Happy NY

Montreal:

Shake in yeo boots!!

Sea Levels

This is for you, climate concerned people. According to the US
government weather figures, sea levels are going up and up...

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level

Temp E

Still outrageously cold. I grew up in a Fahrenheit world, so
I like to check the temperature in F°. The kid in me knows how
to dress!!

Fun fact: the two scales meet at -40.

👧

Playing

So I've been asking myself: if I had a quantum computer at my
disposal - and thus the number of passes on a given set of
information no longer mattered - what could be accomplished.

One might want to solve a Sudoku puzzle.

Downloaded the following problem and worked at solving it
using the idea that some numbers are prime, and others not.
Using 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 as prime (in pink) and 4, 6, 8, 9 as non-primes
(in blue)

.

The scratch version:

Color coding for primes did help at first, but only went so far. One would have to switch to
looking for non-primes.

Been also thinking that blocks of three rows or three columns can move around, like
lines on matrices.

Finally, it struck me that the patterns on non-primes looked like Tetris blocks.And, they didn't
repeat...

Quantum C

Quantum computers are the next big thing. Not that they
will ever power smartphones - the particles they run have to be at
near cryogenic temperatures - but they will be available on the cloud.

In fact, they might be slow on normal problems, but where they really
shine is on on large scale ones. From 2n gains to 2^n gains in computing power
for every bit added...

In effect, quantum computing merges the finding of quantum physics
with computing practices. On top of the two possibilities offered by two bits,
one adds another value furnished by an electron (its magnetic spin value, other
than being up or down, can take an infinity of values in between). Computational
capacity thus takes on vertiginous dimensions.

So what does superimposed mean: we don't know the value unless we measure it.

What is entanglement: when one does measure, the value of one bit determines
the value of the other .( In effect, for particles acting on each other, some constant
relations remain, such the value of  total momentum of the two).

Heading Out

Outa Rice Krispies and heading out!!

Fun Time

Yep, still cold as anything!!!👧

Been having fun with Color Flood. Did red in 40, followed by yellow in 23...

For the code curious, one can consult how these games were put together.

https://react.rocks/tag/Game

https://chuckha.github.io/ColorFlood/

Autonomous

Self-driving transport trucks are being built for use in 2019.
In fact, autonomous vehicles are already being tested in remote regions
in the oil industry.

The Senate is expected to report on this in January...

http://affaires.lapresse.ca/economie/transports/201712/26/01-5148345-les-camions-autonomes-arrivent-rapidement-sur-le-marche.php

Play

Here's what my week is going to be like. Frisquet!!

Not all bad: there's no shoveling involved; and there will actually be outdoor
skating this year.😉

                                         *     *     *

Been looking at an encoding of the Game of Life, a Turing-complete
simulation one is free to set initial conditions for.

The same coder (who is in Zurich), also created a totally bomb Turing Machine
to play with.

http://gameoflife.klickagent.ch/?lang=en#30_15_300

http://turingmaschine.klickagent.ch/mehrband/?lang=en#__

It's XMAS

🙌

Tracking SC

https://www.noradsanta.org/

Storm

Saturday, 3.30 pm: Monstruous snow storm in the Montreal region.
The darker the red, the slower the circulation.

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/201712/23/01-5148188-neige-verglas-et-poudrerie-compliquent-les-deplacements.php

Holiday Cheer

For those who - at the onset of a long wintry Festive season -  fear they may
be loosing the battle with their diet, sobriety or whatever, a word of advice.
There is only one moment to start your diet, and it is right now. Voilà, end of
guilt, anxiety, lying to oneself and others, and all that. Enjoy the Holidays with your
inner self.

Three meals in a day, lots of water, and Fibonacci: 1 cookie is +100 calories.

                                           *     *     *
From the Times UK:

Net Neutrality

Benjamin Bayart, Libération

http://www.liberation.fr/debats/2017/12/14/l-europe-doit-defendre-la-neutralite-du-net_1616667

Holidays

In 2017, the Winter Solstice arrives at:

• Thursday, December 21, 2017 at 4:28 pm UTC
• Thursday, December 21, 2017 at 11:28 am EST

On-Trend!

The fashion trend to watch for 2018 is - we are told - flowery prints.
Yuka Kinoshita is sporting a lovely example of this in one of her recent
vlogs:

https://youtu.be/nVn68jn8qhc

                                                                   *     *     *

Had a first go at making refrigerator oats (AKA overnight oats). Mine
are actually 17 hours in.

The basic recipe is 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup yogurt, fruit and seeds on top.
Leave in the fridge covered at least overnight.

Makes for 300 calorie breakfast (normally, oats clock in at 200).

Milky, mushy, sweet and comforting!!! 😊

Balance

I have long counted myself among those who claim they are
not feminist. But then - like the ladies cited in the Nouvel Obs below -
if pressed, I'm all for equality between men and women, legally and de
facto.

My own take on it is that I will not fight on that ridge. Time and energy are
limited quantities, and mine are going somewhere else. I don't mind a female
bus driver, but it makes me nervous. Brain differences between men and women
are real. I also find male homosexual couples raising children sad... for the children.
A 'normal' family is a friendly war zone, and leaves kids with a sense of humor.
But women are expected in the work place, and there is no turning back.

Are femen an ambarassement? Only to themselves. Especially when they choose
Notre-Dame Cathedral to demonstrate. But the current struggle seems to involve
de-sexualizing the female body. Women can put up with attractive men in public places.
Men should be able to do the same with women.

#balancetonporc. Which is the French version of #metoo. Means, literally, sell out
your pig. Or speak out, name names. Unsavory stuff, the article is right on that matter.
Caught up with that  Republican candidate in Alabama. True, behaviors are political
issues right now, but I would hesitate to smear a candidate running for office.

Good One

It's -13° C, and I should shovel my balcony - for the third time on this
storm - (so the door doesn't freeze over).

I also need to go grocery shopping!?

The wallpaper on my Samsung tablet:

The image on my working computer:

I'm such an old grouch. School-age children have the day off, and are surely having a good
one!

Ninja Cat

I'm just going to have to learn to do my own animations on a movie editor.  

Been reading up a bit on the art of; there are tricks for making things more amusing

(and less dizzying). The idea is to make the beginning and end of a movement

slower than the middle, and have the movement go beyond, and come back. 

See Ninja Cat below:

music: Kevin MacLeod, Indore


http://www.creativebloq.com/advice/understand-the-12-principles-of-animation

Corsica

vikidi explains the maquis in these terms to children: lands that have been
repeatedly burned by man, so that the forest has disappeared. But ecological renewal
and preservation is more prevalent today.

Essentially, a maquis forms on top of granite. And the forest of predilection is oaks.

Jumping Bunnies!

Driving me to distraction: my cartoon app will no longer
publish a movie. It just says it has to close and shuts down.
I can, of course, run images in MMovie Maker, but the animations,
such as jumping bunnies, are lost.

Needless to say, I've reinstalled the app (a couple of times). Argh...

Le maquis

The areas in green on the map designate areas with a distinctive
family of plants, all subject to Mediterranean climate; in French, the maquis.
Wikipedia gives a list of the drought resistant plants one often finds
in a maquis and, surprisingly, many are flowers. A formation végétale has
particular plants which give the region particular appearance. We are
here dealing with the classification of ecological regions.

People have been living around the Mediterranean for a long time...

The maquis has cultural significance as well. 20% of Corsica
is a maquis, and the folks who live there are tough. Indeed, The
Resistance during World War ll was populated with maquisards.

I could be wrong here, but planting desert flowers and other water
retaining plants might be one way of reducing the severity of autumnal
brush fires...

Purple

The alarm on the current fires around Los Angeles has reached the purple
stage - highest after yellow, orange and red. That is because, winds for the day, are
expected to be too strong for fire fighting planes to take off.


https://www.msn.com/fr-ca/actualites/monde/los-angeles-menac%c3%a9e-par-des-feux-de-for%c3%aat-dune-intensit%c3%a9-sans-pr%c3%a9c%c3%a9dent/ar-BBGlSqR?li=AAgh0dy

MICROSCOPE

There was a fair amount of excitement in the French press
yesterday, as the the results form Microscope - a spaced-based
experiment (micro-satellite) to measure the speed of acceleration due
to gravity - were made public. Confirmation that everything falls at the
same speed has now been accredited to one more decimal place: 2*10^-14.
This is generally seen as an endorsement of Einstein's General Relativity.

This is an important finding for physics - indeed a disappointment for some -
because those trying to unify Astronomy physics all the way down to
Quantum physics had left a margin for a break from this regularity, within String
theory. Perhaps at a greater level of precision, still, ventured the authors...

If one reflects upon this, and in the absence of a story line on how gravity actually
works, it is a little odd that absolutely everything falls at the same speed...in point
of fact, accelerates downward the same. I could be standing on the moon, and the book
I drop will hurry down the same as one on earth, because the mass of the object is not
involved, only the fact of gravity. What will be different is the force of the impact at
it hits the ground, because things weigh less on the moon. As always, Newton's
f = ma holds!

We should probably be thankful for this. As one journalist covering the story remarked,
it would be a very dangerous world to live in if this was not the case.

Conclusion, for now: gravity is a constant, just like the speed of light. The universe Tinder
dates 😚

https://microscope.cnes.fr/fr/premiers-resultats-de-la-gravite-au-microscope

Planetary

The NASA app allows one to explore various things: Earth, or the Solar
System. Takes getting used to...

source: NASA's Eyes

For those interested in Milankovitch cycles:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Milankovitch/milankovitch_2.php

Earth Picture

We are all conditioned to view Earth as a large blue marble;
which it is, up to a point. The NASA figures we are used to are
the result of a montage of many images. One needs to go back to Apollo missions
to the moon for a one-shot view, with the frayed surface features visible.

We also have a picture from a Russian weather satellite. It all really depends
on the information one wants.

One particularly interesting view is the ESA geoid of gravity;
because gravitational force differs greatly at different points on the globe.
It is a very dramatic image, useful for navigation, oil exploration and...
ballistics!


http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/GOCE/Earth_s_gravity_revealed_in_unprecedented_detail

I'm a Saggitarius!

It's my BDay this week and I got a new hairdryer... before everything
freezes over...

#I💖tech   #I'ma♐

Jukebox

Had a wonderful time, last night, with a group
of UQÀM students holding a benefit for l'AMDI
(which lost its leading patron last year, actress Janine
Sutto).

It was held at La Vitrola ( jukebox in Portuguese),
normally a bar and venue for live music in the
LePlateau area). But last night - after the
best of current house music - the stage was given
over to theater improv. High spirited, hilarious,
totally pro. I particularly enjoyed the one
about a deceased person having pre bought
the Black Friday funeral arrangement. But hey, that's
me. There was something for everyone...(the
fourth generation Italian  with Celiac disease!!??)

Thank you Lyse, for inviting me. That was an
awesome class project.

                        😂     😍     😎

Fun Time Tonight

Chagrin

It's worth repeating: the medium is the message.
The friendly, goofy part of life on the Internet has its place
even if things go pro with the demise of internet neutrality.
A lot of people are on phones, tuning in during long commutes
and what not. The internet is company, and it would be so sad -
chagrin - if we were to lose that.

That Pie

A matter of great controversy on the Net; did Sarah Sanders -
President Trump's Press Secretary - actually bake this pie, as she
claims. Or is this more Trump-esque hyperbole.

My take on the matter: she probably took the picture
herself; it is not centered...😁😁

In all seriousness, she could well have baked the pie herself.
It is burnt, darker on the inside rim, than in the center. This is
the sign of an occasional baker.

I'm not saying that she is not a good baker: that pie looks really good.
But the burn pattern is because the ratio of filling depth to pie circumference
has not been optimized. Someone who makes a lot of a given pie recipe
( a bakery) will come to work that out. The finished product will - eventually -
look picture perfect.

So much for that!

Royal Engagement

Mosque Attack

ISIS would like the jihadist project to succeed somewhere!!
Today's attack was not unexpected in Egypt, a country
with high youth unemployment (60 % of the population
is 15 - 29).

http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2017/11/24/attentat-en-egypte-une-lente-progression-de-l-horreur_1612419

Fun with Time

Diferent JS scripts on the same page will generate two calls. But adding two get times will
only get the same call added to itself. The Gaussian Modulus 2 stays resolutely at zero
no matter how many times one presses run!!