Monday. Last Monday, over a week ago, as opposed to yesterday. It all began on the Friday right before that, when I stood on the metro on the way to school just like I did every morning. Across the metro car, there's this fellow who looks quite familiar, and I'm wondering whether he's my classmate from some class or other, but I'm not entirely sure because he looks just like any other Hungarian person. He actually looks really really Hungarian, and he's wearing the same absurd jacket with big horizontal black and graey stripes, and for all the world looks like a regular Hungarian person, except he seems to know me and comes over. I ask him how to pronounce that stop at the very end, and he pronounces it, and it sounds really really Hungarian the way he says it. By this time, I'm still not sure that he's my classmate, but I just assume he is. With some trepidation, I chatter on about classes and convince myself that he is indeed a fellow math person. It turns out that not only is he from the program, he's also in my first class that morning, and all this while I don't actually know his name. After class ends, I say something like "I'm sorry; I don't actually know your name." He responds with his name (Heisenberg Uncertainty Face) and a "you fail."

(Names might have been altered a bit to "protect" the "innocent." Much later, he would say to me, "I could tell that you had no idea who I was. At first at least." Hello, Heisenberg Uncertainty Face! I just wanted to say that I know who you are now, and I'd recognize you among all the people in the world, Hungarian or otherwise, because you are no longer just another student from the program, just like every other. You have tamed me and become my dear friend, and now you are unique in all the world.)

Back to Monday, over a week ago, as opposed to yesterday. I'm sitting on the metro on the way to school just like every morning, and I look up to see this gentleman in a pink dress shirt. He looks quite familiar, and I'm wondering whether he's one of my professors for some class or other, but I'm not entirely sure. Without a doubt he looks very much like a dignified professor of something, and he looks for all the world the spitting image of a professor, but I can't remember which, and he looks back at me with a quizzical, slightly disapproving look, as though I were a student who'd slept through his class or something. It turns out that not only is he a professor at the program, he's the professor of my first class that morning, the same class I'd slept through the Friday before. Despite all the time I've been in his class, I don't actually know his name, and it's not until I need to email him homework that I learn his name.

So there I am, one class period later, settled in the back of my Abstract Algebra class with an ice cream cone and doodling away in my notebook because so many hours of math a week is a touch trying. A whole bunch of them were stick figure scenes from Fingertips, by They Might Be Giants. Heisenberg was looking over at the doodlings, but he hadn't heard it before, and so they just looked random. Anyways, Heisenberg asks me where the ice cream cone came from, and I was about to point down the street and say "that way!" But I didn't actually know which street I was pointing at, so I floundered a bit and tried to describe the ice cream place relative to school and the metro station. In the end, I just offered to show it to him during break. Halfway through each class, there is a breaktime, and it's always a good time to go a block over and buy a sweet pastry or an ice cream cone. Come break time, Heisenberg Uncertainty Face didn't want ice cream, so I said fine then. How about bread? And we wound up at the bakery.

It is well nigh impossible to have an Asian fight in Hungarian, especially for one who does not know Hungarian. As we exit the bakery, Heisenberg says to me, "you're weird." Just like that, as though it were a factual statement and the most obvious thing in the world. It probably is. But given that he'd spent the better part of the way there trying to convince me his name was Niels Bohr, and that he was actually Heisenberg's twin, and that there is no uninteresting number, I felt obliged to contest this (most accurate) observation. "But," he added as we sat back down, "you'll never get me to say 'awesomesauce.'" I told him that he had no chance to survive; make his time. He pondered for a moment, and then asked, "someone set us up the bomb?" And I was startled that he'd recognized that. Either way, for the rest of class, I got the vaguest feelings that every now and then, someone somewhere was snickering at me.

Another class period later, I was failing to pay attention in Classical Algebra, and working on my Combinatorics homework instead, and getting frustrated to high infinity, and Heisenberg was doing the same thing. As some point, I got super-frustrated and quit. Not forever, just for then, and put the problem aside to come back to later. Heisenberg was also getting super-frustrated right around then, except his quitting was a lot more dramatic than mine. He torn the page out of his notebook, and we spent the rest of class folding stars and boats, and covering my notebook with some combination of The Scream and American Gothic and Guernica and The Persistence of Memory, and poking paper icebergs through the bottom of the paper boat.

Tuesday afternoon. I was attending my first class of History of Modern Science. I'd missed the first class to meet with the American Embassy, and found that we were supposed to brainstorm paper ideas. Teacher suggest I take breaktime to see if I could put together a few ideas, and if it wasn't enough time, I could do it for next week. After break, we sat around and discussed our brainstorm ideas. One girl suggested Charles Darwin and his impact on modern science. Seized with a sudden curiosity, I asked her what schools in Europe taught about the subject, whether they taught evolution, or whether they had to tack disclaimers on it, and whether they were required to present opposing viewpoints, and was there controversy? The answer surprised me. Referring to creationism, another girl answered that it was just an idea, and there is no evidence for it, so why would it appear in schools? The schools she went to simply taught evolution, and that was that. Even though I am fortunate to have never gone to a school that minced around with it, I am aware of the controversy in the States, and I looked upon this European system with a bit of awe. As a country, especially one that considers itself to be a world leader in learning and human rights, we have a bit of catching up to do.

Thursday morning, at some random hour sometime before the crack of dawn, homework. There's something absolutely impossible about doing homework anything more than 12 hours before it's due, and anyways it always gets (more or less) done, and life tends to work out ok. After class on Thursday, I'm about ready to go home when. . . .

Heisenberg: Are you going to see the movie?
wobster109: What movie?
Heisenberg: The Paul Erdos movie.

Well that certainly did it. I had been prepared to be "too busy" for any movie in the world with a handful of ill-defined exceptions; this was one of them. When I grow up I want to be Paul Erdos, except I'm not fond of number theory at all. But I checked the schedule, and sure enough, the program was showing N Is a Number! The first thing to do, of course, was to jump around in excitement, squealing.

The second thing to do was figure out where this thing is, and get there. In this case, it was by following Heisenberg-Face, who seemed to know the way. It was spectacular! Everything they say about him, all those outlandish stories about the odd things he said and did, they're all true. Not only are they true, there's video footage of it all, and video footage of Erdos imitating his fellow professors and explaining games against the Supreme Fascist and introducing himself as a really old fellow. It's remarkable! I was inspired to do Number Theory. But not by Erdos though. It was because I had homework due the next day.

To get home from school, I take the red metro line for six stops, and then the 61 tram for another nine stops. Heisenberg takes the same line for some three stops, and the movie was shown somewhere in the neighborhood of the second stop from school. And I'm not even sure what got into me, and what I said was feel free to come over, I'll feed you if you teach me number theory. Or something to that effect.

wobster109: What would you like to eat?
Heisenberg: Human babies.
wobster109: . . . no.
Heisenberg: Actually, I'm a vegetarian.
wobster109 (skeptical): I don't believe you.
Heisenberg: I'm actually vegan.
wobster109: I don't believe a word you say.
Heisenberg: I'll actually eat anything.

I tried very hard to extract a straight answer from him, but all I got was that since the different eating habits he claimed to have covered everything, then at least one of the answers was honest. In the end, I just picked something and made plans to visit Match for more tej.

So we're getting off the red line metro, and Heisenberg mentions that there's a mall right around there. I say that I'll come back on Saturday and find it, but he says how about we just go there now. And then he says, there's a pet store downstairs. At least, there used to be when he was in elementary school. I'm starting to wonder whether he really is Hungarian, but I remember that he's actually from Little Canadia, but he does seem to know his way around, on top of giving off the impression of knowing Hungarian, meanwhile, he's stubbornly maintaining his story about spending a year in XiangGang and learning Hungarian there, or something, and there's a Match downstairs, exactly as he'd said. I'm confused to no end, and resolved to treat his statements with no more than random chance of being factually correct. Now, we're walking back from the 61 tram stop, and I stop to pet a random passerby's fluffy Hungarian dog.

And Heisenberg has a fluent conversation with this passerby in fluent Hungarian wtfrac.

(Now, I know that he's actually a Hungarian citizen who grew up right in this city, but I didn't always know that.)

How do you feed someone who won't even tell you what he likes to eat? A solution would be to make white rice, which is plain and doesn't taste like anything, and goes well enough with just about anything. So I did that, scrambled some eggs with anything I could find in the fridge, and boiled a radishes and potatoes in some combination of water and milk. And then, Heisenberg looks over my shoulder, and. . . .

Heisenberg: Are you going to wash the rice?
wobster109: No, I'm not washing the rice. Do you want me to wash the rice?
Heisenberg: No! Don't wash it.
wobster109: Fine then.

Then, a couple minutes later:

Heisenberg: You really aren't washing the rice?!
wobster109 (picking up the pot of rice): Do you want me to wash the rice? If you want me to, I'll wash it.
Heisenberg: No! I don't want you to wash it!
wobster109: . . . ok.

Then, a little while later:

Heisenberg: You're putting soysauce in the milk?!!
wobster109: Yes, I am. What?
Heisenberg: Those don't go together. . . and you didn't wash the rice!
wobster109: I don't wash my rice. And I asked you if you wanted me to!
Heisenberg: It doesn't matter to me! But I've always washed my rice!

And then, awhiles later yet:

wobster109: This is dishwashing detergent, isn't it?
Heisenberg: Yes. . . you're using that in the dishwasher? Isn't that. . . for the sink?
wobster109: It's close enough.
Heisenberg: And you didn't wash the rice. You're really unconventional.
wobster109: Well if you'd wanted me to wash the rice, I could've washed it!

And two days later:

Heisenberg: Did you wash the noodles?
wobster109: wtf

And a few days later, I don't even know what we were talking about before:

wobster109: . . . does it really not bother you, or is it like you don't mind your rice not being washed?
Heisenberg: Well it tasted the same. But I've always had my rice washed!
wobster109: Well I don't wash my rice!
Heisenberg: But I like the to wash rice. I like how it feels.
wobster109: I hate to wash rice. I hate how some of it always escapes down the drain.
Heisenberg: Oh.

And on and on, ad infinitum. But let's backtrack to right after dinner, when I brought out the two little cube-cakes. One of these, I said, I'd tasted before, but I wouldn't tell him which, until he just chose one at random. He was putting together a playlist on my Grooveshark account. I had played a number of songs during dinner, and he hadn't liked a single one, and I wasn't liking any of his. I was having this growing suspicion that the intersection of songs we both like was null, when suddenly the opening to my favorite Chinese pop song starts floating out of my computer.

My first thought was that I was hearing things. And then, I thought he'd gone into my iTunes and played a random song. But that couldn't be. This was my favorite song from a CD of 40 songs, and I didn't even know the title or artist. It's listed as "Track 17" by "Unknown Artist" in my database, and yet here it was, found on Grooveshark, with the title and the singer's name and everything. He says it's his favorite song by that author, whose name I've forgotten.

Surreal.

Awhiles later: "I should do math, but I don't want to. I want to play RBO." Another couple of hours later: "I should do math, but I don't want to. I want to play Stepmania." This was maybe half an hour before the trams shut down for the night. I told Heisenberg he was welcome to stay the night. And suddenly, it was some obscure hour of the middle of the night, and time to do math, and number theory is the bane of my existence, and I'm starting to get the feeling that Heisenberg is much better at math than I had heretofore suspected. As of the time that I was floundering with my number theory fail, he'd already solved all but one of the problems. We worked on this problem first, and I had no idea what was going on, and out of all my classes, this will probably be the hardest. In the end, Heisenberg pulled a brilliant and figured out the super-hard problem, and I could barely follow what he'd done, let alone come up with it independently. And then he watched while I fouled up the other problem, and if he hadn't insisted that I was close to the answer, and to use the simple identities, I would never have known if I was even on the right track. I feel roughly the equivalent of someone doing algebra without knowing AM-GM. Thus, the sun rose on a Friday morning.

Friday, I LaTeXed up solutions and emailed them in. For the first time, I went to Theory of Computing. The class didn't start until the second week, so the first class was not until Friday. I had been prepared for the class to not happen at all due to not enough people; I had been prepared to take my five math classes and language and history. I loved Theory of Computing, and suddenly I wanted it to happen as a class, and I adored it, and it was the most fun I've had in a math class since school started. I hadn't anticipated having trouble with the five math class limit, but there it was. There is a $350 penalty imposed on each additional math class after the first five. To take this penalty and this class, or not? Maybe to drop something else? This would bring me up to eight classes. Is it even reasonable to do two courseloads' worth of courses?

To be continued. . . .

Classes!

Conjecture and Proof: This was the first class I went to, and it seems like a good all-around general problem-solving class. It's like Mathematical Problem Solving, only a bit more advanced, so I'm definitely going to start out here. One always plans to drop down a level if this gets too hard, just one doesn't usually realize something is too hard until it's too late. Also, I met the professor on the metro one day! I didn't entirely recognize him, just looked at him funny like he resembled my professor or something. He looked at me with a vaguely disapproving face, like he recognized me as the one who slept through class. Sigh.

Differential Geometry: These are presented in the order that I first attended them. It's a good class, and logical, just not terribly memorable. I can hardly remember what happened, just that we went over the basic something something and went over a few possible definitions of curves.

Classical Algebra: The professor has a wry sense of humor, and a comb-over to rival Professor Eisenstat. It's kind of shoring up my prerequisite lackings in all the other classes. Except last class, I was working on something else and got super-frustrated and lost it a bit, and spent the rest of class folding origami things.

Algebraic Number Theory: I don't know what it is about this class. It is simply dry. Something about it is not terribly exciting, and I went to two of these, and both were desperate battles to stay awake. Also, it's the only group of classes (out of seven or so groups) where both classes are first thing in the morning.

Topology: Well presented, but a lot of it looks familiar, and it's kind of hard to stay awake in this one.

Combinatorics 2A: I've only been to one of these, and it was about hypergraphs. It was my favorite class thus far at the time I was shopping it. It managed to be entertaining, and that's kind of hard for a math class.

Combinatorics 2B: This one is very good also. The professor is prone to theatrics, and when he explains something, he talks super-quickly so that all the words become one jumbo phoneme-stream of words. It will be covering some of hypergraphs too, I think.

Intermediate Hungarian Language: There is no way in the world that I'm actually ready for this. It's designed for the people who went to the language program, and it was a 3-week 80-hour program. I thought, well, 80 hours isn't such a big deal. But then, I realized that the course is 3 hours a week for 14 weeks, and that's only 42 hours. I didn't know anything, and I didn't understand anything, and it was super-hard. But the newb level I wanted to take conflicted with something else.

Topics in Geometry: It seems like the first part of it is about isometries and linear algebra or something like that, and it keeps referring to groups. Still, it's neither exceptionally interesting nor exceptionally uninteresting.

Analytic Number Theory: This is the most confusing thing ever. The class is interesting, and the professor is interesting, but it's still the most confusing thing ever. It seems to be using all those Olympiad number theory things that I should have learned but didn't. The professor told us that he didn't drink coffee for a great many years, and then he started drinking coffee. This was in response to the allegation that a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems, and I personally believe that a programmer is a machine for turning Red Bull into programs. But anyways. He said that he now drinks coffee. . . but since he's drunk coffee, he has less theorems. Frightening. He amended the claim to say that sugar, not coffee, is the stuff of theorems.

Introduction to Abstract Algebra: Groups and rings. It had to happen. Nothing else in the world makes any since without some understanding of abstract algebra. Kind of a nondescript, tolerable class that had to happen sooner or later.

History of Modern Science: I adore this! And then I feel guilty that I am approaching this the same way one would approach Bible studies, or something. But still! The study of the foundation of knowledge as we know it! Also, I'm the only math program student in the class. I guess math people aren't generally interested in the history of science as we know it. They're missing out.

---                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Most likely I'm going to take Abstract Algebra, Topics in Geometry, Analytic Number Theory, Combinatorics 2B, Conjecture and Proof, Intermediate Hungarian, and History of Modern Science. It works out perfectly: something in algebra, geometry, number theory, and combinatorics, and then something about problem solving in general, a language, and a history. It's all around perfect. In case anyone is counting, yes, that is 7 classes. Dean Harwood would be appalled, but he's not here to stop me, so. . . .

I've found an ice cream stand, a dessert shop, and a handful of bakeries. Life is good. Also, last week someone described to me where to find a huge shopping center, the Tesco, which is something like a Wal-mart. I went on a quest for it and actually found it! Then, I went on a huge quest to find an adapter. I wandered around the mall looking for electronics stores, and whenever I found one, I walked into it and talked at the people. The second or third one I went to, the gentlemen didn't actually speak English, so we proceeded to play pictionary until they understood that I was looking for an adapter. It actually worked! Life works out in the end ^^

I also found the American Embassy. That was a challenge. It's three different public transits from my flat, and two different public transits from school. It's on this obscure street in the back, surrounded by a maze of construction, and they didn't like my signature, and that took awhile. Then, when I got out at that metro station, the Arany Janos or something, I tried to buy a bottle of water. . . it was carbonated. Not sweet or anything, just plain water, but carbonated. Icky! Whoever drinks stuff like that anyways?

One unfortunate thing is Theory of Computing, which might not be happening because of not enough interest. Also, I am loathe to take Complex Analysis, but it probably will happen come senior year, so I'd better make sure it doesn't conflict with 323.

Every dean whose opinion is relevant will be so displeased with me. Ah well.

It looks like time for class. Two problem sets due tomorrow, and I've only got negligible progress on either. Not even two weeks in, and I'm behind, lol.

Next quest: Figure out how to send mail from another country!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

This is actually Monday, but it's a bit after midnight. Today was the first day of classes, but more on that later.

When Emmy said she wanted to move out, I said something along the lines of, I'm fine with that. I was fine with her moving out, under the assumption that it wouldn't make my rent twice as expensive or anything. But today, she said that I would probably be expected to pay rent for the whole apartment, not just for one person. If her moving out makes my rent twice as expensive, I'm not actually fine with that. Who in the world would interpret fine with someone moving out as fine with any foreseeable consequence? That's like saying, I'm going to the store, and I say, ok, but that's implicitly also fine for wrecking the car on the way there or something. It isn't. I'm not made of money, and I am not paying twice as much for rent because she wants to move out, and I am prepared to impose my will upon her and refuse to pay full apartment, or at least, I am prepared to refuse her will imposed upon me if it would force me to pay full apartment.

I am really getting a bit annoyed. She likes to go out touring and travel with someone, but that means that if she doesn't like to travel in the dark, I have to go too, and there's no real way I can say, no, I want to stay, because she doesn't travel alone, and I'd be forcing her to stay, and she's reasonable in not wanting to travel after dark. But I don't mind, and I'd rather stay a bit longer. And I want to stop and pick up pastries when I choose, and I don't care if I look like a lost foreigner, and I'm tired of this let's not do anything until we know what we're doing business. I'm not afraid of looking like a lost foreigner, but I don't want to turn around and go right back for fear of looking lost; I'd rather stop and look around in puzzlement and ponder out which way next. And I can't walk the streets at random because she says we'll get lost and she thinks it looks sketchy, but that's what I like most, and not doing that for me is something akin to not going touring to her, but she doesn't like to travel alone. But I like to walk around alone, and I'm going to do it eventually, and I'm not going to go home when we've seen the statues for the day, and I'm not going to look at a map and figure out where the statues are. I'm going to walk around by myself and go wherever I feel like, and if I get lost, I'll figure out how to get back, or I'll random number the intersections, and maybe I'll do that anyways. And I'm not going to be all hesitant about buying groceries either, for fear of getting the wrong thing or not weighing the vegetables correctly or looking like a lost foreigner. Project to infinity. I am getting really annoyed. It's like she doesn't even realize that she's imposing her will, or maybe I'm just a wuss who can't say no. Everything is always presented in a way that would be appealing to any sane person, and I'd seem like the unreasonable one if I said no. Project to infinity. Most likely she's normal, and I'm atypical, and she's probably used to the people around her being normal rather than atypical.

I need to go to sleep, or I shall have a hard time waking up. I think my first class is a couple hours earlier than hers, so I can go to campus by myself this time and pick up a pastry on the way there without any resistance.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Still no internet. There is nothing to do on Sundays except play with the internet, and possibly ride the public transit around to nowhere. Match is open on Sundays. I went there this morning, and didn't know that I'm supposed to weigh the bag of tomatoes myself before taking it to checkout, and the poor lady at the checkout counter had to signal weighing a bag of tomatoes and getting a sticker price tag in Charades. It got through on the third try, and then I understood what was to be done, and I was able to see the weighing thing this time because I was expecting it.

I finally got to pet a fluffy Hungarian kitteh! They are huge, fluffy creatures, longhaired and grumpy-faced. They usually run away when they see me, but this one warmed up to me eventually. It (he? she?) sticks its head into the air to be pet, just like every other cat I've petted, and purrs just like any other happy cat, except it's maybe twice as big in volume.

Emmy likes to drink vitamin-water, which is some kind of orange-colored ick that's fortified with a whole bunch of vitamins, or something? And it certainly tastes like it. It tastes like liquid vitamin tablets, the chewable kind that comes in funny colors shaped like Flintstone characters. Well, I picked up a 2-liter bottle of some unhealthy high-fructose corn syrup drink, and resolved to never drink vitamin ick again. And I found potatoes and tomatoes and radishes, so at some point in time, there will be a massive boiling of stuff in milk, and it will make some kind of broth.

I'm not settling in here until there is internet. The program specifies that apartments ought to have wireless, but I'd be happy just with ethernet, but neither one works. If there is no internet by next Thursday, then come Friday, I'll ask for an apartment change.

There is nothing to do on Sundays without internet, and I've gone through all the games on my computer, and I'm so bored that I've taken to studying out of my math book until it puts me to sleep, and then studying out of my LSAT book, which doesn't put me to sleep. It's just math that puts me to sleep, and then I start to feel like I'd rather do anything else rather than read any more out of the math book, and it just feels like there's some kind of resistance in my brain that absolutely does not want to read any more of it, and anything else I read does not sink in unless I force it in, and when I try to force it in, it makes me sleepy. Not even the LSAT book is like that, that's actually kind of interesting, and just since last night, I've gotten maybe a quarter of the way through it. But math books are terrible. And so are physics books and engineering books. Chemistry books aren't so bad, and biology books are good and interesting, and history books are good and interesting.

This bodes ill for a semester of mathematics. It's something like running, isn't it? It's the most miserable thing ever, but you tell your legs to keep going, and the legs keep going, and eventually one arrives at point B. Or climbing 5000 feet up a mountain, where eventually one arrives at the top. So I'm sitting there looking at this math book, and feeling something like a magnet repelling a same-charged magnet, and telling myself, you want to be as awesome as DBR, don't you? Well go do it then. But it never works that way, because I can tell my legs to keep going up to a certain point, and I can tell my mind to keep studying up to a certain point, but my mind refuses out of spite, and this does not bode well.

I don't want to go back to studying. I've been studying ever since I woke up and ate breakfast and ran out of things to play with. I don't want to go back to studying. I wish school would hurry up and start, so maybe I could get into the computer lab and steal more internet, or maybe even have legitimate access to the internet. This isn't even making sense anymore, but I'm not even sleepy. It's the middle of the day. I'm going to go ride the public transit around and see what happens.

Evening, the same day: Emmy and I went out to Moszkva and then to the castle. In a few days, she will move out in search of a new apartment with a new roommate, because we aren't all that compatible with what we want to do. She likes to go touring, and she wants to go with other people, and she isn't too fond of going by herself. I'm not so fond of going with someone else at all times, and I'd rather do whatever I feel like in the moment. This is not to say that I hate going places with people or anything, just if it happens, it happens, and I don't really ever plan to have others with me. If it happens, it happens, and if I want to leave the group and wander about by myself, that happens too. Just, this results in very different ways we like to spend our free time.

Anyways, we visited the castle, and it smelled of doughnuts and coffee. My fingernails are getting too long to type comfortably. I tried to cook potatoes, but they stuck to the pan. I didn't even know potatoes could stick to the pan, but they can and they do.

Classes start tomorrow! I don't know what I want to take, or which classes to go to tomorrow. If I had internet, I could just look online and see the schedule, but I don't have internet. I do have a list of classes though, so here's what I'm thinking of taking.

Classical Algebra - This is complementary, three weeks, and doesn't count towards the courseload. Unless it conflicts with something else, I will be taking it.

Mathematical Problem Solving - This sounds awesome, and it covers a bit of everything!
Theory of Computing - This is probably usable as a compsci elective, I think.
Number Theory Something - There are so many Number Theory classes! And they all look either intro AoPS or unpleasant. I'm not likely to take one of the two intro classes, even though there is stuff I don't know in each. Most of it looks familiar. As of now, Analytic Number Theory looks more likely, but that might just be because it's better explained on the course outline handouts.
Differential Geometry - Looks like the least pleasant thing ever, but probably necessary.
Graph Theory or Set Theory or Topology - Something in this nature. This is stuff I've always heard about but never got around to learning. Differential Geometry covers a bit of Topology, so I'll probably choose between Graph Theory and Set Theory. And the last thing I want to do is use too many classes here shoring up my past semesters of Analysis fail, so I'm leaning towards Graph Theory because Set Theory looks more familiar.

Hungarian Language Something - I'll probably shop all three levels, although I can probably rule out intermediate fast track.
History of Modern Science - This must be the most awesome thing ever. It looks like kind of history and philosophy. . . about science! And the scientific method, and knowledge! This has to be the most awesome thing ever.
Holocaust and Memory - This looks quite unsettling, therefore take-worthy.

Other things I'd like to take, but probably won't, include Abstract Algebra and Combinatorics. Abstract Algebra because I'd like to do that back at Yale, and Combinatorics because the intro ones look like intro AoPS, and the more advanced ones look less necessary than the other ones I've listed. Also, Old and New World Political Philosophy, because many of the texts I already have, and have studied in freshman year DS, and I have no way of getting the texts without buying new ones because they are packed in a box in my personal library at Yale.

The program permits us to take five math classes, not counting Classical Algebra, and as many non-math classes as desired. So I'll probably take Mathematical Problem Solving, Theory of Computing, Number Theory, Differential Geometry, and probably Graph Theory. As to the non-math classes, I'll take as many as I can fit into my schedule. This would be so much more pleasant with internet, so I could look up which classes were when.

Friday, September 3, 2010

All of today, not a single thing went right. About half of everything was okay yesterday, and everything was wrong today all day from morning til night.

Yesterday, the gentleman picked me up at the airport. Crossing the Atlantic took forever and ever, and the plane flew over New Haven and Boston, but I was sitting on the left and the cities were to the right of the plane and the sun was in my face and everything was itteh-bitteh, so I couldn't actually recognize anything. The night was super-short, only a few hours long since we were flying towards the sunrise, but it was gorgeous. The Big Dipper (I think that was it? It looked like a dipper!) was right outside my window, and the clouds all the way below, it looked every bit the picture book dreamland, with the bright airplane wing light and the dimmer glimmer of stars. And then, to Germany, where the security guards at the airport chemically analyzed my violin. Then, Budapest. I asked him how far the apartment was from campus, and he said 20 minutes. Ok, 20 minutes, that's not so far. . . but then I asked him whether that was by foot or by car. He said it was by public transit. 20 minutes by public transit isn't terrible, but it's pretty definitively beyond walking range. As we're driving, I see something that looks like a fluffy dog, but it's actually the biggest cat I have ever seen, huge and longhaired and fluffy.

We get to the apartment, meet my roommate Emmy, and the gentleman pulls out a map to show me where is campus on the map. So he circles it and points out the nearest metro station, and then he points to the red line metro that goes to the line 61 bus that goes. . . off the edge of the map. We are off the edge of the map! That is never in the world ever a good sign. And the ethernet modem doesn't function. And the stove doesn't light itself! One has to strike a match, hold down the gas, and the actually light the stove with the match, and the bathroom has a clothes line in it. I guess there will be no doing massive loads of laundry ever month-and-a-half, and one must behave like a civil person and do reasonable-sized laundry loads over here.

The first thing I do is fiddle with my 4-key keyring and find out which key goes where. Then, because we only have one match left, Nicole shows me the grocery store where we buy matches; the store is called Match. We buy a carton of eggs and a packet of cookies, and then we're standing in front of a shelf of white powdery things trying to figure out if it's salt or something else, and in the end we conclude that it's salt, or so we hope. Then, we're standing confusedly before a shelf of cartons wondering if it's cream or milk or what, and in the end, we just pick up something labeled tej and hope that it's milk. But we can't find any matches. At the counter, I'm trying to ask for matches, but the lady behind the counter doesn't speak English, and I'm trying to signal a match in hand signs, but how does one pantomime a match anyways? Emmy knows the word for match, gyufa I think, but the lady doesn't actually understand her, so she writes it down, and then the lady laughs and gets it and reaches into the drawer and shows us a box of matches, and we nod enthusiastically. And after all that, it turns out to be 12 forints, which is something like 5 cents. So we light the stove, and I put a pan on the stove and drip in a few drops of oil and open the fridge for an egg. But I open the door a bit too quickly, and the tej, which I'd put on the inside of the door, comes tumbling out. I yelp and put it back in, somewhere it won't fall out this time, and retrieve a two eggs. I crack in the eggs. Crack! The egg flares up at me, because apparently the pan heats up faster than I'm used to, and the yolk is bright orange. Not yellow-orange, or macaroni-and-cheese, or any of those yellow shades, but actually bright, orange-juice orange. Needless to say, I burned them and got the burned stuff stuck to the pan, and for all that color, it tastes just like a regular egg, so that I couldn't even tell the difference at all.

Afterwards, Emmy takes me on bus 61 to Moszkva to buy a public transit month pass, and then we take the red line to campus, and somewhere along the way, we get this uneasy feeling that it's a bit more than 20 minutes. Then we get back, and the internet still isn't working, and Emmy just says she's going to take a shower. A few minutes later, she comes back out and says, "you know when you turn the water off and turn it on right away. . . ?" And it's usually still hot. Well, she'd turned it back on, and a poof of flame had come out of the box on the wall. The water is heated by a real flame-in-a-box, which is actually pretty interesting. I've never seen such a thing before.

Emmy reminds me that we need to get up early for orientation, and we go to bed. I set the alarm and sit in bed reading a math book, or trying to. I ask myself why A implies B, and I think, because A is defined thus, and has these properties. . . but then, I begin to fall asleep, and a minute later, my brain is telling me that A needs to battle it out with his school or something silly like that, as if A were a person instead of a property of a number. Then, I wake up a little bit and realize I messed up, and I try again, but I can't get to the end of the statement because it turns into stories again, and after awhile I just quit and go to sleep with my window shutters closed all the way, and I dream that I deleted my dragons and then felt bad about it.

Suddenly, my alarm rings, and it's today. I wake up, and the room is pitch black, and I think to myself, no way. It can't be time to get up; it's still dark out! But it isn't; it's just closed window shutters. And the last thing I want to do is leave my warm bed and get up, but it has to happen, so it happens, and I get ready to leave, and I open the fridge for a cup of water. But I open the door a bit too quickly, and the glass bottle of beer, which I'd put on the inside of the door, comes tumbling out. It shatters, spraying beer everywhere. Emmy helps me sop up the beer with paper towels, and we leave to catch the bus.

So it turns out that campus is actually something like 45 minutes away by public transit, not 20. I don't even think it's possible in 20, since the time on the transit alone takes about that long, and then walking to the station, and transferring, and walking from the station to campus, and waiting for the things to arrive, and everything, it turns out to take quite awhile. There was a bum with a violin in the metro station, and he was actually really skilled. Emmy told me that European bums are often quite skilled with their instruments. And then, orientation wasn't actually today. It's not until Monday. But we managed to find internet for the first time. There were a bunch of computer lab computers, and I just unplugged the ethernet cable from one of them and put it into my computer, and it worked! Afterwards, we're about ready to just get breakfast at Burger King and go back to the flat and sleep a bit.

As we're getting up to leave Burger King, I pick up everything I see around my chair, and we leave. It is only a few minutes later that I realize my purse isn't there. It's the strangest thing ever. It was right by my feet, and there was hardly anyone in Burger King, but somehow, the bag just isn't there even though we didn't see anyone pass by. Everything in the world I kept in that bag, and here, not even a full day in Budapest, and it gets presumably stolen in a Burger King with hardly a handful of people in it. What the fuck is with this place?

What happened thereafter is not very interesting. I walked around the streets for a bit to see if I could find anyone carrying a red purse, which I couldn't, then I went to the Burger King and checked around a few times. Meanwhile, Emmy called Ms. Anna, and she met us on campus. Ms. Anna was absolutely amazing, and she took us to the police station and filed a report for us, and I borrowed her phone and called my mother to ask her to cancel my credit card. She called the American Embassy, I borrowed a bit of money from the program until I get a new ATM card, and eventually I'll replace my passport.

We went back to the flat, and the whole place smelled like spilt beer. We mopped it up, and there were shards everywhere, and we took the little bins out of the fridge and washed those, and I cursed out the window a bit. Then, I took apart the modem, but I couldn't find anything sensible inside. I guess I was half-expecting to find a reset button or something, but it didn't happen, and eventually I just sat down on the couch and went to sleep. In the afternoon, I woke up when Ms. Anna called, and she told me to go to the landlord and cancel my ATM card. She asked if I wanted the landline number to give to my mother, and I said, not really. Earlier, I'd forgotten about the time difference and called her at 4 in the morning, and as expected, she was really furious. I said, look, I don't have time to be on the phone right now, I'm trying to deal with this, and I don't need to be sitting here listening to a lecture right now, I need to be doing stuff to deal with the issue at hand. The lecture came anyways, and eventually I just hung up. Emmy said she was probably just freaking out, and freaking out at me because I was on the phone, and that she wasn't actually mad with me, and that it would pass over eventually. I swore (on all of mathematics) that she actually was angry with me, and that when I get home, this would be the first thing I hear about, and I'd be hearing about it until the end of the world.

I went to the landlord's house and borrowed his internet, found my account number and called Bank of America at the number that the website said to call to report a credit card lost or stolen. But it was actually the number to activate a card or something, and then I tried the number to report an ATM card lost or stolen, and they redirect me all over the place and put me on hold for about 10 minutes, and then a lady picks up the phone. She tells me she'll transfer me to the Florida bank or something, and the the line beeps at me and tells me the call could not be completed, and when I call back they put me on hold for another 15 minutes, the stupid bureaucracy. But this time, I get redirected through three people, and finally the lady cancels my ATM card, and the landlord says that he's called the computer people to fix the internet, but I don't think it will be working all weekend, and I have no idea how long it will be until it works.

Then, Emmy went back to the apartment, and I went back to Moszkva to replace my public transit pass, except this time, I put anything of value into my socks. I came back, and Emmy was saying something about dinner. She put the frozen pizza into the oven, and we lit the match and turned on the gas and threw the match into the hole in the bottom of the oven. It was a roughly the size of a notecard, and there were burnt matchstick remains inside, and presumably the matches went in there. But it wouldn't light up. We burned out several matches trying, and it just wouldn't light, and Emmy called her mother, and everything. In the end, I stuck my fingers in it, and I couldn't find a single hole where the gas was coming out, just I know the gas is coming from somewhere because we can hear it coming out, and we can smell it too, just we can't tell where. Then, we tried several times to light the stove, but it kept going out. One has to push on the handle for the gas to come out, but apparently as soon as one let go, the stove would go out even though it wasn't supposed to, and in the end Emmy held down the gas for a good while after the stove lit before letting it go super-carefully, and then it was fine.

Time and Facebook have pushed our discussion off my front page, so here's my response to you. I shall be copying this to my own facebook page as well, so whenever you get a chance, we can continue on either page. Just, if you respond a month or so from now, I might have stopped checking by then, and it would be cool if you could let me know.

You say "if a woman doesn't want a child, for whatever reason, she shouldn't have sex. It's as simple as that. Anyone who engages in sexual activity must be OPEN to the possibility that a child will result; it is only natural..." I cannot believe that you are telling woman across the country how to live. It is legal for a woman to use birth control and have sex, and people can have sex when they wish, regardless of your approval or disapproval.

Compare your statement "science shows us that human life begins at conception" to the statement "science shows us that death occurs when the brain dies." At the moment of conception, the embryo does not have a brain, therefore, it isn't actually alive. We could sit here throwing definitions around, but I will say right now that I don't actually believe either statement with any certainty. Last I checked, science does not have a clear answer for when life begins, which is partly why these debates still go on. In order to make a convincing argument, it will take something more specific than "science says," or the "any sane man" argument you tried earlier.

"Talk to any young man who grew up without a father; he will tell you he knows he would have been better off with one, and that he has always yearned for one." Again, this is not relevant. I've said over and over again that the outcome has no effect on children REGARDLESS OF WHETHER gays can marry. It is legal for homosexuals to adopt children, and it will continue to be legal regardless the outcome! Meanwhile, here is a young girl who grew up with two fathers and no mother, and hear what she has to say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVa-M1ifa4U&feature=player_embedded

Even if it were related, you are comparing married couples to DIVORCED COUPLES, not homosexual couples. You are saying that kids in married households do better than kids in divorced ones, and this is obvious. Therefore, gays should not marry? What? Kids do better in married than divorced or single households, therefore, gays should not marry? How does that even follow?

"But human dignity is not scientific in any way whatsoever; and it is, whether you like it or not, a religious concept." Excuse me? You also used the word "mystical," which I interpreted as "metaphysical." Excuse me? Everything is either scientific or religious? What about literature or art or music? Those are not scientific, but they are certainly not necessarily religious. What about (in this case) politics or law? The world doesn't fall into exactly two categories of science and religion. As to human dignity, I consider that a philosophical (not scientific or religious!) question, although I find philosophy much closer to science than religion.

---

I read somewhere (in the context of mathematics) something about proofs, but it's relevant here as well. Suppose you have a statement Q that you want to prove, and you offer proof P. You are very excited to have found such an elegant proof, and just before you show it to me, you read over it again, just to proofread it. Suddenly, you discover that a very similar proof, let's say P', can be used to prove a related statement, say, Q'. The problem is that Q' is known to be false, or contradictory to Q. Here, you should be worried that there is something you've overlooked with your original proof P.

For example: your statement Q is that gays should not marry, and your proof P is that it is not natural or optimal, and not intended by god. There is a very similar statement Q', and Q' is that interracial couples should not marry, and there is a similar proof P'. P' states that different races were put on separate continents by god, and not intended to mingle, and that the resulting cultural mix would be bad for children, and that children of such couples would have a hard time socially because their family was so different. Obviously, Q' is wrong, so the proof P' must have an error somewhere. But P and P' are much the same proof. Therefore, we can't be certain that Q is valid either.

For a second, perhaps even more dire example: your proof P is that "killing in the name of righteousness is not immoral, but heroic," or something like that, and I believe your statement Q is that Christians are moral people (it wasn't explicitly stated, but I think this is what you're saying). Consider the modified statement Q' = suicide bombers are moral people (I obviously don't believe this). Why? Because of P', which is very similar to P, which states that God is good and everything God commands is good, and if my friends and neighbors turn away from God, they will be punished, and Westerners do not follow my God, and they might lead my friends and family astray, and I ought to save my friends family from eternal damnation. I am being heroic in fighting for righteousness. (Thankfully, I do not really believe this. I do not think that they are morally right in their actions, but I will point out that they themselves think they are morally right.)

This is perhaps extreme, but let's take a slightly less extreme P' and Q': doctors who perform abortions are killing people. It is heroic to kill for righteousness. Therefore, it is heroic to kill doctors who perform abortions.

I am not for a moment accusing you of believing things like this. Undoubtedly, you believe it is immoral to kill, and wouldn't dream of taking a gun to an abortion clinic. But note that your same line of reasoning could be used to justify a great variety of outlandish claims. Therefore, there is probably something unreliable in the reasoning.

Actually, the unreliable source is the religion. You are basing your arguments on beliefs derived from religion. It is just as easy for me to cite a religion with conflicting beliefs, and draw a wildly contradictory conclusion. On the contrary, a study like this one (http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html) offers specific evidence to support its conclusion. It details its method, presents the evidence collected, and evidence such as "n percent of pedophiles are homosexual" cannot be used for any statements Q outside of a narrow range focused on homosexuality and pedophilia. Meanwhile, a statement like "religion is moral" is vague enough to be able to support pretty near anything. And if a statement can support anything, then it doesn't mean much at all.

P.S. Please don't replace "religion is moral" with "Christianity is moral." Whatever reason you give for it, I will simply echo your reasoning back at you and replace "Christianity" with "Pastafarianism."

Note to everyone who's made it this far: this is not intended to mock or demean Bryan in any way. It is my response, and it appears on his wall also, and that was just because time and Facebook pushed the preexisting discussion into internet obscurity. It is no longer on my wall's front page. Since it was a discussion that involved people from different schools, I opted to post a copy here, in case some of you do not have access to Bryan's wall. Just to make sure that everyone who was in it before can still have access to it, if they so choose. That's all. None of this is meant to offend anyone.

AHHHHHHHHHH I NEED TO GO ON  A RANT

In fact, I went on a rant. . . a rant against the famed and respected author of Three Worlds Collide, perhaps better known as the famed and respected author or Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, and said rant ended up getting sent to said famed and respected author through private method on fanfiction.net because wobster109 couldn't hold her tongue (keyboard) in check. But as it the case with anything I feel quite strongly about, here is the rant. The original story can be found here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/

Dear Less Wrong,

I feel compelled to say that I was disappointed in the ending of Three Worlds Collide that was designated to be the true ending. On the one hand, there was the choice for peoples of all three civilizations to live, compromise their values (voluntarily or by force), and be mutually happy. Instead, the favored ending (as far as I understand) closed off the starline, taking with it 10 billion humans, dooming babyeater children to die slowly and painfully for eternity, and leaving superhappies to live forever with the knowledge that peoples are suffering somewhere.

I don't see the rational justification for this; in fact, it seems to undermine all the thought and doubt and questioning that the other chapters painstakingly built, resolving as though the humans were right after all. I believe that Akon acted as rationally as possible. He is the character that seems closest to pure reason. Then the Confessor's and the crew's emotions got the better of them, to say nothing of separation of powers. And what of rationality? It was thrown out the window because the most logically sound conclusion "seemed awful." What of the understanding that human culture is by no means the only or optimal culture? As cliche as it sounds, I felt I had grown as a person seeing the beliefs to which I'm accustomed so skillfully compared to the babyeater culture, which I initially found abhorrent, but could not scientifically fault. Like so many of your works, I discovered all over again that even though it is the highest premise of mine to hold my beliefs to scrutiny, I hadn't even scratched the surface. As awful as the normal ending may seem by human standards, it was objectively, rationally, the best choice that could have been made.

But then, the story takes a turn. Cooperate or defect? It decides that human culture is worth preserving at any expense.(Cooperate or defect?) It proved incapable of digesting the views of the other two species. (Cooperate or defect?) Instead, it saw it's own as preferable, preferred, and to be maintained at all costs. Cooperate or defect? Is humanity as we know it worth the suffering of two other species, along with 10 billion of our own? What is the rational choice?

Despite all the mentions of Prisoner's Dilemma that came up throughout the story, it seems humans failed to understand it as Akon did. I never before saw it in such a way before; for me, it was always a choice between being "nice" or being "mean," being honorable or being treacherous. I never before saw a case where, for lack of a better word, my "heart" said defecting was the "right" thing to do. "Do we want to live in a universe of cooperation or defection?" But it seemed the Confessor and the crew could not, or perhaps would not, understand the payoff matrix of the true Prisoner's Dilemma. And even though Akon tried so hard to prevent it, despite the importance of cooperation that was emphasized again and again, in the interaction between humans and superhappies, the humans defected first.

You presented one choice that was instinctive, heroic, obvious, natural, and emotional, and another choice that was rational. I can only ever wish that the humans of your story had based their decisions on reason rather than fear. Through a lens of rationality, every other ending can only seem more awful to me.

All this is merely my view on a story that I found remarkable, and I kind of developed strong feelings about it. I mean no offense in any way. Indeed, I am a huge fan of your works. You have the leet skills to introduce a whole way of thought to the public; it is an awe-inspiring quest; it is the glorious stuff of legend. Whether or not you read this, I thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
wobster109

AHHHHHHH I need to go on a rant. How come every post starts like this? Probably because this is where I go when I need to go on a Rant.

After everything I've put my computer through, it's finally broke. It fell onto CARPETED floor from the low height of a COFFEE TABLE, and the stupid thing cracked. And now, I will have to purchase a new screen and attempt to install it myself because IT always charges crazy, and I don't even know where IT is, and I hope I have a screwdriver. I bought it to learn to pick locks, and I haven't learned to pick locks yet! Without a computer, stuff just doesn't quite work out as well as it used to.

Give me 24 hours, and I'll probably have broken it beyond repair. Ah well. Maybe I can bring it into the lab and hook it up to one of the lab monitors. Phooey on Dell.

Ahhhhh I need to go on a rant, for the sake of posterity, should things change.

Every time I have an argument with someone over religion, it always reaches a point where I say something like, I'm incapable of believing X without evidence, and my opponent says something like, I personally feel it to be true, and then we're stuck, and neither of us can change the beliefs of the other. But I have been told that if I read the book of Mormon, and pray and ask the Mormon god if it's true, then I'll receive an answer. I've been told this time and time again, by every single Mormon with whom I've had discourse on religion. And they always seem so certain that if I follow said instructions, I'll come out of it believing in it.

Each time, my first impulse is to read the thing just to prove my opponent wrong. My second impulse is, that's no way to run an experiment. One cannot try something with one's mind closed off to a hypothesis; that would run counter to the scientific method. So sometime around 1.5 < t < 2 years ago, I first promised a dear friend that I would read it with an open mind. And now, I am in a predominantly Mormon city, in possession of a copy of that book, and it is summer. If I ever try, it might as well be now.

So here I am. Of course I believe one outcome is more likely, but I won't read it to myself in a sarcastic tone or anything like that. Also, I'm supposed to pray. I cannot honestly pray to an entity that I don't believe exists, and I'm not going to start the whole thing off by pretending I believe something that I don't. So to remain, at least technically, honest with myself, I will imagine a god-character, and imagine that I am talking with this character.

Every experiment needs a control case. I've chosen the math text Putnam and Beyond to be my control text, in that it is the most neutral thing I can find. It is fitting because it also has some kind of claim to the fundamental workings of the universe through mathematics, and it is neutral because it is purely logical and indifferent towards "spirituality" or "religion" or any of that. Therefore, it should not affect my views on the experimental case at all. After reading it, I will imagine the character of a great mathematician, and then I will hold discourse about math problems with this character.

But in many ways, it is not a perfect control. For one, I believe it to be a reliable source of information, and I know that I will find its claims valid. Books of math proofs are like that. Nor will any other scientific text be better in that sense, for I already find scientific claims and scientific evidence valid. In that sense, perhaps it is better to choose a work of fantasy, except that is bad in the opposite way. I believe fantasy works to be false beforehand, and since they don't even claim to be truthful, I cannot consider them sincerely. Another possibility that I considered was a different religious text. However, that is another experimental case, not a control at all, and I would be unable to gauge how convincing I found either one without something I found familiar as a standard of comparison. Furthermore, religious texts are mutually exclusive, and two conflicting texts are pretty likely to mutually ruin both experimental cases.

Therefore, I decided a math/science text would be optimal. I'd be able to compare my feelings on the book of Mormon to my conviction of mathematical/scientific fact, and such a text would offer no opinions or commentary of any type, outside of statement and proof. I was also considering a historical text at some point, but decided in favor of math/science because historical texts can touch on religious issues, and also present the opinions of historical figures. Also, I am not entirely certain how the human brain reacts to being presented the same stimulus repeatedly over a long period of time. The control case also serves to break apart a continuum of the same message, so that my results will be beliefs that I arrive at myself, instead of beliefs that are hammered in by repetition.

This will go on for as long as I think I might have something to gain from continuing. I can only say it will be probably more than a week and probably less than five years. Probably. If I pick up the book tomorrow and find a chapter on selling daughters and slaves as though they were farm animals, or a chapter on building a temple with acacia wood and gold and robes of a precise thread type and color, then that book and I will be through.

In some part of my mind, I see the conviction of my peers, and I begin to worry that I might really end up believing this stuff. They tell me of ardent atheists who end up baptized, and it scares me. (No scientist would ever be content with themselves if they were to refuse a test for fear of the results.) I am most frightened that by the end of it, I will no longer see the world through a lens of reason, the way I do now.

It's kind of hard to read it with all these voices tugging at me, the one saying, quit being so skeptical! You swore to keep your mind open! And the other saying, OMG was that a shift in your mind? Are you starting to believe it?

I am keeping my mind open and all that. Don't anyone try to say that I didn't try hard enough, or I was too skeptical, or anything like that. Don't anyone think that this is all just for show, to prove others wrong. I'd like that very much, the proving others wrong part. But I would not waste my time on fake tests and fake experiments.

I'm getting too sleepy to keep typing. Maybe I might update this tomorrow, or else I'll just leave it. I'm not sure what I said, but it was probably the gist of everything.

What are these traits that they use, like major/minor key, guitar/vocal properties, and influences. They generate approximations at best. And if I like songs with a certain type of melody that is memorable and aesthetically pleasing, there is apparently no way to sort for that. And if I don't really care what the lyrics say, or if I don't really care what key it's in, I can't even turn those factors off. And the predominant traits that it uses to sort, just happen to be things I don't really care about. So on average, it produces songs that I'm indifferent to, and on occasion it finds things I really like, and on occasion it finds stuff I really loathe. It's no better than random.