10.31.06
Happy Halloween!
DrScheme has the excellent tradition to remind us of the good thing the best possible way!
10.26.06
My View on PhD
Well, It has been a while since I officially started my PhD (20 days) to be exact. However, I’ve have this post on top of my ‘posts-to-write’ stack for about a month.
In these 20 days I’ve not changed my view much on doing a PhD but I have had already training in “Library Resources”, “Introduction to Demonstrator Training” (similar to assistants in Portugal) and “Methodologies and Ethics of Research” (which is as you might guess, quite nice, in Portugal I would have nothing like this…). In fact, the PhD aim is to “extend science with a new discovery and publish it”, however, to me (at least in my conditions) will be much more. Since I have the unfortunate fact of being far from my dear ones in Portugal, I might also have some of the bonuses… the fact that I’m completely by myself 24/7.
So, my PhD will be on extending not only science but a lot of work on my free-time. I’ve spent a lot more time over the Scheme programming language, KDE4 application development, and I’ve also done some extra study. I’ve been studying some excellent Mathematics mainly in Lattice Counting over Multidimensional Objects, Number Theory and Algebra which are really, reeeeeeally nice (specially the former)!
Basically, PhD is not only about extending science after all, but more probably on extending your horizons… on science! :) Fortunately, not every does a PhD or it would make it meaningless, still knowing that you have bunch of years just for you to work, with no schedules, no limits, etc, on something you really like is just absolutely awesome. I do recommend it! :)
10.24.06
Search Scheme
Google just released its Co-op feature to create your own search engine. Jens Axel Søgaard lost no time in creating a Scheme Search Engine… :) Cool!
10.16.06
The God Delusion (by: Richard Dawkins) [Part 2]
Incredibly, the book has been an amazing read and after all my initial reason to buy it was because it was (at the time), and still is the number 1 bestseller of amazon.co.uk. I’ve finished reading about two-thirds of the book (~66%) and its point of view on religion is awesome… I can’t say that he is bright due to his views on religion, expressed in the book (I’m sure he has done a lot of more bright research in his academic life than this work) still this work is great due to the work he had to produce it and due to the research he had to make to write all of this with excellent references and surely a lot of notes. Nothing in his book, as far as I could dig, comes without a reference to some online or offline document.
I think that living in Portugal, and being raised as a non-practicianer Christian, made not worry too much about religion. I didn’t believe it and I think I got to question it more and more as I grew up, still I regarded religion as others people business like homosexuality or such. However, I think Dawkins is able to show as all, clear as crystal, that religion should be regarded as dangerous, and although still not affecting Portugal as far as I know, it is destroying a lot of stuff in this work!
For those not wanting to read the book, before the book as been published he had a 2-part-show where he states the main ideas of the book. It’s very, very good. Even if you do read the book, and I advise you to, please see the videos. You can find the online. You just have to download Part 1 and Part 2.
Another interesting issue I would like to mention is that it seems most people nowadays, which do believe in religion, have a false perspective on how science works. Most do believe that you can believe in Gods theory (which is not a theory at all) as you can believe in Darwin theory, for example. However, this is simply wrong!
Most can also state that even if I do not believe in God, I cannot also believe in evolution because I do not have the list of facts or because I cannot tell them the theory precisely. However, there’s a HUGE difference between them not being able to explain God and I not being able to explain evolution. I cannot explain evolution simply because it not my field of study. Still, I can, with some effort, study it and explain it afterwards. They, however, are in a much more sad position… since they’ll not be able to explain God using facts through the study of anything at all…
I see myself someone who basis himself on science and indeed believes that probably most fundamental theories may need some adjustments (like relativity) or probably even some are completely wrong, still they are the best we have since our current data fits them… and we will always be adjusting our theories. This is a much better feeling than the other lazy position, which is that God explains everything and we just have to pay for our taxes and sins. I think that my view is quite briefly explained by a quote I first learned with my friend Nuno Barbosa about 8 years ago from the physicist (my favourite physicist) Richard P. Feynman:
But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things. By being lost in the misterious universe, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.
10.12.06
Fortune Of The Day
The man who wins is the average man,
Not built on any particular plan;
Not blessed with any particular luck –
Just steady and earnest and full of pluck.
The man who wins is the man who works,
Who neither labor nor trouble shirks;
Who uses his hands, his head, his eyes-
The man who wins is the man who tries.-Conrad Hilton
10.11.06
My Photoblog…
Just created a photoblog at photoblog.com. I’ll just post regularly some photos not only from Southampton but from places I will hopefully visit! ;)
I’m not an artist or a good photographer so if the photos are nice, it’s because of the camera which is an Olympus E-150. A huge thanks to my friends Rui, António and Isabel Monteiro who offered me this camera before coming to the UK.
Note: There’s a feed for the photoblog.
The God Delusion (by: Richard Dawkins) [Part 1]
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
Personal Comments:
First of all, I just got this book two days ago and I read the first hundred pages or so and couldn’t help but to make some first comments on it.
What an eye opener! Since I’m a convicted atheist, it is indeed interesting to note that I get extremely amused with this book. It’s not easy to say the things Dawkins is able to say in the way he says it. A lot of wit is there on his words, powerful ‘bombs’ head to the faith of those of believe in God.
You might think a lot of things about this book when you hear what people say but there’s no way to evaluate its content without reading it. It’s an easy read where you can just feel the conviction of the author and his writing wizardry. Every potential reasons you might have against the book will just vanish in the initial chapter. He prepares the ground in the beginning very well, so that he can later lay the foundations of what he believes to be true. He though ahead of all of us about the misconceptions that we might have about the book by hearing from other and explains them. It just seems he is on your mind.
The general idea is that you can’t prove God existence or inexistence but surely the probability for and against him are not 50%. He references a lot of works and texts during the book and explains why believing in God has no more reason than to believe in Fairies in the Garden or something like that. For those who are theist, agnostic or deist, (or even atheist) here’s which deserves a read. In you head is about to fall a bomb so fast you won’t notice and the next time we speak you’ll surely be a different person but watch out… you just can’t stop reading!
10.09.06
Preso por disparar… preso por não disparar…
Era só o que faltava… Enquanto passeava aos zig-zags pelas notícias de Portugal deparo-me com notícias inquietantes que não podia de deixar de comentar. Se por um lado os oficiais da GNR disparam contra o jovem para o impedir de fugir, são levados a tribunal e já vão arranjar um ‘31′. Por outro lado, se não disparassem era provavelmente mais um que andava em Portugal sem fazer nenhum e a roubar. Ora, não se admite que dificultem a vida desta forma à nossa autoridade. Sendo esta, a autoridade portuguesa, não os podemos algemar e pedir que continuem a manter a segurança como nós gostaríamos.
Faz-me lembrar a educação. Diz-se aos Professores dos primeiros ciclos:
Sr. Professor, pode chumbar o aluno, mas claro, o Encarregado de Educação poderá reclamar junto da escola e se não conseguir nada poderá pedir recurso ao Ministério da Educação. Isto não só lhe trará montes de burocracia para resolver, como uma data de chatices… aliás, nos dias que correm ainda é capaz de apanhar um enxerto de porrada do aluno, ver o seu carro riscado e depois levar do encarregado de educação que é para existirem certezas que não faz queixa do aluno que tentou chumbar…
RESULTADO: NINGUÉM CHUMBA!!!!
Qualquer dia os polícias pensam: “Mas que raio, se eu grito com ele, ele não pára… se eu disparo arranjo problemas… ora, deixa-o ir que eu cá quero é calma na minha vidinha e chegar à reforma com tudo no sítio.”
Notem no ciclo então que entramos se aceitarmos, por hipótese, que a falta de educação leva ao crime.
O barco assim… vai mesmo afundar!
UK Banks
First thing one needs as you arrive in a country for living is a bank. A place where you can have your money securely and without much worries. Well, I had that problem, so I just had a go on todays simplicity to communicate and sent and email to the 4 major banks here in Southampton, UK: Lloyds TSB, Natwest, Barclays and HSBC. Furthermore, I sent the email on a saturday, August 26th, 2006! :-)
So here’s the email I sent for each bank through their online forms for support:
Hi,
I’m a Portuguese citizen, which will move to Southampton UK, in the start
of October for a PhD in Southampton University. I’ll need to open a
current account. I’d like to know if I can apply to the Students account
or not (since I’m a postgraduate student). Moreover, I’d like to know
which documents I should take to open a current account.My Best Regards,
Paulo Jorge Matos
I received prompt, non-automatic replies from each bank! By order of arrival:
- Natwest – 30 min. after request for support;
- HSBC – little less than 24 hours after request support;
- Lloyds TSB – 30 hours after request support;
- Barclays – little less than 48 hours after request support;
In fact, it is nice to see that it is not that hard to open a bank account, however, due to the documentation I need from university, it is taking me a bit longer. In what follows I’ll post the reply from each bank. Still, I wonder what would be the results for the same experience with Portuguese banks. Maybe CGD, BPI, Millenium BCP, BES and Totta…
(Unfortunately, although that was my initial intention, I’ll not be able to post the bank replies due to the non-disclosure text in the end of the email, still if you’re curious, I’ll send you a private copy.)
10.07.06
That would be useful…
In fact, lately I’ve been thinking about an extremely useful software. At least for me!
A software which would allow me to annotate PDF/PS/HTML files. I wish I could add comments/images in the margins of those kinds of files and underline it so that when I open them again, I have the comments just in front of me. Instead, today I need to print them and annotate directly on the paper.
I’ve checked the PDF annotator but it seems to work under Windows only. For linux there seems to be nothing at all… so this is kind of a request for annotator! :-)
