Gah, indeed! I had completely forgotten that this year is a leap year, and so several times in the last few weeks when I’ve mentally calculated the day of the week for various March dates, I’ve probably been off by one day. Fortunately I’ve looked at a calendar for anything really important, but still, it’s [...]
Archive for February, 2008
Gah! Tomorrow is a leap day!
Posted in Musings on February 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Snow day!
Posted in Musings on February 27, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Today was a fantastic snow day, the great-big-fluffy-clumps kind, which transforms the world in all kinds of interesting ways. I love how it makes the trees look, clumping onto the bare branches and making them blend into the sky, and how it deadens all the sounds so that all you hear is the shhhhhhhh sound [...]
Let’s Play a Game!
Posted in Game Theory, Paradoxes on February 22, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Finally, a math post! I was going to talk about Ramsey theory, but I need some diagrams for that and I’m going to have to postpone until I have a chance to make them. But that’s okay, because Hypergame is great fun and an insidious little paradox to boot.
First, a little history: The Hypergame paradox [...]
Future Math Posts
Posted in Musings on February 20, 2008 | 6 Comments »
One of my goals for this blog has been to write posts presenting interesting math concepts and theorems for a non-mathematical audience, and I’ve gotten started on that with my discussion of the title, Intrinsically Knotted. I’ve been contemplating the whole idea lately as I try to decide what I want to discuss next, and [...]
Atheism and Coffee
Posted in Art, Atheism on February 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Earlier I mentioned that one of the contributing factors in my decision to start blogging was the image I created about atheism and coffee:
Recommended Reading
Posted in Books, Math on February 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Thanks to audaciousman’s suggestion, I’ve put together a list of math books I’d recommend to the interested layperson. Then I decided I ought to extend it to cover all books, so I have a few other nonfiction recommendations in there as well, and soon I’ll add a section for fiction.
Thanks, audaciousman!
I Believe in Ø, pt. II
Posted in Introduction on February 17, 2008 | 5 Comments »
In Part 1, I established my skeptical worldview and justified what I don’t believe. However, for an essay whose major goal was to explain why I don’t believe in God, I spent comparatively little time on religion, with the majority of the discussion looking at skepticality and the scientific method in more general terms. It [...]
A letter
Posted in Personal on February 15, 2008 | 2 Comments »
So today in the mail I got a BIG envelope from the University of Oregon, one of the math PhD programs I’ve applied to. I tore it open, pulled out the cover letter, and read the first line: “We are pleased…” Barely holding onto the paper, I started dancing around, hugging the math professor who [...]
Highs and lows…
Posted in Personal on February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Wow, what a day for highs and lows. I ran into a friend from theatre (where I’ve been active in the last several years, but haven’t been involved this year) who told me that John Miller, the technical director, just died this afternoon. I really can’t figure out what to think. Though I haven’t seen [...]
I Believe in Ø, pt. I
Posted in Atheism, Introduction on February 14, 2008 | 5 Comments »
I already have a bunch of ideas for posts I want to do relating to philosophy/religion/atheism, but I feel I’d better lay out just what sort of atheist I am, first. I’ll try to keep this as clear as possible. Also, as much as I’d like to focus on the positive rather than the negative, [...]
