Month: March 2021

All negative numbers are vectors.

All scalars are positive.

NB: Not all vectors are negative and not all positive numbers are scalars.

Here’s Paradise Lost.

The most ‘bang for the buck’ in opening the sciences and engineering to more people would be renaming complex numbers.

Names have meaning. They’re how the brain connects with things.

Imagine you’re doing a bunch of math, hard math, and suddenly you get to ‘complex numbers.’ Like all the math you’ve been doing up until this point has been simple. It’s demotivating.

Or worse, imaginary numbers, a term even Gauss hated.

You’re doing a bunch of math, and it’s challenging, and all the sudden boom, ‘Now we’re going to do imaginary math, kids’ says your teacher.

You turn to the dark side, become a literature major, open a coffee shop, and start listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

I was thinking about politicians, celebrities, so on, getting the shots ahead of the line. People with low risk factors take the shot early when many other people who do have higher risk factors can’t get the shot. Is it advisable and fair?

I don’t know about fair, but I do think it’s advisable.

The politicians should be first in line to do the dying if something goes wrong. If you look up the Cutter polio vaccine, vaccinations have had problems. Those problems can get swept under the counter. But if senators and reps are dying from a bad vaccine, that will not get swept under the counter. The govt. gets extremely motivated when their privileges and their lives are on line. I feel safer knowing that the shot I got is the same or similar to the one they get, and I think long-term vaccine quality will improve if that same long-term vaccine quality is the string that holds the sword of Damocles over the heads of Congress.

Congress shouldn’t get the option of getting the shot. Congress, the White House Staff, and the Supreme Court should be required to get the first round at some random location. Make Mitch McConnell get round one in Lebanon. Have Joe Biden take it on the Navajo Reservation. I want politicians with some skin in the game.

Modern vaccines are pretty safe. A few hundred million people have had the covid shots. No one has gotten covid from the shot. The polio vaccine fiasco did happen, but we also did learn from it. My relentless optimism isn’t founded on denying the fiascos of the past but on recognizing we’re getting better at preventing them in the present.

Get the shot when you can. I did.

A lot of financial news operates with the implicit assumption that high interest rates are inherently stronger than any inflationary pressure. If rates just go high enough, inflation will always lose. This is usually couched in relatively short time-frames, ie before inflation causes huge problems for everyone.

No one seems to recognize this implicit assumption.

We’re in the second lap of the Red Queen’s Stimulus Race. We don’t get ahead. We only stave off falling behind.

Guanella Pass is a seasonal pass south of Georgetown. This is the southward facing view from south of the pass.

The world was a better place for her being in it.

I liked Ribsy.

All the Z hype is getting a little fishy. A 400 hp manual starting at 35k?

From Nissan?

Old Nissan dropped the R35 GT-R for 60k. New Nissan sells largely the same car for 120k.

It’s possible, I guess.

The Stinger is more expensive for less power. The Stinger has more seats, though. The Supra is basically a BMW, and is far more expensive for less power with the same number of seats. The Mustang kinda has back seats, and depending on how you slice it, comparable power for comparable money. That’s the only one with a decent manual.

Who else is in the running? The Miata? Totally different cars and ethos. BRZ/86? Little cheaper, much, much less power. WRX/STI? Different ethos. Also more expensive for less power. The Corvette is a wobble, and no one, not even GM, cares about the Camaro. Civic Type R? Comparable price, almost a hundred less horsepower.

I just don’t see 400hp for ~35k.

Spotify needs an ‘incognito mode.’

Look, I need to win a Celine Dion related argument. I just don’t need anything I’m about to listen to in my recommendations again.

The world is giving me character-building opportunities.