I did the core lesson for level 1, unit 1, lesson 2 on Rosetta Stone. This lesson covered some basic animal names like dog, cat, and horse, basic verbs like "to walk" and "to drive", and basic everyday objects like book, newspaper, and car.
Articles:
There was an interesting article in the New York Times about some recent cyberattacks on Wells Fargo, U.S Bank, the New York Stock Exchange, PNC, and others. The group who confessed to the crime said they did it using simple online applications but those were apparently too amateur to work on the security systems in place. Instead, the group actually just bombarded the system with traffic until it feel offline. The banks had systems in place for these Denial of Service attacks but the volume of traffic was so high that it managed to get past this system.
Philosophy:
I read about reason. Reason is essentially the thinking process, but this excludes vague thoughts like instincts and "funny feelings". These thoughts are clear, definable, and can be used to build upon other clear ideas. Memories and emotions are also included but the memories need to be recognizable and emotions should only be emotions without any other underlying meaning.
Internships:
I read about Swype on nuance.com. This is an improved version of another Dragon product that allows users to type, text, speak, or "swipe" their message on their phones. This updated version lets users sent texts faster with the improved algorithms for next word prediction and also makes using foreign characters, like in Chinese, much easier to do.
To-Do:
- Wake-up: 9:00 am
- Review notes for Italian (1/2 hour)
- Done
- Italian tutorial (1 hour)
- We went over various gestures that are used in Italy. Italians can hold an entire conversation using just gestures and some common ones convey messages like, "Let's eat", "I don't understand", and "Money".
- Lunch (1/2 hour)
- Done
- Check phonetics homework and submit it (1/2 hour)
- Done
- Check Italian homework (45 minutes)
- Done
- Read about two MacArthur fellowships (1 hour)
- I read about Uta Barth, who is a photographer. Her photographs are different because she tries to steer away from the way people normally perceive them. She doesn't have a clear focus to her work whereas most photographers do. There's something the picture is supposed to be about that viewers are supposed to see, but this isn't the case with Barth's work. This sounds like the kind of thing that would honestly confuse me. I'd imagine that people who view her work still try to find a focal point to it even if it's not there. This type of art requires some skill in order to understand it.
- I also read about Claire Chase, who is an arts entrepreneur. She is the artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble. The group plays in both traditional and nontraditonal settings and they play a wide range of contemporary music. Given what I've learned about contemporary music, I'm not surprised that something like this exists. Modern contemporary music, at least what I've heard, actually sound out of place in a traditional orchestra setting. It wouldn't be out of place, however, on a street corner or in an old warehouse.
- Dinner (1 hour)
- Done
- Download Praat (15 minutes)
- Done
- Learn how to use Praat (2 hours)
- I played several recordings from the CD that came with my Phonetics textbook and extracted the sound files at various points, which causes the waveform to stretch out. The smaller the extracted soundbite, the easier it is to analyze.
- ebook (1 hour)
- Done. I read half of chapter 8.
- Rosetta Stone (1 hour)
- Done
- News (15 minutes)
- Done
- Review all class notes from the week (1 hour)
- Done. 1 and 1/2 hours
- Pack for tomorrow (10 minutes)
- Done
- Sleep: 1 am
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