Nerdism personified

It is strange that the older I get the geekier I become. I mean, I was actually excited yesterday when I heard that they found a new largest prime number, which is incredibly important if…ok, to be honest knowing that a number that is millions of digits long is prime really has no practical application outside of really obscure cryptography purposes but, hey, it’s another prime number. And they still have to test it by doing things like “can we divide it by 3? Well, how about five? Seven, then? Damn, this might take a while….”


I do find now that though I am not as fast with math as I used to be (and way too reliant on spreadsheets for my own good) I probably understand and appreciate the ideas behind all of the high level math that I was taught. I’ve joked with people that I reached the level in college courses where numbers no longer existed and all you were dealing with were greek letters and neverending discussions about the imaginary portion of the equation. This is actually true. I still deal with imaginary portions of equations to this very day and for the life of me I cannot explain it. The square root of negative one is i, or maybe j, but it exists. You just accept that it does.

I bring this up because it just shows how a school subject changes as you get older. As a kid math was a competition to the point that a) I made state in the Illinois math competition my senior year of high school, b) said state math competition had an official song, c) I have heard people referred to as mathletes without a sense of irony and d) math competitions have marked the only time in my life where I could look around and realize that I am the coolest guy in the room. Then in college and starting work math became my tool. I’ve mentioned many times that I really only have two skills and being good at math is one of them. Being able to spin numbers around and make sense of them has built a career for me. But it really was just a tool that was just a step above a parlor trick. Now I actually enjoy thinking about how numbers work and thinking about the paradoxes around infinity and how some infinities are larger than others even though they are all still infinite. I don’t understand everything and I am much too old to develop any great theorems but I really enjoy reading up on the theories.

God, I’m such a nerd.

Let's all be rational tomorrow

First off, I would like to wish everyone a safe and wonderful square root day tomorrow. Especially given that we will not have another one of these for seventeen years. What is square root day you may ask? Well, tomorrow is 3/3/09 and if you don’t understand it now then I really think that you should file a lawsuit against your high school math teacher. It still doesn’t match Pi day in two weeks, which I will celebrate in my typical fashion by reciting pi to ten thousand places while drinking a beer after every thousandth place, but it has its moments.

(Sigh. Math humor. I’ve been making these jokes since I was sixteen years old when I came up with math pick up lines during a math contest. Sadly no woman has ever fallen for either “Want to see my slide rule” or “I bet I know where your critical points are.”)

So the Mega Storm (as it was referred to by the local news media) hit last night and….it took me all of an additional five minutes longer to get to work this morning than usual. For the first time ever I would like to thank all of the various DOTs who did a great job in cleaning the roads. Admittedly we didn’t get the foot of snow that was forecast (it looked like four to six inches when I woke up this morning) but the roads were pretty clean. In fact, it was the type of weather that I really like driving in. It wasn’t bad enough that you were in any danger but it was challenging enough to make the drive interesting.

Now as a good Chicagoan when I stepped into my car this morning I was prepared. I had supplies. I had a bottle of water and granola bars for sustenance in case the trip took several hours. I had a full tank of gas in order to place more weight on my rear tires and to provide me with hours of warmth in case I was stranded on a snowbank. And I have my hours of survivor skill training earned from watching Survivorman and Man Vs. Wild. Not only do I have a multi tool and I know how to use it but I also am more than willing to devour whatever small, disgusting insects I may find.

Oh and this just skirts my don’t talk about work rule but it is something that has struck me at several companies. We were officially dismissed early as long as we had a) manager approval and b) were non-essential employees. Now I wasn’t planning on leaving early anyway. Typically driving while it is still snowing just puts you in a worse position. Better to stay later, let all the idiots who got on the road during the storm make their way home, and drive home leisurely on an empty road. But on a day when the market dropped to its lowest level in twelve years do you really want to admit that you are a non-essential employee? It makes me tempted to stay to midnight just to show my belief that the entire company would implode if I was not at my desk. It’s not true of course but it is a nice image to have.

But I am really hoping that this is the last gasp of winter. One of the many reasons I went to New Orleans is that I have just gotten sick of spending several months in the grey and cold every year. Even though I grew up with this weather and there is nothing I love more than a city after a snowfall my body is slowly telling me that years of below zero wind chills have done a number on me. I just want it to be warm again and to be able to walk outside without worrying about hypothermia. That is not too much to hope for, is it?