Destruction of Symmetry

Why are the methods that make sense always the ones that are wrong or not preferred? We learned two methods of solving a constraints problem: the straight-forward way and the Lagrange method. Guess which one I like? Guess which one the math professor likes? Here's a hint: math professors never like anything called "straight forward." If it doesn't have a half dozen back-traces, loops, and logical qualifiers, it's just not a good way of doing things. So what's this evil method? OK, imagine a functional relation like volume of a box (xyz) subject to a maximum surface area (S). This is a function of 3 variables (x, y, z), and we want a maximum volume. Take your constraint condition(s), and add it to the original equation, adding at least one more variable to the problem (from a proportionality constant that has to be there). Then take partial derivatives. All of them. Solve. All of them. Multiply 2 x 2 and get 2. Rinse. Repeat. Your mileage may vary. Not recommended for those with high blood pressure, women who are pregnant or may be pregnant, or anyone without a Ph.D. in mathematics. Consult your doctor.

Study time was useful in that work was done. We probably spent too much time on one particular problem and so didn't finish everything that we might have. The Superfriends, as Lee calls us, then went to the school cafeteria for lunch. I had ham and baked apples and some other things. All was good, nothing as great. After lunch, we all walked back to the office, got our stuff and headed to the other class we all have together.

Inviscid was Dr. Vakili going over problems that he'd been meaning to go over for weeks now. When he tried to move on, I reminded him that he was going to cover an example from the homework set, and I chose the hardest one. That took the rest of the class, and then it was freedom for another day.

I watched Smallville, then CSI. We got Jimmy Olsen ("James") and the Superman logo (the thing on his chest) tonight, and maybe his Supermomma. I was hoping for a vision quest with Bo Duke, but it was not to be. I'm really looking forward to this recap from Television Without Pity. Omar is going to have a field day. More tomorrow.

Why Bird-nose save Solomon Grundy?

Boomerang airs old episodes of Justice League, which almost makes it worth the whole price of cable. Adding in Nickelodeon Games and Sports with GUTS, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and Maria Sharapova, I think we're getting a deal. Teevee is evil.

The roofers / wall decoration fixers were back today. The roof appears to be mostly done-ish. However, they took that opportunity to take down all the trim pieces on the outside of the building and replace them. We were told "new roof," not "three weeks worth of things that you don't care about and wake you up hours before you would normally get up, and people who just stand around all day, apparently doing nothing, because everytime you look out the window, they're sitting in the shade." See how those are different? It's probably semantics.

I got some heat transfer taken care of today. The two algebra problems are the ones I can't solve. I had to re-install MATLAB to do some of the evaluations of the Bessel function. It's nice to have MATLAB available for things, but I didn't really miss it when it was gone. If I get back used to it, I really like programming in MATLAB, too. It's much simpler and more powerful than Fortran, and I don't know any other programming languages anymore.

I need to remember to get me some money at the bank. More tomorrow.

AIM Low: Technical Writing

Well, it makes technical writing almost tolerable. I can think of nothing legal that would make that class tolerable. Maybe alcohol poisoning. That might actually be worth trying next week.

Tuesdays are our math study sessions. It's me, Lee, Amy, Heather, and the Canadian "spy" Rich. It's a nice balance, and we get quite a bit done. Maybe not as much as we should, but more than I'd get done on my own. It also helps to know what others have trouble with, because it lets me focus on specific problems rather than trying to think about the whole thing as one big problem.

Heat Transfer is boring. All we do is derive, all class long. He's caught on that I feel that way, says Lee. I can't help it - it's right after lunch and everything he's doing is in the book. I'm learning things, but from the book, not the lecture. And it's really only one equation we're learning to solve in several ways, so not even the problem changes. Like I said: boring.

The break before Technical Writing wasn't productive at all. I did get Subway, which was tasty. I also wrote whatever was due today. It was a proposal for the project paper thing. Subway was tasty, though.

Class was a colossal waste of my time. We spent an hour on the 30 minutes worth of work left from last week. Then we took 3 quizzes, discussed inappropriate sexual objects, and made fun of stupid people. That last part was OK, but the only thing that kept me sane during the rest was chatting with Amy (UTSI Amy not CBU Amy) on AIM for about the last 90 minutes of class. I hope I get out of this class. Please, please, please Dr. Schulz, get me out of this class!

If the roofers are here tomorrow at 7:30, I will be very cross with someone. Mark my words: very cross. I might be forced to hint that I might threaten to draft a slightly impolite letter to their supervisor. Fair warning. More tomorrow.

Room with a View

7:30 - Roofers. And they didn't finish today. They did give me a roof over the living room (under the tarp was nothing but framing and insulation), so I can't be too mad. And I was going to get up about then anyway. All I can say is that they better finish by tomorrow or Lee will be hurting someone. But probably not the roofers since they are big and have muscles.

Math - Dr. Kupershimdt covered problems today, if you can call it that. He did a couple of the problems on the board, ranted, raved, talked about Archimedes, raved a little more, discussed a proof related to a problem rather than the problem itself, and ranted again. We covered some ground, but not so effectively. Even Amy (math major from UTK if I haven't mentioned her here before), who loves Kupershmidt's teaching enthusiasm, said it wasn't his best day.

Interclass break - Rich (Candian Air Force officer / spy) stopped by the office to go over some Inviscid homework. Amy stopped by as well. Lee and I had the work done; they asked questions. Productive for them, I'd guess. I'm always glad to help people. That, to me, is better than getting the problem right myself.

Inviscid - Dr. Vakili derived (derove?) the Continuity and Momentum equations for a general inviscid fluid. These equations form the basis for the rest of the semester. Not the derivations - no one really cares how they work, so long as they do. That took all class, and homework explanations got pushed back, again.

After class, I watched TV, cooked dinner, ate, got some stuff from the store, watched the Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip premiere (previously downloaded), and then I blogged. Another study session tomorrow morning. More tomorrow.

Weekend? What Weekend?

This weekend was entirely sleep (good) and work (not good). Saturday, I expected roofers to wake me up at 7 or 8. They didn't show up at all. I needed to be at a thing for Dr. Moeller at 11, and I woke up at 7 minutes 'til. I was 3 minutes late. I was there until 3:30, then was completely spent for the rest of the day. I'd been invited to a Star Wars: The Good Ones marathon, but I just didn't feel like going anywhere. Today, I again slept until nearly 11, but I didn't have anywhere to be, so it was fine. After breakfast, I got some Inviscid homework written up to turn in, and some math homework roughed out. That took most of the day (it was a good chunk of math), but I did make an attempt at some heat transfer. Tonight was The Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, The Venture Bros., and Robot Chicken. All new. Most funny. I deserve a little time off this weekend.

Going back to the roofers. They showed up at 7:30 Friday morning, hit the roof with hammers and practiced powerbombs, body slams, and summersaults for a couple hours. Then it started raining. They left. OK, it's hard to roof in the rain. Then it stopped raining. By the time Lee and I had to leave for class, they had not returned. When we got back from class, there were some roofers AND THEIR KIDS, just standing around in front of our door. No one on the roof, and THEIR KIDS WERE HERE. This was about 3:30. They left when we pulled up, and did not return. Last Saturday, they worked on the other building. This Saturday, nothing. Then it rained Saturday night. With just a tarp on half the roof. It didn't leak, I don't think, but JUST A TARP. I'm not overly happy with these roofers, who seem to know what exactly how to make residents unhappy.

I finished the book I'd been reading. Excellent. Top notch. Great, great book and an ending to match. Another trilogy to follow, though it will be some time before the first book hits the shelves. In the meantime, I'm going to read another series Lee recommends. I like books.

It's Weasel Stomping Day! More tomorrow.

Haro, Portland!

Lee and I are racing to finish A Meeting at Corvallis, so I haven't taken the time to update recently. I'm about 75 pages ahead at the last comparison, but Lee tends to be more dedicated to reading. It's a really good book, and the story is reaching a huge peak. A large war has been building for three books now, and it just kicked off. You've got a loose confederarion of the good guys against a neo-feudal system of bad guys. I've read well into the war, and the outcome is far from decided. And no guns. It's all hand-to-hand combat. They do have some awesome catapults, trebuchets, and ballistae (giant crossbows for lack of a simpler explanation).

Classes have been going well, I suppose. Dr. Vakili found the homework tap and turned it to high. Dr. Kupershmidt found the foot-in-mouth switch. And Dr. Antar likes chalk. Math (Dr. K) is proceeding smoothly enough on the merits. We just started chapter 2, which is behind his schedule, but I think we all needed the extra time. A couple guys were a little more vocal about it, and that's always appreciated. I think I would have muddled through fine a little faster, but it was nice not having to. Inviscid flow is getting into the fluid mechanics portion of the semester. We've been solving simple(r) problems with just the basic expressions. They aren't obvious by any means, but, knowing what awaits, I'm not upset at all that we're spending time on it. Heat Transfer is coming off very much like a math class. We've been solving differential equations that model different heat transfer modes. They do model heat transfer, but it's been much more about the DE's (and PDE's at that).

Lee has started me watching Scrubs on Comedy Central almost every night. It's not a bad show, and I've generally seen all the CSIs airing opposite it. New TV is about to pick back up, and so, then, will the opportunities to waste time. Always good.

I had a perfect way of saying something last night, now I've lost it. Oh, well, I guess I should have written it last night. More tomorrow.

Raising Awareness

I got a facebook message today about a guy riding his bicycle from somewhere to someplace to "raise awareness for areas affected by Hurrican Katrina." There was a Hurricane Katrina? It caused damage? Why, pray tell, was I unaware of this calamity? Did you, my fine readers, know about this? OF COURSE YOU DID! IT'S ALL THE CABLE NETWORKS TALKED ABOUT FOR A YEAR!. Is there anyone in America who didn't know that New Orleans was flooded and much of coastal Mississippi was blown away? NO, THERE ISN'T. These people still need help, sure. And a bike ride or something is as good a way to raise money as any, but you have to use it to raise MONEY. They can't eat awareness. They can't buy blankets with awareness. "Excuse me, sir, I'm hungry and my house is now that pile of kindling, could you spare some awareness? I won't use it to buy drugs or alcohol. Maybe just enough to keep me warm this winter?" Morons.

Classes are mostly good. Math is coming around, with some fireworks. Inviscid is getting into some actual fluid dynamics. Heat Transfer is starting to teach us about actual heat transfer problems, and evil, evil solutions. Technical Writing is awful, a waste of time and oxygen, and just stupid. We had some "ethical" questions to discuss as a group tonight. Every single one of these "gray areas of ethics" were met with a resounding, one-sided opinion that they were stupid questions and not actually moral or ethical issues. Then, we had a group ethics project about some made-up company wanting to limit employees' access to CompuServe. Yes, CompuServe. I don't think that has existed for a decade. And what is a digitizer? Apparently, the employees were abusing the company's digitizer. And the ethics, while possibly appropriate a decade ago before companies actually monitored computer usage and emails as a standard practice, is moot now because they do, and we accept it.

It's supposed to be 48 here tonight. Yippee.

What does Qximetry mean? Anyone? More tomorrow.

BRRRRR!!

Listening to Dr. Kuperschmidt gets more confusing everyday. Today, he told us how all the Russian people got angry when the last math professor who stood up to the Communists died on a mountain-climbing expedition. This without a hint of a group known as the KGB. Maybe his nuclear-battery-powered monitoring chip is still implanted, and he's worried about consequences. Works for me.

After math, Lee, Heather, Amy, and I tried to bum rush Dr. Vakili with a homework question, but he eluded us by not being in his office. Sneaky. So the four of us wasted the time between classes in Lee and Heather's office.

Inviscid went fine. I'd write more, but I'm tired and need to reply to Dr. Shiue. More tomorrow.

I Hate Technical Writing

Rather, I love writing in a technical manner; I hate the course in technical writing I am "required" to take. In class tonight, we separated into groups to discuss the ethical issues related to some bad chemical or something and whether the engineer lady should report it. Lee and I were in different groups, which led to the groups having the same responses, in general. BECAUSE WE ALREADY DID THIS. Say what you will about CBU, but its engineering program is almost graduate-level all around, and definitely in preparation for the "real" world.

A few hours earlier:

In Heat Transfer, Dr. Antar tried to derive the Bessel function of the first kind of order zero. It took all of the class time, plus 5 minutes of overrun, and he still didn't get there. A Bessel function is the solution to the differential equation of the form d2u/dx2 + 1/x du/dx + x = 0. There can be other constants in there, but that's the idea. And when you think Bessel function, don't think sin(x) or exp(x), think infinite series. A little like a Taylor series, but without the nice original function to fall back on. Bessel is on the list.

A few hours earlier:

I got some homework done, mostly in math, but a little advance in Inviscid. It's hard to get motivated in the morning before my afternoon class, and the afternoon after class is wasted getting ready for Technical Writing and eating before class.

This is for Hot Rod, D-Train, Chewbacca, Little Oprah, and the rest of you guys. More tomorrow.

Best Round of Disc Golf Ever

(1) I didn't twist my ankle, as I did the last time I played this course.
(2) I had a respectable score (90) on 18 holes.
(3) I found a new driver.

Lee took pictures. They're on Facebook. If you don't know what that means, I'm sorry. Also, good for you.

Atlantis launched. Space travel is a good thing.

Friday: I got a little work done, surprisingly. Friday nights are for "Star Stuff," so we watched SG-1 and Atlantis, which were good, but not great.

Saturday: Lots of work got done. The last of Inviscid homework for Monday, a section and a half in math, and half of the technical writing assignment. I'm strongly disliking technical writing.

The menu the past few days has been excellent. Grilled pork chops, baked potatoes, cornbread, then all-you-can-eat steak and shrimp at Western Sizzlin', then fried chicken, more baked potatoes, and more cornbread.

Sunday: this morning was a little homework time, not a lot. I got started "pretty-ing" the Inviscid homework due tomorrow. About 2, Lee and I left to play disc golf in Murfreesboro. That's an ordeal just because of the distance. I really like most of the course, though. It's just better than the one in Winchester. We found some food in Murfreesboro while we were there. It was tasty, but nothing to warrant special mention.

After reaching Tullahoma again, I finished the finish work on Inviscid, then looked at some math and the next inviscid assignment. I liked neither, so I took the rest of the evening off. And so it continues. More tomorrow.

NASA: Lose-Lose Launch

Yesterday wasn't what I'd call a "good" day "off." Other schedule conflicts kept me from being productive in homework, and kept me from sleeping as much as I might have liked. Those are really the only things Wednesday is good for.

Today was a little better. Morning class made me get up early, but that's not awful. We discussed vector spaces and some related things, which I could stand to brush up on. Then there's the fact that there are girls in the class. The class marks the first time in a decade there have been girls in one of my classes. Or maybe it just seems that way. (In truth, there has been a girl in at least one class every semester that I can think of.)

After the morning class, Lee and I wasted some time in his office, searched out a Pepsi machine, and wasted more time in his office. I say "wasted" - the time of that break is such that it's hard to start on anything because lunch is looming, then there's not really time after you eat to do much. So "wasted" is the term I use. I wish I could get more done during that time, but it's just not arranged helpfully.

Then Inviscid Flow was about coordinates and divs, grads, and curls. It also has girls, two from math and one from the base. Actually, all my classes have girls in them - that, I think, is new for the past couple of years. I did homework in class and half took notes while Dr. Vakili talked.

--

NASA can't win. They launch, and they took too big a risk. They hold off, and they're scared of failure or overly cautious. When did space travel become equivalent to a trip across town? Rocket scientists are held in high academic esteem for a reason. This stuff is hard. And in the last 20 years, we've lost 2 shuttles and crews. How many airplanes have crashed due to mechanical failures in that time? Cars?

Sorry, I happen to like space travel. For others. I have no particular wish to go into space. It'd be cool; I just don't think it's something worth pursuing as a personal goal.

Battlestar Galactica: one month from yesterday. More tomorrow.

Go Team Venture

The Venture Brothers has kept me up late tonight already, so I'm going to sleep. This isn't the start of update-skipping. I promise. More tomorrow.

The Answer is on the Page RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU

Ah, Tuesday. The day that I'd rather have my head smashed in with a medium-sized hammer than go to class. 1PM is heat transfer. The room was hot, stuffy, and uncomfortable. In addition, it was boring. Dr. Antar was doing a derivation that was in the book VERBATIM. At least it wasn't a Brother John derivation where the book had the whole thing, and he still got it wrong. Ah, undergraduate physics.

After class, which has been ending on time recently, Lee and I got lunch at Subway. It was excellent. Mostly, I was hungry, but it was good, too. Both of our subs together were less than $11, which is a good deal for foot-long subs.

Then came the fun times of trying to get the technical writing homework done. There were two reading assignments and two written assignments. With time running out, it was one or the other - so we both chose the written part. Then Dr. McEnglishTeacher decided to quiz everybody on the reading. WHAT?! I think I did alright on the quizzes just out of common sense and educated guessing. We also got a full syllabus. I'm too upset to go into that right now. Suffice it to say that the "light" workload definition varies between her and me. Mine doesn't involve 3 chapters and essays every class. I did ace both "evaluation" tests from last week. She apparently likes my writing style, which was hit-or-miss, and is going to help me the rest of the class.

Now, it's 11, and I want to meet some folks at Corvallis before it gets too late. More tomorrow.

They Fired Your Waiter

Yes, it really happened. Tonight, I was out to dinner with my old (ancient) friend Melissa at the Chili's in Germantown. We sat down, the waiter came by and took our drink orders. He brought our drinks out to us, and we needed just another couple minutes on what to order, so he said he'd be back in a few minutes. After about 15 minutes, I flagged down the waiter for the next table and asked him to find our waiter: tall guy, dark hair. New waiter went ahead and took our order and brought me a refill, then told us that our former waiter had been fired. Apparently, he refused to work a large group sitting nearby. So new guy became our waiter, and did a good job once he'd taken over. That's the first time that's happened to me. I'm sure it's not overly rare - probably someone experiences it somewhere every night, but it's worthy of the lead in a blog.

I get to drive back to Tullahoma tomorrow. Class Tuesday is in the afternoon, so I could do like Lee's doing and drive back Tuesday morning, but I'd really prefer to sleep in both days. He prefers to spend the time with his girlfriend on her birthday, which I certainly don't blame him for.

I hope my two remaining books arrive shortly. I really need to do my Technical Writing homework, despite its inherent worthlessness. I'll email the professor if I don't get the book in time. I doubt she'll be thrilled, but she'll get over it. It's not my fault the US Postal Service is slow. It may be my fault that I didn't order the book sooner, but that's moot. More tomorrow.

[ Edited ]

[ first paragraph edited out ]

I'm back in Memphis for the long Socialist weekend (Labor Day is America's tribute to Socialism, look it up). Since arriving yesterday, I've seen both my grandmothers, which is a little out of the ordinary (and good), because I don't get to see one of them very often, and neither of them very often since I've been in grad school.

My wireless internet connection is spotty at best here, so don't really expect to see me online a lot. I may be, then again, I may not. I doubt I'll post before I get back to Tullahoma Monday afternoon. More tomorrow.