So, if you haven’t talked to me in the past month or so, it’s probably because I’ve been so busy with school. Between writing my Intel paper, keeping up with the insane amount of homework, taking care of college apps (which I’m doing as I speak), and other things, I’ve been crazy busy. If you don’t already know, I’m involved with my school’s IB diploma program, it’s basically like AP but on steroids (It’s accelerated courses, but you not only have to take a test, but you also have to write numerous essays, as well as take a philosophy course. The grading system is a lot more like the one in Europe too, so the exams are much more challenging from what I can tell. Essays and exams are graded from 1-7, most people get a 4 or 5.) The good news is that I already got a 6 on the IB physics exam and a 7 on the IB math exam, so I’m in really good shape. I need to also teach myself the Physics work that we did first quarter, since I was so busy with other work that I didn’t have enough time to study and really understand the work. I’m really happy with my Intel paper though, it’s entitled “Improving the Security of a Multitouch Padlock Through Dynamic Time Warping Algorithms.” Here’s the 100-word layman’s summary:

The project I worked on is an on-screen padlock meant for use on multitouch displays, such as the iPhone (the “pinch-to-zoom” gesture is an application of such a display). It’s unique, because it actually tracks the finger movements while the user is inputting the combination, so that only the person who trained the padlock can unlock it. It uses a signature verification algorithm to do this. Since there is a combination aspect to the padlock as well, the programmed signature of the user can be encrypted, and as a result is more secure then a signature-based authentication alone.

Here’s a screenshot of what I’ve done so far with the padlock:

It’s about 2400 words with an abstract, and 13 pages long, so I’m pretty happy with it. I still need to work on some of the code for it when I get my life back though, it’s something that I need to get finished in time for other competitions where I’m presenting the thing in front of a judge. The nice thing is that since I did this as a part of a mentorship with NYU Poly, they let me borrow a laptop with a multitouch screen, which is pretty awesome. I still need to tweak the paper a bit more as well, even though the deadline for Intel is past, I’m entering it into some other essay-based competitions, as well as using it for my extended essay for the IB diploma.

I’ve only got about a week of ‘lunatic mode’ before I can take it easy again. The crazy thing though is that after december I have so much to catch up on in my personal life. The first and most important is to start work on Lucid again. We’ve been discussing some ideas in private that we really think would be killer features (we’ve kept this private due to some concerns from the other project members, I’ll leave it at that). I’m really excited to work on Lucid again, and I definitely think doing some real work that I enjoy will give me a huge morale boost when it comes to doing my schoolwork (or, like it did Freshmen and Sophomore year, it will take over my life, heh). After that week, all I have to worry about is a world literature essay for English, and staying caught up in my classes. I’ve got IB exams in May as well, but that’s not until May.

On top of that I want to teach myself some japanese; some friends of mine (Ian, also known on the interwebs as Phandentium, although he wants to change it or something, and Mike, an IRL friend) are planning out a trip to Japan some time in august. Since hiring a translator would cost a huge amount of money, I’m teaching myself the language instead (and, trying to get the other two to learn a bit, but I think they’ll be relying on me for the most part). Hopefully I’ll be able to rake together enough money to pay for it.  I have to work pretty hard at this if I want to be prepared in time. At least during the summer I won’t have school to worry about, so I can study harder then. I’ve got a good grammar guide to work with, and I’m learning vocab mainly from things I watch/read, as well as from word lists on occasion. I do know a pretty good amount, but definitely not enough to be practical at this point.

Then of course I have some reading that I want to do, mainly some ebooks that I started but never finished. There’s a math book that a friend of mine lent me so I could teach myself matrices, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. I may also want to skim through the bonus content of Freakonomics, read through David Kahn’s “The Code Book”, and maybe read through Malcom Gladwell’s new book (although, some parts of his books put me to sleep, while others are quite interesting). There’s also some shows/anime that I downloaded but haven’t watched yet, but I won’t get into them, since this post is already pretty long.

So yeah, looking forward for his eternal hell to finally be over. I’ve had a few mental break downs (mainly because I’ve always had a habit of procrastination, which I had to change in a fairly short timespan), but I think I’ll make it out ok. I suppose it’s better then being bored to death in regents-level courses. College is going to be awesome, hopefully my IB credits transfer so that I don’t have to retake boring liberal arts courses. I think just taking courses in something I actually have an interest in will be a welcome change in my life, right now the only two courses I really enjoy are math and physics, but I definitely like programming/computers more. I just hope I get into SUNY Stony Brook, right now that’s my number one choice. My SAT scores and GPA seem to be in the range that they’re looking for, so I should be able to get in (plus, as you can guess, my extracurriculars look freaking awesome with all the open source work I’ve done). Their CS graduate school is ranked 31st out of all of the colleges in America, which is pretty awesome, given it’s a state school. I’m still a bit unsure of the atmosphere there, but the people I’ve talked to from LILUG who go there say it’s great. I’m applying to 9 colleges though, so I can always figure out where I want to go later.

Regardless, I’m definitely looking forward to getting my life back.