Cheers

One thing I really miss from my Uni days in Sweden is watching Cheers very morning. It was impossible to stay tired and gloomy after wisdom like this one by Cliff Clavin:

Well ya see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

Numbers

Once upon a time I worked for a company in Sweden where we struggled to create unique id:s used for logging. After thinking that several companies must have the same problem I came up with a brilliant business idea; to sell unique numbers! Basically companies would pay a fee to be allowed to call nextNumber() on our server, where nextNumber() would return a number guaranteed not to be returned to any other company. The software would be trivial and the earnings astronomical - of course nothing happened. I remembered this when I stumbled across www.random.org - a site that offers true random numbers through HTTP, SOAP, and CORBA.

The Tao of Programming

Thus spake the master programmer:

``A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program is its own hell.''

(Check out The Tao of Programming for more wisdom)

Viva Capitalism

My old beloved IBM X20 laptop has served me well but is now more or less dead. So today (after receiving my bonus Thursday!) I gave up on PCs and got a MacBook. It's cool and everything just seems to work - a minute after booting up for the first time I was reading slashdot. Quite different from installing Gentoo :-)

In the most recent issue of The Economist there is an interesting article about new developments in computer Go. Apparently Monte Carl-based methods work quite well and there is now a program called Mogo that is ranked 2323rd in the world on smaller boards (9 by 9)!

Damn fine coffee

Gotta go, Desperate Housewives has just started! (Now when Dale Cooper is in the show I've become a dedicated fan)

Martin Castillo

Just ordered the first season of Miami Vice on DVD. Sonny Crockett was so cool with his cars, boats, and crocodile but my hero was Lt Martin Castillo. What a guy!

Random

In the real world randomness is cheap and order expensive. In computers, on the other hand, order is cheap and randomness expensive. Maybe in the future the opposite will be true; uploaded in big biological and randomness-driven computers our lives will be ordered and predictable.

Skin cancer

Just saw on tv that hammerhead sharks are the only animals apart from humans that can get sunburnt. I wonder if they can get skin cancer as well?

Quadrophenia

Soon on our way down to Brighton in the pimp-mobile!

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before

Sometimes, but not very often, I think that it would be nice to still be in science. The lazy days, the travelling, watching Seinfeld, going to cool conferences like this one. But then I also remember the bad parts; no money, all the meaningless "science" dressed in fancy words, the time you want to stand up and scream "the emperor is not wearing any clothes", the miserable food in the uni canteen, human-robot interaction, the pressure to write papers about nothing, the never-ending quest for funding, etc. How my view of science and research changed during my PhD (it wasn't for the better even though I had a good time).

Oops

Oops, forgot to write an entry yesterday. Hopefully we will be moving in to our flat in Clapham Junction soon - if the solicitors can complete whatever it is they are supposed to do. If we'll buy a toaster when we've moved in I want this one.

Why-o-why

How come not all days are like this?

Margin Walker

Yesterday I spent a lovely day enjoying London. First me and Ang walked along Cromwell road to the Natural History Museum to see the "Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year" exhibition. As usual (this is the third year we've been) there were plenty of amazing photos. I don't really have a favourite but this one is brilliant.

Then we went to Borough market to browse and taste all of the tasty stuff on display. Then Ang bought a bicycle at our local Cyclecare shop. We then went to Kensington High Street where I drooled over the Sony 46 inch real HD (1920 by 1080) LCD tv. I want one!

At six we met up with Aris at King's Head for a quick drink before going to Archway for Andrei's birthday party. The "quick drink" turned in to three hours of chatting, drinking, and celebrating Aris' new open-ended (tenure) contract. Then the tube to Holloway Road from where we walked to Andrei's place. The party was nice with plenty of food and drink. Of course we justed missed the last tube home and caught a bus to Liverpool Street station. Once there we couldn't find any bus that would go in any direction we wanted so we tried to find a cab that which turned out to be trickier than expected. Finally we got a minicab and enjoyed the great views of the London Eye while driving along the Thames.

1 2 3 Repeater

Joe Lally is playing in London the 8th of February at the Luminaire!

Friday evening

Busy day at work. Then chinese take away for dinner in front of tv watching Woody Allen's "Everything you ever wanted to know about sex but is afraid to ask" and "Memoirs of a Geisha".

Go west

Went to Chamonix with Ang and Henny and Steve over New Year. Unfortunately there was almost no snow but the weather was great with plenty of sun. This means that I still need my snowboarding fix for this season, so we're thinking about going to Vail for a week end of February! Coloarado has an amazing season and even Denver airport was closed for a while because of big snow storms. So different from this European season...

Time flies

Once upon a time - about a year ago - I was busy trying to finish my thesis. I remember the long evenings in the lab; tins of tuna, cous cous, writing a few sentences, chatting to Rob about the Dark One, writing a few more sentences, mint tea, writing silly things on the whiteboard, reading slashdot, biking home through the dark, an egg thrown on my face. It's weird, it feels like yesterday, but still so far away. I can't really say that I miss the writing up part - even though it wasn't too bad - but I definitely miss hanging out with the guys in the lab and all the amazing trips we did. Inspired by Assif I will try and write a sentence or two about all the trips I did during my PhD before I forget...

Cool fish tank (I want)

666

Runner of the beast

(Thanks Assif)

They're made out of meat

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"

All around the world

Back in 2003 I made a pretty ambitious New Year's resolution; to visit 5 countries I hadn't been to before every year for the next ten years. Needless to say I haven't been able to keep this promise, but at least I've tried. As far as I can remember, I've been to the following countries that I hadn't been to before: Finland, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Holland, Morrocco, Estonia, Latvia, Australia, South Korea.

All the countries I've been to so far are...

Seems like I really need to improve my coverage of Africa and South and Central America. This map is of course quite deceiving as a big part of it is covered red because I happened to go to St. Petersburg (back then it was still called Leningrad) for a few days with my parents back in 1989.

Back from the dead

New year, new promises. After a hiatus of almost four months I will now attempt to write one entry per day (except days with no Internet connection).

Apart from finishing first finishing in position 666 must surely be the best. Guess what position I got in the Sydney marathon 2006?