jumpaa's Xanga

is my name dave or johnny?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:00:26 GMT

eugene scratched his rims today. he's sad. and a little tantrummy. little angry asian man.

now he's laughing. stop, he says. but no. i will not. eugene then responded "oh, it's one of these posts, where you type whatever's happening" he doesn't realize "and where you delete...", it's more than that "bob lob law". it's deeper. it's more multi-layered than he can ever imagine, because the simple in this world complicate things for those who seek out more. BS, he says. that's what my degree says. but no. BA. BA...

scoff. as he usually does.

ben's reading a book about basketball. i think the book is supposed to, in 700 pages, encapsulate the history of basketball.

eugene and ben are having a little squabble about this post. "it's not a squabble" he squabbles.

and now, eugene is on his way to clean the rims of his car - the terribly scratched rims. he's going to cry about it. it's more devastating to him than that motorcyclist candice saw got hit badly by an all-too-chill-sip-on-my-coffee-as-cyclist-is-on-the-ground little asian woman. ok i lied, i'm not sure if she's asian... or if she's little for that matter. and because i'm not a man of statistics, i will recant any insinuations about little asian women having a higher likelihood of getting into accidents. you know what? it's as true as it is not true... but that is the world we live in. where the things that affect us are much more magnified than the rest of the world. for our worlds are microcosms of the perceptions we live out - about each other and about ourselves. and happily, these perceptions, in all its diversity, unified only by the fact that they are lived out by each of us, form the social/antisocial fabric we call society. though we all fall short in our understanding in some fashion or a n o t h e r, we still got something to contribute and to live for. cuz we're that valuable, i think. but i'll leave commentaries on sociology up to the experts. .like franky. oh he can get into some in-depth analysis on how i'm a social deviant, a pariah who fools himself into thinking he's just a maverick, a term less heavy on the negative stenches of sulfur and body odor. yes, like palin. out for fame. and money. and jesus.

candice and i watched away we go today. i liked it a lot. it had a familiar tone about it, something that had a depth i feel with good films. i later found out some collaborators include sam mendes (of american beauty), and dave eggers (of, well, ahwosg and wtwta, and what is the what). bill (my coworker, not dave's brother), reminded me last week that dave eggers is not a god. i know. but if he has nothing better to do than take care of his wife (who also co-wrote the film we saw) and two kids (familial themes of the film still lingering in my mental faculties right now), he and i can hang, sip on some hot apple cider or something more refined. like granulated sugar.

but whatever the case, i'm either just subconsciously honing down on anything related to dave eggers, or i'm chancing upon his work and liking it, and recognizing who to give credit to. i'd want to say i was him in another life, but i guess we'd touch upon some deep philosophy on personal identity, reincarnation, and the clash between two currently existing lives being part of one person... how it'd mess with the time-space continuum. only one johnny from modesto with his such distinct experiences can exist at a time. or ever. how meaningful these distinct experiences are to anyone else is a matter of subjectivity anyway. well hey, it means a lot to me. because the special thread used to weave together the fabric of my history, and likely colored by me memory, is shaping who i am today. a child of the Lord Most High, an actuary, a son, a person with four syllables in his name (if you count his middle name), braces, embraces, traces of crazy, and brazen tragedy.

no, are you still writing? yes. i am.

i will go to bed at midnight... well i'll at least close this laptop and attempt to get some rest. yes.

ben gave me two thumbs up. eugene gives me a smile. well. maybe he didn't give it to me. uh oh. crazy eyes. you know what that means. well if you do, let me know, cuz i sure as the heezy don't. i'd guess it's just his way of dramatizing his joy. sometimes it's used to hide the deep pains from within. either way, it exists for a purpose. for lies and for truth. deuce.

clenched fist. inaction. well besides his foot touching his little down comforter. i think he has a napoleon complex. he's magnified on the concept of little. now ben is going to play scramble. the three of us are on my stinky bed. it's like a (how do you spell managueta? oh yes, menage a trois (absent accent marks))

my test is tomorrow. i realized my notes for it were posted publicly. but i didn't care enough to privatize it.

i hope i pass. but if i don't (which i won't not), i will count every hour of study valuable. oh how it produced fruit. the perseverance i've endured. countless hours with cricks in my neck and green tea and cafe mak. well, the truth is, if i failed, i'd regret it. but that's the truth and the beauty of life. in america.

now he's just giving me weird looks, and this entry is getting a little epic, so i will end now... well soon. four minutes.

oh snap. i didn't type anything for two minutes, now i have less than two minutes left to find a conclusion. one minute. well. i'm scrambling. aiyah.

i love autumn. and november. and leaves you can crunch with your feet or hands or butt or head or knees or tongue (if you're weird)...

::edit:: eugene said something offensive to me, and i wanted to document it "grubby"

Notes

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:10:49 GMT

1. when they give you a value that yields the median, then you plug that into the distributoin WITHOUT application of the deductible. if they ask for the mean excess loss (with deductible) then you add the mean excess loss with the deductible.

2. when given a poisson/gamma, the posterior density follows the gamma with new parameters. if they ask for the mode of the posterior, you are fine. if they ask for some posterior probability, you'd have to account for the marginal "constant" factor. if they ask for predictive expectation, then you'd have a negative binomial density... the mean of the posterior is the same as the mean of the predictive for this conjugate prior.

3. when asked to calculate the bootstrap approximation, your given sample is your "true" sample. when you take the variance of this, you do not divide by n-1. however, when calculating the MSE, and your recombinating your sample with the 256 total combinations, you can sometimes look at your sample as binomial distribution. this gives your the weights for each mean square error (for each different recombinant sample).

4. when asked to calculate the variance of this loss with franchise deductible (if given an ogive), you can break down the group below the deductible to yield no expected cost. you can do the same when calculating the variance. you can calculate the variance in one of two methods... calculate the second moment and subtract by the square of the first. or, more easily, take the square of the size of the interval and divide by 12 for each interval. you weight according to the number of losses/members fall into each interval. you can eventually get this just fine. .
if they asked for the variance of the loss per payment, you completely ignore the interval between 0 and the deductible. this should increase your overall loss as you're truncating the interval that contributes no loss.

5. when given information for data in which participants are observed to die or surrender, where all entries, deaths, and surrenders occur uniformly, and given that you have single-decrement probabilities of surrender and death, then there is no built in independence where we can just subtract qs and qd from 1 to get the probability of survival. to calculate your survival for one type of decrement versus another, you must adjust the risk set so that that it accounts for the new entrants and decrements (of the other type(s)) before applying the kaplan-meier method.

6. if you have a linear confidence interval around S(x), then you can calculate the variance that corresponds with our S(x). now if you were asked to take some power (such as a cube root) of S(x), how will the confidence interval be adjusted? well you proceed as usual, calculating what S(x) is, and what the corresponding variance is. then let your transforming function be g(x) = x^k, where k is the power you apply to x. well we apply that power to our S(x). then the variance will be the original variance of S(x) times the square of the first derivative of g(x) evaluated at S(x). then we evaluate our new confidence interval of S(x)^k + or - our symmetric p value times the square root of our new variance. if they asked you to take the inverse power to back into our adjusted interval, we then do that. yay.

7. if you're given a normal (theta,v)/normal (u,a) conjugate prior, you can evaluate this by either buhlmann or bayesian. note that for the buhlmann approach, or "v", or expected process variance, is v, and our "a", or variance of the hypothetical mean, is a, or the variance of the prior density. it is probably easier to use the buhlmann approach, but it really depends on the data.

8. if given N follows poisson with a given mean, and claim sizes with an empirical distribution, and you're asked to calculate the survival probability or cdf at some value, you'll just have to evaluate your "g" or aggregrate functions by brute force. it's easy.

9. if you're given a bernoulli with a prior that is piecewise continuous, n years of experience with k insureds, and that the credibility factor is the same for buhlmann approach and limited fluctuation credibility approach, then you can find the expected value of the prior based on first principles (integral of x*f(x) or S(x), whichever is easier to evaluate), then you can calculate the buhlmann AND the limited fluctuation credibility. if they ask to solve for a variable, you just do algebra. you can do this with any model or prior, so long as you have sufficient information. your k insureds is the numerator. your n years is the n for buhlmann. you can usually calculate v, a, and u, etc. sometimes you may be asked to relate bayesian credibility with buhlmann. in which case you have to look at what info you have. for bayesian, we usually need data to evaulate the posterior.

10. note that for a likelihood function, we must remember that our upper bound for the uniform distribution, say theta, must be at least as great as the max observation. so we maximize our theta as small as possible, namely setting our theta to be equal to our max observation. so if you're asked to use the likelihood ratio test, then know that our likelihood function multiplies 1/theta for each observation (unless they're censored). so our loglikelihood is n times the natural log of the maximum observed value of a given population. and the ratio likelihood "test statistic" is twice the difference between the loglikelihood of the alternate and null hypotheses. the degrees of freedom is the number of free parameters in the alternate less the number of free parameters available in the null hypothesis.

11. if you're given some values out of 100 generated values, and asked to evaluate the variance of your TVaR, then your VaR at the pth percentile is the pth generated value. the TVaR is the mean of the observations beyond the pth percentile. then the variance of the TVaR (we'll need to unbias by multiplying the variance by n/(n-1) because we're dealing with a sample of values) is basically how we take the variance of empirical data. but additionally, we then add p*(TVaR - VaR) and divide it all by the number of observations. yeah... another formula motivated by the conditional variance formula.

12. when given an equally weighted mixture of two poissons with a mean and variance provided, you can then do some algebra to solve for each of the distributions... then we can back into the median.

13. if given non-uniform exposures, identify what your mijs and xijs are... if asked to calculated the credibility factor for one of the groups, your number of members is n. you can calculate Z and you can also calculate the premium where Z is weighted on the mean of the group of interest, and the (1-Z) is applied to the aggregrate mean.

14. if given a coverage subject to a deductible, given payments of various sizes, and given that you're fitting a distribution with 1 or 2 parameters (if they want you to sift through lots of algebra, they can give you a hundred parameters). you then apply MLE to get your parameter, doing the whole derivative loglikelihood thing.

15. sometimes you can have a set of equations to solve for things algebraically. know that Var(S) = v + a, and that buhlmann Z = n / (n + k), where k = v/a.

16. chi square statistic. for a pareto, note that we adjust our pdf and cdf as this: F(Xadj) = 1 - ((theta + d)/(theta plus x))^alpha.

17. equilibrium distribution:
the expected value of the equilibrium distribution is: E(X^2)/(2E(X))
the pdf is S(x)/E(X), where x is nonnegative.
the survival function: integral of pdf from x to infinite.
the hazard rate is the eq. pdf over eq. survival function

18. the buhlmann credibility factor, Z is equal to Cov(X,Y)/Var(X) if X is a payment and Y is the bayesian posterior. not that Cov(X,Y) = a, and Var(X) = v + a not that this is related to bulhmann in that Z = a / (a + v) --> 1 / (1 + k), where k = v/a. we calculate the expected value, which should be a simple data average calculation. then we calculate the variance and covariance. we then get our Z. we can back into our k (we may not need to know our v and a), then we recalculate the buhlmann credibility with n = 4 instead of 1. the covariance is the sum of probability times (pmt size less mean) times (posterior expectation of next pmt given pmt size less mean) for each payment.

19. if you are asked to determine the simulated buhlmann credibility premium, you are usually given some u's. first you calculate the buhlmann credibility factor, which means you need n observeds, and information to calculate the the overall mean, v, and a. we then calculate the bulhmann credibility factor. then we will simulate the claims and take the average over n simulations (same n as the n observeds used to calculated the credibility factor). then the buhlmann credibility premium is the sum of the simulated mean and the overall mean by the factor of (Z) and (1-Z) respecitively.

20. if given means and variances of number of claims and size of claims for various groups, then we can calculate our overall mean and overall variance. this can be used to calculate the limited fluctuation credibility if we're given the number of claims observed... if course we can switch up the algebra if they give you the factor but not the number of observations. this data lends itself to calculate the buhlmann credibility stuff too.

21. say you have losses following a compound distribution, where both frequency and severity have discrete distributions. if we are asked to calculate the probability of aggregrate losses being exactly something, or a cdf/survival or something, then we plug and chug to obtained an aggregrate value of s. if you're given probability generating functions, you take the kth derivative evaluated at 0 to calculate the probability of k claims or of losses of size k. THEN you'll try to find the various combinations needed to solve the pdf, cdf, or survival function.

22. if you're given stop loss expected loss with dedicutibles, you can take the difference b/t two expecteds to get the integral from lower deductible to higher deductible to evaluate survival funtions at deductible points... we might hae to do some algebra and hand waving to back into the things we need.

23. if asked to calculate an expected value (or limited expected value) based on applying the kaplan meier method to calculate probabilities, then we just calculate discretely the expected (or lev) values.

24. note that (1 - x/n)^n goes to e^-x as n goes to infinite.

25. similar to the other problem where we evaluate the , u, v, a, k, n, Z, and then get the sample mean and evaluate the buhlmann credibility premium.

26. when comparing a percentage of expected earnings with some amount plus expected losses. a sales advance can be interpreted as a deductible... so what you end up having is a franchise deductible, where the adjusted percentage is applied only to the random variable.

27. algebra.

28. if we are fitting tPx = (Px)^t, then deaths that occur in the MOY yields (1-Px^.5). if we have withdrawals, they are censors and we treat them as we do with censors in MLE. if someone dies between a specified interval, we give it Px^.5 times (1-Px^.5).

29. the way the problem is set up is you have new entrants entering each year, but in reality, you care about the time a settlement is made with respect to when a claim enters. so don't get confused. the censors are the claims that don't have data beyond years after settlements.

30. it's as if you have overlapping ogives when you're asked to calculate an LEV for distribution of losses following a uniform kernal.

31. if you have a unif/single pareto prior, apply the bayesian estimation with continuous prior, where the lowest "b" value is 2 for the uniform.

32. percentile matching for lognormal is easy.

33. when given that a mean of a distribution is estimated by n data points, and the estimator include a constant c to the sample mean, then you just do some algebra and find the c that minimizes the MSE. recall that bias is equal to the expected of the estimator less the true parameter. and the MSE is equal to the variance of the estimator plus the square of the bias.

34. given a binomial with a uniform prior, you just apply the predictive probability.

35. same as 32.

in order to extrovert my thoughts somewhere

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:58:34 GMT

so here is a summary of what i've been doing.

bayesian estimates with continuous priors:

you have a model with some observations.
you have a prior distribution that the model distribution is dependent on in some fashion.
you take the product of the two aforementioned to get a joint distribution.
you take the integral of the joint function to get the marginal distribution.
the posterior distribution is the joint function divided by the marginal distribution.
the expected posterior is the joint function times the a variable we call x of the model distribution... all divided by the marginal distribution.
the predictive posterior is the integral of the product of some pdf, cdf, or survival function and the joint distribution... all divided by the marginal distribution.
the predictive expectation or bayesian estimate is the integral of the product of the joint function and the expected value of the model distribution... then you divide all this by the marginal.

there are these things called conjugate priors. this means that the posterior has the same distribution as the prior, but with different parameters.

for a poisson/gamma prior, you have a marginal that follows a negative binomial distribution that is equal to the gamma's parameters. the posterior is gamma with adjusted parameters. the predictive is negative binomial with the posterior gamma's parameters.

other conjugate priors include the inv. expo/gamma prior, the exp/inverse gamma prior, the normal/normal, binomial/beta, and single pareto/ unif combo. the conjugate priors match a specific "k" in buhlmann credibility.
poission/gamma gives 1/theta, bin/beta = a+b, normal/normal is v/a, and the single pareto one is (alpha - 1) i think.

the uniform distribution is beta if the beginning interval is zero. if that condition holds, then you have a = 1, b = 1, and theta = 1.

uncategorized notes:
if you take the expected value or limited expected value of a single pareto with alpha = 1, you'd have to do it by integrals, because the appendices do not provide an ev or lev for it. when you do this, remember that for any values below the theta parameter yields a survival probability of 1. so you always take the integral from 0 to either a a point of interest or infinite. the integral from 0 to the point of interest (usually the deductible) yields the value at the point of interest... don't forget to add that point of interest value.

goodness to fit tests:
p-plot... (x,y) = (smoothed empirical distribution Fn(x), fitted parameter distribution F*(x))
D-plot... (x,F*(x))
K-S or Kolmogorov Smirnov test. works for individual data only, critical value depends on sample size, the test statistic determines, like any other test with significance testing, at what point by which to "reject" the null hypothesis.
A-D or Anderson-Darling test. this is a method of approximating the integral for each interval. there's a continuous version and a discrete version... the formula is messy... it looks like this

-nF*(d) +n((1-Fn(yi))^2 times the summation (form 0 to k) of the natural log of (1-F*(yi) / 1-F*(yi+1) + F*(yi) times the summation (from 1 to k)of the natural log of (F*(yi+1)/F*(yi)))... talk about rediculosity!

the continuous version is n times the integral (from t to u) of: the square of the difference b/t Fn(x) - F*(x) divided by (F*x)(1-F*x) times f*(x) dx.

there's also the chi-square distribution.
it's motivated by the poission distribution, unless specified with another. we calculate the "error" for each group of observeds as it compares to the expecteds. if there is a spike difference in one or more intervals (difference b/t observeds and expecteds in a group), then you really drive up the chi square statistic. and in doing so, we become less likely to reject the null hypothesis.

one thing about the chi-square is that if you're deaing with data from several periods, the way in which you count your degrees of freedom may be different... basically the degrees of freedom are the total number of "variables". if they specify a total number of exposures, then you usually have n-1-r degrees of freedom. the last interval of the n intervals would be forced... if there are r parameters estimated based on the data, that will lower your DOF.

there's also a likelihood ratio test, which is 2 times the natural log of (H1 - H0), or alternative hypothesis less null hypothesis. the degrees of freedom here are the number of free parameters in the alternative less the number of free parameters in the null hypothesis. and you consult the chi square table to determine at which point to "reject" and "accept" your null hypothesis.

schwarz bayesian criterion... it's the loglikelihood of some model less r/2times natural log of n, where n is the sample size. the best choice is the one that produces the largest loglikelihood (values are usually negative, so we get the smallest negative)

look at how many formulas there are. i guess the whole point of these goodness to fit tests is to find different ways in determining how well an alternative hypothesis fits in any situation... and it fits better than the null, we'd be more inclined to "reject" it.

i don't like statistics.

there is this whole idea of bias, which is E(theta hat given theta) less theta.

ok... i'm tired.... there's so much information!

and i've done the worst job of learning the way i should, and that's by way of theory and foundation. then extra details related to application. i'm so sad.

out of curiosity...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:46:10 GMT

so where is God and what is He doing today?

october 23, 2009

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:47:08 GMT

l) i gave my boss my bank account number, routing number, and online banking password and told him if he feels generous, he should replenish my negative balance. he responded back saying, "you stick around with Horizon and that bank balance will be just fine. I'll wait a few years before I go in and clear it out."

o). i'm eating apple cinnamon oatmeal right now.

v) i think God was telling me to control my anger today on the commute to work, and to not follow it or i'll not be able to spend time with him in the car. i said sorry, still struggling with my anger. then i caved in after a car cut me off. i got out of my car in the middle of traffic while the cars were at a dead stop, then somersaulted to the car that had cut me off, and kicked it multiple times. and after i dented the driver's side of the car, i lifted my hands in a somewhat O.G. fashion and said, "what you got, fool!?" then the guy got out of his car and gave me a black eye. i ended up sitting there, creating a stop in traffic for everyone on the 101S towards hollywood, and some little kid had the audacity, IN FRONT OF HIS PARENTS, to roll down the window, yell some obscenities, and spit on me! his spit landed right on my forehead. it was terribly gross. of course there were plenty of glares before, just my luck, a police car came rolling by. it stopped, the woman inside asked me what was wrong, i told her that some guy gave me a black eye when we were at a temporary lull in traffic (because i couldn't tell her the whole truth), then she told me not to lie because she was just a dozen cars behind me and saw the whole thing. she said if she catches me lying again, she'll give me another black eye. sadly, she told me i'll be under close surveillance... what a raging virago for a public service authority figure. but i think i learned my lesson: control your anger... and don't lie. i wish i kept those commandments since i was a kid. i wouldn't be here today in my office feeling humiliated and shamed. i will tear my robe off now, and put on a sackcloth in order to repent for my sins... wait, wait... that's what Jesus is for, to give me another chance and remind me that with him i have infinite chances to have a relationship with an ever-present and ever-loving Father. sweet! thank you, Jesus, for saving my contorted soul!

e) now i'm here at work, none of my coworkers are here, so i'm just bouncing up and down on my blue exercise ball i use as a replacement for my thousand dollar good posture-inducing ergonomic sweat-preventing chair. yup. screw you consumerist society! hmmm, now where's my ipod so i can play scramble?

which one is false (because i liked the multiple choice idea so much)?
vendetta.

comedy can revive the spirit. comedy can harden the heart.

consider the _______

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:50:52 GMT

district 9's trend is just on the brink of fading from the main(e)stream.

and i can't help but wonder if the idea of the aliens looking like lobsters had to do with some guy who got inspired by an article published back in august of 2004. the author of the article had to jokingly remark that maybe since these giant sea-athropods came into existence before the mammals, lobsters just MIGHT as well be from another planet.

but maybe it's my incessant need to bring together two random things and entertain a connection that may or may not really be there.

but, anyway the article ends up discussing how "unkosher" the methods are to cook lobster (boiling them alive), and how making a statement on how lobsters can't feel a subjective mental experience gets into some high level philosophy. but i'm sure the fact that PETA was there to protest the inhumane method made the entire situation in this day in po mo age all too unsexy.

i want to be the kind of parent who interprets why a child should or shouldn't do something, that when i say "you shouldn't tell lies", i give practical consequences why and convincing philosophy on how it will just screw up your psyche - to lie ultimately yields distrust also on the liar's end, and that one day you can end up isolated, confused, and in pain... and you might not be able to point to why.

all these thoughts just because i said to bill that the days of my youth are gone (surprisingly in a heavily vainglorious way, which is another story), and he responded "shackles of youth. irony is the shackles of youth", quoting REM. we jokingly set up a time to discuss what that means to us at 10:15. and i'm here typing "shackles of youth" on google to see what comes up, what people think that means, what REM might intend with the whole "irony is" thing. and i just so happened to stumble upon a snippet of an interview that author of "consider the _______" had mentioned about a universal truth in a post modern world. then there was a link to the article that i've titled as my xanga entry for the day to document my hypothesis that maybe this article is tied to district 9. my mind wonders about apartheid and arthropods and eternal insight that you can't evade even if you are apart of this world or if you had some pod that can transport you to the end of time (whatever that means).

DFW, the intriguing author who died last year on paul meyer's birthday (not the initials of the airport in texas), seems to be running around in my head with an infinite jest.

maybe there are connections. maybe i'm forcing it. maybe i'm making a self-indulgent commentary on how "this" is the tragedy of obsessed people who will end up in inevitable oblivion anyway. and i wonder if for every tag word i intend a reference for would outnumber david's references in his premier novel. probably far from. and i wonder how many MORE references can be counted if some third party tried to figure out which words are meant to refer to what.

obsession may be the shackles of silent genius as irony is the shackles of youth.

it is irony for a kid to accept but not understand how lying to others can hurt him more than others. he must trust in the retrospect - the supposed wisdom of the life-givers (or nurturers (or influencers)) who preceded him. but it's ironic that for a child to really understand the deep depravity of lying means the child may need to do so consistently, until he stumbles upon age 34, and he's completely in pain, nervous, and can't really figure out why. then on an idle tuesday afternoon, it may come to him. it may satisfy his over-reflective lack of self-awareness, depending on how much he values intellect (and how such a banal statement had unyielding and everlasting truth), it my suffice. or if he's just like me, another someone who likes toying with concepts and piecing things together at his own leisure, it would be just enough to be tantalized in thought.

but i hope that i am able to scrounge for some truth here. and i think it has to do with me being a certain kind of parent....

i'd prefer the PTA over the PETA, personally.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:38:52 GMT

i ordered six books (five of which are by the name of dave or david), calculated the posterior probabilities of who is responsible for leaving dishes in the sink for more than a day in our apartment, and talked to God in an almost purely subjective way. but it's always weird to me how i can interact with such a wholly objective and omnipresent being yet feel like i interact with God subjectively. it's like going to a rich powerful intelligent king, who exists to rule and nurture his country, and then initiating a casual conversation. "hey! long time no see, ol' friend! how the heck are ya?"

and so i do just this with God, and i listen, and only humor seems to surface in my inner thoughts (haha surfacing in something internal) of God responding with "oh i'm doing mighty fine, son!" in an original gangster kind of way. and based on my limited understanding of a totally perfect God, i can't imagine God's humor contradict His ability to rule in His perfect way. but i don't live in infinite and undefined worlds where distributions/functions fail to be mathematically "support"ive (math plug).

infinity exists within the confines of our body and it exists in the total expanse of space and time. it exists b/t zero and one when dealing with real numbers, and it can exists in the field of integers (countably infinite).

certainty is too difficult to accept sometimes, so we live in probably and probability.

here is a drawing of a stapler

_____
/_____\
(_______ (i copied dave eggers)

too many things i want to say, but not enough time and space to jot it down somewhere...

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:58:06 GMT

-i'm at candice's lab, trying to write a memorandum to mr. asherton about my analysis on his new term insurance business. candice is doing stuff with cells with virus infections in an in vitro environment.

-she's a scientist. i'm an actuary. we are art and artists. we are beloved.

-with orange wavy hair and overalls, the journey began with a crush. "who is this girl with a wacky outfit and awesome hair?" but i suppose our journey didn't really begin until the following march.

-living and breathing thoughts under the structure of logic is fun when it's new. but it has grown to be merely an underlying process in which to structure creations and formulate larger ideas to solve larger or more specific issues. the world of the systematic and analytical sometimes is cold and heartless. but sometimes that world inspires. inspiration comes from the imaginative and thoughtful love... at least for me. i feel like it is the inspired who really move the world. and how are we inspired without the spirit? inspired in a purposeful way?

-i enjoy art that exercises a terrible amount of reason. i also enjoy art that questions form and quality. how do you deviate from form towards rawness while without become too chaotic and unthoughtfully wild?

-i always seem to write entries when i should be working on something else.

-i always wonder what deeper things people deal with, or what drives their passion, but few share with me. and then i lose out on being captivated by other people's adventures, struggles, and funny-woven stories. i lose out on seeing how God is working with other people and in different areas. how is he working in computer science? music? aerospace engineering? entertainment? civil engineering? teaching? structural engineering? piano sales? homeless shelters? inner cities? physics? law? justice? economics? politics? nature? marketing? banking? design? public health? medicine? traffic? church? families? culture? horticulture?

a series of quibbles are a woman's worst enemy.

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:50:10 GMT

i'm not much for formulas (well, except for proving them (or at least attempting to)), but i like stories that contain a struggle, deep and multi-layered, and that ends with perseverance. and as much as i like graceful endings, i also really like pyrrhic victories. if the entertainment industry exhausted the theme, no matter how cheesy or recycled the story, i'd be a sucker for it. i think it's because i value hope. i value seeing things that currently are not but could be. i value fighting for those things that could be to come about. with math, i do it within reason. within constraints. with the world, i'd rather not and depend on my Father to pave the way in his lovely interesting way. i'm obsessed with it.

but today is truly unique. this point in time is irrecoverable. the placement of all people and animals and bugs and dirt particles and atoms and stars throughout all the world and universe are positioned in the fabric of the time-space continuum in a way that's in and of itself distinct and impossible to replicate. our every thought and emotion, indecision, bitter recluse, joyful praise, and curious idea that is produced in this very moment through synapses in our brains is truly, truly unique. our genes are unique. our fingerprints. the timbre of our voices. so many things! and though not every thought or action is valuable right now, the ones in the future could be. and the fact that every moment is so precious, there is a slight pressing urgency to be engaged with the world (and metaworld) today, to take yourself, feelings and actions and all, seriously. and to do so tomorrow. right now. ten minutes from now. there's a special urgency to sleep and recover and rest. there is pressing urgency to be subject to the experience as well as objective towards your character and the depravity/goodness of human kind. so to be alive in this very moment, with our unique combination of struggles and gifts and people in our lives, means we must live out in fullness. fullness in whatever feeling - excitement, tiredness, hunger, anything. but overall, as long as we're engaged (and hopefully there is a slight smile hidden beneath our countenance, a little piece of joyfulness for being alive and gratefulness for this very unique precious time we're allotted), then no one can ask for more. live it out. your thoughts are valuable. your actions are meaningful and consequential. there is meant to be life in your eyes and eyebrows. live. please?

i'm not sure if this is more for me than it is for you because i see much life in you... at least when i see you.

entry on topher's birthday

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:05:28 GMT

happy birthday, tophinator!