After about 2 months of hard work, it’s here! The Math Wizard is finally here!
I’m selling it for USD 10, and you can find out more here.
Today is auspicious, as the Chinese would say, because there are only 0′s, 1′s and 2′s in the date.
“You know, if you launched on 1 Feb 2010, it would be even nicer. 01022010 in DDMMYYYY format. That’s a palindrome!”
Uh… yes you’re right. Well, I needed 9 more days to prepare…
This is a short announcement, and a slight deviation from the usual topics (not that the topics are consistent, but … never mind).
I’m excited to say that my Math Wizard ebook is going to be launched in about 9 days. Launch date is 10 February, and the time is
Thank you for reading Polymath Programmer, with the wide (and sometimes weird) variety of topics covered. This ebook product I created is an amalgamation of my interests in math and Dungeons & Dragons (a tabletop roleplaying game). The price will be set at USD 10 (for now).
More product details will be announced on the launch date. For now, you can download a free preview of the Math Wizard, or you can read more on why I created the Math Wizard.
I’m making things happen. Tell me about yours.
It’s the end of the year 2009. There’s also something you should know. I’m not affected much by holidays, as in I don’t do anything special on or for them. To me, they’re like another Sunday. The days pretty much blur into each other.
Time is circular. Seasons change, things change, people change, stuff happens, but time goes on. In fact, we humans can’t comprehend how time continues to go on and on (except for the movie Titanic, but that’s another story…) that we have to break it up. Like years, and months, and days.
Time is circular. In fact, the very notion of time itself is questionable. Sure the sun rises at dawn, and sets at dusk. You think the sun cares that you designated a time called “dawn” and “dusk” for it to rise and set? The sun just happened. It just spun all 9 (sorry Pluto) 8 planets around it, while orbiting another larger source of gravity. What does time mean?
Time is circular. In fact, if you think about it, space and time are the same. If you walked from one spot to another, how far did you cover? What if I asked you how long you took? Is it the same? What if you didn’t move, and just sat there for an hour? It just meant it took you one hour to move zero metres.
Time is, perhaps, an illusion.
I started out with the goal of thanking you for reading my blog, for tolerating some of my inane writings, for finding something useful out of others. Then my mind wandered, and I wrote something philosophical, and very likely another one of those inane writings I mentioned. Let me get back on track.
It’s been about 2 and half years since I started writing. Perhaps you found a programming article useful. Perhaps you found a funny article. Perhaps you corrected me on a blatant mistake. Perhaps you’re too shy to voice your opinions (I know, I’m psychic, remember?).
I thank you.
Yes, even you, the mutant genius squirrel who’s living in some forest plotting world domination. Wait… what am I talking about…
My goals for 2010 are:
Since time is circular, there’s no real point in setting goals just for the new year. You should be doing that all the time, and readjusting as needed anyway. But hey, I need to change my calendar, so it’s a good time as any.
What are your goals?
And this has been brought to you by the entirely self-serving advertisement of the Math Wizard, possibly the smartest RPG character you’ll ever play.
I had a tumultuous past month (or so).
My network adaptor died on me, and since my computer then was about 5 years old, I thought “Why not just get a new computer?” So I did.
Due to some personal reasons, I feel a bit worn out. So I’m putting that ebook project on hold for a while. Partly because I’m also channelling my energy to another blog. Please visit Honeybeech, where I tell stories, mainly about my Dungeons & Dragons gameplay adventures.
Rest assured that I’m still here. So I’ll be writing math and programming topics here at Polymath Programmer, and RPG/fantasy/fiction stuff over at Honeybeech.
Because even programmers need to eat (as in “eat properly”, despite whatever you’ve heard about pizzas and fizzy drinks), I’m writing an ebook as a D&D game supplement. It’s called Math Wizard (I know, it’s so “me”, right?), and the character’s powers are mostly based on math and science concepts.
Considering all my options, I believe I have a better chance at making “Math Wizard” work better than “Discipline and Deflection” (the original ebook project). I also believe the former can inspire more people and ignite their imagination and curiosity than the latter. I will still create both, and I’m just constrained by time and effort.
A friend also introduced me to a book store here in Singapore called BooksActually. They have a sister branch called “Polymath & Crust”. Awesome! They have the word “polymath” in it. I have to visit that book store.
The store is located at No. 86 Club Street Singapore 069454, if you’re interested.
[Disclosure: I'm not paid by them. I even bought a book. See below.]
We went in, and it was a quaint little place, carrying books that you don’t see in major book stores. My friend bought himself a dictionary of symbols, and I bought a dictionary of mathematics.
Even their paper bag is interesting. I wonder what that interesting shape mean?
Found this from Merlin Mann:
If you don’t feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn’t very vital.
John Irving
That said, many things get in the way of writing articles, as Brent Diggs found out.
I also found that writing articles is harder than writing code. It’s even harder when your wireless adaptor dies on you. Which was exactly what happened to me. Yup, that wireless adaptor. My super power apparently failed this time.
There will probably be no new articles for a week. Maybe 2. It depends on how fast my new computer arrives. Yes, I’m scrapping the current one. Because the battery for the internal clock appears to be dying. And because the USB connection from the keyboard seems to be acting up. And because the RAM thought there wasn’t enough space to hold variable values and decided to store those variable values in a buffer overflow, which apparently overflowed into the physical world and ATE MY COMPUTER FROM THE INSIDE OUT. And I might as well upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 (my computer’s 5 years old).
If you’re positively dying for some action, go to Stack Overflow. Ask a question. Answer a question. Then come back and tell me how awesome you are.
I planned to write about inserting an image into Excel in Open XML format (following the article on stylesheet creation in Open XML). In case you’re really interested in that, subscribe to my RSS feed so you’ll know the moment I publish that article.
I recently had a chat with a friend about baby names. She’s asking for opinions because, well, she’s carrying a baby girl (congratulations!) and she wanted to know what her/my friends and I thought of her choice.
The name’s not important to this story. The point is, her husband and her had decided to use only an English name and the surname (or last name if you come from those western countries). I’m using the term “English name” as opposed to “Christian name” because it’s more generic.
Now, the typical Chinese name has 2 “English” equivalents, phonetically speaking (other than a direct English name). One is the Hanyu Pinyin version. For example, my name in Hanyu Pinyin is Chen Weilie (or Wei Lie in 2 characters, but it’s sort of understood when they’re lumped together).
The other equivalent is the dialect name. My Chinese dialect group is Hokkien, which means my ancestors came from Fu Jian in China. And my dialect name is Tan Wai Lip.
Now, my preferred name is “Vincent”. Or “Vincent Tan”. “Vincent Chen” is fine too. I just think that last one sounds funny to me…
Which gives an interesting problem, because my full “English name” is Vincent Tan Wai Lip. “Tan” is my last name. It doesn’t look very “last” to me…
According to the western naming convention, I should be “Wai Lip Vincent Tan”, which means in my culture’s convention, I’m “Tan Wai Lip Vincent”. The “Wai Lip” part is not a middle name, it is my first name according to western culture, and my given name in Chinese culture.
I’m bringing this up because, many of the online transactions I’ve made requires a “first name” and “last name” field. What do I fill in for those? I usually use “Vincent” and “Tan” respectively.
This worked fine till I got to PayPal. For withdrawal purposes, they required my name, after fully resolving the “first name” and “last name” part, to be exactly the same as that in my Singapore bank account. I’ll leave you to imagine all the hassle this gave me…
I’m sure Chinese aren’t the only ones with this problem.
So, back to that pregnant friend of mine. Even though she and her husband are both Chinese, they’ve decided that their daughter shall only have the “English name” and the surname part. Their daughter will still have a full Chinese name, only that she won’t have a full dialect name.
Their main reason?
Because the nurse at the hospital is prone to giving terrible sounding dialect names…
[image by bunhill]
Rands wrote an article describing his love of books. (No, Rands isn’t his real name, and I respect his privacy if he chooses to use a handle.) He talked about the Amazon Kindle, and he also mentioned that he still liked to hold a physical book when he reads. Same here.
I’m going to answer the 3 phases of his book stalking process:
They are everywhere. Alright, only in the living room and my room. Of course I managed to find a couple of books hiding in a kitchen cabinet…
I don’t really have matching bookshelves to hold my books. It’s a cabinet here, a glass shelf there. The majority of my material possessions are books, so they sort of have a life of their own in my house. My father even built a bookshelf for me because he couldn’t stand some of the books just being stacked on the floor…
I think the only rule is: put the book(s) where there’s a space. This also means books are vertically and horizontally placed. Sometimes the shelf is too high, and the vertically placed books have some extra space above them, but not enough to place more books vertically. But I can lay books on their side on top of the existing books. Shove, shove, shove…
I’d make a terrible librarian… It goes with my messy nature…
I love fantasy fiction by David Eddings and Terry Brooks. There’s a couple of others, such as the Death Gate Novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and the science fiction ones by Michael Crichton.
There are also comic books, on the legendary kung fu master Chen Min, or Q in Detective Dan’s school or the Kindaichi chronicles.
I also have some books on business, self-help, and marketing. These are the non-technical books to complement the math and programming textbooks lurking… somewhere in those shelves…
And currently, the Dungeons and Dragons books command my attention. The fact that there are people who want to play tabletop RPGs with me helps with my interest.
I think for an electronic version of books to be appealing to me, it has to be very “futuristic”. I don’t want to swipe from one end of the screen to the other to “flip” a page. I want to see a page being flipped, even if it’s holographically produced.
I don’t want to select a book from a list of titles on the screen. I want to see books in front of me, again holographically produced, for me to pick and choose.
It’s not just the book content I’m after. It’s the whole experience of reading.
The recent heat wave in Singapore, and the unfortunate H1N1 epidemic reminded me of a story. I’ve only told this to a few people, but here is where you’ll read about the full story.
It was slightly later than the SARS period. People were frightened of getting infected. The basic detection method was the temperature check, so thermometers and heat scans were employed.
I was also looking for a potential job position, and I got an afternoon interview with a company. I arrived early because the location was a bit remote.
Now, it’s a habit of mine. Whenever I know something important is happening later, I stop drinking. Just so I won’t have to go to the bathroom at the most inopportune moments. I don’t know why, it’s just a personal quirk.
So I was walking from the bus stop to the company’s location, under the hot sun, in long sleeves and pants (thankfully no suit and tie needed), and heated, slightly sweaty and parched. It was a wonder I reached the security guardroom of the company not dripping wet from my own sweat.
Now this company had a very high security level. They had a full temperature head scanner. They had this device that scans people, and a heat map shows up on their screens.
Well, it was after the SARS period, so I could understand their security concerns. Someone from the company was waiting for me. He waited by the side while the security guard asked me to stand at a designated spot. Then the guard activated the scanner.
Apparently, my temperature scan looked like a sunset with lavish swathes of reds and oranges, because the guard told me to stand still again while he scanned again. Sensing something wrong, the adrenaline in me surged a little, which didn’t help cool down my body temperature. I held still. I even held my breath. I still failed the temperature scan.
The company liaison, surprised by this unexpected unfolding of events, took me to the inner parts of the guardroom, where the air conditioning was stronger. He also offered me a cup of water from the dispenser. Then he told me to sit and wait for a while first. I got myself a cup of water, drank and accepted his suggestion.
“I’m gonna fail the interview before I even step into the company office, aren’t I?” silently and matter-of-factly entered my thoughts.
After 15 minutes (or half an hour, I didn’t keep track), I stood up, and took the temperature scan again. I placed my feet at the exact position of the designated spot, shifting my shoes to fit the exact outline of the pre-drawn shoe print. My hands were held in a limbo of alternating tenseness and forced relaxation. I looked up as confidently as I could, keeping my breathing steady, taking deep breaths… And the guard scanned.
What took seconds felt like the time passed while running around a 400 metre track 2 times, then jumping into a pool to swim 100 metres and then work out a 6 digit long division. By hand. I was getting ready to dive into that imaginary pool in my mind when the guard said it’s ok. I passed.
The company liaison, obvious relief on his face, took me into the company proper. And the interview itself? Well, it’s not as interesting as the guardroom episode… alright fine, I’ll tell you about it some other time.
For the past few weeks, my home network router had been acting funny. Or my wireless network adaptor. The main computer plugs directly into the router. My computer connects to the router wirelessly.
The main computer has no problems surfing the Internet. My computer connects to the Internet in a hit-or-miss fashion, seemingly working only when the moon is in alignment with Saturn or a sparrow flaps its wings in exact accompaniment to one of Mozart’s musical compositions. After some troubleshooting, I found I could connect to another unencrypted router in my apartment block (that generous soul should be slightly worried about security). So my adaptor should be working fine. Well, I’m confused. I was never much of a hardware kind of guy…
Since my iPhone can only do so much in mitigating this Internet-less situation, I’ve decided to take a break in writing articles while I go fix this up (no Internet, harder to write articles). Say until… *looks at calendar* 10th May. You’re strong. You can handle not reading anything from me for about 3 weeks.
This isn’t the only reason for the break. Writing articles still doesn’t come easily to me, despite doing it for the better part of the past 2 years. There are also some stuff I have to sort out, which I can’t do if I’m doing stuff on the Internet at my current level of involvement.
Lately, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by social media and attending some of the social events and “socialising” in general (yes, I see the irony in the double quotes…). My friends on Twitter, Facebook and Plurk are about 100 on each of those networks. Feel free to add me! Wait, didn’t I just say I was overwhelmed… Does it always take being overwhelmed to really appreciate close, face-to-face, honest, and fun meetings with friends?
I’ve been trying to reclaim some personal time. I remember reading books and playing video games. I’m not doing much of each these days. Through an introduction on Plurk, I got to know someone who’s a Dungeon Master for Dungeons and Dragons! Awesome! Try listening to a D&D podcast to understand how it’s played.
There’s some preparation I need to do, and hopefully I’ll get to play a session or two during this break of mine. Hopefully at least one session. Then I’ll tell you all the captivating details of how I nearly died bringing down the orc king Brull the Numbskull. If it means anything to you, I plan to play an eladrin wizard.
“But what am I going to do during this ill-conceived break of yours?” you ask.
Uhm, uh, let me introduce a few of my friends to you then.
I will still answer email and be on the social networks, albeit slower in response and less frequently. If you have any ideas you want to discuss, feel free to contact me. I might be so interested that I’m compelled to write something on it!
Now to fix my network router…
About a month ago, I was invited to participate in a project that’s never been done in Singapore before: A calendar for 2009 featuring bloggers in Singapore. It turned out well, and so yeah, the rest of this is going to sound narcissistic…
Still here? Ok, I’m not going into the details of how this came about. The summary is that a few people organised it and the lot of us went to a studio to get our photos taken. I’m born in June, and I’m featured on that month together with another June baby. Here’s me:
The pretty lady has an equally pretty handle: clicktokill. You do not want to mess with her…
I bought 6 hard copies of the calendar, each month printed on glossy photographic material (I don’t know the technical term for it…) with a cover page. For the life of me, I can’t remember why I ordered 6… Thus I’ve got a couple extra, so if you’re interested (really?), I can send one to you (email me with your address) even if you’re not in Singapore (I’m feeling generous).
Or you can head on over to the web version which was done by Darran (he did a great job on that). Then you can download a zip file with the images yourself. Have a look at the other bloggers while you’re there!
And special thanks to Willy from LiveStudios, who’s the photographer capturing us on film. If you’re in Singapore and looking for photographers, you know who to ask for.
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I'm a mathematician, programmer, writer, magazine editor, video creator and entrepreneur. I'm also awesome at reverse engineering Bezier curves and excel at creating spreadsheets with C#/VB.NET/Open XML SDK.
My name is Vincent Tan. I write about maths, programming, writing, publishing, design, entrepreneurship, online business and other esoteric topics that might not seem to match each other.
I also publish a monthly online magazine Singularity (browse the archives). Subscribe to get exclusive updates. It's free.
