Copyleft Vs. Copyright

Well, I can't link to Wikipedia's article on "copyleft," since they're being good internet citizens by blacking out the service.

They too offer the search your Congress reps' phone numbers by zip code pop-up box.

I bet Cheezburger has one too.

Copyleft.

I find it hard to believe it dates as far back as the 70s. Or it could have been in that BASIC programming, but I'm guessing it might have been a drastically different meaning there in terms of functionality, etc. I actually wrote programs in BASIC when I was a kid. For my little Radio Shack computer that was the size of a small notebook, with a big clunky memory add-on thingie clamped on the back. I'd write simple programs for doing things like generating prime numbers. And, oddly enough, I'd use it to generate verbo-visual poems through typography.

It was so slow. I remember going down to dinner and eating with my family then returning to my bedroom and only seeing like a small handful of new prime numbers generated. Of course, as it hits the higher numbers they tend to (generally) be further apart (some exceptions).

It's like remembering when I used to play against the computer in the Chess game for the Atari 2600 when I was like fourteen.

I actually got to the point where I could win at the highest level (once anyway!) but I remember at that level you'd make a move and you'd need to let that t.v. disabled for literally days as the screen flashed boring squares of different color while the computer "thought" through the permutations of possible moves.

I think it took four days once. I had an extra, smaller t.v. that I began using for the chess games, so it would free up my regular t.v.

It's so strange how I was so interested in math as a kid. I'd read all those Gardner books and actually be able to solve those things. I was never a natural in math but I did try really hard to learn what I could. One of the few areas in math where I did any advanced research on my own was continued fractions. I enjoyed those. You can easily run into those proofs if you read about pi.

And now I'm a mathematical idiot. I can still tell you off the top of my head what ratio "pi" describes and easily understand why it's invariable with the changing sizes of circles. But I will no longer understand the proofs. I no longer have the quadratic formula memorized either. And all the chess games by masters I studied as a teenager. Gone. I was the chess champion in my elementary school when I was twelve (being a sixth grader helped; we had no second grade prodigies). But now I bet a ten year old would beat me at the game.

I had to ask Lee to do a multiplication in his head the other week. And it was two numbers that ended in zeroes lol.

He looked at me in horror.

And yet I feel this playful pull towards math--that I know would be pretty much pointless. Like I'm trying to regain something I lost that is pretty much just better left gone. This proves to me that I was never exceptional in math. I could get great grades in it. I could challenge myself at the levels of math normally attainable by your average gifted student. But to be able to truly be creative in that field? It never would have happened. Some people don't realize things like math are creative fields. But it takes a lot more serious work to get recognition for creativity in a field like math than it does something like poetry. That's not surprising, if you think about it. Because there is an infinity of sentences to deploy. Sure, there is an infinity of numbers as well. But there is no infinity of useful proofs in mathematics--or an infinity of formulae. (Unless these things are much harder to discover than the species realizes.) And look how many cultures have applied their collective intellect to the problem of discovering universal mathematical laws. Virtually all other sciences allow for more creative research than mathematics does. You're likely to step on someone else's research quite often in the sciences (and in the arts definitely!) but in mathemtatics I think you're virtually always stepping on someone else's research. But then sometimes mathematics will find itself suddenly beautifully wedded to another discipline changing apace with technology and a new branch of math opens up, like computational linguistics. Or I guess that's more a new branch of linguistics, but you see what I mean. Math finds new applications with new technologies. But pure math. That's more what I'm describing when I say how hard it is to be creative. In pure math. You have to totally bring it there. I think my cousin had the sort of mind where he could have brought it.

The other night I did read the entire Wiki article on pi. And got hopelessly lost.

Because I had visualized what I supposed was a geometric version of a calculus proof--not sure? I was imagining the circle broken up into its four 90 angles. And then using the Pythagoreon theorem to determine the hypotenuse of the four nested triangles. And then you take the resulting semicircles (180 degress) and split them into two more 90 degree angles and solve again for the hypotenuses. This can go on infinitely and I guess that's calculus. But I didn't see this mentioned in the article on pi.

Maybe that makes no sense. But it suddenly made sense in my head.

Now I'm mostly drawn to weird shit in mathematics: things like Cantor's writing on infinity and sets, the recent proof of Fermat's Theorem, Lobachevskian and other non-linear geometries. Prime numbers. Weird algorithms.

My cousin is the one who was born with these gifts, not I. Total mathematical genius. People would often rub that in my nose even before I took my S.A.T.s. That my cousin got a perfect score on his S.A.T.s. This is the cousin whose old textbooks they gave me when he went away to Harvard. I remember learning the little bit of Russian I learned from his books when they packed him off to Harvard. His notes were always helpful. I'll admit that. I did great on the verbal section on my S.A.T.s but even with my constant work I could only get my math on the S.A.T.s right up under 700.
I remember all the neighborhood kids (and even some of my older brother's friends) patting me on the back and saying "Great job!" and shit like that for my SAT scores and all asking me what college I was going to choose since I had wide open possibilities.

I secretly knew I was ready for my second serious breakdown and wanted to flee from the world. I soon after went into my first bout of serious agoraphobia. I remember throwing away package after package of offers from fine colleges that arrived in the mail. And my insane mother (I say that with love) encouraged me completely in this. I think she was happiest when I reached that point where I would stay in my room for months at a time listening to music and talking only on the phone. Obviously, there was no internet. Or I would have been in heaven.

I often wonder how someone can just turn away from such a gift as my cousin did under duress when his mother decided (for him) that he must leave the field (mathematics) which promised him such a brilliant career and become a doctor. She had figured out by then that he would probably not get rich in mathematics. And, I suspect, she wanted the prestige of having a doctor son. She was, after all, a member of Budapest's aristocracy who had been completely dispossessed by the War. She married my uncle, who was an army officer. So my cousin played the dutiful son and did this and is now one of the most highly-regarded practitioners in his field (has taught at Cornell, helmed professional peer organizations, been a psychiatrist to celebrities in 70s New York, published widely, etc.)

But I often wonder whether he secretly thinks mathematically. I mean creatively. If he subscribes to any of those journals or works creatively. Because he was seventeen and his contributions to the Science Fair had to be passed up to the national level just to be understood--and then were published in mathematical journals. He had written a monograph on polytopes.

He was also a chess master at the same age, taught by his uncle, a Hungarian Grandmaster, I believe.

And he was incredibly musically gifted.

Yes, he was gay. Duh.

All my cousins were much older than I was (I was a late surprise).

I remember getting slapped for saying one of my cousins "talked funny." I think I was like six.

And I don't even remember who it was. I didn't get hit a lot but someone at my Gramma's house quickly pulled me aside and slapped me once on my left cheek hard and said, "Hey. We don't say anything like that."

It was really about their terror that a six-year-old was going to pull back the sheet on the elephant in the room: the fact that every single cousin gathered at that family reunion was a young gay man.

And I had focused on the one who was flaming.

Who is now a real estate magnate.

I got a few decent genes from this pool. But I also got the nutty ones.

All these other cousins seemed only to get the ones that make you millionaires.

I'm not joking.

One of my cousins is friends with people like Trump. Well, not friends. You know what I mean. They sit in the same rooms.

He could probably tell some funny Leona Helmsley stories.

And he came to New York with nothing but his brain.

And his considerable charm. I'll admit that.

He had been an airline steward.

So from Stuart what's-his-face (can't remember Tracey Ullman's character) to running Douglas Elliman.

Before he created his own real estate firm with a partner.

And he's one of the nicest guys on earth.

Seriously.

He could make three friends by coughing in an elevator.

That kind of charm.

He scares the hell out of me.

Oh, and he was the one who was talking "funny."

Thanks for getting me slapped, Paulie.

lol.