Too early on a Saturday

Getting up at 7 in the morning on a Saturday, can you imagine. I can't, unless I have to. This morning I had to.

Little boy had a Super G race today, in our local resort. Course inspection from 8, race start at 9. The Super G races always start early. Super G is the 2nd fastest alpine racing dicipline (after downhill). Therefore, we want to get most of the race completed before the regular opening hours in the ski center.

I'm always a little bit anxous before the Super G races (and downhill), because of the high speeds involved. The kids love it, and it's not something they can do every day. It's feasible only in organized practise and races.

The race went fine, fortunately no crashes, and no injuries. Little boy's first comment after he crossed the finish line was: "I wanna do it one more time".

Tomorrow it's giant slalom. The race doesn't start before 11 o'clock, fortunately >:)

I took the pictura above today. It's right out of the start gate, since I assisted little boy when he prepared for the race, warming up, taking off the jacket an pants and so on

Bernard Pivot Blogfest

I got to know about this blogfest at East for Green Eyes by Rosie C. A quick and easy task, just answer the ten questions below, first asked (and possibly answered) by French journalist Bernard Pivot, hence the name Bernard Pivot Blogfest.

Here are the questions, and my answers:

1. What is your favorite word? Snow, the white gold.

2. What is your least favorite word? Procurement.

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
o Creatively: When I'm right about to solve a challenging math-problem.
o Spiritually: Black-metal concerts with lots of pyro and stage effects.
o Emotionally: I'm not gonna reveal my fetishes and preferences here, but if you ask I might answer >;D

4. What turns you off? I'm never turned off >:)

5. What is your favorite curse word? Any word that calls for the Devil. In Satan we trust >:)

6. What sound or noise do you love? The sound of a white-water river in the mountains

7. What sound or noise do you hate? Shopping-mall pop music.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Author or heavy-metal drummer. Also, I enjoy teaching math and physics, but I'm doing that part-time already.

9. What profession would you not like to do? Lawyer; it appears to be incredibly boring.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Hay, what are you doing here? I thought you were going to the other place!

(The picture above is from my white collection. I took it last spring, when I was cross-country skiing in the north. I have no idea who the remote skier in the picture is.)

Ski-zophrenia

Another great weekend on the slopes, blue sky, dry cold snow and good skiing conditions.

Both kids had competitions, alpine racing for the little one and freestyle for the older. The cometitions took place at the same time, but at different places in the ski resort. It's the kind of schedule that makes dad schizophrenic.


Saturday older boy had a slopestyle competition, and little boy was in a giant slalom race. After his 2nd run, we jumped straight on the chair lift to the top of the mountain, and skied down on the other side. We just made it to see older boy's last two runs in the slopestyle finals. His mother, fortunately, attended the entire slopestyle competition.

Sunday older boy had a big-air competition. I dropped him off by the freestyle park in the morning, and went to the slalom course for little boy's race. I assisted him on the course inspection, and served as gate judge during the race.

Before the slalom race was over, older boy called and told he had finished 3rd in the big-air final. Good boy. He's old enough to manage on his own.

It makes things a little bit easier >:)

(I took both pictures yesterday, with less than two hours between, in little boys first run in the giant slalom, and older boys last run in the slopestyle final)

Bayes' rule

I'm working late tonight. There are two things I have to do: Preparing for a meeting next week (boring), and preparing a lecture for tomorrow morning (fun).

The subject I'm gonna teach tomorrow is Bayesian inversion. It's based on the so-called Bayes' rule of mathematical statistics. Bayes' rule is (of course) named after Thomas Bayes (1702-1761) who discovered this relation.

Thomas Bayes was a theologist and mathematician. During his lifetime, he published two articles, one on theology, and one on mathematics. Bayes rule, however, was published after his death. He never got the chance to appreciate the fame it earned him.

Bayes rule is about how a probability distribution is changed if we add some extra information. I'll try to explain. Consider to random variables:

(A): Kids like the dinner and don't complain
(B): We have pizza for dinner

The probability of (A), kids like the dinner is maybe 60% in our family. However, given (B), we have pizza for dinner, the probability is a lot higher. That's easy.

The opposite (or inverse) question is harder. If (A), kids like the dinner, what's the probability of (B), we have pizza for dinner? The kids like other things too, for instance taco and pasta and steak. This question does not have a unique answer.

But if we add the extra information that we have Taco every Friday, pizza every Saturday, and pasta and steak at most once a month, it's a little bit easier. If kids like the dinner, we probably have either pizza or taco. Still we have two equally probable answers (pizza or taco), but the last two (pasta and steak) are less probable.

You see what I mean? Cool, isn't it >:)

(The picture is Bayes rule, where P is the probability and A and B as above. I wrote it down on a sheet of paper and put it on the scanner. Tomorrow I'm gonna write it on the blackboard for the students)

Völkl GS Racing

Little boy wrecked his giant slalom skis last week. Today he had to go to skiing practice on his twintip (freestyle) skis, in the beginning at least.

I went to the ski shop and bought him a brand new pair of Völkl GS Racing skis with Marker bindings. Excellent junior racing skis.

Guess who was happy, when I caught him by the lift and told him to change skis.

I get happy too, when I see a face like that >:)

No country for old men

I'm back in the North, just for a few days.

Today they served sun buns in the cantina at work, to celebrate the return of the sun. The sun buns have some yellow egg cream in the center. Except from that, they're like regular buns.

The sun has been hiding behind the horizon since early December. Now we can see sunshine on the mountain tops at least. It's the end of the polar darkness already. The sun is gone for only 7-8 weeks. That's not bad, and I like the darkness. It has it's own mysterious charm.

Tonight I've been out eating, alone. That's not very fun, so I made it quick. I had a cheese burger and a Mack beer, brewed by the northernmost brewery in the world, according to the commercials.

(The brewery is located in the Paris of the North, a 4-hour drive from here, across a mountain pass, and around a couple of fjords, or less than 3 hours by the fast catamaran boat that runs on a regular schedule along the coast.)

On the way back to my hotel, I passed by the bookstore, and couldn't resist. I have become a fan of Cormack McCarthy, since I read The Road and Child of God recently. So I bought No Country for Old Men. Looking forward to read it.

But the first thing I'll do is to write a couple of scenes for my so-called novel >:)

(I wrote this piece of text with my own hands (and brain). I also took the picture myself, early in February three years ago. Then we lived walking-distance from that little hill I'm shooting from. My hotel is right outside the left edge of the picture. Today, I can state, with the best conscience, that I haven't stolen anything ... In Satan we trust >:D)

Top ten music

Today Alex J. Cavanugh is hosting the Top Ten Countdown Music Blogfest. It's almost impossible to pick a top ten, but that's the rule, and that's what I'm gonna do.

Since I'm a metal head, I have included some metal, of course, but there is other good stuff too, like Pink Floyd, Tom Waits and Giuseppe Verdi.

This is my list:

1. Stairway to Heaven, pre-metal classic by Led Zeppelin. The first time I heard this song at age 13, I was sitting in my room reading The Hound of Baskervilles. Every time I hear the song it reminds me of Sherlock Holmes.

2. Måneskyggens Slave by Gorgoroth. Old-school black metal at it's best, and the most desperate vocals ever recorded.

3. Freezing Moon by Mayhem. I still prefer the original studio recording with vocals by Dead (who committed suicide in 1991). Mayhem is still a good band. Last time I saw them live was in May 2010.

4. Mother North by Satyricon. The link will send you to the uncensored video, which was banned by MTV and most TV channels. Here is another cool version, recorded live with the National Broadcasting Orchestra. I've seen Satyricon live many times and Mother North is always the last song in the concerts.

5. Shine on You Crazy Diamond Part V1-IX by Pink Floyd. I've always listened to Pink Floyd, and I still do. Actually my favorite Pink Floyd song is Echoes from the Meddle album, but it's too long, so I picked this one in stead.

6. O Don Fatale from the opera Don Carlos by Verdi. I've seen this opera twice: The first time was in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) one year before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The second time was in the Vienna State Opera a few years ago. Mezzo-soprano is the voice I like best, and this is one of Verdi's best arias.

7. Lashed to the Slave Stick by Nile, a technical death-metal band from South Carolina with very good musicians and a special style.

8. In the Neighborhood by Tom Waits. I saw this video on TV in 1983, and ran to the store to buy my first Tom Waits album the next day. Since then I've bought many more.

9. Bobby Brown by Frank Zappa. The song was released when I was in junior high school. We didn't really understand the lyrics, but had a feeling it was a little bit dirty. So we brought the lyrics to English class and asked the teacher to help us translate it. She looked at the text, blushed and refused.

10. När vi två blir en by Gyllene Tider. I had to include one of the Scandinavian party hits from the 1980s, not because of the music, but for the memories of friends, girls, parties and good old days. Note the clothes, hair-cuts and glasses of the audience in the video.

There are many other bands that should have been on my list. Among those who almost made are Iron Maiden, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, black-metal bands like Taake, Burzum and Arcturus. And then there is all the classical music, operas by Verdi, Rossini and Puccini, Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz and The Planets by Holst. That's what would make up number 11 to 20 on my list >:)

(The picture is a book cover from www.amazon.com)

Real dimensions

Here's some more cool stuff about dimensions. It's about real dimensions that are not really real (it's funny how the word real has different meanings in English).

Usually when we think about dimensions, they are integer numbers, like 3 for our regular space, and 4 if we include time to make it space-time.

In physics we sometimes have to compute infinitely long sums (integrals if you know calculus). Sometimes these sums in 4-dimensional space are infinite. That's not what we want.

We can fix this by making the dimension slightly less than 4, for instance 3.99, which is a real number (and not an integer). The infinite sums now splits nicely in a finite term, which is the answer we seek, and an infinite term that we trash.

Then, in the end, we let the dimension go almost back to 4, say 3.999999999999.

It's magic, isn't it? And what does it mean? It's just a math trick that let us do computations, nothing more and nothing less. The dimension of our real space-time is still 4 >:)

(The trick outlined above is called dimensional regularization. It was invented by the physicists t'Hooft and Veltman who won the Nobel Prize in 1999. I have no idea how to picture a 3.99 dimensional space, and there's no need to do it as long as the math works. The picture above is a 4-dimensional hypercube from Wikipedia)