Archive for August, 2008

27
Aug

Dirty Nerdy

   Posted by: Mike    in Uncategorized

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

+1 INT just for owning this book

I absolutely love that I’m enough of a nerd to actually get the latest xkcd comic.

To giggle along with me, I highly recommend the book I’ve been very, very slowly slogging my way through since last Christmas: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

OOO!  OOO!!  Extra-points nerd-alert!

Googling GEB (the acronym that only the really cool hip math geeks use, try it at your next party) I found a link to a course that MIT (yes, that MIT) is putting on studying the book.  And it’s in their OpenCourseWare program!  Which means I get to study a free class analyzing theoretical interconnectedness of multidisciplinary formal systems!!!  OMG SQWEEE!!!!1!

[ahem]

On a slightly more strange/sinister note, there seems to be some odd conspiracy preventing me from tracking down any information about this book at the moment.  The wikipedia page won’t load.  The wikipedia page with just the abbreviation (GEB) won’t load (other pages load fine).  The Amazon page won’t load (the rest of the site seems to work).  Every picture of the front cover on Google Image Search won’t load.  Reviews of the book won’t load.  Seriously, just to get the thumbnail I had to go to some German blog.  My guess?  We’re renting office space, and therefore network access, from a big insurance company, and they want to make sure to prevent any of their employees from questioning reality too much.  Bad for business.

Been a wild month…

4000 Kilometers with tents, tarps, and trees, mountains and oceans, waves and whales.

Running and running and running through the streets of Edmonton under the sun of the Sahara.

Days of learning at the feet of the masters of my industry, in a room of peers and heroes, friends and family, in a setting as inspirational as the stories being told.

I’ll get into details over the next few days, but I just wanted to say hey, I’m back!

(Look busy)