Fugato

I just spent two hours rummaging through every box, drawer, bag and folder in my apartment, looking for my old handwritten lecture notes for the class I’m teaching. Without success.

Last year I started to create computerized (LATEXed) lecture notes based on the handwritten ones I had used until then … but I have yet to make the computerized versions of the remaining lecture notes, because I turned the class over to my friend Trausti in the beginning of October last year.

You’d think, then, that it would be obvious to me that the handwritten lecture notes would be at Trausti’s, rather than in one of the places I’ve been searching through in the past two hours. But was it obvious to me? Noooo. A sensible person would realize that right away. But did I? Noooo.

I’m pretty happy in life, chugging along just fine, wake up chipper and ready to face each day and all that … but sometimes I can’t help wondering if this whole journey-of-life thing wouldn’t be a lot easier if I had a brain tagging along for the ride. Not just that little lower-brain-stem thing that manages stuff like breathing and digestion and computer programming, but the whole shebang, including the fabled Common Sense™ circuitry. Oh yeah. That sounds nice. Sign me up.

Mukhtaran Bibi (photo: NYT)

World leaders occasionally sing the praises of “regime change” (generally in the months between deciding to do it, and doing it).

Strange; the history of such efforts doesn’t seem too encouraging: the Vietnam War, Pinochet in Chile, and a government said to be so nasty that Iranians were relieved to see it replaced by the ayatollahs (well, briefly relieved at least).

Granted, there may be (and probably are) instances of good, successful “regime changes” that I just haven’t heard about because news generally don’t cover stuff that works out ok. But there’s another change that strikes me as more challenging, more slowgoing, and thus ultimately more praiseworthy (and less newsworthy, which is why governments don’t attempt it much): how about culture change?

And, despite my respect for different cultures and a multifarious international scene and relativism and yada yada; despite all that, here’s what triggered this blog entry: an example of a culture that needs changing. (Note: nytimes.com requires you to sign up to read their stuff, but it’s free and they don’t send you junk mail for it; at least not so far).

My finger, whoever might pay any attention to it, is absolutely not pointing at Islam here. That would be like looking at Jimmy Swaggart and saying we need to abolish Christianity and TV.

No, I’m pointing the finger squarely at that dynamic duo: religious fervor (whether Islamic or Christian or otherwise) and ineducation, the muck in which brutal “cultures” thrive. Religious fervor suspends individual morality, enabling people to do just anything with the blind conviction that some higher authority sanctions or demands it. Ineducation enables them to have no idea what the rest of the world will think of it. And ineducation and religious fervor feed each other.

Change that, if you can.

[Update] A US university professor offers his balanced view on the matter. Now that’s the kind of common-sense, stand-up, good-Christian, “we will burn your mosques” approach we need in educating the young folks of the world for a brighter, more harmonious tomorrow. Yee-haa.

Finally got around to putting the first pictures up: the two kids soon to be responsible for tripling Gunni and Karen’s home workload — caught on camera!

I usually stink at making sense of ultrasound images (and that’s OK, it’s a skill that is not often called for), but at least this set of images establishes very clearly, even for me, a crucial feature of Karen’s current contents: the set cardinality! A.k.a. “hey, it’s crowded in here!”

“User Friendly” is a kick-ass comic strip; everybody please read it and pay them heaps of money so that they won’t sue me for using this image without permission; that would just be too ironic.

Patents. Gotta love’em.

After IBM’s presentation, our turn came. As the Big Blue crew looked on (without a flicker of emotion), my colleagues—all of whom had both engineering and law degrees—took to the whiteboard with markers, methodically illustrating, dissecting, and demolishing IBM’s claims. We used phrases like: “You must be kidding,” and “You ought to be ashamed.” [...] Confidently, we proclaimed our conclusion: Only one of the seven IBM patents would be deemed valid by a court, and no rational court would find that Sun’s technology infringed even that one.

An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. “OK,” he said, “maybe you don’t infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?”

After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list.

— Gary L. Reback; Patently Absurd, an article for Forbes.com on June 24, 2002

The article points out some interesting things, such as the fact that the US Patents and Trademarks Office “realized that the fees from granting and maintaining patents created that rarest of American institutions—a government profit center.” Yep; you can criticize the USPTO’s behavior all you want, but the government has a vested interest in that behavior, so tough noogie for you.

During the first Clinton Administration, for example, USPTO Director Bruce Lehman attempted to deflect criticism of the USPTO’s practices by traveling around the country with a chart showing precisely how much revenue the USPTO raised for the federal treasury.

This sounds outlandish — a little bit like issuing mugging licenses for a fee, and bragging about the money you’re raising for the federal treasury.

I direct your attention to Strandbeest. Most specifically, to the animaris rhinoceros transport video, which would be worth watching even if only to hear the way this (maniac?) inventor speaks the name of the monster he created.

There are several other videos of his various creations, all in the same vein: huge marauding webs of yellow plastic tubes, walking around on beaches.

They move by themselves, powered by wind, after he sets them off. Personally, I think he’s plotting a hurricane-powered hostile takeover of Florida in time for the presidential elections.

I don’t know whether to be impressed or frightened by this man.

It’s always fun to come to a party and have a good-looking girl of remote acquaintance greet you with a cheerful and surprised “Hi! What are you doing here??”

Unless of course she happens to be the host of the party, who does not remember inviting you, because she didn’t. Whoops. But it was asked in good spirit, I think, so what the hell.

In other news, at the same party I chatted to (nah; mostly listened to) a guy who, upon seeing the rather unsightly scar across most of my forearm, proceeded to show me every miniscule hint of a scar on his body and tell a concise story of each (“this one, five-centimetre glass shard; that one, tic-tac-toe with a knife,” etc.). He then mentioned, for whatever reason, that the best thing a girl can do for you is to wake you up with oral frolicking. Alrighty-then, no denying that that’s nice, but he proceeded to explain that this treat was all too rare, because only four girls had done this for him.

Out of about 190, he added, unasked.

I suspect that declaring one’s sexual “hit count” (for want of a better term) to a complete stranger who didn’t ask, can’t ever be anything but lame. If it’s inordinately high, it’s silly boasting (especially when unlikely to be true; this was no Casanova, and not that old). If it’s inordinately low, it’s just plain moaning (and in a twisted way that can be boasting too, for the angst snobs). And if it’s about average, there’s nothing noteworthy about it; why is it being brought up? Sorry, no leeway there: you go quoting those statistics in mixed company, you lose.

The party had its upsides though; I did meet a very cute likeable girl with a quick wit who was great fun to talk to. Of course, there was a catch. She turned out to be a decade younger than me. I don’t think I’m quite old enough for that to be OK. Oh well, at least the talking was fun.

Other observations:

• the odd-looking guy with all the piercings, whom I see downtown sometimes, is apparently a swell guy, reserved and contemplative and courteous.
• Southern Comfort dry is soul-rendingly disgusting.
• some women are willing to wear a short skirt outside in any weather. I’m always impressed by that.
• apparently I’m not always uncomfortable in an unfamiliar crowd anymore. How’d that happen?