All day today (3/3/09) has been Square Root Day--the day times the month equals the last two digits of the year. There are nine such days in a century, and the next one will be 4/4/16.

Despite all the joy to be wrought from such interesting math musements, a thought nags me: Can't one really come up with something of mathematical import/interest from just about any day of any year? Some are easy, such as when the day and month add to the last two digits of the year, or subtract or divide to same, but some may be exponentially related (2/3/08, for instance), or perhaps together solve an equation (3/4/05--the sum of the squares of the first two equal the square of the last).

Of course, I immediately fall flat on the day after Square Root Day--3/4/09. Ah, well.

Poking my head up again out of the sea of electronic information ...

A friend of mine pointed out that Microsoft has made Express versions of its Visual Studio software (including Visual C++, Visual Basic, C#, etc.) free and available to all (see www.microsoft.com/express)! I've been working with my old copy of VS 6, since I could in no way afford the new .NET stuff, so I was thrilled to have this opportunity to upgrade my skills.

But it never being enough just to learn one thing at a time, I decided to learn how to program using OpenGL and DirectX (perhaps as part of my dream to eventually write for video game consoles ;) ). And since that wasn't enough (apparently), I also started learning to create 3D images in Blender, another free program (see www.blender.org). I've managed to create a human face and am working on a second; then I'll see about animating them and/or using OpenGL to integrate my 3D creations into C++ ...

All this, of course, while continuing to proofread. I'll have an update on that the next time I get a chance.

Well, I continued to get as much work as I could handle over the course of the last two weeks, with some books coming late and others' due dates moving up, meaning that during last week I had five books come due. I worked ten days straight, though, and finished everything. Yea!

Now, though, I have a web site and two new books to get done. Which also elicits a "Yea!" out of me, since I need and want the work.

I've discovered that at least one more author has acknowleged my proofreading work (this time in the preface of Geosystems [Canadian 2nd edition], a physical geography textbook). I'm very happy about this, since proofers are rarely acknowledged in print for their part in the publication process (see my post from 06/05/07, The first rule of hiding ...). A third "Yea!"

More later ...

Just got slammed with a bunch of work last week, and so I didn't keep up with my blogging ... sorry!

Still quite busy ... I'm currently proofing the Clean Fuels Report and a book on domestic violence, and I've just finished books about Martin Luther King Jr and Microsoft Office (plus other software). Upcoming are a geography textbook and several others. Plus the usual web sites and updates.

I've been listening to soundtracks lately ... Serial Experiments Lain, Macross, Ghost in the Shell. And good old Garbage and Sophie Ellis Bextor.

What an absolutely utilitarian post this is! Ah, well. Something better next time, I hope.

--Jeff

Since 1999 I've run a fan site for the anime/manga series Ghost in the Shell, and while the discussion boards on that site have always been pretty lively (until spambots overran everything), I must admit that as my business grew I no longer had the energy to update the site itself. This sad state of affairs was finally addressed last weekend, when I suddenly had a bit of inspiration ... for those familiar with Ghost in the Shell, perhaps I should say I heard a whisper in my ghost.

It's now a site I'm proud of again, and I'm fixing up the discussion boards as well (found code I could implement to discourage spammers, will change the style of the boards to match the new site, etc.). I'm also pleased to have run a site for almost a decade--the internet is not many years older than that. (I did in fact run a business site in 1996, when the 'net was barely old enough to begin teething, but that site's long gone.)

Feel free to take a look at www.neomythos.com/intheshell.