All the best to NOC, who is undergoing a nasty surgery tomorrow.
I had a little extermination today. There was some dried fruit (a gift) that had gone bad. It wasn't good.
It was a good Thanksgiving;
Skye hosted, her parents came from the midwest, and the VCs came from next door.
I started reading
The Selfish Gene. So far, it is good.
There was some talk in the comments about how students strongly prefer decimals to symbols involving radicals or pi. I think that there are two reasons for this. The first is that the decimal gives students an idea of the magnitude of the number. The second reason is that students don't realize that there are multiple ways of representing numbers, and that the numerals that we use are merely symbols that represent an idea of a number, rather than the number itself. For instance, there is this idea that corresponds to the quantity of fingers on my right hand. We can represent this quantity as "5," "five," "V," "\sqrt{25}," or "cinco." These are all just symbols that represent the same idea. Students aren't generally too hip to this idea, and they prefer to stick to the symbols that they know: decimals.
Also, one of the perks of my job is that I get to field random mathematical questions from people around the question. Two months ago, someone called me to figure out the volume of a cylinder with a given radius and height. There was trickiness because there were conversions between "cubic feet" and "gallons" to be made. Now, I don't mean to brag here, but calling me to solve this problem is like using Agent Orange to tidy up the lawn.
I got a call last week from a couple of college students in Tennessee asking why a negative times a negative is a positive. Now, the proper way to answer this requires a bit of algebra. Instead, I gave the "If walking forwards is positive, and walking backwards is negative, what happens if you turn around (one negative) and walk backwards (the other negative)? You go forward." This satisfied them. It shouldn't have.
The proper way to see this is:
0=0
0=0(-1)
0=(1+(-1))(-1) (since 0=1+(-1) by definition)
0=(1)(-1)+(-1)(-1) (the distributive law)
0=-1+(-1)(-1) (because 1 is the multiplicative identity)
1=(-1)(-1)
I'm tired and out of ideas. I am going to watch
Studio 60 and go to bed.
I finished up a lot of the work I have for the semester yesterday; I have all of my lesson plans, worksheets, homeworks, and homework solutions done. It is nice to be done with that before Thanksgiving.
Still, there is plenty to do. I need to research and write a math paper in the next month, write (but not research) a paper on how students use textbooks within the next couple of weeks, and finish a sample chapter in the textbook by January. I think that I might just sit down some night and try to hammer out the textbook paper, since I don't think that will take all that long.
I stayed up too late last night watching
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I tend to like Wes Anderson movies, and camera wanted my opinion on it. Basically: I liked it, but didn't love it. It was above-average, but not great. This is how I feel about most of Anderson's movies, though.
New podcast:
This Week with George Stephanopoulos. It has some serious potential, because George actually asks follow-up questions.
Here's the thing about
The West Wing: it's about very intelligent people who genuinely care about things that don't directly affect their lives. Isn't that a great idea? I haven't seen a lot of shows like that.
Scrubs, to some degree. However,
Scrubs requires two extreme characters to drive the point home: JD, who is sensitive beyond belief, and Dr. Cox, who is such a huge jerk that his kindness looks extreme in the contrast.
The West Wing has, in some sense, less cartoony characters. I haven't seen many other shows like that, although I think that
MASH might be one. I suppose that
ER might be one, too, although I kind of think that the plot mainly revolves around people trying to deal with their own lives.
I want to see more people trying to take care of each other. Heck, I might even try taking care of other people more often.
Of course, then you get into shows like
Seinfeld,
The Simpsons, and
Arrested Development, and you see that it can be fun to laugh at people who are too self-absorbed. It is sometimes fun to poke fun at them.
Bad commercial of the day: a little girl, after hearing that 1 human year = 7 dog years, tells her mom that the mom is 230 years old. Then the mom informs an older woman, presumably the grandmother, that she is pushing 500. Now, this third-grader is remarkably good at fractions, since 230 isn't divisible by 7. Also, the mother is about 33 years old, while the grandmother is 71 years old. She didn't look 71...maybe 51.
I understand that there is a need for a "clean" number for comedy, but I don't want to deal with these things that lead to innumeracy. It's kind of like the Massachusetts State lottery advertising that is pays out $300 million per month (or whatever). It's a meaningless number, since it says nothing aobut how likely you are to win. And this is state sponsored.
I'm done.
Lots of stuff.
First, I saw Borat yesterday. It was okay, and was certainly funny at parts. However, my expectations were built up too high. There was too much scripted material/plot for my liking.
I am aware that I am in the minority here. However, I think that it was okay, but not great.
So I splurged and bought subscriptions to
Whad'ya Know?,
Says You, and
Car Talk. So here is my PodCast lineup:
Ira Glass -
This American LifePeter Sagal -
Wait, Wait...Don't Tell MeMichael Feldman -
Whad'ya Know?Richard Sher -
Says YouTom and Ray -
Car TalkBill Maher -
Real TimeJohn McLaughlin -
The McLaughlin GroupTim Russert -
Meet the PressAlso, if there is time left over at the end of the week, I'll check out Jim Fleming's
To The Best of Our Knowledge.
Finally, you could make the argument that
The West Wing is the greatest show ever, and I don't think that I would argue. It's really good.
Great news from Tuesday:
- Obviously, I am happy that the Democrats took control of the House AND the Senate. This was a complete surprise to me. I might throw a party this weekend to celebrate.
- This American Life is now available for FREE on iTunes!
- Snippets of Whad'ya Know? are available for free on iTunes.
I am considering subscribing to
Car Talk and
Whad'ya Know? through
audible.com, but I don't think that it is worth it ($45 per year per show). I suppose that these would make good Christmas/birthday gifts for people who are desperate to get me an overly expensive, possibly unnecessary gift.
Great news from Wednesday:
the Celtics finally got a win . . . in OT . . . vs. the Bobcats . . . in Boston. Don't start sewing that 17th banner yet. Not one, but TWO Celtics recorded triple doubles. Ryan Gomes - an absolute steal in the 2005 draft - had his first career triple double with 10 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists. Paul Pierce had another triple double with 35 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 turnovers. Cough.
At least they won. I won't comment on the coaching.
So far, so good. Deval Patrick won the governorship here in the Commonwealth. I'm listening to his acceptance speech right now. I'm thinking that he should run for president in 2008 or 2012. He's saying all of the right things, including that he will make mistakes AND learn from them.
I was going to keep a running weblog today for the election, but I'm going to bed instead.
So far, so good: the Democrats are up 154 to 134 currently in the House, up 48 to 47 in the Senate (although they need to get 51 seats to get control), and up 23 to 16 for the governors.
I'm feeling good right now - really good. I'm going to bed, though, and I have no idea if I will feel this good when I read the final results tomorrow morning.
Good night. This has been good.
I voted. It felt great. The only drawback was that they didn't give me an "I Voted" sticker, like they do in the Midwest. Instead, my genius friend Matt bought some purple ink, and now my finger is stained purple.
I'm not quite as cynical as
Tsjaz, or maybe I am cynical in a different way. I am not convinced that Republicans stole the election in 2000/2004 (although I am not convinced they didn't). I think that the American public just hadn't collectively realized that they were electing a bumbler in 2004 (remember that this was before Katrina and before the Iraq war got really, really,
really bad). I have faith that people can change their minds, vote accordingly, and not have their decisions stolen from them. I am also completely prepared for that faith to be shattered into a million tiny pieces tonight, so I have my bases covered.
Dear everyone,
I would like to encourage you all to vote tomorrow. I am doing this because most of you will probably vote roughly the same way that I would.
I understand that these are only midterm elections, and voting senators and representatives might not be as "sexy" as voting for president, but they are just as important. You see, our country was founded on the principles of checks and balances. If - oh, I don't know - some incompetent war mongerer were elected to be president and surrounded himself by corrupt, money-hungry liars, then our system of checks and balances would limit this president's power so that he/she doesn't do too much damage to the country.
Not that this would ever happen, mind you. However, suppose for a second that it did, and further suppose that the legislative branch were filled with his friends that, say, let him wage war on a country that never attacked us while the president neglected to try hard to find the actual people who attacked us. If this were to happen, our system of checks and balances would be considered to be "broken." That is, nothing would be checked, and nothing would be balanced (Note: please don't confuse the phrase "checked and balanced" with the phrase "fair and balanced," which doesn't mean what you would expect it to).
My people: tomorrow is the day when we can tune-up (read: "completely overhaul") our system of checks and balances so that if any of these completely ridiculous situations were to come up, our legislative branch could put a stop to it. This is as important as a presidential election (more important if you might be stuck with a president who, say, is so incompetent that he doesn't even bother to try to help victims of horrific hurricanes for days. By the way - I'm just making these examples up off the top of my head).
Go and vote. If you love America, you love checks and balances. Here is your chance to make sure that system is working.
It's November 2nd, and I am already missing
NaNoWriMo. Still, it's the smart choice. I might try to sort-of play along by writing my textbook, but it isn't the same. I can't wait until next year.
Thanks to
Bad Z for pointing me to the new
Westwash Weblog.
I am going to bet that
Bill Simmons mentions that the alterboy from Eko's church on
Lost looks a lot like
Shaun Livingston.
