The internet is like the friend who can't tell you about a movie without giving away the ending.

Context: My advisor at Stanford told me that he would not approve my current set of courses for graduation. Using more advanced versions of accepted classes to fulfill my depth requirement was not allowed. After all, it might result in my being too deep and not broad enough by neglecting other classes from the depth requirement. Umm, isn't that why we have a breadth requirement and a separate depth requirement? Sigh. He kindly suggested some classes in his niche of the department, offered next fall, which would suffice. [Whine.Start]But I wanna graduate soooooon![/Whine]

I looked through the requirements and the time sheets and found a class that actually sounded fun. I'm not going to drop the current class which has been deemed extraneous (Computer Science and Game Theory), cuz it totally rules since it combines two of my disparate interests, and besides I've done all the work already. (Its a student-taught class, each student gives one lecture in the class, and I've already done mine, on "The complexity of computing best-response strategies"). But I've added Philosophy (don't laugh, and yes, its a computer science degree) 160B, "Computability and Logic": "Approaches to effective computation: recursive functions, register machines, and various programming styles. Proof of their equivalence, discussion of Church's Thesis. Elementary recursion theory. These techniques are used to prove Godel's Incompleteness Theorem for arithmetic, whose technical and philosophical repercussions are surveyed."

It sounds like fun, and I think its MWF 9am-ness, contrary to what you might think, will combine with my Tu-Th 9:30 class to improve my sleep. (Because getting up at a consistent time is important and I am terrible at it, having alternating morning and afternoon classes, as I did before, led to an inconsistent schedule cuz I'd sleep in on afternoon days). Anyway, back to the ostensible topic of this entry, being a late addition to this class, I was worried about catching up in time for the homework due monday. I quickly obtained and just as quickly left in faraway san fran a copy of the course notes.

So, after glancing over the on-the-web and thus unlose-able (just what Patri needs) assignment, I looked up the topics I needed on the internet. The topics being computer-sciencey, the net was full of useful info. Unfortunately [*], the basic intro to the topic of primitively recursive functions also introduced me to the answer to one of my homework problems. Oops. I noted such on the assignment, and answered the question anyway. Perhaps some day the web will be smart (and marked-up) enough that we can search for background and tell it not to tell us the answer.

BTW, in usual Patri manner, after writing lots of notes about China, I have utterly failed at making any journal entries beyond "Favorite Pictures". I feel that taking ones own irrationalities into account as rationally as one can is a crucial part of happy & succesful living, so I'll admit that I dunno if or whether there will be more on China. Y'all are probably used to that by now. If I give up, my notes are mostly on the computer anyway, so I'll just post them and leave the journal entries based thereupon as an exercise for the reader :).

*: Yes, finding this unfortunate means I'm a nerd who enjoys solving puzzles. And an honest nerd, at that. Boy is it gonna be hard to find a girlfriend. But who needs one when you have math? I am a rock, I am an island. I don't need nobody. Certainly not someone cuddly. Why, with my compass, straightedge and protractor, I can make a figure as shapely as I desire. Those tools can satisfy all my needs.

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