Work:
I propagated my sql query changes to all of the jobs I was working on. We were using a "merge into when matched then update" but we were getting some errors with too many columns being selected. After some searching, it looks like this is a bug in a certain version of Oracle, but we aren't in a situation to perform a hotfix. Therefore, we had to go back to an "update set where." The syntax here is quite different and it took us a while to figure out how to replicate the functionality. It required some really weird workarounds working with the dual table, but we got it finally!
School:
I didn't do too much for grad school today. I'm working on a project involving the Temporal Difference (TD) reinforcement learning algorithm. In standard supervised learning, there is an action and an outcome. If there are multiple steps to the process, it doesn't care. It just cares about where it starts and where it ends. However, Temporal Difference keeps track of every step on the way, and remembers the rewards on the steps. For example, if you have a graph containing nodes A, B, and C. You get to node A, have a 90% chance of going to B, and a 10% chance of going to C. B is a loss, and C is a win. Therefore, node A is generally bad, because it leads to a loss 90% of the time. Let's say we start at a new node D that leads to A, and you happen to get the 10% chance of going to C, and you win! A standard supervised learning algorithm will mark D as a good place, because it led to a win in that one instance of seeing it. However, the TD algorithm would remember that A is generally a bad place to be, and would mark D accordingly. It's very interesting, and I can't wait to learn more about it!
Side Projects:
Today I attended the second Indie Hackers meetup. I'm one of the creators of it, and we've been trying to figure out who all is interested, and trying to build a "brand" of sorts. We seem to have landed on being a small group of people working on side projects. Therefore, we're planning on continuing as a group helping each other from idea to launch, while potentially bringing in some subject matter experts to help us from time to time. Today we all shared what our projects were, and where in the development of them we are. Then we gave each other some rough milestones to hit for next session. Once we get some more experience working with one another, we'll begin setting more concrete milestones. I got a lot of great feedback on my app (I'll post more details here soon).
Life:
It was about 97 degrees when we played our last regular season comp soccer game today. We ended up winning, putting us into 7th place for the playoffs (out of 8 teams). I got my first goal of the season, which sets me up to keep the streak of 1 goal per season.