My Carter number is one 29 Jul 2009 Longtime readers will recall that I was put upon by that mountebank Professor Steve Steve during a trip to the US one time. Now he has managed to finagle a dinner with America’s most moral president, Jimmy Carter! So I have a one-degree relationship with the 39th President and Nobel laureate. It almost makes up for having no Erd?s number at all. Humor
Evolution Some fun 11 Jun 2008 This guy is brilliant, both as a guitarist and a lyricist. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpNoQaB2LT0&hl=en] Oh, his name’s Chris Smither, if you want to Google him. Read More
Humor Guards! Guards! trailer 8 Sep 2009 Will someone get Terry to employ this guy gal (but make sure there’s a proper foley and sound editor)? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhLyeVTmZGc&hl=en&fs=1&] Read More
Evolution NYT article on genes 10 Nov 2008 Here, by the incredibly young, handsome and way too successful Carl Zimmer, late of the Seed stable. Carl brings to mind my favourite Truman Capote saying: It is not enough to succeed. Friends must be seen to have failed. Anyway, go read the bastard’s excellent essay. I will just sit… Read More
My Jerry Garcia number is ‘one’ (counting nodes and not edges!) by two different routes and that beats out any American president, living or dead, in my book.
And my GW Bush– America’s least moral president (living, and probably a good swath of the dead ones as well) — number is 1 (by the Wilkins Node-Counting Method). I am so very proud. (Though to me, edge-counting makes more sense: that way you are 0 degrees from yourself, and 1 from your immediate contacts)
Yep: Erdos, P.; Shallit, J. O. New bounds on the length of finite pierce and Engel series. Journal de théorie des nombres de Bordeaux, 3 no. 1 (1991), p. 43-53 http://archive.numdam.org/ARCHIVE/JTNB/JTNB_1991__3_1/JTNB_1991__3_1_43_0/JTNB_1991__3_1_43_0.pdf
A good friend, who died a few years ago, was the daughter of immigrant Germans. In the 30’s, they were seduced by the siren call of Nazism. When my friend was a little girl, the family took a trip back to Germany, during which she was introduced to Hitler and shook his hand. I don’t recall what year she said this happened, but obviously it was before the war. She also said that one or both of her parents were imprisoned in the U.S. during the war for a while because of his/her/their evil political views or activities.
She was politically progressive, worked for justice in the community, the state and the country, and was married to a Jew. If she were alive today, I think marriage equality would be her non-local, not-environmental issue. I’d say she repudiated everything her parents stood for.
America had been on a very slippery slope of a ride during the dark days of the Bush administration. We seem to have rebounded or awoken like a cold slap on the face from our political stupor. Still, not sure if our or milado president is either. Where is Jerry? We will eventually be knocking on Heaven’s door, and what will any of this matter then? Still, I remain disenfranchised with America so far in the 21st Century, and came across a political graphic that does a fairly good job in capturing this sentiment. http://www.cafepress.com/usa21stcentury