The reason for the recent silence on this blog...

tl;dr: bla bla bla plasma bla.

my thesis, in nonuplicate. A hundred and sixteen pages long, including the French  (the horror!) abstract. May the gods of academia, i.e. the experts judging it, be merciful to it.

Bern and its mutant bears

An old bear-emblem, pre-ninja era

Bern, the capital of Switzerland is known for its bears. Has been known for its bears for centuries, in fact. It was founded in 1191 by Berthold V, Duke von Zähringen. 1193 it suffered a meteorite impact. Said meteorite had an unusually high concentration of Cobalt-60, and as a consequence the local bears mutated, becoming hyper-intelligent tool-users. They proliferated in the fertile lands around Bern, and several skirmishes (also known as Bärenchriege) were fought over the next years. Eventually Bern fell in 1218, with the Berthold V. suffering a gruesome death at the claws of the enraged bears, being torn apart atop the Zytglogge, the famous clock-tower of Bern. Berthold V. having no heirs to continue the war, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II had no choice but to leave the bears in control, declaring Bern a free imperial city.

The Zytglogge, where Berthold V. met his end

The bears joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1353, and stayed in power in Bern until being occupied by French troops in 1798, during the French Revolutionary wars. The bears vanished from public live. How and when they managed to contact the Tokugawa shogunate is hotly disputed by scholars, but it is clear that when they reappeared in 1848, they had been trained extensively as ninjas. The bears, now hyper-intelligent mutant ninja bears showed no inclination of retaking the reins of power, even though they certainly would have been capable of it. Instead, the seemed content to hang out in the Bärengraben, vanishing from it from time to time to conduct secret missions and assassinations, an activity they have continued to this day.

View of the Münster and Bern, from the Bärengraben

I personally nearly met my end on the hands of a slightly myopic ninja bear, who afterwards apologized profusely for mistaking me for his target, before leaping onto the rooftops and vanishing.

It was shear chance that the bear noticed I was not his target, a split-second before tearing out my throat.

Apart from these rare, unfortunate incidents, Bern is a very safe city for tourists, and the "Bärenlugen", trying to spot one of the illusive ninja bears in one of their many disguises, or on one of their clandestine missions, is a popular national past-time. Everything and everyone can be a bear, in Bern.

Depicted: A bear in disguise, emerging from his cave in spring.

Thanksgiving

Being from the old continent, I don't really celebrate Thanksgiving. we have other feasts here, involving more interesting things than turkeys, such as pig's intestines or goose livers. Still, today the sudden urge struck me to hop on the wagon, as it were, and put something thanksgivensh up, so here is my most favourite video celebrating Thanksgiving:

Thanks, o Addams Family!

Shag

source: wikipedia

This is the Shag.
The Shag is a bird.
It's normal for blokes to shag birds.
Sometimes blokes shag blokes,
or birds shag birds, that's okay too.
Shags even shag Shags
but neither blokes nor birds shag Shags - it's frowned upon.
You may, however, bird the Shag.
That is all.

(Inspired by a post form Relax Max)

Parsifal

Day before yesterday, I saw my first Wagner opera: Parsifal. I have seen (and even enjoyed) quite a few operas - you have to, if you live in Vienna, or else they kick you out, but I had shied away from Wagner, until now.

Grand Théâtre de Genève

The venue was the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and quite nice. It's not the Staatsoper in Vienna, but then again, no opera is the Staatsoper, except the Staatsoper.

During intermission

I was a bit anxious about it beforehand - Parsifal is nearly six hours long, and six hours of Wagner at that. But I was most pleasantly surprised, not only did I not fall asleep, I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

The production was minimalist, with nearly no props, which led to the very amusing scene were Parsifal is brought before Gurnemanz for having slain a swan, a big no-no at Monsalvat, it being the resting place of the grail and all. Gurnemanz is supposed to confront Parsifal with the body of the swan, but in keeping with the minimalism of his production, director Roland Aeschlimann has Gurnemanz show a photo of the swan instead. From the ranks you can't really see whether it is photographic evidence, or just a photo of the swan Grunemanz happens to carry around with him. I, of course, chose to believe the latter, and dissolved into giggles imagining the relationship of Gurnemanz and his "unschuldiger Schwan". Ahem.

Another very weird thing was the stage setting in the hall of the grail. Here is a grainy photo of it (from the very end of the opera, Parsifal having returned the holy spear is just healing Amfortas):

If you want to find all the letters, you have to stir the blood a bit.

The thing in the back represents the holy grail, with the blood of Christ (sorry, the Redeemer, Wagner never mentions Christ in the opera) - and letter soup? It's the holy grail - it heals, it prolongs life, brings you salvation and it teaches you to read! Now, let's eat the A's first!

An efficient special effect was the semi-transparent curtain in front of the stage - lit by different lamps from various angles, it made for very effective simulations of fog, and nice fade-outs.

In the end, this has rekindled my interest in opera - I'll have to check out what's playing here in Lausanne!

State of the novel

Ahem.
Since the posting below, I've written about 5000 additional words. Problem is, I somehow ran out of plot at about 21 000 words.
Since I couldn't get the motivation up to write on the novel (and I don't have the mad productive skillz of Stephanie, who wrote more than 50k words in a month without even trying), I also didn't blog, because that makes sense. or not. Anyway, I might have a faint idea on how to proceed, so I will resume writing soon - especially since my sister assures me that it is brilliant. Of course, she would say that, since Christmas is around the corner. Maybe I should ask her again after she's got her present...

Whatever the state of the novel, blogging will resume henceforth. Be prepared.

NaNoWriMo

I am participating in the NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. the idea is to write a (short) novel in November by brute force, namely by pounding out at least 1667 words each and every day, to get up to 50010 words on the 30th. The reasoning behind is that the hardest part of writing is actually forcing yourself to write, and I am certainly finding this so. Right now I am already nearly three thousand words behind schedule, although I have been catching up.

Also, it really should be called International Novel Writing Month by now, or INaNoWriMo, but I guess that is too inane for the organisers.

Sorry about that, on with the show:

The novel I am writing is fantasy, and has the very cliché working title of Necromancer: Apprentice. But then again, Feist did get away with his Magician: Apprentice, so why shouldn't I? Except for the part where he is a successful author, and I, well,  not.

I hope to eventually post the novel here starting from mid-December or so, after I have had some time to revise it a little bit.

What is it about?

At first it seemed so innocuous: Sacrifice a chicken to make the water-pumps turn by themselves. Kill a piglet to heal your dog. But where does it end? Where do you draw the line?

Jack doesn't know - but he has no time to think. His master taught him the forbidden Art, and now he is on the run from the church, with a price on his head and a quaestor on his heels. What is he willing to sacrifice for his freedom?

 You see, I already wrote my own blurb!

Will I publish it, and get filthy, filthy rich?
No. I'll give it away for free, because I am just generous that way.  Also, I suspect it will not be that good. But who knows? Maybe I'll get discovered by an editor desperately trawling the far reaches of the internet for some prose to publish, and then I'll live the rest of my life in luxury! If so, I'll let you know where the party is ;)

Oh, and in case you are just bursting with curiosity, here you can see how many words I've written so far:



The same widget is also up on the right side-panel.

Sneg

Sniffling, snacky, snapy
sometimes snappy, seldomly snarched;
snareless, snarp, sneaky,
skin sneith and snever:
stop snubbing snails
sniggering snobs!

You can have so much fun with access to the OED ;)

Talon

I always, always, always get confused in Vo Vietnam, when they tell us to "laissez vos talons au sol", for example.

In English, talon means first and foremost the claws of a raptor, but it can be used figuratively for the grasping fingers of a greedy archmage as well (I might be slightly influenced by my favourite genre here). This, however, is far removed from the origin of the word - in fact, the French talon (heel) is much closer to the original meaning of the latin root  talus, i.e. ankle.  Since I know the instructors are talking about our feet, I immediatly assume talon->fingers->toes, and get it wrong (incidentally, the toes are called orteilles in French, a word that is much too long and onomatopoaeic unpleasing).

To clear up the confusion, I turned to my new favourite resource, the Oxford English Dictionary (oh sweet manna of definitions, oh ambrosia of etymology - thank you EPFL for buying access!), which says about the english talon:

talon, n.

  I. 1. a. The ‘heel’ or hinder part of the foot of certain quadrupeds, as swine and deer, or of the hoof of a horse. Obs. 

  b. The hallux or hinder claw of a bird. Obs. 

  2. pl. The claws (or less usually in sing. any claw) of a bird or beast. a. spec. The powerful claws of a bird of prey, or of a dragon, griffin, etc. 

  b. The claws (or in sing. any claw) of a wild beast, of an insect, etc. 

  c. Allusively applied to the grasping fingers or hands of human beings. (Cf. CLAW.)

[ME. a. OF. talon heel of a man, or of a shoe, hinder part of the foot of a quadruped = Pr. talo, Sp. talon, Pg. talo, It. talone heel, heel-piece:late pop. L. or Com. Romanic talo, talon-em heel, deriv. form of talus ankle. With the forms talant, talent, cf. ancient, margent, parchment, peasant, tyrant, etc.: see -ANT3. The sense-development shows the stages: ankle; heel of man (of a shoe, etc.); heel or hinder part of the foot of a beast; hinder claw of a bird of prey; any claw (usually in pl. the claws) of a bird, a dragon, an ungulate beast, an insect, etc. The extension to a bird of prey, and subsequent stages, are peculiar to English.] 

Well, there you go. Ankle -> heel -> hindclaw -> raptor claw -> any claw -> fingers. Obvious.

For completeness sake here the french definition of the Larousse (to which the EPFL also provides access. Oh joy, oh... etc.)

talon:nom masculin

(latin populaire talo, -onis, du latin classique talus)

Partie postérieure et inférieure du pied de l'homme, dont le squelette est le calcanéum.

Support placé sous l'emboîtage pour donner à une chaussure son aplomb : Chaussures à talons hauts.

Partie d'un bas, d'un collant, d'une chaussette qui correspond au talon : Bas à talons renforcés.

Extrémité inférieure ou postérieure de certains objets : Le talon d'un ski.

Extrémité d'un aliment qu'on débite en tranches : Talon de jambon.

Partie non détachable d'une feuille de carnet à souches, d'un chéquier.

Être, marcher sur les talons de quelqu'un, le suivre de très près ; l'imiter.

Le talon d'Achille, la seule partie vulnérable de son corps ; le point faible de quelqu'un.

Tourner, montrer les talons, s'enfuir.

There you have it. The point? There is supposed to be a point to my blog-entries?

Emoticons

Emoticons, I have found, make you a lazy writer.

I don't use many different emoticons, in fact, I only use three:

:)    ;)   :(

But recently I have found myself sprinkling them in my emails and comments with abandon. They are useful - you can indicate a sarcastic sentence with a quick ;), or lighten up a criticism with a :). But you cannot always use emoticons (Dear prospective employer ;), I...), and then there is the pesky parantheses problem.Also, since you can't expect people to know the more obscure ones :-{>, you limit yourself. Furthermore, I think I (and everyone else, are you listening, youtube-commenters? [Commenter - obsolete, or so the OED tells me. Commentator is the word.]) should be able to communicate sufficiently well by writing to impart the more complex emotions without resorting to crutches.  How, I ask myself, can you develop your writing skills when you are making no effort, you idiot ;)?

To be sure, emoticons have their uses, when you are working with a character-limit for example. But I am trying to wean myself off.

Seriously ;)

Chthononosology

I have a new favourite (english) word:

chthononosology - The geography of diseases

I recently discovered that the EPFL is subscribed to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is a delightful procrastination resource - the entries are much more detailed than the free Merriam-Webster.  Also, the M-W does not know chthononosology, and what kind of dictionary does that make of it, I ask you?

Patriotism

It is fair to say that I am not a patriot. In fact, I consider patriotism a remnant from ye old, uncivilized times, only one step removed from bashing the other guy over the head with a rock.

Part of the reason I feel like this is upbringing. My family comes from all over Europe: My father from (then) Yugoslavia, my Grandmother from the Sudetenland, etc. etc. My big sister was born in Germany before my parents moved to Austria. Furthermore, in Austria it is mostly (at least in my social circle) considered bad taste to be a patriot - we have unfortunately shown the world where that leads if taken too far.

But the biggest part of the reason I detest patriotism comes from (I hope) rational reasoning. The Merriam Webster's dictionary defines patriotism as:

pa·tri·ot·ism \ˈpā-trē-ə-ˌti-zəm, noun circa 1726: love for or devotion to one's country

So in effect, patriotism means being proud of having been born within the arbitrarily drawn borders of a patch of land. Congratulations!

To expatiate: I do not think that one can or should be proud of something which one achieved by chance. Happy, yes. I am quite happy to have been born in Austria and not in Sudan, for example. But proud? Am I proud of myself if I find a hundred Euros on the street? Am I proud of the hundred Euros, for having the good chance to be found by me?

I think not. I think patriotism is a vulgar sentiment, which only exists to bolster our feeling of superiority about those others, those foreigners. Patriotism makes it easier to close our borders to the unwashed masses, easier to punch those bastards who have the audacity to support the team of their own country instead of ours, easier to shoot those not of our tribe.


Humans of all nations should do well to remember that nations are first of all constructs of organization - there to collect taxes, build roads and protect us from the horror of GMO's or radiation or whatever the scary technology of the week is - and not some mystical entities imbued with all that is good and holy.


So when you are waving your countries flag while swilling beer on your nation's national holiday, think about all those billions of foreigners who have the same feeling of superiority as you do, even tough their flags sport different colours. They are in the majority, you know.

Clouds

A word frequency cloud of my Research Plan:



Wordle is a wonderful way to procrastinate on a Friday afternoon...

Doubleflagging

Continuing the theme about the blithering idiots that call themselves football fans, let us today examine the idiocy that is doubleflagging. Doubleflagging is a word I have just invented, (no hit's in Google), so I get to use the "words"-tag  that I have sadly neglected.

Anyway, double flagging is defined as:

The practice of simultaneously displaying the flags of two different nations in the context of an international competition. Source: http://borislegradic.blogspot.com/2008/07/Doubleflagging

Let us examine the example shown in the photograph above. The owner of the car is clearly a fan of the German team. He could also be simultaneously be a fan of the Swiss team - which would lead to rather schizophrenic moments should said teams ever play each other - or he is a mealy-mouthed coward.

Because you never see (in Switzerland) a car sporting, say, the German and the Russian flag. Or the Italian and the Dutch flag. No, it is always Swiss and one other.

And the reason for this is that the people who are doubleflagging are saying: "Yay (flag displayed) for the win!". But then they remember, that they are not actually in their home country! The horror! What if somebody takes offense? Or worse (if they have Swiss citizenship), what if they get mistaken for a foreigner? So they quickly put up a Swiss flag, as well. Phew! Close one!

Only, what they are now saying is: "Yay, (flag displayed) for the win! But I am Swiss, you know! Switzerland is cool too! Both are cool! I hope both of them win! I am not a foreigner..."

You know, If you have to destroy the aerodynamic shape of your car with a stupid flag, at least grow a pair and stand to your choice. Doubleflagging just exposes you as the recreant you are.

Riddle

Where on earth can you go north one meter, west one meter and then south one meter and end up where you started?


Well sure, the north pole. But where else?

update: ahem. south pole, I meant to say. South pole.

Schlafentzug (silly german poetry)

A poem about sleep deprivation, inspired by Aniger.
Completely untranslateable (at least by me, so if you don't speak German, you are safe).

Hilfe gegen Schlafentzug,
das ist ja bekannt genug,
bietet dann und wann
das An

Das An ist lieb, nicht wie der Ent
der (das weiss jeder der ihn kennt)
kratzig buerstig und gemein
ist ein Schwein

Das An ist plueschig-plauschig weich
kuschellieb und pflegeleicht
ein Zweibein und auch zahm
anschmiegsam

Drum, willst Du schlafen supergut,
wie man so gerne schlafen tut,
verscheuch das Ent mit lug und trug
und schlaf
im Schlafanzug

Sneaky Facebook

And suddenly I have a Facebook account. Never wanted one, but there you are. All I wanted to do was view some photos of a friend of mine. Filled out some form or other, bla bla email, password - and then I find out I am sucked into the social sinkhole that is Facebook.

I don't know if I will do much with my new account - maybe I will add a couple of pictures or whatnot. If you can't contain yourself, here it is. But, you know, you have to have your own account to log in. And thus the dread disease does dispread.

I thought that dispread (a synonym of spread) is a(nother) completely nonsensical english word, seeing that the prefix dis- normally means the opposite or absence of something.

But, says the Merriam-Websters dictionary:

Main Entry: dis-
Function: prefix
Etymology: Middle English dis-, des-, from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French des-, dis-, from Latin dis-, literally, apart; akin to Old English te- apart, Latin duo two -- more at TWO
1 a : do the opposite of b : deprive of (a specified quality, rank, or object) c : exclude or expel from
2 : opposite or absence of
3 : not
4 : completely

So it seems that dispread means (or meant, since its definition is "to spread abroad or out") spreading completely. Or I have mixed up the etymology, could be that the dis in dispread is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the prefix dis-.

Ressurrection of one old ipod mini

My little sister had an old iPod mini, whose battery was thoroughly dead. (That's the deceiving little blue bastard on the right. It doesn't look dead, but it is. trust me.)

So I ordered a replacement battery, (packaging to the left) and installed it following these nice instructions.

It worked like a charm, but then I updated the firmware, 'cause iTunes told me to. Unfortunately, 1st generation iPod minis require a wall charger to finish the firmware flash. Don't ask me why. The iPod just showed me a friendly icon of the wall charger I don't have, and giggled sillily. Well, okay, it didn't (giggle, that is). I just wanted an excuse to use the adverb sillily. Which Blogger doesn't seem to recognize, even though the authority on all things English does:

Saith the Webster's 1913 dictionary:
(Sil·li·ly
adv.
[From Silly.]
In a silly manner; foolishly. Dryden.

Anyway, luckily there are the internets, more precisely this post from the bearisdriving blog, that showed me that the workaround is as simple as wiggling the usb connector so that the ground and +5V pins are connected and the two data pins (they are a mite shorter) are not. Easy. I should have thought of that, but didn't.

Now everything finally works, and I will have sweet music on my bike again!

Size-issues

For some reason, the francophones only eat small pizzas. I don't know about the original pizzas (pizzi?No, the Italians say "pizze" for the plural, but the internet assures me that pizzas is the correct form in English. I am relieved; thank you, internet.) in Italy, but in Austria you don't get a pizza with less than 35cm of diameter. In France or here in Lausanne on the other hand, they rarely reach 30cm. This one (with extra cheese and bacon lovingly arranged by myself) has a diameter of 23cm. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, because it is still enough for me, and I won't feel sick afterwards like with our huge Austrian Mega-pizzas.

If you take me for a total nerd because I like to quantify my pizza-experience, you are probably right. At least you are in excellent company, as my girlfriend agrees with you.

On a completely unrelated note, there are only three countries in the whole world that don't use the metric (or SI) system: Burma, Liberia, and the USA. Burma is in really bad company ;)

Seeking shade

It's been hot the last couple of days, with frequent thunderstorms and rain showers.

By the way, I think the French word for thunderstorm - orage - is much more onomatopoeic than the English one, or even the German one (i.e. Gewitter). Doesn't "orage" make you just see the rolling clouds?

The thunderstorm on Monday evening was violent enough to knock out the ventilation and the GRCs (Gas Reaction Columns - those sit behind the experiments and burn the toxic gases before venting them to the atmosphere) in the lab. Which was bad, because the GRCs like to be kept at their operating temperature (around 550 Centigrade), and react badly to cooling down. One of them promptly died, and now poor Marina (she of the probe-killer fame) can't do any experiments. Poetic justice, I would say, but I don't, because I am a nice guy. Heh.


The sheep of the EPFL have been surrounding the CRPP lately - I remain to be convinced of their benevolent intentions - but in the midday sun they are seeking whatever shade they can get.

I thought I had written about them before, but a cursory check right now told me I haven't. So here is the deal: The EPFL is full of sheep. Other than the students, I mean. Of the four-legged, not-drunk variety. Ostensibly they are there to keep the grass down, but I have my suspicions. Their ring around the CRPP has been drawing closer each day, and nobody except me seems to notice their belligerent expressions. Their cold eyes stare at me when I ride my bike to the CRPP in the morning, and in the evening I can feel them eying my back. Sometimes, I think they talk to each other, but when I draw near they just say "bahh".

My girlfriend thinks they are cute and wants to come on the weekend and pet them. I can't shake the feeling they are counting on this...