Yesterday I downloaded the newly released Google Earth for iPwn. It
Is awesome. Although its tracking algorithm doesn’t seem to work quite as well as the built-in Maps app, it has some additional features that are really nifty. You can rotate and tilt the display, viewing from any orientation in three dimensions. Google Earth has 3-d terrain data, so you can tilt the iPwn up and down to view mountains and such in all their glory.
I’m still exhausted. I have just returned from musical auditions, and I have a little bit of homework to do. I think I might go directly to bed afterwards, because I am unbelievably tired.
I had an excellent day at Olin, although very tiring. There were several interesting and informative presentations, and I also spent some time listening to a presentation / Q&A session with a Computer Science professor, who talked about some very interesting topics and demonstrated some fascinating programs. One of them generated random text by taking an input (he demonstrated it with the text of The Great Gatsby). The program then generated a list of all the words that appear in the text, and a corresponding list of all of the words that follow each of those words, respectively, in the original text. Then it chooses a random word, chooses a random word from the list of words that follow it, chooses a random word from the list of words that follow that one, etc., building a randomized string of text. The result is a nonsensical and non-grammatical string of random words that still sounds exactly like the book. It is awesome. I have decided I am going to write the program in PHP and post it on this site somewhere. I am also thinking that it might be very interesting to run the program on the content of the Exquisite Corpse poems.
This weekend marks the end of my college application process, or at least the brunt of it. I will be submitting my Brown application on Wednesday evening, and will then be done until I hear back from them, at which point I’ll either be completely finished, or will apply elsewhere if I don’t get in.
I am indescribably glad to have this stuff finished.
Almost done. I’ve essentially finished the entire application, essays and all. Now I just have to go through the whole thing one more time on Wednesday with my councilor at school, and I’ll be ready to submit it.
I have been working on college applications all day. I’m taking a break now. I was out of the house for a little while, and I’m waiting for a free computer to get back to work. I’m visiting Olin tomorrow, and possibly staying the night, so I need to have everything finished tonight. Fortunately, my father has taken over the CSS profile, which saves me a lot of number crunching, but it is a rather lengthy process.
Yesterday was tiring, but a good end to the week. I am on my way to the ACT right now, and I’ll be finishing my applications when I return. I am looking forward to having all of this done more than I can possibly describe.
I was pretty sick last night, and didn’t get much sleep, so I’m taking today off from school. I’m going to the doctor’s later, and I will spend most of the day working on college stuff. It is good to have a break from my routine. I did have some important stuff to get done today, but I think I will be able to catch up on it tomorrow. I have also told all of my teachers that I am expecting to be pretty behind until I finish college stuff, and that I will buckle down after that’s all done to get back on track with my normal schoolwork.
Not to be unoriginal or anything, but the college application process continues to take up a great deal of my brainpower. Between my constant homework-and-college-induced exhaustion and my actual schoolwork, I have been having a hard time functioning at school and at home. Fortunately, it will all be over this weekend.
I have decided to apply early decision to Brown. This will also help lighten my load; everything will be done a lot sooner.
Tonight is Simchat Torah, the festival that marks the completion of the Torah, which is read through once a year. Aside from a service, there is a lot of dancing. My family is probably going to go to the dancing part, because we are all too tired to go to a service.
I have made a lot of progress on college applications. Last night I finished my essay and got a lot done on application content organization-wise, and I distributed a bunch of forms to teachers today. I have also obtained a copy of a newspaper article about last year’s Mock Trial finals, which I will be including with my application. It is good to have these things out of the way. I am on track to be done this weekend.
Long time passing. My brain is being severely sapped by the college application process. I am doing my best to keep up with it, but it is difficult to stay on top.
The Exquisite Corpse page is doing very well. I’ve made a few minor adjustments to the page since it was launched, and I am overall very pleased about how it’s gone so far. I’m excited to see it continue.
I have made a lot of progress, with a first draft of pretty much all of my essays and questions, and a final draft of most. I still need to assemble some supplementary materials, like demonstrations of my music, and a copy of an article about the Mock Trial team last year. I’m taking a break for a little while to eat, relax, and otherwise distance myself from the application process.
I am starting work for the day on college applications. I have a lot of editing to do on my essay, various other miscellaneous changes to make to my application, and the Olin and Columbia applications to complete.
OK, stop everything. In the car on the way home today, I discovered the name of a town/region in Massachusetts that triumphs all others. Ever. Even ones I don’t know about yet. There is a place somewhat east of Wilbraham called Dingley Dell. This is not only a ridiculous name, but it is in a Monty Python sketch.
I am going to go there sometime soon.
I am not sure what I will do when I get there, but whatever it is will be AWESOME.
I am also thinking of trying to get a mailing address or P.O. box there, just so I can have people send me things addressed to Dingley Dell, and I can put it on my return address.
This is one of the most exciting moments of my life.
The Exquisite Corpse page has gone live, found in the projects section. So far it has had a lot of success with the help of a bunch of my friends and family who have started a whole lot of poems. I am hoping that it continues to flourish and becomes self-sufficient. It is my plan not to contribute to it at all; I am interested in the idea of my creating something that is not ultimately owned by me. Although I’ve enabled it, I want it to be more of a medium for others than a demonstration of my skills.
I am on my way to Brown University for the day. We are currently on I-90 E, and so far I’ve noticed several things. First, the leaves are beautiful. There are all sorts of shades of pink and purple that you would never expect to see in nature. Secondly, we just passed a huge black armored vehicle of a type that we had never seen before. It had all sorts of antennas and lights on it, bearing some kind of small logo we couldn’t read in the lower right-hand corner of the back. Upon passing it, we noted the name “BEAR” on the front. A Google search for “bear armored vehicle” reveals that it is produced by Lenco Armored Vehicles, and is used as an ambulance or deployment unit in areas under fire. I tried to find more information on price, size, etc., but most of the site is restricted to military and law enforcement officials who have been provided with a username and password.
In other, somewhat less covert news, I’ll be going to the typical tour/info session at Brown, as well as the engineering open house in the afternoon.
I was on the phone with a friend who knows Providence and they recommended the Meeting Street Cafe. It turned out that we were around the corner from it, so we are there now, splitting a pastrami sandwich, soup, and coleslaw. There are also, as my friend said, huge cookies, which I think I will sample later.
We’re on our way home after a long and tiring day. On the way here we wrote a song inspired by a sign for Woonsocket. The lyrics are as follows:
Woonsocket x8n
where n=number of verses.
We also passed signs for Purgatory Road and Purgatory Chasm. We thought about going, but decided against it.
I have just gotten out of the info session, and we’re heading into downtown Providence for lunch. We left the tour partway through and got some food before going to the info session, which was very large (~100-200 people). I am excited for the engineerig open house this afternoon, but for the moment I am ready to find some food and relax.
This week was pretty tiring. I watched the last Presidential debate on Wednesday night and went out swing dancing on Thursday night, which was excellent. I had originally planned to leave for my visit to Brown in Rhode Island this morning, but I put that off until tomorrow. I will be going for the day to the engineering open house.
Today we did not have open mic during the normally scheduled time, from 2:00 to 3:00 at the end of the day, so we had recess instead. For the last hour of school, everyone was outside playing foursquare (which me and a few other people have made extremely popular recently) or just hanging out. There were also footie pajamas involved.
I have been working on a version of the literary game Exquisite Corpse for this site for the past few weeks. I think it will be ready to go live tonight or sometime in the next few days. I am very excited to see how it works once I have it running.
…is tonight. I will again be watching it at a friend’s house.
Over the last few days, I’ve been reading a lot of news articles about both candidates’ tax and economic policies. This has made me both more and less excited for the debate, in several ways. I am excited to see how well the candidates can defend their policies; this will show how well they understand what’s going on. I am less excited because, after reading a lot of actual substantial coverage of the issues, my perceptions of how shallow these debates actually are have been reinforced. Useful information can come out of the debates, though, even taking the format’s flaws into account. We will see…
We are on our way to Brandeis. Just a minute ago I asked my iPwn for directions from I-90E (where we are) to Brandeis, to determine which exit to use, and was surprised to find the total distance given as 517 miles. It turns out that the Maps application calculated the driving directions from the beginning of I-90E, which is in Erie, PA.