First, Happy New Year!

In my job, I often have to explain why a piece of machinery behaves differently than the engineering equations used to describe the behavior. Usually, it becomes a problem of real world behavior and human recording error. When you are trying to read a dial that is vibrating between several readings in an extremely noisy and occasionally scarey environment, what gets written down is a best estimate of what is true, while trying to escape the environment in one piece. Sometimes a bias is built into the reading by the standard operating procedure. (e.g. Take the reading at the maximum value during the test, or take the reading of the maximum and minimum of the vibrating dial and divide by two, etc.) In general, you have to be careful when fitting real world data for these types of reasons.

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My boy packed up for college today. He intended to leave by 9 AM, and he made it by 9:40 AM. Compared to family vacation departures, this is pretty close to target. My son has made this the best Christmas in a long, long time. He's growing up. Here he is with Buddy, the family pet.

I intended to take down the Christmas lights today.

I intended to do several chores around the house.

Instead, I picked up my son's copy of Doom 3. I started playing the game. Then I went to a "walk through" web site. Before I knew it, the sun had gone down. Then it was dinner time.

What a colossal way to waste time. The game was intense, scarey and far better than going to a movie. The only problem is, a movie is over in about two hours. This game just keeps going and going and going...

I better put it back in my son's room and get some chores done tomorrow.  It was fun, but way too much of a waste of time.

I've had the best Christmas of all. My son is home from college, and he has changed so much. He looks and acts like a man. He's happy and confident and it made this Father's heart so happy. It's so wonderful to see your children moving into adulthood with confidence and poise. My daughter is just a jewel. A dedicated hunter-jumper, she and her best friend live and breath horses. They scheme and plan and study for the day when they can open their own barn and train riders to jump. (Hopefully they'll wait a few years.)

It's been a good Christmas. I pray yours has been good also.

Folks, The Endeavor is simply the best blog out there. John's a mathematician. I only know him only through the internet, but I can tell he's a smart and inquisitive guy. His subjects are hard but absolutely fascinating, even for non-mathematicians. He has my vote as the best blog for 2008, if there's anyplace to vote for such a thing. He'll definitely broaden your horizons.