Human experiment continues / Thesis colloquium starting / Busy day / Bad engineering /…

Human experiment continues

My experiment on changing to permanent night shift continues. Results are so far a bit mixed. I like to stay up late, and I get some things done late at night (very early in the morning). I like to cycle home late, Boston's skyline is beautiful and streets are quiet. I like to wake up late and go cycling (but it is raining, which is not the way I would like things to be). But there are some problems: I find it hard to sleep 7-8 hours per night; I wake up at 6 hours. And having just 6 hours of sleep per night several night in a row, hmm, makes me sleepy. And then there are always some things that require me to wake up early, and thus mess up my experiment. I will continue for one or two weeks more and then decide whether the common or nerdy rhythm of life suits me best. Any ideas/experiences?

Thesis colloquium starting

The first even SDM thesis colloquium takes place tomorrow (15th of October) at 3 pm. I will talk about my thesis, or whatever I know about it right now. When putting together slides for the talk, I realized that I do not really know as much as I thought I do. But, talking to others will be a good opportunity to clarify my thoughts and also get some good ideas and feedback.

Busy day

Having courses keeps one busy. I have courses on Friday from 12 noon to 5pm. Before courses I sent a fax to Apple telling them to give me a new computer or else. They will not read it anyway, but it helped me to vent my frustration. Then, an excellent lecture on systems architecture of some new type of airliners. Very interesting and pure fun. Later, some more fun in the urban transport class: a lecture on modeling traffic. Now, back in the attic room trying to get still something done. I have 2 liters of Dr Pepper, which should keep me going for a while.
My Wall Street Journal was wet when I got it. I read some of it though. Interesting newspaper it is, well worth reading over lunch daily. Too bad that my free subscription lasts only 30 days.

Bad engineering

There are (almost) no separate wheel-chair accessible toilets in USA ( or:MIT, Boston, New York). Instead, there are larger compartments for wheel-chair users (and impostors) in normal toilets. The locking mechanism is usually broken, because they use just normal hinges for the the doors of those compartment. Since the doors are two times wider than those of normal compartments, either the hinges bend, or the joint between hinge and door frame gives away, or the door frame (think wooden plank) bends. Anyway, one cannot lock the door. So much for outstanding engineering education in USA.

Bad forgery

The letter "written by al-Qaeda's number two-man" is

a forgery. Most likely it is a black psy-ops operation of the US. But it could also come from Iran, since the mistakes are those a Shiite might make when pretending to be a Sunni. Or it could come from an Iraqi Shiite group attempting to manipulate the United States.

at least according to Juan Cole. It seems to be a poor forgery: written in language the number two man would never use. If it is by USA, I would recommend hiring some not so ethically conscious Juan Cole to write the next one. If it is by the Iranian government, I would assume US government to do something: or do they want to be manipulated.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs October 2005".