Inch by Inch — Day 4
Always strive to become your best self. I’m attempting to improve in 10 areas at the same time. Check out my introduction post to see what it’s all about.
Daily Habits ☀️
📖 Reading
Today I started reading The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. I’ve seen recommendations for this book in a lot of different places, and the author won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for the past three years in a row.
It’s been engaging so far. The book has shown hints of how powerful orogenes are, but I’m still intrigued by how negatively the rest of society reacts to those people, to the extent that they are considered to be monsters and that it’s normal for parents to kill their orogene children after discovering their powers.
✏️ Writing
I was too busy and tired today to properly complete all my habits, so I wrote one sentence of fiction. That’s fourteen more words than zero, so I’ll count that as a win.
I also wrote a journal entry, a daily thought about sleep, and this post.
🎨 Drawing
I finished the dolphin sketch. I’m not particularly satisfied with the tail fin but I ran out of space on this page (in the small section of space I had for the dolphin) so there wasn’t any room to fix it.
I’m experimenting with different light sources for taking photos of my sketches with my phone and the following is the best I could get. Believe it or not, the paper I’m using is white. The problem is that if I don’t shine light on the sketch then the photo is too dark but if I do shine a light on it directly then the pencil lead is too reflective.
💻 Side project
I researched Technical Machine, a Pokémon AI developed at least 8 years ago for singles battles. It was an interesting read. I’m also thinking of implementing Expectiminimax as the first algorithm to test. It’s one of the simplest algorithms to implement that still makes some sort of prediction on what the opponent would do. It’s basically a Minimax algorithm that still takes into account the randomness in the game.
The article also talks about yomi layers, which is a system where you predict the opponent to be aware of your strategy and that you are trying to predict them. At yomi layer 0, you use your strategy. At yomi layer 1, you predict the opponent to know your strategy and try to counteract it, so you counteract the counteraction. At yomi layer 2, you predict the opponent to know your yomi layer 1 play and try to counteract it, so you counteract as well. And so on, ad inifinitum.
🎮 Pokémon VGC
I played a few more games with the new team. I think I’m getting the hang of it a bit more. When using the Incineroar on my new team, I realized how good the move U-turn is at cycling Intimidates and maintaining momentum so I added that move onto the Incineroar on my previous team as well. Really goes to show the benefits of going out of your comfort zone and trying new teams.
🇯🇵 Japanese
I did my reviews on WaniKani and Bunpro. I also finished going through all the vocab I’ll need for the test this Sunday but I’m going to review the flashcards some more over the next two days.
🇨🇳 Chinese
I did my daily reviews on Anki. I’ve put down 80 new words in my Quizlet so far in November, which means that it’s going to be about 20–30 words shorter than the September and October lists.
🏃 Exercising
I took a rest day today to allow my ankle to continue healing.
📸 1 Second Everyday
There was a festive tree lighting event in Boston Common so I took a second of the fireworks there. I was surprised by the number of people who braved the cold to be there because it was so crowded that I had to push my way through the crowd quite often.
Rabbit Hole 🐰
Where I celebrate and shame my wayward wanderings on the internet.
I watched way too many videos from the channel TierZoo today. The videos teach zoology by pretending that reality is a video game and using game terminology to describe and explain animal traits, behaviors, characteristics, etc. and how animal species compare and interact with other species. I find its approach to pedagogy very engaging and novel. I think it’s an example of how it’s possible to make any topic interesting if you teach it well.
I’ve included one of the (current) most popular videos on the channel that compares various species in the cat family.
