Thursday, October 27, 2005
Go Sox!
A sweep! The first World Series appearance since 1959! The first World Series win since 1917!
Saturday, October 8, 2005
Hmm
I couldn't stop sneezing today. I thought it was allergies. But it's been unusually cold in the apartment all day, and now it's so warm. I know there's a problem when my apartment feels warm in autumn...
Thursday, October 6, 2005
O Fortuna
O Fortuna velut luna statu variabilis,
semper crescis aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis nunc obdurat et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem, potestatem dissolvit ut glaciem.
Sors immanis et inanis,
rota tu volubilis, status malus,
vana salus semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata et velata mihi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum dorsum nudum fero tui sceleris.
Sors salutis et virtutis mihi nunc contraria,
est affectus et defectus semper in angaria.
Hac in hora sine mora corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!
Monday, September 26, 2005
Hmm
Not that the United States is particularly keen on protecting civil liberties or not arresting people willy-nilly, it does happen elsewhere. At least it beats being shot to death by the same scared, incompetent police department.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
New horizons...
I can now attest to the fact that a ride home in a Chicago police car is much faster than taking the route 55 bus.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Mike Broshi owns a business?
You decide:
(Found on flickr via a blog. Click on the image to go to flickr.)
(Found on flickr via a blog. Click on the image to go to flickr.)
Monday, August 29, 2005
Yea though I walk through the valley
I had a weird dream the other night. The whole dream was unusually vivid. The dream started at a store, very much like a bookstore, with lots of shelves, everything a light brown color. The place reminded me of Barnes & Noble or Borders. It was generic. It could've been a Hallmark store just as easily. I was there to get a greeting card, so I used a computer display in the store to make a personalized card. I don't remember why I wanted a greeting card, but it seemed an important enough reason at the time.
Once I secured the card, I had to go upstairs to buy stamps. This store was on the 28th floor so I got into the elevator to go up one floor. Unfortunately when I got in the elevator, it was but a shell of a car. Its walls were the plain metal exterior of the car. Its wiring was exposed. Its lights didn't seem to work. I began to worry. As it turns out, it was not a working elevator, and I plunged all 28 stories down to my death.
Now, although odd, at this point the dream's not entirely shocking. I've had my share of dreams where I die, or come close to dying, both at the hands of others and of purely natural causes. I've been shot at by a sniper, I've been chased down by anthropomorphic lightning... But I usually wake up--breathing heavily. It's supposed to be a nightmare. Not this time!
Although dead in the elevator, I did not wake up. The dream calmly continued. I--now dead--was suddenly back in the store. My sister was there and I was attempting to say goodbye, although she was rather bored with me and walked away. My mom was also there. Then quite suddenly I was no longer in the store. I was walking out of a house, through a patio. The patio had a covering with wooden supports, painted white, and thin wooden lattice work between the supports. I was walking with other people in a single-file line. The only recognizable person in the group was Jesus! Although he was not what you may imagine of Jesus. He was white, middle-aged, with short brownish-grey hair, wearing glasses, sandals, and a robe--a bath robe. He had a small face with tight muscles. I could see the veins near his temples and the wrinkles near his eyes.
I said to him that I couldn't recall if I had repented before death and apologized if I had. He said I had. We continued walking in silence. Then I woke up.
Once I secured the card, I had to go upstairs to buy stamps. This store was on the 28th floor so I got into the elevator to go up one floor. Unfortunately when I got in the elevator, it was but a shell of a car. Its walls were the plain metal exterior of the car. Its wiring was exposed. Its lights didn't seem to work. I began to worry. As it turns out, it was not a working elevator, and I plunged all 28 stories down to my death.
Now, although odd, at this point the dream's not entirely shocking. I've had my share of dreams where I die, or come close to dying, both at the hands of others and of purely natural causes. I've been shot at by a sniper, I've been chased down by anthropomorphic lightning... But I usually wake up--breathing heavily. It's supposed to be a nightmare. Not this time!
Although dead in the elevator, I did not wake up. The dream calmly continued. I--now dead--was suddenly back in the store. My sister was there and I was attempting to say goodbye, although she was rather bored with me and walked away. My mom was also there. Then quite suddenly I was no longer in the store. I was walking out of a house, through a patio. The patio had a covering with wooden supports, painted white, and thin wooden lattice work between the supports. I was walking with other people in a single-file line. The only recognizable person in the group was Jesus! Although he was not what you may imagine of Jesus. He was white, middle-aged, with short brownish-grey hair, wearing glasses, sandals, and a robe--a bath robe. He had a small face with tight muscles. I could see the veins near his temples and the wrinkles near his eyes.
I said to him that I couldn't recall if I had repented before death and apologized if I had. He said I had. We continued walking in silence. Then I woke up.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
My favorite quote
Although overly idealistic, I've long liked this quote:
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence--even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "you are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Examining my system
Ok, so this linode setup is pretty neat. The whole thing is based on UML, so several "hosts" run on one box. You essentially get your own computer coexisting with others on the same hardware. They have multiple distributions to install, etc. Installing and formatting the disk are done with their web interface. Once installed though, you have your own box esssentially. You can even ssh into the box your host is running on, and get console access!
So far a great experience...
So far a great experience...
Control freak
Ok, so modified it a bit. Dates appear below posts, with categories. This bugs me less. :-)
Playing with the blog
I like this theme.
Meanwhile, this is getting to be a very small Debian installation. 134 packages installed, 197 MiB used. And still it could get better.
Meanwhile, this is getting to be a very small Debian installation. 134 packages installed, 197 MiB used. And still it could get better.
Another day
Ok, so a little backstory... My friend WS has an excellent job as network architect/engineer for some web hosting company. He set himself up a little private box on their network, and that was hosting jgarrett.org. The purpose of my little vanity address itself is questionable, but I'd like to think of it at least as giving itself to a stable e-mail and web server. Turns out that the e-mail went down on that machine about a month ago, and I was completely unaware. I'm not so fond of e-mail. :-)
The reason for the failure was a rather questionable apt-get upgrade, shortly after Debian 3.1 was released. Anyways, this gave me the incentive to relocate. This way, (a) I'm not mooching off of WS' bandwidth, (b) he was going to need to move that machine sometime anyways, leading to trouble, and (c) I can task the machine exactly right. :-)
Linode.com was what I settled on. Seems like a great little UML based virtual hosting place. Anyways, right now I'm in the process of getting everything set up the way I like, and batting down the hatches as it were.
In more personal news, you may or may not know that my brother intends to become a fireman. He is taking some classes to this effect. Anyways a week ago, his equipment worth nearly $1500 was stolen out of his truck. The real downside more than anything else it seemed, was that this would put him very far behind in his class. See, he originally ordered the coat specially, to get the sleeve length right, and it took 2 weeks to get the coat in. Fortunately though, this time he had no problems at all. He has already got his equipment replaced and only had to make up about 30 minutes worth of instruction.
Yay for that!
The reason for the failure was a rather questionable apt-get upgrade, shortly after Debian 3.1 was released. Anyways, this gave me the incentive to relocate. This way, (a) I'm not mooching off of WS' bandwidth, (b) he was going to need to move that machine sometime anyways, leading to trouble, and (c) I can task the machine exactly right. :-)
Linode.com was what I settled on. Seems like a great little UML based virtual hosting place. Anyways, right now I'm in the process of getting everything set up the way I like, and batting down the hatches as it were.
In more personal news, you may or may not know that my brother intends to become a fireman. He is taking some classes to this effect. Anyways a week ago, his equipment worth nearly $1500 was stolen out of his truck. The real downside more than anything else it seemed, was that this would put him very far behind in his class. See, he originally ordered the coat specially, to get the sleeve length right, and it took 2 weeks to get the coat in. Fortunately though, this time he had no problems at all. He has already got his equipment replaced and only had to make up about 30 minutes worth of instruction.
Yay for that!
Thursday, May 26, 2005
The Phoenix Moves
I have acquired for my own nefarious purposes the domain jgarrett.org.
My blog is therefore moving to http://jgarrett.org/blog.
My blog is therefore moving to http://jgarrett.org/blog.
Friday, April 8, 2005
The Phoenix Rises
My livejournal account has not yet been discontinued, despite my nearly 2 year hiatus. (I think my gmail account has!) This warrants new entries. Unfortunately the math will not be as restrained, although not quite as evident as in Ian's blog.
A geometer friend Ben from college is visiting. He told me about a process through which you can associate a curve to a knot. One can then ask if infinitely many curves of genus 0 show up, etc. Apparently to do this, one starts with a knot, look at the complement in S3, give this a hyperbolic structure, look at the associated group in PSL2C, and take the character variety. There is a distinguished component, and it is 1-dimensional. Smooth this and you get a smooth proper curve defined over a number field from your knot. My first response to this was to consider the analogy between 3-manifolds and number fields. By this analogy, one would have a process which associates to each rational prime a smooth proper curve over some number field. I would be curious to know what this is. Then one could guess what the appropriate answers are to questions about the curves.
In relation to something else he brought up, the question arose if the rank of an elliptic curve over a number field is independent of the number field. That is, is it stable under extension. This is a pretty stupid question, but I don't know the answer. Another question: given an elliptic curve E over a number field K, can the set of points over K be dense in E.
Another Ben told me while ago that étale K-theory is just the étale sheafification of algebraic K-theory. Although this should've been obvious to me, it wasn't. Algebraic K-theory gives a presheaf of spectra on the small étale site of a scheme X, and one should sheafify to get a sheaf of spectra. The global sections of this of this on X is the étale K-theory spectrum. One can make sense of the sheafification with model categories and Bousfield localization. Ben suggested that the theory of Kan extensions means you can make sense of sheafification whenever you have a theory of homotopy limits. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about Kan extensions.
A more naïve approach to sheafification might be solved as follows. For a “triangulated category” D, there should be a notion of presheaves and sheaves with values in D. These should also be “triangulated categories.” One should have notions of exactness and localization. An example of both should be given by sheafification. One should have an exact global sections functor from both presheaves and sheaves to D. There should be a descent spectral sequence, etc.
Unfortunately, trying to do this naïvely with triangulated categories fails due to the nonuniqueness of the cone. One should use DG-categories, or better A∞ categories.
This perhaps explains why one has to go through the model category structure above when D is the category of spectra, and likewise why Thomason has to work so hard to work with appropriate models of the derived category.
One can likewise introduce algebraic K-theory this way. Define it first for affine schemes, and then sheafify in the Zariski topology. I should write this all up soon.
Another example of this, would be with D the derived category of abelian groups. Then sheaves with values in D would essentially be the derived category of sheaves. The global sections functor is the usual one, and the descent spectral sequence specializes to the hypercohomology spectral sequence.
A geometer friend Ben from college is visiting. He told me about a process through which you can associate a curve to a knot. One can then ask if infinitely many curves of genus 0 show up, etc. Apparently to do this, one starts with a knot, look at the complement in S3, give this a hyperbolic structure, look at the associated group in PSL2C, and take the character variety. There is a distinguished component, and it is 1-dimensional. Smooth this and you get a smooth proper curve defined over a number field from your knot. My first response to this was to consider the analogy between 3-manifolds and number fields. By this analogy, one would have a process which associates to each rational prime a smooth proper curve over some number field. I would be curious to know what this is. Then one could guess what the appropriate answers are to questions about the curves.
In relation to something else he brought up, the question arose if the rank of an elliptic curve over a number field is independent of the number field. That is, is it stable under extension. This is a pretty stupid question, but I don't know the answer. Another question: given an elliptic curve E over a number field K, can the set of points over K be dense in E.
Another Ben told me while ago that étale K-theory is just the étale sheafification of algebraic K-theory. Although this should've been obvious to me, it wasn't. Algebraic K-theory gives a presheaf of spectra on the small étale site of a scheme X, and one should sheafify to get a sheaf of spectra. The global sections of this of this on X is the étale K-theory spectrum. One can make sense of the sheafification with model categories and Bousfield localization. Ben suggested that the theory of Kan extensions means you can make sense of sheafification whenever you have a theory of homotopy limits. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about Kan extensions.
A more naïve approach to sheafification might be solved as follows. For a “triangulated category” D, there should be a notion of presheaves and sheaves with values in D. These should also be “triangulated categories.” One should have notions of exactness and localization. An example of both should be given by sheafification. One should have an exact global sections functor from both presheaves and sheaves to D. There should be a descent spectral sequence, etc.
Unfortunately, trying to do this naïvely with triangulated categories fails due to the nonuniqueness of the cone. One should use DG-categories, or better A∞ categories.
This perhaps explains why one has to go through the model category structure above when D is the category of spectra, and likewise why Thomason has to work so hard to work with appropriate models of the derived category.
One can likewise introduce algebraic K-theory this way. Define it first for affine schemes, and then sheafify in the Zariski topology. I should write this all up soon.
Another example of this, would be with D the derived category of abelian groups. Then sheaves with values in D would essentially be the derived category of sheaves. The global sections functor is the usual one, and the descent spectral sequence specializes to the hypercohomology spectral sequence.
Thursday, June 5, 2003
(no subject)
So tomorrow is the last class day of the quarter. Mohammed and I have a deal: I bring a Jack Daniels bottle to class (containing whatever I like) and drink from it, and Mohammed shaves his head and beard. Sounds like I've got the easy end of the deal. I don't know if there will be alcohol, I don't have that much left. We'll see.
Meanwhile, the quarter is coming to the end. I've got to write up all the homework I neglected to previously, and generally I'm screwed. I wonder if I'll pass or not. And then I get to make up the P* in geometry, and there's a move coming up, and of course finals...
And all we seem to do lately is play bridge. Every time there's 4 people. And Robert always is frustrated when he's my partner. I think I might eventually drive him to suicide. His suicide note will read "4 clubs ?!?!".
Oooh, and I've got to pick an advisor soon. And tomorrow is my last chance to get Kate to skip class. And Karen and I never bowled again this quarter despite us both wanting to at the beginning. And Mike G and I and Boris and the like never went out to the city and found ethnic food and such... This quarter has been hectic.
But all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon...
Meanwhile, the quarter is coming to the end. I've got to write up all the homework I neglected to previously, and generally I'm screwed. I wonder if I'll pass or not. And then I get to make up the P* in geometry, and there's a move coming up, and of course finals...
And all we seem to do lately is play bridge. Every time there's 4 people. And Robert always is frustrated when he's my partner. I think I might eventually drive him to suicide. His suicide note will read "4 clubs ?!?!".
Oooh, and I've got to pick an advisor soon. And tomorrow is my last chance to get Kate to skip class. And Karen and I never bowled again this quarter despite us both wanting to at the beginning. And Mike G and I and Boris and the like never went out to the city and found ethnic food and such... This quarter has been hectic.
But all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon, all will be over soon...
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