The sun is coming back to the North

I’m going back to the North, again, flying Six Flags Airlines, as usual. I’m waiting in the airport. The plane is three hours delayed, technical problems. It will be a long night. Expected take-off is at midnight, then one hour and forty minutes flight. Not much to do about it, just sit and wait. I’m going 200 km (130 miles) North of the polar circle. Take a walk around the globe at that latitude, what places do you find? Point Hope, Inuvik, King William Island, Baffin Island, Harstad, Narvik, Kautokeino, Kiruna, Murmansk, Snezhnogorsk, Norilsk, Belaya Gora, Chersky. One of these places is my destination. I’m coming back to the town where my friend Foggy lives. The sun is coming back too, after eight weeks of polar darkness; first shining only on the mountain tops, later appearing above the horizon. The days are getting longer, rapidly, six minutes more daylight every day, almost an hour in a week. It’s amazing. Like a woman spreading her thighs, to reveal her delights; you know what you will see, what you will get, but still so exciting, so arousing, every time.

The 2nd worst invention of all time: Handguns

I was following the ban on handguns proposal from Obama, and the following debate with interest. For a while I was involved in discussion forums on the Internet, until I got tired of it. It was me against Texas, basically. The same stupid arguments repeated over and over, delivered with increasingly aggressive and rude language. I guess these guys know how to shoot; let the gun talk, but language skills seam to be correspondingly low.

I’m a peaceful man, I don’t like guns, never liked them. I prefer to use the pen, or actually the keyboard. I don’t like any kind of fire arms; handguns, shot guns, rifles or machine guns. Handguns are the most nasty and sneaky kind of fire arms, worst in a bad class; the 2nd worst invention of all time (after religion). I support a general ban on handguns; useless crap it is, good for nothing but killing people. Yes, I know that handguns are used for sport shooting too, even for hunting. Handguns are poor hunting weapons; most game hunters would prefer a shotgun or rifle for that purpose.

This is what makes handguns so dangerous: Handguns are easy to hide under a jacket. You can point the gun in any direction just by a small movement of the wrist. A rifle, for comparison, is a big and heavy object. You can’t easily hide it on your body. You can’t just point it all around with an easy hand movement. I know by experience. I have used both handguns and rifles myself, because I had to, in military service. Safety rules and precautions on the shooting range were always more strict for handguns than for rifles, with good reason.

Just for fun; here are some arguments from the gun-guys on the Internet forums:
1. The good guys need handguns because the bad guys have guns. Yes, sure, the bad guys have guns too. Most of the illegal handguns are stolen legal guns. If the total number of available guns were greatly reduced, the bad guys would have a hard time getting them too.
2. We need to defend ourselves and our homes against intruders. Yes, sure, and if the intruder knows you’re sleeping with a gun under your pillow, he will carry a gun too. And who will be the fastest on the trigger? A sleeping drunk Texas rancher, or a vigilant housebreaker?
3. I never leave home without my gun; the town is full of armed bad guys. Yes, sure. And what do you think would happen if you pulled your gun on Main Street to defend yourself, surrounded by other people carrying guns and ready to defend themselves? You would probably just shoot a lot of kids and unarmed innocent people who happened to be near by. Defending the citizens (by law enforcement) is a job for the police, defending the country (by war, in the name of God) is a job for the military forces.
4. We need guns to defend ourselves against the socialist-government in Washington (after Obama entered White House). What the Hell! How paranoid and crazy can you possibly get?

I told the gun-guys that in Winterland even the police is unarmed (this is almost true, they have guns locked into the trunk of the police cars). Their reaction was like “Then thanks God I don’t live in Winterland”. Yes, I’m glad you don’t live here too, as long as you insist on carrying your gun everywhere you go. But if you leave your handgun and bring your skis, you’re welcome to Winterland.

The worst invention of all time: Religion

Religion is a strange thing; interesting, fascinating and disgusting. I have never liked it, and I don’t need it. Religious belief has screwed up people’s minds for thousands of years, and still continues to do so, more or less. More in Muslim countries, less in the Christian world. What has religion brought us? War, killing, repression (of women), misuse of power, and so on. No good.

Maybe it’s not religion itself that is the problem. Emperors, family fathers, people with power have used religion to justify encroachment and harassment that would have happened anyway, with a different cause. However, many religious texts and leaders support and recommend such acts. For me it doesn’t matter which issue is the more important. The effect is the same. I don’t care what messy thoughts swirl around in the heads of Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus. But it has a very bad impact on the world we live in.

Religion has always been challenged by free thinking and science. Religion’s only significant contribution to science has been to slow down its development, banning and rejecting ideas that did not fit in with religious doctrine. The most harmful and tragic effects can be seen in countries where religion still has major impact on government and lawmakers; sharia laws, refusing girl’s education, claiming land on the West Bank with reference to the Bible. It’s insane.

In most countries, the fraction of religious people has decreased with increasing level of education. Religious regimes (like Iran) have the main base of support in the uneducated part of the population. That’s good, there is still hope that rationalism will win in the end. It is easy to understand that people of ancient times called on gods and ghosts and goats to explain strange phenomena that they couldn’t understand; the stars in the sky, volcanoes, earth quakes and floods. Thousand years ago, the scientific domain was small and the religious domain was large. Today it is opposite, due to the development of science.

However, there is still a long way to go. There are countries where the majority of the population supports creationism, rather than evolution (according to polls). Part of the Muslim world is at a development level corresponding to the Middle Age. Religion is irrational, a question of belief. You do believe in God (one or more) or you don’t, as simple as that. As science evolves, it continues to move previous mysteries from the religious domain to the scientific domain. Science is providing a logical and rational explanation.

There will always be things that can not be explained by science. The religious domain is shrinking, but will never become zero (I even know religious scientists!). The existence or non-existence of God can never be proved. There can always be something else, something more, that science has not been able to explain. Who pushed the button to trigger the Big Bang? Who cares? Do we really need an explanation for everything, right now? I don’t, I can live (and die) happily with the fact that there are still things yet to be understood. I have no problems accepting that the death is the end, we’re recycled back to nature. I have no need for an eternal life in Heaven. It would probably be just boring anyway, and God is a mean and tyrant despot (according to the Bible) that I wouldn’t like to be near to eternity and beyond.

Facing reality

When I was a kid, I was living in a small town, with my parents, the only kid in the family (for a while). Every day a nanny came to our house, to do house keeping, and take care of me, while my parents were at work. My world was only nice and kind people. When I was five years old, I was out in the street, alone, for the first time. I went to the play ground, where the other kids were playing in the sand box.
- Close your eyes, and open your mouth, one of the older kids said.
And I did, of course, expecting to get a candy, or something like that. I got my mouth full of sand. It was the day I was facing reality, for the first time. I learnt a lesson, and I'm still learning, from time to time.

The worst inventions of all time

This is my top-three list of the worst inventions of all time:
1. Religion (the worst by far; all of them),
2. Handguns,
3. Pizza with pineapple.
I will come back to these items one by one, as soon as I get the time and inspiration to write about the misery.

Wintry grey

I was skiing with the boys this weekend, as usual. We had a good time, as usual. The daylight already lasts noticeably longer than a month ago. It's still light at 3 pm. Saturday was sunny. Sunday was cloudy; wintry grey, reminding me of that great song by Arcturus (YouTube link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M0D_QPWl-U

Review of the new Gorgoroth album

A few weeks ago, I went down to the local metal store, and bought the new Gorgoroth album "Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt". This is the band's first studio album in three years, the first since the lawsuit on the legal rights to the band name, and the following change of line up. The last three Gorgoroth albums have been, not bad, but kind of average, nothing special to it. Therefore, I was not sure what to expect this time.

The new album was a great positive surprise, a collection of 9 excellent songs. Infernus, the founder of the band, and the only remaining original band member, is back in charge as the main song writer. The musical style is melodic, sometimes doomy, black metal, carried by laid-back catchy guitar lines, and lazy drumming, frequently bursting out in clean blast beats. The grim-vocal by Pest is steady, but lacking some of the desperate feeling from previous recordings. As usual, Gorgoroth does not provide writtten lyrics on the cover. Sharp ears are neeeded to get all the text lines.

This is definitely the best Gorgoroth album since the classical albums from the 90’s; “Pentagram” (1994), “Antichrist” (1996) and “Under the Sign of Hell" (1997). Here is my favorite song from the new album (YouTube link), the title is, very suitably, “Rebirth".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T0h-qi9HQQ

A perfect evening

Yesterday, after work, I was taking the boys to skiing practise. The weather was nice, clear sky, no wind, temperature right below freezing point, dry snow, excellent skiing conditions; a perfect way to spend an evening after work. I think we will do the same today.

Scientific writing - 1st or 3rd person?

Sometimes the question of 1st person (active) vs. 3rd person (passive) styles in scientific writing comes up, with students, colleagues, reviewers or editors. Should we write "I solved the equation ..." or "The equation was solved ..."?

In chemistry class, in my freshman year, only 3rd person was accepted in the lab reports. Later, when I was specializing in theoretical physics, I was told that effective communication is what matters. Do whatever you want! For me it was an easy choice. Writing 1st person feels more free and natural, at least in the fields I have been working; mathematics, physics and high-performance computing.

Students I supervise get the same choice that I had. Most of them write 1st person. I tell the students to write "we" in publications with two or more authors (another easy publication for the supervisor, the student did all the work). But write "I" in your thesis, because you're not the King (or Queen) of Winterland.

Winter forest

Winter
white cold forest
without signs of life
flowers and animals sleeping
under snow
>:)

Stolen from Hot Nights Hotel

Tonight I found one of these cups in my kitchen, one with a company logo, stolen. I used to have several, when I was younger, cups and gadgets with logos; Schipol Restaurants, Hotel Monteleone, Hotel Metropol, Air Dolomiti. I'm not the only one, that's a nice excuse. It's popular to steel these kind of things, to keep as a souvenir from a nice vacation, a rewarding business trip, a hot night in the hotel room with a local beauty. Once I stayed in a hotel that had a cool twist to it. On the cups it was printed, in addition to the hotel logo; "Stolen from Hot Nights Hotel"

Drum-stick science

I was downtown to day. I bought some crap I needed, some stuff for the fridge, and some drum sticks, different types, different sizes, 3A, 5A, 5B, and so on. Yes, they have drum sticks here too, we're not on the North Pole, just close to it. Experimental drum-stick testing starts early next week. In the mean time I'll work on my good old favorite stick, need to improve my left hand.

Doing like Beckett

The Irish playwright Samuel Beckett wrote his plays in French. He said it was "easier to write without style" in a language that was not his first. I'm doing it like Beckett, my first language is Winterlandic, but I write in English. I apologize for my poor English.

Twenty minutes in the school band

I was eight years old. The school band had recruitment day. I came early, eager to join the band, I wanted to play drums. The band did not accept new drummers that year. They offered me a trumpet. I left, went straight home. That was my twenty minutes in the school band. I don't want a fucking trumpet, I'm the natural born drummer, the drummer from Hell.

What's inside the head of a Jehovah's Witness?

When I was a kid ,there was a Jehovah's Witness family living in our neighborhood. We didn't know they were that, we just knew they were kind of strange, kids never coming to birthday parties, not taking part in Christmas preparations at school, things like that. My friend Foggy and I were about eight or nine years old. One day we were out playing in the backyard. Suddenly shocking news were spread down the street: A kid was killed in the town centre, run over by a truck. Foggy and I jumped on our bikes, two minutes later we were down at the site of the accident. It was chaos; lots of people, police, the doctor, blood, some yellow-grayish stuff. It was one of the Jehovah's Witness kids, his head was smashed by the back wheel of the truck. It's strange; it didn't have much impact on us, didn't freak us out, felt just like when we were dissecting dead frogs and birds and snakes, which we did quite often. But I still remember that view; brain stuff, the inside of the head of a Jehovah's Witness.

Going North

I am 20.000 feet above ground, in a small propeller plane. I am sitting on the back row, as usual. The noise from the propellers is not so bad in the back of the plane. It's dark outside. I'm on this flight quite often. Today the weather is nice, and the flight is smooth, so far. But I'm flying Six Flags Airlines, we may still have a roller-coaster landing ahead. The plane is on the way to the Northern part of Winterland, where the sun never comes up in the winter, and never goes down in the summer. That's where my friend Foggy lives, I will probably see him tomorrow. Foggy is a really crazy guy. I will tell more about him later.

January

It is January. I like January. Long dark nights and short days, a faint sun on the horizon, skiing in fresh white snow, reading a book by the fire, having a good time with friends. Christmas is over. I don't like Christmas. A mid-winter vacation; yes, that's nice. But we don't need a pile of crap wrapped in paper under a tree and a small Jewish boy wrapped in a cloth in a crib to have that. It's almost a year till next Christmas. That's one of the things I like about January

The Beginning

I am a fairly good scientist, an average skier and a very bad drummer. I live in Winterland, the part of the world that is covered by snow half the year. This is my blog. There will be more to come.