Lila Prime

Strike slogans!

2012-02-01T17:20:00.000-05:00

I am compulsorily a member of the graduate student union. It looks increasingly likely that we will go on strike later this month. In my opinion, both the union side and the employer side are fractionally reasonable, but mostly just irritating.

The union emails regarding the prolonged bargaining/strike action are so numerous that they squeezed through even A.'s anti-union email filters. This is okay, because it resulted in some hilarious strike chant suggestions.

Envision: a group of 20 grad students (mostly political science, although I can't imagine why) in front of a university administration building. A. holds a bullhorn and leads them in call-and-response:
"You don't know how good you've got it!"
"WE DON'T KNOW HOW GOOD WE'VE GOT IT!"
"You don't know how good you've got it!"
"WE DON'T KNOW HOW GOOD WE'VE GOT IT!"
"You don't know how good you've got it!"
"WE DON'T KNOW HOW GOOD WE'VE GOT IT!"
A member of the crowd takes the bullhorn and begins a different chant.
"What is a farce?"
"THIS IS A FARCE!"
"What is a farce?"
"THIS IS A FARCE!"
"What is a farce?"
"THIS IS A FARCE!"
"What is a farce? -- no, for real, my English TA is on strike, I need help with my homework!"

This post's theme word is coprolalia, "involuntary swearing or the involuntary utterance of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks." Best to avoid coprolalia in proximity of a microphone.

Framing mathematics

2012-01-13T14:37:00.008-05:00

No, not framing it for a crime. I just read the article A Revolution in Mathematics? What Really Happened a Century Ago and Why It Matters Today by Frank Quinn (math professor). It establishes a surrounding explanation for how modern mathematics came to be structured as it is. In the process, it contrasts two ways of thinking about mathematics: the "old" style, and mathematical sciences, wherein math relates to observable facts and is intuitive (but often yields incorrect results), and the "new" style, which he calls the "core" of mathematical research, wherein math is the study of abstract rules which do not relate to reality (but whose results are provably, rigorously correct).

It is fascinating.

I had never paused to consider the evolution of my discipline. Yet Prof. Quinn highlights and summarizes my experience of grade-school math education: everything seemed much clearer and more reasonable when -- finally! -- worked as abstract symbols according to rules. This is how I learned geometry (my first proofs!), trigonometry, and calculus. I cannot imagine attempting to learn calculus through intuition. What terror! (Does this infinite series feel like it converges? What's your hunch about the derivative of f(x)?) And of course now in retrospect I think of the math I learned earlier -- multiplication, fractions, arithmetic -- in the more advanced terms I learned later.

The article was summarized for me by this: "the old dysfunction was invisible, whereas the new opacity is obvious." Yes, math is opaque; I've studied for years and this is the first thing I'd admit. And my topics are squarely in the "new/core" section: I've done research in precise definitions, logical proofs, completeness. Carefully justifying each step is a technique that I use in my dreams. Math for me has always been its own arena of knowledge, one of three (the humanities, sciences, and math), each with its own methods. Even though we use the science word "discovery," a mathematical discovery is nothing of the sort. And as a grad student, I am amazed at what other grad students do as "research."

This post's theme word is anemometer, "an instrument for measuring the speed of wind." This magical anemometer predicts the trends in sociology research!

"Sunrising jellyfish"

2012-01-11T15:25:00.006-05:00

The 2011 National Geographic Photography Contest winners are posted. Although it only got honorable mention, Angel Fitor's "Sunrising Jellyfish" is my favorite.
It is very aesthetically pleasing, the colors and edge of the sun blending into the top of the jellyfish. Plus, for some reason, it makes me hungry.

This post's theme word is nankeen, "a yellow or buff color," or "a sturdy yellow or buff cotton fabric," or "(nankeens) Trousers made of this cloth," or "a Chinese porcelain having blue designs on a white background."

The most sympathetic balloon

2012-01-10T21:49:00.000-05:00

I got picked up from the airport, complete with roses and Eeyore, "the most sympathetic balloon." ("Princess Jasmine isn't sympathetic at all!") It was nice.

This post's theme word is crapehanger, "a gloomy person; a pessimist."

Concerning puppies and cruises

2012-01-06T22:35:00.006-05:00

My plane this morning was full of people flying south to go on a cruise, possibly the same cruise (whose packages include round-trip airfare). The demi-bleached-blonde girl in yoga pants who sat next to me was going on a cruise.

How do I know? Well, during the flight, she took out her day planner (the only analog life process she had not yet ported to iPhone) and the entire upcoming week was marked "CRUISE!!!" For contrast, this week's calendar had only two items marked. Monday: pick up puppy! Tuesday: get nails done.
That is all she had to do this week. I would add the obvious: "Friday: abandon puppy in favor of tropical cruise."

This post's theme word is kine, "a plural of cow." The loudspeaker directed the kine to board the plane in order.

Empty

2012-01-05T12:45:00.003-05:00

The temperature this morning hovered at freezing as I walked to the office, and campus foot traffic was absent. I passed a hedge, defoliated for the winter, a collection of brown twigs protruding from the ground. It was making a strange noise; the plants sounded like a water fountain. No one else was walking by to corroborate my observation.

I stopped and listened for awhile. Light hailstones, or perhaps heavy snowflakes, were falling. As they hit the hedge, they ricocheted down the branches and made a soft pitter-patter rattling sound -- which I had mistaken for water drops falling into a pool.

The hail made no sound when it hit anything else: pavement, sidewalk, cars, me. I trudged off, across the salted ground and the lumpy frozen mud, denuded of grass. When I got to the office, it was empty of people, and light, and (mostly) heat.

This suits my mood.

This post's theme word is elacrymate, "to emit as tears." Elizabeth elacrymated her excessive emotions.

Zero History

2011-12-30T12:28:00.007-05:00

Another delight by William Gibson! Like Spook Country, Zero History satisfies my need for intricately-described stuff (in this case, interior décor and fashion clothing lines).

Yet again he reprises his apparent obsession with brand identities, in particular their absence. Secret brands, and then super-secret brands. Who advertise not even by word-of-mouth, but by scarcity and failure to advertise or even sell clothing. Sheer unavailability. This is related to a criticism of disposable mass-produced items and consumerist culture: almost all the main characters are (1) rich, but (2) own no physical possessions. They constantly list their full personal inventory, which is the same as their total worldly assets. An entire book is spent to track down the designer of a single jacket... but that jacket was designed to last forever, to be appropriate for all occasions, a unisex garment reminiscent of a fashionable dark thneed.

Plots are hatched, schemes are devised, and once more an international publicity company (run like a high-stakes terrorist cell) unfurls its curious tale across these pages.

He saw a magical-looking bookshop, stock piled like a mad professor's study in a film, and swerved, craving the escape into text. But these seemed not only comics, unable to provide his needed hit of words-in-a-row, but in French as well. (p 150)

My needed hit of words-in-a-row is fulfilled indeed.

This post's theme word is meretricious, "appealing in a cheap or showy manner: tawdry," or "based on pretense or insincerity." (From a Latin word meaning prostitute, although interestingly enough, the same root from which we get "merit" -- merere, to earn money.) Gibsonism is concerned with a focus on the antimeretricious aspects of popular culture, lightly sprinkled with -- and across -- cyberspace.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas! I hope you are enjoying a vacation day, wherever you are, in whatever way you most prefer.Even cultural institutions as innocuous as a benevolent chubby man who uses a massive slave-labor force to manufacture and distribute candy and gifts can be eldrich, when viewed properly. (GIF from Tor.com.)

This post's theme word is Caganer, "a nativity figurine depicted in the act of defecating." No nativity scene is complete without a Caganer; I shall have to find one to add to my family's set.

A Storm of Swords, revisited

2011-12-04T19:47:00.005-05:00

The first time I read this book in 20 hours. The second time took me about a month, because I sequestered the book and only read it at the gym while bicycling.

More stuff happens. Mr. Martin makes A Storm of Swords as interesting as the earlier books, although in retrospect there is a lot of wandering back and forth through the riverlands, during which nothing happens. We keep having Arya chapters even though she's not threatened or learning anything new; we have only few Bran/Rickon chapters even though they are experiencing really cool storylines and events. Daenerys' story is suddenly more about politics than about myth-fulfilling dragons, much to my disappointment. As if in response to the criticism I highlighted last time, one boy in this book is threatened with rape. (Oh thanks, the numbers are even now!)

Apparently realizing that he has killed, or is killing now, or is planning to kill, all of the likeable characters, Mr. Martin attacks the task of taking an unlikeable character (Jaime, the incestuous oathbreaking kingslayer who pushed a 7-year-old boy out a window!) and tries to retro-justify his actions so that he's actually just extremely misunderstood. As you might imagine, this is difficult. I do not think it works, although I can see that he wants us (readers) to start liking or maybe sympathising with Jaime. After all -- look! -- Jaime is standing up to Tywin, who is really really evil. And by the time book 4 rolls around, Jaime will be the most pleasant character still alive! Please like him, ok? He is trying to correct injustices! He got a hand amputated so now he understands suffering!

Also noticeable on this read-through: this book suddenly delves into the musical culture of Westeros, with people quoting and singing all over the place. Certain songs are clearly of political/cultural importance, because they are sung everywhere... but were not mentioned in the first two books. Hah. It's as if someone pointed out to Mr. Martin that his world was missing this huge facet of culture, and so he had a post-it over his writing table that said: SING SONGS. Everyone's singing, and paying musicians, and composing, and humming to themselves left and right.

This post's theme word is coffle, "a line of animals or slaves driven along together." The coffle of readers shuffled into the bookstore to buy book n+1 of the series.

Reunion summary

2011-11-11T00:46:00.003-05:00

Months of persistent nagging from various Harvard offices have yielded results. I wrote my 5-year reunion summary of myself. Apparently there will be a book printed and mailed, containing these self-reflecting essays. Here, for your enjoyment, is my submission:

I continue my quest to become an evil mastermind. After obtaining a M. Sc. degree in 2009, I took a brief break from permanent studenthood. During the summer, I set a new world record for hot air balloon distance, travelling from Uqbar to Toronto, Canada in several difficult weeks. Returning to a Ph. D. program that fall, I continue to advance the boundaries of mathematical computer science. Summers are spent strengthening my secret lair, the Gulf coast campus of which was unfortunately broached in 2010, resulting in the tragic loss of my oil collection.

Few people thus far have complied with my desire to be addressed as "mistress (of science)." I hope to finish my next degree soon, so that I can insist on being called "doctor" instead. I continue the development of the chaturathalon, combining alpine skiing, archery, synchronized swimming, and rugby -- truly a sport for all seasons!

I am currently accepting minion applications. Benefits of the position include: unlimited pie, lending library access, and strong encouragement to participate in the employee fitness program. Minions thus far have assisted in writing a short novel of octopus-themed (and -targeted) erotica, executing art projects, and participating in a delightful email list. (Like most email lists, this consists mostly of sharing YouTube videos.) Future plans include creation of matching hats for all minions.

The submission page warned that unnamed editors may change my entry. I wonder what the published one will say.

This post's theme word is vitiate, "to spoil or impair the quality or efficiency of," or "to destroy or impair the legal validity of." Certain claims may vitiate my autobiography.

"You look like a baby!"

2011-11-09T13:41:00.003-05:00

I was making chit-chat with the nurse giving me the flu shot. She asked what program I was in. Attempting to be pleasant, I answered truthfully. She asked what year I was in. I answered truthfully. She asked how old I am. I answered truthfully. She exclaimed, "You look like a baby!"

All I could think was, "A baby with fully-developed secondary sex characteristics?" But luckily my filter caught that, so instead I said, "Thank you." And smiled. Keeping it pleasant and chit-chatty.

I'm glad I look young. Combined with the H-bomb, I have a handy arsenal of true but astonishing facts with which to floor most interlocutors. Pleasantly.

This post's theme word is taradiddle, "a petty lie" or "pretentious nonsense." I enjoy sprinkling taradiddles amongst the actual facts of my life.

Giant squid puppet

2011-11-07T20:39:00.004-05:00

I received a postcard from penpal M. featuring a giant squid puppet, seen here at an incomplete stage:It was built by Les Machines de l'île Nantes, a puppetry workshop in a shipyard. Their projects look very cool. I want to visit!

This post's theme word is swale, "a low or hollow place, especially a marshy depression between ridges." Beware that swale yonder, the locals claim it is infested with giant squid!

A Clash of Kings, revisited

2011-10-31T18:28:00.004-04:00

My Song of Ice and Fire reread continues. Book 2, A Clash of Kings, wherein the plot thickens and most of the characters remain surprisingly alive. (See my previous reaction, which was similar.)

G. pointed me to a sarcastic review of all 4 books entitled "Enter Ye Myne Mystic World of Gayng Raype," which highlights the author's treatment of the (minority of) female characters. I summarize: bad. They are portrayed as motivated by simple causes, having value deriving solely from biological function, and objects of threatened/actual/fatal rape. So in this read-through I noticed that her observations are true. Whether or not it is intentional (because Mr. Martin dislikes women) or authentic (because historically women were repressed just like this!), the women in this book are treated badly.

But, you know, so are the men. And I think it is unfair to cherry-pick the pieces from these books which support one thesis. By selective summarization and quotation, I could also make a similarly-convincing argument that Mr. Martin has an unreasonable, unhealthy obsession with food, or with what he might term raiments. Or even with the difficulty of moving without paved roads and gasoline-powered cars. Or with politics! Or religious wars! The books are long and full of material.

(If you yourself are unreasonably obsessed with food, I recommend the chapter which describes the seventy-seven-course wedding feast.)

This post's theme word is caparison, "an ornamental covering of a horse's saddle or harness" and barding, "strips." The stallion was caparisoned in ocher and sable, the colors of House Pretension for more than 500 years, and draped in cloth-of-gold bardings.

Octohedron octopus

2011-10-12T22:11:00.007-04:00

On my desk this afternoon, I found:
The note reads (in an unsteady hand),

Greetings from under the sea! I am not too good at writing I heard you are kind to the tentacled. I was teased for being green. I disguised myself as an octahedron to slip past the mathematicians, take me home? [wiggly octopus self-portrait]

So of course I grabbed that green tentacle and shook it in a firm handshake, welcoming it to come home to my (increasingly silly) collection of tentacled things. When everted, the purple octohedron becomes the ink in a green octopus.
Many thanks to A., who was ultimately responsible for the creation and delivery of this octopus!

This post's theme word is imbosk, "to hide," usually in a wood. Environmental limitations make octopus imbosking impractical.

A Game of Thrones, revisited

2011-10-10T21:11:00.002-04:00

R. recently started watching the HBO adaptation of A Game of Thrones. I'm skeptical of video adaptations of my beloved books; there simply isn't a way for any visual representation to match the universe I've imagined. In addition, they often cut or alter bits of plot, which messes with my memories of how the story worked. Even earnest adaptations like The Lord of the Rings or the BBC Pride and Prejudice must exist as separate from the fantastic books they are based on.

I have absolutely no complaints in this respect about HBO's "Game of Thrones." The TV series medium means that there is plenty of time to explore the entire plot of the book, and the HD video makes it beautiful. (Plus, spoilers are nearly impossible.) Of course there are limitations: the actors are all too pretty, not as human-looking as I imagined their characters. And also, almost no time is spent describing clothing, flags, weapons, or food. (Tycho had very strong feelings that these books constitute some kind of literary food pornography, but I disagree. If anything, they are a kind of historical-genealogical glut of words. I end up recognizing even background characters in the show, and know their names, favorite foods, relationships with other characters, and lineages back several generations.)

So I reread A Game of Thrones, in order to refresh my memory and for ease of comparison with the series as we watched it. It was just as good the second time. I was particularly watching for the HBO series' interpretation of Renly Baratheon as homosexual; there is one semi-reference to it in the book, so ok, I guess they can get away with it. I learned new things, because the first read-through was so fast and the details too numerous to remember the first time through.

For example, the seven "great houses" are Highgarden, Storm's End, Winterfell, Riverrun, Casterly Rock, Sunspear, and the Eyrie. Inexplicably, King's Landing and Dragonstone are not "great houses," even though one is the capital of the continent and the other is the seat of the ruling family for the past thousands of years.

I continue to recommend A Game of Thrones, book and TV series. The book is slightly more appealing to me because of its lovely words, for which I know no match in visual appeal.

This post's theme word is anabasis, "a grand journey" or "a long military march." "A Song of Ice and Fire" contains many anabases, and attempting to read it takes nearly as long.

8-point buck?

2011-10-09T10:54:00.004-04:00

In the backyard! Just outside the (visible) deer-fence.
This post's theme word is paruresis, "a phobia in which the sufferer is unable to urinate in the (real or imaginary) presence of others." Hey, buddy, are you looking at me? -- well, look away, I'm trying to pee on your vegetable garden!

Good morning

2011-09-30T07:30:00.003-04:00

One of the nicest things about being a graduate student is the freedom to set my own hours. If I am up early (as today) I can be in the office early (as I am now) and working (as soon as this is posted). I will have a couple of hours here to work, alone* and quiet, before the other early-rising student (my officemate) arrives.

*When I entered the lab, ~7a.m., I did disturb the rest of the office squatter, who sleeps here. But I don't really feel bad about that, because: sleeping in an office. I'm here on legitimate business, to use the lab for research purposes.

This post's theme word is ante-jentacular, "before breakfast." I accomplished several ante-jentacular tasks today!

Dictionary

2011-09-26T22:01:00.004-04:00

Any number of players can play Dictionary. When it is player i's turn, she picks a word from the OED that no player knows. All players write a definition from the word (player i writes the actual definition). Player i reads all the definitions; the other players vote for which they think is the correct one. Each vote earns player j (≠i) one point; guessing the right word also earns one point.

We played this, and now you can too! (J. won hands-down; he left halfway through the game and still held the lead until the final round. He came in second by one vote.)

Can you pick out the correct definition? (No cheating!)

What does "quisby" mean?
- a crescent-shaped water hole
- pertaining to the way along the dock or harbor: "The fishermen
admired the quisby view after a long day of work."
- a scrimshaw boat
- the act of feeling apprehensive about one's own bodily odor
- an idle person
- traitorous: "The quisby East German judges only gave an 8.2."
- one who asks questions
- an elongated tube of glass used to ensure cucumbers grow straight
- the state of being confused: "He was in a quisby."
- the feeling of being uneasy or sick
- a childish, precocious middle-manager
- a small nocturnal mammal endemic to Madagascar

(Answer: An idle person. Extra puzzle: see how many times you can use "quisby" in one sentence; can you use all the above meanings? The quisby quisby pulled into the quisby, steered by a quisby who felt both quisby and quisby, and accidentally dropped his quisby on an endangered quisby...)

What is a "kurgan"?
- a failed attempt
- a ceremonial turban used in the observance of the Zoroastrian new
year
- a stone-age tool used to scrape hides
- a member of the judiciary in the Ottoman empire
- a spice commonly used as a substitute for pepper
- an unmanned water cache used to facilitate desert journeys
- a traditional oil lamp used in the tents of Mongol chieftans
- pertaining to or originating from the mountainous region surrounding
the Caspian Sea
- title for the leader of the Tartar tribes in the 9th-12th centuries
- a prehistoric sepulchral barrow in Russia and Tartary
- an Eastern-European confection whose principal ingredients are
flour, egg, and quark
- a derogatory Turkish term for a non-Turk
- the secretary of a medieval guild

(Answer: A sepulchral barrow! As opposed to a merely decorative barrow!)

What does "zawn" mean?
- a hood for a wood-fired kiln
- the adolescent form of any lizard in the family Orcumbries
- a mythological beast in early druidic texts pertaining to seasonal
changes
- an even-sided diamond used in heraldry
- a fissure or cave in a coastal cliff
- a colloquial expression of disinterest
- an animal found in the south of Mexico that resembles a badger
- enthusiasm; joie de vivre: "The student was full of zest and zawn."
- a young Bactrian camel
- to fall off a high place

(Answer: A coastal cliff, as in "He cried 'zaaaaaaaaawn!' as he fell into the zawn.")

What does "gholam" mean?
- mounted Arab warriors
- a type of building popular in the Sassanid dynasty with passive air
ventilation
- a zombie
- a sense of awe felt when beholding a mountain range
- a fugitive from a Soviet gulag
- a clearing in a forest with no vegetation growth
- a courier, messenger
- a ceremonial Tamil knife
- an obsidian gollum

(Answer: A courier, but it should be the building with passive air ventilation.)

What does "galactico" mean?
- the many-eyed monster of Greek mythology, beheaded by Chronos and
flung into the firmament
- a demon; cf. manichee
- the substance once presumed to fill the space between stars; ether
- a skilled and celebrated footballer, esp. one bought by a team for a
large fee
- a variety of tomato predominantly grown in the northern regions of
Italy
- an abhorrent structure formed during the development of neurological
tissues in mammalian vertebrates
- a form of adhesive made from the sap of a coniferous tree used by
the Metis
- an additive used to enhance the flavor of some milk products
- (1950) a music and fashion subculture that thrived in the
post-rockabilly era in the United States
- a star football player belonging to the Royal Madrid football club

(Answer: A skilled, expensive footballer. N.B. that one player remembered this during the round, hence the two football definitions offered.)

What does "soodle" mean?
- to trick or deceive
- a diminutive horse
- a traditional Norwegian breakfast
- a large burning mound used in the production of potash
- to walk in a slow or leisurely manner; to stroll, saunter
- a food product derived from animal fats, often used in flavoring
broths
- to deceive, in the context of maritime trade or barter
- obsequious, especially in business dealings
- a traditional Norwegian buckwheat porridge
- a jaunty walk

(Answer: A slow walk. I like that a jaunty walk was also offered, hence "would you like to soodle or soodle this afternoon, dear?")

What is an "ozena"?
- the organelle in protozoans responsible for sensing the direction of
light
- an infection that causes irritation of the skin
- a Turkish pastry, made with pistachios and rose water
- a nose ulcer which results in a fetid discharge
- a sharpened disc used as a weapon by indigenous Amazonian warriors
- a medicinal balm used for treating burns and skin irritations
- a viral skin condition characterized by fissuring and cracking of
the skin
- a luxury fabric woven from silk and gold
- the conduits in mushroom gills down which spores travel
- a drinking cup; quaiche (from the Greek xenos, for foreigner);
hospitality
- a coastal rock formation

(Answer: Rather unbelievably, it is a fetid nose ulcer! We've got a word for that in English! I challenge you to use this appropriately someday.)

What does "maninose" mean?
- a soft-shelled clam
- deriving from, or related to, the use of statuary in garden designs
- patient, willing to wait for opportunities
- a traditional Peruvian codpiece
- common byproduct of anaerobic metabolism, along with Xylitol,
Ribose, and Lactic Acid
- the original term for mayonnaise sauce
- a flammable oil made from fish products
- a trunk of a coppiced tree immediately after harvesting
- surly; cantankerous

(Answer: A soft-shelled clam. Nature makes it easy for once. I prefer to think of it as a Peruvian codpiece; if enough of us use the word this way, it should catch on!)

What does "mandram" mean?
- a sudden gust of wind on a clear day
- an early loom requiring external weights such as stones or lead
- a metal sheet used for ramming placed on the front of a trireme
- a cylindrical tool, typically maded of brass, used to stress leather
for curing
- a vote in Spanish parliament which passes with 2/3rds majority
- the neophyte dormitory in a Buddhist monastery
- a two-dimensional figure, typically drawn in colored sand, used in
16th century Tibetan meditation rituals
- a drink made from wine and chopped vegetables
- a root vegetable with pale tubers and elongated, pointed leaves
- dusty, dingy or poorly maintained, especially when referring to a
carriage
- a vessel for preparing large quantities of stew or soup

(Answer: a vegetable wine drink. It does seem like a vegetably word.)

And finally, what does "ballum rancum" mean?
- elaborate machinations in the pursuit of political power
- the foul odor associated with a rotting corpse
- treacle
- a textured skin rash resulting from excessive moisture trapped by
clothing
- a mucosal secretion of skin pustules, esp. from plague
- a collection of Irish street children
- the outermost cartilage structure in the human elbow
- an erotic dance (typically naked) by a number of prostitutes for a
group of clients
- the quarters in which gladiators would wait before entering the
Coliseum

(Answer: Yes, you thought it was a joke for joke votes, but it is a special vocabulary term for an erotic dance of n naked prostitutes to m clients.)

Fewer vs. less

2011-09-26T21:18:00.003-04:00

A visual and narrative guide to the different use cases of the words "fewer" and "less" in English, complete with a moral for nitpicky speakers:
Go check out Wonderella, it's funny. (And the mouseover text provides a second punchline to many strips!)

This post's theme word is screed, "a long, monotonous harangue." Your grammar screed bores me. I wish there were less of it, and that you had fewer grammar scruples.

Wherein 'gauche' and 'wink' are cognates

2011-09-25T21:08:00.001-04:00

Gauche, from gauche (French), from gauchir (Middle French), from gaucher (Old French), from welkan (Frankish), from *wankjan (Proto-Germanic). Proto-Indo-European root *weng. A variant of *wankjan, of course, is *wenkanan (also Proto-Germanic), whence wink.

Compare wanken (Old High German) with vakka (Old Norse).

Thanks, J.!

This post's theme word is antanaclasis, "the repetition of a word in different senses." Having experienced this derivation, now I am interested in tracing the changing meaning of the word!

Wherein I learn to tie knots

2011-09-25T10:32:00.000-04:00

This morning I learned to tie:

a figure 8 knot
a stronger figure 8 knot for fastening climbing harnesses
a bowline
a noose

The noose takes a lot of rope. The bowline is self-tightening and easy to undo (for those with fingers -- a good reason not to have monkeys on your ship!).

Thanks, R.!

This post's theme word is pectinated, "interwoven, as with fingers" (see Inky Fool). I pectinated those lines!

Birthday gifts!

2011-09-25T08:14:00.002-04:00

I staged my birthday party as an exchange of sorts, wherein I lured people to my apartment with promises of cake. In return, I asked that each guest teach me something. The guests were creative and entertaining; many promised future lessons in X, since there was not enough time at the party for all the learning.

Here, then, is what my guests taught [promised to teach] me for my birthday:

how to belly dance
how to make ravioli
disappointment*
how to make Thai food (dish of my choice)
how to make metal plate armor (stop signs are apparently a good source of raw material)
how to break into a coke machine
how to make char cloth
that "gauche" and "wink" are cognates (and the derivations thereof)
how to make flammable gel from just 3 common kitchen products
how to tie knots or the true meaning of lust* (I chose knots!)

The starred items earned extra points for entertaining delivery. I'll write about each thing as I learn it, to keep you updated.

This post's theme word is bailiwick, "a person's area of expertise or interest." I look forward to learning about their bailiwicks.

Daaaaaaaark chocolate cake

2011-09-24T23:03:00.003-04:00

I made myself a birthday cake. It was chocolate chocolate, with chocolate and chocolate-fudge frosting.
R. described the cake as "so dark that no light escapes it."

This post's theme word is nyctophobia, "abnormal fear of light or darkness." The cake was so seriously chocolaty that it invoked nyctophobia in most of the guests.

The sky is falling!

2011-09-24T13:14:00.005-04:00

This morning at the gym, a lightbulb fell from the 2-story ceiling and smashed onto the floor. Shards of glass flew everywhere. Luckily none of the glass hit me, or my fellow Saturday morning fitness masochists. But it did shatter spectacularly, spreading fine shards throughout the area.

This was not a hallucination induced by anaerobic exercise or the resulting oxygen deprivation. Truly, the menacing specter of overhead lighting looms above us all.

This post's theme word is bagman, "one who collects or distributes money from illicit activities, for example, in a protection racket," or "a traveling salesman (UK)," or "a political fundraiser (Canada)," or "a caddie hired to carry a golf player's clubs (golf)," or "a tramp; swagman (Australia)." Golf is not a former member of the British Empire, but maybe it should be. We neglected to pay the bagman, so the lights came crashing down. The bagman extorted the bagman at a bagman while the hired bagmen protected the venue from bagmen.

The Oxford Comma

2011-09-20T11:56:00.004-04:00

As of June, the Oxford writing and style guide no longer recommends the blanket usage of the Oxford comma*. I still enjoy and revel in the comma usage, whether in sentences, spoken language, or always coming up with a third thing in a list**.

The Oxford comma is not entirely obsolete. Here is a visual aid*** for situations when the Oxford comma is appropriate, even necessary, to convey the meaning of the sentence:*via MetaFilter
**joke citation: 30 Rock
***Language Log via FairerScience

This post's theme word is saccade, "a brief, rapid movement of the eye from one position of rest to another." That image induced saccades.

One night in Cabbagetown

2011-09-08T23:31:00.003-04:00

We went to One night in Cabbagetown to explore the area and say goodbye to a visiting summer student. The event drew crowds to explore the local restaurants. Despite living in Toronto for ~4 years, I had never been to this part of town (most of my explorations are westwards).

We visited The Ben Wicks Restaurant & Pub (delicious sausage!), The House on Parliament (oysters!), Merryberry Café (sangria and meatballs), and Cranberries (plate of wings, which inevitably slipped onto my lap). After walking around and sampling these appetizers, we ate dinner at Margarita's Mexican Fiesta (tasty, filling, and accompanied by giant margaritas).

It was fun. It was a cute event. It was an interesting thing to do with office acquaintances. I'd go back to Merryberry Café again -- we only left quickly because of the small space and the hordes of other One night in Cabbagetown pedestrians waiting to enter.

This post's theme word is ophelimity, "the capacity to satisfy a need, desire, or want." The oyster's olphelimity lies mostly in the realm of the squeamish.

Apartment dream

2011-09-07T10:32:00.002-04:00

I dreamed last night that C. and I were two personalities in the same body, Tyler Durden-style, alternately waking while the other slept.

In another part of the dream, E. was renting a new apartment in [the place E. lives] for us to live in together. I gave A. my keys and moved out without packing up any of my plates or bowls or tools from the kitchen. My new apartment was on the second floor of a 3-story house; the landlord lived on the first and third floors. Typical dream logic.

I arrived and looked for my room. E. and K. were sleeping in the two big bedrooms. In an auxiliary room was M. (also sleeping), and then there was the kitchen. I was lost for where to put myself. The apartment had stairways -- it was just the second floor of a house, recall -- but we the tenants were supposed to just ignore the open stairways that led to the first and third floors. And the landlord had build like a stair/ladder to skip over the second floor in this epic stairwell. That we were just supposed to ignore, as if it were a wall and not a huge open stairwell leading into someone else's life.

I have no explanation or context for this dream. Whatever.

This post's theme word is corniche, "a coastal road, especially one cut into the side of a cliff." The stairwell was a surreal corniche of plywood and wrought iron.

Earthquake!

2011-08-23T14:00:00.002-04:00

We felt the earthquake up here in Toronto!

I was in my office, on the fourth floor of a cinderblock building. All the furniture started to vibrate. Glasses of water were particularly impressive. My officemate and I spent a few minutes debating whether it was an earthquake or just (alarmingly) the construction being done in our building, until we heard from other people (online, not in our building) that they felt it too. Twitter was a really good resource for this.

How exciting! An earthquake!

I don't think anything was damaged. In the evening I passed an on-the-street TV news anchor asking passers-by if they felt the earthquake. Almost everyone said no. The earthquake must have been specially tuned to the oscillating period of my building.

I filled out this USGS form, and you should too. For science!

This post's theme word is drumlin, "a long, narrow, whale-shaped hill of gravel, rock, and clay debris, formed by the movement of a glacier." A long series of glacial earthquakes shaped the drumlins in this area.

Spraypainted bikes

2011-08-21T22:47:00.002-04:00

These bikes have appeared all over Toronto. They are beater bikes, spray-painted in single neon colors, locked to signposts and bike posts and fences across town. There is no additional information except the tiny letters "GOOD BIKES" painted on the frame.
Is this some kind of guerrilla advertising campaign? If so, what is it for? It is so guerrilla that I can't even tell what I am supposed to go buy.

[Update: A. pointed me to The Good Bike, wherein an OCAD student -- behind this project to brighten the city -- blogs about the beginnings of the project.]

This post's theme word is scumble, "to modify a painting/color by applying a thin coat of opaque paint to give it a softer or duller appearance." That bicycle could do with a bit of a scumble, don't you think, old chap?

Cartographic octopodes

2011-08-18T13:50:00.003-04:00

The "land octopus" is historically used on maps to emphasize evil imperialism ... or is it communism? See for yourself. (HT: MetaFilter.)
This post's theme word is solferino, "purplish red color." An imperialist octopus spreads the thick, solferino gore of its rivals across the globe.

Gruesome suppurations of foul-smelling hideousness

2011-08-16T16:00:00.002-04:00

This delightful tale comes from Frank Key's Hooting Yard.

I was sitting on a bench in a bower on a bright summer’s day. It was a Wednesday, or possibly a Thursday, in August, in the year after the Kennedy assassination, far far away in Dallas, and the air was heady with verbena, and hollyhock. I was eating my snack. All of a sudden, gruesome suppurations of foul-smelling extraterrestrial hideousness began oozing from my marmalade and fish-head sandwich, and I swooned. When I came to, I had a tiny radio transmitter implanted in my forehead, but I remained unaware of it for the rest of my sordid and sorry life.

My new band names abound! The titular hideousness. "Tiny radio transmitter in my forehead." "Sorry and Sordid Life." "The Titular Hideousness." Frank Key has a way with words -- and with enunciating them on his podcast -- that makes them all land as if immensely important and simultaneously drivel. It delights.

This post's theme word is contumely, "contemptuous or insulting treatment arising from arrogance." The alien anthropologists exhibited remarkable contumely.

Concerning the Protestant hegemony

2011-08-08T21:17:00.009-04:00

Over the weekend A1 and I had the opportunity to talk with A2. (They are numbered for the sake of clarity; my identity-protecting initial scheme has limitations.) During the course of our long and fascinating discussion, I often lost the thread of the current argument and found myself tuning back in with (nearly) a blank slate. My mind was insufficient -- out of practice -- to store so many complicated and interconnected soft topics. (I'm good at hard topics: give me a handful of mathematical definitions and some theorems anytime.)

At one such moment, I found myself listening to a sentence which ended:

"... secularism is, itself, a symptom of the Protestant hegemony."

I promptly gagged on the water I was drinking and spent the next few minutes attempting to recover my aplomb. This is not because I thought the speaker silly, but rather because, at first glance and lacking the depth of background understanding and nuance which this statement surely requires, it struck me as a funny sentence. Because, you know, secularism is usually defined as the opposite of religion (religiosity?), and whatever the Protestant hegemony is, it has to do with religion. It's right there in the title.

In due time -- politely allowing for my recovery -- A2 explained the statement to my satisfaction. (I cruelly withhold this information from you. May your imaginations run rampant!)

This left me with the reflection: in the humanities, scholars get to define not only their fields, but the very meanings of the words that they use to define, describe, and discuss those fields. In this way they are not so different from we mathematicians -- forever defining new numbers, and types of numbers, and theorems about types of numbers, and even theorems about which theorems are true about types of numbers.

This left A1 with the reflection: it's not only that graduate school has made it impossible to talk with non-scholars. Graduate school has made it impossible to talk with anyone who is not a scholar in the same research discipline! Egads! We stand wrapped in our own elaborately specialized topics, islands of knowledge separated by an ocean of understanding that words cannot quite bridge; never mind trying to get to the layman's mainland.

Say that five times fast.

[Update: if you want more out-of-context amusement from A2, check out A1's twitter feed Oh, The Humanities!.]

This post's theme word is hypergolic, which describes two substances that spontaneously combust on contact with each other. The joint dinner of the Physics Association and the Sociology Club proved hypergolically argumentative.

Little sigh of relief

2011-08-04T22:41:00.006-04:00

I just finished writing a paper. It's part of my qualification for candidacy so it has some import; on the other hand, professors and students alike tell me it doesn't really matter and so it might have less import. On the third hand -- the gripping hand -- or whatever noodly appendage is available -- this paper is only one part of my qualification: the rest is a presentation-and-grilling session, for which I now prepare. To quote Parade, "This is not over yet."

The writing felt like pulling teeth. There is something about academic writing that I truly dislike. It does not merely lack poetry; the poetry is bruised, abused, and forcibly expurgated. Sentences are dry and declarative. Words have one particular meaning and that meaning is sharply constrained to the topics under discussion. Having finished this piece of writing (at least for now), I want to write escapist fantasy. I want to be a novelist. I want to be a sculptor. I want to leave my keyboard to cool on my desk, and shortly I will.

But before I go, here's what I plan to do. WHEREAS academia is dessicating my delight in words, phrases, sentences, and constructions, I PROPOSE to begin a project, to be EXECUTED in my leisure moments, CONSISTING of one story, or many stories, using the sentences from the Bulwer-Lytton contests (EITHER as opening sentences OR as sentences appearing elsewhere), THEREFORE reviving my enjoyment of life.

This post's theme word is skueomorph, "a derivative object which retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original." Like copper-coated zinc pennies. That story is only a skueomorph of the inspirational first sentence.

Corporeal suffering

2011-08-02T21:17:00.002-04:00

Every muscle and soft tissue from my ribs to my knees hurts. My eyes are red and unpleasant. My right ankle feels like it's trying to turn into some fourth spatial dimension, and only tender tendons are wrenching it back into the standard three for walking purposes. I slept poorly, woke up at 5, and refused to get out of bed until the alarm, as if I could force myself to sleep.

This is what I get for (1) original sin, (2) lounging around yesterday eating ice cream, and (3) running this morning. I'll avoid two of those things tomorrow. (I might run.)

I cannot wait until we uplift-transmogrify-singularityize into incorporeal plasma energy beings.

This post's theme word is valetudinarian, "chronically sick or concerned with one's own health." Also available as a noun. The veterinarian wasn't the valedictorian of her class, but she was a valetudinarian.

Wedding observations

2011-07-31T21:40:00.002-04:00

I spent the [Canadian invented holiday] weekend at a suburban wedding. I was an auxiliary guest, in the same way that Pluto is a planet: orbiting at a distance, and basically unknown. This provided me with opportunities for experimental socialization (interspersed with anthropological observation).

My results follow.

EXPERIMENTAL SOCIALIZATION

Accompanying a party of women to the bathroom DOES create social bonds, invoke a sense of companionship and belonging, and in all ways convince them to be friendly.

Dancing is more fun when you know the music and don't know the parents dancing nearby.

It is easier to socialize with happy people. It is difficult to socialize with pouting people. This remains true if "blow bubbles" replaces "socialize" in the previous statements.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL OBSERVATION

Rather than offer observations, which might be read in the wrong way, I will share with you my reflections on those observations. They are simple, and all along these lines: I have absolutely made the right life decisions so far. This was an interesting opportunity to observe people who made different life decisions (school/work/personal/etc.) and are happy with them. But I would not be happy with those choices for myself, even in the Best of All Possible Worlds. I am a person who belongs in graduate school, and if there were ever any doubt, that doubt is now dispelled.

Also, living in the suburbs is car-based living. I had forgotten how restrictive that is -- everyone has to go together, cars must be rationed, logistical problems must be solved. I quite enjoy the freedom of walkable and public-transport-able life in the city.

This post's theme word is Buridan's ass, "a situation demonstrating the impracticality of decision-making using pure reason, especially a situation involving two equal choices."

Wherein onions and garlic are meat, not vegetables

2011-07-17T22:12:00.002-04:00

I learned something new today: onions and garlic may be meat! -- not vegetables! That's right, contrary to popular "fishwives' knowledge," onions and garlic are harvested from the rare (and often factory-farm-abused) onionater and garlic-bat.

Luckily for us modern, updated, healthy, local, new-age vegetarians, there are a few local restaurants that cater to our forward-thinking palate.
... or maybe onions and garlic are the lactations of these animals? In any case, thank goodness this food is finally available!

This post's theme word is: bumf, "unwanted or uninteresting printed matter such as governmental forms, legal documents, junk mail, promotional pamphlets, etc." That food is so bland that it verges on edible bumf.

Hangover II

2011-07-04T20:07:00.004-04:00

The Hangover Part II was entirely predictable. The NYTimes review accurately states that it is "largely mirthless" funniest parts are "once again carefully elided in the actual movie." It's basically a remake of The Hangover, with all the danger-stakes upped. (Las Vegas --> Thailand. Missing groom --> missing minor. Tooth pulled --> finger amputated. Baby --> drug-running monkey. Prostitute --> prostitute. And so on, find-and-replace style.) This makes the movie -- once again experienced in a daze shared with the hungover main characters as they attempt to unravel the previous night's revelries -- more tense and less meaningful. Let's face it, we know that everyone is going to be fine at the end. Because they want to make The Hangover Part III, and then The Hangover Part IV, at which point all of the protagonists will be married and they'll start to make Hangover movies for the divorce parties.

I saw it as a fun time-waster. It was certainly one of those things!

This post's theme word is caitiff, "cowardly, despicable" (or as a noun, meaning such a person). The caitiff writers banged out another vile movie populated by caitiff characters.

Dream inventory

2011-06-19T16:02:00.002-04:00

Several times during my dreams last night, a clerk or attendant asked if I wanted a plastic bag to carry my [whatever] in. I had to say yes, because I'd forgotten my reusable fabric bag in the corner of my room.

And behold! -- when I awoke, and the reusable fabric bag was in the corner, and not packed in my purse where it usually resides. My brain is willing to release its grip on certain ties to reality while dreaming, but apparently my purse inventory carries over from one world to the next.

This post's theme word is cockaigne, "an imaginary land of luxury and idleness." I suffer from inadequate inventory in dreamy cockaignes.

Another dream

2011-06-18T12:22:00.003-04:00

I dreamed last night about different approaches to try to compute this calculation I am working on. It's a real calculation, that I am working on in my waking hours; it made for a rather unexciting dream. In the dream, I was just as stymied and frustrated as I was in real life.

Sometimes my dreams are just a rehashing of the day.

This post's theme word is scoria, "in metallurgy, the refuse or slag left from smelting," or "porous cinderlike fragments of solidified lava." The scoria of my mind comprises calculations, symbols, and silly wordplay.

Wherein I dream about my future dog

2011-06-17T10:51:00.004-04:00

I dreamed last night that M., E., A., a little white terrier, and I went to a fancy theater to see The King's Speech. The terrier was very well-behaved, as were the other members of the group, although the dog was the only one who had to be smuggled into the theater in my backpack. The theater seats were gross, so I had brought a folding semi-seat of my own, and sat upon it. Everyone jockeyed to be close to the center of the theater. The movie dragged on for hours -- there were two intermissions. (NB, this does not reflect my actual experience of the film, which was shorter, dog-free, and a third thing to finish this list.)

This post's theme word is leal, "loyal." This word is medieval, archaic, whatever. I had to look up this word the third time it occurred in George R. R. Martin's books, and then I noticed it everywhere -- "I am your leal servant," etc.

Cool blue car

2011-06-15T22:28:00.001-04:00

There was a very curious car outside my building this afternoon.
So bright!

This post's theme word is jehu, "a fast driver; the driver of a cab." That jehu had a rockin' electric blue ride!

Netflix overfitting

2011-06-10T23:14:00.000-04:00

How can you tell that I've been watching movies on R.'s Netflix account? One glance at this screen should explain it:
That's right: the top two recommended categories are "British period pieces featuring a strong female lead" and "critically-acclaimed mind-bending movies." This screen made me laugh for several minutes. Netflix is parodying my own preferences back to me with a straight face!

My comments are thus: (1) machine learning should be applied to more areas of my life. It is obviously useful, hilarious, and interesting. Also, (2) I am not terribly worried about the filter bubble so bemoaned on BoingBoing. Partially because I am aware of the automated personalization that is happening around me, I'm not worried about being trapped in a bubble with only my own viewpoints mirrored back at me. I constantly tweak my catalogued "browsing behavior" to see what sort of changes it induces in automated systems. For example, I rated a lesbian romantic comedy/thriller (season 5) as five stars on Netflix just to see how that would affect the action/adventure/scifi/British-period-...-strong-female-lead balance of recommendations. (This was also a joke on R., who didn't know I had done this and was quite puzzled by the temporary diversion of his Netflix recommendations.)

I think Netflix overfitting is an interesting case of the filter bubble. As long as Netflix's genre suggestions are interesting, I always find something I'd like to watch before I get to the point of browsing all videos, or looking one up by search. So most of the time, Netflix's suggestions are good and I watch them and like them and so Netflix is working me into an overfitted profile. Hence "British period pieces featuring a strong female lead."

This post's theme word is prolepsis, "anticipating and answering objections in advance" or, apparently, "the literary device of referring to a thing by its future state." Certain applications of predictive machine learning seem to evince prolepsis.

Stormy skies

2011-06-08T23:06:00.000-04:00

There were extremely dramatic clouds above this castle on my walk home.This view alone is enough to convince me that there is a princess imprisoned in that tower. Against her will, of course. Unfortunately I left my armor, sword, and steed in my office; otherwise her rescue would have been immediate.

This post's theme word is ortzikara, "the time when a storm is brewing." A sense of gloom and foreboding permeated the ortzikara.

Dragonboat!

2011-05-26T22:39:00.003-04:00

I went a-dragonboatin' on the lake. The motion is very strange -- it looks like, but is completely different from, paddling a canoe. It made my back sore. The water was calm, peaceful in a way that I'm not sure is achievable in Toronto, though I will explore my self-propelled water sport options.
The dragonboat looks like it might have done some ramming.

This post's theme word is dizen, "to dress or decorate in a gaudy manner." I bedizened the already-dizened ship with a few more figureheads.

Children and quality of life

2011-05-22T09:25:00.004-04:00

My mother, this morning: "Lila, this [gift] you gave me has improved my quality of life tremendously!"

My response: "... and they say that having children doesn't improve your quality of life!"

This post's theme word is paean, "an expression of praise, joy, or triumph, traditionally in the form of a song." She exclaimed a quick paean in honor of the gift.

Regarding uterus rent and the rapture

2011-05-21T08:31:00.011-04:00

Why be nice to your mother?

Mother: "It's interest on the uterine rent!"
Father: "I don't think you're paying down that principal at all."

These are the things we discuss on the day that the Rapture was foretold, at 6pm, respecting time zones across the world:

M.: "At what point do people stop listening to the guy who can't get the calculations right?"
L.: "Well, he's calculated that, and he's still within the safe margins."

Later that day, as a possible reprimand from On High for my insolence, my rapturously delicious food was raptured right out of me, via violent vomiting, leaving me behind, queasy and sinful. Apparently the Rapture gives me food poisoning. I'm still here and still blogging; wherever you are, you're still reading, too.

This post's theme word is gotterdammerung, "the complete destruction of an institution, regime, order, etc." That saag executed a gotterdamerung on my digestive process yesterday.

Ice cream baksheesh

2011-05-20T20:50:00.006-04:00

I'm visiting. Here is the welcome I received:

Lila, you know I love you, so in preparation for your visit, I bought mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Then I ate it all.

But then I bought two mint chocolate chip ice creams, so there's probably some left now.

This post's theme word is baksheesh, "a payment, such as a tip or bribe."

Food that looks like itself

2011-05-14T18:33:00.003-04:00

Here you see buns which look like pigs.
Much to my disappontment, these are not pork buns -- they are some sweet paste-filled dessert bun. It would be much more pleasing if the hidden inner contents were described by the outward appearance of the food.

This post's theme word is autological, "a word that describes itself." Of course there is also heterological, "a word that does not describe itself." The word 'autological' can be either autological or heterological; the word 'heterological' is neither.

Tra-la! It's here!

2011-05-05T18:29:00.000-04:00

Spring has finally arrived here in Canada.
It will have to be quick, because summer is coming right along! I don't know why it dawdled. Anyway, here was my one day of springtime.

This post's theme word is weathercock, " A weathervane, especially one with the figure of a rooster on it," or "one who changes readily or often."

The axiom of choice is provably mentioned in this post.

2011-04-28T17:04:00.006-04:00

I have filled a research notebook full of notes and conjectures and half-thunk thoughts, and I am moving on to a new and vestal-white notebook, into which I shall spew the next few months' outpourings of my mind as it haplessly thrashes across the Fields of Higher Learning.* Before I discard this old, ratty notebook, I am flipping through it to glean any actual knowledge that I obtained and put down therein. (The conjectures are far more plentiful and thus less valuable, in accordance with the principles of economics as well as the judgment of learned mathematicians.)

Thus I present you with various quotes, as overheard by me in seminars and research meetings, from January through April 2011.

"You can picture the lizard crawling up onto the beach, fighting the forces of physics every step of the way." SM 1/19

"The thing about water is... it does tend to drip off your roof more than liquid methane. We're not on Titan." SM 1/19

"Does everyone know what an interactive proof is?" W.
"Do you want me to convince you?" J. 2/8

"What can a superenvelope do that n regular envelopes can't do?" M.
"You're about to find out!" W. 2/8

"As anyone who's ever had a child or been a child knows, ..." JT 2/15

"Unfortunately, that's how science works, too!" GT 2/15 on diminishing returns (of abstracted knowledge learning)

"The most beautiful thing I have found in studying mathematics is Truth. With a capital 't'." PO 2/17

"I'm not really sure what kind of audience you are... but if you were a mathematician, which I think some of you are, ..." PO 2/17

"There's a process in mathematics, it's called 'diagonalization,' and it looks almost magical." PO 2/17

"Small numbers are discovered, and big numbers are invented." PO 2/17

"The world of math is more real than the natural world b/c it has an objectivity. ... What color is an electron?" PO 2/17

"This VINDICATES mathematical institutions and departments." PO 2/17

(apologetically) "This is classical quantum physicist humor." P. 3/22

"And if we can cover it with that many balls, what happens?" S. 4/4

"What I learned from you: you have to always look at bit complexity, because algebraic complexity lies!" EK 4/8

"Yes, I know the general problem is hard, but I solve these everyday! -- and you ask, 'why can't you factor integers with this?' -- there are too many variables." EK 4/8

"We actually had to discuss -- to be scholarly -- to cite the 1649 paper!" EK
"To be scholarly, you're supposed to have actually read the paper." C. 4/8

"We thought we had the most complicated determinant algorithm, but they beat us by 20 pages!" EK 4/8

"In computer science, the level of hot air has to be zero. In other subjects, you don't have to be correct. Including mathematics." HF 3/15 (in pleasing contrast to PO 2/17)

"I don't know if counting from 1 bans me from giving a talk here." HF 3/15

"The axiom of choice is provably irrelevant to this talk." HF 3/15

"It's the most contrived thing ever done. 45 years of complete contriving, every day. And when it's done, it should seem completely natural." HF 3/15

This post's theme word is coprolalia, "an uncontrollable or excessive use of obscene language." I have never witnessed coprolalia in an academic seminar... yet.

*Pardon my sentence, which is to blame on a profusion of caffeine in my blood and Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle in my brain.

Easter egg hunt

2011-04-24T18:14:00.002-04:00

In partial repayment of many years of delightful Easter egg hunts in childhood, A. and I arranged a hunt of sorts for D. How many eggs can you see?
Instead of chocolate eggs and candy, we decorated tiny boxes of cereal with eggs made out of colored paper.
As is traditional, the "eggs" are hidden in plain sight, although not always easily reachable.
Some cleverness was exercised in the placement of the eggs. Much fun was had by all.

As is also traditional, some eggs were found long after the hunt had concluded, although I think we escaped the tradition of finding last year's eggs during this year's hunt. Since the last time I participated in an Easter egg hunt in this house was more than a decade ago, to find a forgotten egg now would be quite surprising.

This post's theme word is schwarmerei, "extravagant enthusiasm" or "excessive sentimentality." The foolish egg hunt was an exuberant schwarmerei.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T07:00:00.002-04:00

Real rabbits don't have ovipositors, although the Easter bunny, with his proclivities for walking like a human, chocolate, and hiding candy for children, has enough weird habits that maybe his species does have ovipositors.

This post's theme word: gravid, "in an advanced stage of pregnancy," although I've also seen it used to mean "in an egg-laying phase" when applied to insects. As in, "The gravid rabbit-like alien extended its slimy ovipositor into the helpless victim's abdominal cavity."
This post written like James Joyce.

Niagara Falls, from the bridge

2011-04-22T18:04:00.000-04:00

I drove past Niagara Falls.
As you see, the water was falling quite freely. That is all.

This post's theme phrase is Hobson's choice, "an apparently free choice that offers no real alternative." Consider whether to cross at Lewiston, Niagara Falls, or Fort Erie -- in any case, this Hobson's choice leads from Canada into the USA.

Sampling chocolates

2011-04-21T17:54:00.000-04:00

A. very kindly arranged this plate of tiny dark chocolates for me. They ranged from 66-80% cacao. Can you predict which one I preferred?
Yes, that's right: the green one. In my defense, it was one of the darker flavors, and had no trace of sweetness or coffee. (Neither did my tea, also pictured above.)

This post's theme word is adaerate, "to convert from payments in kind to payments in coin." Do not dare to adaerate my chocolate appeasement.

Confident daughters

2011-04-14T09:20:00.002-04:00

So do I. Perhaps I'll try to make them tactful as well.

This post's theme word is asperity, "harshness or roughness."

Gleimous, gloppy goo

2011-04-07T13:41:00.009-04:00

The engineers in the basement have set up a giant pit of goo. This is the type of viscous slime which is liquid when allowed to flow freely, but becomes firm when compressed. A handful of this glop is a 3rd-grade fun activity; a ridiculous vat is a university engineering project. Plus they colored it blue.

The engineers are taking turns running across it. With many small, quick steps, it is possible to cross as if on a solid. However, those who step too heavily or linger too long begin to sink, and this stuff is sticky and reluctant to release its gooey grasp on their shoes. The whole floor is lightly tinted blue with the footsteps of the failed goo-walkers.

[Update: photos and video now added below.]

The tub of goo.

Translation: chemical engineers in their final year of undergrad are responsible for this exhibit, made this sign, and are not very good at manual kerning.

One student runs across the puddle.

Another student runs across the puddle.

This post's theme word is gleimous, "full of phlegm." He marveled at the vast expanse of gleimous gunk.

Gloom is delightful

2011-04-06T18:46:00.007-04:00

The card game "Gloom," of course. In the spirit (and illustration style) of Edward Gorey, the game progresses as a series of events (some unfortunate, some rather happy) unfold upon the in-game characters. Each player is responsible for the members of a family, and attempts to make their own characters as sad as possible before meeting an untimely (and often hilarious) death, while simultaneously making other players' characters happy.

I just picked up the "Unfortunate Expeditions" expansion. (Who could resist the illustration of tentacly horror?) In perusing the deck of additional cards, I noticed that the new deaths are:

went down with the ship,
cashed in his last chip,
was shredded by a shark,
disappeared in the dark,
was sautéed by savages,
was crushed by cabbages, and
was interred in style.

Notice anything? Why yes, the deaths do occur in rhyming couplets! ... mostly. The anomaly is "was interred in style," which actually is a rather nice death and makes the character happier by 10 units.

I wondered, did the deaths of the original game occur in rhymed pairs? For our mutual edification, I have taken an exhaustive survey, and I find that some of them do:

was devoured by weasels / was overcome by the measles,
choked on a bone / died cold and alone,
drank too much rye / fell from on high / was baked into a pie / was choked on a tie,
ran out of air / died of despair / was slain by an heir

... and so on. However, some are only half-rhymes at best, or singletons:

was torn limb from limb / was consumed from within,
was burnt by a mob / drowned in a bog,
grew old without grace,
was galled by gangrene

... the last two of these have no partner in rhyming proximity.

The existence of these sets -- pairs, trios, and the rye/high/pie/tie quartet -- means that next time I play, there will be a new rule. If you can kill members of the same family with rhyming deaths, you will gain additional "sadness" units (i.e., negative happy units). I'm thinking of maybe also giving "sadness" points for applying rhyming events to a character, with super bonus sadness units for applying events which rhyme with the character's name.

Now, who wants to play?

This post's theme word is grue, "to shudder." He gave up the ghost with a grue.

Obstructive engineers

2011-04-05T13:09:00.000-04:00

It is the end of the semester for undergraduates. Do you know what that means? Big project time! The engineers who share the building with us theorists are all very busy building robots. In the hallways.
It is a terrible fire obstruction. Also, it makes it difficult to access our offices. There are students, robots, and power tools in piles everywhere, including blocking our doors. Look at this doorway (the inlet in the wall on the right of this photo). I'm not joking about the power tools: there are students machining metal and welding, plugged into hallway outlets. Even after they have left, the hallway is a tripping hazard.
It must be that their professor -- who assigned these projects and did not provide enough lab space to construct them -- knows that they are working in the hallways. And implicitly condones it. We disadvantaged grad students resent this inconsiderate arrangement.

This post's theme word is feculent, "full of filth or waste matter." The corridor was feculent with undergraduates.

Tale of a sad baby balrog

2011-04-04T19:09:00.002-04:00

In my daily wanderings across the internet, I happened upon this illustration. It tells, rather eloquently for all its wordlessness, the unfortunate tale of a balrog.Unsatisfied with the melancholy of this visual epigram, I wrote a verbose and upbeat story telling of how, eventually, the balrog's fortunes turned for the better.

How baby balrog made his first real friend

After many years (for balrogs have long adolescences, dear reader) of accidentally scorching the knights who come, the balrog remains confused: why don't they stay and play? Of course, he doesn't think in English because he's had no formal schooling, but standard web browsers can't render the balrog font so I'm translating for you.

And then one year, a clever young blacksmith's daughter, in cahoots with a gorgeous elf prince who has fallen in love with her, forges herself a set of enchanted fireproof armor. It's not metal, but actually a very strong clay, a rather good insulator and terrible at transmitting heat. It covers absolutely every part of her body, with tiny articulated lobster-style joints all over the knuckles. The interlocking plates allow her a pretty full range of movement, despite its hefty weight. It also includes a cloth face-mask worn under the helmet which prevents the inhalation of soot or flaming air.

Emboldened by the elf-prince's few tests (juggling flaming torches open-handed, etc.), the young blacksmith's daughter sets out to rid her land of the terrible balrog-baby, who has (from her point of view) been destroying the population of 20-something men for her entire lifetime, as well as scorching the countryside, eating livestock, etc. So this bold and brash young lady packs up a backpack of your basic survival-and-monster-killing supplies and sets out from her father's house (against his wishes. Then again, he has always been pretty disappointed in her, since she is his only child and showed more interest in using the forge to bake pottery than to melt metal).

She travels many weeks, walking over increasingly less verdant and more sooty landscapes, until she reaches the ominously looming mouth of a cave whose inside is black as the dead of night on a night when the moon is not only new, but also pretty scared and behind some thick clouds. (It's really black is all I'm saying.) Undeterred, she lights a torch and heads in.

She wanders around the cave for a few days, because the cave system in this mountain is extensive (as it usually is in balrog nests -- see Les Whitestone's "On the Habits and Habitats of Ignis Collis (the common Balrog)", Oxford University Press, 1856). Eventually, rounding a corner one day on her way back to a little stream she found and has been using for water, she comes upon the balrog. He's really sad and all, playing with his collection of swords and axes. Then he notices her torch (dim though it is in the light glowing from his own molten body) and, delighted, leaps to his feet. Of course, from her point of view, it seems like she stumbled into the lair of a monster gloating over his kills who is now coming from her. She readies her weapons. The balrog, a tiny sword still in-hand, rushes over! and bangs on her sword. Pretty lightly, for a balrog, especially since he's just a baby and all.

Adrenaline pumps in her ears. The sword is bashed free of her hand and shatters into shards of metal on the cave floor. Baby balrogs do not know their own strength. Luckily for her, the blacksmith's daughter is nimble even in her heavy armor, and dances out of the way. The balrog, delighted in the "game," flares up in a giant pillar of flame, which is a basic balrog biological response to emotions of delight (or anger -- or really most emotions of any type, again see Whitestone's definitive volume). This blinds everyone in the cave, including the balrog, who as a baby hasn't yet got full control over his flaring-type abilities and went a little overboard in his delight, having been left alone for a pretty long time (since he has to wait for a whole new generation of men to grow up and decide to come challenge him for what they imagine to be his vast horde of treasure).

And when the balrog's retinas recover from the overabundance of light radiating from his very skin, he is astonished to see that his "playmate" hasn't changed to a pile of cinders like all the other playmates, but is actually still three-dimensional and moving around!

The young lady, who recovered from the flash more quickly because of the ocular shielding provided by her armor and facemask, has of course run over to the stream and grabbed her nearby bucket. She is now running back at the balrog with a bucketful of ice-cold cave water. She hurls it at him from as close as she dares to get, which is not really that close since she's worried he'll flare up again.

The water, shunted out of its bucket, arcs through the air quite prettily in the dim glow from the balrog. (Sort of like the water sculpture movies viewable here: http://www.shinichimaruyama.com/ .)

For a moment, everything moves in slow motion.

Then the water, which remember is pretty frigid and shocking to warm-blooded creatures like humans, hits the balrog's foot. Balrogs aren't warm-blooded, they're hot-blooded or even plasma-blooded, and so it is even more shocking to this poor baby balrog. He screams, a deep, long, low balrog roar that shakes the cave and knocks the girl over as she is trying to back away.

The balrog falls down and cries balrog tears, which are pretty fearsome for all that they are pitiful, since they are molten rock and everything. The girl, confused about how the monster hasn't attacked her, realizes she's actually dealt it a blow and thinks about maybe getting some more water in that bucket. But the balrog is now lying on the floor of the cavern, gently (for a balrog) crying to itself and cradling its foot.

A moment of insight. She recognizes this behavior: this is the same way her wolfhound -- or whatever other farm animal she has raised from infancy in her earthy and utilitarian childhood -- behaves when it has a thorn in its paw.

And so instead of ruthlessly continuing to attack the baby balrog, she walks right up (because his fire is quite dimmed by his pain and her armor is pretty awesome) and starts talking to the balrog, trying to comfort it and stuff.

And this tale has gone on quite long enough, oh patient readers. Not unlike a fractal, the story remains as amusing at any scale, with more and finer details beckoning to the writer from the depths of individual moments, gestures, or thoughts of the characters laid in our scene. I must resist the pull of such details, or our story will never advance beyond the next moment, as I write halfway there, then half again halfway there, then.... To cut it short, then, circumventing mathematical issues of infinite reasoning:

She sings it songs and the balrog figures out that she is speaking a language and, with the help of her suit, she is able to nurse the balrog back to health and help it to stand and walk again. During its invalid period, the balrog manages to pick up enough English to express itself, and she teaches it about how humans are flammable and must be dealt with gently, and they become fast friends.

Later in her life, the blacksmith's daughter, with help from her father, would craft the balrog a new, prosthetic, metal pinky toe, and weld it into place. Huzzah!

And, much later in its thousand-year life, when the balrog has matured and picked up a job in the publishing industry (clay and stone tablets being the preferred mode of recording text in this historical fantasy world), he writes in his autobiography about that fateful day. About the bold blacksmith's daughter whose courage and sympathy changed his life forever, he reflects, "That day I may have lost my pinky toe, but I gained an incredible friend, teacher, companion, and guide."

So they all lived happily ever after, including all the members of the village where this took place, who, with their alliances with the elves and the balrog, would go on to (quite peacefully) conquer their neighbors (everyone just forfeited the battles once they saw what they were up against) and spread their non-species-ist culture of acceptance, education, and the value of blacksmithery throughout the land.

(orchestral music swells inspirationally. roll credits)

This post's theme word is dolmen, "a prehistoric megalithic tomb typically having two large upright stones and a capstone." The much-beloved balrog was laid to rest in a dolmen.

The Tudors

2011-04-04T13:42:00.003-04:00

I started watching The Tudors yesterday, and got through the first few episodes. It was interesting (with many many fancy costumes, if your inclinations tend that direction), but it made me wish I remembered more history. It's been a decade since I studied this period, and so I felt frustrated with the twists and turns of the TV show because they should not be surprises... it's history! I should know what's going to happen! (Although Wikipedia notes that "events in the series differ from events as they actually happened in history.")

I think I'll watch more of the show, but I'd also like to grab some books on the history of this period so that I don't feel so ignorant as I watch. Do you have any recommendations?

This post's theme word is ogham, "ancient Irish alphabet." I tried to brush up on my British history, and found I needed a primer in ogham.

Foppish bicycle

2011-04-03T12:55:00.002-04:00

This bicycle was parked matter-of-factly on the sidewalk.
The leather seat and matching saddlebags, fanny-pack, and pencil-case (what are the appropriate terms for these bicycle accoutrements?) all make this the bicycle equivalent of a flashy sportscar. It begs to be stolen, and brags of its owner's affluence.

This post's theme word is passiuncle, "an insignificant or trivial passion." The pretentious bicycle signified his passiuncle.

Slow-cooked pulled pork

2011-04-02T12:36:00.000-04:00

I pass my days amongst men who love eating meat. One of them owns a crock pot that was getting little use, so he lent it to us. In return, we invited him to share our inaugural meal: pulled pork.
It was delicious.

This post's theme word is esurient, "hungry" or "greedy." What an esurience-inducing photograph.

Bok choi

2011-03-28T23:59:00.003-04:00

I made a sculpture out of dinner.
I call it "Bok Choi: A Study of Cultural Influences on the Shape of Freestanding Vegetable Bits."

This post's theme word is allometry, "the study of the relative growth of a part of an organism in relation to the growth of the whole." The allometry of the vegetable's core proved fascinating.

Stupidity in scientific research

2011-03-28T11:54:00.007-04:00

I just read Martin Schwartz's note "The importance of stupidity in scientific research." In simple language, it explains how graduate school is different from all the preceding schooling. Anyone in graduate school would do well to go read it right now. Highlights:

Doing significant research is intrinsically hard... We can't be sure whether we're asking the right question... if we don't feel stupid it means we're not really trying. ... Science involves confronting our `absolute stupidity'. Thatkind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our effortsto push our way into the unknown.

At the end, he notes that "reasonable levels ofconfidence and emotional resilience help" which I think is a vast understatement. What else will keep you eagerly stupid, if not confidence and emotional resilience? -- especially since there is a whole world out there where the ex-graduate student can feel quite intelligent on a daily basis.

Part of what I've puzzled out in my graduate studies so far has been this: how do the professors do it? They seem to know which questions to ask in order to achieve meaningful answers and progress in research. Some of it is the buckshot approach: they have had the time to ask a hundred little questions, and the odds are in their favor: some of them hit a research target and became published papers. But also, they have an ineffable sense of which sorts of problems are good for research: this is summarized in the adjective "interesting," as in "that is an interesting research question" or "that is an interesting approach to this problem." I've learned that "interesting" is a key word, in bright flashing red letters, that indicates I'm doing Something Right with my research and should Keep It Up.

So while I curate my sense of academic stupidity, I'll continue to rely on my advisors' subtle (subconscious?) nudges and explicit advice.

This post's theme word is nescient, "lacking knowledge or awareness." The experts in the field are those most aware of their own nescience.

Tracking

2011-03-23T23:53:00.001-04:00

I'm tracking a herd of engineering students and some delivery vans. Have you seen them come this way?
I love snow.

This post's theme word is peloton, "the large main group in a road bicycle race." The peloton passed by ten minutes ago, their tracks are yet fresh.

Thickly coated in snow

2011-03-23T23:11:00.000-04:00

There was a thick snowfall and it accumulated in a pleasing way.
This bicycle offered an interesting collection of snow-gathering surfaces.

This post's theme word is irenic, "conducive to peace." The snowfall had an irenic effect on her moods.

Corporate cooking class (or, chicken diapers)

2011-03-23T22:02:00.004-04:00

Yesterday evening, I had a chance to go to a corporate cooking class. R.'s company had arranged it for their employees, and I got to tag along as a guest. My impression (and theirs!) was that the class would consist of making a meal under the supervision of a chef, a hands- and tastebuds-on learning experience. Fun, community-building, tasty.

Reality diverged. There were too many of us for the kitchen (although it was a large kitchen), so we sat, very quietly and politely, and listened to the chef extemporize while he prepared our dinner. We occasionally interjected questions, but his monologue rambled without pause.

Among other topics, he mentioned chicken diapers for the rich and famous; being blindfolded while driven to the wine-barrel woods; how the salt content of your food can incomprehensibly increase without any additions; hunting wild boar with a team of chefs; the difficulty of insinuating into a saffron-picking family; how to properly make chicken stock (6-8hrs); cheese cave security guards; the historical, political, and social migration of curry recipes over the past 800 years; how to properly make beef stock (12-20hrs); the refined and curry-acclimated palate of his dog; the three canonical ways to mix flour and water; how to get that perfect emerald green patina on beef; the textural and procedural differences between mashed and smashed potatoes; how to properly make vegetable stock (n+1 hrs); monkeys escaping Disney to terrorize chefs; and how proteins suddenly harden at both high and low temperatures. I attempted to remain respectful through all this, but he was so outlandish that I lost it when he said:

Oh! My fromagier would be so angry with me right now!

He was hyperbolically thus. (As he built up steam, more and more French entered his vocabulary; he started making French puns with no explanation in English. Or maybe they were serious phrases that I only interpreted as puns.) I began to giggle, but I tried to only giggle when he had made a joke. It was difficult.

If I had transcribed his speeches, you would think that I had invented an incredibly one-dimensional character. But there are witnesses: he was real, and he really lectured us on those topics. Overall, he cast cooking in such a mystical light, governed by innumerable specific rules which must be rote memorized and conform to no consistent set of principles, that I think it might be easier to learn alchemy. It's basically a miracle that I feed myself at all, given the flagrancy with which I violate his dictates. Nothing I cook for myself even qualifies as food according to his professional standards.

The dinner was okay. The desert (pears poached in raspberry puree) was really good, and I think I'll try to make it. You'll see photos when I do.

This post's theme word is pharisaical, "characterized by hypocritical self-righteousness; putting emphasis on strict observance of rituals unrelated to the spirit or meaning of the ceremony." The chef's instructions were arcane, pharisaical, and punitive; it does not require 10 steps and 3 specialized devices in order to boil an egg.
This post written, yet again, like H. P. Lovecraft. I wonder which indicators keep picking Lovecraft? Long sentences? Word choice? Sexism? (This last is a joke, of course.)

A Canticle for Leibowitz

2011-03-21T11:29:00.002-04:00

Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz is famous, Hugo-award-winning, and recently read by me. It takes place in three acts (separated by hundreds of years), all in our future, set after the worldwide failure of a nuclear standoff to stand off: countries bomb other countries to the destruction of all. Postapocalyptic riots of survivors blame the destruction on the educated inventors of the weapons, and so a massive movement attempts to burn all books and knowledge-holders: even literacy is shunned. The titular Leibowitz, a literate survivor, founds a monastic order dedicated to rescuing, hiding, protecting, and copying books in order to preserve knowledge for future generations.

The first act is a few hundred years later, and focuses on the canonization of Leibowitz; the second act features the re-discovery of electricity and nation-sized warfare; the third act completes the cycle by describing the planet's impending mutually assured nuclear destruction (and conflicting press/propaganda reports thereon), even as the monks of Leibowitz's order board a secretly-prepared spaceship to preserve their knowledge and religion in extraterrestrial colonies.

This three-act structure fragmented my enjoyment likewise. As soon as I got really interested in the story, it was abruptly cut short, and then fast-forwarded to a point when everyone misremembered it. This prevented me from ever really caring about the characters, or the society, or the planet, despite the fact that it is supposed to be this planet, the one we all live on, Earth.

The book was decent, but I am not crazy about it. Perhaps it was written for a different genre of people: those who brooded on global nuclear holocaust during the Cold War, or those outside of academia to whom the mysterious workings of science resemble the mysterious workings of God. Simply put, I never believed that the book was our future. It seemed like a thought experiment about humanity's warlike nature, and the structural (and perhaps philosophical) similarities of scholarship and monasticism. Several conversations in the book directly highlight these issues; if I were writing a high school essay, I would focus on those explicit, moralizing, judgemental authorial moments.

One last note: the Wandering Jew appeared variously through this book. He has appeared in other works I enjoy (Cryptonomicon especially), and is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters.

This post's theme word is guidon, "military pennant."
This post written like H. P. Lovecraft.

Antarctica

2011-03-14T21:24:00.019-04:00

I decided to give Kim Stanley Robinson another chance, and picked up Antarctica. The title summarizes the novel's setting, focus, and starring character: the cold, icy, hostile continent at the south end of the planet. Like Red Mars, the story is told from the many viewpoints of assorted characters attempting to survive in a difficult environment. But the chapters alternate viewpoints, and the environment is not as foreign as Mars.

I enjoyed Antarctica. Much of the book is dedicated to describing and thinking about how to survive in the extreme cold -- and in this it reminded me of Ursula K. Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness. An entire side plot is devoted to scientists debating how to know things, how to turn hypotheses into facts, and how academe distorts this process into something political and personal -- a topic close to my heart and often on my mind. Some of this included academic jokes! On page 41, in a discussion between X and a "beaker" (scientist):

He looked to the side as he told X about this, almost as if embarrassed, although otherwise he showed no sign of any emotion at all; on the contrary he exhibited what X had come to think of as the pure beaker style, consisting of a Spocklike objectivity and deadened affect so severe that it was an open question whether he would have been able to pass a Turing test.

I have observed this in myself: spending all my time thinking about logic, or facts, or how to properly construct a complicated proof, the other parts of my brain hibernate and the "Spocklike" part takes over. I spent this weekend out in the world, interacting with non-university-affiliated people, and acting normal... or so I thought, until a stranger asked, "What do you do?" On hearing my reply, he said, "Oh, that makes sense -- because you have some pretty strong opinions about the rectangle method." So I guess I was emitting overly-strong math vibes, even in "normal" mode.

Like me, many of the characters of Antarctica spend a lot of time in their heads, thinking alone while [unlike me] trekking over miles and miles of glacier. Their thoughts are reflected in their actions, opinions, and entire worldview. One of them even reflects on this (p 129):

It is eerie sometimes to contemplate how much we create our own reality. The life of the mind is an imaginary relationship to a real situation; but then the real situation keeps happening, event after event, and many of those events are out of our control, but many others are the direct result of the imagination's take on things.

And thus is the "beaker" perspective explained: spend all your time thinking about science, and science becomes your reality. I wonder if the computer scientists who build programs that can pass the Turing test are good at passing the Turing test themselves.

As a last note on Antarctica, I was impressed at how many domain-specific words appeared. Is there somewhere that authors look up words by subject? (China Miéville has the same superpower, as I'll mention whenever I get to blogging about his books.)

This post's theme words are

flense (trans.), "to flay, skin, or strip off" most often the skin of a seal or whale.
"the paint had withstood the flensing of the wind so much better than the bare wood" (p 76)
bolide, "an especially luminous meteor; an exploding fireball."
"Ross Island... is a singularity, a bolide of dense ch'i." (p 131)
katabatic, "of a wind: blowing down a slope or from an elevated region to a lower one, especially when caused by the effect of gravity on air cooled by the underlying ground."
"Wind was the hard part of the cold. 'Yes, well, you know, the katabatic. Air is always falling off the polar cap just from its own weight, and we are right on the edge of the cap.'" (p 135)

The katabatic language describing glacier flow flensed the plot off the novel, revealing its innermost bolide of love for nature.

This post written like Arthur Clarke.

Rain-textured slush

2011-03-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

It is very lovely to see, and pleasingly regular.Just look at that detail!
For walking, of course, it is terrible -- wet, heavy, dirty and unpleasant. But luckily those aspects cannot be experienced via blog.

This post's theme word is ligneous, "having the texture or appearance of wood." The snow was in no way ligneous.

International Women's Day

2011-03-08T10:42:00.000-05:00

Today is International Women's Day, a "major day of global celebration of women." Today, if you are so inclined, you can "inspire women and celebrate achievements," "make a difference , think globally and act locally !!", and "ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding." See the official site for more enthusiastic words.

I will spend today acting very locally, marking midterms in the endless effort to educate people (of both genders). I may take some time to work on ensuring my own future: research.

I hope you do something today that could be described in inspirational phrases.

This post's theme word is prosopography, "a study of the individuals in a group of people." I wish we focused on prosopography rather than generalizations. (Note: the OED agrees with my definition, above, but Wikipedia offers both this definition and its apparent opposite -- the word's meaning is subtle.)

Chicken on a raft on a Monday morning

2011-03-07T06:06:00.000-05:00

Chicken? on a raft? on a Monday morning? Oh! what a terrible sight to see!

Why, you wonder, would a chicken on a raft be a terrible sight? I think this video (via The Scuttlefish) explains everything quite sufficiently:

I think a chicken on a raft would be cute. Especially on this Monday morning: I'm back to work and just as busy as before the weekend. However, now I have "chicken on a raft" stuck in my head. It's catchy! Hey-ho, chicken on a raft!

(Side note: my favorite site for ripping youtube videos to low-quality mp3s is gone. Do you have a recommendation to replace it?)

This post's theme word is tarn, "a small mountain lake, having no significant tributaries." I set my chicken free on her own custom-built raft; she wanted to be the first chicken across the tarn! (I tried to think of a barn/tarn joke, but failed.)

Time shrinks all sizes

2011-03-03T21:40:00.005-05:00

Last week I went shopping for jeans to supplement my ever-dwindling supply. I dislike shopping and trying on clothing. In order to expedite the process I wore a pair of jeans I own and like, that fit, to the Elderly Marine store where I bought them, hoping to find identical (but newer) jeans and purchase them forthwith.

This hope was in vain.

I have (apparently) shrunk two sizes. (Women's sizes go by evens, so I actually went from size x to x-4.) This is wrong. What sort of time-dilation factor is at play here? Probably the same weirdness that causes men's sizes to distort. Companies cater to vanity. I'd rather have consistency, but (as usual) I seem to be an outlier.

I wonder: I am approaching 0, which I thought was the smallest size. What happened to the people who used to wear size zero? Do they now wear negative four? Or do the sizes go 0, 00, 000, 0000, etc., until they run out of space on the tag, in the style of DDDDD bras (since H sounds shamefully big to admit)?

[Update: I notice that the Wikipedia article on "vanity sizing" offers a few explanations and a scientific study of the drift of sizes over time.]

This post's theme word is buskin, " a thick-soled laced boot, reaching to the knee or calf, worn by actors of ancient Greek tragedies"
This post's alternate titles are: "Time shrinks all waists" and "The time-dilation factor (in my pants!)"
This post written like William Gibson.

Sword Swallowers Awareness Day

2011-02-28T22:55:00.001-05:00

Sword Swallowers Awareness Day was February 26 (in conjunction with National Swallow Disorders Month -- I had no idea, and it's nearly over!). I know I missed it, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway. Take some time out of your day today and thank the sword-swallower in your life. Give them a hug, unless there is a sword currently in play...

This post's theme word is acicular, "needle-shaped." He swallowed three acicular swords of increasing size!

Malcolm Gladwell

2011-02-27T23:57:00.003-05:00

I earlier expressed my displeasure at Malcolm Gladwell's writing. I'm not the only one! Someone with a bit more free time built this Malcolm Gladwell book generator (hat tip: A.). Its criticisms seemed spot-on, and its offered cover designs are accurate, too. My favorite title was "Power: How Power Powerfully Powers Power."

This post's theme word is irrefragable, "that which cannot be disputed or argued." Gladwell's theories are so preposterous as to be irrefragable by rational means.

The Name of the Wind

2011-02-27T23:37:00.001-05:00

This weekend brought with it much consumption of media, because apparently that's what we fall back on when we want to relax. Late last week I found myself in Bakka Phoenix Books, the sci-fi bookstore dangerously along my route home, and a kind bespectacled and beponytailed man highly recommended Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind, as its sequel has just come out.

So I read The Name of the Wind, a hearty 700 pages of dense print in my favorite fiction form-factor: paper brick. Useful for hours of entertainment, as well as quick-and-brutal unexpected streetfights.

It was good.

That's about it: I found nothing exceptional to comment upon. It is a fantasy novel, with the usual worldbuilding and pre-industrial-revolution culture, where magic and fairies are real. (Spelled faerie, of course.) It was good, if you like that sort of thing, and to make it stand out from other bricks of fantasy, it is a story told in the retrospective first-person, by a (former?) hero who is now fleeing his past -- or faded in strength? -- or laying in wait for some epic event he set in motion? I'm not sure; I've only read the first third of the story, since this is a trilogy. So we're still missing the bits where he gets from the University (a setting that is a mix of Ender's Game, for its psychological challenges, and the Earthsea novels, for its pervasive magic involving real academic study) to his present conditions.

It was interesting. I'd read the next book in the (predicted) trilogy.

In conclusion: I'm a bit disappointed that 700 pages only lasted me one weekend, during which I did some other stuff. But if you like fantasy bricks and good solid writing, I recommend Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind.

This post's theme word: autolatry, "self-worship." Like idolatry. The hero's first-person epic tale came off as rather autolatrous at times.

This post written like David Foster Wallace, though I don't know why. His style is very complicated. I usually write like whatever I've just read, especially if it's a brick -- and the book has a simple style, the tone of verbal storytelling. Maybe this means my own style is more sticky and resistant to intrusions than I thought.

The Windup Girl

2011-02-20T00:48:00.006-05:00

I just finished Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, having read it in one big gulp this afternoon and evening. (Wikipedia lists its genre as "science-fiction biopunk," which I had not known existed.)

It was good. It had unpredictable plot points. It now inhabits a corner of my fiction-hoarding mind that was previously empty. It was novel while still a comfortable read, fun, but a bit of a surprise and mental workout to figure out what was happening.

The story is told through the limited third-person lens of an assortment of characters. These characters are drawn from many different cultures, so the book illustrates the cultural misunderstandings and misinterpretations from both sides. I found this curious to hold in my mind: many ways of viewing a conversation, all equally valid and consistent and interesting, but contradictory and incongruous. It seems to me to be a feat not only of writing but of cultural understanding far beyond my ken. It's great.

This was compounded, later in the book, with a nice plot twiddle and the fact that various characters promulgate and perpetuate misinformation campaigns. And these campaigns concern, of course, the other characters' actions and motives, so that any clear image of what happened is muddled in my mind with which character and interpretation grabs my allegiance.

Of course, the science fiction and biopunk were also enjoyable. (No matter the culture, the characters have to agree about science, right? Huzzah for genetic engineering and delicious descriptions of food.) All in all, a nice book, and over all too quickly.

This post's theme word is pip, "something or someone wonderful," or "the small seed of a fruit." Paolo Bacigalupi's most recent book featured many delightful pips, in both senses.
This post written like H. P. Lovecraft.

Patterned greens

2011-02-18T00:09:00.004-05:00

Today was beautiful, unseasonably warm, with most of the snow melted away. I took the opportunity to dress in a silly manner.

Self-portrait on the sidewalk.

This post's theme word is lentiginous, "covered with freckles." Compare with litiginous for hilarious misheard remarks. Don't give the lentiginous coffeshop girl a compliment, she's very litiginous.

Black and white

2011-02-17T22:22:00.001-05:00

A woman, clad only in black and white, was redecorating the front window of this interior design store entirely with black-and-white wallpaper and fabric. I wonder if the yellow ladder felt out-of-place.

This post's theme word is vellicate, "to twitch or to cause to twitch," "to pluck, nip, irritate, etc." The ladder's appearance in an otherwise homogeneously-colored scene caused onlookers to violently vellicate.

Spook Country

2011-02-13T17:51:00.007-05:00

The best way to summarize Spook Country is this: it was definitely written by William Gibson. It featured all the things I liked about his other books: a setting where digital things blend into real-world things (activities, objects, money, communications on the internet become real in a way that is believable and surprising). References to Japanese culture. A plot that is revealed in small, disconnected pieces, and must be assembled by the reader like a puzzle.

Several reviews appear to denigrate the book as having weak characters and a weak plot. I disagree, but even if you agree, I don't think it matters. The book is best when describing things in Gibson's voice, with objects and situations, not with dialog. His entire authorial fascination seems to be systems, not people.

She was fascinated by how things worked in the world, and why people did them. When she wrote about things, her sense of them changed, and with it, her sense of herself. (p. 227)

Even his sense of humor is best expressed in wry third-person. The characters' jokes are never as funny.

The Frankfurt School, as they'd called themselves, had wasted no time in plunging their intellectual ovipositors repeatedly into the unsuspecting body of old-school American academia. (p. 167)

What vivid images! How clever! Plus, using an academic-ish writing style to mock academia.

This post's theme word is camber, "a slightly convex or arched shape of a horizontal surface." The table is developing quite a camber; do not set your glass down.

More nice writing: Jerry Holkins

2011-02-07T22:44:00.003-05:00

Jerry Holkins is a man who knows his way around a sentence, often by leaving gigantic sesquipedalian monoliths strewn hither and thither to mark his loquacious route. See for example this:

My mind is generally in geosynchronous orbit, watching the unseemly exertions of this body with my metaphorical nose wrinkled in disgust, engaged in cognition about cognition and issuing rudimentary commands over the high-latency link. I wish very much that this last sentence felt less true.

Doesn't your heart leap at such prose?

Well, mine does.

This post's theme phrase is ex cathedra, "spoken with authority" (adverb/adjective). I read Tycho's posts in an ex cathedra tone.

Bok choi and dumpling soup

2011-02-07T21:20:00.003-05:00

Thanks to M. for describing how to make this bok choi and dumpling soup just right.See how delicious?

This post's theme word is machicolation, "a projecting parapet supported by corbels on a medieval castle, with openings through which stones or boiling water could be dropped on an enemy." Thou durst not waste dumpling soup in use at the machicolation.
This post written like Cory Doctorow.

Meta-games

2011-02-06T14:35:00.006-05:00

There is a community, connected and reinforced online, of video game players. Despite their division into factions (by gaming console, by game preference, by the quality of being distinguishable from an angry 12-year-old boy in forums), they share more similarities than they do differences. One notable similarity being: the obsession with video games. As a pastime. As entertainment. As a lifestyle choice.

Like any community, the community of video gamers occasionally discusses itself. (Witness Penny Arcade, a venue devoted exclusively to discussions of video games and of Penny Arcade.) Thus arises a genre: the video game which is, itself, a commentary on another video game. I just came across this list of meta-games and find them delightful; I had heard of Desert Bus, Tetris HD, the hilarious Cow Clicker, and others. I am delighted to find out about Progress Quest, a RPG which requires no participation to play -- your character stats simply increase the longer you run the game. Progress Wars is similar but even simpler. Achievement Unlocked is delightful.

And of course there are games which parody other meta-games. Huzzah.

This post's theme word is jocoserious, "half-jesting, half-serious." Jonathan Coulton's sorrowful nerd anthems are jocoserious. Just consider JoCo's jocoserious song "Still Alive," the theme of the popular video game Portal.
This post written like Cory Doctorow. (I wonder if that's because of the many links.)

The Tipping Point

2011-02-06T11:43:00.004-05:00

I have read 71 pages of Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point," and I can read no further. The book is dangerously written. The prose is conversational, anecdotal, clearly written and convincing -- but only at first glance. The danger, of course, is that readers will consume shallowly, unthinkingly, mistaking the simple writing for simple truth. A closer inspection reveals that Gladwell's grand system of "How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" is a set of Capitalized Words of Importance supported by anecdotes. Badly supported by anecdotes! Some of the anecdotes can be interpreted as the opposite of what Gladwell intends; it is only his particular interpretation that makes them support his theory.

A. pointed out that this book taught one thing: how to write a bestselling pop-soft-science book. Capitalize some words (Gladwell choses: maven, connector, salesman, etc. -- words that lose their Magical Significance when uncapitalized) and fill in 200-300 pages of thinly supportive stories from history, personal experience, and the summaries of summaries of popular science articles.

Seems relatively harmless, right? Just popular writing. But as I read, I feel his tone permeate my brain. I often find myself thinking in the diction and sentence structure of whatever I'm reading at the moment. And I simply do not want to think like this book. I'll go cleanse my mental palate with some David Foster Wallace now.

This post's theme word is dipsomania, "insatiable, periodic craving for alcohol." Reading the works of Malcolm Gladwell has been shown to cause dipsomania.
This post written like H. P. Lovecraft.

What to do when it snows

2011-02-03T00:48:00.004-05:00

I woke up this morning to lightning in a snowfall. It looked like some god had discharged a flashbulb a few miles away, briefly and brightly illuminating everything. (Is there a god of paparazzi?) The thickly falling snowflakes reflected the light in all directions. It was very cool.

I like to watch snow falling. It's magnificent. Watching a whole vector field morph through time.

And then, having trudged through the inconsistently-cleared sidewalks of packed, crumbly, slippery sheets of snow, having purchased a long-lusted-after book, I made my way home and soup. A delicious deep orange concoction (colored by carrots and orange lentils), lovingly homogenized into a smooth, flavorful mush using the immersion blender that Someone I Love Gave Me.

Snow, soup, a book. What more could I ask for?

Are you, dear reader, currently being warmed by food or writing? If not, I suggest a delightful combination of the two: the short story "Cooking From Central France: Roast Boned Rolled Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double)" by Harry Matthews. It is hilariously performed by Isaiah Sheffer here (~40 minutes long, worth every second); program information is here.

This post's theme word is astraphobia, "abnormal fear of lightning and thunder." Alice's astraphobia abated at the arrival of a blizzard.
This post written like Chuck Palahniuk. That's a first.

The art of good writing

2011-01-31T23:05:00.004-05:00

The Inky Fool points to an article that exactly captures the quality that attracts me to literature. I can't and won't summarize it, so just go read it yourself: The art of good writing by Adam Haslett.

Seriously, go read it. Right now.

Every English essay I ever wrote -- and also the essays on opera, and Vietnamese culture, and maybe even one history paper -- was about how "the form and rhythm of sentences communicates as much meaning as their factual content, whether we’re conscious of it or not." And of course the aim of such studies is to become conscious of these various interwoven levels of meaning.

I wish I could write with this level of control. "That ability – to graft theme into syntax – is what makes great writing a pleasure to listen to." But I am no great writer. My field does not foster this careful wordcraft, this intricate interplay between meaning and message. More value is placed on naked ideas than on the words that clothe them; indeed, some value is placed on obscure, overly technical, abstruse, recondite, difficult writing.*

As both Forsyth and Haslett point out, we inhabitants of the internet live in a constant barrage of writing and reading. "This is the age of the word." I have yet to observe a tweet that is constructed with such verbal artistry; emails and blog posts seem to me to be written for brevity and "declarative masculine hardness." I worry. What I read influences how I write and speak and think, and Haslett describes my fear: "minimalist style becomes minimalist thought, and that is a problem."

I leave you with this quote. I love David Foster Wallace's writing, and Haslett's analysis highlights exactly why I find it so engrossing and effective.

Take the first sentence of David Foster Wallace’s story, “The Depressed Person”: “The depressed person was in terrible and unceasing emotional pain, and the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror.” By mixing heightened feeling and unrelenting repetition (“pain”, “pain”, “pain”) with a Latinate, clinically declarative voice (“component”, “contributing factor”), Wallace delivers his readers right where he wants them: inside the hellish disconnect between psychic pain and the modern means of describing it. The rhythm of the sentence is perfectly matched to its positive content. Indeed, from a writer’s point of view the two aren’t separate. If we could separate meaning from sound, we’d read plot summaries rather than novels.

Let's all read more novels.

This post's theme word is rhopalic, "having each successive word longer by one letter or syllable." I do not know about making awkward rhopalic sentences (rhetorical machination! oooooooooooh!).
This post written like H. P. Lovecraft.

*Sorry, I don't get to use "abstruse" and "recondite" often. I get excited when a chance arises. My other idea for this sentence involved the phrase "pissing contest" and was generally at the wrong level of diction.

Bad writing (about fitness)

2011-01-27T22:21:00.004-05:00

I've been reading a lot of good writing recently, and thinking about what makes it good. I'd like to figure out some lessons and then learn them, to become a better writer myself.

Here, instead, is an anti-lesson, accompanied with a motivating example. (Please forgive my own bad writing; it is late, I am tired, and I have the lingering taste of bad writing in my left brain.)

Good writing shows, it doesn't tell. Numbered lists, foolish quotation marks, and other rhetorical crutches suffuse bad writing, padding it out, easing your mind over the harsh unpleasantness of badly assembled words expressing barely-coherent thoughts.

I just read the article "Everything you know about fitness is a lie" by Daniel Duane. (It's available here, but you shouldn't read it.) The title lured me, and after the first page I, compulsive reader, could not stop. I had to see how far the vapid, vaguely first-person quest could stretch. (Was this guy paid by the word?)

The title was acurate, insofar as Mr. Duane reports that everything I "know" is a lie. Let's start there: there is an assumption of a standard reader with some standard knowledge. I am not a standard reader of Men's Journal. (I think.) Men, even those who read a journal so slimy that merely reading its text on a webpage makes me want to dispose of it in the back corner of a doctor's waiting room and wash my hands thoroughly, do not deserve to be subjected to this level of verbal excrescence.

The standard Men's Journal reader is apparently too slow to understand his own standard knowledge. Throughout the article, Mr. Duane offers reminder of workout-related "facts" that we "know" or "believe." Then he informs us they are false. The tone of the article includes those sarcastic quotes all over the place. Consider the very first paragraph:

I hate the gym. At least, I hate “the gym” as imagined by...

Those quotes serve only to express disdain, and to them I say: I hated this article. At least, I hated this "article" as written by Mr. Duane.

The point of the article, of course, is to debunk "everything I know," mostly by following the author in the riveting tale of his personal journey and life-changing discovery of an amazing, back-to-basics, revolutionary, ancient and time-honored, [buzzword], [buzzword], reviled-by-medical-science-but-actually-SO-good-for-you new workout. Spoiler alert: he likes it.

Even as he denigrates workout systems W, X, and Y for making us obedient, profitable, unfit sheep, Mr. Duane is recruiting us to his new workout system Z. He doesn't address why Z is better than W, X and Y. He just evaluates W, X, and Y in terms of Z. Of course Z is better at achieving Z's objectives, but I bet it sucks at X's objectives.

This is self-unaware writing of the worst sort. Mr. Duane uses the same buzzwords, the same level of excitement and engagement that he mocked in the context of W, X, and Y, to express his total commitment to Z. I suppose it makes sense: if we readers were stupid enough to believe in the workouts he belittles, based on nothing but the recommendations of exercise experts, then we surely will be stupid enough to believe in the workout he expounds based on the recommendations of exercise experts. Again.

It's cheap, it's shallow, and it's a lame marketing tool. I suppose that maybe it earned this guy some money and prestige as a fitness writer. It also gave him an opportunity to publicly brag about the girth of his thigh muscles.

Boo.

I'll keep arranging my thoughts and words on good writing. What are your thoughts? And words? Have you found any good ones lately? What have you been reading? Can you find an article worse than this one? I'm sure it exists; ask, and the vast internet shall supply.

This post's theme word is hagiography, "an uncritical biography, treating its subject with undue reverence," or "a biography of a saint." Mr. Duane's article is a heinous hagiography of Kevin Brown and Rob Shaul.
This post written like H. P. Lovecraft.

Data management recommendation?

2011-01-19T23:33:00.004-05:00

I have a bunch of data.
I made it out of clay.
And when it's dry and labelled,
I'll put it in a dossier.

I have some thousand or so data points, and I am looking for a program to organize them so that:

it is easy to cut and slice them and get nice graphs
it is easy to sort them on many dimensions
it is easy to enter more data points

This project started quite small, and so I felt ok simply using an openoffice spreadsheet. There is now enough data that openoffice (and Excel) has trouble with the size of the file.

Do you have a recommended/preferred method for managing data?

This post's theme word is scienter, "deliberately" or "knowingly." It's an adverb: he waggled his eyebrows scienter.
This post written like Isaac Asimov.

Ice curtain

2011-01-16T21:04:00.002-05:00

A curtain of icicles has slowly descended over the window across the alley from mine.
Cars drive through the alley below, with no regard to the massive property damage that may fall onto them from the sky anytime.
Look at that texture! I attended a seminar with some physicists who study icicle formation, and it's cool in every sense.

This post's theme word is guyot, "underwater mountain." Is the underside of an iceeberg an upside-down ice guyot?

Hippo in a wok

2011-01-15T20:24:00.001-05:00

This sneaky Ikea hippo has hitched his way down from the Child Distraction Section into the Cookery! Now he's just waiting for someone to pick up a wok...
This post's theme word is paratenic, an adjective that describes an intermediate host which is not needed for the development of the parasite, but nonetheless serves to maintain the life cycle of the parasite. That poor paratenic hippo!

A Storm of Swords

2010-12-27T12:17:00.005-05:00

Some Starks finally died! Whoa! But then, of course, they were magically revived into living-corpses by Rhollor, Lord of Light. The magic is really real, just in case any readers were hoping to lean more toward history than fantasy. Oh well. I really liked the scene in book 2 where some pyromancers (eyes roll) are trying to explain their mystical spells, and Tyrion translates "spell" as "clever trick." I liked that. It's gone now. Pyromancy works, so, yeah... those dragons in the title? The ice zombies? Those are real, I guess.

Plus now that magic is real, the (numerous) dead main characters can be revived under magical conditions. Revivification always exacts a costly toll in literature.

This post's theme word is quisle, "to betray, especially by collaborating with an enemy."

'Twas the night before Christmas, and...

2010-12-25T21:18:00.001-05:00

Take a listen to this fantastic reworking of "The Night Before Christmas." The rhymes! The orifices! The terror!

If you are not already listening to the Drabblecast, you should start. Norm Sherman is incredible, the stories are clever and creepy in turns, and the production is enjoyable. (Again, Norm Sherman is incredible.)

This post's theme comic comes from Amazing Superpowers:

During the night before Christmas...

2010-12-25T11:02:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to all!Even the sneaky gnomes who write in the snow on cars overnight.

This post's theme word is virga, "rain or snow that evaporates before hitting the ground." Just the thing we don't want on Christmas morning.

Food, glorious food

2010-12-24T10:53:00.000-05:00

I have really been enjoying the delicious array of food available here. Just look:

This post's theme word is thaumaturgy, "the working of miracles or magical feats."

Cookie messages

2010-12-20T10:35:00.003-05:00

Before disappearing into the maw of holiday snacking, the gingerbread cookies say:A timeless message, delivered in the delicious manifestation of warm, soft cookies.

Whilst I had the gingerbread-cookie-medium visiting, I dared to ask that timeless question: exactly what is Ernie from Sesame Street?
Now we all know.

This post's theme word is vatic, "of or related to a prophet or a prophecy: prophetic."
This post written like James Joyce. I guess he concerned himself with vatic cookies?

A Clash of Kings

2010-12-17T12:21:00.002-05:00

My mad inhalation of George R. R. Martin's work continues.

Apparently magic is real? The last book seemed to describe events in a magic-free universe, but some chapters of this book have the reader witness magic happening, so I guess magic isn't just hearsay and trickery.

I like how this book ends with the non-deaths of some main characters: we thought they were dead. Then we discover they're not! I wonder if this is a reaction to reader/editor response to the first book's dramatic deaths.

The next book will tell...

This post's theme word is McKenzie, "someone who attends a court trial as an adviser to one of the parties. This person works not as a legal representative, but as an informal adviser. Also known as a "McKenzie friend". " The plot featured many McKenzies, although the number of different characters' schemes and double-crosses gave these inscrutable motives for their advice.

A Game of Thrones

2010-12-13T18:47:00.002-05:00

In the course of my sci-fi reader meanderings, I came across a highly-recommended series that remained unread. After sampling some pages, I decided to try it out and started reading George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones.

That was several hours ago. The whole 800 page book is behind me now, and I'm pausing to breathe and sleep.

My first-pass review: it is soooooooooooooooo good. The story is engaging, the writing is good. There are memorable sentences and phrases. The plot is unpredictable, since no way did I forsee that one of the characters built up as a main feature would be killed. Ouch. Dramatic.

On to the next book in the series...

This post's theme word is labrys, "a symmetrical double-headed axe." He swung his labrys fiercely.

I'm getting old?

2010-12-08T06:39:00.001-05:00

Every day I wake up and get [some of] the news from the radio and reading online. This makes me grumpy about the world. (See the "whinge" tag.) Everything is broken and wrong -- our "news" deliverers are unabashedly biased. Governmental organizations hide information from the populace and oppress us with unreasonable Big Brother-hood from the TSA, the Toronto police, the legislature, the executive. The world these days! -- it's not like it was back when I was young! -- whine whine whine grump grump grump.

Pretty much anything that would be mentioned in a voice-over at the beginning of a disutopia movie is true. Propaganda everywhere is designed to keep us confused and docile. (Even to the point that I am not entirely convinced this is a bad thing.)

Even inspirational statements like "Even if what you're doing feels small, you still have to have faith in the grandeur of it all." fail to inspire me. I am frustrated. I feel like there is very little I can do to improve the world, and very little I can do to make it worse, too -- I have no impact on anything. Nevertheless, I feel it's important to act with dignity and try to do good work. What else can I do? Being the change I want to see in the world (à la Gandhi) is not enough.

The only thing that makes me feel better about the status of the world is to completely ignore it. I am lucky in that "ignore the outside world" is nearly part of my job description as a grad student. I will feel better as soon as I leave the house and get away from this global-news mindset.

Ivory tower, whoo!

This post's theme word is sesquipedalian, "pollysyllabic."
This post written like Cory Doctorow.

I, Robot rhetorical device

2010-12-06T08:00:00.003-05:00

I came across a clever bit of writing that particularly tickled my fancy while reading Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. Its self-aware authorial voice was reminiscent of David Foster Wallace. (Or perhaps, given their respective places on the timeline, it was prescient of David Foster Wallace.) On page 148 of the 192-page-long edition I read:

Francis Quinn was a politician of the new school. That, of course, is a meaningless expression, as are all expressions of the sort. Most of the "new schools" we have were duplicated in the social life of ancient Greece, and perhaps, if we knew more about it, in the social life of ancient Sumeria and in the lake dwellings of prehistoric Scotland as well.

But, to get out from under what promises to be a dull and complicated beginning, it might be best to state hastily that Quinn...

What an excellent device! I would like to be proud enough of my writing to refuse to remove the dull bits, and instead simply acknowledge them as dull and move along.

This post's theme word is nihilarian, "one who does useless work."
This post written like H. P. Lovecraft. Although if I include the extended quote, it's Isaac Asimov.

I, Robot

2010-12-04T15:50:00.002-05:00

Isaac Asimov's delightful I, Robot has almost nothing to do with the eponymous movie. It is a set of charming vignettes detailing the early years of the development of the "positronic" robot brain, smarter than humans and equally self-aware. The only difference is that the robots are bound to the Three Laws of Robotics:

A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These rules are "impressioned" into robot minds straight off the assembly line. There are repeated assurances from many robot-building authorities of mathematical proof* that a robot brain would fail catastrophically (disabling the robot) before it could break any of the three laws. I, Robot is about the various ways in which the previous sentence does not mean what you think it means.

This involves strange robot behavior, of course, and the troubleshooting humans attempting to diagnose and repair the problem. Some mistakes are due to the nature of the three laws: they are broad and leave much to interpretation: what qualifies as harm to a human? physical pain? emotional anguish? can preventing long-term harm justify causing short-term harm? Some mistakes are due to conflicts between the laws, despite their rules of precedence: when laws conflict in a complicated way, so much of the robot's brain is absorbed in resolving the conflict that the robot behaves drunkenly.

Robots require human robopsychologists to assess, diagnose, and provide therapy. Robots are surprisingly human in their deviousness, in their psychological hang-ups, and in their reasoning. This human treatment of the subject of robots reminds me of Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad; robots with human problems are the source of much comedy in both books.

It's short and fun. Go read it!

*I'd like to see that proof!

This post's theme word is epanorthosis, "the immediate rephrasing of something said in order to correct it or to make it stronger. Usually indicated by: no, nay, rather, I mean, etc." Quite useful in issuing precise orders to robots.
This post written like Isaac Asimov! I often feel that my thoughts form in the style of the latest writer I'm reading: here is a datum supporting that suspicion.