ChapterZero

Continuing my recent trend, I will be posting sporadic recently throughout this term, because I’m attempting to dedicate myself to my math. Most posts in the recent future will be the result of my enthusiasm about a particular technique or subject bubbling over so I have to share. Other than that, I shall be incommunicado.

So here’s a parting problem from my Markov Chains course. I like it because it looks daunting, but if you know the ergodic theorem for MCs, it is trivial:

An opera singer is due to perform a long series of concerts. Having a fine artistic temperament, she is liable to pull out each night with probability 1/2. One this has happened, she will not sing again until the promoter convinces her of his high regard. This he does by sending her flowers every day until she returns. Flowers costing times 10,000 USD, , bring about a reconciliation with probability . The promoter stands to make about 7,500 USD from each successful concert. How much should he spend on flowers?

I’ve been living a charmed past couple of years, and didn’t even realize it until just now when I was reading an article on Windows Vista. How have I been blessed? I realized that I’m not one of the people the article mentioned will have to agonize over the decision of when to switch to Vista. I haven’t had to deal with any Microsoft issues in a long time; since my junior year at UH, I’ve been doing all my important work and play on Linux boxes. Thankfully, academia (well, mathematical academia) has been quick to appreciate the plethora of reasons why Linux is a better choice for workstations– all the math departments I’ve seen have been firmly ensconced in the Linux world.

I haven’t had to pay for (or steal) any software I’ve wanted in a long time– I simply type in apt-get install <package-name> and I’m all set to go. Updating the OS, as often as I want, is equally hassle-free: apt-get dist-upgrade; upgrading all my many software packages is also incredibly simple: apt-get upgrade. Importantly, if I need to install a software package on my office workstation, I can usually get around the need for sysop priviledges by installing it locally; in the past I’ve found it utterly frustrating that there is no equivalent option under Windows.

Forget Photoshop, I have GIMP. Forget Illustrator, I have Inkscape and metapost. Forget Office, I have variously LaTeX (with Kile or vi for interfaces), OpenOffice, or TeXmacs. And don’t even mention MS Visual Studio, I have a plethora of choices of how to hack my system under Linux, none of which involve memorizing tedious API details (at least, not nearly as much), and which cost literally infinitely less than MSVS (since they’re all free).

You can even compare the technical support: whereas with Windows, chances are that if you run into a non-trivial error message there’s no way you can figure out how to fix the problem yourself; if I hit a problem now, I usually find an answer online in under 20 minutes. The solutions are also a lot more palatable than for Windows problems– I’ve yet to have a problem that couldn’t be resolved by reconfiguring, upgrading or switching to alternate software. Under Windows, I’ve found error message usually indicate that there’s a hardware/Windows incompatibility which can be fixed only by replacing the hardware.

The point of all this isn’t to bang on MS or Windows, I’m past the stage of hating the company just because it’s a behemoth whose goal is to sell, sell, sell its constrictive and actively unempowering flagship OS. I’m just pointing out how much more productive I’ve been in switching to Linux. At this point, I can’t imagine going back to Windows to do something more serious than use the computers at the library.

If then also. Attempt a proof, using as elementary methods as you can.

Now use this fact to show that , given the definition .

I’ll post my answer when I complete it later tonight.

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I signed up to take winter Special Training. Sure, some of the seniors at the dojo had told us newbies their horror stories: running a barefoot mile in the cold, doing 100 Taikyoku Shodans in a row, and most daunting, having to hold the kiba dachi stance for an hour and a half. But, I thought, how hard could it really be? After all, lots of Shotokan karatekans go through this twice a year, and presumably they aren’t all masochists.

This winter’s training was especially brutal because of the strangely displaced weather– from Friday night, it was brutally cold, and apparentyl Saturday night set the year’s low temperature record here in Pasadena. Since the training gym was about 10 minutes walk from my apartment, I decided to stay at home and just walk back and forth. I learned this was a stupid decision very quickly, when my sore muscles started to complain and the cold made them stiff and extended the walk to closer to 20 minutes.

As for special training itself, it was definitely tougher than I had allowed myself to expect; the practices were intense and came one after another with barely a break inbetween. The first session was Friday night, about 7 to 9pm, the next was Saturday morning 5:30-8; this was the longest time between practices. The next one was 12-1:15pm then 2:30-4pm then 6-8pm, then 12-1am, then 5:30-8am, then 11-1:15pm, then 2:30-3:45pm. That’s the gist of the schedule, anyhow; the exact times may be off by a little. The fact remains, however, that it was a doozie of a schedule.

My worse practice was the second one, where after our run, we held kiba dachi for an hour and a half. I kept coming up and going down– the longest I held the stance straight was by my count still under three minutes– while out of the corner of my eyes, it seems everyone else actually held to their stance the entire time; if anyone bobbed up and down, I didn’t notice it. It both pissed me off and flattered me that several of the seniors supervising the practice singled me out for ‘help’ which consisted of yelling ‘everyone here’s in pain, not just you’ and other such pithy statements and pulling down on my belt or pushing down on my shoulder. One of the black belts was more supportive: he got down in an impossibly low kiba dachi in front of me and stuck to his guns; gave me something to aim for, but alas didn’t really help me ignore my aching and the temptation of bobbing. I was probably also the only person to fall on my ass during the practice.

Now that I’ve been to one, I know what to expect, so this should have been my worse special training. I know now I need a surfeit of practice holding kiba dachi before the next special training, and I need to come up with some system for ensuring I don’t get as sore as I am again– I had to cancel a study session today because I’m having trouble just getting out of bed, much less walking to my door.

In the CalTech weekly newsletter, there was an announcement for a session on coping with glomming and stalking. I’d never heard of glomming, so I looked it up on google, and surprise surpise I found a Ms. magazine article that appropriately enough was written by a CalTech woman. Apparently glomming is when a bunch of guys follow a single woman around, or lie in wait of her, just to stare at her; usually this is done by undergraduate men to undergraduate women. Extremely disturbing behavior that according to the article’s writer, was common practice at CalTech. I haven’t yet seen any glomming, but then I’m not around undergraduates that much, and I’m not that observant. Clearly we still have a problem with that behavior, since it’s thought necessary to have a session on how to cope with it. My answer, though tongue-in-cheek, is simple: videotape the bastard(s) and threaten or execute prosecution for harassment.

I went to Wild Oats Market today, for just the second time since I’ve been in Cali, and ended up buying a lot of weight loss products. Wild Oats is the bastard offspring of GNC and your favorite organic food store; it is a less kitschy, less commercial Starbucks for food and food supplements. Unless you’re rich, more of a last resort for hard to find items, not a place you’d want to buy all your food for the week.

So, the products I brought were: Hoodia– I had heard of it from Carmen Electra’s commercial for a female weight loss product, but I didn’t know what it did until I read the bottle in the store–, a cranberry weight loss tea, and a detoxification system. The detox system comes with a chart which you can use to chart your progress; the manufacturers ask that after you’ve completed the system, you send them the chart so they can use it to add to their knowledge database. One of the indicators they ask you to chart is your bowel movements, specifically

amount/volume, frequency, firm v. loose, floating v. non-floating, changes in color, mucus strands, easier v. straining

Yummy.