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College, Would You Like Fries With That?

I enjoy songwriting and have recently gotten into playing Third-Wave ska on my trombone.The basic premise of ska is to play an incredibly upbeat tune with shocking/macabre lyrics.

Here are the lyrics to a silly ska song I wrote in class. Note that I’m happy with my university experience; this song presents the point that university isn’t for everyone.

College? Would you like fries with that? by Catherine Ray

You’ll struggle through your classes, and they’ll let you out of school
Clutching a degree you’ve wasted your life to get, you fool
Up next, the corporate overlords will laugh and watch you squirm
They’ll lead you on in interviews, in the end you’ll just be spurned
Run with your tail between your legs,
maybe McDonald’s will accept your unskilled naivete.
Life has revealed its disguise
Yell, “I wish I’d Realized!”

Writing insightful term papers on the Third Reich,
you never thought you’d be one of those guys who quit their work on strike
First you paid thousands just to go to lectures and to class
All of that money and time, for 9 to 5, for a chair and a cubicle, to sit on your ass
The next 20 years consist of watching TV and arduous jobs, paying off your student loans
Working over time for mortgage, so you can pay for your worthless home
After work, go to the mirror.
Just look yourself in the eyes,
Yell. “I wish I’d realized!”

The goal of college isn’t to simply earn a scroll and a title
Get something concrete from it – a job, a pay raise, a promotion
Look back now – Clearly you’ll see, your only profit was debt and negative emotion.
Listen up, my friend. Getting some degree
won’t cement your name in most minds, surroundings, nor history
Education is awesome for your outlook on life, real life experience is the fastest way.
The assumption that education must be IRL – Get used to living in meatspace
Be an autodidact, it can’t be all that hard.
Get out your laptop, a pen and some flashcards
Learn a language, free eBooks, a chapter, or if you’re lazy, a word a day
All along there was Wikipedia, free online courses, to your dismay
It’s too late for you – unless, you’re a chrononaut
Life ain’t something you can revise.
Yell. “I wish I’d realized!”

Frodo Baggins Contacts REX Computing

Name: Frodo Baggins

Interested usecases: “Scientific Computing”

Subject: Natural Resource Mining Oppurtunity

Message:

Eredor is only safe to drill for short intervals of time due to the current draconian government of the region. Due to this, the main restraint on the flourishing of our company is the lack of rapid data turnaround which is necessary for us to meet our drilling schedules.

We require optimized hardware for data processing and image analysis.

Any initial slowdown in collection of acoustic impedance data (which must be processed into a 3D matrix) delays the beginning of analysis.

_______________________________

Hello Master Baggins,

Thank you for you interest in REX Computing. This is a very interesting area that we are actively exploring, and would be interested in working with you to capture this market. In exchange for providing evaluation systems for your use, we would be interested in access to any mithril deposits in order to work on new prototype systems requiring mithril oxide deposition techniques. In general, we believe that our product solutions would be able to accomplish your goals, and assist in reconstruction efforts in Middle Earth.

Would you have any potential connections for recruiting in your land? I’ve CC’d our Chief Scientist and ex-Rider of Rohan, who speaks fluent elvish and dwarfish.

Thanks,

Thomas Sohmers
CEO, REX Computing
http://rexcomputing.com
_______________________________

Hello Master Thomas,

Unfortunately, mithril is not found in the mines of Erebor. The production of all new mithril stopped entirely after the fall of Moria, and this precious metal has become priceless. The only way we can obtain mithril is to melt down existing heirlooms and weapons to use as mithril oxide in your new prototype systems.

Given your need for large amounts of this practically extinct and priceless metal, I propose the following: Our Fellowship is glad to partner with yours in symbiosis if you partner with our company to overthrow the draconian government of Erebor and take back the hoard of the Longbeards: the largest dwarfish treasure hoard in Middle Earth. Your reward will be the doors of Moria which are inscribed with Ithildin, an alloy that contains mithril. We have removed the aforementioned doors and they are kept in an undisclosed location.

If our arrangement is broken, you will have no source of mithril-oxide besides that of our lovely Galadriel’s Nenya. This ring is ordinarily invisible to all but other ringbearers such as myself. I will warn her of your interest and warn you that the ring is unattainable and it is unethical to consider destroying it due to its role in her people’s preservation, protection, and concealment from evil.

On a lighter note, our company partners with teams of dwarfish engineers who would be glad to assist in the research and development of systems that may rid our mining system of inefficiencies to optimize production. All elvish engineers have been called in emergency to assist in the preservation of the kingdom of Lórien, and are unavailable to work on any side-projects at this time. However, I will alert them of your interest and keep you posted on their availability.

Fondly, Frodo

Books I’ve Read

This is a recording of all the books I’ve read, categorized by month, beginning 2/12. (I have forgotten most in-text books, as I created this list starting 1/13 – using Audible’s Library.)

! = Favourite/Recommend
* = Audiobook
~ = Indicates Incompletion
# = Non-fiction

I forget in which month I read these:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes !!
Brave New World
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Holes – Sachar
Boy – Roald Dahl
BFG – Dahl
The Twits – Dahl
The Witches – Dahl
The Complete Adventures of Charlie and Mr. Willy Wonka – Dahl
Fantastic Mr. Fox – Dahl
Matilda – Dahl !
Bunnicula: Howliday Inn – Howe
The Celery Stalks at Midnight – “”
Nighty Nightmare – “”
Return to Howliday Inn – “”
Bunnicula Strikes Again – “”
Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow – “”
Goosebumps Series
Madeline
Catwings – Ursula K. Le Guin
Maximum Ride
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
The House of the Scorpion
Crispin – Avi
The Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning – Lemony Snicket
The Reptile Room – Snicket
The Wide Window – Snicket
The Miserable Mill – Snicket
The Austere Academy – “”
The Ersatz Elevator – “”
The Vile Village – “”
The Hostile Hospital – “”
The Carnivorous Carnival – “”
The Slippery Slope – “”
The Grim Grotto – “”
The Penultimate Peril – “”
The End – “”
The Hobbit
Ella Enchanted
Sophie’s Choice
Walk Two Moons
LOTR !!
Dune – Herbert!
Dune Messiah – “”
Children of Dune – “” ~
Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Shadow Series – Orson Scott Card
Redwall Series – Brian Jacques
Twilight Series
Uglies Series
The Chosen
Stargirl #1
Eragon Series – Paolini
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference – Gladwell
Outsiders
Artemis Fowl #1
Three Junes
The Tale of Despereaux
Moloka’i – Brennett
13 Reasons Why – Asther
Catcher in the Rye
His Dark Materials Series – Pullman  !
DaVinci Code – Brown
Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles – Will Clarke !
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman  ! #
The Chronicles of Narnia  !
The Particle Garden – Kane #
Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kid
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Inkheart – Cornelia Funke
Angels and Demons – Dan Brown
Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism – Klein #
Flatland !!
Finite and Infinite Games !!

02/12
* Ready Player One – Cline  !
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card  !
Hunger Games Trilogy
div grad curl and all that – schey  !#
The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan
Sea of Monsters – Riordan
Titan’s Curse – Riordan
The Battle of the Labyrinth – Riordan
The Last Olympian – Riordian

03/12
Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension – Rucker   !#
* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the night time – Haddon !!
* The Diamond Age – Stephenson
* The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Adams !
* Life, the Universe, and Everything – Adams
* The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

04/12
* Snow Crash – Stephenson !
* Reamde – Stephenson !
* Ghost in the Wires – Mitnick #
* The Elegant Universe – Greene
* The Hidden Reality – Greene
* Thinking Fast & Slow – Kahnmen #
* The Accidental Time Machine – Halderman
* The Forever War – Halderman
* The Blind Watchmaker – Dawkins
* The Magic of Reality – Dawkins  !
* The Fault in Our Stars – Green  !

05/12
* Euclid’s Window – Mlodinow #
* The Mystery of Aleph – Aczel #
* The Man Who Mistook his wife for a hat – Sacks #
* The Other Brain – Fields #
* How to Win Friends and Influence People – Carnegie  !#
* What Einstein told his Barber – Wolke #
* What EveryBODY is saying – Navarro  (Watch the feet) #
* The Information – Gleick #
* iWoz #

06/12
* Science Matters – Trefil, Hazen   !#
* The Nerdist Way – Hardwick  !#
* The Selfish Gene – Dawkins  #
* A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bryson #
* A Universe from Nothing – Krauss #
* Sync – Strogatz  !#
* Chaos – Gleick #
* Linked – Barabasi #
* Click – Brafman #
* Predictably Irrational – Ariely #
Applied Chaos Theory – Campbell  !#

07/12
* The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins #
* German Phase 1 #
* Quiet – Susan Cain #
* From Eternity to Here – Carroll  #
* Entanglement – Amir Aczel #
* Red Storm Rising – Tom Clancy
* Fouling Houdini- Alex Stone #
1984 – George Orwell   !
Animal Farm – George Orwell  !
* You Are Not So Smart – McRaney  !#
* The Grand Design – Hawking #

08/12
* Stiff – Mary Roach #
* Wired for War – Singer !#
* Absolutely Small – Fayer #
* God is Not One – Prothero  !!#
* Arguably – Christopher Hitchens
* Clear and Present Danger – Clancy
* Quicksilver – Stephenson
* King of the Vagabonds – Stephenson
* Why Evolution is True – Coyne #
* The Illiad & the Odyssey – Homer
* War and Peace – Tolstoy
* The Physics of Star Trek – Krauss
* Particle Physics – Close #
* Superconductivity – Close #
How To Survive a Robot Uprising – Wilson #

09/12
* Farenheit 451 – Bradburry !
* The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
* Altered Carbon – Morgan
* In Cold Blood – Capote
* Slaughterhouse 5 – Vonnegut
* Catch-22 – Heller
* The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Larsson
* Middlesex – Eugenides
* Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World – Weatherford #
* Unwind – Shusterman
* Looking for Alaska – Green
* An Abundance of Katherines – Green
* Chinese Philosophy – Sartwell #
* Nonsense on Stilts – Pigilucci #
* Analects of Confucius  !#
* Neuromancer – Gibson

10/12
* On the Origin of Species #
* Accidental Genius – Levy #
* The Moral Animal – Wright #
* Don’t Know Much About the Bible – Davis #
* The Holy Qur’an – Noorbox Productions
* Anne Frank’s Diary – Anne Frank  #
* The Language Instinct – Pinker #
Mechanics: Berkeley Physics Course Volume 1 – Astron.  !#

11/12
* The Signal and the Noise – Silver #
* Make Yourself Unforgettable – Carnegie  #
* Turings Cathedral – Dyson #
* Shop Class as Soulcraft – Crawford  !#

12/12
* The Magicians – Grossman !
* The Magician King – Grossman
* The Wisdom of Psychopaths – Dutton
* Fifty Shades of Grey – E L James
* Antifragile – Taleb #
* Salmon of Doubt – Douglas Adams
The Lord of the Rings – Gollum – Andy Serkis #

01/13
Quantenmechanik – von Nuemann !!#
* Will Grayson Will Grayson – Green
* Touching the Void – Simpson
* Because I Said So – Ken Jennings
* Unbearable Lightness of Being – Kundera
* Papertowns – Green
* The Graveyard Book – Gaiman
* What Einstein Didn’t Know – Wolke #
* The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Covey #
* Brain Rules – John Medina #

02/13
* The 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene #
* Warm Bodies – Isaac Marlon
* Mastery – Robert Greene  #
* The Emperor of all Maladies – Sidharta Mukherjee !#
* The Game of Thrones – George R. R. Martin
* The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern  !

3/13
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction
SF Hall of Fame
The Fortress of Solitude – Lethern
Coraline – Neil Gaiman !

04/13
* The Host – Stephanie Meyer
The Phantom Tollbooth (in Grade -2 Braille)  !
* A Reason to Believe – Diana Copland
* The Killer Wore Leather – Laura Antoniou
* Killing Floor – Lee Child
* One Shot – Lee Child
* The Hard Way – Lee Child
* Persuader – Lee Child

05/13
* Calculating God – Sawyer !!
* Bad Luck and Trouble – Lee Child
* Without Fail – Lee Child
* Illuminatus  Part I: The Eye in the Pyramid
* Illuminatus  Part II: The Golden Apple
* Salt Sugar Fat – Micheal Moss #
* Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Riggs
* Life of Pi – Martel !
* Worth Dying For – Lee Child
* Fish & Chips – Madeline Urban & Abigail Roux
* Sticks & Stones – Madeline Urban & Abigail Roux
* Divide & Conquer – Madeline Urban & Abigail Roux
* Cut & Run  – Madeline Urban & Abigail Roux
* Fair Game – Lanyon
* The Stolen Luck – Reppert
* Divergent – Roth
* Shades of Gray – Brooke McKinley
Henri, le Chat Noir – Braden (Short Picture Book)  !
The Epic of Gilgamesh #

06/13
* Insurgent – Roth
* Legend – Marie Lu
* Prodigy – Marie Lu
* Escape Velocity – Crowe & Fox
* The Art of Thinking Clearly – Dobelli #
* Turn Back Time – Radclyffe
* Hostage Moon – Suede
* The Drunkard’s Walk – Leonard Mlodinow #
* The Science of Fear – Gardner #
The Prince –  Machiavelli
(Paper) The Precision Expandable Radar Calibration Sphere (PERCS)
With Applications for Laser Imaging and Ranging

07/13
(Paper) Topological Structure of Stable Plasma Flows – Cantarella
Mathematics for Physics – Woolfson & Woolfson  !#
Logical Chess: Move by Move – Chernev #
Concepts of Modern Mathematics – Stewart !!#

08/13
(Paper) Mechanical Principles of Wheelchair Design – Winter & Hotchkiss
(Paper) Mechanical advantage in wheelchair level propulsion: Effect on physical strain and efficiency – Lucas, et al.
(Paper) Design of Mechatronic Wheelchair (Power Module) – Kakoty, et al.
(Paper) Dual-Purpose Wheelchair Mechanism Designs – Hsu, et al.

10/13
Road to Reality – Roger Penrose  !!#
Gödel, Escher, Bach – Hofstadter  !#
(Paper) Soft Robotics for Chemists – Ilievski, et al.
(Paper) Negative Absolute Temperature for Motional Degrees of Freedom – Braun

11/13
Permutation City – Greg Egan  !
Mozart and the Whale – Jerry Newport  !
(Short Story) Microcosmic God  !
(Short Story) The Cold Equations  !!

12/13
(Paper) Simultaneous localization and mapping with the AR.Drone – Dijkshoorn
Introduction to Topology – Mendelson !#
(Paper) The 3x + 1 Problem: An Overview – Jeffrey C. Lagarias  !#

01/14
Number Theory – Andrews #~
Fourier Series – Tolstov
Applied Optimal Estimation – Gelb #
On Numbers and Games – Conway #
* Love and Math – Frenkel  !#
(Paper) Integrated information theory of consciousness:
an updated account – Tononi  !#
A Mathematician’s Apology – Hardy  !#
The Singularity is Near – Kursweil #
(Paper) Subepidermal moisture predicts erythema and stage 1 pressure ulcers in nursing home residents: a pilot study – Alessi, et al.
(Paper) Introducing a new incontinence management system for nursing home residents – Alessi, et al.

02/14
* Anathem – Stephenson ~
The Man Who Knew Infinity – Robert Kanigel #
Magical Mathematics – Persi Diaconis & Ron Graham ~#
(Paper) Pressure Ulcer Prevention and Management
(Paper) Object recognition for an autonomous wheelchair
equipped with a RGB-D camera
(Paper) Lattice actions, 3-manifolds, and homology – Farb and Shalen

03/14
* The Innovator’s Dilemma – Clay Christensen #
* Seeing Voices – Oliver Sacks #
* The Moral Landscape – Sam Harris #
(Paper) Patterns of deficits in daily functioning and cognitive performance of patients with Alzheimer disease – Alessi, et al.
(Paper) Predicting caregiver burden from daily functional abilities of patients with mild dementia – Alessi, et al.
Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think – Kotler, Diamandis #

04/14:
* The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Thomas Kuhn #
The Ethical Slut – Hardy & Easton # !
(Paper) Blind Signal Separation of Similar Pitches and Instruments in a Noisy Polyphonic Domain
(Paper) Factorial Scaled Hidden Markov Model for Polyphonic Audio Representation and Source Separation
This Explains Everything – John Brockman #
(Paper) PHENIX: a comprehensive Python-based system formacromolecular structure solution -Afonine, et al.
Against Intellectual Property – Levine & Boldrin #
*Ignore Everybody:  and 39 Other Keys to Creativity – Hugh MacLeod #

05/14:

* Clockwork Rocket –  Greg Egan
Introduction to Neural Engineering for Motor Rehabilitation – Farina,  Jenson, Akay #
A Shorter Model Theory – Hodges # !
Introduction to Applied Algebraic Systems – Reilly #!
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ – Goleman #

06/14
A Field Guide to Genetic Programming #
A Combinatorial Introduction to Topology – Henle #!
Neuroprosthetics: Theory and Practice (Series on Bioengineering & Biomedical Engineering – Vol. 2) – Horch & Gurpreet #

07/14

Meditations – Marcus Aurelius #
Algebraic Topology – Hatcher #

?? Lost track

11/14

HPMOR (up to latest update, the writing is unfinished)
Tesla’s Autobiography
The Body in Pain
Tiny Beautiful Things

?? Lost track

5/14:

Worm !

6/14:

*The Martian !

(Lost Track)

11/15:
* Seveneves
(Lost Track)

1/16:

* The Canticle of Leibowitz !
* Joy in the Morning — Woodehouse
From Cardano’s Great Art to Lagrange’s Reflections
Sonya Kovalevskya’s Recollections of Childhood !!
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory !!
Sarafina and the Black Cloak !!

2/16:
* Wild !!
* Eggs, beans, and crumpets — Woodehouse
* The Boy who lost Fairyland — Valente !
* All the Birds in the Sky !
* Der Name des Windes (Die Königsmörder-Chronik 1) ~
Bloodchild and other stories — Butler
Squirrel seeks Chipmunk — Sedaris

3/16:
* Find Her !
Samedi the Deafness !!
Sonya Kovelevskya’s Mathematics — Cooke ~
Madonnas of Leningrad ~
The Bell Jar ~

4/16:
Lost track

5/16:
* The Raven Cycle: Books I, II, III, and IV !
* How to be a Normal Person — TJ Kline
* The Grimnoir Chronicles: Hard Magic, Spellbound, Warbound (these are amazing, I highly recommend them) !!
* The Dresden Files: Book I (didn’t like it)
* The Girl with all of the Gifts
* The Paper Magician Trilogy: The Paper Magician, the Glass Magician, and the Master Magician
* The Dinner — Herman Koch
* John Dies at the End — Wong

6/16:
This Book Is Full of Spiders Seriously Don’t Touch It — Wong
* American Gods — Gaiman
* The Name of the Wind — Rothfuss !
The Wise Man’s Fear — Rothfuss !
Little Orvie — Booth Tarkington
Rogues — George R. R. Martin, et. al.
Dangerous Women — George R. R. Martin, et. al ~
Seventeen — Booth Tarkington ~

7/16:
* Monster Hunter International — Corerria
* Ego is the Enemy — Holiday
* A Clash of Kings — George R. R. Martin
Un Lun Dun — Miéville ~
* In the Middle of Somewhere — Parrish
* Hidden Bodies — Kepnes
Philosophische Untersuchungen — Wittgenstein ~
* Duma Key — Stephen King

8/16:
* 1Q84 – Marukami
The Danish Girl
Far Afield !
The Fingersmith — Sarah Waters
* The Dispossesed — Ursula Le Guin
Ada, or Ador — Nabokov

9/16:

Ubik — Philip K. Dick
David Copperfield — Charles Dickens
Reread: Ethical Slut

10/16:

* The Illustrated Man — Ray Bradburry ~
The Demon Cycle: The Warded Man,
the Desert Spear,
the Daylight War,
the Skull Throne — Peter V. Brett
Sphinx —  Anne Garretta (English Translation by Emma Ramadan)

11/16:
Blood Meridian ~
* Kafka on the Shore — Murakami
Me Before You — Jojo Moyes
* The Story of my Teeth
Hyperion

12/16:
The Fall of Hyperion ~
* The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Manson

1/17:
* The Orphan Master’s Son — Adam Johnson
* A Man Called Ove — Fredik Backman  !

2/17:
* The Book of Joy — Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
* Welcome to Nightvale — Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Granor
* The Lies of Lock Lamora — Lynch ~

3/17:
* This is Where it Ends — Nijkamp !
* Stoner — John Williams

4/17:

*The Spaceship next door — Gene Doucette
*Troubled Waters — Elemental Blessings
*Royal Airs — Elemental Blessings
*Jeweled Fire — Elemental Blessings
*The Weaver
*On Basilisk Station: Honor Harrington, Book 1
*Crosstalk


Planned Reading:

Fortune Smiles — Adam Johnson
Waiting for Godot
The Question of Bruno

To Reread: Structure of Scientific Revolutions

All our wrong todays
300 arguments
Grief is a thing with Feathers
The left hand of darkness

Castle in the mist
Lucifer’s hammer
The French lieutenants wife
Pnin
The house of the spirit
The Euthanist
The Troop
Imajica
The Spire
Schild’s Ladder
Transhuman
Pattern Recognition
Pinter’s A Book of Abstract Algebra
Proofs from THE BOOK
Carter’s Visual Group Theory

Visual Complex Analysis
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy – Isaac Newton
What is Mathematics Really? – Reuben Hersh
Games of Life – Karl Sigmund
Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder (edited by) Rudy Rucker
House of Leaves – Danielewski
Maus (Graphic Novel)
I am a Strange Loop – Hofstadter