an Inconvenient Truth

Got a chance to read the book a few weeks ago and came across some amazing pictures and an explanation for a rather annoying problem on campus come springtime. The trees on campus tend to become infested with caterpillars hanging from the branches, getting in people’s way – the book details a phenomenon perhaps responsible for the goings-on, with a look at how an increase in temperature delays the hatching season of their main predators, birds,
from this:

to this, giving the caterpillars a few weeks of free reign.

and then a fascinating picture of the border between two nations with different logging regulations in effect:

Slide Rules Still have their Uses

I was at the North Face store when this caught my eye:

They had no idea what I was talking about when I asked them if they had any spare ones, but were nice enough to give me one off of another jacket… then of course there’s the convenient wind chill chart from the National Weather Service which indicates how long you have until you get frostbite – problem with both being they’re in Fahrenheit. Apparently above 40 MPH winds there’s no further chilling effect.

George Dantzig, in Memoriam

George Dantzig, professor at Stanford, was best known for inventing linear programming, and for a particular incident that’s worked its way into college lore:

from an interview with the College Mathematics Journal:

“

It happened because during my first year at Berkeley I arrived late one day at one of [Jerzy] Neyman’s classes. On the blackboard there were two problems that I assumed had been assigned for homework. I copied them down. A few days later I apologized to Neyman for taking so long to do the homework — the problems seemed to be a little harder than usual. I asked him if he still wanted it. He told me to throw it on his desk. I did so reluctantly because his desk was covered with such a heap of papers that I feared my homework would be lost there forever. About six weeks later, one Sunday morning about eight o’clock, [my wife] Anne and I were awakened by someone banging on our front door. It was Neyman. He rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: “I’ve just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication.” For a minute I had no idea what he was talking about. To make a long story short, the problems on the blackboard that I had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics. That was the first inkling I had that there was anything special about them.

”

I hear a professor or two at Caltech give students unsolved problems on their exams – but have yet to see a professor quite as sadistic as that here… though it’s certainly testament to what you can do if you’re not limited by pre-held assumptions.

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Literature

Probably my best English teacher ever was the elderly, soft-spoken Mr. Pellerin in the tenth grade. He would assign various poems and 20th century American books for us to read, and our assignments solely consisted of delivering a few minutes of our reflections to the class, after which he would give us his own thoughts. I still have trouble reading the classics, but he at least helped me appreciate literature – and introduced me to the Atlantic Monthly magazine.

came across this in a book but couldn’t find mention of it online:

“

a mile of clean sand.
i will write my name here, and the trouble that is in my heart.
i will write the date & place of my birth,
what i was to be,
am what i am.
i will write my forty sins, my thousand follies,
my four unspeakable acts…
i will write the names of the cities i have fled from,
the names of the men & women i have wronged,
i will write the holy name of her i serve,
and how i serve her ill.
and i will sit on the beach & let the tide come in.
i will watch with peace the great calm tongue of the tide
licking from the sand the unclean story of my heart.
- edna st. vincent millay. paris, 1922

”