Butt-first baby, a personal story

This is a bit outside the norm, but as I get closer to the 1-year anniversary of my kid’s birth (also known as the first birthday!) I figure maybe it’s a good time to write down the slightly abridged version of her birth story.

Sure, every mom has a birth story for every kid. And who really wants to hear it? Well, other moms or moms-to-be; maybe other folks with an academic or personal interest; and in this case, people dealing with breech birth. My kid’s story is a bit odd and is a little window onto medicine in America today. But if you don’t want to read birth stories, here is your moment to exit! Leave now! It’s not graphic, really. I did say slightly abridged, after all! Continue reading

Fun with multivariate optimization

Amusing to see my last post — yep, I’ve been working on writing ~every day again, but so much of it is on (gasp!) paper or on my class textbook Math for Finance that it doesn’t show up here. Maybe I could find some whiz-bang app that would update here whenever I publish a new version of the math text.

Last April-May I was quite pregnant, so while teaching and grading were all getting done (and quickly, so that I could have everything wrapped up when maternity leave started at the end of the semester!) there was not quite so much writing up of class notes. I started including a multivariate version of Newton’s method in class last semester, but didn’t rewrite the course notes to include it. This year I’m working on that. (The course I teach at the University of Minnesota covers calculus in one and many variables, probability, a lot of linear algebra, and a touch of differential equations.)

This year I’m also trying to put together some quick Python notebooks illustrating concepts from class. I can’t post them as notebooks here; will try to get them on Github. Here they are!

Right: that’s one reason I’m writing less here. I blog from home; home has a kid; kid is crying. Adios!