Tripping the Paradigm Shift

That time of year again...(Plus Backblog part the first)

2009-07-26T05:03:02Z

Hey all. Just wanted to announce that my choir the Hart House Singers has its concert tomorrow (Sunday 26th of July). As I may have mentioned for the past year I have not only been a singer in the choir, but also the webmaster for the site.

It should be a fun show we are doing a great many folk songs from various places.

The past couple of months have been busy in their own way, although I found plenty of time to procrastinate as well. There are some things I want to mention though so I am going to mention them.

Back on the May 9th and 10th weekend Toronto played host to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF). This is a biennial event that celebrates comic books and the like. I blogged about my attendance of the last one two years ago, conveniently located below my department in Victoria College. This year they were in the Toronto Reference Library a rather impressive looking modern library that I had often meant to visit.

The usual suspects were in the crowd. Here is a a video report on it, one of the makers of this video was Ian Daffern, yet another local comic book creator I've met and talked to. Included in the interviews is Evan Munday a local (Toronto) comics creator, illustrator and by day a mild manner publicist for literary press Coach House books. I bought a copy of the book he had just illustrated, Stripmalling. He was with his collective Sketchkrieg. I chewed the fat with them a bit and bought a few books (Tyrone McCarthy's ultraviolent Tyne and Jason Loo's preview of the next installment of AWOL'd tale of brutal sci-fi espionage). I also got a great book mark featuring this drawing by McCarthy, the others called him Emo Crow, I think this guy needs his own book, but this seems unlikely.

One of the neat things about TCAF is that it includes talks, In this case an entire self-contained academic conference ("Another New Narrative: Comics in Literature, Film, and Art"). I only attended a few talks of this but met an interesting guy Peter Coppin interested in the study of the cognitive processes behind comics and geometric proofs. I actually missed his talk.

There were also a series of panels of a less specialized nature. One that I actually went to was on the presentation of ideas in comics and included famed creator Scott McCloud. I would later get my copy of Understanding Comics autographed by McCloud, I confused him and he misspelled my name. New to me was the crazy genius comic creator Jason Shiga whose various comics include the scientifically informed adventures of a man trapped in a phone booth (Fleep) and an intricate interactive comic (Meanwhile). I got both comics in print form and they are clever and quirky books, but perhaps not for everyone (see links above for the actual comics on the web).

I met several comic creators who I met at the previous TCAF, including Carla Speed McNeil, whose series Finder is hard to describe (cyberpunk with shamanism), biographer of scientists in comics form Jim Ottaviani and Jason Thompson of encyclopedic knowledge of manga and master of minicomics (including the original King of RPGs).

I also met and got a sketch autograph from Chester Brown creator of among other things a stout biography of Canadian historical figure Louis Riel.

One of the most interesting people I met at the festival was Miriam Libicki a Vancouver, British Columbia-based American-Israeli artist. Her comic Jobnik details her life in the Israeli army. Her other work included an academic essay in comic form on autobiographical Jewish comics. She strikes me as having an emotionally raw and somewhat crude style.

I also complained to the creator of Dinosaur comics about the errors on his time travel poster.

TCAF was great fun and I even learned some things. I still have to read several of the books I bought. It was a very expensive weekend for me.

Less fun was the following Wednesday. I went to give blood. Unfortunately, part way through the procedure I felt light headed, I warned the attendant and she managed to stop the procedure just before I fell unconscious. I quickly woke up. This had happened to me several years ago and I had only given blood twice since. After a long rest, I got some help from a friend in my department down the street to walk me back to the department.

I'm not sure I will continue giving blood. I might have eaten too much too soon before donating or it might be some infirmity of my constitution. Most maddening is the lack of any consensus from clinic staff to the phone staff at Canadian Blood service. I would normally remain sanguine about this sort of thing, but really that is exactly the problem. :)

A quick check in...

2009-07-15T14:56:41Z

I've been meaning to check in with my blog for more than two months. At some point I will clear the backlog but I had to report this little incident. Long story short I wrote a letter to the editor and they actually put it in print.

I was reading the Globe and Mail (Canada's self-proclaimed national newspaper) and came across a letter to the editor responding to some favorable coverage of American Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with a criticism that more than 60% of her decisions were reversed. I immediately thought this was a silly criticism and so as I worked on unraveling the history of the determination of Pluto's mass, I did a bit of digging on the web I wrote the following letter to the Globe and Mail editors:

Paul Ranalli suggested in his letter to the editor that a 60 percent reversal rate for judge Sonia Sotomayor was unacceptably high for a private business. However, such rates are relative. In major league baseball such a rate would be a .400 batting average, worthy of the Hall of Fame. On average the American Supreme Court reverses more than 60 percent of the cases it rules on.
Also, these reversal rates only apply to the small number of cases the Supreme Court selects to rule on, of the over 200 cases she wrote the opinion on as an appelate judge only 5 went before the Supreme Court.

Yours Truly,
Allan Olley

Note the published letter is just the first three sentences of this.

Despite being curtailed all my missing points were made but more accurately and precisely by another letter writer and my analogy became the title for the letters on that topic. I had to look up Sotomayor's record and look up what the at bats to run ratio thingy was called and make sure that indeed 0.4 was an impressive batting average, actually almost superhuman as a career average. I was hardly the first to make this analogy (example), but I claim independent invention. I've just discovered that Sotomayor also ruled on the baseball strike of '95 making the analogy even more apt. Of course all this is of little concern to me, but I find such fallacious arguments troubling.

Anyway, I guess I've taken my first step to becoming a full fledged crank who writes to the newspaper.

Don't trust anyone over 30!

2009-05-01T03:33:59Z

Well I am now 30 years old. Strange to have made it to this mile stone. My Phd still grinds slowly, but while I'm a bit worried about when I will finish, I'm not really worried that I won't. I feel like I've hit kind of a still period in my life. Hoping for some excitement in the future (tempting fate).

My party was great but unfortunately I forgot to bring a camera (but in many ways it was similar to last year). I had it a few days before my actual birthday because I went to the University of Western Ontario for two conference that I try to get to every year. One is the Grad conference in philosophy of logic, math and physics (LMP) and the other on the philosophical foundations of physics. The second conference was especially technically difficult (really beyond what I do) this time and I had missed some sleep, so I managed to fall asleep and worse snore in one talk. I learned a few things, caught up with friends and colleagues and stayed in a nice bed and breakfast.

I managed to buy relatively cheap ($40) new sneakers, after my old ones developed holes in the soles. Only took me two visits to the stores and two hours of looking total (my feet are a funny shape and I'm cheap).

_bud_ posted this on his journal and I responded (after 13 days). Technically I'm just supposed to post the questions on my journal, but this way makes more sense to me. Here are the questions and my responses (except for the ones specific to _bud_). Feel free to respond to the questions yourself.

1. Can you cook?
Yes, but somewhat limited.
2. What was your dream growing up?
To know everything!!
3. What talent do you wish you had?
I wish I could compose music.
4. Favorite place?
A soft warm bed.
5. Favorite vegetable?
Broccoli
6. What was the last book you read?
Well I just listened to "How to Survive a Robot Invasion." I think the last whole book I read was "Buddhism and Science".
7. What zodiac sign are you?
Taurus.
8. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings?
No.
9. Worst Habit?
Procrastination.
10. Do we know each other outside of lj?

11. What is your favorite sport?
To do fishing. To watch Baseball.
12. Negative or Optimistic attitude?.
Optimistic emotionally, but with a few negative colours in my intellectual outlook.
13. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?

14. Worst thing to ever happen to you?
Probably that time the T-bar took out my front tooth.
15. Tell me one weird fact about you:
I can put my foot behind my head, without serious pain or injury (yeah you told me not to I know).
16. Do you have any pets?
No.
17. Do you know how to do the Macarena?
No.
18. What time is it where you are now?
11PM
19. Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
Not really scary but certainly unnerving.
20. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
The goofyness of my smile with teeth.
21. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
Conscience
22. What color eyes do you have?
Blue.
23. Ever been arrested?
No.
24. Bottle or Draft?
Yes. :) I don't drink.
25. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it?
Have a small party, give a chunk of it to charity and stick the rest in the bank.
26. What kind of bubble gum do you prefer to chew?
Can't really remember, there all good.
27. What 's your favorite bar to hang at?.
GSU pub.
28. Do you believe in ghosts?
No.
29. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
Read.
30. Do you swear a lot?
No.
31. Biggest pet peeve?
People's unwillingness to step back and see things from a calm rational perspective.
32. In one word, how would you describe yourself?
Neurotic.
33. Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?
Yup.

Dulcinae and Upcoming events...

2009-04-05T02:43:04Z

Two events I need to tell everyone about. First On April 20th in Downtown Toronto at Sylvester's cafe 16 Bancroft Avenue I will be celebrating my birthday (3 days early because I plan to be out of town on the date). As in the last few years I'm braking out my Karaoke machine for the event. Any of my friends who can make it are encouraged to come.

Second, in June I will be participating in Toronto's annual Ride for Heart. I do it in part for the challenge (I'm not in the best shape so 50 km on a bike is a challenge for me) and because it seems like a worthwhile cause. More specifically as mentioned previously. If you would like to sponsor me feel free.

Now time for a meme (or as I like to call it a mime).
So way back in January my friend Jonathan on facebook (I'm posting this on livejournal fb users) did this, I picked it up but did not find the time to post it (I meant to do it when I finally updated).

1. Put your MP3 player on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write down the name of the song no matter how silly it sounds!
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.

What do your friends think of you?
Life is Like a Boat - Rie fu (appropriate as the first line is "nobody knows who I really am", I really like this song so I listened all the way through)

If someone says, “Is this okay?” You say?
Paint It Black - Rolling Stones (one of the few dark depressing songs I like, I'm not really that big on black)

How would you describe yourself?
Andante Con Moto - Dvorak (I have songs on here from the previous owner, my dad, although nothing wrong with Dvorak)

What do you like in a guy/girl?
No. 6 Pathetique in B minor Op. 74 - Various (not really looking for pathetic)

How do you feel today?
Both Sides Now - Leonard Nimoy (Yeah I enjoy songs for pure novelty value, I guess its been a day of duality, it is life's illussions I recall)

What is your life’s purpose?
Angel Band - The Stanley Brothers (I wish my strongest trials now had past)

What is your motto?
Go!!! - Flow (I sometimes I aspire to be that motivated and spontaneous)

What do you think about very often?
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - William Shatner (Actually I almost never think about Lucy)

What is 2 + 2?
Angel - The Jones Gang (I think this was preloaded on the MP3 player and never removed, lesson don't use MP3 player for math)

What do you think of your best friend?
In the Jailhouse Now - Soggy Bottom Boys (Fortunately not true)

What do you think of the person you like?
Down in the River to Pray - Alison Krauss (again no)

What is your life story?
No. 6 Pathetique in B minor Op. 74 (I only have 86 songs on the MP3 player so a repeat is not suprising)

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Man of La Mancha - Mitch Leigh (A man can dream the impossible dream can't he?)

What do you think of when you see the person you like?
IV: Finale: Adagio in lamentoso-andante from No. 6 Pathetique in B minor Op. 74 - Various (So it turns out that previously when I listedn No. 6 I missed which part of the piece was playing sorry).

What will you dance to at your wedding?
Cobbelstoned Waltz - Alias & Ehren (Not likely, another hanger on from the manufacturer)

What will they play at your funeral?
I'll Fly Away - Alison Krauss (At least it would be an appropriate song for the event, although I have little hope of flying anywhere)

What is your hobby/interest?
Presto (Parello) - Dvorak (Yeah not a good answer)

What is your biggest fear?
Allegro Vivace - Dvorak (Allegroes don't scare me not even vivacious ones)

What is your biggest secret?
Babylon of the Orient - The Shanghai Restoration Project (No...)

What do you think of your friends?
Ballad of Bilbo Baggins - Leonard Nimoy (I cheated I really got Track 8 - Unknown Artist, this was the next thing to come up, not many of my friends are like Bilbo)

What will you post this as?
Dulcinea (Reprise)/ Impossible Dream (Reprise) - Mitch Leigh

Since my last post, the Singers concert went off without a hitch. And I've seen the show Curious Savage. Also my parents have returned from 6 months in Georgia (USA). Also, I've submitted abstracts to two big academic conferences (HSS and SHOT) and plan to attend a couple more (CSHPS and UWO's LMP/FoP) coming up soon.

Curious incident on the subway...

2009-03-25T20:10:05Z

So early Saturday morning, a week and a half-ago, I was riding the Toronto subway back to Kipling station, where I had parked my car. There was a young (late teens or twenties I would have said) couple sitting across from me and as we neared the station, the young woman got up and started pulling out an ad from the wall. I then realized the ad said something like "There probably is no God," part of the (unoriginal) atheist bus campaign imported from England (go here to see what this looks like on a TTC car in Toronto).

I pointed out that as someone paid for the ad it was not exactly fair. Sadly I was unable to convince her. She seemed to think public spaces were an inappropriate place for religious messages that would upset people. I was hardly going to wrestle her for the piece of paper. I wanted to get to bed so I reported the incident to the TTC via their website a day or two later.

Intriguing to me at least was that the woman in question did not strike me as the socially conservative sort. She was dressed in black, shoes which added at least an inch of elevation and had a couple of piercings of her face.

The ads strike me as an odd move, since I'm not clear that many people feel the oppression of fire and brimestone theology here in Toronto (or indeed in England where this idea originated). It seemed to me more appropriate to the context of parts of the US where various ad campaigns advising of the need to get in touch with Jesus or that God is watching are employed. On the other hand even if they are in general ugly people should not go pulling down TTC ads. So I'm glad I said something, however ineffectual.

Publish or Perish?

2009-03-12T19:58:38Z

I have not updated this blog in three months, in this time much has happened including the celebration of Christmas, New Years and various other holidays including Ontario's newest holiday Family day.

Christmas saw my entire immediate family reunited and a good time was had by all. My parents have been away lately and it was good to see them. My Christmas haul was not as weighed down by material goods as in previous years. However it included books DVDs and sonic deer repelant and some nice winter boots.

I managed to damage my dad's car again in the meantime. I was not careful backing up and knocked out the wing mirror and thereby broke its connection with the control motor. I managed to repair it myself, but the parts were not cheap.

In the past three months I saw many shows including Evita, Hair, Knickerbocker Holiday (a little done political satire by Kurt Weill (music) and Maxwell Anderson), Jerry springer the Musical and just yesterday Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. Although most of these were done by amateur companies gotta were still enjoyable performances. Knickerbocker Holiday was done by a more professional group and although not the most brilliant work has a unique charm making it a shame it is not done more often.

There has been a great deal of snow the past three months. In December the snow pilot or so high I had to obtain help from my snow blower equipped neighbours in removing the snow.

My choir's performance at Christmas went off without a hitch and practice for our March 29th performance of Mozart's and Handel's coronation masses is goings well (3pm at Great Hall of Hart House).

My main impetus for writing this message now is that I have received the December 2008 issue of Isis, the journal of the History of science Society.. In this issue is my second academic publication, a short book review of Alan Grier's When Computers Were Human.

My thesis work grinds slowly on. Far more slowly than I can justify. I must hope I can yet return to my all but blunted purpose. It is not just livejournal I have been neglecting (my personal diary is also several months behind).

The past few months have been made happier for me by all the good news of my friends who have gotten married, graduated or been blessed with children. Hopefully soon enough I will have some achievements to report. Until then I remain reminded by predicament of the ancient Greek thought that the only victory that can grant happiness is the victory over oneself.

Got to go (I'm seeing the movie Watchman in IMAX tonight) I'll update this a little more later, hopefully.

Singing on Sunday...

2008-12-07T05:07:03Z

Hey first just announcing my choir, the Hart House Singers, concert Sunday, December 7th at 3 PM full details here. It should be a pretty good show and its been a lot of fun practicing.

In the past couple of weeks I've seen more local theatre (Crimes of the Heart and Sweeney Todd) and spent the last week in November in Tennessee celebrating American Thanksgiving with my family and my brother's in-laws. I also got the car fixed and got one or two other things done.

What a month...

2008-11-12T02:02:05Z

Well since the last entry much has occurred. I should have mentioned last time that I went to see the play Goodbye Piccadilly, a rather nice production about death in the family. It was part of my family and friends monthly subscription.

A much more grand production was seen in "Sound of Music." This was a much anticipated production brought to Toronto by the Mirvishes and Andrew Lloyd Weber. Following the success of a production and related reality show competition How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria. in the United Kingdom it had been imported to Canada. Weber's Sound of Music has if nothing else a truly monumental set. I have to say that Canada's choice as Maria struck me as pretty good and I enjoyed seeing this musical that I only knew from the Julie Andrews Movie. I was less impressed by the Captain von Trapp (who was from the New York stage).

The CUPE election was a pretty sleepy affair, but my job as CRO was made difficult by an absence of volunteers. After the election I went to the HAPSAT Halloween party. Where I had a lot of fun playing various party games.

Our Ultimate Frisbee team managed to win its last regular season game (default). However, our first playoff against the fearsome forces of pharmacy was a defeat.

This past weekend I have been on a trip to the co-located History of Science and Philosophy of Science Association annual meetings. I had no paper to present but being close by in Pittsburgh I could not resist going. I also agreed to transport a car full of fellow IHPST students. The conference was an enjoyable affair. Despite the greater focus in my work on history I actually tend to go to the philosophy talks. Its fun meeting scholars from all over and hear about their research. One of my more fun encounters was a group of historians of Asian science, most of whom were from China or Japan. The trip was marred by an incident on the trip home. A deer decided it really did not like my car and struck the right side at high speed. Fortunately we were not hurt and were able to get the car home, but it defintely put a crimp on the day.

See more details on my homepage here.

Oh and apparently there was an election in the United States, you may have heard of it.

They keep pulling me back in...

2008-10-20T04:23:46Z

Well in the past two weeks I've been a bit out of it. Despite my cold going away I've let my sleep schedule get away from me and have generally been unable to get much (procrastination plays a role). Last weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada. I had a turkey dinner on Sunday.

The day before, Saturday I went with a friend to Sherway Gardens, via bicycle. On the way in we took the Waterfront Trail. It made for a circuitous route, so on the way back we took a more direct route. So I spent about 4 hours on a bike (not the most comfortable way to travel). Even though this amounts to something like 60+ km (I'm not the fastest on the bike) I still felt better after that ride than the ride for heart.

Last Tuesday there was a federal election here in Canada, I voted again as is my want. I also went into York university for a talk on the history of human experimentation in physiology and a reception celebrating the 100th issue of Isis. With regard to the elections I also powered through both debates and all the party platforms the night before. I like to listen to the French leader's debate in French, despite my meager skill with the language. I'm a little disappointed with the level of debate on some issues, where a lot of fallacious rhetoric seems to remain (to be fair what is fallacious depends on what you think the facts are), but I'm tolerant of the problems of democracy. As I've experienced on the micro level with university student politics and democracy is almost literally like trying to order a pizza for a large group, almost impossible to get any agreement so you end up with stuff that leaves everyone a bit disappointed.

Thursday I had a dental appointment. I followed by a CUPE meeting. There was a by-election for an executive position and I got myself volunteered to be CRO again. Not a great day.

Saturday we had another Ultimate Frisbee game which we managed to win despite the injury of Isaac. That evening I drove into town to attend a friend's birthday party and was reminded why I so rarely drove around downtown Toronto or drive at all.

Today I went on a little shopping trip. I managed to find a replacement for my fountain pen's ink cartridges (the campus bookstore stopped stocking them a couple of months ago). I was looking for a CD player to replace my parents broken one, but getting a simple CD player capable of working with basic red and white phono cables for a stereo hook-up is not easy (the CD player was from back when people were still transitioning to CD). Instead I got a 1/8th inch Y splitter as we have a couple of portable CD players that have a headphone port appropriate for the purpose. I also bought a cheap set of computer speakers (actually for MP3 players).

Science News, 2 to the power 43,112,609 all minus 1 is prime...

2008-10-08T00:49:41Z

There are two Science stories I have to comment on. One is that yes it is that time of year again time for perhaps the highest awards recognizing the works of scientists and even world leaders. I am speaking of course of the IgNobel Prizes, awarded to those in science and society whose work makes us laugh and then makes us think. I think the one I appreciate most is the prize in Physics for showing why string and other such things will almost inevitably become tangled. The prize in chemistry for work in the area of Coke's effectiveness as a spermicide was clearly long overdue. Finally, I have to echo the sentiments implicit in awarding the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee and the Swiss people for committing to the position that plants have inherent dignity and worth, if the Arrogant Worms have taught us anything it is that Carrot Juice is Murder. Good to know even if the Swiss are neutral in all other things they at least take a side on the treatment of plants.

Perhaps even more importantly and not to my mind covered nearly enough in the media is the news that the 45th and 46th Mersenne Primes were discovered in August and September by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). Given that the last one was discovered in September of 2006 this breaks a drought in Mersenne primes. Mersenne primes are primes of the form 2ⁿ-1 and they were first noted because if 2ⁿ-1 is prime then 2^n-1(2ⁿ-1) is a perfect number. A perfect number is one whose divisors (other than itself) add to its value (for example 6, whose factors 1,2,3 add to 6 is a perfect number). Obviously the discovery of such fundamental mathematical patterns is of great importance as are the tools of factorization required to test for primality and so GIMPS provides software to any who wish to participate in a distributing computing network (ie using idle time on your computer to do computing work), far more important than such ephemeral matters as cancer research or the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. After all cancer will be cured eventually, but numbers are perfect forever and once we contact ETs we will need to know as many Mersenne primes as possible in order to impress them. Also, since both of the newly discovered primes are over 10 million decimal digits in length they qualify GIMPS for a $100 000 prize for discovering the first such prime thus allowing them to compensate large prime discoverers.

Theatre trips, a cold, courting controversy...

2008-10-06T03:04:10Z

Well, apparently staying up until 4 AM, caught up with me because by last weekend I started developing a cold that has lingered until yesterday.

Last weekend our Ultimate Frisbee team achieved another victory despite lower numbers. I actually only got to the game half-way through because of a self-inflected deflation of a bicycle tire. I had not inflated them since my move and they were kinda squishy so, while waiting for the Train to Toronto, in a moment of insanity I tried to use my hand pump, which would probably better be marketed as a tire deflator. It took me about half an hour to find a gas station to pump back up my completely depressurized front tire.

We could not keep up our winning streak in ultimate yesterday, when we faced the hardened bunch from Mississauga campus that thoroughly decimated our ranks.

A week ago Friday I went to see Boeing, Boeing at the Stage West Dinner Theatre. It is a traditional (and somewhat dated) farce about a man trying to juggle three fiances at once. The play was very well acted and entertaining and the dinner was good (keeping in mind it was a buffet). So it might be worth a look if your into that sort of thing. As usual I got in as a guest of my theatre critique friend.

Last Thursday my mother and I went to see the Finnish play, "Dik Od Triaanenen Fol- Finns ain't what they used to be" unfortunately for some reason they showed Spamlot instead which is a real shame, since it is reputed to be one of the masterworks of the Finnish... The people responsible for the beginning of this paragraph has been sacked in a blatant display of Finnophob... The people responsible for sacking the people responsible have been sacked. Anyway, Spamalot is a silly play but not really as silly as the madcap Monty Python movie that inspired it. It has some enjoyable songs some completely original, some ripped off from the movie, and some ripped off from other Monty Python works (such as Always Look on the Bright side of Life). We had missed the play the last time it was in Toronto (2 years ago) and so made an effort to see it this time. While it was an enjoyable enough production, like I said it was not quite the zany Monty Python extravaganza I had imagined, which is perhaps not fair. It seemed to me like a run of the mill musical comedy, half the jokes coming from the movie and the other half as part of the new plot. Often other legends of musical theatre were referenced (like "Singing in the Rain"). So not sure I would recommend it unless you like both musical comedy and Python.

Now for a mime survey that daisho did. It's a, badly worded and simplistic, attempt to get people to get people to put forward their positions on issues in what has been termed the "Culture War" in the US (and a few other issues thrown in for good measure), sure that people on either side of the divide can not get along.

[01] Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as 'The Controversial Survey?'

No, I'm a coward, so clearly you can't be reading this, go away you silly English type person.

[02] Would you do meth if it was legal?

I won't even smoke a cigarette so I'm going to say no. But this is as much about me being neurotic as about any certainty I have that it is

[03] Abortion: for or against it?

Well I'm against laws banning abortion if that is what is meant. Basically I don't think human life begins at conception and even if it did the autonomy of the mother would make it impossible for me to justify a total ban in all cases. However, I'm not for every fetus being aborted just to be clear that would be silly. Also, I find the idea of aborting a fetus because it is disabled dubious and because it is a girl sick and wrong.

[04] Do you think the world would fail with a female president?

Okay this one is just silly, who really thinks a woman is incapable of being president. Being head of state is the one job women have been doing for millennum with good results (Queen Elizabeth, Cleopatra and Catharine the Great to name a few). It turns out that women can be just as vicious bastards as men.

[05] Do you believe in the death penalty?

No, because I believe it is wrong to kill when their are other alternatives to achieve the same ends. We have alternatives so the death penalty merely debases those who practice it.

[06] Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
No, but it may make sense to decriminalize it, especially if claims of its medicinal properties are well founded.

[07] Are you for or against premarital sex?
I think the key factor here is whether or not I'm one of the participants. :) Anyway, in the sense that I think it is part of the healthy and moral life of many people I'm for it, but obviously it has its dangers, excesses and pitfalls like most human activities (or at least so I'm told).

[08] Do you believe in God?

No, like Han Solo I've been from one side of this Galaxy (okay make that planet) to the other and seen a lot of strange stuff but nothing to convince me that there is an all powerful intelligence controlling everything. I could take the fence sitting position, but I'm happy to make universal conclusions based on particular facts all the time and I don't see that this case is much different from others. On the other hand, I don't believe that religion or the belief in God is inherently irrational or negative (lots of particular people's beliefs and practices maybe though), like some atheists (Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins etc.). In part because on a clear reading the essential beliefs involved are so abstract and general that two people sharing them need share almost nothing else in behaviour or thought process and in part because I share a sympathy for the quest for meaning that I find some thoughtful conventionally religious people to share. I recognize that in these sorts of fundamental questions we all lack a firm foundation, because the foundation is precisely what is being sought (something the religion haters show a sad inability to admit). I don't sympathize with religious bigotry though, but that is a problem of small mindedness and not about the content of people's belief.

[09] Do you think same-sex marriage should be legalised?

Well we've already done it here in Canada. However, yes because basically otherwise your limited in who you can enter into a marriage with based on your sex, which is clearly unjustified discrimination. However, obviously religions are allowed to extend or not their blessings and traditions in anyway and for any reason they see fit (and that is also protected by Canadian law), some churches (few admittedly now) have same sex marriage, others do not. There is some confusion about civil marriage. Civil marriage has been for decades if not centuries a completely separate entity from religious marriage. A civil divorce may mean nothing in religious circles for example and so on.

[10] Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?

I think its wrong that it's illegal. It goes beyond just being wrong and becomes stupid when you consider that the millions of Mexican and other Latin American illegal immigrants are basically essential to the current structure of the US economy. A better way for Americans to think about this is do they want to pay more for everything and have less services by decreasing the labour pool and having to pay those left more? Somehow I don't think they would demand to pay more for less. Basically if I ruled the world, everyone (except criminals and militants) would be free to immigrate everywhere and as far as I can see as long as this is not so we are all participating in the violation of basic freedom of movement of all people. Now I recognize some practical limitations to in migration (the sewer system can only take so many more people etc.), but if that is the issue there is a simple and fair solution, sell the right of access in amounts required to pay for the infrastructure upgrades. I think people overestimate the desire of people to abandon their families and homes for unknown territory, but as it is criminals like the Snake Heads, Coyotes and other animal themed organized crime are selling access to rich countries, we could probably undersell them, get our cut and cut them off at the knees, I call that win-win.

[11] A twelve year old girl has a baby; should she keep it?

Depends on the 12 year old and the baby and so on. Maybe.

[12] Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?

Sure (it already is that low in Quebec), personally I don't like the taste of alcoholic beverages so I don't drink and I recognize that there are many dangers associated with the drink, but as it is (we are'nt going to get rid of it any time soon) it makes little sense that you can vote, die for country and so on but not drink a beer.

[13] Should the war in Iraq be called off?

Yes, everybody in Iraq should give up violence right now, failing that the US and other international players are probably stuck making sure the powder keg does not blow up (to be fair it was already a powder keg before the US invaded but on a much slower burn). Unfortunately I see no solution, so good luck with that.

[14] Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree?

Basically yes. This is a position where I differ from a great many of my friends, and I have lots of misgivings about. Basically I take the position that you can't encourage people to die without doing something wrong. Assisting suicide might be done on two basis assisting anyone even healthy people based merely on their own personal death wish, this would just be clearly irresponsible since many people capable of healthy happy lives are afflicted by stress or mental illness to suicidal tendencies or behaviours. Assisting such otherwise healthy people killing themselves rather than trying to help them seek treatment would be like refusing to transport someone with broken legs to the hospital, taking their inability to move caused by a medical condition as a statement of a consider willful intention. On the other hand one might justify assistance to suicide on the basis of agreeing with someone's desire to end their life because you agree their life is not worth living. In which case I can't see the reason not to take it the further step and just killing them when they fail to realize their sad predicament (as you might use force to stop someone from unknowingly drinking poison). I distrust this sort of logic that anyone is better off dead, because perhaps we are all better off dead (in my darker moments of doubt I sometimes think this myself), certainly if everyone were dead all the evils of the world would cease.

Now I've just constructed a clearly false dichotomy that says more about my own inner nihilistic demons then anything about this debate and perhaps that is all there is to my opposition. However, I can't help but feel that death is a bit too effective a cure to all our ills and that having a taboo against using it is all to necessary, lest we give up on palliative care (and perhaps more importantly hope) in favour of death the universal pain killer and so on. To the charge that restricting suicide violates freedom I have to answer that as far as I can see only in the sense that restricting people's ability to sell themselves into slavery also does. As to the point that we euthanize animals, we also eat them, enslave them and use them for medical experiments, I (and possibly we) don't value them as individuals the same way as with humans. Ultimately I can't say I'm all that comfortable with letting people suffer unremitting totally debilitating pain for months or years either, but I want a third alternative.

In any case despite this rather stodgy position on assisted suicide I allow many loopholes, exceptions and so on. Basically because I view the right to refuse treatment (by patients who are of sound mind) as absolute and I do not view longevity as the sole measurement of health, passive euthanasia (removing life support or otherwise stopping treatment) is not something I oppose (and this is legal at least in Canada). Also, I believe shortened life (aka death) can be an acceptable side effect (a forseeable but unintended effect) of a treatment (such as a pain reliever). While I might view all suicide as in principle wrong, I would view the affronts to personal liberty required to stop it as more wrong, so I don't oppose it materially but only through moral suasion (ie talk which is cheap). So this leaves plenty of room for suicide and even assistance to suicide (in indirect ways), if people want it badly enough, within my view of what the restrictions should be, just as it is in the actual law. Of course this also makes lots of room for mistakes and abuses to.

[15] Do you believe in spanking your children?

No because my children do not exist, therefore spanking them would be impossible. More generally I don't think the use of some corporal punishment does much harm, but neither do I think it's absence creates problems. I would like to think I would not resort to it myself, but I can't really say.

[16] Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?

Yes, it's just a mass produced piece of cloth people, let's move on.

[17] Who do you think would make a better president? McCain or Obama?

Could'nt we combine them into one super president? Obama is probably closer to my own view of things, also despite some good personal qualities McCain does seem a bit out of touch (luckily he does not know how to use a computer so he will never read this :).

[18] Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?

A little, but really I've said most of these things on the internet from time to time before. I don't like people being mad at me though, but I think I'll live. Best to face your fears really.

Mime time, wheel falling off the car, other stuff

2008-09-25T04:46:58Z

So there is a mime going about to take a picture of yourself and post it, my impression is your supposed to do it ASAP, I actually was too busy to do it before (both owlfish and smccloud did this awhile ago). Above is my contribution, my laptop's webcam needs lots of light to create even a crappy picture.

Well in the past two weeks I've had my fun orienting at my department. The renovations make it feel almost like a new place. Settling into living at home again has been relatively easy. I've also participated in some intramural Ultimate (Frisbee), last Saturday the School of Graduate Studies team soundly trounced Nursing. And in a minor miracle I have actually managed to get some work done, even if I had to stay up till 4AM to do it.

I've also been learning the ropes of being a Webmaster. I'm now in charge of the Hart House Singers. It is actually not all that hard but there are a few tricks to it. For example, I did not realize how cleverly Windows/Firefox saves webpages.

I was getting a ride from my mother up to York University to see the irrepressible professor Yves Gringras talk. My mother's car decided to drop a wheel off the front ball bearing just as we turned out of the driveway. Luckily a second car was available and my mom's car has been quickly repaired.

My luck with MP3 players continued its usual run on Wednesday, September 10th. When I managed to lose my battered MP3 player at the train station. Despite noticing almost immediately I could not find it on the platform and it has not turned up since. Luckily my dad is not using his (an identical make and model) so I have a ready replacement. The day before I bought a neat self-winding set of ear buds to, luckily those I did not lose.

I meant to mention an interesting incident that happened back near the end of August a few days before my move. Several years ago in connection with my research that in some issue of Astounding Science Fiction there existed a (non-fiction) article on the punched card laboratory run by Wallace J. Eckert (the subject of my research). I had been informed that the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy had a complete run of Astounding. I had filed away my intention to make a search and promptly let the issue slide. Finally as I was preparing to leave Toronto I sauntered down the street (the Merril collection is on College street directly across from the campus of the University of Toronto where I study) and asked to see the issues. I located the article with the help of the collection staff and incredibly helpful librarian then informed me that the article was in fact available on-line (thanks to a Google search for the title, which I had known also). The article in question Tools for Brains makes for an interesting read in terms of the similar and different concerns at work from those at play today in scientific computation. Note that although there is something to be said for reading the original (like learning that Listerene was originally a hair care product), a clean webpage is superior to bad newsprint. Note that Eckert's name is misspelled Eckhart. In any case I can attest to the dedication and helpfulness of the Merril Collection staff.

Kung Fu Panda, Zot and the Fantastiks

2008-09-08T02:40:10Z

Soon after I posted my last entry I went out with a friend to see the movie Kung Fu
Panda. It was a fun movie and although I would have to say I have seen movies with greater awesomeness and bodacity, it certainly possessed these properties in abundance. Of course it helps if you like Jack Black's particular comic stylings. Yes I am very late seeing this movie.

On Wednesday I went into Toronto to have lunch with a friend and use the gift certificate he gave me. I also sorted out my student ID for the go train. At the book store I found and bought Zot: The Complete Black and White Collection (I also bought Persepolis, now a major motion picture). I am big fan of Zot's writer and artists Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and its companion volumes Reinventing Comics and Making Comics. I had previously read Zot Online, so I was somewhat familiar with Zot and related characters, but I had never read any of the original stories. I definitely enjoyed this quirky super hero/ drama (yes I read all 576 pages in less than a week). I suspect that McCloud and I have similar or at least sympathetic sensibilities at some level (although I can always find something to disagree with him about), but I recommend this book to fans of comics especially fans of quirky superhero comics.

Then just to put more on my plate after a full day of academic talks and orienting at my department I went out to Fairview Theatre with my theatre critic friend and saw The Fantasticks. It is a fun little musical and a pretty good production. My only complaint is that the male lead (playing the boy) was a bit one note and that the guy playing "El Gallo"/The Ringmaster sang a bit off in my opinion (perhaps just because he did not sing "Try to Remember" like Harry Belafonte). Still I recommend this show to lovers of musicals in the Toronto area.

Unpacking my boxes was impeded by the need to also move the vast bulk of my books to the basement in accord with my mother's decree to decommission the serviceable but aesthetically dubious bookshelves my grandfather installed years ago. Unfortunately we do not have quite enough shelf space for my massive book collection, despite four rather large Ikea bookshelves, but I have most of my boxes opened and emptied now. To be fair I even with the old bookshelves I had run out of bookshelves before this move. My brother and sister-in-law visited this weekend and it was nice to see them again.

Fanexpo, moving and Avenue Q...

2008-09-02T22:31:15Z

Been a busy two weeks since I last checked in.

During my last weekend living in downtown Toronto I attended the annual FanExpo.

The Expo has expanded in the scope of what is covered over the four or five years I've been attending. When I first went it had a tripartite structure of Science Fiction and Fantasy, comics and Anime. Now it has expanded to include Horror and gaming. The big celebrity this year was Buzz Aldrin (the second man on the moon), which in itself suggests the convention has surpassed being about any niche pop culture genre, this was reinforced by the appearance of Henry Winkler (famous for his portrayal of the Fonz on Happy Days). I spent my time watching the occasional anime (although it seems like there are fewer showings every year), talking to independent comics people hawking their wares (like skwerly and buying lots of stuff.

My purchases included, some back issues of the Hulk and ROM in my attempt to get all the appearances of Rick Jones. I actually now should have all the issues of ROM I need. In collecting these I ran across an old Marvel I just had to buy for the bizarre cover Rocket Racoon (the first of the 1985 mini-series). I also got Peter David to sign a copy of an issue of the Hulk he had written (the Rick Jones bachelor party volume). In terms of other mainstream publishers, I bought collection 5 of Teen Titans Go and got it signed by creator J. Torres. I also got the Day of Vengeance trade paper back, intrigued by one of its odd ball heroes Detective Chimp, who I learned of when I became intrigued by Rex the Wonder Dog, not the an amazing comic but kind of fun.

On the anime side, I bought the first third of Gurren Lagan, a fun giant robot show that has gotten so much buzz and sounds right up my alley.

I bought AWOL'd Jason Loo and also wore a promotional press on tattoo for him (I also have his comic Popper Cosmic). I got previews of Evan Munday's Quarter-Life Crisis and a preview of the novel Stripmalling, Evan is illustrating. I also got Action Satisfaction Supreme #2 by Zen Rankin and Medicine: book one, by Brian Hoang. All these guys are members of Sketchkrieg.

Intrigued by something about the art style I bought 4 issues of Empty Words, plus Snow 1 by Benjamin Rivers

The guys from Shock Effect were there. I bought Fragment by Shock Effect artist John Lang. Meanwhile the writer Ian Daffern was promoting Freelance Blues.

Other indpendent comics I bought were: No Girls Allowed by Susan Hughes and Willow Dawson. The Blitz - Dark Dagger Comics, Dufham comics collective. Rex Libris by James Turner. The Night Sky by Ryan Deane. A Monk's Tale 6 and 7 (I got the other 5 years ago) Laurie Breit Kreuz and Kandrix Foong. Mechalibre vol. 1 by Montrealer Marc B. An oldie The Silent Invasion by Michael Cherkas and Larry Hancock. Noreason comics "Teh Intranetz iz Brokun !!1!?" (maybe a bit crude for my taste, will see). The Annotated Northwest Passage by Scott Chantler (so far way better than his Tek Jansen stuff).

I also got a free issue of the RPG parody comic Looking for Group.

Finally my most expensive single purchase was: Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell. An amazing tour of Steve Ditko and a chronicle of his work and impact on comics. An interesting portrait of a man and a good reminder of the credit Ditko is owed for his work.

The following week was taken up reading a large chunk of what I bought at FanExpo and packing for Friday when I moved out. My father borrowed a van from a friend and arrived Friday morning. I had been up late packing, but lack of sleep is not conducive to efficient work and much of my kitchen supplies were still to be packed. Still we managed the whole thing in about 2 hours and then had lunch at Joons. A Korean restaurant up on Bloor street just a short distance from the apartment. It is a favourite of my dad's because of the low price and such things as egg drop soup, but my mom has never really taken to Korean food. I can't say I've ever developed a taste for some Korean staples like Kimchi or the cold appetizers (despite living in the vicinity of Toronto's Korea town for 6 years), but I do like the curries at Joons. I also like those metal chopsticks.

I then spent the rest of the day in Toronto tiding up a few things and spent the evening at the Victory Cafe directly North of the apartment street on Markham Street. I had invited all the friends I could think of to come see me off, but in the end only two people came. Still I had a pretty good dinner and then biked down to Union station to take the GO train to Oakville. Meanwhile my dad had moved all the stuff into the garage.

I started moving stuff and unpacking it on Saturday and at the moment still have lots of books to unpack and organize although all my clothes and more utilitarian stuff is now pretty much dealt with.

On Sunday having spent the day unpacking, doing laundry, my parents got a laundry line recently and I'm learning the art of hanging clothes out to dry. That evening I went into Toronto and met up with my theatre reviewer friend who had obtained tickets to the final performance of Avenue Q, which is a neat adult musical and puppet extravaganza (with some pretty direct references to Sesame St.). The plot and the like are pretty old standby of young man fresh out of college making his way in the world ending up in urban New York, but the puppets and music give it a unique kind of social commentary. We learn valuable life lessons like that "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" and "The Internet is For Porn."

Been taking it a bit to easy since then, but the end of the week promises to be busy, with orientation for a new year at UofT and me helping out at the Hart House Singers.

One Year of LJ, Vote for Shock Effect...

2008-08-21T02:41:13Z

Well I missed the one year anniversary of me setting up this livejournal account, back on July 20th-21st of 2007. I have made a fair number of entries.

In other news last week I went to a party for entrant in DC's Zuda comic competition Shock Effect. Made by two local Toronto creators this is the suspenseful action-drama story of a girl and her mother during an alien invasion. I think pretty much all the competitors in this month's Zuda competition are neat and worth checking out, but sadly there can only be one winner and I went with Shock Effect, although I think I really wish like eight or nine of the ten could win.

Last week was busy, with the vote party, a softball game (I got hit by a bat while acting as catcher), a going away party, a birthday party and helping my friend who was going away move. Also, I helped out and attended my department's fourth annual Graduate Conference, it has been fun over the last four years watching a yearly event become an annual tradition (I was helping out much more directly in two of those four years).

This coming weekend I will be at the annual FanExpo an event scientifically designed to separate pop culture fans from their money. I like both the anime (the so called Canadian National Anime Exposition part) and the comics (especially the independents who show up to hock their wares). We'll see how much I spend.

In honour of my first year anniversary here I decided to dig up the blogalyzer, so people can just read this instead of looking at the rest of my posts, I found out it had a new feature that judges my personality (so now you don't even have to interact with me at all):

So, 4ll4n0, your LiveJournal reveals...

You are... 0% unique and 27% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy science fiction). When it comes to friends you are lonely. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.

Your overall weirdness is: 25

(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 58% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

Wow that character sketch is almost eerie in its accuracy. Although I would have thought I was weirder than that.

The old blogalyzer revealed a similar result to last time:

The Blogalyser reveals...

Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 14.

This suggests that your writing style is conventional
(to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20).Your blog has 26 sentences per entry, which suggests your general message is distinguished by verbosity
(writing for the web should be concise).

CHARACTER MATRIX

male		female
self		world
past		future

Your text shows characteristics which are 56% male and 44% female
(for more information see the Gender Genie).
Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about yourself, then the world in general and finally your social circle. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the past and lastly the future.
</small>
Find out what your blogging style is like!

I've managed to slightly decrease my verbosity.

Interesting bit of news I heard the other day. Harvard medical school is making art classes electives to help train doctors to be better at doing visual assessments of patients and symptoms. I have long fancied myself something of a Renaissance Man or Polymath and among other things I took visual art all the way through High School. As a result I liked to believe in the unity of human knowledge and reason and always like it when seemingly disparate disciplines can connect, especially across the much talked about two cultures divide.

A related idea, in history of science the idea of "progress" in science can sometimes be controversial either because of the elusive nature of truth given the changing conclusions of scientists over time or because of the tendency of ideas of progress to cloud the investigators appreciation of the contingency of developments and diverse factors at work in scientific development. I (and to be fair many others) think this can all go a bit too far at times. I often like to think about taking up the challenge and say that art progresses to. Even though many would find progress in what is seen as the subjective world of art as problematic or unlikely. But after all every year we have more and more works of arts accumulated in our galleries and museums.

Notable Deaths

2008-08-03T14:26:38Z

Well not much has happened in the past two weeks. There were some things I meant to talk about last time that I forgot about.

So my hart house singers concert went off without a hitch, last weekend. Sorry I should have announced it here.

So some people of note who's work I've have contact with have shuffled off this mortal coil
recently. First chronologically is Robert Asprin, a fantasy and science fiction author (this was back at the end of May). I knew him best for his comedic works the Myth series and Phule's Company series, but I also read one of the Thieves World's anthology series he edited (far more seriious stuff). He had a very funny and comfortable style in the mold of a lot of parodies on sci-fi and fantasy, pointing out the bizarreness of genre conventions and adding anachronistic modern commentary etc.. Unfortunately in my experience his later books in both the series I followed became uneven in quality. Although I had not read the last few books he co-wrote, hopefully things improved. He apparently died reading a Terry Pratchett book (by far the most successful and I think talented comedic fantasy writer), a somehow appropriate fate.

A little later Erick Wujick. Wujcik was known to me thanks to his work on Palladium RPGs (role-playing games) like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ninjas and Superspies. He was among the best loved of Palladiums writers (and certainly my favourite) and he had a certain genius for writing RPG material that made his often scanty descriptions pregnant with amazing possibility. He is also known for producing Amber Diceless, an RPG with no random (dice) component, but that is the extent of what I know about it. I think I remember him best for an article he wrote about how he was inspired by the principles of computer programming in designign RPG scenarios. I only learned about his death weeks after it happened. I used to be a real Palladium books junky but my studies and other stuff left me without much time to keep up with RPGs.

Two famous American news personalities Tim Russert and Tony Snow died recently. I was vaguely aware of their existence, but it was interesting to have my attention focused briefly on them and have these peripheral figures to my news watching become central. It was also strange to find out that Tony Snow had died of colon cancer, a disease that my father and maternal uncle have both survived.

Finally on a level far closer to me personally Michael Mahoney a historian of computing (and various other aspects of math and science) died a week ago. I knew him for one or two articles I've read in my studies and because he spoke in the session on historiography of computing at the 2007 annual meeting of SHOT. I recognized that he was a man with some real insights into what was important in the history of computing. We did not really speak much when we met, although I asked him about something in his talk I disagreed with. A specialty like the academic history of computing is a small community and so his unexpected death (he was not young but neither was he in particularly ill health) has been a bit of a shock wave among my friends and colleagues.

In happier news I'm learning the joys of digital (but not high-def) TV as my parents have been forced to switch by their friendly neighbourhood cable company. This lead to an outstanding problem with their cable being fixed. When I was in the UK (this time and last time) I was amazed at how universal digital cable (and the associated proliferation of channels) had become (among my relatives anyway), since in my visits in past decades what had always struck me was the 4 channel universe of the country.

Fixing Things and My trip to England (LONG)

2008-07-19T21:14:37Z

I am writing this on the train train Chelmsford to London [well I did write part of this entry then]. I just finished Meeting with daisho, we had a long conversation ranging from English history to the mobile phone industry. I forgot to get a picture of him, I've been doing that a great deal lately.

I'll just mention something I should have mentioned in my last entry. As I think I mentioned here I had trouble in London (Ontario) with my MP3 player, the Sansa Clip. The trouble continued later causing me to apply some epoxy glue to keep things from slipping. However by the Friday or (or perhaps before) the ride for heart it came completely undone. The part of the clip the pin went through had eroded away due to the stress I put it on. I therefore did what I often do in these situations and jury-rigged a solution involving thread and odd bit of chain from a shoe label. (See pictures). It now can be securely fashioned to my belt loop or other convenient place.

The fact that I kept this chain used to attach a label affirming that my (old) shoes are made of "Genuine Leather" is a testament to my pack rat nature and my frustrated desire to make stuff with my hands, out of junk. The fact that I made good use of it buoys my confidence that keeping it was a good idea. Confirmation bias on means I discount all the stuff I keep but never use.

Continued from Saturday, June 28th, it is now July 7th and I am writing this on my plane journey back from England.. To continue on the theme of repairs, soon after my MPS player's problem and jury rigged repair, I was having dinner with friends and we were discussing the issues around repairing things. One of my friends had gone to great lengths to retrieve a part necessary for fixing his stove and was also looking for a way too repair a mini-weather station.. Another friend expressed disbelief at the efforts we went to repairing things and was amazed we had the time. It Was during this conversation. That I demonstrated my wrist watch was low on batteries by turning on the light and running it out completely. I then got my mini-screwdriver out from my backpack and disassembled it to see the battery, causing my friend to worry about my ability to put it back together again.

Anyway, my trip to England is now over and has been for awhile. I sort of let myself fall into the doldrums after my return, which is why I have not updated sooner. My trip started, on July 22nd, with me forgetting things. I left from my parents house to the airport with my father driving when I realized that I had forgotten the gifts I was supposed to give to my relatives. Luckily we left early with lots time to head back and for me to pick them up. I would not realize until much later that I had forgotten to pack my ties and cuff-links for my suit.

I mentioned I had given myself lots time I needed it not just for that little detour but because Air Transat had about six or seven flights going out that night (it was a Sunday night flight) and only seven attendants on hand. The line was massive (see picture below) and it took me an hour and a half to get to check-in, when they tell you to get there 3 hours before your flight leaves they mean it.

I lucked out during the flight itself I had gotten a window seat right behind first class, which meant that I had a prodigious amount of leg room. I had less luck trying to sleep on the flight. I am blessed with being a deep sleeper and can usually get to sleep in awkward positions, but no luck this time. I even tried to put my hat over my eyes in classic Indiana Jones style with little success. After a classic case of missing each other, my Uncle Clive picked me up from the airport and we were off to Norwich, where he lives with Debbie his wife, two kids, Douglas and Harriet (now actually off at University), and my grandmother. I spent my time that Monday trying to get the wireless at the place to work and eventually would be successful, after much confusion. Otherwise I settled in and had a rest.

On Tuesday I headed into Norwich and spent most of my time at the Norwich Castle museum. I had actually been to the Castle before and seen most of the exhibits but this time I managed to hit about three tours plus a special showing. The museum staff (interpreters as they are called) are a cheerful lot and very interested in the local history. I had lunch in town at a Malaysain buffet, where I was surprised to learn that chips (aka French Fries) were a Malaysian food. ;-) I stopped off at Colman's mustard shop. As many of you know, English mustard has a great deal more kick than the standard North American variety (I noted that the mild mustard in Colman's was labeled "American Style"). English mustard produces a sensation not unlike wasabi (or its non-union equivalent that we get in sushi places) and Colman's (of Norwich) is the big brand of mustard in England. I had noted this on my last trip. I love a good kick to my sinuses and so decided that this time I should buy some mustard.

On Wednesday I headed for my Uncle Jonny's in Manchester via train. It was a 4.5 hour train journey, but I had plenty to read and do (like the talk I would be presenting in a week and a half) so this was not so bad. I had not seen my Uncle Jonny or my two cousins in over a decade and I had never met his new wife. As soon as I arrived Jonny and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Unfortunately we only had an hour before it closed. We saw a reconstruction of Manchester's prime claim to fame in computing the famous Baby computer prototype. We also saw their display on telecommunications and the work, unfortunately just as we were watching a wonderful video from the 60s about what the far flung year 1990 would hold the exhibits started switching off. We went to a section on the history of working men and women in Manchester and then wandered through some of the steam engine exhibits before heading back to Jonny's. We had dinner, at an Indian place, with my cousin Tash (my other cousin from this branch, Rosanne, is studying Veterinary Medicine in Liverpool). Jonny took me back to his place where I met his wife Marian and we discussed our research (she is currently pursuing a Phd also).

On Thursday Jonny dropped me off at the University of Manchester where I met up with my friend and colleague James Sumner and he showed me around the historic bits of campus that related to computers and we talked shop and about a few other things. We had a quick lunch in an on campus shop and he was off and I had to catch the 1PM train. Another long train journey later and I was back in Norwich, my cousin Harriet had just returned from university for a break.

On Friday I puttered about a bit and joined Clive, Douglas and Harriet on a shopping expedition to various bits of Norfolk (the county in which Norwich is found). We had a good final supper together (prepared by Harriet in large part).

Saturday I got up early and it was on the way to London that I stopped in Chelmsford to meet up with daisho. I then went into London. Thinking I would be back again I bought one of London's fancy oyster debit cards for the subway, as it turned out I used it once to get me and my heavy bags a couple of blocks over hopefully closer to the reconstructed Globe Theatre. It was here that I (eventually) met up with my Uncle John (not to be confused with Jonny who is from my father's side), Aunt Mary and my cousin Judy's two sons James and Thomas. We had lunch at the inaccurately named Pizza Express and then had a look around the tourist shop. I was tempted by the wonderful globe themed ties but put off by their exorbetant price tag. We eventually headed to my cousin Diana's house in Dulwich (a suburb of London) and awaited the return of Diana, her husband Tim and children Wil and Emily. We had dinner and then headed to the Globe (excluding Wil and Emily) where we saw a nice production of the Merry Wives of Windsor. Among other things I learned that Shakespeare apparently wrote for Blackadder, Monty Python and Faulty Towers.

Sunday we hung around Diana and Tim's most of Sunday morning and I spent some time playing at cricket with the kids and Tim. In the afternoon, John and Mary took me, James and Thomas to my cousin Judy's place in Birmingham (actually Solihol) where I would spend the next two days catching up.

Monday Judy took me and her youngest son Sam out to Stratford where we saw the house Shakespeare was born in and the house he owned when he died. It was an interesting introduction to life in the 16th and 17th centuries in England and I certainly got my dose of Shakespeare on this trip.

Tuesday morning Uncle John and Mary returned to take me to their place in Uckfield (a place South of London). Originally I had hoped to get into London that day, July 1st to see the Canada day festivities in Trafalgar square. However, I was feeling pretty tired and maybe a bit sick so I ended up staying around the house after we got back.

Wednesday I was still feeling a bit out of sorts. I did however manage to solve my lack of a tie by purchasing one at the cancer research charity shop my aunt works at. My uncle and aunt's homey hospitality no doubt also induced me to stay about the place, rather than venture into London as I originally thought I would.

Thursday after another lazy morning my Uncle took me to the observatory science centre at Herstmenceux the former site of the observatory to replace the Greenwich Observatory. It is now an enjoyable science centre, an institution which in Britain seems to have been franchised to a great degree with certain demonstrations in common (I visited a smaller operation in a former church in Norwich last time I was England). Although I'm not sure I learned much science at this place I had a lot of fun with the various demonstrations. It was also interesting to learn the history and fate of the British national observatory.

Friday I had an early morning and John dropped me at Gattwick Airport where I caught a bus direct to Oxford. Luckily the bus depot was near the part of Oxford campus where the Three Societies conference was found. I had a great time there were a great many of my friends from UofT on hand (such as owlfish and many of my facebook friends), as well as people I have met at conferences over the years. I also met lots of new and interesting people. My talk was on Sunday and I had managed to get it into okay shape before the conference somehow so I spent most of Friday and Saturday going to talks and chatting with people. There were several presentations on the history of computing and other things relating to my research and I enjoy learning about other things as well. I did take some time off Saturday to visit the Natural History museum across the road from the conference. My talk itself went okay and I got some interesting feedback and one or two leads that I need to follow up.

I headed back to my Uncle John's on Sunday, after almost losing my hat by getting it locked in the room where I gave my talk. Monday morning it was back to Gattwick to catch my flight back to Canada. This flight was a little less comfortable, since I was in front of the emergency exits no extra room and the seat does not recline. I actually did not mind so much but my neighbours were none to happy about this.

The last two weeks have been kind of slow. I've been catching up on my sleep and feeling a bit out of sorts. Eventually I will post my pictures to facebook and hopefully on my website. I'm actually trying to get my pictures from the 2006 trip up so it may be awhile.

Ch-ch-changes, Traveling., moving on.... Also proposed copyright law...

2008-06-14T03:11:38Z

On Monday I changed my cellphone/mobile number, so if you know my number and tried to call me that would be the reason it did not work.

Well I'm fully recovered from the Ride for Heart. Last Thursday I had another meet-up with some friends from New Central (I put the pics on Facebook may put them on my sight eventually).

I've given my landlord 60 days notice on my intent to move out of my apartment (in beautiful downtown Toronto). I decided that since I'm no longer on scholarship and I should be done in a year (I should have been done by now but anyway), that I should economize a bit. My parents don't live too far away, I spend my weekends with them anyway, I get along well with them and they don't mind me moving back. Even if I buy monthly passes for both the TTC and GO for the trips I'm saving a fair bit of money. Hopefully, this will help motivate me to write also. Feels like a bit of step backwards when it seems like half my friends are out buying houses.

In a little over a week I'm headed for England. As I mentioned briefly before I'm giving a talk at the Three Societies Meeting in Oxford. Of course the conference is not until July 4th. I'm going early to visit my relations and also to optimize pricing on the flight. I had a great time the last time I visited England in 2006 on my way back from a trip to a conference in Poland (mentioned partially here). Along with my relatives I met up with owlfish and daisho.

As part of my never ending quest to avoid working on my thesis I also did some midi files for the Hart House Singers.

One more thing a bill to amend Canada's copyright laws has been introduced into parliament. As has been pointed out by many critics this law by making it illegal to break copy countermeasures this law potentially makes things like unlocking your cell-phone and playing DVDs from a different region illegal. Now some of this is probably taking a worse case scenario view. Still I can't help but agree that expanding copyright restrictions is dubious both because it erodes freedom of expression and because it is counterproductive to what should be the real purpose of copyright to foster innovation and creativity. As it is copyright and licensing agreements often seem to prevent people accessing intellectual property even if they are willing to pay for it rather than aiding in dissemination. Also, it works counter to the intuitions of people and has become unenforceable both because of this lack of popular support as much as because of the technological developments that have made copying easier.

In the case of locking cellphones my problem is the phone companies seem to have lost sight of the difference between leasing and selling equipment. If they want to prevent you from modifying the cellphone you are using they should lease it to you not provide it as a promotional gimick.

The hopeful aspect of all this is the level of public interest in these issues (shown most sensationally by the almost 50 000 people who joined this facebook group, including me), perhaps it will lead to a renegotiation of copyright in a more reasonable form. On the other hand I suppose those criticizing these developments may just be a vocal minority.

Well the pain is subsiding...

2008-06-02T21:43:46Z

Hey all,

I managed to finish the Ride for Heart 50km in about 3 1/2 hours. Unfortunately since I'm not in the habit of biking that far or otherwise keeping myself in top condition the aftermath of all that was a lot of pain. I think biking the 4.5 km back and forth from the event was a mistake. Several of my friends finished well ahead of me and had to leave before I finished. As it was I spent the afternoon napping and treated myself to a sumptuous (and expensive) meal at Boulevard Cafe conveniently located really near my apartment, fortunately for me one of their specials was the rack of lamb, some of the accompanying potatoes were a bit off but otherwise a good meal.

The pain seems to be subsiding now. It was pretty bad, normally I eschew pain killers but I had to take some yesterday evening and this morning to dull the pain a bit.

Anyway, I was reading on a computer history blog that it has been suggested by Richard P. Gabriel that Google can pass the Turing test by being able to give relevant answer to any questions you give it. Having an embarrassing affection for simplistic falsificationism, I tested this theory by trying to have a conversation with google by entering a sentence of conversation into the search space and reading the first webpage given in response. The results as you might exist, did little to convince me that Google was a person (of course some believe that she is god).

It occurred to me that I should be more systematic, so I augmented my first haphazard approach with the following rule, I would look at the first webpage and take the first sentence (not including titles, subtitles etc.). Also, since the claim was just that Google can answer question, I made all my statements in the form of a question. Here is my first conversation with Google, more may follow:

Allan: Hi Google, how are you today?

Google: I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower to find another one sitting near the drain.

Allan: Really so that kind of thing happens to you alot?

Google: In scores of science fiction stories, hapless adventurers find themselves unwittingly introduced to the vacuum of space without proper protection.

Allan: You know I've never thought about just how unprepared I am to deal with the rigors of space travel, but this is all a bit of a non-sequitar, are you okay?

Google: ... [No response]

Allan: Sorry, I hope I did'nt offend you?

Google: Your support is needed....please take a look at this petition and in memory of all angel babies - please show your support by signing...it doesn't matter where you are located...the more support the better!!

Allan: I'm afraid I can't support that petition at least unless you tell me more about these "angel babies", what is it about exactly?

Google: Keep up the angel work baby.

Allan: I'm sorry can you perhaps explain a little more?

Google: By now it's pretty much impossible to ignore the stories coming out in Valleywag about Erik Moeller.

Allan: Look I'm sorry, but I've clearly caught you at a bad time, see you around?

Google: I always get a ton of interesting emails from you guys.

Allan: That's good to know, goodbye.

Google: I certainly hope that this discourse has been useful to someone besides me!

Anyway, I may talk to Google some more later, but still not convinced this would fool anyone (then again I suppose the Turing test never required you think the person on the other end was sane).

Ride for Heart 2008 Tommorrow...

2008-05-31T22:16:46Z

As I mentioned about two months ago, I'm participating in the ride for heart with some friends.

Wish me luck.

Also, wish me luck with why I can't network print, like I could the last time I tried (which was a few weeks ago, arghhh).

Anime North 2008

2008-05-28T02:37:54Z

Well this past weekend I went to Anime North with some friends. I had a good time although I perhaps spent to much money on Anime Swag. I got the entire series X (I saw the first few eps back at Brock and always wanted to see the rest) and the award winning short movie Voices of a Distant Star (I saw it once at a con, it is a pretty amazing little piece), plus various manga (Nadesico, Hikaru No Go and Shaman King), A History of Webcomics and two CDs (one a Soundtrack for Bleach, mostly for the song Life is Like a Boat). My spend thrift actions are made a bit more egregious by all the DVDs I have unwatched lying about.

I was hanging out with my friends who are anime fans, but also doing stuff I like. Such as trying to sing Ready, Steady, Go karaoke style and watching the 404s a fun little improv group. I also hung out a bit with skwerly and illintent who are behind Akui: Ill-intent. Of course I also watched anime. Since I don't download stuff from the internet and don't buy that much cons are one of the ways I test the waters. For reasons that I'm not clear on Anime North also gets to show unaired episodes of Avatar the Last Airbender, I'm not complaining since I love the show.

I took some random photos during the convention and I will post these eventually. Rather than photographing all the cool cosplayers (people in costume), instead I photographed people taking photographs (this is me being pretentious I guess part of my life as reflexivity theme). Anyway, apparently this vacation took a great deal out of me.

During a conversation about Japanese food at the con I mentioned to skwerly that there was an entire episode of the show Medabots, which I am a fan of, all about takoyaki, one of her favourites. In searching for information about the episode I discovered that Amazon.com's unbox service was selling all the eps of Medabots for download. Of course due to the vagaries of international copyright law or whatever this service is not (conveniently) available to me in Canada. Once again people apprently won't let me send them money. On the plus side if services like unbox persist it means we never need fear any show becoming completely unaccessible (of course if I just downloaded them via less legal means or bought bootlegs they would not be inaccessible either).

A week of Celebrations...

2008-05-22T02:41:21Z

Well last weekend was Victoria day Weekend here in Canada. For some reason we celebrate this most English of Queens every year, perhaps because she gave us a local elected government.

On a more personal note, yesterday, my department celebrated 40 years of graduate students. This was a fun event with several past and present graduate students on hand, including some of the first. It was a bit of an eye opener about the dynamics of our department in the murky past. I have photos, which should soon be on facebook and may eventually be on the website.

By some odd coincidence I had to miss the reception in order to go to a friend's birthday party back in Oakville.

Otherwise I am hanging about and not doing much, but I should be. My parents returned from a trip to England, ending three weeks of me taking care of the house. Today I had to overcome a nasty stomach ache (which I am somewhat prone to) in order to attend some of my class mates practice talks for various upcoming conferences.

Well today has been a day of odd news at least for me. One is how chess master Gary Kasparov was harassed by novelty flying penises. Not really sure how to take this or what to make of it.

Meanwhile the open sea is apparently suffering from a plague of plastic. I sort of wonder if at this point some way to harvest plastic from the sea starts to make sense.

One more personal note my recently deceased friend has been memorialized eloquently by his son in a major newspaper.

Coming up on Friday (and the rest of the weekend) I will be attending Anime North. I'm a little worried because I bought my tickets through someone else and am having trouble getting in touch with that person, but I will just trust that things will work out.

Filling up time...

2008-05-14T01:57:42Z

Well, on Thursday I had a cavity filled. It was not a particularly involved procedure but my tooth and mouth is still a bit sensitive.

On the weekend I went to my friend Sylvian Nickerson's art exhibition in Hamilton. Sylvia and I met first in Middle School, and somehow it happened that we ended up in the same graduate department all these years later.

I had a lot of fun at the UofT Philosophy department's annual conference. None of the talks were really up my natural academic alley, but there were a few things I like dipping my toe in. Also, I got a great dinner for free thanks to the generosity of one of the professors.

I spent the weekend buying up a whole bunch of academic books second hand on-line. I've been meaning to buy many of them for awhile and was gratified to find that many of them were quite cheap (some were not). I even found one book that might (or might not) be of some use and that I had never heard of. We shall see if the muses (and the postal gods) are with me. I'm gaining a very very small discount thanks to the power of air miles (also helping with the gas that I bought to get to London and Hamilton).

I occasionally fill out a tickle survey (no doubt aiding them in some evil purpose), here is the results of one.

What Kind of Driver Are You?

My Result: Stealthy

Let everyone else on the road try to make a big splash, you have much more fun driving with a quiet cool. Your car is probably just white lights in their rear view mirror before they even knew you were there. Which isn't to say you're shy, it's just that you're too confident in yourself to make a big deal about the amazing things you do. You'd rather let your track record speak for itself. Refinement and class are your trademarks, right?

Of course you make a little noise from time to time — how could someone as great as you not? You'd just rather fly under the radar. But just because you're a little understated doesn't mean your car has to be. We're betting that you prefer a car that's as fun to drive as you are to be around. Get behind the wheel!

What are you?
http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=driverogt&c=50652

Actually I'm not really one for driving at all, but I guess it's hard to get much nuance in 14 questions. :D

Some confirmation...

2008-05-08T00:54:50Z

Hey all. Well those who read my home page closely may have noticed that I have one publication listed. This is a short article in the Proceedings of the XXV Scientific Instrument Symposium: East and West the Common European Heritage. I have listed it as "in press" despite the fact that it was published soon after the September 2006 conference itself, either in late 2006 or early 2007. Well as of today I finally received my two author's copies (or rather one is for the library assuming I can get them to accept it). Interestingly someone is selling their copy on amazon for $35. Good to know what the going rate is.

In other news I put up photos from my birthday party on my homepage. Also, if you want to see photos of my trip to Poland (including some of me getting ready to give the talk mentioned above) go here.

I meant to mention a strange dream I had back the week of my birthday. I dreamed about being at a picnic table or some such and there was a friend of mine who had died. I knew they were dead and concluded that I was suffering some kind of bizarre hysteria because I was unable to accept the loss soon after this I woke up. I suspect this illustrates I think about things too much, but often come to the wrong conclusion. Anyway one's psychology in a dream is a very weird and wonderful thing. I could not tell the person he was dead, in hindsight this is for the best as it is probably very rude.

A tangential journey...

2008-05-07T02:12:03Z

Well, I'm pretty much done with the union election and I'm glad because it turned out to be a great deal of work and worry. A few more little details to work out.

My birthday party was a great success. I think I managed about 20 people over the course of the night. Of course, I was reminded again how much of a boon the graphical display has been for karaoke. Unable to find a conveniently located rental place to get more discs the tapes from my parents old Karaoke machine and regular CDs came into play. These just have an audio track (often not sounding much like the famous versions of the song) and a lyric sheet. I've posted pictures on facebook.

Otherwise not much has happened. On Friday April 25th I went to see Night of the Iguana at my local theatre with various friends. It was a bit sub-par even for the amateur dramatics at this theatre. However, I got some sense of the interest of Tennessee Williams's play.

Just this past weekend I went the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario to a conference in honour of philosopher William Demopolous. I have been going to Western for this sort of thing for the past 6 years. They have a very good program in the philosophy of physics and although it is not quite what I see myself doing I appreciate their technical rigour and ambitious agenda.

I only learned about the Western conference on Wednesday. I learned on the same day of the student "Logic, Math and Physics" conference that was being run at the same time by the Western philosophy grad students. This is the conference that I usual attend. For some reason I had completely missed news of this year. And April 30th I was busy runnning an election making it impossible for me to attend.

Almost every year I drive up to Western for this sort of thing, and try to get others to join me (it often takes me about 2 hours, which can get a bit boring). Finally this year several students from my department attended, however none need a ride up to London. Finally on Sunday as I was preparing to head back I convinced two people to come with me. However, this was a bit of a disaster. First about a half-an-hour into the trip one passenger realized he had his girlfriend's keys back in London. Then we arrived in Oakville at around 10:20. I needed to leave the car in Oakville so I planned to stay the night at my parents. My two friends needed to get back to Toronto, so I planned to leave them at the GO station. The trains leave Oakville for Toronto on the half-hour. So it looked like we would make the 10:30. Then only a few kilometers from the train station traffic came to a complete stop. It seemed a truck had crashed and started a fire closing the highway. The traffic we experienced was caused by the need for all the cars to exit the highway. I had to sheepishly drop my friends off at the train station knowing they would not be home until midnight. I did not want to risk that I would be too tired to drive, if I spent another hour on the round trip to and from Toronto to drop them off at the subway station. It would seem no good deed goes unpunished.

Despite this and the fact that I was driving far more quickly than normal (but not much faster than the other cars on the highway), I actually enjoyed the drive far more than I usually do. I am a very nervous driver, but for whatever reason I felt pretty confident that evening. Now pride cometh before a fall, but this time anyway my hubris was not punished.

One slight consolation last week when the election was getting hectic was the arrival of my Nadesico DVDs. I had first tried to buy the complete series back in the beginning of March. Since I already had part of the series I attempted to sell the surplus over the internet, as I mentioned here. As it turned out I was thwarted by the vagaries of the postal system (well we can hope these things will turn up). Ironically I originally ordered my discs from a different retailer (Chapter-Indigo), but they were out of stock, although it took a month-and-a-half to establish this. As a result I ended up buying it cheaper (from a third party at amazon.ca), but still got airmiles from the first attempt despite not actually paying any money (making me about 2/7th of a dollar richer).

What will the future hold, perhaps me actually doing work...