Below are the most recent 10 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
mathematics [ futurebird ]	11:21a	I was reading the wikipedia... And I saw this: "In the early 1980s, Thompson showed that the monster group can be realized as a Galois group over the rational numbers." It's probably way over my head, but I want to know... Did he, like, find a polynomial for it, or just show that it could happen without explicitly showing it? I can't view the paper and I doubt it's at my level anyway. But, It would be neat to write down a polynomial that had a Galois group isomorphic to the monster group... maybe. I mean if it's not too long of a polynomial to write. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
theomanic	10:20a	All alone in the moonlight... I'm posting my LJ year-end review a wee early. Looking back I realize how much crankiness and negativity I put into my LJ these days. It used to be more good natured, I swears! But when I am frustrated at work, often this is the only place I can channel my rage. Otherwise I would just sit here getting more and more angry. Another reason my LJ is so often negative is when I am thinking over a problem or something that has irked me in some way I can't quite describe, I find it EXTREMELY helpful to type it all out in a sensibly structured manner that forces me to organize my thoughts on the issue. I'd apologize for all the grump, but I figure most of you don't read it anyway! And if you do, well, no one is holding a gun to your head (most likely). First line from each month: Jan - I'm feeling a little better today, for the first time in a while without trying to force it. Feb - My boss doesn't understand why someone would bother with a filing cabinet instead of a couple of cardboard boxes. Mar - How bad does a day have to be before you're allowed to go home and hide in bed till it's over? Apr - So I was looking for Easter expressions in Greek, and obviously I went to Google... and about a quarter of the results were all for one redirection web page. May - Someone tried to name their kid "Sex Fruit". Jun - I just got Sims 3 in the mail from Amazon!! Jul - I can't decide if I just meet rude Europeans, or if it really is just not a custom here to every say excuse me when you need to get by a person (in whatever language you may speak), apologize when you wham in to someone, or thank someone who has done you a favour. Aug - Yesterday, northbard posted a link to an article in his LJ, and asked for peoples opinions on it. Sep - Monday morning I woke up in a lot of head pain, mostly focused on my right eye. Oct - The thing about a Starbucks latte that makes it so addictive isn't the sweat tastiness of the syrup, or the kick of caffeine, or even the creaminess of the milk and whipped cream... it's that all these things together form some tri-action soul balm that soothes unlike any man-made creation. Nov - I got back my second assignment yesterday from my English class. Dec - In my last study session, the prof explained to us the whole "It's not what you know, it's who you know" jazz... basically, in school, like in professional life, you need to schmooze. Current Mood: pensive (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
mathematics [ ddt79 ]	4:21p	braingames Using numbers 1,3,4,6, and basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) and parentheses, obtain and expression that evaluates to 24. You may use only these numbers and only these operations. Every number should be used exactly once. Numbers cannot be concatenated, i.e. you cannot use 13 or 146. http://en.braingames.ru/?path=comments&puzzle=442 A Megamind is lost in the mountains. He is standing on a path, shouting for help. Finally, he sees a local approaching. Megamind knows that the locals can be knights that always tell the truth, or knaves that always lie. He also knows that the path leads to the village of knights in one direction and to the village of knaves in the other. The problems is that the knaves are also hateful of Megaminds, and will stone him if gets to their village. How can Megamind ask one question and determine the right way to go? http://en.braingames.ru/?path=comments&puzzle=443 A certain type of bacteria double every second. If we put one bacterium in a Petri dish, the dish will fill in 1 minute. How long will it take to fill the dish, if we start with 2 bacteria? http://en.braingames.ru/?path=comments&puzzle=431 more on http://en.braingames.ru/ (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
theomanic	1:00p	People are stupid I know my subject line is a news flash for y'all... Today I read a comment from someone on an article on the Peter Watts beating. Their Q - How is this news? Yeah... I laughed out loud, I admit, mostly because I wanted to cry. How is it news that border guards are beating people up? Oh GOD. What to say to that? Just laugh, just laugh... I don't know how anyone can claim whatever folly comes to man, he won't deserve it. While I've heard arguments that not ALL people are like that (i.e. awful/moronic/uneducated), as long as we live in a democratic society, we choose to accept the will of the common man over the will of the smart and educated (who are the VAST minority). Since that is the choice made, then how can we not accept responsibility for the stupid, ignorant, and small-minded choices society makes? It's very convenient to always be able to say "Oh, *I* didn't do that." whenever some awful thing is done or decision is made. But by accepting and abiding by the rules that allow such decisions to be made, one is just as guilty. People need to accept the repercussions for their actions. Just because the DIRECT repercussions are not bad doesn't mean the ones two, three, ten steps along the line are also not bad. And if they are bad, then what you did had a bad effect. That doesn't mean you can't do it, it just means when you do it you must accept responsibility. Example: WalMart - wow, what fab prices. They employ sweatshops, they decimate small economies, they treat their vendors like shit, they treat their employees almost as poorly, they rule through fear, and they censor. But they're very convenient! So shop there, I'm not telling you not to. I'm just saying don't be a moron and pretend what you're doing has no bad effect. Of course it does. Just accept it and move on. Don't argue and say it's alright because X and Y. Sure, those reasons may be true. But that does not invalidate all the other bad things they are doing. While I do not shop at WM because I cannot make myself comfortable with all they do, I do shop at other places that do bad things. I'm positive H&M uses sweatshops, how can they not? But I'm accepting that I'm supporting a negative thing when I go there. Does that make me a bad person? It's certainly possible. But does pretending that it's not true make me a better person? Quite the contrary. Being an ostrich doesn't make the bad things go away. Own up. Current Mood: disgusted (Comment on this)
Monday, December 28th, 2009
mathematics [ llyrfish ]	7:37p	Also convergence This is, surprisingly, rather like futurebird's post immediately below. I'd like to prove or disprove that if f_n is a sequence of functions in L^2[0,1] whose 2-norm goes to zero, then f_n(x) goes to zero for almost all x. I seem to remember that there's a counterexample, but I can't remember what, in fact, it is. Ideas, hints or blatant solutions? Thanks! (9 Comments |Comment on this)
mathematics [ futurebird ]	11:35a	Convergence I'm trying to better understand convergence so I made upa problem for myself based on an example from class. I want to know if I'm answering my own questions correctly. Define a sequence of functions fn(x) = 1 if x is in {r1, r2, ... , rn} and 0 otherwise. Where r1, r2, ... , rn are the first n rational numbers in some enumeration of all rational numbers. fn converges pointwise to the dirichlet function. But, can we say anything else about how fn --> f? Uniform Convergence Given e > 0 is there an N such that when n > N |fn - f | < e for all x? No. Just let e=.5 we cal alays find an x value where |fn - f | = 1. That is, a rational number that has not yet been listed by the time we reach n. Convergence in Measure Yes. The measure of the set where f and fn are not the same is *always* 0. Almost Uniform Convergence Yes. If we let A, the set of measure less the any e where uniform convergence fails be Q, the rationals I think we have almost uniform convergence. since m{Q}=0 < e for all e > 0. Convergence in LP Yes, the Lp norm of the fn and f is always 0 anyway. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 25th, 2009
mathematics [ the_s3ntinel ]	10:25a	Set theoretical fun (yes, this is how I'm spending my christmas morning...) So I'm reading Kanamori's book "The Higher Infinite" and a statement he deems to be too obvious to merit proof is giving me a bit of trouble. LJ perhaps isn't as busy as it used to be a few years ago, and considering that set theory is rather esoteric even within mathematics, I'm perhaps being a bit optimistic to post this here, but still, if you don't try you'll never know... The statement in question is Lemma 11.8 (a). ( Read more... ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
bbsy	2:00p	You're not like the other people here in this trailer park. I don't write anything of substance anymore. It hasn't bothered me until today. I guess my life isn't exactly fodder for inspiration - I'm not making much progress on fulfilling any dreams. All I deal with is frustration from many different directions. Learned helplessness can only birth so much poetry. It's a bit like being forcibly muffled by a pillow - you get some barely decipherable monologue at first, anyway. Everything I write about is a bit of token hope that I halfheartedly cling to with a forced smile. Or maybe it's a bit like being in the Slow Zone - your effective intelligence plummets, and anything you produce garners puzzled looks from other people because they're watching you derive something ridiculously simple. Though simplicity is subjective. Try being born in prehistory and deriving the desktop PC during one lifetime. Current Music: Dead Milkmen - Stuart (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
mathematics [ derralf ]	4:24p	LaTeX continued fractions In LaTeX, is there way to define a custom continued fraction formula \mycfrac{an}{bn} with a single continuous zickzack fraction line? I am not quite satisfied with this code \textnormal{\LARGE K}_{n=1}^\infty \frac{\left.a_n\right|}{\left|b_n\right.} which gives me (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
bbsy	2:05p	Yes, it's snowing in Richmond. In fact, getting home from work last night was an interesting ordeal - took Broad Street all the way down at ~20 mph. (My workplace is closed today, thankfully.) Went grocery shopping, despite my feeling horrible for anyone who had to go to work today. Keith is making marinated tempeh sandwiches. Yesterday, I drank Rumpleminze and hot cocoa. It reminded me of why I don't like to get TOO drunk - just relaxed-buzzed. I'm waiting to hear back from one of my professors, who I need as a job reference. It's the one thing keeping me on edge. They just took down a posting for what seemed like the perfect job for me - pharmacology department, little bit of programming experience desired. I greatly dislike being scared for my livelihood. (2 Comments |Comment on this)