Math and Breath Noise Music

Preface:  There is a lot of text in this post and not a lot of pictures which will turn away 98% of readers.  Don't be one of those readers.  You want to make it to "breath noise".

 

 

I love math, so naturally when I found the Numberphile videos via a Twitter friend (@somechum), I simply couldn't get enough.  I spent a substantial amount of time watching each one, sometimes more than once!  I love the videos, I love the people in the videos (perhaps a small crush on a few of the guys in them), and I love all the things I've found from the videos which happens to include a book by Alex Bellos titled Here's Looking at Euclid (US).

I have found Here's Looking at Euclid immensely fascinating.  If you enjoy math, history, or both, I highly recommend the book.  Even though I already knew a lot of information in the book there was a lot of information I didn't know (Oh Pythagoras!).  Aside from that, it's a well written book that flows from subject to subject with a Henry Rollinsesqe ease. But I'm not writing today to tell you to read a book. 

I'm continuing on with my journey.  From the book I found an interesting website (this book has led me to some interesting web searches) titled The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS).

I have no doubt that if you were following what I was saying, you are gone now.  That's okay, for the one person that stumbles here and isn't completely annoyed/confused/pondering my sanity I have more to tell.

I did not go to the website to look up any sequences (though admittedly, it's right up my alley, lists of numbers!).  I went to the website because of an excerpt of Bellos' book that tells of music that can be found on the website.  The basic idea is that you take an 88 key piano and you define each key from lowest note to highest with the value of 1-88 respectively and when you reach 89 you simply start back at the beginning.  So take a sequence, play the keys, and you have music.  If you wanted to listen to what the Fibonacci numbers might sound like, there you have it!

The sequence I wanted to listen to in particular was noted in Euclid, the Recamán sequence.  As noted by Bellos, it is an interesting piece of music.

One of the other things I found interesting and fun is that not only can you listen to these sequences, you can even choose different instruments ("Breath Noise" for fuck's sake!!!).  You can guess what I've been listening to while working today!

Anyway, from OEIS I went to Music Algorithms which is fun to play with even when you have no idea what "pitch" is really about.  Music Algorithms took me to NWACC and there I stopped because I was like, "whoa, Northwest Academic Computing Consortium, you look way too official for me to be here".

So anyway, go to those sites, play around and see where the journey takes you.  It's what web surfing is all about and you might learn some cool shit along the way (Oh Pythagoras!).

Post Script: You could go Numberphile→Brady Haran→Variety of Channels  (Very cool stuff...)

Post Post Script: Breath Noises wasn't as cool as I hoped it would be, but it was still a fun discovery.  If you find a good sequence with breath noises, please share with me!

Work Doodles

I lost a drawing on my desk.  Losing drawings means it is officially time to clean my desk.  While digging through stacks of papers I ran across some meeting notes and "back of envelope" calculations with some random doodles. They honestly have me wondering what was going through my head at the time instead of what should have been going through my head.  I know flint stone and paperclip came from a book I was reading at the time (but why a singing paperclip?).  The light bulb is beyond me.



"Sharp" flint stone and what appears to be a dampened wave

Light bulb, a great idea amidst rough calculations

Singing paperclip "wah wah waaah BOOM"

Astronaut!

Interesting people always seem to find me, and I'm glad this guy did!

Today Amanda and I were having lunch when a guy came up to us and asked if we would take his picture.  He first needed to put on his astronaut suit!  (Attention caught)!  Of course Amanda and I were tickled to help, a guy after our own hearts so to speak.

After thinking about it for a bit I decided I HAD to ask him for a picture with him as an astronaut (simply for the proof).  No one seems to really believe some of my stories ("an astronaut asked you to take his picture, sure Steph, we believe you").  So, here it is, the picture.

What is this about?  Kam the Astronaut is trying to get into space as part of the Axe Apollo Mission, and YOU can vote for him here.  His web page is here, and I find him to be fascinating, so I hope you do to!  (I can really relate to the guy)!

Douglas Adams - 61

Today Douglas Adams would have been 61.  He passed away on my birthday (May 11) in 2001.  I will always remember the day I found out.  It was some time past May 11 and I was at a Creeper Lagoon show with Amanda S.  We were talking to one of the musicians from Creeper and having a coherent conversation.  It seemed to me as if out of nowhere this guy spouts out, "Douglas Adams in dead"!  Obviously something spurred this thought but I was too shocked with his comment to think of anything other than finding out the truth.  That evening I verified the sad truth.  Douglas Adams was dead.  I can never listen to Creeper without thinking of one of my favorite authors.  Maybe that's not a bad thing.  (Google honored D.A. with a Doodle today).

I find it fitting that today my mantra is, "Don't Panic".  I have a couple of deadlines in the next 24 hours so I will repeat this to myself until I'm done.  But as always, we're never really done at the deadline, so I part with this quote, a dear Douglas Adams favorite...

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Engineer's Graphic

Ask an engineer (specifically one with marginal InDesign/Photoshop skills) to give you a graphic and you are bound to get something like this:

 

Pi Day 2013

Time for Help

I fear the time has come.  That time that I should have admitted to ages ago but refused to admit.  By admitting "the time has come", I feel as though I am admitting to failure.

It's time for help.  It's time to buy one of those self-help books I tend to avoid because I feel like I already know everything.  I need one of those working mom books like What Happy Working Mothers Know.

I know that seeking help is not the equivalent to failure, and that it in fact is a sign of strength...to know that I can't do it all, to know when a thing is beyond my scope of skills.  But I rarely feel that way.  In fact I feel horrible.  I feel like I'm failing my child, my employer and my self.  I feel guilty that I don't dedicate enough time to my child (here I am on a Sunday with the sun shining, at the office).  I feel guilty for feeding her crap because I can't work all day, make it home with decent time to prepare a great meal, have a great conversation while we eat, have a great bath time and book reading time to end with that movie quality bed time "tuck-in" ritual.  I feel bad that she spends more waking hours with someone that is not her mom.  I feel guilty because I truly believe I am letting her down.

It is not as though this is the first time this has come up since becoming a mom.  Go on and ask someone how they do it and you'll get the obligatory response, "it's hard, but you have to find a good life balance".  Well, if that's the answer, I'm doing poorly, been doing poorly on and off for the past two years.  Other women do this thing, and they seem fine.  Are they really not so fine?  Am I trying to do too much?  I just don't know what to do...and that in itself, that not knowing, this reaching out for help...it tears me apart, but not as bad as I tear myself apart with guilt.

I suppose I am especially feeling bad today because of a variety of reasons, one of which being that I've worked straight for the past three weeks without a weekend to myself to waste.  I'm having a host of issues that do not even deal with work or being a mom per se.  I realize that after I've vented here, and have a week that is less stressful, and maybe a regular weekend again...I won't feel so bad.  But I guess buying another book can't hurt either, eh?

A Passionate Review

Today was my annual review at work.  I had to rate myself in a variety of categories with a red, yellow, or green (green being best, red needing improvement).  My boss then fills out the same review of me with the same rating system.  Only in two instances did I give myself a green and he gave me a yellow (solely based on interpretation of roles).  Neither of us had any red (thankfully he had no red).  And in many instances he gave me a green where I gave myself a yellow (I gave myself MANY yellows).

The usual comments were (not verbatim, I wasn't writing this stuff down): "you are too hard on yourself"; "you need to have more confidence in what you do"; "you do a great job but you never see it that way"; "your personality is what makes people want to work with you".

I was also told that because I listen so well, and I pay attention to the things people actually say, all those details most people miss...people want to confide in me, in a good way.  Also, again, not verbatim, I have an outgoing personality [for an engineer] and I don't put my head down and ignore things; this kind of personality is what makes it so easy to work with me.  People enjoy working with me.  (Who knew?)

In addition this year, something new I was told, "don't give up on engineering, you are making a great engineer".  Here is where the passion of this story comes in to play.  I admitted to my boss that I am losing the passion for engineering that I once had.

The reality is that I do love engineering!  There are so many hurdles to being passionate about it though.  I alluded to the fact that while there can be great reward, there is a huge battle to get to that reward.  I do not believe the battle is what makes the reward so worthy.  That's part of it, but not all of it.  These battles along with the long hours, the stress...they are making me lose the passion for engineering that I once had.  If I lose passion for what I do, what is to become of me?  No one ever should do work for which they have no passion.

At this point in the review my voice is cracking and I'm vividly gesturing with my hands.  I'm trying to explain that I hate the battles that are causing me to lose this passion for my job.  We structural engineers tend to walk into every meeting prepared to defend everything we do.  No one seems to care that what we do is so important (it doesn't look a certain way, it doesn't cost a certain amount, etc.).  We have THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ON OUR MIND...life safety.  That is a whole different blog for a different day.  But to my point in this review...hands waving wildly, I admitted that I am losing passion for engineering.  The only thing that ever brings me back is walking into a building that I helped engineer.  Telling a friend or acquaintance that the airport they will travel through has some of my brain's handy work.  Understanding an intricacy in a fine detail.  Explaining to someone how we managed to cantilever 8 stories for 60 feet (an unimaginable feat).  I realize I do have passion, but then I look at my e-mail and see the top five things are demands and challenges and I wonder if what I do is worth the hassle I feel.  Apparently there is value, "I'm making a great engineer".