Snowmen

Q: What did one snowman say to the other?

A: Smells like carrots.

Week 5 NCAA Picks

I couldn't resist after correctly predicting all 21 game winners last week. So, here we go again:

Tennessee 35 at Memphis 9
Colorado 24 at Missouri 21
Sam Houston 10 at Texas 42
Miss State 3 at LSU 40
Alabama 10 at Florida 27
Purdue 17 at Notre Dame 37
California 33 at Oregon St 14
Boise St 42 at Utah 13
Oregon 37 at Arizona St 17
GA Tech 13 at Virginia Tech 21
USC 44 at Washington St 14
LA Tech 14 at Clemson 45
Kansas 9 at Nebraska 34
Michigan 44 at Minnesota 24
Ohio St 27 at Iowa 20
Georgia 34 at Mississippi 7


Only one upset this week- Colorado finally gets their first win of the season over #25 Missouri. I've heavily argued the possible upset of Ohio State, but I stay true to my prediction last week that they will instead lose their only game to Michigan. GA Tech has a great fighting chance over VA Tech, but I think the home game advantage will prove valuable for the Hokies.

Clemson, again, rolls on to keep their #2 offensive ranking.

Cord Blood

In my brand new journey into parenthood, I've learned a lot! Several weeks ago, we went to our baby doctor for our 19 week sonogram. It seems that husbands/boyfriends are not the typical audience at these places. The magazine selection was slim pickens. Lots of cosmos, etc. with an occasional Sports Illustrated from, you know, the late 80's or 90's. The nurse who guided us through the sonogram described all the baby parts, head here, leg here, elbow here. Our baby would not show us the important organs, but instead wiggled and turned to avoid the question that was on all our minds- boy or girl??!! Finally, after what seemed an eternity, we discovered we were having a girl!

I have never heard of this until a few months ago when we were given a brochure, but we have the option of preserving our baby's cord blood. Cord blood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_blood), is blood extracted from the umbilica cord. It's very rich in stem cells and for a price we can preserve this blood which we may then use later in life should one of us develop some genetic diseases such as certain forms of cancer or degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. I don't think we're at risk for any of these, but I just wondered, has anyone else considered this or considered donating cord blood to a public bank?

Hold 'em

After watching the 2006 World Series of Poker, it became very clear to me that Jamie Gold is the luckiest bastard in the world. He has no poker skills whatsoever. This is why I want to patent a new technology. I want to formulate a "luck" measurement meter, which can be displayed on each player throughout the match. This way people can look at the chip stacks, read the meter, and know who's who in the world of poker.

NCAA Picks

I hope to make a habit each Friday night to post my picks for Saturday's Top 25 NCAA matchups. Heck, I'll put scores down, too.

VA Tech 31, Cincinnati 10
Clemson 34, UNC 14
Michigan 28, Wisconsin 13
Iowa 33, Illinois 17
Louisville 34, Kansas State 20
Georgia 41, Colorado 13
Auburn 38, Buffalo 3
Texas 45, Iowa St. 10
California 27, Arizona St. 21
Florida St. 44, Rice 6
Ohio State 30, Penn State 24
Tennessee 34, Marshall 9
West Virginia 41, East Carolina 13
Oklahoma 28, Middle Tennessee 17
Nebraska 44, Troy 21
Florida 40, Kentucky 17
USC 48, Arizona 9
NC State 27, Boston College 24
LSU 48, Tulane 10
Boise St. 30, Hawaii 10
Notre Dame 34, Michigan State 20

Not a lot of surprises this week. California will continue their fight back into football by upsetting Arizona St. Ohio St. will have the will to survive Penn State (but won't get so lucky against Michigan last week of the season). NC State will upset BC, because Clemson needs this to happen. Notre Dame, as overrated as they are, will turn their negative energy into a big victory over Mich. State.

Clemson, of course, will win. South Carolina will win by (only) 20.

The Why Of Fry

Still the best episode of the best TV comic series. Ever.

Reggie Bush

I was never so happy as to watch Texas triumph last year over USC in the Rose Bowl. In light of more recent allegations against Reggie Bush, I just want to emphasize how much respect I have for a student who has the "focus, intensity, and relentless effort to shelve over 450,000 books": http://www.theonion.com/content/node/53083

Tetration

My first post shall explain the Blog title itself.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetration):

Tetration (also exponential map, hyperpower, power tower, super-exponentiation, and hyper4) is iterated exponentiation, the first hyper operator after exponentiation. The portmanteau word tetration was coined by Reuben Louis Goodstein from tetra- (four) and iteration. Tetration is used for the notation of very large numbers.

In a course I took called Computational Complexity Theory, I researched "Fast Growing Functions" such as the Ackermann Function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackermann_function) and Busy Beaver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busy_beaver). I was somewhat fascinated by the techniques we use to describe these functions. As with describing anything, we are forced to use concepts we already are familiar with. So, in describing such fast-growing functions, we "bootstrap" existing knowledge (functions), recursively, to wrap our heads around them.