I Miss Maths

All this working and air traffic control and I've forgotten my Maths background. It's been nearly two years since I considered a serious maths problem. Just the other day I was trying to explain why the passengers are safe in an aircraft if it is struck by lightening because the electromagnetic field inside a hollow conductor is zero. I then claimed I could prove this but realised that I no longer can. I probably couldn't begin to construct an argument let alone a 3 dimensional integral.
But last night Jonath called and was asking about a Maths problem of his. I couldn't answer them but thinking about them was far too enticing. I realise though that I'd never got very far in the subject and becoming a professional mathematician was no where near in sight. Plus I can't stand research. I called a friend from Uni, Stuart, and he couldn't do it either so it made me feel better, but still I didn't have a clue.
So...

© Wolfram Research, Inc.

...I leave you with this which is a picture of the absolute value of the 2-D Fourier transform of the gcd(i,j)

Bored, Tired and Probably should be sleeping

Yes it's true I should be sleeping but after all sleep is for the weak is it not? or is that lies? Either way I utilised jonathan's Google scorer and here are my tabulated results: The query that got the most hits is shown with the most purple background (and also with the text coloured white), with the other results shown with ever lighter backgrounds depending on how many hits we got on Google. That makes sense, doesn't it?

Query	Order	Hits	Percentage
eggs	2	76,800,000	9.7052%
golf carts	3	1,920,000	0.2426%
greatest common divider	4	922,000	0.1165%
humanoid object	5	687,000	0.0868%
problems	1	711,000,000	89.8488%

Well, it looks like "problems" got the most amount of hits on Google, but that doesn't mean it's right.

Panic!

Yes panic indeed! One of the most amusing games I have ever had the pleasure of playing. It had me in fits of laughter. Especially hilarious are the comments and exclamations the small stick man shouts during the raining of tangerines. My best score is 186. Elsewhere I have been working and I recently passed my written exam with 92%. In fact I only failed on one question which is about squawk codes, I forgot what 0023, 0033 and 0037 were.
The simulator has been going very well although I nearly punched my colleague today as he was stiching me up royally and whinging about it. Then he was refusing to talk to me during a priority situation and it was all going wrong. But it was alright in the end and I battled on through. Lesson learnt let's say.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, Lost is getting berry berry exciting. I have been watching it at a friend's house when possible (as it is only on Sky TV of course) and I have managed to persuade Beccy to start watching it. She has nearly got to the end of the second series already. It's only a matter of time before she's caught up.

Exciting Music Proposition

Hello!
So today was much better thanks and I was on top of things. I had two runs this morning which were actually pretty good. The instructors I had told me to stop worrying about things and just get on with it. That's my main problem.
Coming home tonight though I was quizzed "what good albums should I buy?" by a fellow lift sharer to which I responded and queried where are you getting them from. I was pointed to this potentially dodgy russian site which would appear to sell tracks legally at 0.15$ (about 8p). It will require more investigations perhaps a reader who has used it could shed some light on the site.

What a Sunny Day

It has been a sunny day today has it not. At least in the south it has. Clear and bright and not at all breezy. Rather mild I daresn't say. I had a remarkably good run and last night Biscuit, one of my colleagues, remarked at how much it's like football doing this job. You can explain the rules in 5 minutes, you could watch a match and see what needs to happen, but to actually kick a ball to the right person at the right time, or know where to stand etc it takes a lot of practise and something else, a certain je ne sais quoi.
You're probably wondering why Biscuit; his name is John Seabourn, which became Seabiscuit and then just biscuit. Before you ask; yes I do have a nickname, and no; I'm not going to tell you what it is, although I am named after a character from the show Harry Enfield and Chums.
Of perhaps further interest, one of the instructors, Eugene, is absolutely brilliant. I counted seven "Oooh Aaaah" and two "What ho!" during a run in which I was coordinating. They've become the interjection of choice. Intonating them exactly is quite tricky, although imagine "oo aaah" as a kind of question and you'd be about right.

Test a success, West a mess

Yes this pretty much sums up my day. I got a good mark for my progress test but the simulator run went very very badly indeed. I just didn't have the picture. Must try harder! I'm not feeling great about it at the moment. I've started to notice my colleagues have become very distrustful of my abilities and are no longer helping me out really.
Anyway last night Matt and Brian came over to watch an episode of Lost and we then played Go For Broke a brilliant game in which one must lose all their cash to win (kind of the opposite of monopoly) by gambling, betting and prospecting on shares. It would have worked but we were all a bit too lucky, especially Matt who's horse came in every time!

Progress Test 2

So yes, today it was Progress Test 2. The topics were fairly standard. I did make my answers up for the first two questions but that should be alright. We won't get the results until tomorrow or wednesday. Watch this space.
We have tomorrow off in the morning, when I say off I mean we don't have simulator runs. Still we do have a talk from the training manager from one of the larger units.

Annonymous comments

Would the person who commented previously please identify his/herself. I don't feel able to reply suitably as I have no idea who you are. Carry on...