Sunday Seven

I was going to write a Friday Five post, but I went to bed instead. Then I thought I'd replace it with Saturday Six, but, yeah, well, uh . . . Maybe I can get Sunday Seven to work.

1. My Wordless Wednesday post was all done on Wednesday, I promise. My phone just didn't feel like publishing it till this morning. I think I'll just call today an honourary Wednesday. That works, right?

2. Tomorrow I'm getting on a plane and flying to Grahamstown, where I'm going to sleep for a week. Except for the sleeping part, alas. I'm actually going to FameLab for a week, which is nearly as exciting a prospect.

3. The name "FameLab" makes me think of Harry Potter's first potions lesson, where Professor Snape tells his first years that he can teach them to "brew fame and bottle glory". Do you think I'd be allowed just a tiny sip of the Felix Felicitis potion before the final?

4. Yesterday Sir Laughs-a-Lot and I went to The Last Night of the (Maritzburg) Proms concert with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra under Richard Cock. It was really awesome. Now I want to go to the opera. And learn to understand all - or at least more - of the technical musical stuff.

5. The concert was in the city hall, and while one might admire the clock tower as one drives down Commercial Road, that has nothing on the sense of being inside a work of art. Inside it! With a pipe organ the size of a small house! And ornamented everything! Oh my!

6. One of the topics I've been covering for my honours project is neural networks - a system that can be implemented on a computer and mimics the brain in learning to make accurate predictions. Neural networks are not awfully like human brains, really, but the way the technique was inspired, as well as the technique itself, is fascinating.

7. Neural networks are one of the topics I'm playing around with using in the FameLab finals. If I don't do that (or maybe even if I do), perhaps I should write up a similar kind of description to put on here. Because I won't, you know, be trying to frantically catch up with my lectures before the slew of pre-Easter break tests. It would be fun, though.

Savo 'lass a lalaith.