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Dawlish: did he kick J.K. Rowling’s dog?

Dave — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:56:33 +0000

It’s a well-known running joke in the later Harry Potter books that Dawlish the auror is only mentioned when he’s being hexed (Dumbledore in OoTP and HBP), confunded (by the Order of the Phoenix in DH to give the wrong date for Harry’s departure), escaped from (Hagrid in OoTP, Dirk Cresswell in DH), or embarrassed by some other epic fail such as being put in St. Mungo’s by an old woman who wears a hat with a dead vulture on it (Augusta Longbottom). His one shining moment is being praised by Dumbledore as an excellent auror who got Outstanding on all his N.E.W.T.s, but this is followed by an admonition that Dumbledore will hurt him if he tries to make an arrest. Kind of a back-handed compliment. “I’m sure you’re an excellent auror, but by ‘excellent’ I mean an auror who has as much chance of arresting me as does Madame Pomfrey or Winky the house elf.” Maybe Dawlish’s curse is to be good enough to get all the tough assignments but not good enough to succeed at them. Who else was going to successfully track Dumbledore on his horcrux-hunting missions? Scrimgeour? Umbridge? (This theory kind of breaks down with Neville’s grandmother, though. To be put in the hospital by her can’t be good for your career when you’re supposed to be a top auror. That’s a note in the personnel file for sure.) Rowling has said that Dawlish had kind of become a punching bag for the Order of the Phoenix by the end of Deathly Hallows, so he wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but this hardly seems like a ringing defense. She just does not like this character. All his successes go unmentioned and his failures take center stage. I think a boy named Dawlish kicked Jo Rowling’s puppy when she was a little girl. It’s open to revision, but that’s my working theory.

Posted via email from Dave Ragsdale’s posterous blog

On Riemann Hypothesis books

Dave — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:09:04 +0000

A few years ago I read Prime Obsession by John Derbyshire, a book about the Riemann Hypothesis – a famous unsolved mathematical problem. I was completely captivated by this book. It’s a work of brilliance, written for the “non-mathematical reader” (as Derbyshire puts it). That is, it’s written for someone who understood high school math and perhaps took a few college courses. The book alternates between odd numbered chapters of mathematical exposition that give the mathematical background necessary to understand the Riemann Hypothesis, and even numbered chapters that contain historical and biographical material that help one to understand the players involved and the overall intellectual backdrop of the time. The genius of the book consists of many things: how Derbyshire explains the math so cogently that even when you don’t quite grasp everything, you understand enough to appreciate the importance of what he’s explaining; how the portraits of the mathematical personalities are so vibrant and clear; how a statement so initially esoteric and impenetrable as “All non-trivial zeroes of the zeta function have real part one half” can not only be made understandable, but made to seem worth understanding.

I’ve re-read Prime Obsession several times, and each time got a little more out of it, understood a little more, grasped a few insights that had previously eluded me. It’s truly one of my favorite books. However, it’s not the only book written in the past few years about the Riemann Hypothesis. Another well-regarded book on the same topic is The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy. I was aware of this book, but never bothered to read it. Partly this was because of a natural and understandable question: How many books about the Riemann Hypothesis does one person have to read? Isn’t one really enough, especially if that book is excellent? But I think part of it was an odd feeling of loyalty to Prime Obsession, as though I had made my choice in the Riemann Hypothesis book wars (not that there was any such thing) and didn’t want to see how anyone else might approach the topic. It turns out, though, that a friend of mine had The Music of the Primes on his bookshelf. I asked to borrow it, and I’ve really been enjoying it. The book proceeds without the deliberate separation of math and biography that Derbyshire employs, but is still easy to follow structurally. du Sautoy writes beautifully and his emphasis truly is on the “music of the primes.” He keeps coming back to this metaphor in different ways, and he spends more time discussing the many mysteries of prime numbers than does Derbyshire.

If I had to recommend only one book, I would still pick Prime Obsession. I think that Derbyshire does a masterful job of telling the story almost like a suspense thriller, while also building up the math in wonderfully clear, systematic steps. I’m sure that I understand The Music of the Primes as well as I do because I’ve already read Prime Obsession. But The Music of the Primes is also wonderful and I would recommend it with enthusiasm.

Posted via email from Dave Ragsdale’s posterous blog

Blogging from an iPhone

Dave — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:15:03 +0000

This post is just to prove that it is indeed possible to write a blog post on my iPhone and post it with the Wordpress app. That is all.

Wake me when the TV transitions are over

Dave — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:51:41 +0000

Transitions are challenging. Adolescence to adulthood, PowerPC chips to Intel processors, newspapers to whatever is going to replace newspapers — the middle of the change is always a bit painful. Right now I’m a little put out by changes in television delivery. Item number 1: the shift to widescreen content. I still have a 4:3 traditional CRT television. One day I’ll get a widescreen, flat panel, fancy-pants HD TV, but I’m holding the line on that for now. Naturally, widescreen content won’t fully fit on my TV, but that’s fine. What I’d like to happen is basic letter-boxing. Give me black bars at the top and bottom when I’m watching something wide. Instead, lately I’ve noticed content that is simply cut off on the sides. Saturday Night Live is a common example of this. On the other side of the problem, why are wide-screen TVs so bad at displaying standard content? How many stretched out, squat, dumpy, goblin-like people do we need to see on wide screens before someone figures out how to make the TVs of America display content in its original aspect ratio?

Item #2: the digital transition. Even though the federal mandate was pushed back to June, the transition has already happened in my area voluntarily. Now I can’t watch a show without the signal cutting out at some point in the episode. Analog TV fails much more gracefully than digital. Digital fails badly — it’s all or nothing. In the meantime, I don’t see any improvement in picture quality. Bah.

Eventually this will all be sorted out, but it’s plenty annoying right now.

IKEA: I can haz customer service?

Dave — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:55:42 +0000

About two months ago we went to Ikea with my parents, and they bought us a crib for the new baby’s room. Now that we’re getting the room set up, I unpacked the box to put it together. Unfortunately, one of the QC inspectors must have been doing a Sudoku at the factory because the left side piece had the inside holes drilled on the outside and vice versa. I called customer service to arrange a replacement.

The first hassle was that I didn’t have the receipt — my parents did. I suggested that it shouldn’t really be necessary because it was obviously an Ikea piece — it’s not as though I bought it at K-mart. But no, they have a firm receipt policy because, you know, I might have gotten it on Craig’s List second-hand. I said that even if that were true, the piece was clearly defective and should be replaced on that basis alone, no questions asked. But more important, they were alienating good customers in order to keep from being taken advantage of by a few. How much money can Ikea be losing from people picking up something on Craig’s List, trekking to the closest store (they’re not exactly as ubiquitous as Starbucks, you know), and demanding a replacement?

If I supplied them with the credit card information for the transaction, they would be able to look up my receipt … in about 2 or 3 days. Apparently it takes a great deal of time to process such a request. The records are stored in the same room where the Ark of the Covenant is hidden. I got the info from my parents, submitted it to them on a Saturday, and they were ready for me on Monday. The phone rep checked for me, and they had them in stock. Eleanor and I pack up the defective piece in the car and head out. At the store they look up my reference number. They apologize for the faulty piece. They need to get a replacement from the self-serve warehouse, so Eleanor and I go to lunch in the restaurant. I have Swedish meatballs. Eleanor has ketchup and french fries.

Upon our return they tell me they don’t have any in stock. They tell me that I should call the self-serve warehouse every day to check the stock and have them put one aside when it comes in. I politely suggest that they should do this, and then ship it to me. I want this fixed without having to do anything else. But they claim that they can’t ship it to me because it will get damaged. Wha????? Don’t they ship things all the time? Don’t they have a catalog and a web site that allows you to order things that are shipped? I want to ask, “Are you mad?” but instead I say, “It’s a piece of wood with holes in it. You’re telling me it can’t be wrapped up and shipped to me without being damaged?” I mean, really. That a customer service rep can look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that the combined efforts of Ikea and UPS cannot transport a piece of wood to me unharmed is really too ridiculous to tolerate.

My guy realizes that if he can’t fix this problem I’m going to ask to speak to someone who can. So he’s off to talk to someone above his pay grade. Amazingly, it turns out they can ship it to me! It’s taken me at least an extra half hour to get to the place we should have started from. I am weary, and Eleanor is getting cranky, but at least I won’t have to come back again.

Now watch them send me the top of a credenza by mistake.