recycled photo?

Saw the September 2009 issue of National Geographic. oddly familiar...
On the left is the July 2004 issue featuring coronal mass ejection and the olympic naitonal park.

When I get my phone running again I'll take a photo of these covers together. For a Nat Geo reader, this is kind of funny.

Banditbul

Banditbul means firefly in Korean. And this post does not relate to fireflies in whatever way.

I'll be posting patterns that interest me and here is the first one.

Taken in Balaw-balaw, Angono, Rizal right after the relief operations for Ondoy two weeks ago.

165: lecture notes

Notes on Physics 156

Just finished the Optics Defense... off to the programming lectures in the new NIP

1. check if the software development is still active... unless you are willing to continue the development. :)

2. sparse matrix, matrix na kakaunti ang laman, iba ang handling compared to your other arrays. STORAGE.

3. dense matrices

4. cells, finer cells = mas maraming malalaman about the cell.

5. for the finite element method, the mesh must be clearly defined

6. frontal crash test, mesh must be finer around the impact. data is much more important around the hood

7. iterators

8. 16x16 mesh, mabilis mag scale-up ang complexity ng partial differential equations

9. mahirap na part ang pag-gawa ng mesh

Software Freedom Day 2009

Today is Software Freedom Day.

Rawr.

Earlier today, students from different universities filled the UST Medicine Auditorium to celebrate the SFD. There were talks on the basic ideas of FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software), a tour of an open desktop, an update on the FOSS bill in congress, using ICT to serve the people and on CMS.

By the afternoon, the crowd broke into three groups for specialized topics ala seminar on LAMPP, Blender/GIMP and CMS.

It was my first time to join and it was actually worth it to see/ listen/ interact with the people advocating freedom in information technology. I think that the specialized topics were very interesting and could expand to more topics by the next year.

Also, with a lot of physics people moving to open OS... i hope to find more of my physics friends on the next SFD celebration.

random walker 2

With the first random walker done and tracing its path, the next thing to do is to make a simulation of a many random walkers that appear as particles moving around the canvas.

Here is the code of a single random walker and a snap shot.

'''
animation of a single random walker
'''

from pylab import *
from numpy import *
import time

ion()

tstart = time.time()

#cheating canvas size
wx = linspace(1,100,100)
wy = linspace(1,100,100)
plot(wx,wy,'white')

steps = 500
xinit = 50
yinit = 50

x = [xinit]
y = [yinit]
rw, = plot(x,y,'go')

for i in arange(1,steps):
d = random.randint(1,5) #selects num from 1,2,3,4
if d == 1:
x = [x[0] + 1]
rw.set_xdata(x)
elif d == 2:
x = [x[0] - 1]
rw.set_xdata(x)
elif d ==3:
y = [y[0] + 1]
rw.set_ydata(y)
elif d == 4:
y = [y[0] - 1]
rw.set_ydata(y)
draw()

Next code, N random walkers.

*** tomorrow is software freedom day, UST Medicine Auditorium

random walking part 1

It's a very wet and cold day here in Quezon City, and what better way to spend the afternoon than catching up with unfinished programs for the Physics 156 class.

Last friday, I started with the ray tracer for the Optics class (to be posted when its done). The program is supposed to solve for the system matrix of a given set of interfaces and media and the principal planes of the system. Rays should be allowed to launch from a user-defined position, height and angle from the principal axis and interfaces. The path of the rays should then be traced as it is transmitted and refracted.

Another programming task is animating random walkers. Aargh. This one is long overdue, but I managed to start with a simple single random walker with varying number of steps.


Here is a random walker making 500 steps.
...and another one

No one reads this blog, but i write anyway

No one reads this blog. I'm very positive with that. No one that I know knows that I keep one... for now. But I like to write for my personal sanity, to cope with the alienation and loneliness in the city.

Urgh. Petty-bourgeois issues.

Yesterday morning I read and re-read Megan McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. American YA novels to pass the time. No. Not to pass time, I've so much in my head and lists of todos in my Rainlendar that such trivialities cannot be accomodated. But I do. Oh I still do.

Reading in the early morning before everything starts is a vice from high school. I would attempt to finish mystery novels before my roomates wake up. I had this deal with Ng Trish that when she's asleep I'd borrow the books they circulate in her class. Every book that went through her hands, I read. except for that one, the Naked Face? I was not able to finish that book. But I've lost interest on Sheldon novels anyway. They were fun and exciting at that time, 6 years ago. Now I'm looking for something new to read and re-read in the early mornings.

I was going through my old reading list and there's a lot that I don't want to return to.

1 Paolo Coelho
Sophomore and Junior years
Much ado about existence, dreams, life, pleasure and love
I have found recent disinterest in his perspective of things. Too much removed from reality.

2 Sydney Sheldon
Sophomore year
Exciting and very fast-read
I am, however, not interested in siolving mysteries and reading on the lives of tycoons and reporters, nuns during the Spanish civil war and doctors with scandalous secrets

3 Eva Ibbotson
Freshman year
Children's Horror Stories, in the league of Nancy Drew notebooks

The list goes on.

...to be continued