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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Writing mathematical notation on a computer shouldn’t have to be so annoying, given that the computer was invented to do mathematics in the first place. LateX is clunky, and so is virtually every other “solution”.

Some good advice about eating out.

The fact that I can remember those streets is testament to how terrible they are.

My friends all agree that my food tastes better than theirs’, even when we make the same exact dish. The reason for this is because I’m willing to kill them with my food.

This post is part interesting tidbit, part random philosophizing. It assumes some familiarity with (basic) set theory and theoretical computer science.

These days, basic research is typically government-funded and happens at some sort of university.

I think of gift giving as an opportunity to show someone a whole new world view. I never give anyone a gift that they would expect. If I wanted to give someone something they were expecting, I would just give them cash instead and give them the freedom to do what they want with it.