He, you want a Block-o-text(™)? Who do you think I am??? :D Hey, I've been a bit forgetful these days but let's see if I can contribute anything. That's because Block-o-texts are quite a fun thing to write, I let go the lash on my mind and let my weirdness to its job to keep me as a social almost-outcast! As, some people complain that I talk too much (while my family complains the opposite) and then they wonder what the hiccipus I mean with things such as Gunblade, EV Training, monk rush, or rm -rf /. :D
So, yeah, poke taken.
Last thing I remember we wall-o-texted each other was about XKCD, Soft rulzzz'ing for scientific research in the Real World, the (quoting you) lousy story about how Finland became independant, and how I ended up being "summoned" to work. It was quite fun, although it was also getting shorter by the time.
I really love XKCD. not only because of the use of maths, sci-fi references and velociraptors, but also because the art style renders everything simplistic and gives me an idea of "Oh, come on, things should really be this simple!. There are only a couple of jokes I did not understand at the first time, but I eventually got them and laughed, too. The ones regarding Black Hat Guy are, for the lack of a better combination of words, Awesome Canned.
I'm amused to see that you like integrals. I hate 'em with a death pulsion, to be truthful. I canderive any function given some time and a can of soda, but for the life of me I can't integrate anything that is even barely more complicated than a polynomial. And don't get me started on trigonometric conversions: I can't get how did people account for these with all the sudden radixes inside semirational denominators! Thank god I at least learnt how to use the udv -> v du trick.
I'd rather take four yes FOUR Algebra courses in one semester than one Calculus course. As a matter of fact, I kinda got the trick of Non-Associative Quasi-Ring Algebras after only one week, but because of their lack of real-world use (at the time, circa 2002), I didn't study them further. What kind of interesting and kinda obscure ramification of maths (besides Calculus :D) do you like?
You know, after the Soft thing I thought that yeah, you're right, chopped fossils are of not much use, but the item themselves would still rock to do research on small remnants such as leaves, seeds, and, given the chance, insects. I guess that should add a +15 to the interest and weirdness factor of applied, on-field science! :rambo:
So, yeah, I was away in a conference, and, you know, somehow my presentation was scheduled right after one of our Senators explayed himself on the topic of how my country has failed to bring modern and adequate legislation regarding Internet privacy and Digital Rights (note, not! DRM, but "User Rights"). Then I explayed myself on how to use some Free Software tools to improve privacy and anonymity, and the day next to that I receive a mai in my inbox, from the Senator's CoS, that they wanted to contact me and ask for advice on the ways to bring media attention to the matter of internet privacy. What's made even more incredible because two days before our conference, a TV special showed how some pedophiles in my country absolutely FAIL to protect their privacy and end up easily caught. Fortunately I was asked no questions on the subject...
Regarding my country, I live about 500km south of Santiago, at an area where wheather is quite bipolar (dry summer and rainy winter, with almost nothing in between). I don't really give too much info through this medium, but feel free to ask via PM if you're interested. Here where I live we're the terrain is kinda sunk because of the erosio of two close mountains, towards the city river, in such a way that the city landscape acts as a sort of conveyor for air currents. That means that as long as there's windy action up the cordillera, our air is clean and shiny and we get no diseases whatsoever, but as soon as the chills stop, the concentration of particulated material (in particular PM-12 such as tinder) grows exponentially and we all have to use masks... I actually took part of a study in my former collegue about that, and we were about to join forces with a German institute to perform mesoscale (ie.: region-wide) simulations and convection diagnostics using FORTRAN... and then the collegue's Dept. of Finances took out our budget. Shame... well those were the best times of my life, because I was working with all my friends so it was avery interesting work-in-the-family kind of dynamics (one example: we bought pizzas after every successful simulation, and enjoyed between the teachers, programmers and staff, even our secretary).
I can say that both my parent are from both Italian and Spaniard descent (sp?). My mother's Italian side is fro Capri, and my father's Italian side may be from Rome, I'm not sure. I ended up a nice interesting mixture of.. whatever. I don't really care too much about my lineage because I consider blood ties not to be determinant of one's personality or value unless one forges them by themself, like, from my mate and our cubs children downwards. Note that I don't mean I do have a mate :( , right now I am too busy for that...
Oh, well, I have to go now. Look, about your country's story, what about in the next wall-o-text when I get a chance, I'll talk about how my country obtained independence, and then we can span the VM system with wall-o-texts comparing notes and stuff? I guess it won't be long before everyone else who visits our VM pages go "WTF???!!!" :D
