Wednesday, February 25, 2004

 

It's A Boy!!!

My sister gave birth to a healthy lil' baby boy, Wolfgang, early yesterday morning. I'm an uncle! My sister's a mommy! Congratulations, Dawn!

Every time I think about it, I break out in a huge grin and put myself in an incredibly sunny mood.

Look, everybody, the world's a beautiful place! There are little babies born into it every day! I've got a nephew! I give myself the giggles.

I'll get to go and visit in a couple weeks. I can't wait! My boy Franny is hitting town tomorrow, direct from Oz. I can't wait to see 'im! Life ROCKS!

posted by Miles 1:56 PM

Monday, February 23, 2004

 

The organizer of the scrabble tournament I played in a few weeks ago has kind of befriended me and taken me under his wing, since. He's a really nice guy. So anyway, he invited me over to his house in Lexington, yesterday, for an afternoon of scrabble with him and a couple friends. All turned out to be really nice - and really smart. I was shocked (and proud) to actually be competetive with them in the three games I played - two losses, one win. Here was my best game:

Miles		Opponent
MINI	12	BODE	18
BRUNT	14	change 3	0
BOLT	20	TEA	14
JAR	26	HEADY	55
TUX	32	change 4	0
FIVE	17	FRYER	22
KEY	20	PACK	24
REP	15	OAR	3
ADZ	23	MA	16
FALSELY	68	AG	17
ROUTINE	67	ALINERS	83
IODISES	68	SPAWN	39
AW	28	TOUCHE	49
GOON	7	RIG	8
(overtime)	-10	(rack QVIN)	32
Total	408	Total	380

You can see it started off slow, but really heated up towards the end.

And yes, that's right, I bingoed three times in a row.

"Bingo, Bango, Bongo!" is apparently the "technical" term for it. I've never done it before, and I have no idea if I'll ever do it again. But I'll tell ya', damn was it exhilerating. :-)

As you can also see, there really aren't that many uncommon words on the board (well, there may have been cross plays that would have been odd, I'm not sure.) ALINERS, TOUCHE, AG if you're not a scrabble player.

Here are the other two games:

Miles		Opponent
LUTZ	26	JAIL	22
AJAR	11	LAP	14
ZOO	12	CENSURE	95
WOO	29	DAH	31
MA	10	ROTATED	69
NADIR	18	COOLY	24
KLUTZ	42	WEEST	42
PEEVE	28	VINO	26
change 7	0	FAQIR	40
LOG	23	YENTA	27
SAUCE	7	AGONE	20
MUSHY	26	BIAS	10
FIT	24	GIE	9
BRIDE	16
(rack)	6
Total	279	Total	429

Miles		Opponent
RELOSES*	62	MOURNING	60
ZIG	31	PEAKS	22
ETH	14	ODEA	15
(FOLLIENT*)	0	HOARD	31
FILLET	26	SWINE	57
GOY	29	FLEW	30
NOVAE	16	change 5	0
QUAD	16	MEAGER	42
REFACTOR*	92	REFACTORS*	42
BOP	32	JINGLED	34
TAJ	30	GUV	21
OY	19	RAX	26
TIDIER	12	CURTAIN	20
BAN	15	BI	7
		(rack)	6
Total	394	Total	413

More unusual words in these two games, obviously. In the latter, there were a bunch of phonies played (denoted *) - including both of my bingos. The first was just kinda' dumb; right after I put it down, I figured out it could have been RESOLES, which is good; also, the R was actually a blank, so (we figured out later, examining the board) it could have been TOELESS, too. I think there were one or two other obscure words in that rack, too. I was really surprised about REFACTOR* being a phony; Ben thought about challenging it, but decided against.


All in all: just an exceptionally fun afternoon.

posted by Miles 9:17 AM

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

 

Ow!

%#!@*#, Ow. I tweaked my back.

And on top of that, I came to MIT to do some work, and left my headphones behind, so I can't listen to music to provide some distraction from the pain. #@%*!

Aaarrghhhh.

posted by Miles 4:45 PM

 

He lives in the yard
He keeps himself high
He keeps himself homeless and heartless and hard
He sleeps under stairs
Along with the heirs of nothing
And nothing means no one who cares
But I love him dear
And I love him dear
And I've loved him hundreds of thousands of years
Stay
Stay, Stay . . .

- Belly, "Stay"

posted by Miles 11:13 AM

 

I'm crunching, work-wise. Trying hard not to get scooped. Competition in science is weird.

Pressure is a really excellent motivator, though.

posted by Miles 10:10 AM

Friday, February 13, 2004

 

So, we've got something going on in Massachussetts that I think deserves everyone's attention. It's getting it.

I decided, this morning, fuck it, I'm going to spend a half hour of my time writing my representatives in the state legislature. I recently registered to vote here (finally) and votes count most locally.

Writing discrimination into the constitution is just plain messed up - and it seems like it would be especially unfortunate for it to happen in this most liberal of states. We have a chance to set an important precedent here - just by following the supreme court's interpretation of the state constitution - and set it in stark contrast to the ignorant, discriminatory, and devisive precedent set in other states, recently, that have explicitly prohibited gays and lesbians from marrying.

If you live in Massachusetts and want to know who your representatives are and how to contact them, you can look here.

posted by Miles 10:55 AM

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

 

posted by Miles 12:39 PM

 

"It’s a shame about the weather
Nothing for the blues when the sky goes gray . . .

Any two points can make a line,
But I know I can never make you mine

I can never make you mine"

- Deb Talan, "Two Points"

posted by Miles 12:17 PM

Sunday, February 08, 2004

 

First: how deficits affect the economy. I wish there were a little more detail, here, but it gives a good outline.

Second: Dishonest Dubya, Lying Action Figure. You really do want to check this out. It's hilarious. This and the first link were both stolen from Eric Alterman's Altercation column on msnbc.

Third: Jess and I went to this Finland Steam Baths place in Quincy, yesterday, and I have to highly recommend it. I really want to build a steam room into my house "when I'm grown up". It's extraordinarily relaxing.

Fourth:

So, I've been more-or-less Scrabble obsessed for the last month or so. Jess's mom got me two scrabble books for Christmas, including the excellent Word Freaks, by Stefan Fatsis - a book about the mostly insane world of high-level competitive scrabble. I was inspired . . . and then I found The Internet Scrabble Club. Whoa. A server where you play for free, and can find a game against stiff competition at any hour of any day. Where people I was reading about in Fatsis' book play - you can, if you're not playing, just sit and observe them volley 7-letter bingos back and forth, "MADWORT", "FISTULA", "TEGULAR", finishing with final scores like 509-472. It's awe-inspiring. There are other sites, too, with word study lists ("for beginners" this one says) and strategy guides. There are freeware programs available to help you study. These things didn't exist five years ago. It's awesome.

So, anyway, having compiled a 44-26 record and a 1092 rating, online, I decided to enter a tournament being run by the Cambridge Scrabble Club (NSA local #531). I was pretty psyched.

The tournament was today.

I got my ass handed to me.

I played in the fourth division (out of five) and went 0-4, with a total point differential of about -140. I topped out at 328 in the four games. I was beaten - twice - by the elderly Marjorie Bash, who's been playing Club Scrabble for over 35 years.

It was AWESOME. I've never known anyone, aside from my dad, who can beat me consistently. And here, I've been studying and studying, improving my game . . . and all of these people can beat the crap out of me. What a challenge! Ah, I love this fucking game.

Enough with blogging. It's only 11:30. Time to get at least one more game in online.

posted by Miles 10:37 PM

Friday, February 06, 2004

 

I'm diggin' this new Deb Talen album I bought. Amazon has a free download of one song, "Thinking Amelia".

First heard on WERS, the best radio station in town.

posted by Miles 2:09 PM

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

 

44 Degrees! We're breaking the 40 degree barrier in Cambridge today!

Meanwhile, despite a win in Oklahoma and second place finishes in Arizona, New Mexico, and North Dakota, my man Wesley "$\int x\; sin(x)\; dx$" Clark saw his stock drop in the futures market where I bought him at $4-$8; he's down to $1-$4 as of this writing. Bummer.

posted by Miles 12:13 PM

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

 

Some random thoughts, starting with juvenalia and moving towards more serious matters.

We were all very disappointed, last night, that we didn't get to see more of this: The Fearless Streaker

How would you define "middle class"? First, think in terms of income percentiles . . .
Okay, now think in terms of actual dollar amounts, for a family of four.

You thought about it and came up with answers, right?

Right, so here's what the real numbers are, from the census bureau.

The reasonable definition of "middle class" it seems to me, is some region around the median; the middle three quintiles, for instance. This doesn't correspond at all to the way the term is used by politicians - they talk about repealing some of Bush's tax cuts, while keeping the "middle class tax cuts" for people making less than $200,000 a year. That means stretching the definition all the way up to about the 97th percentile.

Wes Clark's proposal, conversely, is to exempt families of four making less than $50,000 a year from paying any income tax; this would actually cover almost 60% of the population. It's not getting much attention.

The deficit, we are assured by the Bush administration, is only 4.5% of GDP, well below the record levels of the early 80's (when we hit a peak deficit of 6.0% of GDP). Deficits accumulate, though. The GDP last year was about $11 Trillion. The debt is now slightly more than $7 Trillion. That's 64% of GDP.

On another subject, I was watching The Chris Matthews Show on ABC, Sunday Morning, and the topic of discussion was the www.bushin30seconds.org "Child's Play" ad, and the superbowl controversy. Tucker Carlson, from Fox News, was on, and he stated that it was all a publicity stunt on the part of Move-On, and nothing more, because "they didn't have the money to pay for it". Which is just completely untrue, as far as I can tell. The ad is being played regularly on CNN, now, and according to the website they've raised a total of $8.9 Million in their latest fund-raising drive, centered on this ad contest. So Tucker Carlson was lying, outright, and no-one called him on it - there were four other panelists, plus Matthews, who's generally really well informed about issues he raises.

Finally, I've been bothered, constantly, by political analysts and politicians defending the Iraq war by saying "the best available intelligence at the time" indicated that they did have WMD, or that "no one was opposed at the time". There was a great deal of opposition before the war started, and a great deal of doubt about whether Iraq had WMD. The rest of the world, in fact, had serious doubts about whether Iraq had WMD. Remember? And remember those weapons inspectors who were roaming around Iraq for months, before the war? They didn't find anything. Some people (see "the rest of the world", above) thought that might be an indication that there weren't any WMD.

Also, with regard to the congressional vote authorizing the use of force, which has been a major issue in the primary campaign so far . . . no one, then or now, has made much of the fact that the whitehouse suppressed information about North Korea's nuclear capabilities until after the vote on the Iraq war was taken. A high level North Korean official had offered an open admission that they were actively developing nuclear weapons, in talks with U.S. officials during the week prior to the vote. The whitehouse knew about this, but didn't tell congress (or the press) until after the use-of-force authorization was on the books. I thought, at the time, that this should be a huge, huge issue. Nothing. Weird.

posted by Miles 12:05 AM

Monday, February 02, 2004

 

I spent the last week working on a paper reviewing the debate in the literature on whether the internal mental representation of number is logarithmic or linear. I'm excited about this paper, and since it fits the title of the blog so well, I thought it would be cool to put it up. However, I think it's got a real shot at publication, and I don't want to screw that up by pre-publishing it on the web, so as a compromise I've decided just to post the introduction and a few highlights. :-)




;-p

If you're really interested in reading the whole thing, I'd be more than happy to send it to you; just zap me an email.

posted by Miles 10:30 PM

 

Despite the excellent Superbowl yesterday, and an optimistic, eager attitude about the week to come when I went to bed last night, today I'm depressed. Haven't left the house.

My iPod is broken.

Just yesterday, I was listening to it over my living room stereo. This morning, when I was about to set off for work, I plugged in my headphones, and only got one channel. I wiggled the connector. Nothing. I fussed with it more, and more. I cleaned the contacts. I tried different headphones. No good. Left-channel audio only. Which is pretty crappy to listen to.

This is apparently a not-too-uncommon problem; I found some discussion of it on a few bulletin-board type sites. Sending it in to apple for service costs a whopping $250 + shipping, which is pretty ridiculous. I got a quote of $110 with no promises from a Western Michigan University student who claims to be an expert iPod repairman, but I'm not sure about sending it off to him. I followed instructions I found on the web, and pried the Pod open, examined everything, found nothing visibly amiss. When I put it back together, it still worked/failed in the same way. Aaargh. This when my Cambridge resident permit has just expired, meaning I'll be having to walk to work everyday from my new place in Somerville.

I'm so, so frustrated.

And on top of all that, I've been feeling vaguely sick all day.

posted by Miles 4:07 PM