Found OKCupid online while surfing a random blog. It’s a bit like a Myers-Briggs personality test crossed with the Purity test crossed with that “what sci-fi character are you” thing that was going around a while back.

I am The Gentleman. A bit boring. But probably not inaccurate.

Ok folks, this is the participatory part of the blog. Everyone reading this is expected to complete the test (make up a screen name and a fake email address when prompted, since you don’t need it to see your results… unless you want to meet fabulous new friends online).

I want to see everyone following up to this entry with a comment as to what type you are…

BTW- Just mailed my paper draft to my prof for comments. Shouldn’t have surfed so many blogs this aft… ah procrastination!

 › cool     2004-03-31 03:47   ...12 comments

I seem to be enjoying trolling around with the “random” links on blog sites — LiveJournal and DiaryLand in particular.

This is a strangely voyeuristic experience, although of course it is not because people are posting entries to their blogs so that others can read them. Many people out there write about their bad days (and many seem to be in high school, so bad days are commonplace for them… newayz).

Some write about good days though… and it’s nice to come across them every so often.

Yes, I am supposed to be writing my paper. Going back to that now.

 › cool     2004-03-30 17:52   ...0 comments

I’ve spent the day so far working on the balcony outside my apartment. The weather is beautiful here, and armed with good socks and my blue Elmo sweater I am thoroughly enjoying the day.

    2004-03-30 14:20   ...0 comments

Well, that’s what they say. At least it’s what I say as I sit here in the middle of the night making run after run of my model to get some results ready for this paper.

I’m writing up the crowd work I’ve been doing for a workshop to be held at the Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Simulations conference, better known as AAMAS 04.

The paper is supposed to be 10 pages, and I’ve got 10 pages, but haven’t finished yet, so there is going to be some major surgery there. The paper is due on April 1, and it still needs a lot of work… hence my late blog entry. Anyway, I think I’m going to go to bed now, I may have to take tomorrow off to really get this paper cleared away.

 › school     2004-03-30 01:30   ...0 comments

Well, I don’t quite know whether to class this as entertainment, or politics. Flash really is an interesting medium. I think I would have read much less of this if it wasn’t presented as a cool Flash thingy.

Hmm, not sure what I think of this at all, actually!

CUNNILINGUS_IN_NORTH_KOREA

 › cool     2004-03-28 23:26   ...0 comments

Was going to email this directly to Maysie, but thought a few others might be interested. This is a lesbian perspective on participation in a Bris (Jewish ritual circumcision).

Also, the fonts in this blog are great.

 › cool     2004-03-28 22:26   ...1 comment

I did my first practise run this afternoon. I’m supposed to squeeze two of these in a week, doing the same routine that we have done in class on Monday night. This week I’m only going to have gotten one in, but that’s not the end of the world.

I was hoping to do it with Jen, since she wants to do some running; I thought that perhaps she would like to try this regimen. Unfortunately, due to a scheduling snafu, time to do this vanished as she was going to see Scooby Doo 2 with a crowd this afternoon.

No matter. The run was good, and I met up with Dan at the bookstore where he was getting the present we contributed to.

 › sports     2004-03-27 18:29   ...0 comments

The first in his immediate circle of friends to turn 30 this year, Mr. Dan Friedman hit the big three-oh in style on Friday night at the Arrow & Loon.

This event included a gathering of plenty of good friends, including the scheduled and surprise arrival of Torontonians to lend that “special feeling” to the evening. Consumed at the table were: St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout, Strongbow Cider, Glenkinchie, Laphroaig (actually we suspect they brought us Lagavulin by accident), tequila matadors, tequila shooters and sundry long island ice teas, and other beverages that were highly acclaimed by those present.

Perhaps no-one was more surprised than Mr. Friedman himself to find that he was in good company as he turned thirty, and that no attendants arrived to wheel him directly to the retirement home, or to take him into some kind of surgical procedure aimed at curbing some kind of impending frailty. Instead, it seems that life continues at thirty.

Happy birthday, Mr. Friedman.

Actually, Dan’s birthday was Thursday.

    2004-03-27 18:29   ...1 comment

Everyone should sign this petition to save TVOntario from the McGuinty government…

For those who may not know, TVOntario is a public TV broadcaster with no commercials. Most every child in Ontario has grown up watching TVO-produced content like the Polka Dot Door and many other classics. Their instructional television series for older children are no less classic, witness Eureka (the story so far…). TVO’s content has been widely syndicated across North America too.

Now, the McGuinty government is hinting that they will do away, or hugely cripple this gem.

 › normative     2004-03-25 10:09   ...1 comment

These comments in from Terry Stewart, a student in our Ph. D. program.

Everyone, do yourself a favour and find 2 hours of time to watch his video testimony available at C-Span. It’s the Sept 11 Commision Hearing, Day 2, Afternoon session.

This is the guy that knows the most about terrorism, period. Served under the last 3 presidents. For Clinton and Bush II, he was the counterterrorism head. Has been pushing to have bin Laden killed since at least 1999. Guided at least three operations that stopped terrorist activity from happening. Fought desprately to get Bush II to take this stuff seriously. And he’s a Republican.

He’s also an incredibly solid speaker, has total command of the facts, thinks brilliantly on his feet, is highly aware of political realities. This guy is exactly what West Wing made me believe people in Washington could be.

And he’s saying some incredibly damning things about the Bush administration, and doesn’t say anything that he doesn’t have solid evidence backing up.

The 2 hours of testimony is quite the insight into what goes on, and how the departments fit together, and how things happen.

Wow.

Mind you, I must say it doesn’t make for very good bedtime material.

Oh, and the funniest comment from the administration on Richard Clarke is that “Well, he wasn’t ? he wasn’t in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff….” (That’s from Dick Cheney speaking on Rush Limbaugh’s show on March 22, 2004). Hmm.. so apparantly the administration kept their chief counterterrorism expert out of the loop on these things? -sigh- Normally when they lie they at least make up something plausible….

 › cool     2004-03-25 09:59   ...0 comments

I was looking at this remote control website today, boy these guys have too much time on their hands. Check out this review, it’s insane!

 › technology     2004-03-24 11:08   ...1 comment

Well, alert readers may remember that I said I didn’t want to miss the first Running Room run clinic. And I didn’t. I signed up for the Monday evening learn-to-run clinic, and last night was the first night.

I decided that the session starting in March would be the best, since it goes for 10 weeks, and should leave me running 20 minutes non-stop by the end of May or so. That will set me up for a (hopefully) good summer of independent running. Having signed up for the spring clinic means starting in March, and it has been so nice here since the beginning of March. As a special treat for the first clinic, of course, the temperature did drop back to -10°. I dressed up though, and it was actually fine… much better than I had anticipated.

I have run before. About 3 years ago I was running 5km 2-3 times per week through the summer. So taking a learn-to-run clinic felt like it was going to be good as far as helping me to get out there at a specific time, but also pretty soft in terms of difficulty. I was happy to find that there are many people just like me in the class. With a class of about 100, there are people who run fast, and some who run slow. There is one instructor, but many group leaders; when we go out running, the group leaders run at different paces, so there is a subgroup for any pace. I was worried that the first class running practice (run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes, repeat 6 times) was going to be super-boring, but since I ran in the front group it was actually a good challenge.

One other good thing about this class is that I’m hoping to learn this method of ramping up distance more gradually. My old method of run-till-you-drop-and-hope-its-further-than-last-week is trial by fire for the first 5 or 6 runs, and probably not that good for me either. At the clinic, I certainly could not have kept that pace up for the whole distance without the walking, and week by week the balance will change over to running until we are running 10 minutes with a 1 minute walking break. I think I will delete the walking break when running on my own.

Anyway, I found the class helpful. When it’s over I’ll either continue on my own, or consider signing up for the next session, which takes you from running 20 minutes continuously to running 10 km.

Also, the end of this clinic coincides with the National Capital Race Weekend, so I am considering doing a 5 km run as a part of that.

 › sports     2004-03-23 09:58   ...1 comment

This entry started out as a comment in Keltie’s blog, but I’ve decided to post it here instead, hoping for some opinions from others.

I’m thinking of putting some Henna into my hair. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I have some red hairs in my beard, and I’ve always wondered what my hair would look like with some red in it too.

The nice thing about Henna is that it is a natural dye, it has several properties that make it actually good for your head (both hair and scalp). Henna has a long and varied history. Henna applied to skin as temporary tattoo has been around for a long time. May and Dan held a Henna Party before their wedding. Medicinal benefits have been attributed to Henna.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking of doing this for a long time.

In reply to Keltie’s blog entry of today, I’m not really thinking of doing this to cover my burgeoning crop of white hairs. (I’m not too concerned about my white hairs from the point of view of aesthetics, I think white hairs can be cool and groovy. I only hope that if my hair goes white it actually becomes fairly light grey. I don’t like the dirty-grey-and-black colour that much.) However, I do think that having the white hairs will coolify the Henna experience… I think it will be cool to have some super-red hairs in and amongst the brownish-red ones.

    2004-03-19 13:31   ...1 comment

Found this short article while looking for something else

 › music     2004-03-19 13:13   ...0 comments

I’ve been thinking about the differences between restaurant producers and drug manufacturers. Really, you would not expect their liabilities to be that different.

This entry begins with a suggestion on how we should get the government involved in testing food safety with respect to healthiness. It’s kind of fun, so read the complete entry!

Read the Complete Entry

 › musings     2004-03-14 15:40   ...1 comment

Well, I delivered my talk on crowds to the departmental research seminar this week. I was very pleased by the talk. First of all it was very well attended. Second of all I felt confident and good in the material. Third of all several people that I didn’t know showed up, and I hope will turn out to be very important contacts for the future. I have no idea how they found out about the talk.

Three important people came. First, a Carleton prof in Sociology (Charles Gordon) who had many interesting perspectives on this and who worked with a crowd researcher earlier in his career. Second, a Civil engineering prof, George Hadjisophocleous, who I didn’t get to talk to before he had to go (to see a student of his give a crowd talk). Very exciting was a researcher from NRC (Guylène Proulx) who works in the Fire Risk Assessment group in the Institute for Research in Construction at the NRC. She is part of a team investigating the world trade centre.

Dr. Hadjisophocleous actually teaches a course on people in fires. I need to get the syllabus for this and figure out what’s going on there. Also, he just got a big CFI grant to build a burnination palace.

An interdisciplinary look at people in crowds will require lots of expert help. Meeting these people is a very good start, and I hope they will be willing to advise me as I go along.

So, all in all, a very successful day for me.

 › school     2004-03-12 21:01   ...0 comments

The U.S. Cheeseburger bill has passed its reading in the house.

The bill makes it illegal to sue a food company (e.g. McDonald’s) because you are obese from eating their food. I personally am hoping that this doesn’t really accomplish anything, because I think the best way for companies to serve healthier food is to be running scared.

The tobacco industry should be the example here… you shouldn’t be running ads which suggest that “a new special is waiting for you everyday” at McDonald’s; doing so means that you are intentionally damaging people. After all, it is unlikely that McDonald’s can truly stand behind the “more study is needed” crap that the tobacco industry tried to pull.

Although I do not eat at McDonald’s, I think that all these fast food restaurants should immediately switch from the tobacco lying-style marketing to the type of marketing used by the alcoholic beverage industry:

McDonald’s: Please enjoy responsibly

 › health     2004-03-12 09:22   ...1 comment

I seem to have little time to post other than cool links this week. This one is cool too. Read about Toyota’s new robot.

It does all the usual humanoid robot stuff, but also has lips flexible enough to play the trumpet…

 › technology     2004-03-11 13:20   ...3 comments

This article discusses how google can be used to look for vulnerable sites. It’s a clever idea. People should not turn on web servers and then copy all their files into the web server’s documents directory.

 › technology     2004-03-10 10:28   ...0 comments

While looking for material on a crowd dynamics website, I found this document. It is a very powerful recounting of the last minutes in the world trade centre on September 11, 2001. It has been pieced together from survivors and people who were telephoned by loved ones.

Perhaps the most interesting fact about these pieces is that at least one stairway in both towers was intact from top to bottom after the impact. Another interesting aspect of the situation was the communication. There was virtually none provided to the people at the top, of course, but the advice and information that was shared at the top had a big effect on those who left and those who did not.

Of course, many people likely tried to escape down the wrong stairway, or took the right actions, but were physically prevented from exiting. Still, communication and information, and how they develop in these situations is often a key factor in people’s survival.

 › cool     2004-03-07 12:01   ...0 comments

Things are super-busy these days. The pressure is on as I am giving the talk this week in the Cognitive Science seminar series. I had to do this in October as well, but this talk is more important to me as I will be presenting research that I actually might want to pursue for a thesis.

The work I’m going to be talking about concerns a popular model of crowd movement, specifically a model that looks at what happens when lots of people try to leave a room at the same time.

More than that I’m not willing to post to the internet these days, I am paranoid about people stealing ideas. Especially ideas that I might propose for a thesis that has to be original work. Yes, I know it is arrogant to believe that the world is scouring my blog for my latest tip on the perfect experiment, but this is an irrational fear.

Anyway, I am stalling. I have an outline, so now I must go and start making slides. But not until I have found the power adaptor for my Mac, found the perfect CD to listen to, have grazed in the kitchen, have grazed (again) on Google News, etc.

p.s. The talk is this Friday, March 12. 1:30 in room 2203 of Dunton Tower. Feel free to drop by.

 › school     2004-03-07 09:58   ...1 comment

10 of 13 scientists who published a paper with a suggestion that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is linked to autism have withdrawn their conclusion.

It turns out that the paper was based on 16 case studies, and they wanted to suggest that someone should rule out a connection between vaccination and these problems. Unfortunately, this got wide publication and vaccination rates dropped, even though no connection has ever been shown.

The article is published in New Scientist.

 › health     2004-03-04 10:29   ...0 comments

I have been instructed to write more about the noSdiet, but it has been a very busy week. As a palliative, I direct you to another interesting diet. The Nietzschean diet.

 › health     2004-03-03 10:28   ...1 comment

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association today announced (read about it) that Bell, Fido, Rogers and Telus are going to install interoperable wireless hotspots. Payment for these hotspots will show up on your regular phone bill, instead of having to prepay at each site.

This is a good thing, as I am never tempted by random hotspots that I have to shell out for each time I find them. However, if I had an agreement with Bell to put hotspot access on my phone bill at a particular price, then I would do it much more often.

One particularly exciting hotspot pilot is the one VIA Rail is running. Only on trains operating out of Montreal right now, and only in first class, but I like the idea of being able to surf the net while on the train. This will be a big boost for passenger rail, as you effectively can’t surf the net while flying.

 › technology     2004-03-02 09:46   ...0 comments

Keltie has posted a portrait of me. Check it out by clicking below

Read the Complete Entry

    2004-03-01 10:46   ...0 comments

Now this is messed up.

 › technology     2004-03-01 10:15   ...0 comments

I’ve updated SlimBatteryMonitor. It now has a few extra features including low-power warnings, opening the energy saver, and better support for the two-battery laptops that I do not own.

So far, downloads are not as fast as the first version, but 120 people have downloaded it from macupdate in an hour (898 downloaded the last version), and it appears here on VersionTracker.

 › technology     2004-03-01 10:04   ...0 comments