Lack of Updates

Hello, all. Sorry for the lack of updates. To tide you over, have this nice picture of sushi that I made. Since I have a request for math updates, perhaps I will do something about that soon enough. I can't go into too much detail about it, though, I guess, since then someone will steal all my precious research.

This is an actual thing to fear, I think. My advisor and I have some constructions and some preliminary results, at least, by trying to emulate what has been done in some papers for our extension of their cases, and we have enough stuff that we could probably publish a paper without too much more work, I guess, but he doesn't want to do that because he thinks that somebody, like the people who wrote those papers we are emulating, might see them, figure out what we are doing, and then do it faster. It's so weird how the academic world works.

So, I've been busy with that research, although I feel like I'm actually contributing very little. Mostly I attempt to do some calculation, and then my advisor does it faster, but at least it gets done. The next step is supposedly all me, though. This is proving that strict modules over a curved algebra are equivalent on a homotopy level to all modules over that algebra, if anyone is curious. I think it's mostly just finding the usual result and seeing if it applies, which I think it does.

Anyway, other than that, what has been going on in my life? Well, yesterday I got food poisoning or something, so I felt terrible all day, but still taught four hours of class and two of tutoring. After getting home, I slept for about 13-14 hours, so I'm feeling much better now. This past weekend, I went to a conference in Ann Arbor, MI, about homological mirror symmetry. This may lead you to ask, what is homological mirror symmetry? I wish I could tell you. It's some very deep conjecture about certain algebro-geometric or topological constructions having some sort of dual construction that carries the properties or something, but I guess it's not even convenient to state what the conjecture is in full generality.

My advisor was giving a talk there, so he wanted me to go, and learn things "by osmosis" because I wouldn't understand most of the algebraic geometry, and anyway, they would "explain it wrong" anyway. He's kind of hilarious, the way that he thinks a lot of people approach problems the wrong way because of some bias they have or desire to demonstrate something on the most abstract level. He told me once that if you're not doing math that's meaningful, you might as well "be a social worker." So, he's often at odds with other people, who go about things in backwards ways, which even I can see without totally understanding what's going on. Ann Arbor is nice, except the bus terminal, which is terrible. I took buses both ways, partially out of a dislike of the TSA, and partially because I like traveling where I can see out the windows, and partially because apparently you can't fly direct to Ann Arbor, anyway. If you are curious, the route was basically this:

Philadelphia --(Harrisburg)--> Pittsburgh ---->Cleveland -- (Toledo) --> Detroit -->Ann Arbor

Place names in parentheses are places that the bus stopped but that I didn't have to change buses. Reverse the arrows to get the route back (haha, it is just like my research!!!)

It's interesting how the bus terminals are different. Philadelphia's is sort of middling size, but relatively well organized, and there are always people arguing about how their bus was late and they should be getting a refund, despite Greyhound having never once given a refund to anyone. Their buses are late a ton of the time, by the way, and if you ever need to be on time, you should not take them.

Pittsburgh's terminal is very long and thin, which seems like how these places should be set up. I've yet to be there earlier than midnight, so I wonder if that colors my impression of the place. They have a bunch of TV's that are always playing the scifi channel. Syfy, I guess they call it now. There are a bunch of generic arcade games, like this last time, there was a cabinet for a racing game called "Fast and Furious," clearly trying to bank off the popularity of the movie series without paying any of the royalties.

Cleveland's seems nice, like it was repurposed from some other building. The walls are all lined with wood, and all the doors are crammed down on one end of the building. There are two TV's with chairs surrounding them, and now chairs anywhere else, like a midwestern house built around the television.

Detroit's is like Detroit: sad. I heard one of the workers saying that there used to be fifty-four employees or something, but now there are only two. They're nice enough, but the place is full of bums and the half-hearted attempts at keeping the place clean are failing miserably. It was funny to hear a guy going home to Cleveland complaining about how terrible Detroit is, and the woman he was talking to laugh about how Cleveland is only the second worst city in America.

Ok, I guess this has become a massive update, so there you go.