Breeding something else than figures

Remember how I talked about those figures I've managed to breed on my computer?

I've probably found the ultimate evolutionary computing example.
Check this out

With luck, you may soon be able to buy a mythological pet

Yup, this guy breeds mythological animals on a computer and then will try to transform their simulated genome into an-in-the-flesh genome, and an in-the-flesh animal.
I'll sign for a personal example of Buckbeak, of course.

Mind you, this would be the open door to the "other" side of genetic manipulation, I'm sure G.I. George will invoke the divine (although they're more pagan than christian) nature of these animals to raise hords of unicorns to pierce through the hearts of those terrorists and socialists and atheists (who both will turn into terrorists anyway).

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Update:
got tricked. Please people, post your April Fool's jokes on the 1st of April, NOT the day before...

Emergency situation - penultimate update

I hated the thought that it might happen, and it happened.
Firm 1 invited me for a second interview that happened yesterday. The results were overall very positive, with a good contact with who would be my future boss and the agency's manager. The job would be interesting, and well, it could be a great job altogether.
They told me they'd discuss it internally and I informed them they had competition from the neighbours. So they didn't waste anymore time and called me with a proposition, with a salary, non-negotiable, and a start date, monday in 10 days. Against their will, I told them I'd hold my decision for 24 hours, to cool down and think it over. The call went off, and I immediately called Firm 2.
Firm 2 called me two days after my first interview with Firm 1 last week. Their departments are more interesting, but I felt like I wasn't the only candidate (two other guys were in the waiting room for interviews when I was there). So I called my contact at this firm, and left a message on his cellphone saying something along the lines of "Firm 1 is offering me a contract, I'd like to know if you want to make a counter proposition". And then I waited.
At 3pm, I had to leave for the code lessons, and forgot to bring my phone. When I came back, after offices closed, there was a message "A position was opened in the Department that deals with this and that, we'd like to discuss it with you".
At that moment, I thought they should have called faster and decided to go with Firm 1. But I didn't call. Now, it's 1:06AM, I'm supposed to be in bed and fast asleep, but I can't.

See:
I've got on one side a firm offer with a salary in 10 days for a position that could be very interesting. On the other side, I've got a half proposition, that could turn sour at any time, but for a position that's a hundred times more interesting (only short of riding the planes themselves actually).
I have said I'd give my decision (that would be positive, I even said) to Firm 1 tomorrow at noon. So in the 3 hours between the offices opening and noon, I'll have to call Firm 2, ask if we could arrange a meeting withing 2 to 3 hours, evaluate the probablility that the position is offered to me and noone else, call Firm 1 and say Yes or No.

Worst case scenario: If I say no to Firm 1 and in the end Firm 2 says no to me, I'll be the biggest ass in the universe.
Bad case scenario: I say yes to Firm 1 and somehow learn Firm 2 was going to offer it to me.
Best case scenario: I say no to Firm 1 and take the offer at Firm 2.

What should I do? Play safe and go for F1, or gamble and try for F2?
I've got approx 8 hours to decide.

Oh, and btw, a firm in Aix en Provence requested an interview to work at Eurocopter in Marignane. The icing on the cake in terms of potential missed opportunities, though I will turn them down, uncertainty factor being close to infinite.

Mon ptit monde

Un peu de musique calme (Enya-Amarantine bien sur), un grand verre de sirop pamplemousse-litchi, mon ordinateur portable, et le sentiment d'etre la et maintenant.
C'est ainsi qu'arrive l'ile de la serenite, au milieu des remous de mon existence. Il est vrai que la recherche d'emploi est une tache interessante et meme fortement motivante quand elle se deroule bien, ce qui est le cas en ce moment. Depuis mon retour sur Monster.fr, il n'y a eu qu'un jour ou je n'ai pas recu un coup de fil pour me demander si j'etais interesse par un entretien, ou par une agence de recrutement pour savoir si il pouvaient transferer mon CV a un de leurs clients. En plus, les postes ki me sont proposes sont en majorite interessants, meme si l'on m'a fait au moins 2 propositions dans le management et le relationnel client.
J'ai pour l'instant 2 tres grosses opportunites concretes que je souhaite poursuivre et une piste dont j'ai ete l'initiateur. J'ai en effet repondu a une offre d'emploi en contrat de qualification chez Eurocopter, sur un poste en etudes rotor. Bon, l'offre a disparu du site EADS, j'ai peur qu'il ait ete pourvu.

Les 2 propositions que l'on m'a faites et sur lesquelles je vais me concentrer sont tres similaires. Elles emanent de 2 entreprises de conseil en ingenierie qui travaillent en particulier pour airbus. Les deux offres seraient pour des postes aux Essais, postes non specifies a l'heure actuelle, dans le sens ou je suis interesse par l'ensemble de leurs activites aux Essais. Ca pourrait etre (entre autre) dans:
L'avionique et les systemes embarques
Le depouillement de boites noires
La communication Avion-Sol, Avion-Compagnie voire Avion-Avion
Les Qualites de Vol
La structure
L'interface homme-machine en cockpit

Selon le service, je pourrais etre amene a travailler aussi bien a la preparation des essais, qu'a leur conduite et a leur depouillement. Et ca pourrait impliquer du travail sur simulateurs fixes, sur simulateurs de vol, voire sur avion, et des discussions avec les Bureaux d'Etudes, les fournisseurs, les integrateurs, et meme les pilotes d'essais (parler avec Ms Rosay, Lelaie ou Alonso, du bonheur au kilo).

Ah, oui, un autre detail marrant, les 2 entreprises sont donc concurrentes, et voisines. A tel point que les 2 entretiens techniques ont eu lieu dans le meme batiment, qu'ils partagent, a 2 etages d'ecart. Et la deuxieme entreprise est tres interessee par le fait que j'ai ete contacte par la premiere et tient a ce que je les previenne si la premiere me ferait une proposition. Vous sentez pas comme une opportunite de pouvoir grappiller quelques avantages?
Et en tout cas pour la premiere entreprise, ils recherchent quelqu'un volontaire pour une mission de longue duree (plusieurs annees) voire pour y faire carriere. Donc pas de demenagement intempestif dans 6 mois pour aller bosser dans un bled perdu (genre Chateaudun ou Sochaux, pour ceux qui connaissent)

Bon ben pour la serenite, faudra repasser, il est 1h du mat, presque, et j'ai commen une envie d'aller pieuter.

Tchoooo la gang

Emergency situation - update 3

The emergency has changed somewhat.
I'm less afraid of losing the unemployment indemnities, cuz they're way lower than I thought, I'll barely be able to pay my rent and a few bills, but not pay for anything else like food or public transports. So in the end, the situation is even more critical than I thought.
On the bright side, I'm having at least one phone call each day to ask either if I'm ok with them sending my cv to a potential employer/client or if I'm interested by a specific job.
I had to turn down a few of these already, in management essentially. Although one was a 3-week mission in the region Centre (equivalent to middle-of-nowhere) to rush a proposal for a Call for Tender. Could have been great except I couldn't reach the place without a car. Damn.

I've got 1 running offer, and 2 interviews coming.
I actually got a phone call a 10:40 this morning to see if I was interested and if I could meet with them this afternoon at 13:30. Meeting with the Technical Director as they're called and right away with Human Resources. It definitely feels emergency-like on their side. Obviously means work will start very rapidly (can anyone say monday?) and it's gonna be intense. I work boest under pressure, that's good!!!
I just hope it's a short mission, if it's going to be that intense from the start. It would also allow me to keep in touch with the running offer, which is the Holy Grail of the aviation engineer, in the Testing department, with the flight test pilots and the aircrafts and the simulators!!! Well I've got a number of interrogations that they will need to fill. The very short description of the job seemed interesting, also in testing but I don't know more.
Will keep you updated!!!

Obviously, this might make a dent in my code learning.
Oh, btw, I did my "evaluation", which consists in taking the driver seat in a real car in a real city and drive through town to see how good I am, without any help from the instructor. Scary experience.
Verdict: ca. 32 hours will be needed before I can take the driving exam. Though luck

15 years ago

Me listening to the album V (five, not vee, I'm told) from Symphony X with one of my 4 headphone sets.
I've got my iPod earbuds, pretty dead with a slight electronic noise in the right earbud. I've got my massive closed Sony headphones, nice but aging and with less bass than I'd like. I've got my Shure E2c intraauricular earphones, the creme de la creme for under 100 euros, with noise-cancelling pads and a remarkable sound, and I've got those Philips ones that pass above my ears and behind the neck and with a reflective band wrapped around the neck thingy.
And these are the ones I was wearing until 5 minutes ago. They're uncomfortable, they don't mix well above and behind the ears with glasses. On my left ear. I've got no problem on my right ear, my glasses fit nicely in a groove behind the ear, and the headphones can be positioned easily on top.

Now that groove is totally artificial, man-made and 15 years old (hence the title).
It was no accident, it actually had been planned for the better part of the 10 earlier years.
I was born with a labioschisi (?)(une fente labiale in french, it sounds so much more civilised) and although it was mild and did not touch the palate. My first operation was performed when I was 6 months old, I think. Then I had a second one when I was 2 One of these, probably the second, was traumatic. I have no recollections, but I have had nightmares for years to come that involved hospitals and water with sugar. My mother told me she could only visit once a day in the afternoon, for a few hours. I was probably in hospital for a week, so I'm sure it was hell.
From then onwards, and until kids grow old enough to shut up, I was called names by "the others", probably a select few, but the number didn't make a difference. And what I had called the little mountain road with a parking lot on the middle grew with me. It didn't look that bad, I was actually a cute kid. With a scar and a nose that didn't look straight, but cute.

I had a third op on December 19th, 1990. My birthday was on December, 20th. Truly a fantastic gift. I ran between panic attacks and bursts of tears for days before we even checked in. Memories didn't resurface, but I suppose they weren't that deep. I managed to evade the anaesthesia for a long time before the mask was firmly pressed on my face and I drifted. My nose had slowly stopped growing and it needed some fresh material to restart. And the closest to the nose cartilage is... ear cartilage. So they made that little groove behind my right ear, sculpted that cartilage with laser and placed it on the tip of my nose. How many people can listen with their nose, huh?? Well, I almost can. Well, the staff was friendly, mom slept in a bed next to mine (was it a bed or a simple chair???) and I was offered one of my all time favourite gifts for my birthday. I couldn't eat anything solid of course, but mom still bought a couple of "tartes aux myrtilles" for the other kids in the service. So my cake turned out to be a pink and blue inflatable one with 10 candles on the top. Soooo sweet. I felt like s**t, but I can remember that one all too well, 15 years later. It got lost years later while we were moving from one house to another.
Well, my nose was better, I could use it to breathe, I could clean it (in all honesty, I still don't like doing it though, better sneeze than blow it clean but I'm never sick anyway) and it looked straighter. People of my size don't see anything usually, but kids look at me with questions in the eyes. There's no aggressivity behind their looks usually, just questions, I find it amusing and yes, sweet :p.

My surgeon from that time told me for my last check-up when I was 15 that I could have a last operation, purely for aesthetics when I reached my adult physiology. I haven't done it yet, but I might decide someday to have it done. I'll take the decision as an adult, knowing in what context I will do it, and what psychological impact it may have.

Well, in the end, I can still move the tip of my nose very slightly sideways and that groove behind my right ear reminds me everyday that I've got that little something different from everyone else :-)

Emergency situation - update 2

New interview 28th of March 9AM, close to the airport.
They're interested in Quality Management (blah) and Project Management (super blah)

Points: +10.

Emergency situation - update

Well, that was quick!

I'm going to Bordeaux on monday for a job interview that may send me to Hamburg or Bremen, Germany for almost a year.
I need to get my costume dry-cleaned, reserve a train and hopefully get some of the train costs reimbursed by the ANPE.

And I've scored points on the Scale. Now, let's get moving...

Haha, it also appears another firm is interested in my profile, except they won't contact me directly but ask me to register on their own site so they can "manage in the best possible way my profile". Recruiters talk for "my database wants you, but we don't". I guess I have no real choice, I'll feed the database.

Emergency situation

In 3 weeks, more or less, I'll meet at the ANPE for my second situation review, 3 months after the first one. I will be supposed to show that I have taken the necessary steps to find another job, sent letters, had interviews, responded to job offers...
On the impression I make and on the evidence of my work I can provide, the ANPE will decide if I am working hard enough that I am worth my unemployment indemnities.
And frankly, I am not. I've barely sent a few letters, received almost zero answers, went to zero interviews. And I've done nothing in more than a month now, due to computer crash and code learning. I'm actually making excuses here.
I hate looking for a job, it's one of the most humiliating experiences I've ever had, and a long lasting one at that.
First, I'm checking the APEC (Agence Pour l'Emploi des Cadres) site, the ANPE site, Monster.fr, the Airbus site and the EADS site for job offers. All job offers require either a massive experience, a list of specific capabilities I've never heard about or are in freaking project management, blah...
So when I've found a job offer I can reply to, I need to reply with a proper resume (easy) and a proper cover letter that will tell partial truths about what I do know and not about what I do not know or don't remember. I've never been any good at that, telling what people want to hear and not telling them what they don't want to hear.

So, I'm not sure I can hit enough points to impress the ANPE. That would mean I'd get downgraded to the Revenu Minimum d'Insertion, which won't even pay my rent. The masochistic me almost wants to reach that time when I'll have to do small jobs just to keep afloat, or not.

I wanted it....

I've lost my first auction today on ebay...
I had registered just for that item, a 1958 book from the Ecole du Personne Navigant d'Essais et de Reception, the french test pilots school, on flight mechanics and flight testing. The bible...
I used it a few years ago to program a flight simulator on Excel during an internship. My tutor had it and lent it to me so I could work out how the equations I needed. I almost hoped he would give it to me at the end of my placement, but it was a signed book by the test pilot from the cover photograph. No chance.
I've been looking for it every so often ever since.
And there it was, even though the picture only showed a diagram on rudder correction in case of engine failure on a twin. I knew it was it, it had the right title, the right look, the right date. And in the middle, somewhere around page 192, there should be the Equation, the one that links the attitude of the plane in space to its trajectory, G, speed, and turn radius in all possible orientations of the plane. That equation was the actual core of my simulation at that time. Everything else was petty details and tedious programming. I of course couldn't take my work with me (not when you're working with the military), and I was sure it would be given to us in the flight dynamics course we'd have the next year. Except we didn't see it.
That was (and still is) the motivation behind the quest.

So I created an account, logged on and auctioned. And I got it for a meager price, until 6 seconds before the end of the auction. Then some lowlife loser played the asshole and got it.

What's the conclusion? Be a lowlife loser yourself and don't play fair. You'll be the loser in the end.

breeding figures

*** WARNING GEEK TALK AHEAD ***
I'm very proud to announce that I've finally managed to breed proper figures. LOL

I've been looking from afar at genetic algorithms for quite some time now, and I've decided to make the jump and try it a few weeks ago. Then my computer broke, I found other stuff to do and I only came back to it again a week ago. And now it works :D.

The principle is quite simple, very similar to breeding animals or flowers to achieve the most beautiful/resistant/sweet one. Professional breeders do that by mating the best specimens they have and the next generation is better than the previous one, usually. Choose the best of the new, and you get the creme. Choose again and voila, la creme de la creme.

Well, in short, I'm doing the same with figures that represent objects. Let's say I want to have the cheapest and sturdiest bridge depending on its thickness, its width and the material.
To start, the computer will design 30 bridges using formulae I've programmed.
Then it will give them scores: low for expensive and weak, medium for expensive or weak, high for cheap and sturdy.
Second, it will code the 3 parameters (thickness, width and material) into digital chromosoms and mate these chromosoms to produce 10 new bridges. Some will be better than the first generation, some will be worse, it's more or less random.
Third, it gives scores to the new ones, and includes them in the pool of bridges. The 10 worst bridges are discarded, and a new generation can be created from the 30 remaining.
Repeat 10 times or more, and you have "the perfect bridge", strong and cheap.


It works for everything, the NASA has used a similar approach to design an antenna to be mounted on a satellite Look here, it's been simulated on race cars to make them faster, and I do remember that a bridge somewhere has been designed that way (with way more parameters of course).

Well, am just soo happy it works :D I'll need to try it one something "real" as I've only tested it on a simple math function at the moment :D.
And then I can play with it, I haven't tried to induce mutations yet and I also need to test how many specimens and how many generations are needed.

lousyyyyyyyyyy

Lousy week end ahead...
Noone I asked is free this week end in toulouse. Soooo am going to spend it inside most probably. And for once, I don't look forward to it too much. I may go to the movies tomorrow, but there's nothing I want to see at the moment. I won't go shopping, except to fill my fridge because there's way too many people out there to do anything.
And I won't go cycling because the weather is quite uncertain, it's currently raining.
There's one massive good piece of news though, but I can't talk about it just yet.
One thing I could do is work on my code. I'm still having problems with some road signs and all the legal stuff. Oh and lights too, that is so damn hard to get. I still haven't completely got the logic behind it, when can I use which, when do I have to use which, when is which forbidden...
And I need to collect my notes and sum them up for later.
And I could clean my room, theoretically. Well, I should but you know the deal...

There are some good news around from the ladies though, so everything is not lost. lol

I want a pave jambon chevre with three petits tigrés from the bakery in Versailles or a grilled veggies and goat cheese panini with a tomato soup from Bristol. I could do with 2 1/2 pounder chicken with fries soaked in vinegar too, from bristol also. Mom's special sandwich could be enjoyable too...
I guess I'll have to settle for a homemade (read bad) salad tomorrow... and a bowl of All-Bran Fibre Plus that tastes worse than I remembered right now. Or I'll digest my own stomach from the inside out.
I'm hungry and depressed. Great mix.