Software wins and fails

As I get my very first sabbatical going, I’m working on some homework for the American Mathematical Society’s Math Research Community in Algebraic Statistics. So far, I’ve managed to calculate a few examples by hand. But now I’m down the software rabbit hole, and I find that it’s 4 hours later and I need to vent.

Successes:

  • Got Singular installed *and* got my mac to shut up about “programs from the internet” every time I open it;
  • Ran an example in Singular with (almost) the expected output;
  • Ran the same example in Macaulay2 with the same output as Singular;
  • Installed Bertini and managed to get the Bertini.m2 package to work.
  • Installed 4ti2.

Failures:

  • Can’t get my Aquamacs preferred theme (Solarized Dark) to stick despite hours of googling today and other days;
  • Can’t get Aquamacs to find and run Singular;
  • No clue what to do with 4ti2 now that it’s installed…

I’ve had a few other successes, though, unrelated to software:

  • Tracked down all the references for my homework (with the help of a librarian at Hamilton — thanks Glynis!)
  • Managed to remember some statistics.