Yay for random whininess.

[chess]

That last entry was meant to be LJ-cutted, but looking at it in friends-view it wasn't too long.

The college just rung to say that A2 Law was happening, starting next Monday. I do kinda want to do it, but it'll be awkward not having any time. Then again, I never get around to doing anything anyway, so it'll be good to use my time in a way where I'll actually do something for once.

Should anyone want to help me deal with putting up a shedload of DWcon and XF pictures in a non-tedious way (using something like gehazi, maybe), I might actually get around to doing them.

My lousy HP fanfic - which has definate Mary Sue potential, although hasn't *quite* realised it yet, and is still struggling to be a self-insert despite how I keep trying to make Kestra not-me - is now up to 64k. That's over eleven thousand words. Why can't I be inspired like this to write something decent - or even one of the half-dozen original fantasy and SF novels whose starts are littered around my computer?

I was meant to do some General Studies homework for tomorrow, but I made sure I was in a group with someone who does do work, so I'll be okay. I do feel a bit evil dumping it on her, though - not that she doesn't like doing that kind of pointless makework. Also, it appears the spectre of enchantedmelody's personal statement is back to haunt us; we have 'two or three days' to put it into some sort of shape.

36's other website has been fascinating me for a while - along with some deadjournals (uh, hi). Everyone say hello to Callie and Carli and Kali and Chessypig. Although not being in any way multiple, I've had fun putting faces to little bits of my personality. (Looks cool when they're all worship-dancing, too.)

The reason you've finally been blessed with a LJ entry is that Yamsyn decided she couldn't handle network and Psion and Internet and music - first she crashed, then she wouldn't let the network work, and during the second reboot the phone rang, and now the phone's busy so I can't play Mornington Crescent on SP, or read phd. Bah.

Your task for today is to define the phrase 'a pretty quack'. In the context of ducks, not doctors - doctors is cheating.

I think I need new userpics, but I only have 10mins left, and that's not enough time to do anything graphicy. Did I mention that I needed to quit wasting my time and do graphicy things and work on Kali and post more Haylar (yes, there is more Haylar hanging around, I just haven't coloured it and posted it yet) and stuff. My shoulder hurts. Smarties taste nice at first but they really are addictive - they leave this nasty taste in your mouth (withdrawl symptoms) that you need to get rid of by eating more smarties which only makes it worse, and they also have bad physical effects (tooth decay). Smarties are evil.



Mr Adams (Stats teacher): Zero divided by zero is a little house with smoke coming out of the chimney... zero divided by zero is an unripe banana.

Melody: All fish are evil.
Vikki: I don't believe in evil.
Melody: But do you believe in fish?

Fuzzy logic? Is that like Fuzzy Felt, except with maths?

Thank you, and goodnight. *takes a bow* *takes another one, because they're pretty little blue bows with silver ribbon in them*

Comments

[passage.livejournal.com]

If you have two functions (f(x)/g(x)) in a ratio each of which hits zero at the same time (f(x_0)=g(x_0)=0) (so locally giving you 0/0) then you can resolve the problem by (possibly successive) application of L'Hopital's rule (f(x_0)/g(x_0)=f'(x_0)/g'(x_0))

The astute reader will have observed that this works in all cases but for functions which are not differentiable beyond a certain point, and locally have 0 derivatives before that point, or where f(x)=g(x)=0.

In this final case you are indeed truely screwed. (When being formal we say "This is a sure sign that either you have made an error or the theory you came to this calculation from does not generalise to this example[1]).

I suspect someone's going to tell me I've missed the spirit of the occasion.

Neil

P.S.: This comment may turn up twice: LJ seems to be seriously broken atm.

[1] This sort of thing happens in physics and helps us to find the limits of experimentally determined laws.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

You want to be a bit careful with your use of = there - if f(x_0)=g(x_0)=0 then f(x_0)/g(x_0) is simply undefined. What might be useful to know is the limit of f(x)/g(x) as x->x_0.

But at this time in the morning I prefer the traffic warden explanation.