Wednesday, June 24, 2009

acoustic bass

last night i had a dream that my acoustic bass guitar fell apart.
it was in all kinds of pieces.
i was heartbroken.
sincerely,
andrew

Monday, June 15, 2009

my birthday

for my birthday this year i wanted to go camping.
i wanted to have a campfire and drink beer and throw the cans in!

mikey and filmer and seth came to visit.

to me, it was the perfect plan:
me and some good friends going on a canadian camping trip!
all four of us and our gear and a canoe and my jeep!
i was quite excited and anxious and happy.

my friends are way good and wanted me to get what i wanted.
i asked mikey for some ATC-20 amp automotive fuses.
he brought me the exact ones!
they are for my fog lights.
i forgot to put them in.

and filmer messaged me while i was at work on thursday.
he said, hey man, we have a surprise for you when you get home!
i was like, well its ruined now because i'll be expecting it.
when i got home, it became apparent that filmer and seth had been drinking.
like, drinking a lot, all kinds of things; they were drunk and it was barely 5pm.
there were beer bottles all over and they were laughing so much.
it was the best surprise ever, i told them.
because i was honestly surprised.
i liked being surprised!

i also got dinosaurs.
(i'll take them to work)
i won't take the sign mikey gave me to work.
(mikey and i give eachother signs for birthdays sometimes)
_________________________________________________

anyways, here are some photographs from my best birthday yet!

there was a lot of gear and we used all available space.
we had to get stuff out or move stuff when we stopped.
everyone usually sat or stood around while i put the puzzle together.
my friends knew, though, that i like doing that kind of thing.
so they just let me do whatever i wanted.

packing up for departure:
seth:
filmer:mikey:andy:
we picked up a few last minute groceries.
it was a fiasco and nobody ended up getting the ice.
even though we each had to get one thing: beer, ice, water, snacks..
..we eventually ended up with the following:

*18 pack busch
*1 bag of cherries
*6 nectarines
*4 fiji apples
*1 loaf of bread
*12 hot dog buns
*mustard
*ketchup
*6 potatoes
*1 can of spam
*salt
*pepper
*1 bag of sugary gummy orange slice candy
*12 pack heineken keg cans
*1 bag of classic ruffles chips
*beef jerky
*a pound of bacon
*1 can of beans
*a dozen eggs
*1 gallon of water
*3 large oranges
*4 individual litres of water
*3 bags of ice
*1 box of 4 ice cream treats
*1 bottle of jim beam
*1 bottle of wild turkey
*1 package of cheese filled brauts
*1 package of hot dogs
*1 package of tofu dogs
*1 bull-shaped bottle of brandy
*4 snickers bars
*2 3-packs of reeses cups
*1 box of graham crackers
*4 chocolate bars
*4 caramel-filled chocolate bars
*1 bag of jumbo marshmellows
* and one home-made pie (thanks mikey's mom)

filmer also purchased ultra soft dock:
then we drove for a while.
i told my pals that we had two options, of which we chose the latter:
1.) sleep at the campground at the lake
2.) sleep somewhere in the wilderness along the outlet river below
i turned off the road when it felt right.
the place was meant to be!
it felt magical, even!
wow, it was really working out, this birthday trip.

we unloaded the jeep:
then we made a sweet timelapse of us setting up camp...
..well, nobody has seen it yet, but i bet its sweet.
seth still has to make the frames into a movie.

we needed to get firewood before it got dark.
i took seth and filmer to a log jam on the river bank.
i had spied it as we drove in; a mile or two before our campsite.

it got dark:
the canoe made a nice place to sit by the fire:
we had some dinner and drinks and it was great.
it was exactly what i had been missing; what i had in mind.

i made grill marks on my hotdog using the side of a can:
we played some music:
filmer and a canoe:andy and a headlamp:mikey and a hatchet:seth and the brandy bull:two or three years ago mikey urged me to buy a bottle of brandy.
the brandy was in a stylized anotomically correct glass bull.
it was like 80 bucks or something, but i had to, mike was right.
well anyhow, filmer knew how important that bull was to me.
and seth has wanted to drink from the brandy bull for years.
but i would never ever ever let anyone open my brandy bull.
so, i surprised everyone and pulled it out and we drank it!
after two sips or so each...
...i threw it in the spring.

then i heard stuff like:
'F(%KER! what the f$@k did you just do!?!'
'@($%*)&@, etc, etc, @$(#^&)'
'etc'
'etc'

i guess they were pretty upset with me.
for all the suspense, and only a sip or two.
mikey later kicked me in the face and went to bed in the tent.

the brandy bull's second victim:
filmer and i stayed up until 3.30.
it sure was beautiful in the morning, when the light came out.

after i got up at 8.30 and made that video ^ I took a walk.
it was nice.
my pals got up an hour or so later.

my jeep in its natural environment:
our campsite:
our campsite looking at my jeep:
my jeep looking at our campsite:
i made everyone a hearty breakfast the next morning.
filmer got the first meal, then seth, then mikey, then me.

i made breakfast in this blue chair:
mouths to feed:
breakfast:
after breakfast, my camera battery ran out of juice.
we had an amazing time on the canoe on the lake.
seth took photos and i will get them for you soon!

stay tuned!

-ajk

Sunday, May 31, 2009

watching movies


i dont really do it that much, you know?
definitely not at the theatre..
..occasionally with pals.
but thats rare.

last year i gave away almost all of my dvds.
it was a very liberating feeling, indeed.
people were so happy to get them.
and when i look at what i kept.,
..i think, these could go, too.
_______________________________________________________
anyhow, yesterday i completed the trilogy.
"which trilogy?" you ask? aliens.

the first film in the series, alien, took me 2 weeks to finish.
because i would fall asleep so much, so much.
the sequel, aliens, took me 1 week.
(its the best in the series, surely)
i finally finished it yesterday.
then i watched alien 3.
followed by...














































...march of the penguins.
except i didnt watch the real film.
i watched the 'special feature' inclusion.
it is a documentary film on filming the march.

its really good, much better than the 'feature' i think.

yesterday i watched 2/3rds of the alien trilogy followed by march of the penguins. FML.

Monday, May 25, 2009

andy and rae


we had a wonderful time together.
it makes me cry!
i need to be with her.
she needs to be with me.
time is a hurricane.

Friday, May 15, 2009

wolfram | alpha


my first computational search result ^

try it yourself --> click here <--
------------------------------------------

About WolframAlpha

Goals

Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.

Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious, long-term intellectual endeavor that we intend will deliver increasing capabilities over the years and decades to come. With a world-class team and participation from top outside experts in countless fields, our goal is to create something that will stand as a major milestone of 21st century intellectual achievement.

Status

The universe of potentially computable knowledge is, however, almost endless, and in creating Wolfram|Alpha as it is today, we needed to start somewhere. Our approach so far has been to emphasize domains where computation has traditionally had a more significant role. As we have developed Wolfram|Alpha, we have in effect been systematically covering the content areas of reference libraries and handbooks. In going forward, we plan broader and deeper coverage, both of traditionally scientific, technical, economic, and otherwise quantitative knowledge, and of more everyday, popular, and cultural knowledge.

Wolfram|Alpha's ability to understand free-form input is based on algorithms that are informed by our analysis of linguistic usage in large volumes of material on the web and elsewhere. As the usage of Wolfram|Alpha grows, we will capture a whole new level of linguistic data, which will allow us to greatly enhance Wolfram|Alpha's linguistic capabilities.

Today's Wolfram|Alpha is just the beginning. We have ambitious plans, for data, for computation, for linguistics, for presentation, and more. As we go forward, we'll be discussing what we're doing on the Wolfram|Alpha Blog, and we encourage suggestions and participation, especially through the Wolfram|Alpha Community.

Less »

Future

Wolfram|Alpha, as it exists today, is just the beginning. We have both short- and long-term plans to dramatically expand all aspects of Wolfram|Alpha, broadening and deepening our data, our computation, our linguistics, our presentation, and more.

Wolfram|Alpha is built on solid foundations. And as we go forward, we see more and more that can be made computable using the basic paradigms of Wolfram|Alpha—and a faster and faster path for development as we leverage the broad capabilities already in place.

Wolfram|Alpha was made possible in part by the achievements of Mathematica and A New Kind of Science (NKS). In their different ways, both of these point to far-reaching future opportunities for Wolfram|Alpha—whether a radically new kind of programming or the systematic automation of invention and discovery.

Wolfram|Alpha is being introduced first in the form of the wolframalpha.com website. But Wolfram|Alpha is really a technology and a platform that can be used and presented in many different ways. Among short-term plans are developer APIs, professional and corporate versions, custom versions for internal data, connections with other forms of content, and deployment on emerging mobile and other platforms.

History & Background

The first was Mathematica—the system in which all of Wolfram|Alpha is implemented. Mathematica has three crucial roles in Wolfram|Alpha. First, its very general symbolic language provides the framework in which all the diverse knowledge of Wolfram|Alpha is represented, and all its capabilities are implemented. Second, Mathematica's vast web of built-in algorithms provides the computational foundation that makes it even conceivably practical to implement the methods and models of so many fields. And finally, the strength of Mathematica as a software engineering and deployment platform makes it possible to take the technical achievements of Wolfram|Alpha and deliver them broadly and robustly.

Beyond Mathematica, another key to Wolfram|Alpha was NKS. Many specific ideas from NKS—particularly related to algorithms discovered by exploring the computational universe—are used in the implementation of Wolfram|Alpha. But still more important is that the very paradigm of NKS was crucial in imagining that Wolfram|Alpha might be possible.

Wolfram|Alpha represents a substantial technical and intellectual achievement. But to build it required not just unique technology and ideas, but also the experience of 20 years of long-term R&D and ongoing development of robust technology at Wolfram Research. Wolfram|Alpha's world-class team draws from many fields and disciplines, and has unique access to experts across the globe. But what ultimately made Wolfram|Alpha possible was a singular commitment to the goal of making all the world's systematic knowledge computable.