My last post has been a while ago! That’s been the result of heavy brain work activated by assignments.

Indeed, lectures have been less but the work load in the labs has potentially increased.

In Machine Learning lecture, supervised learning was finished and revised. The professor started with unsupervised learning. We got introduced to some super interesting applications like speech recognition or heavily compressed transmission of data by pattern classification with the K-Means algorithm.
The lab parts of the unsupervised learning parts were due On Wednesday night. I finished report and code of linear regression (curve fitting), logistic regression (classification) and neural network (brain like construct for prediction).

Linear Regression

Linear Regression – Overfitting

Logistic Regression – Clustering with decision boundary

Neural Network – XOR

I managed to generated ball coordinates with MATLAB. Now I have a ball rotating in my application – very very fancy!
Within the lecture back and front clipping algorithms were discussed for 3D spaces. Interesting although quite complex. I might implement that in my application. It’s not compulsory though.

When it comes to Introduction to Computer Vision I didn’t spend any time recently with that subject. The other subjects kept me too busy and I wanted to have some spare time for me too I hope this is not bouncing back on me!
Here are some pictures from my last assignment:

Intersection Histogram of two frames

Color Histograms of one Video Frame

Image Convolution – Averaging Kernel and Edge Detection Kernel

There’s only one subject left to give you an update: Advanced Transform Methods. The professor explained the Gabor Transform – please ask me in a couple of weeks what it is!
I was working hard in the labs to understand the Fourier Transform and to write a report for the assignment. I think I got a clue now. I generated spectrograms and other fancy things in the lab:

Fourier Transform of 15 Hz Sinus Function with 100 Hz Sampling Comparison

Spectrogram of Audio file with three core frequencies – Window Size 4096

Now you might think apart from studies nothing else. Well you are almost right. I’ve been in the cinemas Sunday night to watch Interstellar! It’s a quite deep movie but it was very good entertainment. Many times the movie surprises with the story although the overall story is the most common in Hollywood movies: The planet needs to be saved. At certain points I wonder about who was first: chicken or egg. The physics sometimes aren’t very clear but that doesn’t harm the entertainment value.
And on Wednesday I have been to Hyde Park and Leicester Square for a walk. I loved the Christmas decoration and flashing banners along Oxford Street and Picadilly Circus!

Enjoy the pictures!!

Kitchen Cleaning!!

Seems like I opened a laundry store…

4 Letters I really really miss you dear :*

We wen’t in to check the prices. We’ll come back when it’s time :)

Studying Extreme :)

Oxford Street!

Picadilly Circus!

Some update regarding the expenses in October:

It’s important to mention, that September has only been half a month. Taking this in account, I managed to reduce the “Eating Out” massively. I consider buying a sandwich for lunch or buying a drink at a bar as “Eating Out”. However, bringing my sandwich/lunch from home helped a lot reducing this amount. Considering the half month, my grocery shopping has almost not changed. For the month November I plan to increase the grocery shopping a little in order to reduce the “Eating Out” more. The “Misc” category rose dramatically because of some necessary hard to avoid expenses. I have my bicycle, some door hooks and a IEEE Membership as major expenses in this category. In the category mobile phone a dramatic drop was possible because I recharged quite a large amount for Skype in September, so it wasn’t necessary to recharge in October.  In September I had quite a lot single rides in the public transport sector, this was reduced with a travel card and only few single rides. The category sport covers the membership in the gym.

Indeed this week there was a lot happening. Many nice but also some weird things.

First of all I skipped Gym now four times because of this ongoing cold. However, I feel that I can go tomorrow again.

My cute girlfriend isn’t here this year but I’m very confident that we two celebrate Halloween together next year. Here or in India. We can achieve this! Miss you heaps!!

This week we covered “Neuronal Networks” in Machine Learning. However “cover” is not the right word. Scratching the surface describes it better. I was a little disappointed when she was taking 25 minutes of the lecture to calculate the output of an AND/OR neuron and repeated the AND/OR in combination for the XOR. Well this all could have been done faster and especially not by forcing ppl to write the basic math on the board. The lab is kind of easy because it’s super guided but I’m not sure when it comes to judge the generated curve which was fitted in the data points. See the pictures!

Again I didn’t work on my computer graphics assignment because I’m kind of far ahead of the schedule and other assignments having deadlines. However the lecture was very interesting and explaining the virtual camera along with different projection types, like parallel and perspective projection. Next weeks lecture is cancelled!

There was no “Introduction to Computer Vision” lecture this week. The professor said, that he covered a lot of material especially everything needed for the assignment. So he’s giving us now four weeks to finish the assignment and covers then end of November the rest of the material. I submitted the assignment on Thursday afternoon. Let’s see how the assigned mark will be. I’ll let you know next week!

In “Advanced Transform Methods” we were discussing the Heisenberg Uncertainity. Don’t ask! I’ll need to adjust myself too.

U know there was Halloween this week. The postgraduate Halloween party in the GriffInn  Whitechaple on Thursday was more like a normal bar night with additional decoration and a few costumed people. This was probably because this was one day before Halloween. A night later I tried to go to the visage 80s bar around my home but I was denied to enter. The reason was “You gotta be here with people!”. That wasn’t so much fun, and little disappointed I went back home and slept. Still it was exciting because there were plenty of people with bloody costumes roaming in the streets in front of that bar. Just yesterday I have gone to another bar in Whitechapel with a study mate, he was inviting me for a drink. It was a nice night out after a long day in the lab!

Decoration in the GriffInn Whitechapel!!

Goldie with winter clothes!

Bread, Lettuce, Chicken, Orange, Cheese! Yum!!

no comment. I suddenly had the feeling to paint this on my lunch box over lunch.

Comparison of different learning values for the curve fitting algorithm.

Candy from the Build a Bear workshop. I struggled eating it. I guess it’s only kids who figure out in no time how this works.

Zero Error(cost) but still a crap curve!

Scary what!

Trick or treat! Well this is kinda both!

My new Table!

Memories! There was a restaurant called “Silver Spoon” in India close to the university :)

Black and Orange meet!

There wasn’t much non-study stuff apart from 2 evening walks with a fellow student and a low budget diwali celebration in little india.

On Thursday I was expecting crowds on the street of little India Southall, London. It wasn’t happening. Fireworks were continously present however spread around the whole area rather than focused on one main spot. I was having some indian dinner with two fellow students, watched the fireworks while walking up and down the main road. That’s about it!
I definitely miss my girlfriend every single minute  but on this occassion I missed her even more!! :/

In “Machine Learning” lecture this week “logistic regression” was covered. Instead of calculating a continous target value for an input value, logistic regression is more about asigning a class to an input value. There is only a discrete number of classes available for the assignment.

I didn’t continue with the “Computer Graphics” lab. I was more focusing on the lab of “Introduction to Computer Vision” since the report has to be submitted by Thursday in the coming week. I managed to finish histogram section programwise so only a couple of questions are left to answer for the report.

In the coming week two labs are starting: “Machine Learning” and “Advanced Transform Methods”. Not sure if I can master those because it requires the implementation of heavy maths. Let’s make it a surprise!

Friday I started with a headache and some throat pain. It’s not completely fine by now but better.

For now a good night!

Indian Butter Chicken

Some Indian sweets!

Only a jacket is missing. I designed the t-shirt myself :)

Week 5 is here. That approximately marks that the first half of the current trimester is done.

I finally managed to display a square in the Computer Graphics lab. I was using wrong drawing parameters firstly and once that was fixed I was drawing in coordinates which were out of the current drawing area. Both problems are now fixed. I just need to add a little user interaction to this application. Something like zooming and camera rotating.

In “Introduction to Computer Vision” I was cleaning my code a little and were adding more filters and starting with the histogram functionality. It’s going smoothly although I’m a little behind the schedule.

Linear regression is now fully covered in the “Machine Learning” Lecture. It’s basically about different methods of curve fitting in some training data (x,t). Where x is an input and t is an output. Once the parameter for the curve fitting is found, it’s possible to find a target value x to an input value x that has not been in the training data.

My Ear Defenders have arrived. I’ll try to listen to my Audible audio book with my earphones in the tube tomorrow. They actually block enough noise to make audio books in the tube enjoyable.

On Friday afternoon I’ve been on a Job Fair in Islington trying to find a job for my cutu. However those guys there didn’t know much about “chances”. All they could do was to give experience of working in the company at their positions and handing out flyers about start options in the company.

The most recent saturday was dedicated to the IEEE Xtreme 8.0 coding contest. My team of three members shrinked to two at 6:30 AM and shrinked further at noon. Finally I was a lone fighter trying to rescue whatever could be rescued. Most of my programs had in the bigger testcases problems to run in the given CPU time. I managed to get a 180 Points for my team in total. Ranked 11 out of 11 teams from the UK and 1357 (nice number ha!) out of 2400 total teams in total. Not bad for a single fighter

Enjoy some pictures!

6:30 AM. Motivation at it’s peak because we just started!

Rank 1357 in total at the IEEE Xtreme 8.0 programming contest! I actually struggled to make the rank look nice. From left to right it’s always plus 2!

Rank 11 of 11 in the UK at the IEEE Xtreme 8.0!

That’s the famous bike!

This makes it possible to listen to audio-books in the tube!

A little home feeling away from home!

So folks, last weekend the Divali Festival on Trafalgar Square has been launched. Weeks before the actual festival in India starts. I was part of it!
The stage entertainment held many actions of many different dance and music unions with Hindu background. Live entertainment par excel-lance. I think it’s better if you enjoy the pictures rather than me writing an essay about it. It was exciting fun! However the food was just trying to be authentic and not tasty at all. I was definitely missing good company, especially of my dear girlfriend :* Next year you celebrate with me, na?

We finally left the Probability Bayes Statistics basics part and moved on to linear regression in “Machine Learning” – lecture. Doesn’t make it easier!

My “Computer Graphics” lab assignment made a slight progress: It’s now possible to see a red triangle. However it should be showing a 2D-projected cube. It doesn’t!

Did I mention that one of the three toilets at my landlords house is blocked? I tried to unblock. If anyone has helpful tips that can not be found on youtube, please mail me!

I have good news regarding my bicycle it doesn’t have puncture in the tires. The wheels are still tightly filled with air after a week. I bought two locks and will place the bicycle outside the house for easy access. Picture might come in the next post!

Now the pictures for your pleasure:

That’s the problem!

With Kurta :)

Some authentic items and food!

Circle the light 7 times around the god and you’ll have a free wish!

Diwali dance act!

The stage!

Isn’t he cute?

Phew that one was very tough! Yesterday morning at 7:45 AM I was taking part in the spinning course at the gym. The instructor was full of power and motivation – almost literally beating our asses – faster faster, increase the gear etc. pp. All for a good reason. The ambiente has been very nice too: two disco lights and loud music I needed 500 gram yoghurt plus muesli to gain energy back afterwards.
I signed up for a trainer session next week to get an introduction to the weight lifting devices. Well actually its not the device that lifts the weight but that’s all I know so far

I was putting a polygon on the screen in Computer Graphics lab! Keep going, almost there Maybe another week or two and I’m done with my assignment

In Introduction to Computer Vision Lab today I’ve made very good progress. I managed to solve the problem with my edge detector Kernels: datatype clipping was the problem that kept me from detecting edges in an image. Now that I detect edges in images I just need to fill the report for that assignment. Next week I’ll calculate an image histogram. Let’s see how that will go.

An incredible thing happened today just before the lecture of Introduction of Computer Vision. My train got delayed because of “someones bag stuck between the doors” of a previous train. It got so much delayed that my 30 minutes buffer got all eaten up and I’ve been late for the class. Since the teacher doesn’t like late comers to disturb the lecture I waited in the cafeteria for the lecture break. It wasn’t such a big deal since the lecture was recorded and the topic was image filters only. However I’m not a late comer, at least not for the lectures!

Finally my room feels a little more home. I can now hang clothes in my wardrobe and hang currently used clothes on the hooks at the door. And the pictures of my holiday with my very best friend (who I definitely miss like a clownfish the anemone if absent) are hanging from the curtain rail!
The chair/table combination and fridge in the kitchen is still missing!

Again some clicks:

This radiator, as well as any other, is leaking!

Poor him, but soon Goldie will be born!

There it goes looks much nicer. Welcome to earth Goldie! And he can sing beautifully :)

The cloth hangers! It took a while to organize a rail in the right size but now its working fine :)

The door hangers! Fixed with power strips – 6 in total to hold a maximum of 6 kg. Let’s see if they can hold their promise!! Otherwise I just use screws.

There are my loved pictures of this years goa holiday If I would have I would hang more of my favourite Hannover and Europe holiday this year :)

Well there were quite a few things happening over the weekend.

On Friday night I was finally fixing my modules and chose “Computer Graphics” over “Big Data Processing”.

On Saturday I found an open air gym free for use in the Valentine’s Park approximately 11 minutes walk from my home. With my bicycle it’s probably only 5 minutes or less.
Talking about the cycle I have to state that the bike fixing attempt was more or less not successful. The bike fixers mentioned in the previous post were ill and so didn’t fix my bike. However I went to a bike shop not far from the market and tried to borrow some tools there. Well this guy understood his job very well and was telling me which parts he would replace to make this “baby” smooth. I didn’t listen to his sales skills, asked for a pump, inflated the tires and asked him to lift the saddle. Done! Rear break still not working but front break does work nicely. The police was tagging my bike so they can contact me when it’s found stolen – great service!.
Same day, Sunday, afternoon I met a friend to visit Canary wharf East London. This spot is probably more lifely in the evenings. It’s one of two of London’s biggest business districts with 105000 (wiki) workers coming to work there day by day. Coming out of the tube station the big and bold high risers are very impressing.

Yesterday I signed up for the gym on campus. I took the super off peak pass for 32 GBP for 3 months. Super off peak means that the gym is accessible from 7 AM to 10 AM in the morning during the week and full access on the weekend. Since I weren’t able to book a trainer session I used only cross trainer and ran approx 7 km in 30 minutes. This cardio equipment is amazing in the sense that every device has it’s own entertainment screen with news channels and mobile phone connection.

The teaching assistant in Computer Graphics Excercise class was reviewing points and vectors with us. Not very exhausting but necessary to assure everyone has the same base.

I finished the second “Computer Graphics” Lab Excercise in the evening. The task was to read a file. The file contains description of a graphical object like a pyramid. I was peaking in the next excercises because I wanted to know at which time we finally draw the objects to the screen. Probably another 2 weeks :/

And then there was this meeting between our four computer vision guys in drapers bar which is right there on the campus. There was Indie Night with 1.5 GBP per pint – such a bargain. Also available a self-service water pitcher at the bar. I keep checking out other bars but this one is ranked number one so far

My landlord and father left for the states! Beds are available (just kidding)

This one cute girl who I really miss is cordially invited to join me on the Farmers Market and activities this week!!

Enjoy some shots:

Open Air Gym Cross Trainer

BBQ on the Farmers Market – Theres eggs on the sausage roll :)

My favourite – Studying in the green. Thank god there’s plenty of parks around in London!

Water Self-Service!

Yes the first Trimester is almost over – Christmas is coming with big steps

Farmers Market Wanstead!

I bought a used bicycle yesterday. Well it’s not in best shape but it was a reliable partner for my 8 km journey from north London to Redbridge in East London. I might put a picture up on the weekend. Since there is some minor repairs to do (e.g. rear break) and maybe tiny puncture in both tires) I’ll check out the farmers market in Wanstead on Sunday because they do free bicycle checkup and repair:

http://www2.redbridge.gov.uk/cms/leisure_and_libraries/leisure_and_culture/things_to_do/sport_health_and_fitness/sport_health_and_fitness_all/sports_and_leisure/cycling/cycle_servicing.aspx

Today again my favourite lecture took place: “Introduction to Computer Vision”. Today we have learned the fundamentals of it, namely Sampling, Quantizing, image representation with discrete values and basic transformations (e.g. translation, rotation, shearing etc.)
In the lab for this lecture I tried to figure out if clockwise or anticlockwise is the right way to rotate given a positive angle. Same with the skewing in X-direction: top line stays in place and bottom line skews or vice versa?
Next coursework will be a convolution filter. Let’s see how that goes!

Although I am quite sure that I’ll take “Computer Graphics” instead of “Big Data Processing” I was still taking part in the lab of the latter.
I was using local hadoop and had to do some processing on text:

1. Count the occurence of each word
2. Count the occurence of each word that is more than three times present
3. Count the occurence of two consecutive words
4. Count the occurence of each word length. How many words with the length X do exist?
5. Sort the list of task four by word count ascending

Quite interesting but still I think I choose points and vectors in “Computer Graphics”.

Tonight was Puja Durga a Hindu Festival. I wasn’t missing out. Actually I went to one of the biggest Puja Durga celebrations in Europe: Camden Town Hall. My landlord was inviting me there because he’s back from Hungary. He gifted me a nice key ring from hungary – great gesture! It’s already part of my key bunch.

See you next days!

I don’t know how to express this. Wasn’t Great Britain supposed to be rainy? I actually don’t want to complain. Weather, be who you are, you are great the way you are!

Ever felt like a lazy Sunday? Last Sunday I just practiced that! Apart from that 2 hours walk in the late afternoon, I just hung around whole day.

My landlords father has arrived from Bangladesh and is cooking every night since his arrival. First night he cooked without chillies, then he started to spice food up a little the following days. It’ll take me some time to get used to the spices. Meanwhile I cool down my tongue with yoghurt! Apart from the spice factor the food is lovely and made from fresh ingredients – love it!

I need someone to help me with probability! It’s freaking me out. I never liked it. Anyone with a slogan on hand to promote this positively to my mind – please step forward!
All of the subjects seem to be very heavy on math and stats, here some examples

• Machine Learning: Probability
• Advanced Transform Methods: Fourier and others
• Introduction in Computer Vision: Transformation Matrices
• Computer Graphics: Matrices and Vectors

If you have noticed, I left “Big Data Processing”. That’s because I’m mostly taking “Computer Graphics”. By the end of this week the decision has to be made.

The task in the first “Computer Graphics” Lab was to write classes for 3D-Points and Vectors. Along with that different operations with those elements had to be formulated. Somewhat easy but I think the tasks will increase in time it will take to solve.

I’ll try to put some expense statistics at the end of each month so that you can see where the money goes:

The flat was definitely taking a lot but half of the amount is deposit and will be given back when I move out. This list of expenses is definitely a good help in planning expenses for the next months

Finally my travelcard has arrived. Now I can roam in Zones 2-4 without paying single rides. The price is 69,90 GBP per month. My university is in zone 2 and my home in zone 4 so thats where the main travel goes. If adding zone one (central london) the price would almost double to 125 GBP per month. I thought that I will be better off to pay single rides to the center – let’s see.

Have a good night folks!