Pat's Blog

Moved

2010-03-22T06:01:00.002+01:00

Goodbye Blogger, I've now aggregated my two blogs to Wordpress, which also allows me to create extra webpages.

Most of the old post will stay here for a while, but you might want to update your links.

See you there!

Trouble Shooting Problem...

2010-01-09T14:49:00.003+01:00

Ever since I moved to my new place (months ago), I've been having "Internet problems" at home. Basically my Ubuntu 9.10 Laptop has problems loading pages (and downloading content) from certain sites (Facebook, Slashdot, Paypal, TED, Quirks and Quarks, to name a few), but not from others.

I tested a few basic hypotheses (the problem is my laptop or the problem is my home connection) but I'm now at a lost of what to try next. Here are the results of my three tests:

When I take my Ubuntu laptop somewhere else (at school, in coffee shops, etc), I don't have any problems.
When I use my MacBook on the same Internet connection, I don't have this problem. All pages and files download quickly.
My EeePC (running gNewSense) has the same problems as my Ubuntu 9.10 Laptop.

So my problem seems to be the combination of my GNU/Linux computers on my home connection?! Any ideas what to try next?

a reminder of two things i lost

2009-10-23T18:16:00.004+02:00

Life's like that sometimes :-(

Five different kinds of tribes

2009-10-11T11:11:00.002+02:00

An interesting talk by David Logan [1] about the five different kinds of tribal cultures we may join or form.

Life sucks
My life sucks
I'm great and you're not
We're great
Life is great

Links

David Logan, <http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/651>

My New Website

2009-09-24T04:34:00.001+02:00

For the past few days, I've been spending a lot of time (and loosing some sleep) creating my new website [1]. One of the things that I'm really excited about with this project is the platform it uses: DokuWiki [2]. A little more than a year ago, I spent some of my summer (geek-)time, figuring out how to install a wiki on our school server [3] to facilitate collaborative projects. That's when I first came across DokuWiki. I played around with it for a while and decided to give it a go. The more I used it, the more powerful I realized it was. In my opinion, DokuWiki's greatest strengths are that:

It's Free and Open Source so anyone can tweak it as they wish
It's got loads of really cool plugins to extend it
It's pretty easy to install (on a server and even on a personal computer!)
The pages are all saved in simple .txt formats, and are very easy to export and import.
Everything is edited from the net with a web browser.

All of these advantages can be summed up with one word: freedom. If I ever become dissatisfied with my web host, I can simply take my files and move my website somewhere else. I can also take other people's Dokuwiki pages and integrate them very easily.

To be fair though, to some people it may have one big drawback: it uses a WYSIWYM [4] syntax, where the wiki formatting is "coded" in the main text, instead of the more familiar WYSIWYG [5]. It sounds a little scary, but it really is pretty simple after a little getting used to.

Installing DokuWiki on a server is pretty straight forward (if you have a server). But without one... hmmm. Thankfully, I found this awesome tutorial [6] that explains how to sign up to a free web host, and install DokuWiki on it. It's a little outdated but the main ideas are still the same.

As of now, I would say that I've managed to write about 50~70% of what I am currently planing to put there. I'd eventually like to:

write a new "Free Digital Society" page which would include ideas about surveillance, censorship, data format freedom, software freedom, software as a service, and sharing. The current "Free Software" page would become a small part of that main page.
write a GNU/Linux newbie guide and upload scripts and tricks I've learnt while working with Ubuntu.
start uploading some of the teaching work that I've created over the past few years and make it available to others. I'd also like to see how I could create my portfolio on this platform.

If you'd like to give me feedback, you'll find a spot on my website that you can edit (and try DokuWiki) for yourself!

Links:

Patrick Truchon's home page, <http://ptruchon.byethost32.com>
DokuWiki, <http://dokuwiki.org>
HIS Wiki, <http://secondary.hisdomain.hdis.hc.edu.tw/wiki/doku.php>
Wikipedia, WYSIWYM, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM>
Wikipedia, WYSIWYG, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG>
Splitbrain, Setup DokuWiki on Free Hosting in < 15 Minutes, <http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2008-12/24-setup_dokuwiki_on_free_hosting_in_less_than_15_minutes>

On Kindness

2009-08-06T12:30:00.001+02:00

I just listened to a really good interview of Adam Phillips [1], co-author of the book "On Kindness". What was refreshing about his analysis of kindness is that he is *not* saying that we should be kinder and here's how to do it. Instead he proposes an examination of the pleasures and the perils of kindness, making relationships between kindness and other concepts such as success.

He starts with a definition, which draws on the fundamental sympathetic connection we make with others of the same "kind". As an example he shows how two different types of people would react to a child falling in the street. The sympathetic person would feel for the child, while the person who wants to be right would say something like "you should have looked where you were going."

He also contrasts two different starting points for kindness. Many people feel that kindness is simply an elaborate means to a fundamentally selfish end. We think we are kind to others simply to get favours from them. But Phillips sees kindness as a primary human expression: "It's not a question of whether we are being selfish or selfless but whether we feel something in the other person's presence that make us want to do something for them." Kindness is an exchange so avoiding a conversation with someone for fear of hurting them, for example, is not kind. He also thinks that we are wrong in seeing independence as a worthy goal. Indeed, he believes that we are always exactly as dependent on others throughout our lives but that it's simply more apparent at infancy and at old-age, and that a culture that promotes independence from others discourages people from being kind. Finally, he talks about some of the road blocks preventing people from being kind.

One of the problems with being kind is that while it brings us closer to others, it makes us vulnerable to their pain. No-one is immune to other people's suffering however. Acknowledging someone else's vulnerability also at the same time acknowledges our own, thus in essence, being kind requires us to let our own guard down. Being invulnerable is incompatible with being kind.

When we are kind to another, we are also vulnerable to their response, which could be unkind. The danger that Phillips cautions us against is in the ways that we cure ourselves from others predicaments: do we let ourselves suffer too, or do we try to suppress it, or even worse, turn it into pleasure.

Another very interesting point, at the heart of his argument, is that the sense of duty to be kind spoils it. Kindness, he argues, is a pleasure, not a duty. As such, we don't need to *try* to be kinder, we need to be *freed* to feel the pleasure of being kind. This could explain why many people are kinder in situations of crisis: they are given the opportunity to rethink what matters most to them, and to act more freely from a societal point of view.

Finally, he links all of this to the concept of success and how it is measured in different cultures. He discusses the cultural differences, for example, between Britan's wealth-fare state, and the USA's war-fare state. In a competitive culture, people have to repress their pleasure of kindness because they know that one person's gain is another person's loss. To make things worse, in such a culture, those still committing acts of kindness will be taken advantage of. And these people realize that they can't afford to be kind, but the kind part of themselves is the part that they value very highly, which leads to a terrible internal tension: One of the nicest thing about yourself is the thing that's the least valuable to you.

His interview was not as logically organized as it could have been, but I found it to be very insightful. It definitely made me want to read his book, and to examine my own responses to others.

Links:

On Point, The Case For Kindness ,<http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/07/kindness>

First Two Days

2009-08-01T01:20:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I arrived in CDG around 8am. I was pretty nervous at first: for some reason, there's something a little nerve racking about arriving in a new airport. But compared to the first time I arrived in TPE, it was a piece of cake: I knew that speaking French would be helpful, but I didn't realise how comforting it would be. It felt warm to hear everyone speak a language I was familiar with. Mind you, their accent is pretty different, but it's still French.

So I managed to make my way to Terminal 2, which is where the train station to catch the TGV is. My ticket was for around noon (and it was 8:30am). When I bought it, I really didn't know how easy or difficult the trek from the airport would be with a boxed bicycle, so I left myself plenty of time. It turned out to be pretty easy so I had a few hours to spare. Since the ticket I bought allowed me to change the time without penalty, I left for Lyon at around 9:30.

I thought that the train would have a luggage compartment where I could put my bicycle, but it didn't. So I managed to put my bike against one of the doors, and sat on the floor for about 45 minutes. A young mom was also doing the same with her little girl and her big stroller. Eventually, I managed to put the bike in a pretty stable position and went inside to sit more comfortably and take a nap. About 2/3 of the way, a train attendant checking our tickets asked to talk to me. My box, it turned out was too big, which should cost me an extra 40 Euros, and was blocking an emergency exit, which could be fined up to 150 Euros. Very apologetically I admitted that I didn't know, and in my mind, I was ready to pay the fine. After all, I didn't pay anything extra to fly my bike (because it was only 1kg over the limit and I took my other bag as carry on), so what if I had to pay extra to carry it on the train. Whatever. In the grand scheme of things, these are small details not worth carrying too much about. So again, I explained that I was sorry, that I had been sitting here for 45 minutes and moved my box out of the way when we had stopped at the previous station, and that I would be more than willing to spend the rest of the trip here if it was safer. The train attendant asked me where I was going, and since I was leaving at the next stop, it let me off the hook; if I could only keep an eye on my box and make sure to move it if needed. Later on, Celine told me that it I had been French, he would probably have fined me. I really wonder what the Quebecois accent evokes in the French, but so far it seems to be pretty positive.

So finally, I arrived in Lyon around noon. During the trip on the train, I managed to familiarize myself with the map of the city, and notice that Celine lives very close to the train station. Bonus! But there was one more unknown step that had to be done: what to do with that bicycle huge box? Walking from the platform down to the main floor of the train station, I saw a big cart with small cardboard boxes in it. And it was just my luck that a lady was throwing boxes from her shop into it. So I asked her where I could get rid of my giant box, and after asking me about my trip (she'd guest I was from Quebec right away) she showed me to the big disposal container. That's it: I was finally in Lyon, my bike was all set, nothing broken, all ready to go. So I got a GPS fix on my location and headed towards Celine's house.

"Wow! What wonderful mix of futuristic technologies and old architecture" was my first impression of Lyon. Many of the buildings were, of course, old compared to anything we have in North America. But the transportation system was so impressively hightech: electric buses, a very good subway system, and a gorgeous little electric tramway that makes a loop in the city from the University and that rides on railways that are sometimes even covered in grass, making the track look like a long park.

I thought Vancouver's public transit system was good, but it's nothing compared to Lyon's! There's also an amazingly cool public bicycle system, which Celine told me started about 4 years ago: people can buy anything from a one-time pass, to a yearly pass, and then all they have to do is grab a (secured) bike from one station, and ride it to the next. I don't know exactly how many stations there are, but from my little exploration of the city, I've seen many of them.

So I spent the entire afternoon exploring the city. I went to a really beautiful park called "Parc de la tete d'or", and also visited the university campus. Finally, I met Celine after work at around 6pm and we went out with her friends.

Today I woke up around 6:45 (Celine had to go to work early to finish a long chemical manipulation), I cleaned up and organized my stuff, wrote most of this blog entry, went back to bed around 11am and woke up about an hour later. In the afternoon, I went to visit the Old Lyon. It was a gorgeous! Many of the buildings and cathedrals are easily a few hundred years old, but I also walked in a Roman coliseum built about 2000 years ago. That was pretty crazy! To think that Romans were gathering here two millennia ago...

I also visited a little garden created by a man from Montreal. I wasn't too impressed with the garden itself, but the view on Lyon was breath taking! Finally, I took the metro back, stopped at a little store to buy some shaving cream and toothpaste (lost mine at the airport: to much of that stuff can blow up planes apparently), and I'm now waiting for Celine to come back from work any time now. This weekend, we should be going for a little trip in the south. Not sure where yet, but I'm pretty stoked about seeing just about anything that it doesn't really matter.

Leaving for France Soon!

2009-07-29T07:15:00.001+02:00

This morning I finished packing all my stuff and managed to fit everything on my bicycle without having to wear anything on my back (save for a kamel pack). I rode to school to get a feel of my bike and was amazed at how comfortable it was. An hour ago, I finished packing everything (I had a bicycle box waiting for me at school) and I'm now waiting for my taxi to pick me up in about 4 hours.

I'll try to tweet little updates once in a while in French so my parents know I'm alright... You can follow me here: http://twitter.com/ptruchon

Un peu de nostalgie

2009-07-24T19:26:00.000+02:00

... pour les Québecois dans leur trentaine... (et leur parents)

Fraggle Rock (Version Québecoise) (Version Française)

Big Brother: what's on your PC?

2009-07-21T07:13:00.001+02:00

To quote a comment by:christheferal :"Luckily I buy my stuff... wait, hang on, they can't still access my files, can they?"

Another good reason to Encrypt [1] your files...

Links:

HIS Documentation, <http://secondary.hisdomain.hdis.hc.edu.tw/wiki/doku.php?id=documentation:students:encryption>

Home

2009-06-05T08:31:00.003+02:00

Source [2]

HOME [1] is a documentary by aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertran. The full featured film is freely available in HD from the project's youtube chanel [2], and while I'm waiting for Miro to finish downloading it to my local hard drive, I'm watching the preview [3] and the talk he gave at TED [4].

"Yann Arthus-Bertrand is an aesthete with the soul of a moralist. He uses the beauty of the world to beguile you into a photograph in which a larger lesson awaits. His lesson is about the planet in jeopardy." [5]
Richard Lacayo, Time

HOME website, <http://www.home-2009.com>
HOME Youtube Chanel, <http://www.youtube.com/homeproject>
Youtube: HOME (Trailer) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qicARYcTe6w&feature=fvw>
TED: Yann Arthus Bertrand, <http://www.ted.com/talks/yann_arthus_bertrand_captures_fragile_earth_in_wide_angle.html>
TED: Speakers Yann Arthus-Bertrand: Photographer, <http://www.ted.com/speakers/yann_arthus_bertrand.html>

Samson (Regina Spektor)

2009-06-02T01:00:00.003+02:00

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads
But they're just old light, they're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
And kissed me 'til the mornin' light, the mornin' light
And he kissed me 'til the mornin' light

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first

At first I thought this was the sad story of Delilah who, after falling in love with Samson, betrayed him with a hair cut. Now, I'm starting to think that it's the very opposite: a beautiful story where, in an alternate universe, love prevailed over power, and Samson was more than willing to relinquish strength and glory for the love of a woman and a normal life.

Of course, I could just look it up online to find out about more the few lines that still puzzle me, but I think I'll just continue to listen to it on repeat and see where my imagination takes me...

Thanks to Ricardo for pointing me towards this amazing singer!

New Mobile Device, New Humanity...

2009-05-31T03:45:00.021+02:00

For more than two years, I had been waiting for the "perfect" mobile device. The device should be unlocked, have a touch screen, WiFi, GPS, and run a flexible operating system. I became pretty excited when the OpenMoko [1] project started almost a year before the first iPhone came out, because the software on this device is completely free and open source, and even the hardware is documented. [2] Unfortunately, it wasn't available in Taiwan until very recently, which was a little too late because about a month ago, I started eying the HTC Magic [3], the latest phone running Google Android. It's now been a little more than a week since I bought it, and it's given me a lot to think about.

Before I got my first cellphone (in my early twenties), I resisted them for a while. In my mind, cellphones brought the most inconsiderate side in people: cellphones would be ringing loudly in public spaces, people would interrupt real conversations to answer them, and they would talk loudly on the bus like no one else was around... But when it became cheaper to have one than to pay for a land line, I gave up. But I swore that I would leave it on vibrate, never interrupt a real conversation, and not use it in public. The first two rules are still very important to me, but the last one is becoming less significant as more and more people are too busy talking on their own phones to notice me much...

Here's a short talk that captures the essence of this issue:

Renny Gleeson is right when he says that the increased availability that cellphones give us drives the expectation that we be more available, which can easily lead to our obligation to be. There's a strange feeling associated with being available all the time. On one hand, it is slightly addictive to have the knowledge that we can't miss a call, text message, or email from those we care about. On the other, there's a slight uneasiness associated with everyone expecting us to be that available all the time. Nonetheless, for me, the addictive side wins. I've never felt more connected before, and I can't go back now. In addition to the standard phone and text message connectivity, the Android system automatically downloads my emails from my three different accounts (for later offline use) every time it connects to WiFi, lets me use MSN or gchat when I'm online, and connects me to the larger community when it checks and downloads my favorite RSS feeds and tweets automatically. And I'm of course more organized since it syncs with my google callendars, and contact lists.

This sense of being connected, however, is simply a more intense, mature, and ubiquitous version of what the traditional phone and internet had givens us. However, this device also brings something of a different kind. I found a few applications that give me access to the device's sensors and tell me things about my environment that my five senses can't. I can measure acceleration and tilt of my device, the direction of the magnetic field at my location, the strength of the cellphone and WiFi signals around me, find out my GPS coordinates, and match them to various maps to see where I am, or which stars I'm looking at.

The geeky "Tricorder" app gives information about acceleration, magnetic field, GPS coordinates, and cellphone and WiFi signals.

The "GPS Status" app, uses the GPS, accelerometer, and magnetic field sensors to show a compass, with position, speed, and acceleration. The "AndNav2" app puts this information on user generated maps [4], and "SkyMap" uses the GPS and accelerometer to show the stars the device is pointing towards.

This basic "augmented reality" [5] capability is at its infancy at the moment, but it seems natural that development in this area should be the next step. All that's missing at the moment is an easy interface between the device (and its extra sensors), and us. Pattie Maes gives us a glimpse of what might be to come:

In Cory Doctorrow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [6] story, people have brain implants that allow them to communicate wirelessly and access meta information of their surroundings. They can even backup their "minds" and reload themselves in new bodies in case of accidents. If this is really where we're going, before we try to answer Gleeson's request for mobile devices that make us more human and not less, we might have to ponder the meaning of being "human".

Links

OpenMoko, <http://openmoko.com>
OpenMoko, <http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page>
HTC Magic, <http://www.htc.com/www/product/magic/overview.html>
OpenStreetMap, <http://www.openstreetmap.org>
Wikipedia: Augmented Reality, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality>
Craphound, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, <http://craphound.com/down/download.php>

The individual and society

2009-05-19T09:11:00.001+02:00

I love my job and quite like my "adult" life-style... But it feels like my opinions about "big ideas" are becoming more simplistic as time passes; at least compared to how it felt like when I was at university. It seems that people in the "real world" don't engage in critical analyses of each other's ideas as much as "scholars" do (or at least, as much as they engage in criticizing each other's personalities). Of course, my recollection of my student years is probably skewed towards the positive. I'm sure we used to bitch at each other back then too...

In any case, here's one of those simple opinions I've been entertaining lately:

A society should be organized (and regulated) so that people are personally responsible for the choices they make and have to assume the consequences of their actions. At the same time, however, individual "accidents" should be dampened by the social safety net so that events outside one's control is not financially debilitating.

In the context of health care, for example, accidents and diseases should be covered by the state, but health conditions deriving from one's poor life choices (like smoking) should be covered by the individual. Between these two extremes could even be a gray area where a certain percentage of the cost is covered by the state depending on the statistics relating to the cause. For example rock climbing, which may seem dangerous, could be shown empirically to be much safer than smoking, which may appear harmless, and thus treated accordingly. Diseases associated with old age should be accepted as part of the natural cycle of life, and the state shouldn't subsidize individuals wanting to push the inevitable by only a few years, but instead make the final transition as comfortable as possible...

How would this position play out in other areas like education, business, ecology, the economy, etc? Why does this seem to simplistic? What am I not thinking about?

Now on Twitter...

2009-05-18T20:14:00.004+02:00

I'm very much enjoying reading the quick, snappy updates from people I want to follow, or the mini blog-like posts that quickly point me to article I might want to read.

I'm also enjoying the ability to quickly share net discoveries without having to commit to writing a blog post, or worse, spamming people.

So far, I'm a happy twitter user [1] (especially using Twitterific as an interface).

You can also check out my super fancy website (yeah right) where I keep updated links of the places I maintain on the web (pictures, YouTube, etc.).

Link

Pat on Twitter, <http://twitter.com/ptruchon>
Pat's Website, <http://ptruchon.pbworks.com>

Free (as in freedom) Beer

2009-05-04T06:49:00.008+02:00

On my school blog, I've written a lot about Free Software [1]. In a nutshell, the word "Free" relates to the "Freedom" to use and modify the software, not the price. The catchphrase is usually: "Free as in free speech, not as in free beer". Well, maybe we'll need to find a new catchphrase: Last weekend, some of my friends found a beer in Taipei that is free in the freedom sense. [2]

Here's what the back says:

"FREE BEER (version 3.2) is an open source beer, FREE BEER is based on classic ale brewing traditions, but with the added guarana for a natural energy boost.

The recipe and branding elements of FREE BEER is published under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5). This license gives anyone the permission to use the recipe or create a derivative of the recipe to brew their own FREE BEER and to use and modify the design and branding elements. Anyone is free to earn money from FREE BEER, but they must publish the changes and results under the same license and credit our work.

Recipe, branding elements and more information at: www.freebeer.org"

Links

Patrick Truchon's Anti-Anti-Spam: <http://his-truchonp.blogspot.com/search/label/Free%20and%20Open%20Source>
FREE BEER, <http://www.freebeer.org>
usadvd's wretch blog, <http://www.wretch.cc/blog/usadvd/3001561>

White Fungus

2009-05-03T02:31:00.004+02:00

White Fungus, by Bruce Sterling, is a really nice short story (about 12 pages) about the reorganization of society after the economic system has completely collapsed.

"The solution was making the defeat of our hunger look like fun. People gardened in five-minute intervals, by meshing webcams with handsets. A tomato vine ready to pick sent someone an SMS. Game-playing gardeners cashed in their points at local market stalls and restaurants. This scheme was an ‘archi tec ture of participation’. Since the local restaurants were devoid of health and employee regulations, they were easy to start and maintain. Everything was visible on the Net. We used ingenious rating systems.

People keenly resented me for this intervention. My coldly logical scheme was about as popular as Minimalism. I did it anyway. I designed the vertical racks for the outsides of old buildings, I designed the irrigation systems, and I also planted the webcams to deter the hordes of eager fruit thieves. I performed this labor in my ‘free time’, because the need to eat is not a ‘business model’. How ever, my child was eating fresh produce. All the children were eating. Once other parents grasped this reality, I received some help. " [1]

Link:

White Fungus, <http://www.sunarchitecture.nl/upload/49d601a8ba4b25.51434338.pdf>

Youtube

2009-05-02T20:48:00.002+02:00

I finally created myself a Youtube account and uploaded a few songs that I recorded over the years...

Enjoy!

Links:

Pat's Youtube Chanel, <http://www.youtube.com/ptruchon>

To keep things in, or to keep things out?

2009-04-30T13:07:00.010+02:00

I just read an article explaining why wearing surgical masks won't really help the spread of the flu:

"Infectious disease specialist Dr. Andrew Simor said surgical masks are recommended for staff in the close confines of hospitals and long-term care centres to prevent transmission of flu viruses and other microbes from patients to care providers.

The risk of health-care workers contracting influenza from an infected patient is increased because of prolonged close contact and medical procedures that may cause the patient "to cough and splutter all over you," said Simor of Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

But when it comes to the public at large, wearing masks would have little benefit, he said. "Those things don't happen as you're sort of going about your daily business buying groceries or watching a movie." " [1]

What struck me is the unquestioned assumption that people should wear masks to protect themselves. After living three years in Taiwan, I got used to people wearing surgical masks everywhere when they are sick; the obvious purpose being to prevent others from being infected... Even in my school, it's not unusual to see a few students wear a mask all day long.

The two questions that I'm now wondering are: if sick people were the ones wearing the masks, would that help the slow down of the epidemic? And why are Taiwanese so oblivious to others when they drive, but so considerate when they're sick?

Links:

LifeStyle from Yahoo <http://health.lifestyle.yahoo.ca/channel_health_news_details.asp?news_id=17865&news_channel_id=1026&channel_id=1026>

Economic Crisis and Business Schools...

2009-04-27T09:57:00.002+02:00

ABC has a very interesting radio program investigating whether business schools have some responsibility in the declining economy.

Talking about how MBA's are supposed to train managers:

"You cannot create a manager in the classroom, let alone a leader. You simply can't. Management is not a science, it's not a profession, it's a practice. You learn it by doing it. To claim that you're training people who are not managers to be managers is a sham. You can't do it." [1]

A retired professor who pioneered business schools was asked the following question: "What are the benefits of a business education?" and answered that...

"there are three benefits:
To equip students with a vocabulary that enables them to talk with authority about subjects they did not understand.
Give students principles that would demonstrate their ability to withstand any amount of disconfirming evidence.
Give students a ticket of admission to job where they could learn something about management." [1]

Other interesting quotes:

" The characteristic of the new age of management profession is improving the number, not improving the product." [1]

"The case-study method trains people to be make decisions about things they know nothing about in their guts and in their soul." [1]

Link:

ABC: Background Briefing, MBA: Mostly bloody aweful, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2526727.htm>

Laser engrver plays Super Mario Bro. Theme...

2009-04-18T11:52:00.000+02:00

... with its stepper motors.

lazzor music! from hypatia on Vimeo.

Laser engraver plays Super Mario theme from Jedediah Smith on Vimeo.

Psychological Momentum

2009-04-12T09:15:00.006+02:00

Tryo said it well: "plus on en fait, plus on en fait [...] moins on en fait, moins on en fait" (the more we do, the more we do [...], the less we do, the less we do). Momentum is great when it's in the direction you want to go, but when it's not, it's a pain to fight!

Back in November, I had to get surgery on my toe. Not a big deal except that I had to stop cycling, and climbing. My toe is doing alright now (I still have very sensitive scar tissue), but I've been finding it difficult to get back in my routine. I didn't realize how much I had missed climbing and biking, and how much stopping these activities made me less motivated to do a lot of other, unrelated things (like study Chinese). I also didn't expect how difficult it would be to start again...

Finally, this week, I decided it was time. For the past two evenings, I've been going to the climbing wall at the university (I'm so out of shape!) And I started studying Chinese again. It really helps that my roommate showed me this really cool coffee house (literally a house with tables in the living room and the bed rooms). So today, I decided to bike there to study some Chinese. I think I'll make this place my new work place: it's really cool, and they've got free wireless...

I don't want to speak too soon, but it sure feels good to be rolling again!

The Caf'e Ant & Cat's Livingroom at 西門街135號 is a little tricky to find...

Beautiful Kitchen in plain view.

Planning...

2009-03-22T02:16:00.002+01:00

In a little more than a month, I will have been in Taiwan for three years already. The job I have is so busy, though, that it's been very difficult to take some time for myself and study Chinese. Recently, I've been toying with an idea of working part time for a year and take Chinese classes. I found classes that I could take; now I just need to work out the details with my school. Preliminary discussions were very hopeful, but more details need to be worked out. So it looks like I'll finally be able to immerse myself a little more in the Taiwanese culture! Finally...

For this summer, I'm thinking of visiting Europe (France in particular). I've never been to Europe, and now that I have summer vacations, and some money saved up, I think it's time. I'm also looking forward to seeing some friends I made there...

To those of you who've traveled in these parts of the world, any suggestions?

Cheers!

Crisis of Credit

2009-03-14T04:41:00.002+01:00

These are supposed to be simple explanations of the crisis of credit in the US. I guess I understand the problem, but what I don't understand is how anyone could hope that a system with so many "middle men" could be sustainable... I really don't understand macro economics...

Sucked in...

2009-02-15T12:07:00.003+01:00

As with Harry Potter, I caught the fever a bit later than everyone else. But once I got infected, I had a hard time putting the books (and audiobooks) down... It's happening again now...

plane graveyard...

2009-02-07T04:21:00.000+01:00

Cool Google Map of a plane graveyard...

View Larger Map

Some perspective...

2009-01-30T23:27:00.002+01:00

Perspective is a funny thing. Trying to see the "big picture" can help you weigh the importance of things, but if you go too far, there comes a point where you start feeling disconnected from the whole thing and start wondering what the point of it all is...

Ok, that's a bit grim, so here are a few clips to put things back in... well... perspective.

So there's spatial perspective. Here you see the Earth (and even the Sun!) becoming an insignificant dot compared to other massive stars...

There's temporal perspective. Here you'll see a baby play on the floor for 4 hours, in 2 minutes...

And of course, Douglas Adams sums it all up with his "total perspective vortex" <TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse_Perspective.ogg>. (You'll need the OGG Codec to play this [1])

Links:

Documentation: Ogg, <http://secondary.hisdomain.hdis.hc.edu.tw/wiki/doku.php?id=documentation:ogg>

My Next Project...

2009-01-30T13:35:00.001+01:00

Flight of the Conchords

2009-01-28T16:30:00.002+01:00

One of my students introduced me to this hilarious band. They have a TV show, which I don't like too much, but their live shows are pretty funny! Here are a couple of my favorite songs:

Jenny

Albi

A little FOSS fun...

2009-01-28T03:36:00.005+01:00

Asleep on A Sunbeam with Audacity. Click on picture to enlarge.

Yesterday I spent a few hours messing around with my guitar and recorded this: <090127_AsleepOnASunbeam.ogg>.

I used Audacity [1], a Free and Open Source Software, to record; and although it's pretty easy to use, it's very powerful. What's also really cool about Audacity is that it runs on Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and GNU/Linux. So projects created with Audacity can be edited on any computers... Unfortunately, I didn't have an external microphone so I recorded all five tracks with my laptop internal mic, which makes for pretty crappy sound. If you look at the Audacity screenshot while listening to the recording, you can kind of see where the tracks start and end.

After adjusting the volumes a little this morning, I exported the whole thing to an ogg file [2]: a Free and Open Source media file format. You'll need to download a special codec to play the song, but it's pretty easy to do [3].

In case you're curious to hear what the original sounds like:
--

--

Let me know what you think...

Cheers!

Links:

Audacity, <http://audacity.sourceforge.net>
Wikipedia: Ogg, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg>
Documentation: Ogg <http://secondary.hisdomain.hdis.hc.edu.tw/wiki/doku.php?id=documentation:ogg>

Some Quotes I'd Like to Remember...

2008-11-21T01:13:00.000+01:00

"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon, philosophy without action is worthless"

--Soichiro Honda

"A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person."

--Bill Swanson

"La musique c'est mon pays libre
C'est mon jouet c'est pas une mine d'or
J'ai pas besoin de votre accord sur ma guitare"

--Kain, Jusqu'au Ciel

"People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have. For example, the freedom of thought. Instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation."

--Søren Kierkegaard

"If a motorcyclist wants to show national pride, enhance social safety and family happiness, he/she must: (1) drive ethically and obey the laws (2) have great driving skills (3) stop smoking and drinking"

--Taiwanese Motorcycle Driving Test Question

"Telle est la faiblesse de notre raison: elle ne sert le plus souvent qu'à justifer nos croyance"

--Marcel Pagnol, La gloire de mon père (p. 16)

"If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation"

--Sir Arthur Eddington

"The true is not superior to the good and the beautiful. The true and the good and the beautiful belong essentially to every human existence and are united not in thinking them but in living them."

-- Soren Kierkegaard

"What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument"

--C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, p. 69

"Time does not heal the wound, it will though, in its most merciful way, blunt the edge ever-so slightly."

--88 Minutes (movie)

"Happiness is only real when shared."

--Into The Wild (movie)

"Something unknown is doing we don't know what."

--Sir Arthur Eddington

Love is complicated...

2008-11-01T13:18:00.005+01:00

It's not that simple... [1]

hmmm... [2]

Links

xkcd, Regrets <http://xkcd.com/458/>
xkcd, Commitment <http://xkcd.com/310/>

All you can eat music...

2008-10-31T04:21:00.003+01:00

Finally a company who is trying a different business model for selling digital music. At DATZ.com [1], you can buy a Secure USB key for 99£ (~160USD) which allows you to download as much music as you want for a year.

All the music is yours to keep forever and downloads can take place at any time during a whole year after the product is registered - and best of all the music is downloaded in MP3 format and DRM free to your PC which means you can sync them with any digital music player

In order to run Datz Music Lounge software you must have the secure USB dongle that is supplied in the retail pack.

Unfortunately the Mac version is not currently available. Please check back here after December 1st.

Links:

DATZ.com, <http://www.datz.com>

Electric Scooter!

2008-09-20T07:18:00.004+02:00

Finally, I got my electric scooter yesterday. I'm stoked...

I went for a ride in the little mountain roads this morning and I my brain was on overdrive, jumping from one thought to another:

This is so peaceful: Beautiful small country roads. Completely quiet. The sun shining. The wind blowing on my face.
It's so smooth: No vibration from a loud internal combustion engine. Only the irregularities of the roads, dampened by the suspension system.
It's beautiful physics: The lack of engine compression yields very low friction. Slowing down from 50km/hr takes forever. It's Newton's First law [1] at its best. Then going down a hill and picking up a lot of speed, and using it to climb the next up-hill. It's conservation of mechanical energy the way roller coasters know how to use so well.
It's clean. At least it feels clean. It makes me wonder where the electricity that was used to recharge it comes from. And then, at the top of a hill, I see two wind turbines...
It's the future. We're not there yet. But it's definitely the way to go. Clean energy, and clean transportation systems. We need to keep going in that direction...

I drove near two wind turbines. Imagine if this
picture was the norm instead of the exception.

I also made a little video [2] to show how quiet it is. As I drive towards the main road, notice how you can year the cars pass by in the distance over the quiet hum of the scooter...

Links

Wikipedia: Newton's laws of motion,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion#Newton.27s_first_law:_law_of_inertia>
Patrick Truchon: EVT-4000e ride,
<http://secondary.hisdomain.hdis.hc.edu.tw/users/truchonp/misc/EVT4000e.mov>

Comics...

2008-08-13T09:13:00.009+02:00

I admit, I'm a geek. In particular, I love geek jokes... I just came across this comics site [1] maintained by a physics graduate who now works as a server tech dude...

Here are a few examples...

Links:

<http://xkcd.com>

Big Brother is Watching...

2008-08-12T01:58:00.002+02:00

... your iPhone.

"[A]n independent engineer discovered code inside the iPhone that suggested iPhones routinely check an Apple Web site that could, in theory trigger the removal of the undesirable software from the devices." [1]

We're all familiar with system updates: personal computers check with a server who sends them new programs to fix old ones. Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and GNU/Linux all do it to a similar level of automation. System updates are important because they keep the system... well... up-to-date! In particular, it's a way to keep the computer in the hacking rat race: some people find loop holes to attack your computer, the OS designers patch the holes before they get exploited. As is the case here, these can also be abused, and it seems that the line between an "update" and a "malware" can be blurry... The movie "I, Robot" took this idea to the extreme when the main computer took complete control of the robots.

There are many reasons for using exclusively free software [2] but two of them jump to my mind here:

Without the source code, it's hard for computer writers to reverse engineer what programs actually do. So someone managed to uncover this "hidden" feature in the iPhone. What else does the iPhone do secretly that only Apple knows about? With free/open software, public scrutiny of the source code ensures that no hidden features can remain in the dark.
Even assuming that you trust Apple to be 100% just and ethical with this power to disable your applications remotely, can anyone be trusted to never make a mistake? Again, public scrutiny of the source code by many many more programmers contributes to better quality code, and faster bug fix.

I feel bad to even compare the OpenMoko device [3] to the iPhone, but if you're looking for a free, open alternative to the iPhone, this could be it. Mind you, I don't have one so I don't know if this gadget (more like a small computer than a phone at this point) is really any good... But if I finally convince myself to buy one (when the new batch arrives), I'll make sure to write a short review.

References:

BoingBoing Gagets, <http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/08/11/who-watches-the-watc.html>
Philosophy of the GNU Project, <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/>
OpenMoko, <http://openmoko.com/>

Modern Hermit: Goodbye Facebook

2008-08-11T08:10:00.003+02:00

Today, I closed my Facebook account. I untagged all my pictures, deleted all my mail, wall posts, and finally... my friends. I felt like I was hopping on a boat to a desert island!

I feel relieved. No more compulsive Facebook-checking, no more worrying about what kinds of pictures of me others will post and tag, no more keeping track of this parallel universe, where so many things are happening with real life consequences...

I feel deprived. For all the reasons above, I feel like I lost a 6th sense: that of reading the TV guide summary of my friend's soap opera version of their lives.

Maybe I'm a modern hermit. I don't want 100 friends. Actually, even 20 or 30 is quite a big number for me ... I would rather have a few, but close friends. But on Facebook, quantity seems to prevail over quality.

I also have secrets. Certain things are not meant to be known by certain people. I'm not a secret agent, but I enjoy a level of privacy that is a little hard to maintain on Facebook. With friends posting things that their friends (not mine) can read and see ...

So, goodbye Facebook. I resisted you for two years, then gave you a chance. Now I'm leaving you ...

If you haven't heard from me in a while

1978-02-06T19:15:00.009+01:00

For those of you who haven't heard from me in a while, here's a brief synopsis so you can put this blog in context.

When I finished high school at the "Polyvalente des Baies" in 1995, I decided to move to British-Columbia for a year so that I could learn English. After that year, however, I decided to come back to Vancouver with the goal of going to university here. That took me a while...

After a few years of focusing on learning English, a year of learning American Sign Language, a year working back in Quebec, two years of college and five years of University, I finally got my BSc. in Physics (with a minor in Philosophy) and a certificate in Education in May of 2006.

Right after finishing university, I flew to Taiwan for the summer to travel a little. To extend my visa and make a little bit of money, I found a part time job teaching English. At the end of the summer, I found a position teaching math and physics in an international school in Hsinchu, where I have now since then.

I started this blog a few days before flying to Taiwan to send news to family and friends. But after almost two years, I was starting to feel a little "exposed", having all of these stories about me online. So I decided to only keep the most recent posts, and take the old ones off the web. What can you say, I'm a bit shy with strangers...