NPR Wedding Music

Stephen Thompson is one of the music experts on NPR. I like him a lot. One day I sent NPR a note saying that I liked him a lot, and he sent me his "Best of" CD's for 2003, 2004, and 2005. Evidently he was having a rough move to DC away from his own midwestern family, and it was nice to hear the good words.

Anyway, today's piece:

Wedding Day Blues: In Search of the Perfect Mix CD by Stephen Thompson

He was asked to put together a mix CD for his niece's wedding. After a lot of deliberation and realization that there are really few happy songs about marriage, he came up with:

1. Clem Snide, "Forever, Now and Then"
2. Old 97's, "Question"
3. Josh Rouse, "Nothing Gives Me Pleasure"
4. Death Cab for Cutie, "Passenger Seat"
5. Jimmy Scott, "When Did You Leave Heaven?"
6. The Lemonheads, "Into Your Arms"
7. Ron Sexsmith, "Moonlight Becomes You"
8. Nick Drake, "From the Morning"
9. Norah Jones, "Come Away with Me"
10. Sade, "By Your Side"
11. Matthew Sweet, "I've Been Waiting"
12. Radney Foster & Abra Moore, "I'm In"
13. Neil Young, "Harvest Moon"
14. Chet Baker, "Embraceable You"
15. Iron & Wine, "Ab's Song"
16. Low, "The Plan"
17. Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash, "As Long As the Grass Shall Grow"
18. Clem Snide, "Find Love"

I recommend actually reading the article. The text sounds like something straight out of the mouth of a grown-up version of one of the characters in High Fidelity (book, movie, soundtrack). Additionally, you can listen to at least six of the songs from the mix directly from the story.

For more NPR music stuff, see:

NPR : Music

"Song of the Day" is a particularly good segment to catch each day (contributed to by a number of NPR music fans):

NPR : Song of the Day

Of course, there are NPR RSS Feeds for all of these and more.

• RSS: NPR : Music
• RSS: NPR : Song of the Day
• RSS: NPR : Stephen Thompson

Thesis, Defense, and Source Available

I packaged it all up, documented it, and made it available on-line. Hopefully having a whole LaTeX thesis source on-line will be helpful to someone. This thesis has multiple indices (people and topic), glossaries, and all sorts of PDF hyperlinking and referencing. It uses packages like authorindex, hyperref, index, and natbib. I hope it serves as a good example for putting together a digital book.

• Research Page
  
  • Optimal Foraging Theory Revisited thesis
  • Optimal Foraging Theory Revisited defense presentation
    (best viewed in latest Adobe Acrobat)
• Thesis LaTeX Source Directory


• OhioLink Entry

Archives are also stored in the source directory. The defense presentation is best viewed in latest Adobe Acrobat as it makes use of a number of very modern PDF features. The presentation is built with LaTeX using powerdot.

The source directory also includes a modified osudissert96-mods.sty and the standard osudissert96.cls file, which is part of the osudissert96 (info, source) package. The modifications:

• Force title to uppercase to match updated submission rules.


• Additional hyperref support: If phantomsection defined, will add phantomsection in dedication page.


• Additional hyperref support: alphanumeric page numbers on title page to prevent page name conflicts.

Just so everyone knows, the two acceptable graduate unit names for the OSU ECE department are

• Graduate Program in Electrical & Computer Engineering


• Electrical & Computer Engineering Graduate Program

German Condom Dispenser

Men's Health suggests that guys get this imported German condom dispenser to make them ready to hop into bed at any time without having condoms sitting out in plain view. The idea is that this will make the guy seem less creepy... but having a condom DISPENSER makes me think the guy would be a little MORE creepy. . .

They also suggest the Durex vibrating ring 6-pack.

Wireless Power Transmission

Farewell, wires? Power beamed through air

‘WiTricity’ can light up lamps and laptops; system touted as safe, efficient

Power cables and even batteries might become a thing of the past using a new technique that can transmit power wirelessly to cell phones, laptops, MP3 players, household robots and other electronics.

Scientists lit a 60-watt light bulb from a power source 7 feet (2 meters) away with their new technique, with no physical connection between the source and the appliance. The researchers have dubbed their concept "WiTricity," as in "wireless electricity."

Soljacic and his colleagues devised WiTricity based off the notion of resonance. One well-known example of resonance can be seen when an opera singer hits the right note to cause a champagne glass to resonate and shatter. Two objects resonating at the same frequency tend to exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with objects not resonating at the same frequency.

Instead of sound, the MIT physicists focused on magnetic fields. Most common materials interact only very weakly with magnetic fields, so little power would get wasted on unintended targets. "The fact that magnetic fields interact so weakly with biological organisms is also important for safety considerations," said Soljacic's colleague, MIT physicist Andre Kurs.

Overheard at the coffee shop...

Walking into the coffee shop, I see three empty tables by the door next to a table with a young man and woman chatting.

Woman: Okay, enough about my quirks. This isn't fair.
Man: Oh, you want to hear about my quirks?
Both: (laughter)

I realized why no one was sitting at these three tables even though the rest of the shop was nearly packed; these two were on a first date, and it would just be awkward to be in earshot of it.

Why is first date banter so predictable? More importantly, why are people going into first dates so worried about what is going to happen? I suppose there's still a lot that is unpredictable... After all, the typical first date banter could *NOT* happen, and that might be pretty scarey if you expected the standard stuff.

Anyway, it was kinda fun.

Finally, a date for the defense!

Finally, after lots of unexpected twists and turns, my MS thesis defense and PhD qualifier has arrived.

The acknowledgments (and abstract and vita) taken from the frontmatter of the document are available on-line. Details of the actual defense are available below. Of course, the public is welcome.

When: Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 2:30pm

Where: Dreese Labs Room 260

Title: Optimal Foraging Theory Revisited

Abstract: Optimal foraging theory explains adaptation via natural selection through quantitative models. Behaviors that are most likely to be favored by natural selection can be predicted by maximizing functions representing Darwinian fitness. Optimization has natural applications in engineering, and so this approach can also be used to design behaviors of engineered agents. In this thesis, we generalize ideas from optimal foraging theory to allow for its easy application to engineering design. By extending standard models and suggesting new value functions of interest, we enhance the analytical efficacy of optimal foraging theory and suggest possible optimality reasons for previously unexplained behaviors observed in nature. Finally, we develop a procedure for maximizing a class of optimization functions relevant to our general model. As designing strategies to maximize returns in a stochastic environment is effectively an optimal portfolio problem, our methods are influenced by results from modern and post-modern portfolio theory. We suggest that optimal foraging theory could benefit by injecting updated concepts from these economic areas.

Reflections on Senility

A few things occurred to me after producing the latest poetic post.

At the moment, I am sitting next to two people who I haven't seen much in the last 12 years. As far as I know, they work together in putting together theatrical productions in Columbus. Whereas theatre is not part of my life anymore, it still remains strong in theirs. This is not uncommon. The potential for success in theatre is certainly not negatively correlated with age until a very old age. In fact, it may be positively correlated for most people, especially those who do not seek fame and fortune.

Similarly, I enjoyed writing that little poem. I also enjoyed writing my thesis and tracing the improvements I have made in my writing and presentation over the past few years. However, I have not enjoyed the pressure on me to be extremely productive before I turn 30 (or even 28). In many technical fields, real progress is expected at young ages. For whatever reason, progress at "old" ages is not possible or simply not favored.

This brings me to think about one of the older professors in my department. I have never had a class with this professor, so I know nothing about his methods of technical discourse. However, I do know that he paints, writes poetry, and is working on a fictional novel at the moment. I imagine that he has been working on that novel for a long time, and may never finish; however, he seems to me to be the proudest of that work compared to the other things he does now or even has done. He's not an emeritus professor, but he certainly is the age of some of the emeritus professors in the department.

I also think about the May 26 show of A Prairie Home Companion, which featured Billy Collins [1, 2], the two-term US poet laureate. The show also touched on age and writing professionally.

As I get older, either through experience or neurological development, my ability to understand things, retain them, and write matures. Because of this, I'm becoming more interested in the art of writing than I am my technical field of expertise. I think this is the reason why researchers in technical fields enjoy the idea of becoming a writer respected simply for the ability to write. For, while their ability to make technical progress might be impaired by their age, if they can become great writers, their ability to do that can only increase with age.

So that's a great thing. I'm excited about it. But in the meanwhile, I really must get back to work.

Balsamic Brain Waves and Primate Grooming

It's hard not to eavesdrop
when sitting at a crowded coffee shop.
Unavoidably, you notice all the sounds,
of people making their discussion rounds.
Amazing is the trash you hear
as vocal hominadae primates groom the ear.

"Avoid Panera's tomatoes," says one.
"For diets, balsamic vineagar is no fun!"
Questionable is this advice,
for balsamic vinegar to one's health is quite nice.
Nevertheless, her nodding partner in this chat
continues to sip from her soda pop scat.

"I have been listening to this study groove
which, to my alpha waves, are said to improve,"
says another, who stands quite tall,
and shows that he knows nothing about medicine at all;
earlier, he described the work for his PhD
which seems to involve sociology.

It just goes to show
that regardless of what a man or woman does know,
words are chosen not to be appropriate
but rather as a way to procrastinate.
After all, instead of writing this poetic observation,
I should be getting ready for my thesis examination.

powerdot clock fix

UPDATE: Soon after the posting of this, Hendri posted this patch (by Heiko Oberdiek) which is nothing but a more compact refactoring of the code below.

As of May 2007, the clock feature of the powerdot presentation class for LaTeX has not been working. I think that I have a good patch. I have sent this patch to Hendri Adriaens, powerdot's author of record, who has added verification of it to his todo list.

First, update to the latest versions of hyperref, oberdiek, and xcolor. These packages have been updated very recently, and so you must not take for granted that you have the latest versions.

Next, if you have the

[2005/12/06 v1.3 powerdot presentation class (HA,CE)]

version of powerdot, you can simply replace your powerdot.cls file with this one, which is linked here for easy viewing.

Alternatively (this may work with newer versions of powerdot too), patch your version of powerdot with this patch which is shown below.

--- powerdot.orig/powerdot.cls 2007-05-28 00:38:50.000000000 -0400
+++ powerdot/powerdot.cls 2007-05-28 10:24:52.000000000 -0400
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
     \AtBeginDocument{%
       \@Form[]%
       \ifnum\pd@orient=\z@
-        \def\pd@clockrot{] /R 90\@gobble}%
+        \def\pd@clockrot{90}%
       \else
         \let\pd@clockrot\@empty
       \fi
@@ -579,7 +579,8 @@
     \edef\pd@tempa{\expandafter\pd@tempa\pd@tempb\@nil}%
     \ifx\pd@@clockpos\@empty\else
       \rput[\pd@@clockhook](\pd@@clockpos){%
-        \TextField[name=pdclock.time,bordercolor=\pd@clockrot,%
+        \TextField[name=pdclock.time,%
+          bordercolor=,rotation=\pd@clockrot,%
           backgroundcolor={},align=\pd@@clockalign,color=\pd@tempa,%
           charsize=\pd@@clockcharsize,width=\pd@@clockwidth,%
           height=\pd@@clockheight]{}%

If you use this patch method, invoking

patch -p1 < powerdot-clockfix.patch

in the directory that holds powerdot.cls should be sufficient, assuming that the patch file is also in that directory.

The first-ever word between any two people is a lie.

From a Men's Health newsletter today.

The following text is below a picture of a woman in a showy shirt looking toward the camera. Ten yards behind her are three men taking a look at the...um...back of her shirt.

Once in a while, it helps to look at life from the other side.

Which is why we recommend that you watch The Oprah Winfrey Show today.

You heard us right. Dave Zinczenko, the editor-in-chief of Men's Health, appears with Oprah on today's show. The topic: Helping women over 35 find single men.

The Men's Health staff prepared a special "MetroGrades" ranking to show women where they might find a guy.

Why does this matter to you? First, this information is conversational gold when you're out this weekend. And if you live in one of the top cities, be on the lookout for women with newfound enthusiasm for meeting guys.

Doesn't matter what city you're in, women love to talk about relationships. And lots of them will watch Oprah today.

Tell them you watched, too. They'll love that. The rest is up to you.

It's so conniving!

And yet it's so male.

Ladies, the lies don't stop until many many months. Keep that in mind. Eventually, he may tell you about the lies, but he'll describe them in such a way that you'll think he's cute. After all, if you've still got him, then you've probably won, so it's probably OK to call him cute... But just think about all of the awful things he was thinking before you won.