Springtime

“Well, it’s back to the drawing board… But I don’t know how to draw so you’re gonna have to do the drawing” - Police Officer 1

April Break

April break has just begun and I believe that I will be productive while enjoying this break to the fullest.

I will be visiting Pennsylvania to check out Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Princeton, and UPenn. One of my friends wants to use his early decision on UPenn so I will have to pay close attention when I visit so that I can provide him with the best info.

In addition, I’m going to create a blog post and video for principal component analysis and continue to create a small series on machine learning.

Accidental Teaching

After coming back from a dentist appointment, I decided to go to a math class and see what was going on in there. I originally thought that it was an algebra 1 class, but it turned out that it was actually a multivariable calculus class. Regardless, I stayed.

Octopus

They were learning about parametrizing a 3D surface with two variables. I pondered how I would explain this idea when, suddenly, the teacher called on me and said that I probably have something to say. A perfect opportunity to spread my knowledge, I spat out a weird idea that had been marinating in my mind for about 20 seconds.

Essentially, I said that parameterizing a 3D surface with two variables is like opening up a portal in front of you (hand gesture for square) and then reaching inside to grab out whatever shape you want, such as an octopus. If you properly connected your portal to the bottom of the ocean, then you could have some calamari (カラマリ).

Credit to iku

I don’t think this idea is too strange, but the way that I said it was quite awkward and I don’t think that anyone understood. I probably spoke too fast or with a lack of emphasis on the important parts.

TF2 with Friends

I got some of my friends to play TF2 with me for a while. Sadly, while it was a lot of fun for me, but it was not so fun for them.

TF2’s learning curve is insanely skewed left with time. A couple hundred hours would have to go into just learning the game. During this time, the only thing to do is get killed and miss a lot of shots, which is not fun for most people.

Also, there are bots in every game and the people in chat type some really disgusting stuff.

Coding

As the leader of my school’s coding club, I really want the members to be able to create something of their own by the end of the school year that they can be proud of. So, I shifted from a focus on programming problems to machine learning applications.

Kaggle

Kaggle’s tutorials are very good in this sense, since they provide an immediate way to get into applications from decision trees to random forests. However, the theory is quite lacking and there is nothing about neural networks, which I think should be the first thing to discuss. In addition, the tutorial doesn’t go into how decision trees and forests are made/fit.

I’ve been getting back into Python notebooks for data analysis and some of the courses on Kaggle. I did use the VSCode Python Notebook environment for some time, but it is really clunky (the color of the code looks weird at some points) and I would much rather use Jupyter.

I think that I will make a tutorial on how to do 3D plots in Jupyter since it took a while for me to figure out.

Decision Tree Regressor

During my debugging of someone else’s code using a decision tree regressor, I realized that the model is incapable of extrapolation because once an input like time goes out of range, it just defaults to a single value. If graphed, it would look something like this:

He wanted to predict into the future for video game prices, but the decision tree is not a valid model for that goal. I directed him to time-series analysis since he had reliable data taken at 5-minute intervals and a general repeating trend.

Helping

In reflection, helping others can lead to indirect and unexpected personal growth. For the selfish, the obvious choice is to always focus on oneself. However, like the greatest argument for freedom of speech, there is infinite, unknown value in others.

When I say unknown, I mean that the type of growth can be something that the helper may have never known that they did not know. Understanding that helping others is the greatest selfishness is only the beginning of improvement and wisdom. As Socrates believed, what separates the wise from others is that the wise knows that they know not what they do not know.

Not Not

My physics teacher has started making a challenging joke involving a lot of “not” in front of a question. He will ask something like, “Is that not the correct answer? The answer is no, that is not not the correct answer.” And then he will ask, “Is this not the not correct answer? The answer is yes, this is the not not correct answer.”

Overall, annoying but fun!

SAT and ACT

I recently took the SAT and the ACT, SAT was offered at my school but the ACT was offered at another school since it isn’t as popular.

Results SAT

I would like to believe that I got a 1570+, but these things are really just luck. Edit from the future: turns out that I got a 1590.

Results ACT

I got a 35, which is expected, but the real problem was that I did not prepare well for the science test. Making the transition from SAT to ACT, the biggest problem is not knowing what to do on the science section or running out of time. A major focus should be interpretation of data.

Acceptance Advice

On a related note regarding anything with a type of admission or acceptance involved, it is largely luck so don’t beat yourself up about it. Someone from SAMS sent a message being all depressed and reflective like, “What did you guys think was a major factor in your acceptance to SAMS? I don’t get why I didn’t get into program XXX, I have XXX award, XXX honor, and XXX society.”

I answered this person, “not everything has to be your fault / sometimes it is just luck / im sure you are qualified to be in whatever program you want to be in / but luck is a big factor.” There is just too much worry with people who believe they can have 100% control over their future. Taking a well-known line which I read in an essay by George Orwell from the now-unpopular Bible, “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all” (KJV, Ecclesiastes 9:11).

College and Fate

My physics teacher suggested seriously that the college that one goes to determines the rest of one’s life, which I do not agree with. Some points that were claimed to be determined by the college include the person that one will marry, one’s first job, social circle, and friends.

While this is partially correct, it is only correct to the degree that these points will all be included in the population of that college. However, the random selection for each factor within that university covers a massive amount of people across many dimensions. Specifically, one does not know whether going to some any college will grant a healthy social circle, good friends, or fulfilling job. There are restrictions put on opportunities by the circumstances, but they are not set in stone from the moment a college is decided upon.

So, it would be more accurate to say that one’s future opportunities are restricted by the college.

Success

On the topic of the factors previously mentioned, one factor not included was success. That is likely because success is very subjective and depends on more factors than just the college.

I believe that the college loses influence and that success is dependent on the individual’s wants and capabilities. A very capable person who goes to an Ivy League school is capable no matter what. A determined person facing rejection does not falter, a weak-willed person collapses.

Writing

I’ve been getting better at writing over the last month with better essay grades and clarity of thought, in large part due to Mr. Frederick Douglass.

Douglass

I was surprised to learn that Douglass influenced many great writers which came after him. Spending so much time learning on his own, he developed a large part of what would be considered good writing by modern standards.

Synthesis

The AP Lang synthesis essay is challenging for some people because they aren’t used to putting different pieces of evidence together in order to make a point. There is nothing wrong with that, but I find that a greater problem is the balance of information that I know about the topic and the information that is given by the sources. For example, I learned that zinc became a bigger fraction of the penny’s composition during one of the greatest periods of inflation in U.S. history: stagflation. However, when I attempted to incorporate this information into my essay, it made the opening paragraph two-thirds of the entire page, which is terrible when only introducing a type of proof and not emphasizing the importance on the argument.

Journaling

I discussed this with some of my classmates in English class; they all said that they wished that they could begin journaling but that they just don’t have enough time. A common problem is that they all have a journal at home but it ends up blank for the rest of the year after they fill in the address and name at the front of the book. I can understand this, so I write my journal using Microsoft’s online OneDrive with a MS Word document.

Occasionally though, I do pick up a piece of paper and start writing away. This habit began during a blackout caused by a tropical storm, a time at which I was tormented by the disappearance of civilization. I would write something very reflective (shallow) using pencil and paper each night, and I felt a kind of comfort in doing that, because the lack of reflection in my life most of the time up to that point was beginning to show in my perception of myself.

I could not really think of ways that I had improved over the past couple of years, which is a sign of stagnation and a lack of introspection, so I knew that I had to begin journaling once again.