Cleveland Tourism Video — watch til the end. Hat Tip to MaizeNBrew
Archive for May 3, 2009
Books — Alphabet Juice, The Drunkard's Walk, Outliers, War As They Knew It
- Alphabet Juice by Roy Blount Jr. Fun wordplay. Probably best read as a bathroom book. If you hate word etymologies, crosswords, etc., don’t bother. Amazon says 4 stars, true if you are a word geek.
- The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. A little plodding at times but a reasonable discussion about the prevalence of chance in our lives and our continual efforts to force cause-and-effect structures on the brownian motion all around us. The key life lesson is this — persevere and swing the bat as often as you can. And be humble about your successes and forgiving of others lack of success, because luck plays a bigger role than talent. Amazon says 4 stars, I’m ok with that
- Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. A solid magazine article blown up into a book. Success == hard work, built on top of the opportunities provided us by our unique family/culture. Fun anecdotes. Amazon says 4 stars, it is a well-written book, but a little thin.
Actually, reading The Drunkard’s Walk, Outliers, and The Black Swan as a set would not be a terrible idea for most people to learn about randomness, how it will affect your life, and strategies for coping.
- War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest by Michael Rosenberg. Good story of the Hayes/Schembechler rivalry years and the times and changes on their campuses during these years. Enjoyed more than I thought I would. Amazon says 4.5 stars, I think this is right if you are a Michigan or OSU fan or big college football fan.
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Tags: Books
Haven't signed up for the KindleDX yet
Official launch of the Kindle DX – Core77. I bought the Kindle and Kindle2 the instant I could. I am holding off on the DX. Why?
- It is not clear to me that it enhances recreational reading at all — and in fact the size makes it less convenient
- The cost savings on textbooks aren’t large enough for me to get excited yet
- And more importantly the usage model of a textbook is different than that of a recreational book. Lots of flipping to sections, flipping back and forth, index usage, marking places, etc — does the device make this better?
- Can I use it in an open book exam setting?
So I am not sure yet. Eventually the weight savings may compel me but I am not there yet.
My fascination with strange lighting
- Lamp with Pigtails | Design Milk. Seems vaguely creepy, a bunch of these with dimmers in the living room for a halloween party would be eerie.
- Love these egg lights too. Fully lit they are kind of cheery. Put a dim pulsing bulb in there and it feels like the lower deck of some alien spaceship wreckage.
2000 and counting…
I didn’t note this yesterday tho many did — 2000+ days since OSU has last lost to UM, as the counter on the Dispatch page constantly advises. Still haven’t fully recovered from the shame of the Cooper years but an excellent start. Though the rivalry needs a little more drama if it is to remain the top rivalry in sports.
Race season starts in our household
Good luck this weekend to GruppeOrange Racing in Tooele. Is the ALMS race on TV live? Must look for.
Tensors and Index Notation
A couple of good primers out on the net:
- A Primer on Index Notation from Colorado Civil Engineering. Practical intro to index notation
- A Primer on Index Notation from MIT. A little more theoretical and discussion of use in calculus.
Somehow I did not ever learn about index notation in my past educational life. Time to learn.
Books — Calculating God, Atmospheric Disturbances, Family Planning
- Calculating God by Robert Sawyer. Fine first contact tale with a lot of pathos. Amazon says 4 stars, it is a solid effort.
- Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen. Tale of a psychotic man trying to make sense of his life. Oddly engaging, you want him to succeed. Amazon says 3 stars but very bimodal, you either love or hate this book.
- Family Planning by Karan Mahajan. Tale of maturation of eldest son and father in a huge family. Tends towards farce at times which I did not enjoy, but the core relationship stories are good. 5 stars on Amazon, that may be a bit rich, but a good book.
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Tags: Books
Knots
Animated Knots by Grog. — animations of how to tie nearly every knot you ever need. Oh and the forgotten Zeppellin knot — apparently critical in the production of Physical Graffiti.
Both via Make. The internet is freaking awesome.
Software recently adopted
- Tweetdeck. Duh.
- ECMerge. I complained to Scooter Software about the lack of a mac version of BeyondCompare, they kindly suggested ECMerge or Araxis Merge. Araxis is way too expensive. ECMerge is solid but I still pine for BeyondCompare.
- Toast Titanium. I want a way to watch my Tivo shows on my mac and Toast seems to be the way to go. Seems to work well.
- MATLAB. I’m a sucker for math software. Only reasonable if you are an active student or your employer buys it for you.
- VLC. Another duh. THE way to watch wmvs on a mac (and UW lectures are all delivered in wmv format).
Oh and on the PC I am so in love with Steam. I don’t even think about CD-based games anymore. Why isn’t all Windows software delivered this way? Why hasn’t Microsoft purchased Valve?