Either way, I first want to discuss the new problems I have up, I'll discuss 'distracting actions' in the next post, to keep my math and psychology separate.
So, one can think of a group as a set together with a binary operation. A ring/group action/field as two sets with two binary operations. A module/vector space as three sets with three binary operations. The question is whether this could be generalized...
This question is motivated by analyzing the Baire Category Theorem. Is every closed set in R with empty interior a countable union of points and 'Cantor-like sets'. The best definition I have for 'Cantor-like' is given a base representation, exclude a non-zero number of digits, and then intersect it with an interval. I've talked to a few people about it, including a professor, most think it's not true. And I agree.
You know the tile puzzle where you have a jumbled picture on a number of tiles, and you have to shuffle the tiles to recover the picture? The question is whether you can define a group in that.
It looks like a bunch of data was lost, oh well, these things happen. I've put the archives back up again. I'll be posting up a summary of my philosophical digressions that I've had with Joe. I would've posted more often had it not been for the fact that most of what I usually write here was instead spoken, discussed, and pondered upon with him. Also, I seem to be posting most of my thoughts on the "Grad Student" post in the foru.
So, I finished taking my two Quals that I have been preparing for this Summer, and I have this week off. Needless to say, I _thought_ I had a ton of shit planned to do.
I am currently twiddling my thumbs and biding my time. But still, it's fairly nice. I can open the blinds to my porch, pull out my chair and a cup of tea and idly daydream the day away.
OH HEY, DAYDREAMS, LET'S TALK ABOUT DAYDREAMS! :D. It's one of my favorite past-times!
Freedom Watch weekly updates
Then in the past month I've been checking these pretty much every day :U.
That describes my politco-fix. The reason for this? Well....I daydream quite a bit, and sooner-or-later I'll daydream about utopian crap :-|. In an attempt to actualize this thought, watching stuff like that is what I turn to. I'm not about to start a revolution or do any of that shit, I'm too much of a pussy.
Second Thing I've Been Stuck On:
Text games and Old Forums:
The past month I've revisited some old text games (zork/8bit/dwarf fortress/old coded games/nethack) and visited some old forums/others more frequently (mspaintadventures forums/xkcd forums/mises forums/el foru/civ forums/tropico forums/holy shit I didn't realize how many sites I check :-|). I mean, it's not just this, but some old games like 8bit I was greeted with a bunch of people doing stuff like:
Public Phil_Laco says, "YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKI"
Public Yuuki, "PHIL."
Public Phil_Laco, "Where have you been?!"
Public Yuuki, "Well, right now I'm at the casino."
Public Phil_Laco, "NO, I MEAN LIKE THE PAST 8 MONTHS."
There are all these old relationships I've found I've abandoned and now since coming back to them I kind of treasure them. So many forums and so many alternate identities and so many old memories. I really missed a lot of these people.....
I feel like I've said both the least and the most in this section.
Another Time-Waster: Creation Games.
As an attempt to actualize some fantasies of creation I've played (soem repeats here): 8bit, dwarf-fortress, simcity, c-evo, infiniminer, and simutrans.
Especially 8bit, I made a new game and a museum and had plans to KEEP BUILDING MOAR. Infiniminer I made an Al Gore super-highway bridge. Dwarf Fortress I ended up marvelling all these archives of beautiful pictures of architecture that other have crafted (I tried my own hand at it a while as well). Simutrans is a acutalization of my capitalistic tendencies explained before, I really like the idea of private roads, sorry. So, I end up building these beautifully efficiently working transportation networks and, ugh, I really got hooked on that game.
And Another Thing I Got Hooked On:
There are a bunch of stories I try to stay read up on. Some involving a 1920's P.I. mafia feel. Others I won't mention, but I got caught up trying to read all of these as well.....
And Another Thing:
Screwing up my computer :D.
So, for the past month, I notice I've been using the following line of argument:
"If I don't do these things know, when Summer School/job/actual school starts up I WON'T be able to do this! Therefore, I have to use this time to go at these interests!"
And if I say no it's like I'm denying a kid candy or something :-(.
Either way, more theories that this has brought up and various things I've tried summarized below.
As stated before, physically distancing myself from certain desires used to be a common approach of mine. But that's increasingly difficult seeing as how I've become attached virtually to pretty much one console.
-I've tried 'negative egg-timing', where I have an egg-timer that pops up every hour saying, "What have you done the past hour?" Which attempts to guilt-trip me. This pretty much just makes me feel down. :(
-I downloaded a todo list, I'm not very good at cutting up tasks though.
-I used the todo list to jot what desires I have at a given moment. These feels like a more productive way of using my time.
-I'll distinguish and discuss another technique called 'positive egg-timing', in other words, I start it up and say I'll only do a task for 5 minutes to get started on it, or say I won't go into a certain desire until after 5 minutes, which by then I usually have ample willpower against it (more on this later).
-Worklogging, just logging what I've done.
-I guess this would be an attempt at 'positive thinking'. Obviously, to the things I really do want to achieve there is a clear long-term goal I'm trying to achieve, so I visualize that as a form of motivation to my current actions.
-With regards to the 'positive egg-timing' I'm trying to identify 'transient' desires. Obviously my rational self has long-term goals its trying to achieve and is the explanation for much of what I'm trying to do. The irrational self is the opposite, thus by usually 5-minutes time the irrational 'transient' desires fade and allow me to do the things I actually want to do. That's the theory at least, and I've gotten the most success from this.
HOWEVER, that argument I've posted earlier, the "I've only got X amount of time left!"-idea, seems to always win out. If I could counter that argument, maybe......
Either way, I figure that's a good summary of my last two months.
~Fepps.
April 18 22:26
I was planning on just unloading a whole bunch of conversations I had with a friend of mine on here. However, I'm not sure how he'd feel about that.
I don't think there's anything bad about them, they're just particularly enlighte-O.K., TIME TO COPY-PASTE THEM. I'll just call him Joe:
Me:
"I was reading the back of a 3 Musketeers bar.
>> >
>> > It said, "If you have any comments/concerns/feedback, please call the
>> > following number: 1-800-XXX-XXXX"
>> >
>> > I immediately thought whether it was someone's SOLE JOB to man this
>> > hotline,
>> > and what does s/he really do? Give 3 Musketeers recipe tips? Answer
>> > prank
>> > phonecalls all day? Get lawsuit threats?
>> >
>> > Or maybe, that person sits alone, at the 3 Musketeers hotline, ready and
>> > waiting for any situation to occur; but it never comes up. Every day of
>> > this person's life is another lonely sorrow-filled day, alone in a
>> > cubicle
>> > that must be kept staffed, the world solely drifting away.....
>> >"
HIM:
Hey, funny story for you.
>>
>> The seniors are working on electricity and magnetism. We were talking
>> about AC and DC currents and one student asked if you could make both
>> types of current go through the same object. Then, another piped up
>> asking what would happen of that object was a magnet. So, we pulled
>> out a neodyniam magnet and tried it out. We used voltmeters to see
>> that both types of current were indeed being passed through the
>> magnet. Obviously, the magnet was getting pretty hot, so we unplugged
>> it.
>>
>> I asked the students how we could cool the magnet while it is still
>> hooked up. One student suggested we spin it in the air. It's a heated
>> body, so it should cool with wind. We happened to have a motor from a
>> centrifuge, so we tried it out. The DC current came from a car battery
>> and the AC current came from the outlet. We talked about brushes in
>> prior classes, so we rigged up a brush system pretty fast. Soon that
>> magnet was whipping around dangerously fast- We all ducked under the
>> lab tables.
>>
>> Well, as you might guess, the air wasn't cooling it at all. The thing
>> turned red hot from all the current passing through it. This could
>> have seriously injured or killed someone. I finally took action after
>> lots of panic and head-counting. I ran to the door and locked it, then
>> I ran and ducked under the spinning magnet to unplug it. The thing was
>> whipping above my head. I am not sure what physical process was
>> involved with what happened next (ideas?). The classroom started to
>> beat with this really low frequency that reverberated through my body,
>> and the room went dark. All I saw was the red streak above my head as
>> I kneeled there. The reverberations were pounding against my ribs. The
>> outlet wire was in my hand ready to unplug the magnet.
>>
>> I was asked to stand up on my feet, and so I did. Now the magnet was
>> circling around me and the centrifuge motor was in my chest. The
>> reverberation moved upward too, onto my skull. I was asked what
>> questions I had. After pausing a moment, I asked, "How accurate are
>> the portrayels of reality that DIM and I convey in our discussions?" I
>> felt blood dripping from the back of my ears as the reverberations
>> became more violent. I was told that we were fish explaining to each
>> other how to ride a horse. I asked, "How long until we learn enough to
>> actually ride that horse?" I was told it was possible in our lifetime.
>> I knew I didn't have long, my shirt collar was wet with blood. "What
>> do I do to get there?" It thought for a moment. It reminded me of the
>> obsurdity of the question I was asking. It then said millions of minds
>> would need to work on this unique challenge, and that we will never
>> even know if we have made it, but we will have methods available for
>> making predictions strong enough to satisfy us.
>>
>> I realized my eyes were closed, so I opened them. I realized the
>> magnet was still spinning, so I removed the centrifuge from my chest,
>> brought it to a halt, and grabbed the magnet. I breathed ice onto it
>> to cool it off. I returned the blood on my shirt and neck to my body
>> and healed the tears in my skin. The students were traumatized, so I
>> removed this memory from their minds. The fluorescenct lightbulbs in
>> the class were busted, so I fixed them (I even improved upon their
>> design). Finally, I saw that time was still paused, so I allowed it to
>> move forward. Having done these things, I gave back these abilities
>> shortly after showing my appreciation for what I had learned.
"
ME:
"Joe, have you read Sophie's World?"
Additionally, there was an exam this week I didn't fare well on. I don't want to admit it, but I'm probably a little depressed due to it.
~Feppy
March 28 23:07
Hello again peoples,
In an attempt to ween myself off of the desires I end up feeling guilty about later, I've been keeping myself from basically finding what are essentially 'new fixes'.
In the end, by shoving everything on Saturday, most of the things I used to waste my time on I find really not wanting to do. Like reading mises/campaignforliberty/youtube subscriptions/lililicious/solelo/honobi michi/etc.. I still wasted some time on them today, but I found I've stopped much earlier than usual. I'd usually be watching and trying to carpe diem my one day of the week up until 3 a.m..
Today, I find myself lying on my bed, looking at the ceiling, listening to smooth jazz, and daydreaming like crazy. And I really, really like it. It's very peaceful, and I feel so much less guilty than grepping new anime/manga suggestions from 4chan.
So...I'm considering just...to stop reading all the webcomics I read, and since I've stopped watching new anime clips on Youtube, that pretty much just leaves me with math, philosophy, and daydreams. Which sounds like a very nice life to me.
Oh, so I've noticed Sid getting serious with the relationships thing, and of course this caused me to re-evaluate myself, and I came to the same conclusion. I really don't care for dating, nor kids, nor any of that. And whenever I think about it, I usually end up thinking along the lines of how much freedom I would lose in my life.
That's all for today.
~E.F.D.
March 17 21:16
So, in a pre-emptive strategy, let me start talking BEFORE I waste all of break. Like I usually do :-|.
I waste quite a bit of time on activities that usually try to bring about my daydreams. I mean, some of these daydreams are actively ridiculous, which makes them all the better and funnier to share.
DAYDREAMS RANT:
Daydream Number 1:
MP, THIS ONE IS YOUR DOING! I keep occassionally thinking about buzzer systems. I have three designs for the logic components scattered around. Oh, oh, ideas for this: (man I use colons a lot :( )
-Radio-controlled or daisy chain or individual buzzers? (wire is the largest cost, and there are easy work-arounds to making usre the frequencies can be haxxed, etc.)
-Battery-pack or plug-in? (the plug-in is the next largest cost)
-More efficient electrical/logic designs? (I don't know enough electrical engineering to set about this yet)
I did try actually making some of this shit, I have basic memory circuits working with spare transistors I had from a previous project, but as for Mouser-ordered stuff I haven't got much going. NONETHELESS, I still endlessly daydream about this! I mean, it's really ridiculous daydreaming as well! Like, 3-story yachts, a skyscraper in downtown Manhattan, and a world-wide financial empire-all of this is going down in my daydreams. From something that, honestly, I can hardly make on my own, and wou
DATA LOST DUE TO ANGELFIRE :(
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