Day 162 - Time to Accomplish

That's the title of my favourite soul song from the seventies. I just performed another case of my recent habit - typing Ctrl-S after I finish each sentence, a habit picked up by typing for too long in word processors and a fear of sudden inexplicable shutdown, destroying each sentence I fought for so long to pluck from the minds of my betters.

Well, the Cable Saga is finally at an end. The letters have been literally pouring in demanding for a resolution, so I sent a little letter of my own...to Harry. Ha ha ha ha ha! Incidentally, I swapped round the final punctuation mark of those two sentences, after I read something recently demanding that exclamation marks be used only for actual exclamations, not just shocking or noteworthy sentences. I fully support this movement - the character of a sentence should be determined by its content and vocaculary, not by some little vertical upstart!!!

When writing about the overuse of exclamation marks irony is, of course, mandatory. Otherwise other clever and smug people won't be able to feel clever and smug, defeating the point of the internet as a whole. As a part, it would still stand, but forever unsaturated. Darn, just did Ctrl-S again. And again. Luckily it actually does save it on this blogging website, which is quite useful. In some other program, however, it may be a shortcut for Scouring Your Hard Drive, so I must be careful in the future.

That's enough, you greedy word goblins.

Day 159 - Why capitALISe?

Website of the day: One Sentence
As the tag line goes, "True stories, told in one sentence"

Reading the one sentence stories is interesting, curious and fun. Even more engaging, however, is looking at the tags people add to their sentences, which sometimes make you read it an whole different light:

When it took me 40 minutes to get from Colorado to Iowa while zoomed in on Google Maps using the arrow keys, I realized biking there wouldn't be an option.

tags: traveling stupid long distance certain someone

I fell in love with her on a chat-site, but when she finally showed me her picture, I am ashamed to say, I dumped her immediately.

tags: dating chat sites beauty and the beast

Of course, sometimes the tags are pretty obvious:



There is a dead frog in my freezer.

tags: frogs death freezers

Day 158 - Youth Folly

I watched Napoleon Dynamite tonight, and so (because films affect me a while afterwards) I feel in a quiet and slightly surreal move.
I'm not going to write any more, but I don't have to.

Day 157 - Underlined for Emphasis

The revision goes well; I have actually started to learn what Knowledge and Reality is all about, and I have decided to make Proof Sheets for all my maths topics - I've already done the same for definitions and theorems, but reluctantly admit that in maths, proofs are important as well. Kay sera, sera, whatever shall be will be, must be.

If necessarily X, then necessarily necessarily X? If possibly X, then necessarily possibly X? Answer: it depends on how you like your accessibility relation between possible worlds. That's the semantic boys roll.

Day 138 - Summary Dispatch

Back in Oxford today, after waking up at 7am, last minute checking, then a two hour drive to Oxford, nice brunch, new shirt, some food, unpacking, Frege, maths, iplayer, Pizza Hut, maths discussions, outside games, consequences.

Day 137 - Dorothea Hamilton Fyfe

Really, this is just too much. The jaw juts in an unbecoming fashion, and the Provost is never welcome where he treads too lightly. Let no man be your measure, while striking down that which shall measure too soon. For in these things we find the light, the laughter, and the wisdom which guides us over hillock and under dale.

Can four sights pierce the fog? Or must obfuscation ever cripple us.

Day 136 - The Ragman's House

My Easter vacation is nearly over - five weeks has gone past in an amount of time that appears to defy science as we understand it, yet still the physicists ignore my letters.
On Sunday I return to Oxford, and there are only five weeks until my exams start. I believe so, anyway, since the Examination Schools still have not released the exam timetables for any of the mathematics department. They appear to be mocking us cruelly, in a show of such brazen scorn that there can only be two possible explanations:

1) One hideously unfortunate afternoon, everybody involved in such things arrived home from work and then XXXXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX beyond space and XXXXXX rending XXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX horror.
2) One unfortunately hideous afternoon, everybody involved in such things was kidnapped and replaced by agents from the Anti-Mathematical Team, who have set about quietly dismantling all university mathematics departments, and are trying to deny they ever existed.

Continue to fight the good fight, my brothers and sisters. Hide that textbook under the floorboards, and let the No-Maths Police come knocking. Whisper axioms and laws of inference to your children when all written records have been burnt, so that the knowledge will not die. Shelter the Fields medallists in your attics, and supply them with paper and pencils. Though our freedom may be eroded, our morals corrupted, our children sold for air conditioning research, pure mathematics will live on.

Harry visited a couple of days ago - we went to Whipsnade with Julia. This was pretty cool, and deserves a proper blog post (Harry/Julia, I'm looking at you). He should also be very excited that he's been mentioned in my blog post.

I have not forgotten his request for a blog on what I was saying about philosophy and free will. I will, I promise, when I have time to think. Things are so hectic round here, I am literally rushed off my feet.

Ouch.