Gold rush

Yesterday we had a crazy storm coming in from the west, with strong winds and lots of snow. Today the wind had calmed down. It was time for the gold rush.

The white gold; tons of it. Awesome!

Little boy and I took our skis and went out in the mountains. We had a full day of off-piste skiing in the powder. It continued to snow all day. Great. Best day of skiing so far this season.

(Picture taken today. The skier is little boy, and the photographer is me.)

Signed up for the A-Z Challenge

I signed up for the A-Z Challenge again this year. It's gonna be fun. This year I will go for a theme, but not sure which.

Today, I took a day off from work, and went up to the mountains with little boy and a couple of his buddies. The boys are already out skiing in the snow park, jumping on the big jumps.

I'm sitting in the cafe drinking a cup of fairly good coffee (not the best), and reading some work mail. We have another two days of skiing ahead of us, so I think I will skip the skiing today. I will try to get some work done, and think about a theme for the A-Z Challenge.

I should find a theme which is interesting, and doesn't provoke or offend anyone. No, I think I will reduce my ambition. I'll find a theme which is just interesting. There are som nice options in the sub-heading of my blog:

"about science, mathematics, skiing, drumming, black metal, opera, sex, summer, winter, Heaven and Hell"

Science would be a cool theme, with plenty of topics to write about: astronomy, biology, chemistry, dinosaurs, evolution, Feynman, gravity, Hubble ...

Maybe I should go for mathematics, which also has lots of topics: asymptotic analysis, Banach space, complex numbers, divergence theorem, error function, functions, Gauss distribution, Hilbert space ... Might be fun to write about, but maybe interesting to only a few readers.

Opera could be a cool topic, with posts about Aida, Bizet, Carmen, Donizetti, ...

No, I think I go for the last two options: Heaven and Hell, or some variety of it. Just wait and see till April >:)

(Picture taken today, when I sent little boy and his buddies off in the chair lift)

In the time of sanctions

The morning in Moscow was nice and clear, but cold, as cold as the relations between Russia and the West right now, a new Cold War emerging. In Moscow things appear to be normal, business as usual. In the streets, people commute to and from work in their fur-collared winter jackets and fur hats. My commute from the hotel to the office is quite short, just a 10 minute walk.

The conflict in east Ukraine is not resolved, and probably won’t be for a long time. Russia is under sanctions, from USA and its allied. The goal of the sanctions is to hit the Russian government and the rich oligarchs who support it. The exchange rate of the Ruble is down 50% compared to US dollars. Consequently, the cost of imported goods has increased a lot.  The sanctions hit ordinary people too. That’s what my Russian friends and colleagues tell me.

I doubt the sanctions will work. Russia can’t be forced in any way. The Russians don’t give in to external pressure, and never did.  They didn’t give in to Napoleon. They didn’t give in to Hitler. They certainly don’t give in to Obama. They will rather perish.

The Russians like to criticize their government, the bureaucracy, the misuse of power and corruption in their country. However, they don’t want to be criticized by foreigners. What happens when sanctions are imposed is that Putin becomes more popular than ever. He is gathering the Russian people against a common external enemy; USA, EU and NATO.

From the western point of view, the Russian annexation of Crimea is unacceptable. It violates international rules and laws. The Russians see it differently. They have bad experience with laws in general, from past and present corrupt regimes. The laws are obscure and ambiguous, and can always be twisted and interpreted in favor of the mighty and powerful. Law doesn't imply justice. For the Russian government, the same logic applies on the global scale; USA is an aggressor, supported by international regulations, which threatens Russian rights and interests.

The Russians have a good, but quite subjective, sense of justice. And justice says that Crimea belongs to Russia. When Leo Tolstoy was a young man, he served in the Tsar’s army during the Crimean war. He wrote about it in the Sevastopol Stories (a good book). Crimea was given to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1954. At that time it was only an administrative formality within the Soviet Union. Then Crimea drifted away when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent. However, many Russians still see it as a part of Russia.

That’s what they say. I just say that different people see things in different ways. The politicians in America and Western Europe don’t understand the Russian mentality. That’s for sure.

(Picture taken in Moscow this morning, when I was walking from the hotel to our office, and crossing the bridge over the frozen Moscow River to Krasnye Holmy.)

Charlie is back

Last week, we were shocked by the acts of terror in Paris. This week, Charlie Hebdo is back with a new issue. That’s great.  The artists and cartoonists are brave.  

I think duck liver is a hype, but I always liked the French cheese, and the French attitude to freedom of speech. Charlie Hebdo’s satire offends the Muslims. That’s fine. They just have to learn to live with it, like the Christians, Jews and Satanists have learnt.

What’s holy for you is not holy for me.  Mocking the gods and prophets can be fun, for sure. But blasphemy is more than entertainment. Blasphemy is an important part of the freedom of speech. Religion mixed with a political agenda is a bad combo, because it makes the agenda indisputable. Who are you to challenge God?

• Imagine Obama coming to The House proposing a new law received from God, and the Republicans could do nothing to stop it. 
• Imagine the Labor party coming to the Parliament with a political program given by God, and Cameron had to approve it right away. 

The French and the Americans (I think) were the first to develop a secular constitution. This is very important, splitting governing, legislative and religious power. Turkey is Muslim-secular, but develops in the wrong direction. Many Muslim countries are stuck in their political-religious swamp. The list of ridiculous laws and rules coming out of religion is endless:

• Women are not allowed to watch football games (Iran)
• Women are not allowed to drive cars (Saudi)
• Death penalty for blasphemy (Pakistan)
• Separate ski lifts for men and women (Iran)
• One-hour marriage with prostitutes (which makes prostitution compliant with the Quran; Bahrain).
• Men can’t sit next to women on airplanes (orthodox Jews)
• Women can’t become priests (Catholics)
• Priests must live in celibate (Catholics)
• Ban on condoms (Catholics)

None of these rules come from God. They were invented by powerful people as tools to control people. When rules can't be justified by rational arguments, the easiest solution is God. No wonder religious authorities  who make up such laws and rules (and their Prophets and Gods) become subject to satire and blasphemy.

The French author Michel Houellebecq once said that “among all ridiculous religions, Islam is the most stupid”. He was taken to court in Paris for this statement, but was acquitted based on freedom of speech. They are all about equally bad; I dislike religion in general. 

I have plenty of religous books in my shelf; the Bible, the Quran and the Book of Mormon, and I have read a fair part of them (but far from everything). Sharia is mostly useless as legislation for the modern world. But taking the worst of the Bible, it would make a pretty bizarre law too.

Some of the religious texts can be quite entertaining. Once we had fun drinking beer and reading load from the Quran in a pub up north. I think the pub was a safe place for our blasphemy. It's an unlikely place to meet jihadists and inquisition.

In Satan we trust >:)

(Cover page of this week's issue of Charlie Hebdo; link to WIkipedia. The text above Muhammsd's head says "Everything is forgiven".)

Last day

Today is the last day of the year.  Tomorrow comes a new day with a new year. Who knows what ut will bring.

New oportunitues and new challenges? New problems and new obstacles?

Maybe it will be status quo, or maybe its time for a revolution, for me and for you.

We will see.

Happy new year >:)

(Picture taken a couple of days ago when I was out skiing with the boys. They are much better skiers than me now, even little boy. So I hang around watching them in the snow park from time to time. It's fun)

Skimas

Vacation in the mountains. Skiing with the boys. That's nice. There's only one person I'm missing right now.

Christmas. Christ mass. I'm not into the religious part if it. I should call it something else.

Snowmass? No, that's a place in Colorado, close to Aspen. Nice place. I've been there many years ago, when we lived in Colorado

Skimass or Skimas?  That's a nice name for the holidays. I have to check on the Internet if it already exists.

Lunch break is over. Time for a couple of more runs on the slope before its getting dark. Days are short in the north at this time of the year. Sunset at 2pm.

Tomorrow is another day, I believe >:)

(Picture taken today, before lunch. Blogpost written on my cell phone)

Winter solstice

Tomorrow is the darkest day of the year. It’s the winter solstice. We only get about 4-5 hours of daylight. The day after tomorrow we start the the journey towards increasingly longer days. That’s good.

Also, we are approaching Christmas. That’s not so good. I’m not into the religious part of it, and the commercialism just makes me sad. I try to keep it on a very minimum. When I enter the malls with Christmas-pop-music on the loud speakers (Jingle Bell Rock, Santa Claus is Coming to Town) and people running around carrying bags full of stuff, it makes me feel sick.

The only place I feel fairly comfortable is the bookstore. So that’s where I try to do most of my shopping.

It’s been a rush at work as usual. Projects and reports need to be finished before the end of the years. Managers sitting with there Excel spreadsheets counting deliverables, worrying about the KPI’s.

If you don’t know what a KPI is, you’re lucky. KPI means Key Performance Indicator. That’s the measures by which managers can maximize their bonuses, by local optimization in their little pond, and private agendas. At the same time they usually harm the overall interest of the company. But who cares. This is competition. This is the wonderful capitalist world.

Whatever, it’s great with two weeks of vacation, skiing in the mountains.

I hope I get the book by Thomas Piketty for Christmas. If not, I buy it on sale in January.

Happy winter solstice >:)

(Picture from my archives, from a past Christmas, in 2010 or 2011 I think. We have less snow this year, but thanks to efficient snow making system, the skiing is not at risk)

Soviet retro style

The streets were dark and cold. It was winter in Siberia.  It was silent. No people around, except us.  The old brown log house was lit by only a weak lamp.

They brought us down in the basement.  Heavy brown chairs and tables.  Small bronze statues of working class heroes. The the red flag with hammer and sickle. Old pictures on the wall. Pictures of Yury Gagarin and Leonid Brezhnev, and the hockey team from 1985; Krutov, Larionov, Makarov, Fetisov and Kasatonov.  The best team ever, raised and trained under the red star.  An old TV set showing a classical Russian movie. Black and white.

We were back in the Soviet Union. Retro style.  Even the menu. Russian vodka and Russian beers. Traditional Siberian dishes. Fish from Lake Baikal. Steamed sig.  Frozen omul in thin slices, eaten raw with salt and onion. It’s called Stroganina. Siberian sushi. Sig and omul. That’s the Russian names. The English names of these species of fish I don’t know.  But the fish was very good.

After the food, we got a Soviet-style chewing gum. Made from resin. Tasting of pine. Quite interesting. Just like the chewing gums we made ourselves when we were kids.

(The pictures were taken at the restaurant, Unfortunately, my crappy cell phone camera takes bad pictures in the dark. Sorry about that. I need to get a new one.)