Wednesday Stuff

Last night was the last night of Hanukkah, and we got to celebrate more than usual, because we had the wonderful ocean_song with us when lighting candles! Yay! And one of my mom's gifts to Elayna was Wizards of the Game. I love it when Elayna gets gifts that I want to read too. :-)

After Ocean_Song left, photognome came by, and we introduced him to the joy that is Arrested Development before watching the Tag Sale episode of The Venture Brothers (yay for Tivo!).

Anyone still wondering about the box question should go read the comments in my two posts from yesterday, where just about every sort of good explanation can be found. Items really worth noting are the perl script that trochee points to, and the Java applet that shawnj noted. My favorite thing is that the correct answer is still in last place in the poll. :-)

BTW, the catalyst for my talking about this was my recent re-reading of Raymond Smullyan's Satan, Cantor, and Infinity. The book's out of print, but worth tracking down. Aside from Smullyan's usual logic puzzles involving knights and knaves (truth-tellers and liars), there's a big section on Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem (much of which, I freely admit, flies over my head, as does the robot programming stuff), and the titular final section on the nature of infinity. The last section, alone, is worth reading, as it's the clearest set of explanations of infinity (including infinite sets, denumerable infinite sets, etc) that I've seen. And remember -- I'm not a math person at all. But Smullyan is really that damned good a writer (and if anyone ever comes across a copy of the long-out-of-print Alice in Puzzle-land that's affordable, by all means let me know), placing his logic puzzles in a fun narrative that allows him to educate without even coming close to boring the reader.

Other stuff:

First, yes, Minaya proved to be either the dumbest or the smartest man in baseball yesterday. I know where my money lies. Meanwhile, a free agent that we should have been chasing just signed elsewhere.. I swear, I think there's a fucking conspiracy to force the NFL to be the only pro team sport I follow.

This song (see "Now Playing") may be my favorite Cole Porter cover ever.

Two days until A Series of Unfortunate Events! Yeah, it might well blow. But I'm hoping it doesn't.

Thing that Should Not Be, #242. Seriously. When it comes to Freddy Mercury, there can be only one, dammit!

Image of the day, sent by an ex-roommate:

And on that note, more work beckons. When your morning post doesn't get finished until 10:30, that's a sign that it's going to be a hectic day.

Baseball natterings

The Mets/Pedro deal looks final. But at least my boys aren't the only ones smoking crack.

Sexson's getting $12.5 mil a year for four years, coming off a year in which he did jack shit because of his injury. At that price, I'm glad the Mets ignored him.

But that's nothing compared to the BoSox. $10 Mil a year for Renteria? That's may be the most overpriced contract this offseason (and yes, I know how much that's saying).

And the DC folks look like they just plain won't exist. Wish I could say I was surprised.