December 2009
15 posts
Juvenilia
Inspired by Hoy:
Writings circa 1991-2, three issues of The Printer News
1. the printr noos megs piadate meg cam over this morning but wen we went too the ymca the barbels sagc the divingbord fel owt from undneth ov you tric presins dad has a presint theat blosupeand olso wuntheat cumsto lif and bits
2. the pritr noos THE ICE CATING TRIP IWUS PLAINGE WEN WE REXEVD UN INVUTASHINE THINGGING IT...
First All-nighter of the semester
…was making Christmas presents! That’s a victory.
Also, I got an A in information theory.
I’m going to make a book of puzzles and math problems for my dad as a belated Christmas gift. Look forward to excerpts from that, I guess.
Big O/little o
I love the “big oh” and “little oh” notation (defined below). Math is so full of long words and sometimes unnecessary complexity. I like that we get to use the words “big” and “little,” and I like that we use the physical size of the letter to compare the relative size of the sequences. It just seems cute.
“Standard O(·) and o(·) notation. For sequences an, bn, with an > 0 and bn ≥...”
– Notes from Stuart Geman’s APMA 1710 lectures
Things that are bugging me about rate-distortion...
1. There are all these probabilities about things that seem to be deterministic. Like the probability that we encode some particular x as some y—in real-life compression, wouldn’t we encode all xes that are the same as the same y? Maybe not, maybe there are some complicating factors. But wouldn’t they be deterministic, not probabalistic?
2. I think I just proved a homework...
Rate-distortion theory at Christmas
This week I’ve had a few chances to try to mix studying and celebrating. I’m sitting here trying to get my head around rate distortion functions while Brenna, Annie, Angela, Geddes, and Brenna’s parents trim the Christmas Tree. They’re beautiful.
What I get about rate-distortion functions so far:
You have a random variable, which means something like the roll of a die...
Like a rockstar
Have hit the point in my homework anxiety where it’s finally like I managed to jump off the rocks and am splashing into the delicious, chilly waters of the quarry (ask me in the summer and I will take you). Feel like a rockstar who does math with style.
Calculus is great
I wish I had known this when I was studying calculus. I wonder if there’s a way to communicate it to someone who’s just learning calculus.
Right now I love calculus because it helps me find the the maximum value for a function. I said below that the capacity of a channel, which is how efficiently you can send information through a certain medium, is the maximum mutual information...
Studying in Connecticut
I’m home! Just for one night to study with company from my momma. She’s great.
I will try to blitz you with bits of math as a way of studying. If you hate this, take heart; you are helping me pass my finals.
SO for the past few hours, I have been learning about channel capacity. The idea is that when you’re trying to send information from one place to another, the medium...
