I spent the weekend in Kleinmond and today the weather was cool enough for my parents and me to drive out to Malmesbury where my mother’s maternal grandparents are buried. They have been “holding me up”, since I could not find any further information on them. When we found the cemetery, we detected the smell [...]
I was having a pleasant evening until a couple of minutes ago. From somewhere — who knows where — a fly has invaded my space. He (or she) is buzzing around making a lot noise and a general nuisance of itself. I am not going t make the same mistake twice: no poison tonight. I’m [...]
For a long time I have been trying to find an activity that my father and I can do together. We share few interests. From time to time we have talked about taking a trip somewhere in South Africa or even overseas, but such vague plans are difficult to carry out. Also, if we travel [...]
My body is demanding sleep immediately. I have never felt this tired before. It is a struggle just to not fall out of my hair. I suppose I can fight it if I want, but — to be fair — I have robbed my body long enough and if I do not acquiesce now, it might [...]
I cannot blame my parents, but, if not them, who else? I have never been to follow-through. I start projects and never finish them. So, how to address this fundamental problem? Well, one cop-out is to not make long-term commitments, but to rather describe everything as an “experiment”. If after a week or two if [...]
It must be boring to read about my work all the time. It is very exciting to me, but is the true depth of my feelings conveyed? “Passion” is a strong word, and, in any case, watching someone else be passionate is not always entertaining. Mea culpa; perhaps I have not presented the (hidden?) inner [...]
I have been programming hard for the last week or so, trying to finish the software for the upcoming paper. Cutting it very close: we have 14 days to go and still have to run all of the experiments. The pressure is really on to get those experiments right: it would be silly…it would make [...]
One aspect of the beauty of mathematics is that is precise and clear-cut. In contrast, human affairs are a tricky business, all way the from personal relationships up to the constitution of an entire country. I’m sure someone has studied whether mathematicians have weak social skills and have therefore chosen to “escape” to a domain [...]
At least a decade ago, perhaps two, a series of advertisements for Castrol GTX oil was shown on television. The setting was somewhere in the Kalahari, very dry, hot, and remote. The characters, in the later ads, were called “Boet” and “Swaer”. Quite funny. (You can watch at least one of them at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayoz5jEyuXo) The very [...]
On the one hand I’m quite pleased that my tricky research program is finally working. On the other hand I’m not too pleased with its performance. Even though it outperforms its own predecessor and even though that predecessor outperformed other programs (in some experiments), I was (unrealistically) hoping for much better performance. As I’m writing [...]