Devauld.ca

So classes are underway, and I've had a sampling of all of my lectures this fall. My TA work is still on hold for the time being, as the professors want to ensure that enough knowledge has been injected into the students before they try to find out how much is left. I can say, without a doubt, that working in strictly a computer science aspect for almost the last decade has eroded my mathematical skills.

While in a class on Monday, the professor was dutifully going over the 'Things you should already know to take this course', and was laying out a framework for the rest of the year. At just past the half way mark, he scribed this to the chalk board:

Durrrrr.......

Making matters worse, is that it didn't really look like that on the chalk board. Integrands turned into esses, exes and tees became hard to tell apart, superscript and subscripts swapped places and the whole thing turned into a white on black calcite orgy.

Even after I looked the equality up, and could clearly read it in tex glory, I still had no idea what was going on. I can recognize all the symbols, but the ideas I can't currently put together.  Making matters more difficult is that a good chunk of these developments have been made recently (in mathematical terms), and wouldn't have been around when I was schooling.  Not that it matters, the area in which I am now studying is not the same as my focus during my undergraduate schooling

Although, by the end of this year I will be able to explain what is going on with the Lévy–Khintchine representation of a Stochastic process, else I won't have the grades to be here and worry about it.

So, in preparing for my university adventure, I've encountered a couple of instances where the economics of purchases didn't work out in my favour.

The first was at the University of Calgary.  I went to the parking office, looking for a deal on parking for the semester.  I was told that I could get a spot in the parkade for a mere $448 per semester plus a small 5% cut for the government; a grand total of $470.40.  As I stood at the head of the massive line, I wondered if I misheard the lady, and infact she was quoting for the entire year.  No, she was enunciating her message correctly, that was the fee for a semester.  Now, between September 13 and December 10 there is 65 weekdays.  Take away the couple of holidays and add in the days I need to head in for an examination, and 65 days is a pretty good estimate for how many days I'll need to park.  That works out to $7.23 per day to park at the University; this number would increase with every day I decide to take the bus, or ride either of my two wheeled conveyances.  The reason this number is so odd to me, is that there is a 'public use' parking lot that is closer to the math sciences building that only costs $5 per entry.

Needless to say, I did not purchase the pass.

The second incident of bazaar pricing comes from the world of printing.  My CLP-300, started printing lighter, and eventually reached a point where barely anything could be read on the left hand side of the page.  I did some digging online, and apparently the developer blades were dirty, and the imaging unit would have to be replaced.  I looked online, and could purchase the imaging unit (sans toner, or power, or cables, or well anything) for over $200.  Or, you know, buy the updated model for much less. I get an actual printer enclosure, some toner, cables I don't need at $80 less.

Needless to day, I did not purchase the imaging unit.

When I saw this week's Photo Friday challenge, I immediately thought of the photo of two girls at the boardwalk. Everything else just rang 'couple', 'lovers' or 'family'. After browsing my flickr archives I found this gem, which is of two definite friends.

A lot of people ask me 'What are you going to do with that?' after I mention I'm going to return to school for my Master's degree. As being 'done' almost assuredly happens after you have 'started', I never paid much thought to my future after my return to school. I always figured that I would return to programming, this time within the finance industry. There is a good chance that I could fill a role here within Calgary, although I have been weighing other options as well.

Most people would agree I'm very patriotic, and I would love nothing more than to keep myself within Canada. Within Canada, the epicenter for finance resides in Toronto. Now, moving to an even larger city, with more traffic and more urbania is not very high on my list of life choices. Although if I'm going to move to a larger city, I would like to keep it in Canada. The problem: Ontario has a real thing against some dogs.

Sonja tuned me into Ontario's hate for particular breeds of dogs. After a bout of examining skill sets on a financial job website, and again realizing that over ninety percent of the financial programming jobs in Canada are located in Toronto or one of it's suburbs, I decided to dig into this so called 'pit bull ban'.

The ban comes in two parts: The original Dog Owner's Liability Act, and an amendment passed in Bill 132. The first five or so sections of the Dog Owner's Liability Act make sense. If you dog bites another person, you as the owner are liable. The later sections around search and seizure also make sense if your dog has done something to make it a 'menace to the safety of persons or domestic animals'. Sane logic around how your animal can be taken from you, what will happen to it, as well as what repercussions exist for the owner are laid out through the law. However, Section 6, as well as all of Bill 132 are completely stupid bullshit.

The Liability Act lumps Riley, an American Staffodshire Terrier, in with Pitbulls. And, Ontario does not like Pitbulls in a very big way. There seems to only be two ways an individual can own a Pitbull or one of its cousins in Ontario. The first is that you owned one before the law came into effect, and you have bent over backwards with muzzles, registration, 1.8m leashes and sterilization. The other is that your dog is a flyball competitor, registered with a kennel club which has formally (written letter) invited you to a competition within Ontario's borders.

This means as a Canadian citizen, if I want to do a cross Canada road trip, I either can't bring my dog, or I can't enter Ontario. Failure to comply could lead to 'a fine of not more than $10,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, or both.' Seems a little steep for just owning a particular breed of dog. Especially because the process ends up with the dog being taken, and most likely destroyed.

Getting back to my future, it looks like TO is off the list. Considering my success with negotiating away The Cat, I doubt I will have any success getting Sonja to give up the dog because I landed a job in Ontario. The truth is particularly frustrating because of Riley. She is an incredibly loving dog, and is more obedient that a lot of dogs I know. A little comfort comes from facts showing that the ban in Ontario is not reducing the amount of dog attacks. Perhaps the people in Ontario will lead a charge and get the bill amended to not focus on specific breeds. After-all, if we focused on the specifics, shouldn't the man that spearheaded the law against pitbulls be working on making Saabs illegal because they stall, disorient people and cause them to ram drunken cyclists into mailboxes?

Photographers contend that gear does not make you a better photographer.  Learning about depth-of-field, composition, and moving around the aperture-shutter-iso triangle will make a point-and-shoot a formidable tool in anyones hands.  Taking control of the available light and using a tripod will result in much better photos than dropping extra money for a megapixel count.

Of course, everything has an exception.  Today I got my hands on Nikon's tilt and shift lens.  Not prepared to drop that kind of money on a lens, we instead decided to rent it.  Now that I've had a chance to play with it, I'll admit that there is really no way to replicate tilt and shift without having the gear.  Normally, your focal plane is runs parallel to the film or sensor in the camera.  With tilt built into your lens, you can turn the focus plane so that it isn't running along the same boring parallel line.

Examining the large version of the above photo you can see that the focus plane does not sit perpendicular to the viewing angle.  The bottom left of the photo is in focus, and the focus plane moves across the middle of the photo to the upper right.  The focus plane makes the braiding in the upper right pin sharp, whereas if you step off the plane the image is quickly overcome with pleasing bokeh.

It's too bad this lens costs as much as it does.