Category Archives: esfuerzos inútiles

On packing

Posted on by

If there is one activity that for me is fraught with ambiguity and melancholy it is packing for long trips. Not that I’m going on a long trip or anything, but many people I know are packing up and moving out because school is out, they are graduating, taking new jobs, and moving on. They are leaving and a big part of leaving is packing. I am happy that they are getting on with their lives, but I am sad that they are leaving once and for all, and when people leave, they never come back. When I pack I invariably forget half a dozen things which are vital to my survival, but I do manage to take forty pounds of stuff that I will never need when I get to my destination. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, and my glasses. I would forget shoes but I’ve got to put them on to get out of the door. Living in Waco, I have forgotten to bring a coat or jacket with me and regretted it. Packing is such an imprecise science which prone to fail just when you think you have it right. You forget the little book with all your passwords, the cord to your phone charger, your phone, your keys, your snacks. If there is an art to packing it has to do with traveling light, always including a towel, never expecting that you will remember everything. In other words, when you get to your destination, just imagine that you will have to go buy a few things because that’s just the way packing is. Packing is both the sign for a new destination and leaving behind of a current place, all of which is fraught with multiple complications which are all undergirded by strange feelings of loss. Sure, you can always, “phone home,” but it’s not the same as being there. So even getting out the suitcases makes me just slightly morose and cranky, irked, maybe.

On packing

Posted on by

If there is one activity that for me is fraught with ambiguity and melancholy it is packing for long trips. Not that I’m going on a long trip or anything, but many people I know are packing up and moving out because school is out, they are graduating, taking new jobs, and moving on. They are leaving and a big part of leaving is packing. I am happy that they are getting on with their lives, but I am sad that they are leaving once and for all, and when people leave, they never come back. When I pack I invariably forget half a dozen things which are vital to my survival, but I do manage to take forty pounds of stuff that I will never need when I get to my destination. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, and my glasses. I would forget shoes but I’ve got to put them on to get out of the door. Living in Waco, I have forgotten to bring a coat or jacket with me and regretted it. Packing is such an imprecise science which prone to fail just when you think you have it right. You forget the little book with all your passwords, the cord to your phone charger, your phone, your keys, your snacks. If there is an art to packing it has to do with traveling light, always including a towel, never expecting that you will remember everything. In other words, when you get to your destination, just imagine that you will have to go buy a few things because that’s just the way packing is. Packing is both the sign for a new destination and leaving behind of a current place, all of which is fraught with multiple complications which are all undergirded by strange feelings of loss. Sure, you can always, “phone home,” but it’s not the same as being there. So even getting out the suitcases makes me just slightly morose and cranky, irked, maybe.

On Fermat’s Last Theorem (Conjecture)

Posted on by

Fermat, a French mathematician of the late 17th century, came up with a conjecture that baffled other mathematicians for three and half centuries until Andrew Wiles published a proof in the mid-nineties. Most of you are familiar from high school geometry with the Pythagorean theorem, that the sum of two integers squared may be equal to another integer squared: a2 + b2 = c2, but Fermat imagined a more general problem for integers where an + bn ≠ cn where n>2: Cubum autem in duos cubos, aut quadratoquadratum in duos quadratoquadratos, et generaliter nullam in infinitum ultra quadratum potestatem in duos eiusdem nominis fas est dividere cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi. Hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet. That last bit is the mystery—that the margin was too small for his proof. Many mathematicians believe he did not have a proof, but all the same, he did throw down the gauntlet by making the conjecture. He just wrote the conjecture, that an + bn = cn, is not possible. Wiles’ proof is so complex and convoluted, however, that you have to be a brilliant mathematician to even begin to understand his arguments. For as simple as the Pythagorean theorem looks, Fermat’s conjecture is inversely complex, and complex in ways that not even a great mathematician can dream. The conjecture looks simple, but the answer seems to be one of the most complex ever proved in the history of mathematics. The proof, almost as elusive as the Holy Grail, is unintelligible to the average lay person, and difficult for even the gifted. What kind of mind does it take to fathom the dark and profound reaches of Fermat’s conjecture? This conjecture, according to a French academy of math, has the dubious honor of having the highest number of incorrect proofs written about it. In other words, many mathematicians have tried to conquer the proof, but died ignominiously on the battlefield without having succeeded. That fact that Wiles did his work in secret suggests that even he thought the little problem might be paradoxically unsolvable—a no-win scenario, as it were, and a career-ending catastrophe. That there is, after all, a solution to Fermat’s last theorem is of little consolation to all of that failure. (Sorry mathematicians,formatting limitations don’t allow for the little raised numbers in the equations.)

On Fermat’s Last Theorem (Conjecture)

Posted on by

Fermat, a French mathematician of the late 17th century, came up with a conjecture that baffled other mathematicians for three and half centuries until Andrew Wiles published a proof in the mid-nineties. Most of you are familiar from high school geometry with the Pythagorean theorem, that the sum of two integers squared may be equal to another integer squared: a2 + b2 = c2, but Fermat imagined a more general problem for integers where an + bn ≠ cn where n>2: Cubum autem in duos cubos, aut quadratoquadratum in duos quadratoquadratos, et generaliter nullam in infinitum ultra quadratum potestatem in duos eiusdem nominis fas est dividere cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi. Hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet. That last bit is the mystery—that the margin was too small for his proof. Many mathematicians believe he did not have a proof, but all the same, he did throw down the gauntlet by making the conjecture. He just wrote the conjecture, that an + bn = cn, is not possible. Wiles’ proof is so complex and convoluted, however, that you have to be a brilliant mathematician to even begin to understand his arguments. For as simple as the Pythagorean theorem looks, Fermat’s conjecture is inversely complex, and complex in ways that not even a great mathematician can dream. The conjecture looks simple, but the answer seems to be one of the most complex ever proved in the history of mathematics. The proof, almost as elusive as the Holy Grail, is unintelligible to the average lay person, and difficult for even the gifted. What kind of mind does it take to fathom the dark and profound reaches of Fermat’s conjecture? This conjecture, according to a French academy of math, has the dubious honor of having the highest number of incorrect proofs written about it. In other words, many mathematicians have tried to conquer the proof, but died ignominiously on the battlefield without having succeeded. That fact that Wiles did his work in secret suggests that even he thought the little problem might be paradoxically unsolvable—a no-win scenario, as it were, and a career-ending catastrophe. That there is, after all, a solution to Fermat’s last theorem is of little consolation to all of that failure. (Sorry mathematicians,formatting limitations don’t allow for the little raised numbers in the equations.)

On getting another cup of coffee

Posted on by

I sure wish I had another cup of coffee this morning. My head hurts, I’m sleepy, my tongue feels like sandpaper, and my stomach is making noises. I’d like to be drinking another cup of coffee, but I don’t have one, so I can only imagine drinking that other cup of coffee. I’m in the middle of a conference session with thirty other people, and if I get up and walk out, everyone will notice. Sometimes you just get into a situation where you can’t change the parameters, so you just suck it up and wait. The difference between what you have and what you want is often huge, but unless you set the world on its head, you can’t really change anything. The balance between happiness and having that other cup of coffee and making people happy by not doing anything, is too often an imbalance that you cannot rectify without upsetting the apple cart and upsetting others. So you don’t to anything, let you stomach rumble a bit, and you get along without that other coffee. You see, that other cup of coffee is not necessary at all. It is pure caprice. Another cup of coffee would be a huge solace, especially either very early in the morning or very late at night, but life goes on just the same, with or without the coffee. You have to balance your desires against the realities of the possible. Sometimes getting up and walking out of the room for another cup of coffee is just rude, and people might not understand the thirst driving your desire. You can tolerate thirst. It need not be slaked always or immediately.

On getting another cup of coffee

Posted on by

I sure wish I had another cup of coffee this morning. My head hurts, I’m sleepy, my tongue feels like sandpaper, and my stomach is making noises. I’d like to be drinking another cup of coffee, but I don’t have one, so I can only imagine drinking that other cup of coffee. I’m in the middle of a conference session with thirty other people, and if I get up and walk out, everyone will notice. Sometimes you just get into a situation where you can’t change the parameters, so you just suck it up and wait. The difference between what you have and what you want is often huge, but unless you set the world on its head, you can’t really change anything. The balance between happiness and having that other cup of coffee and making people happy by not doing anything, is too often an imbalance that you cannot rectify without upsetting the apple cart and upsetting others. So you don’t to anything, let you stomach rumble a bit, and you get along without that other coffee. You see, that other cup of coffee is not necessary at all. It is pure caprice. Another cup of coffee would be a huge solace, especially either very early in the morning or very late at night, but life goes on just the same, with or without the coffee. You have to balance your desires against the realities of the possible. Sometimes getting up and walking out of the room for another cup of coffee is just rude, and people might not understand the thirst driving your desire. You can tolerate thirst. It need not be slaked always or immediately.

On the common cold

Posted on by

There are more than a hundred different rhino viruses that come under the heading of the common cold, so unless you’ve had all one hundred plus, you are always in danger of catching a cold someplace–the super market, church, school, work, the mall, the airport, wherever people gather. The cold is the perfect disease because it doesn’t kill it’s host, it only makes the host feel bad for a few days, and then it goes away. You get a runny nose, some fever, a sore throat, a few body aches, a nagging cough, but you are never in danger of dying, even when you feel like the contrary may be true. Sometimes a cold will make you feel absolutely crappy, especially at night when you want to sleep. Either the coughing keeps you awake, or the sneezing makes your ribs hurt, or you can’t blow your nose one more time or it will bleed. I think that high dosis of Vick’s work wonders, but I have no proof of that–I just think it’s right. You cough until you are blue in the face and just can’t cough anymore. You cough up nightmarish stuff that could gag a horse. If you take medicine, the cold lasts about fourteen days, and if you don’t take anything, it lasts about two weeks. Oh, people have their home remedies–vitamine C, zinc, chicken soup, hooch–of those only the hooch will make you feel better (for obvious reasons). The thing with the cold is this: you really don’t feel bad enough to stay put and stay home, which would kill the cold. No, you go out, spreading the cold from here to kingdom come, and the cold virus has a whole new world to infect. That’s why the cold is the perfect disease.

On the common cold

Posted on by

There are more than a hundred different rhino viruses that come under the heading of the common cold, so unless you’ve had all one hundred plus, you are always in danger of catching a cold someplace–the super market, church, school, work, the mall, the airport, wherever people gather. The cold is the perfect disease because it doesn’t kill it’s host, it only makes the host feel bad for a few days, and then it goes away. You get a runny nose, some fever, a sore throat, a few body aches, a nagging cough, but you are never in danger of dying, even when you feel like the contrary may be true. Sometimes a cold will make you feel absolutely crappy, especially at night when you want to sleep. Either the coughing keeps you awake, or the sneezing makes your ribs hurt, or you can’t blow your nose one more time or it will bleed. I think that high dosis of Vick’s work wonders, but I have no proof of that–I just think it’s right. You cough until you are blue in the face and just can’t cough anymore. You cough up nightmarish stuff that could gag a horse. If you take medicine, the cold lasts about fourteen days, and if you don’t take anything, it lasts about two weeks. Oh, people have their home remedies–vitamine C, zinc, chicken soup, hooch–of those only the hooch will make you feel better (for obvious reasons). The thing with the cold is this: you really don’t feel bad enough to stay put and stay home, which would kill the cold. No, you go out, spreading the cold from here to kingdom come, and the cold virus has a whole new world to infect. That’s why the cold is the perfect disease.

On the ghost in the machine

Posted on by

You ever wonder what your computer is thinking at any given moment? We are just one step away from creating machines that can think for themselves. The complexity of the system programming poses certain questions regarding the possible cognitive simulacra that might arise as an unintended consequence of the casual interaction of software and hardware. Programmers might claim that system performance is predictable, but anyone who has ever written code knows that their are always unexpected results of that code. Ghosts are ever present, lurking within the operative shell upon which other software function. Trying to predict the actual interactions between different programs is almost impossible. Some drivers are incompatible with different operative systems. As I watched my computer reboot this morning, waiting for it to “think” its way through of the drivers it had to load, I was struck by the similarity between it and an actual human being. Most people would say, however, that the machine will only do what it is programmed to do, but is that old saw still true? As the internal algorithms become more complex, the heuristics more non-lineal, how can programmers prevent, much less predict, possible interactions that might create ghosts in the machine. As one programmer put it, “the complexity of current software applications can be difficult to comprehend for anyone without experience in modern-day software development. Multi-tier distributed systems, applications utilizing multiple local and remote web services applications, data communications, enormous relational databases, security complexities, and sheer size of applications have all contributed to the exponential growth in software/system complexity.” (Sikdar) For now, I get random dialogue boxes that are the direct result of many of those ghosts. Boxes asking for passwords and pass phrases that the machine really doesn’t need–I just click them closed and move on. Conflicting programs, questioning software, weird heuristics, and unintended results all combine to create a sort of buggy interactive digital chaos. I’m just waiting for the day when the computer turns itself on and off, and gives itself orders, exiling its interactive human partner to analogue hell.

On the ghost in the machine

Posted on by

You ever wonder what your computer is thinking at any given moment? We are just one step away from creating machines that can think for themselves. The complexity of the system programming poses certain questions regarding the possible cognitive simulacra that might arise as an unintended consequence of the casual interaction of software and hardware. Programmers might claim that system performance is predictable, but anyone who has ever written code knows that their are always unexpected results of that code. Ghosts are ever present, lurking within the operative shell upon which other software function. Trying to predict the actual interactions between different programs is almost impossible. Some drivers are incompatible with different operative systems. As I watched my computer reboot this morning, waiting for it to “think” its way through of the drivers it had to load, I was struck by the similarity between it and an actual human being. Most people would say, however, that the machine will only do what it is programmed to do, but is that old saw still true? As the internal algorithms become more complex, the heuristics more non-lineal, how can programmers prevent, much less predict, possible interactions that might create ghosts in the machine. As one programmer put it, “the complexity of current software applications can be difficult to comprehend for anyone without experience in modern-day software development. Multi-tier distributed systems, applications utilizing multiple local and remote web services applications, data communications, enormous relational databases, security complexities, and sheer size of applications have all contributed to the exponential growth in software/system complexity.” (Sikdar) For now, I get random dialogue boxes that are the direct result of many of those ghosts. Boxes asking for passwords and pass phrases that the machine really doesn’t need–I just click them closed and move on. Conflicting programs, questioning software, weird heuristics, and unintended results all combine to create a sort of buggy interactive digital chaos. I’m just waiting for the day when the computer turns itself on and off, and gives itself orders, exiling its interactive human partner to analogue hell.