Gift Giving

In the spirit of Christmas, we're going to talk about gifts (Look at me, using "we" outside of a math paper, where it's the norm for whatever reason).

One Person's Trivial Is Another Person's Life Work

Running the following command in Haskell gives the natural log of the integers 1-1000. It runs in about a millisecond.

Why Paying for Things Is a Better Idea as You Get Better Off

Recently, I was forced to go to the post office in person to pick up a package. Reading that last sentence out loud is a bit of a tongue twister. Anyway, the lady in front of me in the line needed to send out a package but had forgotten to tape it, so the post office employee asked her if she would like to buy some tape for 3 dollars.

Halloween

It's funny how your perspective on Halloween changes as you age.

The Brave New World of Newlines

If you're writing online, for God's sake use a newline to break a paragraph rather than indent.

One Benefit of Functional Programming

Learning Haskell made me a hell of a lot better at type checking, which also made me better at my math classes. Now I just wish Python's type annotations were more commonly used.

Evaluating Willingness to Change

The best test of whether someone is fundamentally capable of changing is how they handle suggestions that they admit are good.

The Intrinsic Value Myth

I've heard people object to Bitcoin (and cryptocurrency in general) on the grounds that is has no "intrinsic value".

The Times Are Changing, or Not

Today on the train, I was listening to an old lady.

Writing Well Takes Effort

Writing complicated prose is overhyped. Far harder is taking your ideas and putting them into concise, simple, and short form takes real work.

Algebraic Topology Books

There are way too many of them. My class is using 4 to teach the introduction to the subject.

Soap and Shampoo Are Unnecessary

Last December, I heard that shampoo makes your hair worse by stripping the oil that's normally produced in it. This causes a variety of hair related issues.

Make Your Notes Follow You

People often do not have their notes with them when they could most use them.

How to Make Students Actually Ask Questions

Every teacher has felt this before. You ask your listeners the dreaded question:

How to Get Ideas

I read this a while ago on Neil Gaiman's blog:

Victory

I just realized that my mouse ran out of batteries this morning.  This, however, did not impede my computer work in the slightest and in fact, I got even more done today than usual.