Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Math Junkie's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
12:19 pm	You have no idea what kind of a week I've had. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
10:58 am	The other day my wife sent a personal note for Trent Reznor to his office. Completely cold, no prior context. His agent called back ten minutes later. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 25th, 2006
11:34 am	Ever wonder why women like wearing make-up so much? Butylene glycol is the safest of a class of chemicals called solubilizers Butylene glycol is rapidly absorbed through any tissue, including the skin. It is rapidly metabolized to gamma-hydroxybutyric acid in animals and humans. Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid is a naturally occurring chemical found in the brain and peripheral tissues of humans. Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid is also rapidly metabolized into succinate through the tricarboxylic acid cycle within the body. Given in high doses, a neuromodulator effect can be seen. However, in the small doses used as a solvent in pharmaceuticals and nutritionals, there are no known side effects. In water-based products, a concentration of 0.5% butylene glycol, as a solvent, would be safe for topical use. Butylene glycol in concentrations of 0.5% or less in a topically applied product scores at least 9 out of 10, with a score of 10 being perfectly safe. *boggle* Anyone know if there's ever been a study of the ratio of (1,3) butanediol to (1,4) butanediol in common make-up products? My money says that the proportion of (1,4) would turn out to be higher than naturally tends to occur via normal synthesis techniques. The dirty little secret of the cosmetics industry: foundation is actually a time-release formulation of GHB. The new fashion in getting high: vacuum distillation of cosmetics products. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 9th, 2005
11:37 pm	I picked up a public phone which kept ringing today. It was phoneswarm calling. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 14th, 2005
12:24 pm	A little tidbit of information for anyone curious about the origins of the civil war, there's a speech explaining the secession. A good summary line: "Louisiana [and] Texas... are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence, and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity" (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 28th, 2005
1:58 am	24 I just watched a bunch of episodes of the second season of the show 24. Man, what a piece of excrement that thing is. Soap opera style plot and dialogue. No flow of conversation, confrontational statements with no motivation other than to build drama. Moronic characters who don't show the slightest wiff of common sense if it would get in the way of the preplanned plot. Technobabble comparable to what you'd see on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But the worst part is what a nauseating propoganda piece the whole thing is. Military intelligence is always perfectly accurate, even if it's completely lacking in specifics. Terrorists are about to bomb the united states in a well-orchestrated well-funded attack. If you have the slightest suspicion that someone you know might be a terorrist, they're clearly guilty and you're perfectly justified in completely freaking out. The counter-terrorist agencies are completely on the ball. The president is in charge and highly competent. Torturing people always gets perfectly accurate information out of them. It's okay for law enforcement to kill a bunch of people if they think there's an emergency. The product placement for Fox news is a nice touch. It puts everything in context. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 10th, 2005
2:46 am	Thanks to the magic of ebay, I've now acquired a replacement Brain, this one with an accompanying Pinky. I paid almost $300 for it. A solo Brain just went for $50 (the reserve) plus $30 shipping, so I overpaid, but I wasn't sure if a brain would come up for sale again, and I think the second one got hurt by having a reserve price, which stopped a bidding war, and also by not mentioning pinky, so it was hard for it to show up in searches. In any case, I've got my replacement brain. woohoo! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 30th, 2005
1:38 am	R. has an ear infection. She's on antibiotics though. C. is now learning how to sleep through the night. I've been sitting next to him and petting him a little whenever he wakes up and cries. He hasn't done it for more than a few minutes at a stretch, thankfully. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
1:20 pm	I just got a replacement brain statue off of ebay, this time with pinky. W00t! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, December 31st, 2004
12:58 am	My step-daughter's father's family visited near here a few days ago. J. drove here there and she got to hang out with relatives on that side of the family (of which she has many, they're mormon) for a couple of hours. They're friendly people, and are quite accepting of C. as an honorary family member, and gave J. a lot of shit about how his father must be a lot cuter than their brother. R.'s biological father is the only one who didn't come to visit. She's been a bit of a basket-case the last few days. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 26th, 2004
9:40 am	I had a statue of the Brain, from Pinky and the Brain, on my desk. It was about a foot tall, and stood on my desk for six years. Now, thanks to the clumsiness of in-laws, it's smashed to pieces. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 11th, 2004
3:04 pm	I just got married. (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 7th, 2004
10:29 pm	( ruminations on human reproductive anatomy ) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 5th, 2004
7:11 am	Thanks to netflix, I've now rented some movies. Soldier - This is one of my favorite movies. Notably, it got completely panned by just about everybody. Reading the reviews, it becomes obvious that most people who have seen it haven't the foggiest idea what happens in this movie. Apparently the general public is so completely brainwashed by military propoganda that it can't even occur to them that the military might treat its soldiers like disposable slave labor, or that being trained to be a killer might make someone into a worse person, even when it's spelled out for them in painstaking detail. Note to self: never write a script which hits on these themes, people won't understand it. In particular, never suggest that you can have soldiers who exercise judgement when told to mow down unarmed civilians, or you can have soldiers who always obey all orders, but not both. That one makes peoples's heads explode. Hellboy - One of the most visually gorgeous movies I've ever seen. Rent it. 50 first dates - A very sweet love story. J. likes that I sometimes cry during movies now. The premise was way too abstract for my daughter to follow though. Apparently 5 year olds, even smart ones, need really simple plots. I told J. everything which was going to happen in this movie a third of the way in, but the details of how it was carried out were creative and enjoyable. I'm enjoying netflix. Queueing is a good way to watch movies even without the mechanical demands of inventory. There are now 37 discs in my netflix queue, so I should be set for a while. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 3rd, 2004
8:46 pm	I did some web searching for an old co-worker of mine, and it looks like his life has taken a bit of a wrong turn. He was riding his bicycle one day, got pulled over by a cop, refused to show ID, and his ordeal began. And this guy is a white jesus freak. He can be a bit obstinate, but is hardly anyone's image of the declining moral values of america. He's a little bit of a hippie - his web site used to contain information on recreational drug use. But come on, his home page goes on and on about how his business is all 'faith-based', and he has seven kids, two of them named Chastity and Faith. It looks like he got screwed out of the chunk of a former employer he owned as well. Such things are common in the bay area, but it's always sad when it happens to a hard-working family man whose main fault is being naive. The person I'd really like to have gotten screwed was our old boss. That guy seriously needed a bullet to the head. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 1st, 2004
1:30 pm	Movie suggestions I just got a netflix subscription, and now need movies to queue up. Horror films bore me to tears. We prefer things our daughter would be interested in watching. I'm not inclined to watch anything too disturbing because if I wanted that I could read a newspaper. Oh, and I'm a writing snob so unintentionally predictable sequences and bad dialogue really, really get on my nerves. Anybody got any suggestions? (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 16th, 2004
9:44 am	The other day spawn was looking contemplative, and I commented that he was thinking about "The Church-Turing Thesis, the second law of thermodynamics, the foundations of probability, and when am I next going to get boo-boo". "Just like daddy!" J. said. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 14th, 2004
8:26 pm	Getting undressed Back when I lived in NYC for a while I went to a bdsm-related night at a club called mother once a week, where I went to soak up atmosphere. It was the one thing I'd actually dress up for. Most dressy fashions are, to my eye, completely inane, hence my lack of owning a single suit. Although I did wear a Prada vest for a photo shoot recently. I asked if Prada was the name of a russian newspaper. Someone later told me that on such occasions one should declare 'I'm keeping this' and refuse to take it off, and it will just get expensed, but I'm not enough of an asshole to do that. Ahem. Anyhow, I do seem to have opinions about dark fashion clothing, although why that's any different from suits I can't tell you (except for the irritating way in which all american fashions are completely inferior to european fashions, but there's already been one excessive tangent for this paragraph). Boots are both fashionable and practical, as long as they aren't pointy or high-heeled. Pants can get a bit more interesting. I'm rather fond of leather pants, and will wear them regularly once I get mine hemmed, although at this time I only had one pair of leather pants and they were skin-tight. Skin-tight leather looks good without being completely slutty, but unfortunately when you seriously dance and sweat in that stuff it disintegrates quickly, so I recommend getting pants which are a bit looser. The most interesting piece of clothing I got was a latex shirt. It was hand-made by the baroness, back when to get stuff made by her you'd visit her house where she'd measure you and then custom make it. Her custom made stuff was much higher quality and barely more expensive than the crud you get at Mr. S. and the like, so I highly recommend it. The Baroness thought I was too skinny for skin-tight latex to look good, so my shirt fits more or less like a regular t-shirt (although a friend of mine has had it for quite a while now. harumph.) Latex, you must realize, is one of the most impractical clothing materials ever devised. It costs a lot, breathes about as well as a latex balloon, because, duh, that's what it's made from, is extremely hot in hot weather and freezing in cold weather, and gets easily damaged if it comes in contact with a cigarette or is stored improperly. But worse than any of those is that it's darn near impossible to take on and off. Doing so requires pretty much the same techniques as one uses to take on and off a straightjacket (literally, not figuratively). Some people claim that it's easier if you put baby powder on the inside. That's all hooey. If you want to wear latex, you need either a design which has zippers, some skilled and intimate friends, or some serious dressing and undressing technique. The Baroness thought I was too skinny for skin-tight latex to look good, so my shirt fits more or less like a regular t-shirt (although a friend of mine has had it for quite a while now. harumph.) Skin-tight is actually easier to take off, because you can sort of peel it off by turning it inside-out. Around the second or third time I wore the shirt out I got home at around 3am. Faced with the difficult problem of taking the shirt off, I decided to be clever and pull the front of the shirt up over my head and simply shrug it off my shoulders. A seemingly reasonable plan, and I got the front of the shirt over my head very easily... and then found that the shirt was now a very firm rubber band lodged around my shoulders. After a few minutes of messing with it it became clear that my original plan wasn't going to work. So instead I tried to pull the front of my shirt back over my head to get back to square 1. Unfortunately back then my hair was very long and poorly cared for, and had gotten thoroughly tangled in with the shirt, sticking it in place. After a some unsuccessful struggling with plan 2, the situation got serious. I'd now been trying to get undressed for an hour, and my arms felt like they were starting to lose circulation. At this point, I was seriously desperate, but my roommate was on vacation, and there were no scissors to be found (trust me, I looked). Some people claim to think clearly in a crisis situation. I think about the same as when I'm deciding what flavor of jam to put in my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So here I was, tired, aggravated, frustrated, and desperate, and to top it off, the whole situation was humiliating. I could just imagine starving to death in this position, and my obituary reading 'starved to death after getting stuck in a latex shirt'. Let this be a lesson to you kids. Fashion kills. With no better idea, I started trying to pull the back of the shirt back down again, figuring that then I could inch it over my shoulders. After a while of doing that, the shirt was still firmly lodged against my shoulders, but the lumps had been straightened out enough to free my hair. I pulled my hair out of the way, pulled the front of the shirt back over my head to get to square 1, then removed the shirt as a whole using an altogether superior technique. I got better at taking the shirt off after that. See, twistedwithin, I actually posted :P (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 7th, 2004
10:22 pm	The other day I got to tell an auditorium full of people that their jobs are going to evaporate in ten years. It was a lot of fun. (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 17th, 2004
12:41 am	LA The day before yesterday I was interviewed down in LA. The flight down was fairly uneventful, mostly because I've now learned the rules of flying (1) expunge all gaseous matter from your intestines before getting on the plane, since pressure changes can make that uncomfortable, (2) piss out all the water you can before getting on the plane, and wash your hands thoroughly, (3) don't use the bathrooms on the plane unless you absolutely have to, and even then just piss and don't touch anything, especially not the water, (4) don't touch your face while on the plane, and (5) wash your hands as soon as you get off the plane. Since I figured these out I've stopped getting a cold every time I fly. After I landed I went outside to get picked up. Immediately after walking out of the airport a guy walked up to me and complimented me on my hair, for which I said thank you, then he said he was from arizona and asked where I was from and raised his hand to give me a big good-buddy handshake. I stared at him blankly, without moving my hand in response, and after a minute got out that I'm from Seattle. He said 'so what are you, business man, rock star, actor, what?' I said 'none of the above', and he said that with my haircut and dress I looked like some kind of famous person. Since I have a bob haircut and was wearing a black t-shirt and cargo pants, and was holding a green sleeping bag and back-pack (because I'd literally been camping in offices the last few days) I have to wonder if he just says that to everybody. Then again, he might have found my face familiar and not been able to place from where, or maybe I give off a strong 'I'm more important than you' vibe, but that would have more to do with being from Manhattan than being famous. The guy gave me a nicely-printed book to read, and started asking mostly incoherent questions about religious-type things. I told him I'd accept the book, but that I had to go. He asked if I'd donate anything, and I said no, so he asked if I'd instead accept a softcover edition, which I was quite happy to. I've since read some of it, and it's about vedic philosophy. I'm interested in reading about such things, but have long been frustrated with how horrible they are at just getting to the point. I basically know what makes a protestant christian a christian, or what makes an orthodox jew a jew, but even after a decent amount of reading of buddhist literature I still can only vaguely grok what makes a buddhist a buddhist, and after reading this booklet on vedic philosophy I still have no insight into it other than that it's descended from buddhism. The driver somehow managed to go to the wrong terminal, but after a few minutes of calling back and forth he found me. On the drive to the studio he talked mostly incoherently about some class in counseling he was taking, but I was a little hazy on whether this was training for some counseling he'd like to do, or wanted to take, or was required to take by law. He mentioned that he'd like to take a plane flight just as a ride to see what it was like. I told him that they aren't very good for flying entertainment value, but he could probably get a round trip to vegas for around 200 dollars. He said his budget was more like 65 bucks to 70 bucks. I told him that taking a class in powered paragliding or base jumping would be much more what he wanted and within his budget range. TV sets are amusing to be on. They're much smaller than you'd think from watching TV, and there are always a zillion people doing a zillion things in preparation, basically all ignoring each other. It's so hard to keep anything in the filmed medium from looking like ass that everybody's focused technical things, with only minimal worrying about the more mundane and straightforward things like not fumbling over one's words. I was on the set of this same show a few years ago when a friend of mine got interviewed. There was some serious pathos on the set that time, this time it seemed like everybody was mostly just having fun. This might or might not correlate with the very large improvement in amount of clue the show has. I kicked ass in the interview, which was done live. One thing I worry about is that I was supposed to just act relaxed and talk directly with the person interviewing me, which I mostly did, but I also instinctively looked around at the various cameras which were there as if there were other people standing around listening to our conversation. I'll have to see how this came out on the tape, it might or might not have made me seem shifty-eyed. I also wore a leather jacket for the interview, which I hadn't intended to, but it was cold in the studio and I wound up shivering without it, so having it on was probably best. I'd been hanging out with a few friends who also get interviewed all the time the day before, and we compared notes on interviewing. Basically if you try to impress the interviewers with how serious you are they'll hate your guts, but if you come across as a regular guy (which isn't even vaguely a stretch for any of us) they'll love you. This is in stark contrast to the conventional wisdom that you should get a publicist to talk to the press for you. After the interview, I got driven back to the airport with a completely excessive amount of time to spare before my flight. Unfortunately my flight was cancelled. I asked if I could get re-booked on the first flight out, and they put me on a delayed flight which at the time was expected to leave at the exact same time my scheduled flight was supposed to. I waited around the airport, and wound up eating at Burger King, which I don't generally eat at, but it was the best food in that section of the airport, and unlike McDonald's is actually recognizable as food. There was an announcement that some people would have to take a later flight, possibly even the next day, and that anyone wishing to re-book for the next day, and only those people, should get in line to do so. I sat and read a book. After a while I looked up and noticed that the flight status had been changed to cancelled, which there had been no announcement of. I waited in line, and at the end was told that chances are I wouldn't make it out that night and really should book for the next day, which I did. I asked if I could get a voucher to stay in a hotel, and they said no. This was on Alaska Airlines, by the way. This was all especially annoying because the TV show usually has people stay in a hotel overnight and fly back the next day, but I'd wanted to get home the next day. If I had a crystal ball I'd have been able to hang out with the TV people for a while after my interview, and avoid a bunch of aggravation and waiting in the airport. I went down to information to find out about hotels. Going through the booklet of hotels they had at airport information, I was looking for something upscale because (a) downscale hotels are sometimes fine but often disgusting, and (b) such hotels were a lot less likely to be sold out, which someone else in the airport had told me was the case with many of the hotels in the city at that time. I had trouble identifying what was upscale because all the prices seemed oddly low. It turns out that there are distressed traveler rates which you can get if they call in for you. You don't need to actually be a distressed traveler to get these, just willing to make your reservations the night of. After calling a few places which turned out to be sold out, I got a room at the Sheraton Gateway for $54. Apparently the cause of all that airport nastiness was that the radio tower had lost power for a while, which resulted in a huge airplane backlog. A flight attendant said it was the first time in aviation history. Lucky me. After catching the shuttle bus to the hotel, the gay guy who checked me in commented that my bob haircut is a lot better than the long hair I have on my ID. He also informed me, after I asked, that the Sheraton is usually $169 a night. This is actually one of the cheapest hotels I've stayed at in a while, which I hope says more about how frequently I pay for my own room than what kinds of places I like staying in. My room was fairly nice though, and was on the top floor, although oddly my keys were flaky at first and someone who walked by commented that he'd had to get new keys, which I did and the new ones worked fine. I went to the hotel bar, got a $7.31 midori sour, and got actively ignored by some society women. I tried to use wireless, but they change $10 for a day of usage, which I find plain offensive, especially at such an expensive hotel, so I opted to just go get some sleep. The next morning I had trouble getting anyone's attention to check out, so I just dropped off my keys and said I was done with my room and left, because waiting much longer could easily have made me late for my flight. I sure hope they checked me out properly. The plane flight home was uneventful. It was sure nice to get back. (2 Comments |Comment on this)