Stay Tuned for My Mathematics Opinion Piece :)

Achievement Unlocked: I'm pretty sure that this is the first time I've felt the need to promise to an editor that I would not swear in an opinion piece that I'm going to write about mathematics.

Note: You should have seen the smile on my face when I was asked to write this. :P

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) February 17, 2020

In case you're wondering, the correct analogy (which you'll understand if you are familiar with Dragonlance) is "Tasslehoff was bored." (Nothing on Krynn is more dangerous than a bored kender.)

A sudden thought: I wonder if this counts as an Invited Tirade?

Carpeting Dragon*Con

The old carpet at the Atlanta Marriott — which unfortunately was replaced with something much more boring — has become a big part of the legend of Dragon*Con. (It also appeals to me mathematically, of course.)

Many Dragon*Con costumes and related things still invoke the old carpet.

Here is an article (to which I can't get full access) that appears to be about carpet-related costumes more generally (though the front picture is one from Dragon*Con).

Medieval Fantasy City Generator

This is so cool!

I also wonder if it uses any generative-model ideas from urban analytics and/or complex systems?

(Tip of the cap to Dungeons and Dragons Memes.)

Poincaré Disk: Fantasy Edition

I love it!

A surface obtained by gluing six heptagons. Universal cover in the Poincaré model (the same character shown = the same point of the surface). Weapons to show that this is not orientable (it has Euler characteristic -1). Constructed by DivisionByZero [ https://t.co/zgD3J7pG4f ] pic.twitter.com/J1MzJKCkYl

— Zeno Rogue (@ZenoRogue) June 20, 2018

Maps of Imaginary Places

Take a look at the fantastic maps of imaginary places in this blog entry by Maria Popova.

Victory for The Onion: Kellyanne Conway Edition

I think The Onion's new article about Kellyanne Conway explains a lot. This article is exceptional (and highly amusing)! Once again, I declare victory for The Onion. It's really funny, and the article title gives you a good idea of where this is going: "You Would Do The Same Thing If An Old Witch Had Your Father’s Soul Trapped In A Lantern"

The following line expands on the title: "But answer me truthfully: Who among you wouldn’t do the same exact thing if an evil 400-year-old witch had trapped your father’s eternal soul inside a cursed iron lantern, flickering faintly each time his agonized moans escaped the murky, otherworldly ether that is his prison?"

Treants Love Baseball

I really like the new SMBC!

Maybe I was a treant in a past life? :) (Or "ent", if you prefer earlier terminology.)

Book Recommendation: The Bone Season

I am now about 60% through The Bone Season, and I am really enjoying it. Highly recommended!

Especially highly recommend if you like dystopian fantasy (the book scores very high in world building, which tends to be a big win for me), and especially highly recommended if you've spent time in Oxford.

(So far, most of the book takes place in dystopian Oxford—including dystopian High Table, dystopian Magdalen deer park, dystopian tutorial, etc.)

Every Flavor Except for a Set of Measure Zero?

I saw these Harry-Potter-inspired jelly beans at a market many years ago, and I was struck by "Every Flavor Beans" now coming with two more flavors. Perhaps they mean every flavor except for a set of measure zero?

"Brimstone Angels" Series of Forgotten Realms Novels

This evening I just finished the 4th book in the Brimstone Angels series of Forgotten Realms novels.

I read the 3rd book on the series last fall as part of my read of The Sundering series (which is the main track covering the transition from 4th edition Forgotten Realms to 5th edition), and I bought the first two books to introduce myself to the characters in that book. However, I decided to read the book, The Adversary, to go through the whole Sundering series (though with occasional break to read other books, such as following Drizzt Do'Urden and one or two things from other genres, as some of the books in The Sundering series weren't all that great) before getting back to the first two books.

I found that I enjoyed "The Adversary" a great deal. It was one of the best D & D novels I had read in a long time. It is well-written, and the characters are interesting --- and I also do enjoy Planar beings and politics in my novels. (I really dug the Planescape setting back in the day.) The occasional draconic swearing mixed in with the English also reminds me of Firefly, so that is a nice touch too. To keep this track going, I decided to read the 4th book first and will treat books 1 and 2 as preludes. (Book 4, called Fire in the Blood is also very good.) I'm not sure if I will get through them both before the 5th book comes out in December (and I would like to jump to that to keep the story going), especially as I want to read the next Do'Urden book that comes out next month.

Every time I go on sabbatical and have some more time or it's the summer and I have more time, if I find a good fantasy novel, I am reminded how much I enjoy them --- even though during the school year, it's hard to spend much time at all reading novels. Around the last month or so, I have tried to make it a point to at least read a little bit of a novel on most days. (It would be really nice to keep that up; it makes me happy.) I also really miss playing in a D & D campaign, so between wanting to find a way to play RPGs regularly again and enjoying a really good D & D novel, I have been thinking about D & D a lot lately (including reminiscing about adventures from days gone by, browsing a bit through some 1st edition books, etc.). I used to have so much more time for reading novels and playing D & D, and it would be really nice to recover that. I have become so busy in the last few years.

So, this is my book recommendation for the day. I think it's been quite a while since I blogged about a novel!

Anachronisms, Anatopisms, and "Anamegethisms" (or possibly "Anadiastasisms")

We all know about anachronisms (things that misplaced in time), and I looked up that an analogous word for space (anatopism) indeed exists. However, the word I really want for things like Dungeons and Dragons --- and maybe even for a convenient or possibly snarky use in mathematics --- is to be misplaced in dimension. In the context of Dungeons and Dragons, this would be something that is the wrong plane of existence.

Apparently, there isn't a literal Greek translation of the word "dimension" in the way that we would say that time and space are examples of dimensions. Of the two choices, διάσταση (pronounced "diástasi̱") and μέγεθος (pronounced "mégethos"), the latter has an analogous form as the Greek words for time (χρόνος; khronos) and space (τόπος; place), so I have chosen to use the latter. This leaves me with the word "anamegethism". (However, from my Googling, it seems like "mégethos" would translate more to "greatness", so using a term like "anadiastasism" would probably be a more appropriate way of saying that something is displaced in dimensions, even though the form of the original Greek word is different from those for time and space.)

Context (using an example that really annoyed me from a novel that I read about 25 years ago): "The kender in the Dragonlance novel whispered that their captor obviously had some orc blood, but that is a anamegethism, because orcs do not occur naturally on the world of Krynn. So even if an orc somehow got there at some point --- perhaps via spelljamming --- it still wouldn't have been something that would be construed as obvious (especially from a low-level character).

If anybody who actually knows Greek --- Hell, I'm in Oxford, so I certainly have access to experts --- will let me know if I did this right, that would be great. In fact, I am going to e-mail one now.

Update: I also very much like the notion of "displaced in greatness", even though I wasn't thinking of that when I started down this rabbit hole.

Ludicrous Spelljamming

This infographic about the estimated speeds of ships from science fiction makes me want to Spelljam.

The Buffalo Beholders and Other Fantasy Football Teams

Here are some very cool fantasy football t-shirts that 'put the fantasy back in fantasy football'. I especially like the Buffalo Beholders, and some of the other ones are also really cool.

(Tip of the cap to Greg Stolerman.)

Cubicles & Careers

Cubicles & Careers hits a bit too close to home at times (although my +5 Ivory Tower helps quite a lot). Let's go on a quest!

(Tip of the cap to Meredith Alden.)

One Does Not Simply Walk Into Los Angeles

Not only does nobody walk in LA, but it also seems that one does not simply walk into Los Angeles: a climate model applied to Middle Earth has found that Mordor's climate is basically like that of Los Angeles.

(Tip of the cap to Physics Today.)

RIP Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

Ray Bradbury died today. Here is his wikipedia page.

I really need to read Farenheit 451 at some point. I've intended to for years, but I have not yet managed to get around to it---this is especially true because my skype id is inspired by that title along with my own attempt at irony.

On this day, it is worth reading Ray Bradbury's awesome 2000 commencement speech at Caltech, which I had the pleasure to watch. On the topic of commencement speeches, which are rather seasonal nowadays, two other ones I got to witness are Bill Nye's 1998 speech at Caltech (that was the year I graduated) and Sandra Tsing Loh's 2005 speech at Caltech. Finally, let me also mention that one of my dynamical systems contemporaries D.J. Patil (who, alas, no longer studies dynamical systems and now works in industry) was given the incredible honor of giving this year's commencement speech at University of Maryland (whence he got his Ph.D. as a member of the infamous Chaos Group). I was unable to find Nye's speech quickly via Google, so please post a link in the comments if you're able to find one. (I really need to get back to work.)

(Tips of the cap for Jaideep Singh [who posted Bradbury's commence speech], Ryan Mack [whose post informed me more directly about Bradbury's death], and D.J. Patil [for posting a link to the text of his speech.)

One Does Not Simply Google-Map into Mordor

Wow, this is awesome! Way to go, Google!

(I checked Google Maps myself and verified this easter egg. I approve!)

What happens at Dragon*Con stays at Dragon*Con

I have arrived in Atlanta. My first Dragon*Con in 6 years starts tomorrow morning!!! 3.5 solid days of gaming and geekery starts morning!!! (That's right. For once, I am actually taking a proper holiday.) Stay tuned for some *awesome* pictures!

My hotel is near where I used to live, and seeing my old apartment complex upon walking out of the metro station felt very weird.

I have pre-registered for 2 games, though I might skip out on one of them because it starts at 10 pm on Sunday, and Monday after the Con ends I will need to prepare my slides for my cow synchronization talk at Georgia Tech on Tuesday. (Once Dragon*Con ends, I am going to switch to my academic visit mode, and I didn't get a chance to make too many of these slides yet, and this is an all-new talk.) The one I will definitely do is the 3.5 D & D adventure called "Into the Nexus" (which is based on the Weis/Hickman series of books on which you think it's based). The one I might not do is in a system called "Spirit of the Century". The adventure seems very cool, but I'm not keen on getting home at 3am on Monday. I'm also going to play in The Cheesegrinder, of course! My pseudodragon monk, who is immune to just about everything (though an anti-magic field would get rid of some of the immunities temporarily, as only some are due to race and monkhood) but can hardly do any damage at all, is ready to go. I finished 2nd overall 6 years ago, and the key is survivability, so we'll see how things go. In making this character, I had to actually look up weapon damage adjustments for tiny creatures! (And, yes, the characters are supposed to be cheesy too.)

As always, I'm also looking forward to the dealer room, the exhibit hall, and the art gallery. I didn't have a digital camera the other two times I attended Dragon*Con, so I expect to take tons of cool pictures. Lots of people will dress up in their finest geekery, so there is also great pleasure even in just sitting down, having some coffee, and people-watching. Plus I have several Firefly, Buffy/Angel, and Star Trek autographs that I'll try to procure. (And I'll try to get pictures taken with these people of course.)

Bring it on.

(By the way, these 3.5 days off constitute a tie for my longest vacation in about 3 years---well, it's tied with the 3.5 days off in a row that I took during my Shanghai trip.)

Mort

This evening, I saw a play called Mort, which was adapted from the eponymous Terry Pratchett book. I have (obviously) heard of Discworld, but I have never actually read any of it. Nevertheless, the idea of a play based on stuff like that sounded appealing [and, interestingly, Tolkien's (great? great great?) granddaughter, an Oxford freshman, was in the play so there are other fantasy connections as well] and I was not disappointed. (It turns out that one of my perturbation methods students from last term was also in the play.)

I hadn't know about the play until I read a review of it in one of Oxford's student newspapers, and I was thankfully able to make it today (the last day). The author of the review seemed to find it mediocre, but I was intrigued by both the theme and his/her comments that the character of Death had a very dry sense of humor. That was more than enough to make me want to see it because I like that sort of thing. Sure enough, Death was awesome!

One thing this makes me want to do is read the book, but in looking at Mort's wikipedia entry, there appear to be three books that come before it. My question to the audience is first whether this is necessary for this particular book and second (independent of the answer to the first query) what you think of those three preceding books (as well as this one).

2006: The Year in Literature (and other reading)

Well, I'm going to define "literature" broadly for the purposes of this blog entry. I really mean the year in text.

I read a few more novels this year than usual for two reasons: (1) I'm not currently teaching and the time in the evening I might use to prepare lectures I can instead use for reading, baseball, games, or any of several other means of goofing off. (2) I gained at least a couple novels (and probably three) because a baseball book -- a rather comprehensive one filled with scouting reports-- I used to buy every year called The Scouting Notebook was not printed in 2006.

OK, so what did I read?

I finished off the Deathgate Cycle books by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman and had a lot of fun with most of those (though some were better than others).

I also read the third and final book (Road of the Patriarch) in R. A. Salvatore's "Sellswords" trilogy, which is set on Toril (Forgotten Realms) and follows the assassin Artemis Entreri and the drow mercenarcy Jarlaxle. (Jarlaxle is one of my favorite characters.) It's good that Salvatore has been moving away from writing about Drizzt all the time and has turned the spotlight on some of the other characters he's created (some of which are more interesting than Drizzt and definitely benefit from the development). One of the things I particularly liked with this trilogy is to focus on characters whose alignment isn't good.

I read the second book in the current trilogy in the main Dragonlance story arc. This book, called Amber & Iron, follows the character Mina, who was introduced in the "War of Souls" series (by Weis), and brings in some new characters. (There are occasional cameos by some of the other Dragonlance characters, though these aren't as interesting as many of the older ones about whom I read for years.) The third book in this trilogy should be coming out in February. Another book by Weis & Hickman, Dragons of the Dwarven Depths, is the first book in the "Lost Chronicles" trilogy and covers the main Dragonlance characters of old between the first two books in the original Chronicles. Reading about adventures between two known ones isn't the same as following a timeline without knowing where it will lead, but I really like the writing of Weis & Hickman, and I also enjoyed the chance to read about Tasselhoff, Raistlin, and company again. The next book in this series comes out in July.

I finished up the new Amy Tan book (called Saving Fish from Drowning) at the beginning of the year. I bought it towards the end of last year, and it was sadly a major disappointment. I typically buy her new books (other than children's books) without a thought, but after this disaster, I'm going to be more judicious about the next one and not trust her automatically.

I also ate into my backlog a bit, which includes several novels I bought dating back to when I was a student at Tech -- I don't use a queue or a stack when choosing my reading material; I'll read certain things that I buy immediately and others have to wait for me to get around to them. One of them, about Lord Soth's fall from grace, wasn't good, but I insist on finishing books that I start. I'm anal that way. (Among other things, I was annoyed how the Knights of Solamnia in the book were depicted just like stereotypical soldiers who like to drank, brag about their conquests, etc. The book also wasn't well written, which is a greater sin than the depiction that didn't feel faithful to the Dragonlance universe.) Another book from my backlog that I read was I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin, which is the sequel to I, Strahd: Memoirs of a Vampire, which I read many years ago. Both of these are by P. N. Elrod, known for her vampire stories outside of Ravenloft (which is where these two take place), and I enjoyed both of them. (I should have read the sequel earlier. I've owned it for 10 years.) I am currently reading another Ravenloft book from my backlog. (Recently, Wizards started reprinting some of these stories for the first time in many years, so I'm hoping some new Ravenloft stories will also be written.)

There might be a couple more novels I'm missing, but they're not coming to mind at the moment. In terms of short stories, I read some more in my Harlan Ellison collection and will be finishing that soon. (I bought it while at Cornell. When it comes to short stories, I'll typically read a few stories and then put the collection down for a while.) I recently finished my Lovecraft collection, which I also bought while in graduate school. I have gotten a couple hundred pages through a Philip K. Dick collection (The Philip K. Dick Reader), which I bought around the time A Scanner Darkly came out in the theatres. I had been meaning to read some of Dick for a while, and the release of the movie provided the impetus I needed. Thus far, some of the stories are mediocre, but I like others quite a lot. (A recent one that I read that I really enjoyed was involved a robot that advertises itself and one just has to buy it.) There might be a couple other things I read this year, but in some cases I'm not sure if I read it last year after I returned to Tech or this year. The time just kind of washes together.

For next year, I recently bought a copy of Dune (and its first sequel), so I think I'll finally get around to reading the first of those. Maybe I'll read the 2nd next year too. I also ordered a copy of The Annotated Chronicles, so that will give me a nice chance to revisit the original Dragonlance characters in a way that will job my memory and also provide some new stuff. I may also start one of the other Weis & Hickman series. (Besides Dragonlance and Deathgate Cycle, has anybody here read any of their other stuff?) Flatland has been part of my backlog for a while, and I want to reread the third Hitchhiker's Guide book as well. (I reread the first two a couple years ago after not having finished them off when I was much younger.) There are also other novels like Farenheit 451 that I've meant to read for a long time, so maybe I'll pick up some of those as well.

I own several d20 rulebooks that I have glanced through with varying levels of thoroughness, so maybe I'll read a couple of those. (Another reason I read more novels this year is that I didn't bother with any of those this year.) In particular, I'm thinking either the Cthulhu or Dragonlance books. (I'd like to run a Dragonlance campaign.) I won't be renewing my subscription to Dungeon, so I can do a bit of a time trade-off with those two things. Oh, so in terms of magazines, I spent some time going through my Dungeon issues but I didn't read those cover-to-cover. I also read Electronic Gaming Monthly and made some headway in my backlog of Caltech alumni publications and issues of American Scientist (which occasionally has articles I like, but some issues definitely have more than others --- so some of them taking considerably longer to finish than others). I also get Physics Today and Notices of the American Mathematical Society. Like American Scientist, there is a large variation in how long the issues will take me.

What else? I read numerous scientific journal articles (with refereeing, reading students' reports, and reading page proofs of my own articles being the most painful because of how carefully I have to read that stuff), lots of issues of The Tech, tons and tons of articles on ESPN.com (tons and tons of baseball articles but very few others), a particular couple of blogs most of us know, and lots of other random (or not-so-random) things on the Web (wikipedia entries and whatnot). Oh, I also finished the 2005 Beverly Hills High School alum publication (just a little late...) and am currently working on the 2006 one.

So, I read a lot. I wish I could read fast because sadly I can't. But the above really involves a huge amount of time when one reads as slowly as I do. I like reading, though it would be nice if I could concentrate better when I read and not be so slow. (I can be painfully slow at times.) I think even for a light novel, I'd say because of the focus problems that 20-30 pages an hour would be a typical pace for me, and if I'm stressed out, it can get even slower than that.

I'll have some more end-of-year reviews later. Well, I'll at least do one for movies. I might incorporate plays and musicals into that one too, as I probably didn't see enough plays and musicals to justify their own entry. I probably won't do one for my research, because it feels too much like stuff I have to do. (I'll need to be sending the CPI people a summary of the 2006 stuff in a month or two when they are filling out their progress reports for the people who pay them.) I might do one for games, though there also aren't that many I played this year. I could discuss nailing Princess Peach against a fence, because I didn't spend enough time doing this in 2005, so I continued that practice a bit into 2006.