Systemic thinking / Einstein was stealing from Poincaré? / MIT preparations / Nodding…

Updates in the travel pages. Thanks to Lavonardo for the link to the map generator.

I have been extremely tired during the last few days. It seems that getting older takes its toll (the other explanation is that I just keep on going faster, not learning from past at all). Life has been quite normal (ordinary days ...), but still fun. Yesterday, after rather normal, uneventfull, day at work, we (me and S) had dinner in the Stockmann's Kitchen. They serve decent woks with noodles there and the portions are big enough for two. We bought some lamps and small stuff, but I refused to go to the food department. The problem with it is the extreme amount of diverse delicacies they sell and I cannot leave the place without having spent some 50 euros. So, I avoid it and shop in Siwa or other safe places. I also applied and got a new passport, which is valid only until 31st of December. I need this temporary passport because I will visit Italy (the yearly Venice-trip) and my ordinary passport is in the US-embassy. It is much easier to get two passports than to get the US-embassy to make any exceptions to its processes. Funny. Political comments in clothing. Also funny.

Systemic thinking

It is time for the yearly systems engineering course in the office. This time the course is about systemic thinking (the fifth discipline etc). Nothing special, rather slow pace and quite trivial issues, but not the worst way of killing time. The best thing today was one note an Indian guy made. He told that in India, as part of his (religious) upbringing he as a small kid learned to think about whole issues, to see the "big picture". Later, in school, as part of science studies he was then taught to split problems in parts. He said that splitting to parts was for him much harder. This experience is quite opposite to my experiences as child. Could it be that there is really a cultural/religious propensity to systemic thinking in India? If it is so, I think I will move to India after MIT! If nothing prevents me.

New books

Part of the course:

• The Fifth discipline by Peter Senge
• The fifth discipline revisited by Robert Flood
• The fifth discipline fieldbook by Senge and others

which I have not had time or energy to read. But I am sure they will be useful in MIT. Savings.

Einstein was stealing from Poincaré?

S pointed out this story, which claims that Einstein did not invent special relativity by himself. I do not know, and did not read the story to carefully, but do me favour by reading it and telling me what you think. I will then discuss it more. I will check what the book "Einstein in Berlin" has to say about this. I should have read it long ago already.

MIT preparations

I have now got my email address at MIT. It is kinnunen@mit.edu. Other issues proceed too. I have some proposals for my new place to live, I have decided to buy an Apple laptop (but not the model, though). Next things are to buy flight tickets, go the interview in the embassy, and pack.

Nodding index

I have developed an empirical way of determining how well women know each other: the nodding index. It works as follows. The more women nod add each other, the worse they know each other. If they are nodding after every speech act, they have just met. This method works always. But now I have a task for you: what is the corresponding index for men? Send your ideas by email and I will publish them (if you grant me permission to do so).

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs November 2004".