Computing the eigenvectors of a 3x3 symmetric matrix in C++

Every once in a while Google makes me wonder how people ever managed to do research 15 years ago.

Just today, I had to find a quick C++ routine to compute the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a well-behaved symmetric matrix (principal components of the gyration tensor of a 3D random walk, this time). I found it here.

It took me less than 5 minutes to google it down, download it, and test it.

Amazing.

Fatherhood

Priya is due in a couple of months, and like most women in this media-saturated-world, she is over-exposed to pregnancy-related information.

Being a scientist, I tried googling "pregnancy" and it gave me a 110 million hits (on 10/21/2008). For comparison, I also googled "porn" and it gave me 190 million hits (again, on same day). Not bad, huh. If one extrapolates this information with audacity, it could mean that the amount of pregnancy related information is about 1/2 the amount of porn on the internet.

Scary.

When somebody said, "you can find anything on the internet," God, they weren't kidding!

Especially expert opinion on health-related issues. It is funny how every few years, important sounding voices, in important looking attires boldly proclaim that everything we believed in because other important sounding voices in important looking suits told so, is all wrong.

All freakin' wrong!

Eat papaya. Don't eat papaya. Eat eggs. Don't eat eggs. Do something. Wait six months. Don't do something!

PS: (11/27) I realized that I made an error in my informal Google test. Didn't turn SafeSearch off. Turns out, it does not affect my numbers.