Happy Birthday Caitlin

Patton Oswalt in Youngstown May 20th
I'll probably go, even though my race is on the 22nd.







San Jose de Apartadó Leader, Luis Eduardo Guerra, Murdered

Surprise! Some people won some Oscars

Listen to Headphones' album HERE.

In my eternal quest to silence annoying cellphone users:
Interesting solution to irritating cellphone users


Just another beheaded Iraqi. Nothing to see here, move along please.

Josh and I got some work done on a song of ours. It was productive, but we were both kind of tired and cut it short before we became sick of playing. We set up a practice schedule we'll no doubt break early and often. It's better to break something than not have anything to break, though.

I have been such a jerk at times when it comes to making music I am surprised Josh would still want to be in a band with me. I found a tape recently of a practice from a few months ago in which I just tear him a new one every 20 seconds for no discernible purpose. On the tape I'm so rude and obnoxious it pains me to listen to it. I'm trying to not be so hard to collaborate with musically, so I hope that will facilitate anything we get going.

I do not accept defeat on Level 37.

Beet Burgers and the Central Sets Theorem

Jebus! I can't get level 37 of THIS game. I got the first 36 levels (out of 40) each in a couple seconds to a minute or two. But I played level 37 for an embarassingly long period of time with no insight. By the time I figured out you can skip around the levels and still win as long as you come back to them, I was too broken in spirit to go on. I'll try again tomorrow.

I will make beet burgers tonight, take this week's long run in the morning, and play music with Josh tomorrow afternoon (cross your fingers). We had a really great time practicing together Wednesday night; we're trying to play out soon. We'll see what happens.

Call C ⊆ S central iff there is some minimal idempotent p ∈ βS with p ∈ C.

Central Sets Theorem: Let (S,+) be a commutative semigroup, let C be a central subset of S, let v∈N, and for each l∈{1,2,...,v}, let 〈y_l,n 〉^∞_n=1 be a sequence in S. There exist a sequence 〈_n 〉^∞_n=1 in S and a sequence 〈H_n 〉^∞_n=1 of finite nonempty subsets of N such that max H_n < min H_n+1 for each n∈N and such that for each ƒ:N→{1,2,...,v}, FS(〈a_n + ∑_t∈Hn y_ƒ(n),t 〉^∞_n=1) ⊆ C.



三ケ月はそるぞ寒は冴かへる
mikazuki wa soru zo samusa wa saekaeru

the sickle moon
bends, winter's cold
returns

-Issa, 1818

42nd Mersenne prime found

The largest prime ever found.





projective limits and the Stone-Cech compatification

I work this evening. Late-night grocery shopping afterward.

To become famous, state the obvious

55 Examples of Human Perversity

Wilco Live

I read nothing but Epictetus today. It helped me focus on doing little things right, such as not getting mad at stupid people and not distracting myself.

Too tired to think through level 30 of THIS. Now I have to redo the whole thing tomorrow so I can get on their "did-the-whole-game-in-one-session" list.

What's wrong with this picture?
When you figure it out, see how they did it HERE

Generally Fucked

My computer is just generally fucked. The fan was definitely shot so I got the new one. It didn't fit. I bootlegged it, took it apart, and basically attached it with twist-ties. But that still doesn't change that my computer randomly shuts down, restarts, has 'fatal exception errors', etc. I think it's time for a brand new one. Or maybe I'll just gradually buy new parts and replace them when I can. We'll see. But if I suddenly stop posting without warning, my computer is fried and don't expect to hear from me for a while.

Strappado or "Palestinian hanging"

Strappado
1. A form of torture in which the victim is lifted off the ground by a rope attached to the wrists, which have been tied behind the back, and then is dropped partway to the ground with a jerk.
2. The apparatus employed in this method of torture.
ETYMOLOGY: Alteration of French strapade, from Old French, from Old Italian strappata, from strappare, to stretch tight, of Germanic origin.

The U.S. says it's OK to use strappado again! Welcome to the American Inquisition!

As the guards released the shackles and lowered al-Jamadi, blood gushed from his mouth "as if a faucet had been turned on," according to the interview summary.

Get ye the booty ye deserve!

Get ye the booty ye deserve

I cheated. Long run Sunday. I was busy!

sometimes I run at night

Like tonight, when I got home from work. I was a bundle of energy and my mind needed something strenuous on which to focus. I tend to run in the street, down Indianola when it's dark out: no traffic, well lit, and no turns. I have a big run tomorrow, too. I'm not quite on as rigorous a schedule as I would like to be. I have to buckle down even more.

Fabrizio left me a message. It looks like a 70% chance he'll come here, barring acceptance to Michigan (followed by some kind of incredible visit there) or Cornell (with someone really selling it (he'd rather come to OSU)). I'm excited!

I have reading left to do before I sleep, running and homework tomorrow before going to work at 6. Grocery shopping afterward. Tally ho!

Fabrizio got into OSU!

What does this mean? As long as he doesn't get accepted to anyplace he'd rather go (I'm not sure what qualifies for that) he's coming to Columbus before June 20th. I am super-excited and anxious to find out what's going to happen.

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count

Remember that huge UK bank robbery? They may have a fix on some people in the IRA

Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 passes. And we're fucked.

the usual: news, comics, music

Donate blood in China, get free medical checkup and accident insurance. We need some of that here.

more outrage about Gannon/Guckert

What YEAR is this?!

You get some vaguely/slightly futuristic-looking clothes. Make it plausible, somewhat based on current trends, you're probably aiming for maybe ten years in the future. You can most likely make do with an interesting combination of whatever clothes you currently own. Ooh! Or make a fake tour T-shirt for a band that doesn't exist and mark it "Wild Tour 2008" or something. whatever. The point is to make it look plausible that you might come from the future.

Then just run out into the street, select somebody at random and shout at them, "What's the date today?! Quickly, tell me!"

When they respond, you shout, "What YEAR, man, what YEAR is this?!"

And when they respond again you go, "Noooo! They've sent me back too far!" or alternatively "I'm too late! It's all going to happen again!"

Then you run away again.
via Sam's Archive

Ecstasy trials for combat stress

I slept 3.5 hours last night

"If I really got mixed up, and was wrong about the size, then just multiply all the listed times by 2^32, and wake me in 8 trillion AD."
-from a poster on Slashdot, on breaking SHA-1

PBS is up a creek

<math>
Let A(N) be the set of increasing finite sequences of natural numbers, N. Call a subset T of A(N) thin if, for all s and t in T, s is not an initial sequence of t.

Theorem: (Nash-Williams) Let m be in N, I be an infinite subset of N, and {T1, T2, ... , Tm} be a partition of a thin subset T of A(N). Then there exists an infinite subset K of I such that T intersect A(K) is contained in a single Ti.

This is freaking sweet. Here's why: look at the special case where T is the subset of A(N) with all elements the same length. It's Ramsey's theorem! Word is, there's an ultrafilter proof of this (Erdös). I'm looking for it right now.
</math>

now with more kitten

嫌れた雪も一度に消へにけり
kirawareta yuki mo ichido ni kie ni keri

the snow I hated
all at once
melts away

-Issa, 1822

I don't care about polynomial-space representability

I don't care how important it is, or how it will make the world a better place, or how mathematically complex it is. It's ugly. Stop pretending it's not about computers. If you love computers so much, create and marry a robot, don't waste my time on PSR.

What are you now... chat...

I went out for a short run but ended up going pretty far. Probably 4 times as far as I had planned. It was freaking 67 degrees outside; yesterday it was in the upper 30's at times. With a slightly cool breeze, it was so pleasant that I didn't want to stop.


I saw Constantine in the evening. Don't see this movie. I can enjoy Christian mythology without believing, so that wasn't the issue. In fact, Christian mythology can be downright compelling. The issue was shitty acting, deplorable dialogue, and NO PLOT. Again, this is one of those movies that they should have halved the special effects budget and paid someone to write something that didn't make an audience want to vomit. People were just laughing during the serious parts, groaning loudly over the melodrama. And shouting out funny lines during quiet parts. I probably enjoyed the audience antics more than the movie. It was like MST3K only real.

news and words

modern treasure hunting

McLibel activists

White House Turns Tables on Former American POWs

TMBG on Conan O'Brien tonight.

When I read a word I don't know, I try to look it up and write it down. HERE is my collection of words I once didn't know.

pictures and mp3's

Pedro the Lion and Low - Live MP3's

More photos from Columbus PtL and Low show

Poor Man's Time Travel

I have just finished a delicious sandwich and begun to reminisce. When I first moved to Columbus in the fall of 2003 I didn't have a job, money, local friends, phone, or food. The food part was the hardest. Once school started, I was able to go to every student activity where they had food to eat, but I got here three weeks before classes began.

I found that there were a lot of fruit trees in my neighborhood. So many, that I was able to pick enough pears and apples (3 varieties!) to stretch what little I had so I wasn't too hungry. I know it sounds crazy but it was better than shoplifting or panhandling to me. My point is that though at the time I was distressed about finding a job and where my next meal would come from, now I look back on it almost fondly. Finding different ways to cook fruit so that I didn't get sick of it seems almost like a minor problem preferable to lots of others.

I suspect my future self will remember my life at this time similarly. I have often consoled myself with this thought in one way or another; when enduring any difficulty I envision myself at some future comfortable time remembering having *this* very thought. And it always happens (until I die) that such a time rolls around and I think 'Wow. Here I am. Just like I imagined.' Call it a poor man's time-travel.

"And this too shall pass" is a phrase I've always enjoyed because it contains the above long-winded thought concisely and its converse. Pleasant things pass away just as inevitably. So I have taken to reminding myself of this often. It helps me to put things in a suitable perspective.

supermarket... HO!

I am reading an incredible generalization of Ramsey's theorem by Nash-Williams that is so beautiful, I don't know what to do. It's unfolding like a work of art with surprising details yet familiar tones: you can see where he's going but how he gets there is incredibly mind-bending at times. It's just what I need right now. I haven't eaten much all day while I've been reading it and I'm loathe to go get food but I just don't have much around.

A new upstairs neighbor of mine is named Reagan. What a child of the 80's.

ten million dune buggies coming down the mountain

David Bazan of Pedro the Lion explains 12 songs he wrote

Mike Doughty's thoughts on writing poetry

digital evolution in Michigan

I have new upstairs neighbors. So far their interests seem to include locking themselves out, playing loud repetitive music, and snoring.


via boingboing

this deserves its own post

Everyone must watch THIS now.

busy

White House reporter a shill

U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings

The Voice Modulation Plague

happy birthday Gina

Love,
Landon and Neil

making cookies and muffins today

Lingua Franca

Bush nearly triples request for tsunami relief

Stealing vs. Infringing

happy birthday matthew

Off to run before work.

一人の太平楽や年わすれ
ichi nini no taiheiraku ya toshiwasure

all alone
babbling idiocies...
drinking away the year

-Issa

ate so much yesterday, not hungry today

The Economics of Sharing
via Slashdot

I got Frank Lenz's album Conquest Slaughter. I will see him Wednesday and Thursday in concert.

Who wants to go see The Woodsman at Drexel? It looks sufficiently depressing for me.

reading: Epictetus and Nash-Williams

NPR graffiti page

The Dairy Farmer Puzzle has a proven upper bound of 23.

$280bn tobacco suit in disarray after appeal court defeat HERE

the world of thawed dog poop

Zombie Infection Simulation v2.3

I hate when people start a sentence with "Look," or "Listen". I have to admit that I partially tune out what they say and start to mentally disagree with them. I'm working on it, though. I get so angry when I talk with many people. I know that that's wrong and people's different opinions don't affect me. But I will often try to change their minds to match my own. I am trying to remain unmoved by others and not let them get me so upset.

I ran kind of slowly today; blister and a twisted ankle. There were lots of people outside today with the weather so mild. Also, in the future, I should remember to avoid running in the evening on Sunday when everyone is cooking delicious-smelling food and I have 10 more miles to go. It was probably for the Super Bowl, but I'll just be safe and remember to go in the morning.

Some friends might come see me when I race here in April. Maybe in Cleveland in May, too. I hope I won't be too boring because I'm generally slow.