New book - The Oxford Murders

I started reading a new book this week-end: The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez. So it is about some murders, finding their author and it also involves some mathematics. It should be fun to read, since I enjoyed other thematic mystery novels, like the ones of Arturo Perez-Revert and also novels about mathematics like Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture.

18 years

In 1995 when I started my studies at University of Bucharest I met a student at Mathematics who was in the sixth year (master degree) - Ionescu, who became a good friend of mine. And he told me one day: you know, Bogdan, these very steps that we are walking on in the Mathematics department were full of blood in June 1990; the blood of the students beaten by the miners, who also devastated the computer science labs (they were told the computers were used to print fake US dollars). Last night I saw comrade Iliescu again on TV giving advice about the economy. Seeing Iliescu on TV alone is a reason for me to go yet again to vote this week-end.

Prostanac

Go to www.google.ro type in "prostanac" and press "Ma simt norocos" ("I'm feeling lucky").
Mr. Geoana, you were (Google) bombed :))

Somebody to vote for

The elections for the parliament are approaching here in Bucharest. It is the first time when people will vote a person, not a party list. In fact, it is a mixed system (and also very flawed), but I think it is still better than the previous one. Unfortunately this new voting system didn't bring many new faces on the political scene, and even among the new faces there are few that one can trust. Still, in this "black sea" of Romanian politicians there is one name that I would like to recommend: Theodor Paleologu, the son of Alexandru Paleologu. Read his blog and his resume and see for yourselves. Since I cannot vote directly for him, I wish him good luck in the electoral college #9 from Bucharest. And I encourage everyone from that electoral college to go and vote for him.

Coming to an election near you

If an election is coming to your place then watch this video. And then send it to 5 of your friends.

New book

I'm kind of slow on the Deaf Sentence novel I started, but meanwhile I bought a new book by Lucian Boia Occidentul O interpretare istoric (Occident - A historical explanation). It describes the history of the western Europe civilization proposing a theory for the reasons why it became so successful and dominant in today's world.

The black hole in their heads

So the new Cern collider will aim recreate conditions from the times closed to Big Bang and possibly even black holes and that made many people worried that the end of the world might come with this experiment. The Conservator Party from Romania even sent an open letter to some European institutions to stop the experiment :) The good news is that if a black hole is indeed produced they would not even feel when they will get past its horizon (the line that once passed you cannot escape the gravity of the the black hole). So we will not see them anymore!

Green Day

Green Day (Ziua Verde) is not the rock band, but a series of events organized in various cities of Romania to encourage people recycle more, especially electrical devices. Last Saturday it was in Bucharest as a concert with some rock and ethnic bands. I liked very much the old Timpuri Noi (the best Romanian rock band from my high-school years) and Zdob si Zdub which I saw live for the first time. As for recycling, I hope they open many more recycling corners, so I don't have to go half of Bucharest to recycle a light bulb (I already recycle plastic bottles and paper at the containers next to my house). The best moment of the evening was when they were showing samples of electrical devices brought by people for recycling and they showed a HC85 computer! :) I guess I have my HC91 computer somewhere in Constanta, I should proudly dispose of it at a recycling corner for the sake of the planet.

New book - Deaf Sentence

I managed to finish Doctor Zhivago on a sunny beach (actually Sunny Beach - Bulgaria). Now I started reading Deaf Sentence by David Lodge. A novel about a man who becomes deaf and how that changes his perspective in life. Sounds interesting and being written by Lodge I suppose it will also be funny.

Vacation

It's official, I'm on vacation! Each day felt just longer and longer for the last two weeks (am I missing something?). Although it's only a week I hope to come back with some more energy.

The phenomenom called Phelps

Michael Phelps is probably the greatest swimmer of all times. So far he won five gold medals at Beijing Olympics, all of them with world records and he is on track to win eight gold medals, which nobody ever did.
The number of world records at natation in this Olympics is huge. I know there is a new swim suit designed by Speedo and NASA that helps a lot, but still, aren't we seeing a little bit of cyclism here?

Iron Maiden in Bucharest

Last night I saw Iron Maiden live in Bucharest. The show and the atmosphere were just incredible. See a sample bellow, Fear of the Dark with the whole stadium singing along.

BBC in Romanian is gone

Yesterday was the last broadcast of BBC in Romanian. This was one of the iconic radio stations in Romania (starting 69 years ago) during the WW II and the communist era. This was also my favorite news source in the 90ties and the place where I first learned about what market economy means and what was wrong in our country in those days. They will put up online an archive with many of their broadcasts here. Good bye BBC in Romanian, I will never forget you!

Well done Nadal and Spain!

This is the year of Spanish sport. After Spain won the European Cup at football after 44 years, tonight Rafa Nadal is the first Spanish tennis man to win the Wimbledon in 42 years. Both the Spanish football team and Nadal won in style, playing superb matches. Felicitaciones a ambos.

Update: that does not diminish the merits of Federer, this final was the best tennis match I saw since I started watching this sport. Both Federer and Nadal are great players, it's a pleasure to watch them.

The cost of wind energy

I read a very interesting analysis regarding the total cost of using wind power to generate electricity on The Register. Basically, the idea is that since wind is not guaranteed to blow all the time, you need to have back-up energy generating capacity to keep the energetic system in balance. There are various theories and proposals to fix this problem like: wind doesn't blow in one region/country but might blow in another one so the spread of wind mills will create a balance, or when you have excess wind you can use a part of the energy to pump some water uphill and use hydro-energy as back-up when the wind doesn't blow. This study demonstrates that in the case of UK these solutions are not feasible (using statistics regarding the wind intensity patterns), so in the end you need to have gas/coal back-up power plants. This leads to a total different cost of wind energy. It's interesting to see who will pay this cost. Normally the ones who install wind mills should be asked to pay for the back-up capacity too.

New book - Doctor Jivago

I started a couple of weeks ago to read Doctor Jivago by Boris Pasternak. It took me a while to get in the mood for reading, so only a few days ago I started reading more than a half a page per day :)
It has many characters so it takes a while to fix them in your memory, but I'm enjoying it. I also saw the movie many years ago, but I don't remember much, just the atmosphere and a sleigh going through the Russian fields covered in snow.

Federer

Federer during a training session

Nadal

Nadal serving in the first round against Bellucci.

Roland Garros

I spent a fantastic week at Roland Garros. We were in a group of tennis fans who go to grand slam tournaments for about 10 years. This was the first time I went to a grand slam tournament (I went to Romanian Open a couple of times and at some Davis Cup matches) and I really enjoyed it: all the big players, the atmosphere, everything, even the rain was fun :) I didn't see much of Paris this time, a short walk to La Defense and on Rivoli street and Tuileries gardens, Brancusi's studio (which was also nice) and I met my old friend Danutz. I have some pictures too, I'll put one or two samples here.

The bare necesities and me