Journal of No. 118

A biography of Ada Lovelace, aka Countess Lovelace, aka the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, aka the eponym of the Ada programming language, aka the Bride of Science, aka the Enchantress of Numbers.

The book spends almost half of its length discussing Ada's parents, Lord Byron and Lady Byron (aka Annabella Milbankee, Baroness Wentworth). This is worthwhile, as it sets up some of the currents that flow through Ada's life, at least in this telling of the story (and I'm in no position to contradict it). Byron of course is the great romantic poet of the age (or any age, possibly), and Annabella was something of a mathematican herself, being called (somewhat cattily by her husband) the Princess of Parallelograms. The two separated shortly after Ada's birth (a certain coolness developed after she learned he was boinking his own half-sister) and it was quite rancorous, and society had to choose sides. On the whole, Annabella got the sympathy of most, while Byron went on being Byron and was soon out of the country, and dead within a few years in Greece.

And from then on, Ada was something of an outlet for Annabella's desire to be the wronged one in the relationship, and simultaneously, Ada had to be protected from romantic impulses, and pushed towards math and science. This worked up to a point, but... well... as a teenager Ada ran off with her tutor... so there were some strong romantic impulses there as well, it would seem.

Ultimately, Ada was found a husband that she didn't have much use for, but produced a passel of children before being pretty remote from her husband. She was further instructed in math by De Morgan, whose wife was among Annabella's coterie, who all spied on poor Ada relentlessly. But getting married got her a bit out from her mother's thumb, and she could pursue her own interests. She became acquainted with Charles Babbage, and it is this association for which she is best known. Babbage gave a lecture on his early computer ideas in Italy, which was published in French. Ada was chosen to translate the published lecture into English. Along the way, and with Babbage's encouragement and help, she added annotations to the lecture that turned out to be twice as long as the lectures themselves. Among these notes were a 'computer program' for calculating Bernoulli numbers that could be run on Babbage's designed (but never built) computer.

For this, Ada is sometimes credited as the first computer programmer. But although the first 'computer programs' were published under her name, there is little doubt that Babbage had provided a great deal of the raw material, if not the entire programs. But more to her credit, in some of her other notes, she seems to have seen quite clearly further into the Information Age than even Babbage, and understood the vast potential and flexibility of the 'computer'. 

Babbage's computer came to nothing at the time, so Ada had no chance to really pursue that, and as things turned out, she had no chance to pursue much of anything. Uterine cancer, laudanum, and fast living led to her death in her mid-30s.

Picked up at an estate sale for cheap, this book is a history of LA, told primarily in archive photographs from the 19th century up to 1950. Lots of good ones here, most of which I don't recall having seen (and many I'd like to show you all, but can't find online).

This is not the same image as in the book, but gets the point across.

"A favorite but brutal betting sport of the early 1850s and later was the correr el gallo. The roosters, their necks well greased, would be partially buried in the earth alongside a public road, with only their throat and head showing. Then riders on fast horses would dash by at full speed and try to grab the roosters and pull them out."




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 For Valentine's, Dr. Pookie gifted me (upon some future day) a trip to Mt. Wilson and lunch. Today was the day.

Driving up there is a lovely experience. Twisty mountain roads with great vistas. It was a bit hazy and wildfire-smoky today, but still lovely. I'm not sure it's as nice to be a passenger who does not like twisty mountain roads all alike, but so be it.

I was sorry that I did not see this sign at the Observatory. Maybe I should have asked a docent, but I expect it's long gone. I saw a number of stumps around the visitor area, and the Carnegie Institution no longer runs things...



That's Mom and Dad's Uncle Harold (Herrill?) sometime probably before me.

The astronomical museum was not all that big (Bah-DUM-bump-TISH). There's not a whole lot to do... the solar observatory was sadly closed. But it's still neat to see the 100 inch scope.

And the CHARA array is pretty cool. Light from 6 telescopes is funneled through vacuum filled pipes to be reintegrated in an interferometer. Its resolving power is such that it captured the first image of a star's surface (other than the Sun, ninny).

I'm pretty sure we got a special treat. While we were there, some sort of VIPs must have been in attendance, because they opened the observatory and rotated it a bit. (We overheard some astronomers later kvetching about it - whatever it was done for, they didn't think it was justified.)






Back down off the mountain, and we stopped off at Din Tai Fung for some excellent dumplings (soupy xiaolongbao) noodles, broccoli, and a much needed strawberry mango slushy (though the chili dog at the Observatory wasn't half bad).

All the photos. Including a video of the big observatory in motion.

My rhetorical question appears to have been answered.

If one cannot bring oneself to punch a lady Nazi in the face, you should pepperspray her in the face.

Now, it's almost too good to be true that she had just finished saying "I'm looking to make a statement by just being here and I think the protesters are doing the same. Props to the ones who are doing it non-violently, but I think that's a very rare thing indeed."

So, if you're of a conspiratorial bent, this is a false flag operation or something. But I think it's fair to say that there were plenty of anonymous violent troublemakers there. The police are of the opinion that they were 'outside agitators' (a phrase I knew we would see more and more of) and not Berkeley students. Which is probably the case, since I'm now hearing all about these experienced antifa activists. Who are these experts all of a sudden and where did they get their expertise? There hasn't been a fascist state to fight in some time, and never in the US, so I find myself suspecting that these are just people who like to have fistfights with skinheads. Whoever they are and whatever their movement is about, they know squat about working against the excesses of a Trump Administration.

Instead, of course, they are falling into the trap.

Now some have correctly pointed out that neo-Nazis can be experts at using 'the System' to quash opposition. "Oh, we're the victims, save us, save us, Law & Order!"

So then I ask: Why the fuck would you fall into their trap by punching people on the street? Are you stupid?

Berkeley was literally the origin of the Free Speech Movement and Sproul Plaza is Free Speech Central.



The university did the right thing in not preventing the speech, and they (or the UCPD who made the call) did the right thing in shutting it down for safety reasons.

Of course the Donald had to weigh in on Twitter:

"If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?"

This is literally one of the stupidest things I've ever read. Even among Trump tweets, this is a doozy.

But remember my warning "Fortunately, we on the left are waaaaay too smart to be manipulated by Russian propaganda. Right? Right? No one would be suckered in by the idea that democracy or free speech are inherently flawed concepts"

Don't be down on Free Speech, just because Trump says he likes it. This is exactly the kind of emotional response thing that Trump apparently uses to perfection. Of course, it only works on stupid people. So don't be a stupid person.



Anyway, I'm reiterating my distaste for Nazipunch and the flawed philosophy behind it.

And again I'm warning against falling into the trap.

Because if not, something terrible is going to happen, and years from now, some kid will be walking with his grandfather on the campus, and grandpa will point to the pocks of bullets in a wall and say something like, 'And over there in that field is where it happened. It was a terrible thing those kids died. But these outside agitators (communists or anarchists or some such) came in and caused a lot of trouble, and stirred things up. Setting fires and so forth. Had to restore Law & Order.'

Because no shit that's exactly what my grandpa told me 40 years ago as we visited Kent State.

Each year, The Strong National Museum of Play inducts a new group of toys to the National Toy Hall of Fame. This year, the museum inducted three new toys: Dungeons & Dragons, Fisher-Price’s Little People figures, and the classic swing. The recognition for fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons is long overdue, as its innovative approach to playing complicated, creative games has had an outsized impact on the larger gaming world.

I love the inclusion of a non-commercial thing like the swing. It's also adorable that one of the previous inductees is the cardboard box.

But I confess this is the first I can recall hearing of the Strong. Or its benefactress, Margaret Woodbury Strong, who may well have married into some distant part of Dr. Pookie's family.

"Developing her youthful interests, Margaret became a skilled competitor in golf, archery, bowling, flower arranging, and collecting. She recalled later that her collecting began with miniatures, when she was allowed “to carry a small bag to put my dolls and toys in, and to add anything I acquired on the trips.” That small beginning led to an expansive task that dominated her later life. Margaret’s collecting included everything from fine art to the ordinary, all linked by the common themes of play, imagination, “let’s pretend,” and fun."

Another great detail is her father's perspicacity in selling high: "Margaret travelled the world with her parents beginning around 1907 after her father retired and sold the business started by Margaret's grandfather, The Strong and Woodbury Whip Company."

Buggy whips have become one of the go-to examples for product obsolescence. Getting out in 1907 was a pretty good move. (As was subsequently investing in Eastman Kodak.)

Anyway... field trip? Rochester, NY is a ways away, but maybe someday.

Subtitle: A History of Proper English

The book was not really what I expected, although I'm not sure what I expected. I guess I hoped for more war -- placing authorities against each other on the nitpicky rules of grammar we all love and/or hate. Instead, it was more of a history of how people have formalized the English language, from early grammars to modern linguistics. A strong undercurrent is the prescriptivist bent of 'grammarians' and the descriptivist bent of linguists.
I think I hoped for more amusing little tidbits, and although they are there, it is like one of those disappointing pours of breakfast cereal that you got as a kid, where you mourned that there weren't more dehydrated marshmallows among the cat kibble. Perhaps because it was a slower slog to get through the book, I've forgotten most of the tidbits already. One that did stick was the idea that, after the Civil War, where one side had been associated with 'the Union', the use of that phrase for the country as a whole fell out of fashion. The constitution speaks of forming a more perfect union, and a state of the union address. In the post-war period, we began to speak of the US as a nation. Perhaps related to this, around 1900 the government printing office (IIRC) made a declaration to standardize that "the United States" was a singular noun.

A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science

The book interleaves the career of serial killer/mutilator/rapist Joseph Vacher with the development of modern (or at least modern-like (or at least not too pseudoscientific)) forensic techniques through Lombroso, Bertillon, and most relevant to these cases, Lacassagne (Lombroso's rival).

Vacher's early career is the most interesting part. After being spurned by a woman, he bought a gun. Unbeknownst to him, it had been loaded with half powder charges. So he managed to shoot the woman four times, and himself twice in the head, and both survived. He was placed in a mental institution, but released 'fully cured' a year later. Of course that's when he went on to murder, disembowel and rape a dozen or more teenage girls and boys over the next few years. This part of the story gets rather tedious, as he settles on a successful MO, and the murders are depressingly alike, so it's good to have it interleaved with the developments of forensics, and then the trail of evidence (and hard work) that leads to his capture and trial, his failed insanity defense, and ultimate execution.

I always associated the New Math (not the new new Math of today) with oddball things like matrices, different bases, and an emphasis on abstract relations like commutativity. But apparently another new-ish thing of the New Math was 'borrowing' in subtraction. Although the idea of borrowing is centuries old, apparently many older Americans were taught an algorism to follow that involved 'carrying the one' onto the lower number. Obviously the result is the same. And they were abjured from additional tick marks, or actually adding tens (i.e. borrowing) so that (rather illogically) they were taught "3 from 2 is 9" rather than "3 from 12 is 9".



I only learn this news by careful watching/listening to Tom Lehrer's "New Math", in which it looks like there were two different methods, not that it makes much difference.



The horrors of the New Math was that it wasn't just a mechanical process, but we were supposed to learn that one ten is the same as ten ones. And this is good. It adds some sense to the algorism, since the older version is somewhat more arcane (to me anyway).

The new new math, as I understand it, continues this process of making it clearer what the association is. You start from the lower number, and basically count up to the larger number. This establishes what the difference is between them.



Probably one could determine which is the most efficient, or which produces the fewest errors, or which is the most 'true' to the underlying mathematics. None of these mean much in the end, so stick to what you love.

Published in English as The Three-Body Problem (<---spoiler-laden wiki entry), translated by Ken Liu, not to be confused with the author, Liu Cixin.

The book opens with some pretty brutal scenes from the Cultural Revolution, such as a physicist undergoing a fatal struggle session for teaching 'imperialist' physics. The historical milieu was interesting in its own right, especially from a writer inside China. But obviously, there's more to it than historical fiction. It's a novel of First Contact, and it's hard to talk about it in much detail without getting too spoilery. There are a lot of really inventive ideas in here, but also some things that stretched my disbelief suspenders past their breaking point, on both science-y stuff and character motivation. But I confess to being a little curious to see how things turn out (alas, the remaining books in the trilogy have not yet been published in English).

The Three-Body Problem of the title refers to the problem of characterizing the motion of three bodies interacting via gravity. Turns out it's incredibly complex. But Cixin mentions something I hadn't heard of. A funky figure eight pattern was discovered a while back, and even more recently (after the publication of this book) 13 more families of repeating solutions were discovered.

New Bookchallenge categories:
✓with a number in the title
✓'based entirely on its cover' (On a rare visit to a real live dead tree bookstore, it caught my eye. More because #1 the title caught my physics brain, and #2 on closer inspection it was a Chinese author, rather than 'the cover' but still.)
✓originally written in another language

St. Vibiana's, which did NOT get illegally knocked down, is now open as a wedding venue.



More importantly(?), the cardinal's residence is now Neal Fraser's restaurant, Redbird (get it?). Not a lot of info as yet, but he also does the menus at Vibiana.