From robin.berjon at expway.fr Fri Aug 11 12:39:49 2006 From: robin.berjon at expway.fr (Robin Berjon) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:39:49 +0200 Subject: [Dahut-pm] Mojitos Message-ID: <4DFA2D88-1119-45BF-851F-C2D8AF4F75B6@expway.fr> Heya all! Since it's the second dahut in two days to ask my for a Mojito recipe, I figure I'm better off sending this here :) Here goes: - you can use two different types of glasses: whisky-size or similar (but more solid), or long drink. The former is preferred. - fill to the brim with mint leaves, without pressing them down too much - throw in one to three teaspoons of brown sugar (depending on how sweet you want it). - add about half a lime cut up into pieces (say, 1/8th). You can put more if you like it more acid (but it can get quite acid fast with the rum). - crush all of that very thoroughly to the bottom of the glass. It must all mix into a mash, and you should feel like you just pressed juice out of the *mint*. You pretty much need the proper tooling here, not sure what the thingamagick is called, it more or less looks like a dildo. You might get around with using something else but honestly I don't know of good substitutes and really recommend getting one if you're serious about mojito-making. Note though, I haven't tried replacing it with a dildo. [I'm now told it's called as pestle. Well, use that. But if you do try with a dildo I'd love to know.] - add as much crushed ice (not too thinly, there should still be blocks of uneven size) as you can, above the brim. If you don't have an ice-crusher, put ice cubes in a towel and beat them to death with the pestle (or dildo). - pour in white rum *almost* up to the brim. The ice should crumble somewhat. The rum doesn't have to be very good (you shouldn't use the finest), but don't take the worst one either as it's still a the largest part of the drink. Also, quality alcohol gives lesser hangovers. - add just a touch of Perrier or other sparkling water. If you don't have any, lemonade (in the French sense, that is stuff like 7Up or Sprite ? Mountain Dew has been suggested as an experiment) can do but you'll have to use less sugar. - shake the whole thing thoroughly. It doesn't have to be in a shaker, putting another glass upside down on the first one will work just fine. Words of caution: - even if you're careful it'll get a bit messy and sticky around the preparation, so plan accordingly - using a pestle as hard as you have to here can give you a large blister in the palm which will make people ask if you're about to go blind or deaf - clean the dildo beforehand As a bonus for the lazy, the Moscow Mule: - 1/4th vodka - 3/4th ginger ale I found out about the latter in an excellent bar in Tokyo that we couldn't figure out any name for other than "Open Till Late" (the thing written largest in front of it). There's room for about 12 people if you want to pack in tight, and everything is at ?500 (i.e. really cheap). I've never seen the bartender change his facial expression except the one time when I sang the "Cucu song". If you go to Tokyo I highly recommend. -- Robin Berjon Senior Research Scientist Expway, http://expway.com/ From robin.berjon at expway.fr Fri Aug 11 16:31:21 2006 From: robin.berjon at expway.fr (Robin Berjon) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 01:31:21 +0200 Subject: [Dahut-pm] Mojitos In-Reply-To: <4DFA2D88-1119-45BF-851F-C2D8AF4F75B6@expway.fr> References: <4DFA2D88-1119-45BF-851F-C2D8AF4F75B6@expway.fr> Message-ID: Heya again! Whoever put up http://dahut.pm.org/mojito.html, can you please make it UTF-8 too? There are inquiring minds out there who already want to read it properly :) -- Robin Berjon FORMER Senior Research Scientist, now professional teaser berjon.com, whenever I figure it out From robin.berjon at expway.fr Mon Aug 14 04:24:25 2006 From: robin.berjon at expway.fr (Robin Berjon) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 13:24:25 +0200 Subject: [Dahut-pm] Walking With Dahuts In-Reply-To: <44B48D9D.6020601@totalcinema.com> References: <44B48D9D.6020601@totalcinema.com> Message-ID: <960E299A-EACD-4954-9B77-9B1CD2403F46@expway.fr> DAAAAAAHUUUUUUUUT!!!! Well, apart from the shouting at the beginning, if I'm honest, which I usually am, at least if there exist the same proviso for "white honesty" as one may benefit from for white lies, I'm not entirely sure how to start this email. As an incipit I'll just say, very seriously, in fact so seriously that it'll sound adolescent, don't read this email unless you want to read about me. It's long, and it really is in its very vast majority about this little Robin guy. Just because you somehow got involved in this joke turned cult called dahuts doesn't mean you have to put up with some random dude suddenly breaking with a long-held tradition of solipsism. The short version, which can suffice, is in B's words herself: Will I stay this way forever? Sleep through my life's endeavours? I don't wanna be Going through the motions Losing all my drive I can't even see If this is really me And I just want to be alive But back to how to start this email. There's the in media res modulo descriptive start: It's 0930 Paris time as I start writing, and rather than freshly awaken I'm still up. In fact I'm just back from the Tabacaria (an excellent poem if there ever was one, check out Pessoa) from which I obtained what is the fourth fags pack of the night. These past weeks I've been counting the units of alcohol I ingest daily in a hopefully not-too-misguided attempt to bridle my consumption to levels that wouldn't feature nicely in academic papers on cirrhosis. Tonight, I've lost count. To relate to a foundational event, I'm more drunk than the time I told Kip I had chatted a while with Nick Cave (which was true) and then embellished it (with varying degrees of historicity). My iTunes tells me that I'm currently exactly at the 40th replay of _Once More With Feeling_, which I downloaded on morning last, and that's taking into account that iTunes sucks in that if you send a song back to its beginning right before it ends, it won't add to the count play. And I've done that a few times. Right now I'm under Amber Benson's spell, but then who wouldn't be? That's a nutshell of now within a few hours. Then there's the apologetic one: I'm sorry it took me so long to respond to this email. I really wanted to. Which I guess is why I'm doing it. When I received it I was in the middle of a hell of a lot of work, just like the rest of the time. After that came vacations, three weeks ago with one yet to complete, which I've so far spent largely between watching TV series in bed and reading books seated at the same bar terrace, notably books that one really shouldn't read such as _Math?matiques et Existence_ (Parrochia), _Information - The New Language of Science_ (von Bayer), and _Cosmic Trigger I_ (RAW). Or rather, one should read them but not juxtaposed as they exhibit with one another the sort of parallel that is most of the time genuinely best ignored. Either way, I've been caught up between doing too much, and realising I haven't anything near what I wanted to do, which is the second nutshell, within a few years. Also, there's the manic-depressive turned lucid: I haven't posted to this thread because the maniac wants every post to be perfect, well constructed, in good English, smart, and laid out such that should a smart and pretty damsel were to walk by the internet tube as this internet is transmitted, she would come serenade me; and because the depressive knows that while he is blessed with many friends, both the quality and quantity of whom never cease to puzzle him, there is yet no one, really, most of the time, that he treats as friend, in terms of speaking anywhere close to openly about what he is, has been, and is working on. If you look closely, I'm actually a bit dumb with feelings. Most of the time, I have to *think* about them, before I get them. So I'm rarely sure, really. I figure there are some folks who I know better, closer, deeper, longer, larger, whatever to whom I should be answering the questions Kip asked, rather than to a rag-tag gang that I certainly truly cherish but many of whom I know only under the guise of their ASCII, sorry UTF-8, avatars. But the former folks ain't asking none of those questions. And I also figure that if Kip's inquiring minds are stupid enough to just ask such straight and bare questions of this motley crew, then those inquiring minds are very much my kind of stupid. And it might just be that I'm calling them stupid just for the fun of quoting _Firefly_. That nutshell's now looking at a century scale. So, where do we go from here? As I was asking Chris the other day if you drink and smoke way too much, shouldn't you be having your midlife crisis at circa 30? Unless either some major takes place in my life or medical science makes a big leap forward it is after all indeed the middle of my life, if not past it. Kip talks about dreams, fulfilment, course, being meant to do something. Going in reverse, I don't think I was meant to do anything specific. Predetermination is, as far as I can perceive, something short- termed. The toast will fall on the buttered side. The cat will fall on its feet. The adjunct of both will hit paws first and unavoidably roll over to spread the peanut butter all over the carpet. Anything beyond that is unpredictable not because of free will (which is a sham on both words), but because the Universe does not have the ability to store enough information for things this complexly evolved to be determined, let alone in advance (I intuit that this follows from Zeilinger's law, and if you think that the rest of this email is boring feel free to answer on just this point as I'm interested in what smart folks might think about it). Moving on to the course, heck all I can really say for myself is that I'm thoroughly lost. Not in a religious sense (though Geoff I'd be very interested in discussing why you think it's impossible for to not be religious ? and I really am open to an honest debate on the topic, I think it could be interesting for all), in fact one of the few things that still holds me together is my sense of ethics ? trying to do what is right for the folks I share this world with, even though I get it wrong here and there ? and of the fact that no instituted moral comes even close to just trying to fight the good fight. No, I'm lost in that the only way I know up from down is that the latter is where I go after that extra drink. I don't think I ever set a course for myself. For as far as I can remember I've been serendipity's bitch. Going not too far back, I don't recall why I decided to go study philosophy at La Sorbonne. I knew I couldn't write French to save a kitten on the guillotine, and while I liked the topic I also knew that its gist was the study of lies proffered by smart guys perhaps long dead but still in the business of fooling themselves. Oxford was having me in Creative Writing but no, I went elsewhere. I never wanted to start my first company, but it was there and offered so I did. I didn't want to start the second, but my girlfriend in Belgium needed some expertise in the domain to reuse a company her parents weren't doing anything with. I didn't want the third, but it was the only way of getting out of the Belgian quagmire. I didn't want to go to New York but that's where the company was. I didn't want to come back to Paris but that's the only place that could offer both shelter and rebirth of the money when the bubble burst. I never wanted to become the daemon in charge of binary XML, it was the only real offer made to me while I was busy figuring out how long the French law allowed me to stay in a flat without paying the rent and how long one could think pasta without even butter still tasted of anything let alone good if it were the sole meal of the day, every day. And now, I feel burnt out of walking through too much fire in the standards department, and just at that moment someone gives me a new job. The point isn't whether serendipity has been good to me or not ? she very much has ? but simply that I haven't made a single decision about my life in at least the past ten years, if ever. Not one. None beyond do I want white or red wine tonight. When does the end appear? When do the trumpets cheer? It hasn't been my call. At some point earlier this year I decided I wouldn't be serendipity's bitch no more ? and promptly gave up. And now she's picking me up again. I've most of a mind to follow, and almost half of a mind to think that I should just tag along and make the most of it. That's for the course. But is it fulfilling? Heck, that's an impossible question. It's pretty much like asking what my favourite song is. Right now, serendipitously, Amber's singing so it's that song. But it'll change to, say, Fiona Apple within if only a few sentences or a couple months (but then they do tend to involve chicks living LA one way or another, so maybe I should just move in with Kip :). One moment I am fulfilled, and the next I ain't. Being on W3C working groups and furthermore chairing them is at the same time the most frustrating and the most rewarding thing I've ever done. You work with amazing people, and amazingly fuckwitted ones as well. Under the bureaucracy and screw-ups there is something of the good fight in there (there's even more if you try other standards organisations), even though it tends to swallow you whole. But outside of the moments in which I delude myself that it's actually useful, no, it's not fulfilling. And it's been occupying not only close to my every waking hour but also most of the dreams that I recall. So I'm guessing, fulfilled? When seeing those people and their bests, when doped on beer and heavy-duty jet-lag with them, and on those rare occasions when I'm a good chair and/or email-writer for those purposes. And all of that is taking all the space I have to give, so no, the answer is no, despite the good times. Finally, dreams. I think that Mike made a fine point (later supported by Jim) when he contrasted "achieve" with "be". I would tend to like to think that there's a static vs dynamic thing in between those two, but that's not the case and anyway would be on topic in another ramble. The current point of order is that for "be", the question is real simple: I simply don't remember ever dreaming of "being" anything. In fact the simple notion of it dawned on me in reading Mike's email. But it sounds tempting, provided I can figure out what one would dream of being, I'm not sure. I guess I should try it, suggestions are welcome, really. In terms of achieving though, I have quite a few dreams, a huge many of which are not in the list below: * I want to write kick-effing-arse novels. Like Gibson's _Pattern Recognition_ only much more cynical, not written in the same way, and darker, and with the absurd love of mankind that Douglas Adams has. * I want to revolutionise physics by demonstrating that everything boils down to information theory (not Shannon's, something more evolved ? the empi?tement mathematics applied to information) coupled with notions of local evolution. * Based on the latter, I want to help out a tad with genetics. * And still based on the same, figure out a number of mystical things, and become a powerful warlock in the process. This of course involves getting in touch with beings radically alien, probably from the the vicinity of Sirius (hey, it has a smaller star doing *circles* around it...). This also indirectly involves becoming a master at Tantric Sex. * And again, figure out an Economics theory out of the same. * Then write more. * And then, thanks to my four Nobel prizes (and a couple Ig-Nobels just for kicks) and my ruggedly handsome magnetism, become president of France. From there I would set the world right and happy, be re- elected in the first round for my second term, and then step down for my brilliant and sexy Prime Minister. * At some point in there I would figure out how to use the relationship between human categorisation and the whirlwind of energy that is the "real" world to create the first artificial intelligence. And that could be declined in many ways with other categorisation approaches to create artificially alien intelligences that would see alternate realities of interest. The problem is, I'm actually serious about those dreams. It's the only thing I've got that doesn't feel like serendipity's hunted down and brought to my feet while I'm busy discovering the very different effect of being drunk on apple-based or grapes-based alcohols. In fact, they're the thing that feel most, and I've barely given the overview list, with no detail. More often than I should, I think I can do one of them. In fact, when I have none of them I have nothing but Mike's question "Is the world really as I see it, or is this just depression talking?" I spend all my time in between having those dreams and giving it all up, in between that which poses no challenge, and that for which I truly am challenged. I don't defer my dreams year after year as Kip puts it, they're just eternally deferred by nature. I blame the people who for the past thirty years have been telling me that I'm really, really smart. Or I blame myself for still, in all honestly, having genuinely not the fucking trace of a fucking clue why anyone would think I'm smart. Probably the latter, I'd wager. I won't dwell long on the nice things that Geoff and Chris have said about families. I stand in in a number of different places on such matters. Families are a bit of a mystery to me for, in a radical break with what this email seems to have instituted as tradition, reasons that I won't get into. I know that the one dream I have that would easily supersede all others is to find that girl kind, smart, cute, and to whom I could talk at least a bit, fall in love, make babies and the whole thing. If I had that, I'd be happy to dabble in physics and novels on and on, and write things that as DNA put it were almost incredibly successful but somehow entirely failed to see the light of day. I often dream of giving up all the rest just for that, something of a metadream. Hard as I've tried it hasn't worked out. I still don't know if I'm asking too much of the sweet women I meet, or if I should wait for someone with whom it feels right. Did I mention I was somewhat lost? And iTunes sings: "I've got a theory, it doesn't matter / What can't we face if we're together? / What's in this place that we can't weather? / ... / It's do or die / Hey, I've died twice". I know this email may seem bleak, and I apologise for fostering it unto you. Or actually I don't. Blame Kip for getting me to write this down. I thank him ;) Either way, bleak or not, lost or not, I'm not unhappy. The unadorned truth just probably sounds more brutal than it is. Or at least tell me that. Take good care all of you, in your strange distant ways you are not at all without being very huggable :) I have one last thing to say: bunnies rock! -- Robin Berjon Senior Fuckwit Ruggedly Handsome Zombies, Inc. "I lived my life in shadow, never the sun on my face It didn't seem so sad though, I figured that was my place"