Fugato

Did the wow then stop right away?

[Via Seth Godin]

May I kindly request that we outlaw this construction:

Just because S₁ doesn’t mean S₂

(where S₁ and S₂ are sentences)

from the English language?

Just because this construction doesn’t mean anything sensible.

Examples:

Just because you’re paranoid,	doesn’t mean they’re not after you
Just because someone is cold	doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings
Just because it’s ‘green’	doesn’t mean it’s smart
Just because it’s a cliche	doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt
Just because it’s reliable	doesn’t mean it’s believable
Just because something contains something	doesn’t mean it’s about something
Just because something’s popular	doesn’t mean it’s good
Just because something’s legal	doesn’t mean it’s right
Just because he roars	doesn’t mean that he really will attack an intruder
Just because someone’s excommunicated	doesn’t mean she’s the bad guy

Nyargh.

“If That’s Your Biggest Worry, You’re Doing OK.”

A valuable thought for all occasions.

This:

is called Tupper’s self-referential formula. If you graph it over particular values of x and y, it makes a picture of itself, and that is quite neat. Follow the link for details.

And this is a property of the unit impulse:

But that’s not really the point. The point is the mathematical notation; you can integrate mathematical notation in your WordPress blog very easily, using Steve Mayer’s LatexRender plugin.

And the point here is that you can install that plugin even more easily and correct a nasty bug in the offset beta functionality, using my LatexRender installation script (or the BSD version).

Go to the wp-content/plugins subdirectory of your WordPress installation, and then either:

wget http://fugato.net/wp-content/install-latexrender.bash
bash install-latexrender.bash

or, if your webserver is running BSD (or anything with the same kooky version of sed as my hosting provider’s BSD installation):

wget http://fugato.net/wp-content/install-latexrender.bsd.bash
bash install-latexrender.bsd.bash

and with any luck, the script will set everything up right. Then you’ll just need to activate the plugin LatexRender in your WordPress admin panel, and try it out by putting something like [tex]e^{i\pi}=-1[/tex] in a blog entry. That should render the classic .

This is tested working fine in WordPress versions 2.0 through 2.5.1 (the current stable version, which this blog is running).

The script assumes that your blog is located at the root of your website. If it isn’t, then you must provide the base path as an argument to the script. E.g. if your blog is at http://o.com/all/ye/faithful/, then you must run the script like this:

bash install-latexrender.bash /all/ye/faithful

and it should work right.

Some formulas may be slightly misaligned with the text baseline. You can work around this by manually surrounding them with stuff like <span style="vertical-align: -0.5px;"> ... </span> on a case-by-case basis (assuming you edit your blog entries in straight HTML, not the rich text editor).

It’s winter quarter 2000. I’m the TA for EE183, sitting alone in a lab in the brand-spanking new Packard building of EE at Stanford, preparing assignments for tomorrow’s lab session. It’s around midnight and the building is empty-ish.

Enter a somewhat unkempt man in his early forties, medium build, in overalls with a little paint on them. He wanders around the lab for a bit, contemplating the oscilloscopes.

The essence of our conversation is paraphrased here to the best of my ability, G representing me and D the Designer.

G: “Hi, uh, can I help you?”

D: “Yeah, I’m just taking a look around. I designed this building, you know.”

G: “Really?”

D: “Yeah, I did, my company did. I designed the Mac interface, too.” [gestures at my PC display]

G: “Wow. So you’re here to see how your creations turned out?” [still not sure whether he's joking]

D: “Yeah, well, I’m also having trouble with the department, they still haven’t paid for the design work.”

G: “Really? One would think they’d have that kind of thing in order.”

D: “Apple, too. They haven’t paid me for the Mac design work. These people owe me a lot of money, it’s pretty lousy, and I’ve had to take action about it.”

G: “Action?”

D: “Yeah, I’ve just sent this fax out, to the EE department, and to Apple, and several other places in the valley.”

He shows me a hand-written sheet, memorably ending with the words “Pay or be punished!”

I measure him out, as inconspicuously as I can. He has me a little worried, but he’s not that much bigger than me, and hasn’t seemed aggressive.

G: “Wow. You’re not mincing words there!”

D: “Heh, no. Can’t go too easy on these guys, or you just get them walking all over you.”

G: “I’ll bet. Well, best of luck with that. I hope they come around.”

D: “Hey thanks. It’s good talking to you.”

G: “See ya.”

He leaves the lab. Later that night, when leaving, I walk around and see D in the lunch area on the second floor, eating out of the common fridge. I nod to him, shrug and leave.

In the morning I mention this to Ed, the labs manager, and in about ten minutes a policeman arrives. I describe D as best I can, and then it hits me that he told me his name.

Policeman: “Oh, that guy, okay. He pops up around campus every few years, I think he was a student here once. He’s never gotten violent, but he hasn’t said anything threatening like this before either. I’ll have a little chat with him.”

That day, I notice copies of D’s handwritten fax posted on doors and flyer boards around campus. Never heard of him again.

I wonder if he ever got paid.

The only kind of transplant never hindered by a shortage of either donors or recipients.