was also a revolution that started quietly just as I was finishing school: DIY. After I left the project in shambles and had been working there was a proliferation of things like Arduino and other premade programmable circuit boards (I designed a terrible circuit board that wouldn’t have done a tenth of what Arduino can.) Exactly what I needed to design for my project, but prepackaged. And then 3D-printers, I could have iterated on designs for the hardware, not worrying (too much) about getting it right the first time.

My failure was all my fault, but maybe it would have been worse if I had fewer excuses, or I wouldn’t have been as frozen in indecision.

Either way I watched 3D tech getting cheaper and cheaper, and I really wanted to jump on the boat. When it was less than $1k I thought that it would be good, but still other things like life were in the way. Then I started at COS and Brian had his printer at work. I thought about asking to work on it for a long time, especially when another employee was printing quite a few things. I still know that I have a slight starting problem (Slight, ha) but I finally asked for a quick tutorial and started printing. Now I know what to expect and have an inkling of troubleshooting.

There were failures, but overall I am hooked. Now I’ll need to post follow-ups as I print pieces, once I get this thing properly calibrated.

Happy 10th day of 2016

Where does time go? I don't know, but I wish I had a better handle some days.

In update news: We drove back from Colorado/Wyoming/Kansas after a decently nice vacation. Mostly quiet, as per usual with our families, so I am only recovering from the drive and not the vacation too. We also went to Fredericksburg to pick up a bed frame, and then Jessie promptly and spectacularly made a box spring for our mattress. It is much softer now that the mattress is up off the floor, so I will need to adjust to it.

In slightly less domestic news: My brother and his team, Mind and Iron, welcomed me to their team to do image work, mostly teaching their robot for the NASA challenge to see and recognise the samples. It will be enjoyable work as I have some  background already, and Andy took a few hundred sample pictures for me.

I also signed up for AI, CS 6601, this semester. They expect 9 hours of work a week, I will need to plan for 12 on normal weeks, and of course it starts tomorrow. However much work it is, I still think I am going to enjoy it very much, and as I took its not-for-credit predecessor a few years back I think I could possibly scale back the time. So 6-12 hours a week?

I am also slowly editing/rewriting/adding to my novel that I wrote 50k words for in November. I plan to get Jessie the first chapter here this week or coming weekend and give her a red pen with a very large ink well. Hopefully I can get an average of six hours a week into editing the story. The working title right now is "Halver." It's a slang term for someone split between the two worlds that exist in the future.

But again it is all math. 40 hours of work, 6-12 of class, 6 of editing, and unknown amount to get the machine learning started. And those are just some commitments. The major commitment to my wife will of course need to be carefully balanced against nearly 64 hours total. It will certainly be an interesting semester/spring. What are you up to?

I do not do what I want to do

I do not do what I want to do

If you do not recognize this, it is okay, you are living life to its fullest. You can move on and ignore these thoughts. However, I do invite you to ponder:

This is part of a longer, pretty confusing, passage in the Bible written by Paul in Romans 8. Maybe it’s just because I am contrarian and like things other people have a hard time dealing with because I also enjoy Ecclesiastes. Despite all of this talk of the Bible, I think that it is extraordinarily practical, even if some claim may that it can only be understood in a religious context.

One more thing before I dive into this and its application. Many people will claim that many parts of the Bible are impractical to be applied in someone’s life outside of being a Christian. In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis contends that we either have to take Christ as God, or a raving lunatic, never just a “good teacher.” While I agree that believing in salvation through the sacrifice of God is certainly a tall order and colors much of the rest of the book, and I hope more people would believe, but it is false to believe that there can’t be some positive understanding without being a believer. C.S. Lewis is right to say that calling Christ just a “good teacher” is impossible, but basically Christians fall into the pride trap and often look like the Pharisees in their words and actions believing that all the teachings can only be understood through relation with Christ. A humble view will show that, yes, salvation is a black and white subject, and not decided by us, but understanding specific passages can be done.

So what brought up this topic? Partly it was reading Strip or Retire post by Art of Manliness, but also having been in a discussion of this passage recently. What is better: To risk nothing by doing nothing? To risk everything doing something that the only reward is anxiety? Or to risk something or everything in order to do better?

If you read the AOM post I think you will know which one I am pushing toward, but still I am going to see if I can make sense of it.

First and foremost I must admit to being in the first camp. I don’t much like it when I think about it and often times I want to get out. But how comfortable it is to just let the status quo keep its status just where it is. But that is partly why I am writing this, to get myself toward the bank of the river Status; to think critically about subjects and expose my thoughts to a wider audience. This is risk, small but still more than I would otherwise consider normally.

What about that second camp? If we risk ourselves on things that are only going to cause anxiety, why do we do it? And does it really cause anxiety for all people?

The people who take these type of risks get an immediate rush, would anyone jump out of a plane or off a cliff to only see the view? Probably, but most people are doing it for the thrill, even with current technology the threat of death is right there. And to the skydivers, there are no personal consequences, at least insofar as they haven’t already reasoned away, who needs life insurance if you die doing what you love?

But these selfish actions, even as mundane (today, at least) as skydiving, do have consequences for other people. Skydiving is socially accepted, but there are many things that are not which people are taking risks all the time and hurting themselves and others for just an ever-diminishing rush. There are also some things that society views as not as bad as previous generations viewed it. Certainly some of these views may have been wrong, but to stir the fire: We all joke about politicians being liars, and the fact is there is no way they could ever keep all their promises, not unless they become god-like and tyrannical. But the US is currently looking at many candidates for an election that is more than a year away, and seemingly seriously considering a self-proclaimed liar.

I am sure you can attach a name to the man who has taken loans, promising to pay it back, and then those companies have gone bankrupt. Certainly unforeseen circumstances could crash a company once in a lifetime to the point that it requires bankruptcy, but when it becomes a pattern there is obviously some reasoning that allows it to happen again and again. Also the attitude is not one of contrition, but rather bombast. Just the person I want to run the country.

I do not want to move from the nothing camp into the negative side. Yes, I may get things wrong, but I want to be doing things right, for the betterment. Probably not altruistic, but certainly not selfish. And those who are coming with me need to know that there are risks, and the possibilities. But first I need to cut down on the nothing and start finding the risk that will pay dividends in the long run.

Some things that I feel I could invest my time in, either more or at all:

• People - Right now I only really invest time in one person. And even that I do not do too well.
• Constructive hobbies - lighting for a shadow box doesn’t happen without a bit of work. Also there are other projects around the house that could use my knowledge and/or quick learning to solve. There might be a bit of risk, but the reward will be a more comfortable, or usable, house.
• School - I would like to be an expert, and to have done well. I feel like I can actually put more effort into doing well. With my recent post I am considering quitting this semester, does this mean I am no longer taking a risk? Or am I increasing my risk for, hopefully, a better reward?
• Work - with my first major project taking too long in my estimation, we are switching to an agile system. I am in charge of getting a spam admin page up and going, but I am also angling to take charge of a small team to some extent. I am doing my work, but risking rebuke by trying to organize developers’ efforts.
• Also work - I had a constructive talk with two of our community team to figure out how I could get better at speaking about COS and developing so that I might be on the shortlist to go to conferences. I really need to start booking myself with local meetups in order to practice my speaking about subjects and hooking the COS pitch. I am not afraid to speak publicly, but what interests me I have found to bore other people.
• Writing, it sort of goes with the constructive hobbies. If I risk spending my time writing and delaying gratification (no one has clicked on an advertisement yet) rather than getting near-immediate gratification with games, then I could possibly become a better writer and start making money with this whole writing thing, hint, hint. But truly it is a side project.

All of these things are certainly good, but they are hindered by my outlook, I really am not great at taking risks. And reading Johnathan Mead’s blog I really can trap myself into not doing something by over-preparing, or previously visited, over-analyzing.

My biggest issue is the immediate discomfort that I believe I will face. My fight with myself every morning I intend to go running: “It’s too cold/dark, and I won’t do as well as I want.” But after every run, even though it isn’t a race, I am glad I ran. I might not be so happy that I ran too fast, or too slow, but I am glad that I got out there and did it.

Speaking of running, I signed up for a 5k. What does this do for me? It sets a goal, a date that I need to be ready for. Running is nice, a road or trail race isn’t a go/no-go decision, unless injured. Otherwise you can always run the race, maybe not as fast as you want, but I just need to show up and run, and I am a winner!

“Oh no. Everyone who runs can’t be a winner, did he just say that?” Nope, I will most certainly lose unless there is no one else in my age group, however, I gain a bunch of positives: Experience, exercise, a time to beat on my next 5k.

What it really boils down to is taking a risk, or many smaller risks to improve myself for the longer term, hopefully also looking to help others improve, through my example, encouragement, and exhortation.

Ongoing

I am sure that no one has ever questioned their chosen path. Ever, in the history of simple reasoning. On that false assumption, let me be the (very-large-number)th.

I probably just failed my class, on a midterm no less. It wasn't that I didn't know the material, rather I knew most of it, the problem was the proctoring system. I am certainly not a fan. I make one mistake, reloading the proctoring software because it took me to the wrong page, and it goes south from there. I won't say what was on the test, but by the time everything was figured out, I had 30 minutes to complete a 90 minute exam. Not a good position to be in.

I am sure I caused it, but the software did not help at all in that regard. But enough about that. I am looking at dropping the class and taking again at some other point. Life has been going a bit too quickly and I really haven't been keeping up with it like I need to, so if this pretty much makes it unlikely that I can even attain a B, then I will take it some other time.

Not that I like that path, withdrawing is one of my least favorite avenues. It makes me feel as though I am quitting and will be on my record. However, I feel that with a full time job it is much more acceptable, or at least a bit less frowned upon. Life marches on.

AI Class is Really Interesting

So the week after getting back from Colorado and Wyoming I started an interesting free class: an AI class offered by two professors from Stanford. It is an intro course but even from that I am learning quite a bit.

I just finished homework #3 all about machine learning. It was quite in depth with derivations of equations to get the equations needed to answer the questions. It is well put together and usually makes sense. My one complaint is when a huge long equation magically appears. I am happy that they edited the videos to be a bit shorter and the sound isn't choppy at all, it's just that those huge long equations that I might need later just appear, fade-in, drop in like it came as a pre-assembled part. I have to pause the video to be able to write it down and hopefully not forget what it is about, although Prof Thrun does a good job of explaining all of it, if quickly.

I unfortunately did not manage my time right to get Homework #2 done, but this last week I managed to get #3 done with time to spare. But I have to seriously start in on the videos tonight probably after fencing, otherwise I will be doing all of them last moment. I hope they posted them already.

This class also helps me to know if I am ready to do online courses from somewhere that I will have to pay for. I believe that I am not burnt out as I was when I finished college, but I definitely need to carefully keep track of my time before it comes to get me. Let me know if you are taking it too.