The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS

I just finished reading The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS: Solving Crime with Mathematics by Keith Devlin and Gary Lorden (New York:  Plume Books [Penguin], 2007).  Devlin is NPR's "Math Guy" and Lorden was the math consultant on the TV series NUMB3RS, to which this book is related.

The book discusses some of the mathematical tools and theories that we see math genius and professor Charlie Eppes use on the series.  I confess that I did not nearly understand all of the book, as I am pretty much a mathophobe.  However, I enjoyed NUMB3RS, as did my mathematically-inclined husband, because it was a well-written and well-acted series with interesting stories. The Detective/Police genre is my favorite (as if one could not tell from references in entries on this blog).

Possibly the authors could have explained some of their points in a way that laypersons such as myself could better understand, but I don't regard this as a serious complaint.  I was intrigued by a number (not to be punny) of the concepts dealt with in the book, and how these are being applied in crime-fighting today.  Nice to know that such fine minds as those described in the book are applying themselves to solving problems in crime detection and the pursuit of perpetrators.

An appendix gives a "mathematical synopsis" of plots of the episodes of the first three seasons (the book was written while the series was running).  I have all six seasons on DVD, a Christmas gift from my husband.

People who enjoy reading the story behind the story, those interested in reading about the sciences in general, those interested in math, and people as enchanted as I was by the TV series will enjoy this book.  Even if you, like me, do not completely understand all of the explanations.
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"The Untouchables" Drinking Game

This is just for fun.  It's peripherally related to a book, actually to one I read when I was a teenager.  That is to say, The Untouchables by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley.  It was this book which was the basis for the television series that aired from 1959 to 1963 and starred Robert Stack as Eliot Ness, the U.S. Treasury agent who formed a special squad of incorruptible men to take on the beer empire of Al Capone.  They weakened Capone enough so that the Internal Revenue Bureau was able to come in and audit his books, building a case against him for income tax evasion. 

The book is, to be kind about it, embellished in its telling of the tale.  There are liberties taken with facts.  But it is a good and exciting read, at any rate.  I also enjoyed the TV series, and am enjoying it again on DVD.  I have the first three seasons, and season 4 comes out in July.

Game requirements:

1.  The episodes (four seasons) of the original Desilu Productions series “The Untouchables” (1959-1963) starring Robert Stack.

2,  This list.

3.  Beverages of choice.

4. Players – the more, the merrier!

Instructions:

While watching an episode, when a condition of this list is met, take the recommended number and type of drinks.  A “sip” is just that – a small amount of beverage.  A “gulp” is a large amount of beverage.  A “chug” is to drain your glass.  Refill as needed.

Warning:

            Remember, you are watching “The Untouchables.”  As you are imbibing alcoholic beverages, be warned that you could be raided.

I.  Generic actions

A dress worn by an actress or extra in a previous episode

            is worn by another in the current episode.                  1 sip

A dress worn by an actress in a previous episode is worn

            by the SAME actress in the current episode               chug

Someone kills someone else instantly while his

            gun seems aimed at something  (or someone)

            other than the intended target                                      chug

A prop you have seen in another episode turns

            up in this one (not including guns or cars)                  1 gulp

A prop looks like something that might appear

            on Antiques Roadshow                                                1 gulp

You actually have seen that prop on Antiques Roadshow       chug

Stock footage is used                                                               1 gulp

The stock footage used reveals a temporal anomaly

            (i.e., cars from the 1940s or 1950s, etc.)                     chug

A temporal anomaly turns up in a non-stock scene                1 gulp

            (such as Anne Francis reading “Prevention”

            magazine – not published until the early 1950s –

            in “The Doreen Maney Story”)

Someone is wearing glasses, but there are

            no lenses in them                                                         1 gulp

A woman screams                                                                   1 sip

Mountains show up in the background when

            the scene is set in a place where there are

            no mountains (Illinois, Indiana, Florida)                    chug

Someone – good guy or bad – fires more

            that six shots from a .38 revolver                               1 sip per gun

A flute solo plays when someone dies or

            is about to die                                                              1 sip

A man slaps a woman                                                             1 sip

A woman slaps a man                                                             1 gulp

 

A woman is the boss of whatever criminal operation             1 gulp

Someone takes out a pack of cigarettes, lights a

            cigarette or is in a smoke-filled room                       1 sip per weed

Someone takes a drink (this will get you plastered)               1 sip

Someone takes a drink and spits it out because it

             is rotgut                                                                      1 gulp

Someone takes a drink directly from a bottle                          1 gulp

Someone drinks directly from a bottle, then someone else

            drinks from the same bottle                                         1 gulp

Someone (other than Eliot Ness) breaks a bottle                     1 sip

II.  The Ensemble Effect

An actor who played a good guy (including one of

            the Untouchables) in one or more other episodes

            plays a bad guy in the current episode                         1 gulp

An actor who played a bad guy in one or more other

            episodes plays a good guy (including one of the

            Untouchables) in the current episode.                          1 gulp

Any actor or actress makes a repeat appearance                      1 sip

An actor makes a repeat appearance in the same role              1 gulp

A bad guy shows up repeatedly, played by the same               1 sip
           actor (Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti does not count)

A bad guy shows up repeatedly, played by different                1 gulp
           actors

 

III.  Eliot Ness

Ness pushes his hat up just a bit                                                1 sip

Ness hits a wall or a table with his fist                                      1 sip

Ness hits some hood with the back of his hand                        1 sip

Ness goes out of control on some hood and the

            other guys have to restrain him                                     1 gulp

Ness throws himself on the floor to fire at a bad guy               1 gulp

Ness says he’ll protect someone and

            they end up dead                                                           1 gulp

Someone asks to meet with Ness but is murdered

            before the meeting can take place                                 1 gulp

Someone tries to bribe Ness                                                      1 gulp

Someone orders a hit on Ness                                                   1 gulp

Ness lights a match with his thumbnail                                     1 gulp

Ness breaks a bottle.                                                                  1 gulp

A woman makes a pass at Ness.                                                1 sip

A woman slaps Ness                                                                  1 gulp

Ness gets slugged, beaten, or otherwise injured                        1 gulp

Ness actually mentions his wife                                                 chug

Ness hooks a thumb on a trouser pocket                                    1 sip

Ness taps his thumb or finger (either hand)

            while thinking, debating, talking,

            or deciding something                                                    1 sip

IV.  The Untouchables (singly or as a group)

The team stands in the open with bullets flying

            all around, and none of them get hit.                              1 gulp

Untouchable Jack Rossman has no lines                                    1 gulp

One of the Untouchables gets shot and no one

            reacts or goes to his aid                                                  1 gulp

 One of the Untouchables dies       Stand and raise a toast to a fallen hero.

The Untouchables get a government

            car or other government property trashed                      1 gulp

One of the Untouchables holds a loaded gun so that

            it points to another one or to a civilian                          1 gulp

An Untouchable who died in a previous episode

            shows up in a later one                                                   1 gulp

An Untouchable is beaten up, shot, or otherwise

            assaulted (includes single blows)                                   1 gulp

Any of the good guys respectfully removes his

            hat in the presence of a dead person                               1 gulp

The Untouchables grill a suspect under bright lights                 1 sip

A wiretap installed by the Untouchables is found out

             and destroyed                                                                1 sip

The bad guys put a wiretap on the Untouchables                      1 gulp

One of the team brings the rest coffee                                        1 sip

The TRQ

TRQ is the abbreviation I and friends of mine use for "to-read queue," the list of books we have waiting to be read.  Since I will be starting graduate school in the fall, I am planning to spend the summer reading at least one, if not two, books per week.  And as I will be concentrating on history, and specifically on Florida history, here is my TRQ for the summer:

Paul E. Hoffman, Florida's Frontiers (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).  A graduation gift from friends.  I told them I was going to have fun with this one, because I've had some bones to pick with the author.


Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession: Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan, eds. Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Differences in the Renaissance Empires (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).  The "Black Legend" refers to the reputation the Spanish gained for brutality and greed in the conquest of the New World.  This legend arose out of accusations made by Bartolomé de las Casas, whose writings castigated what he saw as maltreatment of aboriginal peoples, and was fueled by Great Britain, as it was to her advantage to 'diss' Spain.

 Marc Bloch.  The Historian's Craft: Reflections on the Nature and Uses of History and the Techniques and Methods of Those Who Write It (New York: Vintage Books, 1953).  Big title, small book, and the title says it all.

Georg G. Iggers.  Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1997).

Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, eds. The Houses of Hisory: A Critical Reader in Twentieth Century History and Theory (New York: New York University Press, 1999).

José Rabasa.  Inventing America: Spanish Historiography and the Formation of Eurocentrism (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).

José Rabasa.  Writing Violence on the Northern Frontier: The Historiography of Sixteenth-Century New Mexico and Florida and te Legacy of Conquest (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000).

Matthew Restall.  Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

I also plan to indulge in some light reading, some of which I haven't selected yet.  It looks like a formidable list.  It will be good practice!
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I Beg to Differ: Outlining is not a Killer

The Blog Quips & Tips for Successful Writers says in this entry that we should not outline because, briefly:

It kills creativity.
It dulls the urge to tell a story.
It makes writing a duty rather than fun.
It organizes (rather than inspires) your writing.
It leads to "dull, stale writing."

Eh. Well. Yes and no. Or perhaps just maybe. It depends, first of all, on the individual. For shorter pieces, such as blog entries, I do not sit down and write out a formal outline. I don't even jot down ideas. But I have a mental outline. What do I have to say on the subject? What points do I want to use to support my argument? It isn't fancy or detailed, but it is there, because it is a guidepost to try to keep me from going too far off the rails.

I need it because I very much have a tendency to go off the rails. So I have to have something that tells me, "Hey! Get back on topic!" An outline, for longer pieces, does that for me.

One point mentioned above is that outlining dulls the urge to tell a good story. The blogger writes, "Probably the worst aspect of outlining is that, by its nature, it emphasizes the importance of fact over story." Now, I can take that in at least two ways. What I think the blogger means is that we do not want to have our writing become dull and dry, like the history books we had in high school, because we are concentrating too much on marshaling facts than on making the prose readable. But as a historian, I have to be sure my facts are straight, that they are properly sourced, and that my argument is logical and supports my thesis. Without the plan of an outline, I cannot be sure that these criteria will be met.

Will outlining dull my prose? Not a bit of it. Because I will not allow that. The writer must not give up responsibility for the clarity and flow of her or his prose. That is our responsibility. My responsibility. One review of my first book, Booking Hawaii Five-0 said that my prose is "crisp and elegant." It did not get that way on its own. I worked at it. I polished it. I rewrote, revised, and edited until I was blue in the face. Writing very often is more work than fun; it is the nature of the beast.  So, yes, sometimes it does seem more like a duty than a lark.  That's the real world, dearie.  Cope.

I see nothing wrong with writing being organized.  I prefer to read organized prose, whether fiction or non-fiction, than disorganized nonsense.  I really do not see that organization and inspiration are mutually exclusive.  Organize first, then open yourself to that inspiration.  Frankly, I think it works easier that way. 

The blogger in question is promoting mind mapping, a technique of loose association, which she says will lead more surely to the "Aha!" moment than any outlining could possibly think of providing.  For some people, I am sure that is so.  However, I find that most of my "Aha!" moments come when I'm in the research phase, when I'm discovering the facts and making my notes and reading documents and thinking -- all the time, day or night (and staying awake longer than I need to) -- about my project in all sorts of ways.  Maybe what is happening there is that I am doing my "mind mapping" internally rather than externally.  I can accept that, embrace it, even.  So by the time I get to the outline, I have usually had a whole bunch of "Aha!" moments, and I find as well that as I am outlining and marshaling my thoughts and facts, I can check again for associations which might be new discoveries, more "Aha!" moments, and see that this all logically hangs together.

So there are those of us who can do better with outlining, who find that it does not harm our writing in the least.  As we used to say in the 1960s, do your own thing!
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Help for Writers, Hurt for Writers

There is a great website maintained by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) with some assistance from the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and the Romance Writers of America (RWA).  It is called Writer Beware, and it exists to provide information to budding writers about the publishing industry, agents, and those seemingly ubiquitous slime who prey on the unwary with scams. There is a particularly disturbing undercurrent going on, about which Writer Beware has posted.  There is a group out there, about which you can read in the posting (highlighted on the words "disturbing undercurrent"), which has apparently dedicated itself to attacking anyone who would perform "watchdog" services for writers by pointing out scams and schemes of which they need to beware.  I am not going to mention their name here: I do not feel like it.

On Goodreads, they had posted unfavorable criticism of the books written by people affiliated with Writer Beware, including people who merely commented on the blog postings to thank Writer Beware for alerting them to scams.  They consisted not in literary critique of the work in question, but in a one-liner saying that the book had been "banned."  I always have a problem with someone who adversely remarks on a book (or movie or other form of art) without having first READ or VIEWED the thing!  As a former librarian, I also have a problem with anyone who would presume to set themselves up as censors.

But there is one tactic they have proposed which I find deeply disturbing, even the mere mention of it: They said they were going to organize a book-burning of books by authors whom they had put on their "propaganda watch list."   Again, these are all writers who are affiliated with Writer Beware, even if only having made a comment on a blog posting.

Even today, more than 65 years after the end of World War II, the phrase book-burning conjures up one image:  See it here.

Enough said that these people have put themselves in with some extremely unsavory company.
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Two Books by Two Friends

I have recently had the pleasure of reading two books written by authors whom I consider friends.  The first I read is The Crack in the Lens, by Darlene A. Cypser, a tale of Sherlock Holmes as a teenager.  As a member of the Hounds of the Internet, I have become acquainted with Darlene.  Whether or not I had known her prior to the publication of the book, I can say with no reservation that I enjoyed it.  It is not a light book, as we see young Holmes in his home setting in a family that might be characterized as somewhat dysfunctional.  It seems to me that most upper-class families of the time, in the manorial system that existed across Europe (and in the United States on southern plantations) were dysfunctional to some extent.  Ideas of place and class were rigid, children were to be seldom seen and almost never heard.  Upbringing of children was a hands-off affair for parents, leaving children first in the nursery for the first six years or so under the care of governesses and nannies, and then sending them off to school away from home.  The rigid class system provides a heartbreaking problem for young Holmes, and leads him to the definition of his life's work.  The book also contains an original handling of some of the wonderful bits of trivia we Sherlockians find so delightful.

The other book, which I am in the process of reading, is Prussian Yarns by Laurie Campbell.  I have known Laurie for something like 30 years in cyberspace, and met her face-to-face when she was one of my supporting friends during a very trying time in our family.  She has worked for years on getting Prussian Yarns polished and published, and I have read bits of it over the years for critique and suggestions in an online writers' group she and I have been affiliated with for those three decades.  The wait has been worth it.  The story involves Otto von Goff, a Junker (member of nobility) in 19th century Prussia.  The setting and time period are very similar to that of The Crack in the Lens-- that is, a 19th century manorial family.  Herr von Goff has married well but problematically.  His wife has relatives who are scheming to obtain the family estate, which Herr von Goff inherited.  The senior servant staff, all holdovers from service to his wife's family, the von Puttkamers, are scheming as well to undermine Herr von Goff's authority.  This complex plot is well laid out, the characters have been drawn believably, and the setting is charming.

I highly recommend both books.

Reading on the Kindle

The Kindle I ordered arrived Wednesday.  I had already installed the Kindle for PC program on my desktop computer and had books waiting to put on the Kindle.  I was happy to learn that the Kindle will read PDF files, because I have journal articles, books from Google Books, and whole issues of the Florida Historical Quarterly in PDF form for my St. Augustine project (which I discuss on my genealogy blog; see at right for link).  So I have put those on the Kindle, too.  Now I can read and make notes for the project at various times.

Thursday I was on campus all day, and it was a gloppy, rainy, gloomy wet cold day.  Ugh.  But I was happy to sit in the History Commons or on a bench in the building where my Spanish class is, and after doing my required reading, I read on the Kindle.  Right now, I'm reading Mighty Fitz: the Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Michael Schumacher.  It is interesting, and I like reading about maritime incidents, having been in the Coast Guard.  The author seems to do a good job of reporting the facts and not getting terribly judgemental.   That is not to say that he doesn't speculate, but then, in the case of this particular incident, much is speculation.  In all, it is a sobering and sometimes chilling story.

Another thing I can do with the Kindle is type up my class notes and put them on the device, so I can study and review at odd times.  The free program Calibre, an e-book management program, says that there is some difficulty in converting Microsoft Word docx files, but the solution to that is simple:  have Word export the file as a PDF, and load that right onto the Kindle.  Easy peasy.

In the History Commons, I talked with the Departmental office manager, who was eating her lunch.  I told her I had a new toy, and it turns out she did, too.  She had bought one of the first Sony e-readers years ago, and had read it to death.  It did not owe her anything when it gave up the ghost, and she promptly ordered another one.  We compared our machines, discussing our preferences and pros and cons.  We agreed that the "e-ink" technology being used by apparently all the major readers is eminently easy on the eyes, and produces a very sharp image.  Illustrations, especially photographs, come out looking great, with exacting detail.  They appear like greyscale newspaper photographs, only much sharper.

My younger daughter had the bon mot concerning the e-ink technology, however:  "It's a high-tech Etch-a-Sketch," she said.
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