david santos, r.i.p.

Sometimes it seems as if you have all the time in the world, and you can get to something tomorrow. Or next week or next year. And sometimes you find out that your time is up.

I just found out tonight that David Santos, one of my roommates in grad school, passed away. This didn't happen today or yesterday. Or last week or last year. It happened in 2011, so you can figure out that we haven't stayed close through the years. But David was one of the people that I've been figuring I'll catch up with eventually. Eventually... I guess not.

I first met David when I started grad school in the fall of 1987. We were both entering the PhD program* at the University of Michigan, and were going to be living in the same dorm -- Baits Stanley on the North Campus. He had gone to the University of Chicago as an undergrad, and had a much stronger background than I did. He and I were in the same real analysis class that first semester, and his help and encouragement kept me afloat.

In our second year, David and I were renting bedrooms in a private house near the Central Campus. I don't think we ever had any more classes together (after that first semester real analysis), but he still always made time to offer me helpful hints on my homeworks.

David had a very quick wit, and always saw connections between seemingly unconnected things. And I always enjoyed his company.

After I left grad school, I only saw David a few times. He occasionally visited New York with his then-girlfriend, Margie, and I was always eager to catch up with them. The last time I saw David was at the wedding of two other friends in Chicago. After that, we fell out of touch. I think we had a conversation in the late 1990s, but I don't recall much in the way of details.

It's been a long time since David was a part of my life in any real way, but I still feel a sense of loss. The world was a better place with David than it is without him.

Here is a memorial website.

Rest in peace, friend.

*Just to make sure no one thinks I am misrepresenting myself, I never did finish the PhD.

the legend of the 7 golden vampires (cinema history class)

Session: Supernatural Martial Arts, week 3
Movie: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)
Directed by Roy Ward Baker and Chang Cheh
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL


Plot:
A European vampirologist travels to China to fight vampires alongside kung fu experts. Hilarity ensues.

Background and Reaction:
It's still not entirely clear to me that there was a need to combine Hammer horror with Kung Fu into one movie. In fact, it's kind of tempting to dismiss the concept out of hand. On the other hand, it's no more ridiculous than Jesse James Meets Dracula's Daughter or Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.

There were some things to like in this movie. I loved the use of color -- there was a lot of orange/blue contrast that really made for a visually interesting look. Early on I was thinking that it had the comic book look of Creepshow or Eaten Alive. But as it wore on I realized that that wasn't the case.

This was better than the two pure kung fu movies we saw the prior two weeks simply because there was less kung fu. In those movies, the plot is really just a thin device to get us between kung fu fight scenes. It's been explained to me that that's the genre, but I don't like it.

So this had more of a real plot than the other two movies, but I just had trouble getting into the plot.

Ratings:
Joe: 9.8
Dave: 9.7-9.8
Sean: 3 out of 4
Scott: 9.5
Me: 7.5
Ethan: 8

Bechdel:
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires fails the Bechdel test.

Extras:
Joe, back from his trip to Israel, gave us all Western Wall commemorative yarmulkes.

my first world problem: free food

On Monday I was at the annual ASNY meeting. At lunch I found myself at a table for ten. The other nine were all practicing Orthodox Jews. That  meant that they had requested kosher meals and that they weren't going to eat the desserts that had been put out on the table. I could have eaten all ten desserts without a problem. Also, before the meeting there were all manner of pastries and bagels set out in the morning before the meeting. I could have gorged myself and no one would have noticed.

That is but one example of something that I have only now started to notice -- how often free food* is knocking at my door. And I've been noticing it now because I've been limiting what I eat. Specifically, I've been trying to eat less overall -- and, especially, to eat less in the way of simple carbohydrates.

I'm not sure when I first noticed the phenomenon, but it definitely crystallized in my head when Sharon and I went to see Francis Su lecture at Mo Math. I rote about that here. Since the lecture was about dividing cakes evenly, there was a practicum which involved free cake for everyone.

As Sharon and I were walking to the subway afterwards, she asked about why I didn't have any of the cake. Surely a little bit wouldn't hurt? I explained that it's actually easier for me not to have any than to have a small bit and leave it at that. She then asked if that meant that I would never have cake again. I said that I don't know. I'm not swearing off sweets and treats forever or for any fixed period. I'm deciding now not to have any now. Tomorrow never knows. And that's how I reconcile myself to the deprivation. Allowing for the possibility of eating all the crap I want whenever I decide that I want.

After the conversation, I realized that this chance to have free cake wasn't an aberration. I go to garden clubs, and there's food. I attend a charity event with Stack-Up, and there's food. At work, there's often free food for the taking. Leftovers from catered lunch meetings, snacks that people put out...that kind of stuff. And there are a couple of people who keep candy baskets on their desks, inviting anyone to take.

And, yes, I know that it's a classic example of a first world problem to complain about too much free food. But, damn is it tempting.

Anyway, I have to stop writing this, since I need to get to bed. There's a LIDS meeting, and it's a potluck. Laura always bakes incredible cakes.

*In a lot of cases, such as the ASNY meeting, the food isn't technically free. Its cost is built into the price of attendance at the conference. But for the purposes of this post I am using the word "free" to mean "at no extra cost to me."

one of these things...

I remember, in high school, when a teacher was talking about series and sequences of numbers. She presented a series, such as 3, 6, 9* and asked what the next number is. Of course, she was expecting us to answer 12. I noted that, if you say that the sequence is defined by a polynomial expression, you can justify anything as the next number by picking the right coefficients. 3, 6, 9, 75? There's a third-degree polynomial that fits it. And, by the way, there are infinitely man fourth degree polynomials that fit as well.** 

I used to have a friend named Angry Bob. On more than one occasion he called me, annoyed about a sample Mensa test (or somesuch) he saw in a magazine. He didn't score in the genius range, and wanted to plead his case. Specifically, there would be four pictures, and a question of which one doesn't belong. It was easy enough to figure out what the quiz-writers intended, but Angry saw it differently. He pleaded his case. I explained that the quiz was looking for a different answer. He'd plead again, arguing that his choice was just as legitimate***.This went on until I said that, yeah, he's right, he deserves credit. We would go through several questions this way until he had enough questions right to score in the "genius" range.

I was reminded of the above vignettes as we listened to Christopher Danielson at the National Museum of Mathematics (Mo Math). Blair, Sharon and I (along with one of Sharon's friends and her family) went to see Danielson's presentation, "Which One Doesn't Belong?" which was part of the museum's "Family Fridays" program.

Danielson is an educator of educators. That is, his "thing" is helping people figure out how to teach math to kids. His websites are talkingmathwithkids.com and christopherdanielson.wordpress.com.

The main part of the program consisted of Danielson showing slides with pictures of four objects, and asking for the particpants' thoughts about which object didn't belong. But instead of focusing on what is the one right answer, he focused on the fact that any answer could be right. Consider, for example, the picture above.

• The shape in the lower left doesn't belong because it's the only one that's convex.
• The shape in the lower right doesn't belong because it's the only one with multiple lines of symmetry.
• The shape in the upper left doesn't belong because it's the only shape whose boundary has no straight lines.
• The shape in the upper right doesn't belong because it's the only shape whose boundary consists entirely of straight lines.

This wasn't as advanced a topic as Francis Su's cake-cutting talk (which I write about here). And to a degree we were out of place; Sharon and her friend were older than most of the kids there. But it was interesting nonetheless. Danielson was trying to introduce the youngsters to flexible mathematical thinking. And it was vindication for that former high schooler in me who bristled at an inflexible teacher. I only hope that Angry Bob, wherever he is, would feel vindicated as well.

*I don't remember what the actual numbers were, so I'll use these for the purposes of the narrative.

**Yeah, I was a smart-ass in high school.

***In all fairness, he was right.

baseball stoopidstats -- 2017 edition, number 5

Congratulations to the Houston Astros on winning the World Series.* The Astros have now won almost half as many series as is their fair share.

One of the statistics that I track and update every year is what I call, for lack of a better name, World Series Wins per Share Ratio. The intent is to compare the number of times a franchise has won the World Series with the number of times it would have been expected to win if World Series victories were simply distributed at random among the franchises. To calculate this, you simply divide A by B where:

• A is equal to the number of times a franchise has won the World Series;
• B is the sum, for all years that the franchise existed (and that there was a World Series), 1/N (where N is the number of franchises in the year.

If a team's ratio is 1, that means they have won exactly their share of World Series. If its ratio is 2, that means they have won twice as many World Series as their share. Etc.

I should note that I am only counting the modern World Series, which began in 1903. Also, for the purposes of calculating B, I do not include Federal League teams in N, since the FL didn't participate.

The spreadsheet for 2017 is here. The table on the right shows the results as of 2017.





*Though, seriously, whoever decided to move them to the American League is demented. So is whoever changed their name to Astros. Colt .45's was a way cooler name.