[Title of Blog]

I’ve been sick these past few days.  Not dreadfully sick, thank goodness, but sick enough to make life just the slightest bit more miserable.  I’m not the guy who coughs up a storm in the middle of class - but I was the one who had to run out of Game Theory today, because I had run out of tissues for a runny nose.  I expect that this ordeal will be over soon enough; I’m not feeling too terrible, after all.  It’s just the occasional headache and cold sweat that is a bit bothersome.

On the other hand, I finally got my copy of The Princeton Companion to Mathematics today.  It’s… large, to say the least.  I can’t wait to read it all.  200 entries about pure maths, from the top Mathematicians today?  And written at an accesible level?  What’s not to like?

And now for a completely unrelated matter: politics.  Or rather, the philosophy of politics.  Is it good to surround yourself with like-minded advisers?  On the one hand, interpersonal relations will probably be helped if you share opinions.  However, there’s also the risk of deluding yourself if you’re agreed with too much -if all your friends are always telling you how right you are, when will you realize that you’re crazy, or that you make no sense?  (of course, ‘realize’ is a very dangerous word to use here).  I’m not too sure about the outcome, but I do think that effective leaders - and supporters - need to be level-minded about their political beliefs.  Striking out is too easy; we need to stop and think about our own reasons for doing things, sure.  But we should also try to empathize with the “opposing side” too.

I was just reading Tim Gower’s blog, when I came across a pretty cool passage of his (as he was talking about errata in the book he had just finished editing):

Several years ago, David Preiss and I were colleagues at University College London, and he said something that I’ve never forgotten, which was that if you are suspicious of a mathematical argument and want to find the mistake, look for anywhere where it says something like, “An easy argument shows that …” or “It is not hard to prove that …” I dare say he was not the first person to make this observation, but it doesn’t seem to be quite as standard as it might be.

Pretty cool, and it’s nice that he’s compiling errors on his blog.  I just put in my order for the book; it’s called the Princeton Companion to Mathematics, and is a huge collection of articles written by some of the foremost mathematicians today.  I can’t wait!

In case you didn’t know, I took a class last term called “Developing Mobile Applications with Android.”  Basically, we formed teams of 3-5 people and worked, startup-style, to push out a product.  After a few months of hard work, sssstarcraft, and being yelled at by John Ree (WHATAREYOUDOING!?), we pushed out Snap: a location-oriented community forum for everyday people, that unlike digg.com and similar social bookmarking sites, provides community perspectives on interesting places relevant to you.

Anyway, I was just checking out PC World’s “15 killer apps” for Android article… and what was the first thing that I saw?

Basically, it’s Snap.  They did a better job with it, but still… =P

For reference: the article mentioned is here.

I don’t write often.

I don’t know what it is about school, but when it’s happening, there just seems to be so much less time for everything else.  It’s not even like I’m working 24/7.  It’s just that there’s so much stuff going on that I just seem to lose track of it all.  Normal things, like calling back home, eating breakfast, or just enjoying the light autumn breeze.  Or, for that matter, writing in this little blog of mine.  Time just slips away, and I just let it.  It’s a small disappointment, one of those things that you’ll remember long after and give a small sigh for.  How sad…

That isn’t to say that my life is completely disorganized.  I’m somewhat proud that it hasn’t fallen to shambles, as it so often does in past semesters.  I am, to a certain extent, keeping up with my classes, and doing “not bad” in most of them.  I have a different set of habits than I did last year - the most glaring one is that I don’t play starcraft any more.  Needless to say, that frees up a lot of time.  Although… I’m not sure what it is that I do with this time.  Maybe I work harder.  Maybe I loaf around a lot more effectively.  But I’m also trying to be a little more proactive with my studies.  I go to more talks this year.  I try to keep up with my RSS feeds, and try to check out papers (even though the usual case is that they’re hopelessly over my head).  Hey hey, it’s the future, right?

I didn’t start writing here with a purpose in mind.  In fact, there’s almost nothing exciting or new in my life, except (oh!) that I went to see An Evening With Champions(ice skating show) last night, and it was flipping amazing. Absolutely, like it is every year!