Posts

One of the coolest resources available to everyone in the US is public archive and research services. While I was always tangentially aware of their existence (the Library of Congress being one of the main entities associated in my mind) it was never something that was clearly within reach, nor of any use. Most of research I did in high school found third-party research that were quick online searches away. In college I took a British History class, and then I was informed of the services that the university paid for which I could access. This allowed me to find old editions of British newspapers, which were very cool to go through. ...

If you’ve never used a Plug ’n Play game before, you’re missing out. They were the one piece of simple video game fun I had growing up. Beyond that, it was various Flash-based games in a browser (and since that’s my only association with Flash, I’m quite bummed it’s being killed.) And although some of my friends had consoles, and I would play occasionally, it was never something that really grabbed my attention. ...

I’m teaching a math camp for students entering 6th grade. It’s my first time being the teacher of record for a course, and luckily it only took a few minutes for my anxiety to subside. It’s a small group – only 9 kids – so it reminds me of my days being a camp counselor, except now it’s talking about math with very advanced kids for 3 hours a day. It’s been a blast. ...

I’ve written a short post on the triangle inequality for altitudes. As usual, I put it over on the math blog I have with my company, just because the support for literally everything is much nicer. But, in the off chance you want it, I have a PDF. I’ve played around with a wonderful program called Typora, which I’ve been using for a few months to write any blog posts when I’m not in my iPad. It has great Mathjax support (miles better than Wordpress), and so it’s easy to switch between the blog I use and this program, and I can export cleanly to PDF, as well as EPub and other formats that are really difficult to work with if I were using straight up LaTeX.

I never actually thought this would happen to me. Despite years not regularly going to coffee shops, and never drinking coffee, I finally came to terms with the fact that I have a drink of choice at Starbucks. It comes with the realization that I go to Starbucks enough to justify having a go-to order. ...

There are more direct spoilers in this review than some of my past ones. The short version is that I recommend watching this movie. I never explicitly say it anywhere else, so go watch it. It’s worth your time if you’ve seen the previous movies. ...

I decided to rearrange my room this past weekend. part of it was for convenience, and part of it was just to switch things up. It also gave me the opportunity to go through my things and reorganize. ...

Assessments are a tricky business. Writing an exam that successfully tests a person’s knowledge or abilities, without inadvertently giving preference or advantage to certain demographics, is very difficult. The examinations I’ve written so far for my job fall into the category of testing whether a student has mastered a certain curriculum. After a couple of months of class, we give them an exam to check if they learned all that they were supposed to. Everybody is used to such tests, and everybody has experienced them. ...

I’ve been thinking about the experience of attending a movie in a theater, and how it compares to staying in to watch a film. I often feel conflicted, with my current opinion being adjusted based on the most recent experience I’ve had in a theater. ...

For the last two months I’ve been reading Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve legitimately enjoyed the book whenever I’ve sat down to read it, but there is something about it that doesn’t quite grab my attention. I’ve struggled to sit down for very long stretches and just finish it out, and I can’t put my finger on why. ...