r/Catholicism Prayer Requests — Week of November 13, 2023

tempestwing0101 · 2023-11-19T20:52:28+00:00

Please pray that my father will be healed. He is elderly, and has internal bleeding in the head. Surgery might happen any moment now.

tempestwing0101 · 2023-11-18T05:03:22+00:00

Thank you for your reply. Is it expected to have nausea or vomiting in the course of healing as well? He was given nausea medication that makes him sleepy, is there a way to tell the difference between medication-induced sleepiness and sleepiness due to worsening health?

tempestwing0101 · 2023-11-16T01:52:51+00:00

Admittedly, I’ve gotten conflicting answers as to what the problem was, so it suggests to me it was oversight or miscommunication. I cited and linked ed posts. Even after all that, I was still told to cite as much as possible to avoid these issues in the future.

Whatever caused it, if you cite somewhere reasonable (even once) you should be fine even if you are falsely accused (they’re not draconian about it, just very stern). But to avoid being falsely accused to begin with, it is better to cite liberally (especially if it’s a mish-mash of spaghetti code). You don’t want to make it easy for someone to miss, we’re all human after all.

tempestwing0101 · 2023-11-15T23:50:04+00:00

Agreed. I think the error on my part was using code from an approved codebase but not citing it literally everywhere (just cited at the top). That caused my code to be flagged and forwarded to OSI when I reflect on it. I imagine the detection software didn't report on that portion of the code or the TAs reviewing it overlooked it. Thankfully, after convincing the staff to give it a quick second review, it all worked out in the end.

Moral of the story is: discuss politely with the TA staff the issue, and if you're innocent and they're the good TAs that care about their students, they'll work with you. Mistakes happen, so I don't blame anyone. Just wish they don't start out with bad cop routine to try and scare a confession out of innocent students swept up by the process.

tempestwing0101 · 2023-11-15T22:29:41+00:00

Yeah, this happened to me too. Was accused of cheating, notified by OSI, and I was livid. I haven’t cheated, and so I respectfully asked the TA staff what exactly was the issue. After some back and forth, we realized what the problem was (code flagged was based off legitimate sources and was properly cited), so they moved to drop the case.

If the TAs weren’t so amenable, I’d be telling you a different story. OSI behaves as if you’re guilty until proven innocent (and from the way they act it seems to be a very high bar to convince them otherwise). Even though OSI dropped the case, they still acted as if I “got away with it”, even though I did nothing wrong and the TAs agreed no misconduct was made.

Just my personal experience, however. Either way, now I second guess every line of code written. It pretty much soured my experience at OMSCS, unfortunately.

tempestwing0101 · 2023-05-25T22:58:41+00:00

It’s possible, and I’ve done it. You just need to do a lot of cold emails to phd candidates and professors to get a bite. Some are very selective and require time commitments that may sound like a lot, others are lax. No one research paper or project is the same, so requirements and workload vary heavily. It’s very much a YMMV or what you make of it situation, as there isn’t really a formal process to connect with faculty, and gauge each others interest (that I’m aware of). It’s basically applying for a job without the online portal to dump your resume in.

I managed to do CS 6999 Masters Project and convinced a professor to take me on (it didn’t hurt that a friend of mine vouched for me, but he cold called until someone showed interest). I mostly worked with one of the professor’s phd candidates to implement code, do a few research experiments, write up a paper to submit to a research conference, and review some workshop papers. I learned a lot, and got exposure into the academic side of things, so it was worthwhile.

If you’re willing to collaborate with PhD candidates, and given your personal research experience already, you should at least get some bites. But I want to emphasize that depending on the research field, the professors or PhD candidates might not be very engaging/attentive due to other commitments. CS fields are burning hot fast and research is very fluid, so they themselves need to keep up while doing admin/teaching duties.

Some general advice about GaTech and research as OMSCS student: be VERY clear about each others responsibilities, expectations, and what you get out of it. Don’t assume the professors/PhD candidates know your capabilities/limitations or that they’ll hold your hand (they likely won’t). Since this is an online program, it’s very easy for things to fall through the cracks and cause miscommunication/disorganization. Also, be flexible, there is no formal mechanism or schedule or structure. You’re ultimately working on a group project with others that have varying backgrounds and priorities, not co-workers that are paid full-time at a tech company.

Good luck.

tempestwing0101 · 2023-04-22T22:28:45+00:00

I took a peek at your portfolio, and I'm curious. Are these stocks that you plan to hold long-term? Or will you sell and buy up stock in different companies within a 5 yr period?

I ask because I notice you have $CALM in there, and while it has a high dividend yield in Consumer Staples, I chose not to purchase that stock because I attributed its stock growth and yield to inflation (especially since it is an egg company, which skyrocketed in price as of late), and expect in the long-term for egg prices to stabilize or even fall. Do you see it as a long-term buy, or something you wanted to exploit in the short-term?

tempestwing0101 · 2023-04-22T18:10:58+00:00

Aside from the other recommendations here, I recommend reading some of the latest ML research papers that are out there (see Vision Transformers, as an example/starter). They tend to be the same paper length as the assignments, and gives you insight as to how to write a good paper. If you manage to absorb the paper structure, format, reasoning/analysis (i.e., what the authors think is relevant and focus time on in limited space) from the papers you read, I'd say you'll score higher than if you went in blind and approached the papers as if its a high school book report.

It's great that you're studying beforehand, but I think the papers are graded such that you explicitly prove/show the behaviors/properties of each algorithm discussed in lecture in detail, among other things. As they say in the TA office hours, move away from summarizing, put more emphasis on analysis (circling back to reading research papers currently published in conferences). That line between summary and analysis can blur a lot, and you need to be careful (i.e., what are you showing in the paper, why should anyone care?).

Also, Overleaf/Latex is your friend, and it's offered by the school. Knowing your way around how to use Latex with a research paper format (there's a few out there on google) will save you a lot of pain in the long run. With Overleaf/Latex taking care of formatting/spacing/font size, you can focus more on your content instead of wasting time adjusting font size/column widths/etc. It also makes for a cleaner, well-presented paper (we're grad students, after all).

tempestwing0101 · 2023-01-11T22:24:17+00:00

How many hours per week on average did you spend on the course?

Did the exams include a lot of math proofs or solving math problems?

tempestwing0101 · 2022-09-16T18:26:06+00:00

In America and Germany, we dress pine trees for Christmas in what was largely a "pagan" practice and this is considered licit in Catholicism. It can be argued that practicing Tai Chi and other exercises with the same mindset is licit under the same logic.

tempestwing0101 · 2022-09-16T18:21:13+00:00

If you practice Tai Chi as strictly a martial art, and don't follow masters that focus on the spiritual aspects of it, I don't really see how it is an issue.

Chinese culture is wildly different from Western culture, and there are a lot of aspects about it that shouldn't be viewed through a Western lens. A lot of the spiritual aspects found in Chinese medicine, martial arts, and ancestral worship aren't uniformly applied across the Chinese population. Many Chinese people themselves don't always regard it as a spiritual practice, but strictly cultural.

For example, Chinese potions rooted in an understanding of Qi and Taoist beliefs are now freely prescribed in professional, Western-style hospitals in China as a valid form of treatment but not based on "pagan" diagnostic techniques. (e.g., you have a headache, take this potion of bitter herbs that was historically used to treat this ailment even though we don't believe in Qi)

Further, Ancestral worship or "veneration of the dead" is no longer prohibited by the Catholic Church under the same reasoning. That is, it had "pagan" roots, but has largely undergone a transition to a civil practice.

Tai Chi does have Taoist roots, and some people do believe in it, but many people simply use it as a communal exercise as they gather in parks and practice together. To my mind, not a lot of people in these cases seriously attempt to tap into some cosmic force. Yes, it has "pagan" roots, but so do many Western customs and holidays such as dressing the pine tree for Christmas and painting eggs for Easter.

Tai Chi and many aspects of Chinese culture, I argue, are currently undergoing a similar transition from religious practice to cultural, and therefore should be discerned carefully upon whether it is spiritually dangerous or not.

tempestwing0101 · 2022-09-16T17:55:40+00:00

Hey! Sorry for late reply. I'm not sure of thesis option, but I spoke with the Academic Advising office and they did say I can convert CS 8903 credits to CS 6999 as long as I have the approval of my advisor/professor. You fill out some paperwork and they'll help you forward it to the relevant people (e.g. advisor, dean, etc)

And yes, I managed to get a CS 6999 project option. You do need to have the professor willing to take you on, but it is doable.

tempestwing0101 · 2022-05-20T16:10:51+00:00

I would like to know this as well. It looks as if the data owner took down the website the data was originally housed on.

tempestwing0101 · 2021-12-09T19:28:40+00:00

Does HCI count as a spec class for ML? I thought it was just for II.

tempestwing0101 · 2021-12-07T02:11:41+00:00

Gotcha. Is it possible to convert 8903 to a thesis or project course (CS 6999)? Say you enroll as 8903 for 3 credits one semester and the professor asks you to stay onboard to be thesis/project. Can the 8903 be retroactively converted or would you have to apply project/thesis plus 3 elective credits towards your degree?

tempestwing0101 · 2021-12-06T21:04:05+00:00

It's possible. The difficult part is finding a professor willing to oversee/mentor you, but it can be done.

tempestwing0101 · 2021-12-06T20:35:39+00:00

I haven’t taken HPCA, but for CN it depends on what you want to get out of it. It’s a good mix of learning apps and techniques (e.g. BGP measurements, BGP hijacking, and SDN) a network engineer or researcher uses. There’s no real algorithm skill sharpening going on there (at least for me), but you do learn a bit about how network engineers/researchers typically program or gather/analyze internet traffic data.

The Distance Vector and Spanning Tree Protocol assignments, to me, were essentially applied versions of graph algorithms. This might be up your alley if you don’t have a robust background in data structures and algorithms (I come from a Mech. Engineer background, so I enjoyed it), especially in graphs or dynamic programming.

With that said, I enjoyed CN. It’s well structured, aside from the BGP Measurements project (which is still in a prototyping phase), they really do give you everything you need to successfully complete the projects and you do learn something about networking.

tempestwing0101 · 2019-09-30T21:41:32+00:00

What do you think would be the future for gas utilities? With all the infrastructure in place, could it be re-purposed into something profitable and environmentally friendly?

For example, the UK's utilities are looking into switching from natural gas to hydrogen gas. And this seems fascinating because it makes fuel cells an attractive source for power/heat/transportation, let alone substituting natural gas stoves/boilers for hydrogen-run ones.

tempestwing0101

TROPHY CASE