It's Dai Time

Katie & Scott & Simon & Cecily.

Tag: math (Page 1 of 2)

Day 186: 80s tv, or the lack thereof

August 16, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Sometimes, I wonder what I did as a child.  I mean, except for memorize multiplication tables.

I certainly didn’t indulge in television watching – I was too busy doing homework!  And chatting up babes on the Internet.  Kate rattled off a long string of 80s television shows, of which I had watched probably less than 10% of.

I don’t remember watching any episodes of classics like Who’s the Boss, Family Ties, or Charles in Charge.  I remember seeing tidbits of long-running series like Cheers or MASH.  Really, the only shows in my childhood I can lay claim to are those from the TGIF block: Step by Step, Family Matters, and Boy Meets World.

Aside from that, it seems that I missed out on a lot of television nostalgia that others in my generation have.  Katie also remembers a show about a little girl that was a robot called Small Wonder.

I had never heard of it, but I think that my position is the majority here.  Has anyone heard of Small Wonder?  Wikipedia says that it was considered by TV Guide and the BBC to be one of the worst sitcoms ever.

Taking sample SAT tests may have actually been more fun than watching that.  And believe me – I took a lot of those as a kid.

Day 173: LIY

August 3, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Many skills in my life have been LIY – learn-it-yourself – and there’s a certain calmness and excitement about teaching yourself the basics in a new skill.

I went through a few Maya tutorials today to supplement myself with some 3D modeling skills that should help the team over the next year (and, I suppose, in the long run, forever).

It was nice.  Just reading through the Maya starters guide, making my first polygons, going through my first extrusions.  It’s like hiking an abandoned trail, seeing sights for the first time, with the knowledge and safety that an expert has already forged this path, lying flags along the best trail.

In some ways, I like it better than having the tour guide with me the whole time.  There’s no pressure to ask good questions, no expectations from the tour guide to keep up, and with a self-guided walk, the pace is entirely your own.

Also, picking up new computer programs and thinking in terms of numbers and mathematics is easier for me than picking up a language or a skill like a guitar.  Or perhaps it’s just because I enjoy it more, so I’m willing to devote more time each day to it?

Or perhaps it’s simply because I can go through a Maya tutorial at work for a day, while spouting random German phrases and having co-workers quiz me on German grammar would probably not go over as well.

Day 105: et in arcadia ego

May 27, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Tonight, I saw my third Arcadia staging in my life.  I liked it.  It’s a good show, full of memorable lines, characters, and wry mathematical humor.  It’s pretty classic Stoppard, and as such thoroughly entertaining and filled with academic references to things.

More than anything else, it made me want to do math.  And write some sort of story based in two separate times.

I conceived of a half-baked plot during my college playwriting class that took place in two different periods of time, but I never actually sketched out what happened at the end.  It also had a tinge of a horror element to it, which I feel never plays out that well on the stage.

We also walked around DC today and visited the Spy Museum where we helped stop a nuclear disaster, although I disagreed with my fellow agents, which would have potentially been a PR disaster for our fictional spy agency.  I suppose that makes me not a great spy.

Tomorrow, we head back home in the afternoon, but our hopes are to get a tour of Ford’s Theatre tomorrow morning, along with some more Dunkin Donuts.

I did drink a Yuengling today, so that’s already in the books.

Day 65: numbers

April 17, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I was talking my friend Dan through the Internet today about a variety of topics and I expressed that I had, just this season, found myself becoming a bit of a fan of the Oakland A’s – our local baseball team.

I attributed this sudden liking to several factors: we recently bought a house less than 5 miles away from the stadium, star outfielder Matt Holliday is on both my fantasy teams, and the team has two young promising pitching prospects.  And there’s nothing that gets me excited like prospects, be they young baseball players, untapped rivers where gold nuggets are to be found, or a variety of eligible bachelors.

He then mentioned that he liked their GM, Billy Beane, because he consistently managed the team well, while having to deal with the budget of a small-market team.  He also mentioned that Beane pioneered the use of the statistical analysis that most baseball teams now use (in some format) for evaluating players.

Which got me thinking: I like numbers.  Deep in my heart, behind the emotions and aorta, I often think that most things can be determined by numbers.

And I find numbers comforting.  If my fantasy baseball players are performing poorly right now, but their past numbers indicate that this is well outside the realm of how they’ll finish the year, all I have to do is wait.  The numbers say that they’ll get better, and the numbers know a lot more than I do.

I can look back on the amount of money our household has spent on the past 6 months on dining out at restaurants versus groceries and they will inform me of trends and patterns that are helpful for future planning of both finances and food.

Numbers calm me down when I think about things like plane crashes or random murders or meteors crashing into my house.

I also really like math.  I love being able to distill decisions down to a simple (or not so simple) equation.  That’s probably also why I like games so much.  Video games tend to have some of these decisions (RPGs and games with inventory management have more), but Euro-style board games are essentially an hour-long exercise in making decisions based on math.

I think I’d like managing a professional sports team, although I don’t know if I could deal with all the hate mail.  Or all the athletes.

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