An.Exercise.In.Thought.

week.three.

Not as much newness this week, so instead of bore you with a discussion on papers based on the same things I did last week, I'll instead tell you a little bit about the exciting things I'm learning about the people around me!

lab.mates.

There are many people in my lab, we're probably the most full this summer and so I won't be talking about everyone, just some of the people who've let me in. I think the person I first managed to trick into allowing me to distract them was David Thue, a grad student who hails from Saskatchewan. He's working on some AI stuff under the supervision Vadim Bulitko along with a first year student named Eric Wasylishen who once upon a time came from Halifax. He's lived here for a long time but he went back to visit his brother who is studying there and I love Halifax and pretty much the entirety of Canada's east coast, so I feel it's important to bring this up. Either way, David is super nice and pretty tolerant of my daily interrupts and has some MAD taste in music. He used to play bari sax, just like myself, so the band geeks emerge and we get along pretty well. Eric is a awesome as well, particularly as he took Math 117 and 118 this year. Math 117 and 118 are the first year honours math calculus courses which I also took and enjoyed very much. But all of this is madness, I really was going to tell you about what they are working on. There is a giant cluster of people who work for Vadim Bulitko and their work is somewhat related. All of it sort of revolves around evolved game play in video games.. sort of. They are hoping to train games and AI to custom fit themselves to the current players. Eric and David focus more on the whole game in a sense, where the story, or the holistic game experience, changes according to how the player acts.

David "Chris" Rayner and Tian Tian are also working on this but they seem to be looking more at how the AI interacts with the player, adjusting difficulty levels according to who is playing, as well as studying how intelligent AI is in current games and how to change this so they behave better (for example, teaching AI how to take cover without hard coding cover spots). Chris is also involved in studying path finding, but unfortunately I am not as well informed in his research in this area. He will be doing a talk on his current research in a couple weeks, which I will be attending, so hopefully I can update you then. I figure I'll throw Nolan Bard in here as well. Nolan is a genius, I've known him for a few years now, he's a great friend and absolutely mind-blowingly intelligent. He is working on Poker, as well as a few of my other friends in grad studies. However right now he's yelling at some genius code that implements some genius math and the look in his eyes says "don't ask", so I won't.

That covers one half of the room. On the other side, we have Ken Anderson and Kate Davidson, and I have NO clue what they do in general but they have been kind... or have contributed some sarcastic comment to every conversation much to my amusement which is close enough to being kind. There's another large nameless group of people over there but they're "othersiders" and who wants to walk one set of cubicle-esque computer stations to start conversation really? ahah well that sounded harsh, I'm sure they're all wonderful but I haven't had a chance to become acquainted much with them. The one exception to this rule is Markian Hlynka who is a PhD student, studying under Jonathan Schaeffer. Markian can't help but be known, and thus require mentioning. I've known Markian for a few years and I still can't quite figure out what he's studying for his PhD but that's okay. Everything he does though comes with a certain intensity of focus which I'm sure is exhibited in his research. He loves his macs, his martial arts, his bike, his Go games, and his poker. His research could have something to do with the latter two but I can't be certain. Either way he's just yet another funny twist to the lab.

the.OTHER.lab.

What my fellow lab-mates would be shocked to find out is that I am involved in a torrid affair with another lab. The reinforcement learning lab across the hall has quite the reputation on many levels. Firstly: they are quite respected in the department and the field for the incredible quality and volume of their research. The students who work there, an amalgamation of undergrads, grads and post-docs, are all under the wings of Rich Sutton and Michael Bowling and with the help of these amazing supervisors they put out some great papers and ideas. Secondly: they are quite rich. I am not going to deny it. They got mad stacks like whoahhh! Hahah well not quite, but they do have a very nice lab with the newest Mac computers running, and while most people would hate that, I grew up on a macintosh and thus am envious to the infinite limit! (I'm not quit sure what that was supposed to mean but.. it kinda rhymed so I'll keep it) Thirdly: They know how to have a good time. Not to say the other labs don't, but this lab hangs out, they talk and joke and have the funniest quotation white board I've ever seen. They have parties together, they go camping together. They're just generally a really nice fun bunch of people. So I like to hang out with them.

I took Rich's reinforcement learning class last semester so I know a lot of the people there from that, and three of my best friends, Martha, Mark, and Andrew, work in that lab. I won't bore you with the details of who works there because I realize even though I love them, you have no clue who I'm talking about. However, I will point out two of the PhD students who I think are amazingly kind and intelligent people and it would do you well to know their names in the future, when they're the most famous and rocking the research boat.

The DELIGHTFUL Anna Koop has the kindest heart and a keen mind. Daily, Rich, Michael, and their students have a "tea time talk" where they get together for tea, cookies, and one of them delivers a discussion on a paper they find interesting. I had the good fortune of attending Anna's tea time discussion on a mixture of information theory and discovering manifolds. I was intensely impressed because not only did she have all the professors in a buzz, humming and arguing amongst themselves, she managed to keep me interested and didn't loose me with too much hand waving magic.

Brian Tanner is also a super sweet guy, he is currently acting as a supervisor/mentor for my friend Martha who has an NSERC to work in their lab for the summer. He always seems to have a lot going on in that mind of his, and he gets in intense debates with Anna so I'm assuming if he can keep up with her, he's got a good head on his shoulder ;).

I've gone on for a mind-numbingly long time so I will cut to the chase and move on. But really: Awesome folk in both labs.

renee's.OTHER.student.

I know I promised to shut up but I've got one more person to add. Renee, on top of having me to watch over for the summer, has a grad student who was taking an independent studies class with her finishing a project this summer. Susan Bartlett was travelling the world for a few months but has returned home to work with Renee again and I had the good fortune of meeting her this week. She is incredibly kind and we went for tea/coffee upon her arrival to get "right properly introduced." I am very much looking forward to having someone else who knows just exactly WHAT Act-R is hanging around, and hopefully have someone to listen to me complain when I break it yet again ;). I am much excited to have another companion in the "feels useless and stupid in the face of the rest of the world's brilliance" boat so.. Welcome aboard Susan! (Keep in mind this is just a common misconception we both hold, not a reflection of reality, Susan is very intelligent and capable even if I am not and does not belong in this boat. But if she wants to hang out on the boat that's cool too)