Letter to the Professor...

I just wrote an email to the author of my prescribed textbook in computer graphics at UNISA.

Here is the text of the email..

Hi,

I have just finished reading p78, your section on creating a Sierpinski triangle using recursion.
I am using the International Edition.

I think I have found an error that is not listed on your errata page located at this link:

(I am a student studying UNISA, the University of South Africa; and in the third year undergraduate course on computer graphics your text is the prescribed literature.)

You write :-
"Suppose that the vertices of our original triangle are given by the array

GLFloat v[3][2];

Then the midpoints of the sides are given by the array m[3][3], which can be computed using the code

for(j=0; j<2; j++) m[0][j] = (v[0][j] + v[1][j]) / 2.0;
for(j=0; j<2; j++) m[1][j] = (v[1][j] + v[2][j]) / 2.0;
for(j=0; j<2; j++) m[2][j] = (v[2][j] + v[3][j]) / 2.0;

Surely it should read
Then the midpoints of the sides are given by the array m[3][2], which can be computed using the code?

Or am I just an idiot; with an error in my brain?

Kind Regards,
Ilan Pillemer

And the longest sentence is...

I was looking at the longest line in the texts (see previous post) of Heart of Darkness and Alice in Wonderland; and I was struck by the fact that these longest lines were not whole sentences. So I now adjusted my program to find the longest sentence in these two texts. I pleased to tell you that the longest sentence in a book is much more interesting than the longest line.

With the Heart of Darkness example, I provide the preceding and following sentence of the longest sentence in the book as it frames the longest sentence very nicely. In order to make clear which sentence is the longest I have presented it in a boldface.

Without further ado... Here are the longest sentences in Alice in Wonderland and Heart of Darkness.

Alice in Wonderland

Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight,and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut.

Heart of Darkness

How could you?--with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums--how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitude--utter solitude without a policeman--by the way of silence--utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference.

later...

And the longest line is...

I wrote a little program this evening that takes a text and works out the longest line in it..

I fed it (1) the dictionary (2) Heart of Darkness (3) Alice in Wonderland

Here are the results:

(1) pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
(2) the _Golden Hind_ returning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to be
(3) `Why,' said the Gryphon, `you first form into a line along the sea-shore--'

hmmm....

"Free Will is considered a conceptual confusion."

This year one of university courses is on Artificial Intelligence.

I have started on the first assignment which only requires one to get a general feel of the different fields and ideas which one will be required to confront and to situate oneself within in order to be able to, in turn, also situate the ideas that will be taught. Ouch.

Anyways... Of the ideas that artificial intelligence needs to examine are the notions of free will and determinism. In my reading I discovered a philosophy called "Pessimistic Incompatabilism" which states that there is neither determinism nor free-will in this world!

Here is a definition of it from Wikipedia

Pessimistic Incompatibilism
While hard determinism clearly opposes the concept of free will, some suggest that even non-determinism might be incompatible with free will. This is pessimistic incompatibilism. Under the assertion that events are not predetermined (e.g., for quantum mechanical reasons), it is then suggested that any event has a probability assigned to it. Taking this concept further, it is suggested that an event is determined not by free will, but by the concept of randomness. For example, if there is a probability of 1% that one will delete this article, then whether or not it is deleted is not considered to be of free choice, but rather a brute random fact about the world. On this account, the notion of free will is considered a conceptual confusion, i.e. it does not exist in the sense which is misconceived, regardless of whether or not the universe is deterministic.


hmmm....

I hear its been hot in Europe this year...

Hot in Europe this year... polar ice-caps melting... hmmm...as my new favourite internet comic book writer, xkcd, says...


hmmm....

my tooth hurts

Last night of my Fedora Core 5 installation I upgraded my kernel to the latest stable kernel release; in order to make use of its better abilities to work with my ATI graphic chip. I also had to install the source for the latest kernel in order to build and link in the ndiswrapper module for my wireless.

I just was at the dentist, where for 1 and 1/2 hours he did things to my teeth. Its sore. He also gave me the quote for all the work that needs to happen due to damage I did to my teeth. I think I cracked one or something. Two crowns are needed. I already have four crowns. Its not cheap. In fact its so expensive its depressing. But I think medical aid will cover most of it.

I am also hungry, but my mouth is too numb for eating anything. Useful thing the mouth. If you don't know I had a car accident last week. I hit the back of someone else's car when there was a sudden traffic stoppage in the fast lane of the freeway. I am now driving a hired car. The spares to repair my car were meant to arrive tomorrow, so hopefully I will have my car back. I miss the car. I am still hungry; I suspect I am going to get more hungry as the day progresses.

Great start to 2007!

And then this Sunday.... my 3 year wedding anniversary!

And onward ho, driving into 2007

Well. What a week. I had a car accident. Ugg. Am now driving a rented car whilst waiting for my car to be repaired.

Last night, Orli and Denzil came over for supper on the last night of 2006. It was a really enjoyable evening. We had a cheese fondue and laughter.

Its now the 1st January 2007 and instead of going to see a movie I will be cleaning the study.

later...

Boxes (sic) Day

I asked Sandra why the day after Christmas was called Boxer's Day. Sandra is very useful sometimes because she knows everything. So she told me very emphatically :

"All public holidays the day after another public holiday are called Boxes' Day ... and it has nothing to do with all the empty boxes left over from Christmas!"

later...

Stevie is now blogging

Stevie is now blogging from Thailand.

..and the verdict is out; it has won the "Best New Pillemer Blog of December 2006"!

Check it out at: link.

Me... I am very tired most of the time as I am suffering from cortisone withdrawal. I have been off it nearly a month; which means hopefully I will have more energy to do something else apart from work, sleep and eat.

Enjoy the holiday season.

later...

4 firsts, 1 second

And my university marks this year are...

COS301Y Theory of Computer Science 076 Passed
COS3114 Advanced Programming 080 Passed
COS3216 Operating Systems 080 Passed
INF303D Database Principles 083 Passed
INF305F Software Practise 061 Passed

Not bad, considering....

later...

Jonx brings it to the internet....

Jonx is now online. His internet site is still in the beginning stages; but he now has digitial portfolio available to the world.

Check it out at http://www.jonx.pillemer.co.za.

Congrtulation Tracey on graduating from law school!

And keep your open for future pillemer.co.za websites that are on their way....

later...

The Purple Cow Tournament...

I just received the following email for an idea I submitted ages ago... and after watching it for a while - thought no-one had liked it. Well looks like its popularity increased unbeknownst me!

That’s right ilAn,

Your idea Pandora's Secrets has been selected for the big show – the Purple Cow Tournament!

How it works

Every month 16 of the top community ideas are selected to compete in the upcoming tournament. Each week, ideas are paired off to battle one another with the winner advancing, and the loser dropping out. After four weeks, the top idea will emerge and is declared the tournament winner.

What’s in it for the winner?

Besides the obvious fame and glory from winning such a prestigious tournament, winners will be forever immortalized in the Hall of Champions on the as well earning a Cambrian House Market Test.

Next steps

Prepare your idea for battle. Check your title. Double check your description and inspiration to make sure they are as compelling as possible.

Good luck!

Make sure you tell your friends and family your brain child is in the tournament and get their support. All they have to do is register:

http://www.ideawarz.com/login

And then vote!

http://www.ideawarz.com/tournament/matchup/49

The honor is all ours. Best of luck in the tourney.

Your tournament host - JR

dictionary navel gazing....

In the English dictionary the following words are those in which the string 'ilan' is contained; but neither begins or ends the word...

ailantery ailanthic Ailanthus
ailanthus ailanthuses ailantine
ailanto aphilanthropy assailants
Bashilange bilander bilanders
Cheilanthes chemosterilants cilantro
cilantros defailance demilance
demilancer dilaniate Dilantin
dilantin failance filander
filanders Guilandina hypervigilantly
hypervigilantness invigilance invigilancy
jubilance jubilancy jubilantly
jublilantly koilanaglyphic Maorilander
milanaise Milanese milanese
Milanion Milanov Milanville
minilanguage multilaned nonphilanthropic
nonphilanthropical nonsibilance nonsibilancy
nonsibilantly nonvigilance nonvigilantly
nonvigilantness Philander philander
philandered philanderer philanderers
philandering philanders philanthid
Philanthidae philanthrope philanthropian
philanthropic philanthropical philanthropically
philanthropies philanthropine philanthropinism
philanthropinist Philanthropinum philanthropise
philanthropised philanthropising philanthropism
philanthropist philanthropistic philanthropists
philanthropize philanthropized philanthropizing
philanthropy Philanthus philantomba
pilandite prevailance previgilance
previgilantly pseudophilanthropic pseudophilanthropical
pseudophilanthropically psilanthropic psilanthropism
psilanthropist psilanthropy semilanceolate
sibilance sibilancy sibilantly
sibilants silanes silanga
Spilanthes subsibilance subsibilancy
subsibilantly supervigilance supervigilantly
Thailander theophilanthrope theophilanthropic
theophilanthropism theophilanthropist theophilanthropy
Thilanottine unjubilantly unphilanthropic
unphilanthropically unvigilantly vigilance
vigilances vigilancy vigilante
vigilantes vigilantism vigilantist
vigilantly vigilantness Ypsilanti
zeilanite

Almost December

Grafs in Jerusalem Pillemer home
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Almost December. I am almost off the cortisone, all going well. Its almost time to go to bed. I am almost writing a long blog.

Grafs and Granny

Grafs and Granny
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Exams are over. I am tired. Its hot in Durban. Sandra is learning violin again. Sandra has just shown me her favourite toothbrush. Its a kind that is rare to find. She tells me that if I see any - in any shop - I must buy 12 immediately. One for every month.

Well, this cheered me up a little.

As I mentioned in my post last night I was not very happy with my second Unisa exam (INF 305). Whilst I was sitting writing the exam I was very dissapointed with the format as it was not what I had expected. 55% of the exam were questions like "List the 6" and "Name the 4" etc etc etc. It was obviously expected that the exact wording was to be filled in for each point. I had not memorised all the many many lists. I had memorised a few which had seemed to be important. Of course not one of the lists I had memorised came up; and many of what had seem arbitrary lists did. I tried my best; and upon looking at the text book I would get one out of three; 2 out of 4; four out of seven; one out four; 4 out of 4 (uncommon) etc etc 0 out of x was common. I think I may have got 50% (or a little bit less) for that section. The second question also had a 8 mark bit that needed me to first know a list of four; and then discuss. I think I got two-and-a-half out of the four. And the rest, since we had never been actually marked on a case study in an assignment; was unclear to me if I had answered in the expected way or not. So all in all - very iffffffffffffy. very very. very very very.

The guy sitting to my left in the venue. I will never forget his anger. About half and hour before I ran out of space he gave up...

(Yup... We had to answer the question on the question paper itself; and there was not so much space on the paper. Once I had filled in all the space available; including writing very small on the bottom of the pages - I thought.. what can I do now... and left the venue. (Half and hour early.) )

Anyway... the guy sitting to my left. He had stopped half and hour (or maybe more) before I strolled out of the venue. I only noticed his angst about half and hour before I finished. He had stopped. Put his paper neatly in front of him. He had crossed his arms and was staring directly in the empty space in front of him. He was very angry. Very angry. I think his eyes had become two tiny hard little red vortexes. And he did nothing else. Just stared in anger. I left him like that.

Today I went to the Unisa message board to see if that there had been a reaction. And boy had people cried and thrown their toys and screamed and swore. Take a peak....

Page 1 of complaints.
Page 2 of complaints
Page 3 of complaints.

But the nicest effect of all the toy throwing were these two responses from Unisa.

Re: The irony cup runneth over.

Posted by: TvD (Moderator)

Date: October 13, 2006 08:25PM

yes I agree that written assignments is a requirenment and I did get a number of voluntary written assignments from A01 to A05.

Anyway we are not monsters and I will take the comments into consideration when marking the exams - I will first discuss, and then consider letting Q2 count more for those students that did not do well in Q1 - as far as I am concerned Q2 is a better test of the academic requirements for your final year than Q1

Quality of design notations is strongly related to choosing between them.

TvD

Re: The irony cup runneth over.

Posted by: TvD (Moderator)

Date: October 16, 2006 09:45AM

After discussions with the School's Director we have found a solution that will satisfy those who are unhappy about the omission of mcq's from the exam, as well as those students that are unhappy about the cramped answering spaces for Q1

We will use another mcq mark that is available to us for each student
individually, as a substantial addition to Q1

This is unfortunately all I can say so please do not ask me to elaborate on this any further

TvD

So... anyway... tomorrow is my next exam.
I have only prepared by reading through the text book and going through the assignments and a past paper. I would get 100% for the past paper and the assignments; so I have a chance.

Tomorrow morning I will read through the study guide grab my pens and go for it.

I am not as prepared as I am normally am for exams; but I think under the circumstances I will not feel guilty or bad about that.

oh...

And then into hospital; to have an infusion into my birthday... well so it goes

Tzoras

I have had Tzoras of late. Swaziland went well but I worked about 12 hours a day; and slept very little getting everything done. On the plane on the way home I saw the dreaded petichiae on my arms. I arrived home; and had to tell poor Sandra (who spent the whole day baking chalah and preparing for the Sabbath) that I was not going to be sleeping at home tonight - but that I had to be rushed into hospital. I stayed in hospital until after Yom Kippor. Whilst in hospital I got authorisation for the monoclonal antibody treatment that worked so well two-and-half-years ago. Its a weekly 12 hour intravenous infusion which is described in the medical aid codes as a chemotherapy infusion. I have also decided to try and write my UNISA exams that just happen to be right now. I feel confident about the first exam but very dissapointed with the second one. I was caught off guard by the format as I was expecting a different format and had studied to pass the format and not what I ended up having to confront. I have worked out that it is theoretically possible for me to scrape through it - so I have not given up hope in it yet. But it would not be a rude surprise if I end up with a supplementary for the second paper. My third paper is on the same day as my next infusion. So I will go to the exam venue and head straight from the exam venue to the hospital. The medication and the cortisone (I am still on dramatically large doses. Today I took 50mg) really effect my concentration and moods which adds more difficulty with the studying. I am no where ready for the Tuesday exam; and its Sunday night... After I finish this blog I will return to study a bit more.

I now am going to write out an extract from diary recorded in hospital on Yom Kippor 2 October.

My tooth aches. I am sitting in the hospital Oncology ward and I am smelling like some kind of sweet sweaty smell that I find a little nauseating. I want to bath and I have even set up all neatly on my new freshly made bed a shirt, shampoo and a toiletry bag. I only found the shampoo today; but it must have been there with my things since I got here. I got angry and frustrated again this morning when I discovered that the doctor had not remembered to put down the requirement that I have blood count taken for my platelets. The sister in charge did not now want to have the count taken as a result. This kind of ridiculousness, maybe because of the added emotional side-effects of the cortisone, is so frustrating it feels like physical pain. Not that I don't have enough physical pain from the toothache. Why did a filling have to have fallen out at the exact moment that I end up in this place of death? I don't want to get back into bed again until I have a bath. Again this is frustrating me. I am only connected via a drip to saline solution. It is not important and I could easily be disconnected to allow me to clean myself. But the attendant, I don't think she is a nurse; did not obviously feel the need to listen to my request and told me I could clean myself later. Some of these people have power and are too careless with it. I guess I could make a fuss again. But creating a nuisance of myself with so many suffering people all around me feels so spoilt and badly behaved that I end up feel depressed and ugly about my behaviour. I have been endlessly difficult over the last few days because the fancy computerised Baxter drip has not been working as it should; and almost definitely the saline solution would infuse instead of the immunoglobulins. Each time this happened (and it happened a number of times) at first the attendant sister would not believe me; and I would have to wait 2 hours seeing the system not working properly before calling a nurse again. Since it was not working properly the volume on the immunoglobulins would not have decreased over this period and I could then say to the sister :- "Look at the volume. Look at the time. Its meant to be half-finished. Look!" But this would still not work immediately. For at first they would be blind to reality. They would like at the computer display and not at the volume in the polygam; show me the computer display and say:- "See... its working."

At this point I would need to become slightly more forthright in explaining to the sister the problem. Trying desperately to get her to use her eyes. Eventually they would see the reality (since it was unarguably obvious that nothing had infused from the polygam and much had infused from the saline) was on my side; the problem would be recognised and then fixed. But not without me first having to make a noise and then feel ugly about it. My tooth is aching again. Its bringing back memories of 1995/6 when I was backpacking in the Sinai desert, Dahab, and got unbearable toothache. It got so bad that slept until pain woke me up; and then stayed awake until exhaustion overrode the pain. It was a weird kind of equilibrium. The clean bed before me is very inviting; but, I really want to be less smelly before I get into the hospital bed zone again. The hospital-bed-zone is a strange kind of place where time drifts... Bad toothache again. Yom Kippor. What a day to be in hospital. Day of Affliction. Well at least I am afflicted and in torment. How appropriate. The toothache is beginning to give me a headache. The doctor did not care about the toothache. Its not why I am her patient I guess. Not being able to bath is also beginning to drive me to distraction. I created a fuss yesterday getting the basic line into my vein changed to a J-loop. A J-loop can be disconnected, allowing me to bath. And naturally, once a line had been created into my vein, it is a huge effort to change to a different kind of line. And then when it was done, something went wrong, and it was leaking; and a more senior nurse had to be fetched to fix it. Eventually this was resolved making it possible for me to bath. So... Now I am sitting here, with a tooth-ache, with a J-Loop; wanting to bath and unable to because no one feels like "disconnecting" me from the Baxter.

The doctor has prescribe me oral cortisone. She also insists that the cortisone must be an ethical and not a generic due to some problem with my illness and the binding agents used in the generics. However when she passed the prescription on to ward she did not make a note of this; and then I found myself presented with the generic medication after being given specific instruction not to take the generic. It is a constant deja-vu. Just like the regular omission not to put my name on the list to test my blood for its platelet count in the morning.

I am thankful I don't have a brain tumour like the man lying in the bed next to me. He kept talking in his sleep all night. I do not know if he makes more sense awake or asleep. The other guy here does not appear to talk unless calling for more morphine due to unbearable pain. I think the man that was in his bed a few days ago died. I am not 100% sure; but they cleared him out and made his bed about 11pm Friday night. So unless he was suddenly being rushed to ICU; he died. I think he died. Three weeks ago when I was in the hospital I saw one of the patients die. He coughed and died. My platelet count was taken hours ago and must have been returned to the ward; but no-one thinks to tell me the result. The toothache is getting worse. I can feel the nerve all the way to my ear and forehead. It pulses with a pain. The pain does pause; and then suddenly goes sharp. Someone had just brought in some ice-cold water for next to my bed. It looks and feels like an instrument of torture. I know what the cold water will do the toothache; just looking at it produces pain. A nurse came in to ask if she could get me anything; I asked to be disconnected so I can go have a bath.

so it goes...

I am going into hospital again tomorrow morning for another treatment.
They give it to me over twelve hours through a drip. I will sleep over
in the hospital.

I also have two Unisa exams. One on Thursday and one on Friday. I have
not even started learning properly because of the chaos. I am still
intending to write the exams; and will be taking the material for the
exam on Friday with me to hospital; and I read through the text book
for the exam on Thursday over the weekend.

geez.

Sandra is busy packing presents she is sending out to lucky recipients and there is a beautiful Jazz being played. I think its Jazz.. it might not be; I am not very good at distinguishing genre. Maybe its Latin American. I had better ask.

"Sandra, what kind of music is this?"
"I don't know..."

Oh well.. Its nice and I am enjoying it.

I went back to work today; and one of the rituals of returning to work after an absence longer than just a few days is one has to go through a ritual at the surgery at the mill. This involves mostly sitting and waiting in the waiting room; and watching people with damaged feet or carrying packages of AIDs medicine walk past you. I must have sat there for at least two hours; but, I was wise enough to have brought my iPod. So I sat there listening to music and chilling out. I was leaning forward elbows on my knees and looking downwards... and I could not believe my eyes. I suddenly realised I was wearing two different kinds of shoes. Luckily they were both black. We went to my parents for dinner tonight and I showed everyone my silly shoes. My father told me, he once went to work (many many many years ago) wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe; after getting dressed in the dark not to disturb my sleeping mother. My mother then told me; that she at work today had an individual sitting in the room wearing his shoes the wrong way round. Yip. He was wearing his left shoe on his right foot and his right shoe on his left foot. She said this made it very difficult to concentrate every time she looked up and saw him.

Its getting close to midnight...

later....

www.ilan.pillemer.net

Its a bit boring at the moment....

But now I have my own website. I have a little bit of space on a server and apparently scripting and database usage.

Check it out... www.ilan.pillemer.net

later....