Where's Clio

Small world? Or just boring world?

2011-11-28T02:57:00.001-05:00

I turn on the tv at my Bali hotel room, and it's live from Bethesda, Md, my hometown. How exciting?! And what exactly is so pressing that we go live to Bethesda? People are sort of shopping. The store owners say the shopping is pretty normal, but sort of good. This is what's on the news in Bali.

Breakfast Part 2

2011-11-28T02:54:00.002-05:00

This is a typical breakfast for a clio in singapore. Juice (actually, I usually don't drink juice, but that's ok) made out of 'pear', which is actually a bitter apple-type thing; bee hoon (fried thin rice noodles), curry cabbage (this kind is especially watery) and chili pepper sauce. So delicious! For reference, this costs about $2.20 US.

Stop Time

2011-11-28T02:53:00.000-05:00

How exciting!

(found @ clarke quay mrt stop)

Little India

2011-11-28T02:52:00.000-05:00

At this cafe in Little India, the whole big building is designed and painted with these beautiful colors.

Shophouse on Orchard Rd

2011-11-28T02:50:00.001-05:00

This shophouse is one of the prettiest on Orchard Rd. Shophouses have a longstanding history in Singapore, where families used to live upstairs and own the shop below.

USD2SGD

2011-11-16T05:10:00.001-05:00

I started getting paid in Singapore Dollars at the time of the red dot.

Clio Talking

2011-11-15T02:55:00.001-05:00

Here I am preaching the word about spatial/social networks to our program and Dr. Susan Hockfield, President of MIT.

Breakfast

2011-11-15T02:50:00.002-05:00

This is what I ate for breakfast/and then lunch today. Fresh OJ, Soup with seaweed stuff, Veggies with egg and fish and whatnot, Pineapple, and then in the brown package is stirfried noodles (called Bee Hoon) with beansprouts. Delicious!

Total cost: $3.90 singapore, about $3.10 US.

Bed Part 2

2011-11-15T02:48:00.001-05:00

This is my bed at my house in Singapore. I really, really thought that by this age, I wouldn't be sleeping with journal articles anymore. Alas, I am. Pathetic.

IKEA

2011-11-15T02:46:00.002-05:00

On the day I found out that my little bunny Mazzy died, :( I went to Ikea and found my bed. This is a bed that my mom bought for me, and it's in DC. I used to pull out the front drawer so Mazzy could go in there while I slept. Then, she'd hop on the bed, and hop on my head!

I told some bed-shoppers about it. They thought it was cute.

Meet Prata!

2011-11-15T02:44:00.001-05:00

This is my baby merlion, Prata. We sleep together every night, and sometimesssssss he comes to work with me. Sometimes I use him as a pillow.

hdb in punngol

2011-11-15T02:41:00.002-05:00

We had a tour of an HDB (housing development board) flat center in Punggol. Punggol is a new neighborhood in the north part of the island. It's very quiet out there, but there are tons of kids!

An HDB flat is an apartment in Singapore that is first owned by the government and then sold on a 99 year lease. Did you know that 82% of people in Singapore live in public housing?? Also, each apartment building has to fill quotas of part Indian, part Malay, part Chinese and part other.

Baby Merlion

2011-11-08T21:31:00.001-05:00

The Merlion (not Merlin, "Mer-Lion", or as I call it, "Lion-fish-a", or as Zoolander calls it, "Mer-man, father, Mer-MAN!") is a national symbol. This cute version is from an ad for a yogurt drink called Y-something....yockulture...I totally forget. Anyway, I saw it at an MRT station last night. I would tell you which one, but I forget. Maybe Harbourfront? So cute.

Hello Henna

2011-11-08T21:23:00.004-05:00

I gave myself a henna tattoo using a mehndi cone that I picked up in Little India when I was walking around with my dad and brother. I still have 1/2 of it left...maybe more....When the henna dries, it flakes off, and my tummy was left with a pretty flowery stain. I wanted to do my hands, but we have Susan Hockfield, the president of MIT coming to visit soon, and I get to talk to her, and I didn't want to look too decorated.

Henna is so pretty, some of the women here make the most beautiful designs.

Roti Prata

2011-11-08T21:19:00.001-05:00

Prata is the best food here/ever. It's delicious. Google or google image it for some awesome pictures.

The food exhibit at the Singapore National Museum had a part on prata.

Shoklaty Moments

2011-11-08T21:03:00.002-05:00

This ad for Cadbury just speaks for itself. Shoklaty (instead of Chocolaty) should be listed on enrish.com. In case we didn't guess that even 'mom' is 'feeling the bubbly fun', we're invited to see that she indeed has a shoklaty fav. I found this while waiting for the bus in chinatown.

Lego Islanders!

2011-11-08T20:55:00.003-05:00

This is how I feel in Southeast Asia. Not bad....these were my favorite when I was growing up.

Vive Ferragamo

2011-11-06T21:08:00.003-05:00

This giant shoe is found at the Arts and Sciences Museum at Marina Bay Sands. Tres iconic! I went to the museum and saw the Titantic exhibit with my dad, we both really loved it.

Shoesies for my feetsies

2011-11-06T21:06:00.001-05:00

These are my 'mices'. They are my new shoes from Chinatown. The brand is called Zass, and they come in kids sizes and grown up sizes and many different colors.

Lanterns

2011-11-06T20:55:00.000-05:00

This is my office after I ordered a ton of lanterns. the lanterns (which were really well-priced), were from a Chinese import store in San Diego. So they went from China to San Diego to here. I couldn't find a website that did direct from China. Actually, maybe I didn't try that hard. Actually! You can now blame global warming on me.

Gelicious

2011-11-03T20:59:00.005-04:00

Anyone interested in Fuzzy Logic will like this sign. It's so funny how they say gel and gelish (Sign found while waiting for the bus in Chinatown).

Fuzzy Logic, in my own words, is the segmentation/discretization of level of belongingness to a certain category. It originated in Japan. Some people think that probabilistic models can do just fine with this task, so fuzzy logic is therefore kind of a blurry cop-out. It's a very cool topic though.

Tattoos in PPC

2011-11-02T20:57:00.004-04:00

Tattoo shop in People's Park Complex (I think...they're all called almost the same thing...) caters to white people! The complex also has services for anything beauty related, cell phone related and mushroom related.

Singapore! Welcome!

2011-10-25T23:00:00.002-04:00

Hi! I live in Singapore now. I will post a photo everyday. Here is my first one. I have been living here since August, so there is much to tell!

This is my house, I live with a very nice woman---and I'll be here for another week until I go to somewhere closer to my office. My roommate is a government consultant genius and she travels all around the planet. She's been to over 100 countries....This is a Buddah she recently got from Bangkok.

1000

2011-08-31T22:42:00.004-04:00

So today is number 1000, in Singapore, where I am now living! (I guess I don't really realize how that happened right on the dot? I think it's cause I didn't count time that I wasn't at MIT? Weird.)

I got my PhD, I'm finished completely. My dissertation was a lot of fun. It's called Metrics and Methods for Social Distance, and I'll email it to you if you write me. I have so many stories about being at that school. I still have nightmares about failing generals. I had one last night---no one would let me have any paper!

Here's what I learned:

(1) Boys are helpless.
(2) Don't rush through stuff.
(3) A lot of PhD stuff is just out of your control. You can't really decide when you want to be done, or what you want to work on, what they're serving at the cafeteria that day or anything really, so be ready for that.

Love,
Dr. Clio

919

2011-06-12T18:16:00.004-04:00

Hi. I'm almost finished with my 1000 days at MIT.

I did my doctoral exams from days 655 until 662 . I accidentally overslept on the day of my exam defense.
I moved to Penn State as a visiting scholar in the GeoVISTA Center on day 669.
I turned 26 on day 814.
I defended my proposal on day 821.
I defended my dissertation on day 888.

On day 914 I came to Complex Systems Summer Camp at the Santa Fe Institute. I'll be here for a a month. Then I'll go back to MIT to finish out my 1000. I suppose that will be September 2nd. Then I will be taking a nap.

US Migration Patterns

2011-02-13T14:38:00.003-05:00

Each of our 3141 US Counties that posted a migration channel of 10 or more people is represented above. They are sectioned into 10 classes--based on their configurations (and a 'hidden' component: number of migrants on each edge)

every county migration

2011-02-13T14:06:00.002-05:00

The migration patterns of every county in the USA. Starting with Top Left (grey color -- Honolulu, Hawaii, red color--- Las Vegas, NV...)

Congress Social Net

2011-01-28T12:10:00.003-05:00

a point represents a congressional rep. in the house.
closer points mean that they voted the same on the same stuff (like a bill).
the pink guys are the democrats.
the brown and black are republicans.
the turquoise ones are floaters, the fuchsia dude in the middle is Rep. Bright from alabama.
there's a lot more to come....

and the numbers are just ID's in the database.

565

2010-06-24T16:59:00.002-04:00

Hi. I'm finished with MIT for the semester. I'm done with classes. I'm working still in the senseable city lab. I work with a team of researchers...a dismantling team of researchers...but we have done some cool things. We put together a website called Network & Society

I'm kind of wiped out. This place makes you tired, but not sleepy.

Mazzy is doing well. We are looking forward to a nice summer with our family in Greece. I'll be studying for general exams (in Sept.), and I'll be excited to be hanging out with my sister and everyone else!!

Do you want to babysit Mazzy while I'm gone? Sure you do!

2010-02-24T00:37:00.000-05:00

429

2010-02-08T17:20:00.002-05:00

How do you feel about probability?

I think I'm a Bayesian....

Do you think this has to do with deterministic v.s. stochastic processes?

Are you someone who likes to calibrate a real equation and just use it, or do you like to see where the chips fall? Interesting.

1. Frequentists talk about probabilities only when dealing with experiments that are random and well-defined. The probability of a random event denotes the relative frequency of occurrence of an experiment's outcome, when repeating the experiment. Frequentists consider probability to be the relative frequency "in the long run" of outcomes.

2. Bayesians, however, assign probabilities to any statement whatsoever, even when no random process is involved. Probability, for a Bayesian, is a way to represent an individual's degree of belief in a statement, given the evidence.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability

417

2010-01-27T22:01:00.003-05:00

Happy Happy Happy Happy New Year

Yay for being back at school with Mazzy.

396

2009-12-15T19:39:00.003-05:00

This is hot off the press! Call patterns from people in Exeter UK (Note the map is pointing east northeast) The line height and color is how much they call the other places in England.

It's like a geographic hug. :)

(sigh)

2009-12-11T11:25:00.003-05:00

I saw this ad while i was booking a flight online. What does long enough mean? Are we referring to the "i put up with dirty socks on the floor" cliche?

It should read: "because you've waited long enough for your boyfriend to calmly and rationally think through a big decision not to kick you to the curb."

if you didn't get why he was waiting, here: he didn't really care either way (.2), he was busy doing other stuff (.5) and he was on the fence about you and your dirty sock complaints (.3).

(significance +/- 3%)

386

2009-12-05T16:52:00.005-05:00

Only at this latitude could you lose your glasses in June and find them in your winter coat.

Here, I wrote a poem today.

A Poem about Progress

If you’re not willing to fix a problem, pretend it doesn’t exist.
Or you can be conflicted, annoyed or miserable.
Don’t pass that up!
You can make others miserable as well!
But not me or my elephant.
We have errands to run on Saturday.
Stomp.

385

2009-12-04T23:36:00.002-05:00

I saw this about three years ago. I think It's the most profound thing I've ever seen on the Internet.

379

2009-11-29T17:02:00.002-05:00

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

369

2009-11-19T18:01:00.001-05:00

L'Oreal: Women In Science!

This year, L’Oréal USA will award five more women with grants of up to $60,000 each. Applicants are welcome from a variety of fields, including the life and physical/material sciences, computer science, engineering and mathematics. In addition, we have moved the application process online.

Applicants may apply through our website:

www.lorealusa.com/forwomeninscience.

362

2009-11-12T15:15:00.002-05:00

Elegant feature reduction or Kiplingeqsue bastardization of humanity? You decide!

296

2009-09-07T17:03:00.005-04:00

Vogue model Liskula Cohen wins right to unmask offensive blogger [web]

This is news from a few weeks ago, but I think it may be very important.

I don't agree with this decision. (and i am NOT speaking as a blogger; i am not a blogger)

1 the model is a public figure. as a public figure, she's subject to criticism
2 the blogger's actions were not putting her in danger

Furthermore, In my opinion:
3 the user's blog is not a publication. people have to choose to access it.
same with the difference between walking into the public library and walking into someone's home. you can do both, but with the later, you enter at your own risk, and take the contents as not regulated truth, but someone's lifestyle.

And humor me, but:
4 maybe he was right, maybe she's a skank. we're now punishing people for being right? :)

295: roommate edition

2009-09-06T14:40:00.003-04:00

jon, fabulurizio, and toma

and mazzy

293

2009-09-05T20:54:00.004-04:00

The Anti-Apatow.

290

2009-09-02T13:27:00.001-04:00

Showing Data with Color

Nominal & Ordinal = color patches
Ratio & Interval = color ramps

1 Nominal: INDIVIDUAL RANDOM colors
(e.g. Light Pink, Red, Red-Pink, Light Red, Dark Red, Pink, Dark Pink)

2 Ordinal: PROGRESSIVE individual colors
(e.g. Red, Red-Orange, Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow)

3 Interval: Progression from one color to the next is equal
(Green --> || --> || --> || --> Blue)

4 Ratio: Progression from one color is accelerating in saturation or intensity
(Green --> |--> ||| --> ||||||| --> Blue)

-Clio

More on 4 data types: http://web.uccs.edu/lbecker/SPSS/scalemeas.htm

Cause this is my United States of Whatever

2009-08-19T10:55:00.003-04:00

In the 70's a geographer re-regionalized the USA based 'cultural' factors. (Thanks for sending David!)

Hi from Brisbane!

2009-08-11T08:22:00.004-04:00

Clio's fun presentation. Hi Carlo!

Are you a PC or a Mac? Starring Christine.

Night out with Bettina and Teen Idol.

Me and Koala.

Paris more, more Paris...

2009-07-02T21:26:00.000-04:00

Hi! So far, Paris is lovely. The weather has been great (hot!) as well.

In the past few days I have seen Les Halles, the Louvre (but I didn't go in...yet), L'Arc de Triomphe, and a few other things. The river is really pretty, and I like how the label the neigbhorhoods in clockwise order from the 'downtown'.

I have seen (heard) very few tourists....especially near where I'm staying. Lots of smoking, lots of people carrying wine and bagettes. (It's not a stereotype after all). It's kind of funny cause the people don't seem to show any emotion, they don't laugh or hug or tell stories vividly, but they do make out a lot. A lot a lot.

It's fun to ignore people, and to bump into people. No one is afraid to just knock you over, or come stand right next to you (or in front of you!!) while you're looking at something--like a map, clothes, or groceries. It's like, can you wait five seconds?!? But you get used to it. I'm used to it. Now I go up and breathe on people. (I'm kidding)

It's also weird that the French don't like Americans (I guess?). My hotel manager (after he heard me on the phone) said, you're Canadian, right? Statistically, that's him giving me the benefit of the doubt. I also walked into a shoe store today and heard on some women on a radio talk show saying..."Je deteste les Americans" "Oui, Moi Aussi!" and they continued to say how horrible Americans are. Meanwhile the store owners are a wearing Kobe Jersey and Quicksilver Tee Shirts and drinking Starbucks. It doesn't bother me personally, but it's an interesting thing to think about. Fix it, Obama!

I have a new research idea....more soon.

hi

2009-06-29T06:30:00.004-04:00

Hey, I'm in Paris.

We were in a traffic jam on the way to the downtown, so I got to see a lot of Clio cars. I'm staying near Sacre Coeur if that means anything to you. It's really nice here, and, well, if you're like me and think that Paris is too snobby and it's just not for you, I've been here for like three hours and it's already feeling like home. And not fake charming home, but chill out home.

What the hell am I doing in Paris? I'm working with a famous architect from Harvard to research ad-hoc protest spaces, or I'm working at the Mayors office to develop a navigation system for blind people, or I'm working on my tan. You choose!

Clio

Cut and Paste in Word with Font Formatting

2009-06-09T09:44:00.001-04:00

Know how when you cut and paste something in Microsoft Word and the Font is all big or little or just not like the rest of your document? Instead of manually changing it, you can use CRTL + SPACEBAR to remove manual character formatting.

268

2009-06-05T15:42:00.003-04:00

This is a representation of fire station coverage. The goal is to have everyone able to reach the station. Linear Algebra and Urban Planning love eachother! Congrats to all the amazing members of the class of 09. Our graduation is today.

264

2009-06-01T10:02:00.002-04:00

hi! my dad is here to visit.

this is a super cool article about what we're doing in the lab. it compares us (we're mentioned second) with the barabasi lab over at northeastern. (they have more space, but no crayons.)

259

2009-05-27T10:40:00.002-04:00

My First Year in Short

On intimidation: If you're swimming, it doesn't matter if the water is 3 feet or 30,000 feet. If you're sinking, you might want to check.

On boys: 1/2 are married, 1/2 have Aspergers.

On humanity: Love it all.

On our minds: You're wild, tortous, wondering thoughts are more charted than you might think.

Final Answer: Take care of your parents and your teeth. The rest is uncertain.

253

2009-05-21T14:25:00.002-04:00

Added to my Microsoft Word dictionary this year:

Imprimer
Betweenness
Sociodemographic
Malaka

I only know one person who could digest all of these random terms...and he's a weird 34 year old dude. In the meantime, an imprimer is from marvin minsky's class, its a term to describe someone who you want to impress. Betweenness is a measure of how many nodes are in the middle of you and a target node, in a network or graph. Sociodemographic just means stuff that has to do with measuring people, like income, race or accessibility to a mall. And a malaka is a greek term for a mean dude.

I have a post mortem (ironically named...) of this year here in this crazy place. In the meantime, it was weird that my 250th day was also my 250th post on this silly blog. That's only something about which a victim of the crazy place would get excited.

250

2009-05-18T22:11:00.005-04:00

There's a drought in Mali, and the baby lela fants are dying. It's really sad, but this picture made me happy cause Mali is such a poor country (poorest in the world i think...no, wolfram alpha says no way ) and they're trying really hard to save the elephants and get them water. it's really heartwarming.

246

2009-05-14T19:46:00.004-04:00

Here are a few MAZZY DOES MIT pictures: on the courtyard, in the senseable lab, in the media lab.

Today was the last day of classes. I don't like it when classes end...sorta sad. Anyway, I'm working on some papers or whatever. I'll post a link if you're interested later. It's about how we recall memories.

243

2009-05-11T23:18:00.003-04:00

From Computing Commonsense
(P Singh, M Minsky and I Eslick)

Clio: This is a really cool set of concepts that you've used a gazillion times but maybe never heard anyone talk about it....read on.

We do not use any single technique for synchronising
representations across multiple agents, but instead make use
of a family of processes for synchronising and sharing
information. We refer to these together as a panalogy (a term
that derives from ‘parallel analogy’). Here are some of the
methods of panalogy we use.

• Event panalogy
Maintains the correspondences between the elements of
event descriptions across multiple representations. For
example, when we imagine the consequences of buying a
fancy new car, we can rapidly switch between considering
the effects of that purchase on our social status (which it
may improve) and on our financial situation (which it may
hurt).

• Model panalogy
Maintains descriptions of different models or
interpretations of a situation, like seeing a door
simultaneously as both a portal and as an obstacle. Each
of these interpretations may suggest different inferences
or courses of actions, and if we discover that in fact we
have a key to the door, inferences based on that
interpretation are already available for use.

• Theory panalogy
Maintains mappings between different theories of the
same domain. For example, we may choose to describe a
theory of time where events are treated as atomic points
on a timeline, and another theory of time where events
are treated as occurring over intervals on a timeline.
When one theory is unable to answer a given question
about, for example, the order in which some set of events
occurred, we can try to switch to the other.

• Realm panalogy
Maintains analogies between different ‘mental realms’.
Lakoff and Johnson [19] have argued that the knowledge
and skills we use for reasoning about space and time are
also used to help reason about social realms, and there
are pervasive analogies between these seemingly very
different domains.

• Abstraction panalogy
Maintains connections between different abstract
descriptions. For example, one might approximate a
human skeleton with just a dozen bones rather the actual
206 bones of a normal adult, or as a set of sub-skeletal
structures consisting of the bones of the head, neck,
chest, etc. We can link each of these different
abstractions to form a more realistic or complete model
than any individual abstraction could form.

• Ambiguity panalogy
Maintain links between ambiguous senses of predicates.
For example, the preposition ‘in’ can refer to a wide
range of relations far more specific than any division
provided by ordinary dictionary senses. Rather than
selecting any particular such relation when describing a
situation, we can instead maintain the ambiguity
between those relations. We can then draw on our
understanding of all those related senses to answer
questions about how one thing could be ‘in’ another.

240

2009-05-08T10:49:00.004-04:00

This is my current research on network propagation. Mazzy the bunny is coming to visit MIT today. Pictures to follow!

236

2009-05-04T15:42:00.002-04:00

Now that you can search for only pink things, I can die a happy person.

235

2009-05-03T10:07:00.002-04:00

I met a bus driver last night. We talked for about 43 minutes (off peak / 54 minutes on peak--joke). He was cool. Here's what he said:

-He gets hit on all the time. Some of his friends have dated passengers and it ended up crazy, cause they still have to take the bus every morning. Which is hilarious. (I refrained from asking him if he knew the bus driver I had a crush on. He drives the Silver Line...which is a quazi bus).

-Bus drivers have a shorter pension tenure thing. It's 23 years instead of 40. The benefits are great.

-Some routes are not fun to drive, only cause they are in unsafe neighborhoods. Others don't really make a difference.

-Rain and snow does not make for a bad day

-Bus drivers often try to drive the train (the T). It pays better and it's a little more glamorous. T drivers don't usually try to drive the bus.

-Some passengers aren't nice. He had crazy stories about this one. Fist fights, nudity, broken bones. Shootings, stabbings. Some drink on the bus. Some don't pay. It's important that the driver stay safe.

-He said bus drivers are the 'face of the transit system' cause they have the most interaction with the passengers. They get questions, angry comments...you can imagine.

-You have to be 18 to drive the bus. No DUIs.

-And there is no height requirement. Score!

Anyway, if you ride the bus, chill with your driver. And support public transit!

234

2009-05-02T15:12:00.002-04:00

This is a picture of some of our lab and our director on vacay at Stowe. Awesome.

223

2009-04-21T19:50:00.002-04:00

List of Recent Interesting Things:

-My mom talking to groups of (horrifically receptive) drunken guys at IHOP after our Easter Service let out at 3 in the morning. The Harvard IHOP is a very special place on a Saturday night.

-Marvin Minksy and his Society of Mind Class. It's about how we can understand our intelligence, and then apply it to machines and computers. People talk to me, and I argue with the phrase "Well, Marvin Minksy says..." I have a final project in that class that I'm pumped about. More later!

-Mazzy working her way through eating a giant cardboard box.

-Senseable URB-Garden (urb stands for urban). I made top international researchers cut out flowers from construction paper, write something having to do with networks on them, (and a 'percolation' worm...) and tape them to my wall in my office. Now I keep hearing the word kindergarden thrown around.

-If you want to know more about our lab, you can watch this video.

-This weekend, we're going to Haymarket to get veggies and celebrate spring with the bunny!

213

2009-04-11T14:20:00.002-04:00

One more month (or so) until the semester is over! Things are good in Boston, we've had a few days up to 60. Mazzy is good as well, and Greek Easter is next weekend. Yayyyy

201

2009-03-30T22:40:00.002-04:00

I love bunnies.

193

2009-03-22T19:01:00.003-04:00

Imaginary conversation between me and my post doc tomorrow morning:

-Hi Clio, thanks for coming for my girlfriend's birthday last night.

-Thanks for having me, I like her!

-The chocolate cheesecake you made was overbaked and subsequently seemed more like a custard pie. We don't have custard pie in my country, you know, Italy, home of the finest deserts in the world. There's a reason we don't have custard pie and we're the best.

-Dessert has two ss's.

-I don't care. And also, this literature review you have due today is also bad. Good try though!

187

2009-03-16T15:02:00.003-04:00

A lot of not cool stuff/pushy people seem to be just coming back over and over and over again. Instead of complaining, I've coined the term 'bummerang' for us all to use.

179

2009-03-08T17:40:00.006-04:00

The battery life on our laptops is about the same as the time it took for the Titanic to sink.

That is crazy! Think about unplugging your laptop. Sitting it on the table, and a boat sinking in the meantime. (yes, keep the music playing...)

Your laptop is dying. They're dying...but what would have those people said about computers? (How dumb, right? A big big boat is sinking!) What did their food taste like? Did they sleep on their sides? What did they talk about? Did they know eachother better than we know eachother?

Duh the Titanic was tragic, but how amazing would it be to be in a place where you can be with people and just people.

172

2009-03-03T13:38:00.001-05:00

Dante's Seven Deadly Devices

Pride or vanity — an excessive love of the self (holding the self outside of its proper position regarding God or fellows; Dante's definition was "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor").
Avarice (covetousness, greed) — a desire to possess more than one has need or use for (or according to Dante, "excessive love of money and power").
Lust — excessive sexual desire. Dante's criterion was that "lust detracts from true love".
Wrath or anger — feelings of hatred, revenge or denial, as well as punitive desires outside of justice (Dante's description was "love of justice perverted to revenge and spite").
Gluttony — overindulgence in food, drink or intoxicants, or misplaced desire of food as a pleasure for its sensuality ("excessive love of pleasure" was Dante's rendering).
Envy or jealousy - resentment of others for their possessions (Dante: "love of one's own good perverted to a desire to deprive other men of theirs").
Sloth or laziness; idleness and wastefulness of time and/or other allotted resources. Laziness is condemned because it results in others having to work harder; also, useful work will not be done.

171

2009-03-03T00:12:00.002-05:00

http://video.about.com/cocktails/How-to-Make-Jello-Shots.htm

169

2009-02-28T13:57:00.000-05:00

and how many factors do you have? yeah, that's what i thought. (...yeah i made that. yeah i am not cool...)

167

2009-02-26T23:01:00.002-05:00

Love at first sight.

165

2009-02-24T20:22:00.003-05:00

How to write an essay:

Essays aren't hard.

[1] Read question
“Why are penguins purple?”
[2] Reformulate the question into a sentence that includes your answer.
“Penguins are purple because x.”
[3] Formulate completely anecdotal but common sense opinions.
“It’s their favorite color, purple is pretty, they want to be different than skunks…”
[4] Read what older people have said about the question.
“The form of melanin in the feathers of penguins contains a protein with radioactive properties…” -Henderson
[5] Realize that their level of thinking is really above yours.
“crtl c, crtl v”
[6] Rework some of your main points (your bs) to sound like their points (less coherent bs).
“The penguins have chemicals in their skin that exhibit special properties.” (Henderson, 1935)
[7] Write a bunch of stuff, really whatever you want. Just cite some of the people.
La la la
[8] Leave overnight (or longer if you have more time)
zzz
[9] Now you just have to edit all your stuff. Easy.
They’re their there…
[10] Print
[11] Find a stapler and push down.
[12] Go to class, look for pile of papers, add to pile.

163

2009-02-22T22:24:00.000-05:00

What's your problem?

Boolean satisfiability problem
Knapsack problem
Hamiltonian path problem
Travelling salesman problem
Subgraph isomorphism problem
Subset sum problem
Clique problem
Vertex cover problem
Independent set problem
Graph coloring problem

157

2009-02-16T11:35:00.004-05:00

Thanks, Nick. More math and life...XKCD

152

2009-02-11T20:34:00.000-05:00

Every geek needs a watch, right? Check these out! awesome watches
Maybe I'll make one. :)

levels of urban semantics == colored dots

2009-01-22T20:13:00.001-05:00

44 from 350,000,000 not 50,000,000

2009-01-21T14:29:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was a milestone for the African American population, as we all know (and if you didn't know, we'll let Aretha's *awesome* bow speak), but it should not overshadow President Obama's worth:

We shouldn't think that we elected the most worthy black man in the country, but that the most worth man in the country is black. They imply different things, as any set theorist can tell you (I'm not a set theorist). The former implies that the pool of black leaders is constrained, and that finally, someone from that pool reached the level of the most worthy white candidates in the other pool. The later indicates that we combined pools and chose the best person, and oh look! he's African American. This says more about President Obama's worth, cause he was selected as #1 from everyone, not from a #1 smaller portion of the population (numerically less competition).

There's an emotional side too, and luckily, emotion is now being considered by some as very tied to math, so I can talk about it. Ha. So, if you felt the election was n-1 dimensional for you (e.g. you don't own a hat with a big bow on it), I can understand. Maybe it helped some of us understand how some other people have felt for years. Would be weird, othering, wrong to have felt graceful to take a backseat to let African Americans celebrate more? Would that have made them 'them'? And all us not 'all of us'? I don't know. It's touchy. But I definitely think this should not be viewed as a long overdue 'moment in the sun', but that it's the arrival of a sun that will shine on all of us, bringing us together underneath the light of good leadership and brotherhood forever. Is that lame? Maybe.

No matter how or why we celebrated, whether someone celebrated the moment, their moment, the moment of their ancestors, or watched others have their moment, I think we can all agree that its momentousness is due (at least in part) to a marked change in the future. And that's what was overdue.

127

2009-01-17T08:56:00.006-05:00

Meet Mazzy:

She's a little white Holland Lop. I took this picture this morning when she curled up in bed and fell asleep.

126

2009-01-16T09:42:00.002-05:00

Hi, I'm back in Boston. It's cold everywhere today, which is due to a high pressure system (called a cold-core high). This part of school is called IAP (independent activities period) where you can check out a bunch of cool stuff, or just be a lab rat without any homework. yay!

Check this out...it's amazing amazing.

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

bunny

2009-01-07T20:42:00.001-05:00

http://amrabbitry.webs.com/available.htm

On hold for CLIO!

The Tostitos FedEX Allstate Blog Post

2009-01-06T23:57:00.002-05:00

Dear BCS,

Thank you for keeping us happy in what would otherwise be a post-holiday blah period. However, you suck a little. Michael Wilbon is mad at you too, and I haven’t met him, but he might be a pretty big guy. So, watch out!

I don’t think it’s a great idea to anger the Mormons by dissing Utah for the second year in a row. These people are multiplying really fast and overturning gay marriage in Cali. So what if they don’t play hard teams (like the Carolina Gamecocks, whom Florida edged in a neck and neck battle this year…too soon? Too soon.) This isn’t the damn GRE where it gets harder as you post successive w’s. They were given a schedule and they dominated. And they beat up on shiny Alabama, so please don’t be mean to them again.

Love,
Clio

2009-01-06T12:36:00.002-05:00

Q and A with um, me.

2008-12-30T23:54:00.005-05:00

How was MIT:
Fun! I can't wait to go back in February! When I'm not in school, I hang out in the SENSEable city lab, figure skate, go book shopping, and go to church. I have four awesome roommates and it's really easy to walk everywhere.

Did you get a new bunny:
Almost. I'm getting her from Mechanicsville MD sometime in January.

What didn't you find at Target recently:
Candy Canes. Weird, huh?

Did Nick bring you back the Greek cheese you asked for from Astoria:
NO! Thanks for reminding me....I need to get him on that!

What are you listening to:
I luv Modest Mouse. Ask Me Anything by The Strokes sounds like it should be in a Wes Anderson movie.

Did you ever end up watching that Secret Life of Bees movie you were talking smack about:
Yep. It was good. I don't cry often and never in movies, but I totally bawled my eyes out at first sight of that pink house cause it made me miss South Carolina so SO much. Eh I love South Carolina.

Any books:
I picked up Sherry Turkle's Second Self, Roz Picard's Affective Computing, Marvin Minksy's Society of Mind and I just finished Clio Cresswell's Mathematics and Sex. It wasn't as racy as it sounds, but it was about applied math, which is something I really like. I haven't read the other ones yet.

What was the worst thing about coming home:
OK, so in my infinite wisdom and maturity, I've been saying "your mom" as a comeback a lot. eg "You should go for a walk" "Your mom should go for a walk". I know! I'm so grown up! It doesn't work so well with your brother, or your mom...and I don't dare find out what happens with your half-sister.

Do you have a New Year's Resolution:
Save the world.

on media

2008-12-30T22:58:00.002-05:00

I'm bad at watching television. I really can't do it. If it's on, I'll just find myself staring at the ground. I have no idea why I hate TV so much, either it just raises so many questions or is just kinda boring...whatever.

Here are the TV shows I'll watch: Get Smart, South Park, Rocky and Bullwinkle, My So-Called Life, Carolina Football, some NBA.

I like movies though. Since I got done with school, I've seen: The Magnificent Ambersons, Great Expectations, Inventing the Abbots, Everything is Illuminated, and my fave, Ratatouille.

I think I'm going to revive my random boy posts that I used to do a long time ago.... I saw my first victim tonight.

run your car on ragu!

2008-12-28T22:18:00.003-05:00

	I tried to find out why gas was so cheap right now and ran into this cute little list...
	Arrowhead Bottled Water	1.28
	Clorox Bleach	1.99
	Gasoline	3.53
	2% Milk	3.99
	Arizona Ice Tea	3.99
	Whole Milk	4.49
	Soda by Pepsi & Coke	5.33
	Pelligrino Sparkling Mineral Water	6.40
	Minute Maid Orange Juice	6.99
	Snapple Peach Tea	7.68
	Propel Fitness Water	7.68
	Henry Weinhards Root Beer	7.68
	Glaceau VitaminWater	8.96
	Safeway Canola Oil	9.84
	Boba Milk Tea	10.67
	Dawn Dish Detergent	11.43
	Charcoal Lighter Fluid	11.96
	Monster Energy Drink	12.80
	Rubbing Alcohol (Safeway)	13.52
	Safeway Peanut Oil	13.89
	Liquid Tide Detergent	14.49
	Windex	17.29
	Kikkoman Soy Sauce	18.21
	Softsoap Liquid Soap	20.45
	Starbucks Frappuccino Iced Coffee	20.48
	Elmer's Glue	20.54
	Progresso Clam Chowder	22.07
	Safeway Balsamic Vinegar	25.60
	Safeway Rice Vinegar	26.32
	Reallemon Lemon Juice	26.79
	Robert Mondavi Chardonnay	28.16
	Cheap Whiskey for Cooking	28.16
	Ragu Pizza Sauce	30.17
	Garnier Shampoo	35.23
	Molasses	37.23
	Old Spice Body Wash	41.17
	Worcestershire Sauce	48.64
	Bertolli Extra Virgin Olive Oil	77.75
	Neutrogena Healthy Skin Makeup	1162.47
	Krazy Glue	2322.29

knock on wood!

2008-12-28T20:39:00.003-05:00

If I was superstitious at all I wouldn't be jinxing myself, but I'm going to visit this adorable bunny soon. She's a girl. It's girl time!

I really need to be crunching some Census data for my favorite Italian...back soon!

@Christmas

2008-12-25T00:14:00.002-05:00

I'm in D.C. It's warm and cozy, and I'm so thankful for all of it.
My dad, sister and stepmommy are in Australia/Hawaii.
My brother is telling us all why God doesn't exist.
And my mom made us watch a movie about the Holocaust.
Needless to say, we didn't make it to church.

However, we cooked a yummy dinner (planned by yours truly...with much help from the lady of the house), hung out with yiayia, and spent some awesome quality time together, which is what matters. And my brother helped with the dishes and yiayia brought us pancake mix for tomorrow morning and peroxide so my mom could dye her hair.
It was absolutely gorgeous today and it's great to be home with my funny, funny fam.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

122

2008-12-20T21:06:00.003-05:00

So what's the MIT stigma about? There are a bunch of "top schools" out there, like Harvard and Princeton and Stanford but what makes MIT seem different, crazier?...It's cause those schools encourage you to be a well-rounded leader while MIT allows you to be absolutely pathetic. Be pathetic! Come on, it will help you be brilliant! Nope.

I should have noticed this when I was dating an undergrad a few years ago who subsisted on no-doz and bagels, and never cleaned up after his cat. Of course I was Oooooblivious.

Now I'm pathetic. And the best friend I made this semester has one pair of pants and answers the phone in swahili...

It's true that many geniuses have weird habits, but just cause you're weird doesn't make you a genius. If you'd like more proof, we can hang out. I'll bring my peanut butter and chopsticks.

121

2008-12-19T20:22:00.002-05:00

I'm done with classes for the semester. I got a grade back today, it was not an F.

I went to Palo Alto this week for a navigation systems project, and had a great time!! My anywhere-but-boston mantra is really really holding true. I don't know why I have such an aversion to this city. Even when people in South Carolina would say, oh, clio knows Boston, I'd be like, Boston? Who's clio?

I learned a lot of new things this semester: about psychology and emotions, about mathematical and computer science concepts and about cities. I make decisions a lot differently now.

I also met some kick ass female professors (like cynthia and roz...) , some heartwarming italians (especially my post doc), Fred and Mikel, transportation & humanity experts, and...my favorite BEN FRY!!! As for my fellow students, my PhD cohort is infinitely compassionate and worldly (I have a lot to learn from them) and people I met in classes have such a great work ethic and take a lot of pride in what they do.

But, there's a lot (lot) of room for improvement for my future stuff here at school. I'm in need of some Miracle Grow. But I'm going back home for a while and hopefully to SC to visit some friends...it should be great!

PCA, meet GIS

2008-12-03T16:40:00.004-05:00

from ESRI Desktop Help:

How Principal Components works

The Principal Components tool is used to transform the data in several rasters per multiband raster from the input multivariate attribute space to a new multivariate attribute space whose axes are rotated with respect to the original space. The axes (attributes) in the new space are uncorrelated. The main reason to transform the data in a principal component analysis is to compress data by eliminating redundancy. An example of data redundancy is evident in a multiband raster comprising elevation, slope, and aspect (on a continuous scale). Since slope and aspect are usually derived from elevation, most of the variance within the study area can be explained with elevation. The result of the Principal Components function is a multiband raster with the same number of rasters in the output as were in the original (one raster per axis in the new multivariate space). The first principal component will have the greatest variance, the second will show the second most variance not described by the first, and so forth. Many times, the first three or four rasters of the resulting multiband raster from the Principal Components function will describe more than 95 percent of the variance. The remaining individual raster bands can be dropped. Since the new multiband raster contains fewer bands and more than 95 percent of the variance of the original multiband raster is intact, the computations will be faster, and the accuracy is maintained.

They give an example and references, too.

sellers market makes a cameo

2008-12-01T10:21:00.003-05:00

Sick of politics? We are!

Washingtonians are pimping out their homes for inauguration-comers: Craig's List Swap!

My Personal Domestic Destination Choices:
Skiing in Colorado
Fishing on the Gulf Coast
MATLAB Hall of Fame in New Mexico (does this exist?)
Hockey in Minneapolis
Anywhere, really. Not Boston.

privacy?

2008-11-30T14:24:00.001-05:00

“For most of human history, people have lived in small tribes where everything they did was known by everyone they knew,” Dr. Malone said. “In some sense we’re becoming a global village. Privacy may turn out to have become an anomaly.”

NYTIMES: You're Leaving a Digital Trail: What about Privacy?

96

2008-11-24T20:50:00.006-05:00

One of SEED Magazine's 'cribsheets'

It would be an awesome class assignment to make one. It would have to be in a research class though, so everyone could talk about something they like, and it wouldn't be the same thing.

95

2008-11-23T17:07:00.004-05:00

What is a GIS analyst?
A GIS analyst is a color junky with a preternatural sense of space, mediocre math skills, and an affinity to answer questions with the word "here".

They think about stuff like this:

What if mapquest or google maps directions had a 'cocktail napkin' application that gave you directions that look like your friend drew them at a bar?
How cool would that be? You'd ask it for directions and it would spit out a napkin-like drawing that would be a bunch of lines and, like, a house with a triangle roof, and a square called 'post office', and stupid stuff like that.

Then you'd probably get to where you were going.

Move to BOSTON! Come on, you don't need the sun any time after 3PM!

88

2008-11-16T15:02:00.002-05:00

I do research, and lots of people around me kinda do research, too.

Except for the people in professional programs (like planning or architecture or real estate), who actually want to get jobs. They're really organized.

My favorite part of doing research (which means you look for stuff to read, then you read stuff, do stuff, write stuff, repeat), is that you can't really be counter-productive. In fact, being counter-productive a lot more productive than not being productive because you just try to learn things. It's fun.

Last night I went to the Middle East and saw a few bands. One was called Harris. They had a song named Harrison.

I also had a tailgate party. We lost by 50 points.

Today's Edition of People I Hope I Never Meet

2008-11-15T09:48:00.001-05:00

Petco, its where the pets (and pet lovers) go
5 Star Rating: Highly Recommended

09/11/2006 Posted by snakeowner

When I go to this petco two associates there mainly help me. They are Edwing and Corey. I go here for my reptiles. They give me a lot of information on the snakes or lizards that I want to buy. whenever I come to this store and they are there they answer all my questions to the best of their ability which is all I ask. Because of Corey and Edwin, I have 5 beautiful healthy snakes. four of these snakes are called CornSnakes and the other one is a Ball python. I also went to that pet store near the highway. to say the least it needs a lot of improvement before I think to buy anything out of there. The majority of the snakes in that store you can't even see because they have no lighting in their tanks what so ever. and the water they bask in and drink out of is very dirty. Petco, is always going to be the right choice when deciding on what kind of of pet you want. That other pet store should only be used as a last resort if petco doesn't have what you want. However, since petco is where the pets go you will never leave there unsatisfied.

Pros: Clean cages, healthy animals, clean store in general

Cons: Not enough selection of snakes to choose from

http://boston.citysearch.com/review/4749717/1775097

Mabye this one?

2008-11-15T09:32:00.002-05:00

Adopt a Harlequin

bunny shopping part 2

2008-11-15T09:21:00.003-05:00

These bunnies are in North Carolina. The ones on the left are Holland Lops, and the one on the right is a Dwarf. Whhhhhhho wants to go to North Carolina with me?

bunny shopping part 1

2008-11-14T10:37:00.003-05:00

I decided I want a girl bunny this time. Here are a few pictures of a cute one. She's a Holland Lop, like Hareison was...is...whatever.

Anyway, there are more, in Boston and D.C. I'll put up pictures as I find them.

-Clio

70something

2008-11-07T12:13:00.000-05:00

Clio loves loves loves quadtrees. She thinks they're perfect.

78

2008-11-06T09:08:00.002-05:00

what does 'fair enough' mean?

it means 'you're not making a good decision, and you're just gonna have to learn that it's a bad decision on your own cause i don't really care enough to argue with you. but i do have a shovel if you want to borrow it to dig yourself deeper into whatever hole you seem to be intent on putting yourself and everyone else involved in the situation in. you're welcome to borrow it. and if you don't want to borrow it, fair enough.'

also...you know who your best friend is, cause they're the only one who knows that an 11pm 'obama!' text on election night would be news to you.

75?

2008-11-05T23:05:00.000-05:00

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/individual/#WAI01

I like it.