Luíño 2.0

I'm uploading my CV in the web: http://lf-seoane.wikidot.com/

This is gonna be fun :D

Trap for Mosquitos

Thanks to my friend Javi, currently researching somewhere in the middle of Finland.

I forgot to close the windows when I went out today, so when I came back my house was filled with mosquitos among other light-chasers. Ever happened to you? Now I can't sleep in the whole night because of them.. shit. So here's the trick. You put switch off the lights on your room, switch them on on the hall or whatever is next to your room and left the door open. You go back to the laptop and watch a movie for a while. Then close the door and switch the other light off. You've gotten a room free of mosquitos for a night...

Yeah, trivial... It took me 19 years before Javi told me... I didn't get to figure it out on my own...

To steal a book.

If everything works fine, in a few months I may be tackling some amazing projects which may also require some money. I mean, money enough to live for a while without any income. So it's clear that I have to spare some €€€. Straightforward actions: cheaper rum (though my beloved 'Admiral Vernon' is, if not the cheapest, quite close to it), cheaper activities... cheaper everything.

The other day I was to buy some books in this book trade fair of my home city (A Coruña). It's a problem for me every year if go to there because I want to buy a lot of stuff. And this year, the only 15 days that I've spent in my home city since January are exactly the days with this book trade fair... And there I was staring at that Complete Tales of Pushkin (here for a wikipedia link to Pushkin), or halting myself not to buy Neil Gaiman's Sandman (here for wiki)... The praises were way too large. In that moment I thought that the successive governments were not able to provide access to the culture for everyone, and I also though that if I wanted to spare I would have to choose between reading or eating... and even so, I ended up with two books from this great Bolaño guy whom I love so much: The Savage Detectives: A Novel [wiki] (which I commented the day before yesterday and which I'll comment again soon) and Putas Asesinas (Spanish Edition) (Killer whores, a small book with short stories and from which, it seems, there's no English translation yet... not even a wiki).

But then, now and again, the Providence!! It seems Providence likes me :) I began with the savage detectives. There, it's described (among a huge bunch of things) how a guy that we might think of as an alter ego from Bolaño steals books from libraries in Mexico DF. Great: there my way. I've decided it, and I'll do it. Now and on, first of all, I'll try to steal the book.

One hundred and thirty seven pages...

Few days ago I read that the first 100 pages of The savage detectives are part of the greatest of the literature in Castilian (Spanish) language... I didn't believe it. I was right. At least with the edition of the book that I have got. They are one hundred and thirty seven pages.

The Savage Detectives: A Novel

The value of a work

A piece of work is an abstract concept which we handle with more or less expertise. It's kind of driven by the supply and demand law, as any other object (concrete or abstract), and speculation might have a turn in its value as well. So, how do you appraise it??

Well before I graduated as a physicist, I had a casual chat with a friend and colleague at the University of Santiago de Compostela. The talk was on mathematical models for locust scourges and I digressed up to raise and fall apart of languages. This chat became, one and a half years latter, my thesis degree on the coexistence and competition among languages in a same region. Great!!

The price of a work is mainly crap and must be strongly renormalized before someone loses its head. Like a stone in go game, its value depends on the coordinates in which the stone is played, both spatial and temporal.

I was pretty proud of my thesis. It was not only the scientific job, but I'd also learnt a lot together with my mentor about how many random circumstances could devaluate a work well done (not necessarily talking about mine). Together with my thesis they followed: a participation in an international conference, prizes... a lot of stuff. I was never sure that I deserved what it was told about me, nor about my work. None of the recognitions. I went to Berlin with the idea of further researching, trying out my fitness to science and I found emptiness. Though (still do) about withdrawing from research.

Now, back in Galicia for vacation, I visited my former mentor and felt again what I enjoyed that much: the scientific chat about new problems, the maths puzzling me on the train joining the cities of Compostela and Coruña. The origins!! And when I came back home and checked on my single paper up to date, I discovered the greatest reward I could ever dream of!! I felt for first time in a while fulfilled (scientifically). Someone, without any further references to us, just by a daily reading of papers from arXiv, decided that ours was one of the bests new ideas and decided to post it in a blog. It also happens that the blog is held by people from MIT, how unexpected!!!

So I don't know yet what value a research might be worth. I worked into this project so many years ago and as a graduate student and I still get benefits from it. On the other hand, I rot in Berlin solving pointless arithmetical exercises and well far away from any real research project. Although I would devote my time to it, I don't have the feeling that this has any worth at all... Just as in Go game: each and every minute or stone so alike; played at a single space-time coordinate each of them becomes, one by one, the whole or the void.

Back home...

It's nice to be back home from time to time; although since I came back to Galicia last week the allergy doesn't let me sleep, my eyes itchy and I'm sneezing the whole time. And it's like this each time I come back.

I also rediscover the essence of my very folk. I watch local TV--or even any national broadcaster--and become quickly ashamed of the shit on. Can't believe that so much emptiness can be enclosed in such a flat screen.

And from time to time I run into some ethical debate with myself. In large ads at the sides of the main entrances of the city we can see two children drinking or sharing a bottle of water. One of them looks healthy, the other doesn't. The one is fully dressed, the other isn't. The one doesn't, the other looks thirsty. And in between them, in huge letters: "If I drink, (s)he drinks", and a brief explanation that part of the benefits of the company would be shared with some african, thirsty children.

The ad belongs to fontecelta (a Galician brand of bottled water), and I first wondered what the increase of this company's benefits would be thanks to this propaganda. It followed, of course, the straightforward doubt about the ethical of winning a few thousand € with the thirst of any random kid. I though, if the true aim were to help those children, they could do it without telling anyone. Silent hero. Unsung hero. But heroes must be sung to exist. Latter on, I remembered many other such actions (yeah, they're everywhere, indeed). It was amazing when some musicians decided to donate 1€ of each CD's price to hungry--or such--children so to avoid 'piracy'. And they even dared say it.

Charity, as everything else, indeed; has become a show. I'm thinking of dropping a line to the fontecelta friends to know their point about this issue... I'd be nice if they would answer!!