(no subject)
Usually I only update on days worth talking about. Today I'm going to tell you about a day not worth talking about, and how that day was saved. (After midnight, so it may not really count as THAT day being saved by some standards. Though if you were in Hawaii, it would be the same day in your time zone. But I am not. I wish I was.)
Yesterday morning I got up and hurried to class, where we learned about ring theory and the uniqueness of prime factorization in a ring structure of a general ring K. For example, in the ring Z[(-m)^1/2], there are only nine integers m which admit unique prime factorization: 1, 2, 3, 7, 11, 19, 43, 67, and 163. If m is not one of those integers, say m=5, then you can have an element, like 6, which can be factored into 2*3, or (1+(-5)^1/2)*(1-(-5)^1/2), where all of the above factors are prime in Z[(-5)^1/2]. This is not true for the ring of integers. Any integer can be uniquely factored into prime integers. Anyway, it was a fun time.
Then I went to Sureshot Cafe for a hot chocolate and pinball and some hardcore studying. This is my usual daily routine, and this is my usual coffee hangout. Why? Because there are very few people that will bother me while I'm studying.
I said few. Not zero.
I don't hate Joe. I like the guy. But not more than I like physics. Especially when he starts telling me about his pseudo-metaphysical theories about brain waves and the waves that come from the sun and moon when they're aligned (?) and how if you're sleeping during an eclipse and your body is aligned right, you can travel to another plane of reality.
I think anyone who knows me well knows my intense instinct for debunking idiots. It didn't help that I have a physics degree, and could identify and quantify all the things he was referring to that had a remote basis in reality, and things that were just plain made up. It also didn't help that, to illustrate his brilliant theories, he took to doodling in my notebook. My PHYSICS notebook. My notebook full of legitimate science was being tarnished with drawings of the sun and moon and waves coming from them and people sleeping and what looked like magnetic fields springing from people's heads. I held my tongue for the most part this time. I sorely wanted to just yell at him "DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT A WAVE IS?" But I didn't. Anyway, there must be something to what he was saying, because I can verify that he was definitely on a different plane of reality.
Anyway, I went to work, and had a fun time, and at ten minutes to eight, Dawn shows up, with Joe. What the hell? It was a day of inescapable people. "Hey Paul, when do you get off work?" "Um, ten minutes." "Do you want to watch a movie with us?" I wish I was as much of an asshole on the outside as I am on the inside. "Okay."
Good part of the evening: We watched "Slacker". I haven't seen that in forever. But we watched it all the way through, which is just too much at once. It's like eating a container of ice cream. All at once, it's just depressing. Anyway, It's a lovely movie. And I excused myself shortly there after.
So I'm walking to the bus stop, wondering why my night had to be so slightly annoying, when what should be the resolving phrase of the night? Saul Good. He was just getting out of the car from hanging out with his brother and brother's girlfriend and two extremely annoying drunk people. Two guys in a similar boat, on a friday night, right in front of an Irish pub. What could be better? We had a few beers, talked for an hour and a half, and made it a great night. Saul kicks ass.
That's it. That's the end.
Yesterday morning I got up and hurried to class, where we learned about ring theory and the uniqueness of prime factorization in a ring structure of a general ring K. For example, in the ring Z[(-m)^1/2], there are only nine integers m which admit unique prime factorization: 1, 2, 3, 7, 11, 19, 43, 67, and 163. If m is not one of those integers, say m=5, then you can have an element, like 6, which can be factored into 2*3, or (1+(-5)^1/2)*(1-(-5)^1/2), where all of the above factors are prime in Z[(-5)^1/2]. This is not true for the ring of integers. Any integer can be uniquely factored into prime integers. Anyway, it was a fun time.
Then I went to Sureshot Cafe for a hot chocolate and pinball and some hardcore studying. This is my usual daily routine, and this is my usual coffee hangout. Why? Because there are very few people that will bother me while I'm studying.
I said few. Not zero.
I don't hate Joe. I like the guy. But not more than I like physics. Especially when he starts telling me about his pseudo-metaphysical theories about brain waves and the waves that come from the sun and moon when they're aligned (?) and how if you're sleeping during an eclipse and your body is aligned right, you can travel to another plane of reality.
I think anyone who knows me well knows my intense instinct for debunking idiots. It didn't help that I have a physics degree, and could identify and quantify all the things he was referring to that had a remote basis in reality, and things that were just plain made up. It also didn't help that, to illustrate his brilliant theories, he took to doodling in my notebook. My PHYSICS notebook. My notebook full of legitimate science was being tarnished with drawings of the sun and moon and waves coming from them and people sleeping and what looked like magnetic fields springing from people's heads. I held my tongue for the most part this time. I sorely wanted to just yell at him "DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT A WAVE IS?" But I didn't. Anyway, there must be something to what he was saying, because I can verify that he was definitely on a different plane of reality.
Anyway, I went to work, and had a fun time, and at ten minutes to eight, Dawn shows up, with Joe. What the hell? It was a day of inescapable people. "Hey Paul, when do you get off work?" "Um, ten minutes." "Do you want to watch a movie with us?" I wish I was as much of an asshole on the outside as I am on the inside. "Okay."
Good part of the evening: We watched "Slacker". I haven't seen that in forever. But we watched it all the way through, which is just too much at once. It's like eating a container of ice cream. All at once, it's just depressing. Anyway, It's a lovely movie. And I excused myself shortly there after.
So I'm walking to the bus stop, wondering why my night had to be so slightly annoying, when what should be the resolving phrase of the night? Saul Good. He was just getting out of the car from hanging out with his brother and brother's girlfriend and two extremely annoying drunk people. Two guys in a similar boat, on a friday night, right in front of an Irish pub. What could be better? We had a few beers, talked for an hour and a half, and made it a great night. Saul kicks ass.
That's it. That's the end.