3MF

Missed House calls

Have you been watching House on Fox? I find it entertaining for a number of reasons.

Perhaps the most obvious reason is the brilliant sarcasm of the title character. House is highly entertaining with is frequent dispersal of biting criticism. His comments are far too sophisticated to be considered "burns" but they are along the same lines. I predict that his popularity will result in an increase in annual cane sales; he shows they can be a bad-ass accessory.

Another reason i find the show interesting is because of the number of times House is wrong about a diagnosis. About 80% of the show is him making wrong guesses until he finally figures out what the real problem is. Other similar dramas make doctors appear infallible. House is brilliant but he really excels in his perseverance. As he collects each new symptom on his white board, you get to watch as he revises his mental model of what would cause them. It's really the scientific method in action. He goes through many incorrect hypothesizes before stumbling on the right one. He's skilled at determining what pieces are information are relevant and which ones can be ignored.

I've come to learn that doctors make many more mistakes than we are lead to believe; however, they don't have the same opportunities to correct them. In the real world, they just don't have the time with their patients as House does with his. The other thing that comes to mind when i watch the show is the wide battery of tests and procedures he orders for patients. I put the bill together in my head and i start feeling bad for the people whose lives have been saved but will spend the rest of their lives in debt. Real world docs seem more reluctant to order tests and are even less likely to admit they are wrong. I would guess that it's the fantasy that there might be a doctor out there such as House who would fight so hard to make you better that makes the show inspiring to watch.

The last reason i like the show is the lovely Jennifer Morrison playing the part of Dr Cameron. I typically don't enjoy watching a show that doesn't have at least one hot chick in it. The fact that someone so interesting can be drawn to someone as bitter and intelligent as House is reassuring to think about.

There is one thing the shows seems to be doing that bugs me. In the first few minutes, before the opening credits, they do ones of those montages to speed up exposition in much the same way Law and Order does. They play this three-card monte type game of keeping you guessing who is going to wind up being the sick one. You think it's going to be the person who is coughing or has the fever, then it turns out the be someone else. If you saw yesterday's episode you probably know exactly what i'm talking about. They go out of their way to make sure you are surprised and i think they sacrifice their own dignity in the process.

Mornings on the bench

I have a class at 8:00 AM on Mondays and Wednesdays at the downtown GVSU campus. The first day of class, i got to school really early to make sure i had enough time to find parking and get settled in. I remembered how hectic mornings at GRCC were and i wanted to be prepared. When i arrived, i found things to be rather quiet. I parked by the three other cars in the lot in a very convenient location. On my walk to the classroom, i think i passed at most two people.

I'm just amazed at how lifeless the campus is in the morning. I was expecting bustle and maybe some hustle and found neither. I thought there would be some palpable curious energy in the air; instead the large, empty spaces were turning my mind numb. It's a shame that the place is so desolate in the morning. Things are a bit better when i'm leaving after class, but that doesn't do me any good.

I still tend to show up early for class. It gives me time to get into the right frame of mind and go over my homework to keep the thoughts fresh in my head. My favorite spot is a bench on the third floor of the DeVos center. I've accepted the fact that there's not a soul around and find peace in the quiet. I watch the cars go by and the occasional student crossing the street from the dorms to get to class. At this point in the semester, i think i enjoy that moment more than actually going to class. It's a shame too because it's a math class.

Link Dump

Here's another bunch of links that i had planed to pass along at some point but never got around to.

• Overheard: In New York and In The Office - random bits of overheard conversations.
• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, 1792 - My writing teacher calls this the most famous essay of all time. It's a shame i hadn't read it prior to this semester; it's quite amusing.
• Subway stations of the world - Great pictures of interesting public spaces from all over the globe. (via Anil Dash)
• Note-taking strategies for students - I do a pretty good job of writting stuff down during class but hardly ever refer back to it when reviewing. (via MeFi)
• 40 Things That Only Happen in the Movies - You gotta love 15, 24, 29, and 33 (via Kotte)
• Planarity - A game based upon mathematical graph theory. I learned last semster that all puzzles should have a solution unless they have a subgraph homeoporphic to K_{5} or K_{3,3}.
• Favorite words not in the dictionary - I'm guilty of using some of these myself (via Kotte)
• New Word Mashup - The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational had readers submit remixed words with amusing definitions. (via Blogway Baby)
• Self-referential multiple choice test - "2) The number of questions with the answer E is: (A) 0, (B) 1, (C) 2, (D) 3, or (E) 4" (via Boing Boing)
• Sesame Street: 25 Favorite Moments
• What You'll Wish You'd Known by Paul Graham - It was written for a high school audience but i've found it interesting and go back to reread it every now and then. (via /.)

Putting around

I frittered away most of my weekend playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005. My sister picked up this video game a while ago. For the past few weeks, she's been suffering from a case of unemployment so she's stayed home and played the game quite a bit. The more you play, the better your character gets. It got the the point where when i would play against her, i didn't have a chance of winning. We Flickingers like to play games and we hate to lose. Therefore, i stole the game away to power up my own character. Now i'm at least a worthy competitor.

The game is fun to play mostly because it's quite easy. You just line up your shot and rock the control stick back and forth. In fact, it's so easy, that both of my parents enjoy playing the game as well. I thought it was so funny to see my dad holding a Gamecube controller. He normally doesn't like electronic devices of any kind.

Fresh batteries

So far the semester has been off to a rough start. There has been one highlight however: my calculator has come back to life.

The last time i had used it was in my discrete math class. I pulled it out one day to run some numbers. Then, when i tried to use it the following week, it wouldn't turn on. Nothing happened. I tried resetting with no luck (which involved removing a battery, holding down [ - ] and [ ) ] as you reinstall it, and then continuing to hold it for 5 seconds - that's not easy to do). I don't remember the screen going dim on me or anything else i would associate with low batteries. Of course this happened just weeks after my limited warranty expired. Eventually i pronounced it dead and went back to my TI-92.

Knowing that i would be soon starting my Calc 3 classes which would be computationally intensive, i thought i should take one last try at powering the thing back up. While out buying other school supplies, i picked up a new pack of batteries. I swapped them in and, surprise, the thing came back on. I remember when i shared my dead calculator story in my math classes, Lynette asked if i had tried changing the batteries. I answered "of course i had" but i realize now that maybe i never did. I may have just convinced myself i did. That diagnosis just didn't fit the symptoms i was experiencing so maybe i never gave it full consideration.

The main problem was that i had formed such a strong mental image of what i thought was going on and that image was flawed. Because i didn't experience any screen dimming or flickering as i had with previous calculators, i figured that couldn't be the case. Normally, when solving i problem, i try to use the scientific method by forming a hypothesis of what might be wrong and then proving or disproving that hypothesis. When one's hypothesis is way off; this method doesn't do any good. When you give up on educated guesses, it doesn't hurt to make random ones. After all, as Sherlock Holmes said, when all likely explanations are ruled out, the remaining possibility, however unlikely, must be correct.