Dominik’s Blog

This morning the fluffy white stuff fell from the sky, melting as it snuggled close to the earth.

first the Lord
gave me a shield
and now He has
given me a sword

actions are not
the inevitable consquences
of thought
free will is will

i as yet control
my deeds and doings
even if sometimes
my thoughts happen to stray

i can think freely
and thus freely think
of something else
of something clean and pure

Christ crucified
His anguish, suffering
His body and blood
Nailed to a dead tree

Arisen, three days after
Anew, clothed in radiant white
I turn my thoughts to Him
and find in my weakness Strength

Strength with which
to shield my thoughts
and swing my sword
to cut off evil deeds dark

I surrender to you, Lord
I am yours to command
Guide me and lead me, Lord
Unto the Victory Before Time

New icon. Let me know whatcha think, eh?

Beautiful weather here in Cambridge, quite the opposite of the craptastic weather that started the school year. My window faces west so I have full sunshine for hours on end a day, but I have 9 windows (count them!) so the room stays cool :)

In my humble opinion Marilee Jones has done a good job. Freshwomen are significantly cuter on average than I remember freshwomen my year being. One could also argue that this has nothing to do with the student body and is related to my own perceptions and uh, maturity. I’ll go with either one :)

Classes are all cool… a run-down:

6.003 - Signals and Systems - Cool class thus far, with broad-ranging applications on everything from TV tuners, to Internet packets, to radio, to any sort of system that processes information (that’s broad, heck I wonder if I can model a romantic relationship with my class knowledge!) The lecturer initially gives the impression of being incredibly boring, but for some inexplicable reason I find his voice engaging and actually enjoy his explanations, which are very thorough. He just isn’t very dynamic, but is very … persistant? and communicates information across very well. I guess one should expect that from a signals & systems prof, since after all lecturing is a signal… My recitation instructor is teaching the class for the first time, which is nice because he really cares; he’s also quite knowledgable as he’s been a prof here for a long time. Finally my TA (who has godly ratings of 6.3/7 on the UG) is also my GRT and is generally awesome!

6.825 - Techniques in Artificial Intelligence - Taught by my longtime UROP supervisor, Leslie Kaelbling, this class covers material that I love. Kaelbling is a great lecturer, able to be dynamic, informative and humorous at the same time. The textbook is wonderful… I’m taking this class to patch up my rather diversely obtained AI knowledge and give it a solid MIT basis :)

14.41 - Public Finance - Another great lecturer teaches this class (so much easier with great lecturers), Jon Gruber of the Economics Department here at MIT. He worked for the Clinton Administration for a year so he’s well aware of how the government deals with economics, both the rational and irrational ways. The class examines, from an economic perspective, everything from social security to health care and is very timely considering the upcoming election.

15.075 - Statistics - A Sloan requirement, but we get to use SAS and learn how to use real world statistical tools. Might prove useful, haven’t seen enough of the actual course material (lecture so far hasn’t been very hardcore) to form an opinion of much.

Pondering IM Soccer, Tennis, Basketball, shooting photos for the Tech, and maaaaybe Ballroom … we’ll see.

Back in Venice after a soujourn in Florence and Assisi over the past few days.

Florence - beautiful city, replete with cathedrals, bridges, cypresses, olive gardens (not the restaurant, the real thing), and lots of awesome art.

Assisi - amazing city of 1,500 residents and seven million tourists a year… beautiful surroundings (literally on a mountainside) and with relics and stories from St. Francis and St. Clara (Chiara to the Italians).

Also, before Florence I was blessed to have met the Pope at his summer residence just outside of Rome, Castelgandolfo. I was impressed by the aura of calm, peace and holiness that radiated from him. I never imagined I would actually be able to touch him! The experience marks the highlight of my trip. (Photos on the way). As for the Pope’s health, his eyes were bright and his voice was strong, and he seemed to be better health than of late.

Now my European travels wind down for the summer. Flying out home day after tomorrow.

Then Boston on Thursday night. :)

This book is a collection of eight short stories by an MIT mechanical engineering research scientist working in robotics. It examines, from a non-traditional perspective, the state space transitions that love encompasses when working between humans, of which one or both are scientifically inclined. The author, Karl Iagnemma, has a comfortable style and is adapt at extracting maximum meaning from minimum wordage. There are also a few choice sentences, and one of the stories (”Kingdom, Order, Species”) had me cheering aloud in joy when I reached the ending. Others, such as “The Confessional Approach,” show a sadder picture of love while stories such as “The Ore Miner’s Wife” illustrate how the scientific mind’s passion is sometimes incomprehensible to those not trained in its art.
Iagnemma, perhaps because of his own past (I’m not sure where he did his undergrad), sets his stories in primarily two places: Michigan or Boston. He also writes in two time periods: either modern day or the early 19^th century. The Michigan/Boston connection I found particularly interesting, as I grew up in Michigan and then found myself in school at Boston. He also appears to have Eastern European roots (by the photo on the back and also by his name) and the story Zilkowski’s Theorem involves a love triangle between an American, a Hungarian and a Polish girl. It involved several references to Polish cuisine as well as some snippets of the language, which brought a smile to my face. Overall, the collection of stories are intriguing and enjoyable, though only one particularly resonated with me (Kingdom, Order, Species). Perhaps that is because the romantic interaction illustrated there, the pursuit of an ideal, with much mental embellishment is the type I myself follow most closely. I’ll give this book four stars, to leave room for improvement for Iagnemma in the future. If he were to write a novel, I would definitely read it.

Mm-yeah. Last day at Microsoft. Flying back tomorrow. The new dominik.net is slowly becoming a reality, with luck I’ll have it up before MIT starts… Heh, I need to figure out what to do with this Livejournal. I’ll probably shut it down since no one reads it… or maybe I’ll just use it as a way read all my friend’s livejournals with that oh-so-handy Friends page. Can’t believe 12 weeks blew by…