Thane Plambeck

Kakuro

Sudoku? That's so last week.

link

Marin County

Spent the day at Dillon Beach with Alex & Kim and family. (Now I Google Alex for the first time and find that according to the Sierra Club web pages, "[he] bears the unusual distinction of being the first staff lawyer ever hired by the Sierra Club (in 1991) and he served as the law program's first director before reducing his duties and assuming the deputy director position in 2001.") They rented the same place as last year (I visited the town, not the beach, this year, only—I stayed inside and worked on the crossword. It rained all day. Pearl the Dog loved the rain, as did the kids).

One year ago: Dillon Beach found poetry slam.

From An Epistle to Arbuthnot

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True Genius kindles, and fair fame inspires,
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend,
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieg'd,
And so obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd;
Like Cato, give his little Senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While Wits and Templers ev'ry sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise.
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?

link

From the Buell Emerson biography

Emerson presupposes an initial state of timid, unhappy conformism. By adulthood, people are conditioned to look through other people's eyes. In this state, "one can scarcely experience oneself," as political theorist George Kateb puts it. So the first move is to disengage yourself from the influence of others' opinions. Kateb calls this "negative individuality." Note that Emerson is not talking just about others but also about himself. Biographer Robert Richardson, Jr., rightly diagnoses his "calls for self-reliance" as "ground won back from dependency." Emerson's indictment of the " 'foolish face of praise,' the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not fell at ease in answer to conversation which does not interest us" was a charge he had leveled against his younger self nearly two decades before on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, using the same quotation from Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot."

[ Holy cow, must get that Pope letter. I'd wondered why the single quotation marks (the 'foolish face of praise') are in the original Emerson essay. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts—they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty...[[ahem]] ].

Elwyn Berlekamp's Christmas card

click me

Lacking enough snow, this year Santa is travelling by hot air balloon. To keep the elves amused en route, Santa has been randomly distributing red and green hats. The clever elves are now using a Hamming code to win in 7/8 of the possible cases. For details, see [Emissary], Fall 01, Page 8, Problem 3C.

Stories Ending With 'Long Story Short' That Could Actually Use Some Elaboration

zhubin parang (mcsweeney's)

The Turning Torso

flickr slideshow

A harrowing night for Nebraskans everywhere

The Nebraska football team celebrates after defeating Michigan 32-28 in the Alamo Bowl (AP Photo)

They almost lost it, instead, just as Stanford lost the 1982 Big Game (vs California; a game Gloria attended as a freshman at Stanford), on a confusing play at the very end. Michigan started pitching the ball all over the field on a play that started deep in their territory with :02 seconds left. But instead of making it into the endzone as California did against Stanford, the last Michigan player to get the ball was tackled on the Nebraska 15 yard line by the last two Nebraska defenders.

I almost went into cardiac arrest, watching it—if that Michigan guy had run with more conviction, it would have been a Big Play Nightmare Repeat.

Coming soon: Pearl the Mud Dog Video

I'm waiting for Google Video to "verify" my submission of Pearl wallowing in the mud at the Mitchell Park dog run—more sensible dogs kept their distance, and Cole observed "I don't think Pearl is a good role model." Now it has been over 24 hours since I've submitted it. Do they really look at each video before making it available on the Google Video site?

Added later: The video has been Google-verified. Here it is

arXiv gets a facelift

nice

Encore appearances, Christmas 2005 vs Christmas 2004

1) Endangered Species Chocolate

2) LEGO^TM toys

3) Mystery novels

4) T-shirts

5) Ghirardelli Chocolate

Diaconis on foundations and history of probability

Suresh points out that Persi Diaconis is teaching a very interesting-looking probability course next quarter at Stanford.

From the course description:

History of probability from Greek and Talmudic sources to Pascal, Fermat, and Bernoulli. Interpretations of probability from axioms to subjective probability. Psychology of probability, heuristis and biases - what we know that isn't so. Humes problem of induction. Exchangeability and deFinetti's answer. Randomness and gambling. Statistical inference. Alternatives and caveats.

Maybe I can sneak in? It might mesh nicely with the Vortex Emerson class, the same day, only later.

The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design

I used to consider myself the strongest mathematician and physicist within a radius of 500ft of our house. Then I made some casual enquiries and learned that Lenny lives one door down from us (street party photo). So I reduced the radius of interest to 50 feet.

Anyway, I just got his new book, which is ranked #2239 today at Amazon (up from #3018, yesterday).

I remember reading somewhere that every equation in a science book subtracts some number of potential sales. So it's best to never write any equations, if you want to maximize sales. I looked for the first equation in Lenny's book and can report that it occurs on page 25:

He should have found some way to say that differently. I could have helped. But I'm glad to see it's selling well, anyway.

Dlugy acquitted

Max Dlugy is a former president of the United States Chess Federation and chess Grandmaster who was arrested and thrown into a Russian jail months ago on charges that he had embezzled money from Russian magnesium plant.

It's nice to see that he has been acquitted (link).

2006 Prospect: articles in books & other pseudo-academic conceptoids or business activities.

1) Just about finished now with my paper Advances In Losing, for the Cambridge University Press MSRI combinatorial games book.

2) My partially ghostwritten Klarner article Satterfield's Tomb is going to be in this book edited by the Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, and Tom Rodgers. Looks like it's coming out in June 2006.

3) Aaron and I need to finish The Phi values of Various Games.

4) Also want to write The Model: How to Quit Your Lowly Computer Programming Job and Become a Millionaire, Instead, with Greg.

5) Hatching a new company with Joshua, maybe. He has a good idea.

6) Still want to whack together my special top secret project, code named "Program 48." Do I have the Sitzfleisch to do it properly?

[you don't need to click that link for a definition of "Sitzfleisch"....here you go...couldn't have said it better myself...]

Sitzfleisch is another one of those inimitably useful German words. Literally it's "Sitting Meat". What it means is patience --- as associated with the gluteus maximus and surrounding padding that enables someone to perch on a hard chair for hours. In a chess context Sitzfleisch describes the kind of dogged analysis that a good player has to do in a complex position. (A:vimo)

Highway 99

Bush v Gore

House of Humor

House of Humor

It's the smokiest night of the year

All over Palo Alto, people are burning wood.

Who's going to declare a Spare the Air emergency?