( Vaughan Pratt and Andrej Bauer on the FOM mailing list )

Tumbarumba is a pretty cool idea. I just found my first tumbarumba reading this article:

The forfeits cost Wang and Li their matches, and they had to go home. In an interview published on the tournament’s Web site, Wang said he understood the decision but thought it was unfair. He expressed remorse for what happened to Li, who started smoking ( Read more... )

I learned recently of this tragedy on the day before New Year's, and was greatly saddened. Tom Bruno was a local accordion virtuoso and master craftsman. A little over a year ago, J and I drove to his workshop in New Kensington to bring my accordion for tuning. Given that he was the only remaining accordion repairman/tuner in Pittsburgh, we were ( Read more... )

oh Knuth, how I wish you had made TeX into a real programming language.

This CD is amazing. It features the Accordion Tribe, which includes one of my favorite accordionists, Guy Klucevsek. I especially like the combination reeds/weird guttural singing on "Unikko". Maybe I should check out more of Maria Kalaniemi.

you had my vote with this. But this helped.

these days, besides going crazy, I am making my way through William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (currently at the end of 1933). One thought that strikes me as I'm reading it is how much of history depends on little coincidences, and on people's unwillingness to put in marginally more thought/effort into a situation. Particularly ( Read more... )

people who are trying to write their thesis should definitely avoid the game fantastic contraption.

this was responding to a furniture ad I put up for an ex-roommate, originally asking $400, but then reposted at $300 ( Read more... )

I recently made a post on craigslist, and got a few responses. The following exchange is probably completely reasonable, but I am nonetheless a bad person and find it amusing ( Read more... )