An Absent Word

There was a time when I relished these kinds of moments. Serene earthquakes, discolored skies, unfinished waterfalls. Staggered, tired, calm. There was always this other word that accompanied the mentioned; not this time, though. A word that made all the difference, and indicated the end and start of a new era of my life.

However, the absence of this word comes with a bittersweet sentiment. As if it were the collateral damage of a teared-down, century-old, mob house; I'm glad is gone, but, alas, the memories and, well, the damage is still damage.

This era doesn't have an expected end apparently, and I'm still not at peace of not knowing what that means in the long run. In the short, I'm obviously thrilled, like I always am (was?). Life, my life, it seems, is now a marathon, not a collection of sprints as it was at first. I now throttle, not run; big change for a man who changed his surroundings more times than he'd like to admit in less than a decade (as I finished writing this sentence, I found myself grinning from the fact that I used the word "man", without realizing, to describe me; big change indeed). This is the bitter part.

And it's fine, as much as I hate its indifferent connotations. I suppose that there comes a time in which the intensity of one's life should be degraded to a reward of accomplishments, instead of the whole of its drive. It's like a drug that helps you live better by making you feel better; it's dangerous when it becomes the end instead of the mean. Transcending that requirement of intensity signifies good judgement and, hell, a better person. This is the sweet part.

So, with that in mind, I forgo my thrive and drive, and I'll try to never be satisfied. Because, even though it does feel good to signal an era with the feeling of satisfaction, it also implies the feeling of abandonement of that era's pursuit. As a kid in a candy warehouse, jumping from one hall to the next, I never have actually felt "finished", even though that's the feeling I'm pursuing; as if it were the end of the mean.

It was a good feeling, though, feeling satisfied; alas, the memories. However, the damage is still damage, and the marathon I've been unknowingly running is catching up with me. I better start learning how to throttle.

My Erdős Number

EDIT (2023-12-31): A decade into my academic career, my Erdős Number is even smaller now.

EDIT (2014-01-08): It appears as though my Erdős Number is smaller than I first thought. Thanks Barry (my PhD supervisor) for your vanity.

Paul Erdős was a very prolific mathematician, and, although technically homeless, he lived with his collaborators, with his famous initial greeting "my mind is open", during their work together. When finished, he moved to the house of another collaborator. He thought of mathematical research as a social event.

As a type of homage, with some admitted humility from Erdős himself, friends of his gave themselves an "Erdős Number" that measured the "collaborative distance" from him. Erdős has the number 0 (and the only that has it), people that have co-authored with him have the number 1, co-authors of co-authors of Erdoős have the number 2, and so on. There's more information in the Wikipedia article on Erdős Number.

In any case, apparently I have one. In the following list of publications, the numbers in brackets are the author's corresponding Erdős number:

Aharoni, R.[1]; Erdős, P.[0]; Linial, N.; Optima of dual integer linear programs. Comb. 8(1): 13-20 (1988).

Aharoni, R.[1]; Herman, G.[2]; Kuba, A.; Binary vectors partially determined by linear equation systems. Discrete Mathematics. 171(1-3): 1-16 (1997).

Ceja, C.; Rascon, C.[3]; Garduño, E.; Carvalho, B; Herman, G.[2]; Smooth normals with blobs for surfaces from 3D binary images. Topology Proceedings. 61(2023): 239-267 (2022).

So, my Paul Erdős number is now 3. I think this the best I'll do; quite well though.

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EDIT (2023-12-31): A decade before, a decade after. Two jumps. Not bad.

Borosh, I.; Chui, Charles K.[1]; Erdős, P. [0];, On changes of signs in infinite series. (Russian summary), Anal. Math. 4 (1978), no. 1, 3–12.

Chen, Guang Rong[1]; Chui, Charles K.[2], Design of near-optimal linear digital tracking filters with colored input., J. Comput. Appl. Math. 15 (1986), no. 3, 353–370.

Guan, Zhi-Hong; Chan, C. W.; Leung, Andrew Y. T.[3]; Chen, Guan Rong[2], Robust stabilization of singular-impulsive-delayed systems with nonlinear perturbations. (English summary), IEEE Trans. Circuits Systems I Fund. Theory Appl. 48 (2001), no. 8, 1011–1019.

Wang, X., Lennox, B.[4], Goulding, P.R. and Leung, Andrew Y.T.[3], (2000), ‘Practical application of principal component analysis’, Proceedings of the Chinese Control Conference, Honk Kong University, 595-599

Rascon, C. [5]; Lennox, B. [4]; Marjanovic, O. Recovering Independent Components from Shifted Data using FastICA and Swarm Intelligence. Applied Spectroscopy 63(10), Oct. 2009.

So, my Paul Erdős number is 5. Better.

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EDIT (2014-01-14): Yet another way to get to the same number.

Alon, Noga[1]; Erdős, P[0]. An application of graph theory to additive number theory. European J. Combin. 6 (1985), no. 3, 201–203.

Alon, Noga[1]; Bradford, Phillip G.; Fleischer, Rudolf[2]. Matching nuts and bolts faster. Inform. Process. Lett. 59 (1996), no. 3, 123–127.

Fleischer, Rudolf[2]; Koga, Hisashi[3]. Balanced scheduling toward loss-free packet queueing and delay fairness. Twelfth Annual International Symposium of Algorithms and Computation. Algorithmica 38 (2004), no. 2, 363–376.

Fuentes, Gibran[4]; Koga, Hisashi[3]; Watanabe, Toshinori. Unsupervised Object Discovery from Images by Mining Local Features Using Hashing. Progress in Pattern Recognition, Image Analysis, Computer Vision, and Applications Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 5856, 2009, pp 978-985.

Pineda, Luis; Salinas, Lisset; Meza, Ivan; Rascon, Caleb[5]; Fuentes, Gibran[4]. SitLog: A Programming Language for Service Robot Tasks. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 2013, 10:538.

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OLD LIST

Erdős, P. [0]; Gerencsér, L.[1]; Máté, A. Problems of graph theory concerning optimal design. Combinatorial theory and its applications, I (Proc. Colloq., Balatonfüred, 1969), pp. 317–325. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1970.

Gerencsér, László [1]; Rissanen, Jorma [2] Asymptotics of predictive stochastic complexity. New directions in time series analysis, Part II, 93–112, IMA Vol. Math. Appl., 46, Springer, New York, 1993.

Rissanen, J. [2]; Ljung, L. [3] Estimation of optimum structures and parameters for linear systems. Mathematical systems theory (Proc. Internat. Sympos., Internat. Centre Mech. Sci., Udine, 1975), pp. 92–110. Lecture Notes in Econom. and Math. Systems, 131. Springer, Berlin, 1976.

Hagenblad, Anna; Ljung, Lennart [3]; Wills, Adrian [4] Maximum likelihood identification of Wiener models. Automatica J. IFAC 44 (2008), no. 11, 2697–2705.

Heath, W. P. [5]; Wills, A. G. [4] Design of a cross-directional controllers with optimal steady state performance. Eur. J. Control 10 (2004), no. 1, 15–29.

Li, G.; Heath, W. P. [5]; Lennox, B. [6] Concise stability conditions for systems with static nonlinear feedback expressed by a quadratic program. IET Control Theory Appl. 2 (2008), no. 7, 554–563.

Rascon, C. [7]; Lennox, B. [6]; Marjanovic, O. Recovering Independent Components from Shifted Data using FastICA and Swarm Intelligence. Applied Spectroscopy 63(10), Oct. 2009.

So, my Paul Erdős number is 7. Not bad, I suppose.

Safe

I've been longing for the ableness of yester. I've been somewhat successful with the reinvention I've put myself into early this year. I feel focused, and, for once, I'm listening to my needs and my wants. More importantly, I've come to be in peace with the fact that in many cases the former will not be the same as the latter, but has a higher priority.

However, I stand here, as always, doubtful. I've realized that the inclination with which I've grown (or want to have grown) feels... how can I put this?

I had a good description of it a minute ago, I swear.

Darn! I just had it.

I'm looking at my still hands at the keyboard, grinning, unable of thinking of another word other than boring.

I know what you're thinking, and I concur. This is where I need to be, and in the most part, I want to be. I have a good job, a challenging job (the concept "boring" is far, far from its description). I've endured test after test, where I have been learning, even sometimes to the point of requiring time off from it, which, may I add, I've learned to administer well. I've made progress academically, and the people around me have noticed it. My love relationship has grown beautifully, to the point that we're taking the next step in it, and it is coming forth very organically, swiftly, as I've always wanted a relationship to be like. I've also been building friendships, slowly, but surely, and I've lighten up their darkness as their shine have brighten mine.

Basically, I've learned, nay, I now know that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that it was burnt in less than one. I am being weary of that, and this past year, as you've read/seen, is evidence of it. Ironically, I think that has been the source of my boredom.

I've been too careful. Too safe. Too many baby steps. Too few risks. And, even though there has been progress, it has been too little. I'd love to say that this is me being the ambitious guy I want to be, but, frankly, I'm just not sure. Maybe this was what I needed this year, feeling safe and all. I must admit though, it feels good. It's just that I didn't expect any collateral damages. How ironic: it seems as though being safe has it risks. Doing nothing can also hurt, it's just a pain that crawls up on you softly and stings every time you look back.

So, boredom, our next foe. I hope that Periquín Plumero was right:

Todo lo que emprendas hazlo sin prisa, pero sin pausa.

Everything that you undertake do it without hurry, but without pause.

Periquín Plumero, from Cri-Crí, a children radio character.

Academia

Academia is a weird monster. It preys on silhouettes of new thought foundations, but ends up eating itself. It is supposed to be the route with which mankind can evolve, and control its own evolution, towards a greater tomorrow. It is supposed to encompass the best that we as a species can generate, and, while I don't doubt that this is the case, I also know that it also encompasses the worst.

I have procrastinated writing this post, not because of laziness (although, it was factor), but because I didn't feel I had the experience nor had seen enough in Academia to make a well-informed argument towards it. I still feel the same way. However, as Oscar Wilde stated:

The young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

I was interested in Research, at first, for romantic reasons: pushing the world forward, with a great possibility of teaching in the process. Then, the status of "Doctor" became my drive. My ultimate push was the frustration of the mediocre, greedy incompetence that plagued the Industrial sector.

I quickly realized that it wasn't all that different. That frustrating incompetence is also prevalent in the Academic sector, just with different resources, means, and hats. The objective is disappointingly still mainly the same: money, power, and notoriety. Even the noble act of teaching has been demeaned to a set of meaningless protocols where he who has the most history and/or connections gets to decide how, when, why, where, and what to teach. I appreciate the reasoning behind it (those with more experience have better judgement), but, as with most of the human psyche, "experience" can be subjective, and too much of it can actually hinder the overall Education/Research process.

I could propose some fixes, but it will involve solutions that every good scientist has thought of:

• Make Research be a joyous process, not just another job. Salary, bonuses, promotions, etc. should be removed, and the university/institution provide housing/entertainment/daycare services directly to the researcher. There would be nothing to gain for, just research results and bragging rights. This is very similar to the philosophy behind the Open Source initiative, and I believe it is more than adequate to be applied in Academia. It won't be glamorous, obviously, but that's alright, Research shouldn't be glamorous (just ask Paul Erdős).
• Bragging rights are just for that: bragging. They aren't supposed to be used as part of an argument to win an academic discussion. Meaning, the phrase "I discovered plutonium. I know what I'm talking about. I'm right." is a moronic way to make a point. Everybody, even the young ones, are allowed to be skeptic of anyone. It is the duty of the elders (and any researcher, for that matter) to present a logical, step-by-step argument of why they're right.
• All publishing committees must require to have, for every sought after publications, at least two reviewers with opposing views. That way, every algorithm or novel process that discredits or out-dates a current algorithm or process has a chance to be reviewed without a conflict of interest involved.

Like I said, nothing new, which is disappointing as there hasn't been much done in this regard, even though many fixes are right in front of everybody. Dinosaurs still roam the Earth, and offending them, even by means that are irrelevant in Research, implies little evolution. Well, doing anything, even nothing, implies little evolution, and thus lies the frustration.

But I'm young (at least, that's how the Academia has welcomed me), and I am aware that being young equates to inexperience. I'll probably read this in a decade or so and smile in condescension of my stupid, ironically-naive, pessimistic view on Academia. The problem is I'll most likely welcome it.

Common Sense

Reason. Logic. Common sense.

The train connecting the two terminals in Mexico City Airport does not allow passengers without a boarding pass. The city's subway only reaches one of the terminals. If you don't have a boarding pass, like in the case of a father that wants to see his child off and takes the subway, a fee-based bus needs to be taken from one terminal to another instead.

There are some medical insurance policies that state that a person needs to call the insurance company to approve for ambulance transport, even if the person has been in an accident that have rendered him/her unconscious.

In Mexico, a birth certificate is required for most bureaucratic federal procedures, including obtaining an electoral id. Such an electoral id is not sufficient when it is used to identify a person for other type of procedures (school paperwork, house leasing, etc.), so both documents are required even though one is dependent of the other. To add to the stupidity of it all, if you do have an electoral id but have lost your birth certificate, you can get one if you have an electoral id.

Advertising is what pays the TV producers to put on shows, and the reason why there are public channels that are free to watch for anybody that owns a TV. Customers pay for cable TV as well as when they go to the movies, because the cinema and movie makers need to cover costs and make profit. However, there is advertising in both these scenarios, meaning that the customer is literally paying to watch commercials.

There's a reason why it's called common sense. It's a shared definition of logic, with which we all can agree on what is the right/logical thing to do. But more and more it feels as though that it is slipping, a symptom of the fact that we're more and more far apart, and that our common ground is shrinking.

The reason for this is depressingly simple: fear. The train company doesn't want the airline to think that it is being used by everybody, just by its customers, so they won't feel as a security risk. The insurance company wants to control the payment process so there aren't any unnecessary costs. Bureaucratic procedures want to have both documents, just in case of fraud. Advertising is used to lower the price of cable bills and movie tickets as less and less people are watching TV or going to the movies.

Seat-belts, water fountains, outdoor parking. You can find something that doesn't make sense in any of these that's linked to a protocol set in place to assure somebody that everything is going according to plan. And that somebody feels that there isn't a need to treat others as adults to explain why things are carried out as such.

Fear of losing customers, of high costs, or just plain uncertainty. Ironically, because of fear, the plan built to avoid it is rarely well thought out. The airline could have put the entrance to the train after the boarding pass inspection that is already carried out in the entrance to the gates's area, and just have one big security entrance near the subway station in the first terminal. The insurance company could just slightly raise the premium to include ambulance transport, and explain it to the customer. An electoral id is enough, if there is fear that the id is fake, a birth certificate can be equally falsified and the identification process can be thrown out the window. I can watch commercials at home, either take them out and raise the ticket/billing cost or keep them altogether and bring more in to the point that cable TV and the movies are completely free: anything in between is infuriatingly confusing.

The reason why this is a problem is that it bundles up, to the point in which people, myself included, learn to take it and not question it.

That's how things are done. If we speak up, we'll just lose time.

Why is my Mexican citizenship being questioned when entering Mexico while I am carrying a Mexican passport? Why am I required to provide 5 copies of paperwork to an office that has a copying machine? Why are there accessibility ramps in the entrance of my 4-floor office building but it doesn't have an elevator?

Bring the reasons out in the open, explain yourselves, your solution may not be in your best interests: they are definitely not in ours. "This is our policy," doesn't cut it. The plan brought out by your fear of losing customers, high costs, and plain uncertainty is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you can't see the video, go to:
Barry Schwartz: The real crisis? We stopped being wise