tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70910962011-04-21T21:36:51.379-07:00Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.comBlogger871100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1147725740443498832006-05-15T13:30:00.000-07:002006-08-02T10:14:54.076-07:00

I've finished graduate school for now. I'm getting out with a Master's degree. That means this is the last I will write on this blog. For now, my online presence will be centered here.I hoped that graduate school would have provided more material to write about, but in truth graduate school is not all that glamorous nor exciting. I also don't like getting too personal on the Web, which kinda

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1138575197995927282006-01-29T14:49:00.000-08:002006-01-29T14:53:18.006-08:00

My friend Louis in Ireland has put up a video of an excursion to Howth. Check it out, it's fun for most of the family.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1138509756078642872006-01-28T20:34:00.000-08:002006-01-28T20:42:36.090-08:00

Last November (which is about the last time I posted here) I broke down and bought a generic $35 DVD player. I've never been much of a movie watcher, but I decided I would watch all those classic movies I always hear about. So I got a Netflix account and started watching. I'm a little late in comming to this and I'm not saying anything new, but Citizen Kane is an amazing movie. It has all the

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1132635941195683432005-11-21T20:54:00.000-08:002005-11-21T21:05:41.206-08:00

I find that class websites run by the professor are helpful, especially when they update them frequently with info about the course, class notes, and assignments. Unfortunately, I get distracted, lazy or both and forget to check the sites often enough. Like today, while checking whether there's an assignment in my statistics class for the Monday after Thanksgiving, I find out that there's an

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1131336568346478752005-11-06T20:04:00.000-08:002005-11-06T20:09:28.356-08:00

Just for grins I was looking through my junk email at an old abandoned Yahoo! account of mine (used long before the advent of gmail), and I was duly rewarded. There was a spam, from a one Nicholas Langley, titled "why did you tell everybody i had aids?".

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1129174292986177312005-10-12T20:25:00.000-07:002005-10-12T20:31:32.990-07:00

Today I arrived at school and locked my bike up in its normal place. Then I realize that the bike a couple rungs over on the rack looks awfully like the bike someone stole from me a year ago. If I had the time I would have waited around for its "owner" to come back, but I had a class to go to. After the class I passed by again, and it was gone. It's kinda weird to see your stolen bike.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1128132634264105412005-09-30T19:05:00.000-07:002005-09-30T19:10:34.270-07:00

As I am writing this, some people at my apartments are having a Halloween party in the building across the pool. It's still September people. I mean, if you had it tomorrow it wouldn't be so bad. At least it would be in October. And I though some people put up Christmas decorations too early.Speaking of Halloween, I think this year I won't have any candy. So when a kid comes to the door and says

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1127613161605391582005-09-24T18:49:00.000-07:002005-09-24T18:52:49.886-07:00

I am disappointed. No rain today, just clouds and some wind. But I've got to say, thanks Rita for giving us a holiday on Friday!

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1126666651250458632005-09-13T19:48:00.000-07:002005-09-13T20:00:09.766-07:00

"A Mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems." - Paul ErdösI've been forced to become a morning person this semester. Consequently, I need a daily fix of McDonald's coffee (MC). Now MC is not good. It's not hip. It's not gourmet. It doesn't even really have that coffee smell. But when I don't have my daily MC, I just end up staring at a blank sheet of paper.With MC I can

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1125029537584910942005-08-25T21:00:00.000-07:002005-08-25T22:04:24.920-07:00

Inspired, and requested, by a friend, here's some lists of stuff:Seven things I plan to do in the afterlife.Take an 1000 year nap.Learn to play the harp.Play air hockey with Isaac Newton.Visit another galaxy on holiday.Cause my visage to appear in tortillas somewhere in Mexico.Always speak with a fake British Accent.Throw a LAN party and invite Alan Turing.Seven things I'm good at doing

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1124934872961912342005-08-24T18:45:00.000-07:002005-08-24T18:54:32.966-07:00

In this podcast Ken Ham (a leader of a creationist organization) talks about how bad suicide is in Australia and lays the blame on evolutionist thinking. But today I read that Australia is sixth in the world for life expectancy. By Ham's logic, it seem that evolutionist thinking is paying off. When will people learn? Correlation does not imply causation.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1124755186107226552005-08-22T16:58:00.000-07:002005-08-24T18:56:41.260-07:00

According to googlism:aggieland is considered "in bad taste" and is thus a good reason to suppress a bookaggieland is in the trigon area behind the psychology buildingaggieland is not yet a perfect placeaggieland is working on a process to interpret cow moo’s to see if the cows are somehow feeling they are no longer usefulaggieland is monotonous and i'm loving itaggieland is actually

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1124675338377960942005-08-21T18:46:00.000-07:002005-08-21T18:48:58.383-07:00

Here's for aiding a Google bomb: intelligent design

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1124077770227726232005-08-14T20:45:00.000-07:002005-08-14T20:49:30.233-07:00

Although I've been bashing the ITMS here lately, I've actually have something good to say about it. They've finally got 1960's Rolling Stones songs. Oh, and, uh, I broke my promise, to myself, not to buy anything from ITMS and downloaded 11 Stones' songs.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1123480045218976442005-08-07T22:27:00.000-07:002005-08-07T23:02:12.466-07:00

While writing a computer program, it is considered good practice to name your functions, variables, objects, etc. with descriptive names. That way someone can read your program and have an idea of what it does. But there are mathematicians that don't seem to care about descriptive names for theorems and mathematical objects. Specifically, they like using mathematician's names (especially famous

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1122751808257075042005-07-30T12:25:00.000-07:002005-07-30T12:30:08.263-07:00

Now that I've read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, I can finally get Ayn Rand references in the Simpsons.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1122603389060038242005-07-28T19:01:00.000-07:002005-07-28T19:16:29.066-07:00

It's amazing to discover what you don't know you have while cleaning your closet. I've had for a while a pretty nice USB keyboard from Apple that I wanted to use with my PC. The keyboard's cable is short, so for the past few days I've been thinking about buying an extension cable. But today while cleaning out my closet I made the startling discovery that the keyboard had come with an extension

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1122537806025511302005-07-28T01:02:00.000-07:002005-07-28T01:03:26.030-07:00

Here's something new I'm trying: A list of books that I've read. The idea is that after a while when the list gets fairly long people can marvel on how well read I am. Or, maybe not.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1122525662237871612005-07-27T21:29:00.000-07:002005-07-28T01:05:58.013-07:00

I don't get much spam in my gmail account, but this past month I've received a couple of interesting unsolicited email. One was from another Chris Cowan commenting on how cool we are (for being Chris Cowans I guess) and gave me a link to his (way cooler than mine) website. Another was from someone who had known another Chris Cowan from Troup, TX, had come across my website and was wondering if I

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1122264242023330792005-07-24T20:44:00.000-07:002005-07-31T13:44:43.186-07:00

What can I say? Grapes from the Giumarra Vineyards are good. I love eating them. Really good. Really really awesome. Tasty. Good texture. Not too tart. You should buy some. Eat some grapes. Not those other tart, icky grapes that sit right next to them in the produce section. Just look for the Grape King. That's right, the Grape King. There's a picture of him right on the bag. So go, right now.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1122169293172736772005-07-23T18:32:00.000-07:002005-07-23T19:12:41.046-07:00

iTunes reports the song titles for Led Zeppelin III asImmigrant SongIt's Gonna Work Out FineNutbush City LimitsA Fool In LoveI Want To Take You HigherPoor FoolCome TogetherStagger Lee & BillyI'm Blue (The Ikettes)River Deep, Mountain HighNutbush City Limits?!? What the hell? Oh, and I never knew, after years of listening to this album, that Led Zepplin covered a Beatles song (Come Together for

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1121225570204243992005-07-12T20:32:00.000-07:002005-07-12T20:33:51.186-07:00

Every thing you wanted to know about the jibblies.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1121207988768791292005-07-12T15:37:00.000-07:002005-07-12T15:39:48.773-07:00

I've had this Supersystem song playing in my head for a while.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1121186539406875182005-07-12T09:29:00.000-07:002005-07-12T20:34:42.976-07:00

"Up above aliens hover making home movies for the folks back home..." That's a line from Radiohead's song Subterranean Homesick Alien from OK Computer.I'm playing The Simpsons: Hit & Run and a part of the plot is space aliens are filming human activity for a reality TV show back on their home planet.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1121015538447630232005-07-10T10:03:00.000-07:002005-07-12T15:30:21.430-07:00

Supermarket music is pretty bland. I've always pitied the artists that get played there, because I think it says something about the quality of their music (though they might be getting some nice royalty checks). Now I have to go and change all my theories because I heard a song from the Postal Service at H.E.B.. I've heard them played at more hip places around town (like the trendy pizza place

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1120867593369748532005-07-08T17:02:00.000-07:002005-07-08T17:06:33.373-07:00

There's a girl who's a math gradauate student here that has a Mobius band tattoo on her lower back. Simply amazing.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1120774420027496872005-07-07T15:09:00.000-07:002005-07-07T15:13:40.033-07:00

Check it out! I got a new bike. Now I'm extremely mobile. Just think of all the cool places I can ride to with this baby. And as a bonus, for a limited time only, I get to ride in the 100 degree weather were having in Texas!

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1120625964383328112005-07-05T21:55:00.000-07:002005-07-05T21:59:24.386-07:00

Tomorrow I take the plunge: I'm going to sell my car. I'm going to try a bike for a while, at least to go to school, and work on saving for a new car. Now I just got look out for a sweet deal on a Jetta.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1119499766623919582005-06-22T21:07:00.000-07:002005-06-22T21:09:26.623-07:00

While walking from the parking garage to my office the other day I came across an abandoned pair of flip-flop sandles.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1119227693932252442005-06-19T17:24:00.000-07:002005-06-22T21:12:08.486-07:00

The display on my iBook died when I plugged a TV adaptor into it last Suday night, which leaves me not wanting to buy all-in-one computers in the future.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1118968720087425592005-06-16T17:25:00.000-07:002005-06-16T17:38:40.093-07:00

I'm taking a four credit hour statistics class in a five week summer session, which amounts to about twelve hours of lecture a week. We have two hour long classes (with a five minute break) so to get to twelve hours we have a second class on Wednesday afternoons. Ugh. Anyway, I arrived a little early to class one Wednesday, and there were some students and a professor from the previous period

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1118639556449062702005-06-12T22:09:00.000-07:002005-06-12T22:12:36.453-07:00

Apparently a worm or virus took down the computer they use at church to display the song lyrics, so we had to, *GASP*, use hymnals.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1117840558579478622005-06-03T16:15:00.000-07:002005-06-03T16:15:58.583-07:00

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1117678344125087232005-06-01T19:00:00.000-07:002005-06-01T19:12:24.130-07:00

My friend Louis has recently moved to Ireland. He's been posting pictures on Flickr (Flickr, uh, can I buy an e, Pat?) Although this floury of photographs might in part be due to the novelity of Louis recently arriving in Ireland, it's clear that he has more things to take pictures of than I do and I'm kinda jealous about it.Before I moved up to College Station, I bought a digital camera. I

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1117573550057712362005-05-31T13:59:00.000-07:002005-05-31T14:05:50.060-07:00

Today summer classes started up. The professor for my class walks in and I can't believe my eyes. My professor looks like he can be the older brother of a particular person I don't like very much, and at first I thought it was that very person. I had a few seconds of shock and disbelief accompanied with my heart beating a little hard and then, after realizing he wasn't that person, a bit of

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1116887701532055062005-05-23T15:30:00.000-07:002005-05-23T15:35:01.540-07:00

Alan Turing was born 23 June 1912 in England. He did not see much of his parents though because they lived in India; his father was in the Indian Civil Service. There was not much time for personal attention from adults, so Turing was an independent character. He was a bright boy, he taught himself to read at the age of three, but he never liked the rigor of school as he only did well in what he

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1116530392660497302005-05-19T12:18:00.000-07:002005-05-19T12:19:52.666-07:00

Last night I saw a police officer pull over a guy on a bike.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1115099163312908122005-05-02T22:43:00.000-07:002005-05-02T22:46:03.313-07:00

Here is an interesting image of North and South Korea that was linked to this interesting article on Slate.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1114877596412251132005-04-30T09:10:00.000-07:002005-04-30T09:13:16.413-07:00

The Time Traveler ConventionMay 7, 2005, 10:00pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC)East Campus Courtyard, MIT42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W(42.360007,-071.087870 in decimal degrees)

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1114495600697873522005-04-25T22:49:00.000-07:002005-04-25T23:06:40.700-07:00

I've noticed a recurring joke on the Simpsons (at least in the third and fourth seasons which I have on DVD) that Bart and Lisa have attention span and memory problems due to watching too much TV. I think the same thing is happening with the iPod and iTunes. Shuffle is the rage now. Apple even has an "iPod" that basically just does shuffle play. Now shuffle has it's uses. It kinda feels like you

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1114139131150661942005-04-21T19:53:00.000-07:002005-04-21T20:06:34.006-07:00

During my normal geeky wasting time ritual of reading slashdot I came across this post. Now if you read the first (highly moderated) comments they immediatly start proclaiming Mac OS X's greatness, even though that's slightly off topic. Now, I like OS X a lot, but slashdot used to be the lair of the Linux nerd. Something like this post happens all the time. There's some story about some computer

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1113365940684402602005-04-12T21:14:00.000-07:002005-04-12T21:19:00.686-07:00

I decided to file my taxes online this year, so I headed over to H&R Block's site. After entering my W2 forms they display this page with information about applying for food stamps. Man, I am a poor graduate student.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1112761911416581482005-04-05T21:25:00.000-07:002005-04-05T21:31:51.416-07:00

I dropped my differential geometry course a couple of weeks ago. The subject matter was completely over my head; I couldn't do hardly any assigned problems. I couldn't do the midterm. In short it was a crisis. And I miss it.Since I dropped, I've had plenty of time to work on my other, much easier classes. But there's no stress, no panic. There's nothing to complain about, or even talk about, when

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1112426775032641662005-04-01T23:23:00.000-08:002005-04-01T23:26:15.033-08:00

The April Fools joke on Gmail was that they were going to have infinity+1 GB of storage space. To bad that infinity+1 equals infinity. Doesn't really buy you that much.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1110942059250553052005-03-15T18:59:00.000-08:002005-03-16T09:42:30.866-08:00

I walk out of the door of my house and start walking briskly up the street to the bus stop. It's chilly this morning. When I reach the bus stop I check my watch. The bus should be here within five minutes, I think. I start wishing I had put on an extra sweater. The bus arrives. Door opens. I flash my student pass to the driver and walk to my normal seat. In some cities it's too inconvient or too

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1108193463845139072005-02-11T23:30:00.000-08:002005-02-11T23:31:03.846-08:00

I finished reading Carl Sagan's novel Contact this evening. One of the themes in the book is knowing versus believing. Ellie, the protagonist, who is an agnostic scientist and Joss who is a preacher have both had life changing events, but neither of them can prove them. Joss had been dead but was resuscitation, after which he had turn to religion. Ellie got to visit aliens in the center of the

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1106112222901128722005-01-18T21:14:00.000-08:002005-01-18T21:23:42.903-08:00

My second semester started today. Let me be the first to say that month long breaks get very tiresome. Yeah, I know I should study, but when the urgency of finals wears off over Christmas you find yourself with little motivation without that whip-cracking sound of due-dates urging you on. It's going to be a grueling semester, I can feel it, but not having T.A. duties is going to really help. My

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1105497296446631362005-01-11T18:32:00.000-08:002005-01-11T18:34:56.446-08:00

This is the second day in a row where the person in front of me at the grocery store, in the 10 items or less express lane has had about 15 items, and that's counting duplicates of the same product as one. GARRR!

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1105387999863681702005-01-10T12:04:00.000-08:002005-01-10T12:13:19.863-08:00

While watching the 122nd Strongbad E-mail, something amazing happened. I didn't laugh. I didn't find anything funny at all. I love Homestar Runner toons, but this is the first time I haven't laughed even once. This is an earth shattering, paradigm shifting, mind boggling conundrum.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1105068348930077442005-01-06T19:22:00.000-08:002005-01-06T19:25:48.930-08:00

I was browsing through a Goodwill thrift store today. This man came up to one of the store clerks and said that he had lost his shopping basket, which he said had a green comforter in it. I don't know, I haven't seen it.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1100669768289074232004-11-16T21:06:00.000-08:002004-11-16T21:38:12.836-08:00

I decided to purchase (a license for) Maple; partly because I'd like to have it, partly because I need it for an assignment I'm working on. I purchased it directly from Maplesoft. They offer downloadable purchases, which are cheaper, so I decided to go with that. Maple requires activation to be able to use it, but Maple kept giving me an error, until this evening, every time I tried to activate

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1100584045577612202004-11-15T21:43:00.000-08:002004-11-15T21:47:25.576-08:00

A current subject in my algebra class is something called a Sylow p-subgroup. Today I found myself calling them "pylow subgroups" around one of my classmates. I really should stop making fun of George W. Bush's speech problems.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1100498014821724612004-11-14T21:41:00.000-08:002004-11-15T19:20:22.156-08:00

While browsing through people's photos on Flickr, I came to this realization: People like taking pictures of cats. So I thought I'd make an official list of the five best cat photos that I've seen on Flickr. Enjoy.Coming in at number 5 is Maddie. Just look at that lovable furball.At number 4 is Herc in a sink. Looks like a comfortable place to sleepNumber 3 is The Bravest Cat in the World. Man.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1100221502824159552004-11-11T16:51:00.000-08:002004-11-15T19:19:51.130-08:00

I'm nearing the end of my first semester of graduate school at Texas A&M, so I thought that I'd make a list of things I like and dislike. First the things I like. The quality of students is higher than at UTSA (where I graduated from).They actually have school pride here.A&M is oriented towards scientific research.Now for some things I dislike.There's too much school pride.They have so many "

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1099980536005255352004-11-08T23:02:00.000-08:002004-11-08T22:08:56.006-08:00

The textbook for my algebra class has on the back a couple of quotes from some reviews. I find this quote from American Mathematical Monthly enlightening (emphasis is mine) : ...Hungerford's exposition is clear enough that an average graduate student can read the text on his own and understand most of it.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1099708580578584912004-11-05T18:18:00.000-08:002004-11-05T18:40:40.853-08:00

I got a new refrigerator at my apartment due to the freezer going out. When the old refrigerator was moved, there were some toy mice and a few small foam balls underneath. Weird.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1099634066423896062004-11-04T21:50:00.000-08:002004-11-05T11:50:02.736-08:00

I got a credit card offer in the mail the other day (like that happens a lot). In it is a postage paid, business reply mail envelope. So I sent them a picture of Repo Joe:

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1099542771076383272004-11-03T20:28:00.000-08:002004-11-03T20:32:51.076-08:00

I've got to admit, although I would've never voted for Kerry, I was hoping Bush would lose so I wouldn't have to hear half the Internet, from blogs to Slashdot, gripe about Bush. You can't ask for a more petty reason than that.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1099200454518376302004-10-31T00:25:00.000-07:002004-10-30T22:37:06.440-07:00

Man, it's been a while since I've posted. Grad-school's got me worked up into a frenzy. I just finshed midterms (besides my take-home midterm), so I've been lazy this weekend (which was probably a bad idea.) As a follow up to my last post (in case anyone cares) I ended up using green pens. Purple was a little too much like Barney for me. My algebra professor does grade in purple though, so it

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1094783951029230472004-09-09T19:22:00.000-07:002004-09-09T19:39:11.030-07:00

My TA duties are grading an advanced calculus class. As I was receiving the first homework assignment to grade, a thought came to my mind: I need a red pen. But why a red pen? I've always seen my work graded in red. According to the Boston Globe, Red's legacy as the color used in correcting papers and marking mistakes goes back to the 1700s, the era of the quill pen. In those days, red ink was

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1094183839945113782004-09-02T20:35:00.000-07:002004-09-05T19:32:29.920-07:00

Much to my surprise, classes will be held next Monday, which happens to fall on Labor Day. I must preface my gripe with the fact that I only have one fifty minute class Monday, but this is a matter of principle. What's so bad about Labor Day? Every school I've ever gone to, or heard of, has had Labor Day off. I was under the impression that the only people who actually have to do something on

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1093927684785351312004-08-30T21:42:00.000-07:002004-08-30T21:48:04.786-07:00

I'd hate to speak too soon, but the water leaking into my apartment is finally fixed. First the drain for my air conditioning was clogged, spilling water onto my carpet. As soon as that got fixed something upstairs (the air conditioning I think) started leaking water down into my apartment. The leaking was bad because it left a yellow stain on my carpet and my bedroom wall, but at least I could

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1093899066496086042004-08-30T13:36:00.000-07:002004-08-30T14:06:00.263-07:00

My first graduate level class lived up to my expectations. I understood little of what was said, and the professor said "Most of this should be familiar to you." The professor talked about various linear algebra topics such as vector spaces and basis vectors. I haven't seen this material since my last semester at SAC, which was the spring of 2001. On an interesting note, there's a guy in the

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1093585678981685412004-08-26T22:46:00.000-07:002004-08-27T14:29:55.143-07:00

I got DSL service at my apartment, so now I can get my internet fix without biking to my office and using Linux (at least I don't have to use Windows.) Getting service was not without it's pains. I, of course, had to get a phone line to get DSL service, and I didn't have a dial tone. I had to have someone come out to fix it, but thankfully it was a problem with their network. I got an automated

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1093373774058441632004-08-24T11:51:00.000-07:002004-08-24T11:56:14.056-07:00

My swamp is finally getting fixed today. Over the weekend the drain for my and my neighbor upstairs air conditioning unit has been clogged, which in turn has made my carpet very wet. A few minutes ago some plumber finally came to fix it. I turned my AC off, but they didn't turn it off upstairs (they probably don't even know about it,) so water continued to leak into my apartment while I sat in

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1093113377175045312004-08-21T11:26:00.000-07:002004-08-21T11:36:17.176-07:00

It's been a week since I moved up here. It's been a week of waiting for the action to start. Next week I have a few orientations (three to be exact) to go to, and the week after that classes start. My TA assignment is to grade an advanced calculus class. I was suprised to be assigned to grade an upper division class when I thought I would grade a freshman level class. At least it will be more

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1092375861803752972004-08-12T22:38:00.000-07:002004-08-12T22:44:21.803-07:00

For the first time that I remember, a cool front has come through San Antonio in August. It brought the temperatures down into the 80's, and that's almost unheard-of. The cooler weather couldn't come at a better time. I had to be outside several hours assisting my dad fix my car's breaks. The temperature should stay down for my move on Saturday too. Weird.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1092174786130780902004-08-10T14:43:00.000-07:002004-08-10T14:53:06.130-07:00

I ate lunch at Main Street Pizza & Pasta with my brother today. I'm going to miss this place. They have the best personal pizzas for the price. My favorite is Green Olives and Sausage. I'm going to miss their sandwiches on Foccacia bread. Oh, and their ranch dressing. As a matter of fact, I think I might make the picture on their website my computer's desktop picture. Well, that might be taking

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1092097324979857632004-08-09T17:08:00.000-07:002004-08-09T17:22:04.980-07:00

Just for the sake of being geeky, I installed Yellow Dog Linux on my iBook. I finally got it up an running, so I hit the icon for Mozilla and nothing. No Mozilla. No web browser. I swear I installed it. No problem, I'll just find the software installer and add it. Oh, where is the software installer program? So I spend 20 minutes or so trying to just get a web browser installed. That made me want

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1092065794667359932004-08-09T08:24:00.000-07:002004-08-09T17:01:43.626-07:00

My car insurance payments will be going down 23% because of my move to College Station. I guess it's because of the small city, but it could also be all those fabled crazy drivers in San Antonio. It's too often that you're stuck behind someone going 50 MPH, but the guy (or girl) behind you wants to go 85 MPH. Hopefully I won't be needing a car for much in College Station. By my crude

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1091596813020530622004-08-03T22:16:00.000-07:002004-08-04T22:11:20.206-07:00

This past Saturday, while going to a friend's house, I ran over a piece of metal that pierced one of my car's tires. The metal piece is about four inches long and a quarter inch thick. Nice way to make that good Saturday feeling go away. At least I got that out of the way for my move up to College Station.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1088572520911050182004-06-29T22:08:00.000-07:002004-06-29T22:15:20.910-07:00

There's nothing like watching Steve Jobs give the keynote address at WWDC 2004. I was having heretical thoughts about my next computer being a Windows PC, but Steve set me strait. That's just what I needed to get my drooping enthusiasm up again. I'm even thinking about doing some development again (seriously.)

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1088400295983499672004-06-27T22:15:00.000-07:002004-06-27T22:27:36.216-07:00

What do I do when my church decides to run the Sunday morning worship service entirely for kids, and has a life size mascot of Rick the Brick singing Rick Da Brick Rap? I leave in the middle of church (a first for me), and decide to start attending my friend's church. I was going to stop going as soon as I moved up to College Station, but that service prematurely ended my attendance.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1088211285927837532004-06-25T17:46:00.000-07:002004-06-25T17:54:45.926-07:00

You might have heard about the big muscle German kid. I passed this news along to one of my biology friends and he emailed this back: But what I don't understand is that even with extra bulk, are all of the extra myoblasts fully functional. And are they innervated correctly. Myostatin regulates myoblast proliferation in embryonic development. In the case of muscular dystrophy, i really don't know

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1088042884794108402004-06-23T19:03:00.000-07:002004-06-23T19:08:04.793-07:00

Ken Jennings has won 16 strait games on Jeopardy. My family kept telling me about him, but I'm not usually able to watch Jeopardy. I finally got to watch one today. Ken Jennings is really fast. He was up to $9000 before the other two opponents even scored. I hope he makes it to one million dollars.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1087927109298264802004-06-22T10:49:00.000-07:002004-06-22T10:58:29.296-07:00

Yesterday the first private manned space flight was flown. It's exciting that in the future space might be accessible. I'd love to go up myself some day. I just hope space travel doesn't stay something only an elite few can do. The story seems to be getting cool reception in the news though. It's defiantly not the top story. I guess going to space is old hat. Just like the unrest in the 1960's

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1087790449875900582004-06-20T20:44:00.000-07:002004-06-20T21:00:49.876-07:00

Fortunately, I don't have huge problems with spam (especially since I stopped using Hotmail), but I have been getting, for a while, email from The Fraternal Order of Police District of Columbia. The problem is that I'm not a police officer, I don't live in the District of Columbia, and I never signed up for their mailing list. They also have no way of unsubscribing from their list on their

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-108692755546902252004-06-10T21:13:00.000-07:002004-06-10T21:19:15.470-07:00

I remember that feeling in December when I was a child. December dragged with anticipation of Christmas. The feeling has worn off now and December is just as fast as any month. Usually it's a few days before Christmas that you realize you need to buy some presents. Well that feeling is back, but this time it's August 14, the day that I move up to College Station. ARRGG! The waiting!

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1086389878508458092004-06-04T15:44:00.000-07:002004-06-04T16:10:37.940-07:00

I don't know about you, but it seems that all I get in the mail is credit card offers, lots of credit card offers. Today was a break from the normal. I received a letter from India addressed so: Professor Christopher Joel Cowan Department of Mathematics University of Texas at San Antonio My Address The letter was from the Pushpa Publishing House (warning: their site has about 9 Java applets

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1086234430185074302004-06-02T20:40:00.000-07:002004-06-02T20:51:05.950-07:00

I was browsing a list of mathematics faculty at Texas A & M. Most of the pictures on the various faculty member's pages are good, but there's a few (for example here, here, and here) that look like they were sweating profusely. I hope it's not that hot up there! On second thought though, it might be the lighting and/or the quality of the jpgs. I'll have to ask about that if I ever have one of

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1086203614865497582004-06-02T12:06:00.000-07:002004-06-02T12:13:34.866-07:00

I got my apartment lease in the mail yesterday. I read it over, which took a while, signed it, and mailed it back today. (That sounds like it would work in the the dullest blog in the world.) On a different note, whenever someone calls me on my cellphone at my house, it makes my computer speakers go nuts with beeping noises. Freaked me out the first time.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1085882395293237142004-05-29T18:50:00.000-07:002004-08-03T22:15:36.576-07:00

Using Bochs, I got Windows 95 to run on my Mac. Sure brings back the good old days of installing this on a 486. Actually it runs so slow on my 800 MHz G3 that it feels like it's on a 386. Oh well, my plans of it being somewhat useful have been thrown out the window (no pun intended).

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1085774236665803132004-05-28T12:55:00.000-07:002004-05-28T12:57:16.666-07:00

My lease application at Meridian Apartments was cleared today. I'm happy I don't have to live in my office.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1085774034681710752004-05-28T12:21:00.000-07:002004-05-28T12:53:54.680-07:00

Yesterday, Kenny played drums for Annie Lin at Ladyfest in Austin. Mark, intuitively knowing that this would be an adventure worth experiencing, convinced me to come along. We weren't disappointed. Just before we left Kenny & Mark's place, a.k.a. the cozy cabin, Kenny receives a call informing him that his sister is engaged. Still reeling from the shock, and after helping a neighbor load a 200

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1085450864876903962004-05-24T19:01:00.000-07:002004-05-24T19:14:24.516-07:00

I contacted the manager of Meridian Apartments today. Meridian was one of the apartments I took a look at the other Friday. It's in the same area as Sevilla with about the same size apartments and rent. There were not to many units left when I visited, but it turns out that there's still an apartment available. Tomorrow I'll send in an application, and a $25 check, and hope for the best. The

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1085372743386918522004-05-23T21:20:00.000-07:002004-05-23T21:25:43.386-07:00

About a week ago a friend and I went up to College Station to do some apartment hunting. The second apartment I looked at, called Sevilla, had the best deal. I would get the first two month's rent cut in half and the deposit and fees were lowered. Also it is close to campus, on a shuttle route, across the street from a park and a church, and close to an HEB and a Target. The reduced rent was a

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091096.post-1085371903773805182004-05-23T20:53:00.000-07:002004-05-24T13:30:28.163-07:00

I've been accepted into the Mathematics Ph.D. program at Texas A & M University. I also applied to The University of Texas, The University of North Texas and Rice University. Both UT and Rice didn't accept me. UNT did accept me, but the financial support was lacking. A & M turned out to be the best and easy choice.

Christopher Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10945380180836819738noreply@blogger.com2