hard to predict, but we'll try ....

i just read where cambridge university is setting up a new program, "to study the four greatest threats to the human species -- artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology."

i like it that they are doing this. there may be similar programs elsewhere, i don't know, but someone needs to be seriously considering the immense possibilities of future consequences of our present actions.

thumbs up to cambridge.

pac man, yay!

omg, i just love marching bands. and this one is great! a lot of fun, and how much work that must have been!!! loved the horse and even though i didn't understand a lot of it, i totally recognized the effort and joie de vivre!!!

you have to smile and cheer

i haven't paid much (none) attention to this gangnam craze thats whipping around right now, but you just have to pay attention to a high school or college band. i mean, the infectious enthusiasm and sense of fun is just awfully hard to beat. and here, to the beat of the drums, is finally gangnam-style band music and a couple of shows!! yay!!! yaaaaaaayyyy!!!

math is complex

jason padgett must have an interesting life. he used to be a ne'er-do-well who was beaten up by some thugs and came away with a mind which understood math. his drawings are incredibly intricate, and he says he sees math formulas in everything around him (example below). i don't think i'd want to have his talent. it would probably be an imperative, and there wouldn't be much time for anything else.

vary inteligunt

i wonder if he does this more than once (as in, it's a regular feature) or not. it's pretty interesting to watch high school kids give answers to questions a peer asks. some are downright funny. and some make you wonder. and, oh yes, canada is a state.

oh, isn't this cute? punctuation marks -- some of which i know and several of which i do not.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/13-punctuation-marks-that-you-never-knew-existed

no writing?

you don't have to learn how to write in indiana anymore. that's amazing. at my headquarters office there is a department which sets out rules for us to follow for correct grammar, how to write a memo, what form of address to use for who, yet there's a state which no longer needs to teach writing skills?

i'm pretty much stumped by this decision. it's not as if we walk around with keyboards on our arms. and even if we do in the future, that situation isn't here yet. one more nail in the coffin for this country, as far as i'm concerned.

sure i think keyboard skills are important. but i also think writing is important. there are any number of scenarios in which a person would be without a keyboard and might need to communicate or remember something.

indiana is crazy-thinking, but then our schools have been messed up for a number of decades. sheesh!

repeating and repeating and repeating ....

my maternal grandfather was supposed to have been a sort of math wizard. i, on the other hand, missed out on a semester of math when we moved, and never recovered. so even though i know that math has some beautiful things (tessellations, mandlebrot sets), i usually stay away from it if at all possible.

now .... i discovered this little thing about pi. it is three-plus delightful minutes and i wish you the joy of listening to it.

i was right!

this grand design book really is a curious and thought-provoking book. i remember one of my high school teacher's saying, just before the end of class one day, that the shortest distance between two points isn't always a straight line. i was floored. how can this be?

i was so taken by his statement that it's the only thing i remembered from ANY of my math classes from 9th grade on. i didn't care for math, having lost lots of ground when i moved in 7th grade and ended up with this HORRIBLE teacher who knew absolutely nothing about math and couldn't answer any of my questions. i was in tears because i knew it was the end of math and me.

but back to the straight line -- i always remembered his comment and one day back in about 1989 when we were hiking in the cascades, i finally realized i knew what his comment meant. we were following a trail along a mountainside (straight up on the left, straight down on the right) and i could see the trail we would be reaching shortly, across the valley on the right. our path was going to curve back around almost 180 degrees.

well, it was obvious! it was much shorter to continue on our drastically curving trail than to cut off to the right, in a straight line which just happened to go down and back up. it was so cool to KNOW that.

and here it is on page 101 of hawking's book -- "The geometry of curved spaces such as the earth's surface is not the Euclidean geometry we are familiar with." it goes on to show an intriguing diagram and then explains that if you took a route from new york to madrid on a flat map, it would be a straight line of 3,707 miles. but because the earth curves, the shortest distance is 3,605 miles and you go n.e. then e. and then s.e.

validation! by no less than hawking himself! yay!!!

we make our own jokes

at lunch today the husband and i were discussing going to mars and not coming back. we both thought it wasn't something we'd do. then he said if an alien came along and said he'd fly the husband to far-away worlds and he'd see things he couldn't even imagine, he'd be mighty tempted to take the offer.

we talked about what situations would make our names go down in history. then he commented that even if we made the history books people probably wouldn't remember our names for long. i mean, how many people landed on the moon and could we remember their names?

hmmm .... we thought about it a minute then i said, 'bob armstrong?' just teasing. and he said, 'yes, neil armstrong.' and i laughed and said that i really thought it was lance armstrong, and he said, 'yes, lance armstrong and buzz lightyear.'

then and now

oh man, the last three weeks have been something else. we moved into our new building, but there were all kinds of problems with that and i didn't have a functioning computer. but i got through that week.

then we flew to see MYS do his defense of his thesis. wow -- that was soooooo cool!! i had a link so you could look at his talk (slides) but i can't find it now. i'll keep looking. and yes, he now has his Ph.D.! the rest of the week was great -- drove through the countryside, visited places, it was all very excellent!

then we flew back home to two computers which didn't work. :( it took the rest of the week for the comcast tech to come out and tell us it was our modem which the husband tried to bring in earlier when he called and they told him no. despicable monopoly.

and the situation at work hadn't improved. everything still up in a heaval and i didn't get a working computer until late yesterday. good grief. hopefully things will start to smooth out. i find if i don't have any expectations, it works better (mentally).

i'll have to see if any of the pictures i took back east turned out decent. if so, i'll post.

how many?

this is interesting, and i got the right answer, but i knew what was going to happen. is it realistic to think people are always going to notice everything?

Ph.D. time!

MYS has finally gotten a date to defend his thesis: august 10. i'm not real clear on the difference between a thesis and dissertation in his field; maybe it doesn't matter. regardless, he's nearing the end of the tunnel.

we'll be attending his defense and i'm excited to see if i can understand anything he says. i've been able to follow along, over the years, as he has explained things to me, but still, since neither physics nor astronomy were ever a big part of my education, it could be a little foggy.

regardless, one huge CONGRATULATIONS to him on seeing a payoff for all his hard work -- may i present the-soon-to-be Dr. Yirak!

a concern

i'm in future shock. apparently nowadays kids expect to be able to have cell phones at school. and to use them, even in the middle of class.

personally, i think that's disgusting and evidence of our society being on the decline, i.e. if something is taking the place of education, we are at risk as a nation.

there's a school in maryland that is having to fight to have cell phones banned from class. apparently parents "appreciate being able to contact their children during the day." to me those parents are disGUSTing! and it seems this is something which is happening across the country.

if i were a parent, i would be looking around to see which schools had high test scores, which ones had firm policies on cell phone use, and then if there were any jobs in the area. i wonder if it works any better (the old-fashioned way) in small-town america.

geography

well .... that was interesting. i got a score of 88 in 405 seconds with an average error of 22 miles.

here -- try it! thanks, max!!

astro-physics man

My Younger Son had his quals today. they're a very big deal. he did an excellent job of preparing himself for the ordeal and came through with flying colors! he was only stumped by one question out of the many the four advisors asked and he felt really good about the whole experience.

i am soooooooo proud of him! and for him, too!

now it's onward and upward to his ph.d. he's got about six projects in the mill and when he gets them finished, he'll be close to the prize.

isn't he excellent?!

midwestern tradition

yesterday was sadie hawkin's day. did you remember to chase the boy of your choice? you only get one chance in four years to do that, you know.

i found a high school picture of a couple of my girlfriends and our boyfriends going to a sadie hawkin's dance. funny how i can't remember the girls' names, but i remember bing. he was my first love. and he had red hair.

business (continued)

what a 5th grade plasma-astro-physicist looks like:

and these are his chosen school clothes!

the business of play

when he was little, My Younger Son was very serious about his work.



and when he took a notion to get serious, he was serious. for example, during the whole year of his 5th grade, he decided to wear a button-down shirt and tie to school. it was just a regular school with no dress code. i had to wash and iron shirts, and buy ties for my 5th grader. impressive.

i'm not prejudiced

My Younger Son presented a paper at scientific workshop in sauze d'oulz, italy this past january. the following are some pictures from that event.

can you find the scandinavian?


the young professional ...


camaraderie ...


a lot of the presenters seemed to be very informal, dressed as if they were going bowling, but MYS looked excellent and presented as well as he looked!

the landscapes pictures were lovely and give you a taste of the area.