What Happens in Barcelona Stays in Barcelona

Well, I finally made it to Barcelona. I have been meaning to go for several years, and I even was planning to go to a conference here a few years ago (but I was only given a poster presentation and --- under the circumstances of the initial e-mail response to my abstract when I submitted it --- it felt like a bait-and-switch, so I declined it). Now I am here for the 2013 European Conference on Complex Systems and for its associated satellite meetings. I have never gone to this conference series before, though some of my collaborators have previously presented our joint work at ECCS conferences. I already ran into Alex Vespignani at the hotel check-in desk, so I know I'm in the right place!

I was tempted to introduce this post with a Crystallian (as in Billy) fake European accent as a nod to a certain oral report I did in 7th grade on the city of Barcelona. The school year was 1988-89, and we chose Barcelona as our city on which to report because of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games for a presentation in Andrea Ambler's class. I think it was my idea --- not too creative, I admit. In our oral presentation (and in other presentations on other European cities), every single person used the same fake European accent --- no matter which European city was covered in their report. It was kind of ridiculous. (Is it too late to apologize for this past transgression? Now that I have several European friends, I feel like I owe them a retrospective apology for that oral report.) And for those of you who don't know what that "European" accent sounds like, let's just say that it's simply marvelous. In summary: My group's 7th-grade report on a European city was on Barcelona, our collective notion of a European accent (for all countries) was Billy Crystal, and this series of oral reports must have been extremely painful to watch (and, especially, to listen to) for anybody in the room who had any knowledge at all about Europe. Those were the days.

Update (7/01/14): I think I forgot to post my pictures from Barcelona.

Belated Apology for Alan Turing

The British Prime Minister has issued a belated, posthumous apology to Alan Turing for the inhumane treatment he received due to the apparently awful crime he committed by being gay. I have mixed feelings about how much such an apology helps, because although I'm glad Turing is getting some of his due with this, to me this still feels very much like 'too little, too late'. I wanted to sign the petition to support this, but it was only open to UK citizens.

Mea culpa

I just deleted a post. (Aside from accidental duplicates, I think this is the first time I've done this.)

So, in my usual lack of filtering way (because I really do almost always speak/write before I think), I made a joke which intended to have losers like me as the target. I believe that all I did in the process was piss off people who read the comment (at least one I know and one I don't), prove my point that I'm a loser, and give Lemming a good laugh (which I suppose is equivalent to the second point I just made).

After I got the first comment (the second arrived while I was answering the first), I reread the actual text of what I wrote and certainly saw other ways to read the comment than what I intended.

So, the best I can do is remove the post, apologize again, hope that my friends are all still my friends, and hope that people who I don't know who read that (and don't have all those other wonderful interactions with me upon which to draw) don't think I'm a complete waste of carbon.

The post was meant to be provocative---but what I wanted to do was discuss the abstract and why that guy was questioning "self-evident" things (his quotes because he was questioning them) that I do consider self-evident.

While I already know my abilities to see things through others' eyes are really poor, perhaps they are even poorer than I thought.

I'll be happy to provide further explanations (and copies of the comments people put on the post) in private discussion.