Zipf Fun

Yo,

So, I've been rather unproductive, I feel, but at the same time, I think I have done a lot. Maybe at the same time though, I need rest and now I'm not doing much because of that need? I don't know. Whenever I end up feeling like this I get guilty for not really doing anything. Idk.

I've probably also been watching too much youtube. It's a mixture of my regular subscriptions, cake/dessert DIYs, and super smart Vsauce, Veratasium, MinuteEarth, etc. So, I feel like I'm learning a bunch, but I'm probably not really learning that much because it's kinda in one ear out the other?

The other day I was watching this super neat Vsauce video about the Zipf Mystery, which in essence says that in language, all language, we tend to use some words more than other words. What's crazy about that is that if you then rank them in order of use there is a logarithmic relationship. The less used they are, they become exponentially less used and in relation to the 1st word are used about 1/x where x is their ranking. And it's been shown that this is the case in books, in whole sums of authors' works. It's crazy!

I'm really interested in both linguistics and in science, so this greatly appeals to me. Additionally, I just so happen to have a compilation of my works, aka, a blog. So I can actually test this. haha. So, allow me to do so. I realize I have many many many blog posts, so this may take a bit of time. But I also don't want to waste my time, so I'm gonna try to do this as fast as possible. xP

Ttyl.

D.Fa

PS. For this post it is following a somewhat logarithmic distribution! 289 words, 161 unique words. On the left is the simple frequency vs word, on the right is the frequency vs word rank on a log scales with the red being a ideal Zipf distribution if the 1st word had 50 repetitions. this is a tiny sample though.

Guitars and Classes and Meetings

So, today was really busy.

First was a prayer meeting outside in the quad and I was in charge of worship songs. MM's guitar is kinda difficult to play in tune. you put a bit of pressure on the strings and they slide sharp... Chords are bad. lol. In any case we prayed for the frosh and for revival on the campus and all those other good things.

I handed MM's guitar over to AL. I was not going to bring it around to my lectures and my Biol lab.

TL spammed me during orgo chem and it produced some interesting 'poems' for lack of a better word. (Check my tweets) This is because he was sending me twinkle twinkle little star word by word... my phone does not always get messages in order. Also duplicates are just stacked, not repeated. DP was actually texting me the pokemon theme song at the same time. >.>

After that I had a meeting with A(?) who I had called yesterday. He has a Catholic background and firmly believes in works. He said he really likes having conversations with people, so I'm sure he'd enjoy our discussion groups that we will be having this month. It was good talking to him.

Later was my Biol lab I also got to see JS and MC. They are in Engineering and are frosh. lol I want to see them grow in their faith too.

My biology lab was soooooo much fun! lol. We were doing microscopy and sectioning stems. Our lab coordinator said that this is basically all we will be doing this semester, which is awesome! Super easy labs! Also, it was a lot of fun. xP All the people at my lab bench were kinda making fun of me for being so nerdy. I was so excited that they told us how to adjust the microscope so that both eyepieces are focused! So the lab coordinator picked on me and singled me out to repeat myself... lol.

After I had a meeting with another guy, RI. He is from Jordan and has been going to church all his life. He seemed really tired / brain dead when we met though. lol. I emailed him all the information and we'll be in contact. He said he had a bunch of homework to do, so I went through the magazine really quickly. I was pretty sure he had seen all it before too, so I wasn't too apprehensive of doing so. In any case he has the magazine now to read over.

Next I had to find the guitar. lol. AL had given it to J(?) to watch for a little while and he kept it a bit longer then we couldn't find him. Bookstore =/= Library, by the way. Once we found it I was able to safely store it in AM's room. She is one of the friends I made during frosh week.

Ya. Our stats lecture was suuuuuper boring. Stem and Leaf and Histograms for an hour and a half....... Bored to death.

Then I took the bus home. Big mistake. like a 30 minute bus ride instead of just walking like 15-20... >.>

Ya. I'm gonna sleep. I actually don't have any labs to do this week apparently..? But I still have to show up and do check-in or introductions. It's cool though. No prelabs. xP

Ttyl.

D.Fa