some time ago, a friend borrowed me his copy of logicomix, a comic on logic i heard a lot of good about from various friends. yesterday, i finally got around to start reading, finishing it today. i must admit, the idea of telling the quest for finding a foundation of logic, of mathematics, in a comic sounds somewhat strange, like a hopeless endeavor. but my friends were right: this comic is excellent! telling a story in a story in a story, sometimes with less layers, introducing all important characters of this quest, whose names are familiar to most people interested in mathematics, logic and philosophy, this comic manages to present the quest for foundation of logic and mathematics in a nice, easy accessable way. lots of explanations here and there, hidden as story elements, as well as an appendix containing more information on certain topics as well as the involved persons, hopefully help readers with less background than me.
if you get a chance, read it! even if you are no mathematician, logician or philosopher. it’s worth it.

just found on xkcd, and its so right:

(copyright © 2008 xkcd.)

yesterday i started reading the xkcd archives (maybe you’ve already noticed that yesterday). if you don’t know xkcd, it’s a webcomic “of romance, sarcasm, math, and language”. here are the ones i found particularly interesting, funny, or whatever:

• pi equals. reminds me of the classic “help, i’m trapped in a fortune cookie factory!” joke.
• what if.
• barrel – part 3. i wouldn’t say “wow!” in that situation, though.
• fourier. poor cat.
• secrets.
• useless. standard approachs suck for love.
• su doku. even i can solve these.
• national language.
• binary heart. if you check the parity of the read ones in every column, you’ll notice most of them are even. is this a coincidence? (and don’t ask why i stumbled about that…)
• laser scope. sometimes the primitive word jokes are the best.
• riemann-zeta. about love & primes. this one is not only for number theorists.
• nihilism. squirrels! cool!
• alice and bob. the real story of eve.
• matrix transform. if i’d ever had to solve linear algebra exercises again, i’d try to turn this one in.
• valentine’s day. nothing to add.
• cat proximity. yay, how true. meow!
• code talkers. another one on cryptography.
• fixed width. nerd talk on irc. i don’t know what scares me more, laughing about this one or thinking that i’m probably knowing people who would really do this.
• exploits of a mom. well. if you don’t know what an sql injection attack is, read about it here.