Essen

After a full day of talking maths with the number theorists at Universität Duisburg-Essen and Institut für Experimentelle Mathematik, I'm back in my hotel, practicing writing Chinese characters (叔 = shū = uncle in direct address), with my Berlitz German phrase book audio CD playing in the background ("Wo ist die Toilette?").

比茶壶还热 -- hotter than a teapot!

昨天晚上上中文课，一段话里，妈妈说：比茶壶还热！所以我们的老师教我们：茶壶里煮饺子倒不出。意思是：知道很多东西但是不会表达的人。 昨天晚上学生只是我和马克。一老师说了这个，我们就说：数学家！

In one of the dialogues we studied in class last night, the mother used the expression 比茶壶还热 (bǐ chá hú hái rè) -- hotter than a teapot! So our teacher taught us another phrase:

茶壶里煮饺子倒不出
chá hú lǐ zhǔ jiǎo zi dào bù chū

Literal translation of words:
茶壶 -- teapot
里 -- inside
煮 -- cook, boil
饺子 -- dumplings
倒 -- pour
不 -- not
出 -- go out

So the phrase literally means "dumplings cooking in the teapot, they don't pour out". The phrase is used to describe someone who has a lot of knowledge inside, but can't express it well. Last night a lot of people weren't there; it was just me and 马克 (mǎ kè) -- Mark, a computer science professor. When we heard this, we immediately exclaimed, "数学家！" (shù xué jiā!) -- "Mathematicians!"

加油！

在中文课，我们刚结束了第二本书。 一结束那本书了，就开始了第三本书。上课，我们学了"加油"。那课，我们的老师对我们告诉星期四晚上在国王学校我们可以看中国电影"大红灯笼高高挂"。所以昨天晚上我看了这个电影。以前我没看过这个电影。这个电影又好又很漂亮，可是房间太冷了。

前天我对我的围棋老师说：我正在写汉字呢。她说：我帮你学汉语。今天她给我发邮件。她写：这么好的天气, 不出去走走吗? 她住在 Amsterdam。 我写：在伦敦今天天气一点儿冷。我应该写：在伦敦今天天气有点儿冷。

In Chinese class, we just finished the second book. As soon as we finished that book, we started the third book. (With this transition we move from "beginner" to "lower intermediate" -- learning Chinese is a slow process.) Last class, we learned "加油". (This is pronounced jiā yóu. It's a Chinese chant to cheer on your team, so where we might yell "Go! Go!" or "Come on!" they would yell "加油！加油！" The first character 加 means "add" and the second character 油 means "oil" so the phrase, translated literally, means "add oil"; perhaps a better translation is "Give it the gas!") That class, our teacher told us that on Thursday at King's College, we could watch the Chinese film "Raise the Red Lantern". So last night I watched this film. I had never seen this film before. This film was good, and beautiful, but the room was too cold.

The day before yesterday, I told my Weiqi teacher, "I'm writing Chinese characters right now." She said she would help me learn Chinese. Today she sent me an email. She wrote, "The weather is so nice, are you not going out?" She lives in Amsterdam. I wrote, "In London, the weather today is a bit cold." I should have written, "In London, the weather today is somewhat cold." (She corrected me.)

New Audio Lessons Site!

Guo Juan has just launched the new and improved version of her website!

Mind Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

We *shall* overcome.

Yellow fog

The other day I awoke to an eerie muted yellow glow that was neither street light nor sun light, but could only be the remnants of the famed yellow fog of Prufrock fame.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
By T. S. Eliot

Vote!

Today I received and returned my ballot. Nothing like voting by absentee ballot for a list of unopposed candidates to make your electoral participation feel inconsequential. I should have moved to New Hampshire before leaving the country. On the bright side, I got to vote for an initiative to remove criminal penalties for marijuana possession in Massachusetts.

At the post office, I asked the clerk about the probability of my ballot making it past the local postal service. When I voted two years ago, they kept returning my ballot to me, because the printed address on the envelope doesn't look at all like an address. He assured me that it shouldn't be a problem, as they have so many US ballots going through that post office every day now. He said he alone had already processed four or five this morning before mine.

Living here in the UK makes me feel really privileged to vote in the US election. So many people I talk to point out the huge consequences this election will have on their lives. I think folks here are hopeful, if still a bit anxious after the last go-round.

Verde's

Today I finally got around to really visiting Jeanette Winterson's shop Verde's. Last week we passed it on the Jack the Ripper walk, and Lauren and I stopped by briefly before having dinner on Brick Lane.


It's a wonderful little haven and I plan to return as much as I can. (It's rather out of the way for me though.) Before going to Verde's we had tacos at a little Mexican festival within a farmer's market near Russell Square.


Yum. The Mariachi band was great -- they'd sing two or three songs and then go eat some tacos, and then sing two or three songs and then go eat some tacos, and so on.

After Verde's we did some window shopping around Spitalfields, and had a glass of wine along the way. It was a lovely afternoon overall, especially because we had a rare sunny day.

Ren!

Lauren came to visit me last weekend. We were busy:
Belgian beers at Lowlander
National Gallery
Chinatown
Tate Modern
more pubs
mass at St. Paul's
British Museum
fish & chips
National Portrait Gallery
Jack the Ripper walk
lunchtime recital at the Royal Opera House
curry on Brick Lane
"The Sound of Music" at the Palladium

She also went to the British Library without me, and we did a bunch of walking around besides. On the Jack the Ripper walk, we got to see a big chunk of the old Roman wall around the original city of London:

ping-pong

乒乓
pīng pāng

Warm spiced apples with vanilla ice cream

Toss 3 cups sliced peeled apple with 2 teaspoons lemon juice. Melt 2 teaspoons butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add apple; saute until tender. Stir in 1 tablespoon maple syrup, 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg; cook 1 minute. Serve over vanilla ice cream.

This is from Cooking Light. They say to use frozen yogurt. Also, I don't measure any of it, but I'm sure that I'm more generous than they are with the butter and the maple syrup. I make it for myself with one apple.

我生病

因为我生病所以今天我在家。我头疼，感冒。通常我工作，但是今天我休息。 我看书， 看电影。 我喝又水又茶。 我吃药。在七月，我也生病。当时，我病了三个星期。我想比以前好快了。我有很多工作。

在十二月，我坐飞机去德国。在德国，我接数学家。他们和我工作一样。然后，我坐飞机去美国圣诞节。我在了三个星期美国。 前天我买了机票去美国。

Today I'm at home because I'm sick. My head hurts and I have a cold. Usually I work, but today I rest. I'm reading books and watching movies. I am drinking water and tea. I'm taking medicine. In July, I was also sick. Then, I was sick for three weeks. I hope I get better faster compared to then. I have lots of work to do.

In December, I will fly to Germany. In Germany, I will meet mathematicians. We are working on the same things. After that, I will fly to the U.S. for Christmas. I will stay in the U.S. for three weeks. I bought plane tickets for the U.S. the day before yesterday.

Data!

I think (fingers crossed) that I've finally got my code working properly for higher weights. Theoretically it should work for any prime (at least odd primes) and any level, but it gets slow when the levels start getting bigger (I haven't tested for many primes yet). Right now, it only works for Q(i), though it's just a matter of putting the time in to at least get it to work for the same five imaginary quadratic fields for which Cremona originally did computations.




This (assuming I don't have other problems lurking) is huge. It's a massive weight off my shoulders. It gives me confidence about finishing my PhD in the near future (or at all, for that matter) and it gives me a much more solid basis for applying for jobs (which I need to do this fall, i.e. now).

Now I just ("just") need to compute some Galois representations and match 'em up.

EGC '09

In the summer of 2009, the European Go Congress will be held in Groningen, The Netherlands. Two years ago, when I was in China studying Go, Walther and I promised Siu (right, with Zhang Pei Pei) we would attend his congress. (Walther and Siu were fellow students of mine in China, and Siu's club is the one hosting the 2009 EGC.)

I've never been to any Go congress (European or U.S. -- are there others?), so it's about time I get to one, huh? I haven't played in ages. Maybe this is a good way to get back in the swing of things. I'll have to finish the thesis first though.

Walther is scheduled to take the NY bar exam the first week of the Congress, but says he should be able to get there for the second week. Siu is trying to get Yan Laoshi (our teacher while we were in Wuhan) to come, but he says it's up to the Wei Qi Centre in Beijing. I assume Guo Juan will be there. Maybe Romain will come too, and we can have a reunion.

From Paris to Brussels

After my quick visit with Barbara and Lauren in Paris, I headed to Brussels to meet up with Alicia and Eric for the annual beer festival. There's a pub next to our office in London that serves Belgian beer, and it's the best beer in the world. We absolutely love it. So we'd been planning to attend this beer festival for quite some time.

I loved Brussels. It's much smaller and more manageable than London. The food is fantastic. Every other store you find a Belgian chocolate shop. The people there are laid back and friendly. And the beer is stunning. We drank way too much, because there were so many excellent beers to try (and we were even skipping the ones we already knew and most of the fruity beers).

Everyone told us we should come back next week for the smaller independent brewers festival. Apparently the breweries at this festival are considered big and commercial and not as good, which is hard to imagine because these beers are incredible. Actually, we already knew about the festival next week, but Alicia and Eric have a workshop to attend. So maybe next year.

Meeting Barbara and Lauren in Paris

Barbara volunteered to bring Lauren to Spain for her semester abroad. They took the scenic route, stopping in Paris first, which is where I met up with them. Coming from the beach in New York and heading to the Mediterranean, they were not exactly prepared for the weather in Paris, which was rainy and cold enough to pass for London weather. (Note the flipflops and sunglasses.)

It was great to see them. Living in the north east of the U.S., random family visits are a commonplace, but here it's a real treat to see them even briefly while they are passing through.

Near the Eiffel Tower we saw a bunch of guys doing crazy tricks on these power riser things:

It's like your own personal trampoline. But it's an expensive toy -- they said about 350 Euros. Here's a youtube video that shows someone doing flips:

Are you registered to vote?

Pets

I kicked this massive spider out of my flat last night.

I then promptly wondered whether that was a big mistake. Maybe this guy is the one who has been keeping the cockroaches at bay lately. Oh, well. If he is my cockroach scarecrow, I'm sure there are others like him willing to take over the job. I'm pretty sure it was a smaller instance of the same spider that got stuck in one of my cockroach glue traps a while back. I let this guy go out in front of my house, but maybe I should have frozen him and sent him to Nancy.

As Bob Dylan says,

Kick your shoes off
Do not fear
Bring that bottle
Over here

I'm going to the Fest.

Mnemosyne

When adding Chinese vocabulary to my Mnemosyne cards, I use definitions from an online dictionary. Many Chinese characters have multiple meanings and so, while I often learn only one particular meaning from my book, I find other meanings in the dictionary. An interesting one I recently ran across is 疼, which is pronounced téng. We learned it, in the chapter of our book on going to the doctor, as "hurt" or "pain". For example, 头疼, pronounced tóu téng, means "headache" (头 means "head"). My dictionary listed some other synonyms (ache, sore) but also gave the meaning "love fondly".

Another interesting feature of Chinese words is the tendency to double up characters that have the same or similar meanings. I imagine this happened partially for emphasis or expressiveness, but also to distinguish a particular meaning of a character (recall that an individual character can often have more than one meaning). For example, take the word 休息, pronounced xiū xi and meaning "to rest". The first character, 休, also means "to rest", but the second character, 息, has several different interpretations: "news; interest; breath; rest".

The character 休 is also cool because it's one of the pictograph characters. The left side is the radical for man, while the right side is the character 木 (pronounced mù) which means "tree". So the character 休, meaning "to rest", is a person leaning against a tree.

I recently joined the Charing Cross library, which is the one closest to Chinatown and which has a large supply of Chinese books. I take out kids' books and try to read what I can. I ran into an interesting character in one of them, which is 佛, pronounced fó and meaning Buddha or Buddhism. I found this character interesting because it's the first sound I've run across that doesn't have any other characters associated to it, not even with other tones. Now, that might be due to limitations in my dictionaries, which are probably not the most extensive Chinese dictionaries in existence, but every other sound I've looked up has had some other characters, and some sounds have tons of characters. For example, look up "yan" with the "Pinyin" option in the online dictionary. Not all sounds have that many entries (try "xiong"). But then try "fo".

Basic Corner Shapes

I really like this one too.

Fest!

Marty and I are on the same Heathrow -> JFK flight!

Ooooh... pretty....

King Lear at the Globe

France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,
Most choice forsaken, and most lov’d despis’d!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon,
Be it lawful I take up what’s cast away.
Gods, gods! ’tis strange that from their cold’st neglect
My love should kindle to inflam’d respect.
Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
Can buy this unpriz’d precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind;
Thou losest here, a better where to find.

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,—often the surfeits of our own behaviour,—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc’d obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail; and my nativity was under Ursa Major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. Fut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar—

Enter EDGAR

and pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy. My cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’ Bedlam —O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.

The ending was so powerful. The play, of course, ends in carnage and despair. Then the music started, melancholy at first, and the minor characters returned to the stage, touching the corpses on stage to revive them. They in turn would awake the others. Goneril and Regan woke Cordelia who in turn finally woke Lear. Even as they rose, they were all still overflowing with sorrow. But then the music started to pick up and they moved into a dance, stomping their feet in time to the music, with a crescendo into a jig, allowing, at long last, the release of the sorrow and the much needed outbreak of smiles and laughter. What a beautiful way to end the play.

Afterwards, we stayed at the bar there for a pint. Everyone else left and the place was pretty much deserted until a few minutes later when the entire cast came out and sat next to us for their post show drinks. So we got to bask in the glory of their performance a little while longer.

Psycho Buildings

My second trip to the Hayward Gallery confirmed my delight with it from the first. My favourite pieces in this exhibit were "Show Room" by Los Carpinteros and "Place" by Rachel Whiteread. The two pieces were in adjacent rooms.

We saw "Show Room" first. It consisted of a life size living room, bedroom and bathroom. Some force had blasted a hole through the cinder block "external" wall of the living room and the scene was frozen mid-destruction, Matrix style. To create such a scene, pieces of wall and furniture and debris were suspended from the ceiling with fishing line, bathing the whole scene in a beautiful almost glittering light, except "glittering" is the wrong word since it suggests some movement and the scene was breathtakingly still. The furniture was all plain and bare and mostly white (the rugs and bedspread were red). There was nothing in the rooms except the furniture: no knickknacks, appliances, toiletries, etc., the lack of which contributed to the stillness contrasting the chaos.

Next door, we stepped into a dark cold night in a crowded hillside town of dollhouses. The houses were all empty, but warm and inviting light spilled from the windows. For me, Whiteread's "Place" evoked the same sensation as driving alone along a dark road in western NY, occasionally passing a house, strung with Christmas lights, off on a hill, at once making you feel more alone, since the warmth and life there is one to which you are not invited, and less, for the evidence of fellow humanity at all.



We also got to wallow in boats on a lovely rooftop pool. I say wallow instead of "row" or "paddle" since maneuvering of these unseaworthy tubs proved beyond our ability in the few minutes we were given. I think it would have been better not to try, and instead to just enjoy floating over London.

On another of the gallery's terraces was a theatre, the interior of which was beautiful. The canvas walls allowed a lovely light to filter in. The curved walls were lined with delicate slats, reminding me of the gills of the underside of a mushroom. They were showing several films on a loop. I usually find art films difficult to appreciate, and this one particularly so. Being sick, I was already woozy and dizzy and then this film was from the viewpoint of some guy exploring the crawl spaces between the walls and rooms of a house. Over and under and squeezing through, peering around, up and down, with the light from the partly cloudy day outside and the shifting spotlights on the walls inside all contriving to make me quite nauseous.



The big sphere outside was pleasant from the bottom, but we didn't get to go into the top part. Entrance was on a "lucky dip" system, and we never even figured out how to qualify for it.

Busy week

Sat:
     Preview of Wall-E
     Psycho Buildings at the Hayward Gallery
Mon-Wed:
     Tim's in town!
Tues:
     King Lear at the Globe
Thurs:
     dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip at Astoria 2



Sat:
     Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House
Sun:
     Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Concert at the Royal Opera House

With incredibly bad timing, it seems I've just gotten sick.

成语

Today Guo Juan had a question and answer session for her Audio Lessons. (It seems I am the only one who asks questions, which is great for me. Maybe eventually more people will find out about it and it will no longer be free personal lessons for me.) After answering my questions in the session, she ended up taking suggestions for new lectures and reading off her already long to do lecture list.

We were chatting afterwards and I mentioned that she has so much on her to do list. "We're already on the tiger," she replied. Oooh... it must be a 成语 (chéng yǔ). I asked her if it was, and got this:

骑虎难下 (qí hǔ nán xià)

Breakdown:
骑     qí        to ride (an animal or bike); to sit astride
虎     hǔ       tiger
难     nán     difficult (to...); problem; difficulty; difficult; not good
下     xià      under; second (of two parts); next (week, etc.); lower; below; underneath; down(wards); to decline; to go down; latter

What a great expression, eh? I like it even more than I otherwise would because I already knew all of the words. (Although I must admit that I would not have recognized the characters 虎 and 难.) Also, I realized that I now actually know (from other contexts) both of the characters 成 and 语, so now that makes sense.

成     chéng   finish; complete; accomplish; become; turn into; win; succeed; one tenth
语     yǔ        dialect; language; speech

False Positive

I woke this morning to a chat from Aftab, wondering whether I had yet seen this. A brief racing of the heart: Could it be? After all this time? After attending so many talks that started with "We tried to prove such and such" and ended with "We found that it's equivalent to the Riemann Hypothesis"? But I know where to check, so the excitement was short lived.

Meanwhile, on my way in to the office today, I recognized for the first time a tattooed Chinese (or Japanese) character. Now that I'm learning Chinese, I always look to see if I know the characters people have tattooed on themselves, but until now I hadn't seen any that I actually know. This isn't so surprising, as the Chinese we learn tends to be practical, and people are unlikely to tattoo "fried rice" or "taxicab" on themselves.

The tattoo in question was on a girl's arm and the character was 生. I'm told that in Japanese this has 8 billion pronunciations and meanings. In Chinese, I know it as "shēng", meaning "to be born; to give birth; life; to grow". It's possible that it was preceded by another character or other characters, covered by her sleeve, giving a more particular meaning (possibly something one is more likely to tattoo upon oneself). The only thing I could think of offhand was 出生，"chū shēng", "to be born", but that seems unlikely. Searching by pinyin, my dictionary also just turned up 畜生, "chù sheng", "domestic animal", which seems even less likely. We learn 生 early on, as part of 生日, "shēng rì", which means "birthday" (日 is "day" or "sun").

Grand Masters Game 6

There's a new Go Seigen game review on Guo Juan's site. I'm working on memorizing the game (below) before I watch the review. When I have it memorized, I'm going to add it to Mnemosyne, to start trying to commit these games to long term memory.

歌剧

昨天晚上，春燕，刘建和我一起去看歌剧。歌剧很好听。我们去看 "Ariadne Auf Naxos"。 因为我想一个歌唱家唱得很好听，所以我想去看这个歌剧。可是昨天晚上他只唱了一点儿。

唱 "Ariadne" 的女人是美国人。她很有名。她叫 "Deborah Voigt"。几年以前，她应该在 Royal Opera House 唱歌，可是他们对她说 "你太胖了。这个服装太小。" 所以当时她没唱。她比以前瘦了。 她唱歌唱得很好听。

我很喜欢 Naiad, Dryad 和 Echo。我也很喜欢音乐：小提琴，等等。

看歌剧以前，我去春燕的家吃晚饭。刘建做中国饭。 晚饭很好吃。我想回中国。

昨天最长日。夏天快乐！

Last night, Chunyan, Liu Jian and I went to see an opera. The opera was very good. We went to see "Ariadne Auf Naxos". I wanted to see this opera because I think one of the singers is very good. But last night he only sang a little bit.

The woman who sang "Ariadne" is American. She is very famous. Her name is Deborah Voigt. A few years ago, she was supposed to sing at the Royal Opera House, but they told her, "You are too fat. This dress is too small." So at that time, she didn't sing. She is thinner now. She sang very beautifully.

I really liked Naiad, Dryad and the Echo. I also really liked the music: the violins, etc.

Before the opera, I went to Chunyan's house for dinner. Liu Jian cooked Chinese food. Dinner was delicious. I want to go back to China.

Yesterday was the longest day. Happy summer!

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

---William Carlos Williams

Airbags

Last night, on my way home, I was cycling down Guilford Street, near Russell Square. There weren't any cars on the road, but there was a girl on a bike cycling in the opposite direction. When she was just about opposite me, she suddenly flipped over her handle bars and slammed face first into the pavement. I stopped, of course, but expected her to just get up and brush herself off and insist she was fine, if a bit scratched up, and everyone would go on their way. But I looked over and not only did she not get up, but she wasn't moving at all. Her bike was still tangled in her legs and sticking up at a most gruesome angle.

Her face was turned the other way, so I cycled around and pulled up on the other side of her to assess the situation. I was much relieved that I could easily hear her breathing -- it sounded like she was snoring, which I realized in retrospect was probably because of the blood which soon seeped out into a puddle around her face on the pavement, evaporating that relief of mine. Someone who had more sense about her, or maybe just already had had her phone out, was already calling the ambulance, so I got people to help direct traffic around her so that she didn't also get run over.

The cops came and she sat up and eventually was able to produce her name, so I guess she was ok. I was the only one who really saw her flip over, so after the ambulance came the cops took down my contact info. I doubt they'll contact me though. It was obvious what had happened. She was carrying one of those rolled up yoga mats in her hand and it got caught in her front wheel. She wasn't wearing a helmet. I guess it wouldn't have helped her much in this case though.

I'm told that cement trucks are one of the biggest killers of cyclists in London. Car doors are of course a classic problem. But perhaps the greater danger is our own carelessness.

There's a girl in my office who was in a rock climbing accident the year before last. Actually, the accident was while hiking out to where she was going to go rock climbing. She fell head first onto a rock and totally smashed up her face. She shattered much of her cheeks and mouth; she's still dealing with surgery for it. Her doctors told her that the face is like an air bag for the brain.

Shaken, I did what any good Londoner would do, and headed to my local to tell my story. Not long ago, I found out that Alex (a number theorist from Imperial) and his wife Sylvia live on the same street as me, which is a coincidence of nearly miraculous magnitude in this massive city of tiny roads. So I called them up and met them and some friends of theirs down at the Salisbury Arms. It's nice to have local friends. Unfortunately, Alex is moving to the U.S. next week. Sylvia will still be around through August, but then she will join him in the States. But a friend of Alicia's is moving to London soon and wants to live in my area, so maybe I'll get a new local pub companion.

Bloomsday

-- But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at bay?

-- I'Il tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it is. Read the revelations that's going on in the papers about flogging on the training ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself Disgusted One.

So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the parson with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad brought out, howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of a gun.

-- A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir John Beresford called it but the modern God's Englishman calls it caning on the breech.

And says John Wyse:

-- 'Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane and he draws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad till he yells meila murder.

-- That's your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the earth. The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamber on the face of God's earth and their land in the hands of a dozen gamehogs and cottonball barons. That's the great empire they boast about of drudges and whipped serfs.

-- On which the sun never rises, says Joe.

-- And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The unfortunate yahoos believe it.

They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid.

From Ulysses, James Joyce

中文

最近，我用中文没写了。我很忙。用中文写花很多时间。

学期结束以前，我们只有两个中文课。最后上课以后，我们一起去中国饭馆儿吃晚饭。一个学生得给饭馆儿打电话。 没有学生说了“我给他们打电话”。

上周田老师讲了几个笑话会说汉语的外国人。两个中国人走路。前面一个外国人很胖。中国人说“你想他吃什么了？” 外国人说“我吃饭！” 中国人不好意思。

我常常忘了东西。我们开始新课的时候，我忘了课以前的汉子。所以我开始用 Mnemosyne。每天我用 Mnemosyne 干汉字牌。 Mnemosyne 问我汉字刚忘的时候以前。我想 Mnemosyne 很有用。

Recently, I have not written in Chinese. Writing in Chinese takes a lot of time.

Before the term finishes, we only have two Chinese classes. After the last class, we will all go to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. One of the students has to call the restaurant. None of the students has said, "I will call them."

Last week Teacher Tian told us a few jokes about foreigners who can speak Chinese. Two Chinese people are walking down the road. In front of them is a foreigner who is very fat. The Chinese people say, "What do you think she ate?" The foreigner said, "I eat food!" The Chinese people were very embarrassed.

I often forget things. When we start a new lesson, I forget the characters from the lesson before. So I started using Mnemosyne. Every day, I use Mneomosyne to do Chinese cards. Mnemosyne asks me the characters just before I forget them. I think Mnemosyne is very useful.

< sigh >

Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:53:38 +0100
From: maths-support
Subject: pine

Hi -

I seem to remember we all use pine. You may have heard about the new email system that ISS is introducing soon. In a few weeks time, according to latest predictions. I am one of the "early adopters". Unfortunately it doesn't work well with pine. Although pine can read the inbox on the new system, it cannot transfer emails with attachments to other folders. This is thought to be something to do with the Microsoft IMAP server used by the new system. I don't know of a cure.

The new email system works well enough with thunderbird over secure-IMAP. If you have a little time to spare, I suggest you get to know thunderbird on the existing system. There will also be a new webmail system called "OWA" (rhymes with slower), and for Windows users, a rather snazzy Outlook thing that also does calendars. ISS will supply instructions for use in due course, the early adopter guinea-pigs are testing them right now.

Let me know if you have any questions -

- Dan

Even though there may only be a few of us who still use it, it seems morally wrong to adopt an email system that doesn't support pine.

More Photos

www.DirtyBeach.tv

Pub

We finally went to a pub last night. Kathi & Emma get the record for longest time in London before going to a pub. We went to Salisbury Arms, which is just down the road from my flat. It's a massive old hotel, beautifully decorated with high ceilings towering over cosy little booths and a friendly local feel. We had dinner there and the food was actually quite good. Emma got fish and chips again. (We ate at the Rock & Sole Plaice the other day and Emma is hooked.) Here Emma does her impression of the stolid drunkard.

Flake

Yesterday we got flake ice cream cones in Leicester Square. Swooning, Emma declared them "beautiful and lovely".

More visitors

Kathi & Emma arrived yesterday on a much delayed flight from New York. It was a beautiful day so, even though (after dropping stuff off at home and whatnot) we only had the late afternoon and evening left to us, we headed into central London to wander around a bit. Meandering down The Queen's Walk along the south of the Thames, we peaked over the railing at some really cool sand sculptures by these guys. I think Kathi took a picture; I'll try to get it.

Refining my route

I thought cycling in London would be really scary and I used to be able to walk pretty much everywhere I wanted to go, so it was a good year and a half before I got a bicycle here. What a mistake. I love riding. It's definitely the only way to get around.


London has done a lot in the past five years or so to make the city more bicycle friendly. I have bike lanes along almost my entire commuting route, which is five or six miles. The roads that don't have bike lanes often have big bicycles painted in the middle of the road as a reminder to drivers that we're here. Actually, the scariest road I ride on the whole way to work is the road I live on. Unfortunately, there's not really a good way to avoid that one. When I first started, some of the roads I took near my office were a bit scary too, but I was able to eliminate those with the help of my free cycle maps.


Plus, there are four or five of these bicycle specific traffic lights on my route. Other friends of mine who ride here complain about the drivers, but they've obviously never cycled in Boston. In Boston, people would always yell at me and try to drive me off the street. Here, there are still some people who are oblivious but most people wait for me and give me space.

四川的地震

上星期一，中国有地震很大。在四川地震最不好。二万人死了，而且他们还找二万人。五百万人没有房子了。电话和手机坏。路坏。有的我的朋友和他们的家感觉一点点，但是他们都没事。我高兴他们好，可是我很不高兴因为很多人出事了。他们需要帮助。如果你可以，请给他们钱。

Sichuan's Earthquake

On Monday, there was a big earthquake in China. In Sichuan, it was the worst. 20,000 people died and they are still looking for 20,000 people. Five million people are now homeless. Telephones and cell phones are broken. Roads are broken. Some of my friends and their families felt it a little bit, but they are all ok. I'm happy that they are all ok, but I'm very unhappy because so many people are not ok. They need help. If you can, please donate.

Miserable excuse for a game record

Since Tanaka-san emailed me personally, I decided to go back and visit the Nippon Club's Saturday Go meeting. Apparently they've combined with the Central London Club, which used to meet on Saturdays up on Great Portland Street. The Nippon Club is in a better location for me.

I played Francis Roads, 3d, taking two stones. Below is my miserable attempt at reproducing the game. I'm rusty.


















I'm confident that, with a bit of brushing up, I could easily play him even. Except that I'm so slow. I thought I was playing quickly, finishing the whole game in less than two hours, maybe even closer to an hour and a half (I'm not exactly sure what time we started playing). Still, he spent the game complaining about and mocking my pace. I think he (along with most of the others there) measures his average game in minutes.

Good mornin', America, how are ya?

I showed up at The Royal George last night, was handed a spare ukulele, taught C, G and D and placed in front of a songbook.

I'm /so/ buying a ukulele.

Ukulele Wednesdays

Last night as I was cycling home, I passed, not far from my office, a guy playing a banjo shaped ukulele. I got about half a block further before wheeling around in a U-turn. I pedalled back to where he was standing, near a pub, tuning up in preparation for a rehearsal with some friends. (We all know how long it can take to tune...) I asked if I might listen and he played a song for me and then told me he was getting ready to meet some friends to practice but tomorrow would be Wednesday and hence Ukulele Wednesday.

He said the uke is spreading like wildfire in London. A group meets on Wednesdays in the basement of The Royal George, off of Charing Cross Road. He said it started out with just a few people, meeting each week to play and sing. But the toilets for the pub are in the basement, so of course people would come downstairs to pee and they'd never go back up. This sounds like my kind of event.

So, though I don't play and they'll definitely regret it if they press me to sing, I'm going to go check it out tonight. Of course, that means I'll have to make my excuses to the mathematicians heading pubward after the London-Paris Number Theory Seminar at Imperial College this afternoon. Perhaps I shouldn't tell them I'm ditching them for ukuleles.

Along my cycle route to work

Grand Masters Game 5

I just finished watching Jujo Jiang's audio lecture on this 1954 Jubango game between Go Seigen and Sakata Eio. I love hearing in his voice the delight he takes in reviewing these beautiful old games.

Floating

Reading in my garden out back, I feel rich with the sun toasting my cheeks and not one but two trees in bloom, showering down delicate petals to float in my tea.

Snow!

Real snow, with big fluffy flakes and even some accumulation.

We had some snow last week, too, but it kept alternating with rain, hail and clear blue sunny skies, shifting between any two of these states easily in 15 minutes. I would wait for the skies to be clear and blue, dotted with only a few tiny puffs of cloud before I would leave for the office. Halfway there (on my half hour bike ride) it would start hailing. Of course, you can't even rely on this. When I tried to leave while it was raining, figuring it would clear up in a few minutes, it just rained harder. Until I got to my office, that is, when of course it cleared up and didn't rain again until the evening.

This was typical April weather. It had been miraculously sunny during the ceremony at the foot of the steps of Smallbridge House, but it had rained torrentially once already during the twenty-mile drive to London. Then the sun had reappeared, had warmed and dried them; but now as they crossed Wimbledon Common the sky was black again, and the first drops began to drive into their faces.
                                        -C.S. Forester, The Commodore

Back to Banff!

I've been accepted for the WIN - Women In Numbers workshop at Banff in November. A whole workshop for women in number theory -- I thought I was the only one!

My calendar is filling up with workshops. I'm thinking about registering for the Modular Forms and Arithmetic workshop at MSRI this summer. I've been waitlisted (I was late in submitting my application) for the summer school on p-adic representations of p-adic groups in Paris in July. And I was invited to (and will probably give a talk at) a workshop in Bristol on Computations with Modular Forms in August.

Null and void

Vows to not play until one's thesis is finished are null and void when there's a 6 dan in town, right?

Photo Albums

Last week The New Yorker had a slide show from an album of photos from the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.

This week The New Yorker has a slide show of photos (along with some clips of interviews) from Abu Ghraib.

The So-Called War on Terror

Reading and watching the news lately, it's easy to forget that we're still waging a war in Iraq and Afghanistan (well, of course, it's only a "war" when that's convenient for the Bush administration).

If you care to be reminded of what we're doing and why we should stop, you can always count on Amy Goodman. Unfortunately, you have to go seek out that reminder. It's all too easy to live in blissful ignorance.

It's depressing to know that our past war crimes have never been punished and that our current leaders will surely enjoy the same immunity for their flouting of the Geneva conventions, international law and the U.S. constitution.

BBC China

Lately I've been listening to these audio stories on BBC China, trying to understand whatever I can. They speak too quickly, and I definitely don't know all the words and I don't pay close attention, but usually I can at least get a basic idea of what they're talking about and pick out some phrases and words that I understand. It's good listening comprehension practice.

Today I was listening and heard a clip of a young male voice saying (in English, before it faded into a translation) something about having two injured guys on the plane back with him and then I heard "Taliban", so I knew it was something about Afghanistan. Then I kept hearing 王 ("wáng"), which is a Chinese surname, but also means king. I eventually realized that it was always being paired with 子 ("zǐ"), i.e., 王子 ("wáng zǐ"), which means prince and then it immediately dawned on me that this was always preceded by "hā lǐ" (哈里) — they were talking about Prince Harry! Of course!

哈 = hā = laughter; yawn
里 = lǐ = inside; internal; interior
里 = lǐ = lining of clothing; within; inside
里 = lǐ = li, a Chinese unit of length = one-half kilometer; neighborhood; hometown

Moving

Two or three weeks ago, I read Jeanette Winterson's "Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles". An excerpt:

Atlas let his hands go from the sides of the world. Nothing happened.
     Atlas put his hands down in front of him on the floor of the universe or the ceiling of stars, I don't know which, and then he stretched out his left leg so that he was kneeling on all fours, the Kosmos balanced on his back. Laika was running in and out of his spread fingers. She had never seen her master move.
     Atlas crawled forward and then suddenly fell flat on his face with hands over his ears and the dog clinging on to his thumb. Atlas waited, rigid with doom. The dog waited, her nose in her paws.
     Nothing happened.
     Write it more substantially — NOTHING.
     Atlas raised his head, turned over, stood up, stepped back. The dog's nose lifted. Atlas looked back at his burden. There was no burden. There was only the diamond-blue earth gardened in a wilderness of space.

I'm moving to a new flat tomorrow. It's a small studio, but it's all my own and I like the space. Plus there's a rather large patio/garden type area out back.

It's a bit further from my office than my current place, so I'll no longer be walking to work. The tube is absurdly expensive, not necessarily reliable and probably regular use of it is, to your lungs, the equivalent of a pack-a-day cigarette addiction. So I will not be taking the tube. Instead, I bought a (second hand) Brompton. It is a beautiful machine. I absolutely adore it.

My walking pace around London (I walk fast) seemed perfectly sufficient to me. But now that I'm back on a bike, walking seems so terribly slow. It's lovely to be cycling again and feeling the pleasant stretch of forgotten muscles.

Across the street from the Royal Opera House

In an alley just north of my office

春燕和她先生在亚非学院

昨天春燕和她的先生和我想去大英博物馆。我们下午两点半左右去，可是大英博物馆的外面有太多人。我们没进里面。昨天天气很好，所以我们走路去 Warren Street， 可是墨西哥饭馆儿下午三点关门。 所以我们走路回 Holborn。我们去日本饭馆儿。春燕先生说：《多吃点！多吃点！》然后他买午饭。这么中国人！

在中国，中国人回家过春节。春燕和她先生没回家过春节，所以他们昨天给家里打电话。春燕问我《你今天给你家打电话马？》她想我也是中国人。

Yesterday, Chunyan and her husband and I wanted to go to the British Museum for Chinese New Year. We went around 2:30, but there were too many people outside. We didn't go in. The weather was very nice yesterday, so we walked to Warren Street, but the Mexican restaurant closed at 3. So we walked back to Holborn. We went to a Japanese restaurant. Chunyan's husband said, "Eat more! Eat more!". Then he paid for lunch. So Chinese!

In China, people go home to see their families for Chinese New Year. Chunyan and her husband did not go to China for Chinese New Year, so yesterday they called their families. Chunyan asked me, "Did you call your family today?" She thought I was also Chinese.

看电影

昨天晚上我和春燕一起去电影院看电影。以后我们去他家吃晚饭。她做晚饭了。 晚饭很好吃。她做得很好。

她住在 Finchley Road 地铁站附近。她住在国王学校学生房子。一个我的学生也住在那里。他认识我，可是我不认识他。

我昨天晚上十一点半回家了。每天早上我差一刻六点左右起床。所以今天我很累。

Last night, Chunyan and I went to the movie theatre to see a film. Afterwards, we went to her house for dinner. She made dinner. It was delicious. She is a good cook.

She lives near Finchley Road tube station. She lives in a King's College residence hall. One of my students also lives there. He recognized me, but I didn't recognize him.

Last night I got home at 11:30. Every morning I get up around 5:45. So today I am very tired.

Divisibility tests

One night while I was home over the holidays, I ended up helping Emma with her homework. First some spelling homework and then maths. She was confused about some problems on the distributive property and she also had to draw three rectangles with area 24, without using 1 x 24. She didn't have any sort of systematic method; she just cast about for integers that divide 24. She had come up with 6 x 4 and 3 x 8 but couldn't find a third rectangle. So I taught her about prime numbers and prime factorisation.

Somehow this led us to divisibility tests. She knew the one for 2 (and I assume she knows the similar tests for 5 and 10). Most people know these tests. My dad was making nachos (for some reason we were doing her homework on the kitchen floor) and overheard me teaching her the divisibility test for 4. He got all indignant: "I didn't know that! Why don't they teach us cool things like that in school?" and ran into the other room, from where we heard his shouts to Kathi, "Did you know that?!?"

The divisibility test for 4 has the same justification as the test for 2 (or, for that matter, for 5 or 10). For 2, you can write your (positive, for the sake of argument) lengthy integer as 10X + Y where Y is less than 10 (and greater than or equal to 0). Then, if Y is divisible by 2 (so Y = 2Y') we have

10X + Y = 2(5X) + 2Y' = 2(5X + Y')
so the big integer is also divisible by 2. (Note that this works because of the distributive property mentioned earlier.) And, likewise, if Y is not even then the big long integer is also not even. For 4, you instead write your integer as 100X + Y, where Y is now less than 100. Since 4 divides 100, you only have to check whether 4 divides Y (so now you have to check whether 4 divides a 2 digit number, which is more work than the even/odd test, but considerably less work than trying to divide 4 into, say, a 7 digit long number).

So Emma tested some big long numbers for divisibility by 4 and after we found a few that were not divisible by 4, I had her come up with a big long number that was divisible by 4. She ended her number with 08, which I liked.

Then I taught her the divisibility test for 3. If you add up the digits of the number and that sum is divisible by 3, then the whole number is divisible by 3. Rather than give a proof, which is much cleaner and nicer if you know about modular arithmetic, I will just give an example. This also uses the distributive property Emma was working on.

635,148 = 6(100,000) + 3(10,000) + 5(1,000) + 1(100) + 4(10) + 8

=6(1+99,999) + 3(1+9,999) + 5(1+999) + 1(1+99) + 4(1+9) + 8

=6+3+5+1+4+8 + 6(99,999) + 3(9,999) + 5(999) + 1(99) + 4(9)

=(6+3+5+1+4+8) + 3[6(33,333) + 3(3,333) + 5(333) + 1(33) + 4(3)]

So, since the right hand part of the last line (the 3[6(33,333) + 3(3,333) + 5(333) + 1(33) + 4(3)] part) is divisible by 3, that means the whole number is divisible by 3 if and only if the left hand part of the last line (the (6+3+5+1+4+8) part) is also divisible by 3. Since this left hand part is simply the sum of the digits of the number, we get our divisibility test. Of course the same argument works to show that the divisibility by 9 test is analogous: an integer is divisible by 9 if and only if the sum of the digits is divisible by 9.

Calendar

Jan 20: Bach recital at Royal Festival Hall

Feb 22: Mozart's "The Magic Flute" at Royal Opera House

Mar 3:   Strauss' "Salome" at Royal Opera House

Apr 2:    "Dirty Dancing" at Aldwych Theatre

Apr 14:  Bizet's "Carmen" at Royal Opera House

"Gurus, who, I trust you know, are Indian teachers, expect you to contemplate the acorn ten years at a stretch, and if, in that time, you are no wiser about the nut, you are not very bright, and that may be the only certainty with which you will come away, which is a post-graduate melancholy—for no man can find a greater truth than his kidney will allow."
-Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

Granny Squares

When I skyped the Thanksgiving family gathering from London in November, my dad bravely passed his laptop around so that various members of the family could have the disconcerting experience of speaking on a headset to a laptop in a room jam-packed with boisterous relatives. When I talked to Chrissy, she informed me that she had started knitting granny squares to make a blanket for me. Having brought the project with her to Thanksgiving, she was besieged by offers of help, including many from people who had no idea how to knit.

After Thanksgiving, more stories trickled my way. Everyone was helping. Any time someone went into town, cries went up to buy another pair of knitting needles. Those who at first refused to learn to knit (Petie, Matt) resigned themselves to fate by the end of the weekend. The experts (Chrissy, Monica, Marty, Grandma Noble, Kathy (Ray) Torrey, others?) taught the beginners. Kate taught Joanna one morning, only to find Joanna teaching someone else later in the day. Kathy (Ray) Torrey knitted squares even though she's allergic to the knitting needles. When the hardcore folks remaining for that last Saturday night were later asked what they had done, they reported that they had all spent the evening knitting. To the incredulous "wasn't there even any music?" the reply was generally, "no, not that I remember." That last night, Chrissy had laid out the finished squares, placing yarn and knitting needles in the remaining empty blocks so that people could finish squares at home and mail them to Chrissy.

While in New York just before Christmas, Kate got a call from Chrissy on her way up from Baltimore. We agreed to stop by their house to visit the following day, before we went to Connecticut. Later, we found out that we had to be in Connecticut much earlier than we had realized, so we decided to visit the Robin Torreys in Brooklyn that night instead. When we got there, Kate demanded "Do you have It?!?" of Chrissy, who cried back, "I was supposed to have twelve more hours!" (People didn't know whether I knew about the blanket, and didn't want to risk spoiling the surprise.) So that night I saw only the box in which it then sat, but didn't see the squares, which were all finished, but not yet put together.

For the rest of my time at home, everyone I saw who found out that I had seen Chrissy in New York asked eagerly, "Did she give you Something?" I spent the rest of my time at home in Connecticut, the Catskills and Ithaca. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the Robin Torreys again, and Chrissy had to go back down to Baltimore. The night before I left to return to London, I went back to New York, to Barbara's house. Dad and Kathi met me there but first, unbeknownst to me, stopped at the Robin Torreys' to pick up the blanket.


So here we are at Barbara's house with the beautiful blanket stretched out (those are Linda's feet at the bottom). Some more photos are here.

Thank you all so much! I love it. If you have more photos or stories, I'd love to have them.

The blanket arrived with a warning from Chrissy that it still needed to be "tucked." I had no idea what this meant, so Grandma made Barbara pull out Briana's knitting needles (I believe Briana was one of the many taught at Thanksgiving) so she could teach me to tuck. Grandma then spent half an hour lovingly tucking for me.