Letters

Dear Google,

Why is it that the newsletter from Diversity Programs in Engineering at Cornell goes to spam despite me marking it as “not spam” every single week for the past five months but an email informing me that I have won 50,000 pounds – which is 81,420 US dollars, by the way – makes it into my inbox? I guess the sender’s email address of 19378578@mail.com sounded more legitimate than @cornell.edu.

Sincerely,
No regrets for giving mlssoccer.com my email address so I could watch the Revolution on the Free Stream of the Week


Dear Minesweeper programmers,

Solve this:

Sincerely,
If I wanted 50-50 chances I would have played roulette


Dear New England Revolution,

Thank you for finally making the playoffs last season. However, in light of how last season started out, here’s a friendly reminder. On the soccer field, there are two goals. Your goal, and your opponent’s goal.

This is a soccer ball:

The ball goes into your opponent’s net.

Sincerely,
Revolution Fans Everywhere


Dear Peter Jackson,

I don’t care how sturdy dwarves are; nobody falls five hundred feet, gets up, and goes “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but last time I checked Middle Earth wasn’t No Physics Land.

Sincerely,
F = ma

Happy Valentine’s Day

In the name of nonconformity and a lot of problem sets, my Valentine’s Day greetings are officially a day late. But it’s always a good time to say

and

and finally

What Does the Fox Say? and Other Musical Conundrums

First off, to clear up any possible confusion, the fox most definitely does not say “Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding,” “Fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow,” or “A-hee-ahee ha-hee.” Foxes are animals. They do not talk. They do, however, make a variety of sounds, including high pitched barks, a type of scream/howl, and something called “gekkering.” See this site for a whole article about fox noises.

Next, if you've ever heard “Blowin’ In The Wind,” you might know that the song is absolutely filled with questions. However, to leave time to address several other songs, I’m only going to discuss the first question: “How many roads must a man walk down/Before you call him a man?” So, I thought about this, and decided that this man should probably be an expert walker. Studies have determined that it takes about 10,000 hours for a person to be an expert at something. If the average person walks 3.1 miles an hour, this man would need to walk 31,000 miles. Taking a few roads (non-interstate highways) in Ithaca as examples, road length varies from tenths of a mile to over ten miles. If a road is taken, on average, to be around 5 miles long, a man needs to walk down 6,200 roads before he can be called a man. If, however, this man wishes to walk down I-90, he only needs to walk down 9.994 roads (I-90 is 3101.77 miles long.)

Here’s one that’s right in the title: “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Since I have no idea where you’re staying or going, I do not feel qualified to answer this question.

From the pep band folder: “What is Hip?” Well, the hip is a joint that connects the femur to the pelvis. It is a ball and socket joint, which allows for a large range of motion.

And the last one, also from the pep band folder, has been mentioned before on this blog: “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” If you ask like that, the answer’s no.

Super Bowl Sunday

The big sports news of the week seems to be that the Portland Landeagles and the Salt Lake City Hippos will be playing in Supper Bowl extra large VI aye aye captain. This event appears to be happening sometime later today, to be played in the breaks between beer and car ads. It features grown men headbutting each other and fighting over a prolate spheroid.

So yes, I have a mixed relationship with football. On one hand, I’m from New England, so I’d like the Patriots to win. On the other hand, I’m from New England, so I would appreciate it if Patriots All Access didn't displace Jeopardy! to 2:37 am and if the Revolution didn't have to trample flying Elvis’ face for the final couple months of the MLS season. Contrary to popular belief, a team playing on football lines and FieldTurf in a giant empty stadium isn't what most fans enjoy seeing.

In other news, the Revolution escaped the confines of the field house where they were practicing . . . and promptly went to Florida. I don’t blame them. After days of subzero windchill in Ithaca, the temperature finally crawled over freezing, allowing it to snow and rain at the same time. The Revolution played a preseason match against Malmo FF (from Sweden), got most of their uninjured players some minutes, and ended up tying 1-1. Not a bad result, especially for preseason. [Also, Marko Perovic, who played for the Revolution in 2010 and 2011, is back training with the Revolution. A lot of fans weren't happy to see him leave, so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.]

It was an eight point weekend for the men’s and women’s hockey teams at Cornell, meaning they went undefeated against Yale and Brown (men were away, women were at home). I stayed in Ithaca and spent seven hours in Lynah with the pep band. My other option was homework that our professor informed us we probably wouldn’t be able to do yet. I found out what one of the women’s hockey players has been up to with the Canadian National Team, namely, getting ready for the Olympics. She assisted on or scored almost every single Cornell goal in the ECAC playoffs last year, so I guess she’s pretty good. . . . In this video she’s number 19, the one who gets illegally body checked to start the fight that sends twelve players to the penalty box. Good thing they made the box big enough. One final note: I’m pretty sure the song in the background is “Gonna Fly Now” from Rocky, which the pep band plays before third period of every hockey game.

Guns and Butter

For the past three years, every spring I have done intensive learning about guns and butter. Did you know that with five units of labor, you can make either five tons of guns or 40 pounds of butter? Well, now you do, and you have Case, Fair, and Oster to thank for that.

Similar to McQuarrie and Simon* of Big Red Book fame and the unparalleled Harold Jacobs**, Case, Fair, and Oster have entered my life by being hand-selected to be my textbook writers for the semester. Their first production possibilities frontier example involves an economy that produces guns and/or butter using up to five units of labor (capital is fixed). The reason I have found myself studying guns and butter for the last three years comes down to one thing: graduation requirements.

In my senior year of high school, I was finally forced to fulfill my economics requirement so I could graduate at the end of the year. I didn't have room in my schedule for a full year of AP Economics, so I took half a year of honors economics. The book we happened to use was Case and Fair’s Principles of Microeconomics. This was the edition before they were joined by Oster. Anyway, that was the first time I encountered the guns and butter.

Then last year, I was looking to start my liberal studies requirements since I had physics credit from the AP Physics C exam. I had thought economics was interesting, so I decided to take introductory microeconomics, where everything is linear and lives in some sort economic utopia. The book we used was Principles of Microeconomics by Case, Fair, and Oster. Guns and butter, take two.

This year, the only liberal studies class that wasn't 4000-level with a title like “Gender roles in Paintings on Ancient Greek Pottery Shards” and fit into my schedule was Introductory Macroeconomics. I show up to the first class, where I am informed that for the first few weeks we will be reviewing certain microeconomic principles. At the second class, we quickly review the definitions of opportunity cost and several other terms, then start working on an example production possibilities frontier featuring none other than my friends guns and butter.

By this point, I’ve started wondering about this economy that only makes guns and butter. Are they a highly antagonistic society that needs high fat foods to have the energy to fight all their enemies? Do they shoot butter during battles since they don’t seem to have any bullets? Does butter really contain all the vitamins and minerals they need? Don’t Find out next time when our two shipwreck survivors on a desert island decide how to allocate their time between picking coconuts and catching fish.

*authors of Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach
*author of Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding. Harold Jacobs is somewhat mathematically famous for his extensive use of real life examples of geometry in his textbook. When I took geometry in high school, my geometry teacher would refer to Harold by first name when she talked about particular problems. For example: “Here Harold uses the example of dividing up land to show Heron’s theorem.”