1. If money and training were no object, what career would you want?

Clearly, baseball player. I loves me my baseball, and I'd be very happy as a pitcher stepping up on to the mound every five days. If only I could throw 93 mph instead of 63.

2. What is one thing you have to do every day to keep your sanity?

Some kind of exercise is the closest thing I have to a daily necessity. Whether physical or mental; running, lifting, crosswords, sudokus, riddles, teaching, and the like, some part of me has to get a workout.

3. If could pick only one movie to watch ever again, which would it be and why?

Man, this is a tough one, I don't really have one that I call my all-time favourite, one that I never get tired of. I guess I can't go wrong with Star Wars, though. Any one of those, probably Return of the Jedi, with the best space battle of the trilogy.

4. What is one thing you want to do before you die?

Fly either a Spitfire or a P-51 Mustang. Or go see a baseball game in Japan. Or go surfing in Hawaii again. Or find some way to get on-stage with Great Big Sea. If I did that, then I'd be able to die.

5. What is your earliest memory?

One of the earliest I can think of, probably reading in my kitchen with my parents and my aunt, and raging at my aunt because she was reading the book wrong. "That's not what it says!"

Want some questions from me? Post "Questions are irrelevant" in the comments.

Fuck off, tibia and achilles tendon!  Quit your bitching and let me run!

Welp, this might be one of the worst weeks on record for me.

Pick a band/artist, and use song titles by that artist to answer the questions.

Pick a band/artist: Great Big Sea

1. Are you male or female:  John Barbour

2. Describe yourself:  Company of Fools

3. How do you feel about yourself:  Goin' Up

4. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend:  Scolding Wife (Just razzin', Kris. ;) )

5. Describe your current boy/girl situation:  Nothing Out of Nothing

6. Describe your current location:  Excursion Around the Bay

7. Describe where you want to be:  Sea of No Cares

8. Your best friend is:  Bad As I Am

9. Your favorite color is:  Greenspond

10. You know that:  When I'm Up I Can't Get Down

11. What’s the weather like:  Ordinary Day

12. If your life was a television show what would it be called:  When I Am King

13. What is life to you:  Something Beautiful

14. What is the best advice you have to give:  Dream to Live

15. If you could change your name what would you change it to:  Captain Kidd

-P-
GET EQUIPPED
WITH
PHYSICS DEGREE

Or even 25 for that matter.   5 km in 24:56.19.  I am gassed, and I LOVE it.

Cross-posted on White Noise.

It's a pretty public fact amongst people I know that I can be a pretty passionate person, and about several different things. You've already heard me sound off on matters of sport and of science, and now, to another passion of mine: Gaming. I'm a proud gamer, and have been for a long time, and I've been particularly fond of some of the RPGs that Square has churned out, one of my favourites amongst those being Chrono Trigger. I'm one of the many patient fans who have been waiting for another installment of the Chrono series, and after having heard rumours of a Chrono Break some time ago slated to be the third of the series after Trigger and Cross, it hasn't come to fruition.

There are some who are less patient than I, though. People in the mod community had already been slapped with a cease and desist order after Square caught wind of the Chrono Resurrection project, a homebrew remake that was shit-canned in September 2004. The CR remake was a 3D revamp of the original, and had some phenomenal potential, but likely was going to be released online, for no cost, at no profit to the developers, and at no (or very little) economic impact to Square, with full credit for the original IP given to the good people who worked on Chrono Trigger.

Bad enough that Resurrection got 86ed, just two weeks ago another fan project, using the Chrono Trigger cast and engine, but an original story, was axed. Crimson Echoes started development in late 2004, and was just three weeks away from release at about 98% finished, and due to hit the internet on May 31st, likely once again with credit to Square for original development, and without copyright claim, profit to themselves or negative economic impact to Square-Enix. It's bad enough that they came down on it in the first place, but to do it just three weeks from release, after these people have poured four and a half years of blood and sweat into it? Bad form.

So what's the underlying reason for this bit? Fanboyism gone overboard on my part? I don't think so, though I cop to being a bit of a CT fanboy. Criticism of Square's timing? Partly, but that's now been covered. A treatise on the DMCA and draconian abuse thereof? No; I'm a scientist, not a lawyer, and don't know the ins and outs of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (though if you like, educate yourself at the Great Wiki). This is largely to express bewilderment about Square's second snuffing-out of a fan tribute project, and what their intentions are with respect to the series.

I'll address the first of those two parts first, since it'll be the longer. I can't understand why fan projects like these are so widely feared or shut down or whatever you like to call it by the companies, especially when they look like they'll turn out to be quality projects. The act of jealously protecting a franchise name like this, or loading excessive DRM measures into a game (I'm looking at you, Electronic Arts. I haven't forgotten about the PC port of Mass Effect, even if I play the 360 version), or railing against a fan tribute as an act of piracy, only fosters a feeling of contempt, and appears to encourage cracking DRM. (Which, by the way, if it's there, someone, somewhere, WILL crack it; I don't know why they bother anymore, frankly. Another rant for another day, though, I suppose.)

On a consistent basis, it seems like Valve is the only developer that's gotten it right with respect to fan projects. Half-Life was a huge hit, and someone got the crazy idea of making a PvP first-person shooter out of the game. And so, when Valve caught wind of this, what did they do? They let it play out, saw that it was getting big, and got the hell on board. And so, the Counter-Strike franchise was born. Valve wanted the series, they commercialized it, and it got huge. Why Square hasn't tried to follow suit with the CR or Crimson Echoes projects, rather than continuing to flog the Final Fantasy series (which, while I enjoy it, probably has over two dozen different installments, without remakes by now to Chrono's two) is completely and utterly beyond me.

As for the latter point about Square's intentions, I hope, as the crew of Crimson Echoes do, that the move by Square to can CT:CE was as an interest in the series, and with the intention of making a new Chrono title, rather than just a short-sighted legal bitchslap that will continue to tire and alienate an enormous and devoted fanbase. If they decided to do what Valve did and port these games, say, Resurrection to Gamecume or PS2, and Crimson Echoes to DS, they would pull in dough that would make a gold mine look like chump change. Square, fans have been clamoring for another Chrono game after Chrono Cross for nearly a decade. Get your head out of your collective ass and get the hell on board.

For posterity:
Chrono Resurrection Teaser

Sure, that first mile is hell.  The second mile, though?  Beautiful.

So this post comes via my younger brother, who directed me to this thread on the Something Awful Forums, which after some time devolves into arguing about how probability works with respect to the particular problem. My aim here is to point out the problem, and elucidate the proper solution. So without further ado, I present to you the Boy or Girl Paradox:

You are walking around town when you come upon a mother and her son. She makes chit chat with you, and mentions that she went to the park on a picnic with her two children the other day.

Assume for a moment that the odds a girl or boy is born are equal. Now, what is the probability the other child is a girl?

 

 

( So here's what's happening... )

Anyways, I'm pretty sure I've covered all the bases, but if one of the more mathematically astute folks who has me on their f-list (countthesheep, I'm looking at you) can double-check and either confirm or refute me.  Happy mathing, everyone!

"Goodnight and joy be to you all."

So long, University of Waterloo, and thank you.

I HAVE A JOB! XD

Well, Toronto said nay, and Queen's is waffling, so as of this moment, Brock it is!

Evan has reached level 24!

Alright, so anybody familiar with the xkcd fora (which, out of the maybe four people that read this, is probably close to nobody) is also probably familiar in some way with the Airplane-treadmill misconception, specifically that an airplane cannot take off from a treadmill, and that bringing this up in the xkcd fora comes with a close encounter of the Banhammer kind.  THere's good reason for it; it resulted in two threads and 450 posts of pure stupidity.  What I plan to do here is explain the truth of this matter.

( So here's the scenario... )

So hopefully after reading this, you'll be able to find the signal for all the noise on this subject. Hopefully we've learned something interesting!

Cross-posted on White Noise.

I'll be the first to admit I don't watch a whole lot of movies, and I review even fewer. But there's a movie that I want to talk about that I greatly enjoyed tonight; a low-budget music film made in Ireland called Once.

The film follows a nameless Dublin street musician (Glen Hansard, 'Guy' going forward) and a Czech immigrant (Marketa Irglova, 'Girl' going forward) who befriend one another while the guy is performing on the street one evening. He learns that the girl is a pianist, and after he shares some music with her, they go on to record an album with another group of street musicians to complete the band. The characters are simple, he being a vacuum repairman and writing music on the side, her being a mother taking care of a child, and the dynamic between the two main characters is enjoyably sweet. The shoulder-held camera shooting of the film also adds to its simplicity of both the characters and the story; very little in the way of high drama or fancy camera work, just a plain, simple, enjoyable story that doesn't try to do too much or be strikingly profound with any underlying themes.

Where Once really shines, however, is in the music. As mentioned, the story revolves around the guy and the girl recording an album, and the music that the characters record, which serves as the soundtrack for the film, is largely written and performed by Hansard and Irglova themselves, either individually or jointly, and serves as the true focus of the film. The music follows a general trend of being low-key acoustic ballads, with a range of emotion from more tender and hopeful ("Falling Slowly") to bitter hindsight ("Lies"), and much like the film itself, makes little effort to be musically profound or complex; with the exception of "Fallen From The Sky", the music is simple band arrangements or guitar/piano duets, that fit perfectly with the style of the film.

All in all, while certainly not an involved film by any stretch, it doesn't profess to be, and as such becomes a good film by being a simple story, as well as, admittedly, a vehicle for Hansard's and Irglova's music. If you're looking for something laid back and easy to watch and enjoy, with a terrific soundtrack to boot, I highly recommend it.

Fuck Einstein, fuck Minkowski, fuck differential geometry, fuck Lorentz transformations, fuck time dilation, fuck the metric, fuck line elements, fuck the Field Equations, fuck general relativity in general.

And fuck midterms, too! >_<

I make decisions you cannot, I pay the piper's price,
Hold on to those of me you've got, or I'll vanish in a trice.
Two-faced, seldom by myself, I'm a welcome sight indeed,
For whether human, gnome, or elf, I'll get you what you need.
________________________________________________________

The fool is he who swears by me, and yet the fool I bless,
My touch is felt in poker, but seldom felt in chess.
In battle I can save your life, or cut you with a subtle knife,
And turn my back on those for whom I'm lost,
My name can be the same as gold, by any name, I help the bold,
But trusting in me bears a hidden cost.
________________________________________________________

If you try to hold me, I burn like unto a fire,
But if you cannot take me, you will certainly expire.
The strongest man alive can hold me for a little while,
But a weakling could achieve the same, without a loss of smile.
I cannot be touched but can be held,
Cannot be seen, but sometimes smelled.
Neither poor nor rich are of me bereft,
But the aged have far fewer left.
________________________________________________________

I always take the given path, I shun the harder way,
But I can grind stone into dust, if given time to play.
________________________________________________________

GO!

Cross-posted on White Noise.

So as a Toronto sports fan, by and large, I've had the unenviable task of rooting for some rather mediocre teams, not the least of which being the 2008-09 incarnation of the Toronto Raptors, who, admittedly with some critical injuries, have been underachieving all year. With signing point guard Jose Calderon long-term and picking up Jermaine O'Neal from the Indiana Pacers in a trade this off-season, things were starting to look up after a middling effort in the 2007-08 season at 41-41. Anyone who paid attention knew that the O'Neal pickup was definitely an experiment or a project, and as of last night, that experiment appears to be over by way of trade with the Miami Heat:

TO MIAMI HEAT:
C/F Jermaine O'Neal
F Jamario Moon
Conditional First Round draft pick

TO TORONTO RAPTORS:
F Shawn Marion
G Marcus Banks
$3M cash considerations

As for my thoughts on the trade, I don't think it's a bad move, difficult though losing Jamario Moon is to swallow, and a nagging feeling that GM Bryan Colangelo gave up a bit too much as a result. Moon was an energetic, enthusiastic player, and while certainly not up to snuff as a starter, was a solid bench option, and with his athleticism, a superb help defender. O'Neal, while a strong frontcourt player and rebounder, something the Raptors desperately needed, was a question mark with regards to the health of his knee, and with both he and star player Chris Bosh preferring to operate in the post, may not have been the best fit. As unfortunate as it is to see these guys go, it's business, and in the case of O'Neal, it's probably for the best. O'Neal looks like he may be a good fit in Miami as well, who had traded Shaquille O'Neal to the Phoenix Suns for Marion, and will give the Heat the post presence that they've been lacking after Shaq's departure.

Picking up Shawn Marion gives the Raptors, when they get healthy, a solid secondary scoring and rebounding option to Bosh, and a dedicated small forward. Although his 12.o PPG this season with Miami certainly leave something to be desired, with a point guard that can take care of and move the ball like Calderon, it's not an unreasonable expectation to see that number rise in Toronto, while maintaining his eight or nine rebounds per game clip. Marcus Banks will give Toronto a good secondary point guard option to Calderon, or at least another option along with Roko Ukic, which will have Anthony Parker as a dedicated shooting guard, and will make guard Will Solomon expendable.

This trade also gives the Raptors significant flexibility for the coming off-season as well; by off-loading the near-$23M owed to O'Neal next year, and replacing it with Marion's expiring contract, that frees up a tidy sum for Colangelo to work with, either to re-up Marion or to explore the free agent market and use that money elsewhere. Additionally, once the Raptors return to full health, this will give their starting five some stability by, for better or worse, making Andrea Bargnani the starting centre, and slotting Marion in at small forward, rather than having a revolving door in the frontcourt with the likes of Moon, Bosh, Bargnani, Joey Graham, and O'Neal.

Overall, I think this trade is a good move. It gives the Raptors some lineup stability, a secondary scorer, and one less question mark about health, as well as some increased financial flexibility. I doubt this will help the Raptors vault into the playoffs this season, but down the road it can bring them back to respectability.

Alright, you can get off my ass now, I have a userpic.

You know who you are. XP

So having just spend the better part of the last six hours driving in incredibly shitty conditions, here's what I have to report:

- The Mazda 3, while a nimble, efficient car in non-winter conditions, blows chuke in the snow. The Mazda 6, which is more powerful, heavier, and traction control system-equipped, is far superior.
- Regular tires + no TCS + snow = one hell of a time getting your ass moving.
- Drivers widely seem to become complete idiots during rush hour throughout Burlington/Oakville, or both. Something about the QEW and 403 being the same highway through there, I guess.
- Drivers widely seem to become complete idiots if something is falling from the sky.
- It probably shouldn't take an hour to get from Burlington to Hamilton.
- Red lights are very hard on the eyes.
- My leg is tired.