Fleeting

Suddenly, insight;
Failure seems impossible.
Counterexample.

A Long Ride

A friend and I decided to be really crazy for Memorial Day and take a 5 hour, 52-mile bike ride down the Mo-Pac trail. It was a very exhausting, difficult ride after about 35 miles or so, and I was very sore yesterday. However, it was a lot of fun.

Also, I am sad that we couldn't find anywhere in Eagle to get pancakes as a 40-mile marker reward.

Probably Not Funny

I don't know why this seemed so funny to me really early in the morning, but I felt like sharing. Imagine this as a slogan in an ad for something dealing with our neighbors to the North:

"We know Canadian from 'eh' to 'zed'!"

Spaced Out

I'm very pumped to hear that MySQL has spatial index support with much better efficiency than I could ever hope for with my own R-Tree implementation. This cuts my development time this summer by at least a week.

Self-Fallible

I have a special power of finding special cases and poking holes in proofs and conjectures. However, this is a little depressing when trying to come up with a proof or a good algorithm. I keep finding examples that destroy my ideas, sending me further back each time.

I sure hope I get a "Eureka!" moment soon.

The Dream Conjecture

Last night, I had a dream that I proved counting something using a recurrence relation. I can't for the life of me think of what that is. It would be interesting if it was at all sensical.

LaTeX: Easier Than Ever

It used to be a pain to get everything you needed for LaTeX for OS X. Now that the intel machines are out, they didn't feel like making the painful i-installer program a universal binary, so they came out with an all-in-one installer of every useful LaTeX app and library. There's even one in there for writing sheet music.

Life Update

Now, I am back in Lincoln and ready to work. The visit to home was fun, but I played a lot of WoW due to my incredible boredom during the day. I was sent back with a trunk full of groceries so I can eat for a few weeks. It'll be fun after next Thursday, when I don't get paid for at least four weeks straight.

Too Early

I've never been in Avery early enough that the library wasn't yet open...

...until today.

In Cold Prose

I finally finished "In Cold Blood" tonight. It interested me for a bit when it described the time between murders and catching the murderers. That stuff was new to me. However, the last part about the trial was similar to the beginning: boring and unimaginative. Imagine the narrative of a documentary.

I hate the feeling of finishing a book simply because I set out to read it. The book didn't keep me reading, suspenseful. No. I just needed to complete it so I could say "Yeah, I read that. It wasn't anything remarkable."

By Request: Hair

My Brother wanted this picture: my hair at its longest.

Obsessive Gardening

Apparently, I am very anal about gardening. I did some landscaping for Mother's Day, and it took much longer than expected, especially when placing the brick trim. I wanted every piece to line up just right, at the proper level. I have no idea if any of the plants will survive, but the bricks are very well placed!

Wood Heat

Happiness is a wood stove. There is no other activity that stimulates 4 of the 5 senses (the roughness of the wood, the smell of smoke, the crackling of the flames and the display of colors they emit) along with being an energy source and satisfying a pyro's lust for destruction. I've spent most of the night nursing the fire, watching it combust logs slowly.

Theatrical Patience

I would classify "Man on Fire" under the same ADD-driven cinematics of "The Bourne Supremacy." The entire movie vibrated my retinas until I thought they would detach, even in scenes with little action. Even though I thought this style was interesting at first, it has overstayed its welcome.

I prefer movies that take their time with the shots. I want every cut to be purposeful, and not just a take to a reaction shot because the child actor can't say two lines in a row without laughing. If you really want a reaction shot, change the angle so that the reactions can be seen simultaneously with the delivery of the dialogue.

Some movies do a better job with this than others. I remember watching the Royal Tanenbaums for the first time; I didn't catch the plot because I was mesmerized by the camera. A creative use of long shots can be very useful as well, as seen in a few shots of "Shawn of the Dead" when he stops by the store before and after the zombie attack, or in "Kill Bill vol. 1" when the Bride goes to change, and the entire scene, character placement and motivations are presented in one smooth take.

I guess patience doesn't make money these days. People are just too stupid to enjoy good movies anymore. I wish everyone wasn't such an idiot.

Fictionally Challenged

I brought "In Cold Blood" up north to try and read while I was here. I have trouble staying awake while reading it. Maybe it is because I watched Capote so recently. Maybe it's my dislike for fiction. Maybe it just isn't as good as people say it is. My opinion is that I am just not interested in the subject matter. That, and the fact that I have a book about mathematics nearby.

I was able to discover a copy of The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman at a used bookstore by my apartment just before I left. This book is half a biography of the famous Paul Erdos (forgive my lack of knowing how to put two accents above an 'o') and half a commentary on interesting mathematicians and their work in the 20th century. I just bought it to learn a little more about this crazy guy but was surprised at the amount of math trivia that was contained in this small paperback.

Is it sad that I could not put down this book? It dominated my thoughts until I could finish it. I needed to know all the secrets it held for me.

Really. I need a new hobby.

Internet Withdrawal

Apparently, I'm addicted to the Internet. I am up at my cabin on the lake, and my grandpa's satellite won't work, so we're leeching wireless from the lodge across the lake. However, my powerbook doesn't seem to get the signal well enough, so I have to use Tom's computer when I want to browse the web.

I thought I'd be able to keep myself distracted with other things like reading and math, but I'm distracted by the fact that life is happening and I don't know about it because I don't have all of my bookmarks, or my email, or forums available 24/7.

I need help.

I Need a Haircut

I've needed a haircut since spring break. I'm just to cheap or stubborn to get one. I did, however, get through an entire semester without cutting my hair. I don't plan to do it again.

Onward, North

Today, I make the long trek up to the northern country where I used to live. I won't be seeing any of the Lincolnites for a couple weeks, until I return the 19th. I probably won't even see most of the Minnesota people for a week as well, because I'm going up to Canada with Tom for the next week. I'll be doing math and reading. Some good relaxation is just what I need to kickstart my summer.

I am a Parking Genius

Yesterday, I rushed to get a parking spot under the viaduct after the meters were no longer active. I didn't follow three cars that went to the south side, and took the north side. I accidentally passed a parking spot that was hidden behind an SUV and about to be taken by someone on my left. However, a quick 90 degree backing turn got me a perfect park. I was pretty proud of myself.

Later I found a ticket on my windshield. Apparently, backing into the stall is against parking policy.

CSS is Good

I sure hope all of the styling problems have been resolved. I figured out what my problems were in IE and republished all of my old articles to make a hard link to the style, instead of relative. Also, I pulled out the beige Power Macintosh G3 that Henry gave me a year ago, and it works in Mozilla 1.2.1 on Mac OS 9.2. I call that a success.

The reason I pulled out the G3 was really to install Yellow Dog Linux 4.0 and make it a prime/ramsey number finder or something. I'm having trouble booting the CD. Does anyone know if there are special needs for a bootable disk on these things?

Moved Out

I just officially finished the checkout procedures to sign out of my Kauffman room. It went smoothly, mostly because I didn't have to rush to clean things. Now, the year is complete and the summer can begin!

Only One More

Within 4 hours, this semester will be over. It cannot be soon enough.

Klutz-stain

I'm becoming more of a stereotypical, klutzy math nerd. In the past 24 hours, I've spilled korma on a white shirt, coffee on jeans, and coffee again on a T-shirt (different cups, even). I fear that my wardrobe can't handle this rapid replacement much longer.

Grade Reports

I officially have an A in Graph Theory. There is one good piece of news I was pretty sure of before, but am glad to know. Who knows what I'll get in other classes?

Colorful

I felt like it was time for a big change, so I put together a color scheme similar to the old Stoleetech. I hope everything works for people. I haven't tested it in IE or Opera, or Windows in general. Let me know if there seems to be anything obviously wrong with the page layout.

Tweaking

Instead of studying for my 10AM final this morning, I decided to change the layout on my blog. Also, now it loads from a stylesheet, so the pages should load faster, too.

Please don't mind a few mixups while I get things figured out.

On Collegiate Nurture

If you consider your high school experience your educational genetics, then college is most certainly the environment that changes all of that. I noticed the last few years have had different feels to my work ethic. Freshman year, I was still trying to get away with doing as little as possible. I was also driven insane by boredom. Sophomore year, I knew I couldn't get away with that, but was driven insane by work. This year, I would have to guess that I'm driven insane by all the things I learned to do the first two years: work harder than my body can handle and still try to play videogames, watch TV, and go on the internet as much as possible.

I'll just have to wait until next year to find out what happens. I know for a fact that senioritis would be very dangerous with my schedule. I guess I have no right to have senioritis for 6 more years.

Not Funny

I don't know Jesse's morning habits yet. I don't even know exactly what time he goes to work. So, when I woke up early this morning to get ready for finals, I was trying to be as efficient as possible in the shower so I didn't disrupt any part of his morning. One "optimization" to my morning was to shave while the shower water heated up.

When I entered the hot shower, I remembered that scene from Home Alone where that punk kid shaved and put on aftershave and screamed his head off all over the place. When I was a kid, I didn't get it, but I thought it was funny anyway. I mean, he's screaming and running around. That's hilarious. Apparently, now that I'm older and actually get the joke, it's not funny. It is a stupid kid's movie that gets repeat customers through gags that kids love. I guess I understand why I stay away from modern comedies aimed at the college croud as well. They just don't have smart humor. I want dark comedy, intelligent comedy, and satire.

Also, for your enjoyment: here is a list of comedy movie clichés

Finals Weeks Begins

Now I am all but checked out of Kauffman and into my apartment. I need to do some serious organization to make my room fully liveable, but I'm close. I start finals tomorrow, so I better study a lot more than I have been.