The answer is "Nope".

Is there anything in the world cuter than a baby all bundled up in winter clothes?
The answer is an emphatic "Nope".

---

Mike and I just started watching a movie. When we saw that the movie was, unexpectedly, rated R, I said, "Oh no! I don't know if I'm allowed to watch a movie like this!" Mike replied, "Do you want to call Sjamaar and find out?" (Sjamaar is my advisor.)

Awesome.

---

Last week I was down in my office in the math building, which, for those of you who are not familiar with the standard work habitat of a graduate student in the mathematics department at Cornell, is simply a cubicle in a large room full of cubicles. (I actually like it very much. As I've told people before, if I want to be alone, I can always go to my apartment, where I am, except under the most extraordinary circumstances, quite completely alone.)

So, I was in my office last week when I heard the communal phone ring. Since no one generally wants to answer the damn thing, and I was happy to step away from my work for a minute, I answered it. It was Professor DH. He asked if JA was there. I checked and found that he wasn't, and was asked by Professor DH to leave a note for him, which I agreed to do. I had just lifted a sheet of paper for said note, when the phone rang again. Again I answered it. Again, it was Professor DH.

The professor was part way through asking if MB was there when he interrupted himself to ask if he was talking to the same person as before. I said yes, and he asked if I wouldn't leave a copy of the same note on MB's desk. We were about to end the call when I had a thought. I asked if there was anyone else who needed this note. The professor said, "Well, I don't suppose GM is in that office also."

"Yes, he is, actually. I'll leave him a copy too."

"Ok, thanks so much."

Available outside of class

I was just leaving the grocery store, and I remembered a pretty funny story.

A couple of years ago, sometime in mid-September, my sister and I were at the grocery store here in Ithaca. Down one of the aisles I saw one of the students from the class I was teaching, and her roommate. I said hi, and my sister and I kept shopping. We had paid and were leaving the store when we noticed my student and her roommate gathering their groceries together and getting ready to head to the bus stop.

I offered them a ride. We bundled up into my car, and as I drove out of the parking lot I told my student about the Course Evaluation that she would be asked to fill out at the end of the semester. I went on to describe how one of the questions would be "Was the lecturer available to help you outside of class?" And I asked my student to remember this night when it came time to answer that question.

---

I drove around Taco Bell tonight, and the cashier at the window had the most amazing voice. When I arrived at the window, I saw that the voice belonged to a beautiful girl. She just looked heart-breakingly sweet. The point of this story is that as I was waiting at the window for my food, I thought to myself, "What a beautiful voice this cute Taco Girl has." This was followed shortly by the thought, "Taco Girl is one of the very, very coolest nicknames I have ever, ever heard."

Taco Girl. My Taco Girl. Sweet Taco Girl. I love the nickname. I am going to have to find a girl who has something to do with tacos, just so I can use it.

Failing that, I am going to have to find a girl and give her a gigantic taco dinner, just so I can call her Taco Girl.

One out of n isn't bad.

How large does n have to be for one out of n to actually be bad?

I've recently taken up playing basketball again. And when I say "playing basketball", I really mean "playing basketball by myself". And when I say "playing basketball by myself", I really mean "shooting at the basket, walking over and getting the ball, and then shooting again".

I used to enjoy this a lot, and I'm finding that I still kind of enjoy it. I'm a little rusty, but then I was never very good anyway, so there's not too much of a difference now.

My very favorite thing to do involving basketball and other people is the game where one person shoots, and if he/she scores, he/she gets to shoot again. Otherwise, whoever got the rebound gets to shoot. Occasionally someone will go in for a lay-up, or start dribbling around a little, and occasionally someone will give them a little obstacle, but it's very easy-going. There are no teams. I love this.

Competition has always made me pretty uneasy, even friendly competition.

Anyway, the thing I realized, or more accurately, remembered, was that my greatest challenge when I'm off shooting hoops by myself is not losing my cool. When I miss ten or more shots in a row, especially when the last eight were from less than two feet from the basket, it is incredibly difficult for me not to give the basketball a good kick. I remember doing this many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many times when I was in high school.

That was a very difficult time for me, and if that stupid ball wasn't going to cooperate with me, then, darn it, the ball was going for a little trip!

I think I'm much better about that now. I'm older, wiser, and more mature. And I'm far too lazy now to go get the ball after I kick it.

Score yet another for laziness!

Little funny things

One of my students has had a nasty cold for the past week. I sent a get-well e-card earlier in the week. I was trying to come up with another get-well gesture the other night. Bringing an actual can of chicken soup to class seemed like too much, so I came up with a more subtle, and much funnier, thing to do. I would bring in the label from a can of chicken noodle soup to class, the idea being that the label probably absorbed some wellness-inducing-vibes from the soup by osmosis.

Unfortunately, although I remembered one-thousand of the things I had to remember to bring to school this morning, I forgot the one-thousand-and-first. So, I was left with no other option but to scan the soup label’s image into my computer, and send the picture to my student. It can be found here.

Here’s another funny.

One generic cinematic sort of situation that’s always stuck in my head is the idea of two people, maybe friends, maybe enemies, maybe a little of both, standing on the top of a mountain during a gathering storm screaming at each other about the fate of the world, or at least humankind. Does this make sense? Do you know what I mean?

I especially like the idea of two people who were friends when they were young, who are now in positions of great power in opposition to each other.

I guess it’s definitely a comic book sort of situation too.

So I told Mike about this, and he immediately envisioned it as the last battle between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty on top of Reichenbach Falls, which is certainly a very similar situation, although not quite what I had in mind.

Many months after I first mentioned it to Mike, I was telling him about a particular person that I sometimes really really dislike. This person is also a graduate student.

Mike suggested that maybe I had finally found my partner for this scene of mine. He said that ten years from now me and my enemy could enact this fateful mountaintop encounter, like Holmes and Moriarty. Except, Mike added, that ten years from now me and my nemesis would both be professors. I wasn’t so sure.

“Only ten years? I wouldn’t count on it. I think I’ll probably still just be a ‘Mister’.”

(It’s not entirely obvious to me that I will ever graduate from here.)

Ok, one more.

Riding the bus this morning, (yes, I ride the bus an awful lot), I saw an advertisement above the seats opposite me. It was actually an advertisement for the advertising space. It was a cute cartoony drawing of a view of Earth from the surface of the Moon. There was text that said something to the effect of "Let more people see your adds".

Huh? Who exactly do they think is riding this bus??? Or, how far exactly do they think this bus's route goes???

Well, just one more.

They keep making these movie versions of classic TV shows. I'll admit that I enjoy some of them, but that's not saying much, because I enjoy 99.999% of the movies I watch. But even with the ones I enjoy, I do ask myself why exactly they felt it necessary to make such a movie. Because some of them are pretty awful. AWFUL.

Then the other day I was flipping through the menu to see what was showing on TV, and I saw that Leave It to Beaver was on. But it wasn't the TV show. Oh no. It was the movie. (Don't believe me? It exists. Check it out!)

I had never heard of this movie, or seen any indication that it exists. So I thought to myself, "Considering how bad all the other movies based on classic TV are, exactly how bad does this one have to be to have been beneath my notice??"

And this made me very frightened. I actually had to turn the TV off right that moment.

Ok, now I'm done.

Everything makes me sad

The title of this entry is a quote from Greg Muller. I don’t even remember the context, but it was very funny at the time.

Here is another funny quote about sadness. In an episode of Futurama, Fry is apparently killed in space. When back on Earth, Leela keeps having dreams that he’s still alive, that he still exists. The Professor replies, "Of course he still exists—as a frozen corpse in outer space. Oh…I made myself sad."

So I was riding the bus home from school the other day. I was on one of those sideways-facing seats. There were two undergraduates sitting across from me. They weren’t a couple, but they were totally into each other. You could totally tell. Totally.

The bus stopped at one of its, well, stops, and the kids started to panic. They didn’t know where the bus was, and they weren’t sure if this was their stop or not. They had to consult the driver, a passenger just getting on, and a passenger still sitting.

It wasn’t that they didn’t know where they were going, but it was nighttime and they couldn’t immediately see where the bus was, and they had lost track of the stops. They had completely lost track of where the bus was – that was how into each other they were.

I have never in my life lost track of the bus stops.

I’ve had conversations on the bus, and I’ve even been pretty into people I’ve been riding the bus with, but they’ve never been that into me at the same time. Because I’m pretty sure that if that had ever happened, not only would I have noticed, not only would I have lost track of what bus stop we were at, but I would almost definitely have lost track of what planet we were on.

And yet, I’ve always been pretty darn aware that I’m on planet Earth.

Choose your destiny

I just saw a commercial for new Star Wars Episode III lightsaber toys. The bit that caught my interest is one which allows you to change it's color from blue to red. The tagline attached to that product is, "Choose your destiny, like Anakin Skywalker." (I may be getting the exact language wrong, but the idea is the same.)

I find this very disturbing.

This is downplaying some pretty horrific events from that movie. Not only did poor little Anakin kill a large number of fully-grown Jedi, but he put down all of the little preschool Jedi! I trust this is not the mode of choosing one's destiny that the toy company means to endorse. "Impress your friends! Kill your friends! Kill your friends' little brothers and sisters!"

Not cool.

It was really easy to fall in love with the character of Darth Vader from the original movies. He would walk around all threatening, and choked some stupid British guy for his "lack of faith". But that's about the worst that we ever saw him do. Well, he did cut off Luke's hand. But honestly, he had it coming.

Darth Vader was pretty cool.

But in these new movies, I just don't know. At first he's too little and annoying. He's ok for a little while, as a good Jedi. But then he starts whining about how powerful he is, or should be, or something. I don't know. The exact dialogue can be a little too much to stomach in these movies.

To be fair, I think just about everything up to and including cutting off poor Samuel Jackson's forearm can be forgiven. They were extenuating circumstances, and given Anakin's knowledge at each point, his actions were basically excusable. They were brash, and maybe a little stupid, but not really evil.

What I love, and by "love", I mean "am completely boggled by", is that at this point, it's like a switch gets thrown in his head. The Emperor is like, "Kill the little ones." And for no apparent reason, with no thought or pause, Anakin goes, "Ok." Because clearly, killing all of these children will help him save his wife, not to mention the fact that nothing impresses the little woman, especially the PREGNANT little woman, like slaughtering a bunch of ankle-biters.

This was not too well thought out.

So yes, little ones. Choose your destiny, like Anakin Skywalker.

Anti-joke

"Anti-joke" is the name of one of my most successful recurring jokes. It's never the joke I start out to use - it's more of a recovery vehicle. Here's how it comes up.

It starts out with me telling a joke that turns out badly. I don't mean a bad joke in the sense of one that makes you groan, e.g. almost every pun ever invented. I mean a joke that starts with genuine intentions of being funny, but falls tragically short. The kind of joke that falls completely flat, that produces awed silence so astonishing that you couldn't just hear a pin drop, you could hear the whooshing of the wind resistance on its way down.

When I realize the horror of what I've just done, there's no choice but to come clean. First, I apologize. There's simply nothing else I can say at first that makes any sense. Then, I comment that if someone were to tell a genuinely funny joke at this moment, no one would laugh, because that joke and my joke would cancel each other out.

Sometimes I will continue, confirming that, yes, my audience had just witnessed a comedic feat so awful that it dipped below absolute zero funny, and reached a level of negative humor. Oh yes. An anti-joke.

Thankfully, the anti-joke routine is usually enough to make everyone laugh, or at least unclench from their full-body expressions of absolute horror at the inhumanity of the first joke I told them. Truthfully, the more awful the first joke, the better the reaction to the revelation of the anti-joke concept.

It's a very dramatic concept, the idea of an anti-joke, floating around out there canceling any funny it runs into.

Watch out.

One burrito too many

Mike and I were hanging out tonight, and I suddenly realized that my tummy ached. I told Mike that if there's ever a biography of my life, the title should be:

One Burrito Too Many:

The Tim Goldberg Story

He laughed, and replied that, from now on, I should live my life so as to live up to this title.

Writing this down, I'm reminded of my very favorite comedic work that Mike has ever produced. It started with me sending him the following email, written (for no particular reason that I can figure out now) in telegram code.

STILL HAVE YOUR JUICE AND PICKLES STOP KEEPING THEM IN FRIDGE STOP
SARAH AND JOHN AND SHELBY AND I MEETING TOMORROW AT ALADDINS AFTER
OLIVETTI TO DISCUSS ARMSTRONG BABY SHOWER STOP WANT TO COME QUERY
SIGNED TIM

Here is Mike's e-mail reply. (He interspersed his reply with a copy of my e-mail.)

STILL HAVE YOUR JUICE AND PICKLES '

ok

STOP KEEPING THEM IN FRIDGE

but you still have them

STOP SARAH AND JOHN AND SHELBY AND I MEETING TOMORROW AT ALADDINS AFTER
OLIVETTI TO DISCUSS ARMSTRONG BABY SHOWER

ok, i'll do everything in my power to prevent it

STOP WANT

i donate to third-world aid organizations all the time.

TO COME QUE

I don't speak spanish.

RY SIGNED TIM
I didn't know Tim knew sign language.

The Office

I'm in the middle of watching the second season of The Office (the American one). It's an amazing show. It induces very strong emotions in me.

The first emotion is joy, motivated by the fact that it is incredibly funny. Two scenes stick in my mind. The first is from the very first episode of this series, where Dwight opens his desk drawer, pulls out a plate with a blob of jello on it, with his stapler floating in the middle of it. He exclaims, "Jim put my stapler in jello again!" I think the boss says, "Jim, stop putting Dwight's things in jello."

It's such a beautifully absurd thing, and the characters' reactions just skip over the absurdity of it, like it happens all the time. It's this juxtaposition of something from way out in left field with mundane reactions that made me laugh until my stomach hurt.

The second scene is more recent. It was the opening of one of the episodes. Jim passes Dwight in a doorway. Dwight is on his way to the vending machines, gets there, and screams, "What are my things doing in the vending machine?" Jim turns around to help out. In place of chips or candy bars, there's a stapler, a Dwight's name plaque for his desk, etc. Suddenly Pam shows up, surveys the items for sale, and buys Dwight's pencil holder. Dwight offers to buy it back, and then discovers his wallet missing. Jim helpfully locates it in one of the slots of the vending machine. Jim hands Dwight a bag of change, and he and Pam walk off.

I was absolutely dying.

There's one more scene like this that floats to the surface of my mind. Dwight comes into the office one day to find his desk missing. (How can you find something that's missing? The phrase doesn't imply that you've actually found the missing thing, and even if you had, then it wouldn't be missing! I love this phrase.) Dwight starts looking around, then starts out into another room. Without looking up, Jim says, "Warmer." This proceeds as Dwight wanders around the building, until he finds his desk sitting in the Men's Room. The part that absolutely kills me is that everything is set up perfectly. The computer is plugged in, it's screensaver running. Even the phone is plugged in, as evidenced by Jim calling Dwight to get some information about a certain paper product they're selling. Dwight sits right down and gets to work.

It's absolutely amazing.

--

Another feeling that hits me often when watching The Office is a deep sense of embarrassment. It simply overflows from most scenes involving Michael Scott. Steve Carell earned his Golden Globe award at least a hundred times over. It takes true talent to play such a preposterous individual. And Michael Scott is 150% preposterous. The things he says and does are just incredible. I wouldn't say that you can't see it coming, it's just that you can't imagine it will actually happen. It's astounding, and hysterically funny, but it also makes me very uncomfortable sometimes.

I felt this way sometimes watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, another brilliant show, but the feeling I get from The Office feels much more blunt. It takes me longer to recover from the Office. It leaves a dull ache for a while.

--

The last feeling that I get is harder to describe. It's really a couple of feelings, sometimes together and sometimes separately. It comes from the evolving story between Jim and Pam. I think it's mostly empathy and sorrow for Jim's character. The two actors have great chemistry together. Their timing and body language mesh beautifully together, and when the plot takes an awkward turn, you can feel the sudden shift in temperature between them. It's so abrupt that it's almost savage. It's great work from the actors, and from the writing, but it wrenches me around.

You really do want to give Roy a bop in the nose, don't you? Or maybe Pam a good solid shove to wake her up? Poor poor Jim.

I haven't finished watching this season, and my understanding is that there are dark times in store for Roy and Pam, but I don't think this automatically makes things lighter for Jim and Pam. We'll see, we'll see.

Oh deer

Is there something strange going on tonight?

I just drove back from some friends' house, and came across many wandering creatures in the night on my way. (This does not include undergraduates.) There was a bunny who nearly hopped his way right under my tire. As I wound my way from one side of Ithaca to the other, I passed several little troupes of deer loitering in people's front lawns. And as I a last pulled into my apartment complex, a short line of deer found it's intended path interrupted by the sudden appearance of my trusty car. The first and last incidents were both far closer than I would have liked, although I can now say with absolute certainty that my breaks work.

I can't recall ever seeing quite so many animals hopping about at night, at least not recently, so I ask again, is there something strange going on tonight?

The moon doesn't seem to be full, and there's no eclipse. I find no reports of natural disasters, either recent or impending. The weather did seem to turn cold this weekend, for the first time this season, I think. I also noticed that the air outside seemed quite fragrant and gently sweet, maybe a last burst of olfactory pleasantness before everything tucks itself away, or simply gives up the ghost, for winter. I don't know.

The deer reminded me of the one time that I hit a deer. I think it was in the late summer or early fall of 2003. This was while I was taking a year off from Cornell and living in Saugerties. I was across the Hudson River, just leaving Red Hook on my way to visit my girlfriend at the time. She wasn't actually home, but I was going to leave a little surprise for her outside her door. She had a fondness for the combination of Dr. Pepper and Butterfingers, and I had put together a little arrangement of these.

I wasn't going very fast, but the deer seemed to come out of nowhere. I think it had galloped out from between some houses. It was a large beast, and in addition to setting off the airbag and stopping the car flat, it had pushed in the entire front of the car and cracked the windshield. The side doors were even dented.

I was fine, and the deer ran right off, so I like to think he was fine too, and as surprised by the whole thing as I was. The inhabitant of one of the houses came out, and told me how car after car had met deer after deer in that exact spot. (I was proud to be a part of such a consistent tradition.) Some other folks stopped by and helped push the car out of the road. A state trooper eventually stopped by, and then a tow truck. Each person had some sort of hunting weapon with him, (and they were most assuredly all "him"s), ranging from knives to bows and arrows to rifles, and all were eager to go check on the other, four-legged victim of the accident. Fortunately, no one found him.

I got to ride in the trooper's car and see some of his barracks, which was cool. On the way back home with my mom, I even dropped off the gift for my girlfriend. Unfortunately, the car was totaled. Fortunately, it wasn't my beloved car, but instead my parent's one-year-old automobile. This last fact would have been an "unfortunately", except that the insurance covered a brand new version of the car, although it wasn't quite as cool. (The first one was red, and had a sunroof and a six-CD changer/player. Its replacement was a sober dark blue, had only the traditional openings (four doors), and had a CD player that played only one meager CD at a time.)

Both were excellent cars. My brother made fun of the model, saying that it had been so easily rendered non-functional, but I continue to point out that its last function was to save my life, in which it was most successful.

I was thinking about this event as I walked from my car to my apartment this evening, and also about that particular ex-girlfriend, and I noticed that I've picked up an interesting new habit. It seems that when I feel a quick, sharp stab of emotional pain I emit a short laugh or chuckle. Something in the way of a "heh-heh-heh".

Of course, this isn't the only time I laugh or chuckle, so it's just a necessary condition, not sufficient.

Tim out.

Bring the funny

I have two funny stories, for public consumption.

(1)
Last Saturday I went with James and Mike to see the movie "Fearless". Mike was late, so James and I bought our tickets. James went first, and when he was done, the fellow at the register called me up. I thought I heard him ask what movie, so I answered, paid for my ticket, and went in. As James and I were waiting for Mike, he pointed out something. The fellow at the register had actually asked, "How are you doing tonight?" And I answered, "Fearless," and stepped right up.

Awesome.

(2)
A couple of us were hanging out after Greg's Olivetti talk last Tuesday. The others were talking about sporadic groups and related stuff, and I wasn't too interested so I opened the door to leave. I was halfway out when I heard Greg say, "It's a well-known result in group theory that ------- is a dick."

I won't fill in the name, but it's pretty funny no matter who you put in there. After I stopped laughing, I said that although the result made sense to me intuitively, I was wondering what the standard proof was. Without missing a beat, Mike replied that the proof is by inspection.

Awesome.

Bugs on a hotplate with metal rulers

A couple of hours ago I drove back to Ithaca from Saugerties. It was amazing outside. Warm but not hot, a little windy, and the leaves are just starting to catch Autumn flame. I went by way of Route 28 and Route 17, and in the middle of this is a weird little road called Route 30.

No, it’s name is not what is weird about it.

The road twists and turns its way around the Pepacton Reservoir, which is this lovely collection of water surrounded by pillows of hills. (I don’t think I actually knew how to spell “reservoir” until just now.) My favorite part is before you’ve gotten a good look at the water, where you’re mostly encompassed by trees, and suddenly everything opens up and you’re crossing this long, thin bridge across the middle of the open water. To either side the view is stunning. Someday I’m just going to stop in the middle of the bridge and take a good, long look. After the bridge, there is one of the zaniest series of turns I have ever seen a road take. I’d almost swear that some of them turn me around more than 360 degrees, which I would have thought to be very unlikely until I drove on this road.

On my trip I listened to two audiobooks, audiobooks being a secret passion of mine. First I listened to Richard Feynmann’s Six Not So Easy Pieces, which is actually a collection of a couple of recordings of his lectures. He must have been incredible to see in a classroom. I’d actually listened to some of this already, so the remaining bit didn’t fill my entire trip. For the rest of the time, I listed to some of Garrison Keillor’s Tales from Lake Woebegone, which are also amazing. He’s amazing. They’re just great.

What I wanted to write about here, though, is regarding some of Feynmann’s material. It was probably around the fifth piece. He had given an introduction to the idea of spacetime, much of which seemed dedicated to convincing people that the idea of a four dimensional vector space is not so crazy. (I didn’t need much convincing, of course.) He was going to start talking about Einstein’s reinterpretation of gravity as causing curved spacetime. To do this, he wanted to describe what he meant by curved space. He was basically trying to give a very informal, but fairly exact, description of Riemannian manifold.

He explained that as far as four-dimensional space is concerned, our imaginations suck. The only method we have open to us is to work by analogy, imagining how we in three dimensional space would look at someone stuck in two dimensional space. (This is very Flatland, which means it’s very smart.) He then took three examples of two dimensional spaces, and asked us to imagine little bugs who live there. He added later that these are bugs who decided to investigate some geometry. He then paused, and commented that these are very unusual bugs.

The first example was our usual Euclidean plane. The second was the surface of a ball, a sphere. (To many people, a sphere and a ball are the same thing. To mathematicians, of course, a sphere is the surface of a ball.) The way to measure distance in these first two examples is just what you think it is. Now we take a weird turn. His third example was bugs on a hotplate, armed with metal rulers. This requires some explanation, but is actually incredibly cool.

Imagine a hotplate the size of a plane. The temperature is different in different spots. At one spot, which we can think of as the origin of the plane, the temperature is pretty low. The further away from the origin you get, the warmer it gets. Now, the bugs on this hotplate have metal rulers to measure distance, and of course as these metal rulers expand or contract based on the temperature. Near the origin, the rulers stay a pretty normal size, but as the bug carries his ruler away from the origin it expands. This means that when he measures distances far away from the origin, the distances won’t seem as large to him as they do to us. The ruler gets bigger! Do you get it?

What I want to say is that when he’s far away from the origin and he sprints for a second, he hasn’t actually gone as far as he thinks he has. But this is ridiculous. The only way the bug can measure the distance is with his expanded ruler. He doesn’t notice anything! But if we’re watching him from above, we will definitely notice the difference. To us, the further away the bug is from the origin, the faster he can move, because distances which look huge to us are not really that big to the bug anymore. As the bug approaches the origin, he will appear to slow down.

The three spaces that Feynmann was describing were models of the Euclidean plane, the spherical plane, and the hyperbolic plane. He goes on to describe how one can measure curvature in these spaces by studying triangles, or by studying circles. If the curvature isn’t zero, weird stuff starts happening. Mathematical X-Files stuff. An important point he mentions is that the bugs can do this themselves. Curvature is intrinsic. You don’t need some higher dimensional cohort to measure it for you. The Euclidean plane has zero curvature, the spherical plane has positive curvature, and the hyperbolic plane has negative curvature. Feynmann briefly mentions that you could have a space where the curvature changes from place to place, like the space we live in. This is a general Riemannian manifold.

Another cool model of the hyperbolic plane is the Poincare disc. (Poincare should have an accent aigu over the “e”, but I’m afraid it might get lost when I move this text around. Plus I can’t figure out where to find it.) Take the open unit disk in the Euclidean plane, and imagine that the rulers shrink as you stray away from the origin towards the boundary. In fact, they shrink so fast that you move more and more slowly as you get to the boundary - so slowly that you never reach the boundary. This model has a nice complex analysis description, which I don’t remember. (It’s probably not that nice anyway.) You can find very nice pictures of this online, or in Bill Thurston’s book on three dimensional geometry and topology.

I was going to write about my ponderings regarding the origin of the term “hyperbolic” to describe these spaces, but I just looked it up in Wikipedia and found the truth, or at least bread crumbs leading to the truth. Now that I think about it, though, why spoil the suspense? Join me in some speculation.

A hyperbole is a figure of speech whose main feature is gross exaggeration. I will share that I just learned that the root of the word comes from Greek for “overshooting” or “excessive”. (I think I could have reasonably been expected to have deduced this.) The main feature of the hyperbolic models I described above is that weird things started happening as you moved towards the fringes, or away from the middle. The weird things were actually of a very specific type, namely exaggeration of length, or its opposite, understatement of length. I think I’ll stop there. I’ve shared enough of my brilliant insight.

More on riding the bus

Anyone who's been on city buses more than a couple of times has probabaly seen it. Two buses trying to round a sharp corner at the same time. A bus making a right turn, the necessary width of its right turn obscured by a car that has stopped to close to the stop sign. These and other nightmare situations seem to face bus drivers on a nearly daily basis, but they usually manage to steer their vessels through safely.

I find this absolutely amazing.

Now, to me, most of the simple feats involved in driving a bus seem incredibly difficult. It's such a huge contraption, and the roadways are so darn tiny and intricate. But as with most things, I'm sure it's mostly a matter of practicepracticepractice. However, these extraordinary situations I described above seem to be a quantum leap in difficulty above the rest. I've seen some incredible driving, buses passing within a centimeter of each other, or within a centimeter of a car, or a stop sign, or sometimes even a person.

I think that when this happens, when our bus driver performs what, to me, is nearly a feat of miraculous proportions, we ought to give a round of applause. That's right. The entire bus should put hands together in honor of the driver's skill, daring, and composure.

I haven't seen, nor heard, or this happening yet. But on of these days, I'm going to clap. And I hope everyone joins in.

The semester so far

The semester so far is going pretty well. I certainly have lots to say about it, not all of which is appropriate for mixed company to read.

Teaching is finally going pretty well. I'm teaching a course one step above the one I have taught before, but it's good. It keeps me honest. I'm forced to spend considerable time with the material before I teach it, and that's never a bad idea. The first couple of classes were a little bumpy, but after a little talk and work with my dad, the legendary guru of math teaching, I was able to find smoother seas. My planning of each class is now pretty meticulous, with room left for improvisation. The most important thing I've picked up is to present the material very slowly. Start with the simplest examples, the simplest cases, imaginable. Don't throw more than one trick at them at once, until they've seen each of the tricks individually first. It's working very well.

I'm mostly lecturing, with a little group work on Fridays, but I'm comfortable with that. When I'm on, I'm a pretty good lecturer, and I don't think the students get too bored. (One of them does have an intriguing habit of reading a newspaper when I'm speaking, but I'm not sure he's in the right place, anyway.) The students seem nice, although quiet. I teach at 12:20, so everyone's either a little groggy from just eating, or fading fast from not eating yet. Also, I teach in a lecture style room, with stadium seating, so it's a little hard to organize group work, but that's ok. Not all of them seem too ridiculously eager to do the group work, and a lot of them work alone, but that's ok too. They don't have to like it, and they don't even have to do it.

Sometimes their incredible silence is a little irritating, like when I ask them questions as a group. Yesterday, I asked who had seen long division of polynomials before. Silence. I asked if anyone had not seen long division of polynomials before. More silence. I asked if we should all close our eyes, except for me, so that no one would be embarassed to admit he/she hadn't seen it before. Still more silence. I yelled "ARE YOU STILL BREATHING???" There was still silence, but a whole lot of very wide eyes. Some people nodded. Good enough. I told them I was just checking.

I'll probably write later about how my own classes and research are going. Again, there's a lot to say. I also should write about my cat situation at some point.

I'm finally getting settled in with the new kids, and adjusting to all of the people who have left. Let me focus on the new kids. There are FOUR GIRLS! And I think they're all nice! I know the other new folks a little bit, and there's only one of them that I wish dead. Most of them are pretty nice, and only smarter than I am by a tolerable amount. I was even feeling better about the one I wanted to die until just a couple of minutes ago.

Our paths crossed, and he thanked me, saying that even though I didn't know it I had loaned him one of my textbooks for about twenty minutes earlier today. He had left a note, but had finished with it before I got to my desk today, so he removed the note. This is not kosher.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I wish I had the mutant power to make anvils appear and fall on people's heads. Anvils or pianos. With pianos, you get that wonderful musical crash when they hit.

Of course, I could have just explained that I'd rather he didn't borrow books without asking, but I feel this is somewhat dangerous territory. The math department is not entirely the happy-go-lucky crew it once was. There are some entirely untrustworthy characters floating around, and I'm not even referring to the new guy who I wish was dead. There is no security at our desks except for the drawers, whose locks are probably not monumental in their sturdiness. This means anything on our desks, such as, say, textbooks, are up for grabs. So far this hasn't been abused terribly much by anyone, but I feel that it's a very delicate balance. Far be it from me to stir the waters.

This entry has taken on a darker tone than I intended.

Riding the bus

This morning, as every weekday morning for the past several weeks, I rode the bus to school. This afternoon, as most afternoons, I will ride the bus from school to home. I could say that I have a "love/hate relationship" with riding the bus, but that would leave shades of meaning unturned, all in the cause of using a pithy and already heavily burdened phrase. The truth is, usually I like riding the bus, occassionally I hate riding the bus, and sometimes I have no real opinion about it.

I don't like it when the bus is very crowded, or when it's running very late, but this is happening less and less now. This morning I had a wonderful bus experience. There were seats left when I got on, but no pair of seats totally unoccupied. Rather than impose my considerable volume on another passenger, I chose to stand. For the entire bus-ride, I was the only one standing, and I had a blast. It was like surfing (I imagine), or at least like a very fun ride on which you are allowed to stand up. With the bus's current detour route, we make quite a trip around twists and turns, and over a lot of bumps. With no one else standing up, I could hold onto any or as many bars as I wanted, and it was great.

When it came to my stop, another guy and I both tried waving our hands in front of the door sensor at the same time, and we had a little gentle hand-slapping episode. It occurred to me that it's very good that the instructions for the door say "wave your hand", and not "karate-chop your hand". That would have been a very different situation.

The other thing I like about the bus is that, outside of school, it is the place where I find the most general social interaction. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I meet people, but I definitely experience other people, to a small extent. It's not always pleasant, but it's almost always a little interesting. The most interesting thing is how darn quiet everyone is at the bus stop. I think I've talked to people twice so far.

I've only taken the bus sporadically in the past. This is the first time where I'm forced to take it daily. The last time I had to take a bus-like contrivance on a daily basis was in junior high school, and I stopped that pretty soon because of my tendency to be tripped by other riders who were somewhat evil and very much stupid. One of the people who tripped me was working in the Stewart's convenience store near my home a couple of years after we graduated. I only saw him there once, and he tried to have a little friendly conversation and reminisce, as if we were great friends in school. What a bastard.

So far the bus here is much better. No one's tripped me yet, and I've only stumbled on my own once or twice, which is about how often I stumble when not on the bus anyway.

Zits is great.

No, it's not a grammatical error. I am referring to one of my all-time favorite comic strips, Zits, by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman. I just finished reading Sketchbook No. Ten, "Pimp My Lunch", and one comic in particular struck me.

--

Jeremy: Sometimes I feel like everyone else has it together, and I'm just a doofus.

Jeremy's Mom: We all feel like that, Jeremy.

J: So then NOBODY really has it together, and EVERYBODY is a doofus...

J: I'm not sure whether to feel comforted or freaked out.

J's M: We all feel like that, too.