Battle with Kalman Filter part 2

Yup, after all the excitment about plannign the trip to US and whatnot, I'm back to battling with Kalman Filter. And I'm just getting really sleepy reading about maths really.

Also wondering whether I have asthma. Been having shortness of breaths A LOT lately.

Ah well, green tea is all good at the moment. I'llmuck around a bit longer than back to reading about maths. *sigh*

The Numbers in LOST, as seen in the eyes of a psuedo-maths geek

Psuedo, becasue I'm not crazy enough to do a maths degree. :P (No I'm not bitter about not being able to make it to Maths Olympic when I was in high school)

Now, I stopped watching LOST (along with most engineers) because it's fallen as a victim of "Americanitis". It's dragging on without resolving plot, although Geoff did mention the finale for season 2 wasn't half bad, I'll have to see it to judge it. Still, as I always said, if it's been an anime, ALL the mystery would be shown and this season we'll have an even more fantastic story. All hail anime!

Now, back to the topic, I was looking at the famous "numbers" on series (being 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42), and I'm seeing the fact that, maybe, just maybe, the writers aren't morons. (It's only the producers. Grr.)

• Let's start with a no-brainer: 4+8+15+16+23+42=108. Every 108 minutes, these numbers needed to be entered.


• 4 = 2+2, 2*2, 2^2... not to mention the smallest composite number. Also a square number. How nice. There's also four classical element (well, not counting quintessence) Bonus cool points


• 8 = 2*2*2 = 2^3. Not as neat. But it's a Fibonacci number. Also there are 8 trigrams in I Ching. So it claims cool points.


• 15. This is trickier, but still. 15 is the sum of any row, column, diagonal in a 3x3 magic square. And magic squares are always cool.


• 16 = 2*2*2*2 = 4*4. You know what that means right? It means it's 2^4 as well as 4^2. Not to mention it's the base for Hex numbers.


• 23. NOW we get interesting. It's a prime! Not only is it a prime, it's the sacred number of Discordian. (Yes I'm reading the Illuminatus! trilogy. Fun read, fun read). Made of even (2) and odd (3). all hail Eris. Yadda yadda.


• 42 = The answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. End of story.


• 108 = 1^1 * 2^2 * 3^3. Also a cool number. Not to mention it's a sacred number in Hinduism.

Well, other numbers that I'm disappointed not seeing on the list (possibly because it doesn't add up to some cool number) include 5, 11, and my favourite number of all, pi. Prime is very under-represented (Granted, I don't like primes...), and irrational numbers aren't represeted at all! (heh) The again imagine typing pi in every 108 minutes.

Does that neccessarily means the writers have all these in mind, but I wouldn't be surprised if they actually put some thoughts into what numbers to put in. 15 and 16 is a wee bit of a stretch though. Maybe there are some other meanings in 15 and 16 that I don't know of. And what about 3: the holy Trinity in Catholism? You have classic Greek, Tao, Hindu, Discordian, and Douglas Adam-ism even, where is Catholism in all that?

And I like 12. Why not 12? It's highly composite as well as being the number of Zodiac, 12 stations of the cross, yadda yadda. And no perfect number either! (unless you count '6', which is the number of numbers there)

Ah well, I wasted another afternoon...

Weird songs deemed "possibly inappropriate after 9/11"

Interesting things you can learn from wiki . I was having yet another research block, so I've decided to "surf" on wiki (an activity I made up which involve clicking on links after links on wiki. Great fun.) I was reading on Black Hole Sun, and then found out it's been put on the "list of possibly inappropriate songs" after 9/11.

Interesting. I can see how some song might be a wee bit inappropriate, so I've decided to have a look at the link. Some of the songs are pretty much a no brainer: Great Balls of Fire, for example. Then you get some interesting entry:

Louis Armstrong – "What A Wonderful World"
The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

That, apparently, is inappropriate.

Ok, move on to other songs:

John Lennon – "Imagine"
I still can't see how that's inappropriate. If anything that's a very nice song for reflection really.

Rage Against The Machine – all songs
OKay, that one made me chuckle a bit. Maybe they just hate the band. Heh.

But here's the worst one:
The Smashing Pumpkins – "Bullet With Butterfly Wings"

Bloody hell! That's my favourite Smashing Pumpkins' song!

Seriously: I can understand some people, especially those who lost love ones on that tragic day, would not want to hear anything with "flying" and "wings". But I still find it somewhat odd that any song that promote racial harmony is deemed inappropriate. This is fueling racim. And for what?

I have my laptop back :)

After all these times, I have my laptop back! At the end I have to deal with the IT manager. But he was actually really nice about it. So hey!

I also finally decided to buy the Calligrapher's bible using my 20% off Borders voucher. Yay me!

Anyway, Now I can install various things and try to get everything to work. wish me luck :P

Slowing gathering pieces together...

I'm slowing getting all my working bits and pieces together :) Yay! Hopefully before the end of the month I can start looking at the data from the database. :)

I'm actaully being semi-productive. That's very scary. :P

Short entry again I know. But not much happening in life for me to write much. I might update my cheesecake blog sometimes soonish...

Inertia is an annoying thing

Gosh if I smoke I'd be smoking right now and writing this, and be all Film Noir like. I'm in that kinda mood.

Didn't really do too mcuh today. Last night I couldn't sleep so I started the GUI and today I'm just filling up the code and debugged it. That's about it. It's the inretia. I just can't really get going. Once I do it'd be good, but right now, I just really can't start anything new.

Perfection is an illusion, yet curse my stupid soul I have to be a goddamn perfectionist. I don't think I can be bothered with it today. I'll just let some bugs slip by. I really can't be bothered looking at all those little bugs and think what the heck's gone wrong.

Haven't updated my Lucifer's Cheesecake for a while. I have to think of the next thing I want to rant about.

*puff... breathing out smoke ring* A glass of melancholy for everyone, on the house.

Another case of self induced insomnia

I didn't sleep til around 2am this mroning. Didn't want to sleep. I was in bed, almost absolute darkness around me, and just try not to sleep. I think I was afraid of the fact that once I wake up, I'll ahve to face the day worth of work, and trying to actually achieve something. That stress me out.

I woke up at 12:45pm this afternoon, when dad's back from his English classes and charge into my room thinking I was sick. That gave me such a shock that I had to wait til my heart stop pounding before I got out of bed.

It's getting rather silly, the whole anxiety attack thing. But I can't really help it. If I can, I really would rather sleep. When I rather trade my sleep time with JUST that little more time before I have to greet reality with my open arm, I know I'm not feeling right.

I can only comfort myself all that much you know.

Anyway, at least today I made some code. I don't think I can make the code to do the testing and display for the new stuff I've done just yet. Need to think about how to make it all show. But for now, I'm happy with the fact I've done some work today.

*sigh*