It's not logical at all to wage a war against "logic." ...But it kills time, so wutev

Well, I've more than started University of Alabama, so here's the rundown of what all I'm doing (a few changes) and how the school life is.

First off, I know hardly anyone here even after all this time.  Nobody's very "friendly" or "open" like at MSU.  The faculty are quite reserved and aren't terribly interested in leaving their doors open to students, and the upper graduates (i.e., those who have been here for a while) are fairly stuck up.

That said, I've made a few friends here with my fellow math graduates.  All are new, and the nicer ones are the foreigners (go figure).  So we're clumped into the same boat together.

I get paid less than minimum wage while being expected to work 20 hours a week.  6 hours go to the Math Lab, 14 go to office hours (yes, 14.  I am the ONLY GTA with over 5 office hours).

Office hours?  I sit in a room for 3-4 hours of the day every day doing nothing but my own HW 'cuz nobody comes (works for me.  I need it***).  I'm supposed to also grade papers (none to grade, yet) and help students as they come to me and need it (hasn't happened yet, again).  So, "office time" right now is more a likening with "study time."  At least I get my HW done.  And boy, is there a lot.

Math Lab?  I wander around a HUGE computer lab where all the lower level (i.e., Finite Math and Intro/Developmental/College Algebra) students do their bullshit online bullshit (it's bullshit.  "You have the correct answer, but it's in a format I don't like, so I will count it wrong.") and answer students' questions.  First day was mostly business questions ("What's the password/How do I log on" etc.).  Nowadays, I do get a good chunk of math questions.  There was one student in Finite Math who got a glitch on his question or something because NONE of us math GTAs could work it out (we were using the correct formulas.  The problem involved those obnoxious annuity formulas--you put in a deposit, pay some interest, get a return.  It has a lot of nasty things that aren't clear where the fuck they come from if you haven't done Differential Equations) in spite of using the correct formulas.

OH WELL.  And even though I don't teach*** the ones who DO teach THEIR class still couldn't do it.

Again, online bullshit is still bullshit.

Now for my ***s.  I do not teach because I have not yet acquired 18 hours of graduate courses (no shit), and of the FOUR classes I'm in, I'm bombarded by HW every single day.  My Linear Optimization class is the nicest in assigning a few problems and at the ends of chapters, so I don't have as much to do, but our book is so fucking stupid I might as well shove some pencils up my asshole and do complex analysis.

Now for my four classes, which have changed slightly since I last whined about school.  I do not whine about school anymore (even amid the HW.  I'm quite happy here now that I got my schedule changed!!).

Linear Optimization
Boundary Value Problems
Real Analysis I
Numerical Analysis I

Linear Optimization:  what the fuck?  MSU has an equivalent called Linear Programming--you are given a large system to try and optimize (minimize costs while being subjected to constraints).  We are using the book Linear and Nonlinear Programming by David G. Luenberger.  I hate it.  Few examples, no real direction on what's going on, mostly a novel on why optimization problems are AWWWSUMMM!!!  It's also an unfair book, demanding what I personally don't expect students to know to solve certain problems (that we were assigned for HW.  Fortunately, I have more linear algebra under my belt than everyone else out there, so I can brute force these problems without referencing other texts.  ...But then, I'm not an undergraduate.  Some students are and they should not be expected to do this).

Fortunately, the professor is amusing and certainly enthusiastic, and in spite of a failure of a text, he himself makes the course bearable.  Why did I take it?  Mild interest--I wanted to at MSU, couldn't, so here I am.

Boundary Value Problems:  FUCK YEAH.  Easy course but VERY tedious and VERY long problems.  It requires an enormous amount of juggling concepts and formulas in solving each problem that can take upwards of 30 steps (or 30 lines).  I can write fast and I always know what I'm doing once I start, and it still takes me 30 minutes to solve problems.  I feel sorry for anyone who needs to stop and think along the way.

The professor is amazing and so is our book.  All my books are on loan as per my award, but this is one I definitely want a copy of.  I couldn't have asked for a more awesome approach into this stuff.  I give it a hearty WIN/10.  I'm in it because I wanna be.

Numerical Analysis I:  yawn.  I did it before, easy A, same course, same boring presentation, equally boring professor, though unlike the awesome Dr. Lim, this guy doesn't seem to understand how to actually present the material to us.  Good thing I already know it.  Same book, too, btw, so that's a plus.  Why am I in it?  I need two two-sequence courses (aka, ____ I and II, and I need two of them), and it's an easy A to buffer my graduate course.

Real Analysis I:  HARD.  This is my hard class.  It's not just hard for me--everyone finds it hard except the one guy who will go on to do real analysis, and the professor even said it was a hard class.  Go figure.  I've never seen a more difficult and mind-bogglingly rough class.  But it's one worth going through, though I don't much care for the professor OR our book.

Why am I in it?  I wanna be (I wanna do analysis, though not really real analysis), and it's my other two-sequence course.

All in all, hooray.

I got accepted to the University of Alabama on a teaching assistantship.  They'll pay half tuition, half health insurance, loan me some books, and give me a stipend of almost the rest of my tuition for teaching one dinky class.

The good news is that it's a fairly strong name behind it.  I'll obviously be doing mathematics, and there I can focus fairly heavily on applied math (with applications beyond "mathematical biology," fuck you rest of the world).

The bad news is that they want me to take classes I'm not terribly interested in.  They want me to take Mathematical Statistics (which is basically the rigor behind why stats approaches work), which is boring and yawn and not really my strong area, and they also want me to RETAKE Numerical Analysis.

Why?

"To learn some linear algebra concepts."

Excuse me?  Here is my "linear algebra concepts":

Introduction to Linear Algebra -- B (very applied "use method to solve problems" class)
Numerical Analysis I & II -- A & A (learned all about programming linear and nonlinear systems of equations and differential equations, not to mention some approximation theory)
Modern Algebra -- C (I got all the linear algebra-related problems 100%.  ...It's everything else I failed miserably at.  But this class took concepts I had already learned in linear algebra and made them more general for ALL algebraic systems)
Matrix & Linear Algebra -- A (more rigorous development of linear algebra in an abstract manner.  At MSU where I was, this is actually a required-for-graduates graduate level course that is offered to senior undergrads)
Engineering Analysis -- A (more programming with linear systems done here)

So there's 6 classes of "linear algebra concepts."  I've learned more linear algebra in my undergraduate career than most people do until they've touched their PhD program.  Not to mention

Data Analysis I
Advanced Calculus I, II
Differential Equations II
Image Denoising
Fluid Mechanics
Engineering Mechanics I, II
Mechanics of Materials
Thermodynamics II
Introduction to Complex Variables
Physics III - Optics and Waves

ALL PULLED LINEAR ALGEBRA TOPICS AND METHODS IN THEM.

So not only have I learned more, I've DONE more linear algebra-related applications than most people do period.

So here's hoping I can toss Numerical Analysis I and II and Mathematical Statistics I and II in favor of Convex Analysis I and II and Mathematical Foundations of Fluid Dynamics I and II.

Note the Is and IIs.  Grad course at UA requires two two-sequences, hence why I was pushed to do Mathematical Statistics and Numerical Analysis I and II (also because these two are guaranteed to be taught).

Aside from that, I'll also be taking Introductory Real Analysis, which is the next step for me after my Advanced Calculus I did senior year.  From there I'll get to choose between Complex Analysis or Real Analysis, and I'm aiming more for the former because--

Although complex vectors are generally more tedious and difficult, the theorems and methods used in them actually SIMPLIFY their real counterparts.  That is, a standard proof of some real concept using real analysis can take a whopping 1.5 pages of proof (I've got a few that we've done..  -_-).  That same idea, extended to the complex numbers (thus including more types of numbers to deal with), usually takes about a very tiny paragraph in complex analysis.

....Plus, complex analysis is more applicable to fluid mechanics:  complex vectors/numbers create happy things like vorteces, jumps, meandering splits (not like a meandering river that moves, but, like, a river that just splits into a few very tiny parts that re-converge back to the main a few feet or miles down), curvatures of waterfalls, temperature fluxes that also play a part in a water system's ecology, and those are just a few things they deal with.

Vorteces are my main interest, though wave mechanics is another high interest, though I'm more interested in the thermodynamicity of waves.

My schedule according to them will be a very boring, generic masters math edjumaction.  I'm more or less hoping I can do what I actually want to do.  I am limited, though, by what's actually available.  I know I'll be hard-pressed to take MOST of my fluid dynamics-related classes.  But I can at least take things that will prepare me for them.

What, you can't read titles?

http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/devil-details/nations-top-scam-free-trial-offer/1329/

I can't stress enough how important it is to open the terms of agreement and hit CTRL + F (find) "fee" or "payment" and keep cycling through it until you see all hidden fees.

On the other hand, sometimes free trials are awesome.  I got a lot of free stuff by signing up for shit and immediately canceling every subscription I was signed up for that day.  Basically, my moral is "don't sign up for it unless you have about 20 minutes to spare to start canceling things."

Got me a new laptop (one with a function E key) by spending about 4 hours filling out shit.  It would have cost me about $2000 since I wanted a gaming laptop.  Granted, that's 4 hours filling shit out, another 5 hours canceling shit (some people are tricky and you really gotta dig deep to find out how to cancel things).

...But how much do you make in 9 hours of work?  Enough to buy a laptop?

In other news, I temporarily fixed my E situation by copying and pasting it.  Granted, this will only be in effect for things I feel should make an ATTEMPT at being formal.  Comments don't count.

Hello, Mindsay.  For some reason, when I look at you, you seem like this shell of what you once were, as if you were a fad blog that only a small handful continue to use.

WELL THAT'S OKAY, 'CUZ I'M not really BACK.

So what has been going on in the world of loud out louding?  Well, I've graduated college with a Bull Shit in Mathematics, and I'm officially a mathematician.  I study a myriad of topics, the most recent of which is image processing with missile defense (patriots!).  When a few more paychecks come in, I'm gonna marry this woman of mine methinks, and other than that, well, I'm too lazy to type and didn't feel like clogging up LJ.

I might convince myself to post a few more times for old times' sake, but we'll see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTxZXKsJdGU&feature=related

tl;dw:  Rape Clubs exist.  As in, people get together and plan out the rapes and it's an actual organization.

"You can't have your cake and eat it, too" does not refer to anything about selfishness or trying to have too much.

It has to do the physical impossibility of eating and having cake at the same time.  If you eat it, you don't have it anymore.  If you have it, you're not eating it.  It's not greed or anything--go drink some water.  Drink it all.  Do you still have water?  No, you don't.  You drank it, you idiot.  Spit it out.  Now you have it--but you're not drinking it, you just spat it out.  What's wrong with you?

Get this correct, please.

Sincerely,

I'm Better Than You

Einstein did other things besides quantum physics.

In fact, the mathematicians and scientists I most respect made very wonderful contributions in all fields of math and science, from quantum physics to thermodynamics to electrodynamics to calculus theory to number theory and blah blah blah.

And those are why I respect them.  The coincidence between all of my favorite mathematicians and scientists is that they all also made enormous contributions in hydrodynamics/hydrology/hydraulics, which deals with water, which I am quite interested in.  And I never really noticed this until a few months ago.

And, yeah, Einstein made many contributions to both hydrodynamics and, in particular, sediment transport (which I don't give a damn about, but it was what I studied at my co-op job).

In fact, if you look hard enough, most of the well-known scientists were mathematicians more than they were physical scientists.

It's just more proof that math > physics, and while mathematicians can do physics, physicists cannot necessarily do math.

Especially when physicists will say "1 divided by 0 is infinity."***  Apparently physicists, in studying our universe, have decided that this is some sort of truth.  If I were a fucking moron who failed very hard at life in general, I would say "wow, they can't even get that basic thing right, maybe I should question EVERYTHING ELSE they think!"  Fortunately, I'm more intelligent than that.


***Note:  the proper way of saying this is 1/n approaches infinity as n approaches 0.  It's approaching, not exact.  There is a difference, and in fact the greatest integer function, [[x]], is precisely why "approaching" can lead to very different results than "exact."  Find the limit of [[x]] as x approaches 1.  It doesn't exist (it approaches 0 on from the left and 1 from the right), but [[1]] = 1, so we're good.  This is actually the reverse situation of what I presented--here we couldn't approach, but we could BE, yet 1/n blah can approach but can NOT be.


Oh, you crazy physicists.  Fuck you, Chapters 31-43 or whatever that cover electric fields, electronics, and magnetic fields.  I hope one day we go Fahrenheit 451 on your ass.  Oh, and Great Gatsby and Billy Budd (GOOD LORD, IF NOTHING ELSE, THEN BILLY BUDD) can also burn.

Good Lord.

Forget the music elitists, politics elitists, Trek vs. Wars elitists, etc.

Math elitists will treat you like scum because of things you don't know that they do and thus you should, too.

That said, the people on LiveJournal and FreeInformationSociety (the very few who can do math on there) are quite helpful and nice.

Am I speaking from personal experience?  Yeah.  Someone posted a very erroneous topic about how there are different sizes of infinity using two circles with the same center but different sizes (concentric circles).

He said if you fill the small circle up with an infinite number of radii, then extend them to the larger circle, although the smaller circle was full, in the larger one, the radii all get "pushed" a little farther (draw two concentric circles.  Just draw a whole bunch of lines in the smaller circle and then when you're done extend them to the larger one.  You see they get farther apart, which they do), and thus you could fill in the larger circle with MORE radii.

Of course, that entire idea is flawed (infinity is pretty dense.  If you have an infinite number of radii, there is no space between lines at all and so even stretching them out to infinity, the lines never get farther apart).  ...Even if you don't like that parenthetical, try and "fill up" your large circle.  To bring those "filler" lines back to the center, you have to, guess what?  Pass through the smaller circle.

"But wait, the small circle was full."  Yes, it was, which is the problem.  He clearly didn't understand how lines or infinity work.

Responses by people mathematically knowledgeable?

"topic is stupid"
"Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong."
"How about no?"
"This makes my eyes hurt."
"The people trying to explain infinity here clearly have no idea what they're talking about."

Nobody (but me) actually pointed out his flaw in reasoning.

But then, people who just run around saying those above things aren't really mathematicians and are just people who are good at math, so it's all good.

http://www.buffalonews.com/260/story/570428.html