I have a coin. I flip it 9  times, and I get heads 9 times in a row.  According to the probability of independent events, the 10th flip has a 50% chance of being heads again, because previous events don’t affect it whatsoever.  According to the law of large numbers or whatever, it’s supposed to big-picture even out to 50% over time, so it *should* be more likely I get a tails; if it *didn’t* even out after a million flips it’d be a freakish statistical anomaly, or the coin is weighted and it’s not the 50/50 chance we think it is.

So, small-scale, I have a 50% chance of getting heads again. Big scale, it’s supposed to start leaning toward tails the more heads I get.  The previous events don’t matter, and the previous events do matter; opposite statements which are both true.

And that just makes my brain want to crumple up and die. ><

I suppose you could say the previous flips are independent, and the trend over time is for it to even out, and although the results lead to the trend, the trend will never lead to the results.  Somehow, math breaks free, math…finds a way.

Nevertheless, in math 2+2=4. There’s no “2+2=4 usually, except sometimes it’s not, because it just didn’t work out that way.”  I am *trying* to impose order on the universe, and the universe doesn’t seem to want to comply.

Fortunately, the man who pushed my car out of the line of waiting cars and tried to fix it after it broke down during inspection last month overheard, and told the guy that if he filled out the regular form, put “no fee” at the top and then only gave me a copy to take back to the DMV, they would put in the correction without having to do all the waiting-for-forms stuff.  They proceeded to do this, I headed back to the DMV armed with helpful man’s document, and lo and behold they put my request for a correction right in and gave me an updated copy of my registration.

So somewhere out there exists Inspector-Man, the nice man who pushes cars when they break down and circumvents confusing bureaucracy to get things done without making me pay another fee for someone else’s typo so that I can own my car again.  He is my favorite. :D

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

I read somewhere else that we’re moving toward a “gig economy” and I think that may be true; with so many people unemployed, people are trying to take what they can get and make their own way.  Or maybe we’re going to become artisans again.  Anyone can have a machine-made dress, but a custom tailored one would be pretty nice, or food carefully prepared from scratch and made just the way we like it, instead of prepackaged and shipped from across the country.  Or maybe we are moving toward some kind of futuristic Star Trek time where money will be rendered obsolete and people just focus on being the best they can be in whatever ways they choose.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I’m going to do in the future.  I’m scheduled to continue working for Iowa State up through April 2012, and after that I’m not really sure what’s going to happen.  I could find a traditional go-to-an-office, work-in-a-cubicle job for someone else and be able to buy a house, or I could try to do my own thing and have direct control over my day-to-day life, but potentially never be able to have a house or go to France again.  Somewhere in all of this chaos and uncertainty there must be a place I can be happy, I just need to figure out where that is. :)

http://gamedemo1.fourlightsweb.com/

It’s not much, but I stole some sprites and tile sets, I have a princess, and she can walk around. :)

C:  This game is awesome! I can move the princess left OR right.

D:  it’s all about choice

C:  see…if there were a stack of rocks at the left and every time i got one i could drop it in a pile to the right…i’d probably play it

…I’ve actually been somewhat considering making a batch of t-shirts that say “–> programmer lfw <–” :D

Then it is a sunny winter day, and I am a hawk in a snowy field bordered by tall trees.  I take off from a tree, and it’s absolutely amazing to fly – I can go so, so fast!  I feel the cold air rushing around me as I sail over huge distances, and it’s completely exhilarating.  I’m so fast I imagine myself represented not as an inefficient living creature, but a smooth, geometric shape with straight lines.  Another bird (a crow I think) sees me and tries to attack.  We collide in mid-air and start to fall, pecking and clawing at each other on the way, but I’m not really hurt, and I’m not worried, because as long as I remember how far down the ground is I will always be able to save myself.

After telling her the dream, I continue to the Scheman party, where I win an award that I get to accept in front of everyone in my white sparkly dress.

:D

• Trim/strtolower/md5 the email address
• Put it in an image src

And that’s it! Should have done that forever ago. :)