New Endeavor

Well, it's been a while since I last posted.  I thought I'd bring you up to speed on something new - raptor-design.com.  It's a side project I've worked on that is blossoming nicely.  If you need help with your content strategy, drop on by.  I'll be posting there more frequently as well. Short and sweet - but I'm tired tonight and need to go to sleep. I'll be back in a shorter time, I promise!

New Blog About Ironman Training

I know it's been awhile since I've posted. C'est la vie. Anyway, here's a new blog I like, you might want to check out. He's been talking about training for Ironman Wisconsin. I think people that try that long of a distance are insane, but what do I know. I just play poker.

Look what wondered into our backyard

I guess it's part of living next to a nature perserve area in the middle of nowhere, but todday we had a vistor in our backyard. The neighbors had told us that some people had put in fences so they didn't "lose" their small dogs, but I didn't know they meant they'd get eaten.

Open Letter to the Chairman of LULU

November 14, 2007



Mr. Dennis Wilson

2285 Clark Drive

Vancouver, BC





Dear Chairman Wilson:

I would like to propose a business combination which would be beneficial to both our companies. It appears your seaweed line of clothing has hit a snag - namely the lack of said seaweed in the line of clothing. I have a solution that will ensure you will never have to face the embarrassment of a test showing the lack of a labeled ingredient again.

I represent Unicorn Breeders LLC. We are the Category Captains engaged in the development of markets for our Grade A-Unicorn fur. While large-scale tests are currently underway, we believe Unicorn fur has health benefits - many the same as claimed by your seaweed-line of clothing. We also believe that our unique "UniPolymer" fur can reverse hair loss, melt off unwanted pounds and cause world peace to break out. Since you have a ready consumer base that is willing to pay extra for seaweed-infused shirts - a plant not nearly as cuddly and photogenic as any one of our members as our Unicorn herd - we believe marketing will be much easier for you as well. It's hard to imagine there is a group of people that would be willing to believe wearing shirts with seaweed is good for you yet ones with Unicorn fur is not. This is a slam dunk. Let's get this done.

I've saved the best news for last: Since we have an effective monopoly on the Unicorn trade, there is no control for nasty short-sellers to test against. As our herd of Unicorns is our most prized asset, you can rest easy in the knowledge the outside world will never know what the composition of Unicorn fur really is. We can provide you with cotton already mixed with Unicorn fur fibers to make sure there are no security breaches throughout the supply chain.

I know you'd like to think it over - probably over a morning bong hit. Take your time, but not too much time. We're also talking to other institutions. In fact, a major Central Bank is interested in using our fur for their currency due to it's ability to strengthen the currency in the face of both rate cuts and higher inflation. If we are going to supply the demand from both of you customers, we'll need to know soon in order to increase the herd size.

Ciao,

CY

Still alive at dinner break. Last hand before dinner QQ beats AQ. 12k ave is 13k. 700 left 330 get paid

Quick note from road. It's the first break and I've got 4500 after starting with 3000. I have Tommy Wu to my right. He's playing solid.

It's that time of year again

Ok, lot of changes in the Cheddah household the past few months. Those I shall save for another day. Today, we're talking POKER!

Assuming my flight gets in on time, and the line for registration isn't two miles long, I will be playing in WSOP event #47 - NL Holdem. If there is a delay, I'll play in WSOP event #49.

I feel pretty good about my game. I'm not going to change much up from last year, except maybe try to be a little less tricky. I'll try to post updates as I can, but if you don't see one during the day tomorrow that means things are going well.

My back's not back to 100% so I'm thinking I'll rely about an ancient French remedy to keep the pain at bay while sitting for 12 hrs - Red Bull and Grey Goose. It's never met an ailment it can't cure. If I make it to the final table, I hope a few of you hop a flight to watch the fun on Sunday. I guess we'll cross that bridge Sat night. If you've staked me, by that point you'll be ahead enough to sell it to the wife.

Wish me (us) luck!

Breckenridge We Have A Problem

I'm sorry I haven't posted the rest of the Nigerian EBay scam artist. I've had some issues of my own lately, as this pictures will show in graphic detail. Parents, please remove your children from the room. I'll wait.


Ok, here are pics of me 2 weeks into this little back injury. I'm feelin a ton better in this picture than I did a week earlier.


I know you are mesmerized by my Buns of Steel and nice choice of undergarments, but notice something in this picture: I'm attempting to stand straight. I've gotten my list down to 2 inches from my belly button to my nose. It's been much worse. I didn't sit in a chair all day today. I only laid on my back or stood the whole day.

So, what are the odds I'm skiing by Thur? I'm hoping I might be up for it by Sat. Luckily I'm on Percocet which makes everything all right. And I mean EVERYTHING.

So no Nigerian scam today. With some luck I'll have it up tomorrow. Until then, enjoy another beefcake pic:

Oh Those Wacky Nigerians

Hello all. Life's been busy and I've been lazy so I haven't posted for awhile. But I promise the next few days I'll have some high comedy for you, brought to you by one-part poor EBay security, four-parts Nigerian greed.

The Background:

Even after getting burned twice trying to sell an extra XBox 360 I have, I decided to go back to the EBay well. One of the reasons is we own a lot of it at work, and I feel it's my duty as a shareholder to use their service when I can. I'm starting to think they have a real problem with security, but I'll leave that post to another night.

I have a PS2 with a ton of games. 28 equals a ton in this case. I've gotten samples from game companies for a few of them, but in general I've bought most of them over the years. I bought a dance pad and DDR Extreme 2 for the kids but they were too young to enjoy it at the time and therefore it quickly got packed up in a box. Anyway, all this crap is taking up space, so I decided to try to sell it on EBay.

From my recent experience, you need to post in your ad that you won't sell outside of the US, and won't accept bids from users with feedback less than 5. That's because EBay's new user screening sucks. HARD. In my XBox 360 debacle, the first fraudulent bidder signed up as a US user but wanted me to ship to the UK, while paying from a different address. This account was brand new. A friend of mine took 3 tries to sell his Wii bundle and ran into similar problems.

I therefore posted I will cancel all bids that are from someone with less than 5 feedback unless they email me and get permission first. I also said US buyers only. In a moment of weakness, I decided to use the Buy It Now option in case I found someone really motivated to buy a PS2. That was not so smart.

Within THIRTY SECONDS of posting the auction, my Buy It Now was hit. And who by, you may ask? A brand new user with a generic name much like John Doe. Unlike in a regular auction where you can shitcan any bidder you don't like, if Buy It Now is hit the auction ends. That means I'm stuck with this turd of a buyer, who I already know with 95% certainty is going to me a scammer.

My confidence level rises to 100% when I get the email from this individual. I'll share that with you tomorrow, but the scam he seems to be trying to run is so lame that I have a hard time believing anyone falls for it. Then again, I have a hard time believing anyone watched Katie Coruic voluntarily in the morning either, and now she's on prime time news. I shouldn't be amazed by our populace's race to the bottom, I guess.

Anywho...I'm now in the process of trying to get some sort of trophy from this Nigerian scammer. I was hoping he'd pull the Fake Cashiers Check scam, so I could frame that badboy and put it up on the wall. Unfortunately, $175 doesn't qualify for Cashiers Check treatment so that dream will have to wait until I EBay another day. Instead, my goal is to get as many of the following as possible:
1)a picture of this guy
2)him to prepay shipping so I can send him some bricks and bags of Jobu-shit on his tab
3)the Holy Grail: him to send me cash to cover shipping

I've been saving my conversations with him so far, so I'll start posting them over the next week. I have no idea how far this will go, but for now he's buying my act. He believes I'm a dumb college kid, and that I believe him because he is on a religious missionary assignment - in the UK. I also believe his story that his son is attending computer college at the world-famous Nigerian University. (Come to think of it, didn't Larry Ellison graduate from there?)

So stay tuned. Hopefully I'll soon have some pics and better stories from this adventure.

Goodbye, GOP

It pains me to write this, but I no longer consider myself a Republican. A little background:

I interned for a good man, Republican Congressman Scott Klug, in Washington DC. I worked for another good man state representative for many years. I was on the Dane County Republican Party Board of Directors during this time. I helped a good man in his quest to win the GOP nomination for Senate. I'm not some newbie to the GOP scene.

I no longer plan on voting Republican. Last night, Frist The Cat-Killer got his wish: he attached the internet gambling bill to the oh-so-related Port Security bill, and got it past. Good going, moron. You've got me interested in politics again. This time, I'm going to be a royal pain-in-the-ass when you and your minyons hit me up for cash the next election cycle. I became a Republican when I got sick of the Dems shoving their belief system using force down my throat in college. Now you decide that you know better than I how I should spend my evenings. As long as I want to bet on the horses, or pick numbers at random, gambling is cool. But if I want to play a game of skill for a few dollars, I'm burning in hell in the eyes of the government. You're not winning votes with this: the people that thing poker is evil were voting for you anyway. You've just alienated the 6 million people that play recreationally, and at least 40% of them lean GOP. Or did.

When either party decides they have more important things at hand than telling me that what I enjoy is harmful, let me know.

If you only had listened

I've been very busy the past few months, mainly making sure my midlife crisis is as full and expansive as possible. Changes may be afoot, but time will only tell what is in store.

So, enough 9th grade level creative writing. Time to shift down to the k-6 level. I'm posting today to say "I TOLD YOU SO". You laughed at me when I said we need to protect ourselves, and some of you called me barbaric when I said we ought to wipe out every last one of their stinking kind before they got enough power to begin their reign of terror. Hell, even after they attacked those known for their peaceful nature, you told me they were just trying to eradicate Lyme Disease at the source. I was skeptical, but I went quiet.

Well no more. After reading this story about the bastards attacking children, I can sit still no more. It's time to do something about this menace. Here's my PSA of the day:

Kids, if you see one of these, shoot first and ask questions later. If you aren't packing heat (you fool), remember to cover the groin and the jugular as they force you to the ground. And try to go out with some dignity, son.

How To Guarantee You'll Lose A WSOP Event

I know I promised I'd write about The Hand from the World Series of Poker $2000 NL event, but I got sidetracked while in Vegas by Vodka and sleep deprivation. Now that I've had a few weeks to ponder the experience I've come to some conclusions about my poker play:

1) I'd definitely do that again. It was a lot of fun, and I didn't feel like I was outclassed by any of the players. I might have a little more respect for money than the pros (which is one of the things that make them great) but after engaging them in table-talk it pretty clear they are just human too.
2) $2000 in chips is less than you'd think. When I looked at the blind schedule, I thought I'd have plenty of time to work. It's better than only starting with $1000, but it seemed like the time to start making moves came quicker than I anticipated.
3) I need to use more phrases from the SciFi channel in my life. Today will be vulgarities from the great show Battlestar Galactica.
4) THE HAND.
Immediately after I played this hand, I was upset. I had a decent player to my left that tried to make me feel better about it, saying he would have played it the same way. In the heat of the tournament, that was enough to placate me.

I now know he was full of crap. I could not have butchered this hand any worse. For those of you that don't play poker, indulge me for a bit. You'll learn a little about how tournament poker should(and should not) be played by analyzing this hand.

So, lets jump right in, shall we....

Background: I am on the button (meaning I am last to bet on the flop and after. I have position on everyone else in this hand) with about T$4900. Mr. Phan to my right is the chip leader with T$8000 or so. In seat #1 is a frumpy-looking woman with a bad sunburn that covers her face and shoulders, and does a "V" down to where I assume her cleavage should be. I think it's this lady:


She has only been at our table for 8 hands, and hasn't played one yet. The blinds are $50/100. The woman bets $300, a standard bet size.

Everyone between her and I folds. I look down and see KK.

My thought process: Ize the Man! Ok, how am I gonna take the maximum amount off of Ms. Sunburn. Well, I need to raise a good amount to get some money in the pot.

I raise to $1200. Note: This is the only step in the process I did frack up.

Sunburn woman calls.

Now, at this point, I'm wondering what she has. I'm guessing she has TT-AA, or maybe AK-AJ? It's hard to tell since she hasn't played a hand yet, but she hasn't showed any suicidal tendencies to this point so I'm operating under the assumption she's playing solid hands. She also has a slightly above-average stack size so she's not in panic mode.

The flop comes A68, rainbow (the suits don't match). Sunburn woman checks.

My thought process: Ah crap, she hit her damn A. I'll check as well.

WRONGWRONGWRONGWRONG!

Mistake #1: I need to bet here. If she has an A, I'll find out soon enough if I bet. Otherwise, I have no idea what she has. If she has a small Ace (like A-3 lets say, which would be stupid to call with out of position against a reraise, but people in general are stupid) she's likely to fold. If she has a smaller pair, she'll be faced with a tough choice. She would have to respect the possibility I raised with a big A like AK or AQ. Checking is the pussy play, unless I'm setting her up for a big move on the turn.

The turn is another A. Sunburn bets $1000 into a pot of $2700.
My thought process: Ok, I'm pretty sure she doesn't have the A now.The odds went down since there are only 2 remaining A's unseen, so she's likely got a biggish pair like QQ or JJ. I'm a little confused by the bet size since it's so small compared to the pot. It's like she wants me to call, or she is just hoping the small bet will make me go away if I have nothing. Hmm...{I then take 2 minutes of time to ponder my decision}...well, I'll just call.

WRONGWRONGWRONGWRONG!

Mistake #2: If you don't know what to do, Raise or Fold. NEVER FRACKING CALL!
Arrgg, my blood pressure still boils over this one. In retrospect, I should have pushed all in. I might have lost, and went out of the tourney right here but that's the risk I need to take. Let's go through the hand ranges again:

I'm ahead of:
QQ
JJ
TT
KQ
and all the 87suited that some donkeys would play into a reraise.

I'm behind:
A-anything
66
88

Now, my read on her hasn't changed at this point. If I am trusting my instincts, the only hands she is holding that beat me are Ak,Aq,Aj. And with 2 A's on the flop, the odds she has an A versus one of the other hands is small. If she hit trips, I'm going to lose some money. There's a lot of money on the table now, so winning the pot is good compensation. Plus, she's not yet pot-committed. She's still got $3000 or so behind her so she's got enough left where a all-in reraise will put her to the test.

In no-limit poker, your goal is to find pressure points where you force the other person to make the tough decision for all of their chips. This was a classic spot where I could have done that. I instead decided to poke the pooch and call.

Now, folding wasn't the worst option either. I think the all-in was better, but folding here gets me away with $1200 loss, and still leaves me with a decent chip stack. I'd have to think she had the A to do this though, and I didn't think she did.

The river comes some card that doesn't look important. Sunburn utters the words "all in".

My thinking: I'm

You stupid little man. What the hell did you think she was going to do after you hem/haw for 3 minutes on the turn and then just CALL. Look at Chris Ferguson, he's repulsed to even be sitting at the same table as you. You can't call this all in, so fold like the eunuch you are.

What I should have done: There was now $4700 in the pot, not counting her all in for about $3000 more. She's definitely representing the A, but with the weakness I showed she probably should move in with the Hammer (72o). Having botched it this badly to this point, I'm left dangling out there not knowing where the hell I stand in this hand. You want to be the one with the aggression, putting the other person all in. I'm not the kind of guy that likes to go broke with only a pair CALLING an all-in. I'd feel much better moving all-in with a pair.

So, having called the turn bet, I should have been prepared to go all in on the river no matter what card came. But that means I should have moved all-in on the river. If I was going to fold the river, I should have folded on the flop. I once again played this as weak as possible, by only calling and then folding on the river.

This hand didn't cripple me, but it came right before the blinds moved up. It forced me to play much faster by loosening up my starting hands. I still have no idea what she had, though the more I reflect on it I would put her on QQ or JJ. From her perspective, she shows weakness when the A comes on the flop, yet I only check. That means I'm afraid of the A. When she bets on the second A, I take forever to call. I obviously don't like my hand but am too dense to get rid of it. So the river is an automatic all-in because I'm unlikely to call.

I off course flip over my cards, throw them down in disgust, and act like a twit. I've only lost my cool like that one other time while playing poker, where about 2 years ago some assgobbler bluffed me out of a 3 way pot for $250 (and of course,lost to the other guy, so didn't profit from it.)

So to you, Ms. Sunburn, I say well-played. To Chris Ferguson and John Phan, I would like to blame that hand on a temporary minor brain stroke. I promise to never make that mistake again.

Please use the comments to give me the lashing I deserve. As Nietzsche said, "What causes self-loathing only makes me stronger."

PS: If you haven't played online poker yet, and want to try it out at Party Poker, email me. I've got a deal where I'll give you the $50 to fund your account so you can try it out. If you'd rather just have a bigger deposit bonus at poker try this out.

Close but no cigar

I got to the final table of the tourney today.  Top 5 were paid with first being over 2500.  I went out in 8th.  Here's how it went down.
The blinds were 600-1200 with 75 blinds.  I had about 8500 when we moved to the final table and had bled down to 8100ish. 
The guy in 2nd position raises to 3600.  He gets FOUR callers.  No raises just calls.  I look down in the big blind.  I've got 99.  While that was a nice surprise I would have raised all-in with any two cards at that point.  It was going to be hard for anyone up front to call, and the limpers in back could have went allin if they felt strong.  So I push allin.
The upfront guy nguished for a long time and eventually mucked AJ.  I got 2 other all ins:  mr. Wild actually had a hand for once and showed AK.  The other dude had 5s (?!).  I was good until the river when the K came, and good game to me sir.
Waiting for the plane. It going to be a long 4th of July unless I get some sleep. Once I saw the number of kids on this flight I went and bought some Nyquil gel caps.  I hope that and the noise-canceling headphones work their magic.
See ya on the ground. 

Todays tourney

I decided to take some cash game winnings and play in a tourney at the Venetian.  It is a great tourney structure where you get 3000 chips and the blinds start at 25-50.  The levels are 30 mins long too which gives some time.
We're now down to 12 left, 5 get paid.  I'm the chip leader at my table.  So far I've just played solid poker.  In the next round I'll start to mix it up a bit.
Wish me luck.

The dream is over

I'm out.  i'm told that Card Player had extensive coverage of my table. Part of that was from having a WSOP Champion at the table along with Pham.  we also evidebtly had a writer from Card Player there as well.
There 's one hand I wish I could redo.  I'll weite more oncw I'm sober but other than that I think I played solid.  I went to bally's and ended up taking $425 from the 1/2 nl cash game ( $300 max buy in).  the hand I won the bulk of the cash on involved 2 players eventually going all in 'in the dark'.  They never looked at their cards.  I'll write more tomorrow I'm tired and drunky now.

End of first break

I have 3900 chips at the first break so doing pretty well.  I had AA one hand and got a loose aggressive player to give me a good chunk of his stack on a bluff.  I pulled a stop and go when he reraised me on the flop..  I also had JJ  one hand hold up on a scary board.
35 mins in, Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson sits down 3 to my left.  There's another pro I don't know 2 to my left.  And then 45 mins in, a guy busts out directly to my right.  Who fills the spot?  John Phan.  And he's got to be close to the chip leader.  So I've tightened up some though I lost about 1000 when my 99 lost to his 10 4 good buddy on a ten high flop.
Soon i'll need to take chances but not quite yet.

Still going strong

I learned something new tonight: they no longer serve food in first class. Instead they serve drinks every 15 minutes.  Yikes!

I just got back from dinner with zach after picking up my registration stuff.  I am at table 153. The room is as big as you would expect to fit 200+ tables.  Its crazy.

My luck is already good

I get to the airport in Milwaukee and quickly breeze through security.  I get to my gate and surprise surprise : they are selling first-class upgrades for $90!
I get the last one.  An additional bonus is the food.  The concourse of the airport i'm in here had no food available due to remodeling.  Since I haven't eaten since noon, going to Vegas on no food in 12 hours is a bad way to start off your trip.  No longer....
I'm going to be golden I can feel it!

Mr. Rogers Turned Over In His Grave

When your company has a reputation for being "behind the times" and "stodgy", it's not a good idea to go shopping at Mr. Roger's estate sale to get clothes for the big nationally-televised press conference. It's even worse when you coordinate with your buddy.

IT'S JUNE PEOPLE! The way this whole thing was handled makes me even more nervous owning MSFT stock. Tip for the future: If you ever find yourself the richest man in the world, feel free to give me only 2 weeks notice, not 2 years. I'm already assuming you're not doing dick day-to-day anyway.

TV Can Make Youze Smarter

Well, I guess all those days spent watching the Simpsons weren't totally bad for me. I actually attended calc class and didn't even know it! I'm pretty sure the beer/booze/etc still hurt me though.

========================================

Mathematical references abound on The Simpsons
Erica Klarreich

In the 1995 Halloween episode of the award-winning animated sitcom The Simpsons, two-dimensional Homer Simpson accidentally jumps into the third dimension. During his journey in this strange world, geometric solids and mathematical formulas float through the air, including an innocent-looking equation: 178212 + 184112 = 192212. Most viewers surely ignored this bit of mathematical gobbledygook.



Fox Broadcasting Company


On the fan discussion site alt.tv.simpsons, however, the equation caused a bit of a stir. "What's going on, he seems to have disproved Fermat's last theorem!" one fan marveled, referring to the famous claim by Pierre de Fermat—proved just months earlier—that for any exponent n bigger than 2, there are no nonzero whole numbers a, b, and c for which an + bn = cn. The Simpsons equation, if correct, would be a counterexample to the theorem, meaning that the proof had been wrong.

Plug the equation into any run-of-the-mill calculator and it seems to check out. The 12th root of 178212 + 184112, according to a calculator, is 1,922. Yet it's easy to see that the equation is false, because the left-hand side is odd, while the right-hand side is an even number. There's no paradox here: It's simply a matter of the calculator's round-off error.

To David X. Cohen, the Simpsons writer who concocted the equation, the fans' responses were a source of glee. Cohen had written a computer program specifically to look for what mathematicians call Fermat "near misses": combinations of numbers a, b, c, and n that come so close to satisfying Fermat's equation that they would seem to work when tested on a calculator.

Why go to such lengths for a background joke that would flash across the screen in a matter of seconds? Mainly for the fun of it, but also to flex intellectual muscles that don't typically get exercised in Hollywood script rooms: Cohen has a master's degree in computer science.

As a mathematically inclined Simpsons writer, Cohen is in good company. Although nobody would call The Simpsons a science show, the writing staff boasts an impressive array of former mathematicians, scientists, and computer scientists. Over the years, they have injected their brand of geeky humor into the show. They've written hundreds of math jokes, ranging in subtlety from Cohen's fake Fermat equation to open jabs at the mathematical illiteracy of the general public. Math has occasionally even provided the theme of an episode.


Digital details
The Simpsons writers have a perfectionistic streak when it comes to math on the show, even when it's just for a throwaway joke. For instance, after Cohen realized that his Fermat near miss could be refuted so easily by an even-odd argument, he refined his computer program to produce a new one without that flaw: 398712 + 436512 = 447212, which appeared on Homer Simpson's basement blackboard in 1998.

In another episode, Kwik-E-Mart proprietor Apu brags that he can recite pi to 40,000 decimal places. "The last digit is 1," he announces. To get that detail right, the Simpsons writing team faxed a query to NASA, where mathematician David Bailey obliged with the digit in question.

The writers never put in a math joke simply to tickle only their own funny bones, according to Ken Keeler, a Simpsons writer with a Ph.D. degree in applied math. "We always think there are a moderate number of viewers who will get it," he said last October during a panel discussion about math on The Simpsons at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, Calif. "Based on the newsgroups and fan sites, it seems as if somebody finds everything we put in."

The Simpsons writers often play on mathematical cultural stereotypes, extracting humor by exaggerating both the mathematical illiteracy of the U.S. public and the nerdiness and self-aggrandizement of the mathematically gifted. In a characteristic exchange, in the third-dimension episode, mad scientist Professor Frink tries to explain to Police Chief Wiggum the nature of the three-dimensional space through which Homer Simpson is wandering.


Prof. Frink - Discoverer of the Frinkahedron, or cube.
Fox Broadcasting Company


Frink: It should be obvious to even the most dimwitted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology that Homer Simpson has stumbled into the third dimension. . . . (drawing on a blackboard) Here is an ordinary square.

Wiggum: Whoa, whoa—slow down, egghead!

Frink: But suppose we extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our universe, along the hypothetical z-axis, there. This forms a three-dimensional object known as a "cube," or "Frinkahedron" in honor of its discoverer.

"One of the themes we've harped on is Professor Frink trying to seize credit for something," Keeler says. "That should be very familiar to people in academia."

Gender issues in mathematics take center stage in "Girls just want to have sums," which aired on April 30. It lampoons the scandal that ensued in 2005 when Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard University, suggested that women are innately inferior at mathematics.

In that Simpsons episode, Springfield Elementary School Principal Skinner is ousted after casually remarking that girls aren't much good at math. Skinner's female replacement divides the boys and girls into separate schools since, she says, girls can't learn math around "aggressive, obnoxious" boys.

Brainy 8-year-old Lisa Simpson is delighted until she attends the girls' math class. "How do numbers make you feel?" the teacher begins. "What does a plus sign smell like? Is the number 7 odd or just different?" Aghast, Lisa poses as a boy to attend the ghettolike boys' school, where real math is being taught.

At the climax, the Simpsons writers leave the issue of women in mathematics tantalizingly unresolved. As Lisa, aka Jake, accepts the award for best math student, she says, "I guess the real reason we don't see many women in math and science is. . ." only to be hurried off stage so that the award for best flautist can be presented.


Simpsonian evolution
Most of the mathematically inclined Simpsons writers also wrote for Futurama, an animated science fiction series that aired on network television from 1999 to 2003. On that show, math jokes abounded.

In a typical scene, two robots meet and discover what to them is an amazing coincidence: their serial numbers are, respectively, 3370318 and 2716057. As the robots high-five delightedly, they explain to their bewildered human companions that both numbers are expressible as the sum of two cubes.

The exchange is a not-so-veiled reference to a famous mathematical anecdote. When mathematician G.H. Hardy visited mathematical prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan in a London hospital in 1917, he lamented to Ramanujan that his taxi had a very boring number, 1729. On the contrary, Ramanujan immediately replied, that number is very interesting: It's the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.

In contrast to The Simpsons, Futurama permitted the writers to let their mathematical fancies run wild and to cram in math references for their personal delectation, Keeler says. "That's why it's not on the air any more," he jokes.

Yet even on The Simpsons, the writers constantly have their radars tuned for opportunities to incorporate math humor. Jeff Westbrook, who has a Ph.D. in computer science, said at the panel discussion that he's on the lookout for a way to work in the Bridges-of-Königsberg problem. Mathematician Leonhard Euler famously attacked this problem in 1736, using graph theory to show that there is no route through the city of Königsberg, Germany, that traverses each of its seven bridges just once.

In the meantime, Westbrook says, the Simpsons writers embedded some mathematically interesting numbers in the season finale, which has since aired on May 21. In that episode, a singing star tells her estranged baseball-player husband that she will come back to him if he can correctly guess the attendance of that day's ballgame: 8,191, 8,128, or 8,208.

At the panel discussion, Westbrook declined to elaborate on just how these numbers are interesting. In the same spirit, we leave that question as a challenge to readers. (Visit the Simpsons post at http://blog.sciencenews.org/ to let us know what you figure out.) As Homer Simpson would surely say, "D'oh!"



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References:

For a Web site that provides an episode-by-episode listing of references to math in The Simpsons, compiled by mathematicians Sarah J. Greenwald of Appalachian State University and Andrew Nestler of Santa Monica College, go to http://simpsonsmath.com/.

For The Simpsons TV series Web site, see http://www.thesimpsons.com/.

A transcript of a conversation between writer Jeff Westbrook and mathematician Sarah Greenwald is available at http://www.cs.appstate.edu/~sjg/futurama/
jeffwestbrookinterview.html.


Further Readings:

Information about a special event featuring writers from The Simpsons and Futurama, held at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institite in Berkeley, Calif., can be found at http://www.msri.org/calendar/specialevents/
SpecialEventInfo/193/show_specialevent.

Sources:

Sarah Greenwald
Department of Mathematics
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608




From Science News, Vol. 169, No. 23, June 10, 2006, p. 360.