Shift Into the Dawn
So today sucked royally and I have nothing I want to say about it. So you get this nonsensically-answered survey. Deal.
This survey is entitled: “I’m sleep deprived and want to die”
1: What do you put on hotdogs?
More hotdogs!
2: Do you say “anticlimatic” or “anticlimactic”?
Antiderivative!
3: Do you check flyers before grocery shopping?
I used to in Van. I don’t here.
4: Blue, black, or some other colour pen ink?
RED LIKE BLOOD HAHAHAHAHAHA
5: Do you use your parking brake?
If I had a car I would.
6: Look to your left. How many framed pictures are on the wall?
None.
7: Do you know how to play chess?
No, unfortunately.
8: How often do you clean the interior of your car?
No vehicle for Claudia!
9: Do you ever read the last few pages first?
Dude, I just accidentally typed “Cclaudia” for the last question. That looks so cool.
10: Ever fallen in the shower?
HAHAHA I read that as “have you ever fallen for the shower?”
…the answer would still be “yes.”
11: On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to swear at other drivers?
Infinity.
12: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever called someone you care about?
I try not to call people I care about hurtful things.
13: Do you have a Snuggie?
Nope.
14: Are you allergic to anything?
Wednesdays.
15: Do you have any TV shows on DVD?
Futurama. Metalocalypse.
16: How many times do you hit the snooze button before finally getting out of bed?
Snooze is for LOSERS!
17: Ever driven away in anger?
Nope.
18: What’s your favourite freezie colour?
Freezie? You mean Otter Pop? I LOVE OTTER POPS! The blue ones are the best.
19: Are you a vegetarian?
I EAT SOULS
20: Do you have a garbage receptacle beside you? What’s on top?
I don’t. I have a couch.
21: Do you cross out your mistakes or erase/whiteout them?
Erase. Unless I’m writing in pen, of course.
23: Do you think that things will get better?
I really hope so.
24: Do you have an unpopular opinion? What is it?
Yes, and I’m not telling.
26: Did you/are you going to go to prom?
I did indeed go to prom.
27: What’s the most physically painful thing you’ve ever experienced?
I haven’t really experienced much physical pain.
28: What’s the most emotionally/mentally painful thing you’ve ever experienced?
Grad school.
29: Have you ever legitimately saved a person’s life?
Nopers.
30: What’s your favourite book genre?
Does “classic” count? If not, then I guess historical fiction.
31: Did you like “Gigli”? Be honest.
Never saw it.
32: Have you ever walked out of a movie at the theatre?
Isn’t that the traditional first step to get back home?
33: Do you peek between your fingers during the scary scenes?
Who said I hide behind them? YOU CALLIN’ ME A COWARD?!
34: What was your reaction to Tatum getting killed whilst stuck in the pet door in Scream?
That sounds disturbing.
35: Do dogs like you?
Haha. No.
36: Would you say that you project an air of authority?
I seriously doubt it.
37: Do people listen when you speak?
I like to think the listen when I teach.
38: How are your elbows? Are they okay?
They’re touched that you would ask their current state.
39: What is one thing that you do exceptionally well? Be honest.
Fail.
40: What historical figure would you like to have sex with?
Leibniz. INTEGRATION BY PARTS okay I’ll stop.
41: When was the last time you paid for music?
1976.
42: Are you addicted to technology?
Oh dear, yes.
43: Pick a person (you don’t need to give their name). How do you feel about them? Be as honest as you can get yourself to be.
I love ’em.
45: How heavily to you rely on spellcheck and autocorrect?
Neverr! I’im a prefect speller!
46: Have you ever gotten into an argument on the internet? Did you win?
Yes and yes.
47: Do you pause movies/TV shows if you have to go to the bathroom or the kitchen, or do you just let them keep playing?
I just keep them playing. If it’s TV I just go during the commercials; if it’s a movie I’ve probably already got it memorized, so missing a few minutes is no big deal.
48: If you use a regular alarm clock, do you have it set to music or that obnoxious beeping?
The beeps, THE BEEPS!
49: Peter Pan?
Wendy?
50: How often do you fall up the stairs?
I don’ t think I’ve ever done that, as uncoordinated as I am.
51: Do you pronounce “anti” as ant-eye or ant-ee? (Example: “That scene was very anticlimactic.”)
Ant-eye.
52: Do you pronounce “via” as vee-uh or vie-uh? (Example: “We can get there via Tremont Street.”)
Vee-uh.
53: How often do you forget to close your parentheses?
NEVER! (Well, almost never (ha you see what I did there (oh god it doesn’t stop (FOR THE LOVE OF JEEBUS MAKE IT STOP
Well this is beautiful
Sit and enjoy.
I’m telling you now that this week’s blogs are going to suck (I mean, even more than usual) because I’ve got two tests and no free time and no sanity left for any sort of coherent blog posts. Apologies in advance. Maybe this weekend I’ll make a drawing for y’all.
Uh…bye.
Walkin’ desk!
So Megan, being the super awesome person she is, gave me her old treadmill. I retrofitted a makeshift desk to it so I have a crude version of a standing/walking desk.
Observe!
When I have more time (which will be never), I’m going to make a sturdier desk that stands on its own so that it doesn’t shake with the movement of my fat butt on the treadmill.
WOO!
Also, my heart’s doing weird fluttery things. Either I’ve got an arrhythmia going or I’m in love.
Or I’m in love with arrhythmias.
More birthday stuff
I can’t stay away from that website with the mathematician birthday/deathday data.
So I decided to look at the data a little differently this time. Each square represents either a death or a birth on the day of the year. The data are broken up by month by a small white space.
Note the “most eventful” and “least eventful” days. And look at October and all its within-group variance.
I think I’m going to do some stats on this data. Because that’s what I do. But I can’t do it for like another week, since next week involves LOTS of studying/homework/panic attacks.
BUT LATER!
FFFFFFFFFFFF
I haven’t given you a proper rant yet this year, have I?
Well buckle up.
Recall this entry I posted awhile back about my relationship with math throughout my life. I’ve spent most of my college career trying to overcome my fear of failing at all things math (to reiterate an important point: I don’t (and never did) hate math, and I’m not afraid of math itself, I’m afraid of sucking at math). And I think I’ve done a pretty damn good job of it, all things considered. Hell, I’m technically a math major now anyway.
But I still get major, major anxiety when it comes to math tests. I get test anxiety in general, but my math test anxiety is and has always been through the roof. I try to overcome it and tell it to shut the hell up, but it’s really hard for me to do so.
So you can imagine my frustration at hearing my dad repeatedly tell me that I’m an “artsy” person, not a “science” person whenever I mention my anxieties regarding math.
Couple points here.
Point the First:
Um, what? Okay, let’s for a second go along with this idea that there’s a strict demarcation between the artsy and the sciency. Last time I checked, I teach stats. That’s pretty damn sciencey, bro.
Point the Second:
I’m no genius or anything, but I’m pretty sure that people don’t fit into two nice little categories based on whether they have a propensity for painting or a propensity for solving integrals. You’re an academic, dad. You should at least know that a lot of the people we tend to think of as really freaking smart have been both “artistic” in the stereotypical sense and “sciencey” in the stereotypical sense. Mutual exclusivity does not apply here.
Point the Third:
This is the least important one, but that really messed with my anxiety levels. When someone’s anxious about doing something, you don’t essentially tell them “yeah, you shouldn’t be doing that anyway. You’re not expected to be able to do it ‘cause you’re not supposed to do it in the first place.” I don’t expect a pep rally or anything, but I wouldn’t mind it if you kept quiet about your doubts regarding my math ability when I say “hey, I’m anxious about math.”
BAH.
This was going to be longer, but I can feel my blood pressure rising and I still have homework to do. So I’m going to end this before this post spirals off into a black hole of seething anger and repression.
1 Year as eigenblogger.com
So I’ve had my domain name (eigenblogger.com) for a year now. The WordPress map was implemented at about the same time:
Every continent except for Antarctica, bitches!
More specific viewing locations from ClustrMap:
Cool, huh?
I’ve actually got a couple milestones coming up:
10,000 views (since I’ve been on WordPress)
My 2,500th post (a fourth of the way to my goal!): that’s coming up in like 15 days
7-year anniversary: May 1st…it’s awhile until then, but still.
VROOM!
This is the greatest thing on the internet.
Jesus Markoving Christ is a generator by Josh Millard that takes words/phrases from the Bible and creates new phrases based on a Markov chain process.
(Yes, this is the same guy who did the Garkov generator I posted a few days back, but this is so much more entertaining).
Some of these are just…wow.
Someone should make a quiz: “Actual Bible Quote or Jesus Markoving Christ?”
The King of Archery
Well I did absolutely NOTHING productive today.
Unless you consider watching nearly every Achievement Hunter video on YouTube as productive. I am now well versed in Rage Quit-style cursing and have been converted to the “Gavin is hilarious and should be worshiped” camp.
Because…you know…MAAAAAAAARK NUUUUUUUUUUTT!
TWSB: Happy birthday, Sir Ronald Fisher!
Happy birthday to one of the greatest statisticians ever: Sir Ronald Fisher!
Fisher (1890 – 1962) was an English statistician/biologist/geneticist who did a few cool things…you know…like CREATING FREAKING ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE.
Yes, that’s right kids. Fisher’s the guy that came up with ANOVA. In fact, he’s known as the father of modern statistics. Apart from ANOVA, he’s also responsible for coining the term “null hypothesis”, the F-distribution (F for “Fisher!”), and maximum likelihood.
Seriously. This guy was like a bundle of statistical genius. What would it be like to be the dude who popularized maximum likelihood? “Oh hey guys, I’ve got this idea for parameter estimation in a statistical model. All you do is select the values of the parameters in the model such that the likelihood function is maximized. No big deal or anything, it just maximizes the probability of the observed data under the distribution.”
I dealt with ML quite a bit for my thesis and I’m still kinda shaky with it.
I would love to get into the heads of these incredibly smart individuals who come up with this stuff. Very, very cool.
Oh Internet…
There has been at least one previous blog post in which I’ve mentioned an assortment of Garfield parodies/tributes.
Well here’s another one. Garkov uses a Markov model to take transcripts of old Garfield strips and rearranges it to make new strips.
Some of them that you get are freaking great.
There’s also a list of other Garfield fun on the internet at the bottom of the page.
Awesome.
BEWARE THE IDES OF FEBRUARY
Once I stop being so damn busy these will get better, I promise.
But right now I’m spending about 14 hours on campus every day and I’m STILL not getting everything done. So as unfortunate as it is, blogging has fallen to “low priority” status, at least for now.
I’m thinking that sometime in the near future I’m going to a week of video blogs, ‘cause I’ve never done such a thing and I’ve got a fancy-shmancy iPad (birthday present) for recording my inane drabble in video format.
But as for now, I’ve achieved crippling levels of suck in pretty much every aspect of my life, so I’m going to go curl up and try not to do anything too self-destructive.
Who Wrote the Doodle of Love?
Hahaha, did anyone check out the Google doodle today?
If you spin the Ferris wheels, pairs of animals get matched up and you see a little cartoon about their Valentine’s Day dates. Some of them are hilarious:
Totally unrelated: socks I want
END!
Poetry is not my strong suit
Have you ever had a dream about a poem? Like, intense enough where you remembered the poem the next morning?
I fell away from you softly
And as I did a hole opened up and I was swallowed
Then time ceased and I began to become the hole
My fingers lengthening, webbing outwards
Until I was touching the edges of the universe.
My legs were gone and my body was gone and I was a planet
And space bent beneath me like foam beneath a weight
Until a larger body beckoned me towards and two became one
In beautiful violence.
And remember that time we split from the star?
That time we flew as particles dispersing through the darkness
Not a thought beyond acknowledging the distance between us?
We were happy then.
Odd news.
Dear Brain: at least TRY to chill out when I’m asleep, okay?
So last night I had a dream about C++. Our professor had changed our final exam to a final essay/report. I got the brilliant idea to create a program to write my paper for me. So that’s what I did, and I turned the paper in with total confidence that I’d get an A. Then I got it back and got like a 20% because I forgot to write my program to print the citations for all the sources I used in the paper. Cue total panic mode.
Hooray dream-induced panic attacks!
Anyway.
Haha, the Harlem Shake is actually kind of hilarious.
Here’s Western Ontario with their classy rockin’ (I’ve been in that hallway!)
That guy in the bottom left corner with the big finger, hahaha.
And then there’s UI.
Oh, UI.
More birthday fun!
This is fantastic info right here.
I don’t know why, but birthdays and the distribution of birthdays is really fascinating to me. I’m going to have to analyze this somehow.
And the birth and death statistics page is awesome, too. Interesting, interesting stuff.
Edit: compiled ‘em!
It’s kind of cool that I found this today, as today was the birthday of Rene Descartes! Happy birthday, Rene!
Edit 2: Not only did we lose l’Hopital on my birthday, but we lost Bertrand Russell as well? Man, throw in the birth of Ayn Rand* and February 2nd has not been kind to the world.
*James Joyce’s birth almost makes up for this.
!
DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE’S A SUPER FACTORIAL?! I DIDN’T!
Recall the regular factorial: 6 factorial (6!), for example, is 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1.
The super factorial of six, on the other hand, is sf(6) = 6! x 5! x 4! x 3! x 2! x 1!
On a related note, Wikipedia’s “Large numbers” article is quite fascinating. I love how when we start dealing with the absurdly large or absurdly small (and things related to them) our terminology gets really strange.
…
Okay, so I had a bunch of examples but then Word crashed and then Tumblr happened so you get this instead:
Update nonsense
So if you’re reading this you’ve probably seen the changes I made with respect to the title and color of my blog. Purple and blue are nice, but rainbows are “me.”
I had some other colors for the lettering of “Eigenblogger” other than the yellow—purple, white, black, blue—but I think yellow works the best.
There might be a few other tweaks in the next few days, so if things are tripping around, don’t freak out.
As if anyone visits this thing daily.
UpDownUpDownUpDownUp
Freaking crap, man.
This semester’s been a rollercoaster. And not a fun one.
I’ve hit this impenetrable wall of depression that I haven’t experienced since high school. Vancouver depression was really “pity me and my horrible life” self-induced sadness. This is like “even if I won a Nobel Prize I’d still want to crawl in a hole and die” sadness.
Blah.
Anyway, for some more school-related blathering:
The UI math department offers a special MAT degree, which is a “Master of Arts in Teaching Mathematics” degree. From what I gather, it’s a non-thesis MA track with an emphasis in (surprise!) teaching math.
So currently I have no idea where this math degree will get me other than flailing about even more stuff. But if it ends up going the way statistics went for me, I’ll likely want to teach it.
The MAT degree specifically states that it “only” prepares for teaching at some community colleges. I would be 100% okay with that (community colleges need teachers, too!). I can teach stats as I am, but I don’t think anyone would let me teach math with my current background, so I’d pretty much have to get some sort of advance degree to do so.
The only issue is this: right now I’m on the “statistics” track of the math degrees. I would guess I’d need to move to the “general” track to best prepare for graduate math insanity. That would mean like 5 more semesters rather than 2—which would be totally fine, I love school—but I don’t know about the money issue.
What would be real awesome is if I were to become a permanent lecturer in the stats department. I found out yesterday that I will be teaching in the summer and will most likely be teaching again in the fall (maybe two sections!), but I don’t know how long the demand for a supplemental lecturer will last.
So I guess I just need to stop blabbing about it and go inquire about the MAT. Couldn’t hurt, right?
TWSB: Prime News
New giant prime! New giant prime!
(It’s still really hard for me not to automatically capitalize “prime” after NaNo.)
Curtis Cooper at the University of Central Missouri came across the prime as part of the GIMPS computing project.
GIMPS, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, is a distributed project designed to hunt for the rare Mersenne Primes, of which there have only been 47 found. Mersenne primes have the special form of 2p – 1, where p is itself a prime number.
The new colossal number has been confirmed as the 48th instance of a Mersenne Prime, which makes it super special. To prove the primality of the incredibly huge number, one of Cooper’s computers ran for 39 straight days. Other researchers then had to verify the primality.
I can’t wait to see the spazzing everyone falls into when we find the next DOUBLE Mersenne Prime. There are only four of them thus far discovered, you know.
COOL HUH?
Survey says…a survey!
1: Do you notice a persons eye color?
If I’m close enough to them. Which is rare; no one wants to be face-to-face with me.
2: White, milk, or dark chocolate mocha?
I don’t like mocha.
3: If you could get a tattoo free, would you do it? what would it be?
Damn straight! And I’ve been trying to figure out a good design for years. Something with stats or Leibniz.
4: Did you grow up in a small or big town? Did you like it?
Small (Troy) and medium (Moscow). I had no complaints really, I just wanted to experience a big city.
5: Your favorite adult as a child? (and not your parents, if they were your favorite)
Probably Aunt Vicke. Or any number of my teachers.
6: What kind of smoothie sounds really good right now?
Ew, smoothies.
7: Most embarrassing moment from your elementary school years?
We used to do these Christian-themed musical plays every Christmas and spring. I always wanted an acting part, but I never got one until I was in fifth grade. And of course I botched my lines and made us skip about half the play. Did not get another acting part, that’s for sure.
8: Most embarrassing moment from your middle school years?
The VERY FIRST DAY of junior high I had to take the bus, and it was running like 15 minutes late. When I got to my first class the teacher made me stand there while she told me how irresponsible and disrespectful I was for being late the first day of class. I didn’t get a chance to justify my lateness until after class.
9: Most embarrassing moment from your high school years?
I don’t remember it, but when I was in the middle of taking an English quiz I apparently totally forgot who I was and where I was and Mr. Murray had to lead me to the office. I “woke up” there not knowing how I got there. MRI time!
10: Have you ever fired anyone?
No.
11: Have you ever climbed a tree more than twenty feet off the ground?
Yes indeed. With knives! I miss Art Camp.
12: Did you like swinging as a child? Do you still get excited when you see a swing set?
I freaking loved swinging, yo. I still do.
13: If you could have any pet in the world, illegal or not, what would you get?
Cats. Tons of them.
14: What’s your favorite place to relax?
What is this ”relax” thing?
15: What’s your most favorite part of your personality?
Uh…
16: Madonna or Lady Gaga? Neither? Both? Who cares?
Lady Gaga is a badass.
17: Have you ever watched the Superbowl all the way through?
I don’t think so.
18: Have you ever watched any major sporting event live?
I was in marching band, so yes.
19: What’s the most delicious food you’ve ever eaten in your life?
I can’t think of anything right now.
20: Margarine or butter? Which did you grow up with?
Butter. I think I grew up with that too.
21: Would you swear in front of your parents?
I try not to. It’s awkward.
22: Which continents have you been on?
North America and Europe.
23: Do you get motion sickness? Any horror stories?
I used to. It was pretty bad. But the busses cured it!
24: Why did you name your blog whatever you named your blog?
Because “Eigenblogger” sounds cool and pretty much describes this blog.
25: Would you wear a rainbow jacket? A neon yellow sweater? Checkered pants?
Yes, yes, yes.
26: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Post a picture if you can.
Talespin was my absolute favorite.
27: In a past life I must have been a…
Leibniz stalker. OH WAIT
28: If you had to look at one city skyline for the rest of your life, which would it be?
Vancouver was pretty when it wasn’t pouring misery.
29: Longest plane ride you’ve ever been on?
Seattle to London.
30: The longest you’ve ever slept?
Like a week. Thanks, Remeron.
31: Would you buy a sweater covered in kitten pictures? Would you wear it if someone gave it you for free?
I don’t like sweaters much.
32: Do you pluck your eyebrows?
No. They look like fuzzy caterpillars and I’m okay with that.
33: Favorite kind of bean? Kidney? Black? Pinto?
I don’t like beans much.
34: How far can you throw a baseball?
Probably not very far.
35: If you had to move to another country, where would you move?
Antarctica! Or Sweden if that doesn’t count.
36: Have you ever eaten Ethiopian food? Vietnamese? Korean? Nepalese? How was it?
I had Vietnamese in Vancouver. It wasn’t bad.
37: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Lots. Lots and lots of wood.
Yes, I know that sounds dirty.
[seething]
OH MY GOD today has been the most frustrating day I’ve had in a long time. Our CS lab assignment made me want to stab myself in the face.
Why. Am. I. So. Bad. At. Everything. I. Do.
Flaugh.
Anyway.
This made me laugh (and made me oddly aroused):
Warning: wear headphones if watching in a public place unless you want a lot of weird looks.
In this blog: I exclaim random crap using ALL CAPS
Because it’s an “all caps” type of day.
THANKS C++ FOR YOUR EXTREMELY SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION OF THE ERROR ON LINE 19 I CAN TOTALLY FIX IT NOW
HAHA THE VARIABLE “TIME TO PHD” IS CONSIDERED AN EXAMPLE OF SURVIVAL DATA IN THIS EXAMPLE IN MY TEXTBOOK. I GUESS I DIED.
I STUMBLED UPON THIS WHILE IN THE LIBRARY AND I LAUGHED INAPPROPRIATELY LOUD:
THIS TOO:
Rooster Teeth does it again
I haven’t laughed this hard in forever, holy freaking crapspackle.
I love how Michael is just horrified as Gavin’s gleefully botching attempt after attempt.
“We’ve lost everything. We’ve lost everything.”
Watch until the end, it’s so worth it.
Oh man.
QUARTER LIFE
So I’m 25 today, if anyone cares.
Part of me doesn’t give a crap, but part of me is majorly disappointed over how little I’ve accomplished thus far. Obviously there’s no one else to blame for my failure at being important/impactful/whatever but myself, and I’m definitely trying to make it so that I AM important/impactful/whatever, but it’s still depressing how much I suck at life. I’ve never had a healthy (romantic) relationship. I’ve moved around so much these past few years that I don’t really have a steady base of friends. And I’m just…blah sometimes.
But I guess I’ve done SOME things worthwhile. I’ve gone skydiving. I’ve marched in a Seattle Seahawks halftime show. I’ve won some awards for my writing. I’ve seen more than my fair share of internetz (YES THAT’S WORTHWHILE SHUT UP). I have a Masters degree. I’m working on expanding my knowledge as far as I possibly can. I’m studying what I’m passionate about.
And hey, I’m temporary faculty at a university and am getting paid to do what I absolutely love to do. That’s pretty damn good for a 25-year-old.
…Right?
BLOG WILL NOT CONVERGE
Asdlkfajlfagahsdfasjcawfe screw this week, man.
Anyway.
In the spirit of turning 25 tomorrow, here are some pictures of me when I was little.
My hair. Holy crap.
Birthday party! Why does our house look like it’s right out of the ’70s?
Posing as if I were taking my dad’s Envi Sci class (he has all his students stand with their names so he can memorize them). I loved that shirt.
Cheetos, yay!
Hahaha, the attitude, oh my god.
I look like Merryweather from Sleeping Beauty.
Eigenblogger 