[Paranoia] Which continent to go?

I took the day off yesterday Monday, cleaning the apartment a bit (my family who currently visits me in Canada was visiting Toronto) and my mind a lot (I like to spend at least one day alone each month). I got some weird thoughts, and it is probably better to share them here than to let them invade my mind.

• American ideological, military and economical supremacy is reaching an end, unless their opponents across the world get even worse. In any case, there will probably be a major economical crisis in the US in the next 30 years => I wouldn't want to be there when it will happen. Incidentally, the "war on terrorism" might be the puppet on which the American people is supposed to focus when the economic crisis is coming.
• The Republican ideology is focused on the American supremacy, and seems willing to insure it at all costs, including killing officials of other governments and maybe spreading diseases. I truly believe that the so-called "mysterious" diseases appearing in China appear spontaneously in large density of agrarian population, but some more paranoiac than me might be ready to believe that they are released by an occult branch of the government of the US. After all, America was conquered by diseases as well as by guns. In any case, I wouldn't like to be in Asia in the incoming years: nations with high density of populations are more vulnerable to viruses, and whether they are voluntarily engineered by human or not, I am afraid that there will be a few in the incoming years.
• I believe a little less in Democracy (with a capital D) every day. It seems that, like for antibiotics and viruses, new form of governments are efficient only for a while before new forms of corruption appear and take over. In the case of democracy, corporations have taken over. They are in blossom in the US and in Canada, and resistance in Europe seems futile: everybody around me seems to accept it as a law of nature rather than as a choice dutifully enforced by the various governments. I don't believe too much in anarchy either, but I would like to see a new form of government, immune to the various inhuman behaviors seen around. And I don't think there is much chance to see it appear on the old continent: the inertia of tradition is too heavy.
• I didn't understand well if the concept of global warning, which now seems quite widely accepted, meant a global heating or a cooling down of the planet (which seem contradictory), but I heard recently an alternate interpretation: an increase of both the average temperature and of the range of temperatures. Which means more heat in summer and more cold in winter, conditions much harsher for both vegetables and animals. Naive humans might think that they can just plug the air conditioning or the heater according to the season, but they should think twice: First they would still need to grow their food in a harsher climate, and Second the processes used for cooling/heating might get things even worse. In any case, poor Africa which is already regularly plagued by drought and large variations of temperature seems a poor choice to establish its dynasty.
• One of my colleague is planning to go on Sabbatical to Australia next year. I would like to visit her to see the southern side of earth. From what I see they are as gone as us in the corporation system, but who knows, they might be less embedded in history than us, and be still able to invent a new form of government. Plus, as they are far from everything, they will be less vulnerable to economic crisis and world wide diffusion of diseases. I don't know how the global warming will affect them, but historically they have been sensibilized to ecological problems (invasion of rabbits for instance).

Ouf! Enough paranoiac ideas, I need to focus on the bug(s) of my prototype of search engine today!

[Blog]

I just decided this morning that I would categorize my posts, as Lara does. Here is the first flag, [Blog] for the posts about the blog itself and blogs techniques in genera, next post should be [Paranoia], for I got some cool Paranoiac ideas during the long WE, and of course the previous posts will be reflaged [Perso]... Thanks to Lara for the hint.

[Perso] Fatigue....

Tired. I am tired. I don't manage to work, when I am coming back from holidays. Plus I watched yesterday a movie that fefe's advised me to see, "Bete de Guerre", about the war in afghanistan, and this kind of movie always reminds me how futile is the battle for a "career". Well, this evening I will try to see a Tim Burton's movie, full of poesy ("Big Fish"), it should put me on better tracks :)

[Perso] Back to Work

Ouf! Ottawa was superb, Montreal very nice, now I am back in a sunny Waterloo. My parents arrived on Monday, they got over their jetlag faster than me, now they take care of Theo and Leon and visit the neighborhood. We celebrated Mirela's birthday on Tuesday in family, I think that Mirela was happy, there were balloons with "La Multi Ani" (Happy birthday in Romanian), a rhubarb pie and many presents... This afternoon I will take Theo and Leon to the juggling club of the University of Waterloo, and this evening I will take everybody to the beer meeting of the new Faculty: hopefully we will meet Carole there, who is also receiving her mother from France.

[Perso] Bck2Waterloo... for 2 days!

Back to Waterloo. We drove all day on Monday, taking turns on the wheel. Very nice driving, all in long stretches of ~100 miles, but I wouldn't do it too often: it is sooooo long (12 hours trip, with 2 hours of small breaks)! As we just arrived, I work a bit and I prepare to leave again: Theo and his friend Leon will arrive on Wednesday afternoon, and the four of us (with Mirela) leave on Thursday morning for an afternoon in Ottawa (6 hours drive) and a few days in Montreal (2 hours drive) before coming back on Sunday evening (7 hours drive). There we will visit Carole Elie, a friend who immigrated to Canada a few monthes ago. Maybe this time I will take the time to illuminate this blog with a few pictures! ++

[Perso] On the other side of the Border

I crossed the border around 11pm yesterday, I am now in Rochester, where Mirela is giving a talk and trying to collaborate with Dave Mattews, a very nice guy not much older than me but who has a big lab to himself, and 8 students working for him! We left Waterloo around 9pm, and arrived at 12:30, with a small break of 30mns at the American border: timing was good, jetlag almost forgotten! I learned about the bombs in England in the hotel's lounge :( It will raise more fear in the world, and especially in the US. Now that I think about it, we were probably lucky to cross the border before, othwerwise it might have taken us longer... My usual paranoia whispers things about conspirations from governments to raise fear in their own country and be given more powers, but I think that I will just ignore it: I am not convinced and even if I was I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Tomorrow (Friday) we leave for Virginia, a 7 hours trip to visit Calin, Mirela's brother, and his litle family. If I understood correctly we will stay 3 nights, and come back on Monday. I sure hope that nobody in Waterloo will take offense of my numerous travelings, but my conscience is clear: sometime I work better when traveling, at least to help refocus on the next topic to study, and as I submitted my paper to the conference SODA yesterday, this is the right time to refocus :) I will try not to think too much about the international situation and to think on doing good research to improve my chances to get a job where I want in 3 years (wherever that will be...): see you later!

[Perso] Back from Europe, Leaving for the States

Ouf! I arrived from France yesterday evening. My flight from Air France was one hour late (it is getting an habit), Mirela was waiting for me at the airport and as there was some traffic jams on the way back she was one hour late for her audio-meeting with colleagues in Vancouver. Seeing Lara's blog (http://larashome.blogspot.com/) I decided to start my own. Creating an account, I was disappointed to find out that my login (jyby) was already taken, only to find out that I was the one to take it, when I decided to start my blog last month after seeing fefe's blog (http://elfefe.blogspot.com/)... It's incredibly good to be back home, but we are leaving this evening for Rochester in the States, where Mirela gives a talk tomorrow. After that we go for the WE to Virginia to visit Calin, Mirela's brother, and his family. I should be back on Monday, and put some pictures on JyBlog! Take care, all of you!