You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2007.
Hard to believe that it could be possible to take maths too far but sometimes just sometimes one has to wonder.
Take for example The social norm of leaving the toilet seat down: A game theoretic analysis in which Hammad Siddiqi analysis the toilet seat problem (just because some couple argue over it doesn’t make it scientifically interesting). In the introduction he says
The issue of whether the toilet seat should be left up or down after use seemingly generates a lot of passion among the parties concerned, however, scientific inquiries into the matter are almost non-existent.
Yeah, I wonder why.
But it gave me something to blog about.
Mildly amusing, too.
I find it slightly amusing how atheism is treated a some kind of new phenomenon and how you can find a wealth of discussions on the net using the same old arguments over and over again (okay, let’s face it, when I said discussions I meant flame wars).
So I’ll include a link to a much older document (1716) whose main premise is significantly more daring than much of what can be found nowadays. The Treatise of the Three Imposters argues that Moses, Muhammad and Christ were all religious frauds. Not to mention the fact that it begins on such a light note
However important it may be for all men to know the Truth, very few, nevertheless, are acquainted with it, because the majority are incapable of searching it themselves, or perhaps, do not wish the trouble. Thus we must not be astonished if the world is filled with vain and ridiculous opinions, and nothing is more capable of making them current than ignorance, which is the sole source of the false ideas that exist regarding the Divinity, the soul, and the spirit, and all the errors depending thereon.
The custom of being satisfied with born prejudice has prevailed, and by following this custom, mankind agrees in all things with persons interested in supporting stubbornly the opinions thus received, and who would speak otherwise did they not fear to destroy themselves.
And that was almost 300 years ago. We’ve come such a long way since, haven’t we.
it is more easy to remain in ignorance than to abolish a belief established for many centuries and introduce something more probable.
Looking at the latest problem sheet for this term’s methods course I just felt like posting my first rant.
First off, why is this methods course called Differential Equations? It’s the 4th methods course in two years, it’s not like we haven’t solved ODEs yet. I dare say, I’m rather glad that this is the last compulsory methods course we have to take as I’ve really come to hate them.
Case in point, the more real maths you cover the more pain you’ll feel when doing any methods course. For a rather simple reason. They don’t teach why you’re using these methods, nor why they work, it all boils down to pointless manipulation of symbols. And it becomes really annoying the more Analysis you know. The number of times I can look at a methods question and point out how many assumptions are implicitly made just so you can actually solve the question (little details like assuming that the functions in questions are analytic). I wouldn’t mind it so much if these assumptions were made explicitly, but then again that would potentially turn it into a real maths course.
The main reason for writing this post is the following gem “Show that 
The other thing I hate about these pointless methods courses is that (especially this year) the lecture notes are a catastrophe. If the notes are so bad that I have to go to the library to clarify things that are on the syllabus then I feel it only adequate to say that the lecturer has failed to do the minimum expected of his job. Last term’s Vector Calculus lecturer certainly failed (if you ever get a terrible Vector Calc lecturer just borrow Schaum’s Outline on Vector Analysis it’s got all you need). Considering we’re only 3 weeks into this term I won’t yet say that the Diff Eq lecturer failed but he’s certainly on the way to.
One really doesn’t wonder that engineering students point out that their worst lecturers are all from the maths department. It’s rather sad really. This is why I prefer pure maths. If you’ve got all the definitions, theorems and proofs needed for the course in your lecture notes you’re all right, which isn’t true for any of the methods/stats/applied courses.
Anyway, I’ve complained enough. I’ll go back to working on some problem sheet or other.
I think the Colbert Report is a fantastic show and I obviously watch as much of it as I can on Comedy Central’s webpage.
But I think it’s also great to see Stephen in a slightly different environment and as such I can only recommend to watch his performance at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Some people have their random Fridays where they post 10 random songs to their blog or what have you, I instead shall have utterly non-random posts about music videos (and they shall not necessarily occur on Saturdays).
I’ll begin with Jarvis. That wasn’t the plan at all, but the video to don’t let him waste your time is simply hilarious. In terms of songs I would have preferred to give you running the world but the video is nowhere as funny, though I really like the lyrics (which is why I really gave you the links to both videos). The first time I’ve heard the song was when he played at fm4 = 12. What can I say, I still think fm4 is the best radio-station in the entire world (hey someone’s got to be number one).
Next, I’ll give you Mika with Grace Kelly. It’s a classic pop song. It’s so good millions of people will hate it by the time radio takes it off their A-playlist. One reason why I chose this song is this little interview nugget; this is what Mika said about the song: “It was a fuck-off song to the music company that I was working with at the time, it is where the line ’shall I bend over, shall I look older, just to be put on your shelf’ comes from. I was so angry. That company had every resource except a soul.” This reminded me of other artists who didn’t seem to make it until they decided to no longer create a product that should sell and instead focused on creating art that they cared about, in a sense telling the industry to fuck off. The most notorious example being Chuck Palahniuk who got rejected several times for earlier works of fiction as they were found to be too disturbing, even though he had held himself back. So eventually he decided to really give them a disturbing story, Fight Club, full well expecting it to be rejected. In a sense it was meant as his last fuck-off to the industry (though in a sense I’m just paraphrasing from an interview I can’t find anymore).
But I’m not going to give you the old do what you love and the money will follow speech. The one thing I believe played a more important role in these artists becoming successful as they created what they wanted to was specificity. When you create art as a product you’re inclined to make love to the entire world, simultaneously trying to please everybody while not offending anybody and Kurt Vonnegut already pointed out that is unlikely to work.
Anyway, I’d better get back to what this post was supposedly about and so I give you Pop Levi with Sugar Assault Me Now. This song rocks and it is no surprise it made it to 4th place in this week’s fm4 editorial charts.
I’ll end this post by giving you a link to Rote Raupe where you can find music videos by German and Austrian bands. I like their reason for uploading these videos; they point out that since MTV & co. prefer to broadcast ring-tone commercials and the like there should be another platform where people get to actually see music videos. They shall be thanked many times over.
Earlier this afternoon I watched Bill Hicks’ legendary one night stand. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it before on the one Bill Hicks DVD I own, nevertheless it’s brilliant comedy that deserves to be mentioned. I think Bill Hicks was a brilliant comedian, though he can come across as rather repetitive. I think there are about 4 different shows on the DVD I’ve got and the intersection of material common to all of them is pretty large. Let’s face it, hearing the same material over and over again is off-putting, no matter how brilliant the material was to start with. But I guess this is probably due to his premature death. He didn’t get to do more material so in order to give you value for money the industry sells you several shows which happen to be very similar (but hey surely as a fan you don’t care).
So while we’re on the subject of stand-up comedy I figured I’d mention (ie. plug) some of my favourites.
George Carlin is probably number one on my list. He’s been doing this for decades and like a good wine he gets better as he ages. Well, I’d definitely say this was the case up to back in town which might be his zenith. Though ultimately we’re talking about a comedian who has done numerous great shows, still keeps going and definitely has yet to ’suck’. A man who wouldn’t surprise me if he outdid himself with his next show.
Obviously most comedians on my list are not politically correct. But then again if you like your entertainment PC you should stick to Disney and don’t venture near any decent comedy.
Robin Williams is another great stand-up comedian, though he’s certainly better known for his acting. A Night at the Met is an absolutely fabulous record. An absolute classic, released in 1986. He started doing stand-up again in 2002. Though Live 2002 is definitely a good show I can’t say that it lived up to my hopes and/or expectations.
Steve Martin is another stand-up comedian who is better known for his acting, well technically he hasn’t been doing stand-up in a long time, still I like to think of his as a stand-up comedian. His stuff was quirky, weird and smart. I love his stand-up.
One thing that I’ve noticed about Robin Williams and Steve Martin is that their stand-up work was far more daring and unconventional than most of their movies. I have terrible memories of seeing them in Disney comedies. It’s painful to see such comic genius being wasted on one-dimensional kiddy-humour. Though there have been bright spots, for example I loved Steve Martin in Bowfinger (no wonder the movie rocked – he wrote it).
Another great comedian is Steven Wright. He’s weird, really weird, but really weird in a really good way.
On a related note, though technically not a stand-up comedian (but he’s drifting off in that direction), I totally dig Henry Rollins‘ talking shows. They’re smart, witty and often funny. He’s one of the few who has the skill to go from something utterly hilarious to a really depressing story and the transition is incredibly smooth. I believe he’s possibly one of the best storytellers alive right now. Furthermore his writing is incredibly intense. If you think he’s just a crazy, tattooed punk you’re missing out on one hell of an artists. He even has his own talk show, though I dare say it didn’t live up to my expectations.
I could probably go on for much longer talking about these great artists and add more names to the list, but in the spirit of blogging I shall strive to keep it short (OK, so I failed but I’ll stop now).
I was randomly surfing blogs on wordpress and noticed, what surely many have noticed before, that many (perhaps even most) were either technically defunct or hadn’t been updated in a while.
This could be my blogs future. Well, I sure don’t hope it will be, but it could. Blogging does take time and perhaps a little bit of effort (unfortunately it probably takes more than just a little bit of effort). But I guess one can use the classic piece of advice that also works against writer’s block. Just write. Chances are it might be rubbish, but at least you’re getting somewhere. Not writing is what leads to a wide, dark and utterly empty chasm.
So this post might be rubbish, but writing it gave me an idea for another post. So this could be followed up by something marginally useful.
This post was prompted by two things. First I saw a Pizza place advertising their Valentine’s special and second this post told me about this ridiculous piece of writing. The first sentence perfectly summarises the column:
I want to wish a great big FUCK YOU to the singles out there who whine about Valentine’s Day.
Well, what shall one reply to so much love? Fuck you, too? (no wonder the author is Anonymous)
Let me start by saying that I don’t whine about Valentine’s Day. Nor do I whine about Christmas, Easter, New Year or Monday. I just don’t care. Which is probably the crux of the matter. You have to care to whine. You can’t whine about a day you barely register (OK, I do register Christmas, but only because I get to make out with Santa). The only reason why I know Valentine’s Dday (what’s up with the capital D anyway) is coming up is that I have planned a V-day special for my radio show. I won’t whine, but I might will make fun of it (though technically I’m not making fun, I’m simply coming up with a mainly humorous show with a V-ackground). Let’s face it, it’s high time for more humorous material on that day, we have the lovers and we have the haters, there ought to be content for people who don’t care but like to have a laugh (the lover and haters are, of course, allowed to enjoy the show too).
Still, some may wonder how come I don’t care. People who like their reality black and white may feel queasy just contemplating someone not standing on either side of the issue. The thing is I don’t remember the V-day being big in good old Switzerland. I have no recollection of cards, flowers and candy.
I’m sure I’m totally missing out on a great opportunity here. It’s just that I’m a stranger to that genre. I can write letters, essays and the occasional epic poem on exploding sheep but V-cards? In my limited knowledge of the genre I would have thought that cards and the likes were destined for a potential or concrete love interest. But apparently, if one is to trust a column written by a coward, family, friends, co-workers and even strangers are all potential recipients of V-ifts (if I may coin this word).
Now, if they are indeed a perfectly good audience for V-resents (this one’s even funnier) I would actually consider writing V-cards, though only if someone goes ahead and tells me what kind of genre those cards belong in.
Seriously, I’m game when it comes to writing cards, I’m even considering writing Easter cards this year (don’t ask – short story).
Hello world indeed. I figured I’d add one more voice to the noise that emanates from this series of tubes.
It was mainly seeing this interview with Robert Paterson that made me want to give blogging a serious try. I’ve had some online journals in the past but never went really far. Though livejournal might be better suited for the classic teen angst posts. I dare say you’re not bound to read much of that kind of material on this blog, but don’t be disappointed, I’ll make up for it by alienating my esteemed readership by writing about the joys of mathematics.
But let’s face it, I guess I’ll mainly post whatever interesting stuff I come across while gliding on these tubes and only throw in the occasional rant (also known as philosophical essay).
While we’re on the subject of blogging; how come the university of Warwick is so much more progressive than Imperial College by offering blogs to all students and staff? Now obviously anyone can still get a blog on such a wonderful site as this but I still think it’d be a great thing for any uni in general to have (sense of community and all that).
On another note I seriously considered writing this blog in Middle English. After all even Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. Reading that blog really cracked me up. Middle English (ME) is wonderfully melodic and seeing it blogged is so surreal. Though it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever give in to the urge to blog in ME. I’m just not fluent enough. If you come across other blogs in ME, let me know.
I know this post is going on for longer than expected but I had to add one more link. It’s a linguistic analysis (semi-serious perhaps) of English sentences without overt grammatical subjects. You know, sentences such as “fuck you“.
That wasn’t directed at my readership, in case you were wondering – and yes, I have no problems using any English word that can be found in a decent dictionary. Nor do I have a problems with making up words either.
Recent Comments