Monthly Archives: July 2010

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Math Overflow

Math Overflow almost tempts me to post some of the conceptual problems I’ve been having with the fake math in the never-ending manuscript — but even if I could articulate those problems properly, I’m afraid the community would just think I was trying to pull a Sokal.*

Anonymous Correspondent (if you’re reading this) you should check the site out. I don’t remember if we were wishing for this back in the mid-90s, but we should have been.

(Cosma, you might dig it too.)

* Or, more properly, a Bogdanov.

(Via Scott Aaronson at Shtetl-Optimized.)

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What I’ve been doing

  1. working overtime.
  2. getting voice mail from nervous American apartment hunters.
  3. crawling the last mile of the novelette death march.
  4. letting nervous American apartment hunters’ phones ring twelve times without answer or voice mail.
  5. freaking out about moving out.
  6. lying awake.
  7. boiling alive.
  8. understanding how everybody in New York felt last week.
  9. trying to arrange a week’s New York condo rental.
  10. wanting to kill New York condo owners.
  11. not answering email.
  12. filling boxes.
  13. feeling guilty.
  14. mailing boxes.
  15. sweating.
  16. visiting strange malls just for the air conditioning.
  17. seeing the Roboterträume exhibit at the Museum Tinguely.
  18. being annoyed there’s no one to share it with.
  19. being annoyed that Virgil Widrich‘s make/real isn’t on YouTube yet.
  20. getting dehydrated.
  21. drinking Powerade (blue flavor).
  22. working more overtime.
  23. watching All the President’s Men for the first time.
  24. watching Dick for the third time.
  25. filling book boxes half-full.
  26. filling the upper halves of book boxes with DVDs, clothes, bubble wrap, and anything that will fill space and keep the weight down.
  27. looking at the shelves full of books still to be packed.
  28. looking at the shelves full of unread books shortly to be abandoned.
  29. feeling more guilty.
  30. starting New Model Army.
  31. getting yelled at by the property management company for not waiting hand and foot on apartment hunters.
  32. working with visiting co-workers.
  33. lying to the property management company.
  34. playing tour guide to visiting co-workers.
  35. making small talk about video games.
  36. watching Predators.
  37. mixing hard liquor and beer.
  38. returning to the novel.
  39. jamming the printer.
  40. worrying about backups.
  41. getting increasingly annoyed with the increasing flakeyness of the wi-fi router.
  42. unplugging and re-plugging the wi-fi router for the nth time.
  43. seeing the wi-fi router flash blue and explode. in a small way.
  44. trying to put my finger on what I wasn’t liking about New Model Army.
  45. getting voice mail from monoglot German apartment hunters.
  46. working with visiting co-workers.
  47. letting monoglot German apartment hunters’ phones ring twelve times without answer or voice mail.
  48. trying to explain introversion to extroverts.
  49. playing tour guide to visiting co-workers.
  50. losing expensive prescription sunglasses.
  51. coming as close to drowning as I care to.
  52. moving one item from the “must do before leaving Switzerland, but probably won’t” to the “did before leaving Switzerland” column.
  53. mixing red wine and lemonade.
  54. mixing beer and lemonade.
  55. getting to the second half of New Model Army.
  56. having river / robot / Predator / New Model Army dreams.
  57. configuring the new wi-fi router.
  58. ordering expensive replacement sunglasses.
  59. returning to the novel, again.
  60. reading New Model Army instead of writing.
  61. getting kind of irritated about having to go into the office.
  62. working with visiting co-workers.
  63. watching the office thermometer climb from 27°C (80°F) to 36°C (97°F) and stay there.
  64. running the Strategic Extroversion Reserve down to boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion levels.
  65. going home early.
  66. finishing the second half of New Model Army in about forty minutes flat.
  67. failing to stay off the Internet.
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Second nearly-annual Internet moratorium

Too much to do this last summer east of the Prime Meridian, too little attention to pay to doing it. Going offline in July for all but essential purposes (and believe me, there’s far too many of those).

I’ll still be reading and answering email, so if you need to get in touch with me, or if there’s a cute kitten / brutal Toronto policing video that I really need to see while it’s fresh, drop me a note.

Last year when I did this, I said we’d better have national health care when I got back, and it took another eight months. So I’m not going to say anything about the oil spill.