Political Irony

The conservative party in Australian politics is called the Liberals. I'm sure I'm not the first to observe this fact.

Democracy

Democracy differs in each country. The contrast between the election process in a little country like Australia and a big country like the USA is stark. I have no long idea how long ago Hillary and Barack et al started their campaign, and I have no idea when the actual election is, but the duration of the whole process and its cost seem grotesque to me. I know that Americas love their democracy like they love their hamburgers: BIG! And who doesn't love a big hamburger? We love them big Down Under too. And we put all sorts of crazy shit on our hamburgers: beetroot, cheese, onions, lettuce, tomato, pineapple, bacon, eggs (at the same time). On the other hand, our democracy is small. In October the election was announced. In November there's a new government.

(We also use preferential voting Down Under, which is more democratic for my tastes, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.)
 

Erdös number drops to 4

I just recalculated my Erdös number. David Clarke(4)-Frank de Boer(3)-Nissam Francez(2)-Shlomo Moran  or Shmuel Zaks(1)-Paul Erdös(0). I will continue searching.

Slow 100km

After a party on Friday night, 65km yesterday, a party last night, with 3 bottles of wine between 3, I attempted to do another 100km. I wasn't aiming high, but I was surprised with my poor performance. I could blame the wine, or cycling yesterday, or the high winds. Who knows.

Distance: 100km. Time: 4h etc.

The Wrigstad

My former student Tobias Wrigstad of Stockholm and External Uniqueness fame has left the nest and flown out into the wider world. He has taken a post-doc position in Jan Vitek et al's S3 group at Purdue University. The position looks really exciting, doing some programming language design and development. The work will be sufficiently different from Tobias' thesis topic to broaden his knowledge, without throwing him in the deep end. I think it will be a great opportunity for him to embiggen himself as a researcher.

100km (again again)

The 9-hill route.

Distance: 103km.

Duration: 3h 52m 45s.

Average speed: 26.5km/h.

Maximum speed 60.5km/h

100km

New 7-hills route. Distance of 102.12km, lasting 3h 52m 34s, at 26.3km/h, with a maximum speed of 59.8km/h. The last 15km were extremely hard. All that walking in Norway didn't help my cycle fitness. Or perhaps it was the 7 hills. I usually do at most 2 for this distance.