A test of the wonderful capabilities of CSS. You have hovered over the words "this is only a test" which resulted in this little box popping up with the actual entry of this post. Please note that no javascript was used in the making of this post - it's simply CSS. Beautiful, no? I thought so, too, which is why I decided to share it with you, my loyal readers. Note: It doesn't seem to work in firefox. I'll have to work on that.
I believe that every field has some conversational keywords. By "conversational keywords" I mean words which although used innocently in the vernacular, trigger large cascades of memories in classes and homework along with a whole plethora of meanings, most of which your conversant did not intend to convey.
Being a mathematician, I would like to share with you some of our conversational keywords.
"What are the chances/odds that...": All mathematicians have had some probability, and I would venture to say that a large number have had one or more probability classes. Although our professors usually use the word "probability" instead of "chance," the phrase is still enough to invoke images of normal curves and chi-squared distributions and questions involving transformations of random variables. When a mathematician hears this phrase, he/she will actually be thinking about what the probability is, which immediately distracts from the remainder of the conversant's statement.
"Infinite Combinations": Both the words "infinity" and "combination" are highly mathematical words with specific definitions. However, in most conversational cases, this phrase is an oxymoron. Example: "Coldstone Creamery has an infinite combination of flavors." False. Since I know Coldstone Creamery has a finite number of flavors, the combinations of those flavors must also be finite. There are many similar situations in which this phrase arises.
"Chaos": Chaos theory, otherwise known as nonlinear dynamics, is a new and specialized branch of mathematics. Chaos does not mean disorder, which is usually how it is used in the vernacular. Chaos does have order, it is simply that the order is not predictible n steps down the road. If you want to know more, ask in the comments.
(This one is just me.) "Random": There is no such thing as random. Every "random" event you have ever known is actually chaotic, and is only "random" because you cannot predict the outcome.
"Trivial": In mathematics, trivial means the easy way out. It's the solution that is dumb. For example, in a system of n equations with n variables, all of which equal zero, the trivial solution is that every variable equals zero. Not exciting. In the vernacular, trivial usually means something inconsequential, which is not the same as in mathematics. Trivial solutions may have consequences, but they are always easy to find.
"Googol (or Google)": This is 10100 . It is not a search engine. Deal with it.
Comment on your own field's conversational keywords. I'd be interested to hear some words that set others heads spinning.
This post goes out to all my single guy readers out there. Girls, you can keep reading too if you want, but I make no promises as to whether or not this will offend you because it's addressed to the guys.
OK, men, I'll bet most of you have had the strange opportunity of meeting some girl who seems smart, attractive, mentally stable, and generally good-smelling and find out (lo and behold) she's single. At this point, before progressing any further, you need to answer this simple question: Is she single by chance or single by choice.
When I say "single by chance" I mean that she is single and really not supposed to be. This is analogous to the case of market arbitrage, where something is priced below (or above) what it should be, and so you complete an appropriate transaction and make some quick cash. These girls may be coming out of the "rebound" period after a break-up, may have just entered the dating scene, or may have been hiding (it happens, believe me). These are green lights - good signs that you want to see and big, blinking "ALL CLEAR" notices allowing you to proceed in for the capture (aka asking out for a date).
The "single by choice" girls, on the other hand, are red lights with big flashing warning signs telling you to steer clear (at least for dating) of this chick. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these girls - except that they don't want anything to do with boys at the moment, and therefore will not be pleased at your attempts to date them. Perhaps these girls have an ideological fortress barring men, like the ultimate "no boys allowed" sign. Maybe they simply have very, very, very high (read: quirky) standards which will not allow them to date anyone but their future husbands, who they then latch on to with the fury of a hawk catching its dinner. Whatever the case, these girls don't want to be bothered, and therefore you can be assured will not be making out with you anytime soon, despite your best efforts.
So how might you go about differentiating between the two? Let's run through some sample conversations.
Boy: How about we go out for coffee sometime?
Single by chance girl: Sure.
Single by choice girl: Sure, but I'm going to bring along 15 of my closest girlfriends with us.
Boy: I'm really starting to like you.
Single by chance girl: I feel the same way.
Single by choice girl: Errr...Thanks...But I don't date.
Boy: (leans in close for a goodnight kiss after a great evening)
Single by chance girl: (kisses him, then says goodnight and scampers away smiling)
Single by choice girl: (slams the door so fast the pressure knocks the boy down)
Boy: How would you feel if I started calling you my girlfriend?
Single by chance girl: I would like that very much.
Single by choice girl: The parametics would have a hard time scraping you off the floor.
Feel free to add your own similar conversations (either imagined or experienced) in the comments. Thanks for reading.
Of late, I have discovered the joy and curse of web programming. In very few other fields is the disparity between amateurs and pros so vast, yet so easily traversed. Now, I'm not very good yet, but I can tell how much I have improved.
I have created two sites so far. One is a browser-based MMORPG named Economies of Scale which still needs much debugging. It is business-themed and is located at http://guardian996.awardspace.com. If you go there, make sure to join the forum, and also note that (for now) the game is not "running." It is a tick-based games, and I haven't set up the necessary requirements to make the ticks advance, although that will be coming soon.
The other site I've made, which is fully functional (to my knowledge) is called Chaotic Outbursts and is located at http://chaoticoutbursts.awardspace.com. Here you may submit an outburst (scroll to the bottom to do so) and you will also have an outburst selected for you at [pseudo-]random. There is also a voting mechanism and top ten list, so vote if you see something you like. That site simply needs more traffic to get it underway.Another site which I would like to pass along, although I have not made, is http://www.myshost.com/. If you join the forums there and make 75 posts, you will be able to get a free domain name. I will be attempting to get a few for the sites I now have. WARNING: Do not go to that site unless you have a good pop-up blocker. Don't go to this site. It had many pop-ups and trojans and messed up my computer for a week. IE still has some problems...but then again it always had its problems, so I'm on Firefox now.
For my faithful readers, I ask some favors:
So while I was out running today, I had an idea. Suppose that there is a difference between the wage clearing rate and the current minimum wage. What if that difference could be captured and invested in human capital?
Let me back up here a minute. Human capital is the stuff that makes you more valuable as a person (think economically, not in terms of virtue). Education, training, and experience are all good examples of this.
What if there were to be some sort of massive government scholarship fund with this difference which could be used to invest in human capital for workers who meet certain requirements?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that there are 2 million workers earning minimum wage. Let's suppose that the wage clearing rate is w. With full time workers, 40 hours / week x 50 working weeks / year = 2000 working hours / year. Therefore (2,000,000)(2,000)(5.15 - w) would be placed into this fund each year. Even if this difference were 50 cents, that would still be $2 billion placed into this fund. At $40,000 / worker, this could improve 50,000 workers, or 2.5% of those working at minimum wage. In general, for each cent of difference between 5.15 and w, you would improve .05% of the workforce, which is quite significant for a penny.
When workers would leave this class (minimum wage class) of work, they would lower that supply of workers which would, in turn, raise the clearing wage price. Eventually, in the limit, this would actually raise the clearing wage (w) to the minimum wage ($5.15 in my scenario above).
Problems with this scenario would include:
Where would the money come from?
Probably a tax on the corporations paying the workers minimum wage. They're already losing the money via the minimum wage itself, so I'm not sure exactly what their objection to this would be. Most likely, they would prefer to train their own workers, and take the training costs as a tax deduction. Perhaps this could work as well.
Who would train the workers?
By providing a scholarship-esque program, this could utilize the currently existing capital improvement facilities (colleges, universities, trade schools, community colleges, etc.) for education. The burden shouldn't be too heavy on them (at 50 cents difference, that only makes for an additional 50,000 students nationwide).
Other odd results?
Well, I would suggest having some sort of wage-to-scholarship amount scale, or else you'll have people intentionally trying to work at minimum wage for the scholarship benefits. Intead, perhaps workers could receive scholarship amounts based on how much they earn, decreasing as their pay got farther from minimum wage. Someone working at a wage above (5.15 - w) + 5.15, for example, would receive no assistance.
This was some random idea I had, so please feel free to comment, especially with economic ideas. Remember, anyone can post on this blog.
PSA (Public Service Announcement): via Fark I found an awesome new wallpaper that I thought I would share with my faithful readers. It's a satellite image of Earth, which is updated every 5 minutes for the light and every 3 hours for the clouds. The night image can be set to a variety of different (although static and without the clouds) images, which look very cool. You can find the wallpaper here.
After visiting a few other blogspot blogs, I'm going to start playing with the coding of the template until its something a little more to my liking. If something looks really funny, just comment somewhere and I'll try to do something about it, since I most likely messed it up in the first place.
Read This First
From dictionary.com:
rac·ism ( P ) (rszm) n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
Universities are being forced to eliminate their racist scholarships. The difference is, this time the racism was against whites.
There is no denying that these scholarship and fellowships were racist. The second definition from dictionary.com clears that up rather nicely. These awards clearly discriminated on the basis of race.
Now don't get me wrong here - an individual private scholarship should be open to whoever the donor wishes it to be open to. If I get enough money together and form a scholarship for 90 year old female Polish accordian players, that's my business and I no one should be able to stop me from doing that. Sure that scholarship would be racist (as well as sexist, age-ist, and nationalist), but that's my right to decide that. However, it sounds like these scholarships were more public, school-sponsored ones that donors simply gave to a pool of money and the school awarded it.
I also find this quote from the article entertaining:
Advocates of focused scholarships programs such as Theodore Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., challenge the notion that programs for minority students hurt whites.
``How is it that they conclude that the great evil in this country is discrimination against white people?'' Shaw asked. ``Can I put that question any more pointedly? I struggle to find the words to do it because it's so stunning.''
