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sábado, mayo 13, 2006

Cool animations done with Escher print

Emoticón actual:  curioso/a

Some of you who are familiar with the work of Escher have probably already seen the following picture (click on the picture to make it bigger):

I used to think that there was no mathematical basis for this picture; that Escher just put some curves on this picture to give it a psyedelic effect.

I was wrong. This picture actually is based on mathematics. You can go to this page to see some psyedelic-looking transformation of this image; I'll post just a few examples here on the blog (again, click to make images bigger):

The web site also has some animations of these pictures, and a PDF file explaining the math behind making the images, which I don't even pretend to understand.

14:16

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viernes, mayo 12, 2006

Poner vs. Meter and other tricky Spanish verbs

This morning, I was curious what the difference between the Spanish verbs poner and meter is, since they both translate to "to put" in English.

According to the all-knowing penguin, poner means "to place on top of".  Meter means "to place inside" (source).  I'm not sure what meterse (the reflexive form of meter) means, but it seems like it would mean "to enter" or "to go inside".

Another tricky Spanish verb is quedar, which, as far as I can tell, means both "to remain/stay" and "to give in a passive manner" (in other words, to give something, but not actively.  A tree queda fruit.)

While we're on the subject of tricky verb pairs, rezar means "to pray a recited prayer" (such as the Lord's prayer), and orar means "to pray without reciting a formula".  As it turns out, Catholics use the word rezar when they tell someone they'll pary for them; Protestants use the verb orar.

Perder and extrañar both translate as "to miss" in English.  Extrañar is the feeling of missing someone because they are not around.  Perder is to miss something, as in not getting it (such as missing a bus); perder also means "to lose".

If I have made any errors which the Spanish speakers here can correct, please let me know.

- Sam

12:58

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martes, mayo 09, 2006

Some random thoughts

Random thoughts...

slashdot posters know way too mach about smoking pot

The 2.6 Linux kernel is rather buggy. I saw this myself; this is one of the reasons I'm using CentOS 3 (based on the 2003 RH9 distribution) instead of something newer.

Now that I'm making plans to go to Mexico, headhunters have been calling me like crazy about jobs here in the US. I know not to get my hopes up, or I will be dissapointed.

YouTube is a lot of fun. I'll have to figure out how to edit videos so I can post something up there (my digital camera has basic video recording capability).

Jerry Pournelle: "No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money".

14:46

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sábado, mayo 06, 2006

Asshat rednecks in trucks

Emoticón actual:  enfadado/a

With the weather nice this afternoon, I decide to go on a bicycle ride around the block to enjoy the scenery.  Part of the bicycle ride consisted of me riding on Ted Williams expressway, a major roadway near my home.

As I was bicycling home, some asshat rednecks in a green truck pass me.  I hear one of them cussing, and they throw water at my bicycle.  They, probably being drunk, did not hit me very well; the water only glanced me and ended up landing on the front wheel and steering column.

Since some like to blame the victim, I will detail that I was doing nothing disrespectful.  I was clearly in the decicated bicycle lane which Ted Williams has.  There was no stoplight or turn near where I was, and I was in no way blocking traffic.  I obey and observe all laws of traffic when riding a bicycle and am a considerate rider.  Plain simply, some angry and hostile young men thought it was funny to assualt someone for doing nothing more than riding a bicycle.

The truck in question was a new green truck that was driving in the slow lane.  I could not see the people in the truck nor could I catch the license plate number.

Bottom line: There are some asshats on the road, and they do not treat bicycle riders with decency and respect.  Since these cowards were two cowardly to show their face to me, I think I will rip a new butthole for the twerps who thought it was funny to threaten assualt on this bicycle rider in their SUV and make a video of it.

Grrrr.  Rednecks.

19:22

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viernes, mayo 05, 2006

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! My hometown in Mexico, Puebla, is where the Cinco de Mayo battle happened. Indeed, the site of the battle is now a park in Puebla, and is one of the most pleasant places in the city. They have a large fountain commerating the battle, not to mention the ruins of Fuerte Guadalupe (one of the two forts where the battle happened), two museums, and a planetarium. The entire park is shaded by eucalyptus trees planted there (it is the only place in all of Puebla where I have seen this kind of tree).

I have been to the fort and heard a guide talk about the battle. Basically, what happened was that Puebla was surrounded by forts; the French decided to try to get in from the north. The battle was not favorable to the French; while the French had better weapons, the mud slowed down their artillery and the defensive position of the fort (on top of a hill) gave the poorly-armed Mexicans a strong defensive position that the French were unable to bypass. While France was eventually able to win the war, the loss at Puebla delayed the conquest by a year and stopped France from being able to have a quick victory to support the conferates in the civil war.

Here is an image of fuerte guadalupe where the battle happened; I took this picture back in 2002:

As it turns out, Cinco de Mayo is not celebrated in most of Mexico--Puebla being the exception.

- Sam

18:54

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martes, mayo 02, 2006

The reality of being a successful seducer

As pointed out in my previous blog, I have known a number of men who are very effective at getting girls in to bed with them. Talking to these people, they pointed out some problems with this:

At least two men have complained that they had to be someone they were not to get the girl in bed

One man who seduced over 100 women once tried to kill himself just after sucessfully seducing a girl

Another man confessed to feeling a lot of shame for some of the things he had done

And another man confessed to feeling an emotional connection with each girl he slept with, and regretting not staying together with the girl

One pick-up artist I knew ended up falling in love with a girl he slept with; she wasn't in love with him because, as she confessed to me, she didn't know him well enough to love him. She was just a pick-up artist sleeping around herself

One person explained that, yes, you can be a dick and get a lot of girls, but then you have to live with that dick you have become. He certainly knew first-hand the dangers of getting laid--he was in the advanced stages of AIDS.

In reading the field reports of supposibly sucessful pick up artist, I have not once read someone say "The sex was really great". Likewise, a girl I once knew pointed out you couldn't have great sex until you knew your partner's body well--something you won't get from a one-night stand

- Sam

03:53

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lunes, mayo 01, 2006

Annoyance: Wannabe "BS" pick-up artists

So, I'm cruising the 'net, trying to research evolutionary psychology (that's a five-dollar word which just means "chicklogic") when I come upon a web site for one of those "Get girls fast after reading this book" sites. And, looking through the sites left me with a slimey feeling all over me. Why? Because the BS factor with the kinds of guys who go to those web sites regularily is very high. A lot of the people there like to pretend that they have women like crazy in their life--either to boost up their pathetic ego or to try and sell their guide/workshop/whatever which is "guaranteed to get you more girls".

Now, I'm not going to BS you and pretend that I'm Mr. Playboy or any silly stuff like that. However, I have known men who have really had a number of women, and I have discovered a number of features guys like that usually have:

They make the person they talk to feel important and good about themselves. If I tell one of these guys that I program computers or play chess or some other geeky thing, they take a genuine interest in me and what I am doing.

They are energetic and know how to keep a conversation interesting and fun

They accept me for who I am and do not criticize me needlessly. They know they are successful and don't need to put me down to bring themselves up

Wannabe pick-up artists--you know, the guys who pretend they screw so many women that they forget the names of the girls they have screwed--they need to insult others to build themselves up. They don't take any interest in anything besides their own bragging. They are completely self-obsessed. They are, in other words, in real life the kinds of bores that women plain simply don't waste their time with.

So, getting a girl is about respect. Respect for oneself, yes (a.k.a. "Self Esteem"). But also respect for your peers and for women and their feelings. If you want to read a real book on sexual attraction and the dating game in the real world, check out "The Evolution of Desire" by David Buss, or any of the other work in evolutionary psychology.

- Sam

Actualmente leyendo:
The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating
Por: David M. Buss
Fecha de publicación: 01 July, 2003

05:46

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martes, abril 11, 2006

Another Wikipedia rant

Here is another Wikipedia rant. This person has basically the same objections that I do: Trolls and flamers aren't shown the door and too much energy is centered on pointless debates instead of on making a useful encyclopedia.
Like I have said before, I'll return to Wikipedia when and if Wikipedia 1.0 is actually released. I can not respect a "product" which has no testing nor release cycles.

12:35

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lunes, marzo 20, 2006

Review of the new Doctor Who

I've been a long-time fan of Doctor Who, a British television programme about a mysterious doctor who is able to travel through time and space in a device which looks like an old phone booth, but is magically bigger on the inside than on the outside. This series has been around for a long time; three years longer than Star Trek, in fact. The programme has been infamous for being on a shoe-string budget; the evil monsters in 1970s Dr. Who episodes had an incredible resemblence to British lads walking around wearing fur costomes (complete with visible eyeholes).
What makes the show special is the Doctor. We have a hero who is, by and large, nonviolent, very intelligent, completely celebant (as far as we can tell) who is able to defeat the bad guys with just his brains. He is looked upon favorably by his peers for being smart. This is his great appeal.

Anyway, the series was cancelled in 1989; a single episode of the series was made in 1996, and the series was finally brought back to England in early 2005. The series was finally made (legally) available in the US last Friday on the Sci-Fi channel, which we get here. Here is my impresion of the first two episodes:

The first episode, "Rose", didn't feel like a Dr. Who episode to me. The pacing was very fast and action was far more important than dialog. The classic Dr. Who was dialog-driven; "Rose" was an action-driven episode where we aren't given much time to think about what goes on. It was a very exciting episode, yes, but felt like a contempary tv programme with a few Dr. Who trappings.

The second episode, "End of the World", felt a lot more like Dr. Who. It felt like a Davidson (the actor who played Dr. Who from 1981 to 1984) era episode--we have a mysterious enemy and a lot of interesting aliens on a spaceship. While the pacing was (thankfully) faster than classic Dr. Who--this would have been a four-parter in earlier days--dialog still drove much of the episode. This episode played two popular music songs, which I think adds to the story--the classic Dr. Who never had the budget to do this. [1]

In both episodes, the special effects, while at times a little cheezy, are head and shoulders above anything the classic Dr. Who had. The second episode, in particular, had a large number of special effects; I think Russel T. Davies (the producer of the new Dr. Who) was going out of his way to prove that you can have real special effects in a Dr. Who episode.

I'm glad to see the Doctor back, and am looking forward to seeing the rest of the first series (that's British for "season") of the new Dr. Who.

One minor spoiler follows:

Some fans are upset that the Doctor allowed the villian to die in "End of the World". Three words: "Planet of Fire".

[1] I've never seen "The Chase", which may do this.

03:23

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martes, marzo 07, 2006

Chess Variants

One interest I have is Chess Variants. These are versions of Chess where the rules are modified. The reason why I like them is because I feel that Chess, as we know it in the western world, has been over-analyzed. Modern master-level games just do not have the tactical flare and excitement of 19th century Chess games. The Chess Variant I like the most is one proposed by former world Chess Champion Capablanca. This variant uses a 8x10 board instead of an 8x8 board. There are two new pieces introduced. Just as a Queen can move like both a knight and a bishop, Capablanca's variant introduced a piece that can move like either a rook or knight, and another piece that can move like a bishop or knight. No opening setup has been agreed on (a lot have been proposed, however); I haven't been completely satisifed with any of the proposed setups, so finally invented one myself

Actualmente escuchando:
El Sexto Sentido
Por: ThalÃa
Fecha de publicación: 19 July, 2005

02:35

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