We Can Only Ever Know Epsilon

Had a good discussion last night. First off, I brought up the idea of holophonic sound. Click!

Make sure you wear headphones, preferably the studio monitor kind. It's really kinda creepy, and interesting how they do it. Basically they record it all with a dummy head, with replicated ears. So we made two interesting conclusions from it. One, it's obvious that the ear itself changes how we hear things. It's been tried to use a priori methods to replicate actually being in a place, by using mathematical/wave physics to change the volume and delay of the sound, but they are definitely not the optimum solution. As you can probably hear. But also, what we found interesting, was that in theory you should be able to create a signal processing filter that would change normally recorded sound/music into something that is quasi-3D. Cool.

Information theory was next on the plate. Yes, a digital signal does degrade people. There is this current belief that digital cables are great, because you receive exactly what was sent. It is binary, either the signal gets there or it doesn't. It's nice to think theoretically with computers, but the problem with that is that things take place in reality. So we have to deal with that. When a signal is being sent, there is inherent noise. It isn't like analogue noise, but bits will be changed purely because of entropy. This is why we have compression, redundancy and error checking. So, with the best codes, they are supposed to take into account for all of this. It's a probabilistic affair, you know, quantum mechanics; therefore there is always the exception cases. Areas in cryptography do deal with this problem, that being ensuring integrity. But this happens a lot less than you think, and all we can do is minimize it. Basically, I'm trying to justify pricey stereo equipment.

Yann also brought up a cool way of thinking about the least-squares method of estimation. If you have a bunch of linear equations, and it isn't deterministic (i.e. the vectors intersect), you want to find out how close do they get. This is where it gets cool. You can break it down geometrically and look at orthanormal basis's and think of it in terms of creating orthogonal vectors, which is the shortest distance between to other vectors. For me it was a revelation, because I've always seen the least-squares solution as an ugly affair, something strictly for *those* applied math types. But it does have a nice basis (no pun intended) in linear algebra/geometry, so I can respect it now.

Onto something less technical. I went out on the Champs Elysee the other night. Only two real points of interest. Well, I guess girls always love how it looks, but I'm concerned about more practical things. The first being the price of drinks, and food anywhere near the main road. 175 Euros for a dinner!?! 13 Euros for a drink! My god, and people line up to pay it. The second interesting note was how we got into this bar, "Doobies." There was no door handle, just a buzzer and a slit with a slidable metal cover. So, ring the buzzer...and wait. Then I hear a faint series of knocks on the other side of the door, so what the hell? Match it. Then another series, match that again, and the door opens. We're in, and I wonder at my luck for getting into bars in Europe.

I also had my first dream in French the other night. Very cool, but I'm disappointed it took so long. That being said, the ol' French has gotten a lot better in the past couple of weeks. I've managed to have almost all French conversations at lunch and with some coworkers lately. I feel relatively accomplished.

"Garfield becomes an oddly surrealist comic when you remove the dialogue"


In any case, I'll see all you Calgary folk soon enough. I'm glad to be getting back in cowtown and rippin it up. Party on Wayne...

Life is goooood

I really enjoy the feeling of being home. Home is not one specific place in my mind, it's what I make of it. Perhaps I just adapt it as the place where I have my routine. Calgary was my home for a long time, I had people I know, certain things to do, and a job to go to. Paris is working out pretty well on that front finally. I've got to the point where every night I have to hurry to do all the things I have planned, it's nice to have your life come together.

That's not to say I'm not going to be super stoked to go home in 2 weeks. I am pumped up for it, I'll be glad to get around some Canadian folk and, well, give 'er. The more I travel, the more I realize how much Canadians truly kick ass. Seriously, we rock folks.

I've been doing quite a bit of boxe francaise the last little while here. Since it's a fairly small class, maybe like 10 people, 15 at the absolute max, all "les anciennes" have to help out the noobs. Since I'm not too shabby, the head instructor Yves has gotten me to show a few new people what's up. Talking in French with a mouthguard is damn near impossible. Luckily though, this is the kind of sport where someone has to watch and imitate. So you know, I punch them in the head, and they watch. In all seriousness, it makes me wonder about the sense of your body.

Click!

This is a link to an article talking about somatic awareness. The idea of where you know your body is at is a sense in itself, and should be given it's credit. We see this all the time in sports, where an athlete has utter control over what they are doing. But while some of this is natural, it's obvious that it requires training. I feel that swimming was really good for this, because you are constantly feeling the water and striving for perfect movement. It just surprises me in savate when someone just can't seem to be able to move their body in a certain way. I suppose any athlete could go to me and wonder why I couldn't do their sport, but...still. Maybe people just need more hip flexibility. Dance more, it's good for you.

Ah work. I make mistakes at work, it' s seriously part of the game there. Damn near everyone does, or they just plain don't deliver on time. Well, all the young people do anyways, damn young whippersnappers. It's surprising how emotional a day can be, and I truly try to not let it get to me. Today, I finally found the cause of a problem that I'd been investigating for a few days, and then you follow the chain of reasoning. Oh logic, it both loves and hates me. So we immediately start wondering what the cause might also affect, and it was a nice big chain. Lovely, but one thing I love about the French is that we take our time with certain decisions. Just don't worry too much and get some more info on what's going on. Luckily, I managed to show that it wasn't affecting anything too much (it actually might have helped, woo!) and that it only requires an extra line of code in the next job. Pimp.

UFC comin up this weekend. My predicting abilities have gotten better, so what the hell, why not make a bet on whose going to win one of the most even (and probably best) fights of the year. I'm taking Huerta over Guida. Roger just seems to have it goin on right now, and he's on fire this year. I also think that Mac Danzig is going to out work Tommy Speers. I hope so anyways, Mac really deserves it.