I'm amazed by the abundance of leaf fall after on day! Pittsburgh is deeply in autumn; winter can't be that far away.
Our car in an autumn wonderland
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Was Reading: Symmetry
I never finished writing this blog piece on a book I was reading, but the pieces are coherent enough to push out....
Sautoy, Marcus Du. Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature. Harper, 2008.
Fun stuff so far. One big revelation has been the parallel between simple groups and prime numbers. I'm still a bit unclear on the concepts -- so I will struggle to explain them properly and clearly.
Classification of finite simple groups - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The classification of the finite simple groups, also called the enormous theorem, is believed to classify all finite simple groups. These groups can be seen as the basic building blocks of all finite groups, in much the same way as the prime numbers are the basic building blocks of the natural numbers. The Jordan-Hölder theorem is a more precise way of stating this fact about finite groups.
List of finite simple groups lists the 26 simple finite groups, including the famous Monster group.
Reading the book has made me look at the bathroom tiles, to notice that all the tiles are of one type -- and that you just need to rotate them. What symmetry group is embodied by the tiles? Is the vast majority of commerical household tiles of the same group?
When did people start making tiles?
What is quasi-periodicity?
How does symmetry show up in textiles? I'm working through understanding List of planar symmetry groups - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Poetry reading prompts something….
Last night's poetry reading at Hemingway's Cafe was an energizing prod to write more of my own poetry. Writing poetry might be the easiest way for me to have an outlet to focus on the here and now, in the context of the big and forever.
Morning pages and remembering my dreams: spreadsheets on steroids
For almost every morning over the last couple of months, I've been writing about three pages in my journal first thing in the morning, in n an exercise known to many as morning pages. One of the side benefits of this exercise is how it helps me to remember dreams from the previous night. Last night I dreamt about being at a talk by two shaggy hair guys,  Who had invented a new type of spreadsheet tha for some reason had only two sheets but which could also handle millions of users and billions of variables because the spreadsheet somehow exploited the fact that all these numbers were not independent of each other. Great idea but I've no idea of how to implement such a spreadsheet, or how useful such a spreadsheet would actually be in real life. Nonetheless, dreams are a reminder of how wacky our brains really are.
Is Jon Stewart’s “Trickle Up” Economics proposal being taken seriously?
I was intrigued by Jon Stewart's "trickle up" proposal in yesterday's interview with Lawrence Lindsey: instead of bailing out the banks, help individuals get free from their consumer and mortgage debts (by, for instance, enabling people to refinance mortgages at a lower rate, one that presumably will keep people in their homes.) Is this approach being seriously considered? It seems to make sense to a layperson like me -- so what's the problem with this approach?
I want the money back — and where’s our apology?
As much as I'd like to see the bankers who pillaged our economy return every cent they stole from the system, it seems that there are few ways to actually recover their shameful bonuses. If that's true, then I'm at least with Alan Binder, who wrote the following Economic View - Six Errors on the Path to the Financial Crisis - NYTimes.com:
For this litany of errors, many people in authority owe millions of Americans an apology. Richard A. Clarke, former national security adviser, set a good example when he told the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks that he wanted victims’ families “to know why we failed and what I think we need to do to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again.†I’m waiting for similar words from our financial leaders, both public and private. [emphasis mine]
Words of encouragement to freelancers from Ben Stein
As someone not currently collecting a long-term salary from any employer, I resonate with Ben Stein's words in Everybody's Business - Deep in Debt, and Now Deep in Worry - NYTimes.com:
MY work as a freelance writer in Hollywood some time ago prepared me for extreme uncertainty. This is the most insecure existence imaginable. It mandates saving, ingenuity and nonstop work and creativity. Freelancers never have a day off. Never. They know that they can go months without a check. They absolutely have to save. They have to have five different levels of fall-back plans and financial escape hatches.
Obama inaugural celebration photos on Flickr
Having just watched HBO: We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, it's fun to see so quickly the flow of less formal images from the Obama Inaugural team on Flickr -- such as this one:
Forrest Whittaker, Jamie Foxx and will.i.am backstage at “We are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration At The Lincoln Memorial†presented exclusively by HBO on Sunday January 18th 2009. Kevin Mazur/Courtesy of HBO via image.net
Bikestation at Berkeley BART
I'm looking forward to parking my bike at the Berkeley BART bicycle station, one of three in the system.
Wondrous snow according to Joyce
Although I've lived in Berkeley for over 18 years, I still have a special fascination with snow. It doesn't take much for me to fall into some reverie about snow -- for it seems to symbolize a special time and place for me, maybe a time and place that actually never existed.
From Joyce's great short story The Dead:
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.