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Ad Mundo Exteriore,
::great shout of joy:: The clustering program finally worked. I think I can write my paper for Intel after all. Whew!
And I think I can go home soon! No staying late in the lab today! ::dances around in a circle:: Yes! If I finish my math homework (and other assignments) quickly, I may even have time to read some more of the GEB.
By the way, there was another really clever dialogue in the GEB, which I read on Wednesday. It was titled, "A Little Harmonic Labyrinth," which was a Bach composition that modulated continually until it ended on a key that was not the tonic. However, due to the constant modulation, the listener would have been deceived into believing that it was the tonic. Meanwhile, the dialogue itself was a story within a story within a story within a story, etc. and once the innermost story was finished, they would "pop" back up using a "Popping-Out Tonic" (see the pun, tonic?) and return the story before. But because there were so many embedded stories, only the careful reader would notice that the dialogue ended in a story within the largest story, that is, that it didn't really return to the original starting point at all, just like Bach's piece did not return to the original key. The next chapter then talked about recursion and how recursive definitions can create infinite loops and gave examples like Fibonacci numbers and other very cool ideas. I'd go into more detail if Hofstadter didn't explain it all so well--if you're curious, go read the GEB for yourself.
I wanted to babble on about something, but I completely forgot what it was. Something to do with the paganistic aspects of the Old Testament? I forgot. Oh, by the way, I just reread the Book of Ruth, and I've discovered that Ruth is King David's great-grandmother. Her son Obed was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David. So the story of Ruth wasn't included just because it is a touching parable about giving up everything to follow God or anything grand like that. It was also because Ruth was David's ancestor, and they wanted to describe how it all began. I did think the Book of Ruth was a little too short to be more than trivially meaningful. I know that last phrase was a bit paradoxical, but don't sue.
I think I'm going to buy the Chamber of Secrets soundtrack after all. I don't have enough money for Sorceror's Stone DVD, so I might as well go get the CD instead. The Harry Potter theme song has been stuck in my head for ages.
...Tari
::great shout of joy:: The clustering program finally worked. I think I can write my paper for Intel after all. Whew!
And I think I can go home soon! No staying late in the lab today! ::dances around in a circle:: Yes! If I finish my math homework (and other assignments) quickly, I may even have time to read some more of the GEB.
By the way, there was another really clever dialogue in the GEB, which I read on Wednesday. It was titled, "A Little Harmonic Labyrinth," which was a Bach composition that modulated continually until it ended on a key that was not the tonic. However, due to the constant modulation, the listener would have been deceived into believing that it was the tonic. Meanwhile, the dialogue itself was a story within a story within a story within a story, etc. and once the innermost story was finished, they would "pop" back up using a "Popping-Out Tonic" (see the pun, tonic?) and return the story before. But because there were so many embedded stories, only the careful reader would notice that the dialogue ended in a story within the largest story, that is, that it didn't really return to the original starting point at all, just like Bach's piece did not return to the original key. The next chapter then talked about recursion and how recursive definitions can create infinite loops and gave examples like Fibonacci numbers and other very cool ideas. I'd go into more detail if Hofstadter didn't explain it all so well--if you're curious, go read the GEB for yourself.
I wanted to babble on about something, but I completely forgot what it was. Something to do with the paganistic aspects of the Old Testament? I forgot. Oh, by the way, I just reread the Book of Ruth, and I've discovered that Ruth is King David's great-grandmother. Her son Obed was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David. So the story of Ruth wasn't included just because it is a touching parable about giving up everything to follow God or anything grand like that. It was also because Ruth was David's ancestor, and they wanted to describe how it all began. I did think the Book of Ruth was a little too short to be more than trivially meaningful. I know that last phrase was a bit paradoxical, but don't sue.
I think I'm going to buy the Chamber of Secrets soundtrack after all. I don't have enough money for Sorceror's Stone DVD, so I might as well go get the CD instead. The Harry Potter theme song has been stuck in my head for ages.
...Tari
