Matt Stone on math

It turns out that Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park, studied mathematics in college. We both received 800s on our SAT Math, and we both find a sort of comfort within mathematics that diminishes the attractiveness of religion.

Perhaps I'll discuss this article more later, but I'm tired right now.

(Via Kempa)

Kirsten Cunst

Sounds like Mary Jane is a real bitch....

Duncan Chic

Atrios has been revealed.

Stossel's dishonesty

John Stossel is trying to scam you.

Stossel is a free-market libertarian who believes that the vast majority of government regulation is harmful to the public. Thus he makes specious arguments like these in his book, Give Me A Break:

Some years ago, the FDA held a news conference and proudly announced, "This new heart drug we're approving will save fourteen thousand American lives a year!" No one stood up at the press conference to ask, "Excuse me, doesn't this mean you killed fourteen thousand people last year -- by delaying its approval?" No one asked that because reporters don't think that way, but that's what the FDA's announcement meant. If the drug saves 14,000 lives a year, then 14,000 people died each year while the drug awaited approval. Thousands will die this year while cancer therapies and fat substitutes wait for approval. Some of us may want to wait. Many of us wait to be absolutely certain a drug is safe before we take it. Why isn't the choice left to us? In a "free" country, why do we meekly allow the FDA to act as a police agency that can tell us, "You may not"? Why does it get to use force? (p.44-45, all emphasis his)

We need lawyers. We need them to preserve the rule of law. We need them to defend us if others cheat us, steal from us, trample on our rights. (p. 155, emphasis his)

As a believer in free markets, I should like lawsuits, since they promise a free-market solution. (p. 157)

Lawsuits are necessary, but evil. (p. 155, emphasis his)

Lawsuits make America less safe. (p. 159)

Can you clarify that last point, John?

Clearly, lawsuits have a deterrent effect that seems to make life safer. But tort lawyers attack the very people we need most in order to be safe: innovators, companies that make safety devices, hospitals, drugmakers, paramedics, those who stand on the front line between life and death. The lawsuits threaten the people who make us safer. (p. 159, italics his, boldface mine)

...Oh, and I'm sure this attack on a trial lawyer was solely because of his record, and not because he's a vice-presidential candidate.

Waiter...

After finding a rolly-polly insect in my soup this evening, I think I need a Dead Bug Funeral Kit.

Ouch. Indeed.

You know you're addicted to the blogosphere when you think that this Atrios post, done in the style of Instapundit, is the funniest thing you've seen all day.

If it weren't for my horse, I never would've spent that year in college

Please don't try to comprehend Scoble's "I think blogging has just jumped the shark" comment for too long. It may cause your brain matter to leak out your ears.

Judgment Day

Californians, here are some things to remember next time you have a gubernatorial election:

Number of times Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised an on-time budget in the last year: Too many to count.

Number of days that have passed since the budget deadline: 21.

Total dollar amount of the 2003-04 budget signed by ex-Gov. Gray Davis: $99.1 billion.

Total amount of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first budget after promising to shrink government: $103 billion.

Number of percentage points by which Schwarzenegger's popularity exceeds Ronald Reagan's highest rating as California governor: 5.

...Number of employees on Gov. Schwarzenegger's staff who make $100,000 or more: 14.

Number of employees on Gov. Davis' staff who made $100,000 or more: 8.

Pay concessions Gov. Schwarzenegger vowed to extract by playing hardball with the California prison guards union: $300 million.

Amount of pay concessions actually negotiated by Schwarzenegger with the prison union: $108 million.

Number of weeks it took before a federal judge lambasted Schwarzenegger's prison guard deal for hindering reform: 3.

Amount by which annual payments from Indian casinos will fall short of Schwarzenegger's projections: 30%.

Schwarzenegger's whereabouts just hours after vowing to stay in Sacramento and fight like a warrior to end the budget stalemate: Beverly Hills fund-raiser.

Amount raised at Beverly Hills fund-raiser by Schwarzenegger, who earlier promised to end fund-raising during budget season: Roughly $400,000.

Nickname that best applies to ex-Gov. Davis when comparing his fund-raising prowess to Schwarzenegger's: Girlie man.

Number of the top 100 donations to Schwarzenegger that came from businesses or their executives: 87.

Amount Schwarzenegger has raised for himself and committees he controls since the day he said he doesn't need anyone's money because he has his own: $30 million.

Museum of Idiots

Here's a scary look into the crazy Christian voting bloc, responsible for the Chimp-in-Chief.

Hopeless bleak despair

I don't know what I'm going to do. I planned to graduate in May 2005, but a class I need to get my B.S. in Mathematics (Analysis, MAT 5600 to be precise) is not being offered in the winter. I can't take it this fall because I'm taking its prerequisite (Advanced Calc, MAT 5070) this fall.

As if five years for a bachelors' wasn't bad enough... now it may take even longer. :(

Nonsense

John J. Miller of the Corner reviews Angels and Demons:

After reading The Da Vinci Code earlier this year (and writing about it here), I decided to check out Angels and Demons, the first book starring Dan Brown's protagonist Robert Langdon. It's been on the best-seller lists because flocks of DVC readers have felt a similar impuluse, wanting to go back and enjoy Langdon's adventures before he discovered (in DVC) that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were husband and wife (which is nonsense, of course).

I suppose I shouldn't have stopped going to church, because that sounds loony to me! Nonetheless, let's let John finish:

There are a lot of similarities between the two books: breakneck storytelling, deep-seated anti-Catholicism, an obsession with the occult, European setting, the love interest is the daughter of a murdered man, etc. But Angels and Demons isn't nearly as inventive as it more popular sequel. Despite my objections to DVC, I sort of enjoyed the novel and found the experience of examining several of its chief claims edifying. Not so with A&D. I was glad to have finished it because it means I can move on to something else, which won't be another Dan Brown book.

Vote on the issues

For what it's worth, John Kerry is a Mac user. I don't know how much you can draw from that fact, but there it is.

(After all, Rush Limbaugh is a Mac user too.)

Take a byte out of disk clutter

Via Think Different, here's an application that lets you visually see what's taking up lots of space on your hard drive. I'm a long-time user of OmniDiskSweeper, but I might give Disk Inventory X a try.

Canadian Club

Lesson learned this weekend: do not let whiskey get in your eye. It burns like a mofo.

Abandon all hope

I'm sad I have to do this, but I'm going to make my official Election '04 prediction right now and call it for Bush. (And in case you doubt my clairvoyance, I called the 2000 election for Bush in February 2000.)

Why, you might ask, do I think Bush is going to win the election when Iraq is falling apart and his own party couldn't pass an amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions? It's extremely simple.

Doom 3 will be released on August 3rd.

PC sales have been sluggish for the past year or two, because people have not seen a reason to upgrade. But Doom 3 is a very graphics-intensive game -- just look at the system requirements. With the hype, and the reviews this game is getting, many many people will finally be motivated to upgrade their computers or buy new systems. The massive influx of dollars into the PC market will most certainly spur a mini-economic-recovery. Bush will then use that recovery to falsely demonstrate that his tax cuts worked, when in fact he owes everything to John Carmack and id Software.

With the economy looking up, some well-placed lies about Iraq, and certain Florida-style dirty tricks, it will be possible for Bush to eke out a victory. But I will keep my Kerry banner on the side of this page nonetheless.

Kleptomaniacal clan of conservative commentators

Whoa whoa whoa, back the truck up! I thought I established myself as the alliterative blogger back in November of 2003, but a couple of crazy old mofos just intruded on my turf. The Political Animal is on the case, but he makes the fatal mistake of using more alliteration in his description.

The Left has proven that blogs can thrive on the fringe, in a petri dish of pessimism and protest. We intend to make blogs a voice for mainstream America, and articulate the deeply held ideals of a free and virtuous nation.

A "petri dish of pessimism and protest"! Take that, you nattering nabobs of negativity!

Libertarian-country grammar

Chuck posted an ad for the Libertarian presidential candidate, but it has serious grammatical problems.

Hey there America! Your conscience called... it wants its' vote back. Michael Badnarik 04 Libertarian for President

Much is said about the growing partisanship in politics, but what about the atrocious copy?

Better qualify that generalization

On two separate occasions, I've witnessed people saying how they hate it when celebrities try to force their politics down the rest of our throats.

Both times, I had to add, "Yeah! I hate that Arnold Schwarzenegger guy too!"

Then I smiled.

Update: This post was inspired by this entry over at the Corner.

Bloody difficult

I offer this without comment: How Menstruation Created Mathematics

Stuffing the memory hole

I am so fed up with all these crazy allegations about George W. Bush not fulfilling his duties in the Texas Air National Guard. It's preposterous! Would the President of the United States, not to mention a hero, purposefully shirk his responsibilities? I think not!

An examination of the Bush military files within the context of US Statutory Law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures of that era lead to a single conclusion:  George W. Bush was considered a deserter by the United States Air Force.

It is also clear that the Bush records were tampered with...  Many documents were thrown out that should have been kept, and there is indisputable evidence that at least one key document has been altered. 

Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

You know, for the kids

Slashdot linked to a cool interview with Linux/Mac OS X programmer Rich Wareham today, and it contains this nice little bit of nostalgia:

Also, although there is a lot of material, modern computers are too sophisticated when it comes to getting you hooked. With the old home computers one could get instant gratification by writing a program which drew a space-ship on the screen in 10 lines of BASIC. Nowadays you'd have to learn COM + Win32 + DirectX just to get a black rectangle. The 'activation energy' required for kids to get exciting things on the screen has increased exponentially over the past decade.

Embarrassing childhood revelations, vol. 2

Back in the mid-1990s, I read a couple of articles in computer magazines about an interesting experiment called the World Wide Web, and a piece of software called NCSA Mosaic. Eventually in 1995 I became so interested, I called up Netscape to find out how I could look at the World Wide Web myself.

Unfortunately, at the time of my Netscape phone call, I was 13 years old, and operating on very little working knowledge of the Internet. (I had several years experience online with Prodigy and America Online, but I don't even think I knew what TCP/IP was.) The Netscape representative tried her best to explain that their company didn't offer access to the World Wide Web, just the browsing software. In addition to purchasing a copy of Netscape Navigator, I'd also have to get a subscription to a separate Internet Service Provider. As a young teen already "fortunate" enough to have access to America Online, this was a tough sell to the parents, but I pulled it off.

Now, when I think back to that phone call and how ignorant I must have sounded, I feel ashamed. But not very. I suspect that I was simply ahead of my time -- after all, in 1995 Netscape charged for their browser and didn't offer Internet service, but today the browser is free and they have their own ISP!

Put your money where your mouth is

From: Jeffrey
To: pundit@instapundit.com
Subject: Militarily-ignorant journalists
Date: 30 Jun 2004

Since you point out that journalists have a general ignorance about the military, why don't you link to the following article, which was obviously written by someone who's done their homework?

http://www.glcq.com/bush_at_arpc1.htm

Jeff
geekable.com

(Jeff sez: No response yet via email or blog. But then again, Mr. Reynolds is a right-wing hack.)

Gone fishin'

To whom it may concern, I'll be at Houghton Lake all weekend. Any Geekable emergencies will have to wait until Monday evening.

Like oh my god

This morning on the National Review blog, Kathryn Jean Lopez made this post:

"I AM THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WORLD TO THE GOP" That's Bill Clinton at Jesse Jackson's confab. Nah. Sorry. Not you.

Isn't it cute when teenaged girls pretend that they don't like a guy...and then they go home and stare at his picture in the yearbook?

Curious mathematics

Jen has posted an excerpt of a book she's reading, but unfortunately the author's math knowledge is poor. I feel obligated to correct some of the misstatements.

1. This is how you work out what prime numbers are. First you write down...

I have an easier way to show what a prime number is. A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 whose only positive divisors are 1 and itself. The author's method of determining prime numbers is a clumsy version of the Sieve of Eratosthenes, and it doesn't really define the notion of primality.

2. The rule for working out prime numbers is really simple, but no one has ever worked out a simple formula for telling you whether a very big number is a prime number or what the next one will be. If a number is really, really big it can take a computer years to work out whether it is a prime number.

This is completely incorrect, though it was partially correct before 2002. Today we have the AKS primality test and its variants, which can determine whether a number is prime or composite in a reasonable amount of time. However, the problem of factorizing a number into its prime factors is still unsolved and very difficult, and can take many computer years using existing methods.

3. Prime numbers are useful in writing codes and in America they are classed as Military Material and if you find one over 100 digits long you have to tell the CIA and they will buy it off you for $10,000. But it would not be a very good way of making a living.

I have never heard of this before. I suspect it is complete bullshit, but if you have a source to back it up, I'd love to see it.