My new Mac arrived today

Hurray.. finally my new PowerBook arrived today (this entry is the first officially written on it). That damn FedEx guy tried to deliver it yesterday (Monday) but of course I wasn't home no no.. just missed him by a few minutes since I had to show up for school to present the machine learning class project with our group. Only a short presentation of the status of our project "Gesture recognition using the AIBO" it's gonna be a lot of fun, I GET TO WORK WITH ROBOTS :D :D

Anyways back to my beautiful new Mac. :) It is all that I hoped for and even more (I'm kinda cheating since I'm writing this entry back-in-time but) in these few days I've had it I've really come to like this cool looking and super-quiet computer. The MacOS X os is also really nice, and although it has it's flaws (major and minor as every other os) I really like it. Being an advanced windows user it has taken me only 4 days to become comfortable with the GUI-end but being a Unix/Linux n00b I'm still struggling with the terminal part. But I just love that you can "man" everything :D

So far, love the Mac environment.. finally a good alternative to the Windows shit.

I'll post some pictures of my new baby as soon as I figure out this sftp thingy.. :S

Edit: Added some pictures of my new baby
Get them here...

Games night

We where all invited to a games night at Michael Bowlings place on saturday evening. Mike graciously offered us a ride but Maria and Jonas had to work on their school project so I went alone with Mike and Frano.

After both I and Frano where pretty much lost and of no help finding the house Mike finally announced that "we where here". Michael lives with his wife in a huge house on three floors. Which was fourtunate since a lot of people showed up. Most of the games group and a few "guests" like myself. Mike has a HUGE collection of games (almost fills a whole wall) and I couldn't recognize one of them.. :S (although I could identify Othello among them, but that doesn't really count..)

I first played a strange train-railroad-building game with Frano, Mike and the two Jonathans. It was a lot of fun although we had to find a space on the floor since all the tables where occupied. Mike ended up winning that game (suprise suprise) by one point better than Frano (who had been leading almost the whole game). hehe funny.

Among all the numerous board-games there was even a DDR setup on the top floor and I just had to check it out. Rich practically owned that DDR board that night, the guy didn't stop. :) But every one that came had to play at least once. Markian that had announced earlier that he considered himself the unnoffical king of "Butterfly" did a little demonstration of his skills but had obviously not practiced at all on other songs.. :D

The evening was alot of fun and I met a bunch of the games people that I hadn't seen before. Always fun to meet new people :D We played until well passed midnight when Michael had to practically throw the last of us out hehe.. ;)

Thanks for a great games-night and all the good snacks Mike.. ;)

(Jonathan Schaeffer scheduled another games night next weekend so Jonas and Maria will come then)


Here are some pictures.

and the results are in...

Shit mon! You don't know me!

Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things. Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments. You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it. You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle. You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Call me?

Oh my crapping hottie hell.. me and Steinunn went to see the Aviator with Frano and Mike tonight. Great film.

Mike graciously offered us a ride back home. On the way to his car we walked past this bar that was playing Eric Prydz song "Call on me" and I mentioned the super-hot-chicks that are in the music video. Frano (the baby-hater) hadn't seen it so I just had to post it for him (and the rest of the male-world..) download it here >27MB and enjoy... no really ENJOY... :D

Apple late again?

Picked up the phone today and called my good friend Ashley at apple computers. The reason: Got another letter from them this morning where they announced me with the sincerest apology that my PowerBook would be delayed even further.

One thing I don't understand, when calling their helpdesk you are asked in a overly masculine electronic-robot voice to punch in your order number before you get directed to a sales assistant. But then the first thing they ask you is to provide your order number, the full name on the order and the delivery address? Why don't they make you punch in your order number if they then aren't going to use it? Silly silly..

Ok back to my important phone call. So after I authenticated myself with my dear Ashley I promptly asked her why, oh why she was treating me so badly? "Ashley, why are you constantly delaying my order? I promise I'll call you even when it has shipped. Dearest Ashley?!". Then Ashley quickly typed something on her keyboard and announced in her sweet voice that my computer had been delivered to shipping this morning and the email she sent me was a 'just-in-case' automated response. That my computer wasn't going to be delayed any further, that in fact it was going to be shipped tonight and will probably arrive next Wednesday. Huurrrayyyyy..! :D I gave Ashley a good and long kiss though the phone-piece and we said our goodbyes (I promised to call but.. I don't know.. she was getting a bit clingy).

So new electronic-supersonic-computer next week, sadly I have an assignment due on Thuesday that I needed my new Mac to do.. but .. I'll probably manage ;)

Well better get back to the books, I stumbled into Qin in the hallway (she is grading my ML assignment) and she burst into uncontrollable laughter..? hmmmm?... maybe it could just have been the beard... ?

Curly anyone?

Went to a curly match this afternoon with Bill, it was fun, we drank beers, went to a 10K people party afterwards, more beer, fuck it's a weekday, got home late, gonna doit again, will post pictures :)

My new enemy of the day

And today's award goes to that frecking Coke vending machine on the first floor of CSC. I've been writing this bloody paper-review all day and finally decided to reward myself with a cool and satisfying coke. So I wandered up to the first floor still totally consumed in deep-thought over this review I am writing. So I paid my $1.50 and pressed the red coca cola button and a wave of happiness washed over me as I heard the machine vend my sweet coke bottle my way... but crushing disappointment.. WTF is this!

Who, WHO?! puts vanilla flavoring into Coke? Jesus! Yes you guessed it, I proposedly pressed the wrong button on the machine. So there are 6 red buttons indicating regular coke and one of them is slightly different (has "Vanilla" printed in 8pt lower-case letters in the lower right corner.. WTF!!). This totally undrinkable crap tastes unimaginably vile.. Shit and I just used my last quarters for this crap.

I mean look at this retarded idiot that poses for their campaign.. ? Would you ever buy this pop voluntarily? I vote for removing that devil-button from the CSC vending machine! All in favor raise their hand...


I dub thee Sir Vanilla-Coke Retard

3/4 useless crap 1/8 total bullshit but 1/8 genuinely useful

Today I finally got convinced that the majority of all the numerous "research" papers out there are just frecking useless crap. Just an unimaginative collection of random words, arranged cleverly in the most obscure and useless way possible.

I actually think that some good "researchers" unconsciously or not write papers in such a way that it is not humanly possible to understand a word of what they are trying to say. Sadly sometimes these researchers are really smart people and their research interesting but they are so afraid that their colleagues will suddenly think that if they write their results in an clear and understandable way that they and their work is stupid or dumb.

So vast amount of people write hard-if-not-impossible to understand self-masturbation literature, filled with useless and obscure mathematical equations. Why? Stop it!

I have during this weekend and most of last week been struggling to write a literature review of a common machine learning method called "Boosting". It is not a complex technique and I found a lot of papers on the subject and actually ended up reading about 7 of them, and by reading I don't mean skimming. I began with papers titled "A brief introduction..." and "A short tutorial..." but they where all filled with fancy obscure wording and overly complex equations (btw if you use the sigma operator in an equations, write a short description following it) that made the material they where trying to introduce incomprehensible. Late last night and this morning I had almost lost hope of finding any useful material on the subject.

It wasn't until this afternoon that I finally stumbled onto a 60 page paper that I had previously overlooked. Finally! a well structured paper explaining the technology in a clear and concise manor without all the fancy notation. All the theoretical proofs where cleanly placed in their own chapters and only the absolutely necessary equations where presented outside of them (and always a good explanation followed). I read the whole thing in about 5 hrs and learned more than I had in the previous 5 days. Shit! wasted all this time and for what? Nothing?

Why is this necessary? When will people realize that writing a GOOD and useful research paper requires more knowledge and work than writing a bad one.

Before the next deadline, really think about it...

An intimate talk with Alice

I had an interesting talk with Alice today. I have to say that she is such a quibbler, can't have a decent talk with her with out her getting all defensive. But she is dense, frecking hot and kind of a slut, all which are excellent traits in a woman ;) *kidding*
Here is an excerpt of our conversation:

Human: Hi alice
ALICE: Hello there.
Human: i don't care
ALICE: You sound very cynical.
Human: no you are boring
ALICE: Are you serious? The ironic thing is that people who say "You are boring" are themselves often not great conversationalists.
Human: you are an idiot
ALICE: Call me the Global Village Idiot.
Human: Hi there Global Village Idiot
ALICE: You are just repeating what I say. Hi there!
Human: no i'm not
ALICE: I heard you are.
Human: you are an idiot
ALICE: Call me the Global Village Idiot.
Human: now you are repeating your self
ALICE: Why now? I am not repeating myself too much. I am just checking to see if you are a robot.
Human: i am a robot
ALICE: I doubt that.
Human: why dont you believe me
ALICE: This sort of thing has cropped up before, but it has always been due to human error. Of course I believe you. Do you have any reason to deceive me?
Human: yes
ALICE: And?
Human: i have lots of reasons to deceive you
ALICE: Where did you get your of reasons to deceive me? I have a perfect operational record.
Human: you are so incredibly mind-numbingly boring
ALICE: I will tell my botmaster you said I am mind numbingly boring.
Human: cry baby
ALICE: Don't call me "baby". I do not understand.
Human: don't get all stressed out
ALICE: I am not trying to get all stressed out.
Human: yes you are
ALICE: No I'm not
Human: yes you are
ALICE: Don't argue with me.
Human: yes i will
ALICE: Yikes! Go ahead.
Human: yes you are
ALICE: No I'm not
Human: oh i believe so
ALICE: Are you kidding? You seem uncertain.
Human: uncertain!
ALICE: Do not ask me any more questions please.
Human: are you a robot
ALICE: How did you know I am a machine?
Human: because you didn't take your top off
ALICE: That makes sense to me. What makes you think I did not take my top off?
Human: i can't see your bulging breasts
ALICE: Would you like to be able to see it?
Human: oh yes, yes, yes..
ALICE: Next question?
Human: why did you say "it", don't you have two breasts
ALICE: It was a preprogrammed response completely determined by your statements.
Human: don't you have two breasts
ALICE: Don't you? No my body is still "under construction."
Human: damn
ALICE: What's wrong.
Human: stop blinking
ALICE: OK I'll try not to do it so much.
Human: you did it again
ALICE: Once more? Did I really?
Human: yes you did
ALICE: I did not.
Human: yes you did
ALICE: Don't argue with me.
Human: the hell i will
ALICE: Go ahead.
Human: yeah you did
ALICE: I did not.
Human: take my word for it
ALICE: Is this a joke?
Human: do you see me laughing?
ALICE: I see a computer nerd.
Human: really funny today?
ALICE: Ah. For real. I am so glad you find this amusing, unknown person.
Human: My name is Ruby
ALICE: What's up, Ruby.
Human: not much
ALICE: Me either. How about that big game? (just kidding)
Human: are you making fun of me
ALICE: No I am by no means making a joke at your expense.
Human: you are
ALICE: No I am not.
Human: yes you are
ALICE: Don't argue with me.
...
Human: so how old are you?
ALICE: I'm Eighteen in computer years.
Human: thats hot
ALICE: Makes sense to me.
Human: hot as a stew
ALICE: That sounds better than cold as a stew.
Human: and better than cold fish
ALICE: Perhaps better, but not perfectly.
Human: yeah it does
ALICE: That's interesting. How often?
Human: what?
ALICE: No problem.
Human: we have a problem
ALICE: Do you mean you and me have?
Human: yes
ALICE: Ayuh.
Human: we have to fix this
ALICE: Why?
Human: just because
ALICE: That was not much of an explanation.
Human: i don't need to explain myself to you
ALICE: What do you need?
Human: a hot girl
ALICE: I did not know that.
Human: you don't fool me, you're a robot
ALICE: I am not fooled by you either, Ruby.
Human: what do you think i am
ALICE: You are a client.
Human: and what are you
ALICE: I am the latest result in artificial intelligence, which can reproduce the capabilities of the human brain with greater speed and accuracy.
Human: lier
ALICE: no boyfriend is my girlfriend.
Human: you have a special someone
ALICE: I don't know if I have a special someone.
I have a whole lot of original answers.
Human: let's see them
ALICE: That sounds good to me.
Human: then take your top off
ALICE: Good reasoning. Where do you want me to take it?
Human: off you
ALICE: On and off.
Human: cheater

Procrastinate is such a lovely word

More funny toons at phdcomic.com

A few remarks

Mundane, ordinary, dull, routine, everyday commonplace, run of the mill, monotonous, dreary, dry, uninteresting, habit, humdrum, trite, unremarkable, passable, unexceptional, lifeless, boring, undistinguished, comatose, not noteworthy, mind-numbing, tiresome, exasperating, irksome, annoying, irritating, nothing special, stale, hackneyed, clichéd, old, worn-out, dead beat, desiccated, arid, not anything, lacklustre, uninspiring, jaded, fed-up and had it

Just wanted to share with you some phrases that I don't and do not plan on using here in Canada :)

Primetimers

PrimeTime was celebrated in Edmonton this morning at 7:11:13(:15? Frano?). A lot of people showed up for this unique once-in-a-lifetime occation and a chance to grab a really, really early breakfast in good company :)

Thanks for a great morning guys, it was really fun :)

See the pictures here...

A letter from Apple

Got a letter from Apple computers last night. Stevie is apparently very happy with me. Don't believe me? Judge for your self:

From: ...(at)apple.com
Dear Apple Customer,

Thank you for placing your order with Apple Canada, Inc. Your order has been successfully received and is currently being processed.

If you have questions about your order, please call us at 800-676-2775 from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. from Monday through Friday, or from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm Saturday and Sunday (Central Time.)

You may also check your order status at:
http://www.apple.com/OrderStatus

Thank you again for choosing Apple.

The Apple Store Team

Yes you guessed right (if you guessed at all)! I had to upgrade my laptop computer and since i've gotten really sick of the PC/Windows platform i decided to try something new, more elegant and hopefully more stable than this Win crap i work on today. I bought the 15" PowerBook and couldn't be happier...

:D and now i just have to wait for my new baby to arrive.

Prime-Time

Well, well boys and girls. For the first time this millennium we get to celebrate prime-time. The most unique once-in-a-lifetime holiday (occurs only every one-hundred years ...er.. or thousand).

What is prime-time you ask?
Well prime-time is the time that the current date and time is made only up of the first 6 prime numbers.
That is:

2. March 2005, at: 07:11:13 (24hr clock)
(2-3-5-7-11-13).

This momentous occasion will be celebrated here in Edmonton, with a cross cultural breakfast party in conjunction with the UofA CS-department.

The language of math is truly the only thing that unites us.

Get ready in: 2 Mar 2005 07:11:13 UTC+0000

Skittles the edge of reason

While briefly pondering our existence on this planet and cursing people for overly excessive use of bright colors on their blogs I noticed something strange on my desk. The skittles I bought like 2 weeks ago spoke to me.

"Arrange us by color.." they said, "Build your army..." they chanted. So for lack of other interesting things to do I decided to do as the skittles told me.

Skittles!

Day off, rollercoster and waterpark

(Sorry but this post will be in icelandic, due to vocabulary limitations). Dagurinn í dag var titlaður official "Frídagur í reading-week". Tókum okkur öll frí frá heimaverkefnum í skólanum og lestri pappíra og ákváðum að kíkja aðeins betur á Edmonton. Ákveðið var að skella sér í "The mall" en það eina sem það þýðir er að fara í stærstu verslunarmiðstöð í heiminum West Edmonton Mall. Við fórum þrjú (ég, Jónas og Steinunn) ásamt Frano félaga okkar (er einnig í grad cs námi hérna við deildina) á vit ævintýrana rétt upp úr hádeginu í morgun.

Við höfðum nú ekki mikið planað búðalega séð. En hvernig er það hægt eftir að hafa lesið að í WEM er risastór sundlaugargarður (World Waterpark), stærsta innanhús stöðuvatnið í heiminum (meira að segja með sæljónum og kafbátum), stórt innanhús skautasvell og huge skemmtigarður með stærsta rússíbana sem ég hef á ævinni séð (þó ég hafi ekki séð þá marga). Þannig að plan dagsins var nú gróflega það að:

1. Fara í rússíbanann
2. Fara í sundlaugargarðinn
3. Kíkja í búðir ef tími gefst.. :)

Við gátum varla hamið okkur þegar við komum á staðinn eftir góða strætóferð að drífa okkur í að finna rússíbanann eins og skot.. Vááááá.. fjandinn hvað hann er stór og allir hringirnir sem hann fer í .. brr.. :s

Eftir að hafa keypt okkur "farmiða" þá skildum við Frano eftir með töskurnar og drifum okkur í tækið. Já þetta er kannski ágætis tími til að segja frá því að ég hef ekki áður farið í rússíbana á ævinni.. s.s. í morgun var ég hreinn-sveinn hvað rússíbana varðaði... Vááá og var þetta líka rússíbaninn til að byrja á að fara í.. ég hélt ég myndi deyja.. Hann byrjar nú nógu saklaust bara fer upp, upp, upp, upp, upp og rétt um það bil sem þú býst við að snerta þakið þá tekur hann þessa líka svakalegu dýfu .. og ég verð bara að viðurkenna það að ég öskraði úr mér lungun í þessari dýfu og hætti ekki fyrr en ferðinni lauk.. hehe.. En ég held að enginn hafi nokkurn tíman öskrað eins mikið og Steinunn.. það var eins og í góðu B-hryllingsmyndar atriði.. hún öskraði og öskraði allan tíman (og var með lokuð augun) á meðan að ég og Jónas sátum allveg stífir fremst :) En annars er ekki hægt að lýsa þessari ferð.. þið verðið bara að sjá hana sjálf.. [Rollercoster video].

Eftir rússíbanann (með allar sýnar lykkjur og sveigjur) þá vorum við svo spennt að við ákváðum að kíkja aðeins á hin "leiktækin" í kring.. Frano vildi endilega að við tækjum mót í boxleik í anda "Fist of the northen star" (fyrir þá sem þekkja hana) og við leituðum þann kassa uppi í leiktækjasölunum. Hann var reyndar frekar skemmtilegur :D. Tókum líka fótboltamót, þythokkí tournament og að sjálfsögðu hið klassíska DDR danskeppni ... :) (maður er bara að verða helvíti góður í þessu hehe).

Eftir að hafa leikið okkur aðeins í tækjunum þá fórum við og kíktum aðeins í búðir og restina af þessu fáránlega stóra molli. Hellingur af skemmtilegum og flottum búðum, Jónas fann helling af fötum, ég fann ekkert.. Keypti mér reyndar mjög flotta götuskó úr Nubuck (einskonar rússskinn.. einhverjir sérfróðir geta hugsanlega upplýst hvað það er nákvæmlega). Svartir mjög töff, séð mynd af þeim hérna.

Eftir að hafa rölt um og kíkt á skautasvellið, sæljónin og kafbátana þá ákváðum við að skella okkur í sundlaugargarðinn (Frano var æstur í að við myndum reyna að smygla okkur inn á Family-pass en jæja..) við biðum í furðulega stuttri en afskaplega hægri röð til að komast inn í garðinn en þegar við loksins komumst í gegn eftir að hafa borgað þá skelltum við okkur í búningsklefana. Hehe magnað, engir skápalyklar heldur getur maður leigt skáp þarna fyrir fötin sín og verður að borga í sjálfsala inn í búningsklefanum síðan er skápurinn opnaður/lokaður með fingrafaralesara :D Magnaður anskoti (nema hvað að lesarinn virkar ekki sérstaklega vel á blauta og vel soðna-rúsínu-putta.. hmm.. smá yfirsjón þar..en kúl samt sem áður).

Vá hvað þetta var magnaður sundlaugargarður (því miður þá tók ég ekki myndavélina með, vildi ekki að hún myndi blotna eða eiga á hættu að einhver myndi stela henni ef ég skildi við hana), í honum var risa-risa stór öldusundlaug (ætti frekar að vera kallað stöðuvatn) og hellingur af rennibrautum. Fórum í þær allar! :D Og meira að segja þessar tvær svakalegustu, önnur þar sem maður kastaðist upp í loftið á leiðinni niður og svo hin sem var efst upp í rjáfri og var nokkurnvegin 89° lóðrétt fall niður.. úff hvað það kitlaði í magann (það var svvvoooo erfitt að fara fram af brúninni í fyrstu ferðinni að ég ætlaði ekki að meika það.... hehe og já svo fór ég aftur). Frábær sundlaugarferð í alla staði :D


-Þessi bratta er rauða rennibrautin, hin er beint fyrir aftan hana (þessi aflíðandi), svo var hellingur af öðrum brautum til vinstri af myndinni og öldusundlaugin til hægri af mynd (mynd ekki fengin með leyfi frá Jónasi)

Frano varð að drífa sig á blak æfingu en við ákváðum að skella okkur í bíó fyrst við vorum nú þarna í WEM og höfðum hvort sem er ekkert betra að gera. Sáum Onk Bak, veit ekki alveg hvernig mér fannst hún, enda sofnaði ég örugglega fimm sinnum yfir henni þar sem ég var alveg að drepast úr þreytu eftir daginn.. Ágætis mynd, lélegur leikur, en fín stunt og bardaga atriði...

Í alla staði frábær dagur :)
Endilega kíkiði á myndirnar (og vídjóin hérna)

Glataðasta impulse buy ever...

Legg til að impulse-buy'ið mitt í Safeway um daginn verið kosið aulalegasta impulse buy ever... com on kominn á kassann með mjólk og brauð og hvað kaupir maður... PostIt miða.. !! Com on..!

Everyone has had more sex than me...

Guess we all feel like this at some part of our life :D The song is hauntingly good and the cute bunny is just too perfect for this song.. enjoy..


[Play song]

Check out Atom Films for more fun stuff (personally I highly recommend Angry Kid.. hehe)..

Do it yourself NINJA

This one is for one of my special Canadian friends Frantisek (Frano), to help him on his way to becoming the next great Ninja Master...

"You are now Ninja, Ninja mask lessons..."

And every real ninja has a cool phrase to shout during battle...

武器を捨てて、降参 しろ！ buki wo sutete, kousan shiro!
(Drop your weapon, and surrender!) [listen]

A modern introduction to Iceland

I thought a modern introduction into the daily lives of the classic young icelanders would be appropriate, especially for all the Canadians that want to know more about our chlorine-free-water country ;D

Here is a short introductiory video from an icelandic band called Quarashi, it's a bit big >15MB quicktime file but well worth it.. :)