“The Mob was afraid of me because I was hungry”
–Gina

Sylvia Nasar
A Beautiful Mind: Genius, Madness, Reawakening

WVU’s Festival of Ideas kicked off with a lecture by Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, the biography of the mathematician John Nash.

Her talk was good—I think you could tell she was a writer—however her question and answer session was a tad bit rambling and disjointed. It seemed as if she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say as she was saying it. It was a somewhat disappointing finish to a good talk.

Her lecture was the life story of the mathematician John Nash. I would guess that she was chosen as the opening lecturer, because John Nash was born in Bluefield, West Virginia, so it seems only appropriate to kick of a West Virginia University lecture series with a talk about someone born in the state.

For those handful of people like myself who have neither seen the movie nor read the book, John Nash was a brilliant mathematician who developed debilitating schizophrenia at the age of 30, and by 90s it was assumed by most people that he was dead. What made his story so compelling, and what made Sylvia Nash want to write his story, is that he eventually overcame his mental illness, and won the Nobel Prize for his work in Game Theory on his Theory of Human Conflict and Cooperation (done prior to his illness). Although he made contributions in pure mathematics, his work in game theory influenced many different fields, such as economics, geometry, biology and political science.

She spoke little of his childhood in WV, other that to say he had eccentric amusements, but one can assume that he probably did not fit in. She also never mentions whether he returns home, so one is left to assume that after leaving the state he does not return. But I’d be pleased to be proven wrong.

Although the mathematics are beyond me, I found the description of Game Theory quite interesting. Initially it was worked as a zero sum game, but John Nash focused upon the more realistic concept, of a non-zero sum game, when there can be a gain for both sides, and also in a theory involving multiple players. This of course made Game Theory applicable to the real world, especially in his description of the equilibrium point, or the theoretical set of circumstance where everyone involved has done their best and is satisfied with the outcome. The whole idea of being able to derive logical rules about human behavior is quite fascinating, as we humans do not particularly care to see ourselves as predictable entities.

One interesting point she brought up, is that when Nash was asked why someone so logical could believe such strange and outlandish ideas, Nash replied that his schizophrenic ideas came to him the same way that his mathematical ideas did. It would have been interesting if she had further addressed this point—is there a relationship between madness and genius? I would also be curious as to whether he would have been willing to give up his genius if that would have meant a normal life.

Sylvia Nash emphasized that the story of John Nash was in fact a love story, and she discussed how Alisha remained with John throughout his illness, despite their divorce and his institutionalization, and she seemed to be saying that it was Alisha who led the way for his eventual recovery, in her believe that Bash’s only hope was to live in a community where at least a few people knew who he had been.

Although that is interesting, I don’t find the love story nearly as compelling as the questions brought up by his madness. Are madness and genius linked? Can you cure one while leaving the other? What was it that allowed John Nash to recover from his schizophrenia later in life? Yes, it is believed that the biological changes of aging have some influence, but what other components affect this? Could these biological changes be studied to determine what leads to the onset of schizophrenia and what causes it to go into remission.

All interesting points, and perhaps ones that will be address by someone else some other time.

YOU ARE RULE 8(a)!

You are Rule 8, the most laid back of all the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. While your
forefather in the Federal Rules may have been a
stickler for details and particularity, you
have clearly rebelled by being pleasant and
easy-going. Rule 8 only requires that a
plaintiff provide a short and plain statement
of a claim on which a court can grant relief.
While there is much to be lauded in your
approach, your good nature sometimes gets you
in trouble, and you often have to rely on your
good friend, Rule 56, to bail you out.

Which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

In Rock Island, Ill., the wife of a man on trial for indecent exposure testified that he was not well enough endowed for anyone to have spotted his male appendage from 35 feet away.

Amount it would cost to fill the gas tank of the average car with ink-jet printer ink:
$175,000
Farthest a frozen cricket has been spit by a human:
37 feet, 9.75 inches

BRAZIL
At a soccer match in Anama, a referee went to pull a red card out of his pocket and came out with a pair of women’s red lacy underpants instead. The ref’s wife, who was watching the match, reportedly filed for divorce immediately.

Yes, there really is a St. Odo. He is not, however, the patron saint of shape shifters.

The schedule for the 2004 Festival of Ideas is finally out:

February 24 . Sylvia Nasar
A Beautiful Mind: Genius, Madness, Reawakening
February 26 . Minnijean Brown-Trickey
Return to Little Rock
March 1 . Barry Scheck
DNA Evidence: The Innocence Project
March 22 . Leon Wynter
American Skin
April 6 . Jon Meacham
From FDR and Churchill to Bush and Blair: The Changing Face of Leadership
April 7 . Steve Squyres
To Mars and Beyond
April 20 . Ken Auletta
Who Rules the Media?

All talks will be in the Mountainlair and will begin at 7:30.

Thought it would be nice to have some good news to end the week.

As half of the crew continued working, Dan Martin, a van driver from Lancaster, watched as the barn roof was carefully placed across trusses. “When I got here Monday morning, it was a pile of debris; and look what they have now,” Martin said. “It burned Saturday, they don’t work on Sundays, and they’re going to have this finished in less than a week.”

What struck me most about the story was that it was not just the Amish community that gathered to help, but the entire community.

I was also fascinated by this quote:

“Years ago, the Amish were all farmers, and you wouldn’t have seen all these electric tools,” King said. “Now, probably half of Amish men work in construction, work as carpenters. If you’re going to be competitive with the English, you can’t show up with just a hammer and saw.”

I thought that “worldliness” was the cause of the split between the Amish and the Mennonites. It would be very interesting if these groups were converging, even just a little bit.

Slate is 88.
Kat is 40.
Kit is 34.

The original point of the exercise was to find human equivalencies for cat years, just so I could make sure I wasn’t making a mistake by refusing to let Slate have the surgery. I don’t think I am.

Find your cat’s human age equivalent.

I’ve done some work on cleaning up the family photo. You can see the results if you like.

I’m not sure what to do about the background. It’s really uneven but I’m not sure whether I should clean it up or not. otherwise, I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out. This weekend probably I’m going to print a copy to see how it turns out.

Any suggestions about further cleaning up the picture, feel free to share.

At dinner tonight (It’s late class day. We went out.) I was whining (I’m being honest, it was whining) about how tired I was when Michael and I had the following exchange:

Me: …I’m even having bad hair!
Michael: It’s not really bad hair…
Me: Right.
Michael: It’s not bad. It’s more chaotic neutral.

Jon Blake Cusack, from Holland, Michigan, told local newspapers the US practice of adding “Junior” or “II” after a boy’s name was too common.

So, when his son was born last week, he decided on the name Jon Blake Cusack 2.0, as if he were a software upgrade.

I really can not believe that he talked the mother into it.

The again, someone I used to work with swore up and down that he went to school with a Lemonjello and Orangejello, so I guess people are more than willing to give their children strange names.

Just last week I was thinking about how bothered I was by the fact that I had not had any really vivid, memorable dreams in awhile. Yes, some of my dreams are extremely creepy, but some of them are very good, and when I awaken all I want is to go back to sleep, to continue dreaming.

I was beginning to wonder whether the fact that we’d be watching so many videos was the problem, since we have gone through two complete seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine since the beginning of January. Well, Friday I had an extremely vivid dream, so I decided that my theory was kaput. (Saturday’s dream was also vivid, but extremely disjointed, so there was nothing I could salvage from it, except the feeling.)

I did discover, however, that there are other problems with watching so much TV–it makes me physically ill. Okay, you can stop laughing now, but I’m serious. I’ve noticed before that on days when we had watched a lot of ‘Buffy’ I’d have a headache before we were through. Well, Saturday and Sunday we watched the entire 6th season of Buffy. Friday I went to bed with a headache. Saturday with only two and a half episodes left, the headache was back with a vengeance (despite aspirin) and we had to turn off the TV completely because it was making my sick to my stomach. Really. For about five minutes I was serious afraid I was going to vomit, and I ended up napping for about an hour. Only then was I up to finishing watching the rest of the season.

What on earth is wrong with me? Normal people don’t get sick just watching TV!

Good grief.

At least I know now that I should definitely continue to avoid cable.

That said, however, we’re eagerly awaiting Season 3 of DS9 to arrive–this to be watched at no more than a couple of episodes at a time. It’s better that way.

Of course I’m not sure that I need more darkness right now. Since Christmas we’ve watched seasons 5 and 6 of ‘Buffy’ seasons 1 & 2 of ‘DS9’ and I have also reread ‘The Sandman Library’ as well as some of Charles de Lint’s darker books. I figure that to round things out I just need to rip through Thieves’ World again.

From a more sane perspective, perhaps I should watch the ‘Princess Bride’ and reread some Terry Pratchet–just to balance things out.

We shall see.

And to add insult to injury. It looks as if someone I know has gotten one of those e-mail harvesting viruses, which has been spoofing my e-mail address to send out viruses, as I have received several “Returned to sender addressee unknown” replies, for messages I never sent out.

This really pisses me off, as the account that is being spoofed is one that I have used for several years (since 99) and yet have managed to keep spam free. Grrr….

From a response I made to Erin:

Bovine is Cow. Ovine is Sheep. Caprine is Goat.

ADDENDUM the First:
Gina doesn’t think the sheep I found are cute.

Humph.

Just got an e-mail from my dad’s cousin, Anthony Bogdan, that his geneaology pages are back up and have been updated.

He has a very nice file with the history written out, not just names and dates, but a little something about that part of the family if he knows it. The bits on my great-grandparents are around page 39 (Adobe numbering, 31 document numbering)

Here is a bit that Anthony had sent us a couple of years ago on The Lithuanians in Baltimore, written by one of my grandmother’s brothers.

Anthony mentions the 50th wedding anniversary of my great-grandparents that was written up in the Baltimore Sun. I have a copy of the actual article, as well as pictures that I’ve scanned by never taken the time to add to my site. (Which reminds me, my dad gave me a picture of my grandfather and his siblings, taken during WWII, that I am supposed to scan and give back, but have not yet done so. Slacker.)