The Evidence

Yes, I now have photographic evidence of where I've been at least in the last few months. I'll hunt down the others this week.

Life is good. A solid weekend of partying is always a good time. I have to admit, seeing Cadence Weapon in Paris was among my top bar nights overall. Everything just worked out so well, and always in an interesting manner. I like fairly...different social experiences. In so much as, I seek out places with the most originality, both of bar and clientèle. It's fun all night to just wander around, dance, drink, chat with random people, and listen to good music. While this doesn't sound too different, it really comes down to atmosphere I guess. Having pounding techno music, and I have a conversation about Frege and how I enjoyed The Foundations of Arithmetic to a pretty French girl, whilst my friend had to deal with a crazier girl who demanded to know how pretty she was. Also what I enjoyed was that I could name the tracks being played, so I guess I've found "my" bar here.

I can see why the world can see the French as rude. It's simply a matter of efficiency, I find here. If you are not interested in doing something, and there is no social obligation, then you are fine to say no. I see the French thinking very logically, and discussions remind me a lot of discussing with my mathematically inclined friends. I also believe in not sugar coating things. What's the point? I think it's a form of vanity and...pussying out. This doesn't mean you have to be a jerk, but I think we shouldn't always be socially obligated to make sure everything is "happy" and "non-offensive". It's perfectly acceptable to have something that is non-acceptable.

Ok, where did that rant stem from? Food is my preferred medium for art. As with everything there are different schools of thought. I prefer just to have inspired food, not bland, good texture, consistency, "mouth feel". I enjoy as I'm tasting, trying to identify all the different aspects of the taste. What ingredients and in what quantity would affect what I'm tasting. So when I have food that I'm unhappy with, or is particularly boring; and most importantly paid for (you can't complain with free food), I make my opinion known if asked. Anyways, long story short, I like European food because they have had a middle and upper class with strong culture for a long time, so they have developed what I consider fine food (as they have had the means to). I guess I found what Quality means to me. At least in this respect.

Speaking of tasty food, everyone should try this recipe, very easy and delicious: Click!

Random Picture Time:









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Now playing: Z-Trip / Run Run Run - Z-TRIP RUNX3-Fade into you MASTERED

And reality unfolds

Once again, abstract thoughts are abound in my noggin. So here's some more.

The other day I started thinking about a nice little project for myself to work on. Basically it involves coding a beat matching algorithm into Winamp so that it can generate playlists from your music that involve "sensible" transitions. What do I mean? It pisses me off when I listen to my Last.fm radio and I go from a heavy electronica song to...Roy Orbison. I mean, c'mon! So I started imagining all the ways I could analyze the beat structure of songs so that I can compare it with other songs. Long story short, it'll be a nice way for me to re-introduce myself into C/C++, work on signal analysis, and perhaps prepare myself for another job opportunity (audio/physics game programmer in Montreal...oh la la).

What interest does this have to anyone other than very few people I know? Nothing, or they are interested and it just goes way over their heads. Why so? Perhaps it's differing interests, a lot of it is not caring, but there is one elusive element I'm trying to capture. The idea that really is stuck in my head is (once again) about making decisions and how people do it. Given the same information about a situation, and one highly likely event, people will still try to predict the opposite. Look the the lottery I suppose. Perhaps it comes down to people thinking always in human terms, instead of objectifying situations more. When someone buys a lottery ticket, they must think they have a decent chance at winning, or why bother? Why would you have a decent chance? Either you don't know the odds are utterly stacked against you, or you must think that there must be something unique about your situation in particular, in that you somehow deserve this win more than everyone else. Perhaps this abstraction to realize that there is no favourite, there is no one special in the system (unless they cheat, but it's a moot point), in these cases you got nothing more than the next guy.

Ok, so other than these situations where there is no bias, how does one evaluate their perspective chances at something? Well, a friend told me a quote, "People judge themselves on what they can do, other people judge them on what they have done in the past." All nice and heartwarming, but my response was, "So whose right?" Her response was, "Well they both are because it's a matter of perspective." Hogwash I say! If there are two judgments on something I'm going to do, then one has to be right if they are unique. Once again, this about the realms of possibility and probability. One is just looking at pure possibilities and then applying no bias, or a false bias towards it. Just because you favour something, doesn't mean that it's actually favoured. But if something happens repeatedly, and it is defined by an agent (i.e. a person/animal/something that makes actions), I am going to throw it out there that it's favoured. If I have gone out for beers every Friday, then it's almost damn certain I will again this Friday! Sure it's not concrete, for certain, but it's damn likely.

I think too many people look to the extremes for rules. You'll never find anything interesting beyond unique cases at the extremes. Look how many people win the lotto, not many. Sure change is possible, but not without precedent. Even then, it tends to repeat itself, so is it really that unpredictable?

In terms of a conclusion, I can only start thinking about what divides us. Sure, everyone always says, think about what brings us together, not separates us. Bah, I'm a mathematician, it's the same difference, it's just a way to define the sets. What is it? Perhaps it is among some of the realizations that I have wrote, and if so, what are the causes of these? Intelligence is the only thing I can think of. Well, a certain type of intelligence anyways, and I feel that it isn't being developed enough. Only with true realization can we get out of this loop. A single person isn't special in the eyes of the universe, or no more special than anyone else. The universe doesn't tilt in your favour just because you are you. No, it does so with what you do and how you do it. My conclusion? Don't rely on possibility and chance to work out for you, make it happen. Or at least, don't be stupid about it.

As I say though, I'm the devil's advocate.

EDIT: I apologize for my rambling a bit there. After a re-read, some of the logical and personal jumps were very awkward. I had meant to say not only have my highly technical conversations been treated with less than enthusiastic opinions, but I've had debates where people try to assert certain falsehoods or unlikelihoods. So it tells me that a certain way of thinking just isn't popular. That should make more sense now.

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Now playing: Nightmares on Wax - Groove St.

Hard to abondon my ways

I've been thinking a lot about machines lately. Not only the live, physical ones, but Turing machines as well. So here we go:

I guess what started it is listening to the new mix by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, The Hard Sell, namely about 12 minutes into Side 1. What caught me right away was how weird it is, how different the sound is, and thus, how rare the track felt. I mean, where else would I hear this? Anywho, for those of you not in the know, it's a sample of a song where a robot is saying he falls in love with a girl. Silly, I know. But what got me thinking was about human emotions, and I feel one of the things I notice is that I can tell where my emotions will lead me sometimes. What actions, other emotions, consequences that will result of me feeling a certain way or doing a certain action will affect my consciousness. I think of this as analogous to the Turing machine problem, and I'll shortly relate this back to why I think robots (in the traditional sense) wouldn't really be able to feel emotions as humans do.

Ok, first Turing machines. Some of you already know this, but a brief intro for everyone else. A Turing machine is considered a pure logic machine, and is the concept in which all computer code is based. That being, every program is expressible as a Turing machine which in turn is expressible in second order logic (maybe first order, Steve help me with this). One of the major theorems, proven by Alan Turing himself, which was based loosely off of Godel's Theorem was that a generalized computer program won't be able to look at other programs to tell if they will end or not. What does that mean? A computer won't be able to tell what it's going to do in the future simply by the way it's programmed.

Second Argument: I propose that my knowledge of the very nature of my emotions (equivalent of a program being designed in the system of Turing machines) is what in itself will be able to predict what I'm going to do next. Unlike a Turing machine. Hmm. So, a robot's emotions would have to somehow be based off of computer code so QED. A robot couldn't know it's own system, bam.

Of course there are a plethora of arguments that can be made against it. I'm just throwing it out there. See if anyone takes the bait.

Also, I highly recommend the High Dials. It's solid rock.

I'll post some pictures soon enough. When I feel/look better, nobody wants to see my pallid face right now.

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Now playing: The High Dials - Save the Machine!

Trading your life for oil...

Being a mathematically minded can be tiring sometimes. Sometimes, not all the time, answers are immediately obvious. Most logical deductions, and a good deal of analytical math (i.e. calculus) has developed as instinct for me. At work, obvious fallacies are immediately exposed, and I can often just tell when something isn't going to work. What becomes a pain is when you have to do it anyways. It ruins the fun of expectation, because when you know how the system works, outcomes don't surprise you. Actually, I hate the waiting the most. I wish computers would work faster.

Perhaps that's true in a greater sense. I find I don't really enjoy just doing where certain outcomes are expected. I activities where there is at least something not known about the situation will end up being a lot more entertaining than just the norm. That being said, I realize that there is a realm of possibilities of conclusions. I suppose that's how everything stays the same, the possibilities are a somewhat fixed set but which one is the change. It sounds simple enough, but most realizations are. For me anyways.

Anyways, just things passing through my head.
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Now playing: Bill Withers - Use Me