ChapterZero

In an amazing example of the kettle calling the pot black, my father told me I’m ‘insular and arrogant.’ More on the insular part later. But like I was saying– who is he to call me arrogant? I know I can be a little arrogant– ok, maybe my ego is big enough to shelter a small village. But… a) he is the most arrogant person I know, myself included and b) the occasion was hardly the right one to choose to try and pin the label arrogant on me. The occasion?: I asked him for help in writing a short note to one of my professors, explaining my lack of progress in gathering some information (laziness, of course). That is hardly insular, or arrogant. To be fair, I did ask for his help on constrained terms: he couldn’t directly edit my email, and I would feel free to use my discretion in applying his advice. I doubt those constraints are expression of any arrogance on my part: I hate asking him for help, and being arrogant about it would only prolong it by putting him in the position of trying to inflate his ego to deflating mine. Furthermore, they were only expressions of my concern that he would try to force his ‘advice’ down my throat, instead of simply offering it– you know, the way advice is supposed to be given? I guess he has an easily triggered ego-protection mechanism. Or, I could be so arrogant that it doesn’t seem like arrogance to me– that’s always a possibility ;]. Anyhow, I still think that was a non seqitour of the first order.

Possibly relevant posts:

• on my arrogance (12/8/2001)
• Unrealistic, but inspiring (11/9/2007)
• Dif. Eq. (8/29/2002)

I finally signed up for a K5 account– since I’ve been a big fan of the site for so long, I figured its about time I contributed something. So I’m trying to think of something worth writing about. At least, for K5; anything else, whether worthy or not, will find its way to this site.

I had an interesting day today: first I had my ECE class, where my usually uninspiring and uninspired professor produced a rather novel method to introduce functions to the class. It involved lined people up against walls on opposite sides of the room ( representative of variables in a function and those in its caller ) and having them move across the room in opposite directions to attach to each other (simulating the binding of actual to formal parameters), with the two directions signifying input and output. Maybe he’s not such a failure after all– that’s a rather ingenious teaching aid. And by positing the idea of people frozen indefinitely in the receptive position, he illustrated how functions are useful as devices to preserve and reuse logic.

After that, I had a funny calculus test. I still can’t quite figure out why it was funny, but still, everytime I think of it, I start smirking. Maybe part of it is I never really study for cal tests, just cause math is one of those things, like computer related areas, that I either get immediately and it sticks in my head, or I don’t get, but when I do get it, sticks in my head. Anyway, I actually tried to study for this test– probably just because I was working on a paper all last night and before school, so I felt kind of guilty for not even having cracked the cal book, i.e. out of my insidious tendency to torture myself. So, we went into the test– only 4 problems, mind you– and it still took me the entire hour to do. The first two problems were a cake walk, just applications of definitions really; but the last two problems were a little more involving. The forth problem had me panicking for a while– it was a proof, and I was sweating until I was hit by the epiphany. The third problem was the only one I couldn’t complete, and the humor of the test resides within that factoid: for some stupid reason, whoever wrote the test assumed that we remembered how to integrate square roots of polynomials from cal II. Hello! we are in cal III; all that stuff is way behind us. Come to think of it, I think the TAs wrote up the test– they’re of the overzealous, complete-focus-of-their-world-is-their major, type– not that they’re bad people, they’re actually endearing in their mad scientist way, but really! I think it was just an absent-minded mistake because I’m taking the same prof for cal III as cal II, and in cal II, he never required us to memorize the formulas. Since we’re in cal III, I can’t see him expecting us to remember formulas from cal II that we didn’t even have to remember the first time around.
Somehow, the humor’s dissipated now…

And after that I had a HS discussion, nothing special there really. Then I enjoyed talking to a smart, and smart-alecky, friend of mine for a while. And now I’m blogging until either guilt pulls me away from the keyboard to do something more practical, I think of something more attractive, or I run out of ideas.

Possibly relevant posts:

• UH’s second annual middle and high school math competition (2/20/2006)
• Today’s Tests (2/22/2003)
• Convergence (2/7/2005)

Sometimes I just lean back and take a good look at my website– mostly only to remark to myself how sparse and badly formed it is. But just now, I delved into my archives to see how I might have changed, or perhaps more accurately, how my blogging style has changed. It was an amusing experience, and one that makes me glad I blog: to see the subtle surface changes, and even a few fundamental revaluations in progress within myself is a priceless experience. And with the distance afforded by time, I can truly speak to myself– at the time when I was writing, my concerns were honest and true to the matter at hand, uncolored by worries of my own self-perceptions. That’s part of what I like about blogging– the way it alternately forces and encourages you to be truthful.

Now my resolve to blog more often has been strengthened: by doing so, I’ll be creating a record of myself that I’ll be able to look back upon later. I might never write a book, or God forbid, even publish a paper. But I’ll always have my blog. That should be a song…

Possibly relevant posts:

• LaTeX blogs– sounds sexy! (8/3/2001)
• Just a Hop, Skip, and Blog away (7/11/2002)
• Friendship (3/27/2003)

I was just helping a friend of mine write a C program: we went to high school together and took two years of C++. The difference is, I knew C++ beforehand, and he learned from our not-good-at-all teachers; so while he has the technical knowledge, when it comes to making algorithms for problems and then translating them into code, he’s stuck. That seems to happen a lot: students struggle with the most inane programs that would take any person who taught themself a language only the space of 5 seconds to resolve. I wonder why that is: maybe in teaching yourself something because you desire to do so, you enter a mindset more conducive to picking up a new way of thinking; alternatively, you could say programmers are born and not made. But I don’t subscribe to the latter view; frankly programming itself is no hard feat, only obtaining the useful mastery and domain specific knowledge that makes programming worthwhile.

So what is it? I think there’s something about computers that most people just can’t grasp immediately no matter how much it’s reiterated: they are dumb, and only do exactly what they’re told. Perhaps the only way to truly grok that fact and all its implications are to know how a computer is constructed and on what principles. Unfortunately, all the computer classes I’ve ever been in or heard mentioned start with an introduction to the main units of the computer- “this is the monitor, class, not to be confused with this, the mouse”- and then rapidly move on to pointers! I vaguely remember the first time I started reading a programming text: all the labels- function signature, formal vs. actual parameters- just swirled around in my mind; back then I had only had a desultory introduction to computer architecture. Until I gained more knowledge, I was putoff by the incursion of all these distinctions and the rigor required to write a program. As I learned more, the haze started to clear away, and I understood even previously arcane things like dynamic linking and concurrency issues. Now I can pick up the language specification for virtually any language and, depending upon its complexity, within a week be spewing out marginally useful programs.

Why? And here’s the point of my whole argument: there’s a ubiquitous type of reasoning underlying programming. Much the same way that games can only be played when you know the rules, and once you know the rules, you can figure out how to do anything the game allows, programming can only be done when you understand the whys and wherefores. Until you accept that you’re not just dealing with a mechanized brain, and that you must change your very thought patterns, you will never be able to program. And no matter how much they’re told that, most people won’t ever accept it at a level sufficient for efficient programming, until they prove it to themselves. (As for the others, who can accept the rules of programming without need for justification, they probably would suck at it- precisely because they’d never be motivated to seek further in their understanding).

Moral of the story: programming isn’t a skill that can be taught exclusive from computer architecture. The student must understand how the latter constrains the former in order to gain that skill.

Possibly relevant posts:

• Programming language semantics (7/10/2006)
• The sad reality of Scheme (3/11/2005)
• Code Highlighting Added (2/2/2005)

What is a white hole? Any who, a friend and I have been having an ongoing argument over whether black holes are inconsistent with information theory. Read the posting on sci.physics if interested. So I decided to ask others who might know definitively, hence the posting, and since I just did that, I thought that would be a striking name for my next blog entry.

In that same scientific vein, I just read a very interesting book over the past 24 hrs (must have been real good aye?) called “Empire of Unreason.” An alternative history novel actually; I would have never sprung for it, but my sister checked it out, so I mooched it from her. It had a very interesting theme: evil spirits passing themselves off as angels try to stop the development of ’science.’ In that world of course, science is more like alchemy/magery, involving phlogiston (history lesson: I think that was the component of materials early chemists, i.e. alchemists, thought burnt). Awesome cool development, with no (relatively of course) unrealistic suprises. It speaks volumes for the book that I finished it in under a day. Or maybe not.. I was pretty bored :). Check it out: it has Ben Franklin, Voltaire, some famous Tsar- Peter I think, but I’m not up on my Russian history-, and even Euler. It reminds me a little, very little, of the Orson Scott Card series of novels on Alvin Maker.

Back to that which is stranger than fiction however. I tried using KLyx today to write a letter to my aunt. It was a pretty cool experience, because I was explaining some math stuff, so I got to try out a little of its interface for handling matrices, footnotes, tables, and symbols. I could grow to like that program, especially since I’m probably two version behind the latest and greatest. Of course, I’d rather know Latex inside out and not have to depend on an imperfect GUI; maybe someday I’ll make the time. I think KLyx is the only thing I’ve used under Linux so far that doesn’t have a more straightforward counterpart under Windows.

Well now I’m rambling, so I think I’ll stop now and go ircing. Only @ irc.openprojects.net, of course!

Possibly relevant posts:

• The physics of warp-drives (6/4/2007)
• Sci-Fi as the last bastion of philosophical writing? (2/18/2008)
• A really old entry (3/14/2002)

I’m getting sick of Linux: fetchmail just lost my damn email, and it defaults to flush the server after it retrieves it. And even Opera is acting up under X: my cursor isn’t showing as I write this, and sometimes I have to click all over the place before my input goes where I want it to. Linux- you suck. If only there was a more userfriendly system with the same power. But perhaps the presence of one negates the presence of the other?

Whatever, I want my _email_! Where do lost email message go- is there some kind of email limbo? Any voodoo priestesses out there who specialize in resurrecting lost emails? If so, drop me an email. Oh- linux gurus will do too.

Possibly relevant posts:

• The death of Purgatory Limbo (4/27/2007)
• Persevering for the Pastries (3/3/2002)
• Life sucks! (2/27/2003)

I am wasting my life away due to my sheer laziness. This entire week, I’ve done nothing but stay at home, reading and wishing I had something meaningful to do. Now today I have to actually do work: clean the house, clean _my room_, etc. I really wish I were into my school work- I would have a better GPA, and be more satisfied. As it is, I shirk away from my work too much.. and I know the situation will only get worse when I actually get a job. What kind of job can I get that would encourage my mercurial interests? Research probably, but then I’d be responsible for raising grant money- responsibility is the watch word there. How I wish I lived in simpler times and was in a better socioeconomic situation. Then I could be like Newton or Descartes, or any of those other greats who didn’t have to worry about money, and could just pursue their own interests.

Anyway, I need to go get started doing all my chores. Hopefully I’ll be finished early enough to do something meaningful. I notice I keep repeating that- something meaningful- but is there really anything useful? Maybe that’s the problem.

Possibly relevant posts:

• Semantic Satiation and Generation (8/19/2002)
• What a guy really wants (1/9/2002)
• Promises Kept (1/19/2002)

I just discovered a blog epicenter, drop.org, and it has gotten me to thinking maybe its time I redesigned my site and finally submitted it to a web engine. I have yet to make that big decision because I wasn’t sure I would keep writing: usually I find that when I start something, I’m extremely enthused, but I can’t go the distance. But this blog has been going for a long time now, and I think I’ve established that I can post reasonaly often. And I’m tired of not having anyone to comment on my ideas but myself.

About redesigning- I’m tired of this design; it looks like exactly what it is: a beginner’s attempt at serious CSS. I think it’s time I took it a notch to the right more, and try for that hard core net style that just depends on content and a subtle coloring of formatting to accomplish its purpose. Besides, I need to make the site more OS independent: seeing it from under Linux makes me realize just how much it depends on Windows’ Georgia font for efficacy. And that is way too much.

Possibly relevant posts:

• A note on running mathematica remotely using Xming (7/30/2007)
• Poseidon (6/8/2005)
• My blog, talking ’bout my blog (3/13/2002)

I’m starting to appreciate why Windows is so successful and so many people are attached to it by the hip. Trying to whip Linux into a semi-usable state was a pain, and trying to get it to work perfectly is seeming impossible. I felt overjoyed when I finally got X Window to work in 8bit 800×600 color mode; I can’t even describe how incredibly good it felt to see Linux printing on my machine. But all of that shouldn’t be: Linux just plain sucks when it comes to installation and configuration, not to mention hardware support. Yeah I know: Linux is one of the most customizable systems, and it offers support for a range of hardware unequalled by other OSes; I agree whole-heartedly. Problem is that Linux seems to lack support for a lot of ‘regular people’, neither high or low end hardware- take for example WinModems- if you aren’t careful that you’re buying hardware Linux will support, you probably will find Linux won’t support it. Almost a tautology, but compare that to Windows where nearly everything, legacy or not, is supported.

I wouldn’t be complaining nearly as much if Linux supported 16-32bit color and 1024×768 on my chip set and could use my printer’s color capabilities correctly, but it can’t. And I can’t even send email in the ubiquitous manner that so attracted me to Linux- I’m constrained to using Opera (which, thank God, runs here under!) to send mail because sendmail isn’t configured correctly. I’ve been reduced to being for help on comp.os.linux.setup by the unapproachable complexity of the task of configuring sendmail.

On the other hand, fetchmail works, and I’m enjoying CLI mail access. And obviously, the Inet connection works, so I can do everything on the net better than I did from under Windows (except see true color images). I’m enjoying BitchX and Lynx- which seems to be a good yardstick to measure HTML rendering by, actually. I’ve noticed that when I look at my sites and some others’ under Lynx, they look comparitively better than Netscape’s crappy rendering, if only because Lynx doesn’t attempt what it can’t handle. I still haven’t settled down to do any serious programming, since I’m still working on the initial system setup, but I’ve dabbled with gdb and c a little, and am looking forward to indulging in the pleasures of programming as it can only be under Linux sometime soon.

Did I mention I’m using a system with only 63Mb of hd space left? Yep, that’s right- I installed a dual boot on my dad’s computer because it’s the only one connected to the Inet. But to avoid repartitioning (he would have had a stroke), I used a tiny 1Gb partition, and all the space was eaten up by the end of the initial install process. I’m not complaining though, I view this as a small experiment: I finally got to sample Mandrake, only to find it’s not that hot, install Octave, and learn valuable lessons in system configuration that it’ll do me good to know next time around. So whenever I either move back into the dorms where I can use my computer’s Ethernet cord, or buy a modem for it, I’ll have formulated my plan for optimizing the Linux installation. And I’ll keep persevering, looking ahead to all the wonderful pastries I’ll be making with Linux when the brutal harvest is over and the chaff has been separated from the grain.

… Ok bad metaphor. But I had to try

Possibly relevant posts:

• I have been blessed… (1/22/2007)
• Progress in wavelet land. (8/13/2005)
• A note on running mathematica remotely using Xming (7/30/2007)