Influx

I find myself surrounded by a bunch of very good games -- each tugging on me to play with them. For those looking for good games to play, any of those on the right shall do.

Mario Vs. Donkey Kong is a fun puzzle/platformer. Thief: Deadly Shadows is a great continuation of the Thief series that should appeal to those who like stealth games (ala splinter cell). R-Type Final is a genre-defining shooter. Guilty Gear XX #Reload puts any game in the Street Fighter series to shame. Prince of Persia is a great 3-D adventure game full of puzzles. Crimson Skies is a fun multiplayer dogfighting game. Unreal Tournament 2004 is a great multiplayer FPS romp.

So many games -- so little time.

The Legend of Zelda: 4 Swords Adventures comes out June 8th. Need to make room.

Yeeeeeouch!

Just planted my new cacti. Straight from Arizona courtesy of my girlfriend. I need to make a little wooden sign that says something fun.

Work Update #2

An interesting problem in the field of keyboard dynamics is determining relevant features to quantify a person's unique typing style. The first and most obvious problem one encounters is that of breaking up the data.

In it's raw state, the data is just a bunch of key presses and releases with associated keys and times. To do analysis, one needs to break up the data into manageable, and just as important, useful chunks. So how to break up the data? A simple approach is to take key pairs, or digrams. Simply, a digram is just a set of two letters with associated latencies/durations. So when comparing two people's typing styles, you just compare the data about a digram from both users.

So say you have 2 typing samples of "hello." The digrams present are "he", "el", "ll", "lo." One would then compare the associated times of each digram between the 2 typing samples to see if they are the same. The assumption is that when you type a particular digram, it's different from that of someone else's.

But what's so special about a digram? I mean, why not a trigram? Well, it's been done. And it works well. In fact, both work well...but they are arbitrary. Is there a real reason to pick 2 over 3? Well, there might be.

My research for the moment consists of enumerating the most frequent n-grams in the English language. I'm doing this by exploiting everyone's friend -- Google. I've written a program using Google's APIs to bounce around the internet using their search engine and the summaries of results. I start with a seed word. From there, I query google with that word and get back a list of results with summaries. I write those summaries to a file. I then randomly choose a word from the summaries and query google with that word. I get back results...etc etc. So basically I am making a giant text file based on practical english use as found on the internet.

Preliminary results give these as the most frequent n-grams:
1-gram: "e"
2-gram: "in"
3-gram: "and"
4-gram: "tion"
...and the list goes on

What's the point of this? Well, it's an idea of ours to break up the data set using this list of frequent n-grams. The reasoning behind this is that we believe when typing a word, you chunk sections of it. For example, when typing "information," you *may* break it up as: "in" "for" "ma" "tion" -- 2 2-grams, a 3-gram, and a 4-gram. Because of this, you may have higher latency between chunks and faster latencies mid-chunk.

Of course, a key feature we hope to exploit is that people chunk things differently. If I break up "information" differently from you, I may have different latencies solely based on my chunking of the word. This is a great feature, because someone does not have control over their word formulation processes. To attempt to type like someone else is, therefore, a very hard task to accomplish with a decent amount of accuracy. This is good for us because it means we can tell people, or hopefully, moods of a person, apart.

So an algorithm for this may try to break up the data set first by the "top 20" 4-grams, then the "top 20" 3-grams...etc.

Now a question you may have is that: "Why, because english is filled with x% of "tion" 4-grams, does that mean we chunk that specific 4-gram?"

In short, it doesn't mean that. It's a hypothesis. However, it is one that appeals to intuition. If you see the ending "tion" over and over again, you think you may begin to think of it as a whole other 'word' of sorts. To the point where you have a pattern for typing it on your keyboard that resembles "and" or some other common word.

So that's what I'm doing right now. Questions/Comments?

gore.

I love when the media takes photos at the most inopportune times.

Work Update #1

So, for those of you that read this and care, I thought I might talk about what I'm doing at work right now.

In an earlier post, I said I'd be working on determining human mood and activity with a bunch of sensors that someone could wear or simply be in the presence of. The "sensor" I am working on now is a keyboard to implement something called Keyboard Dynamics. A simple explanation is to say that, just like your handwriting, the way you type on a keyboard is pretty unique. I believe the idea dates all the way back to the 19th century when different telegraph operators could actually realize who was transmitting to them based on the other person's "tapping" style.

You can check out some more detailed information here.

So the approach, right now, is to generate a signature based on three features of someone's typing:

- The length of time one presses down a given key
- The latency between pressing keys
- The amount of force one strikes a key with

Our goal is determine activity and mood. So our hypothesis is something like: "Typing signatures will differ depending on the mood or activity of a person." This is just to say that a person may type differently when writing an email versus writing code; that a person may hit keys harder when in a hurry or frustrated then when happy and relaxed.

Keyboard dynamics are a relatively new area of biometrics. The earliest work was done in 1975, but nothing substantial was really done until the late 80's and early 90's. This is exciting to me because I get to research something that no one ever has. The only applications of keyboard dynamics, so far, have been security related (i.e. not only is a user required to login with a password, but they way they type that password is also checked). No one has really done any substantial research on whether or not someone's typing can be indicative of a certain mood or state.

So, that's what I'll be doing until further notice. I'm still doing a lot of research as well as bringing together the necessary resources to make a pressure-sensitive keyboard (they don't exist).

Questions/Comments?

C2

So this is the new low-carb Coke. Yet another Atkins-influenced product. Great.

My old housemate took part in a lot of product trials for some company. One day he got something called Ultra Coke. It was, of course, this 1/2 the carbs coke drink. It's pretty good if you're looking for a healthier soda. Much better than diet coke, but you can still sense there's some sugar lacking. Perhaps the lack of one's teeth screaming for relief takes away from the taste.

At least they changed the name. Ultra Coke would have been pretty funny.

Dealio

Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising -- $4.99 at Best Buy.

w00t.

Deedle Dee

A quick something I threw together in GarageBand for someone who was bored:

chinese theatre

Summertime

Tomorrow I start my summer job at the Auton Lab. I'm to be working on a project dealing with determining human activity based on sensors someone wears. It should be fun and educational.

I also need to pick up a card for my friend's wedding. I keep saying to myself, I'm not old, she's just getting married early.

Games I'm Playing:
R-Type Final
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Crimson Skies
Guilty Gear XX #Reload
Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution

I think I may put something like the above list permanently on the right. Tomorrow perhaps -- 9 AM comes too soon.

Oi!

4 A.M. Hamtaro hijinx!

Upgraded

Upgrade seemed to go smoothly. If you notice any problems, post a comment on this entry. Speaking of which, comments are now enabled. MoveableType 3.0 has a new comment management system that enables me to have a lot more control over who posts here. Mainly, this will help combat all the comment spam I was receiving.

Enjoy.

Testing

Test 1...2....3...

wee.

Downtime

Expect this weblog to be down starting sometime tomorrow and continuing throughout the weekend. The host box is having gender reassignment surgery and will be moving from BSD to Linux.

I expect to also upgrade to MoveableType 3.0

Itchy. Tasty.

While out at E3, I had a conversation about the original Resident Evil with a few people. On top of the amazing voice acting (heh), there was the Keeper's Diary that was most amusing. It details his transformation into a zombie.

Keeper's Diary

May 9, 1998
At night, we played Poker with Scott the guard, Alias and Steve the
Researcher. Steve was really lucky, but I think he was cheating. What
a scumbag.

May 10, 1998
Today, a high ranking researcher asked me to take care of a new monster.
It looks like a gorilla without any skin. They told me to feed them live food.
When I threw in a pig, they were playing with it... tearing off the pig's legs
and pulling out the guts before they actually ate it.

May 11, 1998
Around 5 o'clock this morning, Scott came in and woke me up suddenly.
He was wearing a protection suit that looks like a space suit. He told me
to put one on as well. I heard there was an accident in the basement lab.
It's no wonder, those researchers never rest, even at night.

May 12, 1998
I've been wearing this annoying space suit since yesterday. My skin grows
musty and feels very itchy. By way of revenge, I didn't feed those dogs
today. Now I feel better.

May 13, 1998
I went to the medical room because my back is all swollen and feels itchy.
They put a big bandage on my back and the doctor told me I did
not need to wear the space suit any more.
I guess I can sleep well tonight.

May 14, 1998
When I woke up this morning, I found another blister on my foot. It was
annoying and I ended up dragging my foot as I went to the dogs pen. They
have been quiet since morning, which is very unusual. I found that some
of them escaped. I'll be in real trouble if some of the higher-ups find out.

May 15, 1998
Even though I didn't feel well, I decided to go see Nancy. It's my first
day off in a long time. But I was stopped by the guard on the way out.
They say the company has ordered that no one leave the grounds. I can't
even make a phone call. What kind of joke is this?!

May 16, 1998
I heard a researcher who tried to escape from this mansion was shot last
night. My entire body feels burning and itchy at night. When I was
scratching the swelling on my arm, a lump of rotten flesh dropped off.
What the hell is happening to me?

May 19, 1998
Fever gone but itchy.
Hungry and eat doggy food.
Itchy itchy Scott came.
Ugly face so killed him.
Tasty.

4
Itchy.
Tasty.

Just after you finish reading this, I believe a zombie (presumably the keeper) comes busting out of the closet and scares the hell out of you. Classic.

Wallpaperz

Just a quick wallpaper I made from some art from the new Legend of Zelda game coming out. It's made for a powerbook (1280x854), but you can make it work for you with just a little photoshop magic.

Check it out here.

E3 Summary

Got pretty lazy with updates, but I was so tired after getting home each day in California that writing a blog entry was not even in my mind. So here's an executive summary of the trip:

Best

New Legend of Zelda

Worst
LA Traffic
Expensive food
Aching feet

For pics of my trip, check here

E3 Day 1

Just got back from the first day of E3. Just some quick impressions.

I spent about 3-4 hours today in Nintendo's booth. About an hour of that time was spent in the back with the Nintendo DS. (I was media, so I got to skip the line and chill there for as long as I wanted). Bottomline: kickass. It's best explained with pictures, but I'm not on my powerbook right now, so I can't really get them to you. I'll post some later.

The rest of Nintendo's booth was great. Got some multi-player action on with Metroid Prime (great stuff) as well as some Donkey Konga & Jungle Beat. Both are going to be great. The drum controller is fun to play with.

Resident Evil 4 also was awesome. Definitely picking this one up. It's dramatically different from the other games, and makes the series fun once more.

For those wondering about the Phantom, all I can say is that I'm surprised. You can find the details on the website, and the thing actually does what it says it does. I didn't sit down to play it, but watched some people playing UT2004 on it. They seemed to be having fun. Might try it out tomorrow.

I also sat through SquareEnix's theatre presentation. Lots of footage of all their games, plus a 2-minute FFVII: Advent Children trailer. Yet another purchase for me to make.

I'll post some pictures later of all of the above as well as some pictures of all the schwag I picked up (can you say Nintendo DS t-shirt?).

Nintendo Press Conference

Amazing, amazing, amazing.

Nintendo DS is going to rock. We've got dual-screen, touch-screen, local wireless, 802.11 wireless. As far as games there's a NEW mario title coming, Mario Kart DS, and a Metroid game. Wow.

If that wasn't enough, the gamecube has a killer lineup. Paper Mario 2, Metroid Prime: Echoes, Geist, Resident Evil 4, Starfox, and more.

The big shocker was the new gamecube Legend of Zelda is completely and amazingly realistic. You need to go hunt down pictures and trailers of this stuff asap. I'll have pictures of the conference up later.

Best. Concert. Evar.

On acronym: OMFG.

I just got back from the Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy concert. It was amazing. The music was great. The atmosphere was great. And the concert hall was perfect.

Here was the tracklist:
(Sorry for the bad photo)

After the songs on the tracklist, Uematsu, Amano, and Sakaguchi all came up on stage and talked for about 20 minutes with the aid of a translator. After they were done talking, the orchestra started up One Wing Angel -- everyone went nuts. With the help of the choir, they fucking rocked the hall.

I picked up a Program and an Art Calendar after standing in a line of about 200 people. Here are some pics. The brochure goes through every Final Fantasy game with a short description and release dates.

Hearing this music in concert was 100x better than listening to an OST or an arranged album. To sit there and be completely surrounded by the music,feeling the energy of the audience, and being in the presence of Uematsu-san...fucking crazy. Hopefully this is the beginning of many more gamemusic concerts.

Saturday - Monday

I'm here.

I arrived at LAX Saturday at about noon. wwmrtww picked me up and we headed for his place in San Dimas. After that, we departed for #gamemusic party 2k4. In attendance were Irk, Staypuft, wwmrtww, Smyle, and myself. There were also some non-gamemusic peeps, but they only added to the fun. The night consisted of gamecube and pool. Helping us a long was some pizza and beer. All of the important components of the party are shown below:

Also of great import is a peculiar drink they have down here called Cactus Cooler. It's made by coca-cola, and it's an orange-pineapple carbonated soda. It's quite tasty. Imagine the flavor:

I head into LA today at about 2:30. I'll be stopping by the hotel to pickup Shaheen, then we're off to Charlie's to chill until we need to leave for the Final Fantasy concert tonight. I'm going to take my camera...but I don't know what kind of shots I'll be able to get. They are "prohibited."

Tomorrow I'll have my impressions from the Nintendo press conference. Should have some good pics and news.

9:23 AM (CST)

Wow.

Dallas has a much much much larger airport than Pittsburgh. It's cool though. I had soup & salad at Friday's and now await my next flight. I'll be hoping on a Boeing 777...mmmm. It's the mother of all planes.

First flight went well. I had a window seat and no one was next to me, so I was pretty comfortable. An iPod + in-ear headphones make flying much more enjoyable. No constant white noise to thwomp your ear drums.

The only downside is you're sitting in your seat for this first 20 minutes freaking about being flown into a building. It also doesn't help when everyone around you is reading a newspaper with some terrorist headline plastered across the front.

That's it for now. Probably won't hear from me again until tomorrow or late tonight.

Bluuuuuuuuueeeeeee Bluuuuuuueeeeee Skiiieeeeeeeeeessss!

5:09 AM

Just arrived at my gate.

This is my first time flying in a while. I'm excited to see how things have changed. Such as the no smoking sign being completely useless now. Of immediate interest are the computers at the door to the plane itself. Ancient pieces of equipment aging day by day -- once shiny and new pieces to the airline empire. Now just running an old version of windows with Novell NetWare slapped on top -- quite a frightening prospect in and of itself.

The "LSG Sky Chef" truck has begun loading our plane with what I can only imagine are little tiny packets of joy that will make the flight better in some way. Perhaps peanuts to appease a crying child, or a bloody mary to coax a 21 year-old college student up at 5AM right back to slumberland.

One thing that has happened so far is that I have found that my shoes I got on sale for $27 were truly a bargain. The vigorously set off the metal detector, which prompted the man in white to move me to the wait-here-why-we-superficially-judge-you-for-signs-of-death-inflicting-capabilities. Whether it was my fierce weight of 120lbs. or the fact that I had more electronics than the security checkpoint did, I was quickly waived on as the problem was isolated to the ringlets on my shoelace holes. Like I said, they were a bargain.

(P.S. I'd post this now, but Pittsburgh International only has wireless coverage in the A and B terminals so far -- I'm in D. I'd get up...but again, it's 5:20 AM.)

(P.S.S. It's now 9:16 AM in Dallas and I'm on their wireless so I'm posting this)

The Pain

I will never again take an unnecessary elective with the word "Physics" in the title. However, if you like pounding nails into your forehead, I can recommend you a fine class.

omfg

I ordered a goddamned "Turkey Bacon Club" and they forgot the fucking turkey. What the hell is that? That's like...like...if you can't put food together...you shouldn't exist.

BACON CLUB

No! See...there's something *missing.* Its not even an option. Like, you can't ORDER a "bacon club"...someone would go "All you want on that is Bacon?" It defies logic that you can make a bacon sandwich. How do you get bread, cook bacon, melt cheese, remember I asked for mayo on the side and no tomato....and then not put turkey on the sandwich.

3 days till California...thank god. When someone screws your order up there it's because they only speak Spanish, not because they have the IQ of lobotomized rats.