New Plan

I'm going to start writing here again. I might even start putting some non-math-related stuff up. Not extremely disparate things but just more about my life or whatever. Could be interesting.

So while reading Jezebel on the train back to Montreal the other day I came across a fascinating comment on the post about Apple removing scandalous apps from the App Store about how the first law of the internet is big-endian word order. I had no idea about how bits were read or that such things as big-endian and little-endian reading order existed. The commenter in question's use of our numerical system as an example of big-endian word order was so cool and not something that I'd ever questioned. I mean, really, there isn't anything other than convention that makes us put the big units first and the little ones afterward. Bring back the old-fashioned use of "four-and-twenty" and its ilk, I say!

SUMS-ber Party!

9:45 PM: Rebecca and I are in SUMS. The supplies that we have make the evening seem promising. I brought two kinds of cereal (Nesquik and Cinnamon Toast Crunch) and milk, Rebecca brought tea, bowls and spoons and the correct ingredients for s'mores. A couple of other people have said that they will stop by later and watch a movie with us. We had to steal the teakettle back from CTF (the Computer Task Force, which people always mistake SUMS for) next door. They were reluctant.

10:09 PM: So we have a frisbee for entertainment purposes and we decided to assemble the s'mores on it. One thing led to another and now it's in the microwave. I'm not entirely sure whether frisbees are microwave-safe but I guess if I have to get cancer this is probably a worthwhile method.

10:21 PM: Rebecca just had to fact-check (with me, the resident rabbit expert) the fact that bunnies don't have pouches.

12:02 AM: The past hour or so has been spent watching Mama Mia, which is reasonably humourous. I'm particularly amused by the background singers/dancers and Colin Firth in the flashback Cure-esque getup. We're now taking a s'mores/cereal break. I'm nomming some Nesquik.

12:20 AM: We've extended the break from Mama Mia and are now going to play dominoes. We also drew some dinosaurs on the chalkboards. They're pretty epic and by epic I mean terrible.

1:05 AM: So we played a game of dominoes (Rebecca won) and then made some domino structures/arrangements to knock down and attempted to watch the rest of the movie but are now tired and going to go to bed. Time for the "SUMS-ber" (slumber, get it?) part of the evening, I guess.

9:00 AM: We've awoken. It took me forever to get to sleep, though. I remember being awake at 2:30. I was too hot, so I took off my sweater and my socks, which turned out to be insufficient so I took off my pants as well. I was wrapped up in a blanket, though, so my modesty and the couch's cleanliness were preserved (not to worry). I also forgot that I have to go visit some seniors today, the first visit being at 10:30. I'm really glad I remembered.

I'll be leaving soon so I think I will close this post by declaring the SUMS-ber party a success. Not sure if I would do it again, but it was fun.

SUMS Sleepover Live-Blog!

Math-like adventures have begun sooner than I expected. This can only be a good thing. Tonight, in a daring feat, Rebecca and I as well as whoever is brave enough to join us will be sleeping in the math lounge. There will be s'mores, cereal, a possible lack of hygiene (although not on my part, I plan on showering before I go) and general ridiculousness and hilarious times. In order to ensure that this is properly documented I plan to live-blog the entire event. It's going to be epic. Check back over the course of the evening/night, invisible and possibly non-existent readers of mine, for updates on the hilarity as it goes down.

Stay in Math, Kids

So I'm pretty sure that this cherry picker/sunset date idea (http://blag.xkcd.com/2009/04/06/a-date-idea-analyzed/) is just about the coolest thing I have ever heard of. It also definitely makes me regret not having persevered in my mathematical studies (which, as previously mentioned, were not all that extensive nor very impressive) because now I'll probably never be able to work this type of thing out. All I'll be able to do, if I happen to come up with something this awesome and offbeat and ridiculous, is tell people about it really enthusiastically and hope that it will fall on the right ears for someone to actually figure out how it would work. Being enthusiastic about things is something that I do relatively well, though, so I guess I can legitimately have some degree of hope that that could happen.

I do love my current fields of study, though, so not having carried on with math wasn't a total loss.