03:24 am - Cartoon for Laina

http://abstrusegoose.com/23

07:30 pm

09:03 am - Math geek stuff

I'm sure I'm missing something, but if you're so inclined take a look at the below and consider these two questions:
-
1. Is this a valid proof of the four color map problem?
2. Is this an orignal proof of the four color map problem?
-
simple proof of four color map theorom euclidean space
-
The Painter's Kingdom
-
You are a painter
1. You rule a contiguous and bounded kingdom, surrounded by a waist high wall.
2. You walk along a wall with two cans of paint, one black, one white.
3. You have marked your start spot with a stripe of white paint.
4. You are able to see if a new wall is branching outwards from the opposite side of the wall.
-
Because the kingdom is contiguous and bounded, by walking along the wall the you'll eventually return to the start mark.
-
When you return, you'll have either seen outside walls branching off or not seen any branches.
-
If you have not seen any wall branches, You know that your kingdom is an island within another single kingdom. If this is the case, the color of The Painter's Kingdom on a map can be anything since the only stipulation is that it be a different color from
the kingdom in which it is an island. That is to say, the parent kingdom can be any color and there will never be a problem finding a color fo the island kingdom. You can paint the entire wall white.
-
If you have seen wall branches, You would have to have counted either an even or odd number of branches.
-
If there is one branch, You mixe the two cans of paint together and paints the entire wall grey.
-
If there are an even number of branches, You start painting the wall white at the start mark and continues
until the first wall branch appears. Then you switch paint cans and begin painting the wall black. At the next branch you switch back to white. Eventually the entire wall is painted in black and white stripes and you stop.
-
If there are an odd number of branches, You continues walking along the wall without painting. When you reach the first branch, you start painting the wall white. As with the case of an even number of branches, you switch back and forth between paint colors at each
subsequent branch. At the last branch, you mixes the two cans together and starts painting the wall grey, painting over the white start mark in the process. Once you reach the first branch, you stop.
-
At this point, we have observed the wall in four states:
-
unpainted
painted black
painted white
painted grey
-
Next translate the four states into more recognizable terms and more useful terms:
unpainted = color1 = 00
painted black = color2 = 01
painted white = color3 = 10
painted grey = color4 = 11
-
Now imagine that the color the wall is painted represents the various map colors for foreign kingdoms. Since you know that all sections of the wall
are painted, you know that all of the kingdoms The Painter's Kingdom shares a border with can be represented in three colors. This leaves the fourth free for your kingdom.
-
So, you can always make a four color map for yourself and your neighbors that guarantees your neighbors will all be one of three colors.
-
What about mapmaker from another kingdom who borders kingdoms you do not?
-
The only kingdoms on the map is now colored in are you and your neighbors. So you decide to take over one of your neighbor's neighbors' kingdoms to further your cartography info.
-
The only difference in this case is that your new kingdom has one or more wall sections prepainted white, black or grey.
-
The initial method still works even if any number or combination of wall sections in your kingdom are pre-painted because you will always be able to break the unpainted segments into 7 cases:
-
Case 1
One unpainted segment between painted segments of the same color, in which case you can paint the segment one of two colors.
-
Case 2
One unpainted segment between differently colored segments, in which case you paint the segment a third color. (analogous to grey in fully unpainted wall
example)
-
Case 3
Even number of unpainted segments between painted segments of different colors, in which case you can start painting the left-most unpainted segment with the
color of the right-most painted segment and continue to the right swapping colors back and forth and know that you'll eventually reduce to case 1.
-
Case 4
Even number of unpainted segments between painted segments of the same color, in which case you can start painting the left-most unpainted segment with a
different color and continue to the right swapping colors back and forth and know that you'll eventually reduce to case 2.
-
Case 5
Odd number of unpainted segments between painted segments of the same color, in which case you can start painting the left-most unpainted segment with a
different color and continue to the right swapping colors back and forth and know that you'll eventually reduce to case 1.
-
Case 6
Odd number of unpainted segments between painted segments of different colors, Odd number of unpainted segments between painted segments of the same color,
in which case you can start painting the left-most unpainted segment with a different color and continue to the right swapping colors back and forth and know that you'll eventually reduce to case 2.
-
Case 7
All wall segments are painted, in which case your problem is analogous to the solved state of your initial kingdom. You can continue with this method until the only kingdoms not colored for your map are ones that are contiguous only to the collective.
-
You can continue hopping kingdoms until all can be mapped with four colors.

08:41 pm - Fortune cookie wisdom

About aequationibus accordingly to conduct one's self indeterminatis.

Your lucky numbers are: 2 3 5 7 11 13

09:26 am - Perception vs fact. Obama vs Clinton.

http://www.impublished.org/wordpress/?p=8

Interesting.

07:12 am - Squid pro quo

If the general ends up being Obama versus McCain, as is looking likely, I wonder if the RNC and DNC will come to tacit agreement to keep Rezco off the table in exchange for keeping Keating off? Honestly, I'm not sure if such an arrangement would be a good or bad thing.

04:58 am - Happy 29th my love.

I waited until you'd fallen into your second sleep so that I could curl up next to you and be the first to welcome your birthday in. [ETA- happy birthday!]
-
December of this year will be exactly ten years from that brisk winter night we spent walking towards Southport. We were both at a show at the Metro and in a bid to impress I'd bought you drink of some sort. Possibly a screwdriver, possibly a vodka cranberry and possibly something else altogether. It wasn't two sips into your drink before security came over for a wrist checked. They kicked you out show for underage drinking. Before that point, I remember being nervous and excited to be spending time with you and feeling like I was babbling. Details beyond you are more difficult to recall, less important. We left the Metro together, and walking North on Clark walked past the Gingerman and Racine to veer left onto Grace. I don't think we had any particular destination in mind. Just walking along, talking. Feeling the thrill of enjoyable company, the warmth of close proximity. Taking in Chicago's residential landscape. Tree lined sidewalks and brick walled alleys, pavement cracked by root. All lit dimly yellow by the sodium vapor glow of the street lamps. Loving it all and noticing that you seemed to enjoy it too. That secretly thrilled me. I remember thinking about the jokes you found funny, and learning about some of the ways we'd adapted to deal with the inherent fucked-up-ness of the universe. Of having the revelation,"I like being with the person. I hope to keep talking to her regardless of what happens." You've ended up a closer friend than I'd have imagined possible. I remember wanting the walk to last just a little bit longer, but not too much longer in the cold winter air. You wearing your black leather biker jacket, me the black leather duster with rips duct taped closed on the inside. Noticing us slow our walk to an almost amble, I felt that first faint and cautious thought that you might be feel the same way about me that I did about you.

I love you so much Karen. Happy 29th.

Current Mood: sleepy

05:02 pm - More testing - please ignore

==>General Public

06:28 pm - Not soliciting donations, just need a quick place to post a sample to show people.

The Chicago School donation button:

10:28 am - Since Don's too enrapt being a twit(ter) to do his bob given Thanksgiving duty...

A Thanksgiving Prayer


Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin' lawmen,
feelin' their notches.

For decent church-goin' women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for
Christ" stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories-- all right let's see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

-William S. Burroughs

01:28 am

Hey Durrin, ever run into this guy?

10:53 am - Only roaches and IBM Model-M keyboard will survive the coming nuclear apocolypse.

For Chris: Here's the company that bought rights to manufacture keyboards to the original IBM model-M spec.

http://www.pckeyboard.com/adobepage.html

01:38 pm - Random thought

It's not a perfect analogy by any means and I'm certainly not a sports person, but the below occurs to me:

Manchester City is to Manchester United

~as~

The White Sox are to The Cubs

12:20 pm - Good show

Anyone else interested in attending this show on 11/17 at the Congress theater? http://www.nakedraygun.org/gigs/index.html

Here's the lineup:
Naked Raygun, Stiff Little Fingers, 7Seconds, Nekromantix, The Queers, Lower Class Brats, The Methadones, Shot Baker, Heart Attacks, The Copyrights.

09:01 pm - Squee

Veronica Mars on Heros!

02:07 am

Happy birthday Chucky!

08:04 pm - Writer's Block: Know Thyself

11:52 pm - My spirit animal is... Marketing Tool.

08:01 am - Could have been a brilliant career.

So, as seen in sunqist's journal... a career test.

1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/.
2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top ten results.

1. Health Care Administrator (whiskey tango michael foxtrot foxtrot charlie?)
2. Association Manager (Would have an opinion on this if I knew what it was.)
3. Curator (Could be fun, but I can think of five things not on this list that I'd rather do.)
4. Management Consultant (Could be fun, but I can think of five things not on this list that I'd rather do.)
5. Architect (This would make it onto a self generated top five career desires list.)
6. Industrial-Organizational Psychologist (Could be interesting)
7. Operations Research Analyst (How does this differ from 6?)
8. Office Manager (No. Just no.)
9. Anthropologist (Is there anyone who wouldn't want to be an anthropologist, or who doesn't consider themselves an armchair anthropologist? If so, I don't want to know them.)
10. Professor (Could be fun, but pretty generic. Why not just have a category named "worker"?*)

*F--k Chicago and AP and their damned punctuation goes inside quotes standards. F--k them right up their collective a-ses.

05:32 pm - Quote meme.

I think the idea is to pick ten quotes that help to illustrate yourself as a person and then have people guess their sources in screened comments. Here goes:

1. "It's an 'A.'"
2. "So it goes." stannate
3. "Vigorous writing is concise." stannate
4. "It would be pretty to think so."
5. "You're just a white suburban punk like me!" stannate
6. "Who cares about the sex of an iquana except another iquana?"
7. "Died tragically rescuing his family from the remains of a destroyed sinking battleship." stannate
8. "I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."
9. "If you’re dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you."
10. "Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on."

(ETA sunqist got seven out of ten, but I yammer at her far too much for her score to be fair.)

11:52 am - Security theater of the boiling frog in Chicago loop?

So, one of the guys at work just got in this morning. We're in on the holiday because it's a good time to rerack servers. He's a fair skinned indian guy with a typical unshaven IT geek look. Two stops before the downtown stop where he usually disembarks, they made everyone exit the el'. The platform was swarming with military looking people with bullet proof vests and m16s. A uniformed person near the car exit, raised his fist in the air as my coworker left the train. Two other uniformed people, (Officers? Soldiers? Halliburton contractors?) both with m16s, immediately swooped down on either side of him. They asked him a couple of cursory questions and then let him go. Scary times we live in.

04:16 pm - Not safe for work.

Best fandom journal ever.
http://pokethebear.livejournal.com/

10:07 am - Not perfect, but still interesting.

http://www.walkscore.com/get-score.shtml?street=2128+w+potomac&loc=60622&go=Go

10:27 am - Life is unfair.

Olga, the dog who loved everything and everybody, died last night in the car ride from the North woords. She was panting heavily when we left, but we assumed it was her usual excited mode. When she was still panting several hours later as we came into Madison, we decided to take her to an emergency vet. On the way to the vet, her breathing became more labored and she started to look distressed. A minute away from the clinic, she stopped breathing and flopped down. Karen had been petting her and Olga died with Karen's hand laying on her back, comforting her. We ran her into the clinic, but they were unable to revive her. The vet said that the panting had irritated her layrnx which then swelled up causing her to pant more. Eventually her throat swole up to the point that she wasn't able to radiate heat. The AC in the car was at full blast, but she had a temperature of 107 when we ran her in. I can't post any more right now.

Current Mood: numb

01:01 pm - INTP

Consistent with what I usually get with a slight shift from an even split between perceiving and judging towards more purely perceiving.

Your Score: Loser- INTP

6% Extraversion, 80% Intuition, 73% Thinking, 26% Judging

Talked to another human being lately? I'm serious. You value knowledge above ALL else. You love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. The fact that nobody else cares still hasn't become apparent to you...

Nerd's a great word to describe you, and I seriously couldn't care less about the different definitions of the word and why you're actually more of a geek than a nerd. Don't pretend you weren't thinking that. You want every single miniscule fact and theory to be presented correctly.

Critical? Sarcastic? Cynical? Pessimistic? Just a few words to describe you when you're at your very best...*cough* Sorry, I mean worst. Picking up the dudes or dudettes isn't something you find easy, but don't worry too much about it. You can blame it on your personality type now.

On top of all this, you're shy. Nice one, wench. No wonder you're on OKCupid!
Now, quickly go and delete everything about "theoretical questions" from your profile page. As long as nobody tries to start a conversation with you, just MAYBE you'll now have a chance of picking up a date. But don't get your hopes up.

I am interested though. If a tree fell over in a forest, would it really make a sound?

*****************

If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.

*****************

The other personality types are as follows...

Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Almost Perfect - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Freak - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging


Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging


Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

08:09 am - For Don and Nick

http://bean.plasmator.net/random%20pix/070327_bird.jpg

08:37 am - Yes, private companies have a right to censor, but I have the right to withdraw my dollar support.

Should LJ be beholden to religious bigots?

04:13 pm - Must buy hot dogs for the freezer.

The URL pretty much covers it.

http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Pi-by-Throwing-Frozen-Hot-Dogs

07:55 am - Kurt is up in heaven now.

"I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, 'Isaac is up in heaven now.' It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now.' That's my favorite joke."

Current Mood: contemplative

08:32 am - Picture pages, picture pages, let's go draw some embarrasingly bad picture pages.

What does your drawing say about YOU?

You tend to pursue many different activities simultaneously. When misfortune does happen, it doesn't actually dishearten you all that much.
You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
You are creative, mentally active and industrious.
You feel morose and are prone to lethargy.

08:06 am - Awesome!

Flatland: The Movie
For more 2-dimensional fare, clips and trailers from Flatland: The Movie are available. Martin Sheen (West Wing), Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars), Tony Hale (Arrested Development), supply the some of the voices.

http://www.flatlandthemovie.com/

09:55 am - Neat.

Coolest. Record player. Ever.
http://www.grand-illusions.com/images/articles/toycollection/record_runner/record_runner.wmv

08:10 am - Like genes, but with information.

Create your own visitor map!

12:16 pm - Happy birthday Karen!

Twenty eight years ago today, Ron and Bonnie Phemister struggled to catch a cab in Lincoln Park. Three foot deep snow from the 1979 blizzard obscured the sidewalk and Ron had to stand in the middle of the street to get a cab to stop. Hours later, a bright pink, squaling bundle of pinkness named Karen was introduced to the world. Since that time she has continued (and continues) to become more a more interestimg human. Happy birthday!

Current Mood: cheerful

11:31 pm - And Easter Island too!

The native languages of Hawaii, Taiwan and Madagascar are all part of the same language family. How cool is that? This isn't some controversial, "Japanese is altaic" theory either. This is a tried and true, generally accepted feature of modern linguistics. Neat. Also, the word Sprachbund rocks my world.

Current Mood: excited

07:27 am - Doug in the news.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070109/ap_on_re_us/chicago_foie_gras

Current Mood: amused

06:49 pm - At last!

The mead, she is fermenting.

Current Mood: excited

08:06 am - Karen

Karen is the best friend a person could have.

Current Mood: happy

12:02 am - 12/31/06

New Years eve party!

It's an even year, so as traditional Karen and I will be hosting a New Years Eve party. Come one, come all! If possible, give us a heads up for planning purposes. See the above link to Karen's journal for more details.

(In light of the reaction to 2004's naked Maggie Thatcher, this years party will use the more subdued theme of Bacon.)

12:57 am - Curious

Poll #889206 Was versus Got in a cage match to the death.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Choose

01:34 pm - Repost this in your journal, ya sheep!

Stolen from derspatchel


1. Determine what personal aspect hasn't already been exploited by previous memes -- or just rip one off from another quiz anyway. Regardless of the originality, the aspect you select should be one that some people like to yammer on and on about; you're merely making this yammering easier and standardized.

2. Write a bunch of questions that must be answered with one of two responses. These responses will be at the opposite ends of their contextual spectrum and transparent enough so that the savvy quiz-taker can easily tell which answer to choose in order to get the results they want.

3. Set up the quiz so it's spread over as many different pages as possible, so that you get as many Google ads hits as possible. (What's that? You didn't put Google ads on your quiz pages? Then what's the point? Go back to Step 1 and start over, or find something else to do. I hear there's some pretty funny lipsync videos on YouTube.)

4. Write up all the possible results that could come from this quiz. Make sure that most of the results are very complimentary, as more people are bound to gleefully share with their friends list that some computer-generated quiz said they were super-duper S-E-X-X-Y sex machines than the people who were told they're cold fish with even less sex appeal than Ann Coulter.

5. Congratulations! You are: Almost Finished! For your final step, present your results with large tables, a horrible color scheme, and self-hosted images that will refuse to load and hang everybody's browser when your meme becomes too popular. Bonus points if you can mess up the poster's layout and/or style with some crappy HTML (hint: closing tables and table elements is for sissies!) Extra bonus points and a special place in hell if you sneak in an tag at the top to foil those pesky meme-hiders.

6. Sit back and watch the results take over LiveJournal and vicinity. Then remember how much extra you have to pay for bandwidth overages each month. Eh, don't worry, another meme will come down the pike in three weeks or so and yours will be forgotten.




You're welcome!

Repost this in your journal, ya sheep!

08:11 am - Stolen from a Laura, apologies to the Zappa.

You could go over to Invention Personified's house and her mother would serve you all these super tasty cookies and you could say 'You've made some very delicious cookies, Mrs. Personified' and she'd say, 'oh, please, call me Necessity!'

02:00 am - Stupid dangling modifiers.

10:42 pm

posse comitatus
R.I.P.
1878-2006

10:59 pm - References I didn't get as a youth.

I'm rewatching Animaniacs courtesy of azzna. The movie Jerry Lewis is directing in the brilliant Apocalypse Now send up? Yeah that right, it's The Day the Clown Cried.

12:42 pm - "...no guarantees about quality..."

"The first five people to respond to this post, will get some form of art, by me, about them. I make no guarantees about quality or type, but I will assure that I will give it good effort.

The only catch, of course, is that if you sign up, you have to put this in your own journal as well."

08:03 am - Stolen from Membrane

Poll #836641 Consider the mighty oak.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What is the primary source of dry mass in a large oak tree?

08:24 am - Curious

Poll #832951 From the folks who brought you the weekend.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

How many hours do you work during a typical week?

How many weekends do you work during the year?

09:27 am - Per our discussion on Friday...

http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/

02:01 pm

Hot damn, go Floyd!