Aleph-One, Shmaleph-One

"Alec, you know this stuff, does the power set of the Integers have the same cardinality as the Reals?"

Now, every time I think I know how to answer this question, some math guy comes along and babbles on about the Continuum Hypothesis, and I get confused about when my cardinals have Hebrew names. I believe it's well accepted that whatever the cardinality of the Reals might be, it is denoted c.

I think this sucks. It looks like a variable or a constant, and lacks something of the dignity I feel an infinite cardinal should have. Worse, though, you can't pronounce c without establishing context first. Consider: when we talk about Ackermann's Function, we don't call it "aye", we call it "Ackermann's Function". When we talk about Graham's Number, we say "Graham's Number" more often than "gee-sixty-four". (When we talk about them together, mathematicians get upset)

So, not being so visual, I ask you, oh Internet, for a new symbol to denote the cardinality of the Continuum. Hmmmm.... a.... Hieroglyphic Yielding the Amount of the Reals... HYAR... Yes! Come up with any symbol you like. People can vote or something. But from now on, however many reals there happen to be, that number shall be called (in a throaty pirate voice) "HYAR!"

Help Me Lose My Bag

I don't want to carry a backpack around anymore. Ideally, I'd go to work, or out in general, with nothing more than what I could fit in my pockets. Further, I'd not carry some ridiculous amount of stuff in those pockets. I'm looking for novel ideas for how to reduce the amount of gross stuff I carry on my person on a daily basis.

What do I carry now? I carry a cell phone, a pen or two, keys and a wallet in my pockets. In my bag, I carry a book or two, a notebook (paper, I stopped carrying my computer a while ago), and whichever papers I'm currently reading. In addition, I usually carry some Tylenol/Advil. So I'm already traveling pretty light. But I still think I could do without the bag if I could replace the paper notebook and other books somehow.

Currently, I'm inclined to believe that technology is the answer, at least in part. It seems that many people love to get high and mighty about low-tech when answering questions like this ("I've got some technology for you, it's called a 'pen'"). I have no problem with low tech, but low tech won't make my textbook fit in my pocket. Similarly, the reason I carry a notebook is because it holds all my paper/papers together in one unit. So a PDA is probably a good step toward eliminating books and some paper: it can store and display both ebooks and pdfs, as well as a calendar and address book (which I currently do not carry with me; if only I could sync my phone with Google Calendar....). The PDA would even be good for jotting down quick notes.

Where PDAs fail is in any longer form documents, or the real killer, when I need to write down math (which is much more common than any other type of prose I write these days). For that, I don't see how I can avoid pen and paper. However, services and software like scanR are making me think that all I need to do is take pictures of math done on a piece of paper or whiteboard, and then I can have that transformed into clean, digital notes that I can look at later. My phone's camera isn't sufficient for this, but I might consider some other phone or a whole separate digicam for this purpose, if it really worked.

But those are just my ideas; I'd love some help coming up with some novel solutions to not carrying around a bag. Maybe there's a different way to factor the functionality I need? Maybe I should switch to some sort of bandoleer? I'm open to suggestions; how do you keep from lugging around excessive extra storage? What PDA would you recommend for someone who wants to obviate his notebook? Are there any devices out there that are good for writing down math? I look forward to your comments.

Should You Be Attacked by Marauding Visigoths

Hopefully the first in a series of posts on the subject, act two of last week's This American Life (now available as an mp3) has some important advice about defensive weapons systems you might wish to install. It's the bit after the story about Peter Pan.