Pi Day Ponderings in Self-Isolation

I write this with a strange mixture of feelings and reckonings. Since my last post, and watching the ever more graver state of the news broadcasts, I am thankful that we squeaked under the wire for leaving and returning from our flyaway holiday just in time before the travel advisories and restrictions are starting to come effect for international travel. I’m also feeling utterly hapless with the fact that just because I did international travel, and then soon after started showing symptoms of sinus congestion and sore throat, that I’m relegated to self-isolate for a long while as a precaution. I have indeed been sick, most likely with some form the common cold. I dutifully reported my symptoms, after several attempts to contact the government health line, and I am still waiting for a response about any future action I may need to take. I’m certain that it is just the same old gross, phlegmy/snotty mess of a cold bug that I get almost every year during late February and early March, when the temperatures begin to wildly fluctuate as spring thaw approaches. I’m quite certain that it’s not Covid-19 (no shortness of breath or fever); just other stuff that coincides with all the remaining other Corona virus symptoms. However, given that I’m in a slightly weakened state, and my immune system is now compromised trying to manage this current bunch of junk, I don’t need to go wandering around and being pounced on by the Corona virus as well. If I do put myself in a place of sharing this wretched cold to a person in my circle of friends and work, who may be already even more immune-suppressed than I am, I further increase their chances for the actual acquisition of the Covid-19 thing while they are battling the same cold.

Sure, this virus can be potential fatal, for a select, vulnerable, cross-section of the population; just like the flu always was, is, and most likely continue to be. Last season, influenza killed more people worldwide than Covid-19 currently has now, a disease which is now on the decline according to some reports. However, for the flu, no one went crazy then and cleared out all the shelves in grocery shops. The thing that bothers me most about it is the absurd amount of hype, the fearmongering, and irrational panicking, because it is so novel as a disease; not as well-established historically as the flu is. The same way that terrorist attacks are over-reported when there are a relatively small number of casualties compared to the other types of tragic mortalities happening in the world that are set in a less dramatic framework. I'm grateful that this nation isn't yet so inundated with active cases compared to some others. We may not be much better as a population here in Canada in avoiding a full-blown epidemic, but we at least have a government that is more willing to put aside partisan issues to face this thing, who are more willing to listen to medical science, and are willing to work on the problem more rationally. We at least had a bill passed to secure the first stages of getting universal Pharmacare in place before this before parliament recessed in response to this outbreak. As far as this government's response, I'm at least thankful that we can perhaps respond better to all this because we don't have an Antichrist to science, like the Americans have who is leading their political shit show. I'm proud to say that Canadian researchers have been amongst the first to get successful steps for vaccine development for this thing. I’m not getting fearful or panicky, but I’m not going to be so stupid as to slough off prudence either. Given what I got to deal with, prudence demands that I have to self-isolate for a while as a precaution. I’m over the hump of it now, and I have been getting increasingly better. As much as I feel that that I’m getting touched in the head with some boredom, and feel that this is ultimately may be a squandering of my accumulated sick time, I’ll play the game right, and at least have a clearer conscience for doing so. Decongestants, drinking hot fluids, and some extra sleep have helped the most.

With all the extra time off, the mind tends to wander to far away strange places, in lieu of not allowing my physical self to veer far from home. My self-isolation phases into Pi (π) Day. I slapped down some random thoughts and observations to entertain myself mathematically whilst I’m here alone, doing my part to flatten the curve. In honour of this day, and since I’m stuck inside and have SFA else to do, I decided to apply pi (π) in a practical manner with respect to this latest pandemic.

·      They say now that generally the minimal safe zone for oneself out in public, to avoid contracting this new pestilence, is about a two-metre radius. With π in the equation, that means that there is a personal space circle around you that is about 12.6 m² of circular area around you that is your buffer zone. I have an easier, less abstract, and more convenient and discreet method of measuring to use for keeping people at their distance away from me. It is called a dog on a leash. The full extension of my dog’s leash is two metres long. I’m safer from everyone, as they are them from me, if they are beyond the range of the dog’s nose while I’m walking her.

·        The hoarding behaviour people are resorting to is ridiculous and getting out of hand. Over-supplying for yourself means under-supplying for everyone else of critical needs. You don’t have to be a Game Theory mathematician to figure this out. The real notable idiocy happening now being the hoarding of toilet paper. If you are guilty of doing this, here’s an equation (simplified)¹ with a practical use of π that might help you smarten up a bit:  N (1 – (πR₁^{2 /}πR₀²))/ [Δt] = S. With N being the number of squares in fresh new roll of toilet paper (usually listed on the package, you shouldn’t have to count), R₀ being the initial measured radius before usage, R₁ being the final radius measurement of your TP roll and Δt being the increment of time (let’s just call it a day) between initial and final radius measurement of the roll. That’s it! You’ve just computed your actual toilet paper consumption in squares of toilet paper per day in your household (S). Calculating S/N(14) equals the number of rolls of toilet paper you’ll likely be using for a 14 day quarantine period (Q). Subtract Q from all the surplus rolls of toilet you have bought and have in extra stock: E for excess. Divide that difference by Q: (E-Q)/Q =A. Assuming that you are within the realm of average as everyone else in terms of bathroom usage, that final quotient (A) then is roughly the number of people you’ve basically deprived of toilet paper, screwing them over and pissing them off with your irrational panic-driven stupidity for the 14 day quarantine period. The higher the number, the higher the likelihood that you are indeed a stupid prick with absolutely no sense of practical rationing, nor any concern for your fellow citizens. If you’ve hoarded toilet paper during this time, congratulations! Through π, you now have been assigned an ascending ranking numerical value of how much of an asshole (A) you are by creating more chaos and crisis by doing so. It somehow comforts me to know that there are quantifiable numbers with which to calibrate and apply to people on specific degrees of stupidity they exhibit instead of just using a fuzzy vague judgement or a glib opinion. Please note that if you are using more than one roll of toilet paper per day for yourself, you probably got a more serious problem going on than risking contracting Covid-19. If your number is negative, you do indeed have a shortage problem, and I’d then suggest that you definitely lay off the spicy food for the next while!

·       I can’t help but to notice that the shape and form of the Corona virus itself is a testament to the geometrical intricacies of π. If there were vertices attached to the outer protruding crown ends of the viral body, it would very much take the shape of a geodesic sphere, a structure intensively governed by the ratios of π.  If it weren’t so potentially deadly I’d find it rather beautiful in its unique sort of symmetry.

·      The number π is also used for studying population dynamics in various ways, used in weird and wild esoteric equations which I don’t have all day to study or explain here. It’s a constant in the bell shaped curve in statistics. No doubt it is now being used intensively to track the spread, and to factor in environmental conditions that prevent it from spreading. I would be interested in knowing if it could be useful in predicting any correlation between the likelihood of increased disease presence in a sample population where there are overt instances of hoarding behaviour in a particular sector. I would like to think that there would be a divine justice in store for those who are overly competitive and less cooperative.

I have a few more days to go before I can head back to work, and I’m sure I’ll be having to review and follow newer procedures for hygiene and prevention once I return. Pi might be less relevant in adjusting to the long lapse. I’m having less stress about this stuff with just living day to day, one moment at a time. It helps to avoid the news too; if it ever becomes worse, I’m sure it will find me somehow. As for now, I extend a wish for everyone else to stay well as we go through this course of enduring both of what is the dreamt up hype and what the actual consequential havoc is of this matter together, with hopes that this all transpires as smoothly and peaceful as possible; hoping it passes us all by sooner than later, with minimal troubles, grief, and suffering to my friends and family at risk of being directly and indirectly afflicted and affected. I’m confident that we’ll get through this ok. If I wasn’t my last entry wouldn’t have so much mentioned about toilet paper rolls.

If being penned up inside alone with nothing to do but clean my place, ration my foodstuffs to avoid shopping, binge watch TV, read, play music, catch up on TED talks, tile together jigsaw puzzles, and play with equations involving transcendental numbers for entertainment's sake and writing about it all is the worst it gets for me through this phase of clearing myself of pathogens, I'll consider myself lucky and be thankful for it, and use the time to work on myself for a change.

1 When determining the usable circular area cross-section area of a roll of toilet paper, you have to account for the interior hollow circle of the subtracted from the area of the usable part of the roll, radius dimension for that designated “r”. Thus, πR₀² – πr² is the true cross-section of material area of the initial whole roll, and πR₁² - πr² for the final measurement of the day. Conveniently, in the division, - πr² cancels out for simplicity. The equation is then converted to represent for proportional relation of a unit roll of toilet paper. I recommend measuring in centimetres, decimalized metric is easier to calculate and more precise. A square of toilet paper is roughly 10 cm x 10 cm if you want to test yourself with volume formulas. You’re on your own if you want to figure out your consumption per use by cm². I can’t say that I’m that bloody curious as to know that myself.

Big Weird Numbers (from Small Things) That Amuse Me

One of my random new year resolutions I will disclose is that I'm trying to smarten up mathematically again, and to regain some comfort with doing hard core ciphers: learning and getting reacquainted with stuff like calculus, matrices, statistics, and the like; plus trying to find some practical use and application for such arithmetical methods in my own life. Right now though, it is all impractical, yet interesting and impressive (to me anyway). I thought about simple objects and puzzles around my home; they didn't involve high tech things either. I did some recreational computations (with the help of the Wolfram Alpha app) and found research results to get some of these wild figures . . .

1. 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 ( ≈ 6.67 x10²¹) : The number of possible valid complete solutions there are for a 9 x 9 Sudoku grid. That's about 16.67 billion times the highest estimate of the number
   of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Some lucky bastard mathematician out there also got some grant money to prove that the absolute minimum number of clue digits needed to solve one is 17.
   
2. 20,822,964,865,671,167 ( ≈ 2.08 x 10¹⁶) : The total number of  all unique sets of counter bead position configurations on my 2 bead upper deck/5 bead lower deck/13 column standard Chinese suan pan (abacus). That's 18 possible bead configurations (a base of 18, represented from numbers 0 to 17) for each of the 13 columns, representing the exponential powers from 0  to 12. That then is {(17 x 18⁰) + (17 x 18¹) + (17 x 18²) . . .  + (17 x 18¹²)}, leading to a maximum total up to the aforementioned number in the heading converted to decimal/base 10 scientific notation form. Meaning, if I flicked a bead (or beads) at one interval per second to tally all possible counter bead configurations on this abacus, it would take approximately 660.7 million years to do it. It seems crazy on such a little frame with only a total of 91 counting beads, but that's the math talking. If the figure for the placements on an 81 spot Sudoku grid is as high as it is, why not this lesser figure for the 91 counter abacus? If I'm wrong about this calculation, I won't mind being corrected. It seems too strange and mind-blowing to be right.

   

   It reads 2017 in base 10. Happy New Year!

3.  43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ( ≈  4.33 x 10¹⁹): The number of possible of configurations a Rubik's Cube can have. Amazingly, it has been calculated (by supercomputers) that the cube can be solved, with the proper programmed algorithms, from any one of these configurations in 20 moves or less. The last time I tried, it took me about 32 minutes to solve it . . . most definitely not in the same league as a Cray supercomputer.
4. 1 in 6,227,020,800 (or 13!): the chance of taking a full suit of 13 playing cards, shuffling them, and then turning them over, one by one, and having them turn up in exact ranking order from ace to king (A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K). In contrast, I learned that the chance of winning the jackpot for Lotto 6/49 is roughly 1 in 14 million, and 1 in 28.6 million for the Lotto Max*.
5. 6.53 x 10⁹⁰⁹⁰⁵²: The number of 9 word sentences (a fairly average length of sentence) that can be composed out of randomly selected words from the language with the largest vocabulary in the world: English. From the sentences, "A, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a." to "We will never run out of things to say!", to "Big Weird Numbers (from Small Things) that Amuse Me.", to written onomatopoeia to denote sleeping,  "Zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz"**. _, inclusive. There's nothing around materially or temporally as an example to bring that number into comparison for adequate comprehension for the mind, since there are only an estimated 1 x 10⁸⁰ atoms in the entire universe, and its age is only about 4.3 x 10³⁵ in attoseconds***(super small time increments) since the Big Bang. Sure, a grand majority of them would be nonsensical, like "Shiver melon herring quickly kind zipper handy aardvark nipple". Like the random shit in English scrawled on teenagers' T-shirts in the Harajuku fashion district in Tokyo. If a password of nine random words like that were used, I would think that the world would be long vanished into oblivion before it could be hacked. Thankfully, we have few rules of grammar, syntax, context, articles, pronouns, prepositions, verbal tenses and conjugations, gerunds, participles, etc., to set limits and boundaries to things that would statistically and numerically whittle down that figure a lot. Even so, what is left is still more than what would have been, or will be, ever said by humans, past, present, and presumably the future. There's still lots of nonsense that comes from it, but we manage pull a few out that are real gems, and not from the cold dry probabilities of it, but from what's in the spirit of us as human beings. This fact brings to light a quote from Einstein: "Imagination is more powerful than knowledge". He think he got it bang on right . . . and with only seven words too.

*- This is someone else's findings, not mine. Actually, for Lotto Max, the chance of winning on a single line of 7 numbers is roughly in the neighbourhood of 1 in 85.8 million, but you are given three lines, so divide those chances by 3, so 28.6 million. That's a little more optimistic!
**-An edit. Initially I thought that Zyzygy was the alphabetically last defined word that I could think of, but it was a misspelling of the word syzygy: an alignment of celestial bodies in a gravitational system.
***- 1x 10¹⁸ attoseconds = 1 second. Very few things or motions in the physical universe exist that can be timed within ten attoseconds, but who knows what will happen in the future as using measurements such as these become realities as advances in research and development of nanotechnology and quantum computing come about. 

The 12 Month Random Resolution Game

There has been a long lapse between entries, mostly because there has been so little that has been good or positive, or of any importance to comment on. Four months of this year that I wished to make better have been stolen from me, and I've simply been trying to make moves toward getting back to some sort of normalcy: if there ever was such a thing for me. People who know me know that I've just been trying to work and move towards a full recovery, which has been progressive, but going so slowly in my mind that it has been a real test of my patience. Physiotherapy can be refreshing and relieving on one day, and then torturous on another, as micro-traumas are being worked out of the joints and muscle tissues in my arm. There is some noticeable nerve damage, but thankfully it's only slight. Given what I had going on during the initial days after the accident, things could have easily turned into something much worse. On top of that, I've been depressed and disappointed about the elections down south, and the state of the media coverage used to be corruptive for such an affair already laden with controversy and conspiracy. It was a shameful display all around. The latter third of this year can be summarized in three words - it sucked balls. There's nothing at all about it that I really want to recollect or recount.

Year's End is just 20 days away, and I'm already making plans for trying to have a better go in 2017 even before I attempt any Christmas shopping. I invented a sort game for myself: something that has meaningful projects and acquisition targets set up for me to try and gain for each month of the coming new year. Perhaps it's a flaky idea: one that evolved out of the combined urges of defeating some boredom, wanting to play cards (but no company for it), to play with odds and sort gamble a bit (without staking any of my Christmas shopping funds), and inventing a game of chance where I'll somehow always win*. I found a way to deck my halls with a deck of cards. I am sharing it for those who are also wanting to use it to make a more hopeful and prosperous coming new year.

Materials:

• pen and paper (enough to create up to about 144 slips, plus to write a category list)
• scissors (for cutting such slips)
• 12 sealable envelopes
• a deck of cards, OR alternatively, if you aren't a card player . . .
• a pair of dice, or a 12 sided gaming die (if you are a Dungeons and Dragons geek)

Method:

1. Make a list of 12 categories of 12 things or deeds that you what to have or do during the new year. They can be of anything you want: charitable or selfish, serious intellectual pursuits or something fun and foolish, skill building or talent oriented, material possessions or intangibles, whatever, so long as each category involves things that genuinely go towards your sense of well-being, happiness and life satisfaction. Have them be all affordable within a month's budget, and overall achievable within a month's time, and such that they can be available to have or do at any time of the year. Here's about 12 things as examples that may or may not interest you. (Some of) these categories below aren't necessarily reflective of mine. It's deeply personal thing, so make up your own 12 categories of 12 things to list in each. Strive for 12 things to list in each category, but if you can't, you can repeat some items to make up twelve if practical, or stick to some number under twelve. Some examples here are: 
• 12 career skills you want to build on
• 12 tools/implements you want for your workshop/space
• 12 items you want as home decorum, or things you want to change in your home
• 12 thing-a-ma-bobs you want to collect
• 12 subjects you want to study intensively
• 12 people/places you want to visit
• 12 books you want to read/memorize 
• 12 songs you want to learn to play on your[whatever musical instrument you have]
• 12 charities you want to donate time/money to 
• 12 exotic ingredients you want to sample/experiment with
• 12 restaurants you've never eaten at yet, but wanted to try
• 12 novel liquor ingredients you want in your cocktail bar**
2. Take one category, and write each of the 12 items you listed from that category on a seperate slip of paper. You'll have 12 slips of paper if you've listed 12 items in the category. Put them face down on the table and mix them up.
3. Lay out all the 12 envelopes on a flat surface with the open side up.
4. If using playing cards, take a full red suit out of the deck to use, discarding the king. Shuffle the 12 red cards and place one card, face up, on each envelope. Then, take a full black suit out of the deck, discarding the king. Shuffle the black cards and put them face down on the table. Draw a card from the top of the black card stack. Take one of the face down slips of paper, not looking at it, and tuck it into the envelope with the red card with the matching face value as the black card (i.e., if you draw a black 3, put one slip of paper in the envelope with the red 3 on it.). Turn the red card over, or remove it to indicate that this envelope has been loaded. Repeat the same steps for each draw of the black cards in the rest of the stack. Once all the slips of the category have been put in each of their respective envelopes, re-shuffle each stack of the red cards and the black cards, shuffle and lay out the envelopes again, open , side up, and repeat for the 12 item slips of the next category. Repeat until all remaining category list slips are packed in the envelopes. Alternately, if you prefer handling dice . . .
5. If using a 12 sided die***, arrange the envelopes such that you can visually mark them as 1 to 12 (like the face of a clock, for example). Roll the die and place the slip into the corresponding envelope that matches the number on the die. Turn the envelope over once it gets its one slip. Remember, no peeking at the slips! Reroll the die if the number is repeated, and continue rolling, and filling the corresponding envelopes with their single slip of paper until the slips are gone. Shuffle and redistribute the envelopes again, turning the envelopes open-side up again, and repeat for the slips of the next 12 items in the next category. Repeat this process until all categories are done.
6. Once all the envelopes are filled, seal them and shuffle them. Select one and write "January" on it, select the next and write "February" on it, and so on until each envelope is labelled with one of the months of the year from, January to December****, inclusive.
7. Keep these envelopes in a safe and secure place. On the first day of each month, open the envelope labelled for that corresponding month. Set an alert on your smartphone calendar if you need to be reminded.
8. Start, do, or get the stuff listed on the 12 slips of paper that you find in there. You have the entire month to plan and/or try to commit to whatever is listed on those 12 slips of paper throughout it all when you start on day one, be it starting page one of that book, or collecting materials for a month long project. It would be a good idea to journal your progress, or monitor your interest while you do it. If you failing at it, or if your interest is waning, you get to ask yourself "Why?"

I rationalize things with this betterment/resolution "game" this way. The road to hell is usually paved with good intentions. Resolutions are usually broken because people pile up all their ambitions at the start of the year, which only serves to overwhelm them. Some then drop them within 12 hours of New Year's Day. It's not a good way to practice kaizen - that is small and continuous progressive steps toward improvement. The lesson, if any, that I'm drawing from doing physiotherapy, is that small and continuous steps eventually build up to some more powerful things. Committing to major resolutions, more likely than not, involves throwing one's life out of balance which one is rarely prepared for. I've had enough of life out of balance happening since August - thank you very much; yet I still seek structured improvement for my welfare. The novelty and excitement withers away quickly too when things are over-planned, and there is no chance for surprise and spontaneity.  I hope this strategy is one way to improve upon that. Twelve things per month, be they leisurely or ambitious, amounts to about three things a week with which to reward or better oneself. That's as many times per week as I do PT, and I'm getting results for the better. That sounds enriching and progressive enough for me.

This is also a very deliberate way to exploit stuff that I already have, it's just the element of pacing and time that really is the thing that needs to be adjusted. For example, lots of people have books on their shelves that they haven't touched yet, so list them and use them. The same goes with other stuff that they may be hoarding. This then becomes a practical measure to prevent thoughtless and impulsive spending. I hope calling this a game will perchance draw some kind of fun into the whole process, despite the fact that it does involve some discipline. The cards/dice aspect of it brings in a bit of a mysterious element of divination of sorts. I just like the math and probability calculation of it. It is making a personal lottery where you can (choose to) win every time. All in all, after dealing with the spells of bad luck I've had, my true ambition is just to be somehow happier. We'll see by the end of next December.

Since I have nothing else to reflect on, or share for the rest of this year, I'll only bid everyone happy holidays. I hope that I'll have better things to share for 2017.

*- Because I was playing a video game, and became too frustrated at being stuck at one level with monster robots constantly blowing my head off. A not so productive way to use my recovery time.

**- Unless you are already in a 12 step program with AA, disregard this idea.

***- If using a pair of six sided dice, the last slip of paper left of the 12 in the category automatically goes into the envelope designated as #1.

****- If you would rather devote your time, money, and energy for preparing for Christmas (or other primary holiday month), just simply play this game with 11 envelopes, 132 paper slips, and pull out the red and black queens (if using cards), disqualify the 12 roll if using a die/dice. The parameters are thus adjustable.

The Power of a Prisoner with a Nail

I should be trying to sleep for longer, but finding a moment to sit outside on a wonderfully calm and peaceful Sunday morning in early summer is the next best thing. It sets a fine stage for a lot of mental clarity, so I thought I would write. It has been a long lapse since I wrote anything on this blog. I’ve had nothing that I would have cared to come forth with and share for a long while. I’ve been working a couple of months now in a position in which the daytime hours are much more agreeable to my physical and mental constitution. Before that, I was suffering all sorts of things between last entry and now that I would rather not post. Thankfully, most of those conditions from back then have since improved.

I accomplished a goal a couple days ago. I managed to commit to learning nine language modules each day: one for each different language I’m learning, for a hundred days straight. It is a sub-goal to apply to the greater mission; that is to get to tour Europe someday* (without the insanity of being confined in a bloody tour group). As for now, I’ve only been able to apply them to the odd text now and then, and answering questions in trivia games now and then. Retaining absolutely everything that I’ve learned is doubtful. The real prize is knowing that I’ve been able to get this far into it. I’ve been able to translate some foreign phrases from Facebook posts more instantly in my head with less effort; even in Russian, the hardest (I find) of the set of languages I’ve been trying to learn. I caught myself even dreaming in Spanish one night. Hopefully that’s a sign that some things are being integrated mentally and thus sinking in; but more likely, it is probably because it is the only other language, besides French and German, with which I have had the most practical experience in using.

The new position is a bit more rigorous, but I have no complaints about it. The extra rigour prompts me to think of how to do things more efficiently to save my energy. Thoughts of exercising efficiency along with improving skills with hacking languages has prompted interest in me to start thinking about ways of hacking other things that are more practical and applicable. Learning, applying and entertaining myself with tricks and shortcuts for mental arithmetic is becoming a renewed fascination for me. It comes at an emotional price though. When I review them I get extremely pissed off when I find brilliant hacks and mnemonic techniques, some of which are actually centuries old, that were never shown to me during my elementary/high school/university years which could have made life so much easier. I hate the so-call modern education curricula because so many things that are truly practical and brilliant to learn are rarely included in them. These tricks and hacks become repressed because it conflicts with what is institutional. It’s a sign of a system that really doesn’t want you empowered; just controlled and conforming. After entering “mental math hacks” in a search engine, I found links to the Trachtenberg system. I tried out a few tricks with it, and I must say that I’m impressed (and I don’t impress easy). As interesting and unique as the techniques for calculation are with this system, the background story of its creator is far more intriguing. I’m pleased to say that I have found a new hero who merits his story being shared. It’s like a story akin to something that Ian Flemming could have wrote. It’s a story of a heroic champion nerd who challenged and came out on top of defying the worst of the “schoolyard bullies”. The next couple of paragraphs is my precis of it**.

Jakow Trachtenberg was an engineer by vocation, an aspiring and brilliant one, who began of his career soon after the beginning of the twentieth century in a shipyard in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, which was then ruled by the Romanov dynasty of Tsarist Russia. During his rule, Tsar Nicolas II was very intent on having a modern navy, and Trachtenberg was put in charge as Chief Engineer of this project, managing up to 11,000 workers to build those ships and their armaments. Despite this particular assignment, he was a dedicated pacifist, going so far as to found a society of Good Samaritans when World War I broke out: preparing others for the care and treatment of the wounded. All of that changed though. The course of his life was interrupted by the Russian Revolution in 1917. When the Communists took control of Russia, and all the lands within its empire, Trachtenberg soon found himself out of work because their mandate didn’t include building ships (or perhaps it was just because since it was the former Tsar’s plan, they had to be contrarian to it). Being appalled by the violence of the revolution, and the brutal and widespread killing of the citizenry, Trachtenberg became quite an outspoken critic against the Communist regime. As this choice act clashed with Communist ideology, it pissed off the respective authorities enough to make him a target dissident whom they were going to detain and most certainly do harm to. They had already killed some of his family members. So, under disguise, he fled to Berlin to make a new life. There, he managed to have enough charm to woo and then marry a woman of aristocratic status; he applied his intelligence into developing an inventive system for teaching foreign languages, and also started to publish a pacifist magazine. If he rolled any dice for deciding to move to Germany, he wouldn’t have guessed that he was going to crap out given the way its history was about to unfold. It undoubtedly seemed like a good idea at the time, since Germany had just ended a horrible war that cost them millions of lives, and the folks there might be interested in learning a thing or two about how to live in peace. However, the National Socialist Party that was coming into power under Hitler had a bit of a different take on such things.

Trachtenberg, once again, found himself falling ass-backwards into bad luck by preaching peace and non-violence under the watchful eye of the wrong sort of political opposition. Being some kind of guy who was doing all this crazy-talk about peace, which conflicted with the crazy-talk of a dictator who was planning for world domination – well, it kind of brought him under a lens of suspicion at that time. Strike one for Jakow! Doing that as an Auslander (foreigner) no less in the beloved Fatherland no doubt didn’t sit well with the new Nazi party either. It was probably perceived as a lot more intensely negative being that such a foreigner was originally from one of the lands east of Germany, which were supposedly full of those inferior Untermenschen, like Ukraine was regarded to be in the propaganda. Strike two for Jakow! And just to be really screwed with bad luck, the fact that Trachtenberg was ethnically Jewish had thrown another few shovels full onto the shit pile of trouble that he was already buried neck deep in with the Nazis. A smart fellow like Trachtenberg saw that he needed to make some tracks . . . right the hell out of Germany. So, he fled to Austria and worked with a science magazine there for a while; but then the Nazis started the Anschluss, annexing Austria into the Third Reich, so that had him on the run again. The Gestapo and the SS had sought him out everywhere, as his reputation put him high up on Hitler’s shit list of people to be arrested and detained. Although he did his best to evade them, he was soon captured in Yugoslavia, and then was shipped off to a Konzentrationslager.

During that time of his imprisonment, to keep his sanity and wits about him, while witnessing and enduring the despair, and the horrific ruthlessness and brutality of the concentration camp, Trachtenberg mentally retreated into the abstract world of mathematics and numbers. They couldn’t take that away from him. Possession of paper or writing implements was risking severe punishment or worse by the guards, as well as having any other arbitrary thing that could be assumed to be used for forbidden communications. Since he didn’t have any access to even simple materials to help him make complex calculations, he devised his own system of algorithms that he could use to make mental shortcuts to compute large numbers mentally. The only other calculation instrument he had (besides his brain) was a nail he found somewhere in the camp, which he used to scratch in the dirt, or on wood, to do ciphers and devise his theoretical algorithms. He regarded that nail as his best friend and his salvation while he was in that camp. When he did find paper to write on, it was bits of wrapping paper and old envelopes, and because it was so scarce, he used it only to secretly record his finished theories of his method.

His real salvation to escaping that camp was the action of his aristocrat wife, who managed to bribe a guard to get him out. It happened just before he was given a death sentence. Long story short, he managed to escape with his wife to a refugee camp in Switzerland. He and his wife remained there after the war, and established a mathematical institute in Zurich, based on the theories and mental shortcuts he devised when he was in the concentration camp. He began teaching it to children who were once failing miserably in classes based on the traditional math teaching methods, who then began to excel at solving math problems using his system. He instructed children who were deemed “mentally retarded” who, after being taught his system, were doing arithmetic that challenged most average adults. His institute was highly regarded as the best the place to be if one wanted to pursue an advanced career in architecture, engineering, and anything else math related in Europe since its founding in the 1950s, at least until the tech and computer revolution.

It’s a shame that this triumphant bit of history isn’t more well known. I guess that’s why I chose to share it here. My youngest nephew will be graduating soon, and going into post-secondary education program in the fall that will be more intensive for learning maths and physics. I hope he has the sense to do his own bit of hack-seeking, to find out what works best for him mnemonically, and in practice. He should be at least thankful that he has more than a nail at his disposal.

*- Knowing so many languages might be a bit impractical, I am not OK about touring any place where I’m plunged into an environment where in essence I’m rendered functionally illiterate; no matter how well I’m accommodated with services in my native language. Misunderstandings will inevitably occur: one should know some manners and polite greetings, and basics at the very least to help smooth things over when that happens. Numbers are an absolute must to learn, since math and counting money is universal.

**- Given that it’s close to the anniversary of D-Day, sharing something that is somewhat of another victory during World War II seems right as well.

Under-Stimulated/ The Art of Manliness/Emasculating Waffles

You would think that I would be grateful to have a Saturday off after working them for two weeks in a row, but for this evening I'm in a mood that is beyond depressed and bored. The past five days of dull gloomy grey skies and occasional rain/wet snow have dulled all the edge off any wits I had left in me. The only thing I could think of doing for "shaking it up a bit" was trudging out to get an actual shake (an exotically flavoured one) at Jerry's Food Emporium, and heading back home*. I'm so appalled, saddened, and somewhat disturbed at realizing and admitting that this was the only wild idea I could come up with. It was a double coconut gelato milkshake, and I would like to think that it would be a worthy rival of say the legendary, yet fictitious, five dollar shake at Jack Rabbit Slim's in Pulp Fiction. Maybe it was, but my spirits were too low to register it; I still returned back thinking that my time could have been used more wisely.

After I came home with my big cup full of drinkable instant heart attack, and gave some thought to going to the casino south of town for a thrill, and just about caved to the idea to hitting the Blackjack tables. First, I drilled and tested myself as a refresher with table strategy and card counting with a Blackjack app for almost an hour. I played 98% of my hands correctly with using orthodox basic play strategy (including for doubles, splits, and surrenders), but I only did an abysmal 47% with correct tracking and counting with the high-low system on a six deck shoe, only putting me at a 51.4% win ratio (pushes included) whilst sticking to minimum bets, and I wouldn't call it a lucrative trip there unless that figure could get above 60%**. I don't imagine I'll do any better with the extra noise and distractions over there. Even with boning up on things mnemonically, I figured the house would still have too much of a statistical advantage over me. I'm in too much of a funk to do anything that mentally intensive. Mathematical reasoning beat out my reckless impulsivity, and I instead opted for the safer way of doubling my money: folding it over once and then sticking it back into my pocket. I stayed home just watching comedies on Netflix. That didn't even do much to cheer me up.

As unmanly as I feel for being an adult spontaneously running out in the middle of the evening to get a PG-rated calorie bomb to slurp on, and shoving aside the thought of casino gaming; the one thing that would make me feel even more embarrassed to admit to doing as a man, if I actually wasted admission money to attend it, is going to the actual MAN SHOW 2014 that is happening this weekend at Prairieland. My commentary in my entry about MAN SHOW 2013 pretty much sums my attitude towards all that. It's one thing, as a guy, to just feel down, unimportant, rejected, and powerless at times, but it's a whole other realm of stupidity happening there when you are constantly doing too much going over the top to over-compensate for all that. The Man Show is there to exploit the real dummies for that. They just run short of trying to peddle pecker pills and codpieces to them there. It's that kind of testosterone-driven shit show stupidity that I just don't want to have any part of. I'll be better off with the milkshake, thank you. If I really am so depressed, this aorta-clogging concoction may at least kill me quickly.

It's not like I have to "go back into training" for knowing now to be an average guy, but I was curious to see what was out there on the net in this regard. I found the ART OF MANLINESS website, and started to peruse it. "How to Tie a Tie" . . . great to know, "10 Worst Products Invented for Men" . . . educational and hilarious. This site almost had my respect and almost sold me that this could do wonders for re-instilling my manliness . . . that is until I discovered the waffle recipe on one of the links.

WHAT!!!???

I don't care if they are the savory kind instead of sweet, I don't care if they are being served with some wild rabbit that you trapped and killed yourself with a snare line fashioned out of your own plucked and braided chest hair. In my mind, waffles ≠ manliness. This man site instantly turned into Chatelaine once I spotted that. I am a guy, and (unfortunately) I already know how to make goddamned waffles, thank you very much. I would count this as actually one of the more emasculating talents that I have. I don't ever make them for me, because really I hate the fuckin' things. They are made by a bulky space-consuming appliance for that singular specific use only, and it if doesn't work right, you feel doubly screwed. Finding that recipe there was also a funny juxtaposition to have as a "manly" food along with all the other manly food fare that you supposed to be able to kill, catch, and prepare with just a gun, fishhook, or a knife. Waffles do nothing for me except be preparation intensive (lots of prep time for very little), attention demanding and finicky to work with (like working around drama-queens), bland, and stupid dimply things that you can't spread stuff evenly onto. Eat some toast for Crissakes! The only time ever I make them is for someone else. The people (who by now know how much I hate making them) that I serve them to don't ever give me enough thanks or anything else in return for doing so*** , and thus it's a very unrewarding thing to do, so I feel exploited; and the one of the main rules of manliness, I'd presume, is to never let yourself become exploited. Therefore . . . waffles do nothing for my manliness!

I hope Sunday has a lot more coming to me for something for more engaging stimulation. However,I expect it will be windy and rain (again). Maybe I'll be a bit sharper mentally and actually try out the casino, or at the very least encounter something else crazy to attack and apply reason to.

* - Woohoo, I know . . . so manly <sarcasm>, but it was a better option for me at the time than drinking alcohol, as I had no wish or mood to make my brain operate with anymore impairment than I think it already has.

**-  Nine possible hand playing strategy outcomes, in Blackjack game theory: 1. Hand played correctly/beat the dealer - orthodoxy pays off, 2. Hand played incorrectly/dealer still loses - you're just a lucky bastard, 3. Hand played correctly/dealer still wins - it sucks, but it happens, 4. Hand played incorrectly/dealer wins - you are just playing stupidly, 5. Correct play/tying (push)with the dealer - wasted time, 6. Incorrect play/push with dealer - you were stupid, but the fates have forgiven you, 7. Blackjack/ automatic win - most desirable, 8. Correct play/surrendering- Oops, too bad, 9. Incorrect play/surrendering - stop playing immediately when you turn into this kind of idiot. The real money is made with opportunities for doubling and splitting cards and knowing when to take them. I don't bother pissing around with the insurance bets, or else there would be eleven outcomes. The betting strategy with the card counts taken into consideration is too complicated for me to explain.

***- If you're a woman and really want me to be genuinely happy to make &#^%in'  waffles for you, you better be prepared to clear your calendar for a whole weekend of doing stuff with me that would make Caligula blush!

Using Graph Theory, Creepy Tent City

It was just too hot to sleep last night; I slept like crap, and I woke up too late this morning to take advantage of more tolerable conditions for running. It's climbing up to the mid-thirties today temperature-wise: even hotter than yesterday. So, I'm going to relax today and recover from the strain of the gym work and running around I did yesterday. I was a bit too ambitious and overworked my arms. I can barely straighten them now. If I did hit the trails later today, I'd be destined for heatstroke and cramping. I have to smarten up and start healing right.


My scribbled out algorithmic representations
 of this city's trails and bridges.

Since I did my hard work Friday and Saturday, I thought I should do my smart work today. It was one of those good moments when I got the chance to blow the dust off of some obscure knowledge of discrete mathematics and graph theory locked up in my memory somewhere, and making it somehow meaningful. Extreme insomnia is often the cause and reason for jolting me into these deviations into harmless, yet eccentric, numerical explorations. I thought I should apply myself to it before my already too-tired pulpy mush of brain softens up even more from today's heat. I played around with some Hamiltonian circuits and weighted digraphs. I used that stuff to figure out the optimal path between points along my running routes which would constitute the most effective and ideal half-marathon training course for the sake of my own safety and efficiency. I should have been using this analysis ages ago, which could have spared me some agony, but I've been procrastinating. It's stuff I think I'll be using more often in the future to avoid some other negative extremes in training and personal logistics.

Speaking of extremes, the other observation my half-cooked mind is noting is how weird the vibe has switched over in the neighbourhood with the presence of some glaringly conspicuous newly erected monument to piety. The Seventh Day Adventist school across the alley from my building has went through some considerable effort and expense to set up sort of temporary compound of plain white large tents and awnings, all surrounded and visually shielded by a two meter high white tarp-draped fence. The sign outside of it calls it a "tour of the history of the bible"* or some such thing. There is this structure with towering gold-painted columns that especially looks freaky: like fucking Caligula was camping there. It's the noise element that's creeping me out most, or rather the lack of the noise you would expect and associate with entertainment when you see such structures. If you didn't know that this was some attempt by these people to fashion some kind of  'Jesus Circus', you would think it was a refugee camp, or that an emergency battlefield hospital was set up there as if an outbreak of some kind of plague was happening. It's very unsettling. I won't dare enter that place, no matter how curious its presence is making me. The weird setup of the fence makes it look ultra-secretive. The only impression I gather of what religious activity might be going on in there is the kind where cult members have their finally stop to drink their cyanide laced Cool-Aid. It's a disturbingly ominous looking setup, and I'll be glad when this thing gets all knocked down by the end of the month.

What little I know about the Seventh Day Adventists is this: they hold a more literalistic interpretation of the Bible, and more staunchly conservative (puritanical) than most other Protestant Baptist denominations. They abstain from alcohol and tobacco, they don't dance, and don't approve of immodest dress. Like the Jews, they observe Saturday as the Sabbath, and there is following the Kosher dietary laws (no pork, shellfish, etc.). I have no personal qualms with them. When it comes right down to it, I wish more of the dope dealing assholes would move out of the neighbourhood, and more Adventists would move in their stead. What does sicken me though about this setup of this Messiah Mansion, is that this too is proof of just how likely they are, as with any other religious group, to resort to using such a tawdry display as a meme-warfare tactic, despite appearing outwardly more conservative, to attract more followers . . .  of what amounts to be mythology. So many other things could have been done with that money and energy for real charitable work than wasting it on setting up this tacky showpiece; which I must add, has been largely vacant since it arrived here.

On Saturday, I was shamelessly sun tanning on my deck, less-than-modestly attired, in full view of the people running this show, drinking my beer, and snacking on some spare ribs and smoked oysters. In my own way, that's how I've been rebellious and defiant to the presence of this monstrosity.

*-  I highly doubt that this history includes a case for evolution. As kindly and civil as they may appear, when it comes to literalistic followers of scriptures in Abrahamic religions: be it Biblical or Koranic, I have no desire to waste my time with people stupid enough to actively refute the scientific evidence of evolution, and too sanctimonious to even bring it into question.

Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day

Today was payday, and a day off. A typical kind of day where I devote a bit of my morning to tabulate my budget and pay my bills. Just for shits and giggles; just to force myself to think outside the box a bit, I performed the whole operation with one of my desk toys: a Chinese abacus. I sometimes use it for place holding numbers when I don't have a pen handy.* Most of the time though, it's just a fidgeting toy that I use when I'm lost in contemplation, like some sort of more scientific form of rosary beads. I suppose I keep it around as a reminder that sometimes solutions to majorly complicated problems can be found by using and focusing on the simplest of things.

An interesting bit of math trivia: if you used an average of one
 second to move the counters, non-stop, on a 13 column abacus,
like this one, to represent each and all of the total possible counter
 positions, just once, it would take 659,839,939 years to do it.
(. . . and no, I didn't calculate all that using this thing.)

Noting what today was, I couldn't help but to assume that budgeting and bill paying are the complete opposite things of what many of the Americans are doing right now, that is going overboard and getting deeper in debt with manic episodes of shopping. That is, today is also Black Friday, the day when the neighbours to the south go berserk and stampede into shopping malls in a greed driven frenzy. Reading an article about it in a complimentary issue of today's issue of The Globe and Mail prompted me a little more to look into this phenomenon, of how the cross-border shopping is impacting Canadian retailers. To be honest: either probably because I'm that disinterested in shopping, or I'm that indifferent or oblivious to the traditions of American holidays, I never even heard of the phenomenon of Black Friday until relatively recently in my life, probably about five years ago. That seems to be when Canadian news media started to shine more of a spotlight on this insanity. Now, there are even Black Friday sales here in Canada at this week of the year, despite the fact that our Thanksgiving Day is in October.** I notice "Cyber Monday" is becoming a bigger hyped-up deal here each year, to get supposedly big savings, with an adequate window of processing/shipping time before Christmas for online purchases of material items made at some domestic and US vendors. I've included this Wikipedia link about it, which better explains the how and why Canada's burgeoning involvement with this retail world wildness. What floors me about the figures in the table lower on this page, just before the references, is just the ever rising Total Billions Spent after the year of the big American financial crisis. All the news during the years of record high home foreclosures, and personal bankruptcies, and the consequences of being overburdened with debt didn't apparently sink in with the American consumers around holiday time. 

 

It's a ridiculous time of year when I hear the odd story about how many people got trampled to death down there when crowds charge at the doors when the malls and stores open for it. I'm sure I'll hear the other odd report about how many morons died of exposure because they had a tent pitched and camped outside a store two days in advance of its opening. I'm not at all sympathetic to such people. If they are that idiotic to allow themselves to forsake their own safety to get a discount iPad or a cheap pair of designer shoes, and willingly be at the wrong place at the wrong time, I say screw'em. That's just Darwinism doing its thing. I really won't shed any tears about there being a few less idiots, and greedy shitheads walking the face of this Earth. The topic of Black Friday only jolted some interest and concern in me because my parents are on a holiday tour in the United States right now. I'm hoping that they, and their tour group, had some good sense to steer clear of the insanity in their shopping malls down there today. Businesses and corporations control most of the mainstream news of course, so sure there is a lot of media hype about Black Friday on the business perspective to make the year end sound positive, but we sure as hell don't hear much about the following reality of "In-the-Red January" from the consumer end of the deal in the news.

 

My fourth Friday (or whole weekend) of November tradition is coming to be "Buy Nothing Day", an idea promoted by Adbusters magazine, to use it for anything else besides shopping and needless consumption, and to stop business/corporate control of the holidays. I'm also not keen on being part of the hyped up madness of Boxing Day sales: the Canadian equivalent to Black Friday. That leads to the question, what can one do to get into the spirit of the season, without spending money on anything? I thought of these things as answers to give:

 

• Make an appointment to donate blood/platelets: A way to be charitable without giving money. Go to your Canadian Blood Services clinic(or your nation's respective agency clinic for blood donations). If you never have done it before, at least get tested for eligibility. Everyone has it, everyone needs it. The best gift you may be able to provide is to help someone else survive to see another Christmas.***
• Sort through closets/drawers; donate clothing and other articles to good will charities and agencies: The thought of irony that really disgusts me is knowing that there were probably some Americans, perhaps during some moment in prayer with their families, who were stating how thankful they were for whatever type of abundance they have during their Thanksgiving dinner; who now a day later, some of these same people became part of the stampeding hordes of assholes who would trample over someone else to get through a WalMart entrance somewhere to buy more shit to hoard. That seems pretty insincere to me. If you are really that fortunate and secure with your so-called abundance, you wouldn't need to walk over somebody's face to get some cheap piece of crap made in a sweatshop. How greedy can you get? Abundance means you don't have to charge out anywhere to fetch something in near panic mode. Abundance means having more than you actually need. Sort through your crap to know just how much you do really have; if you've outgrown it or neglected it too often, just give it away.
• Turn off your TV, or else make an effort to watch commercials conscientiously: If you choose to watch TV, take a count of exactly how many commercials you viewed, note what the products are, think about how much money you would have to spend that day if you absolutely had to buy each and every one of those products that was pitched to you. Think about how many hours of work and financing that it would really require to both acquire and maintain the product. Ask yourself, "Is this thing really going to make me a better person?", and "What can I do/use instead of that is cheaper, costs nothing?" The outcome of this exercise should hopefully make you angry with allowing yourself to be a tool, and for being dazzled by so much magic in advertising, and this meme-warfare that you are being subjected to every day.
• Walk/Run/Move Your Ass: Start making an effort to take off more pounds during the season than the ones you'll be gaining with all the treats and parties between now and the end of the year. Move around six days a week, binge a bit on the seventh. I didn't say that you can't enjoy the parties, you'd just have to work for them. If you do a well enough job keeping the lard off before New Year's Day, you should have an easier time committing to your resolution after Jan 1st. Don't you think that one reason people are buying clothing so often, is because of exponential weight gains due to inactivity and overeating. Take measures to make it less likely to happen.
• Sit down and make a budget: Make a plan to pay off bills and any other debts you may already have, and live within your means. You don't have get too crazy by using an abacus to do it. Small steps are better than no steps, or totally veering off wildly in the opposite direction.

 “The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.”- Kim Hubbard

All this stuff that I mentioned could easily keep me occupied throughout the course of Buy Nothing Day. Happy non-shopping everyone!

*- Which is surprisingly often. I use a pen so seldom in my office now that when I do find one, usually while I'm on the phone, more often than not, the ink is dried up in it. An abacus needs no power, and no ink refills.

**- Better now than in October. Out of respect to the veterans, I absolutely refuse to put up Christmas decorations, or even consider holiday shopping before/during Remembrance Day.

***-Another thing that peeves me: hearing a person who talks about, or has actually endured, being poked enough with a needle to be decorated with tattoos and piercings, but admits to me that they would never attempt to donate blood. That's a true sign of a person being shamelessly selfish.

   

 

Stranded Alone with Couch Thoughts

“Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Don’t worry; you will survive, and you will have a lot of fun.”  

– Paulo Coelho (taken from the book Veronika Decides to Die)

I woke up in the morning a couple days ago to see everything blanketed by about 10 centimeters of new snow. There was a slick sheet of frozen rain under all that snow, so walking and driving was somewhat treacherous for the past couple days. I'm pretty sure, even though the weather reports are predicting plus six Celsius daytime temperatures later this week, that most of this stuff will be staying on through until next spring. What I'm most thankful for right now, with the way my back is now, that I don't have to be responsible for shoveling and clearing any sidewalks.

I'm a little better than I was before Halloween. I can at least sit down and stand up more comfortably, and I think I might be able to put my shoes on today without feeling an urge to scream.

This past spell of forced immobility to avoid extra pain wasn't all bad, it didn't tax my wits and sanity as much as I thought it would. In fact, it was a bit enlightening in some ways.

Firstly, my limited movement made me think with a little more empathy about the people I serve. Secondly, I became very grateful (and very overwhelmed even), as to how many possible things I still have the ability to do (that involve no extra cost), even while confined to a bed or couch to help to keep making my life an actively enriched and engaged one. I'm not saying that I'd be any better than anyone else at adapting, or adjusting, to a situation involving temporary or permanent physical disability. I'm saying that, left to my devices, I'm a little more reassured that it would even be harder to completely bore myself. I'm realizing though, with great frustration, that injuries seem to occur during days that are my scheduled time off (times like now, and my last entire summer vacation) after long stints of activity, and I seem recover just in time for my scheduled work days. What a bloody waste! No wonder it feels like I'm burnt out half the time. Perhaps the stage was already being set for me being rendered useless by my own clumsiness, which was caused by exhaustion, fatigue, and unrest, and thus an accident like this was coming inevitably.

I could have chosen to wallow in bitterness and self-pity, or to do as much as I could within my restrictive limits. I chose the latter. The extra forced stillness gave me more focus for taking personal inventory, and examining motives; mentally scratching the math/home economics itch again for making some optimizations, and playing around with some recreational calculations. Reviewing my interests and consumption habits, I've been figuring out things like*:

• The number of varieties of the kinds of homemade pizzas I could make using the kinds of dough, sauces, cheeses, plus a choice of any three from the list of the other toppings, that I like (1.797 x 10¹⁰).
• My estimated personal annual coffee consumption. I buy and use about 5.2 kg of (whole) coffee beans per year for home use; I'd like to reduce that to 4.0 kg or under.
• The amount of paper I have moving into my suite per month taking up space (flyers, free newspapers, junk mail, packing material, etc.) I figured averages about 4.7 lbs (2.14 kg) per month. Is it really worth having that kind of mass to sift through for the two or three slips of general purpose coupons that I use? (economy of space vs. economy of savings)
• Is it a cost effective measure to make my own kvas at home? Unfortunately, the answer is no: considering the rarity of the kind of rye bread I'd need, the amount and cost of sugar needed, and the energy/time to make it from scratch, even in bulk production to reduce overhead costs, it's just cheaper to get the genuine, quality assured, Ukrainian or Russian kvas from the East European import store, $4.50/imported 2 L bottle vs. $7.70/homemade 2 L bottle. If this stuff was taxed like regular alcohol (retail beer/wine/spirits), it then might be worth the trouble. 
• The cost per serving of the Coconut Pumpkin Soup recipe I recently made and shared with a friend ($0.48)

Even with just lying still on my chesterfield and thinking about all those unique and lovely flavours I thought, the savings, the abundance of possibilities, and potential for future experimentation with these simple things put me in a much more content mood, even despite the inclemency outside. My back even relaxed more and hurt less. Sometimes you have to peer into the crazy side of things to have a contrasting context to create a realm that serves your own sanity. I'm happier with thinking and preparing for things, with a few crazy twists, to avoid and prevent creating waste of time and money, and detriment to one's health, sanity, and environment. I find it is ten times more progressive, gratifying, and entertaining, than getting lost in and surrendering to impulsiveness, instant gratification fantasies, and dreaming of some get rich quick schemes. So long as one can reel oneself back into reality from the daydreaming, back into the present moment, there is no harm in it. It's a hell of a cheap way to spend a bit of an afternoon to relax at the very least.

On the world stage, with final thoughts on reckless impulsiveness and being unprepared for loss. I have to note the kind of idiocy I've been witnessing on the news about what has been happening in New York, with the storms and power outages there. It's beyond ridiculous and shameful that one of the "richest" cities in the world would have the kind of society where people would instantly lower themselves to resort to looting stores in an event as minor as a power outage, like the end of the world was coming to them. That makes me also mindful of the comparatively far worse disaster of the tsunami/nuclear reactor breach in Fukushima, Japan last year; seeing people on the news, some of whom having lost everything in that destructive event, yet astonishingly remaining for the most part calm, and still being civilized and orderly enough while queuing up for water, food rations, and other aid. Proof again of the power of calmness, in a place where perhaps it was due to a Zen ethic being more pronounced and established.

*- All costs calculated in Canadian dollars.

Early Snow, Combo-Abundance, and the Hell of Clothes Shopping

As I mentioned in one of my postings, I'm finding it a bit of a downer after the dump of snow we received a couple days ago; knowing that if it remained until spring thaw, we would be having nine more weeks of snow coverage compared to last winter, when we didn't get a lasting snow until sometime between Christmas and New Year's Day. Of course last year was an abnormal winter in its lateness, just as this year is abnormal in its earliness. Nature, I guess, is just balancing itself out. Normally, for this region in Canada, the snow that lasts through all the winter season arrives in mid-November, and remains until around the end of March. There is a small chance that this recent snowfall might still disappear, but with the temperatures predicted to drop to minus 15 ºC overnight this weekend, I highly doubt that it will.

The coming of this early snow is prompting me to think and do several things that work interdependently and consequentially with each other:

1. I dig through my closets to switch over my clothing for the season (also see point #10).
2. I pitch out, or put aside to donate, clothes which are overworn, or which don't fit or suit me anymore.
3. I'll be taking my clothes to one of local thrift stores, which would be having a higher business volume now due to Hallowe'en coming next the week.
4. While there, along with contemplating the irrationality of having a traditional observance in the year where we celebrate the supernatural, superstitions, and stuff that scares us, I calculate the degree of waste occurring when we buy 'ceremonial' clothing or costumes that we only use one day within a year (or in our lifetime) to wear. 
5. After donating my old stuff, I'll be forcing myself into the arduous task of shopping for the list of clothes and winter gear that I may lack.
6. I think about how much of a pain in the ass it is for me to shop for clothing (leading to point #9)
7. With the coming of the snow, it triggers me to wonder how close to Christmas it actually is (exactly two months from today I realize), and hence make it a point to try to procure some extra savings for the holiday.
8. I monkey around with figures more to avoid depriving myself before and after the Chistmas holiday.
9. I'll willingly opt to stay inside more, giving more attention to my home environment (convergence at point #12).
10. After digging through my closets, and knowing running outside isn't very safe anymore, I pull out my home gym equipment, and try it out (more to ease my guilt about buying this stuff, and yet not using it on a more regular basis). Also serves as a reminder to not let myself balloon out of the few well fitting pants I have because of more physical idleness during winter.
11. Thinking back to point #7, I spend more time thinking about what practical things I could use around here which I could get on the Boxing Day sales. Skip to next point.
12. Being inside my place more leads to more tinkering with things and cooking (as home economics projects to save some money, point #7), and playing around with more puzzles and number games to quell boredom. I also resolved to use this winter to read more, and re-learn things about science and advanced mathematics (and making practical use of them, as the case through exploring and answering point #14).  
13. Thoughts of avoiding a sense of deprivation (point #8), rummaging through my closets and drawers (point #1 & #10), clothes shopping (point # 5), messing around with recreational mathematics (point #12), add to that the ridiculous manner of consumption and hoarding I have been witnessing a few people partake in, leads me to think about the last point as a open ended question about other psycho-social problems regarding greed and coveting things:
14. Why can't people use more common sense, arithmetic, and logic to determine:
1. The possibilities and abundance they already have through the application of probability and statistics?
2. How much is 'enough' before wasting more time, money and energy on items that become insanely superfluous and turn into a ridiculous collected/hoarded surplus?
3. The most efficient way to shop for stuff, and how to sense better about which things are 'wants' and which are 'needs', especially if one is already the sort that is on a fixed income*?

Let me provide an example, especially relating to 14.1 and 14.2. Suppose all your clothing vanished from your closets except for eight of each garment of your basic essentials**: in this case (thinking as a guy), they would be eight pairs of shoes, eight pairs of socks, eight pairs of undergarments, eight pairs of bottoms (trousers/jeans), eight belts, eight T-shirts, eight overshirts, and eight outerwear garments. Let's also suppose you have the right style going for yourself with each garment (i.e. each pair of pants will suit well with all the shirts you have, all socks go with the all the shirts and shoes you own, etc.). Thus, you would then already have 8⁸ ,or 16,777,216*** different possible permutations to wear as ensembles out of just this bunch of clothes alone. Supposing even that you eliminated choices by a wearing fresh ensemble of each kind of clothes item each day of the week, after randomly picking out your first outfit (as per the conditions of the ** footnote), within those seven days you still have 7,907,396 possible ensembles to choose from through the whole week(7,907,395 choices technically, since you would be reduced down to one pair of shoes, one, pants, one belt, one shirt, etc., by the last day so you would really have no choice left to make to dress yourself) even as you eliminated options by tossing each ensemble set in the hamper/not using them for the rest of the week after you wore them for a day.**** Knowing this now, how could you ever feel deprived if you stopped and looked at your closet with even more stuff in it than what I just gave as an example? The fashion police, compulsive clothes shoppers (whose delusions I just torched), and a few teenage daughters, are still already probably plotting to put a price on my head for mentioning this. Mugatu has probably already selected and trained the assassin to do it. I'll probably be strangled with a piano key necktie in my sleep (see Zoolander, hilarious movie).

If this is what's possible with just eight shirts, eight pants, eight pairs of underthingles, etc., can you imagine what goes through a mind like mine when I'm faced with the challenge of gazing at racks loaded with clothes in a store, and having to pick out something? Option paralysis takes over, and that's why I need the assistance of a female friend with a keener sense of my sartorial style than I have, to help me with colours, cuts, patterns and whatnot; to at least help pick out one item out for me and to provide a foundation to shop around, or else I'd be forever wearing jeans and plain T-shirts.

For regular day to day affairs, so long as what I have on fits right, feels and smells clean, and doesn't brand me as being some sort of friggin' redneck/cowboy or any other kind of hoodlum, I could care less about what I'm wearing, or having matching tags, or comparing my wardrobe to what someone else has on. To be honest, the famous people I have most respect for are those who coincidentally use the equivalent of plain brown wrappers as garb. Billionaire Warren Buffet, the Wizard of Wall Street, being as rich as he is, got away with wearing unpretentious simple cotton shirts, slacks and a blazer for a long time before finally being pressured by some cohorts into "looking respectable" by moving up to wearing $1,500.00, off the rack, Zegna Italian suits to work. Steve Jobs' business attire was a black turtleneck, jeans, and Nike runners. Mahatma Gandhi got by with even less. Their wisdom overshadows any flaws in dress and appearance they may have had. People who constantly have to overdress*****, to me, are doing their damnedest to try to shield some insecurity, or other major defect in their personality. I sure as hell won't trust some guy wearing gold jewelry, or a $3,000.00 suit, who is begging for money for a ministry, that allegedly preaches the words of wisdom of a Jewish carpenter who did his mission by wearing only a simple robe and sandals.

*- Like those reckless spenders I've been watching.
**- By essentials, I mean the kind of clothing that you walk out of your house looking presentable and feeling comfortable in 95% of the time. I'm being generous here with the number eight, that's one of each item to wear each day of the week, plus one extra to have on stand by should you have to change once midday if you slop something up, or to have something to wear while you are using one of the days in the week to launder your other outfits (unless you do your laundry naked, but that's your business). For the sake of a little more simplicity, I eliminated null options (going without a jacket, sockless, beltless, or going commando), or else there would be nine options for each respective clothing article.
***- Another way of looking at this: if each and every day you tried to wear each one of those different combinations of that given set of clothes, without repeating any one ensemble exactly, you'd have to live roughly 45,933.5 years (leap years accounted for) to do it.
****- [number of choices for each item]^{(number of items in ensemble)}, therefore adding the remaining possiblities made by each elimination for each day throughout the week, ( 7⁸ + 6⁸ . . . +1⁸ ), yields the remaining possible permutations. I was totally wrong earlier with a posted answer using a factorial analysis. This entry may yet need corrections. This is exactly the point of my wanting and trying to learn advanced math. I know do well enough that the answer is a hell of a lot larger than 23. It's a number still large enough to challenge the status quo about how one can have tremendous outcomes with relatively few options.
*****- This includes overdoing it with the makeup for women.

Running Harder, but Standing Still

I finally did something yesterday that involved straying off to someplace different than work or home within this past week. I bit of browsing at McNally Robinson and enjoyed a light lunch with my friend; sadly it was all the energy I had in me for that day. Browsing wasn't as enjoyable as it usually is for me. As much as I wished to do more reading, my eyes have been too fatigued and sore for it, plus I've been stricken with recurring headaches. It's probably due to too much extra time used staring at screens, processing code and formulae throughout the week, and monitoring the FX charts before the start, and after the end, of each day of a string workdays 10 hours long. I'm sure that typing this is will even become challenging shortly.

The title of this entry is a bit of a misnomer. By running harder, I mean it seems to take more energy and a higher pain threshold to commit to doing it at this time of the year. I didn't run all week: the damp coldness has been giving my knees grief. The lack of doing it is making my metabolism level head south, as indicated by my tightening waistbands on my pants. I resolved to at least get out today, no matter what, but I wonder if the resulting shock and pain to lose an extra couple pounds would make it worth doing. I plodded along at some distance over 5 kilometers this morning: better than nothing I suppose. I went outside, absent-mindedly wearing my running shorts and light jacket. I honestly didn't sense how cold it actually was until near the end of my run when I visually noticed that the shoulders of my black jacket were coated with white frost from my condensed expired breath. My knees didn't suffer that badly thankfully.

There is a treadmill in my building's rec room to use, but I discovered recently that the damn thing is busted. So much for that option for winter training. I can't really stand treadmills anyway. It seems that I need some perception and sensation of moving through physical space and traversing an actual distance to make it feel like running is benefiting me. There is the indoor track at the local Field House, but I'm trying to avoid paying a mint to use it. Walking and cycling, at least for now, are still viable. There have been still good results. I'm noting that yesterday, even during this time of the year, was the first time I used my car in a week. The most heartbreaking thing to see along my trips by the river this week has been the unceremonious demolition of the Victoria Street Bridge.


The hope of getting to use this bridge deck to jog on is officially extinguished.

I'm struggling to figure out where to apply myself today, the second day of a three day weekend. I find I almost dread having unstructured time off, because it seems that I waste half of that precious time, and even more energy, which I don't feel like I have, trying to structure it. Blogging now, in it's own way, serves to help me piece that together.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”
-Alvin Toffler

One thing I did do, in keeping with my riding the wave of decluttering and living more frugally, was clearing away some books I found, which someone in the building gave away as freebies as they were moving. So, I took them to my favourite local used bookstore to exchange them for something more meaningful for me*. I was in non-fiction mood, craving something in the realms of finance, math or science: things I definately don't hear sensible conversations about when I'm at work. One cheap book I found that I was willing to re-read was Innumeracy: mathematical illiteracy and its consequences, by John Allen Paulos. This edition I bartered for is from 1990, but the truth in it is as valid now as it was back then. Now that I find myself playing around with numbers more, I thought it would be prudent to detect and extinquish those remaining numerical fallacies and statistical errors I myself still succumb to. The sad and dangerous thing though is that the more educated I get about such stuff by reading this book, the more likely I am to detect just how much more stupid people around me will seem when they are trying to argue opinions around me and are trying to stick in figures they don't understand into the mix. Thus, my respect for them begins to quickly retract (to put it lightly), and I just fear more for the future of humanity in general once such people somehow gain more power.

*- I spent no actual money, I made a tidy little profit in terms of store credit, I gave old books new life, it helps to save a tree or two, plus by buying through this kind of discount I have the satisfaction of sticking it to the man by avoiding the rip off of paying an average 12% higher listed Canadian price for a book (even in e-book format) when the looney is close to parity with the US dollar. I feel it's all good karma for me.