She took a picture (featuring the end of one of our computations) of one of the black-boards we were working on last night. She sometimes do that as a quick way to record some of the stuff I want to keep, but don't have time to re-write down. I found it particularly interesting...

It really pisses me off, that theoretical physicists think that writing mathematics is about shooting formulae at you, without ever stating what the variables are and without never ever writing (English) sentences between them.

To their defence, even some pure mathematicians think that I put too much care in writing mathematics properly; with extremely carefully crafted sentences, and a logical flow so transparent that even the most stupid first year would understand what I am doing...

I Thought that somebody ought to make that joke. Wish granted! The irony is that I a posting this while the weblog is down....

Alain de Botton: You may not agree with religions, but (...) they are not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone, they are for all of us.

So...., unless you've been living under a rock, you must have heard about SOPA, and the planned blackout of few high profile websites on Wednesday 18th to protest against it. I could not care less as long as it was Facebook, Twitter that kind of useless things. But if Wikipedia (an organisation to which I have already donated money) is going to shut down as well, then, then, then... it's personal !

ps: Thinking of it, I might as well join the list and plan a 24 shut down of all of this weblog on that day as well... might do...

I first came across this advert many years ago and I still love it !! (pictures are a bit blurred, sorry about that...)

The last time I saw this scene (in 1998), it brought me to tears... For at least few reasons, including the fact that even though I have not been to space, I have always had an innate perception of Picard's feeling of seeing Earth from few thousand kilometres away and realising that it's home. In the very purest sense of the world. In fact, this feeling is the most treasurable feeling of my life. Maybe because the development of my entire personality has always been aligned with an increasing perception of belonging to the human species as a whole, that anything else (race, age, religion, citizenship), just didn't matter....

But more importantly, since that day, the relationship between Picard and Anij became the ideal of perfection to me, not only the ideal relationship, but the ideal of perfection in itself.

Anij, had this amazing ability to bring peace to Picard's heart. But make no mistake, she looks simple but actually comes from a civilisation far more advanced (not only on a technological level) than the Federation. Her simple presence, her personality, her kindness, her depth, had on Picard something nobody, not even him, despite his experience, could have anticipated...

I just saw it again, but this time tears didn't come. Only the amazing feeling that I am soon going to see her again..., and feeling lucky for so...

Nothing is more complicated than perception

I have some friends who think that cheap physical sensations are the net plus ultra of what the human mind/body pair has to offer. That somehow being sexually liberated is the final step of human social evolution. As far as I am concerned, it's Veni, vidi, vici. The next cycle of my life has started few months ago, and I won't look back. I won't miss anything either...

...with Lucille's HUDs integrated with the wallpaper. I don't know if it's my years on the trading floor, or my love of trading/risk management platforms, or just the expression of self discipline. Probably a bit of each...

You get bonus points if you recognise the wallpaper :-) [hint: mensa]

This is a tiny subset (the part specifically related to my daily activities -- in particular does not include anything related to taouzia publishing, estate monitoring, filesystems support, iris publishing, as well as a collection of services), of the data flow on Lucille.v5/alexandra, where the newcomer to alexandra's ecosystem, z-stream (which has taken over a part of Lucille's responsibilities), is the first program to communicate exclusively using Tethys.

This flow is the computing expression of the "getting shit done" principle, which, in my world, is a highly optimised and controlled process.