blogwaffe

My own personal day of the automobile.

I went to the Saturn dealer today to see if I could score some phat chronic car maintenance. When I took in my car five or six months ago, my brake pads were a healthy 6.5 mm up front and 2.5 mm in the rear, but recently I’ve been hearing some intermittent squeaking and feeling some slight catching, so I had them check them this time around too in addition to the regular oil change and whatnot. The service guy told me the pads measured 9 mm and 2 mm. I blinked. He continued to say that the pads were fine, but that he had sanded them slightly and touched up the shoes similarly to reduces the squeaks and catching. I said “ok, sounds fine” and blinked again.

How did my front brake pads nearly half again in size after five or so months of use? There is some information I’m missing. I chose not to worry about it, and to inquire further if I get more funny numbers next time. Actually, I won’t ask questions. I’ll head to the nearest patent office and make millions.

Stranger than the self generating brake pads, was the appearance of Robert Raussendorf (a post doc in Preskill’s group) at the Saturn dealership. He too was getting his brakes looked at. We chatted a bit until he got driven home by the Saturn people. What a bizarre coincidence. After he left, I sat down to read Herman Hesse’s Demian, which is shaping up to be pretty freakin’ awesome.

What is not shaping up to be pretty freakin’ awesome is the California DMV. I received today in the mail a “Notice of Delinquent Renewal”. This is the first notice I have received; I never got a “Notice of Well-Adjusted Renewal”. This is the second year in a row they have done this to me; I am pissed. Is this some big scam the DMV is running in order to get a few bucks? “Forget” to send a few registration renewal notices here and there and then slap people with a late fee when the don’t (surprise!) pay up on time?

I will be speaking to them on Monday. I have a feeling that’s all I will be doing on Monday.

Imagine a bee. A complex individual with its own thought processes resulting from native task prioritizing schemas, error handling systems, creativity and ingenuity centers (read “random number generators”), decision making algorithms (complete with dilemma rectifiers), and means of interfacing with both the environement in general and other bee individuals.

Now imagine another bee. Another complex individual, similar, but not necessarily exactly the same as the first. Both bees are capable of interacting with other bees. Therefore, two bees can interact with each other and, a priori, we cannot dismiss the idea that two bees can perform functions which one bee or even two uncoupled bees cannot. To consider the most general case, assume that this “greater than the sum of the parts” (a misnomer, to some) behavior, indeed, occurs.

Imagine further a thousand bees. Each relegated (even arbitrarily or randomly) to a specific task. I’ll let you count the number of naive two-body, three-body, etc. interactions that are possible, but I will tell you it’s a lot. The hive is a tremendously complicated system: complicated individuals, and complicated interactions. (Note, though, that the emergent properties of the hive can be relatively simple depending on the scale at which it’s viewed.) The hive is computationally powerful.

Put that all aside for a moment.

Read more…

On Haskell’s recommendation, Aaron, Greg and I saw Ong Bak last night. As Haskell puts it,

It’s a martial arts flick with a hint of a plot, absolutely no love interest, and the most freakin awesome unbelievable ass kicking ever put on film.

Tony Jaa was absurdly good: no wires, no CG, just sheer, unadulterated badasstitude.

Everything from the one hundred percent nongratuitous triple takes on every action shot in the entire movie, all the way through to the at-least-three-out-of-four-limbs-in-the-air-in-every-frame sequences, from the complete lack of deleterious effects other than sliding backward a few feet after being kicked in the chest with enough force to collapse an elephant lung, to the new definition of “throw some elbows”, this movie had me – utterly had me.

Apparently, Mr. Jaa is filming a movie currently, and Aaron speaks of a project with Jackie Chan. I’m in – all the way.

Members:
blogwaffe
langabi
apparent horizons – NEW!

Status:
A fully armed and operational zulu word for general relativistic double entendre.

#1 Fan:
Marc Broussard

Just got this account statement.

I gave a talk at group meeting yesterday, and it went reasonably well; I was able to answer not one but two Sergey questions, and Preskill seemed to think the question Andrew and I are asking is fairly interesting. It’s nothing monumental, but there may be a clever answer to it nonetheless.

In other news, it seems likely (it used to seem unlikely) that I’m being funded by IQI over the summer. Not a sure thing, though.

I’m trying to compile a time schedule for Ernie’s daily tour through campus.

9am – 10am: Lauritsen?
11:30am – 1pm: Facilities
1pm – 2pm: K Spalding
2pm – 2:30: Noyes

But I don’t know if this is right. Please add and correct.