Ed's outlet for mind-numbing drivel

Life in Oxford

2008-09-18T13:18:00.002Z

I've finally moved into Holywell Manor, and started my life as a graduate student at Balliol. "Started", here, should strictly be taken to mean "vaguely acknowledged by the university", as I don't have access to my email account, wireless, the internet in my room, a supervisor or anything else bar the library (haven't tried to take any books out yet)... very helpful.

More than just being in academic limbo I've in personal limbo as well, since all my stuff only arrived today (4 days late) after arriving here a full week too early 1and being left in the Manor entrance for 3 days until %$&#ing UPS picked it up again, sent back up to St Andrews then back again, and finally arriving in a very battered state. I have yet to unpack, but I'm half-afraid to discover what state my printer, espresso machine and crockery will all be in.

But things are starting to fall in place. I've got my brand new bod-card (basically the university card), with a recent (unflatteringly stretched and low resolution) mug shot on it. I managed to score a free bike (yes, legally, I guess it was my lucky day), as well as figure out where I could get decent and cheap cooked food (namely down the road, in Linacre. And hopefully will all be unpacked, settled in, hooked up and ready to go.

That's all for now. I'll post some updates when I can. Remember: for a steady flow of vaguely coherent blogging on my part, don't forget to check out my twitter feed. Be seeing you!

Quick on the fly update

2008-05-07T14:46:00.006Z

Haven't updated this blog in a while (7 months, to be precise). Loads of deadlines these days, and exams just around the corner, so while my usual self it urging me to procrastinate by doing activities such as this, my rational self knows a bit of self-moderation. In a stunning compromise, I'll settle for posting a quick and dirty update:

Finishing up Philosophy MLitt. I've been working on mathematical logic and Gödel, and on anti-logicism in philosophy of mathematics. Have also been writing on Qualia (oh joy), which is destroying my mind (and wasting my time, as well as everyone else's, probably). I'll be writing my dissertation over the summer on the topic of revising Poincaré's petitio argument, and linking it to contemporary work in the "mathematics first" school of thought. How Quinean of me...

I got accepted to Oxford next year, to read Computing at Balliol for at least a year (ending in a MSc). Quite excited about it, although it'll certainly be a different kind of work than what I'm doing now. I don't mind if there's more of it, as long as it's less taxing (and less frustrating, at least part of the time) than what I'm doing now. Also looking forward to being slightly more employable at the end of it.

Going to the US for a a week, this summer, and also spending a combined total of two weeks in Paris (across two trips) and a week in Geneva for a Metaphysics conference (with, amongst the speakers, Crispin Wright, Kit Fine, Stephen Yablo). Will most definitely be fun, despite my slight aversion to metaphysics.

That's about it for now. Paper due on friday. Three exams in a week and a half, over the course of four days. Work to do...

PS. Have updated my philosophy blog too, and plan on updating it a bit more over the summer. Keep checking it (or use RSS) if you're interested.

If you're stalking me, or simply are just that Web 2.0, I'm also posting on twitter now. Will be happy to follow your feed if I know you.

Website and blog changes

2007-10-13T10:41:00.000Z

If you haven't noticed yet, this blog is now hosted on my domain, http://www.egrefen.com which is where my main site is as well (check it out).
You can access it by going to http://blog.egrefen.com although the old http://egrefen.blogspot.com will still redirect here.

That's all for now!

Last night in town

2007-08-22T05:40:00.001Z

Last night was unusual, to say the least. Being my last real night (not counting tonight, since I leave early tomorrow) in Tokyo for some time, I wanted to make it count. So, equipped with ¥30,000 (which I ended up no spending more than a few thousand of... a pleasant surprise) I hopped on the train(s) to Shinjuku, and made my way to the fabled Golden Gai. I must admit I was a bit intimidated, as Golden Gai has the (justified) reputation of housing some amazing little (the term "little" is an understatement) hole-in-the-wall (literally) bars, quite a few of which are not too friendly to foreigners, some of which are not too friendly even to Japanese people whose face they don't recognise. In short, it's more the sort of area where you need to be introduced to be welcome.

However, a few of these establishments came recommended to the cultured visitor by the Lonely Planet guide, and the one I made my way for, "La Jetée" (which can be seen in the 1982 film "La Truite" by Joseph Losey, or in the info-jacket in the new DVD release of the 1962 film "La Jetée" by Chris Marker), was reputed to be the destination of choice of directors and producers of films both foreign (one can spot bottles by Francis Ford Coppola – I'm told Sofia has dropped by too, Quentin Tarantino, Chris Marker, etc...) and indigenous, and also for having a tradition of only speaking French (alongside Japanese, of course). The bar itself was about the size of your average mini-bus, and could seat a physical maximum of eight people (crammed in), but nonetheless one does not feel claustrophobic (I think the tight space forces conviviality and socialising, and one forgets about the negative aspects). The mama-san, by the name of Kawai (no second 'i') spoke very good French, and was very welcoming; the drinks were reasonably priced, and quite good; and the company was exceptional. During the course of the evening I met a host of people (pretty much everyone in the bar... which isn't that hard) counting amongst them some documentary journalists from NHK, some Swiss press and a swiss director, and some folks from the Japanese film industry, including a rather well known producer by the name of Hiroaki Fujii, whom had been friends with and worked with the Japanese author Yukio Mishima. Everyone was extremely friendly, and we all shared a few drinks.

I missed the last train (as I had intended to... they're only at midnight). I had brought money for the taxi, as a last resort, but was reluctant to use it as it would cost me an arm and a leg, so I planned to spend the night hopping around bars and moseying around Shinjuku, reputed for its 'interesting' nightlife. The plan sort of fell through when I started being approached every few metres by hustlers and yappers and shady-looking black guys trying to drag me to the nearest (certainly overpriced and probably dodgy) strip-club, or asking me if I wanted company (hopefully not theirs!). Not too much later, it was even more direct, as it became impossible to go a minute without being approached by some pimp with dyed-hair and sunglasses, or simply by prostitutes themselves (some of them so old and unattractive I wondered why they even bothered – then again, this being Japan, there's a market for anything I suppose), at which point I thought it best to seek refuge in a nearby manga/internet café. These institutions offer you a private "booth" (more like a cubicle) with an internet-connected PC, a table and a computer chair, or a more comfy lounge chair and PS2 if you're willing to pay extra (which I wasn't), as well as free drinks (score!) and access to an enormous library of Japanese comic books, for a mere ¥900 for 5 hours (night rate). During the day, people come to read and use these places as a cyber-cafe. However, during the evening it's mostly used as a cheap place to crash. I can't say it was the most comfortable place to get some rest (should have gone for the lounge chairs), but the price was very good (I certainly drank more that ¥900 of soda before leaving), and it did the trick.

Nearing 6am, I left to see the fish market at Tsukiji. Fate would have it that today was a "Regular Holiday" and it was closed (same thing happened to be when I went to the Asakusa Kannon Onsen yesterday!), so I settled for breakfast at a nearby fish shop which doubled as a small restaurant serving very fresh sushi (ie. you sometimes get to take a look at the fish which'll be in your tummy soon, swimming around the tank). Not being that hungry, I opted for quality over quantity and sampled a bit of the famed fatty-tuna (the most expensive sushi on the menu, generally not available in your average sushi restaurant), which went for ¥400 a piece (compared with somewhere in the ¥100-200 range for two sushi, for most of the other types of sushi on offer). The flesh as very tender, and had quite a subtle but pleasant taste. While it would probably cost a small fortune to have a serious meal out of it, the experience was thoroughly enjoyable.

So after a pleasant day in the Eastern Imperial Gardens, the evening was an interesting sandwich of sophistication, sleaziness, bizarre new experiences when it comes to sleeping arrangements, and a gourmet breakfast in an area smelling very fishy (in a good way). That's a pretty good way to end a trip.

Exponential girls bands

2007-08-21T19:42:00.000Z

In the idle hours of morning, have been browsing the web. This is what I have discovered about Japanese music...

Morning Musume's recipe for (musical/other...) success:
1. Get loads of young girls to form a band.
2. Keep adding girls.
3. PROFIT!!!

Seriously, as the video (in the full post) below demonstrates, you're definitely taking it too far if you can make a song that lasts over six minutes just by introducing each band member...

Wrapping up the tourist life

2007-08-21T00:51:00.000Z

What a(n expensive) day! I toured around the most controversial Yasukuni shrine (very beautiful), visited the possibly equally controversial Yushukan museum (ie. "We didn't actually start any of these wars and behaved in a just and civilised manner at all times"... then again, most of our history – or at least most people's perception of it – is quite similar in terms of "We're the good guys. We occasionally screw up, but overall our cause is glorious and good"). A most entertaining afternoon. I also picked up a copy of "I am a cat" by Sōseki Natsume, which I read on the train. I'm just 47 pages in, and it's been very enjoyable thus far. It makes me wonder why I didn't get a book to read on the train when I got here, given how much train-riding I've been doing. Actually, I have been dragging a copy of Stewart Shapiro's "Thinking about Mathematics". It's a very good read as well, but not exactly the ideal book for short bursts of reading on the train (not many philosophy books are... except the Tractatus, perhaps?).

After that, I went to an onsen/o-sentō (not sure how "mineral" the water was) in Kabukichō (in/near Shinjuku), of all places. The baths were nice (until I accidentally stepped into the electric one – again. They're relaxing, but you have to be mentally prepared for the weird sensation, and the even stranger feel in your limbs afterwards). And I had the pleasure (?) of having a hot bath in an o-furo shaped like a swastika. These symbols are very common in Japan, in the counter-clockwise form, to indicate Buddhist temples on maps (and on the temples themselves). However, this bath's shape was in the clockwise form, which an modern-german-history-aficionado friend of mine might be more familiar with. I wish I could have taken a picture, but – the place being full of naked people (as is generally the case in onsen and o-sentō) – that was unfortunately quite impossible.

I also had a 40-minute massage, which varied between interestingly pleasant and surprisingly painful, but in the end it left me feeling very relaxed (success!). Also, I think this place is probably the only place (or one of the few places) in Shinjuku where you can get the sort of massage your mother wouldn't disapprove of (unless she's very liberal minded about these things).

Anyway, got some nice photos and pictures of the Yasukuni-jinja experience, and a few random shots from around Shinjuku. I've been really lazy about posting these on the blog, but seeing as how I have nearly 400 high-res photos and a few hours of film, it's becoming a bit hard to cope. I'll upload the galleries onto my web page eventually, but I fear a lot of these (especially all the photos of my class) are going to remain for private use (and friends and family – those whom care to watch, anyway). If I get a more powerful computer (maaaybe... I have been bleeding money left and right these days, so that plan's on hold) and/or another external hard-drive (a bit short on storage these days – yeah... I probably shouldn't have spent another ¥2500 on pachinko this evening) I might patch all the footage together and upload it (at a lower res) onto the site (seeing how youtube probably won't accept a 3hr video, and it would be a pain in the behind to splice it up).

New Website!

2007-08-21T00:50:00.000Z

With the purchase of iLife '08 and a .Mac account, I'm happy to announce that I finally have a website and the tools to make it non-fugly (or at least, not too much). Currently, you can visit it by following this link: http://web.mac.com/egrefen/, but soon (by the end of the week) it should be accessible from my own domain, http://www.egrefen.com.

Thanks to the magic of embedded HTML, this blog will remain my main blog and be included on the site, since it's easier to update when I'm travelling or don't have access to my computer. So you will be able to continue accessing this blog (assuming anyone actually does) at the usual http://egrefen.blogspot.com address, as well as through the main site.

The site itself is under (heavy) construction, but please don't hesitate to go over and browse around (if you want to).

The end...

2007-08-16T07:15:00.001Z

... of Eiken (for this year), at least. I can't believe four weeks have gone by already. Only a month ago, I arrived in Japan, and now all the teaching is over. It was really fun, especially the summer camp, where I got to teach the older kids (something I feel more complicated to do), while getting to have fun with the younger ones (nursery rhymes, pranks at lunch, playing chicken-fight in the pool, and spending every waking hour running after the little buggers to make sure they don't bowl someone over). Best of both worlds, really. And the food this past week was so amazing... gonna be hard to go back to the 7-11 routine for the next few days, and then cook for myself again (ugh). Anyway, just a few more days, including a quick trip to Osaka and Kyoto, and some omiyage shopping for the folks and family, and then it's back off to France. Time sure flies when you're having fun... I wish I could stay. Well actually, I could stay and teach English, or even try and get a real teaching job at the international schools (eventually). However, as fun as that'd be, I'm fairly certain I'm more into the whole academic thing these days. Maybe later (ie. when I've barely scraped or perhaps even failed a PhD, and am looking for a job, while having a huge debt to mop up).

Ending Eiken, and Tokyo Tower

2007-08-10T14:19:00.000Z

I just got back from visiting Tokyo Tower, after a dinner with my friend Junko (one of the students from my 2003 Eiken spell, whom I've kept in touch with), in Hiroo. Dinner was good, and Tokyo Tower was arguably even better. It was a nice way to end off a busy week (class of twenty). I have a hard time believing it's all over already, with just a few days of summer camp to go. While keeping a group of eighteen kids in check is quite a task, I sure am going to miss it, or certainly some of them. There was a group of returnees doing all three weeks (or the latter two) that was particularly energetic an friendly, so it was a bit sad to see them go. Oh well, it's all further incentive to try and make time for some more Eiken next year, if I can find the time during a dissertation summer.

PGP for muppets such as myself

2007-08-06T10:28:00.000Z

As you may recall from on of my previous posts on the matter of encryption, I've suited up for system for PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) goodness, by installing GNU's implementation of PGP, which goes by the name of GPG (GNU Privacy Guard). Acronyms galore...
The basic gist of it all is that GPG offers you a "pretty good" way of signing, encrypting, validating and decrypting pretty much anything a computer can read and store (files, email, text, etc). You generate a key-pair: a private key, and a public key, alongside an associated pass-phrase. You then stash the private key somewhere safe (presumably on your computer, although a thumb-drive or other removable media is ideal if you're very paranoid), and disseminate your public key to the public (duh) via email, your website, a blog post and/or a public key server (most of which sync their data every few minutes).

Your public key allows anyone to encrypt any file bound for your eyes only, as only your private key (used with your secret pass-phrase, it's fairly useless on its own, even if someone got their hands on it) will be capable of decrypting it. On the other hand, your private key (used with your secret pass-phrase), allows you to sign any text, which will allow anyone possessing your public key (or simply the capacity to connect to a public key server, provided your public key is on one), to verify both the integrity and origin of the data. The public key will not allow anyone to decrypt any files intended for your eyes only, nor will it provide malicious users with a way of forging your digital signature. Because of the asymmetric nature of this key-pair system, PGP gives your friends and contacts and easy way of communicating with you in a secure manner, without giving middle-men a chance to intercept information. You can even send encrypted data in plain text (it will appear as a large block of garbled characters), it won't make a difference. And in the worst case scenario, where someone gets a hold of your private key, they still need your pass-phrase. If you've used a non-dictionary pass-phrase, and generated a 2048 or 4096-bit key, it'll probably take them a loooong while to guess.

The OS X implementation of GPG is pretty swish. There's a very good walk-through of the set-up process, and how to use it, as well as links to required (free) software here: Configuring GnuPG (Mac OS X). You may want to (and probably should, unless you have a good reason), skip the "Key Generation" step, and simply use the "GPG Keychain Access" program – discussed in the article – to generate one for you. The graphical step-by-step interface for doing so is quite friendly (especially compared to the terminal).

Once you're sorted out with a key-pair, and perhaps have uploaded your public key on a server (which is doable through the "GPG Keychain Access" app) or shared it with your friends, then you can simply start using the power of PGP. For files, there's a great little app called GPGFileTool which is – surprisingly – not discussed in the Zeitform article. It has a welcoming graphical user interface, and you need do little more than drag and drop the file you wish to encrypt/decrypt/sign/validate onto the program icon in your dock, and follow the instructions. Pretty easy, eh?
Email security is just a few steps away as well, with the GPG plugins available for Mail.app, and other common mail clients. I use the Mail.app one, and it's quite simple and straightforward. An extra menu bar appears above all mail messages, offering you – through the use of checkboxes – to encrypt and/or sign your outgoing messages. It will decrypt incoming messages on-the-fly, simply prompting your for your pass-phrase (which can be stored in the Mac OS X keychain, although I wouldn't risk it). Very simply stuff, and all the details you know are in the Zeitform article.

I hope this blog post has been of some use to someone out there. The use of this is quite evident on an every day basis: when sending sensitive information, bank details or simply contact info you wouldn't want someone other than the recipient of the message to stumble upon, PGP's the thing to use. And thankfully, the tools available for OS X make that possible without having to use the command-line-interface even once, making the whole enterprise approachable to the slightly-tech-illiterate amongst us (myself included).

On Japanese mosquitoes

2007-08-06T08:27:00.001Z

The following may come across as no surprise for anyone who hasn't had their rationality glands removed, but for some crazy reason, I think that – deep down – I expected Japanese mosquitoes would show some deference or consideration for a crazy gaijin who left his window open during a hot Tokyo night. But no, instead, those mosquitoes (or whatever the hell spent the night trying to get a piece of me) chose to sting the #*%&ing hell out of me all night long. What happened to all the goodwill, discretion and politeness one comes to expect here? On the other hand, maybe they were crazy radioactive mosquitoes or some magical bug of sorts (this is Japan, after all... I figure the odds are pretty good in my favour). Maybe I'll have cool superpowers by tomorrow. In the meantime, all I've got a damn itchy back/arm/face/argh/everything!

Views from Tokyo Part IV

2007-08-05T21:57:00.001Z

On Saturday, I went for a stroll in the area around Ueno and Asakusa. It's quite an enjoyable part of Tokyo, with quite a few temples and a huge park, as well as more love hotels than you can shake a stick at (religion, nature and sex, huh? Only in Japan...). Here are a few pictures of it all, although I've got more views of the area in the form of footage. When (and if) I make it back to France, I'll compile all my Tokyo footage into one film, reduce it to a more server-friendly size, and upload it here. In the meantime, photos...

I love this building. It literally seems like they built the staircase and added the apartments as an afterthought.

A statue near Asakusa. Don't ask who it represents or why it has a red cloth... I'm not that interested in Buddhism, and couldn't really be asked to find out.

The main gate to the main shrine in Asakusa. Cultural, eh? I've been here before, about five years ago. Wow... time flies.

A tower-thingy in Asakusa. I'm going to refrain from further commentary until I have something vaguely interesting to say.

Aaah, your leafy escape from the hustle-and-bustle of the metropolis: Ueno-koen park.

Urban contrasts: a small shrine in Ueno-koen sits surrounded by an enormous lake, framed by the buildings and Tokyo University, seen in the distance.

A closer view at that shrine...

A salad field? No, that's actually one big-ass lake. Very refreshing, in the summer heat.

There's probably some story behind this stone, but I don't know it. Right next to the small shrine in the pictures above.

A more luminous shot of that stone.

The famous main auditorium of equally famous University of Tokyo. I'm not quite sure the whole place was open to visitors, so I sort of blagged my way in by simply entering through the main gate, looking like I knew what I was doing. Gaijin-license...

Another shot at this building. It's a shame that I didn't have time to take pictures of the other, more pleasantly designed (but less famous) buildings, but they're all on the video footage.

Ofuro time...

2007-07-31T13:24:00.000Z

The apartment's hot-water boiler is broken, so I headed down to the local Sentō for a bath. Sentō are 'traditional' (well, I suppose this one is, although a lot are modernising to attract the increasing number of Japanese with baths in their homes) bathhouses where one essentially strips naked (sexes are segregated in virtually every Sentō these days), proceeds to thoroughly washing oneself in a designated area (a large row of taps and shower-heads; stools and buckets are provided) before heading for the baths themselves – having rinsed several times. The bath-water is hot enough to peel the skin off a rhino, and I don't fully understand how old Japanese men manage to stay in them for over twenty minutes, whereas I feel quite cooked after three or four. This may sound uncomfortable, but after two or three sessions of dipping into the boiling water, it's amazing how muscular tension seems to fade away. Afterwards, you can cool off in the lounge, where an archaic (but effective!) massage chair finishes the job off with a three-minute back-rub for a mere ¥20 (less than €0.15, or 10 pence). Entry to these fine establishments costs little more than ¥500 (5 bucks), so all in all, it's a pretty good deal. Feeling very relaxed...

Halt, PGPzeit!

2007-07-31T06:59:00.000Z

I've finally gone the extra geek-mile and got myself all suited up for PGP (including my Mail.app client), meaning that the ~~paranoid~~ security-conscious amongst you can now send me signed or encrypted email, files, etc...

I've generated two key-pairs for your ~~pleasure~~ use, for which you'll find the public keys below.

For egrefen@gmail.com (2048 bit encryption): (download key)

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (Darwin)
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=2hpn
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

And the higher security version...
For edward@egrefen.com (4096 bit encryption): (download key)

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (Darwin)
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Of course, either key can be used to send messages to either email, or to encrypt any file coming my way. A copy of them should be on most public key servers anyway, in case you're too lazy to save these, or have software that manages all this just fine for you.

Speaking of which, if you're an OS X user, this stuff is actually incredible easy to set up on your system (aaah, the joys of UNIX-like systems), and to integrate to Mail.app, etc... I'll make a post with some links in the near future.

That said, I don't think I ever plan on doing anything which really requires using PGP on a regular basis, but I'm sure it'll come in handy now and then.

On teaching English

2007-07-31T06:57:00.000Z

I suppose it wouldn't be much a blog record of my time teaching in Japan if I didn't talk about the teaching a bit yet. In a nutshell, it's a fairly straightforward an easy job. I'm teaching Junior High, that's grades 7-8 (making the average age around 14-15ish, I guess). I teach five days a week, three 45 minute sessions a day (yeah, that's all) although I need to be at work from 9am (and start teaching at 9.30am) to roundabouts 3pm (although I typically get there around 8am-ish – don't ask why), and must eat lunch with the lovely bambinos. So all in all it breaks down to about 2h15 teaching, 2h30 break (including 1h30 where I don't need to supervise anyone or anything), and if you throw in the 15 minutes homeroom at the beginning and end of the day, and all the 5 minute breaks between classes, and the 30 minutes of prep and briefing at the beginning of the day, it all rounds up to a healthy 6 hours of "work". Effectively, preparing a day's worth of activities take 30 minutes, and out of the 135 minutes of teaching, I'm only talking for about 20-30 minutes and the rest is supervising assistants and group activities, so it's about an hour of what I'd actually call "work" per day. With a salary of ¥75,500 a week, that technically works out to the rate of a salary of ¥15,100 (about $150 or £75) per hour of honest work. If I wasn't such a nut for crazy academic topics, so bad at Japanese, and inapt (and rather unwilling) at fitting into a rigorous and formal society like that of Japan, I could totally see myself doing this sort of thing full time (that's a damn big 'if' though, so fat chance...).

The teaching itself is fun. The programme is more based on principles of encouraging English conversation and immersion into the language, rather than juku-like cramming for tests, so essentially I simply need to put the kids into a context where they can make conversation with one another (as well as with the assistants and me), and teach them some new vocabulary and sentence structures. Typically, this will involve demonstrating a model conversation or two between the assistants, then have the students ask each other questions based on the topic, and/or form original conversations of their own based on the vocabulary and sentence structure presented in the model conversation. Other activities include more action based activities (i.e. there's a cool sheet of weird challenges such as "Can you say 'thank you' in four languages?" or "Can you roll your tongue?", and the kids – having been introduced to the vocabulary, and well as expressions for asking someone to do something – must go around the school and harass the staff to have them perform the action for them and whatnot), a few short stories with question-and-answer sessions, and typically the day is wrapped up with a language-training board-game of sorts that either introduces some new vocabulary, or helps them revise the topical vocabulary covered during earlier sessions. To make all this even easier, I have an extremely small class (compared to previous years), with just eight kids for two assistants (and myself).

The true "challenge" is keeping everyone entertained and happy (I'm working for a commercial programme, after all – they want happy students, aka "potential future returnees"). It's always difficult to gauge how good some of the students are, since they're all fairly shy at first blush (pun intended) – a mix of being Japanese and, more importantly, being teenagers. Some of them have only been studying English at school for a few months, while others have either lived abroad, or been doing Eiken (this programme) for a few years, or had private English tuition or classes for few years. Fortunately, after a day or two (or, with this week's group, after about an hour), the ice is broken and (much) conversation ensues, making it easier to evaluate individual levels of comfort with the ol' English.

The kids also have 45 minutes of music class (in English), as well as sports (ditto). We have lunch with them, which is a great time for them to plague you with indiscreet questions about just about anything. Apparently, being French and American is sufficient for me to be qualified as a "hafu" (literally short for "half-breed"... ain't Japan great?). I thought the term was reserved for people that are genuinely of mixed ethnicity (I mean, you can't exactly call American a well-defined monolithic cultural heritage, being quite a melting-pot of ethnic groups). So far, I've managed to dodge the questions about my age, which may be the cause for some surprise for them. Some of the assistants thought I was in my mid-to-late 20s, which is a bit depressing (well, not that much, but ouch nonetheless).

Anyway, today (Tuesday) will be the 2nd day of my 2nd week of teaching. Still a bit under two weeks of teaching at ISSH to go, and then it's off to god-knows-where for a four-day summer-camp-type-thing, followed by a week of laid-back tourism around Tokyo. Maybe I'll finally get a chance to climb Mt. Fuji. Screw it... maybe I'll simply get a chance to finally see Mt. Fuji. Who knows?

Views from Tokyo Part III

2007-07-29T02:25:00.000Z

Yet another set of photos from places 'round Tokyo...

A shot from Shibuya. In a city seemingly designed with grey-lovers in mind, the most colour you can expect to find is in the leaves of a few trees, here and there, and in the flurry of advertisements and corporate banners/logos/digiscreens/etc... I like the contrast, here, between the naked white/grey building on the right, and the multi-coloured façades everywhere else.

Just your average glass-pane fronted building. I thought the idea of taking a picture of the reflected building, while using the windows as an alignment grid, sounded interesting enough to justify a snapshot. Artsy-fartsy, eh?

Now, don't ask me what this is. According to this:
it's a "fossil of the time". What time? Perhaps that oft'-talked-about "that time", or perhaps it's "the time" as in "THE time". You know, the one... you don't know? I don't know...

Another shot of it, for good measure.

Who said Tokyo wasn't green? I thought it looked good, how the buildings in the back seem to peek out from the trees.

A familiar view when coming from Shibuya station. Yes, the whole surface (including the side) is a big-ass screen. You've seen "Lost In Translation", right? Right?

More Shibs. Interesting visual mix of a broad, square building next to a thin, curvy one. But then again, a lot of Tokyoite architecture is interesting in a contrastive way.

Parliamentary elections tomorrow (Sunday 29th). Last-ditch effort on the part of this candidate to garner some attention. I guess he's running for a greener Tokyo (or was high when suggesting the van design). Errr... Aloha?

People meeting in front of Hachiko. Let's get a better shot of him...

Aaah, Hachiko. The meeting place in front of Shibuya station. I think the story goes something along these lines: Hachiko was some dude's dog. Dude leaves, tells dog to wait, dude never comes back, dog waits, dog dies, people build statue in honour of this allegoric instantiation of the virtues of persistence and faithfulness, much valued in Japanese society. Now serves as an easily spotted meeting place for locals and gaijin alike. Somewhere along the line, the message got lost, I suppose.

The (in)famous big 'X' crosswalk in Shibs, quite busy on this fine Saturday.

Yup. Very busy... Anyway, after taking these fine shots, and grabbing some lunch, I headed down to Akihabara for some nice snapshots of Akihabara Electric Town.

Only in Japan, ladies and gentlemen...
Well, actually I heard they had 'air guitar aerobics' in Germany. I'm not sure which is more disturbing.

You can buy just about anything electronics-related, in Akihabara. This stall specialises in surveillance equipment. If you look closely, you'll spot me taking the picture on one of the screens.

Initially, I took this picture to illustrate how the Japanese will build just about anywhere (earthquakes == instant death, in this shop, no?), but I now also realise how freaky that sign is. Would you go in?

This looks like Shibuya, but the EXIF data for this photo assures me I took this Akihabara (a computer wouldn't lie, would it now. Eh, Hal?). I guess everything really does look the same, around here. Anyway, just more of me being artsy by taking reflected buildings.

The pedestrian area around Akihabara Electric Town.

Man, that's a lot of a geeks. Although I guess I can't really say that in good faith...

Haha, I thought this was lovely. In Europe/US/etc, celebrities will plug products. Here, cartoon characters do the job just as well.

I know it looks like I took this picture because there was a Peugeot in it, but I honestly just wanted a broad shot of the road. Seriously!

In contrast with the above, more pedestrian roads in Akihabara. Load to buy here, if you want to build a computer, or indulge in weird adult fetishes...

A vertical view of the above.

"The Computer", eh? Now we know who really runs the country.

Perhaps because I've been reading one of Stewart Shapiro's books on mathematics recently, but the geometrical relations between the building's lines and the electric wires struck me as worthy of some attention.

That's one hell of a view from the first floor.

Back in Setagaya, more general geometrical artsy-ness....

What can I say? That's a really sweet design.

A house for those who really want to escape the fact that there are multi-storey buildings about 10 meters down the road, to the left and right.

They sure know how to handle gardens here. Or certainly, a lot better than I can handle taking pictures with longer exposures. The blurring makes the picture look a bit strange, so I kept it.

Ditto here. Between day and nightfall, this path seems a bit surreal.

I took this while frustratingly (and unsuccessfully) trying to set the exposure settings to capture the foreground as well. Despite not achieving this goal, I liked the outcome enough to keep the photo.

That's all for now...

On bad coffee

2007-07-28T13:45:00.000Z

Coffee in Japan is easy to come by. They love the stuff here. Well... mostly ice coffee. The problem, is that this coffee is american-grade weak, whereas I'm more of an espresso guy. So while the cans of ice coffee you find in vending machines (conveniently located every 10 meters, anywhere and everywhere in Tokyo) are cheap, at ¥120 (about a 0.80€, or 0.50£), I need a few during the day to get my dose. It's also hard to guess what you're getting based on the label... apparently, based on how "European bitter blend" tastes, europeans like their coffee week, milky, and super-sweet (they must be thinking of the british...); "quality roast" basically means "sh*t"; and "deluxe espresso" means "sugarwater + eau de brown crayon"...

Not so friendly ATMs

2007-07-25T09:11:00.000Z

Goddamn... Today, I managed to misplace the remaining ¥6000 (roughly $60) of cash I had in my pocket, probably while rushing for a train to Shibuya. This really bites, since no Japanese ATM seems to want to accept my bloody PNC card, which means I'm completely moneyless until friday's pay... This really sucks.

Update: If ever I become famous in any function, this will be one for the history books. In the meantime (or more likely in lieu of this improbable eventuality), you can simply colour me stupid. It turns out, I had simply misunderstood the instructions, was putting my card in the wrong way, and can actually take cash out of the ATM at the 7-11 just down the road.

Views from Tokyo Part II

2007-07-22T22:00:00.000Z

A few more photos of my strolling around Harajuku and Shibuya, yesterday. Took a lot of video footage. I'll look into getting a website of sorts to host them, when I have time...

I wanted to start a collection of crazy signs and shop names (of which there is an endless supply in this wonderful country). I'm not sure if "Candy Stripper" is the name of the shop, the name of a brand, a genuine advertisement for a candy-clad stripper, or simply some random English. Frankly, all options are very plausible.

More shop fronts. Seriously ill... Is that word still in fashion?

Errrr... yes? That's one seriously freaky rabbit. Why there's a shrine-like construct dedicated to its glory (or whatever) in the middle of a shopping district, I don't know.

Frank from Donnie Darko, anyone?

"Tornadoes, fresh from Kansas. Trip to Oz not guaranteed (see local head shop for further assistance)."

So, are they going to release all those balloons onto traffic or something? This is one rather unattractive building... I don't know why I took a picture. Maybe the balloons...

You've got some pretty interesting characters making the rounds, in Harajuku. Seriously, apparently these girls sometimes design these whole costumes themselves. The make-up must take some time too. As you can see, this one is going for the "bicentennial witch" look, very en vogue since the spring collection hit the stores. (If you're American and perhaps don't quite get sarcasm: yes, I'm joking).

There's something very disturbing about a shop called "Nudy Boy" advertising "SALE SALE SALE SALE"... I gotta submit this to engrish.com.

I'm not quite sure if this is the place where the well-to-do-and-slightly-arrogant shop, or whether the shop name seeks to evoke the poetic imagery of colourful berries resting on a blanket of freshly fallen snow. Maybe both...

The weird architecture geek in me comes out again. This Audi building has an exceptional design, as the pictures above and below hopefully show. It sort of reminds me of glitches on 3D engines, when some vertices get messed up and the surfaces go all funky like this. Maybe the architect played a lot of Half-Life.

(See above).

"The Royal Milk"... need we say more?

Quest Hall! The shop that caters to ye olde dragon-slaying, wizard-defeating, princess-saving princely crowd.

Gödel's incompleteness theorem, as illustrated by Japanese smoking regulations. Or maybe the signs on the side define the boundaries of a meter-wide smoking area, which automagically stop the cigarette smoke from travelling further.

No comment...

On nodding

2007-07-22T10:42:00.001Z

One of these little things I love about Japan is the nodding. Actually, it's more a quick and easy form of bowing for minor incidents of politeness, but its frequency of occurrence makes it worthy of mention. As you may most certainly know, the Japanese are quite big on bowing within almost any semi-formal to formal context (ie any context involving anyone over 20, anyone wanting a job, having a job, wanting to keep his/her job, etc...) as a mark of politeness and respect. However, there are many occasions where you want/need to impart a small mark of respect, but do not have time for a complete bow (or deem there is no need for one), so you give a polite nod. It happens all the time. Crossing the street and a driver stops for you? *nod* (and they tend to nod back). Make way for someone on the sidewalk? *nod* (ditto). Make room in the subway? *nod* Sit down next to someone? *nod* Interact with someone in pretty much any manner that doesn't involve physical violence (or unwarranted contact)? *nodnodnod*. I'm starting to feel like one of those little bobbing-head dolls that were all the rage a few years back (God I hope that fad has faded away into the nothingness from whence it came), but it certainly is nice to feel acknowledged... but not too acknowledged.

On scary clowns

2007-07-22T10:35:00.001Z

I was walking back home from Futako-tamagawa, back towards Kaminoge – incidentally along the same path I'd walk home along when returning from teaching at St Mary's – when I had a bizarre flashback concerning a train of thought I once had while walking down this path on a rainy day, many years ago (ie. four). It was a dark and rainy day, quite sombre, and I was toddling back home under my trusty umbrella, and I remember having specifically this line of thought... there are many side roads branching off, quite a few side paths, some stairs, and hence a lot of dead angles for someone approaching them (ie about to walk past them). And somehow I got into thinking, on this rainy sombre day, that it would be quite freaky if, while walking past one of the aforementioned dead angles, there were to be some messed up psycho-clown waiting there (perhaps under and umbrella himself) for a victim.

... and I thought that a few years of logic, mathematics and physics had warped my mind, but I was evidently not too sane to begin with.

Views from Tokyo Part I

2007-07-21T23:42:00.000Z

A few photos I took over the past few days...

Because of earthquakes, most wiring in the Tokyo area is above ground (something fairly rare in Europe, but somewhat frequent in the US). As a result, every 20 or so meters, one encounters one of these huge transformers. They may seem fairly unesthetic, but they somehow seem to fit in with the general vibe of Tokyo (even in richer, leafier neighbourhoods like Setagaya). They also serve as a reminder of how electricity Japanese society is (as are most first world countries). I think I'll take a few more pictures of these things and build a collection.

Another one.

A street in the upper-crust neighbourhood of Seta-gaya. It must cost a small fortune to own a house here, given the collection of luxurious import cars parked in front of each one of them. A very nice place for a morning stroll, away from the hustle and bustle of the main roads.

One of the few traditional houses around St Mary's. Hard to believe this is in an urban metropolis like Tokyo, eh?

The view, from just a few steps away from the house pictured above.

I just thought this looked cool...

This sort of set of stairs is fairly common in hilly Tokyo. Going down...

... and coming back up.

Looks like a quaint little stream, eh? Good thing you can't smell a photograph...

Very totalitarian looking luxury apartments between Setagaya and Futako-Tamagawa, suitably named "Setahaus".

A small thingamabob the size of a credit-card, which you might notice on the ground near "Setahaus". Marks the beginning of Setagaya-ku (hence the arrow).

A pointless shot which turned out nicely. I was trying to see how my camera would fare at high shutter-speeds by taking a picture of a flashing light.

Some interesting architecture. Loads of weird and wonderful constructions like this, across the Big Mikan. Expect more pictures like this... may more.

I thought this lone house, isolated from other buildings by some rough (soon to be built on) ground, made for a nice photo.

A common site in high-pedestrian-traffic areas like Shibuya or Shinjuku (the latter, in this case): politicians sending representatives (or representing themselves) to canvas directly to the public. Here, some (presumably) washed-out pop-star singing some encouraging songs to support his favourite candidate. Wasn't too impressive, musically, although it was a riot picturing similar political tactics in France or the UK.

More interesting architecture. A bank of sorts, I believe.

The slogan/name "Universal Language" appealed to the philosophy of language geek inside me. I'm not a chomskian though, I swear! Once again, a cool façade which somewhat resembles the contents of a rather large library shelf.

A common view in areas like Shibuya or Shinjuku: shedloads of people walking around, people yelling to try and get you into their store, and big-ass screens and adverts everywhere.

This was taken around 3.30am (jet-lag!), while experimenting with long exposure times (15s), to take pictures in low-light conditions. The result was somewhat interesting, but not quite what I expected. I decided to keep the photo anyway...

Ditto above: early morning, experimenting with shutter-speed and ISO settings. This picture has a slightly surrealist feeling to it, hence its place in my collection. The blurring is accidental, but somehow works with the mood at the time (ie. me being half awake before 4am).

On the technical front...

2007-07-21T22:39:00.002Z

On the technical front, the big bummer is that the Office wifi base station, which I could previously access from my apartment across the hall, now has MAC address filtering. Of course, my first reflex was to attempt to login to the router using the default passwords (easily obtainable with a quick Google search) in order to add my laptop's airport card's MAC address to the allow list, but the technician who installed it has cleverly (and most reasonably, although right now I think he's a bastard) changed it to something different without telling the office (and unfortunately he did not make the mistake of using a dictionary word I could crack with hydra, unless of course it's a japanese dictionary word – which is a bit more likely. If anyone knows a nice UNIX CLI brute force cracker which deals with HTTP AUTH, and will compile on PPC, please get in touch). So then I thought it might be just as simple to spoof the MAC address of one of the office computers (while it's turned off), which should be easy since OS X (10.4 and above) has the required set of command line tools. However, either for legal/security reasons, or for some unknown other reason, neither ifconfig or Apple's own 'airport' system tool will change the built-in airport card's MAC address. So unless I can figure something out, I'll have to resort to a wired connection, which requires me to stay in the office while surfing (therefore severely impeding the satisfaction of my addiction to web/email/etc).

Shame, for once tools like hydra or methods like MAC spoofing could actually have been used for a legitimate (and legal) purpose...

Early morning Setagaya

2007-07-21T22:39:00.001Z

It's only been a few days since I arrived in Japan for the fourth time, but things have already fallen into a more or less familiar routine. There's the predictable 4 or 5am wake-up time, which is a perfect opportunity for a quick jog around Setagaya and down to the area surrounding Futako-Tamagawa-eki before it gets too hot (the early morning temperatures are already hotter than the mid-day heat in Sheffield or Paris was the last two weeks), the same scenery, the same hard work moving box after box from the Eiken office in Setagaya to the school while still jet-lagged (a mere 24h after disembarking), etc... On the other hand, there's a fair deal of novelty going around. Quite a few familiar faces have moved away, both amongst the assistant body and the teacher body (to which I now belong, hurrah for *much* higher pay!), Mr. Donuts in Futako-Tamagawa has either closed permanently or is temporarily closed for refurbishing of sorts, and probably most importantly, the Eiken summer programme is taking place in the International School of Sacred Heart (instead of St Mary's), all the way over in Hiroo (near Roppongi). On one hand, this means no more getting up 20 minutes before the morning meeting for me (St Mary's was a mere 4 minute walk from my apartment), but on the other, the school is at a better location for after-work drinks. The structure of the teaching has also changed, with a mere 2h15 of teaching for me per day instead of 3h (although we must be present on campus from 9am to 2.50pm, ie roughly 6h for those of you who can't be bothered to count), and only for 5 days a week instead of 6. And all that for the same pay. Score...

A quick write-up on graduation

2007-07-20T23:39:00.000Z

Graduation, this past Tuesday, was an interesting experience. On one hand, the idea of having to come back to Sheffield in the middle of summer, to sit for two hours watching people go up and shake the vice-chancellor's hand, just to do it myself and be on stage for a few brief seconds, did not seem very appealing. On the other hand, the pleasure of seeing a few friends (perhaps for the last time), and of wearing a rather dashing outfit, did contribute to brightening up the day a little.

It was a rather uneventful (in a good way) day: I got up early, put on my suit, accompanied my father to a talk in Information Retrieval in the medical world, which was fairly interesting (since the publication process and information sharing infrastructure is similar in some ways to that present in philosophy, although far more formalised). After that, I went to get robed (well, essentially just get my hood and mortarboard, since I already had my gown), had a quick lunch, attended a short tea-party at the physics department (where the head of department repeated the same speech – nearly word-for-word – that he gave at the end-of-year tea party, with a bit added to congratulate the parents present for their support), and went on to the ceremony.

The graduation ceremony itself was quite agreeable. The hall was suitably air-conditioned (otherwise, it would have been simply unbearably for those of use wearing suits and gowns), and the event was very well organised and run (the marshals were especially efficient). It was amusing to see the bigwigs of the university dressed in colourful medieval wear, marching up the aisle to the tune of organ music. One by one, students were invited up to the platform, their name was read out, and they would cross shake the vice-chancellor's hand and collect their diploma/certificate. For those receiving awards and/or first-class degrees, the vice-chancellor would shake their hand a bit longer, and a few inaudible (from the audience's point of view) words would be exchanged. When my turn came, my name was called out, and I crossed the platform. The vice-chancellor shook my hand, and congratulated me for successfully achieving first-class honours on a bachelor of science in physics and philosophy, and asked me what I was going to do next. To this I replied that I was going to St Andrews to read towards a M.Litt in Philosophy, at which point he congratulated me once more, and wished me the best of luck. Following this, I collected my certificate, and enjoyed the rest of the ceremony. Horrendously exciting stuff, eh?

Anyway, it was quite the experience. The day was followed by an evening of poker, during which I managed to lose a measly five pounds. And the next day, it was off the Japan. Whew!

Below are a few photos of the day...

Here's me, looking suave in the gown (what a poser).

After being robed, outside the union.

Talking to Sarah and Will (perhaps for the last time, although hopefully not).

During the physics departmental tea party, in the first year lab. To think, only three years ago we were being greeted here.

And now, a short video segment of my time on stage...

That's it!

On the road again...

2007-07-13T21:35:00.000Z

... first, a (hopefully pleasant) drive up to Sheffield for graduation (woohoo?). Then the usual moderately hellish flight to Tokyo on Wednesday 18th. Indeed, for those of you who are reading this, and didn't know (most likely a group that == {Ø}), I'm going to be teaching in Tokyo for most of the summer again. It's at Eiken again (by the bye, can you spot me on that old picture, at the top of the website? It dates back to 2003... I think I still have the shirt I'm wearing on top of what seems like a cool t-shirt), but unlike the previous times, I'll be a teacher (rather than ye olde assistant teacher), and I'll be teaching junior-high instead of high-school level (more about how that goes in ten days or so). Also, the school hosting the program will be the International School of Sacred Heart, which in Roppongi. A bit of a bummer, since it means it's not a 5 minute walk from the apartment door to the classroom door – as was the case when the host school was St Mary's (currently being renovated) – but on the other hand, after-work drinks will be easily accessible (and that's what really matters, after all).

Anyway, like in 2005, I'll be posting regular updates on this site about my musings concerning teaching, Japanese society, and whatnot (probably just page after page of me whining about how bloody hot and humid it'll be), hopefully alongside a few photos. I hope it will be an entertaining read, should you choose to tag along.

FYI, I'll be reachable by email (as always), my usual UK mobile phone number (text before calling, as I'll most likely be teaching, sleeping, or busy), as well as AIM and MSN during the evenings. If, by chance, you're visiting the Big Mikan at all this summer, get in touch and we can hang out. I'll be there until the 23rd of August.

Snake on a... computer?

2007-07-09T23:45:00.000Z

I'm afraid the following blog update is quite a sad one. Not 'sad' in the tragic sense, but rather 'sad' in the social sense, as an indication of eccentric and abnormally boring (to the lay public, at least) practises.

I have found the love of my (computer) life, and it's called Python. Every so often, you run into something that just clicks, in terms of the balance between usability and power. It's something I've experienced when learning to use bash (esp. the joys of SSH), or LaTeX (I wrote my last two papers and rewrote my CV with it), or when I finally go the knack for coding decent C; but when I say 'click', I think more of my discovery of object oriented scripting languages like Perl (which I had time to learn to basics of, but never to use) and Ruby (having shortly toyed with the syntax, but never used or learned in-depth). And it seems that until now, between Perl and Ruby, I had missed an important middle ground: Python. Actually, that's a lie... when I was 14 or so, I got my hands on a copy of O'Reilly's "Learning Python, Second Edition" (an edition with a cute little picture of a mouse on the cover, the macabre significance of which only strikes me now), but somehow did not get a chance (or the motivation) to peruse it fully.

However all is different now. Egged on by a recent conversation where I was weakly trying to defend the merit of learning C as a first language, I decided to give the legendary Python a try, and stumbled across this fantastic little guide (free, viewable online) by Mark Pilgrim, "Dive into Python" (which I heartily recommend to anyone with a minimal experience of some other programming language; it's exceptionally well designed, and concise). And Python did not disappoint me: it has the sort of 'message passing' syntax I liked in Ruby, the near-english aspect of which being similar to what I appreciated in Perl, and it has a fairly simple set of powerful built-in functions while remaining extremely extendable. In short, it's quite a pleasure to program with it, and I've been practising translating some of my C programs into it. The amount of code is significantly more minimal, and the data-sorting and string-filtering abilities save me many-a-headache.

Ironically arriving at a time where I have less need for a good programming language, it's quite a dream come true. I'm sure I'll find some use for it. In the meantime, if you're looking for a quick and easy to learn language, check Python out.

Take that, Gauss!

2007-05-24T11:32:00.001Z

I wrote the last few lines of physics equations of my life (presuming I don't go back into some scientific field after postgrad in philosophy), less than two hours ago. Weird...

A damn good last few lines, too! It was probably the best exam I've written in the past few years (or almost), which definitely makes up for the rubbish problem solving exam we had yesterday (then again, since everyone seems to have done rather poorly, hopefully they're moderate it up a bit). Now to finish my dissertation on quasi-realism, and revise a bit of logic, and I'm done with the undergrad life!

The ol' clock is ticking

2007-05-05T10:18:00.000Z

Woah. There's a week of lectures left or rather, roughly two days of lectures left. Then it's over, finis, etc. The whole undergraduate life...

That's pretty messed up: I'm too young to be accountable! Oh wait... there's always postgrad. But christ, three years sure do fly. I'm struggling to remember what exactly I learned. It's a bit like a patchwork of physics and philosophy, with a vague thread making the two halves internally consistent, and an even vaguer (read: quasi-non-existent) one connecting them. There's a very tangible difference in skill and width of reading when I talk to my single-honours peers, with a few possible exceptions of dual-honours who are simply exceptionally smart hard-workers (you know who you are), so it's becoming quite clear that next year is going to be quite a mission. Fortunately, I have a "fairly" good handle (read: by local standards - I'm not sure that says much) on some of the more technical stuff, so I ought to be able to stay on top of things through specialisation. But gone are the days where I could freely read Nietzsche and Sartre and Machiavelli (well, I probably still would have time to do that, but I plan on doing something a bit more relaxing with my free time)...

Anyway, it's not quite over yet. Three exams and a dissertation deadline in the space of seven days (or a week and half, depending on when you start counting), in under three weeks time. Time to get to work!

Attitude

2007-04-19T17:29:00.000Z

After tomorrow, 5pm, if ANYONE ever mentions superstrings to me again (especially a non-physicist, but you crazy physicists take note as well) I swear I will beat the living daylight out of them.

*grmbl* Goddamn essay...
Goddamn word count...

Update: I've been in the library since 9 am. I've had a total of 90 minutes of breaks. Meaning I've spent 10 hours in the library. Now after loads of editing, rewriting, and chopping entire sections out of my paper, I now have about 500 words to cram in subsections about string theories and gravity, and some stuff about current research (maybe). Christ... I haven't even mentioned gauge-symmetry. This is such a crap essay...

Hours of reading, pages and pages of notes, and I still don't feel like I even vaguely understand what the hell this theory is about. The only reassuring thing is: neither do most of the people writing these papers, apparently.

I bet this essay topic was the lecturer's little sick joke to play on students.

Brrrrrrr....

2007-04-19T00:28:00.001Z

I find myself in an interesting situation. I came down to university this morning when the sun was out and the weather warm, wearing only a shirt and my trusty shades (yes, and pants, shoes, etc...), not really thinking ahead. It is now nearing 1.30am, it is dark out, and it is considerably colder than when I walked down this morning. The prospect of a 30 minute uphill walk in the dark, in the cold, is therefore not a very pleasant one. To make things interesting, I'm also torn between being reasonable and going home to get some sleep (and perhaps even make it to my 10am problem solving class tomorrow morning), so I can do some solid work tomorrow and wrap up this goddamn physics essay, on one hand, and the temptation to continue my caffeine fuelled procrastination binge in the Information Commons on the other... (in the hope that I might scrape a few more relevant paragraphs in). Either way, making good progress... should be able to finish this up tomorrow evening, leaving Friday morning for proof-reading and whatnot (bonus... got me a few more items to stick on the ol' bibliography).

In other news, why the hell do they have showers in a library? Showers and comfy sofas... maybe I can sleep here.

EDIT: Solution... take a cab.

You come to expect these things

2007-04-18T23:35:00.000Z

It's funny how you're often less inclined to notice these little (and sometimes big) changes which make life different/easier/better, in some way or other, when they affect you, but cannot help but notice them when they are to be granted to others than you. In my case, the last few days are a double-whammy...

Beginning with the more recent event: during the departmental teaching committee today, the department announced the creation of third year project modules, which are research-only, starting next year (following the example of similar modules offered at the University of Birmingham). Some of the proposed topics are very interesting, and it's definitely the sort of stuff I would have been into. Then again, I'm not complaining about my current courses, which I'm very pleased with.

Further back, now (read: two or three days): the Information Commons (the new library/study centre for the University of Sheffield) opened recently, and I discovered it yesterday. It had been under construction for quite some time (read: a bit over one year), and as it began growing out of the grown like some postmodern concrete flower, over the past few months, I couldn't help but think it was going to end up being fairly rubbish (and to be frank, if you saw it from the outside now it's finished, you'd probably have the same intuition). However I was quite wrong. The interior simply rocks. It's luminous, spacious, well laid out. There are individual desk lamps and plugs on all the desks (which are quite large), there's a huge silent study room which is actually acoustically divided from the rest of the building (unlike the old library), and there are more digital screens and computers than you could shake a USB stick at. I've been using it for 72 hours, and I can't help but feeling (very slightly more) productive (than usual... which isn't much). So since I have a healthy amount of work to go through before the end of the semester (and indeed before friday... aaargh damn essay on superstrings), I have a feeling I'll like it here. Best of all, it's open 24/7, which is fantastic (what sort of library doesn't cater to the late-owl types who do their best work between midnight and 3am?).

Anywho, it's a bit of a shame to leave all this behind in September. Then again, I can't say I'll shed a tear for the rest of the city, and I presume St Andrews will be quite nice, both aesthetically and academically. So really, I can't complain (but I will anyway, being part french).

Conferences, Journals and Whatnot

2007-03-24T11:52:00.000Z

The upcoming BUPS conference I'm organising (thanks to a very helpful committee) won't be our biggest one yet, but it should be fun nonetheless. It was perhaps one of the more stressful ones to run, as it involves more personal preparation than the past ones since I'm writing the part of the skills talks (something I don't really feel qualified for, which is why they'll be more about general methodological concerns, which I hope will be helpful), and because this time of year is historically (i.e. from experience of the past years) a very busy time of year, and therefore not the best time to attract loads of people. It's also a time of year where I have a lot on my plate as well... Therefore I'm really looking forward to the conference itself (and the organisational break afterwards). Nothing quite beats seeing effort pay off (let's hope it does).

It's also an important turning point, as it's the last 'big' conference I'll be organising. All that's left after this is a summer conference, which will be a day conference, and an essay competition to run, followed by the annual conference, the preparation of which will be the job of the next chair (and for which I will offer my help, but only as a 'consultant'). This means that my job as chair after this will principally involve preparing BUPS for the shift in management, and ensure that it will thrive next year (and the years to come – touch wood).

It's crazy how quickly this year (and all of university, as a matter of fact) has gone by, but it's nice to note that the optimism that I held about the now-over-two-years-old project that is the British Undergraduate Philosophy Society hasn't proved to be too naive. We've done some good, solid work this year, thanks to the toil of the committee, and ran an increased number of conferences, expanded membership, built the foundations for next year's committee, and several other things... The realisation that it's almost all over, along with undergraduate life as a whole, is a fairly strange feeling. I suppose all one can do at this point is hope that both the society and my academic life fare well in the coming year(s), and reflect back upon what I've gained from it.

These past seven months have been a bumpy ride, with moments of doubt, a few sleepless nights, and some really good times to balance things out. I don't think I would have expected things to get so complicated so quickly, a few years back. On the other hand, I'd be hard pressed to claim I regretted any of it: the organisational stress applied by the running of this society and its events, in conjunction with the workload of a third year, have been higher than what I've experienced in my life, but there is no doubt that the skills I've acquired along the way (in keeping track of so many factors, so many deadlines, and so much correspondence), and the mere fact that I've survived it all with my sanity and nerves left (mostly) untouched, are all in all quite a reward, and will come in useful during the next few years as I face increasingly higher workloads and pressure from the academic environment.

But more than all that, I now know that I can safely face the next person to tell me that philosophy is all about dawdling about, smoking joints, and asking "Why?", and kick him in the face.

Peace out.

You wouldn't expect it...

2007-03-15T20:39:00.001Z

I more or less recently ran into a charming display of 'absentmindedness' on the part of the type of person you'd least expect to write something so trivially wrong, or at least you'd think that he would ask someone to double-check the work in question before tagging his name on it.

Consider the following article: Writing Descartes: I Am, and I Can Think, Therefore ... by one Professor Paul Grobstein, Harvard grad, Harvard PhD, and impressive academic record in the field of biology. The man is clearly an intelligent fellow, and thus possibly the last person you'd expect to produce the following pearl of wisdom as an argument against Cartesian Skepticism (emphasis mine):

Your phrase "I think, therefore I am" needs some correcting. I think I understand what you had in mind: the need to find a solid footing for ongoing inquiry. And I very much admire your posture of profound skepticism, with its associated reluctance to take not only "revealed truth" and authority but also logic and sense data as an assured starting point. It does seem to me though that you (or, more likely, others since you) took a good idea too far (as happened with your mind/body distinction, see Descartes' Error). Or, maybe, it wasn't taken far enough.

Here's the thing. Trees are. And they don't "think". So you can't have meant to say that things in general have to think in order to be. That would be contradicted by trees and other things (rocks, desks, etc) that you certainly knew about.

He then goes on to make some potentially interesting comments about scepticism, which unfortunately here stem from this initial assumption that 'Descartes got it wrong' (I don't argue that he didn't, but certainly not on these grounds). And while these comments are not necessarily without merit or value (were they to be made independently of talk about what Professor Grobstein thinks is Descartes' position), his initial critique of Descartes' cogito is horrendously wrong.

Consider the general form of a syllogism:

Premise 1: If P, then Q
Premise 2: P

Conclusion: Q

Now here's basically what Professor Grobstein believes Descartes' cogito to entail (and what he criticises):

Premise 1: If P, then Q
Premise 2: Not P

Conclusion: Not Q

Now, any ol' undergraduate having done a very basic introduction to logic will tell you that the logical statement 'P therefore Q' is false if and only if P is true while Q is false. This is to say that 'P therefore Q' is perfectly true if P is false, but Q is true. Professor Grobstein is thus committing a basic non-sequitur in claiming that 'P therefore Q' entails '(Not P) therefore (Not Q)'. It would be a valid entailment if Descartes had said something mapping to the logical statement 'P if and only if Q', but as Descartes did not in any way say "I think if and only if I am" (or vice-versa... it doesn't really matter), Professor Grobstein doesn't really have a leg to stand on for his argument.

It just goes to show: when shopping around for academic wisdom, caveat emptor.

Of course, this isn't exactly a published paper, just an open letter on his website. Still, it does not excuse the need for a bit of peer-review (I'm sure he could have nabbed a first year computer scientist, or a philosophy student), so as to avoid slightly embarrassing, simple mistakes such as this one.

To conclude, I do not wish to give the impression that I claim non-philosophers (and specifically scientists) should stay away from philosophy. If anything, one should encourage them to practise it. Nonetheless, if you're going to go up against a central, well-known position of philosophy (and by all means, please do!), at least make sure your argument doesn't fall apart because of some trivial misunderstanding of logic.

My Bonnie lies over the ocean

2007-03-14T21:39:00.000Z

I got my offer from St Andrews today, to study for a M.Litt in philosophy. Had some champagne to celebrate the fact that I'm moving to the middle of nowhere, where it'll surely be even rainier and colder than it is here...

... but somehow I'm very happy about it.

Woohoo!

2006-12-28T01:24:00.000Z

Rock on! After what is possibly the shoddiest endgame ever, I have managed to beat the Sigma Chess program with the following game:
1. e4 Nc6
2. d3 Nf6
3. Nc3 d5
4. d4 Bg4
5. f3 Nxe4
6. Nxe4 Bf5
7. Nc3 e5
8. dxe5 Qh4+
9. g3 Qh5
10. g4 Qh4+
11. Ke2 Bb4
12. gxf5 Qc4+
13. Qd3 Nd4+
14. Kd1 Nxf5
15. Qxc4 dxc4
16. Bxc4 Rd8+
17. Ke2 Nd4+
18. Kf2 Bxc3
19. bxc3 Nxc2
20.Rb1 Rd1
21. Kg2 Ne1+
22. Kf2 Nc2
23. Ke2 Re1+
24. Kd2 a5
25. Kxc2 O-O
26. e6 h6
27. exf7+ Rxf7
28. Rxb7 a4
29. Bxf7+ Kxf7
30. Rxc7+ Kf6
31. Bd2 Rf1
32. Rc6+ Kf5
33. Rc5+ Kf6
34. Rc6+ Kf5
35. c4 g5
36. c5 a3
37. Rd6 Ra1
38. Bc3 Rxa2+
39. Kd3 g4
40. fxg4+ Kxg4
41. Rg6+ Kh5
42. Rf6 Rg2
43. Rf5+ Kg6
44. Rf6+ Kh5
45. Nh3 a2
46. Bd4 Rd2+
47. Ke4 Re2+
48. Kd5 Re5+
49. Bxe5 Kg4
50. Ra1 Kxh3
51. Rxa2 Kg4
52. Ra3 Kg5
53. c6 Kh5
54. c7 Kg5
55. c8=Q Kh4
56. Qc4+ Kg5
57. Qf4+ Kh5
58. Rh3# 1-0

That probably could have ended 10 moves earlier...
Anyway, this may not seem like much, but given it's got the best of me for the past 80 tries (and I'm not that bad), this is a bit of a personal victory.

Next up: Deep Blue!

*cutscene: Ed getting his ass whipped in 10 moves* How'd that happen?

I should probably get back to working on my dissertation...

Addendum:
HOHOHO AND AGAIN!
1. e3 Nf6
2. d4 b6
3. b3 Bb7
4. Ba3 e6
5. b4 Be7
6. b5 Bxg2
7. Bxg2 Nc6
8. bxc6 Bxa3
9. Nxa3 d5
10. e4 dxe4
11. Nb5 O-O
12. f3 a6
13. Nc3 Qd6
14. Rb1 e3
15. Ne4 Nxe4
16. fxe4 Qxc6
17. d5 exd5
18. exd5 Qg6
19. Qf3 Qxc2
20. Rd1 Qxa2
21. Qe2 Qa5+
22. Kf1 Rfe8
23. Nf3 Qc3
24. Qd3 e2+
25. Kf2 Qc5+
26. Qd4 Qxd5
27. Qxd5 c6
28. Qxc6 Rac8
29. Qxb6 Rc1
30. Rxc1 h6
31. Qc6 Kh7
32. Qxe8 Kg6
33. Qe4+ f5
34. Qe6+ Kh5
35. Qxf5+ g5
36. Qf7+ Kg4
37. Qg6 e1=Q+
38. Nxe1 Kh4
39. Nf3+ Kg4
40. Qxh6 Kf5
41. Qxg5+ Ke4
42. Rcd1 a5
43. Qe5# 1-0

In just over 6 minutes this time, and using a transpositional opening (variant on Kasparov's 1994 opening move). Worked out okay, although once again, a bit of sloppiness here and there.

A man's home is his castle, but it shouldn't have to be a fortress...

2006-11-19T23:02:00.000Z

Christ, man... is no home safe? Sorry if, with this post, my blog falls into the "daily rant about my daily day" style, but this is a bit out of the ordinary.

I was sitting in my room, looking at the wikipedia article for mereology (go figure) when I hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and the door handle rattle. Assuming it was one of my housemates, I turned around to find myself face to face with a short northern man in his mid-30s, seemingly the same scum you'd expect to see in Coronation Street or rubbish like that, with short dark hair looking at me. He quickly exclaimed "Just lookin' 'round", closed the door, and promptly legged it. It took me a few seconds to come to my senses and realise what was happening, so I took a pair scissors (which was pretty stupid given there's a freaking battle-axe in the room across the landing), checked each room as I headed down, and checked the ground floor. Naturally, by the time I got down there, the bugger was long gone, along with Jez, Mike and Liam's laptops. Fortunately, he didn't take anything else, but it must really suck for them, seeing how their work wasn't backed up.

I shudder to think it could have been mine, along with all the conference organisation documents, that had been stolen. Time to back up everything (twice)...

A word of warning

2006-11-15T15:56:00.001Z

A word of warning to you all. This is a neighbourhood watch announcement.

A group of suspicious looking people are walking around town, asking people if they had found Jesus. I've experienced this myself, and it prompted me to write this warning.

They can be dressed just like you and me, and appear to be innocent bystanders, but their motives are all too clear: they are looking for Jesus. What had Jesus done? Why is he hiding? To these questions, the offer only vague answers. No doubt to mask their true intentions, and throw the authorities off the trail.

So be vigilant, and beware. If you know where Jesus is, do not - I repeat - do NOT disclose his location to anyone asking for him. Also, please notify him that people are looking for him, they are wearing crosses around their necks (perhaps a cult sign, and a morbid indication of their intentions once they have "found" Jesus), and that they may be up to no good.

This was your friendly neighbourhood watch announcement. Stick together, people.

A matter of qualification

2006-11-07T20:17:00.001Z

I believe a defining characteristic one must possess to enter the academic world is a certain type of organisational insanity. It's not the sort that's necessarily socially noticeable (although in some cases, like maths professors walking around with a trout tied to their hats, it definitely is hard to miss), but rather of the sort that pops up in conversation. To word it more precisely, I believe it is the ability to be lost in a tangent, be it conversational or conceptual (as applied to vestimentary taste, in the case of the fish-donning mathematician), and to actually forget how one got there in the first place.

I'd like to clarify that I am not just positing this for kicks: it is a thesis derived from empirical observation (try it yourself: you just need to have a 40+ minute conversation with a professor). Furthermore, it seems to increase with age (I assume this is because it is a decay which begins the day one gets one's PhD/DPhil, and things go downhill from there).

Perhaps there is some evolutionary justification for the maintenance society provides for this ever-continuing loop of folly, from thesis to teaching to training the tangential tricksters of tomorrow (couldn't resist)... Perhaps there is something you can only find, you can only discover while on a tangent...

This may seem a spurious claim to you, but if so: you obviously haven't had the (dis)pleasure of going through Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. A word of warning if you do decide to walk down this path, though: Remember to change the trout ever so often.

The Heisenberg Insanity Principle

2006-10-25T12:16:00.001Z

I sometimes wake up in the morning, and wonder whether or not I've lost my mind. This may sound bizarre, but it's ironically reasonable a stance. Can I really certify my own sanity? Surely I'd need to be certifiably sane to do so, and thus am relying on the conclusion as a premise for the determination of that very conclusion. So what if it was the case that I had lost my mind? Would I hypothetically just be maintaining the illusion of sanity to the outside world an to myself? Well, this naturally raises the question: doesn't the same circularity apply to this case? It's very catch-22-type, as you'd assume you'd need to be sane to know sanity from insanity, and thus evaluating my own sanity (or insanity) would require sanity on my part in the first place! But I think this counter-argument is also circular, as my evaluation of my insanity is made by the me who purports to be sane, because I am in fact insane and cannot sanely understand my own claim of being sane (which is, of course, just a masquerade for insanity). Something to think about...

Amusingly enough, if you haven't been driven insane after reading this, you must be insane!

Greek Chorus

2006-10-24T20:39:00.000Z

I was walking home from my Wittgenstein Reading Group, a few hours ago, enjoying Vivaldi's "Der Herbst" as I headed back up Conduit Road (that's one hell of a climb), and I began noticing how well music works as a soundtrack in conditions of low visibility. It seems to dramatise everything, and give a particular edge to people emerging from the darkness, and heading back into it in silence. That got me thinking about how wonderful it was to have the small flat device the size of a business card (aka my iPod nano) that could allow me to carry my favourite music around with me. Actually, it is the very storage of music which is marvelous here - the very idea that any person with the equipment could hear Vivaldi's Four Seasons in the comfort of his living room, alone. We can afford to hear things again and again, and to let it play in the background, almost outside of our consciousness, knowing that should we want to hear it again, it will be there.

How different it must have been just 150 years ago, before the phonograph, when the only way to hear a particular piece was to go to a concert, or if you were rich, to have someone come play it at your house. How different must musical intentionality have been, knowing that that particular hearing of a certain tune could well be, for purely logistical/material reasons, your last. Auditors must have focused intently on the music, savouring each moment (for cases where the song was worth it), trying to remember and record the experience. Never would they have imagined that the masses a near century-and-a-half later would view music in a completely different way...

This raises the question: is music the area where social practices and norms define intentionality? Why would the other methods of human interaction be any different. Language and communication, the notion of self, the self in the world, and what things are and aren't... why would these be conserved and unchanged? We generally assume that people of the past are essentially just like us, with a different basic body of knowledge, and weird clothes. But what's to say that the mental difference isn't drastically different the further you go back...

Side note: I wish I could get credit for idle musings like this, and not have to do this goddamn physics project. Oh well, back to work...

Leaving Tokyo's never easy

2006-10-14T13:14:00.000Z

I looked out the window early this morning, like any morning, and there was grey mist lightly covering the hill-bordered 'valley' that Sheffield lies in. The dark of night had not quite lifted, and the day was just piercing through the mist enough to see the shaded outlines of buildings and houses in the distance, like something out of Delacroix's Mephistopheles (without the flying bloke above the city). Some might consider such a sight to be depressing, but it just makes me feel slightly nostalgic about winter. You can feel it coming along, approaching this general direction, but it hasn't quite arrived. In fact, it feels like there's a certain degree of uncertainty as to whether or not is will arrive. Perhaps it will miss, perhaps it will only come in half-servings, taunting the ground with snow that won't remain, granting us a few crisp evenings, but denying us snow-covered hills and rooftops and streets that will give the world an air of purity and peace for a few moments.

These thoughts of "exotic" weather started me thinking... I haven't been to that many "new" places in a while. I mean, I've had a great time over the past year and a bit, but when it comes down to where I've been, it's not that new. The US over the summer was good fun, Boston was great, but it's all so familiar as well. France was quiet, and Sheffield was nice to come back to. But I feel I haven't really done much travelling, insofar as by "travelling" I mean the act of going someplace relatively new and different from what I'm used to (David Brent's comment on Hull comes to mind...). I haven't gone to Japan this summer, or even as far as Germany or the Netherlands, which I'd really like to visit... a coincidental reminder of which was the fortuitous running into of a former co-worker from Eiken's Summer School (side note: I'm still on the front page of that site, all the way to the right of the picture. Weird), while at some crazy cheap restaurant in Boston (I know, what are the odds).

Thus from the sighting of a misty, slightly foggy morning did I get to a feeling of nostalgia for travelling to Japan. It's bizarre how weather can make you reminisce like that. But more than just going back to Tokyo, I'd like to have the opportunity to visit around a bit. I haven't been to the south of Japan in a while, and have some friends living down there. Perhaps I should pay them a visit. But I'd also like to check out the more rural areas to the north, where it snows generously in the winter. I think that would provide me with some temporary satiation for my occasional wanderlust. Now to think about when and how I could get there... It's both exciting and depressing to think that I've arrived at a point in my life where my imperatives dictate when and where I can travel, and what I can do with my time. But hey, it's quite clear to my at this point that I'd much rather be too busy, than not busy enough.

On that note, and perhaps ironically (in light of my last statement), I should really consider changing out of my bathrobe, getting my ass out of my chair, and going to buy some food. Unfortunately, our kitchen is beyond salvation at this point, and the men behind the mess have buggered off for the weekend. Conundrum...
I suppose I'll just make them suffer when they come back...

Christmas (philosophical) jam in St Catz!

2006-10-11T12:06:00.000Z

If you read this blog, are into philosophy and have some free time on the weekend of friday 15th to sunday 17th december, and of course live (or can travel to) the UK, I strongly recommend that you come down to the British Undergraduate Philosophy Society's 2006 Winter Conference, which will be held at the gorgeous St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and the the keynote speaker will be Cambridge's own Professor Simon Blackburn.

The amazing part is that this conference will cost the delegate approximately the same price the BUPC registration costs, despite the fact that most Oxbridge colleges were asking for at least the double. This is thanks to the generosity of St Catz (and the fantastic cooperation of its Junior Bursar, Stuart McLellan). So hopefully we'll manage to find enough delegates and authors across the UK to make this conference worth the place it's being held in (although I have little doubt it will be).

Anywhooo, if you're interested, check out the Call for papers. Don't hesitate to pass it along to your friends/colleagues/faculty. Hopefully, you'll consider registering for the event, and perhaps even submit a paper yourself. In any case, get in touch if you have any questions. Hope to see some of you there!

Foggy Weather

2006-10-11T11:36:00.000Z

I'm not that passionate about weather, really. I'm not too keen for really sunny afternoons, although it is nice to sit in the park with a hat on your head, some corona, and a book. I'm not a huge fan of rain, especially when I'm under it without cover, but I have to admit it'd not unpleasant, being inside on a rainy day, with the light on, my bathrobe donned, and something good to read in the warmth of my room. Not much love for snow either: fresh, it's cold as hell and ends up getting you wet, and after two days of urban existence, it turns into the most vile, dark slush possible. But I must say few things match the experience of drying out in a chalet with cinnamon Glühwein, and seeing a dark cloud pouring snow down, or standing under a lamppost on a dark snowy night, and seeing how the light plays with the flakes as they come down (pro-tip: wear a hat, or the experience suddenly goes downhill). But it must be said: there is one type of of weather I'm an absolute sucker for, and that's fog. Fog is just amazing. Not the heavy kind that drenches you in 5 minutes, or the wimpy light kind that's accompanied by drizzle, but nice, thick fog. The kind that wraps around you so that you can barely see ten paces down the road, and all the streetlights become nothing more than diffused orbs, and people come and go into the thick mass like shadows, as if there were nothing more to the world but what you can see.

I love how the imagination works in the fog. In hiding all that is unsightly, and blurring all that might be, it leaves the formation of the external world to the mind. Walking down a stone-wall-lined back alley near Endcliffe Crescent, you could almost expect a victorian gentleman in a top hat and black cloak to just walk by, or be in Elizabethan England, and be walking along perimeter of some estate, or just pretty much be anywhere you want to be. The fog makes the world like a book, makes the world anything you want to see, and I think that's pretty damn good stuff, for something which is basically just water.

Anyway, enough crazy ranting about fog. Back to some fun reading about Nuclear Physics while listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "The Lost Christmas Eve", as the rain batters my skylight, and rattles on the roof.

Hunter would be proud

2006-10-08T23:57:00.000Z

Jesus Christ, what a night. Hunter S. Thompson would be proud. Well... or at least he'd dig it. While we didn't exactly engage a multi-drug orgy (well) or wake up in a flooded room with a Godzilla tail attached (thank f*ck for that), it was pretty epic in terms of smashed decadence, and general student excess. I believe over the course of the night, probably over 60 or 70 people came through the house, we most certainly had at least 40 people in the house at once (based on my estimate early-ish in the evening, while I was still capable of counting to 10 or more). Highlights of the evening involved being tackled by physical-chemists and duct-taped to the guard rail of our staircase and having to escape at the cost of great epilation-style pain, being shot at with Liam's BB shotgun, shooting Mike with it (and missing), drinking champagne at midnight with Paul (whose birthday it was, as well... he came over with all his friends) in Jez's room, seeing how many people would fit into mine, climbing up into those crazy little alcoves above our stairs and being too drunk to get down (but managing somehow), hugging loads of people, vowing to walk to the park an watch the sunrise with a J and some beer, then deciding to go to bed early for the good of humanity, and finally, sleeping until 2 o'clock and waking up feeling fine (funny how that happens when you commit the most unhealthy excesses, eh?).

It's been a good party. Quite a good party indeed (to mimic Inspector Fowler)! Alas I must return to my academic (and other) duties. Quite a harsh week ahead, probably going to be very stressful, as my curricular and extra-curricular workload are particularly heavy these next 10 days. And on that note, I think I'll make the wide decision of hitting the hay, so as to get my usual 6½ hours of sleep per day. Toodles!

Woah... um... yeah....

2006-10-07T09:11:00.000Z

I don't see why people in the UK make such a big deal about turning 21... I mean, 18's a big step since you're legally an adult, and I'd see 20 as somewhat symbolic since you're no longer a teen. But 21...? Maybe it has something to do with how they're currently slowly turning into the 51st state. Anywhooo, come to think of it, the weird part of it all isn't necessarily the "turning 21" part, but more remembering the time where I was 4, or 5, in the states, and thought that I'd never turn 21, let alone make it to 12th grade (merely because it was "so far away"). In fact once I remember getting pissed off because some friend got transfered from class 2 to class 12, and I thought they were letting her skip all the grades (and thus, naturally, she wouldn't have to go to school. A child's mind is always so pragmatic). But yeah, 21 seemed miles away.

So what's it going to change? Well, I'm sure it means I can run for some crazy office in some countries, and of course, I can drink in the US (errrr... yay?), but other than that it's just one more birthday.

Goodnight, sweet phone

2006-10-03T23:48:00.000Z

Ladies and gentlemen, my cell phone is dying. It has reached the winter of its existence, and the faint flow of its battered screen is the last remaining witness, the last remnant indicator of the telecommunicative glory that this device once was. As days go by, it becomes harder and hard to read, like an aching beast battling to retain the last few gasps of fresh air it can get before it finally expires. Wounded by god knows what, beyond healing, it fearfully awaits its dusk, its night eternal, the day where I will pick its replacement and move on beyond morning, facing fresh life with new mobile partner. Dear phone, I raise my glass to thee.

RIP Sony-Ericsson K750i 2005-2006...

Back on the internets!

2006-09-30T09:36:00.000Z

Man oh man, it's good to be back on the 'net at home. Lemme just get this out of the way then: if you're in the UK, don't go with BT. Broadband being set up should not involve 10+ phone calls and a two-week delay...

Anyway, moving on. So much has been done in the past few weeks, so I'll stick to the really recent stuff. It's term time again! After the summer I've had (especially the last two/three weeks), it's a welcome change. Of course, it means I have added constraints on my timetable and have to get up early (occasionally), but I can live with that. My new courses are quite groovy as well, and a rather heteroclite bunch that range from the really easy, such as programming (managed to finish the first 5/6 weeks of lab work the day before the first lab, which frees up my thursday afternoons for a while), to the really hard, such as nuclear physics (which is expectable, I suppose), to the really interesting, such as philosophy of maths (Bob Hale has a hypnotic voice, too). Plus, if I play my cards right (and am prepared to write a dissertation of Xmas), I can get away with having only two 10-credit exams this semester, which would be quite a treat. In other (academic) news, I've just been assigned my physics project today, which will be to design a 10 lecture course for 3rd years on a general physics topic. Whoop-dee-doo... At least it's theoretical (in that it will involve no labs... will it?).

In terms of extracurricular work, I'll probably have enough to keep busy as well. As ~~victim~~ chair of the British Undergraduate Philosophy Society (Facebook link), I'll be spending the next few weeks trying to set a date and venue for our next conference, and get the ball rolling... As well as checking in on some other projects (all currently in the expert hands of people who know what they're doing).
I've also founded a local Wittgenstein Reading Group (Facebook link), to read through the Philosophical Investigations (which we could have done as a module, but the professor teaching it retired), based on recommendations by my pal Robbie (props).
Finally, I can imagine the usual SSC stuff will take a bit of my time. Aaaah it's nice to feel active again.

On the personal front, all is well (I believe). I've actually gotten off m'lazy arse and joined the gym (hell, might even go today). The house is nice, too. I have the smallest room, but it has the biggest storage space (which in the end works out for the best) as well as the most pimpin' skylight (I can't say that with a straight face), and unlike last year, a really great wireless signal (which, knowing me, is a necessity). Now the internet is working reasonably well, let's hope it stays like this.

Righto, enough dilly-dallying about. It's nearly 10:30 am, and that means it's time for sweet sweet espresso (of which I need to order more) + breakfast.

Damn Straight, Steve!

2006-09-02T16:18:00.000Z

Work work work. Still need to finish writing this presentation for the BUPC. Loads of stuff on the side. No rest for the wicked.

I was watching the WWDC keynote the other day, and have nothing more to say than the obvious "wow". Amazing stuff.

Speaking of which, I've just come across this video, after a few days of reading comparisons between Vista and Leopard (no contest, if you ask me), and what Steve is saying in this video still strikes me as amazingly true.

Click here to expand movie player.

There. I hadn't posted anything on this blog that clearly identified me as a machead. Mission complete.

Poor Chrysler: We hardly knew ye...

2006-08-27T23:29:00.000Z

Man. Who knew putting together a conference could be so tiring? (answer: a lot of people, it's fairly obvious, and I'm probably stupid for asking myself the question). Have just (3 days) been asked to give a 5000 word~ talk on the first night of the conference (friday 8th) on a work/research in progress, and had to give the title off the top of my head. So it looks like I'll be giving a talk on whether or not language is contingent or or conventional (a cheeky jab at Chomsky, through the exclusion of "necessary", I suppose... although something could well be conventional and necessarily so, although that doesn't really fit the bill for universal grammar). Gotta re-read my notes on the matter, and try and fit that particular debate into a presentation on my research interests, and make it seem plausible, and make it seem non-boring... sheesh. I've got work to do (and was not expecting a deadline before the start of term.

In other news, I've finally got the respondents, and the final version of the programme sorted out (lightweight version available here). It's nice to see so many budging academics being so ready to help, and to be able to rely on them for some good quality philosophy I certainly cannot always produce (at least not for such a variety and depth of topics).

Moving on. Got the vacation pictures sorted out.
Click here to see them...

No, I had no idea the arrow was pointing to me at the time. I'm not that narcissistic.

'Tis only a flesh... errrrr oil wound.

The other car (aka "Chickenfuckermobile").

From Newton's First Law: "[...] objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless an outside force acts upon them".
I'm not lazy, I'm a physicist.

My new cousin Liuba and I, demonstrating our obvious resemblance. I've got a PhD in Pout-ology. She's still going for the BSc in Pout Studies.

A series of (really rather) unfortunate events

2006-08-22T00:43:00.000Z

Ever get that feeling that everything is going wrong, whatever you do? Well, that sort of feeling is always an exaggeration to a certain degree, except this time that degree is a little smaller than usual.

The setting: Atlantic Coast of France, somewhere between Talmont and Thaims (are these places even on the map?).
When: Errrr, last thursday.

We were driving back from a series of Roman ruins ("Le site du Fâ") in our trust Chrysler voyager (my father at the wheel, me in what the french call "the seat of death", and loads of kids in the back), and we come down at a regular speed towards an intersection where we have right of way, but those having to yield (coming from the left) have little visibility of the oncoming road to the right (and must stop accordingly). Some jerk decided the law didn't concern him, cut us off at a what I'd call a "beyond cruising speed", and the inevitable crash happened, sending us ploughing into our airbags and him, his fat wife and fat kid (seriously) flying into the ditch (180 degree turn and all). Fortunately no one was seriously hurt (a bit of a stiff neck for the next few hours, and some bruises) but our good ol' Chrysler is no more.

Three days later, we're at the beach. My brother had bought one of these cool new skim boards and was playing with it on the sand. My mother wanted to try, my brother gives her the talk about it being more dangerous than it seems and requiring proper stretching, she insists and next thing you know, she's being whisked off the hospital with a severely broken right-wrist (being right-handed), where she still is at this time (having been operated upon sunday night).

Same day, my sister goes out with her bike (the non-motorised kind) to pick some blackberries, only to return with loads of (thankfully non-serious cuts) all across her, having fallen into the blackberry bramble with her bike.

To add some spice to things, there are a few (possibly viral) strains going around the house, with two boys who were visiting the other day displaying symptoms of gastroenteritis (and having seemingly passed them on to at least one or two people), and my sister's friend Margaux having had weird flu-like symptoms for the last week (touch wood that we won't get some o' that).

And to put the cherry on top, I had to whisk off to Paris this (monday) morning to take care of some BUPC-related work (of which there is a lot), and am now going to take the earliest train back down to Saintes, with my laptop and workload, to continue in our summer house (with a crappy 56k connection) and tend to my aching family members.

Other than that (which is a lot) we still manage to have a rather smashing time, with some occasional warm sunny days at the beach, and good food, and good company.

Life could be better, but it's still pretty damn good (which is easier to say when you're not the one with a broken wrist or car to replace).

Be kind to your web-footed friend

2006-08-10T11:58:00.000Z

Not that there's any particular need to apologize, but sorry for the stint of absence on my part. I've spent the last few days oscillating between the couch and the router (with occasional jogs in Versailles). Nothing too exciting.

The couch serves the purpose of providing a reading and writing space for my BUPC-related correspondence. Had one hell of a day processing all the submissions (an activity rendered much less painful by my helpful assistant for this task), reviewers, and getting it all to work (hopefully). One of my pet-peeves when I used to live back here (or anywhere, but the french administration and its love of red tape seems to best express this feature) was being impeded in my enjoyment of everyday life by base incompetence. Well, it is now I am on the other side of the fence, in being surrounded by people who not only do their job(s) well, but are keen to do so, that I realize that the opposite also holds to be quite true: it's very soothing to see things go smoothly.

So all's good in that hood. The router thing, however, is another matter. We've gone through quite a few netgears, and I've become well acquainted with the (thriving and friendly) netgear-gone-wrong support community, but to no avail. Fact of the matter is, our phone lines are archaic, and our router is fitted with a crappy over-sensitive Texas Instruments (who make damn good programmable calcs, go Ti89+!) chipset which reboots the damn thing every twenty minutes or so. We ordered one of those nifty Linksys WRT54Gs (that you can tinker with the firmware of) to replace it. Hopefully that'll be less stressful to deal with. Fixing the damn thing just sucks my energy away, meaning I haven't been so good with my reading as of late.

In other news, I had to go to the doctor a few days ago, on my mother's orders, because I've had a tickly cough since June. He put me on 8 different meds (mostly anti-allergic stuff) and wants me to have a blood test... ugh. Hate the damn things. The meds taste like crap too (and I'm not a huge fan of putting all that crap in my body).

But no worries, I can get faulty routers and vampiric needles out of my head for a few days, 'cause I'm a-headin' down south(-west) to our summer home in Cozes, to catch some rays on the beach with my buddies Swann and Eduardo, and his mother Helene (also a good friend). So life's good in the end... I just flippin' hate this 19th-century grade house.

Ooh, and one more thing: I got published again, but this time it's a paper, not a book review (Free e-copy of this edition here. *PDF warning*). Yay.

Paris vaut bien une messe...

2006-07-22T13:18:00.000Z

I thought Easton, Pittsburgh and DC were bad enough, but it's actually just as hot here in Paris. You'd think that thick stone walls and leafy shade would prevent that, but in fact... not really.

My parents and sister are down in the south of France, or were, as they are now on the atlantic coast for my grandmothers' errrr... 72nd birthday? Anywhooo, I would have sort of liked to go down to our summer house in Cozes as well, but I didn't want to spend three hours in the train for just a weekend. Plus, my friend Liam from Sheffield is in town, so I might hang out with him a bit (as my friend Eduardo is at his girlfriend's all weekend), but so far no luck: he's not answering his cell phone, and I'm rather bad at answering my landline. It's sort of sad when a man becomes more reliably reachable by IM or email than by phone.

But back to the heat. It really takes the energy straight out of you. I have loads I want to do, including getting a hair cut, but the prospect of sitting 45 minutes in a non-air conditioned commuter train to go to Paris and get a haircut in a decent place is a bit daunting. It's a bit funny that, being rather fond of having my hair long and slightly ruffled (blatant understatement), I'm still so picky when it comes to haircuts. The reason, I guess, is that when your hair is long there's a rather large gray area when it comes to how it looks. I mean, either you don't look good at all with long hair, or you look okay-ish to good. Whereas for short hair a bad haircut is instantly noticeable. Less artistic license, har har. Nonetheless, I'll try to brave the heat and go into town one of these days, if anything, to have lunch/dinner with my grandmother (when she comes back up) or with Jim & Millie (my godfather and his spouse). Or maybe with my grandfather. We'll see.

Other than that, I have loads to do here. The first step towards actually doing some of that load is bit difficult though, and involves resisting the temptation to play DoD all afternoon. My friend Eduardo brough his (quite powerful) PC up to Paris with him, and it now resides in my room. After two years of having a Mac (G*d bless it) which not only helps me work efficiently, but also prevents me from feeding my gaming addiction, I now realize that playing a few rounds is probably equivalent to sticking a needle back into your arm after two years off smack (previous statement not from personal experience).

I had to get off m'arse on thursday to revise/edit a paper I wrote on qualia and epiphenomenalism, which I have been informed would be published in the next edition of the British Journal of Undergraduate Philosophy (finally... got something published other than a philosophical book review). Aside from that, I've got loads of papers (quite a few courtesy of Yorick Wilks) to read and/or re-read, as well as some books on Linguistics, and K&R's White Book on C, all of which I hope to get through before the summers' over. Over a month left. I think it'll be fine.

That's about all there is to say for now. Time for a cold bath, a book, and a beer. Even with work to do and humid heatwaves, life is pretty damn good.

Peace.

Where geeks congregate

2006-07-22T10:40:00.000Z

Whew. Got some catching up to do on this whole blogging thing. Quick summary of the past two weeks:

On the weekend on the 8th (of July) I went up to Boston to visit MIT, where I'd like to do some [post]grad research. I was shown around by a friendly local postdoc, Hugo Liu, who was kind enough spare some time and give me an eccentric tour of campus (Hugo: "So... this is the green building. A few people kill themselves here every year". Me: "That's... nice"), including the media labs, and answer my boring ol' questions. We had lunch and a chat. He's a truly fascinating guy. Consider yourselves lucky if you know him. Peace out, Hugo.

But let's get back to the Media Lab part. As a potential philosophy postgrad, I'd have nothing to do there (or would I... I mean if I could justify my presence there, well... score.) but as a self-confessed geek, it's probably the closest thing to heaven you can get (in life or death). Being quite a tech-blog aficionado (or at least very keen for them), it was a treat to be able to see all the crazy-cool inventions you'd read about just lying around, semi-finished, on tables with notes and leaflets and whatnot. It was quite the experience...

Following a brief return to DC, I went up to Pittsburgh for a week, spending time with my Grandparents, my Aunt Mary Jane, and my cousin Conor. It was nice to see Pittsburgh again (after what... two years almost?). I even got to visit my former neighbour (and babysitter) Erica, and dine at Ol' Max & Erma's, for old times' sake. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I would have gotten no work done there... not that I'm doing that much now, either. But more about that in my next post...

Word up.

DC: Behind the Scenes

2006-07-07T01:59:00.000Z

I'm currently spending a few days in DC with my cousins and aunt and uncle (and father and sister). My cousin Bridget is an intern at the White House, so we made plans to have lunch and visit some of the buildings not accessible to the public. Lunch was great, but what was even better was that her boss got me access to the Old Executive Office Building (not open to the public), where most of the senior staffers work. That was pretty impressive, and the architecture (both inside and out) was beautiful (and very french, hon hon). After that, I visited the Decatur House, which was fairly cool.

Next, my cousin's boss got me access to the White House for a departure. We got to stand next to the White House door as Marine One landed.

Click here to expand the landing pictures.

Then Bush came out, just a few steps away from me. It's no secret I'm not a huge fan of the guy, but it was pretty damn weird seeing a scene you'd usually see on your TV screen happen at a distance where the only thing preventing your from leaning out and pun...err touching the guy is the sniper bullet you'd get for doing something so intensly stupid. (Disclaimer: This is but jest. Political debate is done with words, not fists. Plus... I dislike cheap jabs. Please don't kill me, Secret Service people...).

Pictures of The Man himself:

Click here to expand the Bush pictures.

A caption which comes to mind is Ace Ventura's "A**holes in the mirror [lens] may be closer than they appear..." I kid, I kid. Again, SS peeps, please don't hunt me down.

We also had some time to take a few pictures of us in front of the White House. Pretty good day all around. Quite an experience, I must say...

Click here to see the rest of the pictures.Here are some more pictures:

Bush's dogs: Barney and Mrs. Ihaveknowfrigginclue.

My cousin Bridget and I in front of the south lawn.

Me, in front of the White House.

Bridget, ditto.

Bridget and I, ditto.

That's all for now folks.

News from the Bay

2006-07-07T00:36:00.000Z

Got back from Easton (Chesapeake Bay) yesterday.

I had a really great week of just lazing about across a house roughly five or six times the size of mine, with pool, hotub, and people cooking for us and bringing us drink. You'd think this extremely opulent lifestyle might be morally objectionable, but it turns out the considering the good company and the good wine, it's suprisingly not.

Anywhooo, not much exciting happened (no explosions, man eating sharks, magical racoons), and what did happen isn't of much concern or interest for people outside the family (then again, does anyone outside the family actually read this thing?).

Amusing anecdote though...
One morning, I woke up and went down to breakfast. One of the caterers greeted me with "There's a Scottish Man outside serving ice cream". I must admit my first thought was that either I was not completely awake, or that he was on crack, but as it turns out...

Click here to see more selected pictures.And now, for more pictures from the Bay:
The house, as seen from the bay.

Who's that sexy beast?

Conor catches up on some World Cup action.

The "adults" take the pool...

... and the "kids" claim it back.

Ben: about to discover that you can't really see anything underwater in the hot tub.

Ellie: The best fishergirlie ever. Beginner's luck, or natural talent?

Who on earth needs two boats?

Carol attempting to get everyone's attention.

Everyone, not paying attention.

What the hell, Sofia?

2006-06-25T17:51:00.000Z

Yessiree, life is good in Grenoble. But no time to write about that... Let me just say this: I unfortunately suffered my biggest cinematographic disappointment today. I went to see Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette with very high expectations. After all, Sofia Coppola is an absolutely fantastic director whose past work I've greatly enjoyed, and Kirsten Dunst is a good actress (and incidentally features as #3 on my list of supremely beautiful women I will probably never sleep with).

However I found the film to be, despite good acting, well thought-out casting, and some great photography, extremely boring. This comes as a complete surprise, as Lost in Translation doesn't have much action either, but I believe it to be quite the masterpiece. However this film was just slow moving and boring, to the point where I walked out 3/4 of the way out, not wanting to waste much more time (plus, y'sorta know what's going to happen at the end). Quite a shocker, given the wealth of content to write about. Marie-Antoinette being quite an interesting historical character, I regret that Sofia Coppola was unable to display her usual talent in painting a moving picture of her.

Actually, that's a bit unfair. I think everything was excellent except for the absence of a hook to keep the movie interesting (and I dont' really require that much). Cinematographic Parnassianism just doesn't work when it's pushed to the extreme.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2006-06-22T16:28:00.000Z

Hey hey... I'm currently in the airport terminal, waiting for my plane back to Paris. Somehow I stumbled onto a wifi network offering free internet. Funny thing is, I really did just stumble upon it... honest. I can't send email from Mail.app but everything else works. Anyway, never look a gift horse in the mouth, life is good (and I can feed my addiction to checking my mail/stocks/forums/weird hat fetish site/etc...)

I moved out today. It'd been a good year in Brandreth Close. It's also been a painfully annoying one in some ways which I won't go into here. So no regrets, but I think I have pretty good reasons to look forward to next term, for house-related reasons, and others as well. Should be good.

But first, summer time! Gonna go down to Grenoble visit some good friends this weekend, then back up to Paris for a few days, then over to Easton for a few days, then up to Boston for a few days (to visit the city, and check out MIT), then back to France again for a month and a half of reading, writing, and preparing a conference. T'will be smashing.

Woops, time to go. Boarding call. See you all later!

Last items on the checklist

2006-06-21T00:58:00.001Z

Phew! Finally got everything packed up and up in the new house, with the help of my housemate Lex. We also had those bastards from the Broomhill Property Shop come by for a visit today. Put in plain words, they are are quite a bunch of dishonest rectal orifices (in polite terms), with the possible exception the their secretaries. If you're in Sheffield and are looking for a house, I strongly recommend that you steer clear of them, as they're money-grabbing conmen (well... perhaps that's a bit harsh, but really only by a few notches).

So I cleaned my room out today, and am getting ready to leave. I'm really looking forward to moving into a house which doesn't look like a converted youth hostel, with a working wireless connection, and without the bloody soulless lying idiot of a landlord. In a few days, I'll be kicking back and relaxing in Grenoble and in Paris. Good times...

Socks on the Windowsill

2006-06-18T11:02:00.000Z

Not wanting to break the established paradigm set by weeks of whining about exams, I feel it is my duty to do likewise about the current task at hand. If there's one thing I hate more than administrative work, and bit less than exams, it's moving/packing. I've had to do it quite a few times, but the last few times were particularly annoying/stressful (mainly because I had to actually do some work, instead of watching my parents pack up the house while I put a few belongings and my teddy bear into my little backpack).

I always feel it is more difficult for me than it is for my housemates and friends. Their parents come along with their big cars, and they literally stuff their things straight from their room into the boot and drive off to their homes where they can stockpile it for the summer until they move back. I, on the other hand, have to play an intricate game of three dimensional tetris, in that I must tightly pack all my belongings into a few boxes and suitcases. Furthermore, I also have to find a place to stash all this rubbish. Last year I somehow managed to bring part of my belongings home, and put the rest into boxes in the cellar of my former hall of residence. Alas that is no longer an option, and I have had to come up with an alternate solution, which was to stash all my belonging in the cellar of next year's house (with the permission of the current outgoing tenants and that of the landlord). However, next year's house is about a mile away, up very very steep hills all the way (think San Francisco). Considering that, and the fact I have more stuff this year than the last, and that I can't actually carry some of the boxes I packed, a car is very much needed. To not help things, I can't rent one here, and none of my friends have one available. I reckon it would require about 4 taxi rides, so forth and back, that would add up to a cost of about £40 ($80... ouch). I'll work something out, I think. But this is by all means not a very pleasant time.

And as the little added extra, I have to clean my room and part of the house, and it's bloody hot and humid.

Bugger.

Football and more Colleges

2006-06-15T22:32:00.000Z

I watched the England match in a proper pub today, and got a first-hand taste of the traditionally english yobbery. People got seriously worked up when England wasn't scoring, and when England snatched a last-minute 2-0, many nearly burst into tears of joy, then prompty either vomited or broke out into fights due to the considerably amount of alcohol ingested. The match itself was not exceptional, nor was my enthusiasm for it in the first place, but despite being glad to leave, I considered it all to be a rather spiffing experience... one that I shan't commit to again, I think.

After the match, I was supposed to go have dinner with Yorick at the Fellows' Dinner at Balliol College. Unfortunately, he was feeling ill this morning, and we had to cancel. Not that I really mind... I mean, this was really la cerise sur le gateau for this visit (plus, I didn't expect it either), and he's already treated me to two college lunches, and I managed to accomplish what I came to Oxford for (visiting colleges), so no worries. Maybe next time...

Speaking of colleges, I visited a few more colleges today, including Christ Church (for the third time, now). Christ Church is truly lovely, and leaves me hesitating which ones to ask for in my application. Naturally my first concern should be actually getting into Oxford, but as far as that goes, it's all pretty much alea jacta est for me. I might re-write and expand some past papers to submit as writing samples, and I'll have some time to beef up my CV a bit, but as far as exams go, all I can do is pray that the most recent ones went well 'cause I'll have had all my marks (seeing as I won't have received next term's exam marks by the time my application is processed). After that, should I be accepted, all further marks will only go towards getting a scholarship and/or AHRB funding.

But back to colleges. So few choices, so many to choose. I think I'll apply for University College as first choice, followed by Christ Church as second, although I might go for Balliol as second. They're all really nice, and offer interesting scholarships. University College, though, offers more for my profile, and usually offers two years of in college accomodation, at least. Tempting, tempting... I bet there's a hell of a lot of competition for it, though. Although at least one of the college fellows specialises in my area of interest, so maybe that will help. Wait and see, I guess. I'll be well chuffed if I get accepted by the university at all, so I can't really be picky (although I would "loathe", well not really, but "like a bit less" to be stuck in a modern graduate only college... a bit less fun, isn't it).

Oh well, back to Sheffield tomorrow. Gotta pack up over the weekend, and get my boxes to my new house. Ugh, I really hate moving and packing up. Gotta be done. And then, it's off to Paris, then off to Grenoble, then off to Paris, then off to the US, and then off to Paris again for a summer of cramming, working, writing, applying, reading, and lazing about...

Freedom and Colleges

2006-06-13T22:43:00.000Z

Finally free from the culling crush of exams, I've been spending the last few days sleeping in and being fairly useless. I somehow managed to forgo the completion of any non-BUPC-related to-dos (namely preparing to move), and am probably going to be looking forward to a pretty stressful week starting friday. Yay.

But until then, it's relaxation time. I took a train to Oxford yesterday (monday), where I will be spending a few days relaxing and enjoying the company of people smarter than I. So far it's been a nice change of pace from exams: last night, I went out for drinks with a few students from Magdalen College School, and greatly enjoyed the impressive knowledge of all subjects (including my own) they had to display. Then today I took a stroll around Jericho (not the one on the West Bank), had lunch with Yorick at Balliol College, where I am considering applying for postgraduate studies (well technically one really only applies to the department, and college applications are a pastoral matter). It was a bit more "modern" than I expected, having been considerably rebuilt at the end of the 19th, and during the 20th centuries (think Princeton-type architecture... it's not bad), but still quite pleasing (although not as quaint as some other genuinely older buildings, like those of Christ Church or Magdalen, which are absolutely gorgeous). I also got a quick-ish visit of the Oxford Internet Institute, which served as a convenient backdoor into Balliol.

On top of that, there was must discussion on Language and potential PhD (or hopefully DPhil) topics going around. I got to read through a rather quirky yet not uninteresting draft of a paper discussing (or perhaps just postulating) philosophical musings on matters of computational linguistics. Just two days ago, I doubt I would have ever predicted I would be keen on doing so so soon after the exams, but I admit it was quite an enjoyable experience.

Oxford is indeed a beautiful place, perhaps the most beautiful city I've visited anywhere. This statement could, of course, be linked to the good company and glorious weather (perhaps a bit hot on monday, but brief rainshowers today really brought it back down to a tolerable level). But then again, old buildings, canals, people in weird robes, loads of pedestrian streets, good schools, good colleges, bizarre shops, loads of public lectures and concerts, and all this only 45 minutes away from London... I think such statements are not entirely unfounded. I truly hope I get a place here for postgraduate studies. Time to start bribi...errr preparing applications.

Call of the Sirens

2006-06-05T08:59:00.000Z

First of all, if you have a minute, check out the galleries on Garret Izumi's Website. A rather a brilliant photographer, he did a wondeful series of black and white stills of air raid sirens in LA. I appreciate the sense of silence and static I get from his shots, which contrasts quite well with the blaring tone the sirens must once have produced. Good stuff, give it a look.

Other noteworthy snapshot worth a looksie are those of Olly Dack, from the UK. I've included, with his permission, a few pictures of his I think are particularily noteworthy (don't forget to click on them to see them in full size).

I really liked this one, not only because I'm a sucker for old stone, but because it provides an interesting sense of depth. Have you ever been in a cathedral and had a slight spell of vertigo when looking straight up? The slight fuzziness of the flag in the foreground, and receding darkness of the ceiling create a satisfactorily realistic sense of immersion, something I find frequenly lacking in amateur photography.

It's fair to say, I think, that close-ups are one of Olly's fortés. The tone of this picture draw the eye to the sharply defined centre of the flower, while the periphery of the petals (and, more understandably, the background) shift out of focus, replicating a certain sense of natural vision.

It wouldn't be a complete blog post without my friend Jez's hideous face. On a more serious note, I once more appreciate the focus brought by the colouration of the pupils, which give an impression of intentionality you don't always get from your average portrait. Although the natural focal point is the eyes, the actual object of the picture seems to lie outside the boundaries of the frame. The eye tends to follow the subjects gaze, giving the whole picture a sense of motion, of dynamism which is enhanced by the contrast in luminosity, and the forward-leaning of the head. A brilliant picture, although the man could use a shave (although who am I to talk of facial hair)...

I haven't included them here since I wanted to focus mostly on the black and white shots, but do checkout his wildlife series, which display a certain knack for capturing things in motion well. Some very impressive and promising work there...

NB: Pictures in this post are © Olly Dack.

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M...

2006-06-01T00:23:00.000Z

... except it's thursday, and thank god it's not 3AM yet, and I'm already ready to hit the hay...

If in 10+ years someone stupid enough to ask me for advice asks me when I first started feeling like a student/academic, I'd probably answer "When I found myself underslept, half-conscious, covered in pages of scrawled notes, lying on my book-strewn unsheeted bed with the desklight on, and with a strong desire to die (... to sleep, perchance to dream) while nursing a half empty glass of liquor" and it would be half true.

Productive day, actually. Got my exam essay plans done, and I'm pretty happy with them. Now I need to start researching my philosophy of mind papers. Looks like I might actually be able to fit everything into my schedule nicely.

On a side note: I'm very sad to announce that my iPod nano did not survive its brave encounter with the washing machine.
A silent tribute...

Edit: I know, I know, I got the date wrong. The first date should be "25/12/05". Can't edit it now, because I saved without layers, and I'm shite with this sort of thing. My bad.

On a more serious note, gotta wait till I get back to France to get it fixed. Damn specific warranty papers... Oh well. It's my fault, really...

Beautiful day + Stuck Inside = Daily Deal during exam week

2006-05-30T10:33:00.000Z

I'm quite certain the weather's taunting me. I woke up at 6am, because of the sunlight. When I was awoken again (by my alarm) it was beautiful outside, nice and warm with a sky that you'd see on a daily basis in Provence. Not a cloud in the sky. I wouldn't have been half surprised to see birds merrily flutter together and form the words "Ha ha you have an exam"...

The exam went okay-ish, but definitely could have gone a lot better (I know I say that a lot, but here it's really true... I think). Ironically I did quite well on the part I thought was really hard (atomic spectra) and found the part which I usually aced on past exam papers near impossible. Weird.

Oh well, wait and see. Now I have to start revising for the Solid State Physics exam, start researching my papers for Mind, and write my papers for Reference and truth. Ugh... not gonna be a fun week.

PS: I added a link to this blog's RSS feed, so if you're into that whole "keeping track" thing, you can just add this link to your feed aggregator and enjoy my whining as it comes (ie fairly frequently).

Late nights and clean iPods

2006-05-27T12:20:00.000Z

I thought it'd be fun to go out to the library at midnight last night, and see how long I could work, and how productive I'd be. I stayed there a little over two hours, and managed to read through most of what I needed for my first philosophy exam (all the remains is a paper by S. Laurence and I should have enough to write up a draft plan). It felt like a very productive two hours, perhaps because I stumbled across R Keefe's book on Vagueness while looking for another one in the to-be-reshelved bookshelves, and it pretty much had everything I wanted in terms of objections to the theory of vagueness I'm... well, objecting to.

Sleep felt pretty nice after that.

Moving on though... You know how you always seem to leave cash in your pocket, and it comes out looking extremely clean? You know how they (namely your mother) warn you (hypothetically, if you don't own one of these) that iPod nanos are so small they'd probably be easy to use, and you protest by saying "don't worry, I'll make sure I always know where it is"? Connect the two stories, and you'll probably see where this is going. Yesterday, I was listening to my nano to and from the library. It's slim, so it conveniently fits in my shirt pocket, and is almost unnoticeable. This morning, while still groggy from a short night's sleep, I threw my shirt into my washbag, and the contents of the washbag into the washing machine. Result: one very, very clean iPod nano. It doesn't look damaged, but won't turn on. Then again the battery was very low last night, so I reckon there's just need for a little jumpstart with a power cable. Pretty stupid of me, though...

Keeping Balance

2006-05-26T17:01:00.000Z

I talk about it a lot, but I'm not really one to believe in karma. However I do think there's a certain balance to things, namely opposing actions. For example, friction relates to air velocity, momentum relates to mass, and the chance of me getting fat(ter) relate to how much nutella I eat (I have non-too-subtle feeling I'm going to be put on a fruit-and-veg' diet and dragged out jogging every morning, this summer, to get rid of "exam gut").

There are more subtle balances observable too. How much I tidy my room is inversely proportional to my productivity, which is (no joke) inversely proportional to my workload and the immediacy of the deadline (which is why my room is generally spick-spack around exam time). Fortunately my academic glands kick in at some point and break the chain of despair. This sort of reflex is known in the medical world as "last-minute-panic-itis". (NB: If you're from an admissions board and God hates me enough to have let you read this, I am of course joking).

Other examples would also include the quantity of nutella consumed increasing exponentially as exam time approaches, or how the amount of practical jokes* played seems proportional to the amount of stress experienced by the house.

So yes, it seems like there is fairly clear evidence that there is some sort of balance in nature. If this is true, though, then why the hell can't our examination board act 'naturally' and balance out the exams across the exam period, instead of bunching them up for me across a few days like little temporal nuggets of hatred. Thanks guys.

It's over in 10 days. It's over in 10 days. It's over in 10 days. It's over in 10 d....

* Click here to for the full story...* Addendum: As an act of revenge for my aforementioned predicament, it was decided that a little joke would be played on our housemate Jez. Surprisingly enough, I had no involvement in this dastardly plot whatsoever. While he was out shopping for food, a bucket of water was brought up to his room (conveniently placed above the entrance to our house), filled with lukewarm water, and placed near the window. I'm sure you can guess what happened when Jez arrived at the doorway, fumbling to get his key in the lock. Needless to say, he didn't need a shower that day (but took one anyway). Good times.

It could be worse...

2006-05-25T15:30:00.000Z

It's one of those typical british summer days. Beautiful sunny blue sky, with high-up fluffy clouds, birds shrilly chirping, and general warmth and temperate weather. It's the sort of day that makes you wish you were outside in a park, drinking corona with lime, or Pimm's, and relaxing on the lawn. Unfortunately, with the damn exams around the corner, it's not exactly a luxury one can afford, unless he/she is abnormally nonchalant/confident about the whole thing. So, faute de grives, on mange du merle, I'll have to settle for the sight of sunlight against a dirty brick wall, which is the view I get from my window. Not the best, but there could be worse conditions in which to revise. It's quite relaxing and, dare I say, good enough for me...

After all, it's just a taste of what's to come in two weeks, when I'm done.
Peace out.

Addendum: Click here to view the result of the above approach to beautiful weather...Edit: So I took a folding chair and stepped outside to read a few chapters of Williamson's Vagueness (which some likeminded student has requested, so I have to bring it back tomorrow -_-). I was sitting there relaxing in the sun, when the classic prank came along: my friend Liam walked home. As soon as he entered the house, he put the security bolt on. I briefly protested, then realised that being temporarily locked out on a sunny day wasn't such a bad predicament. Unfortunately, my friend Jez was also aware of this predicament, and down from his window came a stinkbomb.

You think you're used to the damn things after all the ones you threw around when you were 10. Let me tell you, there is no way any human being can become 'used' to that horrible smell. After a few minutes of olfactive agony, the door was unlocked, and the plotting of my revenge began...

They should have flippin' won

2006-05-21T19:19:00.000Z

Unfortunately, by having a great time at the ball, I missed out on the best comedy night of the year: Eurovision.

So I played catch-up thanks to youtube, and picked out some of the best bits and pieces. The israeli version of R Kelly was pretty bad, as we were the french and british entries (I don't know what annoyed me the most with the latter: the lyrics, the singing, or the choreography). The finnish band weren't too bad, despite ripping some lyrics straight out of a KISS song. But I think the best performance by far was the one the Lithuanians gave:

I normally wouldn't repost a popular video, but given the impact this has had in terms of "good mood-ness", it would be a crime not to share.

Click here to expand movie player.

Priceless...
Those guys are completely insane, but by Jove that band shoulda won.

Having a Ball

2006-05-21T15:49:00.000Z

Yesterday, I went to the Philosophy, Psychology, Politics & Sociology ball. I was a bit reluctant to go at first as I didn't know that many people who were going, and those who I knew, I didn't know that well. Plus, as much as I enjoy semi-formal attire for my daily dress-up, I'm not that fond of wearing a (fairly tight) tux, and I'm certainly not that keen on dancing disco-style (mainly because I suck at it).

Turns out, it was a lovely evening and I would have been quite foolish to miss it (retrospectively, I would have missed out on some pretty important things as well). The food was above average (and probably constituted the most complex and balanced meal I've had in months, barring my father's 50th and the Buddha Bar the night after), the company was entertaining and sophisticated (we had some lovely ladies at our table, sporting very elegant gowns, and some nice lads with interesting degrees and plans for the future), and the dancing wasn't half bad. All in all, I had a fantastic time, and met some really great people (including a really great girl who, I hope, wasn't just talking to me because she was a bit drunk). So by all means, a most successful evening.

Now back to the harsh realities of revision (goddamn... so much to do!).

In other news, I've just joined the Skeptic Society and their Forum, and am thus far impressed with the quality of discussion (I have yet to read the magazine, but I'm told it would most likely suit my tastes). So check it out, if you have a minute. Michael Shermer's a pretty admirable guy.

One little sign error

2006-05-18T22:16:00.000Z

It's funny how one little sign error can make the difference between a satellite fall into orbit or back onto the earth, between a finely balanced solution and an explosive mess, or in this case, between a brilliant formal answer to a troublesome paradox, and a stupidly evident and useless answer.

The liar paradox is simply "This sentence is false" so that if it is true, it is false and thus not true, and if it is false, then it is not the case that it is false so it is true and not false. Either way, it's a paradox.

I came across this earlier today, and wondered if it was solvable in predicate logic. Using a rather idiosyncratic (but efficient) method which is (I think) used by the PROLOG interpreter, internally, I got the following proof:

Click here to expand formula.

***********************************************************

Tx: x is true
Fx: x is false
{x} is a class comprising one individual proposition a: This sentence is false.
Logic states P1 ≡ ∀x [ Fx → ~Tx ]
So x entails P2 ≡ ∀x [ Tx → Fx ]
C is the conclusion of the sentence "This sentence is false" in conjunction with the entailed complex propositions P1 and P2. I'm going to cut short and use the resolution method I learnt with Prof Denis Vernant because I'm more comfortable with it, so the following may seem a little idiosyncratic, but hopefully not too unclear.

∀x [ (Fx & (Fx → ~Tx) & (Tx → Fx)) → C ]
x is a one member class, so because of the ∀ quantifier I can substitute x for a (see above).

(Fa & (Fa → ~Ta) & (Ta → Fa)) → C (1)

Let's make the following assumption. The conclusion C is that the truth status of the proposition a is defined. In other words, Ta v Fa.

Now I apply resolution method to this statement. Basically I negate the whole statement, reduce it to conjunctions and disjunctions, and resolve along the following lines: p & (q v ~p) gives us p & q.
So ~{ (Fa & (Fa → ~Ta) & (Ta → Fa)) → (Ta v Fa) }
gives
Fa & (Fa → ~Ta) & (Ta → Fa) & ~(Ta v Fa)
Fa & (~Fa v ~Ta) & (~Ta v Fa) & ~Ta & ~Fa

We cancel the disjunctions out and obtain Fa & ~Ta & ~Fa which is a contradiction, which means with C ≡ (Ta v Fa) we obtain a logically non-valid expression.

Can we thus conclude C ≡ ~(Ta v Fa)? We can put this to the test:
The negation of (1) with this new C gives
~{ (Fa & (Fa → ~Ta) & (Ta → Fa)) → ~(Ta v Fa) }
which is
Fa & (Fa → ~Ta) & (Ta → Fa) & (Ta v Fa)
which is
Fa & (~Fa v ~Ta) & (~Ta v Fa) & (Ta v Fa)
Which simplifies to
Fa & ~Ta which is not a contradiction (and is not a conclusion either, just to dispel possible confusion) so that (1) with C ≡ ~(Ta v Fa) is a logically valid statement.

Thus, if I haven't made a mistake, and am not making any unreasonable assumption, the sentence "This sentence is false" is compatible with the conclusion "It is not the case that this sentence is true or false", or basically "It is nor true, nor false".

***********************************************************
Now as you can imagine, I was fairly excited. If you don't understand the above, I basically proved it logically (or did I...). So thus, very pleased with my discovery, I sent a copy of this proof to my lecturer.

Twenty minutes later, I re-read it, and the reality check came in the mail (after all, a bit silly to assume that such a straightforward proof had been missed by generations and generations of talented logicians). I had in fact gotten the signs wrong -not in the application- but in the derivation of the conclusion, so that in fact the first case being a contradiction actually confirms the logical validity of the statement (since its negation is a contradiction), while the second is inconsistent. Thus rather than solving the problem, I've just made a pretty evident confirmation of its existence. Do note however that the second case raises an interesting point: does this logical state of non-validity support the definiteness of a truth value for the proposition being studied? I doubt it, but it's something to think about, if that tickles your fancy.

Moral of the story: live cocky, breathe confident, but by all means... check your signs.

Empty Concrete Hive

2006-05-18T14:13:00.000Z

If you have a minute, I encourage you to take a look at Yuji Saiga's photographic work on Gunkanjima, a mining island in the japanese archipelago, which was heavily built upon between 1890 and 1974 to serve as a oceanic coal mine under the direction of the Mistubishi corporation. Harbouring a concrete hive with a population density of nearly 3500 people per square kilometer, this island-city was the perfect example of the urban jungle at its prime. And eventually, in 1974, the mine was closed and the whole island was evacuated and deserted over the course of a few weeks.

Decades later, Saiga returns to the island, to provide us with what I think anyone would call a chilling photographic reminder of the devastating effect of soulless urban sprawl.

Check out Saiga's pictures here.
Well worth three clicks of a mouse.

Speaking of photography, if you're into the whole flash-click-bzzt shazzam (aka photography), take a minute to check out Lens Culture. You might find something you really, really like.

NB: Pictures in this post are © Saiga Yuji.

Calm before the storm

2006-05-18T12:45:00.000Z

Currently doing a little research on the topics I have to cover for my philosophy finals. I've spent the better part of the morning tidying up my notes and going through a few papers on our database to scout out some interesting stuff. So far, only a few potential hits.

I always think the research segment of writing a paper is always both the most enjoyable part, and the most frustrating one. It's a pleasant activity because you know you're getting valuable exposure to the (maybe) cutting-edge of the debate on whatever you're working on, and it's intellectually stimulating. On the other hand, it also requires focus, concentration, and having to put up with a load of bullsh*t (sometimes).

Oh well... Last lecture for philosophy of language today, and very last lecture of the term for any module. All I have between me and exams is a seminar on Haack, whose paper I am looking forward to re-reading (having mistakenly done so for last week's seminar). Then it's a long week till exams start.

I really detest this quiet lull between lectures and exams, where the panic of not having done enough work (or thinking you haven't) progressively sinks in, and nights grow longer and days seem too short to fit your reading schedule in. This, said after I've spend so little time sleeping over the past month because of deadline over deadline over deadline. I can't wait till it's all over and I can get onto my summer reading.

It's that special time of year again

2006-05-17T19:19:00.000Z

The place: a typical suburban house in Sheffield.
Time: 10:42 AM.
Weather: Rainy.

Woke up late for the last lecture of term. No biggie, as they just viewed the Milgram experiments and discussed them a bit (and I had had the ~~dis~~pleasure of viewing them).
Spent the morning reading about flippin' Atomic Spectra and electron spin (physicists will catch the freakishly bad pun in this sentence).
Had to run and wait in line at module registration, because of the risk of having my philosophy modules already capped by the time I register (fortunately there was room left, most likely because Philosophy of Mathematics, Language, and Advanced Logic don't attract hoards of students anyway).
Came back home and read about Special Relativity, prepared a class for my french group, then got a call indicating that there wouldn't be a meeting tonight, and then spent the evening reading more physics.

Crap weather, crap obligations; there's no doubt about it, everything seems to indicate it's that wonderful time of year again: Exam time! Yay!

More whining about this in the next few days.

Gotta start somewhere...

2006-05-17T17:30:00.000Z

Hey all. I've decided to open a blog here for a change, since this is a bit more neutral (or should I say varied), in terms of userbase, than livejournals (and owned by google).

Don't expect that many regular updates, as I'm fairly lazy about this sort of thing, and especially don't expect anything else than whining about deadlines, bragging about good marks, complaints about some academic or other's cryptic papers, and general mish-mash no one would really care about.

Point is, this thing is cheaper than any psychoanalyst, and most probably just as effective.

Rock on...