Idaho-Ho!

Off to Idaho tomorrow at 5AM! Set theory! (imagine me dancing)

A Serial Killer Explains the Distinctions Between Literary Terms By Charlie Anders

withdrawn denouement

Woman: Wait, aren't dinosaurs mammals?
Man: Um. They're reptiles, honey.
Woman: Oh. Right.
Man: You have two master's degrees?
Woman: But not in lizardology!
--Union Square
via Overheard in New York

Set theory class was achingly disappointing: Carlson isn't teaching it and it looks like it's going to go at a snail's pace through an undergraduate book. I'm not sure I have the patience to ignore the replacement prof's hand-wavy first attempt at teaching this course.


Shad Mohammed, 6, is comforted by a neighbour after being wounded in an attack by insurgents which doctors said also killed both of her parents, in Baghdad March 27, 2006.

failure to lunch

I am visiting Boise, ID this weekend for a math conference. The weather there seems to be mild enough right now and I'm looking forward to running along the Boise River .

art is not a telegram

Pentagon Police haul an unidentified man away to a waiting bus to be removed from Pentagon property. He, and the others arrested, would be charged in Federal Court with "refusal to obey a lawful order" according a Pentagon press spokeswoman.

Spam Poetry in My Inbox One Spring Morning:
suddenly carefully night shining,
      turning parents happened.
wrong social parents out anybody my?
slow music raise thats not,
      pride studied next not?
reply shining my social.
development money she.
money miserable tying letters turning young.
back filled night happened night fire.
different the beautiful.
rich evening appearance light why whom.
music fascinate suddenly.
embarrass make fire allow.

There is only one potatoes.
-Laura, on whether she preferred potatoes to some other food

Using metaphors is not rocket surgery.
via Slashdot comments

With spades and truncheons, guns and trowels

Pulling the Plug on Standby Power: I have most of the electronics in our house on a power strip with a kill switch to save electricity.


South Africa's Dina Phalula runs bare foot in the women's 1500m Decathlon heats at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne March 20, 2006.

Reading:
Schreier Sets in Ramsey Theory
Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges

oh, Sping Break!

More Patton:


Because I'm always last onto the bandwagon, This Week in Landon features Fall Out Boy's From Under the Cork Tree. Also, I'm going to make some kind of soup or stew tomorrow with the ingredients I have lying around. It will prominently feature split peas. I have a lot. I will thusly have less.

I was trying to prove some kind of partition theorem on strongly embedded ω-trees this week but it turned out to be an obvious corollary of HLLP. And now I'm disappointed. It's well known there's no easy proof of HLLP without resorting to model theory. I was using conventional Ramsey methods and now I think it won't generalize. Oh well. We'll see.

lollupdate

Notable Artists in the Lollapalooza 2006 Lineup:

Jeremy Enigk
Queens of the Stone Age
The Flaming Lips
The Shins
Kanye West
Wilco
Death Cab For Cutie
Broken Social Scene
Ween
Andrew Bird
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Ryan Adams
Iron & Wine
Feist
Stars
Common
Matisyahu
Sonic Youth
Thievery Corporation
Sleater-Kinney
The New Pornographers
Coheed And Cambria
Eels
Panic! At the Disco
The Disco Biscuits
She Wants Revenge
The Dresden Dolls
Reverend Horton Heat
The Smoking Popes
Cursive
Calexico
Nada Surf
Aqualung
The Hold Steady
The Go! Team
The Redwalls
Mute Math
Sparta
Of Montreal

He is a dreamer; let us leave him.

I banged out the sixth Harry Potter book over the last few days. Why? Because even if I won't remember the details in a week, it's compelling reading and it gets me in the mood for more reading.

I recently read two Russell Hoban books, The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz and Turtle Diary. I'm now reading another of his, Kleinzeit. He has a bizarre sense of narrative and a compelling gift for subtle wordplay and puns that I enjoy. It's like Palahniuk and Carroll thought about having a baby but decided against it. But then the idea-baby resented not existing and sublet an apartment in Hoban's mind for a while.

calling all self-referential phrases

HA, HA! My math bear comic totally won the contest over at Sticks and Stones. I mean, it's a fairly arbitrary and capricious distinction but I'm happy about it. It makes me want to start my own comic...

But until then, here are some hilarious remixed Spiderman comics:


I finished with classes on Friday. Spring break after I'm done with analysis! So what do I do for fun when I'm not studying? Write more Wikipedia articles in Ramsey theory: the Halpern-Läuchli theorem.

that you ask is your answer

It came up today as it will now and then; I often resort to a generalized anthropic principle to explain everyday phenomena. Briefly, many answers to questions are given by the fact that one is asking them. I don't invoke advanced scientific theories or purport to explain human existence (as is often the use of the principle) but rather for a broader set of circumstances. Do I have to explain more fully what this means? Maybe I'll think up a good set of examples and you can extrapolate the idea yourself.



While we're on the subject of neologisms, I should mention Fabrizio's new one: "The pot knows best." That is to say, an inversion of "The pot calling the kettle black", normally used to signify the hypocrisy of criticism from an accuser having committed the same act. But really, who better to recognize an bad act than one who perpetrates it? I like that Fabrizio's turn of phrase highlights the ad hominem defense of an offense, as if somehow deriding a person could negate a transgression.




I tried to make up a pun on the fly earlier this week but it didn't work. I wanted to say something like, "put the (xxx) in dyslexia", where (xxx) was some backwards subword of "dyslexia". Unfortunately for me, "aixelsyd" doesn't contain any English words! It took me a few moments to verify that fact in my head, so my pun would have been esprit d'escalier in any case.

The notion persists but I am stymied! I am asking for help constructing a pun in the same vein: try to find a word whose meaning supports an alternate subword construction so that we can say: "put the (xxx) in (yyy)", where (xxx) is a subword of (yyy) via the meaning of yyy.

taste the innocence

Girl: I've never had venison before.
Guy: Order it. You can taste Bambi. You can taste the innocence. And the fear.
--"A" Restaurant, Columbus Avenue
via Overheard in New York


A US Abrams battle tank burns after an explosion east of Baghdad in Iraq.

Steven Proctor has made an impromptu blog to share stories that begin with "So there I was..." I think it's a brilliant idea and everyone should submit something. I certainly will over the weekend.

I am listening to the (always hyperprolific Ryan Adam)'s new album, 29^*. Last night I made a fantastic turkey fillet, sour cream, and vegetable dish I invented. Deglazing has never tasted so magnificent.

^* This parenthesized sentence brought to you by CFACFG: Citizens For A Context-Free Grammar

no such thing as math bears

Ah, more recognition for my favorite comedian. The Comedians of Comedy Tour is rolling through Cleveland April 20 (with Eugene Mirman, no less!). You can be damn sure I'll be there.

I am getting consistent traffic from some Chinese blog. Is it at all clear to anyone (who can read Chinese) why he links to me? I didn't know I was big in Asia.


I was tired and reading online comics (as I am wont to do) and found one I enjoyed where the author asked readers to replace the text of his last comic with their own, just to see what happens. This is mine. I have no excuse, really.

Know Some Call Is Air Am

God, how I love puns.

Today's Wikipedia article: Milliken's tree theorem

me got kicked

You need to listen to They Might Be Giants' podcast. No seriously. Do it.



Wikipedia article I wrote yesterday: the Milliken-Taylor theorem. This is part of my never-ending quest to spread Ramsey theory far and wide to the masses. I try to convert mathematicians whenever we share interesting theorems. So making more information accessible about a subject I enjoy is in my best interest, as more people will care about what I do.




Why can't I find a torrent of these guys? Johnathan Coulton and John Hodgman at Invite Them Up (March 1st)

felix culpa

Pakistani rescue workers arrive at the site of a bomb blast in Karachi, Pakistan March 2, 2006. A car bomb outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi killed an American and at least four other people on Thursday, but President George W. Bush said "terrorists and killers" would not stop his scheduled visit to Pakistan.

Add another thing I'm going to try to do everyday: make at least one good change to Wikipedia. I can't write an entire article everyday but I can add links, remove nonsense, or correct mistakes. Also, writing things down precisely helps me to remember them anyway.

Amanda gave me a head-liberating haircut the other day and I appreciate it.

Fabrizio's girlfriend is here this weekend again, so I have to lay low for a few days and clean more. Ugh. Cleaning.

humorishness

I can't believe how funny THIS is to me. It's too funny to bear.
via qwantz




via toothpastefordinner

I've had kind of a crappy day. I can't seem to push any of my math through. My brain isn't making the final leap so it starts over at the beginning of the problem and I get stuck with circular thoughts and nowhere to go. This is my break.