Thane Plambeck

Fact learned at G4G8

The second player in Tic-Tac-Toe can't force a draw.

Don't believe me? Well—don't forget that if the second player happens to win, that's not forcing a draw!

I learned this from Rich Schroeppel's talk on how to force a draw in 7^3 Tic-Tac-Toe.

Mayumi Miyake

Mayumi Miyake
Originally uploaded by thane

Drums at Tom's house

Drums at Tom's house
Originally uploaded by thane

Dr Johnson + Tom's wine

Dr Johnson + Tom's wine
Originally uploaded by thane

George Hart finishing a sculpture

George Hart finishing a sculpture
Originally uploaded by thane

With John Conway

With John Conway
Originally uploaded by thane

G4G8

1) Beginning of Raymond Smullyan's talk

"Before I start my talk, there's something I'd like to say.

[Long pause]

2) Later on in the same talk:

Successful people know about two rules: Rule 1—never tell people everything you know.

[Longer pause]

3) THANE: So, Scott, do you use that BULLSHIT graphic in your slides for undergraduates?

SCOTT: No, but I used it my job talk...

Gathering for Gardner 8: here I come

Gathering for Gardner 8: here I come
Originally uploaded by Seb Przd

Seb Przd hacks Scott Kim's logo

I fail to persuade Kim to sing a song about California she learned in second grade

Owen as seaweed at Ocean Day

THANE: Are you kelp?

OWEN: Yeah.

THANE: All right, good.

Game on

The Palo Alto Little League season has started.

All you readers in snowy, rainy, stormy, or otherwise unpleasant climes—keep watching this page!

awareness test

via Tom Rodgers

St Volodymyr's

Somehow reminded me of Syldavia, and the Sprodj Atomic Research Centre

On the music teacher

COLE: He doesn't have great English. In rehearsals, it's hard to tell what he's saying, or even if he's talking to you or not.

THANE: So, what do you do, say "EXCUSE ME—Are you talkin' to ME?!"

COLE: No—my seatmate found a solution—if he's talking somewhere in our general direction, she'll start swaying side-to-side, ever so slightly. If he happens to be talking to us, he'll start swaying, also.

cutesyness & killing the circle

A similar problem occurs when teachers or textbooks succumb to "cutesyness." This is where, in an attempt to combat so-called "math anxiety" (one of the panoply of diseases which are actually caused by school), math is made to seem "friendly." To help your students memorize formulas for the area and circumference of a circle, for example, you might invent this whole story about "Mr. C," who drives around "Mrs. A" and tells her how nice his "two pies are" (C = 2πr) and how her "pies are square" (A = πr2) or some such nonsense. But what about the real story? The one about mankind’s struggle with the problem of measuring curves; about Eudoxus and Archimedes and the method of exhaustion; about the transcendence of pi? Which is more interesting—measuring the rough dimensions of a circular piece of graph paper, using a formula that someone handed you without explanation (and made you memorize and practice over and over) or hearing the story of one of the most beautiful, fascinating problems, and one of the most brilliant and powerful ideas in human history? We're killing people's interest in circles for god's sake!

Lockhart's Lament

Rethinking the hydrocarbon personal motto

This blog used to have the title

If urethane, who am I?

I thought that was pretty good—even though I did get sick of it after awhile. But now I've just thought of

You Tarzan, methane.

Added later: I know, I know—it's supposed to be "Me Tarzan..." But somewhere I've already archived a follow up to that—

Grand Central Station

grand-central2
Originally uploaded by thane

Man crossing street while studying his cell phone, NYC

Man crossing street while studying his cell phone, NYC
Originally uploaded by thane

subway

subway
Originally uploaded by thane

New York subway

New York subway
Originally uploaded by thane