Notes

Short content: a microblog of status updates or short notes

I’m planning on proposing an OER or other book related session at the upcoming IndieWebCamp New Haven next weekend. If you’re interested or want to propose other ideas for or , I hope you’ll join us either in-person or remotely.

Not sure what to expect at a camp? Here are some additional details for both in-person and remote attendance.

Last night saw the wrap up of Dr. Michael Miller’s excellent Winter quarter class Introduction to Category Theory. As usual he passed out a short  survey to accept ideas for the Fall and Winter quarters this coming year at UCLA Extension.

If you didn’t get a chance to weigh in, feel free to email him directly, or respond here with your suggestions (in order of preference) and I’ll pass them along.

I keep a list of his past offerings (going back to 2006, but he’s been doing this since 1973) on my site for reference. He’s often willing to repeat courses that have been previously offered, particularly if there’s keen interest in those topics.

Some of the suggestions on last night’s list included:
combinatorics
combinatorial group theory
number theory
game theory
group theory
ring theory
field theory
Galois theory
real analysis
point set topology
differential equations
differential geometry

Feel free to vote for any of these or suggest your own topics. Keep in mind that many of the topics in the past decade have come about specifically because of lobbying on behalf of students.

📖 Read pages 31-50 of 324 of Japanese From Zero! 1 by George Trombley Jr. and Yukari Takenaka

📖 Read pages 31-50 of Japanese from Zero! 1: Proven Techniques to Learn Japanese for Students and Professionals (Volume 1) 6th Edition by George Trombley and Yukari Takenaka (From Zero!, , ISBN: 978-0976998129)

It’s been far too long since I’ve had this opened and practiced. I really need to get back to it on a regular basis.

Reviewed over pre-lesson D and Lesson 1

📖 Read pages 60-66 of 272 of The Demon in the Machine by Paul Davies

📖 Read pages 60-66 of 251 of The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Finally Solving the Mystery of Life by Paul Davies

So far there’s nothing new for me here. He’s encapsulating a lot of prior books I’ve read. (Though he’s doing an incredible job of it.) There are a handful of references that I’ll want to go take a look at though.

📖 Read pages 21-28 of 528 of Abstract and Concrete Categories: The Joy of Cats by Jirí Adámek, Horst Herrlich, George E. Strecker

📖 Read pages 21-28 of Abstract and Concrete Categories: The Joy of Cats by Jirí Adámek, Horst Herrlich, George E. Strecker​

Read while having dinner at UCLA before class. Covered categories, examples, and duality.

📖 Read pages 48-55 of 486 of Category Theory for the Sciences by David I. Spivak

📖 Read pages 48-55 of Category Theory for the Sciences by David I. Spivak.​

Section on co-products.

★★★★☆ Brief review of Ungifted by Gordon Korman​​

I think Amazon had a review that said if you’re a fan of Louis Sachar, you’ll love this book by Gordon Korman. I think that Korman has been writing great stuff for so long that it’s really more appropriate to say that if you love Gordon Korman, you’ll probably like a lot of Louis Sachar.

Like all Korman’s books, this one has a lot of heart. It wasn’t quite as laugh out loud funny as some of his other efforts, but it’s definitely got some great humor.

Typically I don’t like narratives that are told from multiple viewpoints, but Korman manages to pull it off incredibly well by starting each chapter with a title that uses an “Un-word” followed by the narrator and their IQ score. As a result we also get a much more nuanced picture of all of the characters which are incredibly well done.

As one of the “smart” kids growing up, I wish this book had been around to have read then, but it’s still great now and everyone is sure to appreciate it. While the protagonist is a boy, I really appreciated that there was lots of great female representation here.

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