Nihil

Lets not be Dicks

There is a very interesting thread going about in Reddit.com, where the original poster proposed a little exercise. Think about a topic in which you have a really good grasp on and have decided your position on; now write an argument about the opposing position.

I remember this being a common exercise in Debate Team (yes, I was part of one of those; are you seriously surprised?), and one that at first was very frustrating. Then, when I got the hang of it, it was fun to get to know the 'other side', as if I was a spy infiltrating the enemy, getting intelligence to overthrow a brutal dictatorship. However, that ability came with another frustrating edge: indecision.

At the moment that I stepped over that line, and wondered about arguments that I knew were wrong, after a while of hearing them and empathizing with their proponents, I usually wound up not knowing what to believe, what to think. And a lot of the current controversies (in politics, society, economy, etc.) are usually textbook examples of how opposing views have sound arguments. This is probably the reason why there are so many zealots out there: is far easier (and frankly, much better for one's sanity) to go to an extreme view of a topic, not hear the other side, and stay there.

I grew up with a moderately-conservative family; Christian in its core, but definitely not one of those Jesus-is-coming-next-weekend-so-you-need-to-repent-now, batshit crazy kinds. Like in any other family, we had discussions; we still do. But, the difference with my family is that we relish them. We love to talk about things, and try to make the other person admit "you might have a point there"; not precisely win the discussion, just make the other side come a little bit to our side. However, there are some topics that are still considered taboo in the Rascon household (my parents still consider themselves Christian after all): sexuality, existence of Jesus, and, the all-time favorite, abortion.

This topic has been the bread-and-butter of many Debate Competitions, and it has been beaten to the ground to the point that you are guaranteed to hear a sufferable groan of at least one team member when it is proposed to be debated. The reason for this is, of course, that both sides, like it or not, make good points. Now, now, I know what you're thinking, and I'm pretty sure it's one of the following:

Life begins at conception. Abortion is murder, clean and simple.

You don't have any right to dictate what I can do with my body.

Did I oversimplify? Most definitely. And that's the problem: it's not a simple topic.

Pro-choice's view: Life is still something that is very difficult to define. It moves and breathes? So does my urine bladder. The presence of DNA? Cancer cells have it. Potential for life? A carbon clump also has it.

So to use that not-at-all-defined argument as a way of heavily stepping over the corporal jurisdiction of someone that is very much alive and well is, pardon the pun, overkill, and a dangerous precedent for futures lawmakers. What about if the mother's life is at stake? What if there is a severe disease that is going to give more suffering in the long run? What if the parents are not ready to provide the right financial/emotional care? Pro-lifers usually think about the 'life' being taken away, not the 'quality of life' which is as important. And if the 'potentiality' of life is being provided as argument, so does the 'potentiality of a bad/good life'.

(Take a breath.)

Pro-life's view: If life doesn't begin at conception, when does it begin? Where do you cross the line of imposing your corporal jurisdiction over the life of another person? The fetus does turn into a person at some point, and beyond that point, stating "it's my body, I can do what I want with it" doesn't hold when there's another person's body inside of you: it isn't just your body anymore. And killing as part of your birth control plan is borderline sociopathic.

And this also can cause a dangerous precedent for future lawmakers. If it is accepted to end a pregnancy based on whatever the woman wants, would it be fine to end the pregnancy over the matter of, say, the fetus' gender (because she wanted a boy instead of a girl)? Or because the fetus' father is someone other than the woman's partner? Or because at the last minute (literally, when she's about to give birth) she decided she didn't want to be a mother anymore?

I hear you say "there's always adoption!" That's a whole other subject, really. How good will the foster parents be? How good will the orphanage take care of the infant in the mean time? And even if these cases were all optimal, the pregnancy will still need to be carried through, which is the central point of the topic.

I admit using a bit of reduction ad absurdum (aka. the Slippery Slope tactic) in the arguments above, but my point is that the topic isn't simple, and both sides have important and sound points to be considered.

Is difficult to deny, however, that really the main point here is: where do you draw the line? At what point does the potentiality of life trump the woman's corporal jurisdiction? It's hard to say, but what is clear is that any answer to that question would imply some sort of compromise from both sides. And I'd like to weigh in on one:

If the question is hard to answer, why not stick to something that we can agree on? If the process is going to happen (even if it's "morally wrong", people are still going to do it, legal or not), why not do it in a way in which the fetus will not feel pain? So regardless if it's murder or not, at least lets not make the fetus (whatever you think it is) not suffer in the process. I know that this subtopic is also very debated, and there isn't a consensus there either (big surprise), and it should be put in lower priority if the health of the mother is at stake. But, it's a good step forward, from both sides, to comply that, whatever happens to the fetus, at least lets not be dicks about it. And this is what I think the whole point of "listening to the other side" boils down to.

Yes, stepping over that line is frustrating (I can only imagine the comments that this post is going to get), and makes you constantly doubt your own arguments over and over. But it also sometimes provides a nice way to step forward. Sometimes it makes people come a little bit to your side. Sometimes it makes you feel like less of a dick. And that's worth the effort.

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.

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.

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.

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.