Via CT I read the news that Elsevier will stop running arms fairs, although they prefer to call it “the defence exhibitions sector.” I remember blogging about this when it first happened, but I never imagined they’d change their behavior. Now maybe they’ll stop coercing academic libraries into buying lousy journals…
Author Archives: Anand Sarwate
triple entendres, dirty jokes, and publications
In Cover’s early paper on “Broadcast Channels,” (IEEE Trans. Info Theory, vol 18, no 1, 1972), he writes:
The primary heuristic that we garner from these investigations is that high joint rates of transmission are best achieved by superimposing high-rate and low-rate information rather than by using time-sharing. Novels written with many levels of symbolism provide just one example of a mode of communication that may be perceived at many different
levels by different people.11I am soliciting double- and triple-meaning quotes that illustrate this idea. Consider, for example, the reaction of three different people to the following donated story. Buck and Harry led a beautiful maiden into the clearing by a rope tied around her ankle. “Let’s make her fast,” said Buck, “while we have breakfast.” The anonymity of the authors will be protected.
So the meanings I can come up with are (a) “let’s prevent her from eating while we have breakfast,” (b) “let’s bind her tightly while we have breakfast,” and (c) a meaning using a sexual interpretation of “make.” There’s something a bit disquieting about a dirty joke in a journal, especially one with overtones of rape. Nevertheless, I read it as an an interesting example of the ambiguity of language, even though it reifies the old-boy’s club-ness of the field…
Choralis Review in SFCV
The Choralis concert I mentioned earlier got a great review in SFCV!
Choralis’ balances, musicality of phrasing, and dulcet timbers were first-rate under the experienced Richard Sparks. Sparks is an American who has made a distinguished career, largely in Canada, Seattle, and Sweden. Both in terms of programming and directing, I found his contribution most impressive. It all amounted to a memorable concert experience.
My reaudition is on Tuesday, so we’ll see how it goes. The next concert will be the Victoria and Howells Requiems. Requia? Requii?
Aquamacs with dvips + ps2pdf
I spent about 3 hours in the last two days trying to figure out how to switch from TeXShop’s terrible editor to Aquamacs, because Aquamacs has AUCTeX support. Unfortunately, I use dvips and psp2df since I do figures in pstricks, and AUCTeX comes in two modes — just latex with xdvi and pdftex. What’s even stupider is that if I do C-c C-c view it won’t even properly call the external DVI viewer (TeXniscope.app), so I have to futz around with the AUCTeX configurations, which still doesn’t seem to do anything. Furthermore, I don’t get any diagnostic information, and if I just bind the xdvi command to dvips it fails to even run that. This suggests to me that something even more screwed up is going on…
It seemed for a bit that this guy was trying to do the same thing as me, but when I tried applying his solutions I still got nothing. I really don’t see why this should be difficult, but it’s now well-exceeded the amount of time I’m willing to spend on it. Are my needs too niche? Does everyone use pdftex these days?
new things in my rss reader
My officemate Pulkit Grover seems to have a super-secret blog that he hasn’t officially told anyone about but appends to his signature file. Sneaky…
Terence Tao, super-genius, also has a blog, where he talks about many things of a mathematical nature that I can almost grasp.
Choralis Debut Concert
This is the last concert I have lined up for a little while, and it’s with an outstanding group of singers. Of course, most people who read this blog and could go have already been spammed by me, but linking helps with choralissf.org’s page rank, right?
From Renaissance to Romantic to Recent
Saturday, June 2, 2007 -8pm
Trinity Episcopal Church
1668 Bush St, San Francisco
Choralis, the Bay Area’s newest vocal ensemble, will make its debut in San Francisco performing a selection of a capella choral works for chamber choir. Conductor Richard Sparks will lead the ensemble through both beloved and commanding works of Tallis, Lotti, Kuhnau, Rheinberger, Thompson, Lauridsen, Mäntyjärvi, and others.
Admission: suggested $10 donation
To learn more or to reserve seating, visit the Choralis website or e-mail choralissf@gmail.com.
Rebekah Wu, Manager – 415-439-4498
Farewell, SF Symphony Chorus
Sunday was my last SF Symphony Chorus concert. We performed Beethoven’s 9th Racket with the SF Youth Orchestra under the baton of Benjamin Shwartz, who is also 27 years old. Food for thought, that.
Oh, and those kids can play.
technical difficulties
I’m having some technical difficulties and trying to resolve them — hopefully the site will be up and running again soon…
UPDATE : The problem appears to be with my cache and/or the template I had been using before. So bear with this one and maybe I’ll find something prettier in my copious spare time (har har har).
those crazy Brits
So I was reading the science news over at the BBC when I came across this article:
Although there are still those who argue over the US and “former UK” definitions of figures such as a billion and trillion, according to Michael there is now basic agreement that a trillion is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million.
Maybe it’s my American-centric upbringing, but was there really a debate about this? I went and consulted a few dictionaries. Merriam-Webster says:
The “number table” gives the following (American, British, integer) triples: (billion, milliard, 109), (trillion, billion, 1012), and (quintillion, trillion, 1018). Apparently 10n where n = 3 (mod 6) and n > 14 don’t warrant their own name — they can be a “thousand 10n – 3.”
The regional bias is clearer in the American Heritage versus OED. The American Heritage Dictionary puts 1012 first:
1. The cardinal number equal to 1012.
2. Chiefly British The cardinal number equal to 1018.
The OED has its own bias:
The third power of a million; a million billions, i.e. millions of millions. Also, orig. in France and local U.S., a thousand ‘billions’, or 1012 (i.e. the traditional English billion: see BILLION): this sense is now standard in the U.S. and is increasingly common in British usage.
An Ergodic Walk 