Movie plot idea

Where the major events are happening in the background blurred and the trivial tasks in focus. A person's life from birth to death...

Increased mileage to the desired level. Getting used to the new treadmills. The cushioning seems little hard, not very stable, starts shaking at higher speeds (even coupled with the treadmills left and right). Registered for the NYC Marathon lottery, we'll see in couple weeks. Also looking for a 50m race somewhere close if not somewhere nice so that I can combine with a family vacation.

Books I'm currently reading

John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death.
Here is the amazon link. Here is some info on the author In memory of Steve Heims a research physicist turned science historian.

Week in review

Less than the weekly goal for two reasons. After the 10 days break started slow, new treadmills in the gym (bad cushioning and time limit set to 60 mins).

Counting word frequencies

My code segments in my comment on http://blogs.sourceallies.com/2009/12/word-counts-example-in-ruby-and-scala/comment-page-1/#comment-255 were eaten. Here it is

“

This is a favorite question of mine as well, but I expect the developer to be pragmatic and provide me a scripting solution that can be written and run in less than 5 minutes.

// cat individual files into all.txt
// and do the rest in awk one liner

awk '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) c[tolower($1)]++} END {for(w in c) print w, c[w]}'

// output can be sorted in both ways in the same statement as well

... | sort | tee alpha_sorted.txt | sort -k 2 -nr > freq_sorted.txt

”

Weird nature.

Toxoplasma gondii infections have the ability to change the behavior of rats and mice, making them drawn to rather than fearful of the scent of cats. This effect is advantageous to the parasite, which will be able to sexually reproduce if its host is eaten by a cat. The infection is highly precise, as it does not affect a rat's other fears such as the fear of open spaces or of unfamiliar smelling food.

Studies have also shown behavioral changes in humans, including slower reaction times and a sixfold increased risk of traffic accidents among infected males, as well as links to schizophrenia including hallucinations and reckless behavior. Infected men were more likely to be aggressive, jealous and suspicious, while women became more outgoing and showed signs of higher intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii

Week in review

22 miles in this short week. Aside from a blister no injuries so far. Next week will be even shorter, the gym will be open only on Thursday. Good excuse to take a break and focus on other stuff. One big project is refinancing the mortgage. Almost done with the docs. The rate will go down from 5.25% to 3.875%.