Academic Spam

As an occasional bit-player in the world of Academia, I sometimes get special Academic Spam. Usually this is in the form of messages from arch-cretin Nagib Callaos inciting me to participate in his or her Serious Cybernetics Conference, or The Open Applied Mathematics Journal casually bombarding people with garbage. The irritating thing about these messages is that you at first think that you have been specially invited to contribute based on your reputation, and only later do you work out that it's a mass-distributed mail to all and sundry.

Well, I got another invitation yesterday, which had me puzzled for a while. It read as follows:

Dear Professor Dr. Anchor

The Scientific Committee of the Fifth International Conference of Applied Mathematics and Computing (Plovdiv, Bulgaria, August 12-18, 2008) kindly invites you to deliver an 30 minutes invited lecture during the Conference.

You will be accommodated in a room in a five stars hotel (with usual facilities: fully air-conditioned hotel, direct dial telephone, satellite/cable TV, internet access, etc.).

A member of Organizing Committee will meet you at Sofia airport. He will help you with the trip from Sofia airport to Plovdiv.

A little bit of rooting around for the website for this conference and for the conference for last year is enough to convince me that this is simply one of these rather dubious conferences where every submitted abstract is accepted (or "mathematics conferences" as they are sometimes known). The carefully worded CFP fails to mention that you will not be reimbursed for your travels. A check on the previous year's site fails to reveal any list of papers or program, which is a big warning sign.

Still, my paranoia runs deeper: what if this is actually a twist on the traditional con-trick of the 'internet pen-pal' scam, where the lovelorn sucker is fooled into flying off to some Eastern Bloc country to meet the woman of his dreams, only to be kidnapped, and extorted for his life savings in return for his freedom.

I can just imagine getting of the plane in Sofia to be met by "a member of the organizing committee", only to be bundled into the back of a transit van, and deposited unceremoniously in a darkened basement, to be greeted by the sight of a variety of other luminaries of the field chained up to radiators.

Well, no thank you, ICAMC. I think I'll sit this one out, if that's all the same to you.

Columbus Day

I pause briefly to note that it is Columbus Day today, which commemorates my arrival in 2002 in this land. I commemorated the day by organizing all the new music I've acquired in the last year, ripping CDs, putting them into directories, collecting the cover art, integrating them into playlists and so on. Somewhat theraputic, although it seemed to take much longer than it needed to.

Part of the influx of new music came from a trip at the weekend to prex, for an annual scrimmage through the cheap CDs. Came back with a large selection of discs from the mid-nineties that I liked one or two songs from when I head them on the radio a decade and a half ago.

The experience was slightly marred by the witless other shoppers who insisted on making pointless comments about their own selections. And at the checkout, I noticed before I walked away that I had been double charged for the most expensive of my purchases (a sampler CD from Flight of the Conchords). The shop assistant gave me some weak excuse about a problem with the scanner, but I'm not convinced. I wonder if this is a trick they try on all the newcomers.

I have a beef...

Or, strange meat processing companies are trying to kill me.

I happened to get the train into the city yesterday and happened to sit in a seat which happened to have a discarded local newspaper in it which happened to have a story about a recall of meat tainted with E. coli. The brandname looked familiar, so when I got home, I looked up the recall online and after some hunting found a website with a PDF containing UPCs and dates of affected batches. Comparing to the box of burgers in my freezer, I found a match.

So now what am I surprised to do? I threw out the meat (although, since 3 of the 8 burgers were already consumed, I imagine already dodged whatever bullets there may have been; nevertheless, recollections of the Corned Beef Incident reminded me not to take any chances). I suppose I could follow the instructions, and mail in a copy of the UPC to the manufacturers, and be rewarded with a $5 refund, but it hardly seems worth the effort. And I have to go to the effort of finding some replacements next time I'm in the supermarkets, and moreover, finding a new brand since it seems that this producer has now gone out of business over this mess up. There's just no compensation for this sort of petty irritations.

Netflix entertainment value

I've been greatly enjoying watching the shenanigans on the Netflix prize leader board. There's been a great flurry of activity in the last week, which I think is because the deadline for the first year's progress prize was coming up. (it was Oct 2 00:00 UTC, which I think was midnight last night but I'm never sure how to interpret midnight). Team BellKor (who have finally set up the BellKor webpage) was leading for a long time, then just a day ago, Team Gravity and Dinosaur Planet teamed up to form When Dinosaurs and Gravity Unite, and pipped them. For a short while, they were on top, with BellKor so close behind that you couldn't see a gap. Then, overnight, BellKor came back with a winning blow, and just for good measure, introduced a team called KorBell at 23:25 to go another two hundredths of a percent. Gravity/Dinosaurs tried to rally, but only managed 8.38 -- the winning number is 8.43. This is about the only sporting event I am interested enough to watch.

Meme raider?

This film poster has been bothering me:

Isn't it just a direct steal from Tomb Raider?

Saturday Night Fry

Latest Fry blog posting summarized for your convenience:

"Ahhh see
Right see the thing that's got it all fucked up now is camera-phones.
How the hell am I supposed to be able to do a line in front of complete strangers
When I know they've all got cameras?"

Entrance Fee

Is it me, or is this MIT entrance exam from 1869 (allegedly) rather easy by today's standards? Several of these I can do in my head (like, 1/5 + 3/4 in decimals). Although, I suppose, it depends what axioms you are allowed to start with for some of the geometry ones.

More rallying cries for the oppressed of the tech: "Breadboards YES! Waterboards NO!".

Or something like that.

Amazonia

Quick thoughts on Amazon's new mp3 download service:
-- Great! *Finally* I can download songs without DRM, stupid player requirements, fear of getting ripped off by dodgy russians or told that my purchase was illegal
-- User interface needs work: why can't I sort by title, artist etc?
-- Selection is disappointingly poor: struggled for half an hour to find a song that I wanted to buy to test it out. Went from my initially obscure selections (Ooberman -- Shoorly Wall; Mercury Rev -- Observatory Crest; Tunng -- Bullets; Peter, Bjorn and John -- Young Folks) to the ubiquitously annoying (Rhianna - Umberella-ella-ella) and didn't find any of them. For shame, Amazon, for shame. iTunes (which I refuse to use) had at least half of these.
-- But they do have the digital only album of David Devant and His Spirit Wife, so I can finally get this. Yay!
-- Only I'm now too tired to worry about this, so I'll do it tomorrow. Instead, you can get some free mp3s from the bands old website.
-- I want there to be somewhere where I can buy a song that I want when I feel like it, and not be encumbered with FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and DRM). So please fix this Amazon. Oh, and $1 seems like a lot to pay for a song, when I usually buy second hand albums for $1 from Amazon marketplace or PREX.

Firewall

Finally watched the movie Firewall this weekend thanks to Netflix, and was rather disappointed that rather than a detailed history of the firewall in networking, it was a rather lame and by-the-books thriller starring Harrison Ford. The ending, to save you the bother of watching it, is a fight scene between Ford, playing a senior computer security specialist, and Paul Bettany, playing a ruthless kidnapper. And the geek wins. That's not very realistic.

However, what was worth watching was the DVD extras, in the form of an interview between the film's director and star. Someone has kindly put this up on youtube, with japanese subtitles.

Part one
Part two

It's fascinating viewing, not least because you get the impression that Ford holds Loncraine in complete disdain, and finds the whole experience incredibly irritating. Unless that's all part of their camaraderie. What do you think?

People of Boston!

Attention, people of Boston! Apparently, you are still having difficulty with this, so let me spell it out for you.

This is a Light Emitting Diode -- an L.E.D.


This is an Improvised Explosive Device -- an I.E.D.


Remember, LED not IED! It's easy, and fun for all the family!

"Virgin and Tesco may offer health services as rivals to GPs"

Presumably their maternity ward will be named Virgin Births? (Or do they already have a cruise ship branch?)

Like buses...

You wait for ages for a computer generated animation of a nineteenth century classic mathematical allegory for tolerance and diversity... and then two come along at once.

BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four!

I'm growing to love BBC Four, with its documentaries and analysis. Why, only last week I watched a documentary on the men who clear blocked sewers. And then I watched a three-hour long history of the English Motorway System (which, it turns out, is beautiful and strange). And this has finally prompted me to write about a documentary from some time back, called "University Challenged".

It's a piece about a British University (in this case, Bristol) in the 21st Century. Such things are fairly easy to throw together. I think there's even a standard checklist: you need one each of: (a) Senior University Administrator (preferably Vice-Chancellor) (b) youngish or middled-aged academic with a lot going on (c) one member of the student union, preferably the President, ideally engaged in some kind of argument with (a); and (d) one 'ordinary' undergraduate student. Follow all four around with cameras for a year or so, and then edit it down to an hour that illustrates "life today in one of Britain's modern Universities". University Challenged follows this formula pretty much to the letter. The most interesting part for me was seeing Dominique, the ordinary student, in her first year at Bristol.

I was not overly taken with her at first, as you see her arriving to begin her studies in Theatre Studies, and working through various tedious "getting to know you" exercises on the dusty floor of the rehearsal space. But it quickly became clear that not all would involve lazing around on her arse. In order to get through, she needed extra money, and so we have many shots of her walking the streets of Bristol, trying to get a job. She ends up working in some horrific entertainment megaplex on the outskirts of the city as a waitress at "Chiquitos", and one gets a real sense of the work needed to balance study and long hours of employment. But to her, it is worth it.

The culmination of her first year is a show put on by the whole cohort, a collection of short five minute pieces by different groups sewn together into a whole. And in the documentary, we get to see the fruits of her labours, clips from Dominique's section which she has worked so hard on, and sacrificed so much for.

And it looks like complete and utter... well, I'll drop in the YouTube embed of the section of the program that shows it, and you can judge for yourself.

More unwanted mail

Some more mysteriously personal messages which have fallen into my inbox unsolicited.

Dear Carter and Becca –

Thanks for saying that you will help this Sunday with 6th and 7th grade youth group. I am excited about it, as usual. Bobby Rhodes is going to help me plan some games and, Becca, I would like for you to teach them the Ninja tag game and maybe that game we played with Dustin that was kind of like sword fights with your finger. Also, if either or both of you can remember those mind games like my moon is made of ----------------- that would be helpful, too. I want to build up my game arsenal for this year.

Please come to St. Mary’s at 1PM on Sunday and we’ll go over a plan for how things will go. And if either or both of you are willing to bring a “guy” friend to serve as a role model for the boys, I’d appreciate that, too. It seems Andrew and Shep are too busy. I might be able to talk Rardy into it but I’m waiting until all my other options are exhausted.

Thanks again. And I look forward very much to seeing y’all!!

Kim

These are particularly odd seeming, and if you can work out the mysterious relationships hinted at between the lines, do keep them to yourself.

How goes life for you guys up there in Washington? Haven't heard from you
in a while except for Graham's life changing alert in April. Heard from
Sharon last night from Lisa and Mark that Graham is going into "the cheese
business".

How is work for you up there? Still busy with both jobs and the business?
I have been working many 10-14 hour days here so have been pretty busy
myself.

Have been spending time with Ashton as much as possible. He is growing and
changing every week. Laura is being an amazing "mommy". She has surprised
us all at how well she has taken to the new little person in their lives.
They are a very cute and loving new little family.

Margaret had brain surgery on August 23 to relieve the pain she has had for
7 years in her face and jaw. It has been a miracle at how fast she is
recovering and that the surgery actually was able to cut off a vein that was
lying on top of the nerve and they moved and blocked the artery that was
under the nerve. Every time the artery pulsed, knife sharp pain went to her
jaw and the vein on top on the nerve was constant dull pain. Margaret feels
she has a new lease on life. She is able to eat, talk, smile and laugh
without the pain in her face. She still has some residule headaches from
the surgery but that is getting better every day.

Have been wanting to say hello for some time, excuses, excuses, but
everytime I was at Jeanette & Brent's to use their online computer I had to
just pay bills as fast as I could. No time to just send a chat notice and
personal emails at work is forbidden. Well that has changed now, so
hopefully we can stay more in touch at least with a line or two every so
often. I know have the internet again.

What all of this is leading up to is that I have moved in with Brent,
Jeanette and the boys. They bought a new home a block north of their condo
with a lot more space and of course a much bigger mortgage and asked me to
join them. It certainly is a change that is taking some getting used to,
but in the long run can be a good thing for all of us. They thought that
their home would sell for more than it did, the market dropped like the week
after their offer on the new house, so things were going to be tight but
they could do it if they were frugle. Brent is already a very finance wise
person, but when things didn't turn out as well as they hoped with the sale
of their condo and they had already signed contracts on the new home, they
found that they really could use my help for a while with the payment.

Jeanette said to think of it as moving in "sooner rather than later" since I
am getting up there in age now. I moved in on Aug 25, they had moved on Aug
11, so we are still emptying boxes and combining stuff. So here I am living
with family again and adjusting to "married life" of combining two
households into one and all that that implies. The house has two master
suite's, so mine is downstairs and theirs is upstairs.

Drop me a line and catch me up on your lives and shat's happening with
everyone. Would love to hear from you.
Love
Helen

More dumbing down?

Apparently I'm not the only person to notice some frankly painful errors in University Challenge so far this series.

First there was some quite patronising ignorance by Paxo of basic chemistry causing him to claim that correct answers were wrong.

Then he mixed up Arundel and Warwick Castles in a picture round (well, OK, maybe someone else did, but no one seemed to spot it).

Scamming gullible viewers in rigged phone in competitions I can quite tolerate, but this is serious! Something should be done to deal with Paxy's snide put downs when someone is ignorant of some lesser known eighteenth century poet, and then can't even pronounce "germanium" correctly.

I didn't know you could do that

I do enjoy my daily WTFs, at least when I can understand them, as was the case today.

Then I came across this discussion of Rainbow Tables (which, although you wouldn't be able to tell from the write up, are just a fancy time/space tradeoff for dictionary attacks), which has possibly the most painfully clueless set of comments that I have ever read. Is password salting really that difficult to understand?

Of course, the real WTF is why MS doesn't salt its passwords properly anyway...

At first, I felt bad for a while

"...a This Morning item on kaftans was accompanied by Lily Allen song Smile, which features the lyric "...but you were fucking that girl next door"."

It's the kaftans that make it.