15 Dec 2008 Worio Public Beta is out! (machine learning, me, worio)
At long last, I can reveal what I’ve been working on for the past year: the public beta version of Worio.com!
Worio combines search and recommendation with the philosophy that user effort should be kept to a minimum. You can simply use your favourite existing search engine, or Worio’s own, and receive recommendations […]
11 Nov 2008 happy birthday, me (me)
Daisy
We live in a fantasy world, Tim. We’ve just constructed this fake utopia where, y’know, we never get old and never have to face the responsibilities of adulthood. We’re just stretching our childhoods out as far as they can go.Tim
Yeah, I know. We’re lucky, aren’t we?– Spaced (alternate ending)
27 Jun 2008 given sufficiently modest goals, anything is possible! (me)
By last January, I was feeling pretty overweight — in fact, I was heavier than I’d been in years. So I set a goal to lose 25 lbs in the first six months of 2008. Unless I lose an arm in the next few days, I won’t make that goal, but I have […]
18 Jun 2008 white meat, butternut squash — welcome to the family (me)
Well, it’s something of an adjustment, this living on my own. So the first thing on my to-do list — after unpacking and walking around the living room in various states of undress unimpeded — was to surround myself with a couple of new friends. At first, I thought about getting a Roomba, […]
11 Jun 2008 The Sand Brochus (+ one Sand Mahoney) (me, photos by me)
sand people, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.
I spent most of the past week with the family at Chesterman Beach, on Vancouver Island’s beautiful west coast. Oddly, while the last time I was there was the middle of last winter, the weather didn’t seem to have changed — there were just a few more […]
02 Jun 2008 moved! (me, photos by me, vancouver)
main street, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.
This is actually a picture I took a couple of years ago — I really have not had time for photography lately, so I went to flickr and did a search of my photos, looking for my previous impressions of Main Street. My new home looks nothing […]
31 May 2008 moving day (me, photos by me, vancouver)
moving day, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.
Leaving behind my red, red room.
17 May 2008 I’m moving! (me, vancouver, vancouver places)
Yes, after living at my beloved die Kommune for six years, on June 1st, I’m finally moving out on my own. I would also like to report that looking for an apartment in Vancouver? Not much fun. Trying to get an apartment you like in your first-choice of neighbourhood in Vancouver? Also […]
03 May 2008 April is the somethingest month (me)
April ended up being a bit of a weird month in terms of my weight loss schedule. In the beginning of the month, I changed my exercise routine substantially by getting back to jogging. This is a bit problematic, because while I enjoy running more than going to the gym, it’s not a […]
03 Apr 2008 April updates (me)
First off, I kind of have to admit defeat on the whole guitar thing, one of my New Year’s resolutions. I simply haven’t had the time and energy to set goals and get onto a proper practice schedule, and I probably won’t until mid-summer.
On the plus side, though, I have stayed on track with […]
02 Mar 2008 february: less of me than there was before (me)
Well, it’s going slightly slower than I had expected, but I’m on the right track. Since January 1, I’ve lost 9 of the 20 lbs I’ve been aiming to shed, and aside from giving up butter chicken and occasionally having to force myself to go to the gym after a ten- or twelve-hour day […]
17 Feb 2008 where’s Eric? (me)
I haven’t updated my little corner of the internet lately, for a variety of reasons. Not having a computer at home is a big part of it. Plus, I’m working for a start-up in Yaletown full-time, and since we’re in stealth mode I can’t really talk about anything related to work. And, […]
03 Feb 2008 january: successes and failures (me)
As advertised, the first update on my 2008 resolutions. Because I know you care, and care deeply. And don’t think I’m unaware of my position as role model for today’s youth.
First, on my weight. At the beginning of January, I weighed 183 lbs. This was 11 lbs more than the beginning […]
27 Jan 2008 behold, I have new glasses (plus bonus spaceman) (me, photos by me)
a terrifying glimpse of futures to come?, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.
I picked up these frames on my trip to New York last month, but didn’t get around to getting my eyes tested and my new prescription filled until now. I was actually a bit disturbed to see myself in the mirror with them […]
01 Jan 2008 2007, you are old news (me)
2007 was a pretty good year for me. I began the year by travelling to Southeast Asia, something I’ve always wanted to do, and ended it with a trip to New York, which I’ve done before, but it was still awesome. I successfully completed my PhD proposal, which means my thesis outline has […]
24 Dec 2007 why yes, I do (heart) NY (me, travel, unfiled)
I’m back from New York! This was my first trip to NYC since 2000. I don’t know that the city has really changed all that much, but I think in the intervening years, I’ve gone from being a Saskatchewan kid living in Toronto to a pretty committed west-coast urbanite. I say this […]
20 Oct 2007 random nuggets of Eric (books, internet, me, movies, music, review, singapore to istanbul)
So, for the past few weeks, I’ve been devoting my hours to work at Worio, a Yaletown start-up I’ve been associated with essentially from its inception (though other people have done much more work than me). I enjoy the work, and it’s a nice break from grad school. Not only is the pay […]
11 Oct 2007 I been frauded! (me)
Somebody used my credit card number to rack up thousands of Euros worth of charges in a few days. The nice lady at disputes department kept saying “oh, God!” as she went through my statement. Never a good sign. But I’m insured and it looks like a clear-cut case of fraud, so […]
08 Sep 2007 working stiff (me)
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.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right }morrissey and smiths free zone, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.
I resumed working in Yaletown this past week. Apparently, the Morrissey Mondays I ran on the office sound system on my last […]
30 Aug 2007 the test results are in: 90% nonconformist (me)
You Are 90% Nonconformist
You’re incredibly strange. And a weirdness like yours takes skill to cultivate!
No one really understands you. And you’re cool with that. You just hope you never have to understand them!Are You a Nonconformist?
22 Aug 2007 I’ve been plaqued! (academia, me)
So I just found out that not only was our poster a finalist at the SIGGRAPH Student Research Competition, but we actually won FIRST PLACE! Which comes with a plaque and some cash! See what happens when you go to the awards ceremony at the wrong time and then get annoyed and leave […]
26 Jul 2007 “Mr Shoop’s Surfin’ Summer School Midterm” (me, movies)
I’ve praised Dennis Cozzalio’s Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule before, but probably my favourite part is his semi-regular film geek quizzes. I’ve never managed to actually find the time to fill one out before, though (hey, I have important Battlestar Galactica and The Wire to watch!). But this time, finally, I […]
07 Jul 2007 The Haiku Factory One Hundred (me, movies)
It started innocently enough.
My friend Jan asked me to make a list of a few movies I’d recommend that she might not otherwise see. Unfotunately, the list quickly exploded into the dozens. Now, it’s not exactly news at this point, but the American Film Institute recently put out its updated list of […]
29 Jun 2007 life outside the earphone bubble (me)
While my iPod is probably my favourite gadget, it was the repurposing of musician’s in-ear monitors as consumer-level accessories that made it life-changing. Not only is the sound quality fantastic, but because they fit snugly into the ear canal, they also act as ear-plugs. This makes them invaluable at my gym (which plays […]
20 Jun 2007 behold: Candidate Brochu (academia, me)
It took me two years to find an area of research, two months to turn it into a research topic, two weeks to write a proposal, two days to write a proposal talk, two hours to defend it, and two minutes to pass it. But now, I’m a PhD student no more: I’m officially […]
19 Jun 2007 proposal preparation (me)
Tomorrow, I will present and defend my PhD thesis proposal to a committee of professors, and whoever else shows up. While I’m not particularly worried about it (according to local legend, only one person in the history of the department has failed outright), I really hate giving talks. Actually, that’s untrue: the talk […]
09 Jun 2007 another day, another paper (academia, me, science)
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.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right }also known as "NIPS", originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.
Paper writing is pretty stressful. Code crashes, mistakes are found in equations, and you never have quite the experimental results you want. […]
05 Jun 2007 goin’ to SIGGRAPH (academia, me)
I actually had my sketch accepted last week, but I wanted to update my CV and publications pages first. Turns out, I’m busy enough with my current work that I don’t think I’ll have time in the immediate future, anyway, so…
30 Apr 2007 SIGGRAPH sketching and coding (academia, me)
So, on Friday, Abhijeet and I submitted a sketch to SIGGRAPH. And hey, it’s not blind review, like my last paper, so I can tell you about this.
14 Apr 2007 Niban! (academia, me)
Last night, I submitted a paper on which I’m a co-author. The way it works in academic paper writing is that the first author is usually the instigator and main researcher, and the co-authors either help out with the idea, or work on one small section of the paper.
07 Apr 2007 I’m 1% stupid (me)
Though I admit I cheated on the US geography question.
22 Mar 2007 What American accent do I have? (me)
Your Result: North Central ”North Central” is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw “Fargo” you probably didn’t think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary.
18 Mar 2007 the river of life flows by, placid and full of old leaves and some fish (me)
I haven’t written in a while, mostly because nothing particularly worth telling y’all about has come up. Though at some point, I have to give some thought to whether I might follow my supervisor, Nando, when he goes to Montreal for his sabbatical this fall. A year in la belle province would be […]
06 Feb 2007 there will now be a brief delay while I do… Science (me)
Adventures in Asia will continue, but not until after the paper submission deadline for the 2007 International Conference on Machine Learning this Friday.No, you suck.
12 Dec 2006 things I’ve learned, part 17 (me)
I’ve had a cold the past few days, which had been making me feel kind of miserable. However, I really compounded my suffering when I followed my after-dinner martini with a hot, lemony Neo Citran. Even with a couple of hours separating them, there were consequences: excruciating;y boring dreams that managed to be […]
09 Dec 2006 surely no harm can come of being overprepared? (me)
The past few days, I’ve been running various errands for my trip to southeast Asia. I went to MEC and got a new bag (30L; I’ll be flying a lot, so my plan is to get everything I need into a carryon bag).
05 Dec 2006 we all like nips (artificial intelligence, machine learning, me)
This week is the Neural Information Processing Systems workshop in Vancouver and Whistler — apparently, skiers and snowboarders are quite well represented in the AI and neuroscience communities. I enjoy the conference and get a lot out of it, but I do tend to find academic conferences have a fair bit of “angels on […]
25 Nov 2006 status report (me)
The past week weeks have been busy ones for me. Several days a week I’m working at my Yaletown start-up.
18 Nov 2006 Eric’s Trip (me, travel)
Well, I’ve been pretty busy the past week or so.
09 Nov 2006 YOU ARE NOW IMMUNE TO: YELLOW FEVER (me, travel)
I like to think of it kind of like a video game powerup. I am now resistant to Polio, Yellow Fever, Cholera, Diptheria, Hepatitus AFinally, I can get past the Polio level!
15 Oct 2006 you have got to be the last one standing (me, shows)
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: right; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right }light & magic, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.
…I ended up going by myself, and while I wouldn’t do that regularly, I kind of enjoyed it — just sitting with a drink and doing some people watching.
07 Oct 2006 adventures across the Pacific (me, travel)
These last few weeks have been pretty stressful, but what’s kept me going is thinking about taking a trip to Asia this winter.
03 Oct 2006 Places I Have Called Home, 1974-2006 (me)
30 Sep 2006 workaholic Eric is a boring man (me)
On one of the problems with leaving the 9-to-6 corporate world is that the alternative hours can sometimes be far worse.
08 Sep 2006 Five Years! (me, photos by me, vancouver)
I know Vancouver isn’t perfect, and there are things that annoy me, but I love it regardless. Of all the places I’ve lived, Vancouver is the only one that really feels like home to me.
05 Sep 2006 code of the geek (me)
As much as I’d like to pretend to be a cool, Diesel-wearing hipster more into indie films and Murakami novels than geekular pursuits, the truth of the matter is that I’m proficient in several programming languages, regularly have lengthy discussions on the superiority of my favorite operating system (OS, and can talk at length about why Babylon 5 is better than Star Trek.
27 Aug 2006 the course of life (haikufactory, me)
Finally updated and reposted my CV and list of publications this morning.
10 Aug 2006 on staying focused and serving multiple masters (me, movies)
The main reason I’m working so hard this month is that I want to earn some extra money to go travelling in Southeast Asia this winter.
07 Aug 2006 happy BC day people who aren’t me! (me)
In addition to my new Yaletown start-up job, I have some previous work to do on a project I’ve been doing with the Vancouver Art Gallery.
31 Jul 2006 meet the new job, same as the old job. or possibly completely different (me)
Tomorrow I start working in Web of Research’s office down in Yaletown.
30 Jul 2006 alone in die Kommune (me)
The house where I live at some point acquired the nickname of die Kommune, and while it’s not usually too noisy, it’s rarely completely empty or All my fellow Kommunists are out of the country right now — David is at a wedding in London, and Abhi and Tamy are in Boston for the SIGGRAPH graphics conference.
25 Jul 2006 New Host, Same Old Eric (haikufactory, me)
Hey, I’m back.
So I’ve switched my host from page-zone.com which seemed to delight in randomly disabling scripts and breaking installations (and had no tech support) to dreamhost.com, which I am fully confident is perfect in every way and will never cause my precious self a moment of stress or a word of complaint. Sure, […]
25 May 2006 Marimba Ponies (me, music)
So I’ve been pretty focused and Interweb-less the past couple of weeks. Yesterday, after a morning full of meetings, I spent about ten hours straight trying unsuccessfully to implement an optimization algorithm.
04 Apr 2006 Erdős Number (me, science)
Paul Erdös was a mathematician probably most famous for being nothing but a mathematician. He published hundreds of papers during his life, while for years he lived without any permanent address.
31 Jan 2006 Well, I May Finally Have Something Worth Writing About (australia, me, new zealand)
Goin’ on a tripFar awayI am leeeeeeeeeeaving todayOn myRooo-oooo-ocket shipRock…. Ship.
29 Jan 2006 Eric Brochu, Gypsy-Geek (me)
So, Thursday I’ll be leaving Vancouver for my grand trip down under…. I think that the Machine Learning Summer School I’ll be attending will help me to focus on a research topic.
28 Aug 2005 Zombiewalk Aught-Five! (me, photos by me, vancouver)
Yesterday was the first Vancouver Zombiewalk…. I usually zombify myself for I even wrote a short zombie movie back when I was in film school, though I switched programs before I could film it.