Thomas Noll

Here are some very good articles by Thomas Noll.
Topos Of Triads


Facts and Counterfacts
Mathematical Contributions to Music-theoretical Knowledge

Very good.

Perspectives in mathematical and computational music theory

I'm adding some more books to read AFTER my Thesis

Title: Perspectives in mathematical and computational music theory / [edited by] Guerino Mazzola, Thomas Noll, and Emilio Lluis-Puebla.
Publisher: Osnabrück : Epos, Electronic Pub. Osnabrück : University of Osnabrück, c2004.
ISBN 392348657X

And two other books on Topology:
Experiments in Topology by Stephen Barr, and General Topology by John L. Kelley
Maybe one of these two books will make Topology accessible to me, with good examples (and figures)

Java and Web Services

I just downloaded the Java package for web services - the Java Web Services Developer Pack. I couldn't use it. I just want to write a web services client out of a WSDL. I just want to generate the client. But I have to download a big J2EE web container. Then I need to understand how a certain service registry works. Then I'll need to have all that going and launching here and there from command line. Then I'll have to fight with CLASSPATHs including 1001 .jar files, and version of this XML package, and that other one. And after 10 hours it won't work. I hope it's easier with Microsoft .NET. I wish I could import the WSDL in Visual Studio .NET, or run some kind of wizard there.

www.ontologicalreviews.com

I should patent the idea quickly. www.ontologicalreviews.com will be a big hit. Now the elections campaign is ongoing. In www.ontologicalreviews.com people would be able to assess their candidates better. They could get 'best voted' formulas. They could vote on the evaluation formulas themselves too. Besides the canned reports, people would be able to use an applet or an ActiveX control to easily increase/decrease the parameters and assess the alternatives. Just imagine a control labeled 'Gomery scandal damage' and a percentage besides it. Or 'spending with military' - 15 % (default or best voted percentage) , 'environmental platform' - 5 % (default or best voted percentage), 'National unity' - 20 %, etc

Capitalism vs Socialism

"In capitalism men exploit men. In socialism it's the other way around." ( I don't know the source )

On beeing a "cold" Canadian

As typical north-americans, Canadians can be seen as 'colder' in general than Brazilians. Not that being "colder" is bad. Not at all! It's just different from other cultures. At least with regards to public behaviour. I think two things contribute to this behaviour:
- cold weather and driving distances. Because the weather is colder, people interact with each other in different ways. Canadians don't just hang outside during Winter... So it's natural to interact differently with people. Driving distances are also responsible in part for the 'problem'. If you walk around your neighbourhood odds are you'll get to know your neighbours better. I have a feeling that Canadians hate smalltalk with neighbours.
- static chocks. Yes, static chocks make Canadians "colder" people towards each other. That's because you avoid kissing other people because of static chocks.

www.ontological-product-reviews.com

Again, continuing on the list of things to do after a Master thesis, here is the web site that allows people to quantitatively evaluate products (and governments!! and companies!! and soccer players!!) This will be kool! Think of two layers of the site exposed. One lower layer provides primitives that allow the computation and creation of formulas based on raw ontologies. The upper layer is for the average Joe, with reviews, grades about products, alers, averages, rich searches, historical trends. The election of the criteria deserves some attention. Beeing free to have the evaluation criteria itself to be an ontology would be kool! But perhaps too flexible to start with in a commercial product? Hey, I can foresee books on Amazon.com about how to use the service. The only thing is how to make money out of it... Isn't that a nice open-source project?

things to do after a Master's thesis

Here is the to-do list for life after a Thesis (if it exists):
- buy an electric guitar and learn to play it
- buy an electric bass guitar and learn to play it well
- create a web site for product reviews using and abusing of ontologies (taxonomies perhaps).
- swim regularly
- learn French well
- write a book about Rhythm and Mathematics
- become a Human Rights activist (a 'missionary' to the american Christians)

New York, New York

New York, New York! The land of consumerism! In this trip to New York it became apparent how much americans love consumerism. It's a big push on everybody to buy and buy and buy. Especially this time of the year, near Christmas. Before I used to think that the idea of city identities, or costumes wasn't valid. I thought that humans shared common basic needs and aspirations, and the culture of cities was just a matter of perception and marketing. I think I was wrong. Take driving, for instance. Driving in New York is bad and drivers don't respect each other. But it's not as bad as Montreal. And São Paulo in Brazil is worst than New York. And here in Ottawa everybody behave behind theirwheelss. But back to consumerism, geez! They find ways to really spend money for things of little value. It's the proof that individualism, capitalism and consumerism prevails in the U.S.