A few months ago I somehow ended up getting in a discussion with my brother's best friend, Tim about Second Life. I was basically talking about how amazed I was by how immersive it is, and how it is very easy to see how people see the lines blur between reality and their virtual representations.

We talked a bit about how each generation is getting farther and farther away from having to use real imagination or make real connections with the world. I was sort of taking the stance that although I didn't like where things were heading, that I can easily see why people are willing to make that leap.

Tim couldn't identify with that at all. I talked about how visually, the impact of viewing something like the Second Life environment was really stunning because you were actually seeing some strange things that you'd typically describe as exclusively human.... eye contact, body language, etc.

He was getting increasingly agitated by what I was saying, not really angry but you could tell he wasn't buying a word I was saying. He then surprised me by reaching out and grabbing the upper part of my arm and shoulder and looked at me in the eyes, and said "What about that? You'll never be able to have a computer do that, no matter how close it gets"

Now... I have a lot of faith in technology, in the sense that I don't see there to be an upper limit we'll ever find. But the closer we get to emulating pure realism, the farther away from reality we get. We can sell our minds the fantasy easier, but it only harms us more.

Maybe real life isn't as exciting as our imagination. Maybe it's becoming harder and harder to see the blurry lines between life experienced and life viewed. But you know what, Tim was right. There is a world of difference between virtual and real.

I just get really excited any time I see discussions about things I've worked on in other languages. :)

Basics:

(%i1) factor(10!);                            8  4  2(%o1)                      2  3  5  7(%i2) expand ((x + y)^6);       6        5       2  4       3  3       4  2      5      6(%o2) y  + 6 x y  + 15 x  y  + 20 x  y  + 15 x  y  + 6 x  y + x(%i3) factor (x^6 - 1);                              2            2(%o3)       (x - 1) (x + 1) (x  - x + 1) (x  + x + 1)

Integration and Differentiation:

(%i1) u: expand ((x + y)^6);       6        5       2  4       3  3       4  2      5      6(%o1) y  + 6 x y  + 15 x  y  + 20 x  y  + 15 x  y  + 6 x  y + x(%i2) diff (%, x);         5         4       2  3       3  2       4        5(%o2) 6 y  + 30 x y  + 60 x  y  + 60 x  y  + 30 x  y + 6 x(%i3) integrate (1/(1 + x^3), x);                                  2 x - 1                2            atan(-------)           log(x  - x + 1)        sqrt(3)    log(x + 1)(%o3)    - --------------- + ------------- + ----------                    6             sqrt(3)          3

Linear and Cubic Equation Solving:

(%i1) linsolve ([3*x + 4*y = 7, 2*x + a*y = 13], [x, y]);                        7 a - 52        25(%o1)              [x = --------, y = -------]                        3 a - 8       3 a - 8(%i2) solve (x^3 - 3*x^2 + 5*x = 15, x);(%o2)       [x = - sqrt(5) %i, x = sqrt(5) %i, x = 3]

Non-linear Systems of Equations:

(%i1) eq_1: x^2 + 3*x*y + y^2 = 0$(%i2) eq_2: 3*x + y = 1$(%i3) solve ([eq_1, eq_2]);              3 sqrt(5) + 7      sqrt(5) + 3(%o3) [[y = - -------------, x = -----------],                    2                 2                            3 sqrt(5) - 7        sqrt(5) - 3                       [y = -------------, x = - -----------]]                                  2                   2

It also does 2d and 3d equation plotting via gnuplot. This gives me an excuse to get back into reading "God Created The Integers" and also encourages me to crack open my new issue of Mathematics Magazine.

Of course, I could also spend time on other things, like seeing friends and going outside, but who needs that! ;)

Boil 6-8 minutes or until tender

If I were to treat this as short-circuit logic, like many programming languages would, it means:

• if the raviolis are already tender before 6 minutes, you might overcook them
• you can choose to stop cooking after 6 minutes, whether they are tender are not
  
• you must stop boiling after 8 minutes, whether they are tender are not
• you never reach the 'until tender' condition

But how do you model that logically? Doesn't it just mean 'Boil until tender' ?

Maybe the reality is that the ravioli company is just giving me two possible solutions.

The first one: Boil for 6-8 minutes is the simple one. If you have a watch with a minute hand, you're good to go. Just make sure at least 6 minutes pass, and avoid cooking for more than 8 minutes. It'd be hard to screw this one up.

The second one, Boil until tender, is far more complicated. It requires you to have an objective condition called 'tenderness' that you can poll for, and the ability to detect it at any given moment.

If you're writing software, this means you need to handle concurrency, because you'll need to spin off a thread to get the water boiling, and then poll the ravioli continuously for tenderness, stopping the boiling process once tenderness has been reached.

Since it's unlikely that you'll be able to find the 'exact moment of tenderness', you'll need to define some sort of acceptable margin of error. You'll need to test this by trial and error. I suggest starting with steps of 30 minutes, and once you scrape up the burned raviolis, scale it down to maybe a check every few seconds.

Of course, this is silly. But on the same token, it goes to show you how much of a divide there is between human intuition and logical analysis. I don't envy the programmers who are going to build the magic robots that cook my food for me in 2030 by downloading and parsing my grandmothers recipe for chicken soup.

This is also just a very convoluted way of expressing why I enjoy cooking. It brings out the human side of me, because computers would probably suck at it.

I planned to cut off all 'purely entertainment' uses of the net weeks ago. That just didn't happen, and I'm not sure why. I think I'm going to keep trying though. Any habits this deeply ingrained can't be good for you.

I really find her poetry beautiful, which makes working on this a total joy. It'll be 15-20 pages long by the time it is done.