Category: Blarghing

I grew up with basic cable, and strict parents. Mr. Rogers’ show (or PBS in general) was never the favorite if I had the luxury of choice; Saturday morning cartoons takes that award. But as an adult, I wished that I watched his show a bit more as a child.

The more I learned about him, the more I think he is the moder day equivalent of Jesus. From his heartfelt reaction to meeting a former guest on the show to washing Officer’s feet, I really could have learned a lot from him. When Cassady and I spent Thursday night at the dollar theater seeing the 2018 film, I was a bit wary at first.

How do you portray someone with no scandals and blemishes? I didn’t want a film which was obsequious, but  rather show the more human-side of him.

I think the film did a good job.

It’s an extremely touching film which showed a lot of the behind-the-scenes of the iconic TV show. More importantly, they showed the humorous side of Fred, along with the pragmatic side. The writers showcased not only his willingness to rise against racism, but his reluctance of gay rights in an era where that was a dark mark.

I really do wonder what he thinks about the current landscape. Would he think he failed? Or just get back to work educating children?

My god.; this weekend was utterly wasted for the most part. I spent a good 8 hours in a training session on Saturday, then afterwards started a game of Civ5 as Poland on emperor difficulty.

My position started out pretty precarious, with two warmongering civilizations Songhai AND Mongols neighboring me. But luckily, it seems that they started going to war against each other with the Mongols capturing a city-state to the east of me, and the Songhai’s capital actually.

I got my first three cities running, then just started rolling over the Mongols once I researched and built crossbowmen. Not sure where the Khan’s troops were, but a combination of longswords men and crossbowmen really just steamed rolled the Mongols.

By that time, I obtained the technology for producing winged Hussars and cannons. This duo was literally impossible to stop by the AIs. I conquered the capital of Byzantine, then rolled over to the Shoshones. And then somehow everyone in the world decided to declare war on me.

And then I conquered all of them by the 1950s in-game-time.

I guess the most fun part of civ 5 is reaching late game; by then, the juggernaut becomes impossible to stop. The AI is so bad at naval combat that my battleships were shelling every city with no counterplay from them.

It’s been a rough few days for my body. My left arm has some ulnar nerve impingement issues, and have been extra sensitive.

This past Sunday I fell from my bike and scraped my right knee, and injured my right arm’s wrist.

I have one remaining non-impaired limb left.

(Work has been going slow lately… hence all these math posts.)

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Starting with $1, \frac{1}{2}, \cdots, \frac{1}{n}$, form a new sequence of $n-1$ entries $3/4, 5/12, \cdots, (2n-1)/(2n(n-1))$ by taking the averages of two consecutive entries in the first sequence. Repeat the averaging process on the second sequence to obtain a third sequence of $n-1$ entries, and continue until the final sequence of only a single number $x_n$. Show that $x_n < 2/n$. Solution: Given a sequence $a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_n$, the averaging process will give us $(a_1 + a_2)/2, \ldots, (a_{n-1} + a_n)/2$. If we proceed with the averaging procedure, it is not hard to see that the binomial coefficients show up. In fact, we can see that \begin{align*} x_n &:= \frac{\sum_{k=1}^n \binom{n-1}{k-1} \frac{1}{k}}{2^{n-1}} \\ &= \frac{\sum_{k=1}^n \frac{(n-1)!}{(k-1)!(n-k)!} \frac{1}{k}}{2^{n-1}} \\ &= \frac{\sum_{k=1}^n \frac{1}{n}\binom{n}{k}}{2^{n-1}} = \frac{2^n - 1}{n 2^{n-1}} < 2/n. \end{align*} (Definitely one of the easier problems.)

Good news; my advisor and I submitted our first paper this past Monday. I’ve uploaded a draft here for those curious.

 

NYTimes Article

I think I always forget how privileged I am. I benefited from many points laid out in the article by Mr. Levy: my parents explicitly moved to one of the best school zones in Tallahassee just for me to get a better shot at college applications, I also had the benefit of them expediting the citizenship process so I could apply as an American citizen, and they provided enough money for all the extracurricular I needed. All this after living in graduate student housing for 2 years.

I like to think that I can do what I am doing without my parents’ support, but the truth is I can’t. So much of success is dependent on having a good family. I don’t think any of the people currently in my graduate program came from an under-privileged home… and to be honest, all of my friends are quite affluent.

Do I agree with the article? Yes. Do I think it’s enough? No. College is the end of the road which starts from pre-K. Certainly universities can offer more aide, or allocate more slots for under-represented students, but will this really pull them up? I don’t think so; the system right now is too fundamentally broken for a top-down approach.

1. Went to RPI applied math days this weekend, and gave a talk about preconditioning. It went pretty darn well, but I really do have to feel bad about the international grad students who don’t have a mastery over the English language… because they can’t bullshit out of anything like I can.
2. On the way there, I saw for the first time a cop pulling over someone going too slow in the left lane. I rejoiced.
3. On the way back from the gym, I saw a cancer patient in a car by the traffic lights. Chemo really does take the life out of people’s eyes.
4. Being ghosted sucks ass, especially when you thought you clicked well with the other person.
5. Taxes suck ass.