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Stuff I want to look at:

*Why am I not an Austrian by Bryan Caplan

*Jacobians

Ideas/Problems:

*Subgroup classification by external direct product.

*Markov Chaining -> Evolutionary Programming/Subsidiary Neural Network Data Storage

*Metric Space L^1() Idempotent Recursion

*Field decompose into smaller poly-field

*Weaker Splitting Field Condition

Publication List:

Friendship The Lights Game

"Dream On"

August 5 11:31

~Peter Stalin

July 30 16:31

THE UPDATED LIST:

*Subgroup classification by external direct product.

After studying this for a while, my ideas are two-fold:

1) Creating a group from a normal group that use external direct product as its operation.

2) Using this supergroup as a way to isolate groups with only two subgroups, as a way of studying primes.

*Markov Chaining -> Evolutionary Programming/Subsidiary Neural Network Data Storage

This is basically trying to create AI.

*Metric Space L^1() Idempotent Recursion

The L^1 recursion already described.

*Field decompose into smaller poly-field

A field of polynomials can be built over a field, but the question is whether the reverse can occur, and it turns out that a field is a polynomial field over some other field.

*Weaker Splitting Field Condition

This is born out of the zero-finding algorithm. The idea is perhaps, instead of using Galois Groups to show the insolvability of the quintic, to make a similar approach by redefining a sort of 'extension field' for the bounds of the roots of a polynomial, and then continuing along the approach normally used to prove the insolvability of the quintic to instead show something about approximating the bounds for the roots of a polynomial (i.e., try out some sort of weaker condition in the splitting field's stead).

CLEANING OUT OLD IDEAS:

*Uniform Convergence + ___ = L^1 Convergence

Uniform Convergence implies a.e. convergence with MCT implies L^1 Convergence

*Droplet Formation

I was interested in continuing to analyze droplet formation, but upon seeing that's it's essentially the n-body problem, that's killed my spirit.

*Zero-finding algorithm using winding numbers

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=25685 for the relevant discussion.

~Peter Stalin

July 14 18:48

INTROSPECTIVE ALERT!

So, really, the amount of work I've gotten done is very minimal. I've finished up my skit with the tutoring group, and spent a large amount of last week finding an apartment (finally went to Lafayette this weekend, the campus is #@$! huge). I also, I guess, decided to take some more time off on my other projects for Trilby :p. I ended up Korean-beating the game (ROAR, T-RANKS ON EVERYTHING), and I must say, the Welder's minigame when you beat the bonus heist with the cream suit is INCREDIBLE, it really makes me feel worthwhile for living for a little bit. I've also written a small primer on continuity and multi-valued derivatives for a friend of mine. I'm also finishing up the Feynman Lectures on tape (listening to them in the Physics Auditorium :D). And I guess I've gotten some Qual-studying done, seeing as how I have a list of things to memorize.

I'm noticing now that whenever I start one of these introspectives, I usually try to build myself up a bit :-/.

Alright, so yet again, I would like to push myself harder than I have, and I'd like to, or at least to some extent, analyze why I am not able to do so.

So, I find that usually I am able to do tasks fairly effectively when they're incredibly subdivided. I mean, during the normal school-year they're very subdivided and strict and wait the hell it is that I need to do. "Copy Notes", "Do problems X through Zed", Read pages X-Y, etc.. I tended to use Google Calendar, and when I did, I found myself to be incredibly productive. And, now that I'm taking this mode of analysis, I find that the least productive times where when I scheduled a 3-hour block of time saying, "Study M515" or something of that sort.

Alright, as usual, I'll leave with yet another thing to try~~~.

~El Director

June 27 23:56

As far as studying for the Quals, it has been depressingly minimal. I've skimmed through the Royden book, checked out the Rudin book, read some stuff on how Fourier transforms are functionals (that never crossed my mind before), realized I forgot a depressing amount about product measures, and that's it. Also, another depressing tidbit is the amount I've spent playing dwarf fortress.

To my credit though, the detail of df never ceases to amaze me. I also love the ability to try so many different styles of play. And thus, my recent style of play has been incredible division of labor and fluid workshop design. And it's very interesting how these things seem to pan out. Furthermore, I keep coming up with interesting idea designs (going to post them on the board).

O.k., I just spent an hour detailing df plans on the boards :p.

Let me skip onto the next thing.

So, I was tutoring today and someone asked me to try to prove the triangle inequality with |x+y|^pi. I know my proof can NOT be the simplest; but I think it is fucking awesome. I know it is the case for ^1, and generalize this to ^n integers, then generalize for ^p/q both integers, and then with a sequence of rationals, do a term by term sum of |x+y|'s to prove it for |x+y|^pi. It was very neat, I liked it.

Which brings me to the main topic I wanted to talk about. I have these incredible swings in mathematics. Times where I'm on an unbelievable high, understand everything, things click, I'm motivated to study the stuff, etc., etc.. And then these ridiculous lows where I'm not motivated to go anywhere near analysis (maybe algebra, but unfortunately I view algebra as 'advanced math for jocks' :( ) or old problems I have (Feppy looks at the table to the left), and spend my day doing completely useless SHIT.

I'd like it if I could find an easier way to get out of these ruts.

Either way, it's getting late.

~Peter Stalin

June 22 19:43 (fuck....FUCK, its been two weeks! :( )

First of all On Liberty has been striken from the list. So, book report teim is nao.

I really read the editor's summary alongside the main essay mainly. I...I like modern American English kthx :p (there's nothing wrong with reading the stuff that's written better, right?). Either way, I took the book to be utilitarian justification of things that I rather take for granted. Really, the only major development of the book was the "Harm Principle", and how soceity is just as much/more to blame than government. Those're pretty much the main ideas.

-----

Now, external direct product!

I got inspired by noting that the notation for a group's operation and external direct product are identical. And tried to make a group from a collection of groups using external direct product.

I'm currently collecting notes on how exactly I might go about this, but, in making a 'power set' of external direct products of the original set, there must be a homomorphism that sends this 'power set' back to the original set of groups. I want this 'send-back' to pay particular attention to groups that have ONLY two subgroups. I.e., the 'prime' groups. If I can do this, than I can create a distinct formalism to separate primes between 1 and n with relation to n^2 by the first isomorphism theorem.

That's the general idea, wish me luck on that. :P

-----

Status on the buzzer system. I still have yet to figure how to solder this shit. But, apparently Robin has done this stuff before? Imma gonna ask her. I'm kind of depressed I haven't even gotten a prototype done :(.

-----

And, finally, I am somewhat depressed that I have less than two months now. I am conflicted (as it usually appears to be the case with me) between how much random.....what I guess I should refer to as hedonistic desires.....I appear to be taking. Basically, I have been revisiting all of my old games, in some sort of gigantic reminiscence that has been taking place the past two months. Furthermore, my friend who left for the military has entrusted me with his treasure-trove of 'goods' (not drugs kthx ;D) of which I have been 'taking care of'. Both of these have taken a particular amount of time.

And really what have I accomplished? I've managed to throw off a lot of the old problems list, have a VERY part-time job, and read some stuff, but really no grand new intellectual progress has been achieved. It's very much like a friend of mine has noted to me, "Yes, you could fill that hole you fill in your heart completely with free-flowing water that will leave the moment no more has reason to come in, or with fill it, but not completely, with a little something more solid.

Either way, I hope after this talk I can continue work on e.d.p.

~El Director

June 7 17:32

Either way, I've read (as much as I've wanted to, anyways) Halmos' I WANT TO BE A MATHEMATICIAN. It's nice reading something that's an exposé of what life might be like down the road.

About every Summer there's a time of reflection of the previous year and where I'm going so far. I usually try to study more mathematics, but since last Summer I take forays into other areas of interest (read: classic liberalism). Halmos was fairly helpful and straightforward in his advice that applied mostly to me (mainly because I skipped to the parts that applied to me (I even read a passage that very much advocated the skip-reading I was doing with his very own book)), and I'll probably be coming back to it.

There's still the question of what do I do now. A part of me wants to review all the information I've gained throughout my college life. Pick up my notes and my books and look at twhat all this stuff was about now that I know it so much better. Another part tells me to write up that damn L-Recursion proof. Still another tells me to foray into random science-fiction and classic liberalism. A final part tells me to say "Fuck That" to the previous and play dwarf fortress/NetHack/Stinkoman all day and cruise through 4chan.

I have hopes that my work ethic will keep me somewhat away from the last option.

~El Director

_{But, thankfully, even if I do fall to the last option, at least I will still be studying due to my tutoring obligations this Summer.}

June 2 19:40

*Similarity Transform in Eigenvector Coincidence
Matrices that are similar share eigenvalues because they share JCFs, this has pretty much been settled.

*Triples solution to Peg Problem
I've studied this in my paper, making use of triples as neighborhoods in the cellular automata sense. This really is a dead end for the Peg Problem.

*Mutual Singularity Vector Spaces
Wtf was I thinking with this? Vector spaces have mutually singular spaces, this is already known.

*The Peg Problem (OLD: Dynamical Analysis)
Again, I put as much chaos theory into the peg problem as I could, another dead end. Due to the worthlessness of a 'discrete derivative', chaos theory and thus dynamical analysis is fucking bunk.

*Look at: Lagrange Multipliers <-> Holonomic Functions correlation
I went ahead and asked the Physics guy about it. Holonomic functions are just the constraints the Lagrange Multiplier acts on. I don't see what was the big deal with this for me (seriously, why didn't I clean this out earlier?).

*Correlations between Matrix Analysis and The Peg Problem
Again, I looked this up in that paper I wrote. You can pretty much express the Pegs as a mod 3 matrix and that's it. Dead end yet again.

*Classification of Functional Bases
Uhm, like how e^x categorizes L^1?

*Look at: Jacobians + What I Now Know of Matrices
It's a determinant, not much else I can do. In order to do something special, I need to actually know more behind the theory of Jacobians.

*Semi-algebra to Algebra to Sigma-algebra implies Category to Group to Field
Stick the word 'Boolean' in front of each of the algebras, there's your answer.

*Quotient Space Recursion
Man, I had this whole phase where 'recursion' was the keyword. Mainly because of what I termed the "Halmos Questions". Seriously, I got to read some shit by Halmos. Anyways, to have recursion I need a clearly defined type of element that I continue to divide by; this is not well enough defined to do such a thing.

*Intermediate Value Theorem 'Converse'
No, f(x) = x * I_Q(x). Wtf?

Alright, finally, the problems I have left look pretty worthy. I also went through and cleaned out old books and added new ones. Also added a list of what I generally would like to study.

~Peter Stalin

May 30 18:10

BOOK REVIEW TEIM IS NAO!

My initial thoughts on the book was, "BE PREPARED TO SEE THE UTILITARIAN POV." But, I was pleasantly surprised. The book is pretty much a collection of practicality arguments. In other words, almost a dictionary of common household arguments for An-Caps. Of course, given their practicality, they almost by necessity rely on Utilitarian arguments, I don't really hold that against him.

The book is divided into about 40-50 chapters split in between 4 main parts. Really, I would almost want to call it a 4-chapter book.

The first section is similar in premise to Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. I.e., giving the common arguments for reducing government in a far number of things. But, an interesting twist on this is that Friedman goes through and tries to look at as many of the common historical cases as possible. In a certain aspect, the interpretation he gives of the economic history is certainly not the norm. A revisionist history, if you will.

A short list of the main arguments that I believe are substantial (note: I skipped the parts I didn't want to read. I'm the one reading it, I have such a privilege).

-In Defense of Property
Your typical attacks of Socialism and public property: political control and tragedy of the commons. Along with some amount of protections of the idea of private property: the argument of human right v. property rights by stating that property rights are necessarily a right of humans, and arguments against the charged inequality of distribution of such rights with the common arguments that economics is not a zero-sum game and the more practical arguments of summoning up a bunch of figures to show that it does not induce inequality.

-A Necessary Digression
-Exploitation and Interest
Attacks against the Socialist idea that Capitalism is exploitation. Basically defending the position of Bastiat in the Bastiat-Proudhon Debates, saying that interest is necessary; and that capitalist do do a useful function by waiting for years to get money back, supply risk, etc.. By arguing that capitalists do satisfy a function (acting as the more efficient, dangerous, and risque counterpart of the Socialist's bureaucrat) this provides for the argument that capitalists do not gain their wealth at the hands over workers, but of their own productive capabilities.

-Robin Hood Sells Out
This section contains a bunch of anecdotes about how on the whole, the government ends up hurting the poor more than helping. Examples such as: Social Security (the argument that Social Security hurts the poor is given via a fairly simplistic arithmetical example with the laws of how it worked back in the 70's), the Agriculture Department, and Urban Renewal.
There is are also the usual libertarian arguments that government crowds out private charity. Furthermore, along this line he gives another interesting argument which I will quote at length:
"Suppose that one hundred years ago someone tried to persuade me that democratic institutions could be used to transfer money from the bulk of the population to the poor. I could have made the following reply: 'The poor, whom you wish to help, are many times outnumbered by the rest of the population, from whom you intend to take the money to help them. If the non-poor are not generous enough to give money to the poor voluntarily through private, what makes you think they will be such fools as to vote to force themselves to give.'
That would have been a crushing argument one hundred years ago. Today it is not. Why? Because people today believe that our present society is a living refutation of the argument, that our government is, and has been for many years, transferring considerable amounts of money from the not-poor to the poor."

-The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Poorer
A better argued case against the rise in inequality, also a small inclusion of the 'revisionist' history of the Great Depression (i.e., that the government caused, rather than averted it).

-Monopoly I: How to Lose Your Shirt
-Monopoly II: State Monopoly For Fun And Profit
A collection of standard arguments about collectivization and monopolization in Capitalism. That cartels actively seek to cheat against each other, and that predatory pricing/competitive threats are fairly good business models...if you want to lose market share quickly. Also, that collectivization and monopolization are more prevalent using lobbyists/current regulations.
Despite sourcing yet another 'revisionist' history (Gabriel Kolko: The Triumph of Conservatism and Railroads and Regulation, as well as McGee and Stigler), which go into detail about how Standard Oil fell from within (its market share began to seriously fall about a year or two before trust-busting, along with tales of using Standard Oil's attempts to crush competition against them (Two pretty cool tales I wish to mention: apparently one man sold 6 refineries consecutively to Standard Oil at a profit before they caught on to what he was doing, another man received threats from Standard Oil over engaging in a price war, to which the man replied:
"Well, I says, 'Mr. Moffett, I am very glad you put it that way, because if it is up to you the only way you can get it [the business] is to cut the market, and if you cut the market I will cut you for 200 miles around, and I will makes you sell the stuff,' and I says, "I don't want a bigger picnic than that; sell it if you want to,' and I bid him good day and left."), along with a defense of Alcoa (that the prices were essential low all-around), and another of U.S. Steel.
The second portion of his arguments were solely leveled against the inefficiencies of state monopolies, and the effect of regulations against what they are intended.

There is then (Part II) a large haggle of articles dealing with specific issues. As might be expected, Friedman takes his father's case with a voucher system (a step in the right direction' might be a good way to voice his opinion). Notably is a discussion of privatizing the roads and arbitration. As for privatizing roadways, I would in argument just apply my own experiences from Argentina (the buses, oh God the buses, have I told you about the buses? They're private. They are the kind I would gladly pay first class (so cheap!) or even the lower class (not too bad!) and get a very nice trip to work every day. Just, damn. They are also the main thing that encourages competition between roadways: price too high a toll, and lose an entire bus company), instead Friedman takes the stance of certain technologies that are not being applied that would improve road travel. As for Arbitration, he brings up the current alternatives available: the American Arbitration Association. To which Corporations denote an arbitrator, and find it a lot cheaper and faster than the years-long public alternative, enforcement is applied by the two parties giving an equal sum to the arbitrator agency, and upon the arbitrator's decision, him giving it back appropriately. He gives another court-like apparatus in the form of something that's pretty much akin to a credit rating apparatus.

Part III is a general recipe for anarchism. ROAR, LIST:
-He attacks the social contract by repeatedly referring readers to No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander Spooner (although, to a bit of his defense, he does give a summary of Spooner's view as those similar to a lawyer arguing his case (I signed a contract? Where? When? What are the specific conditions of the contract?)
-He gives a more detailed description of the provision of police, security, and national defense in the private market (these are very similar to the typical Anarcho-Capitalist constructions).
-Gives a fairly lengthy chapter (compared with his typical chapter lengths) devoted to the question of the "Warlord Problem", or why private agencies won't monopolize. The arguments against violence are similar to those against monopolization (as they should be! For the position to hope to be consistent!): bad business practices. He does give a fairly nice anecdote that I wish to share:
"Perhaps the best way to see why anarcho-capitalism would be so much more peaceful than our present system is by analogy. Consider our world as it would be if the cost of moving from one country to another were zero. Everyone lives in a house trailer and speaks the same language. One day, the president of France announces that because of troubles with neighboring countries, new military taxes are being levied and conscription will begin shortly. The next morning the president of France finds himself ruling a peaceful but empty landscape, the population having been reduced to himself, three generals, and twenty-seven war correspondents."
-Arguments that an An-Cap would, in fact, reflect libertarian ideals. -I do not know if it is in this section, but there is an interesting argument that 'voting' with money is more 'democratic' than 'voting' with ballots.
"Contrast the relationship between two men, one having an income of $10,000 a year and one of $5,000, with the relationship between two men, one part of a political faction with ten votes, one part of a faction with five.
Bidding for necessities, the richer man outbids the poorer; if there were only enough food on the market for one man, it would be the poorer who would starve. But when the richer man is bidding for luxuries and the poorer man for necessities, the poorer man wins. Suppose the richer man, having bought enough flour to make bread for himself, wishes to buy the rest of the flour on the market to make papier-mâché for his children's Halloween masks. The poorer man still does note have anything to eat; he is willing to use as much of his income as necessary to bid for the flour. He gets the flour, and at much less than $5,000. The richer man already has used half his income buying flour for bread (since there too, he was bidding against the poor). His remaining income is barely half that of the poorer man, and he certainly is not going is not going to spend all of it, or even a substantial fraction, for Halloween masks.
Now consider the same situation with votes. The man with the larger faction votes to have the flour given to him (and his allies) for bread. Then he votes to have the remaining flour given to them for making papier-mâché. He wins both times, ten to five. Since voting is much more of an all-or-nothing thing than spending, such inequalities as do exist have much greater effects. This may explain why in our society, where the poor are also politically weak, they do far worse on things provided by the government, such as schooling and police protection, than on those sold privately, such as food and clothes."
-How to achieve it. In this aspect Friedman shares a lot of my opinion: violent or passive revolution probably won't help, and that if we believe our system to truly work and be just, we must achieve it in the way our system would probably work. That is to cause the change by education of the public and allowing Capitalism to Creep and to actively create private alternatives, to force government out by Capitalism...I do not share much optimism though...it has been a couple thousand years so far :(.

Well, that's the gist of the book.

~El Director

May 24 23:07

After spending the majority of last week DFIGing, and the week before that with my grandfather. I have two main accomplishments that I'd like to get underway next week:
1) I'm going to start tutoring M414 (that's the incessant e-mailing I've been doing lately).
2) I'd like to go ahead and finish the L5 paper sometime.

As for the other things I have to do this Summer, I pretty much have to line up housing in Lafayette sometime next month. I also have to start studying for quals.

As for the buzzers, I've been trying to find a good supplier. I know Digikey is a decent one, but the wait.....Oh well, I guess I probably should, huh?

But for today, I can relax. I've been playing MegaMan.

~Fephisto

May 7 13:40

Just to get on with it, plans for summer:
1) Write L^p Recursion paper.
2) Make Buzzer system.
3) Do a MML speedrun.
4) Finish MMX1-3. 5) Maybe tutor for M414/etc.?

Other than that, plans are not well settled.

~El Director

April 24 21:19

So, anyways, while I'm waiting for Finals. And since I have some extra time tonight, I decided to look at my library I have collected past the yonder years. And I rediscovered that old Linear Algebra book MP saved from a book burning. I remember the thing not only had a good introduction to Markov chains, but had an introduction to Markov chains PERIOD. I mean, I hadn't seen this mentioned in either my graduate-level or elementary-level linear algebra texts.

(btw, small side-note: I have two graduate-level texts whose title start with "An Introduction to...". Wtf? It's graduate-level, why the fuck is it an introduction? Also, graduate-level texts are HORRIBLY written.....anyways.)

So, I went ahead and looked up row-spaces again, do some assignment due Monday (usually I don't do homework two assignments in advance for reasons of memory loss by the time I get back to that assignment; but it's not like I had anything else to do), so I get to this section on Fourier Series.

There was this whole deal in PDE where I noticed that functions were vectors, more specifically linear combinations of 1, cos nt, sin nt made up a vector space; and I had a lot of fun with this, but I always wanted to understand it better.

Low and behold, it's in this book. Furthermore, it appears as if they have a section on optimization constraint problems that hark to something like Lagrangian multipliers.

Now, my problem with Lagrangian Multipliers is: 1) I never deeply understood them, 2) I never saw a formal proof, and 3) They tease me with a near-eigen-problem form (Del f = lambda g, we have a linear operator and what appears to be eigenvalue, but no eigenvector to line things up). But now I see this book has a linear algebraic formulation on the optimization constraint problem, which hopefully will clear this up for me.

~Peter Stalin

_{Just Stalin for time.}

April 24 9:01

Allow me to talk a moment about moving bass lines:

They don't happen all that often.

Having played a tuba, I can tell you that 95% of the time, our tune consists of low note, then high note, then low note, then high note (the same two notes) of which are quarter notes, for almost the entire song. It would be a fair assessment to say then, that I very much appreciate bass lines more than I do any other line, because good bass lines are so rare. Also, moving bass lines kick ass (this probably has something to do with me liking the 1920's with the Prohibition and the Jazz and the Mafia and the Roaring-ness and what-not).

So, Glenn Miller is high-up in my books. He gives a lot of moving bass lines: amen to him. Now....

There has been only ONE band where I don't have to shove "Treble" all the way down in my car, and "Bass" all the way up to hear their awesome moving bass line which is probably only apparent in a single song (*cough* Taxman *cough*): The Who. Not only moving, but grooving mothafucking 64th notes. John Entwistle kicks ass.

I demand more bass lines. That is all.

~El Gran D

_{Also, Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr, mentored by Keith Moon: the beginning of a new legend?}

April 20 20:44

He's absolutely right, not just about the Baby Boomers kicking our ass; but damn, out of our generation ours has got to suck the most.

We epic fail guys.

Epoch fail.

~Fephisto

April 14 (Whoa!) 17:50

One is that trick I did last semester where I set off an hour a day to fuck-off. That, despite my surprise, really does work. So, I'll keep with it. Better than having an urge to fuck-off ever other motha-fucking minute.

The only other thing is that I'm doing a project I actually want to do (for once). To the point where I'm really wanting to skip all my other homework for this one.

Here's the title: Space Colony Stability Around Sun-Earth L5.

It.....God, it kicks ass. I already got a simulator working well for the Sun-Earth system, and for a simulation putting a point at the Lagrange point. I just need to include the other-planetary analysis, which I guess I could do right now, buuuut....

So, to lead into this, the majority of last week was spent making the program where it is now. It's a fairly interesting history. First I did the Physics wrong (implicitly assuming that the acceleration was constant, grar), but I was using Euler's method, and a cout for every iteration. I met with a semi-programmer I knew, and helped improve my code (changing my constants to floats, and noting that cout is very computationally expensive).

However, when I started looking at the Big-O efficiency (SID, LOOK UP BIG-O NOTATION IN WIKIPEDIA, YOU'RE THE COMPUTER SCIENTIST, YOU WILL BE SHOCKED AND AWED BY THIS SHIT), and the fact that my computations were still taking 5 minutes for a year, I had to look for better algorithms...

More specifically, Euler method SUCKS. So, I've improved to Runge-Kutta (order 2), and wish to improve to RK4 (the holy grail of accuracy and efficiency. However, this is not an ordinary RK4 problem. First of all, RK4 problems deal with solitary derivatives, something in the form y'=f(x,t). I have something in the form r''=f(r,t), with the extra complication that r is a vector.

Therefore, I had to go through all this coupled equation shit and bla-bla-bla, and rattled my head on this quite a bit. I had to go to the library for a shit-ton of ODE and Numerical Analysis books on this (which, surprisingly, there are a LOT OF ODE AND NUMERICAL ANALYSIS BOOKS! Especially compared to the 'parts' of a single shelf some of the other subjects have. This bad-boy had about two shelf-cases full of them), and bothered my professor about it. He told me to just do a bunch of test-runs etc., I got the impression that he was trying to do damage-control because he doesn't really remember Numerical :(.

Either way, the program is a little more pretty with RK2. And in a hope to make the transition easier for when I bring an extra planet into the simulation, I brought my code with my to the Seminar class I'm in (read: boring as hell class). Luck have it, the guy sitting beside me was a computer engineer.

His response was manyfold:
1)OMGWTF U CODE IN NOTEPAD? LULZ (U MAKE ME CRY INSIDE)
2)LOL, THIS IS SCIENTIST CODE, LOOKIT THIS (he brings up some of his code on the laptop he brings so he can read webcomics during class), SEE THIS? THIS IS CALLED A 'COMMENT', AND SEE THIS? THIS IS CALLED 'TABBING'. HELPZ ORGANIZE.
3)OMGWTF SEVEN PARENTHESIS IN A ROW? FIX THAT SHIT UP MAN.
4)OMGWTF? HAOW MANY PAREMS DOES THIS FUNCTION HAS? U NOZ FUNCZINS CAN USUALLY ONLY HAS 3 PAREMS RIGHT? 5)OMG, USE STRUCTS. 6)OMG, DON'T REDUNDANCY THE COMPUTATIONS THAT YOU COULD DO FIRST IN THE CODE. 7)USE CONSTANT, NOT FLOAT, LOL. 8)HAVE U HEARD OF ARRAYS? LOL. 9)(I'm not going to go on, those were the better points).

Actually, he forcibly grabbed the code from me and spent the next half-hour writing comments on it. So.....I have a lot of coding to do now.

~Peter Stalin

(I think my new nickname is going to be NotePadMan now)

April 3 20:35

There are those things that over time you come to appreciate to the full extent that you have done them. I have read The Road to Serfdom, and although at first I really hated reading it (Hayek...he....he sucks at writing), the message that was portrayed eventually became one that is very important in my mind. When I went through PDE and Linear Algebra at the same time, I thought nothing of it, and when I connected for the first time that functions can make a vector space, I thought nothing much of it. Just a cool abstraction. But, that was the prime motivator for my like of groups, and for the importance and the actuality of what really is linear algebra. How an eigenvalue is more than some antiquated notion related to a matrix, and how the notions interact with PDE and orthogonality, with Modern and eigenfunctions and Hermitian functions, and so on.

A very, very long time ago I read The Analects, and I thought to myself, "Hey, whoa, I'm having a life right now....what do I do with it?", and so began the first of many struggles to force myself to do things that were not immediately willing to me. To do things with a vague sense of why, and to keep chugging forward into what I would never have guessed would be mathematics.

To be completely honest, had I been able to choose knowing what I do know now, I probably would've tried to study computer science, in a nearly complete theoretical sense. Or, at the very least, give myself some notion of where exactly I was planning to go with this.

BUT, I digress as to bring up my main point. Where did all of this talk come from?

Occasionally, I get bored whilst reading alone in the Math undergrad room, and unfortunately there are a few sites I allow myself. It is a perpetual problem, since I allow gmail to be constantly on (because all my work is stored there). AT THE VERY LEAST, over the past few years, I have succeeded in making sure that the sites I do allow myself to visit every so many hours in the day are scholarly in nature, sans my forum (which makes me think that I restrict that). These sites are any one of the following (and, I am proud to say at least this: nothing more): mises.org, wikinews.org, gmail.com, bash.org (which hardly updates anyways, and even when they do, is a few quotes worth a few moments of reading), ronpaul2008.com, d.hyperboards.com, pub35.bravenet.com/forum/2938756291.

Either way, mises has been updating more and more rapidly than ever lately. And about an hour ago, This was released. And I have spent the past hour reading half of it. And I don't know why, but the literary style really kept me intrigued. Usually most books, especially something of this sort, can't keep me reading past the first actual page after the table of contents.

And thus, I got thinking about my resolutions all over once again, and how to achieve them, &c..

My original thoughts were thus: I would like to leave some noticeable positive mark amongst the world (NO KILLING JEWS, LOL). Given that I am probably no Newton, Hawkins, or any other genious, I set out to prove one theorem, one tiny corollary, and as I would prefer not to have children (6 billion is enough kthx), let this act in my stead, live the rest of my life in relative tranquility knowing that my mid-life crisis has been solved by my earlier self, and pass on. If I can't prove even one little thing, then at least if I teach, good enough.

And thus this is in the way I have been acting. I get my degree in maths this May, I am going to Purdue by next Fall into their graduate school, and so do the gears march on.

But it is the day-to-day progress with which I continually ask myself whether or not I am on the right track. The very tiny details and questions that need to be answered. For how much do I study for Test X? Did I cover Question Y in enough rigor so as to satisfy professor Z (Z=FUCKTARD)?

And then the more politically motivated questions. I know Person X is probably studying Y hours, so, now I have to make sure I study that much if not more as well (thus why I am here so late tonight).

But, what I hate about all these minor details, is that, yes, maybe in the grand scheme they are important; but the more I fret about them, the more the things I REALLY feel would accomplish my main goal fade away.

There, sitting in my inbox is a half-written proof that L^p recursion is the same as the dual. It has been sitting there for a month now, collecting dust and losing interest in my mind. And yet, it has the potential for such great things in my imagination. I can easily make it reach 20 pages, it may yet be easily publishable. I would publish before I graduate, how grand.

And then my thoughts turn to my current classes and a debate rings up in my mind. Thoughts of "THESE CLASSES ARE FUCKING STUPID, I BET I'M SO MUCH SMARTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE I COULD GET THROUGH THIS" and "YOU FUCKING COCKY-ASS SON-OF-A-BITCH, YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN GET THROUGH THIS WITH EVEN LESS WORK? WELL, GO AHEAD AND TRY THAT, AND SEE YOUR SORRY ASS FAIL THROUGH YOUR LAST SEMESTER.".

This mode of thought usually makes me study 10 hours+ for a single test, and to pedantically triple-check old homework. Or, because what I really want to accomplish goes by the wayside, I lose nearly all motivation completely, and can't accomplish either task.....

Either way, Stefan has probably studied 13+ hours for an exam next Tuesday, and I've only probably only studied 7 hours on it. I've got to at least finish going over old notes here tonight and get another hour in.

~El Director

March 29 15:58

Other than that, I am surpressing a ridiculous urge to pull out my old Earthbound SNES cartridge and start re-playing it again.

Oh well!

~El Director

March 25 12:02

I was going to include a little screen of me imagining a guy in a bed saying, "AHHH MY HORSE HAS BEEN CANONICALIZED!", but that would be going too far.

Also, I had a dream that MP killed me. Please don't kill me :(.

~El Directory (mispelling intended for HUMOUR)

March 22 19:00

Whatevs, I'll go about it anyways.

I've been trying to get back into the grind after Spring Break. I'm not sure how successful I am yet, but I did manage to get a fair amount of studying done today. Especially considering I'll probably be able to study during this week as well anyways..... The only things I can think of doing is to finish up some minor knicks and knacks on papers I have to turn in Monday and Tuesday, and read.

However, I didn't expect I'd get so heavily addicted to df (I'm at ISU right now, btw). I'm really hoping I don't end up like a story one of my friends has told me.....

He is a senior in Physics, and constantly tells me the tales of his youth, playing an incredible number of hours on Starcraft. And, to be honest, it's like hearing a former drug addict talk. He talks about how far his life went down and such. Although, unlike heroin, with videogames you just kind of eventually tire of them. Like a toy you give a child, they're done with it after a week :p.

Roar, addictive substances, that's a good topic.

For me, at least, this is one of the blessings in disguise for not getting new videogames (because you're a frugal cheapskate), or not getting anything past dial-up (because you're a frugal cheapskate). Your choices are limited to a variety just enough to fulfill the pleasures of life, but not enough to go fucking overboard. This is the reason I appreciate text and board games. (board games in particular, require that you socially gather, which is usually a huge detriment).

So then, what about alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and all the other drugs and addictions out there?

Personally, I've probably only had alcohol twice in my life: toothing, and when I was a kid and mistook it for soda (immediately afterwards my mom was leik, "OMG, FUX!"). Other than that, my mother acted as a reverse role-model, pretty much a, "I don't want people to handle me if I'm like that when I drink." Also, I have a large history of alcoholism in my family, so I prefer the tee-totaler approach.

My aversion to marijuana came in the same vein through a friend's parents (not through my mother though, because she became a lot easier to deal with :p), and my aversion to heroin through another friend's parents. And then after that, I was fairly convinced with just not trying it.

Casinos I see no problem with, you just have to come in with a set allowance. I mean, really, the only difference between Chuck-e-Cheese and the Bellagio is the age requirements. And for me, it's pretty much applied statistics :D. Although, I am a horrible gambler. I can't keep a straight face to save my life, I keep falling under gambler's folly, I'm generally unlucky, and I only start winning when I start counting (cheating, lol).

My father and I occasionally go to Meskwaki to bet on the horses, and I usually start bet pools with people on odd things; but that's about the limit of my gambling, mainly because I'm still not 21.

Everyone has their vice.

But to what level should a person be averse to any addictive party? I mean, technically, anything that's fun is addictive (I don't know much about biology, but I believe I would start talking about endorphins here).

To a certain extent, there is a 'higher pleasure', that's usually talked about amongst philosophers. Aristotle had a whole spiel about this, I think Kant referred to it as "_____ of the Sublime", and Confucius even related to this. If I were to add anything to this, it would probably only be that the only different I see between a 'sublime' pleasure, and a more earthly pleasure, is its permanence.

Sure, I may enjoy df now, but I know I would have really deeply appreciated it if I can come to recognize it in a different form later in life.

Let's take stories, for example, and to be more specific, stories from videogames.

When I played my first Final Fantasy game (Number II in U.S.), sure I enjoyed it then, but to a certain extent I still enjoy the story it told as an incredibly hilarious melodrama. You're a dark knight who pillages a village, then goes across the Earth trying to save the four crystals from an Empire that you subjegate against, only to find that the Emperor is actually a giant water fiend controlled by your former friend you worked with earlier on. After trying to save the four crystals BURIED AND STORED UNDERGROUND BY THE DWARVES, you fail, and return above ground to go up a giant tower to find out that your associate is actually being controlled by ANOTHER malevolent foe by the name of GOLBEZ, whom, upon following him to the Moon in a giant whale powered by the Earth crystal (I can't make this shit up folks), you find that Golbez isn't the one behind it at all! Actually, GOLBEZ IS YOUR FATHER, AND HE WAS BEING CONTROLLED ALL ALONG BY AN ALIEN ON THE MOON TRYING TO BE EVIL!!!!!

And I guess in the same way, I might come to believe that what I'm doing has a 'sublime story', so-to-say. At least, that's what I've always remembered PDE/LA as. But either way, I gotta go home and do some more shit.

SO, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IF THIS HASN'T INSPIRED YOU, WRITE SOME FUCKING VIDEOGAME STORIES ON THE FORUMS! ANY DAMN STORY! ROOOAR!

~El Director

March 6 9:00 (3/6/8/9, a sequence)

Despite the fact that I have a larger amount of free-time, there are still other things I can do. So, I digress to the following.

Despite the fact that the Physics Hole has interesting people, and that there's a microwave (microwave ++, fud is gud). I probably should just hang out at the office full-time.

Despite the fact that I like to allow people to get into contact with me when they need to. I'd rather prefer the system that they just e-mail me, since I'm pretty much constantly on gmail anyways.

I think that pretty much eliminates my two biggest time-wasters.

~El Director

February 28 21:43

I'd say the majority of that time was spent doing one of the following: bumming around on mises.org, or bumming around in the Physics room, or bumming around in the maths room, or talking to my mother. It has been really slow, which makes me incredibly uneasy. INCREDIBLY uneasy. I swear every 30 minutes I run through all my classes to make sure there's nothing I have to due or can do (in times like this I would've start working waaaay far ahead; but I realized that this was somewhat counterproductive, since I have no rubric of framing by which to study by).

I got home ~18 today, after forgetting how to calculate a JCF for about an hour. So, I spent the rest of the day up until now checking up on those first two problems on my list. Thus, I polished off the dust on the ol' calculus book: the one back from DMACC days.

Dear lord! How ridiculously un-rigouris that thing is! The whole time I was reading through, I could understand their vague justifications; but my mind kept screaming, "You can't say that! You can't say that! This proof isn't correct at all!" So, I can't really approach the first two problems, since I don't have a rigouris theory to develop off of!

But then, it soon became one of those reminscing moments. Because, just an hour before when I was fiddling with JCFs, I had to go through all the old e-mails I sent off back in M510. And I slowly remembered all the old classes I've taken.

IT'S OFFICIAL, THIS IS A POST ON MY RECOLLECTIONS OF COLLEGE.

How much more naïve I was back then. Hell, I remember, back in the summer betwixt High School and Freshman year of college, I actually called up Nancy because I thought I proved the Goldbach Conjecture. I had only solved the converse, which really was ridiculously trivial and something a person straight from algebra should be able to do. God, that was embarrassing.

And then my first semester was actually very very very easy. I would run in circles thinking about how much I was working, when comparatively, I had quite a bit of free time. I also started programming the country game back then.....

However, it definitely was better for me to take it slow then. My ability to grasp concepts was so minuscule. But, that huge lecture-hall for Introductory Physics was an experience. I really over-thought some of the most menial Physics problems. Like the gyroscope, or siphoning; but most importantly was this was probably the point at which I started to develop rigour. But I would stop the professor (afterwards, I still consider it rude to stop a professor while they're teaching, for some reason; probably because of Kenneth) and ask whether we were sure we could integrate (whether the functions could indeed be integrable, I didn't understand it at the time (because I was quite the n00b), but Physical functions represented in real life are taken to be continuous, was her response). I would get her stuck on menial problems too (her name is Herrera-Siklody, btw, I think she's from Uruguay), I even bothered the other professor about it once, but no matter what I would be very nervous about asking them any sort of question what-so-ever.

This brings up a striking conversation I had with her once. I was apologizing for stopping her nearly every damn class period to stick her out on something; but she re-assured me that she appreciated me pointing out the tiny details very much.

I soon came to realize the professors that appreciate their students, and the kind who really don't give a shit for you.

The only other memorable class was English. For God's sake I hate English, social sciences, composition and writing. Pretty much SOLELY because I can't argue for points. Subjective grading scales sort of tick me off. But, either way, that was the best English class I ever took. They actually went over objective rules for writing, and I remember my final project was a museum exhibit of the AK-47 v. the M-16. That was fairly fun.

I should mention some of the people I met, so I'll put that later (look for caps)

The most humbling class I ever took was math 201. I was an incredible little shit of a brat when I took that. I would complain about the most minor details, and I took it upon myself to hate the professor personally, and wrote him a nasty review.

The class was proof-writing, but he used Riemann-Darboux Calculus, THE FULL THEORY FROM BASE FIELDS, and had us prove all the little steps from this calculus on up as a basis for our proof-writing. But now that I look back, he was grading leniently, he was a nice person, and it was the most USEFUL thing I've ever gotten in terms of my profession. The times this class gave me the edge over all the other non-math majors is countless and greatful.

Now, my Freshman year I didn't really create what I would think of now as a work-ethic. My sophomore year was pure rage and fury hell. Thermal, PDE, Linear Algebra, Classical Mechanics, and Stat. This would be my second humbling experience. Thermal wasn't nice either, I was stuck with a bunch of Physics seniors, and I hardly had any idea of what the fuck was going on. In the end two people got an A in that class, and I have no fucking idea how I happened on that.

BUT, that Thermal class was awesome. The professor there was one who, although he didn't put a lot of effort into the class, actually cared for the students. I also have come to appreciate the level of rigourisness in that Physics class compared to many others, and the incredible nigh-philosophical debates we had. It was way too damn fucking stressful to be fun though.

Now, the key humbling point in this was in Stat. I failed the first exam. It was a 'good fail' though (if you can call it that), i.e., 50%, at least not an 'Erb fail' of 13%. I became really stressed then, but I then just started forming a shit-load of study groups, in nearly every class. In Thermal and Linear Algebra the study-groups became nefarious 'Student Unions', so things started looking up. By the end of the semester, I was able to end up acing Stat. From this day I use that story as a inspirational device: it's possible to fail the first exam and come back from it.

Then I finally started taking some serious proof-heavy classes. Abstract algebra and analysis, and met two other 'good' professors (by my definition of actually caring): Sung Song and Krishna Athreya. Athreya and Analysis actually finally cemented in my mind what the fuck a proof actually was. The actual philosophy behind it. Song was a guy who was much like my Thermal teacher, ready to 'debate' to any of my objections. Analysis was another hard class, but fortunately I had the '201-advantage' over the non-math majors, which really isn't fair ;D. I would posit Athreya as me reason for leaning towards Analysis.

I also took this philosophy class to fill up my fucking social sciences creds around this time, "Philosophy of Science and Technology". Nicest, easiest class I've ever taken. REALLY easy. Two papers + attendance, that was it.

But, the debates during this class pretty much cemented my libertarian philosophy. Whenever things got silent, the professor would go into, "Government handout capitalism doesn't care for anybody"-mode until I started a debate in the class. He was good and being manipulative (in a good way), come to think of it.

He suggested "The Road to Serfdom" to me. That was one of the biggest presents I've received.

Then there was last semester, which compared to this semester was very hard as well. But, it wasn't like I was /really/ over-worked. The assignments were well-timed, and I was in a nice group for analysis, and Song was very helpful in my assignments for 510 whenever I asked (unlike Sacks when I asked him for 516 help).

I do remember staying nearly every day until 22 though. I...I really don't know how I did it. I really think the only difference between last semester and the beginning of this semester was that the way last semester was designed was a lot less stressful; and that's all.

THE PEOPLE

ROBERT CHARLES HUPPENBAUER III. This guy was awesome. He's your typical college student, a white guy with a fro. I met him during a Physics lab, and we just hit it right off. The best lab partner I ever had, we just worked really well together. I stuck with him and another person, Arroyo, in a close-knit study-group throughout 221 and 222. I then went on to tutor Bob for DiffEq. I'm not sure how much of a help I was to him, but he really only paid me in food (except for a Christmas bonus).

Heh, we had a Physics 222 project, placed it haphazardly on a computer: IT WAS WIPED. Me and him scurried in 4 horus time remaking this entire huge project. I was quite amazed we where able to pull it off. We remark to each other about it like it was a past war we experienced.

I also remember another thing about Bob: he never flaunted it, but he was quite the womanizer. When I showed up to finish that project in those 4 hours, he had three gals over. And whenever I walked with him ANYWHERE, there'd be two or three gals that would strike up a conversation with him. A very popular guy.

JOE KOHLHAAS. I like to have people to bounce ideas off of who either will listen to me, or understand what I'm saying. Having both is a very endearing quality. Joe is one of the Physics guys with whom I can comfortably do this with. And he actually takes interest! Which I very much appreciate!

There is one thing about him though, he is INCREDIBLY unique. The best way to explain it is that he is his own genre. When Joe writes something, you can tell it was written by him, that a joke was told by him, or pretty much any action he does. This only makes him really funny though.

THE REST OF THE PHYSICS TROUPE. Luke, Josh, Jason, Matt, Blake, Denise, Shiny, Crazian. I occassionally go down there because it's very much like watching a live-action sitcom. That, and they'll do stuff that's somewhat intellectually stimulating. I then I can jump in and talking about how much I know about matrices and inflate my ego :p. But really, there's a unique interaction between all of them that makes them quite interesting.

MICHAEL WESTPHAL. A partner-in-crime back in 201. Pretty much just a fellow math-major that we can complain to each other about the various day-in day-out things of math-people life. Personally, though, I tend to think of the fact that we passed 201 together to be an endearing bond.

SHAWN PASCAL. A person in the same blood as Westphal, a partner in crime in Number Theory, analysis, and a /lot/ of courses. But really, he seems a lot more normal than most of the people I know.

ATHREYA. Something else I should mention about this professor: he's the first one who actually asked me what I wanted to do, and gave me damn good advice about graduate school. I probably wouldn't be where I am so far without him.

I also meant to mention something about Stephen Willson.....

I didn't mean to make this reminscence complete, nor to take this long, so I should probably be off.

~El Director

February 24 12:07

Uhm, yeah.

~El Director

February 19 17:49

BEEN DONE! Legendre transform. Don't know why I didn't realize this sooner.

~Peter Stalin

February 17 21:06

~Peter Stalin

February 13 10:20

It turns out that polynomial rings can never be isomorphic to the underlying ring. The following argument I give for this is not rigorous, but I believe the gaps can be justified and filled it. Basically, if we look at overlying fields, then the polynomial field can be considered as a vector space. Thus the field itself has dimension 1 and the polynomials have varying higher dimensions, thus by properties of Linear Algebra, they can't be isomorphic.

However, there does exist a homomorphism between the polynomials of the stratifying ring to the base ring. simply sum up the coefficients of the polynomial. Furthermore, by taking the proof that polynomials over commutative rings have unique factorization, the homomorphism can be used to show that the underlying ring has unique factorization as well.

The only question that remains is if there is a process of 'decomposition' that can occur. By considering a field to actually be isomorphic to some distinct polynomial field, such that it can be reduced into a simpler underlaying field. And how to delimit this process. This question still remains.

Furthermore, another idea is to apply the recursionary process envisioned for L^p spaces (after a little bit of research I think I noticed that only p=2 works) to quotient spaces.

That's all.

Well, I guess I should mention some other things. I did have to drop one of my grad. classes, although I am just sitting in on it now. Which feels good, no obligations to the professor, but still get one hell of an up when I have to take it later :p. And to be completely honest, I'm not sure if you could 'count' the other grad. class as a grad. class; but hell, I will.

Things were getting a wee bit too hectic with m516 cluttering things up. I started spending quite a bit of time trying to do those problems. And I'm glad I got out before the exams starting coming up. Although, I am worried about whether I've already hurt myself in the short-term. Whether I'm doing as good in my other classes as I normally do or should. But, as Stat 341 taught me: even after you completely fail everything up to the first exam, and including the first exam, it's still possible to ace a class. That was hell though X_X. Hopefully it won't come to that.

But what the hell am I worrying about?! I'm already accepted to ISU Grad. school, and the application to Purdue only looks at previous course-work. I only have to worry about not failing. Really, I get no extra benefit from making sure my grades are good enough to keep my scholarship, since I won't be on it anymore. And even if things fuck up bad enough, I have enough of a GPA buffer that if I failed all my classes I would probably still be above a 3.5, and thus keep the scholarship. All I have to worry about is understanding the material.

Alright, I'm done pep-talking myself.

~Peter Stalin

February 12 9:04

~Fephisto

February 11 13:44

~Fephisto

February 6 11:25

First, I'll see if I can go to Minneapolis on Feb. 10 :p. I still remain fairly skeptical about this, since the stories against Scientology do seem rather grand/hard to believe.

For a time I was also wondering about the morality of this, since it essentially comes down to a similar counterargument against classical liberals that, "You wouldn't have stopped slavery." However, if unjust actions have occurred, retribution needs to take place, and thus I take the moral road along those lines to protest them a lá "Civil Disobedience". _{That, and as a Hippie-ish character, I've don't really have anything major under my belt, I mean, come on, psh.}

Roar, I was going to do another introspective here. I guess :(.

Occasionally, I wonder if I tend to work harder over time or work less. It's really a hard thing to know, like something that gradually creeps up on you.

The reason I'm wondering is because I'm comparing whether or not my classes really are harder this year. Last year, I had two graduate classes (one now), but I seemed to handle things fairly well + job. I do remember spending long hours trying to create a single proof, time and time again. But then again, I was almost always usually done two or even four or even a fucking week before the assignment was actually due. I also had a fairly idiotic system in my opinion, of labeling some set an hour a day to be free time. Of course, all this did was spread my time-wasting abilities to further than was actually necessary.

Argh, it's fruitless to try and do this comparison, since I have no idea how to grade a set of classes harder than the other. While it is true I still have to do proofs this year, they're probably at a lesser difficulty than last year. Or are they? Am I just saying that because the proofs of yesteryear were just more satisfying to do than the proofs of this year? I guess it may be moer to do with more semi-calculatable proofs, and if a proof is hard that the professors are a lot more accessible than last year.

Argh, come on, it's just like I said, there's really no objective way to compare such subjective things. If I really want to see whether or not I'm working harder or less it should be by noticing how much time I'm spending here.

But then again, even though I am spending time here, just like last year there might be a few hours a day where it's wasted because I'm motherfucking spacing off or because the Physics guys vie for attention.

Incomparable value scales, motherfuck >8|. I'm leaving this fruitless exercise, the important thing is whether or not I'm still learning, and whether or not I can still keep a larger modicum of discipline.

~Fephisto

February 2 17:28

First, I wish to establish a dichotomy that I belive is fairly acceptable. That, when presented with a problem in the modern sense, the solutions involved either involve government intervention, or a lack thereof.

THE POOR

This heralds back to my reading of comments about the Darwinian nature and thus impractability of CL. I wish to provide as thorough a bank of responses to this, and how CL might deal with it as possible.

First there is the theoretical aspect to deal with this. Do we have an obligation to care for the poor? Again, this reasoning follows through by the introduction of the normative principle of Thompson's paper that I introduced two rants ago. Henry Fonda has no obligation to place his cool hand upon my fevered brow.

Although, this is more or less from a rights perspective. I do not like to approach the problem from this manner, but in order to make this as thorough as I can I must. That is to say that I wonder about the obligation under Utilitarian standards. And when it comes to utilitarian objections to damn near anything, I like to turn to the very encyclopedic arguments given by Mises. If we regard ONLY actions that benefit others, then we have essentially made the same error of logic that the Objectivists have made (Last two Paragraphs).

I feel that what I may have just said will be misconstrued, so allow me to apply more rationale behind it.

That basic tenet that I gather from Objectivism, is that it's semi-Utilitarianistic, in that happiness should be maximized and pain reduced in the long run as if they were mere functions to be applied to human beings (my anti-utilitarianstic bias showing slightly here), but only to an individual to determine his/her actions. A very selfish theory, but for those who try to defend Objectivism, I believe the common rebuttal is to say that 'bad' actions are taken care of due to the 'in the long run' reference. That is to say, killing someone is bad because you could get caught and thrown in jail causing a world of pain to you.

In the other sense we have negative Utilitarianism, the polar opposite of Objectivism/Ethical Egoism, where we look solely at the benefit of happiness others around you would face. "Renunciation, abnegation, and self-sacrifice are not good in themselves." Certainly, I agree that many times more than not self-sacrifice is noble, this need not logically imply that all sacrifices of self is noble: suicide-bombing, for example. But to bring into case that essentially a great deal of moral-backing for the care of the poor is essential delegation of the principles of negative utilitarianism. I relegate the rest of the criticisms from this side of the argument to here, and leave these treachorous waters of utilitarianism at once.

Now, as far as the previous, this deals with the theoretical application of the care and obligation for the poor. To summarize: most arguments dealing for such are subject to the criticisms of negative utilitarianism, otherwise they are subject to the reasoning of the Thompson's normative principle.

Now we go to the realm of application, which I take in several stages.

The first of which is to assume that collectively (ugh) we do hold a moral obligation to the poor. under the dichotomy I held above, we can have less or more interference in a sector of welfare.

I like to borrow a response I heard elsewhere, "To say the Capitlism does not care for the poor is completely true, in that Capitalism makes them richer and thus eliminates them almost entirely."

Of course, here would come the data-sets and historical bickering that would occur. However, I do take the Rothbard-ian position that pre-Great-Depression there was an amazing self-made social network that was made by the people of the U.S.. And that even today the altruism is particularly humbling. About now is where I would spout how many billions in ACCOUNTED private donations the people of at least the U.S. are making.

But, this comes down to proving that the side of lesser-intervention in our dichotomy is better. And the most obvious and direct approach to this is to have an old fashioned data-battle. I wip out private donations from the U.S. and various countries over time, and eventually begin to bicker about how we're accounting for such, which data can be transfered, so that in the end, the mindsets we came in with manipulate the data in each of our minds to give us two different answers to the same set of data.

So, please allow me to take this from a somewhat more rational approach. And these are your ever-so-typical arguments:

1) The government crowds out private investment.

2) The government is inefficient.

3) Once the government controls welfare, it in effect controls those who are under its dependency.

1) Private donations directly reward the altruism of the giver (oh gee! I get to pay taxes! I feel like such a good person now!)

2) Market forces apply directly to charities as well (in that the good you are purchasing is a warm fuzzy-feeling. Which, y'know, can't be bought at Target. I meant this parenthetical statement to not be sarcastic, but it's turning out that way :/ (the more I argue about Capitalism, the more I feel like I should be donating more :\))

3) Due to these market forces, the greater majority of charities would be half-way houses, and thus encourage eventual independence.

So, in summary, the run-of-the-mill arguments. NOTHING NEW HERE!

KEYNESIANISM

(I'm kind of distressed here, because I just wrote quite a large response to this, and the computer crashed. Save often folks -_-'. I'll try to reproduce it here.)

I wanted to introduce this section primarily because of an interesting bit of logic that Krugman gave that I feel obligated to reply to. However, I might as well take this time to note all my qualms with Keynesianism.

First, I have to take the working premise of utilitarianism to justify Keynesianism. So, just take in mind that although I am arguing as if I accept utilitarian principles, if someone out there wanted to convince me fully of the Keynesianist doctrine, they would also have to convince me of the utilitarian ethical philosophy.

Also, as a small note, I appreciate talking about the rationales behind the different policies of government. While objectively I must accept statistics to a certain extent, it is perfectly legitimate (even if I was a utilitarian) to object to how the GDP is calculated, or inflation statistics, or unemployment statistics, or any meaningful economic statistic. Furthermore, even if I do accept certain base statistical definitions, I can give rationales to include or exclude certain timelines and other geographical areas. In effect, the debate becomes an extruded one of a debate that would take place anyways without the superficial statistics hiding our meanings, that is to say: either way we'll be debating definitions and base causes and effects, so let's just do that directly.

However, back to the point and taking utilitarianism as a sort of devil's advocate point, I don't think it is too far-fetched to say that recessions are caused by mal-investments, usually in a free market because of dumb decisions or rampant speculation. In the case of what I understand of Keynesianomics, a recession is caused by a general glut form the over-supply of goods, which curtails production, lays off workers, and goes down the line.

But remember our starting dichotomy, and from this Keynesianists support government intervention to the economy. There are three reasons why I don't understand the rationale behind this:

1) You're creating more malinvestment. When the government introduces a stimulus package, it creates artificial demand, and just like with speculation, a bubble is created.

2) This whole concept of the multiplier which I so initially agreed with is something that I can not see as a "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" (TANSTAAFL) philosophy. The idea, as I understand it, is to justify government spending by saying that spending actually gets multiplied. And how does this occur? The story almost exactly parallels a Ponzi scheme. A man consumes $X and saves the rest, the amount he consumes passes to the next consumer, and so on, causing a geometric sum of money to come from the $X. If we borrow the money, then we have crowded out investment meant to increase production..... for..... the goods..... of whom's demand has risen.....
I can (and should) go on with other things I believe is wrong with this philosophy. Including rampant consumerism and in my opinion one of Friedman's best quotes (paraphrasing), "It will enable the American people to do what the American people want to do, not what Bob Solow thinks they ought to do.".

3) The FED and Congress, acting as saviors of the economy, are acting like planning agencies! Trying to calculate (!) the amount of demand needed for the economy, what interest levels are the best. And thus all the arguments about planning agencies necessarily fall to the FED and Congress

That forms the crux of my argument against Keynesianism.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Again, from the section of KEYNESIANISM, this is all a build-up for background of my response to Krugman's little 2 paragraphs of interest.

I take a great stance with Rothbard on what occurred during the Great Depression. In short: the FED went ape-shit with the money supply, Hoover Did do something, and what kind of sick mothafucker would let loose all these mothafucking Tariffs on this mothafucking free society?

THE GOLD STANDARD and MONETARISM

The idea of forcibly creating stabilization (already linked), again, is one that is essentially an argument for planning and calculation problems. i don't see how just keeping the monetary supply completely flat helps either. It's part of the great reason why I really do appreciate the gold standard (again, not necessarily gold, any damn currency via Gresham's law that you want is fine). The supply of gold fluctuates according to its demand, it is self-correcting according to the needs of the market, and thus there is no need for a central bank/FED/fiat currency.

KRUGMAN'S COMMENT

Friedman and Schwartz claimed that the fall in the money supply turned what might have been an ordinary recession into a catastrophic depression, itself an arguable point. But even if we grant that point for the sake of argument, one has to ask whether the Federal Reserve, which after all did increase the monetary base, can be said to have caused the fall in the overall money supply. At least initially, Friedman and Schwartz didn't say that. What they said instead was that the Fed could have prevented the fall in the money supply, in particular by riding to the rescue of the failing banks during the crisis of 1930–1931. If the Fed had rushed to lend money to banks in trouble, the wave of bank failures might have been prevented, which in turn might have avoided both the public's decision to hold cash rather than bank deposits, and the preference of the surviving banks for stashing deposits in their vaults rather than lending the funds out. And this, in turn, might have staved off the worst of the Depression.

An analogy may be helpful here. Suppose that a flu epidemic breaks out, and later analysis suggests that appropriate action by the Centers for Disease Control could have contained the epidemic. It would be fair to blame government officials for failing to take appropriate action. But it would be quite a stretch to say that the government caused the epidemic, or to use the CDC's failure as a demonstration of the superiority of free markets over big government.

Take my comment about the gold standard and keynesianism in perspective. If there was a gold standard, then the FED could not have gone ape-shit with the money-supply in the first place. Essentially, to extend the analogy, since the FED did do this, it is as if the CDC DID cause the epidemic, and it is because of this, and not because the CDC (to continue the analogy) did nothing that the case for the superiority of the free markets over big government is made.

But, let's extend our analysis further. Say that the damage had been done and the FED already went ape-shit with the supply. Banks now are going chapter 11 like crazy, what should be done? To prop up banks that have no trust is to create artificial market forces, and so the arguments I have placed before in this vein follow.

Alright, I'm done, this has taken me 4 hours of my free-day to create, (re-create), and edit. That is all folksirs!

~El Director

February 2 13:42

First of all, there was another comment that I wanted to add which is that, I believe historically, the greatest revolution for classical liberalism was probably the American Revolution. Read Washington or Hamilton, Jay, or Madison, or Paine, or Jefferson.

And despite these fellows there's a very VERY rich intellectual history behind this, as I've explained before I believe: Mises, Hayek (That first link of Hayek is the prized Reader's Digest condensed version I've been looking for for a while now), Mill, Friedman, Rothbard, To some extent Coase, Hernando de Soto, Kant, and Locke.

For over 200 years of dual-ethical utilitarian/natural right and economic theoretical development, I wouldn't throw classic liberalism in the waste-bin of a hocus-pocus teenage wannabe-ism.

~El Director

February 1 13:15

First off, is the Objectivists. I have heard so much mud-slinging about them, that I'm rather scared to even read the magnum opus Atlas Shrugged. I mean, conversations could possibly go like this, "So, libertarian? (classic liberal, kthx)" "Yes." "Read Atlas Shrugged?" "Yes." "Oh, an objectivist, go to fucking hell, TROLL."

When really, I consider myself in a Kant -> Locke -> Rothbard - ian tradition. It certainly is interesting to see the other common progression of Rand -> Objectivist -> Utilitarian. And there appear to be two sides of the ethical fence for justifying classic liberalism.

But, in the end, I know I have to read it, just to see where this other side comes from (knowledge is half the battle! The other half is violence!). I mean, watching TRIUMPH DES WILLENS didn't turn me into a Nazi (I think), but certainly provided an interesting historical perspective. Although, it was a really fucking boring movie in my opinion :\.

Either way, a common critique I hear is as follows, "Psh, libertarianism is just a teenage cult." And I think, "Wait, I'M a teenager, am I in a cult?!" And thus the self-reflection of whether or not my views are rationally correct begin yet again.

I believe, and this is completely from context of the readers who voice this complaint, that this is based in the idea that "classical liberalism allows me to not care about other people, AWESOME!" And thus classical liberalism ends in a very Darwinian tradition.

In order to respond to this, I'd like to bring up a normitive principle brought up by Thompson Here. That is, "If you didn't consent to making sacrifices, there are limits to how much you are morally obligated to sacrifice for another." The actual limit, I agree, can be left as vague. Via philosophical bickering, I believe this fits well in line with the Second Categorical Imperative, and thus with the rest of CL Theory (I can make the argument that people 'in principle' agree to Thompson's normative principle), and certainly Thompson's principle falls well in line with the First Categorical Imperative.

Now, Utilitarianism draws the line absolutely (well, not so absolutely. Did I mention in one of my complaints about utilitarianism that it violates the First Categorical Imperative?) and very high. We are required to give to the point of marginal utility to famine relief..

Either way, to skip to the point, my reasoning will be very similar to Thompson's. It would be nice for Henry Fonda to place his cool hand upon my brow, but it is not morally necessary for the poor man. I kind of like to think of it as an introduction of the concept of "morally neutral".

Certainly, not harming others is not bad, but it's not good either. We can certainly agree that giving your money to famine relief is good, but not completely morally necessary. This would be the crux of my counterpoint to the objection of Darwinism in Classical Liberalism.

But, I have to wonder, am I just rationalizing myself out of giving money to famine relief? Falling prey to the idea of, "COOL, NO MORAL OBLIGATIONS FOR ME, BRING ON HOOKERS, PLZKTHX."

To a certain extent, I still agree that giving to charity is good, but not giving to charity is not bad either. Really, Thompson's principle falls in well with Categorical Imperatives and thus Classical Liberalism, thus, rationally I accept it, and in the process accept the inevitability of moral neutrality.

Ponder on this lat0r.

~El Director

February 1 13:12

The thought was the ability of any polynomial to have unique facotrization, that is, any polynomial over a field. Now, if the field does not possess unique factorization, the polynomials still should. I talked about this with a Physics person I know, and he mentioned that the polynomials might just be isomorphic to the field their over, which I still have to cement on whether this is the case; but I believe it's fairly sound. Making my idea of 'polynomial decomposition', i.e., possibly degenerating 'polynomials' back into base non-unique factorizable fields, a dunce.

~Peter Stalin

January 29 9:07

Money spent on Project Mercury: $5.8 billion

Money spent on SpaceShipOne: $25 million (I guess you could include the $10 million of the ANSARI prize as well)

~El Director

January 25 16:48

A professor of mine likes to use thick pieces of chalk (which makes sense, I mean, THEY DON'T FUCKING BREAK ON YOU, which really is only mildly irritating, a lot less than the caps make it appear as if I am trying to convey), so he brings some down from office every day, and usually forgets them. Today he brought down the chalk, and forgot it. I had another class in the same room right after, so the fact that a box of really good chalk was there made me want to pocket some. So, I went up to the box, and was about to take a piece, and then the first moral bickering began.

I know in previous times past, he must've came back down to take back his chalk because it wasn't there the day after. That, or someone else took it; but really, who else takes chalk? There would've been a high likelihood he took it back. Besides, the point is that he has clearly defined the rights on this box of chalk, and thus it would be wrong of me to take it, regardless of the fact that the box probably costs $3 at Wal-mart.

So, the chalk stayed, this whole moral quibble took me about a minute standing there looking at the chalk.

Later on in the day, at the end of classes, I saw a pair of fortune cookies (still wrapped, so they were fresh, perfectly good food) sitting on a bench. Looked around, saw no one. So, again, "Ooo, cookies, want to take", but then came more moral ramifications.

The fact that this pair of fortune cookies is here most definitely means someone owns them. Benches don't magically produce pre-packaged fortune cookies (NOTE TO SELF: THIS WOULD BE AN AWESOME ITEM IN OPIGS). So, just like with the chalk, someone else has rights of ownership to these cookies, and thus it would be wrong of me to take it.

But wait, there is a difference between these cookies and the chalk, isn't there? With the chalk, I knew that the professor was going to take it back, he hadn't abandoned the chalk, he had mixed his labour with the chalk, and the right of ownership stayed with him. It isn't like in the Crusoe-case where Crusoe lands on an island and only uses a specific part and claims the entire island. We are looking at the case where Crusoe claims two parts of the island, mixes his labour with both, but abandons one. I believe that when one part of the island is formally abandoned, either Crusoe forgets about it entirely, dies, or relinquishes his claim; that his ownership of that part of the island is forfeit. With the chalk, the professor did not forget about it entirely BECAUSE he has plans for it in the future and his previous ownership is held by his mixing of labour.

But do the fortune cookies play the same instance (by now I have been staring at the cookies for what felt like a full five minutes, people walking by were giving me weird looks)? Well, certainly, if I placed the cookies there, hoping to get them back. That is, I left the cookies there as some means of storing them, here we have clear ownership rights and plans for the future that necessitate a continuing ownership of the cookies; therefore, if I took the cookies, the person would come back, mutter, "Asshole!", and I would've done the wrong thing.

However, suppose the person simply got up and the cookies fell out, they would be abandoned, right of ownership would be relinquished, and I can rightfully claim the cookies by picking them up so as to mix my labour with it.

So, if I accept this, the question becomes by what criteria can I judge that these cookies were 'abandoned'? Certainly, I can't be 100% sure unless I tracked the person down himself, which, I really have no means of ascertaining, and annoying random people by asking them if they own the cookies probably violates other rules of morality if at least not etiquette.

But wait, even with this "Theory of Alienation", what if the cookies continue to lay there, and the rightful owner by chance passes by them again? He would say, "Oh, I must've left these here when I X" And swoop, right back into his hands, moral problem solved.

Undoubtedly, I have not yet established whether this "Theory of Alienation" is valid. I can't take as a moral rule, "Well, it's not like he would miss it or know about it" proceeded with a GRAB. By this rule, I would be eligible to steal a million dollars from Warren Buffet, or some similar moral situation.

But, I don't believe it would be too morally far-fetched to say, "If a person dies without leaving a line of claim, and it a person will never return to use (use even on paper) an item, then he has 'alienated' it". (by now 10 minutes or so has passed, I'm still staring at the cookies)

So, I have to establish that either: A) He will NEVER return to these cookies, or B) It is likely he has or will relinquish his claim of property to these cookies. Well, seeing as how about 10 minutes have passed, it is fairly likely that he did not place these cookies to store them here. And, if I leave them there, it is highly likely that someone else will take them, or they will get thrown away.

HOWEVER,

Highly likely does not conclude NEVER. For all I know, this may be some freak who concludes that he wishes to store the fortune cookies on that bench for a decade, and when the decade has passed, he will come to munch on their decayed encrusted remains.

However, there is another definition of rights-theory morality which I can go to. It goes something like, "If I can agree to a person's actions 'in principle'" then it should be O.K.. However, again this is not absolute. The best I could come up with is that maybe it is a sort of 'common law' that fresh food laid out on a bench that have most likely been alienated by their owner is reduced back to a state of un-identifiable owner(s).

But THAT'S something I can work with! Let's take the case of un-identifiable owners. This is the definition things MUST go by for a rights-based theory to work. Because, according to homesteading theory, in order to mix my labour with the land, the land, of course, has to be previously unowned. Therefore, the land must have un-identifiable owners. Here, I have a pair of cookies that could be owned by anyone in Carver, or even not anyone in Carver. I have, although by accident I still have done this, tried to wait to see if the original owner returned. However, he has not, so I conclude that the cookies have un-identifiable ownership, and thus are like an empty plot of land.

Furthermore, I will accept that if it does turn out that the cookies/land have owners, I am entitled to give them retribution if I no longer leave the land/cookies in an acceptable state, or to return the land/cookies to their rightful owner. (this is what I ended up accepting)

Still, this method of reasoning does not seem quite right. I mean, the person who left the cookies there will probably not be able to identify and trace me as the one who took the cookies.

But, let's take this to an analogous moral situation with land. A person buys a plot of land in the jungle, but, he never sees it, he just buys the land for the sake of owning it. Now, a person lives in the jungle, just for kicks, who knows, and right next to this parcel of land. This person finds of a waterhole, but it happens to be...

No, this isn't like my case, because in my case I know that the cookies HAVE owners! And I don't think it's wrong to say that the morally correct thing to do would be to search out the owner of the cookies.

ROAR, I'VE ALREADY BEEN THROUGH THIS! WHAT, DO I RETURN THE COOKIES TO THE BENCH OR SOMETHING?!

~Fephisto

January 22 9:14

1) That my graduation application will be accepted (number one worry).
2) That I'll get accepted for Graduate School by either ISU or Purdue.
3) That I can handle M516, but if I can't, I have room to drop it. I really don't want to though, because I kind of want to specialize in Analysis.

Other than that, my other classes appear just fine and dandy, well, more or less. I usually end up staying at the University working (as much as I can -_-) until 21 or so, but Saturdays and the original Final Fantasy make it all O.K..

I occasionally get to thinking about my luckiness repeatedly. I mean, the scholarship I've had is really incredible, so that I really haven't had to work that hard, the jobs I've had over the Summer breaks and in the School year are not that bad at all, and I really haven't had to really fear failing a bunch of classes. Basically, two things make me really appreciative though: I'm not sick, and I'm not in debt.

_{I figure every once in a while you should count your blessings. I used to not, thinking I would jinx myself; but if you never do so, how will you know what you got when you got it?}

~Fephisto

January 18 15:15

Alright, some things I wanted to mention before I left off last time.

First of all, only one more point on my objections to utilitarianism. It is an 'end justifies the means' ethic. And thus Utilitarianism is apt to the criticisms of that. I would also like to bring up a previously mentioned article to explain my rejection of Utilitarian theories.

Oh yeah, I started to compile all my notes about the Peg Problem. I've always been thinking that I was no-where with it, but seeing 3 months together (on 3 pages ): ), I'm fairly impressed with the work so far.

That's all.

~Fephisto

January 18 9:12

But, other than that, I should at least posit all my reasons against it. The following, is, more or less my take on it when I object to it, as unlike mathematics I know no formally adhered to standard definition of Utilitarianism:

*It is Deterministic. To maximize 'happiness', we must necessarily have a 'happiness function' for all human beings. This is the prime motivator, at least for me, for moving Socialism -> Keynesianism -> Neoclassicalism (which I might as well call Milton Friedmanism :p) -> libertarianism. However, from what I know of Physics now, at least (ironically to a certain extent) empirically things tend to agree with the Copenhagen Interpretation, which agrees with a non-deterministic-verse. An objection to this might be to maximize the probability happiness function, however, my objection to this is that 1) I believe we can accept that for a moral theory to be a moral theory it must tell us what actions are moral and immoral 2) With maximizing a probability happiness function we can only know what actions are moral or immoral until after they take place, so 3) I posit that this inherently breaks premise 1), one might argue that 1) with-holds no notion of when an action is deemed immoral; but if not before the action takes place, then implicitly 1) can not hold.
*The "Unusual Circumstances" Objection. I believe it is fair to assume a moral rule like, "Somebody killing everyone in the world in pure rage" to be bad; racism is bad; killing for no reason, in general, is bad. However, say we have an enraged killer and that he would gain and infinitude of happiness from killing off every other person in the world, so much so, that this would outweigh the disbenefit in all the future of the rest of the current world population, by Utilitarianism, the action becomes justified. A common objection to this, is two-fold:
1) It is rare.
2) We can solve it with Rule Utilitarianism.
My response to the first is also two-fold. First is that there are more common occurrences where "Unusual Circumstances" may appear. Imagine a police force that is investigating a brutal homicide of two black men, and the investigation is not going well, there are no leads, and it eventually gets to the point where the city is going to riot is the murder is not resolved somehow. So, the police take an innocent homeless guy, frame him, and jail him for the homicide. An injustice has occurred, framing innocent people is not a good thing, and yet Utilitarianism justifies it. Or, take the Utilitarianistic justification for racism I posited last time: if it were not for the White Americans, the American Indians would still be living in dirt tipis; therefore, we are justified to lording over them. Which I hope we can agree to as being bad.
My next response to the first objection is that it shouldn't matter that it's rare. The fact that a moral theory can give us contradictory results should alone be enough to discredit it.

My response to the second objection is that Rule Utilitarianism appears to be normal Utilitarianism only on a grander scale, and thus appears to me to have the objections of normal Utilitarianism times a fold. That is I don't see how this really escapes the "Unusual Circumstances" objection. Furthermore, it is also faced with the problem of generalization. Also, http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae6_1_7.pdf is supposedly another critic of it; but I haven't really read all of that yet.

I wanted to say more today, but I need to do other things.

~Fephisto

January 14 9:41

I was talking with another friend of mine, on my last day of freedom *emit Braveheart "FREEEDOOOOM!" yell* (ALRIGHT, FROM ONE MONARCHY TO ANOTHER! WHOOO!), and somehow got talking about the U.S. persecution of Indians/enslavement of Blacks.

He was talking to his father about it, and it sounded like his argument was pretty much, "Well, look, if we left it to them, this whole place would still be a bunch of backwards tribal areas with no industrialization or any other means of prosperity at all." To which I got him to agree that he was making the statement, "If the person is better off, then it should be done, even if he is enslaved."

Nothing has created an essence of anathema for me towards Utilitarianism than that statement (well, a lot of things have made me slowly grow to hate Utilitarianism, this is just the newest chip in the pile). My initial reaction became something of the sort, "Only with Utilitarianism could slavery be justified".

But of course the thinking turned inward. Am I sure? Could the ethical theory I so love turn out to justify such a thing? Ah, but of course not, I remember when reading Ethics that Rothbard spent an undue amount of time explaining self-ownership, and hell, ditto with Mises (only Rothbard did it in 2 pages and Mises in 100 -_-), and the absurdity of not only slavery, but also trying to sell yourself into slavery. And I feel their analysis is fairly secure. (For those that were enslaved, by this analysis it is a seriously egregious crime. Which is what common sense tells us anyways, go figure.)

But, I understand the initial sentiment against the libertarians' approach against slavery. We needed federalism to correct such a problem. But here I believe is a major fallacy. I would argue that it was the State Governments that allowed slavery, so the solution becomes piling government over the government to cover up the mistakes that the government is making. As soon as federalism is preached as the ultimate answer against such injustices, I can immediately point to the Indians and their plight.

But then, what about retribution or how such a case would be solved in Natural Law? If I accept retribution, am I accepting redistribution?

I also remember in Ethics about Rothbard going into undue detail (my memory of reading that book now feels like I was a bored student in a classroom listen to the teacher ramble too long on something, when he is really just covering all the bases, so he is still making new points, so I must listen) about theft.

If you steal my watch, I obviously have right to retribution of that watch (Rothbard went into detail about what he thought should be the exact penalty, which through a long complicated argument that I have to think more about before I entirely agree with it, came down to the criminal paying twice the damage). He continued with descendants even. If you steal my watch, and you give it to your son, and I die off and so eventually do you. Then my son still has the right to retribution of that watch, since the property right of the watch was never formally acquired by your father (from here he distinguishes between the twice-payment method of justice, since your son didn't commit the crime, the argument that created dual-payment doesn't force your son to pay it. I.e., because he didn't do the crime he doesn't pay the time; but he is still morally obligated to return the watch. If you killed me, however, similarly your son wouldn't have to be killed, since I did not pass down the right to own myself to my son.). So, a similar principle should apply to retribution in slavery. If a person can show that he was enslaved he is entitled to retribution, but only from the family that enslaved him.

_{I replied to my friend by taking the "For the sake of argument let us assume Utilitarianism is the case" Type of Argument, and then saying that Freedom had instrinsic worth.
He kind of mumbled after this, because it believe he realized that he was saying some really racist shit, so I responded, "O.k., if you want to know if you're screwed up, would you have done what Light Yagami did?"
"I would've done it better."
"Yeah, you're fucked up."}

Also, as a final statement, and something I have been pondering for a while now, I'm going to completely ignore GDP statistics, a lot of it for the same reasons as detailed in the "Criticisms" section labeled in Wikipedia. I know that this might seem somewhat 'conspiracy-theory' motivated (the government is lying to me! Which is an absurd statement for people to make now-a-days for some reason), but the real reason is that if I say that I reject Utilitarianism (which, personally, for the record, as of my thoughts now, I shall try to do), then I don't see how I could hold onto the thought of what appears to be a Utilitarian measure like GDP. Nor can I really see why I have been so mildly obsessed with it as I have been.

Now, should I as well ignore published inflation statistics? This is another one I'm thinking about at the moment.

~Fephisto

January 12 0:43, 2008

Which brings me to tell a gamer tale of mine, and the morale within.

This was the original Final Fantasy game. I had gotten past the first two minor quests: saving the Princess in the first town, and kicking the pirates holding the second town hostage. I was on my way in the third quest, which was to despell the curse placed on the elves' prince by the Evil Lord Astos before he got the crown and took over the Elvish lands. I had searched around the NPCs for information about the curse, and found that it would be cured by an HERB. I traveled further about and heard from the dwarves in the Western lands of the continent that the witch Matsuda could make the HERB to cure the Prince. So, I traveled north, and then through the rivers and marshlands to a mountain placed against the seashore there and found a cavern in which the witch Matsuda was, and found that she was blind, and needed a CRYSTAL to cure her so she could make the HERB to cure the prince. And, by process of elimination of where to go, I found a run-down castle where some guy promised me a CRYSTAL in exchange for the CROWN ( I knew just but the fact of "WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A SINGLE GUY AMONGST A SHITLOAD OF BATS IN A CASTLE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE" that he was Astos, but the game gives me no room for creativity like GTAIII or Morrowind gives), and he told me to quest through the southern marshlands to a poisonous cave there to get the CROWN so he could give me the CRYSTAL so I could give the CRYSTAL to Matsuda the witch so she could give me the HERB to give to the Elven Prince to save his lands from the Lord Astos of which.....I..had...already...given the CROWN to.....

But either way, I found the cavern, and gradually explored it out, returning to town as needed to get more antidote so that I might travel further into the cavern and ignore my frivolous bypasses earlier gained.

Now, with all this you might think I'm level 15 at least or something, but no my friends. I was level 8. But in my foolishness I just decided "fuck it" and tried to go straight ahead and get the treasure and leave, but when I came upon the treasure room, guarded by four Wizards. I did not come out good either, I had a fighter with only 80 HP left and a priest with 24 HP left, 4 potions, a single antidote, a cabin, a house, and a lute. I decided, "Well, I'm sure to get poisoned, so I'll just quit for now, level up, and come back at it some other day."

NO.

NO!

Let me say something that these 20-hour-a-day Gamers don't seem to recognize:

GOOD GAMERS DON'T LEVEL UP!

I know a guy who played Tibia, and got to level 40. But he took the time to really understand the workings of the game, how combat /really/ worked, and any minor glitches therein (if you go full-attack, you can change to full-defense just at the right time whence being attacked to get minimal to no damage, it's quite a skill to master, plus there's minor advantages to the terrain type your player is standing on, and a thousand other little details and quirks and systems that he explained to me that really boggle my mind). Do you think that stopped him from going into the caverns with the level 90 or 100 characters? No, my friends, it did not. He played on a par surpassing them with his little level 40 character, saving their asses a frightfully large amount of times. He took on a 3-hour battle with four Brazilian level 70 characters, and took them all down. When the Brazilian-American Wars broke out amongst the servers, he was the one solely holding off the ramparts and protecting the last American city time and time again. So many times did I see battles full of honor and glory, and heard of many other that were glorious enough to be exaggerated into great tales of legend. When the cities broke into riots after the Treaty, he walked amongst them, and the crowds parted and stopped fighting. He was level 40, and he was a truely great Gamer.

When Final Fantasy went online, there might've been the stories about the level 90 South Korean Priest who would regularly dish out pain to the Sea Horrors that terrorized the ships; but what about the stories of the level 50 dwarf that charged into battle alone and came out victorious? Our world is filled with tales of incredible valor if we just opened our eyes!

So no! I couldn't just give up on the little-whimpy more-than-half-HP-gone-almost-dead-level-8-Final-Fantasy characters, I would get through it.

So, I began calculating what I could do with the items I had left, and figured, correctly, that the house and cabin items I had left were CRUCIAL, If I could get up to the top and out of the cave to use them, even if I was poisoned, each step would only take one HP, and the fighter had a max HP of 200, so, 150 steps to leave HP lost in battles while I attempted to run away from every battle might be enough to get me to the town.

So, I used the remaining potions except two on my fighter, and used one on my priest (it would take two hits to kill her, but I knew the game engine would attack the character up front most frequently, so if she stayed alive, I would be able to use her for another "RUN" attempt each turn she was still alive). I started dragging the bodies of my two other dead friends to the third-floor's exit.

The Random Number God really wanted to do pick a fight.

The first battle I got in was bad, my fighter got poisoned and my priest was back down the 24 HP (did I mention I already used up all the priest's cure spells even before I got into the fight with the wizards?). I used my last remaining antidote on my fighter, and my last potion on him too.

I was almost at the stairs when I got into another battle, my priest died, and my fighter got poisoned before I could get away. I had 164 HP left on my fighter. I had to get out of the dungeon in at least 163 steps to live through this.

By the next level, I was constantly running, and I was down to 40 HP, running into RNG-knows-how-many-fucking-battles. Seriously, this was the most battle-happy moment I had in this dungeon. But I finally got to the second-floor's ladder exit (dragging now three dead bodies with me).

On the first floor, I really didn't know if the exit was less than 40 steps away. And almost two steps away from the ladder I got into ANOTHER battle, but I was lucky and only two a point of damage before I was able to run away (I forgot to mention that the incredible armour on my fighter is such that he pretty much only gets a point of damage a hit, but this doesn't make it much easier, due to the fucktarded enemy critical hits and multiple hits some enemies pull off).

But, I made it out of the dungeon with either single digit HP or low 10's. And of course, I immediately used the house to save my game, so at least this portion I could do over again, but it was a great risk, because NES games only have one save file. This could potentially ruin my game if the last arduous trek through three poisonous woods to the home Elvish town on a fighter carrying three dead bodies with a gimpy poisoned leg is actually an impossible mission.

But damn it, it can be done.

The house just restores your HP and saves the game btw, nothing else (no healing of dead party members or healing of poison), and th cabin only restores your HP. Or something like that, there aren't any in-game descriptions that would be helpful :|. So, I began calculating further.

At worst, I could expect to lose 40 HP in a bad fight, so if I don't use the cabin when I get to 50 HP, I'm running the risk of getting into a fight with a bunch of fucking ogres, and they get one critical hit and I'm dead. So, I'm at ~250 HP at the entrance of the cavern, I'll use the cabin when I get to 50 HP, and hope I can drag my ass to town with what little steps remaining I have left. This gives me at most 450 steps. Fortunately, the monsters get easier along the way, so maybe I'll get less monsters earlier on (what with my battle-happy experience going through the dungeon) and more battles when I'm closer to town and I'll be go-

WRONG!

I go through the first forest, and the RNG bitch saddles my ass and bro-rapes the fuck out of me. Taking a 100 more HP out of me than it should have out of the first forest, and I'm down to 100 HP.

I keep trekking along, getting through some amount of the second forest before a battles forces me to use the cabin when I'm down to 40 HP. I heal back up and wish for the last leg of my journey to be a peaceful one.

It is then, through more battles and poison, and after going in a ways of the last forest until the Elvish town that I finally see the town, with somewhere less than 100 HP left.

As is the case, the RNG seems to be able to read your mind, and in that last, what had to be ten steps to the town, I entered a ridiculous amount of battles, and got critical hit twice.

When I entered town I was at 1X HP, I now had only the limp over to the Inn. If the Inn was less than 10 steps away....I.....I could make it.

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

And I made it. I was poisoned, had 3 HP left, nothing left in my inventory except the CROWN and LUTE quest items, and a troup of dead party members; but I made it.

_{The way stories were meant to be told.} ~Fephisto

January 8 23:00, 2008

And the other thing I wanted.....to.....talk about.....

Dammit, forgot :\.

~Fephisto

January 2 21:20, 2008

HOWEVR, SURPRISINGLY, I RLY ENJOYD FAHRENHEIT 451. AT FURST, I WUZ THINKIN, "WARLUS-KAT SEZ, RAWR, WAI 2 MUTCH DETAIL"; BUT DEN, DAT CRAZY-GURL SHOWD UP AN BRADBURYS STYLISTIC CHOICE MADE SENSE, AN TEH BOOK WUZ INSANELY WANDERBL. I.....IM AKSHULLY CONSIDERIN BUMPIN IT PAST DUNE-KAT, AN.....MAYBE EVEN TIEM STORM.

FEFISTO TEH KAT

January 1 18:53, 2008

If I try to read any serious books, my parents will usually chastise me about it. Thus, in order to do any work, I have to wait until after 21.

That, and it might help to have some other actual goals. In order to do those problems I've collected neatly on the left side I need to visit the library for a day, which, during breaks, isn't open when I'm awake :/ (that usually doesn't stop me, although I usually end up going there with 5 minutes left, because free parking time is at 5:30, ): ).

The only thing I can really do is soem sort of project that interests me whilst I'm here. which I can only think of reading Starship Troopers :|.

~Fephisto

December 28 22:09

Other than that, I've recently been reminiscing (yet again) on past videogames.

When I was a kid, I was pretty damn lucky, and had some sense for games or something, because I got quite a few pieces of memorabilia for my old SNES: Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III (these kids now-a-days, calling 'em IV and VI, psh), Earthbound, Secret of Mana (I believe the real fanatics call this one "Seiken Deneitsu II" or something like that), Secret of Evermore, Megaman X, Super Mario Bro.s, Chrono Trigger, Illusion of Gaia, Harvest Moon, Sim City, Super Mario RPG :U, Wanderers from Y's III (or something like that), Lufia, Lufia II (prequel to Lufia I, it's weird :p), Kirby Superstar, Breath of Fire, Zelda, Prince of Persia, Lagoon, Paladin's Quest, Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, Super Bomberman, aaaand.....yeah, those are all the memorable ones from my childhood.

But the way I think of, and revere, them now is as if they are classics (which many of them are). I mean, many of these are to videogaming as would a classic movie would be. Chrono Trigger I know usually hits the top place out of all games of all time regularly, and I don't think that's too far out of line. I know I'm getting overly nostalgic here, but what happened to the games when we cared about plot? When we really cared about the characters. No, I'm not going to go into a tirade about how MORAL DECAY IS CAUSING THE DECAY OF THE QUALITY OF THE GAMING INDUSTRY! If anything, the gaming industry has already had and used 'moral decay' but still managed to make a good game (Duke Nukem and its violence and hookers, anyone?).

Now, I go into these here new-age fancy-dansi videogame stores, with their 3-D games, and where half of the selection is based off movies-

Stop right there, that's something I want to mention in detail and not in passing. Has anyone noticed these games based off of movies? Are they not complete pieces of shit? Also, why are they so prevalent? Is demand for them really so high? Furthermore, why are they so crappy? Here we have a product where the thing that /should/ in my opinion take the most amount of time to make is no longer an issue on the part of the game developers (the plot), and yet they end up have no individual charm at all.

But besides that, and going back to my original point: am I being narcissistic when I say that I feel that I grew up in a golden age of gaming? Look at the list I posited up above. I feel that those were glorious games. This isn't just my childhood mind speaking, a lot of this summer was spent with me revisiting these classics, and they haven't lost their charm. Just the shear INCREDIBLE DENSITY of good games that came out when I was younger compared to know is ridiculous. Maybe it's because I play games less now, but...

Say, maybe before I went off on this tirade I should've actually examined what good games have come out (in my opinion, again) since SNES:

Final Fantasy VII (ohhh, that one was a treasure my friends, that was some GOOD STORYTELLING (I'm /NOT/ being sarcastic here!)) - X, Steambot Chronicles, Megaman Collection (I guess I shouldn't be coutning this, but since it is a nice compact collection of megaman games (the classic platforming megaman games, mind you), I'll mention it), Tomb Raider (this is going to make me sound gay, but I really didn't play it for the boobs (I was '''''too young''''' you might say), it was one of the first shoot'em'ups that I played. So, keep this in mind: I'm an RPGer. I take my time, and go methodically. Now, I /could/ take my time here, but I was.....just not use to surprises...and...those...tombs...those tombs were dark man :(, shut up, yeah, I was scared, so what?), MegaMan Legends I and II (AWESOME)

...

You know what, I'll be back, I'm going to make a chart.

~Fephisto

December 27 17:11

-I've finished what I've wanted to read of Rothbard's Ethics, and here is my summary:
Just read 6, 7, and 8; and the theory is fully developed within those sections. Beautifully, in my opinion. Here's the free version (WARNING: 336 PAGED PDF!)

Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson is just that, one lesson. Just read this, and you have his thesis: Hint, think wide application of opportunity costs.

I have learned what I have wanted with LISP (all you pretty much need to know to learn a programming language is: how to declare variables, how to declare functions, how to define functions, how to make loops, how to make conditionals, and how to affect input/output streams (or to simplify that: how to delcare variables and functions)). Although, there are a bunch more 'efficiency tricks' and other 'tricks of the trade', but what I need to know I believe I can refer myself to at least ten or twenty minutes of function/tutorial searching. I.e., I'm fairly confident I know the basic concepts (The Art of LISP Programming is a very good book).

As I've mentioned before, I've already gone through Lambda Calculus.

I've already looked at the relation of holonomic function and Lagrange Multipliers before. Actually, in a discussion with a Physics professor of mine (to be honest though, I probably should understand them more thoroughly).

I've taken out a lot of the libertarian books on the list because I feel that, really, Ethics and One Lesson are probably the two most concise books on the subject ever made; and I am very satisfied with the groundwork they have laid.

Really, the only correlation between Modern Physics and Statistical Mechanics that I have found thus far, is blackbodies. Done (well, that's the most evident correlation, and that's really as far as I'm interested in investigating the matter).

The other problems I would need to refresh my memory on back in these here archives of mine. However, that markov chaining + network data-storage idea is still /very/ interesting. Maybe make a LISP program of it all. :U.

Well, that's all for now. I have no idea what my next goals will be. Ideas? :P

~Fephisto/Peter Stalin

December 26 18:51

Either way, something that has been on the back of my mind for a looooong time now (search the Austrian Forums for "China" to see when I first started thinking about it), was the converse of Hayek's thesis. Over the past months the argument that "Curtailment of Economic Freedoms" -> "Curtailment of Political and thus all Freedoms" has become fairly cemented in my mind. And, like a good little mathematician, I have wondered about the converse, or, more appropriately, the opposite (converse of the contrapositive. So, converse/opposite, same thing): "Economic Freedoms" -> "Political Freedoms".

We have a good example country, Chile. However, let us not fall into the trap of correlation implies causation that I usually end up preaching against. The country in my mind, of course, is China. Really, I don't give a shit that China [already is] stronger than us. Rather, that they won't go United States on us :U; thus, I am considering the possibility that their people will gain more political freedoms.

So, as a starting point, let me re-iterate what we know:

We start with a mostly political and economically free country. There begins a clamour for curtailment of economic freedoms, usually by way of planning agencies. These go through the legislature with great fanfare. These include virtually everything: food, health, media, recreational activities, etc.. Eventually, because of the scope of the planning agencies, direct oversight of the agencies by the legislature becomes fanciful. So begins the bureaucratization and independency of the agencies from the legislature and into the direct hands of the executive. Going along the ways of Weber we have greater bureaucratic competition that leads to a 'need for greater executive power' for a central plan to reduce the problems of the disruptive inefficiencies caused by the mixed-interest-competition between these agencies. The Executive, then, has complete control of every economic activity within his realm. But, the nature of all these economic goods allows him to curtail political freedoms. The media, in particular, is a good example of where such an occurrence would occur (to spell it all out, curtailment of informational goods necessarily entails curtailment of free speech; transportation industry -> freedom of movement...).

Now, we say the opposite occurs, a country begins to loosen economic controls. My argument would be that economic goods withhold and need certain political freedoms in order to remain free. Media needs free speech in order for the media to be considered politically free. Health care needs people to decide what to do with their own bodies in order to be economically free. And we can continue this argument ad infinitum, until enough economic/politically coupled goods become free of government control that the nation has become more politically free.

You feel like you've made an elementary argument when you must spell things out, but there you are. I would cede the same thing happened in Chile via their gradual secession of political freedoms in order to achieve greater economic freedoms, and that the same thing must happen in China. In order for China to give more economic freedoms to ensure their growth, they must ensure freedoms of economic/politically coupled goods, and thus a gradual secession of political freedoms must occur.

~Fephisto

December 23 3:26

Nope, not at all.

Two days ago Feppy thought, "Gee, it sure has been a long time since I've played SimCity/Civilization #/RotTK # (in this case, Civilization), I'll just crack out the old case and see how it feels." Two days pass and I finally manage TO COMPLETE ONE DAMN MOTHER-FUCKING GAME.

It amazes me the extent to which this pattern occurs, "Forget about Simulation-game playing experience, start playing game, notice somewhere mid-game (i.e., a few days of straight-playing) that simulation games are inherently non-linear and thus un-endable, and then get very, very pissed off over wasted time".

-_-

~Fephisto

December 20 2:43

And to change gears a little.

I'd like to consider some random bits of my life, and whether or not what I'm doing is "right" or not.

To a large extent, with any moderate libertarian philosophy, I keep coming to the conclusion that it is completely debilitating. After all, I use public roads, thus am I not 'forcing' others to pay for my use of the roads, whether or not they agree to it? And due to the ever-extending reach of government, this applies to everything I do. What about the computer I'm using right now that was processed with certain government standards? Or the T.V. I watch, or the FDA-approved subsidized-food I eat?

To a very certain extent, the extreme consideration of morality in actions causes paralysis, so I haven't really tended to thinking about it. But, the above argument was given in the Austrian Forums, and it is one that I have not been able to reply to. It has been in my mind for a while now. Particularly, the following argument would not work: "In paying taxes/living here, people assume the 'implied contract' that certain public services may be indefinitely used by others". If for nothing else, because of what has come to fruition in my mind as "The Mobster's Turf Fallacy" (you can pay the protection money to a gangster, but you are not agreeing to the gangster's behavior).

Now, I have tried to come to some sort of rationalization to this, but it brings me to the more important point of whether I'm even on the right track here. Am I rationalizing an immoral act, as if to lessen the effect on my guilt?

On one hand, it's not like I'm rationalizing this to pay less taxes :p. I mean, effectively, I'm rationalizing away things that would directly help me, since I make TA salary and don't pay the luxuriously high taxes; and eliminating the standards created by the Department of Education and the results of affirmative action (when I'm ironically, historically, 100% European) would remove the incentive for Pioneer to indirectly donate moneys for my scholarship. I.e., I don't think this is the case, since the rationalizations for my thoughts would only impede my direct benefit. But maybe that's a rationalization......:p, you see the minutiae my mind gets hung up on.

However, there are other things that I would argue against even though I may come to use them. For example, am I justified in saying that welfare is incorrect when I myself have not gone through the throes of severe poverty? I have rationalized this argument in what my mind has termed the "Heroin Fallacy": just because I have not tried heroin, does not mean I am unjustified in saying that it's bad for you.

But I really do end up (at times) wondering if even the driving of my car on public roads is 'moral'. Am I not, in essence, performing 'theft'? What about going to a public university? The rationalization in my mind comes into form as yet another weird name "The Enraged Killer Gedunken". If I provoke a man, and he ends up killing someone, am I guilty for the murder? In the same way, I drive on a road, and the government taxes someone else, am I guilty for the theft. Personally, I'm actually not so sure of this one. Using our thought experiment, say I knew the guy, and that he was going to kill person X if I provoked him, and then I intentionally provoked him; am I not guilty? In the road-driving case, I know that if I 'provoke' the government (drive on their roads), they will 'kill person X' (tax someone else).

What I am really interested in, is how this argument applies to voting. To tell the truth, I'm taking more of a David Friedman-type approach to voting as of late: it's futile (one hundred millionth! Woohoo!), but I don't give a damn, because for some odd reason pulling the lever is so much fun (really, any lever, if it does nothing, that's cool. The act of pulling a lever for its own sake of being pulled is pretty cool). But I come upon this "Enraged Killer Gedunken". If I vote for someone I know is going to do batshit insane stuff, should I vote for her/him? I mean, morally, would it be o.k.?

And because of this, I think I'm done with reading any other non-science books for the break :p.

~El Director

December 19 14:34

Elephants of Babar Story

Also, I uploaded a bunch of Fliky-comics to the site, check them out :-H.

~Fephisto

December 19 3:00

Second of all, another coding project of mine:

I HAVE OMITTED THIS CODE, AS IT WAS IRRITATINGLY BREAKING THE BREAKS ON THIS PAGE, I HAVE IT STORED ELSEWHERE ANYWAYS, SO YOU CAN ASK IF YOU WANT TO SEE IT, AND I'M TOO LAZY TO REFORMAT ALL OF IT SO IT DOESN'T BREAK THE BREAKS.

It's a simple Real-Estate Game. It was fairly simple to make. I should make one in C++, or better yet, use it as a LISP exercise :D. It's a pretty fun game, and hard to explain, so hopefully you'll see it soon enough.

Next, a short summary of the first section of Ethics. He pretty much went through the philosophical basics: relativism/divine command are bad ethical theories. Then Murray expounded the use of reason in creating an ethics, and the foundation of the ethics in Lockean-rights, i.e. 'to deprive a man of his right to X is immoral', etc.. Summed up best in the last sentence of the chapter, "The manner of its exercise is one thing; that involves a question of morals. The right to its exercise is another thing." Or, as far as I can tell by the rhetoric, basically repeating the common legal != moral fallacy. Finally, he sums up by repeating his goal that he will be looking at various things in political philosophy not in the tradition way: via psuedo-science statistics akin in the social sciences. However, he'll further define a basic natural-law/rights standard.

O.k., let me sum that all up even further, all he did was introduce and cover the very basic common fallacies that a lot of people fall into: relativism != morality, religion != morality, legality != morality, reason = morality.

Next, I'll actually get to the crux of his argument :P. I feel that the past week has been going through introductions. Lambda calculus before LISP, Rothbard's natural law primer before his actual $#%@ theory is introduced!

Oh, and I was going REALLY slow through the lambda calculus stuff, until I got a different book just about...two or three days ago. For those who want a VERY NICE textbook about lambda calculus: Introduction to Combinators and lambda-calculus (lambda is the actual symbol) by J. Roger Hindley and Jonathon P. Seldin (Harry Seldin's brother! :-o) Published in 1986 in Cambridge by the London Mathematical Society.

I was going to complain about something else tonight, but I'll leave it as this for today.

~Peter Stalin/El Director

December 13 20:12

I've been hearing a lot lately about the slow rise for hatred to Ron Paul, and how there are no arguments to his credo. So, I've gathered up the little things I've wrote for him in letters or flat-out rationales and will post them below:

Forum Post
Treatise
Youtube Reply
El Sid

Personally, I like the work-in-progress second one the best.

I got the following books: The Ethics of Liberty, Economics in One Lesson, Lambda-Calculus, Types, and Models, The Art of LISP Programming. Honestly, I doubt I'll even get through a few chapters of one of these. But having them around is simply inspiration that I may read a little bit of them. And that's the point.

I'm currently reading The Ethics of Liberty and got through the first chapter (I'm reading it incredibly slow....). So far he's just laying down the ground rules. Stuff like, "Ethics is God-independent, but don't get ANSI, because that's not so bad", and others basics of Natural Law. I know you shouldn't judge by the cover, but the titles for the sections look very appealing.

Have a nice Christmas y'all! Hopefully I'll make it to the legendary Neenah, Wisconsin.

~El Director

Archive 4
Archive 3
Archive 2
Archive 1