I have just received an email 71 hours after it was sent. If I appear to be rudely ignoring anyone, please bear in mind that this may be why.

posted @ 2:03 PM -

it's that time of year

The 2003 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded yesterday.

posted @ 5:56 PM -

French "launch toaster" onto moon

posted @ 2:56 PM -

My email is playing up something chronic. If you know my CWRU address then I suggest you use that to contact me for the time being. If you don't, don't worry about it - as far as I know nothing is actually disappearing, just getting delayed.

posted @ 2:34 PM -

Summer's gone

The seasons change much faster round here than I'm used to. I'm already starting to get the cravings for a ski trip that don't normally start until after my birthday, and I might well have to do some more clothes shopping soon because waiting for my parents to deliver winter clothes might make me ill (and it's only 2 weeks till they visit). I've been a bit taken aback by this, so it was with some relief that this morning I read that the weather has turned faster than normal.

posted @ 10:53 AM -

recipe for a lovely evening

1. Have a range of things disturb my sleep for enough consecutive nights that finally getting a good night's sleep is joyous in itself (there's a good reason why this list had to start with a negative)
2. Finally get that good night's sleep
3. Have a lab meeting in which, while I still felt like I didn't have enough to say and what I did have to say was too vague and incomplete, it was clear that my supervisor liked what I was showing him
4. Go out for a quick drink with two great people
5. Pop back into the lab for just long enough to see that what I had set up earlier was working, which makes a nice change
6. Get to kung fu, sweat a little, stretch a little, and feel like I'm starting to get some of the things we've been training for the past few weeks
7. Go home and find a sweet email from Melinda, which goes some way towards alleviating my I've forgotten how to be a decent boyfriend as a result of years of no practice anxiety
8. Turn on the radio to hear WCPN about to start playing highlights of a semi-legendary Dave Brubeck Quartet gig; a performance so outstanding that I was glad there was no-one else around to desecrate it with idle conversation
9. Cook enough bacon and winter vegetable slop to feed a small army (or be my lunch for at least a week), and eat a couple of bowls of it before freezing the rest
10. Listen to the last 10 minutes or so of Dave Brubeck in dumbfounded silence, in a darkened room
11. Write a little, then go to bed before something breaks the spell

posted @ 12:25 AM -

and they say Germans have no sense of humour.

posted @ 5:21 PM -

Just what I've always wanted

Today I've finally managed to spend some quality time with my research, and having gathered lots of statistics, I'm now in a phase of watching the graphical output to try and make a subjective assessment of what the things are actually doing, which hopefully help me work out what to look at next. The graphical output is quite primitive—the agent is a circle with rays drawn to represent its field of vision, and it moves left and right to catch two falling circles—but even so it can be quite hypnotic, to the point that sometimes I forget to actually watch it properly and just stare blankly. I'm also finding myself watching these things as though they are alive.

Jacob (my infinitely more able sidekick) has evolved a batch of these agents, which all have reasonable but less than perfect success rates at catching two balls. My task is to tease out the differences in performance between them, because it's more subtle than just a outperforms b: certain agents are much better at certain trials than others, depending on whether they can keep both balls in view, which order the balls fall in, and so on. It looks like getting a comprehensive picture of this will take a long time, but at least I'm starting to get a handle on it.

The thing that's been really striking today though is how much I'm watching these things as if they were real creatures that I was trying to train. One in particular is extremely bad at the test trial I had just set up, and I'm mentally cheering it on as it seems to move towards the first ball, and cursing it when it lets it go anyway. I think I've finally found the pet that doesn't die when I neglect it for a week, doesn't soil the carpet, and doesn't wake me up at night.

Update: in the lab meeting Randy suggested I should name the different agents to make it easier to remember which one was which. What shall I call my new pets?

posted @ 2:21 PM -

rugby world cup

Clive Woodward has started playing mind games. This serves to remind me that I still have to find somewhere to watch the games, which start in just over a week.

posted @ 12:43 PM -

divided by a common language

My house has just received a catalogue through the post. What's the featured item on the front cover? New! Microsuede Toss Pillow. I kid you not.

posted @ 5:11 PM -

I judge myself by the adverts I see

posted @ 2:58 PM -

men at work overhead

There's something very strange about sitting in what is normally my blissfully quiet study and hearing clumpy men walking around on the roof. I don't know what they are actually doing, but it's making the room smell beautiful. It's as if at the same time as removing the skanky rotten tiles they are also roasting chestnuts or something.

posted @ 12:01 PM -

a better day than yesterday

I think I may actually have slept enough last night. I didn't sleep for very long, but I woke up feeling good. More importantly, someone is coming round to see about the roof this afternoon, and in the end no threats were needed, just a couple of nagging phone calls.

Update: when the landlord said this afternoon he actually meant quicker than a 911 call. A couple of minutes after posting this the roofers arrived.

posted @ 11:00 AM -

Snooty, moi?

Possibly, but every now and then having a good sneer makes me feel better:

---

From: eldan
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 7:07 PM
To: Linda Kidsley
Subject: RE: Offering new career opportunities
Importance: High


Madam,

I don't know how you have found my email address (particularly as you have written to the one that I work hard to keep out of the public domain), and I don't know anything about SigEx SuperPBX. You evidently have not done your research very well however. While I am a computer science student, I know next to nothing about protocols or communications technology, and have neither experience nor interest in management. Also, I have just started a PhD that the most cursory of glances at my (very public and easy to find from the email address you have used) website will tell you is absorbing all of my energy at present, and is an end in itself about which I am highly motivated, and which I would not be prepared to drop for a job offer.

In short I am neither qualified for nor interested in what you are offering, and deeply irritated by the intrusion into my mailbox. Please remove me from your mailing list, and explain how you found my address in the first place.


Yours,

Eldan Goldenberg

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Linda Kidsley [address expunged]
> Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 6:45 PM
> To: Eldan GOLDENBERG
> Subject: Offering new career opportunities
>
>
> Dear Eldan,
>
> My name is Linda. We are now looking for qualified professionals for our new phase of hiring at SigEx SuperPBX and would like to talk to you at your earliest convenience. With our new expansion, we are in need of protocol engineers, communications and overall highly motivated management candidates. You may not have seen the latest versions of all our websites, but we are quite motivated by our ongoing opportunities.
>
> We are deploying innovative border-less networks globally and we have recently deployed for our recruiters live chats for your convenience at http://www.cantellcommunications.com. If on the other hand, you would prefer to schedule a conference call, please me at +1 [phone number expunged. It's from Sarasota County, Florida, even though they appear to be talking about relocation to South-Western France].
>
> The main information site is on http://www.sigex.com where you will find white papers and articles about Enhanced Communications as well as some of our projects, such as SigEx SuperPBX and SigEx NanoData. You may also chat with a housing specialist for Pau so you can see what your housing availability is when you arrive. For those of you who will need fellowships for the sessions, you can find out about that at http://www.sigexfellows.com. Our funding strategy is raising private equity and you may find that information at http://www.sigexventures.com. And we have our European leadership council and SuperPBX project evolution at http://www.eylc.org. Spend some time and have some fun.
>
> We are updating our talent list and we would appreciate if you could provide us with your latest resume or bio and/or accomplishments (please forward to [address expunged]) and we would like to discuss with you at your convenience at one of the times below or you may choose to log on to our live one-on-one career chats at http://www.cantellcommunications.com to talk about your future. Please choose one of the following times and which number to call you on:
>
....
>
> We look forward to talking to you soon.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Linda Kidsley
> Partner & Managing Director
> Cantell Communications International, Inc.
> [address expunged]
>

---

Frankly with a name like SigEx SuperPBX they may as well be CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet for all it tells me about their business, and all the respect it earns from me. I was also particularly impressed by the deliberate mistake, which took me a couple of readings to notice:

If on the other hand, you would prefer to schedule a conference call, please me at +1 [phone number expunged]

Makes me wonder what sort of Florida phone number it really is.

posted @ 7:33 PM -

shoot the whole day down

I did get back to sleep, but only slept very fitfully, between the noise and the fretting about where another leak was going to start. It's now lunchtime, and since my last post I have neither got anything useful done nor slept enough to feel OK. Meanwhile I'm on campus and the wireless network isn't letting me on, so there's a lot I can't do from my own computer, at the same time as my study isn't quite habitable yet (the rain has stopped, but it takes several hours for the water to finish seeping through the roof).

Update: I'm on the campus network now, and some little shit is trying to hack my computer. I wish I had the skills to retaliate....

Oh, and this message:

The VPN connection has been disconnted

would probably bother me less if they could spell. It's Cisco software; if I hadn't once worked in QA myself I'd be surprised they hadn't checked it thoroughly enough to pick up on elementary mistakes like that before releasing it.

posted @ 12:50 PM -

water torture

Summer has left us fairly abruptly. The temperatures have dropped to the point that I'm not always comfortable walking around in a T shirt, and the rains have come. So far the landlord hasn't done anything serious about the drip in my ceiling (there's a tarp up outside which means it has to rain for a few hours before the drip starts, but that's not enough).

Anyway, yesterday I bought myself a bloody massive duvet, because the light summer sleeping bag I've been using isn't enough any more, and waking up cold is not something I need to be putting myself through. I also managed to get to bed at a civilised hour for the first time in a while, and I was looking forward to actually sleeping for as long as I need. Then the dripping spread from my study (where I already have three buckets, and precautionary plastic wrapping over things that would be damaged by water) to my bedroom. I think I've caught it, and I've moved a bunch of electronic goods away from the danger zone, but I need to stay up for a little while to listen and make sure I have caught every drip. Unfortunately after that I think the rhythmic drip drip drip drip (about one every 1½ seconds) might keep me awake anyway.

If the landlord doesn't send someone round to sort this out today, I might just have to invite a building inspector round for a nice cup of tea. He's known about it for long enough, I'm on the verge of having to clear out my study, and if there's one thing I really can't abide it's things interfering with my sleep.

Update: there are two people who I sometimes refer to as my landlord. I feel like I ought to point out that I'm talking about the one who owns the house, as opposed to the flatmate from whom I am subletting. I wouldn't be so tactless as to grumble like that here about someone I live with.

posted @ 6:22 AM -

What the (&%?

(courtesy of Need To Know)

posted @ 7:41 PM -

WHOSE MATE?

I've just been talking to an old friend in London, and while this has helped with my craving for hearing people who talk properly (I actually don't know any other Brits round here, so the BBC World Service News, the Pet Shop Boys and The Streets are all now much more appreciated by me than they used to be), it has replaced it with a strong craving for Marmite. This is the first time I have ever found myself craving British food while abroad.

posted @ 6:42 PM -

We can't say we weren't warned

A cautionary tale about what happens when the public stops trusting scientists: a stupid baseless health scare has been causing childhood disease vaccination levels to drop dangerously low for some years. There has as yet been no serious evidence linking MMR to autism or bowel disease, and in fact the magnitude of the scare has led this to be far better investigated than most potential side effects ever are, so parents are not doing their children any favours by withholding the shots. Meanwhile, measles and mumps—diseases which do sometimes kill—are on the rise. This has been warned about for some time, but no-one listens to scientists or doctors who are perceived to be in the pockets of either a government that no-one trusts or an industry with vested interests.

posted @ 12:59 PM -

Sleep is the cousin of death

I wish my body clock would let me sleep past 9 some mornings. I feel surprisingly good right now, but it's a while since I've slept a full 8 hours in a night, and this is bound to catch up with me sooner or later.

posted @ 10:21 AM -