Looming Deadlines

As expected, today has been mostly taken up with assignment work. Ordinarily these things don't take very long but in this case, both are based around text processing with large datasets and running the Python code can take a very long time. Today has mainly focused on the machine learning assignment which is all about classifying movie review into positive and negative. There are 2000 reviews (1000 of each type) and using the Weka package, we have to find the best attributes (words) to classify the documents. Once we have the machine readable text which maps the reviews to the attributes and class, we run the algorithms over the data to classify them. This bit also takes a very long time, especially the tree based algorithm C4.5 and the lazy IB1 which take between 5-10 and 15-20 minutes respectively to run.

Okay so I did allow myself a few breaks, especially for Merlin which by now you know I wouldn't miss. This week saw Camelot face it's biggest threat yet, Morgana is growing increasingly scared that Uther will find out her secret and sentence her to death. When Morgose leaves her a message to meet, she convinces Morgana to be part of her plan to kill Uther and Morgose uses her magic on Morgana to transform her into a magical time bomb. When Merlin and Arthur are sent away from the castle to investigate the Knights of Medhir sighting, everyone in Camelot falls asleep with a magical illness. On their return - after narrowly escaping the Knights wrath thanks to Merlin's intervention - they discover what has happened and after consulting with the Dragon, Merlin discovers that he must kill Morgana and adds hemlock to his water to trick her into drinking it. When Morgose finds Morgana in this state, Merlin uses this to his advantage and convinces her to lift the spell. She agrees and takes Morgana away in a swirl of wind - presumably to treat her after Merlin tells her what he used). As the castle begins to wake, Merlin faces a tough choice but ultimately decides he cannot break his promise to the Dragon. He visits the cave and after stealing a sword from one of the Knights, uses it to free the Dragon. It is revealed that only this sword can be used to free it as it was forged with magic from the old religion which is far more powerful than that of modern day magic (apparently). Deep down, Merlin knows - after seeing the future in the crystal - that the Dragon will return to wreak havoc on Camelot, presumably as a punishment for keeping him locked up for so long. Last in the series next week and I do so very much hope that a third has been commissioned although looking at the schedules, I am not sure how popular the programme is - they always seem to shift the time it is on to suit their needs which only usually happens for low impact shows.

A couple of smaller points now after waffling on for a bit too long on that last topic. An important matter which I wish to address is that of one of my favourite cakes, the cherry Bakewell. A long time favourite of mine and even more so because my brother does not like glacé cherries and so I always get to eat his as well. An interesting thought came the other day when I was frequenting the local co-operative with an empty stomach and a craving for something sweet. I decided to take the risk and buy the co-op own brand Bakewells instead of the tried and tested Mr Kipling's. Shock horror, they are actually pretty damned nice! In fact, other than the pastry which is a bit soggy and crumbly for my liking, I would go so far as to say that the filling is in fact nicer than Mr K's. There seems to be more jam in these ones and the frangipane is more almondy as well. It may just be that I haven't had the real thing for a while and am simply excited by the memories that come flooding back after each bite.

Last on the list for today is the British Comedy Awards. As far as the ceremony went, not that great seeing as all of the acceptants were supposedly comedians, you expect them to be funny and yet some of the speeches were so bad and went on for so long that it became somewhat unwatchable. I much prefer these things when they are pre-recorded because then they have time to edit and mess around with it to keep everything in check and on time. The most annoying thing about these programmes is that they always run over schedule. Hasn't anyone thought to give them more time perhaps? And then because it is live, the joins between the awards are so very visible that even with a host like Jonathan Ross, it is difficult to keep everything running smoothly. I can't help but think how bad it would have been had it been hosted by some other buffoon.

comedy awards