Down the Rabbit Hole

I first encountered natural language processing (NLP) in data science class , with a classmate's project opening my eyes to the possibilities of using the method. Before that class, I had worked on determining descriptors for rice varieties by finding the most frequently associated adjectives and finding which rice descriptors were co-occurring with viand names. I even published a paper on rice descriptors. Anyway, during class, I decided to embark on a massive (in my opinion when I was starting it) side project to sharpen my skills in NLP. I didn't realise how deep the NLP hole was until I started working on it. Sourcing the documents I remembered that IRRI lists its staff's publications online. It was just a matter of accessing the information and putting them in an Excel spreadsheet by copying and pasting... Wrong! There are over 6000 articles in the list of publications. There was no way I was going to be able to manually copy the information from the websi...

One of the shows I frequently watch on YouTube is  Say Yes to the Dress , an American reality TV show that follows brides and their entourages during their appointments in a bridal shop called Kleinfeld Bridal. Mommy insists that I enjoy watching it because I didn't get to experience shopping for my own wedding dress (more on that later) and I'm living vicariously through the featured brides on the show. However, I think that I keep coming back for more episodes because—  I am fascinated by how much the brides featured in the show are willing to pay splurge for a dress that they will wear only once. Obviously, irrational consumer behaviour is on display here. Not every brides has the budget for a USD 16,000 gown, of course. However, many of them tended to mention the upper ceiling of their budgets without  considering the cost of alterations and accessories... and the extras can add up enough to break a wallet. And quite a few of them tried on gowns they couldn't af...

I've been visiting Walnut Creek for a long time and I've always been intrigued by a restaurant sitting by the corner of North Main St and Mount Diablo Blvd: Il Fornaio . The opportunity to try it out finally came when I ended up famished after a barre class. So, still in athletic attire, I entered the restaurant... and quickly realised how underdressed I was in a lunch crowd composed of suits. But once I looked at the menu, I forgot that I was surrounded by well-dressed corporate types. As much as I love carpaccio, I had to skip it because it's raw beef. So I started my meal with a minestrone instead, followed it with roasted salmon on a bed of mixed vegetables, and finished it with a scoop of vanilla gelato.   The salmon was cooked perfectly. It was seared enough to lend a caramelised taste to the otherwise fatty fish. And underneath the surface, the salmon was cooked just enough to retain its inner translucency and a slightly pink colour. The veggies provided ...

Since the baby and I are past halfway with our second trimester, I started reading up on books narrating the experiences of other mothers. One of the books on my reading list is "Bringing Up Bébé" by Pamela Druckerman. The author apparently claims, in a nutshell, that the French parents make child rearing look much easier than Americans. French kids sleep through the night early on as babies, are mostly not overweight as toddlers despite not being picky with food, and are boisterous when playing but parents do not helicopter over them.  Enough to pique any first-time mother's curiosity, right?  Instead of buying a copy of the book, I opted to borrow one from the county library. I find time to read it while running code and while waiting for my mom to get out of the office. It proves to be an interesting read. View this post on Instagram Reading Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bébé” til January 21st (the book...