Still around...

I've felt sort of floaty, recently, slightly disconnected [0]... if I haven't called you in a while, and you think that I might call you, I probably will. And if I haven't hung out with you recently, I'll probably try to do that too.

It's really strange, this whole living thing. I don't know too many people who say "okay, I've got it down now! Now I understand!" ... but I think I'm getting better at it, at least. But then again, it seems fairly common for someone to say "man, was I like that, years ago?" Growing up is weird.

Also, for Lent[1], I've given up desserts and dessert-like things.

[0] floatiness reason: last week I was pretty much devoted to working on that machine learning project, which came out fairly nicely...
[1] In a totally arbitrary fashion, I've decided to do Lent, and you may've noticed that I'm not particularly nonagnostic (much less Christian, much less Catholic) these days. For me, this shall be a Confucian filial-piety Lent.

While on my General Knowledge Office Hours...

alexr: "Would it be possible, do you think, that I could get on one of these projects [0]?"
goel: "Oh, absolutely... sorry I haven't answered your email yet [1]. I'll send you some papers to look at today."

[0] "these projects" refers to Ashok's Interesting AI Research Projects, which involve case-based systems and metareasoning... programs that remember past problems they've solved and/or think about their own models of themselves.
[1] I sent him email asking him to send me papers, so I can know what he's doing, presumably so I can get involved with a more interesting-rewarding-awesome research team.