Sunday, June 26, 2022
By:
This week started off with a phenomenal bit of fun when the IDE I’ve been using to develop my code, Spyder, decided to stop working. Gotta love Mondays. After uninstalling and reinstalling both Spyder and Anaconda twice, I was able to get it fixed. I then began working on an implementation of the Keras deep learning module from Tensorflow to train the Reservoir Computer I’ve been studying.
On Tuesday, all the same IDE issues reappeared spontaneously, and it took me most of the day to get them fixed again. You would think solving it Monday would help me fix it on Tuesday, but you would be wrong. It took even longer to get it working the second time around. Luckily, I haven’t had any issues since.
I spent the remainder of the week attempting to get the Keras implementation working as desired, but it has proven to be more difficult than the previous reservoir training strategies. Because of the deep learning nature of Keras, it’s difficult to discern where exactly the issues are arising and how to approach solving them. Hopefully I’ll be able to achieve the intended performance characteristics this coming week.
Outside of work, I had a great time yet again. I went bowling with a group of the interns on Monday and had a blast, despite getting absolutely destroyed by Saksham. The highlight of the week was seeing Bill Nye in person at the Astronomy on the Mall event this Saturday. I always loved watching his educational videos growing up, so it was awesome to see him in person. It was also extremely rewarding working at the event as an educator myself, showing off the cloud in a bottle demo and helping Emma readjust the telescope when kids decided they wanted to free-hand it. (Shouts out to Janessa for organizing the event, well done!) In addition, my parents visited to attend the event, and we went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History nearby. It was an interesting and informative experience, and I’m glad I got to see their exhibits.
Until next Sunday!
Benjamin Johnson