life...

it's amazing how quickly things change....

1 month ago, barely sleeping from stress and working hard to finish my thesis...

now, sleeping quite well and enjoying the first break to get mundane things done in months.
the last two weekends have been awesome! this past weekend my brother was here from TN for the first time in 3 years. it was fun to have an excuse to be out and about just having fun... the weekend before that i went to a conference at UC davis and spent the day before exploring san francisco... ran into a number of old friends from various parts of my mathematical past there too.

but even over the summer:

1 month from now, i will have graduated, and have my ph.d. diploma in my hands.

2 months from now i will be flying back from a research conference in new zealand and just past my 27th birthday

3 months from now i will be driving a uhaul full of 3/4 of my earthly belongings from NJ to Indiana with my brother

4 months from now i will be teaching 2-3 college level math classes as "professor" rather than "TA" and hopefully unpacked and settled near chicago.

when things fall into place it's amazing how quickly such big transitions can happen!

mostly, i don't think it's sunk in that i'm technically a "doctor" now, but it has sunk in that i suddenly have more time to breathe and relax in spurts than i've had in years. this will quickly change, but i'm enjoying this phase while it's here!

that's all.

be parties one and all.

unhappy....

for the past 5 years i've been fairly loyal to circuit city.

when my desktop died and i needed a new one, they set me up.

when that monitor needed replacement while still under warranty, they helped me out quickly.

for dozens of little and bigger things, they've been rockstars.

then in the past few months, my laptop (an HP whose warranty expired in january) has been acting up. the current issue is that the sound doesn't work from the speakers and that you have to jam the power button really hard to turn it on. i first contacted HP directly via email in the middle of the night while i tried to troubleshoot on my own... they responded via email within 2 hours and apologized for the delay! they said from my description of what i'd done so far that it appears to be a hardware issue and that i should take it into a circuit city or best buy in person to get it addressed by someone who could SEE the problem. so to circuit city i went.

they were up front and said they'd charge a diagnostic fee to check it out for a day before working on it to make sure what i thought was wrong really was the problem. i told them that software wise it was fine, but my speakers only work when i use headphones and the power button is hard to work, so it's two hardware issues that are close in proximity. they're computer people though, so they're smart, they'll see this, agree, and take care of it, right?

apparently not.

the day i took it in to get diagnosed i also explained i needed it for a conference last weekend so i wanted to leave it for the day and pick it up for the weekend and bring it back later... that was fine too.

when i brought it back monday they assured me that now that it was diagnosed, they'd take care of it quickly and call me when it was done... 3-7 days.

today is the 7th day and i'd still heard nothing, so i called to check. after getting disconnected midcall TWICE, i went in person. the guy at the counter knew nothing so he called the guy who had my computer in the back... he reported back to me "well you have a lot on the desktop, but it seems to work fine, but the sound doesn't work"

me: "yes, that's exactly what i told you TEN days ago, when i gave it to you. i brought it here so you could try to fix the sound... and if you can't fix that, at least the power button. what's the status on that?"

guy at counter: "oh, i don't know about the power, let me check"

after 3 more minutes on the phone, he reported back to me "he hasn't really looked at the power button."

me: "it took him 6 days to repeat what i said when i brought the machine here and he didn't even look at what i brought it in for?" (and in my defense for clarity, i have a printed work order from when i brought it in the first time that says exactly that the sound doesn't work and the power button has to be pushed very hard to make it turn on...)

the guy at the counter apologized and said if i gave him 2 hours, he'd open up my laptop himself and see if he can fix anything. he called back 1.5 hours later and said "the power cable and sound cable inside are shot and we don't have the parts. if you want, you can call HP yourself and bring it back for us to install them but for now you can pick up your computer"

so i did.

when i dropped it off, i could turn the laptop on by pressing the power button hard... now nothing.

and most places are out of stock with the part i need... i just ordered a "refurbished" one on ebay.

hp's craftmanship for making a model with such a common and big flaw (power button is important no matter what you use your machine for) sucks, but at least their customer service was helpful.

circuit city, for taking my machine for a week and charging me to repeat what i told them when i handed it over to their care sucks... and returning it so that i have no power whatsoever is even worse.

5 years of being a loyal customer and all down the drain in about a week.

unhappy.

twas the night before thesis defense...

... and unsurprisingly i can’t sleep.

this is funny:
145 things (not) to do at your thesis defense

and this is not thesis-y at all, but it still made me laugh
remix of the star spangled banner

but this is probably most appropriate of all, borrowed from:
http://www.letstalkscience.ca/main/ppnewsletters/vol5iss2.pdf

Twas the night before thesis
And all through the house
Not a keyboard was stirring
And neither, the mouse

The journals were strewn
’cross the floor with no care
in the hopes that the signatures
soon would be there

When I in my sweatshirt
Rolled off of my cat
And with bleary eyes woke
From a short thesis nap

I stood from my slumber
And looked ’round my room
"I’ll defend this vile thesis,
and defend it quite soon."

The coffee was spilled
On my old office chair
"I’ll clean that next Monday,
It’s no harm to me there."

When off in the distance
I heard the odd sound
"’Tis my external", said I
"That’s his plane, touching ground"
But the sounds were unlike
Any jet that I knew
Instead of twin engines
It sounded like hooves

So I went to the window
And rubbed my red eyes
And saw the external
Fall out of the skies

And instead of a suitcase
He carried a sack
Which was lumpy with boxes
’Twas my worst fears come back

"He’s brought some new journals,"
I thought out of fright
"To point out my faults,
and cause a re-write"

But he seemed not cruel
Or looking for folly
As he ambled towards the lab
He seemed quite jolly

And he opened his sack
Untying the string
And looked in my eyes, saying
"I bring you one thing."

"I remember the trauma
Of defense in my time
So instead of petty questions
I have brought it back signed."

Well he tossed out the box
With the thesis within it
And with a "Ho Ho Ho"
He was off in a minute

And then off in the distance
The portly man cried
"Merry thesis to all
and to all a good night"

... dude, in 18 hours the big scary defense will be done and my graduate career with have nothing left than possible thesis edits and easy forms to fill out.  how weird is that?

holy COW i have stupid dreams when i'm stressed....

chalk this up to being the dumbest nightmare i've ever had:

my ph.d. thesis defense is in 2 days, and this weekend i am doing everything i possibly can to forget about it until monday (i.e. i've already written the defense talk, and it's better if i don't obsess about it), however i can't stop my head from overthinking it while i'm asleep.

last night i dreamed that i was giving my thesis defense, and the audience was full of american idol contestants (which should already be a tip off that it's a stupid dream, but whatever...)... they asked so many weird questions that i only made it through 5 of the 23 slides i have to talk about that i failed. and i was really mad.

ridiculous, right? but it took waking up mad, and thinking through it for 5 minutes to put together all the absurdities and convince myself it wasn't real.

i really need to get done with monday night before i go crazy..... just 2 more days!

this also makes me laugh...

april fools

perhaps this is just illustrates the inner geek in me more fully, but the following things have greatly amused me today:

   
• NASA’s photo of the day has an awesome caption.
     
• the Google empire has gone crazy... gmail offers a "send emails from the past" option, google calendar is offering a "wake up kit" and an "i’m feeling lucky" option to set up appointments with celebrities, youtube is rickrolling all the featured videos... and apparently they’re starting a colony on mars. hmmm... and google australia is letting you search the future with gDay.  the testimonials are funny.
     
• my advisor, already famous for his online opinions, continues his almost-annual april fool’s opinion tradition.
     
• and finally..., speaking of my advisor, yesterday he sent out the following email:
  
  
  Dear Math 640 students,
  
  I just finished posting two homework sets. The first one is due tomorrow (please slide them under my door), and the second one is due Thurs. I am rather disappointed at some of you who have been late handing-in the homework (and I commend those who always hand them in on time).
  
  Anyway, the homework problem set that is due tomorrow should be completed by tomorrow, 11:59pm, or else you would get zero, and be in danger of failing this class (i.e. getting a B).
  
  
  this is already suspicious, since we know he loves april fools pranks, but it was worth figuring out anyhow... the problem set he posted for today is:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~
  

  First Homework Set for March 31, 2008 class, Due April 1, 2008
  [No extensions!]
  

  
  
  
  
  • Recall that for any set of non-negative integers A, mex(A) is
    the smallest  non-negative integer not in A. For example,
    mex({2,4,5})=0, mex({0,1,2,5,8})=3, etc.
    
    Define a sequence a_i recursively by a₁=2, and for i >= 1  by:
    a_i=mex({0,1} U { j a_r, j >= 1 , 1 <= r < i}),
    
    Prove the following properties of a_i
    
    
    
    1. There are infinitely many i such that a_i+1-a_i=2
       
    2. Every even intger n >= 6 can be written as
       a_i+a_j, for some pos. integers i and j.
       
    3. Define a sequence F(n) by,
       F(a_i1 a_i1 a_i2  ...a_ir)=(-1)^r if n can be expressed as a product of distinct a_i’s , and 0 otherwise.
       Let G(n)=add(F(i), i=0..n)
       Prove that |G(n)| <= Cn^.999, for some fixed constant C.
       
    
    
  • Remember that Euler’s pentagonal product
    eta(q)=(1-q)(1-q²)(1-q³) ... ,
    when expanded, has lots of 0-coefficients and the rest are 1 or -1.
    Condider the 24-th power of that
    eta(q)²⁴=[(1-q)(1-q²)(1-q³) ...]²⁴,
    and let’s call the coeff. of qⁿ,  tau(n). Prove that tau(n) is never zero.
    
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  thus, almost instantly, emails started flying between his ph.d. students as follows:
  ~~~~~~~~~~~
  
  is it an april fools joke? the homework that he posted looks hard. i don’t want to do it.
  -em
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~
  
  i assume it is.  i was just wondering if it was equivalent to one of the clay problems or something equally ridiculous ;) why else would it be due on april 1?
  lara
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~
  and finally...
  
  Don’t read below if you haven’t looked at the homework.  To make a buffer, here’s the Millenium Falcon:
  
                   c==o
  
                 _/____.._
  
          _.,--’" ||^ || "..z._
  
         /_/^ ___..||  || _/o.. "..-._
  
       _/  ]. L_| || .||  .._/_  . _..--._
  
      /_~7  _ . " ||. || /] .. ]. (_)  . "..--.
  
     |__7~.(_)_ []|+--+|/____T_____________L|
  
     |__|  _^(_) /^   __..____ _   _|
  
     |__| (_){_) J ]K{__ L___ _   _]
  
     |__| . _(_) ..v     /__________|________
  
     l__l_ (_). []|+-+-<..^   L  . _   - ---L|
  
      ..__..    __. ||^l  ..Y] /_]  (_) .  _,--’
  
        ..~_]  L_| || ... ...../~.    _,--’"
  
         .._.. . __/||  |..  ....-+-<’"
  
           "..---._|J__L|X o~~|[....     
  
              ..____/ ..___|[//     
  
                   ..--’   ..--+-’
  "Millenium Falcon" Modified Corellian YT-1300 Transport
  
  (No, I did not draw that - I don’t have the patience for ASCII art).
  
  It’s certainly April Fool’s Joke.  I didn’t recognize that a(n) is the nth prime at first, but now I see that his problems are:
        1. The Twin Prime Conjecture
        2. Goldbach’s conjecture
        3. His G is the Merten’s function (I had to look this up).  This result
        would be equivalent to the Riemann Hypothesis, apparently.
  
  The partition-related function is Ramanujan’s tau function.  That tau(n) is never zero is another unsolved conjecture.  It’s a shame - I was kind of hoping this one would be a ridiculously easy problem, but that everyone would be scared off by the first three.
  
  -Baxter
  
  

hooray for clever fun. ;)