Mammoth Cave

The wife's brother is in town. This weekend we went to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Click on the image for more pictures.

Cellular vs. Wireless

I would really like to have a device which 

1. is programmable,
2. contains a microphone and a speaker in the form factor of a cell phone,
3. contains a display sufficient to view web pages designed for mobile devices,
4. can connect to the net in the presence of a Wi-Fi network,
5. can be purchased without signing up for a monthly service plan.

I have found no such device. 

At the heart of the matter is the way products and services are sold together. Cell phones and cell phone plans are usually bundled in a package deal. In signing up for the plan you are purchasing some amount of bandwidth, which is accessible in a variety of places such as movie theaters, libraries, and bathroom stalls. Since I don't want to talk on a phone in those places, and the places where I do want to talk on a phone -- my home and my office -- already have plenty of bandwidth, and since there is no cell reception in my office, a cell phone is a losing proposition. 

I was at the Apple store last weekend and asked if I could run Skype on the iPhone. The answer was no because that would "go against the data plan." (I have no idea what that meant.) I do know Apple will sell me a laptop that allows me to do exactly what I want, but wont sell me a hand-held device that does the same thing. Who hasn't looked at the iPod Touch and said "if only it had a microphone..." If I were to take a guess, I would say that if Apple were to start offering Wi-Fi only devices that do voice, it would sour Apple's relationship with AT&T. Perhaps it's more complicated than that, but I read last weekend about some important muckity-muck in the telecom business who said that Wi-Fi hotspots would soon be replaced by cellular networks. I hope not because Wi-Fi access represents a model in which you pay for bandwidth and are free to use it for whatever application you want -- browsing, sending e-mail, having voice communications.  Cellular networks, on the other hand, have price structures based on how you use the bandwidth.

Unrelated note: I found this via the unapologetic mathematician.

More Time-Wasting Fun from Boing Boing

Another Reason to Read Boing Boing

Flight

Reporter Owned By Sled - Watch more free videos

Oops

Oops.

Found and Lost

This from he who desires not to be named.

Wrists and Canned Cheeseburgers

Wrists: I got a wicked case of tendonitis paddling a week and a half ago. My wrist makes this horrible creaking noise whenever it moves. The sound makes me think that I've run out of joint lubricant. The nurse called it crepitous.  It's more like de-crepitous.

Canned Cheeseburger: If you don't read the AV Club, you should.  In this week's edition they review a canned cheeseburger.  

The Big Conference

Last week my University hosted an analysis conference. In the months leading up to it a friend kept prodding me to give a talk. I relented, cobbled together an abstract, and submitted it. I didn't give it much through until the weekend before last when my advisor pointed out that my talk was on the first day, shortly after the morning's invited talks conclude. My advisor then pointed out that I should immediately start writing my talk. I got paranoid and spent the weekend not writing the talk, instead reviewing my results and making sure that there weren't any errors. Monday I wrote the talk. Tuesday I gave a practice talk to my advisor and some folks generous enough with their time to listen. My advisor, in his characteristic charitable way, was like, "It's good. Although the end is weak, and the beginning should be reformulated, and maybe redo the middle as well." Another draft and the talk was getting better, but I'm getting nervous. As much as my research seems underwhelming to me, there's a lot of material and only a half hour to present it.

The talk goes alright, I feel like I convey the gist of what my research is about. Famous mathematician (fm) sitting in the front row asks a question. At first I think that the question indicates that he didn't understand what I'm trying to do. I reiterate what I'm trying to do and how my approach has worked well so far. That night I'm at a bar with one of fm's former students. The student points out that fm didn't misunderstood, his question was aimed at something deeper. The next day I screw up my courage, walk up to fm and ask him to clarify the question. Fm points out some questions to think about, and it's like a light turning on. I nod and try to hide the fact that I'm thinking, "My God! That is a remarkable question." In essence he pointed out some fascinating notions of dimension. As he suggested them, I saw that there was this world of questions I was missing. Fm tells me I gave a good talk. I thank him.

The next day I'm talking to my advisor in his office, hashing out a few details I'd like to pin down before publishing. In walks fm, who gives an impromptu presentation on the work he's doing. What's so exciting is that he suggests a range of tools that I would never have considered and seem supremely cool. The next day fm gives his invited talk and explicitly references my talk. I've since started reading one of fm's books on the material in question. It was a phenomenal conference.

Today I get a letter indicating that I've won a summer research award. My advisor would have funded me even if I hadn't, but it's nice to be able to fill out the meager "awards and honors" section of my CV. Someone who was part of the selection committee tells me that my proposal was tops not just in the math department but across the University.

Today was a good math day.

Paddling Again

Yesterday I had an adventure paddling the Caney Fork. The river felt like one of the more demanding rivers I've been on. Even after walking the one class V, many of the remaining rapids had lines I didn't find particularly obvious. Further, a lot of the rapids couldn't be scouted in their entirety from a boat. Given the length of the river, the amount of daylight, and the rocky banks, getting out to scout every rapid wasn't an option. One member of our party who had paddled the river before assured us that most lines were runnable and that there were few serious consequences. He was mostly right.

A little more than halfway down we come up to a rapid whose entrance consists of a bunch of horizon lines. The strongest paddler in our party proceeds along a far left line. We see him drop off the ledge out of view. An instant later we see just the nose of his boat pointing straight up. A moment later we hear a whoop as he paddles out of the hydraulic. The three of us still in the pool at the top look at each other and decide to find a different line. At far river-right there is a channel of water that flows between two rocks maybe six feet apart and then makes an abrupt left turn into a V-shaped, four foot drop.  We have a better view of the line, but there isn't much room to maneuver. The next guy runs it and makes it.  The third guy enters the channel, but can't quite turn his boat to the left far enough, goes off the drop sideways, flips, gets pushed up against a rock wall and swims. He makes it to a rock in a relatively calm part of the rapid. The first guy throws him a rope, and he manages to get to shore. I get out of my boat, go down to see how everyone is, take a look back upstream and see how to run the rapid. Once everyone is OK, I walk back to my boat, get in and run the line I picked out. At the end of the rapid I paddle directly over a boat pinned against a rock underwater. The muted blue shape under a layer of water is the boat belonging to the guy who swam.

The boat is too far out into the current to reach, and efforts to throw a rope around it aren't working. I cross the river, someone throws a rope across the river to me, and we manage to get the rope snagged under the downstream edge of the boat. We make several concerted efforts to pull the boat free and it doesn't even budge. I suggest setting up a Z-drag, but the sun is already heading toward the edge of the canyon. The guy who swam decides to walk. It's miles to the nearest road. So now there's three of us.  The guy who really knows the river is bushwhacking through the forest. 

Two more paddlers show up and we ask if we can paddle the rest of the river with them. They say sure. Aside from being excellent boaters, they're really nice guys and proceed to guide us down the rest of the river. They pick excellent line, make it look easy, and we follow. We get to the car at the takeout just as the guy who walked out comes strolling along. The sun goes down less than a half hour later.

Everything turned out OK, so I suppose that made it a good adventure, but I can't help but wonder how things would have turned out had we not met up with the boaters we did.