Another Fake Magnet Man Scams AP

What is wrong with the Associated Press?

Just a few months ago, they were scammed by a Serb family who claimed their child was magnetic.

Now they're back again with pictures of Etibar Elchiyev, a Georgian man who claims "his body acts as a magnet".

Sad to say, my local paper, the Waterloo Region Record, fell for this scam again, publishing the AP photo in their December 15 2011 issue.

Greatest Triple Play of All Time?

Hey, the runners can't be blamed too much if they didn't realize this ball was caught.

Weirdest Request to Work With Me

I get a lot of requests from students who want to work with me - often Indian students who want to do "summer internships". But here is the weirdest one I've gotten so far:


I, A****** P*****, am a fourth year undergraduate student enrolled for the Dual Degree Course (5 year B.Tech + M.Tech) in the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the leading engineering university of the country.

I am currently in pursuit of an internship/project for a period of 8 weeks during May 2010 to July 2010, which would be of help to me in gaining experience and required knowledge in the field of structural engineering.I have been regularly following your articles in the journal of Finite Elements in Analysis and Design. I have gone through your article Finite element formulation for geometric and material nonlinear analysis of beams prestressed with external slipping tendons which was intellectually very stimulating. I then checked your website and am happy to be genuinely excited about any fortunate opportunities of working under your esteemed guidance. I am very interested in the field of structural engineering and am in the idea of pursuing my doctoral degree in the same field.


Needless to say, I don't work in "structural engineering", and I never have published in Finite Elements in Analysis and Design.

Strange Physics Foundation

Take a look at the website for the Santilli Foundation and the International Committee on Scientific Ethics and Accountability. Strange, aren't they?

I particularly liked the reference to "moist insidious and organized plagiarisms".

Website Weirds Wikipedia

Check out http://www.zaped.info/, a website that changes Wikipedia content into something bizarre and occasionally delightful.

From today's page:

"Harrison was built-in in North Bend, Ohio, and at age 21 confused to Indianapolis, Indiana, area he became a arresting accompaniment politician."

"During a accent in Montreal, French President Charles de Gaulle declared "Long reside chargeless Quebec!", a account that was interpreted as abutment for Quebec independence from Canada."

"Judy and Alfred were two 90-inch (2.3 m) alpine beef locomotives distinctively advised to fit beneath a arch at Par that was alone 96 inches (2.4 m) high?"

"Today's featured picture: A radar angel of the surface of Venus, centered at 180 degrees east longitude... This blended angel was created from mapping by the Magellan probe, supplemented by abstracts aggregate by the Pioneer orbiter, with apish hues based on blush images recorded by Venera 13 and 14."


It's like moving to a Bizarro world!

My guess is that the algorithm simply chooses words at random from a Wikipedia page, and then replaces them with a random synonym in a consistent way.

The Strangest Book on the Theory of Computation

Based on the description of the book in the World Scientific Press catalogue, I asked my university library to order a book entitled Automata Theory by Matthew Simon. I did so because it seemed to cover many topics not available elsewhere. I now regret my decision, although looking at the book did provide some amusement value. It is weird.

The first thing that a reader notices is each chapter begins with lengthy quotations about the history of slavery. No, I am not kidding. Chapter 1, for example, begins as follows:


TABLE OF MIXTURES

TO BECOME WHITE

White and Negro produces mulatto
Half white, half black

White and mulatto produces quadroon
Three-quarters white and one-quarter Negro...


etc. This strange choice is explained by the author as follows: "While this book focuses upon language, a reminder of the relationship between language, social being, responsibility, and historical context will start each chapter."

The typesetting and notation are really awful. For example, the author uses the capital letter "X" to represent ×, the cross product symbol. Terms are used without being defined: for example, "semi-automata" is used on page 7 but has not been defined. Some material is simply repeated; for example, both pages 9 and 11 contain a definition of semigroups (which are sometimes written "semi-groups"). The author frequently uses notation and abbreviations that are unique to him, such as "NDFSA" for what everyone else calls "NFA", etc.

Most of the book consists of pages and pages and pages of examples, with little explanation of what the examples are intended to illustrate. When theorems are stated, they often miss the point. For example, the pumping lemma for regular languages is stated as follows: "If an FSA has n+1 states and accepts a string ω where ω = a₀ a₁ ... a_n+1, thus |ω| = n+2, then the FSA accepts an infinite number of strings." But this is not the pumping lemma, which is a statement about languages, not automata.

This is, without a doubt, the strangest book I have every read on the theory of computation. I honestly don't know how this book ever got published.

There is also an interesting positive review of the book on Amazon:


Automata Theory by Matthew Simon is an unusually welcome book. The many examples shown include subjects not often covered, such as: the Chomsky-Schutzenberger Theorem, Kuroda Normal Forms, Ginsberg-Griebach Theorem, Simple Pushdown Automata, Syntactic Pattern Recognition, and Shape Grammers. The use of a consistent and standard notation throughout the book is also welcome, as many different subjects are discussed. The focus of the first chapter is upon Semigroups and Automata Theory(including wreath products), from a more elementary, less abstract, less mathematical viewpoint than that found in the dozen or so books covering this subject. Thus examples from automata theory are emphasized. While departures from the notation of Clifford and Preston do take place, the notation is as close as one can come to being standard, as no standard notation currently exists. Each chapter starts with a commentary or quotes relating to subjects that arise in socially oriented linguistics and automata theory. Such commentary is often omitted in books covering automata theory but is of interest to people studying Anthropological Linguistics, General (historical)Linguistics, Philosophical Linguistics, and other academic areas dealing with linguistics, but often neglected by the engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics communities.


I leave it up to the reader to try to figure out who might have written this review.

My Head Cavorts on Dutch TV

Ionica Smeets of the website Wiskundemeisjes (Math Girls) has written to let me know that a Dutch TV program has featured my paper on optimal coin denominations. Probably only of interest if you are fluent in Dutch, or enjoy seeing my head being animated and doing strange things.

I Was Doing It Right All Along

When I was a kid, I used to sneeze and use my shirtsleeve to wipe it off. My teachers and classmates were usually horrified by this practice, but now I learn, to my surprise, that I was right all along. Well, sort of.

My pharmacy was displaying this extremely weird large poster, which is available from www.coughsafe.com:



At the same website, you can even watch a movie that teaches you how to cough and sneeze properly. Four stars!

Strange Duck Behavior

It feels like something out of a Gary Larson cartoon.

The local ducks have suddenly learned to hang out on rooftops. I've lived in the same house for 18 years, and I've never seen this before, but suddenly, this year, more and more ducks and geese are perching and even sometimes nesting on rooftops.

Here are two pictures I took yesterday of a duck on the house next door, a good 20 feet above the ground. It looks like he is surveying the territory prior to swooping down and nabbing some unsuspecting child.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.