THIRD DEGREE NOODLE TRAUMA
CURE? SURVEY AND ALL CAPS.
2501. what image, scent, memory, etc. would you take with you into the dark/light, the land of dead, heaven, infinity…..?
The memory of my mom.
2502. Who is the most annoying musical artist EVER?
Kenny G! Haha, I dunno.
2503. If you HAD to go to one of the following concerts, which would it be: Snow, Vanilla Ice, NKOTB, Milli Vanilli, BSB, NSYNC?
N*Sync! Yay!
2504. Do you believe in manifest destiny?
Bah.
2505. Have you ever fallen for an email forwarding hoax (send this to 13 people and old navy will send you a $200.00(100 pound) gift card)? Do you ever think ‘well, maybe…’ and actually forward those damn things?
Nope.
2506. Let’s say there are 2 schools. one for boys and one for girls. They are both supposed to offer the same facilities so that the girls and boys get equal education. Would you take this to mean that the same courses should be offered to both girls and boys or that the same amount of money should be spent on each school?
Both?
Imagine that in the boys school fifteen boys sign up for calculus. In the girls school only five girls sign up for calculus. Should the girls calculus class be disolved and replaced with an easir one?
And that would solve what?
2507. Would it bother you if you found out that the fruits, vegetables, and meat that you eat is genetically altered (in lots of cases it is!)?
I pretty much assume they are unless it’s explicitly not the case, so…
2508. What does this world need?
More peace.
2509. Is there anything you do just because you want to even though it has no redeeming social value?
Welcome to my life.
2510. If you drink what kind of drunk are you?
Claudia no drinky.
2511, Do you ever ‘convieniently’ forget something you don’t want to remember?
Repression is phenomenal.
2512. If you have any cousins are you close?
They’re all in California, so we’re not very close.
2513. Are you in love with yourself (your beautiful self)?
BAH.
2514. What was the first movie you got on dvd?
Haha, oh man, I can’t even remember. Probably something Disney.
2515. If you’re sexy and you know it clap your hands. Did you clap?
Nope.
2516. have you ever called a:
psychic hotline? No
suicide crisis line? Yes
sex line? No (unless you count that time Matt and I dialed 1-800-BUTTSEX to see if it was an actual number. Which it is.)
dating line? No
2517. have you ever placed a personal ad anywhere?
Nope.
2518. Do guys look good in make up?
Hell yeah. I really dig eyeliner on dudes.
2519. What are 5 things you don’t care about?
Celebrities, current fashion trends, sexual orientation (I don’t care about it in the sense that a person’s sexual orientation has no effect on whether or not I like them), what’s on TV right now, and whether people think I’m weird or not.
2520. wHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO UNTIL YOU DIE?
TYPE IN CAPS LOCK ‘CAUSE IT RULES!
2521. What ‘issue’ do you think your opinion is so right about that you end up trying to sway others to your point of view?
A deterministic universe, hahaha.
2522. What age do you hope to live until?
The age right before I get Alzheimer’s. ‘Cause I’m pretty much guaranteed to get it.
2523. Do you like to tie others down during sex?
Never tried.
Have you ever been tied down?
No comment.
2524. Do you own any “toys”?
Nope.
Do you ever use them?
No toys.
2525. Have you ever been spanked in that sexy way?
I don’t like being spanked.
Have you ever spanked anyone else?
No.
2526. Do these questions make you uncomfortable?
Nope.
Does it turn you on?
…Maybe…
2527. You know those ___ for dummies books (COMPTERS FOR DUMMIES, SURFING FOR DUMMIES, GOLDF FOR DUMMIES, WICCA FOR DUMMIES)?
Yes.
Which one do you need to reaad?
How to Not Be a Spaz for Dummies
2528. What do your socks look like?
Currently barefoot, but the socks I wore today were striped orange, yellow, and white.
2529. Which of these really famous music artists started their career as a mime: Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Moby, Jewel, Frank Zappa
For some reason I’m thinking Springsteen, but the image of David Bowie as a mime is overwhelmingly hilarious.
2530. Does love float away if you let go?
It runs away as fast as it can.
2531. Do you think that most people in today’s society are:
kind? Sorta.
calm? Yeah.
humble? No.
peaceful? Mostly.
helpful? Yeah.
happy? No.
spiritual? Yeah.
creative? Eh.
friendly? Sure.
independant? Yeah.
intelligent? Maybe.
having fun? No.
comming up with new ideas? Some people.
able to think for themselves? No.
able to really connect with others? No.
2532. Do you believe that every action has a sexual motive (think Freud)?
In a way, probably.
2533. Speaking of Freud, did you know he was on drugs (think cocaine)?
Yup.
2534. Do you trust psychology as a valid science?
It’s a soft science, but I guess they count.
2535. ID: In Freudian theory, the division of the psyche that is totally unconscious and serves as the source of instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs(sex, food, agressive behavior, drugs, alcohol, yelling, anger, fighting).
SUPEREGO: In Freudian theory, the division of the unconscious that is formed through the internalization of moral standards of parents and society, and that censors and restrains the ego.
So, which one do you express more, your ID or your SUPEREGO?
So very much my superego.
2536. Do you think that people who are alone and depressed are depressed because they are alone or alone because they are depressed?
Depressed ‘cause they are alone.
2537. Can you complete any of the following lyrics:
I stop and I stare too much, afraid that I care too much…Nope
You’re a new and better man, he helps you to understand,He does everything he can, he’s….Nope
Took the needles from my arms and put them to the sky…Nope
Top Gun shut down your Firm like Tom Cruise….Nope
Don’t you take it so hard now, And please don’t take it so bad….Nope
Haha, fail.
2538. How about these?
From around the way, born in ’73, Harcore B-boy named…
And this feeling shivers down your spine, Love comes in colors I can’t deny….
Before he hung up the phone he took a deep breath, stopped, and replied….
When I want you in my arms, when I want you and all your charms, whenever I
want you all I have to do is…
Silly games that you were playing, empty words we both were saying…
I don’t know any of these.
2539. Have you ever been to see a ballet?
No.
2540. What is the difference between Satan and Pan?
Hahahaha, quite a lot, eh?
2541. What should a poem be or do if it is a successful poem?
Evoke some sort of emotion or create a powerful image.
2542. When you interpret a poem can each line mean anything you want it to?
Eh. I have trouble taking poetry seriously, as bad as that sounds.
2543. Are you an orgasm addict?
Nope.
2544. Are you a sugar junkie?
I’m not nearly as bad as I used to be.
2545. WHAT are you DOING?
I’m being DORKY!
WHY aren’t you marching in line with the rest of them?
That’s only for MARCHING BAND!
2546. Do you only hear what you want to?
What?
2547. Are you anal-retentive?
Oh dear, yes.
2548. In and Out. Over and Under. Around and ???
Amongst?
2549. What was the last thing you returned to the store?
I have no idea.
2550. Why ask why?
Why not?
2551. What is your favorite song that is:
jazz: I’m not much of a jazz person.
metal: I dig Apocalyptica’s version of Nothing Else Matters
rock: Journey’s Any Way You Want It
psychadelic: I’m counting Blockhead’s The Music Scene for this.
2552. What are your feelings about:
Picasso? He’s okay.
Van Gogh? I love Starry Night.
Michaelangelo? Genius.
D’Vincci? “D’Vincci?” Really?
Einstein? Yay!
Tesla? Even more yay!
2553. Who else can you think of that made a MAJOR contribution to art or science?
LEIBNIZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
2554. Who can you think of that made a major contribution to modern thought?
David Hume!
2555. Why is it called ‘coca cola’?
Wasn’t it made with cocaine at the beginning?
2556. Would you ever buy a Ford car?
Sure, why not?
2557. Donald or Daffy duck?
Daffy rules.
2558. What is the most memorable thing about Pee-Wee Herman?
I don’t know, never saw anything with him in it.
2559. Lease or buy a car?
Buy.
2560. Have you met Real Talkin’ Bubba?
Not that I’m aware of.
2561. Have you ever been in a situation where you weren’t sure if you were seducing or being seduced?
Yup.
2562. Can you ‘pinch an inch’ on your belly?
Nope.
2563. Have you ever been to:
a temple? No.
a bar? Yes.
a massage parlor? No.
2564. Would you ever want to visit Thailand?
Nah.
2565. What culture are you fascinated by?
Does Canadian count?
2566. Have you ever worn a cape?
I don’t think so.
2567. What is the difference between ‘nude’ and ‘naked’?
Nude = without clothing, naked = without clothing/resources/housing/etc. It can apply to things other than clothing, I think.
2568. What can you get for a dollar (.59 brittish pounds)?
Snazzy stuff at the dollar store.
2569. What makes you who you are?
My brain! And my butt.
2570. How do you search for meaning in life?
By learning as much as possible.
2571. If your partner collected internet porn pics of celebs s/he thought was hot would that bother you?
Only if they were really obsessive about it.
2572. You are alone with your lover’s diary. What do you do?
Leave it alone.
2573. You read some and find out that a whhhiiillle back your lover had a crush on someone else, but you two were together. You both still hang out with this person. What do you do?
Nothing. It’s none of my business, I trust them.
2574. Are you an old fart?
I’m 4,000 years old!
2575. What were your favorite things to do in the yard as a kid?
Sprint around being weird, mess around in the dirt, and stuff gravel down my shirt (don’t ask).
2576. Why don’t people have more fun?
Because we’re all bogged down in trying to make a living instead of just living.
2577. Have you ever wanted to have a pet skinned and turned into an article of clothing?
That is incredibly gross.
2578. Do I come off sounding normal, mildly irrational, blatently insane or completely certifiable?
Normal, mostly.
2579. Did you ever feel that you were unable to function in society?
Yes.
2580. Is it nap time yet?
Naps suck.
2581. Do you have to have the space next to the door or can you walk from the other end of the parking lot and still be okay with the world?
I’m fine trekking across the parking lot unless it’s freezing cold outside.
2582. Do you like trains?
Not as much as Matt does, haha.
2583. What’s in Hungary?
Hungarians.
2584. have you ever felt like you were holding someone else back?
I don’t think so.
Has someone ever held you back?
Nope.
2585. What do you think of the term, ‘organized religion’?
It’s a scary term.
2586. What do you think of the name ‘Orson’?
It’s a nice name.
2587. What frustrates you?
Myself.
2588. Winkin, Blinkin and Nod, one night, sailed off in a sea of dew..
They had a fight with potato guns, pew pew pew pew pew! (I don’t know).
2589. Is ten dollars (5 pounds) a good price to pay for one lipstick?
That’s ridiculously expensive.
Does anyone else remember when lipstick was, like, 2 or 3 bucks?
No.
2590. Are you ill?
Nah.
2591. Where were you the night of…..oh hell, last night?
Sitting in my dad’s basement, still waiting for all my crap to get here.
2592. Do you pronounce the ‘er’ sound at the end of words(lookER or lookA)?
Nnnnnno.
2593. Do you drink only 100% juice?
I haven’t drank juice in forever.
2594. Do you remember the bills you have to pay…or even yesterday?
Yup.
2595. What duck?
That goose!
2596. Do you collect coins?
No.
How about stamps?
No.
2597. wHAT’S the best way to learn a new language?
Classes + real-life application, I’m guessing.
2598. Is god in you?
That sounds dirty.
2599. Are you in god?
Even dirtier.
2600. Do you know which fork to use at a formal table setting?
Yes.
TWSB: Hydrogen: Putting the ‘H’ in “Holy Crap, the Universe is So Empty”
Crap!
So I found this page the other day and bookmarked it for a TWSB post…the page was a demonstration of how ‘empty’ we all are at the atomic level. On the current replacement page, the author states, “The page had a picture of a proton that was one thousand pixels wide, and a little electron that was only one pixel wide, and they were separated by fifty million pixels of empty space – I worked it out that that was eleven miles if your monitor displayed 72 pixels per inch, not uncommon at the time. You could try to scroll between them and it would take a long time. It was kind of neat.”
It was neat. But because of browser issues and issues surrounding the model of the atom the author used (he used the model Bohr developed), he took down the page.
In its place, though, he offers a similar study of scale and emptiness: the solar system.
To me, his atomic demonstration is more powerful since its fascinating how “solid” beings such as ourselves are composed of so much space, but the solar system demo is pretty snazzy, too.
Related: I’m assuming some of you Moscow people who stumble across this have taken the Moscow-Pullman trail…have you seen the little solar system distance exercise set up by a bunch of elementary school kids? It’s pretty cool. Pay attention at the head of the Moscow end of the trail to see the pics.
Dear Creative Muse: Pick a Freaking Topic and Stick with It
November 3rd: “Anyway, the new [NaNoWriMo] topic is deeply personal and definitely won’t get an excerpt posted…. so this year’s just going to be mysteeeeeerious! At least until I change my topic again.”
Today: I changed my topic again!
I had this super weird dream about a barber who goes and works for the President of the US, the President falls in love with him, all this absurdist subtext and symbolism is going on, there are lots of references to the ocean, and nothing really makes sense until the story’s over…
If I were a normal person I’d be like “oh, that was an odd dream. Oh well.” But since I’m a NaNoWriMo person, I was like “NEW NOVEL IDEA!”
So there.
And here’s a fascinating video discussing aging and time.
Haha, I’ve read that article they flashed at 2:26.
And he’s totally right…Vancouver was an intense hell on earth and therefore it felt about 60 years long.
To Sean and Megan:
(If either of you ever come across this)
Here’s a fake album cover for the fake band Quantum Rapture that we created in the car.
Yay.
Anyway.
Presidential Pickup Lines. These are like the best things ever. Favorites:
I made the mistake of drinking water while coming across this one. My water shot out of my nose.
Joyous day.
XYZ
Events today involved dredging up repressed Vancouver memories. Not a good time.
Therefore, today’s blog will involve frivolity and frivolity only.
So I finally saw Matt’s comment on my old blog containing a bunch of quizzes from Blogthings, and apparently those show up as broken html to everyone BUT me (thanks for the confirmation, Nick), so I’m just going to take screenshots of my results and post them here.
Head hurts. Eyes hurt. Portion of my brain responsible for maintaining a decent level of sanity hurts. Deal with crappy blog.
Blog 2,013: NaNoReWriMo
That’s National Novel ReWrite Month for me, haha. I’m a fickle bugger, so I’m scratching my current NaNo idea (surprise, surprise) and going with something new. At least I’m restarting near the beginning of the month this time, unlike last year where Googol was born on like the 15th had to be written rapidly (alongside class-work stuff and that soul bomb of a thesis).
Anyway, the new topic is deeply personal and definitely won’t get an excerpt posted. Maybe not even a synopsis. But it’s happening because all my other ideas are about 45% there in my head and the stuff I’m writing about in the new NaNo needs to get out of my head to make room for more important stuff (a.k.a. statistics stuff, methods to convince my dad to get me a car, how many M&Ms just came crashing out of the bag I just heard tip over in the kitchen…stuff like that). So this year’s just going to be mysteeeeeerious!
At least until I change my topic again.
On a completely unrelated note, I was surfing around YouTube this afternoon and came across this video of Steve Jobs introducing the iBook way back in 1999.
I’d never actually watched one of his keynotes, but holy freaking crap, that man could sell a product. It’s got a tiny little 3.2 GB hard drive and I still want one.
My dad actually had a tangerine one way back when. I played Bugdom incessantly on it, haha.
Today…
I need a hug.
This Week’s Science Blog: Prime Suspects
Okay, so this is a result of my efforts to complete “Partying with the Primes: Part II” (see this blog for explanation. Or just scroll down a few days). Because I knew trying to get R to output some sort of number spiral would be quite an arduous task, I first decided to do a few more elementary visualizations of the primes. My first attempt led to today’s science blog.
Question: is there any sort of pattern to the spacing of prime numbers? That is, is there any sort of predictive sequence that demonstrates that the primes are “evenly spaced” (or not) amongst the other numbers?
I’d done a little bit of research on this topic prior to today, due to my 2009 NaNo (haha, we keep coming back to that, don’t we?), but it had been awhile, so I did a little bit more reading and came up with a few good sources to check out: here, here, and here.
Specifically, Zagier’s comment stood out to me: “there are two facts about the distribution of prime numbers of which I hope to convince you so overwhelmingly that they will be permanently engraved in your hearts. The first is that, despite their simple definition and role as the building blocks of the natural numbers, the prime numbers grow like weeds among the natural numbers, seeming to obey no other law than that of chance, and nobody can predict where the next one will sprout. The second fact is even more astonishing, for it states just the opposite: that the prime numbers exhibit stunning regularity, that there are laws governing their behavior, and that they obey these laws with almost military precision.”
So what’s a good way to visualize this stuff? My first attempt involved coding all prime numbers as “1” and all non-prime numbers as “0” and then plotting the results with 0 and 1 on the y-axis and the actual numbers (1 through whatever the highest number I chose was…I think it was 1,000), but that was a horrible mess of jagged lines and insanity, so I scrapped that and tried to think of a better way of looking at it.
In the end, I decided the best way to examine the instances of prime numbers amongst the non-primes was to plot the numbers by the numbers themselves. That is, for a given sequence of numbers (say, 1 through 10, just to make the explanation simpler) I would repeat each number by that number itself, create a new vector containing these numbers, and then plot the result.
Defunct code for better understanding:
RepPrime=function(j) {
return (rep(j,j))
}
This function says that for any number j in a given set of numbers (again, let’s say 1:10), output that number j times. So if I had the number 7, this function would give me a vector [7 7 7 7 7 7 7]’, or 7 repeated seven times. And if I ran it for all numbers 1 through 10, I’d get the vector
[1 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10]’.
Of course, I couldn’t get this function to work but after screwing around a little bit more I finally figured out how to get this to work for larger sets of numbers, including sets just containing primes.
But what would plotting vectors like this reveal about any prevalence patterns for the primes? Well, let’s look at the plot for all numbers, shall we?
This plot is for all numbers from 1 to 1,000.
It’s pretty! Nice and smooth. So this can be said to be a plot for numbers that have a uniform or consistent pattern (all instances in this case occur one number apart, just because there’s one number difference between each instance; such is the nature of just listing the numbers 1 through 1,000).
Okay, that’s cool. So how about we look at a case where instances occur more “randomly?” In this case, I took a list of the numbers 1 through 1,000 and then went through and haphazardly deleted single numbers or large chunks of numbers so that I was left with a list that appeared to have numbers omitted at random.
Plot!
Much choppier, eh? This can be said, then, to be a plot pattern for numbers that have an inconsistent or random pattern of deletion.
So what would a plot of the primes—say, all the primes below 5,000—look like?
THIS!
So it’s obvious that this plot looks a lot more like the plot for numbers 1:1,000 and less like the plot involving random deletion. Interesting…I’d like to see what goes on with much larger primes, but unfortunately I can’t do that due to how huge the resulting vectors would be. R + large datasets = trouble.
Woo!
Do obedient consonants respond to a Q queue cue?
October’s done! You know what that means:
Graph of genres
Mean song length: 5:53
The Five Star: Paradise by Coldplay
Also, I’ve decided (at least for now, haha) to dredge up a VERY old story idea for this year’s NaNo. Will it be my permanent idea this year? Probably not.
But who knows.
Also also, I think I’ve discovered my default genre of comfort: bizarro fiction.
Also also also, Mona Simpson’s eulogy for Steve Jobs (Mona’s his sister, for those who don’t know). Very touching, in my opinion.
The end.
Boring Blog is Boring
I’m working on redoing an old Flash, but I’m lazy so it didn’t get done today. So…handwriting analysis! I love these things. Properties I think to be true are in bold.
Claudia uses judgment to make decisions. She is ruled by her head, not her heart. She is a cool, collected person who is usually unexpressive emotionally. Some may see her as unemotional. She does have emotions but has no need to express them. She is withdrawn into herself and enjoys being alone.
The circumstances when Claudia does express emotions include: extreme anger, extreme passion, and tremendous stress. If someone gets her mad enough to tell her off, she will not be sorry about it later. She puts a mark in her mind when someone angers her. She keeps track of these marks and when she hits that last mark she will let them know they have gone too far. She is ruled somewhat by self-interest. All her conclusions are made without outside emotional influence. She is very level-headed and will remain calm in an emergency situation. In a situation where other people might get hysterical, she has poise.
Claudia will work more efficiently if given space and time to be alone. She would rather not be surrounded by people constantly. In a relationship, she will show her love by the things she does rather than by the things she says. Saying “I love you” is not a needed routine because she feels her mate should already know. The only exception to this is if she has logically concluded that it is best for her mate to hear her express her love verbally.
Claudia is not subject to emotional appeals. If someone is selling a product to her, they will need to present only the facts. They should present them from a standpoint of her sound judgment. She will not be taken in by an emotional story about someone else. She will meet emergencies without getting hysterical and she will always ask “Is this best for me?”
Claudia tends to write a bit smaller than the average person. When a person’s letters are small and tiny, this indicates an ability to focus and concentrate. This character trait is a huge asset in careers like math, science, race car driving, and flying planes. However, if Claudia writes tiny all of the time, she will also display characteristics of someone who is socially introverted. Claudia will often sit on the sideline and watch others get the attention at parties. she might be willing to open up and be warm, but only in small groups or a select group of people. When she is busy working on a project, it is common for all other noises and distractions to just fade away and her ability to focus is incredible. When she says “she didn’t hear you”, she really means, she didn’t hear you.
Claudia will demand respect and will expect others to treat her with honor and dignity. Claudia believes in her ideas and will expect other people to also respect them. She has a lot of pride.
Claudia will be candid and direct when expressing her opinion. She will tell them what she thinks if they ask for it, whether they like it or not. So, if they don’t really want her opinion, don’t ask for it!
In reference to Claudia’s mental abilities, she has a very investigating and creating mind. She investigates projects rapidly because she is curious about many things. She gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but she soon must slow down and look at all the angles. She probably gets too many things going at once. When Claudia slows down, then she becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, she must slow down to do it. She then decides what projects she has time to finish. Thus she finishes at a slower pace than when she started the project.
She has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. Her mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. She can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. Claudia can then switch into her low gear. When she is in the slower mode, she can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. She is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.
Claudia is a practical person whose goals are planned, practical, and down to earth. This is typical of people with normal healthy self-esteem. She needs to visualize the end of a project before she starts. She finds joy in anticipation and planning [if I could bold this even more, I would]. Notice that I said she plans everything she is going to do, that doesn’t necessarily mean things go as planned. Claudia basically feels good about herself. She has a positive self-esteem which contributes to her success. She feels she has the ability to achieve anything she sets her mind to. However, she sets her goals using practicality– not too “out of reach”. She has enough self-confidence to leave a bad situation, yet, she will not take great risks, as they relate to her goals. A good esteem is one key to a happy life. Although there is room for improvement in the confidence category, her self-perception is better than average.
Claudia is sarcastic. This is a defense mechanism designed to protect her ego when she feels hurt. She pokes people harder than she gets poked. These sarcastic remarks can be very funny. They can also be harsh, bitter, and caustic at the same time.
Claudia has difficulty trusting anyone. In fact, she trusts no one completely. This is a result of her trust being betrayed in the past. She has closed up, thus ceasing to allow close friendships. Claudia truly wants close friends and desires physical relationships, but she fears she will get hurt, again. She is lonely, yet has a crying need for close friends. This trait can cause much unhappiness. However, it can be changed.
Claudia has a healthy imagination and displays a fair amount of trust. She lets new people into her circle of friends. She uses her imagination to understand new ideas, things, and people.
30-Day Meme – Day 30: Share what you have learned, if anything, about yourself in the last 30 days.
I learned that I liked memes that I can do all at once. But that’s about it, haha.
I wish my stuff would get here soon
Job interview in a week and a half!
That was fast.
In other news, I found out that the UI is looking for a lecturer for STAT 150 and that I’m totally qualified. Given what’s currently going on with me right now, I don’t know if I could handle a semester of lecturing (or if I’d even be good at it, who knows?), but I’m super tempted to apply and see what happens. Wouldn’t that be awesome if I got the job, though?
In other other news, all my material possessions are set to arrive anytime between next Monday and the 8th of November. I propose that our little gang gets together for some sort of Rock Band + pizza + sexiness – clothes party at some point. Especially since I wasn’t able to catch you guys over the summer. Who’s with me?
30-Day Meme – Day 29: Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days.
1. Figure out what’s going on with my brain and get it under
control.
2. Develop coping skills that do not center around self-destruction.
3. Acquire money.
4. Take more classes! You know I can’t stay away.
5. Try not to die.
6. A bunch of other stuff that is contingent on point #1 (and #2, I suppose).
Partying with Primes: Part I
HI PEOPLE!
So I was doing my usual surfing the internets via StumbleUpon and came across an R-Bloggers post about using R to determine the primality of any given number. The code for doing so is somewhat long and I’d like to take more time to study it and see if I could come up with my own code for determining primality, but today I was too excited to do so and instead wanted to focus on actually using the code instead.
Perhaps those readers who dig math have heard of the Ulam spiral, a method of visualizing the prime numbers in relation to the non-primes (I’m having flashback’s to NaNoWriMo 2009’s topic and therefore keep having to backspace to not capitalize “prime” and “non-prime,” haha). Developed by Stanislaw Ulam in 1963, the spiral shows a pattern indicating that certain quadratic polynomials tend to generate prime numbers. Check out the Wiki, it’s a super fascinating thing.
Anyway, ever since I’d heard of the Ulam spiral, I’ve always thought of other possible patterns or trends that may exist with respect to the primes. Could other possible patterns arise if we just “arrange” numbers in other ways? Ulam used a spiral. What other “shapes” might produce patterns?
Thus begins Part I of my mission to make pretty number patterns and see what happens! (Though I must admit that Part I is rather boring, as it just consists of me using the code on R-Bloggers).
Anyway, let’s organize this noise:
Part I: write a new function that applies R-Bloggers IsPrime() function to any given vector of numbers, say one that contains the numbers 1 through 100 (just as a start, obviously, we can extend this to much larger vectors because math rules and R is like a mental sex toy). Make sure this new function is able to output a binary response—a 0 for any non-prime and a 1 for any prime. This will allow for easy visualization once we get to that point.
Part II: Brainstorm possible pattern ideas for numbers. Figure out how in the hell to program R to output a number spiral, among other fun shapes. Use excel cells as a means by which to make the actual visualizations.
Part III: Try not to lose sanity while attempting to bend R’s base graphics to your will in order to plot said patterns without having to resort to Excel.
Part IV: Now that the work is done, actually take a step back and see if anything came of these fun experiments.
Part V: RED BULL!
Today was Part I, so I really don’t have anything special to show you guys. But next time will be fun, I promise!
30-Day Meme – Day 28: Say something to your 15 year old self.
Dear 15-Year-Old Claudia: your high school math teacher will be a jackass, but for the love of god, TAKE ALL THE MATH YOU CAN. You’ll love yourself later for it. Don’t be like the stupid 23-year-old version of yourself who quit after Algebra II (a class she totally rocked with a C-!). Tough it out, suffer through algebra, make it through trig, and ROCK OUT CALCULUS, YOU CAN SO TOTALLY DO CALCULUS. Then take all the math you can in college. You may not see it now (in fact you don’t, you see yourself right now as an artist with no need for college…this view won’t change until you’re like 19, by the way), but math and statistics are in your future. Remember back in elementary school when it was just you and two other super nerdy guys crammed in the janitor’s closet for the “advanced math” section? Remember that? Yeah, you know you can rock math. You just need to do it, yo. PRESS ON, WAYWARD HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN! You may feel directionless now, but that will so totally change.
See you in a few years!
OH CRAP NANOWRIMO
Haha, totally just remembered that that’s happening in like five days.
Commence pulling last-minute plot out of ass!
In the meantime THREE THINGS!
1. Adventure Time is still the greatest show on Cartoon Network and Lumpy Space Princess is freaking awesome.
I still think the art/feel of this cartoon is very similar to that of Tom Deslongchamp.
2. I’ve posted this before, but I’m linking to it again ‘cause it rules and I just rediscovered it.
3. Haha, stats jokes.
30-Day Meme – Day 27: The last thing that made you cry.
Uncertainty. I don’t like things being “up in the air” like they currently are. I don’t know how long I’ll be in Moscow, I don’t know what’s going on with the rest of my educational career (‘cause it’s most certainly not over, screw that), and most of all, I don’t know what’s going on with my head. Hopefully things will start making some sense in the coming weeks. It also doesn’t help that I’ve literally only got a suitcase’s worth of stuff here at my dad’s and the rest of my things are making their way across the continent, current location unknown. If my stats books and notes get lost, someone’s gettin’ stabbed.
Rho Rho Rho Your Boat
2401. Does love come from the brain, the heart or elsewhere?
The butt.
2402. Have you ever given a shot?
Nope.
If not, do you think you could give one to a loved one if you HAD to?
Why is the scene from Pulp Fiction the only thing popping into my mind right now?
Do you think you could give one to yourself?
Probably.
2403. Can you lick your elbow?
No.
Come on, didja try?
No.
2404. If i was going to be talking to you for 10 minutes, what would be something really interesting you know a little bit about but would like to know more??
Factor analysis!
2405. If today was a holiday, what would it be?
October Day? Haha, I dunno.
2406. If you were making a mix tape what would you HAVE to have on it?
Probably music. OH I’M FUNNY!
Sleepyhead.
2407. What do you think of the Sopranos?
I never saw it.
2408. Can you name three good things about the society you live in?
We can freely criticize the government/the President/politicians, we live in an affluent enough society to afford the necessities, and it seems like there’s a growing support system for the GLBT community.
How about three bad things?
The whole “beautiful iff skinny” bullshit, the polarization of political ideas (at least at the level of elected officials), and the fact that there exists discrimination. I know we probably won’t ever extinguish discrimination entirely, but it still bothers me.
2409. Have you ever had a crush on your teacher?
Teehee.
How about your boss?
Nope.
2410. What is the differance between acting like someone in high school and acting like an adult?
Not much, I’m learning.
2411. What is the differance between a whopper and a whopper jr?
Size, I’m assuming. I’m not well-versed in Burger King burgerology (side note: burgerology would be an AWESOME field of study).
2413. Do you like:
Moby? Sure.
Run DMC? Don’t know them well enough to say.
The Cure? Yup.
Shakira? She’s a good singer.
Blink182? Sure.
the Pet Shop Boys? Never heard them.
Weezer? Weezer rules.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers? Not really.
Nick cave? Never heard him.
The Pixies? I like Where Is My Mind?, but that’s it.
KRS-One? Never heard them.
The Juice Crew? See above.
2414. Have you ever seen a movie in 3D?
No. And what’s up with that all of a sudden? If you want 3D go outside and have an adventure with your friends.
2415. How difficult do you think it is for immigrants to come into your country?
Depends on the border we’re focusing on.
How difficult is it for them to become citizens?
I’m not sure, I don’t know much about the process.
2416. Do you have what it takes to go live in another country, maybe for years, where you don’t speak the language as your first language?
Currently, I’d be screwed ‘cause I know absolutely NO other language apart from English.
2418. have you ever died in your dreams?
I don’t think so.
2419. Do you like
Douglas Adams? Never read him, believe it or not.
Kurt Vonnegut? He’s okay.
Tom Robbins? Never read.
Philip K Dick? Never read.
Orson Scott Card? Sounds familiar…
2420. What clothing size are you?
For shirts? Small. I’m short + stubby. For pants? The last pants I tried on were size 0, but I also have a size 8 pair of pants in my closet. I have to use a binder clip to hold them up though, haha. Most of my pants don’t have a size in them.
What size do you wish you were?
NOT SHORT.
Did you know that Marilyn Monroe was a size 12(and lotsa people think she’s HOT)?
She IS hot. And yes, I knew that.
2421. Does science leave room for faith?
Sure, why not?
Does faith leave room for science?
It should. Why would a deity allow for the development of science if it led people down the wrong path?
2422. What book should our political leaders read and why?
Political and Social Responsiblity for Dummies.
2423. Why and under what circumstances are people more likely to buy brand names ragher then thier generic counterparts?
If they have brand familiarity. Or if money is not of great concern.
2424. What is your favorite glass object?
I don’t think I have one.
2425. Do you like to window shop?
Sure. If “window shopping” can include fondling merchandise.
2426. Have you ever loved someone so much it just turned to hate?
Nope.
2427. What is arrogance?
Obnoxious.
2428. Are you more liberal or conservative?
Haha, liberal.
2429. When there is a presidential election in the USA why do we never hear anything about the third party candidtes? Do you even know who they were last time?
Because the US political system is screwy.
2430. Are you more likely to buy one really nice expensive outfit or a couple of cheap outfits?
Cheap, yo. Cheap clothes are usually more awesome, anyway.
2431. If you could, would you wear everything once, throw it out and buy something new?
HELL NO! Do you know how long it’s taken me to accrue such a rainbow of clothes? I’m still wearing stuff I wore in junior high.
2432. Do you believe that people have a responsiblity to be:
good to other people? Yes.
good at their job? They have a responsibility to find a job that they CAN be good at.
helpful to the earth(not litter, recycle)? Yes.
aware consumers(not buy animal tested products, not buy products that were made in sweatshops, etc)? Yes, if possible.
non-wasteful (not spend their money frivolously when they could save it to help others)? Not really. It would be a good thing to aspire to, but I don’t think it’s a responsibility.
charitable (donatine money, volunteering)? See above.
Which of the above are you?
I try to be all of the above, but I fail pretty severely at being an aware consumer and donating/volunteering.
2433. How do you feel about the internet?
IT IS MY RELIGION; IN THE BEGINNING AL GORE CREATED HTTP://
Should there be laws and censorship on the internet?
Only to an extent.
2434. Can you think of any questions that aren’t already on this survey?
Probably.
2435. Does sleep seem like a little death to you?
Nope. Brain = still active.
2436. Have you ever seen(and if yes, what did you think of):
Joy Ride? No.
Ghost World? No.
Monsters Inc? Pixar rules!
Queen of the Damned? No.
Office Space? No.
2437. At what age did you find out that Santa Claus wasn’t real?
I can’t remember.
2438. How many pairs of shoes do have in your closet?:
My shoes are currently in transit across the continent.
Do you like to wear the same shoes everyday or do you like a variety?:
I usually wear the same shoes every day.
2439. How many lovers have you had?
Uhhh…three?
2440. Have you ever had surgery? For what?
Yes. Appendectomy.
2441. What puts you in the mood for sex?
Haha nothing.
2442. Have you ever been on alcohol or drugs while at school or work?
Prescription drugs, yes.
2443. What do you think of Martha Stewart?
Meh.
2445. What do you think of:
British people? Love the accent.
Australians? I don’t know any Australians.
Americans? Yay America!
Canadians? My Canadian friends are awesome.
Mexicans? I have no issues with them.
French people? They remind me of Quebec.
Germans? I’m German!
2446. What do you do to cure the hiccups?
Just let them run their course.
2447. What is the FIRST thing you do when you come home from school or work?
Pee. Hey, you asked.
2448. Are you a slob?
I try not to be, but when I’m stressed there are no limits to the amount of my stuff I can displace in my room.
2449. Do you have a good work ethic?
Indeed.
2450. Are you a pack-rat?
Nope.
2451. Do you roll your eyes alot?
Nope.
2452. Do you prefer b-sides or remixes?
Remixes.
2453. What makes the world go ’round?
Angular momentum!
2454. Is Blink182 punk or pop?
I have them as pop, but what do I know?
2455. Do you remember Fat Albert?
Hey, hey, hey!
2456. Do you take things slowly, as they come?
I go after what I want.
2457. Are you laid back or tense?
Hahaha. Tense.
2458. Are you insecure?
Yeah.
2459. Imagine you aare working in a soup kitchen. You are supposed to give each person on the line a half a cup of soup. When hungry people come up to you do you just end up emptying the cabinets for them?
I would make sure I had enough for everyone. If that meant each person could get more than a half cup of soup, so be it.
2460. Why can’t we give ourselves one more chance?
We don’t?
Why can’t we all just get along?
Human nature.
2461. What bands do you want to see live that you have never seen?
MUSE AND LADY GAGA WHY DID I PASS THESE UP CURSES CURSES CURSES.
2462. Do you like raunchy songs (like that lick ny neck, lick my back, lick my pussy, lick my crack song)?
I love The Bad Touch.
2463. Do you think that the Beatles are still the Beatles without John Lennon?
No.
Would you want to see the Sex Pistols without Sid Vicious?
Who?
Did you think that the members of Nirvana were smart to reform as the Foo Fighters instead of trying to stay Nirvana after Kurt’s death?
What?
2464. Do you like the band Squeeze?
Never heard them.
2465. When you are angry or upset do you know you’re being irrational but you can’t really stop?
Unfortunately.
2466. Is there room in your life for one more trip to the moon?
Ooh, can I go?
2467. Where are they now:
Your first best friend in elementary school? Married + kid, but I don’t know where.
your first crush? In Chicago.
your first boy/girlfriend? Still around here.
your first love? See above.
your first lover? God, who knows.
2468. Do you have a lot of self pity?
I try not to.
2469. have you ever had something really good come out of something really bad that happened to you?
Does my thesis count?
2470. Do you like magnetic poetry?
Haha, the memories…
2471. What is one of your secret delights?
M&Ms. Though that’s not so secret, is it?
2472. Have you ever misinterpreted song lyrics in a funny way (I used to think that ‘wake me up before you go, go’ was ‘wake me up and buy me cocoa’)?
That’s awesome. I don’t know if it’s just me or what, but I’ve always had a really hard time telling what singers said in their songs, regardless of how clear/mumbled the lyrics were. Example: Neil Diamond always sounded like he was saying “forever with blue jays” in Forever in Blue Jeans.
2473. What are the most popular/overused diary names?
Haha, “My Diary” or, on WordPress, “My WordPress Blog.”
2474. Are you under pressure?
DAVID BOWIE
2475. How well do you know yourself?
Pretty well. Though that’s changing.
2476. Is ‘soul’ such an old fashioned word?
No.
Is ‘love’?
No.
2477. Name a person you love:
Leibniz.
How do you love them? Let’s count the ways…
Do you really want to do this?
2478. Does your place have a lawn gnome?
Nope.
2479. Do you ever wonder, ‘why me’?
Haha, yeah.
When?
When I’m feeling emo.
2480. Is rap a form of poetry?
Sure.
2481. What’s the differance between a player and a baller?
No idea.
2482. What imagery do you get from the words ‘woodsmoke and herbs’?
Firewood and oregano.
2483. How many days until your birthday?
100 days. Hey, check that out!
2484. have you ever MEANT to hurt anyone?
Unfortunately.
2485. What are 3 things you don’t know?
How would I know?
2486. Do you usually feel physically well or unwell?
I’m pretty physically healthy. Rockin’ that immune system.
2487. Would you ever submit your picture to be ‘rated’ on one of those ‘hot or not’ websites?
No.
2488. Why are there hardly ever any fat people in movies?
Because society is dumb.
2489. Is there any differance between what’s real and what’s for sale?
What?
2490. Are you funky?
I’m down with da funk.
2491. Do apologies always make things all better?
No.
2492. Let’s just say that there is a huge ass bomb that can blow up the Whole Planet..it is set to blow up in 100 years. You can push the button to stop it but if you do you Will die. You only have this one chance to stop it. Do you stop it?
I die from pushing a button? How exactly does that work? Is there a needle coated in poison projected from the button’s surface that will kill me as soon as it punctures my skin? Is there the creator of the huge ass bomb waiting around the corner just waiting to snipe anyone who touches the button? Do I get to have “death by button” on my grave? SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS!
2493. Let’s say someone else found the button to stop it instead of you. Do you think it is their moral obligation to save humanity at the expense of their own life?
No.
2494. What’s the silliest name you can think of?
Erik Erikson.
2495. It’s the middle of the night and you are home alone. Someone knocks on the dorr and says their car breoke down and asks to use your phone. What do you do?
Let them.
2496. If a cop pulled you over and asked if he could search your car what would you say?
“When did I get a car?!”
2497. Are you meek or nasty around cops?
Haha, I remember when I was like six or seven and my mom and I got pulled over (there was something wrong with the speedometer and therefore we were speeding when we thought we weren’t, or something like that). I remember freaking out ‘cause I thought she was going to be thrown in jail. The cop gave me a sticker.
2498. If you were me and I was you then where would we be?
You’d be in Moscow. I have no idea where I’d be.
2499. What has been the greatest invention so far?
Calculus!
2500. We are at question 2500. Do you REALIZE what this MEANS??!!!
HALFWAY HOW FREAKING AWESOME
30-Day Meme – Day 26: Talk about the last “random act of kindness” you encountered.
I was walking sdown one side of the sidewalk and across the street I saw this lady’s grocery bag break and all her groceries spill out on the sidewalk. A pair of dudes walking the other way stopped to help her out. I think one guy had his stuff double-bagged and actually gave her the extra bag.
In This Blog: Stuff from Facebook ‘Cause I’ve Got Nothing Else Today
I am passionate, calculating, witty, and nine.
30-Day Meme – Day 24: Reveal your most guilty pleasure.
Friday nights. Isolation, Red Bull, random movie, lots of internet, M&Ms, and sometimes fries. I very much look forward to my Friday nights.
I Coulda Been a Container
I’ve been up since 4 AM Eastern Time yesterday (Saturday). It is now 1:30 AM Pacific Time on Sunday. London to Chicago to Las Vegas to Seattle to Pullman to Moscow. Six hours in Las Vegas.
Party in the USA.
In other news, the Chicago O’Hare Airport has some pretty badass lighting going down in Terminal 2. Evidence:
If I ever end up with tons and tons of money? This. On every ceiling in my house. 24/7.
30-Day Meme – Day 23: What your last dream you can remember was about.
I had this really weird H. G. Wells-esque dream about a scientist who is somehow able to go into the future like 10,000 years. He finds out that a disease had destroyed a whole generation’s worth of humans’ eyesight and, for some reason, all subsequent generations’ eyesight as well. Therefore, everyone he meets is “blind” (and their eyes are bound over by these weird webs of skin and eyelashes explained loosely by crazy awesome dream science) and they become fascinated with him when he describes to them this thing called “sight.”
Not unlike the “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king” adage, the scientist soon realizes that these individuals (who are living in a land that has once again become rich in resources that are scarce in the time of the scientist) can be taken advantage of because they cannot see him. He begins to pilfer from them, lightly at first, and then begins to eventually shape and alter parts of their routines and culture in order to get them to procure for him all these valuable resources. Little does the scientist know, however, these people have developed this sort of “extra sense” that allows them to “see” what the scientist is doing to them. They wait and play along with him for awhile to get him comfortable in the environment, then a bunch of them eventually capture the scientist and he is subject to quite a graphic and disturbing bit of torture involving the people injecting all these weird chemicals into the scientist’s eyes. It was…odd.
That’s all.
US-CANADIAN RELATIONS: Y U NO MORE INTUITIVE AND SIMPLE FOR SUCH FRIENDLY COUNTRIES?!
Things that are surprisingly easy to do:
– Withdraw from a Canadian university for medical reasons.
– Hire a company to pack all your apartment’s crap and haul it across the country for you.
– Love Coldplay’s new song Paradise. OH MY GOODNESS SO MUCH LOVE FIVE STARS FIVE STARS FIVE STARS.
Things that are surprisingly difficult to do:
– Cancel your Canadian credit card.
– Transfer Canadian funds to a US account.
– Terminate a Canadian cell phone contract.
– Send medical info from the US to Canada.
– Figure out how much money you’re getting for being a TA for part of a month.
– Doing all of the above in the exact appropriate order so that it all works out in the end.
Hooray stress! Perhaps today’s meme entry will alleviate anxiety.
30-Day Meme – Day 22: Your deepest fear.
Haha, nope, no stress relief. I’m afraid of failure. Failure defined on my own terms. I’d go into more detail but I’m getting really
distracted by the slot machines behind me (I’m stuck in the Las Vegas International Airport for four more hours) and I’m super tired of traveling, so I’m just going to leave things off here.
Sorry.
I’ll Get You, My Pretty, and Your Little Blog, Too!
Hello ladies and gents. There is something special about today’s blog.
Today is my 2,000th blog!
YAY!
This means it’s been 2,000 days since May 1st, 2006. That simultaneously sounds so long and yet so short.
ANYWAY!
In modest celebration (“modest” meaning “not extravagant;” all my crap’s packed up and I’m sitting in a hotel waiting to go home tomorrow and thus haven’t really had time to make a huge celebration blog), I’m going to list my top 20 blog titles and top 20 blogs. Because that’s kind of what I do.
Titles first!
Top 20 Titles (yes, most of these are stupid puns. Deal.)
- Are the bulbs of mercury at the bottom of thermometers collectively known as H.G. Wells?
- I just realized I’m illiterate and now I cacng apbtrtht kd thactgs
- Do physical comedians suffer from post-dramatic jest disorder?
- Circular reasoning works because circular reasoning works because circular reasoning works…
- Do philosophy departments have Causal Fridays?
- My new position at the PepsiCo factory isn’t the greatest job in the world, but I’m making Dew
- Waiter! There’s a tachyon in my—oh wait, there it goes, never mind.
- Is a theorem about pickles called a dill lemma?
- I am 95% confident that the population parameter ‘love’ falls between you and me
- If you want to eat an apple pie, you must first consume the universe
- Yo blog title, I’mma let you finish, but this entry holds one of the best blogs of all time
- I used to teach a failing fly-tying class until I realized my efforts were all for knot.
- I used to work at a bridal shop specializing in headdresses. My work there was to know a veil.
- Hammer Time is the fifth dimension
- How much fit would an index fit if the index indexed fit?
- Is Superman’s costume considered his strong suit?
- Silly Rabbit…Trix are for Magicians
- This just in: geophagists across the globe are biting the dust!
- Some Days I Miss My Sanity. Other Days I’m Just a Toaster.
- Waiter! There’s an infinite loop in my Waiter! There’s an infinite loop in my Waiter!…
Top 20 Blogs
- The Second Continental Chatroom – This is probably the only halfway funny thing I’ve ever written. Fueled by Chips Ahoy, baby. Fueled by Chips Ahoy.
- Claudia the Angry Blogger Presents: Yet Another Rant against Pretty Much Everything – This blog started as like three paragraphs and ballooned to a full-on “I hate change, especially on the internet” rant. It makes me happy.
- U Can’t Prove This – I’m really not sure how I managed to rewrite U Can’t Touch This while under the incredible stress of a 25-credit finals week, but here it is.
- HOT DAMN, Tukey Sandwiches! – I think the “pun to normal content” ratio is at its most ridiculous in this blog.
- Multicollinearity: The Silent Killer – If you don’t talk to your kid about near linear dependence, who will?
- A STATELY CHALLENGE – Because my first draft of the US without reference to a map is hilarious.
- My new position at the PepsiCo factory isn’t the greatest job in the world, but I’m making Dew – Philosophy of science stuff.
- Damn this infernal 95 character limit! I have witty things to say in my titles! This is crap! – Bashing Microsoft ’07: a happy pastime of mine.
- Pi vs. e – Alternate title: “R has two subsequent heart attacks.”
- Blameworthiness and the Anonymous Judge: An Analysis of FML Categories – My hypothesis was supported! WOO! I’d also like to expand this study at some point.
- If a blog falls in the forest… – Because of the Pokemon card.
- Gordon Freeman: A Case Study – Because of Gordon Freeman.
- Apple stores are goddamn scary – In terms of frightening corporate power, Apple is still < Google, but both should be watched carefully.
- An analysis of statewise uniform population density (according to Craigslist) – More stats fun.
- I’ve been waiting years for this – I remember being SO HAPPY when I opened the M&Ms package.
- Piece of Pi – More song parody! More math!
- Are the bulbs of mercury at the bottom of thermometers collectively known as H.G. Wells? – I really don’t know why I like this blog, I just do. Hippos.
- In This Blog: My Data Look like a Napkin Swan – Because of the uncanny and hilarious resemblance.
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is like a bad drug trip – It is! Seriously!
- Waiter! There’s a hippo in my Taco Grande! – Ye olde rant against pants. One of my early blogs.
Yay for 2,000 blogs. Here’s to 2,000 more, eh?
30-Day Meme – Day 21: A recipe.
YAY, a recipe! Cooking = win. Here’s one from the internet and one of my own.
1. Internet recipe
This makes a phenomenal breakfast/anytime bread. Super easy to make and crumbly as hell, this bread has a really good texture to it that adds to the sweet (but not overly so) taste. The only problem is that it goes moldy quite quickly if you try to stretch its life for more than five or six days.
2. Claudia recipe
You know I have to plug my Tukey sandwiches again (even though I just did), made and named in honor of the brilliant John Tukey. Because nothing says “you’re an awesome statistician” like a punny sandwich.
What’s Going On
Since I guess anyone who reads this with any seriousness might care (and apparently didn’t see my Facebook post about it this morning), I’ve made the decision to withdraw from UWO for the time being (well, technically forever, as I’d have to reapply to get back in, but that’s for another time perhaps). Without going into too much detail (or much at all…HA! Mysterious!), I’ve got some health issues going on that make going to school at the moment fairly impossible.
Why not get some form of treatment for it up here, then? Well, in order to qualify for any sort of medical coverage, I have to be enrolled in school. In order to be enrolled in school, I have to be successful in my classes, meaning I have to have the ability to concentrate on them enough to rock them. Because of said current health issues, I’m really not able to place much concentration on classes at all, and therefore “rocking them” is something that cannot be currently done. So I can’t really stay enrolled and thus can’t get healthcare (or anything else) up here.
So I’m going back to Moscow to find a doctor and hopefully will feel better soon enough to continue to go to school, ‘cause I dig school and don’t want to quit because of stupid health crap.
So judge me, call me stupid, weak, pathetic, whatever, I don’t care. Sometimes things need to be done.
30-Day Meme – Day 20: A hobby of yours.
Haha, can I say blogging? Blogging is so totally a hobby of mine. Though I guess I can say an equally prominent hobby in my life is doing statistics for fun. I really, really like running analyses on sets of data. I love to predict outcomes, I love to plot statistical results and trends, and I freaking LOVE interpreting said results and trends. Recreational stats FTW!
TWSB: The Sound of a Solar Re (and a Do, a Mi, a Fa, a So, a La, a Ti, and More Do)
The authors of the Ask a Mathematician/Ask a Physicist blog received and answered this question not too long ago: If you could hear through space as though it were filled with air, what would you hear?
The answer is as follows: the sun.
Yes, our big showy center of the universe is also the loudest thing around, at least to us. The Physicist explains: both the loudness and brightness of an object is exactly proportional to how big it is. The sun’s brightness, therefore, is a function of its temperature and size. If a small ball of the same temperature as the sun were to be held up so that it appeared to be the same size as the sun, it would feel exactly as warm and seem exactly as bright as the sun.
Taking this comparison of a small bright ball = distant, huge sun with respect to the amount of heat omitted, The Physicist states that the sun, if we could hear it, “would be exactly as loud as any other large-marble-sized nuclear explosion held at arm’s length.”
So we’d pretty much be deaf. Or dead.
Insanity! Article here.
30-Day Meme – Day 19: A talent of yours.
Rewriting song lyrics. I swear this is my single talent in life. Like I said in my “100 Things” list, I credit my mom playing a lot of Weird Al when I was a kid. It comes very naturally to me. Here are a few examples:
- Justin Timberlake’s Sexy Back rewritten as Easy Mac.
- Boston’s Peace of Mind rewritten as Piece of Pi.
- MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This rewritten as U Can’t Prove This (it’s about logic class and how long it took me to wrap my head around proofs).
Lawl, Republicans
The Republican Debate should have been broadcast on Comedy Central.
Here’s some more frivolity to round out your day.
30-Day Meme – Day 18: Tell us about your best friend.
I don’t have one! HaHA!
Short blog!
Pretty R
I love R. This is an established fact in the universe. The only thing I love more than R is revising code I’ve written for it.
For my thesis, I had to make a metric ton of plots. For each scenario I ran, I ran it for seven different fit indices. I included plots for four of these indices for every scenario. With a total of 26 scenarios, that’s a grand total of 104 plots (and one of the reasons why my thesis was 217 pages long).
Normally, once I write code for something and know it works, I like to take the time to clean up the code so that it’s short, as self-explanatory as possible, and given notations in places where it’s not self-explanatory. In the case of my thesis, however, my goal was not “make pretty code” but rather “crap out as many of these plots as fast as possible.” Thus, rather than taking the time to write code that would basically automate the plot-making process and only force me to change one or two lines for each different plot and scenario, I basically made new code for each and every single plot.
In hindsight, I realize that probably cost me way more time than just sitting down and making a “template plot” code would have. In fact, I now know that it would have taken less time, as I have made it my project over the past few days to actually go back and create such code for a template plot that I could easily extend to all plots and all scenarios.
Side note: I’m going to be sharing code here, so if you have absolutely no interest in this at all, I suggest you stop reading now and skip down to today’s meme to conclude today’s blog.
This code is old code for a plot of the comparative fit index’s (CFI’s) behavior for a 1-factor model with eight indicators for an increasingly large omitted error correlation (for six different loading sizes; those are the colored lines). As you can see in the file, there are quite a few (okay, a lot) of lines “commented out,” as indicated by the pound signs in front of the lines of code. This is because for each chunk of code, I had to write a specific line for each of the different plots. Each of these customizing lines took quite awhile to get correct, as many of them refer to plotting the “λ = some number” labels at the correct coordinates as well as making sure the axis labels are accurate.
This other code, on the other hand, is one in which I need to change only the data file and the name of the y-axis. It’s a lot cleaner in the sense that there’s not a lot of messy commented out lines, lines are annotated regarding what they do, and—best of all—this took me maybe five hours to create but would make creating 104 plots so easy. Some of the aspects of “automating” plot-making were somewhat difficult to figure out, like making it so that the y-axis would be appropriately segmented labeled in all cases, and thus the code is still kind of messy in some places, but it’s a lot better than it was. Plus, now that I know that this shortened code works, I can go back in and make it even more simplified and streamlined.
Side-by-side comparison, old vs. new, respectively:
Yeah, I know it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty freaking good considering I have to change like two lines of the code to get it to do a plot for another fit index. Huzzah!
30-Day Meme – Day 17: An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.) that is your favorite.
As much as I love Dali’s Persistence of Memory, I have to say that one of my favorite paintings is Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow.
It’s ridiculously simple, but that’s what I like about it. There’s quite a lot of art I don’t “get” and I think Mondrian’s work may fall into that category. However, there’s something implicitly appealing about this to me. I love stuff that just uses primary colors and I really like squares/straight lines/structure. So I guess this is just a pretty culmination of all that.
TWSB: Do the Hustle! Er, Shuffle. Do The Shuffle. iPods. This post is about iPods.
So I found this NPR transcript this afternoon discussing a listener’s question about the “shuffle” feature of iPods. Specifically, what the mathematics behind the shuffle feature are. After all, the listener notes, it sometimes seems like the same songs keep coming up while many others are never played.
Keith Devlin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford, answers the question. The shuffle, he says, is meant to be random and in fact actually behaves as a random event. Mr. Devlin explains that people have difficulty recognizing randomness because of the simple fact that one of the features of truly random selection is the repetition of patterns. He uses the example of coin tossing. If you toss a coin twenty or so times, you’re very likely, he says, to get streaks of the same side coming up, like a streak of five heads or something. We tend to see such streaks as non-randomness, though, because such patterns surprise us (after all, it does seem intuitively weird to see five heads in a row when you’re tossing a coin when you know that both sides of the coin have an equal probability of occurring. The magic of independent probability!).
Mr. Devlin concludes, “so, assuming that Apple have designed a really good randomizer in the iPod, then you are going to start getting repeats of songs and you are going to find that some songs don’t come up seemingly for a long time. That’s the way random behavior is.”
Cool, huh?
30-Day Meme – Day 15: A poem you wrote.
I wrote this poem for my grandpa the night before he died of a rare cancer. I remember reading it to him and watching him slowly fade in and out of consciousness. Everything in this poem is totally true of him. You rocked, grandpa!
A Grandpa is someone you can count on in a mess
Though with woodworking and painting he is easily obsessed
Not a job too tough
Not a place too rough
For this daring man of a ripe old age
Who has lived in the past and seen the future.
Can re-fix a shoe with a single suture.
No need to ask for directions
Full of funny imperfections
This daring man of a ripe old age.
Whether zooming to the store for his lottery ticket
Or checking the numbers—did he win it?
Doesn’t complain
Need I explain?
The daring man of a ripe old age.
The daring man of a ripe old age.
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