I’ve been reading John Cole’s Balloon-Juice blog since a co-worker introduced me to it. I’ve found it to be consistently excellent and worth sharing.

Owen and Karen both had colds the week before last, and work got a lot busier. I found myself alternating between staying home to help with a sick baby and working late in the dungeon. At least I was productive: I got a handle on the algorithm to convert between UTM coordinates (See: DMA Technical Manual 8358.2) and did a nice analysis of the algorithm given in Chapter 2 vs the one given in Chapter 4.

I was also happy to be asked a fascinating question over on the Dragon Avenue boards. Jim found a post where someone needed help with a bit of help with figuring out probabilities. At first, I thought it was a pretty straightforward question, but as I dug into it I was glad to see that it was more interesting than I had supposed. Going into it, I knew almost nothing about Markov chains (other than the basic idea) and had never used one to solve an actual problem. It took some work, but I figured out a way to get the answer he was looking for.

Here’s the chart I made to explain the idea:

You can see the whole answer and the context over at the original Dragon Avenue thread.

I have not given up on my little math writing project. For the next installment, I need to introduce some notation and symbols for set theory, which means that I need to get LaTeX working on the site. It should be ready by the weekend, depending on how busy Jim stays this week. He’s the one with the juice to get me the access to add new features.

I was in a reasonably dark mood yesterday after visiting Senator Feinstein’s San Diego office to lodge my complaint about her vote on the FISA bill. My friend, Mark, and I had made plans to catch Hellboy 2 on the way back home. I’m glad we did.

I really enjoyed the film. It was lowbrow, kinda crass, somewhat hokey, definitely cheesy, and utterly enjoyable. They even managed to sneak Barry Manilow into the soundtrack, and it worked. I laughed several times for pure delight, which was alone worth the price of admission. The visuals were great, the character designs were cool, and the sheer imagination of the whole thing definitely proved that Guillermo Del Toro didn’t blow all his good ideas in one go on Pan’s Labyrinth.

This has already been a great summer for comic book movies with Iron Man and The Hulk, and I’m sure that The Dark Knight will be awesome, but lets be honest: those movies take themselves pretty seriously and fall squarely into the adventure/drama category. Hellboy was much more irreverant, didn’t take itself at all seriously, and wasn’t afraid to play for some true comic book-type sight gags. Just think of those campy scenes in the Spider-Man movies that they don’t quite pull off because the rest of the movie is too serious for the silly moments to feel like they belong. Hellboy nailed those moments.

It’s that time of year again when we gather with friends for some outdoor cooking and load ourselves up with a (healthy) dose of patiotism and (unhealthy) dose of beer and barbecue. What’s not to love? This year, Karen and I are taking Owen up to visit our friends in the L.A. area. We’ll be heading out in a couple of hours and staying the night in Hacienda Heights with her best friend. I’ll be sure to post pictures of the fun when we get back.

As for the meaning of the holiday itself, I’d like to direct your attention to a great editorial today by Joseph Galloway. Especially poignant and apropos are the following words:

The fact that British troops, operating on flimsy general warrants handed out by local magistrates, were kicking in the doors of ordinary Americans and rifling through their pantries and papers in search of smuggled, untaxed goods was a prime reason why our ancestors rebelled against their king and went to war.

This is WHY we celebrate the Fourth of July. This is why the vote on renewing the expanded version of FISA and whitewashing the egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment for seven long years by our government is important.

If you have not done so already, please take a minute or two and call your Senators and Representative. Make sure they understand that this issue isn’t going to go away, and even if they vote yes on the FISA legislation, we won’t let that kind of injustice stand.

The article “Evidence Faulted in Detainee Case” in today’s New York Times made me chuckle. The administration’s lawyers tried to argue that evidence should be considered reliable on the basis that it had been repeated in at least three classified documents. I checked the court’s written decision to see their exact response.

First, the government suggests that several of the assertions in the intelligence documents are reliable because they are made in at least three different documents. We are not persuaded. Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact that the government has “said it thrice” does not make an allegation true.

Priceless!

The reference is to Lewis Carroll’s Hunting of the Snark:

“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What i tell you three times is true.”

Trashing a ridiculous argument by pointing out the similarity to a silly poem about hunting imaginary creatures. That’s more than pwned, that’s pwned in the face. I’m guessing this court heard about all those classified documents that said there were WMD in Iraq. *chortle*

As I thought about and planned my attempt to recover the highlights of my own jouney through mathematics, I wondered whether there would be anyone who might be interested in reading along. I could always just read my old textbooks if I wanted to recover the material, so it’s really only interesting to write about it if I have the possibility of an audience. Upon reflection, I decided that I really do want people to read along and, hopefully, to develop an appreciation of their own for the beauty of mathematics. I think it’s really only possible to have that audience if I assume as little as possible about previous math knowledge and start from the very beginning in a way that is as approachable as possible.

With that in mind, I’ve written part one of what I’m calling “A Short Trip through Math.” It’s a weak name, I know. Maybe if it goes somewhere, it’ll be worth thinking of something fancier. Part One is about Numbers and Proofs. Since my blog is LaTeX challenged, I’ll publish in PDF form first so that I can use all the symbols I need.

a-short-trip-through-math-part-one

Next time: Sets and Relations.

This weekend I travelled to Watsonville, CA. to attend a memorial service for my friend, Robin Palmtag. I left San Diego around 9pm on Friday and drove through the night to attend his memorial Saturday morning. Although Robin and I never met face-to-face, I doubt it’s an exaggeration to say we spent hundreds of days together playing and talking online over the past six years. All these things were abundantly evident in spite of the physical distance between him and his online friends: his pleasant voice, his calm disposition, his generosity, his eagerness to help others, and more. The only regret I have for our friendship is that I never made the drive to see him until it was too late. His family has my sincere condolences for their loss.

He was 51 years old.

Rest in peace, my friend.

One of the reasons that I wanted to start this blog–perhaps even the primary reason–was to talk about mathematics and how I made the transition from mildly math-phobic to mathematician. I’d like to be able to take those who care to read such posts on a journey through the fundamental theorems of arithmetic, algebra and calculus. What’s more is that I’d like to do it in a way that doesn’t require a lot of previous knowledge about math to follow along.

There are a lot of reasons why math would be a reason for me to blog. One of them is that I have some very specific ideas about the pedagogy of mathematics and why so many people leave primary and secondary school with so many hangups about math and such a paucity of mathematical skill and knowledge. Another is that I enjoyed my journey through undergraduate mathematics so much that I’d like to take another trip past the now-familiar “landmarks” of major results and theorems. A third reason is that it gives me a chance to solidify the ideas in my own thinking as I ponder the right ways to explain them to non-mathematicians.

One reason that isn’t a reason to study or talk about math is “what it’s used for.” I’d go so far as to say that I hate that expression. There’s no use for climbing mountains. You climb a mountain to test your will and endurance, and to enjoy the view from the top. You get a different perspective of the world from a high place. Mathematics is like that for me. I exercise my brain, test my will to comprehend difficult concepts, and enjoy the broadened understanding of the world of numbers that I experience in the high places of math.

I aim to climb that mountain again–at a leisurely pace–and anyone who cares to read my posts is welcome to follow along.

It’s not every day that I can say–and mean–that I’m fed up and won’t take any more. The Bush administration and their enablers in Congress have brought me to that point. The House vote last week to continue the Bush administration’s brand of fascism was the final proof that both parties are broken. Possibly irreparably so.

It’s now all but guaranteed that the Senate will vote to approve the House bill and the “FISA Bill” will be signed into law. They’ve tried to sell it as a bipartisan compromise that will ensure the liberty of US citizens while keeping our nation safe. It is not. It is an evisceration of our 4th Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure of our “persons, houses, papers, and effects.” The Constitution guarantees our right to be free of searches unless we are suspected of a crime and a lawful warrant is issued. Once this bill becomes law, our communications and electronic “papers and effects” will be preemptively preemptively searched and then the government will decide if we are suspected of a crime.

It turns the rule of law on its head. It rolls back the protections that were enacted after the Nixon administration was caught spying on innocent Americans during the Watergate scandal.

There are a few brave souls who are still trying to prevent this from happening. One of them is Senator Dodd from Connecticut. Here is a link to his passionate and powerful speech in the Senate on this topic. I wish Senator Feinstein had his (metaphorical) stones. Or Senator Boxer. Or even the House Rep from my district, Brian Bilbray.

Only ONE Republican in the House voted against this horrible, fascist bill. Only ONE Republican stood up for the 4th Amendment rights of his constituents: Tim Johnson of Illinois.

I’m not just going to complain about this, though. I’m done with the Republican Party. I refuse to be associated with or vote for the party of torture, illegal spying on Americans and all the other crap they have pulled over the last eight years. It has become clear to me that they are bankrupt of morals and ideals and have brought us nothing but war, deficits and erosion of our Constitutional protections. This goes against pretty much every aspect of the image I’ve had of myself and my politics, but this is just too important to lay down and let Bush and his Congressminions have their way.

I’ll be making a donation to the ACLU and finding out what I can do to help Nick Leibham oust Congressman Bilbray. It’s time to donate a little time and money to make things better instead of just being pissed about how things are.