Notes from a mathemagician in Paris:

• When in doubt, drink a half bottle of wine. If further doubts arise, finish it.

• Body odour is all relative

• The internet is a big place you can find pictures that you never thought could exist, much less should exist.
• More random music: Click!
• We have begun breeding software. Evolutionary programming is proving to be quite the fruitful method of designing both new software and hardware/machines. The process involves creating an iterative algorithm to design a system that best suits the needs of a problem. Basically, it's like how people have bred animals and crops, they take the best ones of a certain generation, mix those up, and repeat. There are two really interesting parts to it that I see
• The first being that current engineers don't know how to reverse engineer evolutionary designed equipment. That means, they don't know how it works. So, if said piece of equipment fails, who is to blame? You can't very well blame the software which designed it, it's not like it can go to jail.
  
• The second being that we can start doing some really crazy things. One experiment was to for some really simple pieces of electronic equipment (all without a clock!) to be able to discern certain frequencies of sound. That's amazing if you think about it, because the only way up until now for a computer to do that is with a clock! Frequency is how many cycles per second the wave repeats, so how the hell can it do it without the main ingredient of time?
• Pulling a muscle in your neck sucks. Don't be like me and try to fix it, as you'll just end up pulling the other side too.
• Mensa is actually pretty hard to get into
• Why do men make more money than women? Because we ask for more raises: click!
• If you've done a Meyers-Briggs test, this is fun: click!
• I'm an INTJ by the way

I hope everyone is well, as I'm doing ok.

Well, since I have nothing real to think about all day, my mind goes onto interesting things.

Enjoy: Clicky!

Ok, so I've been reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra (by Nietzsche) and now the Tractatus by Wittgenstein. They are providing to be interesting foils to each other. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (TSZ) is a interesting, and rather artistic look at philosophy. It is complicated, beautiful and never really clear as to what he's getting at. Hell, I still don't even really know what Nietzsche's philosophy he is supposedly expounding is, I don't even know what's really going on in the book. He seems to be using a persuasive argument based on how it's delivered than the actual content in the delivery (I know there is a specific word for this, it's in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance, it was Pirsig's character's main field of study). For example, when he condemns other philosophers he doesn't say why they are wrong, just that they are, and in elegant terms. The Tractatus is the complete opposite. Wittgenstein is obviously influenced by Frege, Bertrand Russell and other thinkers in the analytical philosophy movement. He is examining the use of language and what can be said in it. The book is written in a very formal argumentative style, where he posits an assumption, argues the reasoning for it, and then continues the argument with said assumption. For example, he discusses that language cannot deal with objects because objects are not a part of language. The only thing that language can deal with is facts about objects, and the collection of all facts about an object will describe an object in language. Facts are a necessity of objects as well, something that you see must have a fact about colour since that is a property of the space the object occupies. As you can see, very concise and precise.

This being said about both of the books, both make the claim in the beginning that they've solved the problem that they are dealing with. In TSZ, I'm not sure what he is even solving, but I do know it has something to do with the inadequacy of the current methods of thought, understanding and human nature. Wittgenstein claims he solves the problem of language, that being what can be expressed, the limits of expression, etc... I have serious troubles with whomever claims they have the answer. So I don't completely love and believe either book, but I think it's important to read something that you don't always agree with. Learn about the other side...lest you be American.

I read a funny title to an article today. Something along the lines of, "Homeland (Security)? That sounds awfully Russian."

I also have a big rant about these so called "cleanse diets," I know more than a few people who do them. For one, a diet is what you eat anyways, and cleanse? Get a friggin enema if that's what you think you need. I can't find a single journal article saying that the human body builds up "toxins" and that these diets will miraculously "cleanse" you in 7 days no less! Does anyone know what kind of toxins these are? Gimme some chemical formulas dammit, no nonsense about "food has toxins which build up in you." People are not cars folks, we don't need our oil changed every 6 months. That's why you poop! Your body is a miraculous machine, it is utterly self regulatory if you eat the right foods. Another argument is, "Well it must work, I felt so good after!" Well that's because your feelings are relative, and you felt like shit during the "detox" so of course you'll feel better afterwards. If you stop feeding yourself the proper nutrients (like, I dunno, protein!) you body will deteriorate as everything is made up of protein. People like to think only muscles are, but damn near everything in your body is made up of these carbon chains. So just eat your veggies, stay away from sugar and fast food, and you'll notice the same difference and be healthier. /rant.

I hope all is well with everyone. Much love

Joshy Poshy

So, Amsterdam was cool. It is very much a tourist city, with everything kind of set out for you. The coffeeshops, the Red Light district, the museums, and the rest feels like it's for the Dutch people. I suppose that's why I never met anyone there who stays for longer than a couple of days. You come to see what's up, and head on out.

The Red Light district seems so boring once you actually see it. That's sex, right there, plain and simple. You pay, you get. I didn't see any place advertising anything too strange or anything, I guess sex works basically the same everywhere. I did go to a so called "Live Sex Show", that was rather sad and made bored (and want my money back!). Seeing people do that without any emotion or feeling, it makes you realize how silly it all seems. Lots of drunk British guys around hooting and hollering. Le sigh.

The coffeeshops were a good time. It is where I met some of the most interesting and open people there. Most of the people in the hostel seemed very standoff-ish, and didn't really want to talk to me. Then again, it was mostly Americans who never stray from their little group of people, and think that yes, doing your own routine in a different country is traveling. I met a lot of Europeans from, well, everywhere else but France. They were all very different. The Swedes look utterly perfect with their Arayan good looks, well perhaps not perfect but they have very distinctive features. The intense blue eyes are different for me. The Greek guys all seemed very laid back, and looked, well Greek. Skinny, dark hair, few days of growth, hahaha similar tome actually. The Icelandic people look constantly surprised by everything, and have the strangest accent. And well, the Dutch. Strange folk they are. The language is kinda goofy, and people break out in song every once in awhile, or start yelling to each other for no apparent reason. Friggin weird man.


Saw the Van Gogh museum, it was good to see ol' Vincent's works. As can be expected, he uses colour very well. It also had one of the few known pictures of him up, and he didn't look much like his self portraits. I think he portrayed himself as more morose in his paintings. That is pretty interesting about his epilepsy. Hearing about the psychotic fit which led him to cut off part of his ear, I can kinda imagine it. Sitting in a little house with another artist you aren't getting along with, drinking Absinthe, and you finally break in the midday sun. He probably made a big showy thing about it, threatening the other guy, but in a bit of a dramatic moment he grabs part of his own ear and slices it with the razor. He must've had some recognition of what he was doing, otherwise he'd have cut the whole thing off! If anything, that dude really like the pastural pictures, so many pictures of farms.

Reading Godel's Proof right now. If anyone wants an nice introduction to the proof and how it works, namely the Godel numbering of formulas, this is a good book to use. I'm quite impressed with how he did do it, and how he did relate logic to arithmetic. It's very ingenious, and the impact he had on mathematics and science is tremendous. The ramifications are still being felt, especially in computer science and computability. I'm a big fan, and it's only 125 pages, so someone please read it. And not you Steve, as you should damn well know it by now.

The food in the Netherlands? Very average. On my train ride out, guess what the traditional Dutch meal was? Raw fish. Yup, no rice or anything, just slabs of it, slimy stuff too. I had a single bite and grabbed a baguette from the server. I did have a decent Argentinian steak while I was there, but they didn't put anything on it. No salt and pepper, or any other seasoning, and medium rare meant blue rare. However, as you can see, the pastries and desserts there were quite delcious. Oh well I guess, time to start planning the next destination.







Here I am, getting chubby. Dammit.

Oh man, these dutch are entertaining people. I'm having a rather interesting time. This place, it's like...Ikea. Everything is simple and it makes sense, and everyone is seemily super happy.

So on the train the way here, it was an interesting solution I saw to a problem. A whole bunch of people are sleeping on the train, so the servers/waiters come out and have a loud conversation that basically wakes everybody up. It's about 10 minutes before the arrival so you can wake up and get your stuff ready. I was angry at the lady at the time for talking so loud, then you realize maybe that's her intent? I mean, what does she care if you intensely don't like her for all of 20 minutes at most. It's not like she'd see you again, and if she does you can't do too much about it.

Second thing. I found that the best way for me to explore a city is to get lost. Today I tried a bit of a failed experiment, but was fun nonetheless. Basically, just go in blind, and figure it out from there. I read a study a few years back saying that there are different kinds of travellers. Some like to plan everything out, and some wing it, and there's all kinds in between. I like to wing it. So, taking the transit failed, my stop wasn't labelled as to the street I knew and Dutch is a terible language to try to read it's maps. All of these huge long names, and the city a increasing spherical coordinate system. I was just getting used to the manic, node system in Paris! Everyone takes transit, that seems cool, and tons of people on bikes. I ended up getting off the bus early, then cabbing it. Ah it's nice to have that power sometimes hahaha.

Ok, must get back to the city. But I think I'll have a lot more interesting things to say later.

Life is good.

After a long discussion over beer and dinner tonight, I've given some thought as to the social condition. That being how to live your life in a society, and what model a society can hope to achieve. Being in Europe is quite nice, there are a lot of liberties. However, for what you get, there are many things that you have to give up as well. For an easy life in some respects (vacations, good food, efficient transportation) you give up the ease of doing things fast. I don't think that a perfect society exists, there is always a tradeoff. But how do you value these things? I mean, I'm enjoying everything here, but I'm frustrated to no end by how I can't do things the way I can in Canada. Is one frustration better than another? How do I judge? There certainly is no empirical test. If it comes down to which is the better quality of life, then the question keeps asking, how can you determine said quality?

Maybe some more statistics must be done.

My Sunday Night Dinner, or Why the Culinary Arts are my Favourite Kind of Art

I'm wandering the streets of Paris in search of a meal. I pass by many a restaurant, browse the menu and press on. Nothing I see seems to entice my hunger. As I walk around, I see so many cafe's full of people eating and drinking, but the sounds you hear are not the melodic French, but that of brutish Americans. Eventually I see a little restaurant, a brief perusal of the menu suggests it could be worth it.

I step inside, and see what seems to be the blond owner of the restaurant. She invites me to sit where I wish. After sitting, immediately I decide to go for a bottle of San Pellegrino and some wine. While it is only the house red, that's not necessarily a bad thing in Paris. After making my order, I sit and sip some wine. It's suprisingly hot, a thin layer of sweat covers my body. I've learned to just deal with it.

The entree arrives first, foie gras with toast. I spread a generous layer upon the toast, and take a bite. The foie gras has such a delicate flavour, it tastes creamy and begins to melt the moment it hits your tongue. The texture is superb, it is silky smooth. I try it with some tomatoes and cilantro, it is an interesting combination.

While sitting, enjoying the heat, I see dinner arrive. Duck confit, on a bed of lettuce with fries. It should be noted that fries are very different here. Instead of the rectangular blocks as in North America, it is slices of potatoes gently tossed in olive oil and quickly fried to a golden brown. Covered in salt, cilantro and oregano, it is quite a delicious experience. The duck itself is falling off the bone. It's hard to pick it up with your fork because it is so utterly tender. The taste is distinct, but never offensive. The skin, which I don't usually eat, must be eaten with the dark meat, it provides excellent balance.

Finally, a crepe is served. Smeared with chocolate sauce and sliced almonds, it looks very enticing. The slight spongy-ness of the crepe goes well with the slightly warm chocolate and crunch of the almonds. It's a delicious dessert, and when folded with the whipped creme it makes a nice conclusion to the meal. I order a glass of cognac and sip it. The cognac shocks your senses out of the dream like state you've been living in, and suddenly you don't feel as full anymore.

It is time to walk home, I pay and enter the cool night breeze.

Sitting here on a rather nice Saturday, once again hungover. It's a little lonely here. Walking down the street I see all these couples holding hands and making out, friends all laughing and enjoying dinner together and go to sit by myself for a meal. Such is life I suppose.

Last night was entertaining as I went to the local Canadian bar. It wasn't too Canadian really, just hockey stuff everywhere and everything made out of wood. There was only one other Canadian fellow in the bar as well, a Quebecois fellow who I ended up chatting with for most of the night. I can't remember his name for the life of me, but we had a great chat about everything under the sun. It's always entertaining how those drunken conversations end up. First you talk about pretty interesting technical things (as he was an engineering student), then we got into politics a bit, then humanity. Ultimately it ended up in a conversation about women and how to get French girls. We were both baffled by it, they are a confusing bunch.

One good realization from the conversation, and one I had been thinking about for sometime now is how the Parisian lifestyle is. Everyone seems to think Paris is about going to all these sites, museums and historical places, but when I'm living here it doesn't seem that way at all. For me, and a lot of people, to understand the culture the best is to go have nice meals, meet with interesting people, have good drinks, and generally learn the French way of relaxing in life. At work for example, everyone is super laid back and we'll all go for coffee together and spend 20 minutes just standing around chatting. It's a marked difference from Houston, where everyone just stayed in their offices and tried to communicate as little as possible it seemed.

The new Chemical Brothers album is very average, worth one listen but that's about it really.

Sitting on the train yesterday I was actually thinking that it would be really enjoyable for me to go give a lecture of sorts at my alma mater Strathcona-Tweedsmuir. I think I would really enjoy to give an introductory talk on mathematics and present a couple of basic proofs as to what it is, and give an overview as to the power of it. I dunno if anyone there would be interested, but I think it would be helpful for students because high school math doesn't give you any real idea as to what it is. It could also be good to help show where a math degree would lead in terms of a job too. I was thinking presenting the proof of infinite of primes, the intermediate value theorem, and showing the cardinality of the real numbers is greater than the natural numbers via diagonalization. Most people probably don't know what those are, but those who do will understand that they provide a nice little overview of different proof methods, and they all are entertaining in how they work out.

What else has been on my mind? The new Interpol album rocks, I recommend it to all.

Bah, it's Bastille Day here, so perhaps I should go do something French. Like bitch about the government, or let my dog shit all over the streets, or wear tight jeans in hot weather. Anywho, off to dinner I suppose. Until next time.

Here's an interesting play I found on youtube. It makes me want to play backgammon, mostly because I'm none too good at chess.

Click!

Damn near nothing new to report, but I just wanted to upload a Kid Koala album that I've been rockin out to and share with everyone. So, it's my Friday off, after doing laundry I figured I deserved a bottle of wine. This is me drinking.

And *this* is Kid Koala: Click!

Oh by the way, UFC 73 coming up, my predictions as follows:

• Anderson Silva over Nate Marquardt by brutal 2nd rd KO
• Sean Sherk over Hermes Franca by terribly boring decision
• Rahad Evans over Tito Ortiz by 3rd rd ref stoppage
• Kenny Florian over Alvin Robinson in the...2nd by ref stoppage due to a cut (by elbow)
• Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera over Heath Herring by whatever the hell he wants, probably an arm bar or triangle sometime in the 1st
  
• Stephan Bonnar over Mike Nickels in a 1st rd stoppage
• Jorge Gurgel over Diego Savaria in a decision, possibly split
• Frank Edgar over Mark Bocek in a TKO, I dunno what round
• Aaaand Josh over both Chris Lytle and Jason Gilliam because nobody cares about this fight but them

Aloha,

Not too much new on my end but I'm bored, so bloggy bloggy. Been walking around Paris after work, most of the time in search of a restaurant to eat at. Yeah, I should probably be cooking but with dozens if not hundreds of restaurants within walking distance I might as well. I've been trying to have a little bit of everything, and I must say that Paris is a carnivore/omnivores paradise. Last night I had boeuf au poivre, quite tasty. However, the description of a thick steak was a little off, after cutting into it I realized it was just a thin steak folded over. Huh. I tried carpaccio de boeuf tonight, yeah I'm Albertan. It's the first time I've ever tried carpaccio, and it's...different. For those not in the know, it's very thinly sliced raw beef, covered in olive oil with basil and oregano. Not for the faint of heart, but the texture is great.

Fun little song for you all: CLICK!

Work is getting interesting. Basically I run into more math/computer science problems than actual geophysics problems. When we do run into actual geophysics issues, it's time to call the technical supervisor over to figure it out. Man, our propriety software is a big pain in the ass though, there are so many times I just want to plug in some C++ code to solve the problem. It's damn near impossible to create a "real" loop, most of the time, we just have to create these dirty little solutions and then use a module (a small algorithm you just plug numbers into) to clean up your mess. It's all so..inelegant, but if it gets the job done...

I'm getting close to completion of Midnight's Children by Rushdie finally. I've definitely started to realize his genius as a writer, in how that he can weave a story and events so intertwined and elegantly with each other. It is also quite educational, as the history of India and Pakistan for the mid twentieth century was largely unknown to me. I also enjoying learning the cultural differences and similarities, all written so beautifully.

Well, it's only a 4 day work week for me, YAH for the lazy French work laws. However, it will probably only result in me doing laundry and shopping for an extra day. Le sigh.

So by "popular" demand, here's some pics of my apartment.



So this weekend has been pretty lazy, I did a lot of sitting around...on the computer. Although today, I did manage to get out to a marker, Place Monge. Basically a little farmer's market, about a 15-20 minute walk from the ol' apartment. Quite quaint, I managed to pick up various things, including *drumroll* some chevre fraise to go on my baguette. Yeah, I'm that French. The veggies all looked delicious, and I'm sure they'll taste as good when I get around to cooking it.

Otherwise it was a relaxing Sunday afternoon. I sat in a cafe in Bastille, enjoyed a glass of Savignon Blanc, and had a salade Parisienne. Basically it was advertised as a salad with hard boiled egg, ham, cheese and tomatoes. Being a North American, I was expecting lots of lettuce, and a few chunks of cheese and ham throughout. Aah non non! Out came this utter mound of food, covered in ham and cheese, with a mustard vinegrette all over it. Quite delicious and unexpected. And Belgian Endive on the side, I never thought I'd see that other than my mother's cooking.

Anywho, hope all is well with everything for everyone. Au revoir for now.