Happy Valentine’s Day - Nerd Edition

Try googling this today:

sqrt(cos(x))cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5

Happy Valentine’s Day folks!

(Or, as some of us like to call it, Happy Singles Awareness Day!)

[function courtesy Wolfram Alpha, I believe. Though we learned about cardioids in grade 12 if I’m not mistaken.]

Your love will keep me warm: Tauntaun valentine

Asymmetry and calculus in architecture

I found this talk by Greg Lynn tremendously thought provoking, specifically because of my reaction -- the idea of complex non-linear structures whose interrelated parts form an organic whole excites me, yet I instinctively disliked every example shown. I could see the sense of what Lynn was trying to communicate in every example, yet was disturbed by the results. Have I been brainwashed by what Lynn calls symmetry and the problem of 'ideal shapes'?

There's one shot in his presentation where he shows a mass of structural steel beams that are curved and loop all around -- fascinating. With these sort of techniques one can imagine structures that are almost alien to our present experience.

Unfinished Game debate

I've been reading the comments in Jeff Atwood's post about this problem:

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you met someone who told you they had two children, and one of them is a girl. What are the odds that person has a boy and a girl?

The number of people who instinctively think it's 50% is high, as you'd expect. But the number of people who continue to insist that it's 50% after being shown that it isn't, is disturbing. What's most disturbing is that the target demographic for Atwood's blog is the software development community - programmers! Yikes.