Yes, brie as in
brie, not
Bree nor (alas) brillant or in
Bree or…
Anyway. I spend a lot of time lately reformatting that %/&%ç”&+ research article because I was forced to write it in MS piece of crap Word and nothing is less appropriate to handle big files with lots of scientific content than this… I can’t even call it “software”. Arrrrgh! And now, of course, I am terribly behind schedule for what was supposed to be my “last experiment” before getting down to business and starting to actually write that blasted thesis. It doesn’t work well, and now that everything is (almost) ready I… I just can’t bring myself to get over to this experiment. I spend all my time rearranging papers and all the articles scattered on my desk instead of just launching the computations. Maybe I’m just too scared this experiment will run wrong and just condemn me definitely in having worked 3 years for a totally useless matter (not that I’m not pretty much convinced of that already).
So, as I say, instead of going over it, I waste time doing some more stupid tests. The outcome of this one is rather interesting, as brie is really my favorite cheese.
Wo-hoo! I have just reached the last steps in the resubmission of our research paper initally submitted … last September. This is the crazy paradox of research papers: they are outdated months before they get actually published. You write a paper about your current research status (being careful to sprinkle it with small sentences like “in the current state of research” or “further investigations are currently being…”). Since you continue your research while writing it and since you need a good dozen iterations between the several authors, it is already a bit outdated when you finally get to submit it. Then the whole reviewing circus starts. For months you don’t hear a thing and then suddenly (i.e. three days before the end of the maximum reviewing period) you get an hurriedly written answer basically saying your paper is crap and full of errors anyway (which, by the time, you know very well it is, having had a couple months’ time to reflect upon your errors). So you change everything to meet the reviewers’ needs and seize the opportunity to put some brand new (i.e. only a couple of months old) graphs you think will positively impress the reviewers. Again, a dozen iterations with your advisor are needed, at least half of them because he “corrected” the several months old copy of the manuscript and not the carefully revised one you sent him last Friday at 9PM. Then comes the great day: the day of the actual submission. You think you will be done in an hour or so but rapidly reconsider your timing (it took me four hours), many iterations being needed before the submitted version hasn’t a big mistake straight in the middle. For submitting time is usually the time you start to consider those “paper submission guidelines” nobody ever
reads…
Anyway, now, it’s done!
During the time the reviewing service was revving my many submission attempts, I played some grids of Nurikabe, a japanese (what else?) logic game not unlike Sudoku… Warning, if you grow an addiction to this game, don’t come to me with raised axes. I am in no way offering you procrastinations methods. In no way.
I have uploaded some pictures of our short week-end in Vienna, including one on which I have tried this fake tilt-lens effect everyone is talking about. The results are not bad, but now that it has become so common, I am not that impressed as when I saw the first examples. What do you think?
On another level, I am currently a bit distraught because I just got out of a “conciliation” meeting between our landlord and us, and it went very badly. Actually, nothing happened, it just lasted about 40 seconds. The ASLOCA guy, who was supposed to help us, said we were paying too much and asked for a ridiculous amount. Then the person representing the landlord basically said we were out of our minds and that she would never lower the rent. I thought it would be the start of some kind of negotiation, but no, the clerk (or judge or whoever he was) leading the meeting just said that the conciliation attempt had failed and that the session was terminated, have a nice day. And I thought he was supposed to help people find ways to solve their problems by negotiating. That’s what this whole commission was about. What good is a “conciliation commission” if it doesn’t help people negotiate. This “judge” didn’t do anything. There could have been only a picture of him instead that there wouldn’t have been any difference.
So now Flo and I don’t really know what to do. The ASLOCA of course wants us to press charges and go to tribunals. But we just want to keep tempers down and find a way to solve everything without lawyers. Like human beings. They talk, usually. I will ask some of my friends who work in law offices for their advice…
Maybe you remember the story of the two MIT students who wanted to shed light on the fact that the overall quality of scientific papers presented at a conference was alarmingly low. Since you have to pay to attend to a conference, the more papers are presented, the more people are going to attend, obviously, so if you are organizing a conference the more papers you accept the more money you will make. And it is a fact that while papers submitted to journals have to face a serious reviewing process (I’m in the middle of it), papers to conferences get very easily accepted.
So to prove their point, the two MIT students made a little program to produce random “pseudo-technical” text with random figures but looking just like a “real” paper. They submitted their article and… it was accepted!
Luckily, a team of the Indiana U School of Informatics has come with an “Inauthentic Paper Detector” to spot all the cheating scientists out there.
My first reaction, of course, was to try it on an excerpt of the paper I am currently working on and here’s the result I got:
Talk about being rewarded for all the hard work you are doing… Anyway, I was a bit dismayed so I went a bit further and submitted the whole text of our paper
Phew! That’s more like it. But it’s interesting to note that an excerpt (of the introduction) of the paper was apparently harder to believe than the whole paper. What’s more… but don’t go tell this around you… the excerpt I first submitted is a part I didn’t write myself. My advisor did.
[ Via New Scientist’s Technology Blog and del.icio.us ]
Here’s a theory that could stop (or start) some controversies about what to do or not to do after work and what should or should’nt be in the fridge at home…
For the non-US among us, “Cheers” is (or was, I don’t know) a TV show, apparently featuring drinking pals in a Boston bar (maybe a pendant to the swiss series Carnotzet…)
In one episode of “Cheers”, Cliff is seated at the bar describing his “Buffalo Theory” to his drinking pal, Norm. It goes something like this;
“Well you see, Norm, it’s like this; a herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and the weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”
Now this is a good theory…
[ Via Scientist, Interrupted ]
Well, the weather is incredibly hot in Paris right now. I’ve spent the whole day carrying all my jackets and stuff because I just don’t needed them. Which always make me wonder how people on the street manage to be so cool, all the time. I mean, it’s freezing, they’re dressed. So far so good. Suddenly, it’s 25°C but anyone but me is just wearing a cool T-shirt. No big jackets on their arms. No bulgy sweaters in their bags. Now how can that be?
Second very important questions (it’s so hot I actually have trouble sleeping): what are you supposed to do when you go to those underdeveloped countries which have not yet understood the use of a shower curtain? What are you to do when you enter a spotless bathroom without shower curtain? Be careless and flood the place, or take care not to spill any water, refusing yourself a normal shower? I used to take very awkward showers, half bent in the tub and with only a drizzle coming out of the hose, lest I flood the bathroom. Now I’m a bit less caring (except when I’m invited by people, in that cases I’m still reluctant to turn their bathroom in an indoor olympic swimming-pool), but still it doesn’t feel good to flood a perfectly clean bathroom. You know, exactly the same kind of guilt that makes you sweep the kitchen floor on the evening before the cleaning lady comes…
Heck, this question has been haunting me for ages! How do people that live in curtainless bathrooms take showers in the first place? Do they sit in the tub and let one drop fall at the time (and take ages to shower)? Or do they just flood the place and accept the fact as a fatality? Cause the solution is simple, you know, it costs about the price of a good bottle of that Yves Rocher shampoo you’re using and it can be found at the nearest IKEA store. It’s called a “shower curtain”. They come in all sizes and colors. You’ll like it.
No, but, I mean, seriously?
Check that out: this hotel has free WiFi and it rocks. Yep, there were again some files I could use for my work right now that weren’t on my laptop. Pull in some network and they’re just an SSH connection away. I mean, how did people do before all this Internet stuff?
Anyway, the side benefit is that it helps me feeling a bit less lonely in my room (yeah, like checking RSS feeds isn’t making me feel lonely…). Upon my arrival here, I worked a bit, went out for a walk and some reading in this park (where I finished that Houellbecq novel) and ended up in a japanese restaurant just down the hotel. Which was enough to remember me why the sushi I prefer are the ones Flo and I do ourselves (even if, technically, they’re more maki than sushi). I’m definitely not so much into raw fish, especially large chunks with nothing else…
However, I did manage to set up a meeting with a good friend near the Châtelet tomorrow evening, so I’m not that deprived of social intercourse as I make it sound! :-)
I leave again for Paris this afternoon to meet my prof, coming back on Friday. A coupe of hours later, Flo and I will then leave to our surprise week-end in Vienna. See you on Monday, then! And in the meantime, here is a cool video for you: a vintage italian ad for the Lambretta!
If you don’t have that song in your head in the next few hours, then I don’t know what’s wrong with you…
At the office, waiting for my hungry eyes:
Piled Higher and Deeper: A Graduate Student Comic Strip Collection
, the much awaited paper version of the witty (and disturbingly accurate) Jorge Cham comics.
At home, waiting for my hungry belly:
yummy pains d’épice from Strasbourg, sent by blogger Frédéric in exchange for a copy of l’Illustré, a swiss magazine in which his girlfriend recently published an article.