So, now it's 2005. Apparently I have not really accepted this yet, because when I dated this entry I entered January 9, 2004 (which I have left un-corrected, for comedic effect). It might take me some time to get used to the whole 2005 thing. Bear with me people. I'm a bit slow.

Christmas (or X-Mas, for all you hipsters!) happened, so did New Years Eve. There is not much to say. We went to "The Hat" for a few days before Christmas eve. Went to some restaurants, visited with family, and so on. The things you do come christmas time. It was good.

(I hate saying "The Hat". Which hat? Just bugs me. No good reason...)

Then AC and I went to Nelson. In BC. It was both good and bad, but at different times. We had a car on the way there but not on the way back. Bad. But we got a ride back. Good. We had a house to ourselves. Good. A drunk man threw up in the hallway of said house at 3 in the morning. Bad. So, good and bad. Did a lot of "familying" (that's a new verb I picked up in Nelson) with ACs people. They all sort of congregate in Nelson, which is pretty cool. They were super-hospitable. There was even high-speed internet! I didn't use it much tho. I read a lot of books, including William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, which was great. I also found the book version of "Get Shorty" lying around. I'm not sure it's better than the movie. Tough call. I read a few others, that were clearly less memorable, since I have forgotten the titles.

I played with kids toys at Wal-Mart. Good. But I didn't buy any. Bad. Have you been to a toy aisle lately? First: Remote control cars that play music and have little plastic speakers that shake like 15" subs in a boom-car. (boom-car is AC's word. I like it). I wish I had had my camera. The speakers move! It's so wrong. Second:Aldo Barbie. Yes. Branded Barbie. What is the world coming to? I'll tell ya: something bad...

I ate many pistachios. Yum!

We went out for breakfast. The bill was interesting:

Then we came home and slept. A lot. A lot of sleeping. I almost went to yoga with AC today. But then I wussed out. Why? Because I'm a wuss, apparently. And maybe because it was 10 am, and I'm just not a morning person...

But I'm getting kind of bored with all the sleeping. Luckily school starts tommorrow. And so begins another crazy semester....

AC is reading this book called Reading Lolita in Tehran. Tehran is in Iran. Hey that rhymes. Anyway, it's about a group of women who read banned Western books in secret. It's a true story, written by the leader of the group, which happened sometime during the reign of the Ayatollah (?). AFAIK, there is no longer this Ayatollah guy, but anyway when there was an Ayatollah it was a pretty shitty place to live if you were a girl. There are lots of arbitrary rules for women. Really ridiculous rules.

Anyway, AC reads me parts of it sometimes and she found something....interesting. See, the Ayatollah is basically the fallible leader-type guy anointed by their Supreme Being (God? Allah? I don't know) to rule the people. So he makes all the laws. When a situation ariseins that the existing laws do not cover, the Ayatollah makes a new one. Like laws about sex with animals, for example.

(Warning to my Aunts: you may find this bit colorful...)

I guess there are some issues with sex with animals over there. Because there are laws about it. Not prohibiting it, though. Just some guidelines. The book only really mentions one, regarding chickens. Yes, chickens. Specifically. Cuz like, what if a guy has sex with one of his chickens. Then can he still eat it? The chicken. The Ayatollah says "No!". That would be immoral and wrong. The man may not eat the chicken. Neither may his immediate family. And it would also be immoral and wrong for his adjacent neighbors to eat the chicken. But it's ok for the second neighbor to eat it.

The chicken.

It's ok for the second neighbor to eat the chicken. But not the first! Don't eat the chicken, first neighbor. Or you will to go hell for all eternity! For the love of (Supreme Being), pass that chicken on to the second neighbor.

Needless to say, it's an interesting book. I wonder what the position is on this in the states. Maybe Bush will clarify it. He's all about the arbitrary rules...

One of my approximately three hundred cousins just got married. Now, this happens a lot. But this cousin (who I have not seen in many, many years, although she lives in Calgary) apparently reads this thing (why, you ask? Who knows! But it means more traffic for me. And my self-esteem is directly proprtional to my hit counter...). Anyway, back to topic at hand: Congratulations KvR/DC!

Oh, and my computer is more or less broken. The graphics card keeps going all...funny. This is making me unhappy. Broken Laptop! Woe is me! Anyway, I can only update my website from said laptop, and I have to send it to Toronto, so I may not update again for a while...

(over-easy egg, bacon, hash browns, and multigrain toast. NO questions...)

My computer came back today, after it's little adventure. I had to send it in twice, because the first time it came back STILL BROKEN. Actually, broken worse. When I sent it away the graphics were messed up, but when it came back IT DID NOT TURN ON. Yes, it had a new keyboard. But it did not turn on. New keyboards are not useful when the computer machine does not work. Thanks, Dell Depot Service. Useless twits.

Even worse, I missed Purolator when they came to deliver it, so I had to trek out to the Purolator depot. Which is no big deal IF YOU HAVE A CAR. If you do not, problem. Because the Purolator depot is sort of out by the airport, in nowhere. Really. The way to get there on foot is you take a bus out to the Deerfoot Outlet Mall, then you walk for half an hour in the direction that looks least likely to contain any human settlement. Of course the sidewalks are buried under a foot or two of gross black snow. But they have your computer, and you want it back, so you go for it. And then the nice lady passes your box to you, and you immediately try it out to see if it's fixed, and it does not turn on. Then you take a taxi home because if you have to wait an hour for the bus with your more-broken computer...well...let's just say that it might keep getting more broken....

So it was more broken. So I called Dell again. And I sent it in again. And it came back again. And I missed Purolator again. But this time I had them come back, and I sat home all day by the door waiting for the buzzer. And it works! huzzah! New keyboard, New motherboard, New graphics card, even a new LCD. Basically a new laptop. So maybe it will last past July when the warranty expires. Fingers crossed....

So that has been the story of my life for the last two weeks. I went to a "game-night" event last weekend where I pulled off a sweet spit-take. You know, when you blow the contents of your mouth out in a misty sort of spray. Usually because someone just said something outrageous? Well, not me. No, I just swallowed funny. Luckily I was sitting at one of the ends of the rectangular table, so only one person was across from me, and he was a ways away. So he didn't really get it too bad. The rest of the people just got a light dusting. Of my saliva / coke / rum mixture. Then I hid under a rock for the rest of the evening. Ok, not true, I fell over laughing in the bathroom while I was trying to wash off my face (I deflected quite a bit of the spray back at myself). But after that I hid under the rock. For a while.

So, computer and spit take. That's all I've got for ya. Other than that, I've just been kinda slacking off. That needs to stop now, because I have two papers to write. And here I thought this semester was going to be easy...

Oh, right. After the last entry, AC told me that the Ayatollah is a "Philosopher King", not an "infallible leader-type guy anointed by Supreme Being". So, I apologize if anyone was offended.

RMS goes back to work....

I was just accosted with this banner ad on DICTIONARY.COM. It's a dictionary people! Do the on-line dictionary market and the teeny-boppers-who-love-love-love-brad-pitt-and-are-so-glad-he-is-not-with-jennifer-but-damn-that-bitch-angelina market overlap that much? Are the produces of these designer handbags really getting their money's worth?

Attention DICTIONARY.COM: I just want to look up words. I do not want to be enticed to kiss brad pitt, or be distracted by his bouncing countenance. You sadistic bastards...

(You can't tell from this static image, but the pitt-head (look at the fake body! bad cut and paste job!) bounces back and forth across your screen while the hearts throb, and your mouse moves the lips around....)

No, I did not click.

Back to paper insanity....

Well, last wednesday I submitted my Eurographics paper, so that was the end of the paper insanity. I only recovered today. You may note that I have removed the "links" option on the title-thingy and replaced it with a "Publications" option. My Eurographics paper isn't actually up there, but I will provide the following images which are contained in it, for your amusement:

Now that I have inserted the above picture, I realize that very few of you know what I actually do, and may be wondering "What sort of 'research' is going on here, with the pink elephants and little green men?". Hrmmm. In fact it is not easy to explain....

I do research in computer graphics. That does not mean I draw things. The pictures above were not "drawn" in photoshop or some such program. They are particular views of 3D models. A 3D model is like a sort of "virtual" object, inside the computer. (the files are inside the computer!). My research is about different ways to "make" 3D models. For instance, on the elephant the trunk smoothly joins up with the head, so do the ears, eyes, and so on. I made the elephant head in about half an hour. Using the software that is commercially available, it would take a professional artist at least a few hours to make the same model with all the smooth joining and so on. It would take me bloody forever (using the commerical software) - I know, I have tried. But with this new thing I can do it, and pretty quick too - maybe even faster than the artist. So that is my research - a new way of making 3D models that is pretty easy for a non-professional-artist to do.

Now, you might wonder what in the hell is the point of quickly making 3D pink elephants? Well, ok. Not a lot. Probably the only people who are interested are people who make video games and/or movies. They pay a lot of money to people who make them pink elephants. Potentially the pink elephants would be cheaper if they were quicker to make. Or the pink elephants could be more complicated.

But someday you might actually want to make 3D models yourself. There is a thing out there called a 3D printer, that prints "things" instead of pieces of paper. Basically you give it a 3D model and it makes the thing. So you can give a 3D printer a 3D model and it will spit out an object - usually made of plastic, because it's cheap and easy to use. So if you wanted, I don't know, a spatula or something, you could just whip up a 3D model and have the 3D printer spit out a spatula.

Ok, that sounds far-fetched. But it is possible now. 3D printers aren't even that expensive, they just aren't really common-place because you have to be an expert at using this bloody impossible 3D modeling software, or pay someone a lot of money to do it for you. Just so you can 3D print out your goddamn spatula. But with better software you could do it yourself, and you might be interested in 3D printers.

In fact, if you have ever had something machined (which is unlikely unless you are a mechanic or something), you might have already paid someone else to make a 3D model for you. Lots of machining is now done by computers. The computers are programmed to take a 3D model and automatically run the machining...machines. Machine shops are becoming a sort of middle-man that translates your sketch or broken part into a 3D model that gets made automatically by computers. You can even make the 3D model yourself and send it away to be machined over the internet at eMachineShop.com. I have actually done this for another project, they have a little program you can download to make your 3D models but it is limited to pretty simple stuff (compared to pink elephants).

Anyway, so that's the kind of thing I'm doing research on. Not 3D printing, but software that makes it easier to create 3D models. Anyway fingers crossed that the paper gets in. Last week I was supposed to find out if the paper I wrote last December got accepted, but the reviewers are lazy and have not submitted their reviews, so everything is delayed. Hopefully I find out this week.

Anyway, that's the end of today's lesson. I leave you with a 3D model that I made for the paper but didn't use, because of technical difficulties. I call it "vertebra spaceship":

Well, some good news. My SMI paper from last semester got in. So I guess that two weeks of insanity was worth it. The conference is at MIT from June 15-17. Not a super-exciting destination, but it is close to Montreal, where AC will probably be by then.

But that's not the most exciting thing. AC said we should celebrate, so we went out for sushi. Then she said she would make a surprise treat of my choosing. I requested a shape cake. You may recall my earlier attempt at shape-cake production, which resulted in the floppy cake. Well, this was no floppy cake. My SMI paper uses this Medusa model to demonstrate things, so I asked for a Medusa shape cake. And she went all out:

The blue smarties are a bow. And the mouth is doing Elvis-Lip-Curl. Check out the Snake heads. They have toffee tongues! And red mini M&M eyes! EVIL EYES...

Apparently there was a "mishap" with the toffee tongues. AC tried to melt the toffee in the toaster oven. But it started on fire. A lot. Now the toaster oven kind of smells like burning. Oh Well. MEDUSA CAKE!

I almost didn't want to eat it. Almost. But then we had CAKE DRAMA....

I asked for lots of icing. LOTS. I am an icing fanatic, and AC obliged (as you may be able to see in the cut-off snake head picture). Then yesterday I was really hungry, so I thought MEDUSA CAKE! And then I got sick from too much icing. Oops....

I have bad news. Brace yourself. You may want to sit down.

Miami bar has closed.

I know, I know. God must hate us. Woe is me.

....Sorry for that. In case you don't remember, Miami Bar was one of my favorite "pubs" in Montreal, if you are willing to call a dirty little room with a few chairs and a pool table a pub. Apparently they had a restaurant license but didn't serve any food. In Montreal you can serve liquor w/ a restaurant license as long as you serve food too. At lots of places "food" is like a bowl of tortilla chips. Miami Bar had a poster for a sandwich you could order, but it was clear that they weren't going to make you this sandwich. I've been told that they will be open again soon - hopefully by the time I move back...

I took this insane contract work from a friend of mine for the next two weeks (Well, next two weeks starting last monday). I'm programming a Pocket PC to communicate with this little box that goes on well-heads or something. It's not super-hard but it is kinda boring, and I have to work a lot of hours. The things we do for money...

Anyway, I'm off to pick up a DSL modem. I need high-speed for work. Enough of this stupid dial-up. Too bad I have to go all the way to Chinook to pick it up...argh...

(update: got DSL, but it won't let me upload my website. Can't FTP. damn Telus!)

I found out yesterday that I got the NSERC (National Science & Engineering Research Council) grant I applied for. Woohoo! Government paying me to do stuff I was going to do anyway! So that's good.

(understatement of the century. Every 30 seconds I scream FREE MONEY!)

((But only in my head...))

I also finished the InsaneContractWork (tm) that I was doing. 137 hours in two weeks. Insane. But it paid pretty good...

Not much else to report. Haven't really left the house except to go talk to the client guy. It is snowing again. That sucks.

Seems like March was acceptance month. April has definitely been rejection month.

First, my Alberta Ingenuity grant application was rejected. If it had been accepted, I wouldn't have actually got any more money (you can't have an NSERC grant and an Alberta Ingenuity grant). But it would have looked good on my CV. They give you a handy "Opportunity Matrix" that shows you exactly how you ranked, and I did not rank well. We later discovered that we screwed up in one few place on the application, which hurt my "ranking". But basically they didn't think my project was any good. It was good enough for NSERC, where I was competing with all the other universities in Canada, but not Alberta Igenuity, where I was competing with....three. Oh well....

Then, my Eurographics paper got rejected. This is the one that I made those pictures below for. That one was a bigger blow. Especially frustrating is that the general consensus among the reviewers was that "we should be using this other method XYZ that is better/faster/etc" to approach the problem we were trying to deal with. Nice idea, except that method XYZ wouldn't have worked. ARGH. I guess I was not clear enough on that point in the paper, which is my mistake, but I was not happy after reading those reviews.

(For the un-initiated, when you submit papers to computer science conferences and journals they are sent out to some other researchers for "peer review". The reviewers score your paper and give you comments on things they think could be improved. For conferences, the conferences organizers then look at the scores and take a certain number of the highest papers. For this conference, Eurographics, they got like 400 submissions and took about 15%, so it was tough competition...)

Anyway, the problem with this kind of thing is that the reviewers simply can't be experts in everything, so they do the best they can. Basically this means you have to explain your work very thoroughly, and make it clear what your new contribution is (papers have to be about something no one else has done before, that's the point). I guess I needed to be more clear. Oh well enough agonizing... there is a workshop at the same conference that I'm working on a paper for right now.

Oh, and my laptop broke again. I have had enough of that one - I really want to throw it out the window. I am pretty much required to have a reliable laptop for going to conferences and so on. It would not be good if my computer died a few minutes before a presentation. So I ordered a new one from Dell. I got almost three years out of my current laptop, which includes a huge amount of lugging it around, etc. My warranty expires in July, so I will get it fixed, and maybe it will be ok for at home, if I don't move it around too much. But....new laptop! w3wp!

Anyway hopefully rejection month goes away for the summer. I submitted a paper to UIST, we find out about that on in June. I also submitted a SIGGRAPH "sketch", I think the notification for that is in April. SIGGRAPH is probably the most prestigious computer graphics conference out there, although it was harder to get into Eurographics than SIGGRAPH this year. A SIGGRAPH sketch is not actually a publication, it's just a 20-minute talk. But I'd like to go to the conference. And we'll find out about this Eurographics workshop in June too. So, fingers crossed for the rest of the summer.

Not much else has happened. AC and I went to Vancouver last weekend, she had a meeting for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. She is involved with the volunteer kitchen there, so I'll probably be there again this summer. She's going back to Montreal for a summer course in May and June, which is going to totally suck. For me, I mean. I'm sure she'll have fun with the course. I guess I'll just work more (which can't really hurt at this point...)

Tommorrow I'm off to "sunny Victoria" for the Graphics Interface 2005 conference. I have been to GI before, when it was in Calgary, and it was not scintillating. But it's a good opportunity for me to "shmooze" and try to find a PhD supervisor in Canada. And staying in a tiny dorm room at UVic is always a fun time! We'll see...

I got my new computer. It is nice. It's a Dell Inspiron 6000, so far it has been working out ok. It has built-in wireless, which means I no longer have to remember to carry around an extra wireless card. This is a good thing. It also has a cool little indicator light that tells me when a wireless network is detected. And it has little buttons on the front that control the DVD player software, so you can control it without a mouse. As you can see, these are not big things. But they are nice. It also does not weigh as much as my previous "laptop", and it does not get nearly as hot (I might even be able to use it on my lap!). I got a "free" laptop backpack with it, which unfortunately is covered with Dell logos, which just scream "HEY I CONTAIN AN EXPENSIVE COMPUTER FOR YOU TO STEAL AT AIRPORTS". Great. I'll need to figure out some way to get rid of those...

There was a bit of excitement behind my house last night. Apparently some guy pulled a knife at FATS (a pub down the street) and robbed them at around 3 AM. The police caught him behind my house. I was sleeping. But I woke up pretty quick when some cop was screaming "GET DOWN ON THE GROUND OR YOU'RE GOING TO GET SHOT". Fun times. After that adrenaline rush I knew I wasn't going to get any sleep for a while, so I watched about 15 cops scour our little parking lot for the knife (I guess the guy tossed it while he was running). They found it under my upstairs neighbours car. Then they hung around for an hour chatting, which did not help with the me getting to sleep part. Anyway, good times in Kensington. I was tempted to go out and ask them to come tell my downstairs neighbours to turn off their fucking stereo at 4 in the morning already, but that seemed like maybe not a good idea at the time. Not really sure why...

This morning I was taking out the garbage and my really-too-excited-about-the-whole-event neighbour pointed out that there were blood spots on the walkway between out buildings. "CHECK THIS OUT BLOOD SPOTS COOL NEAT ETC I AM A MORON". I could not help but notice that the trail goes all the way down to FATS as I returned a movie to Blockbuster (Oceans 12. Not bad. The twist at the end is not as clever as the first one, in my opinion...).

(Mom: don't freak out, please.)

Anyway that's the most exciting thing that has happend here since AC left. I just work and pack up for the eventual move to Montreal. Neither of these things are happening very quickly at the moment because BLOODY HAYFEVER is tormenting me. Thanks, nature, for your regard for my health and well-being.This time of the year it's the trees that are spewing pollen like there is no tommorrow. Hint to trees: there is a tommorrow. Anyway the pollen causes the histamines to flow freely into my tear ducts and produce eye "stuff" that makes me want to close my eyes and blow my nose every 3.7 seconds. This results in sleepiness and lethargy that makes it hard to get anything done.

Maybe it's time for some coffee...

Today AC saw the old biker guy who rides his huge tricycle around Montreal, and the guy who screams "EXCUSE ME, I AM MISSING $1.98 FOR A COFFEE. DO YOU HAVE ANY CHANGE?" at you when you come out of the Guy metro station. That's an expensive cup of coffee. Maybe he wants a Venti non-fat soy chai Latte or something. Anyway he always seems pretty wired, screaming like that, I don't think he needs another cup of coffee...

( Would you believe that I actually miss stuff like this? I know. Weird... )

Oh, if you are bored: OverheardInNewYork.com. Funny-ha-ha.

I just found out that my SIGGRAPH sketch was accepted. This makes me happy. Very, very happy. It also means I will be in Los Angeles from July 31-August 4, which may be somewhat inconvenient, but what can you do...

The GI conference I'm current at has been ok (actually I'm writing this during one of the sessions). A few people I met at UBICOMP last year are here, so I have some people to hang out with. We went into Victoria last night for dinner at an Italian place called Pagliaci's. I had "Dempsey's Lasagna", which according to menu is the best lasagna that Mel Gibson has ever had. And I have to say, it was pretty damn good. It was also enormous. I had a ceaser salad before it came, and also some of their delicious bread (which smelled weirdly like donuts, but tasted great). I made it maybe 2/3 through the lasagna. Unfortunately there is no fridge in the dorm I'm at so there was no point in taking the rest with me. It was heartbreaking.

Anyway, laptop batteries don't last forever.

SIGRIZAPH!!!!!!!!!

So today is the first day since Saturday where I can stand up from a chair without having to use my arms to partially lift myself up. Why, you ask? Because I played in a dodgeball tournament on Saturday. Yes. Dodgeball. With grown-ups. Anyway it seems I was a bit out of shape, because about 5 minutes into our first game I noticed that I was already getting kinda sore. Naturally I toughed it out for another 5 games, and then Sunday morning it took me half an hour to figure out a way to get out of bed that did not involve using my quadriceps (naturally). Every part of me hurts except my left arm, which I basically did not use to play dodgeball. Everything else - it hurts. It hurts waaaaaay less today than it did on Sunday, but that just means I'm only wincing a little bit when I go down stairs, and I can now open slightly stuck jam jars with my right arm.

I have to say, I had a pretty good time playing dodgeball. Yes, I did hurt myself in all sorts of ways, take a ball to the...groin... and another to the head, but other than that it was great. By the last game our team was so exhausted we could barely stand. We had no extra players, so we did not get any rest (some teams had a whole extra set of players! Wimps...). Actually we were supposed to have extra players, but they backed out with lame excuses like "I have a hernia" and "My mouth is filled with stitches". Anyway we did OK without them. By OK, I mean we did not win a single game. But we almost did, once! Anyway, good times. If you're ever asked "Hey want to come play dodgeball", you might try saying yes.

Since I have been basically immobile since Sunday, I have watched some movies. And their special features. And their director and/or cast & crew commentary. So you get some quick movie reviews, in order of good-ness:

The Corporation - If you have not seen this, go rent it now. Blockbuster in Kensington has it in the "regular movies" section, so other Blockbuster's probably do too. It's an independent documentary about corporations. There are some very clever bits, like where they go through the list of personality traits the World Health Organization lists as indicating psychopath-ness, and show how many corporations fit the bill. However, it's not just "left-wing" anti-corporate blathering, they try to present an even view. The CEO of Shell is in it all over the place, serving tea-and-cookies to protesters. (Really. Apparently some protesters found out where he lived (a small house in rural England) and came to protest, hanging big "murderer" signs, etc. By the end they are all sitting in a circle eating tea and cookies and talking about the environment. bizarre.) Anyway I give it several thumbs up.

Primer - This is another independent movie, Blockbuster has it it's independent section. It's definitely sci-fi, but not like space-ships and aliens and stuff. I really liked it, but it might not be your cup-of-tea. Basically it's about time-travel, but it's not so much about the "coolness" of time travel. Not like the Hollywood time-travel movies where it's all about "chasing XYZ through time" or whatever. No big-budget here, they made the whole thing for $7000. There are no special effects. But I liked it, it's an interesting story and it takes a while to get your head around the ending. Actually I'm not really sure I get it yet, but I watched the commentary where the director kind of explains it, which helped a lot. Sort of cheating, I guess. Oh well. Rent it if you like thinking-movies...

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle - Ok. Yes. I rented this movie. I was told that it was really, really funny. And I will admit, it has it's moments. It also has really stupid moments, like when they ride the cheetah. Come on. Ridiculous. But the Doogie Howser bits? Comedy gold! Anyway I liked it. It's sort of a National Lampoon type movie, but perhaps a bit more intelligent (or maybe it just seems that way because of the between-the-lines racial commentary).

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story - By far the worst of my movie picks. Apparently this movie is what spawned the whole grown-ups-playing-dodgeball revival, and is therefore responsible for the tournament I played in and the suffering I am currently experiencing. So I had to rent it, just to see. And it was worse than I expected. So, so bad. I watched the director's commentary, and that just made it worse. Apparently at the end, the director wanted the good guys to lose. There is this super-dramatic alternate ending where the "good guy" team gets beated by the "bad guy" team at the last second. In the commentary the director says "Artistically, it was the right thing to do". Artistically. It's a dick-and-fart joke movie, but "Artistically", it needed to have a ridiculously over-dramatic ending. Right. Apparently the "studio" made him change it after test audiences didn't like it. He "threatened to quit" and "didn't show up for a week", but they "convinced him to come back". AKA he threw a hissy-fit, they said "shoot the other ending or we will replace you with a different dick-and-fart-joke-movie-director", and he said "yes sir, thank you sir". Anyway I highly recommend listening to the director's commentary, just for that bit.

So, there you go. If you are ever experiencing a movie-store crisis-of-faith, just remember - rent The Corporation and skip Dodgeball.

I read this ridiculous article on Wired today. It seems a group of researchers in Singapore have developed a system that remotely lets you pet a chicken. Yes. Pet. A. Chicken. You wear a glove, the chicken is wearing a suit with little motors, and when you pet a local chicken-doll, the real chicken feels your hand. Sort of. The motors vibrate, so it's not actually like you're petting the chicken, you're just kind of....stimulating...it. Of course, the researchers acknowledge that this remote-chicken-petting system is essentially useless. But, it has real-world implications:

OF COURSE! Pet owners who are allergic to their pets could caress them remotely! Why didn't I think of that? I'm sure there is a huge market out there of pet owners who are allergic to their pets, but really wish they could caress them, instead of spending all day hiding in the closet FROM THE PET THEY ARE ALLERGIC TOO BUT PURCHASED ANYWAY. It gets better:

Silly, eh? Of course, that's preposterous! Definitely not what they had been planning all along. No, their intended application is remote-petting for allergic pet-owners. Hrmmm.....

Well, I was considering going to the US to do my PhD, but that is seeming less and less likely. There is an interesting article today on the SF Weekly site about the US restricting foreign students from using science equipment. Apparently the government is worried that the students might be performing "technology-transfer", IE going back to their home countries with knowledge about stuff that has military applications. Of course, the list of things that have military applications includes basic science equipment like microscopes, textbooks, software, etc. So foreign students would have to apply for licenses. For each piece of equipment. And textbook. And computer program. And so on. So over the course of an undergraduate degree they might have to apply for a couple hundred licenses. Hello ridiculous. And the government agency responsible for processing the applications currently deals with about 1000 per year. They expect that to go up to 350,000. Next year. Well I guess at least profs will get to hear a new excuse for late assignments. "Sorry, my lab report is three months overdue because I'm waiting for my microscope license". These rules wouldn't apply to me - I'm not on the "bad-country list" - but they would mean that collaborating with foreign students would be very difficult. And that's just stupid.

Anyway maybe all those students will come to Canada instead. (Hint: that would be a good thing). All that high-tech industry that the States has - much of the fundamental research is done by foreign graduate students and professors. (Yes, these rules apply to professors too). Of course, the morons in charge are too short-sighted to see this. Here is a choice quote from senator Dana Rohrabacher (R-California):

Nice. When the Americans start making T-Shirts for big Indian software companies at 10 cents a shirt, maybe they will vote in a government that is less paranoid about the "axis of evil" and pays a little more attention to not shooting themselves in the foot at every turn.

Anyway, enough political crap. My weekend movie-renting spree netted a free rental, which I used yesterday to rent City of God. Fantastic movie about the slums of Rio de Janeiro (that's in Brazil). I will warn you that it is pretty violent. But it is very good. The DVD also has a documentary about the favelas (that's what the slums are called), where they interview cops and drug dealers. Basically neither side is really the "good guys", they just fight with eachother, and neither side expects (or wants?) it to end. There is some insane footage of a shootout at the end. It is surreal. It's like an action movie, only it happens there in real life every day. It's mind-boggling, when you really think about it. Anyway, I recommend it, if you can handle the violence and possible freak-out. Oh, and it is subtitled (but that doesn't bother you, right?).

I guess that was kind of political too. Just a political day, I guess. You may notice my update frequency has increased - this is because I'm procrastinating. I have a paper due at the end of the month, and I'm also moving. AC is in Montreal, and the end of the month is a weekday, so basically I get to do all the moving myself. Fun times. Actually AC is visiting New York for the weekend with a friend. She goes to New York, I rent a movie. I am waaaay more boring. Oh well. I programmed some really cool stuff this morning!

glavin.......flavin glavin.....

Why is it that the days when I am too busy to go for a walk along the river it is nice and sunny, and when I have time it is overcast and looks like it is going to rain? Why is that, Nature? Please explain.

Our house is about 2/3 packed up, which is when it starts to feel weird. There is nothing left on the walls, in the bookshelves, the only thing not packed is the kitchen. It's kinda creepy. It's also when I start feeling like "Hey, I'm almost done - don't have to worry about this so much". Then I end up packing like mad the night before moving day. I'm trying not to let that happen this time. I always forget the cleaning, too. Oh shit. The cleaning.

I keep finding random things that should have gone in a certain boxes which are now taped up and at the bottom of the stack of boxes. This is very, very frustrating. I am tempted to throw these things out, but usually they are AC's so I can't do that. So I am collecting up a pile of "stuff that should have gone in another box". Maybe when she sees it she will just say "throw all that stuff out". That is my hope. My dream. Packing is my nightmare.

It doesn't help that I'm completely OCD when it comes to packing. I will re-pack a box of books 5 times, just to find the optimal configuration that lets me fit in one more book. This is ok for books, but when it gets applied to other things, it gets ridiculous. The last time we moved I put a bunch of forks and knives inside the water resevoir thing that comes with our humidifier. Because they would fit. OTHERWISE IT'S JUST WASTED SPACE! Yes, it is a sad life I lead.

At least I have overcome my inability to discard things. Actually I've completely changed tactic - now I just want to throw everything out. The fact that we are moving across the country makes it easier. It costs about 50 cents a pound for the mover we use. So every time I pack something I do the calculation in my head - is this worth 50 cents a pound? What if it's 60 cents a pound but kind of ugly anyway. Maybe we should just throw it out. Yes! Throw it out! We can buy more shelves! Throw them out! That chair is ugly anyway! Throw it out! We don't need all these forks! Throw them ..... er ..... got a little carried away.

Ok, I know you only come here for the links. You've (maybe) read my rambling. Here is your treat:

This site has a bunch of little flash movies, but honestly I think most of them are not so good. This one is not so good either, until the very end. Enjoy.

Oh, and this is possibly the most bizarre (and awesomest) homepage I have ever seen. Eugene Hsu, you rock my browser.