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Done Since 2022-07-17
I have been down at Rest Stop since last Sunday afternoon. I'd been hoping to get in some practice time with m, but that didn't work out. So I did a little guitar and singing practice on my own -- not nearly enough, but I'm trying to get my finger calluses back in shape. Getting there, but feeling very discouraged over how little music I've done in the last few years. So I've been filling in some of the time listening to Talis Kimberley on YouTube, and the rest of it hanging out in the 4th, 8th, and 24th dimensions. Mostly the 8th, with the octonions and the E8 lattice, and the 24th, with the Leech lattice.
The Leech Lattice has nothing at all to do with blood-sucking invertebrates (a category which also includes many politicians), but it is definitely a time-sucker. I was also going to say that the E8 lattice has no connection to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, but it turns out that there is (a rather tenuous) one. Which is absolutely mind-boggling.
Some day I may write a post about why I find this stuff mind-bogglingly beautiful even though I don't know nearly enough about group theory, string theory, geometry, particle physics, elliptic curves, or modular forms to be able to follow the math. You can get a lot of it from this lecture by John Baez (who happens to be Joan Baez's cousin). Many of the bizarre mathematical connections come from the fact that if you add up the squares of the numbers from 1 to 24, you get a perfect square. Which is why the Leech lattice is the best way to pack spheres in 24 dimensions.
The Leech lattice is also related to the Binary Golay code, which brings up all sorts of other connections because Marcel Golay also collaborated with my father on the Savitzky–Golay filter, in an article that marked "the dawn of the computer-controlled analytical instrument". Dad would have been fascinated by all this.
All of which has been incredibly addicting and has kept my mind (mostly) off my worries about the state of my health and the deplorable state of US politics.
I'll leave you with last Sunday's quote of the day:
c: I should know where my checkbook is.
me: Put it next to your towel.
Notes & links: 0717Su * litter boxen & awake 4:04; S=5:45; * up 5:45; S=6:04, BP=119.69, P=65; @ Wylah The Koorie Warrior authors Richard Pritchard, Jordan Gould inspired by their mums - ABC News @ Microsoft open sources Salus software bill of materials (SBOM) generation tool GitHub - microsoft/sbom-tool: The SBOM tool is a highly scalable and enterprise ready tool to create SPDX 2.2 compatible SBOMs for any variety of artifacts. * pack: kleenex, * acetaminophen (for me) * */15 CPAP: change paper filter, wash tubs " QOTD c: I should know where my checkbook is. me: Put it next to your towel. " @ Congress Probes How Location Data Brokers Threaten Reproductive Privacy | EFF Pass the "My Body, My Data" Act | Electronic Frontier Foundation Security and Privacy Tips for People Seeking An Abortion | EFF EFF Files Amicus Brief in First U.S. Case Challenging Dragnet Keyword Warrant|EFF : creepy: Google suggested Whidbey Island Bagel Factory as soon as I opened phone app. -> and they're not taking phone orders * back to RS today (can get bagels) or tomorrow -> except they sold out around 11:30. & got palmieres on the way down, thinking of Colleen, who loved them. * SL: coffee for RS @ Give Up GitHub: The Time Has Come! - Software Freedom Conservancy % I don't feel as though I'm doing all that well, but it's hard to say exactly why. the combination of irregular breathing and/or chronic lack of sleep may be factors * 4pm Pirates - Lamplighters streaming 2018 performance. (Same one they streamed some time ago, but still good. Mostly just listening to the music, although the costumes are great as well) @ How to Support People in States Where Abortion Is Under Threat | WIRED @ Sphere Packing Solved in Higher Dimensions | Quanta Magazine % naproxen, docusate 0718Mo * up 7:04; S=6:32; @ TIL: Fascinator - Wikipedia via, of all places, my Stanford alumni magazine * */15 CPAP: change paper filter @ John Baez's Stuff via sphere packing in 8 and 24 dimensions @ Samuel Beckett’s Guide to Particles and Antiparticles fermions as defects @ doomed galaxy @ Integral Octonions (Part 6) " Anyone can remember how to multiply octonions, and I'm surprised they're not taught in elementary school right after category theory. " & ... and there goes the entire day. (about 8am - 4pm) : recruiting call from Triple Crown Consulting. them: wondering what your employment situation is. me: I've been retired for five years. : network speed: sable@RS WiFi: 35/22 Mbps down/up Eth: 44/22 * music: some work on AR tracklist -> Stolen Child needed some work -> finish chording out % naproxen, docusate with pm drugs 0719Tu % awake 1:15ish; S=2:06; * up 7am; S=5:43; @ GS: Scattered Chunks of Antiquity - GoingSideways.blog (posted 12:58) After some confusion about which is today's post, and where the images were. % 3:50 mentally exhausted, even after dives into E8 and crystalographic groups. sleepy? hungry? (low blood sugar? my ability to feel actual hunger is mostly missing; it's more like (constantly) feeling that I want to eat.) insufficiently hydrated?? not breathing enough??? * GS: add images to next week's post. Adding the captions and at text in the media library saves a _lot_ of trouble. * guitar: The River, Eyes Like the Morning. Stopped because fingers hurt. that'll pass % naproxen with pm drugs. load sorters. 0720We & awake 3:50; S=4:59; p~=4 (L hip) -> heat; nightmares, politics; down 6am & down a rabbit hole, making `make updraft` and ...redraft handle resource directories * up 6:15; S=5:16; @ Rapid battery cost declines accelerate the prospects of all-electric interregional container shipping | Nature Energy only practical for large vessels ATM " today’s best-available figures of 210 Wh/kg specific energy and US$100–134/kWh " @ The worst mistake of computer science - Lucidchart null, of course. @ Zig Programming Language " Zig is a general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal and reusable software. " @ The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature controversial " Accordions are the octonions of the music world ... tragically misunderstood. " & email to Monika re: using my gmail address -- some things sent to s@s seem to be getting lost, probably because of the way it gets forwarded from DH. @ Scattered Chunks of Antiquity - GoingSideways.blog, linked on DW, TW, FB % naproxen with pm drugs 0721Th * up 5:30; S=5:50; * singing: Stuff that Dreams are Made Of -> couldn't finish the last verse % tears @ DMA: Council gives final approval to new rules for fair competition online $ plus 100 -> R Tracking number (MTCN)405 631 7951 ] * guitar: Stuff That Dreams are Made Of (1 verse+cho); Eyes Like the Morning -> decided I don't like the feel of the backpacker. Neck too thick. There seems to be something else going on as well; possibly needing L fingernails clipped & count "Thankful Thursday" posts: (after a little manual cleanup) grep-find 'Subject.*Thankf' > /tmp/foo for f in `seq 2002 2022`; do echo $f `grep $f /tmp/foo |wc -l`; done ... 2008 3, 2009 16, 2010 27, 2011 28, 2012 10, 2013 7, 2014 35, 2015 22, 2016 17, 2017 5, 2018 30, 2019 47, 2020 49, 2021 43, 2022 26, # (n<2 for 2002-2007) % not only did I peel off a scab or something this morning trying to assemble the shelf unit, but I managed to break it tonight in the process of trying to tighten it. Not completely, so I should be able to cobble it together well enough to be stable. Foo. 0722Fr * Up 5:30ish; S=6:28; % can't hear the tea-kettle with headphones on. Even _without_ noise canceling! -> turned monitoring back on; might help @ Families With Trans Kids Are Fleeing Hostile States for Welcoming Ones @ An enormous theorem: the classification of finite simple groups | plus.maths.org Pretty good summary for lay readers % 2:30ish lots of nasal congestion * Singing: The Stolen Child -- capo 3; worked pretty well. % listening to Talis Kimberley on YouTube I started wondering whether there might be a song lurking in the 24th dimension, and whether there's another song to write about Colleen. Not the same song, though, I hope. * bath before bedtime. Not exactly convenient here, but ok * guitar: QV (both G and A fingering. A works pretty well; doesn't need as much capo) 0713Sa * up 6:30ish; S=7:12; exercises : two fake FB password reset emails. @ Sen. Klobuchar Asks FTC to Investigate One Medical Sale: WaPo WTAF?? " on the same day Amazon announced the purchase of health-care provider One Medical " @ Outsourcing Technical Competence Is a Very Bad Idea - Henrico Dolfing cf. GS Project Failure Case Studies - Henrico Dolfing * laundry @ COVID.gov/tests - Free at-home COVID-19 tests -> ordered @ 2022 Marmolada serac collapse - Wikipedia @ WHO declares monkeypox a global health emergency as infections soar - WaPo @ ordered socks. Again -- I've ordered 6 times (12 pairs) -- so far; out of the 10 pairs supposedly on hand there are only ~6-7 pairs left. (heels wear out first.) * Singing: Stolen Child. My fingers hurt now -- haven't been practicing _nearly_ enough * Singing: Rainbow's Edge (one verse/cho) still rather uncertain about the melody, and I'll need to reconstruct the picking pattern. * 15min: got the brackets screwed onto the shelf unit in the studio -- as I'd hoped, it was able to get the obstreperous joint pulled together. So that's good.
ETA: Bathsheba Sculpture - E8 I might just need one of these. only $60
Here's E8 in all its glory -- or at least a 3D projection
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