Nonlinear life

Just finished a home exam, 48 hours long. My instructor's course, Nonlinear Optics. Three questions, 48 hours, honor code applies. He sent an email the day before -
"Students, you have 3 questions in the examination. It takes 2 hours to solve each one, but I give you 2 days."
It was a joke, of course. Some of the questions, you just can't SOLVE. Nonlinear science is so deep you could dig for days and not see the bottom. What you do in the exam is make your physicist head work hard and do your best. That's what life is about, - it's too complex, you can't solve it, you can't develop a general algorithm, it's too complex. You use your head and do your best.

There's this temptation of course to consult with your friend. Brainstorming is often more efficient but he might distract from independent unusual ideas and deeper thought. But then again two people separately have a higher chance of taking a dead wrong direction than together. I chose to go alone and I think it was a good idea.

Sailing

Akko's pier, took a fast boat to entertain a couple of guests from USA.

Near sunset, Carmel beach at Haifa

i wish it was today

The old times... 60's, early 70's
There was so much passion and talent. Today it's special effects, computer graphics, icons and sex, sex, sex. And more icons and sex. You want this.

You don't get such music today. Turn the radio on and shut it right off in disbelief that today's public accepts this crap and likes it.

caving trip

The mountains in the Shlomi - Hanita area up North are rich with caves and breathtaking views. We made the mistake being too easy with the prep. instructions with two new girls. They came with crocs... One of them was a real panther, though.


View Larger Map

The Keshet cave was a bit of a disappointment, the concrete access trail, wheelchair standard. Salomon, Northface, Timberland, Deuter and other equipment kinda looked funny on this background.Next was Namer cave. We missed the entrance (we were warned about that but not about the next thing), and continued in a deep valley below a thick blanket of tall trees. The valley was full wrecks, cars and even heavy truck parts. I later discovered that I turned the group around just a couple of hundred meters from the Lebanon border...It took some guesses which of other caves is Namer cave, and finally we found the one. You have to crowl several meters first, to get into a chain of cavities in the rock.

If I was to pick what else to do instead of taking a girl on a "regular" date, going in a cave together would definitely be one of the best options.

some gossip

The last post reminds me of a wedding invitation I ignored once. I was being engineered.

She was a friend, we met a few times, then it was all electronic - emails and occasional chats. One day she called and suggested to meet, so we went to shoot some pool, after not seeing her for over a year and not that we really cared. I was given an invitation to her wedding.

When wedding day came (Aug/Sept last year), I had all the outfit ready in my car, but while playing photons' (light) DJ it became apparent that I'm being engineered into her project - her perfect wedding.

It's not a coincidence, but this girl and the one from the last post, are graduates of the same Technion faculty and work in the same major software company.

Later I came across another person who was "kinda friends" with that girl, and just before the wedding she appeared out of the blue, so friendly, urgently had fun together and handed the invitation.

Looking at her facebook wedding images, you can't say anything but perfect. This girl knows now to get things done.

life by prescription

Many posts got written and deleted lately..

Here's a citation from a blog of someone:

"מתברר שכבר אז (לפני המון זמן, איזה חודש וחצי) ידעתי שיש דברים שאני לא מבינה. וצדקתי, אני באמת מרגישה שאני לא מבינה בזה מספיק. לא מבינה את כל נבכי ונפתולי המוח הגברי, לא מבינה איך עובד שם המנגנון בתחומים האלה. למרות שאני מכירה את הטענה שבמוח הגברי יש רק סקס ואוכל, וכנראה שלחלק יש שם גם קצת כדורגל. לא מאמינה שזה נכון, יותר נכון מסרבת להאמין בכך שזה נכון, לא יכול להיות, בטוח יש משהו מעבר. חייב להיות.

וזה נושא שנטחן כבר עד דק, מיליון פעמים, עם כל מי שאפשר, וכל פעם מחדש עולות השאלות, וכל פעם מחדש מגיעות התשובות, וכל פעם מחדש בעצם נותרים עם כל אותם סימני שאלה, ואין מסקנות חד-משמעיות.

אני יכולה למצוא אלגוריתם לכל בעייה כמעט, לנסח אלגוריתם מדוייק כמעט לכל דבר. אבל את האלגוריתם של איך להתחיל מערכת יחסים עוד לא הצלחתי לפענח, לא הצלחתי לעלות על זה. חשבתי שהבנתי קצת, עדיין נראה לי שאני מבינה משהו, אבל בטוח לא מספיק. יש שם עוד הרבה מידע שצריך לפצח. אז אולי מישהו מכם מוכן לעזור לאנשים שכמוני. לעזאזל, אני ממדעי המחשב, אני צריכה אלגוריתם, אני צריכה הוראות ברורות מה צריך לעשות. אני כולי מבולבלת מכל העניין הזה. חוסר הודאות שבשלבים האלה בעייתי בשביל אנשים כמוני. אם אפשר לתרום לנו כמה חוקים וכללים שנוכל להיעזר בהם, לומר מה העקרונות המנחים, לנסח כמה משפטים או לפחות איזה למה. שתבינו, אפילו לבשל אני מבשלת רק מספרים, האלתור בתחומים שאני לא מבינה בהם ממני והלאה, אני לא לוקחת סיכונים מיותרים."

So characteristic to Technion graduates. Trying to engineer everything in life... Like people are nothing but assemblies of variables (height, age, ... , cup size, correlation degree of face with icons in magazines / TV).. And like life is nothing but classes of interactions - for successful just give the right input as function of the parameters and you're fine. It works perfectly in many aspects of life (studies, work, doing taxes, cooking, doing laundry) but as the quoted passage above demonstrates, not in everything.

Life is random. It's chaotic, in many ways. We are not isolated objects, there's an infinite number of factors to consider. While you're doing every possible calculation to succeed, your partner might be upset about something, busy, distracted, or you might have just met him at the wrong time. You might be perfect for each other, but there's also a possibility that your partner decides to give up, making a mistake. This is also possible. There's always uncertainty to live with, that's what makes life interesting. Being a control freak is not going to lead to good results.

(deezer have stopped providing embeddable player code so I actually have to hack their stuff to still embed things here)