Sean's Innermost Thoughts

New Year's Update

2006-01-07T13:49:09Z

To blatantly copy Eileen....

- - - - - Degrees Awarded - - - - -

Degree : Bachelor of Arts

Confer Date : 2006-01-09

Degree Honors : Cum Laude

Plan : Mathematics Major

And this was my last semester info

Fall 2005

ECON 314 Intermed Microeconomic Theory 3.00 3.00 A 12.000

MATH 324 College Geometry 3.00 3.00 A 12.000

MATH 411 Calculus IV 3.00 3.00 A 12.000

SOC 161 Contemp China&Soc Control 4.00 4.00 A 16.000

TERM GPA : 4.000 TERM TOTALS : 13.00 13.00 52.000

CUM GPA : 3.358 CUM TOTALS : 150.00 121.00 406.320

Dean's List
Anyone who knows me pretty well can tell you that my disdain of homework alone could have made my last semester impossible to finish, let alone get straight A's. Three cheers for me!

Furthermore, today marks the 23rd revolution of the Earth around the Sun since my odyssey through the birth canal.

spkskippy @ 2005-12-17T10:56:00

2005-12-17T16:01:30Z

Oh, and thanks for everyone's concern, I didn't mean to make anyone worry. As soon as I have pictures, I'll scan them and post them up here. Here's what I said when I saw them for the first time.

"Isn't the fuse box supposed to be UNDER the hood?"

Sean

spkskippy @ 2005-12-17T10:34:00

2005-12-17T15:42:23Z

Ahhhh I might have left a little too much out in the previous post. My sister borrowed the car (the youngest one for those keeping score). She wrapped it around a tree at about 3am Wednesday morning. She went to her boyfriend's house instead of home, so they charged her with "delay in reporting and accident." I'm fine, Meg's bruised up and out of the house, but otherwise fine. I kept such good care of the car too, and Eileen made fun of me for all those times I waxed the dang'd thing. Ohh well, insurance will cover the car (read, "I'll be paying the insurance company craploads of money for the next 3 years) and things will go on as normal.

Sean

p.s. Fiend!!!!

spkskippy @ 2005-12-15T12:44:00

2005-12-15T17:44:56Z

RIP L200 "LiL Speedy" Saturn

2002 - Dec 14th, 2005

p.s. I wasn't in the car when it happened.

Sean

Oh, one more thing

2005-11-22T14:40:21Z

ALL HAIL THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!! GAZE UPON MY ENTRY, AND TREMBLE AT THE THOUGHT THAT YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THE BLOD ON MY BLOG!!!!

SEAN!!!!!

Term Paper? Oh noes!!!!

2005-11-22T14:37:04Z

Funny thing happened to me today. I was about to write in this LJ, all the while printing out my term paper for Micro Econ 314, when it wouldn't print. Turns out, it didn't have any paper left. OK, so I load the paper and it starts printing again. Great. Wait, my term paper isn't 30 pages long!!!! So I look at the print out, and suddenly I know why there was no paper in the printer to begin with. My sister had begun another print job a few days earlier, it was the FAQ to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Game. Unfreaking believable. I had put the remaining paper in the printer, so I was hoping AND PRAYING that the printout would be done with enough paper to spare for my itty-bitty term paper. It was kind of like that Price is Right game where that yodelling guy is getting closer and closer to the cliff. Thankfully, the print out was finished with 7 pages to spare (my paper was 5.) Turns out there was a little paper left somewhere else. My sister wanted to know where it was, and I was about to tell her, when I realized that may be a bad idea. Oh well, funny story, I guess.

Oh, and I am the Shadowfist God. All shadowfistians will bow down before me!!!

Oops, ego slip, but I can't wait to defend my title at URICON this year.

Sean

Did I win?

2005-05-03T13:39:28Z

Yes, I DID! I won a Panasonic Pure Flat HD ready TV with the Panasonic Home Theater system!!! Rockin!! It was the Simpsons 350th episode contest at Fox 64. If you were listening to 94 WHJY at around 7:50 yesterday, you would've heard me shouting the word "KNOCKERS" over and over and over again.

8 people had qualified for the drawing, and I was one of them (scoring some D&D certificates, and other schwag). My chances were 1//8, or 12.5% They then drew a name for the winner. IT WASN'T ME!!! D'oh! It was some other guy Kevin. BUT he had to answer a trivia question to get the prize, and it was about the 350 episode of the Simpsons. He blew it! So I breathed a sigh of relief and then wondered if I would get the call. Sure enough, my phone rang and I answered. THey said that the last guy didn't get the prize, and I replied "You know, that's so sad." Then, before they even asked the question, they said they were asking me the same question. I lost all control and shouted "KNOCKERS" twice, lest my phone get cut out at some point. They made me wait for them to ask, and I replied with the right answer. Knockers was the Simpsons version of "HOOTERS."

So, I'm in a good mood, and I'd have to run over a small puppy before I could even think about being in a bad mood.

Sean

Stupid People Suck

2005-04-12T16:38:41Z

I wonder why all of the stupid people come to RIC.

Current Mood - PISSED OFF

PS i Got a 94 on my discrete exam.
PPS RIC's cafe music sucks too.

How sweet it is!

2004-10-14T16:03:52Z

Warning! DO NOT READ IF MATHEMATICS CAUSES YOUR HEAD TO EXPLODE!!! The math isn't that bad, tough

We had a guest lecturer for class today for Probablility. His name is Dr. Ghahramani and he's the Dean of Arts and Sciences at John Hopkins. He wrote a new text book for the subject and he lectured us (along with a half of the Math/CS faculty that sat in on the lecture) on a couple of problems that have counter intuitive solutions, such as the birthday problem (in a class of 23 students, the probability of both having the same birthday is 0.507) and the "75% of all Triangles are obtuse" problem. The last problem we looked at was the Jailer's Paradox, which reads as follows.

"The jailer of a prison in which Alex, Ben, and Tim are held is the person, other than the judge, who knows which of these three prisoners is condemned to death, and which two will be freed. The prisoners know that exactly two of them will go free; they do not know which two. Alex has written a letter to is fianceé. Just in case he is not one of the two who will be freed, he wants to give the letter to a prisoner who goes free to deliver. So Alex asks the jailer to tell him the name of one of the two prisoners who will go free. The jailer refuses to give that information to Alex. To begin with, he is not allowed to tell Alex whether Alex goes free or not. Putting Alex aside, he argues that, if he reveals the name of a prisoner who will go free, then the probability of Alex dying increases from 1/3 to 1/2. He does not want to do that."

-Dr. Ghahramani, Fundamentals of Probability,, p41, 2004

Trust me, this story is going somewhere.

This problem has been debated and argued over since 1935. The most recent big hullabaloo happened in 1990 when they sent this problem to the person with the highest I.Q. recorded (I've forgotten her name). She wrote back saying that of course the probability of Alex dying stays at 1/3, regardless. She soon recieved over 2000 angry letters, 65% of which happened to come from Mathematicians.

We figured out that even if he did tell Alex the name of a prisoner that goes free, the probability of Alex dying is the same (if you really want the math behind this I can tell you about it.)

We concluded that Alex is a smart guy, at least smarter than the Jailer. However, if he gave his letter to Ben or Tim, not knowing which or both is going free, can Alex still get his message to his wife? Of COURSE HE CAN. My solution to the paradox is to give the letter to Ben. If Ben dies, then the letter to Alex's fianceé dies with him, which is fine since Alex would be alive to see his fianceé anyway! If Ben lives and Tim dies, then Alex can retrieve the letter from Ben after they get out of jail or just talk to his fianceé anyway. Last case, if Alex dies, Ben lives and gives the letter to Alex's fianceé. The same reasoning can be used to give Tim the letter.

Evidently, aside from myself, no one in the mathematics community had thought of this solution.

I raised my hand and asked the question "why doesn't he just give the letter to Ben?" Dr. Ghahramani looked at me with a tilted head, as if to say "Where have you been for the last half hour?!" He then said "Well what if Ben dies?" I replied with a sly smile "Then Alex is free to see his fianceé and the letter doesn't matter." He paused, and I heard people saying "Ohhhh" in a comprehensionary tone. Dr. Ghahramani looked down, trying to wrap is head around what I had said.

My classmates and the visiting professors (including Dr. Ghahramani) were duly impressed. I felt on top of the world. This was my shining moment. I was in my element and I rocked the mathematical Casbah. I was blushing I hope he mentions in his next edition of his textbook the solution to this problem. Remember, this is the frickin' DEAN of Arts and Sciences at John Hopkins. Well, at the end of class I had my picture taken with Dr. Ghaharamani, along with a couple of other blokes, and left for lunch. Dr. Moskol offered bonus points for asking good questions, and suffice it to say, I'm entitled to more than my fair share.

Eileen, if you could have only seen me, it was glorious.

Sean

Isn't Optimus Prime Jewish?

2004-09-28T15:14:02Z

Doug's Optimus Prime picture was sorely lacking. He was missing his yamaka (I apologize for butchering the spelling)! If you don't believe me, watch Family Guy.

ANyway, my weekend was alright with the total exception of losing my ATM card. That was weak. I had to cut my Saturday night short with Eileen in order to take care of it (which it has been). By the way, Eileen if you're reading this, would you please call me?

I went to the mall with to try out for "Wheel of Fortune," but I saw the crowd and I said to my self "weak." I can't stand huge crowds, I don't know why. Sunday I worked on homework and housework, and went to dinner with my folks to Cowesett Inn. Man their Chicken Parm rocks the Casbah.

Yesterday I did 3 hours of Physics homework. That was about as much fun as a hot acid enema. During class, we got to discussing how much the book sucked, that is, how far it went directly over our heads. Nobody understands it. I was the only one brave enough to declare that "Whenever I open the book, it makes me feel inadequate." My prof replied that it looks like I'm ready for grad school. He teaches the stuff just fine, but the book presents it in such a back-assward way that no one can get it. I mean, come on, who the hell writes the law of cosines as c^2 = a^2 + b^2 + (2ab)cos(supplement of angle btwn a and b). I mean come on!!!!!! Every sane mathemetician and physicist knows that the last term is easiest as -2abcos(angle btwn sides a and b). Sure they are the same equation, but why do they make it so hard? DO they WANT me to fail!?

So, bitching about this dumbass book aside, I'm feeling a tad under the weather lately. Oh well, it's that time of year again. Well, I have to go now, I have a food....in the oven.

Sean

Mean people bite the big one.

2004-09-23T16:18:58Z

Mean people suck. End of story. There are people out there who are mean just for the sake of being mean and some even enjoy it. I honestly hope they all rot in Hell while the denizens of the Netherworld feast upon the wretched flesh of the aforementioned mean people.

Of course, that isn't to say that I'm not having anything less than a spectacular day. I slept in a tad today (until 7am), stopped for breakfast, and managed to make it into class just in time to be there when it didn't suck the long one. I was chided by one of my classmates for being tardy, however I retorted with the fact that I only had to be there for 55 minutes while she writhed in agony for the full 75. Life can be glorious at times.

I'm going to see Eileen later on tonight, and that's going to be a hoot. Don't know what exactly we'll be doing, but hey, what the hell, ya know? Maybe we'll find some anime somewhere or something. Nothing of "The Legend of the Ogre Fiend" calibre, of course.

Abstract algebra happens in 15 minutes. Hooray, I can't wait to get home and do some laundry.

Sunday games got cancelled for D&D. That sucks, but hey, what can you do? Lots of Halloween stuff is happening anyway, so hey, it's cool.

This was a rather uninteresting post, to say the least. However, posting means I'm not dead or otherwise invalid.

3 cheers for validity!

Sean

It's Finally Happened.

2004-09-21T16:40:27Z

Peer pressure is a horrible thing. It can make otherwise perfectly sane people do the most insane things. Some classics examples of how peer pressure can cause bad decisions include:

1. Doing drugs.
2. Trying "Ass-in-the-Tub" hot sauce
3. Fighting a land war in Russia
4. Fighting a land war in Russia during RISK.
5. Starting a LiveJournal.

Yes, I've finally succumbed to the will of the people, I've started a LiveJournal, you bastards! Are you all pleased?! I've tried to put this off as long as possible, but, much like cell phones, Titanic, and clean underwear, LiveJournal will devour your immortal soul in the end. Oh well!

At any rate, Eileen went off the deep end with my friend "advancing" me his old PS2 with a copy of Disgaea. No one bought me anything, but it's just a very relaxed loan. I'm paying for it, eventually. I think Eileen is just jealous! Yes! Must protect the PreciouS2!!! Girlfriend is tricksy! Etc Etc.

So I did a bunch of gaming this weekend, and I must recommend for any yahoo who sees this blog to burn your Magic cards and start playing the CCG that doesn't suck: Shadowfist. I played liberal quantities of that game this weekend, along with Sanvein and a couple of games of ESPN NFL 2k5.

I'm currently waiting to go to Math Methods in Physics now. I don't know if I'm going to survive this class. Vector fields? Upside Down Triangles? Graphing in 3-space! This is nuts! It'll be ok though. Sometimes I follow it. Othertimes I follow the little bouncing ball inside my brain singing "I Believe in a Thing Called Love." By the way:

Top Songs Playing in my Brain

1. I believe in a thing called love
2. Soggy Bottom Boys
3. We are the Aqua Teens.
4. Soundtrack for the SNES game Earthbound

Now I must egress from this vile conglomeration of Microprocessors and various visual stimulatory assemblies in order to procure judicious quantities of liquid refreshment.

Later,

Sean