illness and maths and medieval battle plans

So I've been ill with this bronchitis for well over a week. I have a class in two days I hope I can make, and I'd like to be able to go to work on Friday Jan 27, but I'm not sure if I'll make it. Sometimes I can't generate any voice at all; sometimes I sound like that announcer who does the voice-overs for the coming attractions in the movie theaters; sometimes I have a semblance of a voice that somebody might recognize as mine, but those moments are rare and fleeting.

Between lack of sleep and oxycodone, I'm half-asleep much of the time. The Excellent Wife (TEW) had the idea to reduce risk on the oxycodone by using half the prescription, which I'm doing; I've only used it for nighttimes. It takes a while to kick in, but it was effective: the morning after the first dose I was sleepy into midmorning. But today, I woke at about 2:30 am, and I'm fairly alert now, three-quarters of an hour later (as I'm typing this). Perhaps it's tolerance, or perhaps I'm just not as sick as I was.

When I'm alert, I've been doing a lot of stupid internet. In my ramblings, I found a couple of neat mathematics Youtube channels: I started with Numberphile (sample below):

One of the regulars on Numberphile is Matt Parker, a stand-up comedian who does math stuff, in the way Bill Nye does science stuff. Parker has an indisputable Michael Palin vibe. He's got a video about a computer circuit made with 10,000 dominoes, but I thought this one, about there being only one, true parabola was worth linking (yes, he does jokes about those other "only one, true..." preachers):

When I'm not watching these, I might have on Lindybeige (whom I referred to in my recent bow-tie post). His stuff is eclectic, and he's opinionated (and sometimes I dispute his interpretations of facts), but he's not boring. He does a lot on ancient battle weapons and tactics (and modern, too, now that I think of it). Here he is on vikings, and what they were really about:

... but of course he had that other one about bow ties, and he's done videos about why the rest of the world should drive on the left, how modern art is insulting, and a number of other targets.

And, of course, with Youtube's autoplay-the-next-video feature, sometimes the videos just keep playing into my headphones while I'm snoring through what I hope is my recovery from this affliction. I have had it with being so sick, I assure you.

(Yes, I'm actively avoiding discussing anything political. Isn't if #$%@ing OBVIOUS?)