Achievement unlocked: Assignment 1

I am quite upbeat right now, because I've pretty much finished Assignment 1. I started A1 rather early because I remembered having struggled greatly with the assignments in CSC165 -- even though I had been working with two great minds. Consequently, I reasoned that, since A1 is an individual assignment, I must start very early to ensure that I will actually finish on time.

I found the first two questions to be rather easy; the first being very similar to the proof about trees that was covered in lecture, and the second being reminiscent of what we did in CSC165 (chaining inequalities). The third question was complicated, but a particular lecture example was immensely helpful. (I have a post about that, but I'll make it public after A1's due date. It's here, back-posted because I like my posts in chronological order.) I discussed the fourth question today with my friends (=the two great minds from CSC165), who are also taking this course, and we converged on a solution. The administration will be happy to know that we threw out all the scrap paper that we were drawing on after our discussion. We also engaged in a lengthy, mind-altering conversation about noodles, LaTeX, and linguistics assignments that no one else needs to know about.

All in all, A1 was a bit easier than I expected. However, it is only Assignment 1. For every natural number n, assignment n+1 is usually harder than assignment n. ...How does one quantify "usually"?

Today: New York, USA
Since it's Friday, let's go with something light-hearted. Vi Hart is a "recreational mathematician". She explains with music and illustrations, in a way that you don't feel like you're sitting through a lesson. Earlier this year, she did an open letter to Nickelodeon regarding the geometrical inaccuracy of SpongeBob SquarePants' pineapple home.