That turns out to be surprisingly important. The routine while working settles down fairly quickly until even given the time and opportunity to head out and entertain myself, I simply don’t have the energy or will to do so. Living the drab life isn’t awful in any traditional sense–I still exercise, eat, sleep, work; strictly speaking I’m pretty high up in the hierarchy of needs–but it makes me feel more than usual like a machine. Without creativity, without the mental energy to exercise that creativity, I’m more or less going through the motions of life.

Vacations are the only time I know of in which I can refresh that well of creativity and start feeling human again. I could tell that it was working about halfway through when I started cleaning and cooking for the friends with whom I was staying. I’ve made, or had a major hand in the making of, cuisines from three continents (including General Tso’s Chicken, from scratch!), a bunch of writing, three or four toy programs (including a full implementation of Pong!), and a yet-to-be-launched website for a friend while out here. None of this, strictly, was required. All of it was a wonderful exercise in proving that I am in fact more than a machine which takes in money and churns out work.

The vacation is nearly over: I fly back tomorrow. I’ll have spent a ton of money and nearly all my accumulated leave in exchange for these 30 days in the US.

It was worth every bit.

In Korea, you could accurately simulate a day’s visibility as a function of randint(0, 8), expressed in nautical miles. 2 is the minimum to fly a low-risk mission; 3 is required to be comfortable; 7 or more is considered unlimited visibility. That’s not really true, though: even on a day when the weather shop’s reporting unlimited vis, you can tell that visual acuity fades sharply toward the horizon. Unlimited visibility in Korea really just means that you can usually distinguish the horizon, as opposed to the region where the ground fades into the sky.

I never really thought about it, because Korea does get occasional days where visibility is truly unlimited. They are rare and perfect days of intense beauty. Since coming back to New England, though, I’ve had almost three weeks so far of such days uninterrupted.

The weather here is a treasure. It’d be a pity to leave it unremarked.

The notion is simple: your soul is like your dry-clean-only laundry. Drop it off at the cleaner’s every week before 10AM, get it back no later than 5PM the next day. When you sign your soul over at the counter, you get a ticket with which to claim it back later. While you’re away doing your own thing, a Professional Catholic will carry it to Mass and get it eucharized for you. So convenient!

Worried about God’s take on the thing? Well, remember: His eye is on the sparrow. Even He’s not going to mass! He’s out birdwatching. As for the Attendance Angel, they see the right number of people with the right number of souls showing up, and your name is clearly printed on your own. (Soul Name Desmudging is a complimentary service.) (The Professional Catholics each have a small safe in their locker at the office in which to store their own soul during the Mass.) As far as tallying which soul is supposed to go with which body, that’s too much effort for most of them. After all, bodies are natural, constantly changing, and kind of hard to identify. Just counting up the souls is much more efficient.

There are additional services available, of course. Been missing a few Masses recently? No problem! Our team will take your soul through up to 12 Masses daily until you’re caught up. It’s better not to get behind in the first place, of course, but if you already are, you’d better remedy that as soon as possible: the interest is hell. If you’re worried about the actual cleanliness of your soul, just detail your sins in the comment box when you deposit it and let the professionals take care of both the confession and the penance! Additional fees may be assessed for mortal sins.

Interested in the concept but of a different faith? Not to worry! Additional faith options are coming soon. Islamic Daily Salah will be available on a subscription basis within the next six months, with more to follow. Get involved in not getting involved, by joining this exciting service today!

1. Lexer / Phoneme Analyzer: This just tokenizes the input stream, whether it be audio or text. These are actually separate branches for the different types of input, but functionally do the same thing. Operates at the character/raw sound level.
2. Parser: Checks grammar and syntax of input tokens. Generates all possible interpretations of homonym/homophone possibilities. Operates at the word level. Generates sentences.
3. Local Contextual Integrator: Considers local details: formatting of text, source and quality of audio, etc. Gives a small, local “big picture” to frame the input in question. Operates at the word level, but by nature considers a variety of external cues.
4. Literal Semantic Analyzer: Given the tokens and their context, decides what the literal meaning of a given sentence is. Operates at the sentence level.
5. Source Knowledge Integrator: The source of a given communication is important. A message from a family member might be more trusted than a random internet article. A sentence from a very literal, precise person is more likely to mean exactly what it says than one from an excitable teenager. Operates at the sentence level.
6. Conceptual Accumulator: Collects a bunch of related sentences into a paragraph-level concept. Decides what sentences are related and how they fit together.
7. General Semantic Analyzer: Decides what the author probably meant in a particular paragraph. Resolves logical contradictions and paradox. Operates at the paragraph/concept level.
8. General Contextual Integrator: Integrates a concept with a worldview. This is the level which decides if someone is lying, wrong, or otherwise speaking falsehoods. Operates at the concept level, though by nature includes a wide variety and broad scope of external information.
9. Cognition: normal thought about ideas. Operates at the conceptual level. Can modify the rules of lower levels, for example when learning a new language or updating the current model of the current language.

Humans accomplish layers 1-5 automatically and unconsciously. Layers 6-8 are like breathing: generally subconscious, but can be consciously overridden. Layer 9 is when we start getting into id, ego, superego stuff: possibly subconscious but generally sentient behavior. Computers right now are quite good at steps 1 and 2 using artificial languages, and rubbish at them for natural languages. Layers 3 and above may exist as research projects, but are above the current state of the art.

When I go back to school, there is a high probability that this is the stuff I will focus on, trying to push the state of the art in computer thought up, level by level. It is fascinating!

I’m sure that the Miss Saigon that I experienced was substantially different from the one that was written. It was enjoyable enough that I’m willing to live with the differences.

Also: it wasn’t surprising that they burned real incense when the lead was praying; it was impressively strong to waft over the entire audience, but it made sense. What really impressed me was the tobacco and pot smell of the Dreamland strip club; I’ve no idea how far they went for verisimilitude, but it was striking.

Several hours later as dusk was falling we happened to cross the same corner again. This time the stage gear was all deployed in the middle of the road and there was a crowd of maybe a dozen gathered in front of a small storefront. In the center of the commotion, at the focus of the cameras and the boom mikes, were two extremely stylish and good-looking young people.

There was an open space four or five meters from the actors, out of the way of the lights and cameras, from which we thought to watch the proceedings for a while. One of the crew came over to us and made exaggerated “be quiet” gestures, and we nodded our understanding silently. Unfortunately, even once the director quieted everyone there and started the camera, the female actress said nothing, but instead gave us a dirty look. We left, chatting about how a pair of innocent waygugin could so distract her that she refused to perform.

It’s one reason I love living abroad: the random events are drawn from a completely different pool than when living back home.

As I drove into Yongsan, what did I chance to see?
Twelve driver TVs,
eleven required u-turns,
ten tiny on-ramps,
nine pushcarts inching,
eight excess stoplights,
seven scooters swerving,
six KM jammed,
bad driving,
four ignored lanes,
three construction men,
two double parked trucks,
and a car that just barely missed me!

Nevertheless, I didn’t go out and party. I haven’t made any resolutions. This holiday season I’ve avoided mistletoe and been unable to procure eggnog. The fact that tomorrow I’ve got a 24-hour shift starting at 0900 has something to do with it, but I suppose I’m also just naturally Grinch-like.

2010 has always seemed an unimaginably futuristic time. Now that it’s begun, I suppose I’ll have to recalibrate my expectations. Hopefully the year is wonderful for all of you.

Speaking of CGI, Deus Ex managed to startle me with the poorness of its graphics. It’s easy to forget how much progress a decade means in computer gaming until you go back and look at what was once state of the art. Aside from a somewhat idiosyncratic control scheme, though, it remains a great game.