❦ I am aware that my Simon Cowell stories do not count as the “quality posts” I’ve promised.
And my thoughts seem to scatter but I think it’s about:
forgiveness.
The time goes so many places…
Chopping vegetables.
Getting blinded by blue at the gym.
Ripping my CD collection.
Writing resumes.
Having sex for money.
…dwelling on all the things I wish I had been able to say.
And lately: Java. My undergrad class is really picking up steam, as is the learning curve. This week I spent a great deal of time on a program to compute Carmichael Numbers, numbers that pass the Fermat test but are not prime.
“What is the Fermat test,” you ask? Check it:
Let a be a random number between 2 and n - 1 (being n the number whose primality we are testing). Then, n is probably prime if (a^n)mod(n) = a holds. If a number passes the Fermat test several times then it is prime with a high probability.
But some numbers that are not prime still pass the Fermat test with every number smaller than themselves. These are the aformentioned ♥Carmichael numbers♥.
Someone who has mad leet Java skillz could probably do this quite quickly but for me, it required a big chunk of my week. The upshot: I got to learn about and program neat math things like Eratosthenes Sieve, an algorithm for making a table of prime numbers.
More interesting was dealing with the issue of computing (a^n)mod(n) as (a^n) can get very large very fast and cause catastrophic overflow!! But it turns out you can deal with the mod inside the exponent. Check out this article if you’re interested. The site also has some info on how the RSA cipher works, in case you are curious.
The whole thing got me thinking that number theory might be the shizzle, and I should probably take a closer look at the number theory book John Hambone lent to me.
Reunion with Pam tomorrow!
And I always thought that I’d see you baby
One more time again.
For the lj-types:
☂Current Music: Ready for the World, “Oh Sheila”
I just had to mention that because this song is fucking rad. It comes off the freshly ripped “Billboard Hits 1985″ which also features the most excellent song “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” by John Parr, which absolutely must join the ranks in my “Beats for the Gym” playlist. Talk about an uplifting song, “St. Elmo’s Fire” has it all. I can see a new horizon underneath the blazing sky. I’m tearing up… truth.
Just once in his life
A man has his time
And my time is now
I’m coming alive
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