Allyson, you're already Jewish, so it even makes things easier.

I was trying to convince a coworker that I can have citizenship in Israel and he just didn't believe me.

Gah. He's just such a pretty boy. Maybe I'll steal a smoochie when i go home and be that home-wrecker.

Freakin' morals. Bleh.

Emily, I find it difficult to type a general case (I'm not good enough with HTML or anything), so let's look at a simple example, OK?

f(x)=x²-x-b and we want to divide it be x-a. So the first element in the result will be x, and x*(x-a)=x²-a*x. When we substract that from f(x) we get (-1+a)*x-b and that's what we should be dividing now. So the new element in the result of the division is (-1+a), and in multiplying it by (x-a) we get (-1+a)*x-(-1+a)*a. So the element that "builds" the original polynom, in the sense that it multiplies the x in order to continue with the division process, now multiplies the a as well, and instead of the polynom with an x times that coefficient, we get a times that coefficient. So now the result of the final substraction is a²-a-b=f(a).

Did it make any sense at all? Each coefficient which multiplies the x in the division algorithm, when we try to move from one step to the other, to the next in-between polynom we use now in the division, also multiplies the "a" in the (x-a). So after all the multiplications, we end up with the same coefficients multiplying the "x" in the "negotiating" polynoms, and in the "a" in the remainder. So all that's left for that remainder to be is the f(a), the shape of the original polynom.

I'm afraid I only confused you more. Grr, this ocean that preents me from scribbling this on a piece of paper in front of you.

[Edited because this post is too messy as it is and doesn't need typos in it]

I've marked your post and will try to read again when I get to work and have successfully edited my Turing paper. Gosh, I hope they don't expect me to do any actual work.

I was trying to convince a coworker that I can have citizenship in Israel and he just didn't believe me.

Why didn't he believe you? He didn't believe that each Jewish person can get an Israeli citizenship, or that you are Jewish, or what?

Oh, and you already have a nephew. Recently, my youngest sister gave me a talk, in which she declared she's very read to have nieces and/or nephews now, and I should really do something about it.

Allyson can you get on IM during work? If so can you hop on for a sec?

Why the fuck is my Blackberry a magnet? That doesn't seem sensible. Is it possessed?

Okay -- I've made two of the big phone calls (one grovelling, one escalatint-to-get-other-team-members-on-the-page) and hopefully we're back on track with nothing other than scheduling to worry about. We are running out of 2005, though.

Why the fuck is my Blackberry a magnet?

Er, I'm a little afraid to ask how you discovered this.

In today's interesting words I thought about in the middle of the night news, I offer "rambunctious." OED reports etymology unknown, first appearance 1830, chiefly a colloquial and American word (though Joyce uses it.) To give you an indication of the state of my mind at 2:30 am, it started thinking about whether Rambo was rambunctious, and if so, shouldn't he be called Rambu?

I think the magic element I am missing is being able to identify the qualities I can now recognize in "the ones that got away" in new people that I meet.

Mine is the ability to realize I'm obsessing over unavailable/wrong people and not seeing the perfectly nice guys.

ita, thank you for the link to the Orwell tea essay. It's nice to know I've been making my tea right all this time (although I'm out of loose Irish Breakfast, must remedy that; damn Trader Joe's and their no-loose-tea-having-selves).

I've come to the conclusion that it's just as well that the ones who got away actually got away. But I worry about the ones I never considered, and what I missed out on.

I have so much to do today. Pfeh.