So, this time of the year is approaching again (well, round two of “this time of the year”) and I am trying my best to find interest in endless strings of exciting problems involving decks of cards being shuffled and drawn randomly (that’s the warm up part, nearly fun in comparison to the rest), Gaussian distributions and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests (that’s the part where you wish every Russian great minds had focused solely on refining vodka filtering processes instead of coming up with barbaric statistical formula)…

All these coins tossed a million times, checkmate combinations, statistics and game theory stuff reminded me of something I used to read with much more passion (back when I could still summon some sort of enthusiasm for math-related stuff): MIT AI Lab Memo 239 aka HAKMEM.

The HAKMEM is a compilation of tips, tricks and riddles for the math and computer geek.

Some of them are very outmoded (unless PDP-10 programming is your thing), but most are still entirely relevant (notably a handful of small theorems and empirical results, some of which still haven’t been proven to this day, afaik). There is also a lot of small numerical tricks, à la TAOCP that can be really useful in [near-]everyday software development.

Anyway if geeky math is your thing and you feel bored, then you should probably check it out. And if that sounds like rather uninteresting stuff, let me assure you that what I’m reading right now is a thousand times worse.

This, also to announce that post frequency on this blog is going to be lowered dramatically over the next 15 days (by a forecasted 58% ±6.3%, with a posting average standard deviation of 0.276), due to intensive last-minute efforts to reverse the adverse effects of a life of mind-altering substance abuse and cram two years of university Math & Physics program in whatever’s left of my brain.

After that, expect to see a lot of pretty pictures of European cities including many depictions of yours truly in miscellaneous advanced states of drunkenness, celebrating either his miraculous success in this venture or, quite possibly, his utter failure and ensuing humiliation at the hands of a hord of vicious French university scholars.

これから日本語も出来る！
あった！
–
Dave / デイヴ

On my way to become a full-fledged soda otaku… here is the latest trend from my local combini.
Not as yummy as Fanta Lychee though…

are called ‘LaFrance’.
I’m not making this up…

Yet another classic illustration of why even my mildest efforts to blend in, or at least not stick out like a sore thumb waiting to be hammered in (something’s not quite working with that metaphor, but I’m not sure what) are irremediably doomed.

So, I’m in the train with a friend discussing our common love for the music of Fela Kuti and other seminal Afro-beat acts of the 70’s.

At one point, the discussion is hovering over the respective merits of Fela and his son, Femi, who has quite successfully taken where his father left and does a great job nowadays of blending classic afro-jazz with newer house beats and modern electro experimentations.

And that’s when I suddenly become aware that our car has not only fallen dead silent (Japanese hardly ever talk on the train anyway) but also that more than a few people are eyeing us sideways with strange looks on their face. The disruption in the wa is so major that even a dirty gaijin like me can feel something is fucked up.

We have been talking in Japanese, probably loud enough to be heard around the car. And, judging by the look on certain faces, we might as well have been talking about raping baby seals with hello kitty vibrators…

(more…)

“You wanna get dinner tomorrow?”, I said.

“I’ll come to your place if you cook something special”, she said.

At which point, had I learnt anything from the long string of pathetic failures and painful mistakes that have made up most of my life so far, I would have said: “You really sure? what about Korean. or BBQ restaurant? I know this great yakiniku in Shinjuku… let’s go there!”

Of course that’s not what I said.

I said “OK”, and mostly hoped that the word “special” at the end of her sentence didn’t carry too much meaning and had just been thrown in for good measure…

I mean, I can cook something.

Cooking something special would be a different matter though.

It may be tempting to jump to conclusions and assume that my home hosts ten times more electronic equipment than cooking utensils and that I couldn’t fry an egg to save my life…

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