So...this summer.........

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After two weeks of averaging 3 hours of sleep, Cooper is finally out of the way. Comparing to last semester, I did about the same--which is bad. It was a mere result of lack of attendance to the easiest classes and doing bad in them because I overestimated myself. Anyways, hopefully I will get around 3.0 (all I need is A in signals processing, eh, doesn't sound so possible).

Other than the grades, the past semester went great. I managed to meet a lot new friends, learn a lot, and at the same time accomplish a lot. There is just one thing, however, I need to point out here before making a plan for this summer, is that I got through my grad level programming class: distributed computing, with 3 other seniors who pushed through like I did. It was the reason that I did bad in many of my other classes, but I did really enjoy learning such software engineering topics. It gets me excited. My final project was on Distributed Similar Image Search, it worked (see the picture at the end). Basically what it does is that it performs a search with the search term the user provided (e.g. square) and get the results from various search engines including Google, Bing, and Flickr, then the user can choose an image (or even provide an image in future releases, if I ever decide to come back to it) to match the image with the rest of the set. The system uses Hadoop Map-Reduce framework to distribute the image matching job and the search engine querying job to different mappers and reducers so that the job is performed quickly and efficiently (for those who don't know, Google also uses a similar Map-Reduce system to allow us to search the entire internet and return the results in less than half of a second). The program framework that I wrote can be easily extended and be made into a real reverse image search engine provided that there exists a good image hashing algorithm and a large image database for me. I spent about three weeks on it, starting from writing a original Java algorithm, playing with search engine APIs, and then learning how to deploy it with Apache Tomcat and Hadoop within/out of an Eclipse environment. I really learned a lot.

Ok, before I talk another few hours about that project, let me go straight into the real topic of this post: my plan for this summer.

It is much simpler than past:  (TWO INTERNSHIPS + START MY OWN BUSINESS + FOR REAL)

1. Internship with Tidal Labs. -I will be working there three days a week this summer. I would say that this is an engineering startup that aims to help the marketing departments of big companies and the marketing firms to data mining people off social network. I choose to work for them because see potential from the growing social marketing companies. It is also php and python based, so I can learn more about those two and at the same time learn about how to handle different situations for a startup company.

2.Internship with Indorse Technology. -I will be working there two days a week this summer.

This is the company of my professor who taught me distributed computing this semester. I'm looking forward to learn a lot more with him on both managing business and coding. We will see how it goes this summer.

3.Start my own thing with friends.

Information about this will be released in a future post while we are still discussing our business plan. It will be a huge thing (<--no jokes please lol).

After all, this summer will be very fruitful for me and should make me stay away from getting use to leisure so I would get killed in Fall.

4. If time allows, I will be able to push Bmark.Me to the next stage.

A distributed get image job result:

A sample run on finding similar image for a square picture

A distributed compare image job with efforts to find the ones that are similar to the first one

Week 4 of School

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Week four of school was nice. Why? Because it is the calm before the storm. Monday, we did the first physics lab, which took Kevin and I a really long time to finish it due to the lighting in the room. The results, as I progress through the report during the weekend, are really bad. The sample was to distinguish 3 different liquids with index of refraction uncertainty within 0.0001, our data came out to be +-0.1, so there is NO WAY that this report can go any further. Then there was the connect workshop, which was surprisingly nice! There was a lot acting and fun in it. The three hour workshop was one of the nicest moments I had in cooper. Well, the down side is that it made me so tired, such that I just went to sleep after I got home.

And, as usual, I cannot do the physics quiz and the history quiz, just didn't prepare for it due to Monday's tiredness.

Um........then...it comes FRIDAY! AC GEAR'S GRAND OPENING!

Jeffery, Ray, Igor and I went there to see if we can get something......the unfaithful Ray and Igor left after an hour. Not long after they left, Jeffery got a free watch! How nice was that...so I believed that I can get something as well! During my faithful waiting there, I met this girl named Jane, who did attract me on first sight by her openness. And what surprised me was that such a nice girl is actually a NYU Stern student ( you know how it is, usually it is very hard to meet a smart and pretty girl randomly). We chatted, and it was nice...She is a very nice conversationalist. At approx. 9:10 AC Gears announced that they will now give out the last price. I think there is almost no chance that it could be me since there are still about 50 people there with at least 100 tickets! So I said to her, " you know what, I give up,I think it's over, but I think the most valuable thing that happened is that we meet each other." Indeed, the fact that meeting a new nice friend is far more important than winning a $100-ish gift. Well, that's not all, after we said good luck to each other.........the ticket number was announced...and ....IT WAS ME!..that was..holy~~~Yea, I believe you were my good luck that day. Thank you Jane~And thank you Jeffery, for waiting there faithfully.

Ok, enough of the positive stuff, the weekend was as bad as it can get. Chang went to SBU to meet with Jing, and a lot things happened to Jing. I feel bad for Jing, and angry about that dude, whom I won't say here. What can I say to Jing.....you girls are too gullible, seriously. Some guy giving you something that you think is very touchy does not mean that he doesn't treat other girls that way, right? If he really likes you, he will not treat you right, he will not just say the right things, instead, he will use his heart to prove to you. (too 38, let me stop here..-.-)~~anyways, good luck Jing, I wish you the best with Kevin D, don't get fooled by jerks.

And what else happened...I decided not to participate in the 2009 ACM programming contest, because of a very simple reason: Lab+DFQ test+PHYSICS test are concurrent at the day after! Sorry to myself.

School Starts II (week 2 of 14?)

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The first week of school just passed away. As expected, a few things happened: 1. I noticed that I got so lazy over the summer that I keep making myself away from reading assignments. 2. I have too many similar classes even though I am an engineering major, esp. the following six classes Probability (math) Differential Equations (math) Vector Calculus (math) Circuit Analysis (physics) Physics II E&M (physics) Physics Lab I? (physics) and a few other requirements such as English and computer engineering track elective. 3. I'm somehow getting back with my ex? Would it be possible? Do I want to? I keep telling my friends that it will not work, and it has not work, but why am I still thinking about it? We are still good friends, maybe I am treating her too well. Putting the thoughts here, I really wanna make sure that we do not get back together.. Maybe, I just need a new girlfriend, haha...jk...no, I'm serious. 4. I sleep too late recently with Dota/Google's Monopoly City streets/Sanguo Sha strategy broad game, etc.. not because of school. 5. I have too many unfinished business: Bmark.me and a few other websites and a few other programs I was writing. 6. It is so late now, I should go to sleep.

Night, and 'add oil' to myself.

School Started Part I

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The beach house vacation finally marked  the end of summer. School started yesterday the 8th. Everyone seems to enjoy the New Academic Building, so do I. Even though I worked there over the summer, but it feels much different with a lot people in it. Classrooms are also not as small as they described before summer, they are actually really nice!

Oh wells, the first day I only had one class---physics recitation with Professor Wolf, the hardest class I took last semester. I don't really know why physics seems so hard last semester (lazzzzzyness prob? ), but this semester definitely seem much harder than I can handle with last semester's method----work harder, and don't sleep in every single semester (yes, for the record, I did sleep in EVERY SINGLE MECHANICS LECTURE and EVERY SECOND HOUR of MECHANICS RECITATION). Also, for the record, I did fall asleep today during the 2nd hour of E&M recitation (ah.. :mrgreen: ) Without a girlfriend, maybe I can use those free time to study better..

Alright, time to sleep, morning classes tomorrow......

Farewell, Engineering Building

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Today is the last day students and faculties can use the engineering building (51 Astor Place, NY 10003). Even though I have only spent one year there, the memories of it is good. It has sufficient space for everyone and good entertainment services as well. In fact, it is where I spend 98% of the time at Cooper....

Its sad,

Farewell, 51 Astor Place, the lovely Engineeing Building of The Cooper Union.

Cooper Union's 2nd impression at its student reception.

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Created Friday, 25 April 2008 14:44

"Everyone seems so happy!" said my dad, "and it looks nothing like you described before."

Yea, that's right. Most people we saw at the student reception were happy, which gave people really good first impression about the school.

I must say, also, most people we saw that's not a tour guy/girl were studying. Studying is probably what they do the most. In fact, one of the tour guy was suggesting the freshmen to bring a printer if living at the dorms. Why? Because " you will frequently needed to print out stuff at 5a.m, so you don't want to use the printers in library, which closes at 10 pm (the day before. lolz).

Despite the fact that they were happy, both the current students and faculties were really nice. They seem harmless. Some people say that's because they are just nerds, but no, they are just pure, and focused.

Students are competitive, like...really! Two out of 4 of the people I know already from Class 2012 are both the valedictorian of their schools. This year they say its the toughest in Cooper's history, with a overall acceptance rate of 1/12 (8%), which is close, and even lower than those ivy schools. (School of Architecture has only 3.5%!)

Expenses without tuition is still about $20,000. Living at mid-town Manhattan, this is a fair price. But it didn't take me long to convince my parents to let me live there for the first year, though I doubt I might have to move back to Queens, or even Brooklyn after my freshman year. The surrounding of Cooper is a very lively place: SOHO, Chinatown, City Hall, and lots of attractions and markets are nearby. Since it's at the lower center of Manhattan, going to the other boroughs is also very convinent.

Overall, Cooper is a competitive, supportive, and nice! (yes, let's use the simple terms)

[10/17/08] Life In Cooper Intro

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Life:~~~~ Located in the heart of East Villiage, is definately one of the best place to live! Within 5min of walking, you get : Coffee: 3 Starbucks within 2min of walking, which is kinda OD,~ and DDs. Chain-Supermarket: K-mart/Woodsales Chain-Pharmacy stores: 3 DRs, Rite Aid...-  -~too many ..lolz. Office Supplies: Staples, Best Buy (15min walking for this one) Food: 20+Japanese Resturants, Plenty of korean and chinese resturants around; plenty of cheap pizza place, many candle light romatic places, and..yea..we have Gand Sichuan for Hunanese food here! Clothes: Gap, Aldo, Footlocker, etc.. 12min walking to Union Square where they have AEs, BNs, etc...~~ Delivery: USPS, UPS, Fedex all around~~lolz.. Subways:  6(15min to 42nd street for 7, or down to brooklyn bridge passing by China Town,  ), N (Queens Center?) R W Q ~...yea... Schools around: We can use NYU's resources and it is around cooper! CUNY baruch and hunter are very close as well~ Work Load: its really not that much,~idk. ~its being a mystery that people think we get too much work. No, definately managable. However, compare to my fds in other colleges, Cooper is an insane place. ~you really have to work hard to get things done. But you will still have plenty of time to do other things...

Grading and others: HARSH!..  I remember i got a 94 on my chem test, and only three people got higher than me, ...it was considered to be an B...- - ~kinda too hard isnt it ~......And ..English class is the worst, Cs.....lolz.. Other than that, Teachers are really willing to help. All of them have office hours and you can just come by~ and....yea.....they are very helpful~

Atomsphere: People with each other! The stable on other's back havnt happen yet~ its a great place with Geniuses around.!