Q & A with the Canadian Curmudgeon
Why are you writing this blog? Nobody's going to read it anyway.
Because I like ranting, and I like educating people, and some people need some serious educating (not that they're going to read this blog anyway).
What are you going to blog about?
Probably some science, probably some things that piss me off, and probably some other stuff. I'll try to keep things rational and logical, if not actually backed up by science.
Sometimes some politi-socio-economic statements (c.f. things that piss me off) will leak through; even though they are well-reasoned, sound conclusions rather than mere opinions, I will try to hide them {in tiny text} so you might have to work to read them. I may loudly trumpet some of my opinions, I don't know. I should probably point out that some vast subjects are contained entirely within the category of things that piss me off.
I'll use footnotes. (Actually they're not footnotes. They're more like endnotes, or middlenotes, depending where I put them. I'll try to remember to use hyperlinks with them.) I'll also use citations with a bibliography where appropriate.
What is your biography?
- Born in Canada, in a year beginning with the digits “1” and “9” (I always use four-digit years), during a month with an “R” in it
- Grew up[1] in Canada
- Got a bachelor's degree in one of the real sciences[2] from a good[3] university in Canada
- Moved to the USA
- Got a master's and doctorate in another one of the real sciences[4] from a good university in the USA
- Moved to another place in the USA
- Worked as a postdoc for a few years at a good university in the USA
- Left academia[5]
- Entered the corporate world
- Worked at one or more small or large companies in one or more job positions doing some cool science-ish stuff but some not-so-cool stuff too
- Currently doing something
- Notes
- ^ (to the extent that I did grow up, anyway… I'm
still working on itfinding it difficultnot even trying any more) - ^ The definition of "real science" is left as an exercise for the reader.
- ^ I mention that these universities are good — what could be called top-tier, in fact — merely to point out that when I say "science-based", my credentials are legit. And because I'm (justifiably, I believe) proud of my accomplishments.
- ^ Clearly, there must be at least two sciences meeting the criteria developed in the preceding exercise.
- ^ The departure may have been somewhat of a mutual abandonment; I'm still thinking about the reasons. There were things about academia that I didn't like, and things about me that it didn't like.
Is that why you say it's a semi-Canadian perspective, because you live in the USA now?
No, it's because I've been in this hot climate for so long that half my neurons have melted and I've forgotten half of what it means to be a Canadian. (I haven't learned what it means to be a USAian.)
If I could take this opportunity to expand on your question, one characteristic of my Canadian perspective is that I spell words like "neighbour" and "centre" correctly.
I heard that Canadians are polite. Why do you swear?
The two are not mutually exclusive. I hold doors open for people, and I would like to remind you that I said "please" when I asked you to get off my fucking lawn. What more do you want?
I like the animated waving flag. Did you make that?
Yes I did. In case you're wondering, here's how I did it.
Project the image of the flag[6] onto the rectangle [0,1]×[-0.5,0], such that the top-left corner is at the origin, and map this rectangle into R3 via (u,v) → (u, .2u sin(4π u - φ), v - .1u). Rotate by 45° and project onto the (x,y) plane (paying attention to which points are hidden by others). Increasing the phase φ of the oscillation makes the waving motion.
I wrote some Octave code and some C++ code (compiled with g++) to construct the RGB images, and ImageMagick to convert them to an animated GIF. No, you can't have my code. (If you look really closely, you'll see an anomalous red pixel to the left of the leaf; I don't know how it got there, but it means you probably wouldn't want my code anyway.)
- ^ The dimensions of the National Flag of Canada are exactly 2×1. Other flags have different dimensions, but the method can be easily adapted to those.
What else are you going to tell us about yourself?
Probably not much. I'm keeping this blog thoroughly pseudonymous, but it is an accurate reflection of the wetware that authors it. Thanks for asking, though. (See that? I was polite again.)
Is your humor always like this?
You misspelt "humour". This interview is over.
