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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 | ||
|
q10 |
1:53p | today is apparently the 40th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 11 mission (and also the 64th anniversary of the Trinity atomic bomb test - although i don't have anything to say about that right now). i assume we'll be hearing more about this in a few days when we hit the anniversary of the actual Moon landing, but there's already more chatter than usual about this, so it seems like as good a time as any to vent about the obsession with manned space flight one encounters in many quarters (especially the entitlement-laden ‘reducing our investment in this kind of thing proves we as a species are doomed and steals my dreams’ attitude one encounters a lot when dealing with, say, old-guard science fiction fan subculture). ( long. ranty. poorly edited. ) |
| Friday, July 17th, 2009 | ||
|
mathematics [ icanus ] |
12:14a | Representing a Borel Set. How could I demonstrate that the charachteristic function of a Borel set in Rk can be represented by a countable combination of charachteristic functions of sets of the following type: { x | x = r*U, 0 < r1 < r < r2 and U is from some open set on the unit sphere } I think up to sets of measure zero also works since I need this for a change of variables under the integral formula. This is for Rudin problem 6 from chapter 8. Thank you. |
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 | ||
|
forvrkate |
9:39a | |
|
forvrkate |
9:34a | Air Travel Regulations DEAR LJ GENIE, I own a stainless steel water bottle. Filled with water, this item would not be allowed on a plane. What if it is empty? I am asking because I plan on having only carry on luggage on an upcoming flight. I would like to take my water bottle with me on my trip. Since the flight itself only ended up costing me around $120, I do not want to pay the $25 "checked luggage" fee. I also do not want to have to forfeit my $15 [empty] water bottle at the security checkpoint. I am hoping that someone [trustworthy] will reply, "Oh yes, I have a stainless steel water bottle and I take it with me on flights all the time. So long as it is empty going through security, you're fine!" Please let me know! Love, Kate |
|
lovecraftienne |
9:32a | Moon mission live today! This is SO COOL. NASA has released the audio for the moon mission of 1969 - Apollo 11, the one where they landed on it, Neil Armstrong and all that - as streaming audio, with the landing timed to occur on the tape 40 years exactly after the original. You can listen to it here. I was not quite three years old when this happened. So cool. Hat tip to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} james_nicoll for the link. Current Mood:  amazed |
| madcaptenor | 8:27a | The New York Times just discovered that some people are okay with being fat. |
|
easwaran |
5:44p | wikipedia binge Pretty intense Wikipedia binge last night. I went on to look up Ann Arbor and Los Angeles, and somehow ended up reading about Umm Kulthum (perhaps the most famous musician I had never heard of), Hustler's "documentary" Who's Nailin' Paylin?, and Catharine MacKinnon, among other things. The important links that got me onto such diverse topics were a group of articles I had no idea existed, the list of articles every Wikipedia should have (that is, that should exist in every language on Wikipedia) and vital articles (that is, topics that Wikipedia ought to have a very good article on, though most of them are actually at B grade or lower). It's interesting to see what topics the Wikipedia editors have decided are that central. There's an interesting balance betwen multiculturalism (including people most westerners have never heard of, like Umm Kulthum, Sinan, Shitao, and Li Bai) and Eurocentrism (the bolded ones that are considered most essential for every language to have are basically all European). I can't decide whether reading and understanding all those articles could replace a basic high school education and part of a liberal arts college degree - the major thing you'd be missing is the idea of how to reason about things and how to learn. |
|
latimer84 |
12:52a | Blog update - comics! OMG awesome gay comic nerditry on my blog. |
| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | ||
|
badoingdoing |
10:50p | Not quite grandmother's house Sometime in the next two days, I'm planning on sending this email to work. I'm excited. Well, excited and scared. ( letter ) I don't really anticipate any problems -- I've come out to a lot of people at work already, and had only good reactions. We'll see, though. |
|
west_philly [ raaabia ] |
10:58p | |
|
mathematics [ llyrfish ] |
8:25p | Banach spaces of continuous functions Cheney (GTM 208, pp. 10-11) gives a proof that the space of continuous functions C[a,b] with the sup norm is Banach. It's a nice little ε/3 argument, and I don't see why it wouldn't generalize to C(ℜ), but Cheney says it remains valid as long as [a,b] is replaced with any compact Hausdorff space. Wikipedia agrees, and further elucidates that the space of bounded continuous functions on ℜ (indeed, on any topological space) is Banach. I spent some time trying to think of a counterexample (some kind of uniformly convergent sequence of continuous functions whose limit function isn't continuous) but couldn't come up with anything. Here's the ε/3 argument in question: Let [x(s)] be a Cauchy sequence in C[a,b] with the sup-norm. Then for each s, [xn(s)] is a Cauchy sequence in ℜ, so it converges to a number we'll call x(s). Now we'll show that the function x we've defined is continuous and that xn → x in the sup-norm. By some triangle inequality shenanigans, |x(s)-x(t)| ≤ |x(s) - xn(s)| + |xn(s) - xn(t)| + |xn(t) - x(t)|. Pick N big enough that ||xn - xm|| < ε/3 whenever m ≥ n ≥ N - then certainly |xn(s) - xm(s)| < ε/3 for all s. Let m → ∞ - then you get |xn(s) - x(s)| < ε/3. This takes care of the two outer inequalities on the RHS, and it shows that xn → x in the sup-norm. Now, because xn is continuous, there is a δ > 0 such that the middle inequality is less than ε/3 whenever |s-t|<δ, and you're done. Where the heck does this argument use compactness (let alone Hausdorff)? Thanks in advance. |
|
kylecassidy |
8:48p | Momcat Update Momcat's luck has run its course. The polyp in her ear has come back and it's larger. On top of this we found out today the vet thinks it may be cancerous. I've come to the conclusion, as her guardian, that the best thing to do is euthanize her. But don't be sad -- hold back a moment, because there is good in all of this, I promise. We knew after her last visit to the vet that she needed an additional surgery. Years ago when Thunderbelly, who might actually have been the coolest cat on Earth, died I promised Milla (who was the only other being in my life at the time) I would never let her suffer. I decided that if Momcat could have Quality of Life then I'd subject her to another trapping, another taxi ride, another surgery, and another recovery, not knowing if there would be more afterwards. trillian_stars and I spent the last three months trying to see if we could guarantee her that Quality of Life, knowing that we had a limited time to determine that. Anti-depressants were a failure, drastic socialization attempts as well.In the four years that Momcat's been here, we've made only very limited progress -- she's still a feral cat and she's too far gone to ever be anything more (or less). It's sad for me to think this, but we've tried, she is what she is. City Kitties is helping us find a vet who will come and perform the euthanasia here, because I don't want her last hours on earth to be trapping, car rides, and terrifying new places. Momcat was never truly happy. She was, at times, less grumpy and less persecuted, but that's it. She was a broken one that I couldn't fix. I'll be calling vets tomorrow morning. In the meantime -- there is something you can do. City Kitties takes care of stray cats and kittens every day finding them homes and medical care and while momcat sits, grumpy, on my bed hating everybody who walks past, City Kitties knows a dozen cats that want, desperately want, humans. You can send them a donation in Momcat's name and from this sad thing, so many good things can happen. When the fell deed is done we shall have a celebration to remember her life and you'll all be invited. The life she had was, really, the best one she could possibly have had given the cards she was dealt. And right now, although I'm dripping a cascade of tears onto this keyboard, I feel accomplished. She and I tried our best. I will see her as far as I can along the best road I can find for her.  Don't feel sorry for us, that doesn't accomplish anything; instead, be something positive for someone:--turn this moment into shining, radiant good. Current Mood: accomplished |
| coslinks | 8:39p | |
| madcaptenor | 6:41p | |
|
earlofgrey |
5:01p | Spirits walk. I'm approaching a birthday as I mentioned, so forgive me if I describe the past year as somewhat epic. I've had adventures, spent my time in excellent company, filleted a great many fish, and started to learn a number of skills I've always wanted to acquire. But this year I've also stumbled into a shocking number of small tragedies: stupid, random, life-changing, bloody expensive annoyances. A set of three keys has been left on the ledge in front of my house. They belong to neither myself nor my roommate. So I'm hesitant to move them: I'm hoping that whomever they belong to will return for them. Several strangers have been kind enough to try to return them to us, however, including, just now, an older neighbour I'd not met before with a snake elegantly coiled around his beautifully dark neck and shoulders. Current Mood:  contemplative |
| sciam | 2:05p | The Brain Adapts in a Blink to Compensate for Missing Information The human brain has long been known to perceive things that aren't there--from phantom limbs to patterns in chaos. But a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) shows for the first time that it is surprisingly quick to bend reality when normal perception is disrupted. The results were published yesterday in The Journal of Neuroscience. [More] |
| spinneymoon | 1:05p | Hello world! This is a new journal with a new set of intentions. -I'd like to remember and share the positive things in my life. My last LJ reflected the fact that I more often feel the urge to write when I'm in the grips of negative feelings. When I started the habit of writing in a paper journal every morning, I started writing about the good stuff, too, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much this helped me keep my focus on it and stay aware of just how much of it there is. I'd like to carry over this more balanced perspective into my online space. -I'd like to be more connected, and be easier to connect with. LJ is a good way to keep in touch with folks I don't see often, to get to know new people, and to connect with people from my day-to-day life by sharing thoughts that are easier to express in written form, and I'd like to open back up to those possibilities. No doubt I'll continue writing about the process of working on my process and other such introverted and/or meta- stuffs, but this time around, I plan to communicate more clearly about which posts are for what purpose. (Details to follow, as well as an administrivia-type post.) Thanks for sticking with me. Stay tuned! |
| sciam | 12:20p | Should Racial Profiling Play a Role in Cancer Prognosis? African-Americans are more likely to die from cancer than patients of other races and ethnicities, and extensive studies have long implicated socioeconomic and environmental factors, such as differences in income, diet and education. Two research teams, however, have recently suggested that the genetics of race itself is likely to be a contributor. Exactly how significant the findings are and just what they mean for treatment is unclear, but some scientists worry that African-Americans could take such conclusions the wrong way, leading them not to seek treatment. [More] |
|
ljgenie [ skippyalto ] |
12:06p | Tangled up in telephone cords Dear LJ Genie, whose desk is never messy and whose phone cord is always straight, I have a terrible problem at work... the cord of my phone constantly tangles up and is therefore too short to be useful. Just now I went to pick up the handset and the entire base came with it. O Wise LJ Genie, how do I fix this problem? (And no, cordless phones are not an option in my office) Current Mood:  curiousCurrent Music: Office noise |
|
kylecassidy |
8:35a | Some Nice News I'm really pleased with the success of this photo project the Hive. Trendhunter Magazine did a bit on it:  and not to be beat, Not Couture did also:  And I have two interviews about it this week, which reminds me, if you write for your local newspaper, or Gothic Beauty or Time you should do a story on the Hive, or the Big Book of Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Drop me a line. Have an awesome day. Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: NPR |
| Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | ||
|
lakmiseiru |
11:03p | Door to Door discount, anyone? If anyone is planning on doing any moving this summer, I have a Door to Door discount code ($50 off of storage, $100 off of moving, and moving cross-country was $1800 for me) that I'm happy to share. Drop me a line, or comment here, and I'll forward you the email. Current Mood:  calmCurrent Music: "Verum Aeternus" - VNV Nation |
| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | ||
| savagelove | 12:00a | Features: Savage Love: July 15, 2009 You were recommended to me by an acquaintance familiar with your column and podcast. Lacking other resources at this particular moment, I have decided to write to you. I am a 20-year-old male, and as such have certain desires that almost all 20-year-old males have (desires of a sexual nature). However, I am deeply religious. Religion has been for me a source of strength in my times of weakness, a rock in the times of storm, and above all a home to return to when I have lost my path. In the teachings of my particular religion, to indulge the ... |
|
kylecassidy |
1:02a | it's almost top secret worldcon info The Writers Workshops at Anticipation are small session workshops for either experienced or beginning writers and, at the moment, they're Top Secret. Nobody knows about them (though I assume they're going to get a lot less top secret when people start reposting this) but at the moment for freaking $20 you can get some of the greatest minds and pens in Fantasy and Science Fiction to review your story. Check this out for more info before the unwashed masses discover it Some of the authors include Nancy Freaking Kress, Delia Freaking Sherman, Colin Freaking Harvey, Catherynne Great Jumping Roswell Valente, Elizabeth Freaking Holy Freaking Sweet Barking Cheese Bear, Greg Freaking Frost, Jay Great Broiling Airships Lake and many others. It's one thing to run into one of your favorite authors at a bar at a convention -- it's something wholly another to be able to show them something you worked on and talk about it. Let's see what you can do. If you're going to Worldcon and you're interested in a career in writing you should check it out Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: the killers: trillian was a friend of mine |
| Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | ||
|
ljgenie [ phaedra_lari ] |
10:05p | Calculating caffeine content Oh wise LJ Genie, who knows the value of a *good* cup of coffee, is there a formula that would allow me to calculate the approximate caffeine content of my method of making press pot coffee based on how much I use in grounds and how long I steep it? I know that other things would impact the amount like water temp, specific beans, coarseness of grind and so on, but I'm really trying to figure out at least roughly how many "cups" of coffee my cup of coffee is equivalent. Two, five, ten? I use tons of grounds and steep it seven minutes... this stuff is *strong.* Any clever formulas or easy home caffeine tests out there? TIA for any tips! |
|
addienfaemne |
11:57p | |
