Fluff

I'm a self-avowed fan of fluff. It's not very manly of me, I admit, but I'm unabashedly fond of Angora rabbits and alpaca fleece. It doesn't take a grizzled ex-Marine to appreciate the advantages of goose down over bare concrete.

But fluff comes in many forms. Many consider Shakespeare and Jane Austin to be fluffy as well. Brain fluff. (and, yes, I'll admit to being a fan of fluffy literature.)

One may--and, probably should--question the long-term effects of fluff. Is it possible to escape the gravitational pull of a fluffy lifestyle after you've indulged long enough?

Fluff is cute, comfortable, and companionable. However, it is not good for developing abs of steel or a mind of metal. Case in point: neither Maximus Decimus Meridius nor Saruman the White were fluffy guys.

The enterprising mind will try to grasp the advantages of both worlds. There are two ways to accomplish this. One approach is to embrace fluff and substantive labor simultaneously. Unfortunately, such behavior would probably involve laughing uproariously at your calculus book or sleeping in chainmail. So, no, count me as a skeptic.

The second approach is to embrace one for a time, then switch gears and bask in the other. A lot of working adults have this as their penultimate goal in life. Work your heart out for 40 years, then chill in the easy chair of retirement with a tall glass of lemonade. This isn't a bad approach, but be warned, once you've acquired a taste for charcoal toast, it may be hard to relinquish it.

Lazier members of society eschew the idea of toil altogether. If you can't take it with you, why bother?

Suckers for punishment form the opposing echelon of thought. Somehow--and I would love to learn the secret--they've managed to put a facade of leisure on their house of horrors.

But, eh, at the end of the day, life is pain. Anybody who says otherwise is selling something. Even fluff can result in pain (to which anybody who has gone to a lion petting zoo can attest).

Ask too much of life, and you'll be disappointed. Ask too little, and you'll be infected with the same fatal cancer.

Be content.

(Yeah, apparently my parents weren't off their meds when they gave me the same advice. Parents know what they're talking about. Who knew?)

Until next time,
- Daniel

Laura

Memory is my nemesis. It's as simple as that. Some things come naturally, others don't.

Like names.

My pastor once told me that he can walk up to a 30-year parishioner and completely forget his name. I laughed.

Until it happened to me.

Usually these events are rather sporadic. Usually they never repeat for the same person. Usually a few choice mnemonics can set the problem to rights.

However, the concept of "usually" means that such trends are meant to be broken. Yes, even with something as mundane as memory (or the lack thereof). See, I have a friend named Laura...

Except you wouldn't know that her name is Laura. I never call her that. It's not intentional, it's just... yeah. The first time it was funny, the second time less so, the third time embarrassing, and the progression has continued downwards from there.

Last night was the final straw. I called her by the wrong name, and ended up writing a map on a notepad with an arrow pointing to her seat at the table to remind me.

The frustrating thing is, with most Lauras, I'm a-ok. It's just this particular one that gives me trouble.

It's kind of a dangerous situation if you think about it. Say you're playing frisbee. Good practice is to say the name of the person you're throwing the disc to. Call out the wrong name and give a particularly aggressive throw, and bad things could happen.

I mean, really. Imagine the resulting obituary: "killed by forgetful friend."

Not good.

The result is this blog post. I'm putting all my chips on the table. If the ol' grey matter can't take a hint by a global publication of its failings, nothing will work.

--------------------------------------------

In retrospect, perhaps I should have anonymized her name. But then, as I know multiple Lauras (five at last count), the same aim is achieved. Besides, with my luck, I've probably got the wrong name, so all is well.


Until next time,
- Daniel

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. "Be Thankful" is the order of the day. So, in the spirit of the season, I've compiled a list of 10 things I'm thankful for. They're in no particular order (which is good, as I wouldn't want you to get the impression that I rank socks over my buddy Nick).

Also, before I begin, there's a soap box here that needs a little lovin'...

Ah, much better. Being 7-feet tall has its perks. Start rant...

The only thing Turkey and Thanksgiving have in common is that they both start with the letter 'T' (and that the former is slaughtered en-masse in preparation for the latter.)

Not to sound too grumpy, because, after all, I heart an annual Tryptophan high just as much as the next carnivore. However, can we please lose the association that Thanksgiving = Turkey Dinner? Turkeys are to Thanksgiving what Santa Claus is to Christmas and what Bunnies are to Easter.

/rant

There, I feel better now...

So, with no further ado... just what could a paranoid, introverted homeschool grad be grateful for? Here goes...

1. Socks
   For being warm, fluffy, and making it possible to run in freezing weather.
   
   
2. I Kissed Dating Goodbye
   For making me feel more holy and pure (and doing nothing to help me choose the right girl.)
   
   
3. Purdue
   For taking my money away so I couldn't do stupid things with it.
   
   
4. Puppet Labs
   For giving me money so I could give it to Purdue so I couldn't do stupid things with it.
   
   
5. English Country Dancing
   For disproving the common anatomical misconception that some people are born with two left feet.
   
   
6. Apple Inc.
   For helping me end an era of pro-Microsoft bigotry. Oh yeah... and for being cool.
   
   
7. Nick Morrissey
   For not dying (but unfortunately raising the suspicion that running with Daniel could end in premature death.)
   
   
8. Stochastic Processes
   For making me feel like an idiot.
   
   
9. Linear Algebra
   For not making me feel like an idiot.
   
   
10. TriMet
    For dealing with traffic so I can focus on Jeeves and Wooster.

And there you have it. Nobody said I was the most orthodox person in the world. What are you thankful for?

Until next time,

- Daniel

Dogfooding

Eating your own dog food. Novel concept. If you don't like the taste of your own shoe leather, don't feed it to somebody else.

At work, the entire company is spending the next six weeks executing 'Project Empathy'. We're using our own software, experiencing the pain our users experience, and hating ourselves every step of the way.

But I don't want to talk about software. For one, after a long day at work, I'm sick of the stuff. Two, nobody can put an audience to sleep faster than computer scientists talking shop.

How does dogfooding apply to real life?

Birthday gifts are a prime example. When you give a gift, it can be difficult to give something that you yourself would like to have. So... and this is entirely anecdotal... most gifts are something the giver either doesn't want or is indifferent to.

The result? You aren't eating your own dogfood.

Be willing to give. Generously. Give as you would have given to you. If you love others as you love yourself, you're doing both yourself and them a favor. You're still eating your own food, but it's good stuff: caviar for the Russians, ice cream for everybody else.

Maybe this seems petty and materialistic. And granted, if you're measuring your friendships by finery, that's just sad.

However, I'd like to propose something to you. Honesty, candor... all that stuff we like to harp on and talk about... I'd maintain that it's rooted in our wallets.

Words are cheap. Actions are more expensive. Gifts are you-did-what-with-your-bank-account???

If you won't back up verbally communicated friendship with a day at the beach, a hike in the woods, or a surprise birthday party, you probably aren't the sort of person who will invest monetarily during hard times and in desperate circumstances.

A corollary can be found in Proverbs 14:20:

The poor is hated even by his neighbor,
         But those who love the rich are many.

In the same vein, you don't go around buying everybody on your Facebook friends list an iPhone 4GS. Friendships are founded with words, developed through actions, and matured through investment. As has been astutely noted by some of you, you don't go from anonymity to intimacy in one fell blow. Don't give your heart, time, and money away without a thought.

Learn what it means to be a friend. Hold nothing back, but be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

Me personally, if I see one more SSL error, I'm going to scream. If your computer screen spontaneously cracks, now you know why.

Until next time,
- Daniel

Practical Application (or not)

Math. The nectar of the gods. The refuge of the wise. With a pad of paper and a pencil, you can move the world.

Take a cup of water. How do you calculate the volume? Good question. Glad you asked. Fortunately for us, we have this thing called calculus.

All you have to do is find a mathematical model that describes the shape of the cup, integrate, and voila, you have the volume.

Now, a standard pixie cup can be represented by a truncated circular cone, which can be described via:

The cross-section of the cup, going through the xy plane, is a circle, described by:

With a = z for any particular cross section. The area of a circle is... as we all know:

Since the radius is z for our example, the area of a cross section becomes:

Great, so we've got the area for each cross section of our pixie cup. Now, to calculate the volume, we merely integrate the area of each cross-section over the height of the cup. Simple.

Now, there's the fact that c <= z <= d, where c is the radius of the cup at the bottom and d is the radius of the cup at the top. Hence, the resulting integral becomes:

The beautiful thing about calculus is that there are various ways to visualize things. For example, instead of integrating from c to d, we could calculate two integrals from 0 to c and 0 to d, respectively, then subtract the former from the latter. This has the effect of finding the volume of a large circular cone and subtracting the volume of a smaller cone from it. This looks like:

Voila.

Up until now we've been using arbitrary constants. To find the volume for this particular cup, all we need to do is make a couple of measurements.

Ah, we find that the bottom radius is 1.5 inches and the top radius is 2 inches.

Plugging these numbers into our formula, we see that the cup contains 24.74 cubic inches of water. Now, this isn't terribly useful, so let's convert to cups.

The ratio of cubic inches to cups is 1 cubic inch to 0.06926 cups. So... multiplying by 0.06926, we have 1.71349 cups.

...or you could just use a measuring cup. That works too. Sometimes using math to solve certain problems is analogous to hunting moose with bazookas.

Until next time,
- Daniel