Briefly, a few quick things. I went to vegas a while back and checked out the sphere. It's pretty neat and I fully recommend it if you get a chance to go. Also the new job is still going well.

Now that the quick stuff is out of the way.. let's talk about body changing and running. I do like to run sometimes, but it can ebb at times so there are periods, usually once or twice a year, where I stop for a while. Sometimes the inspiration is just the temperature (too cold or hot) or just getting slowly out of the habit til suddenly its been 3 weeks so I just go with it for a few months, but I always do go back cause I genuinely enjoy it at times and it's good for me. Anyway where i'm going with this is I took an extended break off to allow a running injury to heal. An injury with my heel at that. It was just a sore spot that was probably due to overuse and maybe the wrong footwear. When I returned I didn't think too much about it and went for a "normal" run. For me that's around 40-50 minutes (depending weather and my shape) traveling 4 miles. Boy... it was like i had never run before. I developed an injury in the small of my back that seem to extend down my leg (and my heel hurt again). At the time attributed to just being sore from running anew and/or age. In retrospect while that was surely part of it i think it was almost entirely from the shoes i was using. I ran with said shoes for another 2 months or so before in an attempt to figure out if they were a problem i replaced them. It is worth saying that I had used that particular model of shoe for ages, rebuying new versions as they were released or wore out. It was probably the right choice at the time as i was getting over plantar fasciitis and they did help me with that, but at some point i probably should have changed to a different shoe. I replaced them with a different "model" of shoe that was still designed for running but supported the feet in different ways and what a difference it made! i was still sore but I felt the change immediately. Now probably 2-3 months later, I still have the slightly sore back issue and oddly the heel hurts a little but the pains in the muscles hamstring and calves have gone away. I think once hurt other things in my life continued to aggravate the injury. So, i changed my office chairs back to an old one about 2 weeks ago. One that I liked a lot but needed new foam (enter: new foam cushion) and things are finally improving! The morale of the story, your body changes and if you are a runner double check that your footwear is doing all that it can for you.

The other thing I wanted to mention I thought was interesting enough to share. I saw this video recently, and the author states "AI can't cross this line and we don't know why." (read: Neural Networks and probably expert systems as a whole)  he then goes on to describe how the learning process approaches a line related to data being input in the system and training the model. At the end of the day he says the accuracy (how often it fails a testing metric) of the model is tied directly to the side of the data put in. he even goes as far to explain how the raw data gives us insight in to view of the data (he describes it as a manifold that the classifier projects to) this is all great. I just don't get why he would say we don't know why. He basically explains exactly why. the training data and model are just describing a "surface of answers". The more data the more accurate the resolution of detail on the surface. That is to say, it should be directly related to the information content present in the system. At least as it relates to the classifier. So, you should not be able to cross an error line that is proportional to said information present. In simple system you can cross the line as you derive the underlining nature of the process. like figuring out the force = mass times acceleration. given enough samples of the right type of data if you are trying different equations, you will eventually find the exact fit. Then the line goes away. In cases where there is too much going on or you can never have the information you need, the best you can hope to do is model the surface of answers with samples. searching that surface in a clever/accurate way is what data mining is all about but there is hard limit as described. Just feels weird he didn't put that last bit in there so I figured I would share it here.

Other than that, not to much going on. Still working on my Elliptic curve stuff nothing exciting to report there. It has just a nice way to pass time.