Posts tagged: life

No, this is not an elevator pitch for anything, quite the opposite. I just made an app, and it's called Pitcher! And by that, I don't mean I really wrote any code, it's all written by deepseek and...

When I moved to the US, I tried BBQ sauce and decided I didn't like it. Too sweet. Later I learned there are two families: sugar-based and vinegar-based. The vinegar kind, I loved.

A while ago I wrote about my values at work, and that if I had a choice, what would I choose. It is not often that I have that choice, but it is good to aim idealistic and expect realistic. So, in...

با صدای احسان طبری (شاعر)

When gpt3 came out, I half-jokingly wrote:

I'm often interested in understanding why people believe the things they believe and why they behave the way they behave. Usually the former is a reason for the latter. Pondering these, I've realized...

Last night Ehssan sent me a post from a math professor that has been making the rounds. The professor loves research and hates grading. Who doesn't? But lately, he wrote, his research has started to...

I sat through a talk by Clair Sullivan about making a tech career layoff-proof by going solopreneur. I am still deciding how much of it I actually believe. This is my notes from that talk.

Every once in a while I have to revisit this question and this time I took a bit longer to answer it, trying to inform it based on multiple blog posts by Chip Huyen and Eugene Yan. As Maleknaz says I...

✓ = present / defining = partial / possible = absent / not required

It has become very common for companies, entities, institutes and so on to signal that they care about other cultures and languages. For most of them it simply means more customers, more business,...

I keep finishing books and forgetting the things they teach. I've had the same issue with math and had looooooooooong discussions with Ehssan about what does it even mean to "learn"/"know" something?...

Hamid said something that stuck with me: how come nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, has my point of view? Why does no one say the things that are in my head, while when I'm talking to you guys...

There are a few people in my life (mostly in the role of an advisor/mentor) that have given me a feeling that I haven't experienced anywhere else. These are people who are well accomplished and well...

I don't normally read the news. But with the current situation in Iran I've been reading a lot more. Something like 7-8 hours on some days. Reading that much bad news with that high of an impact...

Iran has had no internet for four weeks. Not slow, not restricted. Gone. The only app that works is Bale, made by the Iranian government. Everyone knows what it is. Everyone knows what it's for....

I asked Hadi, half-jokingly, whether Bach was the Justin Bieber of his time. Are we just listening to the most "popular" artists of the 1700s and calling it high culture? And the flip side: will...

بی‌پی‌آ (بیسفنول آ) و بی‌پی‌اس (بیسفنول اس) موادی شیمیایی هستند که در پلاستیک‌ها، پوشش قوطی‌ها، و کاغذهای حرارتی رسید استفاده می‌شوند. این مواد اختلال‌گر هورمونی هستند که می‌توانند استروژن را تقلید...

BPA (Bisphenol A) and BPS (Bisphenol S) are chemicals in plastics, can linings, and thermal receipt paper. They are endocrine disruptors: they can mimic estrogen and interfere with the body's...

When a company talks about "end-to-end encryption" (E2EE) they could mean several things in practical terms. The fact that data is encrypted "on sender's device" and then decrypted "on receiver's...

You're at the lake with your 3-year-old. You want to fish. He wants to play with you. You brought toys, snacks, a little chair for him. He should be able to entertain himself for a bit. You set him...

Imagine you own a company. One day, you ask a senior manager how they decided to spend a million dollars of the company's budget. They look you in the eye and say: "I'm not going to tell you. If you...

Hossein used to be my source of good movies. He knew my taste, he had his own taste, but also he used to watch a shit ton of movies, good and bad, and then he'd know what they're about and could...

I put together an interactive training plan for an Olympic-distance triathlon (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run). It's a 16-week progressive plan with 6 workouts per week (2 swims, 2 bikes, 2 runs)...

I've been writing a series of thoughts recently in order to clarify a point of view of mine. These are the original posts:

There's a mathematical insight that explains why some people consistently end up with better outcomes than others, and it has nothing to do with talent, luck, or even the quality of their choices.

After writing about how companies get distracted by competitive dynamics, I got some great feedback that helped me work through some deeper thoughts.

There's this pattern that keeps showing up in tech and beyond: companies get so caught up in matching what their competitors are doing that they lose sight of actually solving the underlying problem....

There are people who view everyone around them through a single lens of accomplishment. In professional circles, it's salary or publication count. In religious communities, it might be how many...

- on a bad day, get up and read the instruction manual, the section on bad days. - on a bad day, set the alarm for 6:30am, but don't worry if you don't feel like getting out of the bed then, stay as...

In a world flooded with information and competing claims, we like to think we evaluate ideas based on evidence and reasoned analysis. But beneath our conscious reasoning lie powerful psychological...

So, I've been looking for a house for almost a year now. It's been way longer than I expected and the market has been weird, to say the least. But just for the context, there are a lot of houses that...

I've had two monitors on my desk for my work for the past few years which I combine with my laptop for a 3-screen workstation. It works fine, except one of the monitors has started flickering for a...

Someone was talking about this that these came up: - The Culture Map - Navigating ‘Ask’ and ‘Guess’ Cultures in a modern world

The other day Marjan recommended the movie Memoir of a Snail and as I was going to find an watch it, the website recommended another movie called Diary of a Nymphomaniac. Everything about it seemed...

So I've been looking for a house for quite a while now, and one of the minimum requirements that I have for it is the ability to do as much woodworking as I want, and an added plus if I can do it...

One of the most enlightening conversations I've had recently started with my friend sharing how his colorblindness influenced his life choices—even leading him away from a potential career as a...

For years, I’ve been particular about the cellphones I use. It’s not just about having a phone—it’s about finding one that genuinely solves my problems without forcing me into unnecessary ecosystems...

You call a company to book an appointment for their service,

So I have this bunch of music on my external hard drive that is connected to my PC at home and I need to get over there to play it while I'm at home, but that's usually a hassle, well, to some...

I've recently moved to Canada and applied for permanent residency through the Express Entry system. If your situation is similar to me (you have a higher education degree, a few years of part time --...

I recently went to a couple of screening which made me really happy.

Yesterday I got several emails from various people at charge at the university stating that they are concerned about the people who are directly affected by the US ban on people from muslim-majority...

Without much ado here is a book that is changing my life:

I recently took an IELTS exam at the University of Calgary branch. During the test dates several issues bothered me. The issues concerned the physical situation of the test room, unclear instructions...

Officially, I first learned about randomized algorithms and derandomizing them in a course called Randomness in Computations, offered by John Hitchcock at University of Wyoming. It wasn't until then...

I don't think anyone who's learned anything can deny the fact that they have learned from their errors. Well, they might not know this quite clearly but they would eventually agree that it is the...

A long while is passed since the last time that I let the tea completely brew before I pour it and start drinking it while it is still close to 100°C. I did it today again. I was thinking about...

I was watching this random video on youtube (which by the way is not the best video) that I thought maybe I can do the same thing. So, I started coding in Sage. Here is a what I want to do:

I've received an email a few days ago to review a paper: > [...] > We have received the following manuscript to be considered for publication in Mathematics (http://www.mdpi.com/journal/mathematics/)...

Here I'm going to collect my attempts at installing and using spotify client on fedora 22.

www.npr.org/event/music/415506185/strand-of-oaks-tiny-desk-concert

Last year was hard. I was looking for jobs and it was stressful. I finally got an offer from a computer gaming company. I think they mostly produce gambling games. The job is alright. The pay is not...

So, here are a few things I tend to view from the perspective of my profession.

Visit http://ncase.me/polygons for an incredible presentation of mathematical sociology using simple fun games.

Incredible minimalist music for multiple pianos, by Simeon Ten Holt.

> This is the hand the student of anxiety is dealt. But he can pick only one card. The existentialist’s anxiety, the psychoanalyst’s anxiety, and the anxieties of theologians, sociologists, and...

Astounding music by Nasser Shamma. From post:

-- Listen to the whole album here.

I want to become a good mathematician, and on top of that, to have enough money to support good students to come and work with me. It's a pity that some great mathematicians can't support their...

Listen to the full album: YouTube

Ara Dinkjian - oud Tamer Pinabasi - kanun Ismail Lumanovski - clarinet

> Mathematics has a reputation for objectivity. But without real-world infinite objects upon which to base abstractions, mathematical truth becomes, to some extent, a matter of opinion. The choice...

One interesting movie. IMDB

This is one of those movies that doesn't tell you much, it lets you feel it yourself. IMDB

By Vivaldi and Piazzolla!

> Oh, it's just an(other) excuse to dress up silly, get drunk, and not go to classes!

Ali suggested this song. It's amazing:

It's been very busy here in Illinois. But away from all the moving, getting used to new things and a lot of courses that I have to teach, I had more of a culture shock when I moved from WY to IL,...

The first week of the new semester is over, and it seems like I'm settling down. Time to get back on some life and math.

I got hired at Western Illinois University as a visiting assistant professor and I'll start my job mid August.

I just read a book called "Fermat's last theorem" by Simon Singh, and I think it was awesome. I actually listened to the audio version of it. The book does not assume any prior knowledge of...

I'm defending my PhD in 13 hours.

So, the last days of living in Laramie and here are a few things happening:

Listening to Larry Adler's Reflections, while sipping on my tea and adding the last bits to my dissertation. A few more hours for today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfWRrPpva00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ybd5rbQ5rU

A gift from a good friend :)

History of Mathematics

I have to attend a conference in Utah but all the roads are closed due to snow! May 11, 2014.

Listening Shostakovich all day is not a good sign I guess.

> سایه: ... بعضی از کارهای لطفی رو طاقت ندارم بشنوم اصلاً... > مثلاً کدوم کار؟ > یه بیات اصفهان داره که تو چاووش زده و تو یکی از نوارهای چاووش هم هست، ظاهراً چاووش ۸. یه شب جایی مهمان بودیم،‌ لطفی...

The case of the missing fractals

> Shagha — May 6, 2014 > > haha! oon daste kie? :P

Zoe Keating's concert was amazing. Out of the big concerts that I have gone to during the past few years, hers exactly matched my (very high) expectations, not more, not less. She is constantly...

Zoe Keating Concert in Boulder

Shel Selverstein Where the sidewalk ends