## let me explain

i just put up a new page (the SVD). it lacks context, for the simple reason that it is intended to be the last post on that page. if i put them out in reverse order, they will be readable in the order i intend.

ah, i cannot post to a page. i need an SVD category instead. ok. and then i can either put the posts out in reverse order, or i can put them out in any old order and alter the timestamps. ok, but not now.

it’s been a long effort just to get one section published. i am new to blogging, to wordpress, and to latex. thank god i’m not new to mathematics or to mathematica®, ’cause i’d feel like crying or throwing things.

while mathematica® will output AMS-LaTeX, wordpress requires a few changes – mainly that  lots of spaces be deleted from equations, and that text be just text.

and then there are glitches. displaying the square matrix

$\left(\begin{array}{cc}\Sigma&O\\O&O\end{array}\right)$

required that i use UC letter O’s instead of zeroes. (see the latest test post.)

and getting the ( ) the right size requires control sequences, not just (). admittedly, that’s latex, not a glitch.

all in all…. the mature restrained summary of my reaction is, “i am pleased.”

what i really want to say is,

• “holy medieval monks, batman!”
• “eat your heart out, springer verlag!”
• “would you just look at what i can do!”

have you ever seen the 1980’s movie, “the name of the rose”? i don’t remember much of it – but, boy oh boy, do i remember the scriptorium. had i been born in those times, i imagine i’d have desperately wanted to end up as a monk in a scriptorium, copying manuscripts. (those of you who know me are shaking your heads: “but you’re an athiest, rip.” don’t spoil the dream.)

those of you who do not know me are probably shaking your heads over something else: my lack of capitalization. i’m sure you know the apocryphal conversation that goes:

“doctor, it hurts when i do this.”

“then stop doing that.”

well, i use the computer for almost everything: for work, for mathematics, for languages, for writing in general, for finances, for art and for music. heck, my DVD player just quit, so i had to watch “harry potter & the order of the phoenix” on the computer.

about the only thing i don’t do on the computer is play games, but years ago i got caught up in “ascendancy”, a galactic version of “hammurabi”, in which you distribute your annual GNP among food, industry, and research. cycling thru all those planets only required stabbing the ESC key with my left index finger.

for days.

when my left fingers started going numb, the doctor and i agreed that i should stop stabbing the ESC key with my left index finger. gee, the numbness went away. problem solved.

unfortunately, capitalizing words requires that i stab the SHIFT key with my left index finger. i can only do that for a little while before – guess what! – my left fingers start tingling.

i use the shift key once in while, not on a regular basis.

yes, word® – and mathematica® to a lesser extent – will capitalize for me. sometimes i let them; sometimes i don’t bother.

i hope you find that the content of my posts overshadows the lack of capitalization.