Jaramin

jaramin @ 2008-08-03T02:09:00

2008-08-03T06:09:53Z

My girlfriend has now settled in, and our new roommate too. I don't expect to be finished cleaning up and painting until...september maybe, depending on how much I focus on school stuff. I really feel like I'm starting a new stage of my life, and it has to do with all the stuff I've parted with. I had already come to the conclusion some years ago I had to stop accumulating stuff, and so I did. Mostly. But space being a constraint, and crowded spaces leading to a crowded mind (well, that's what it does to me anyway) and general lack of motivation to clean, I got rid of a lot of stuff.

Most of it I didn't mind at all, other stuff however was a bit more touchy. Like all the birthday, easter and christmas cards I got since I was born, the erasers and crayons I won in primary school, some collections, a lot of stuff that told the story of my childhood. But really, as I get older, the passing of time changes so much... I've already posted plenty of times each year on how I felt time was going by increasingly faster. Try looking in the tunnel when you take the metro and pay attention to whatever you see there. At first you can focus on the elements, then as it speeds up you can only catch one at a time, and at some point, it's not feasible anymore, even somewhat uncomfortable, so you just lay back in your seat, watch the inside of the wagon and wait for the next station. Tomorrow is the last day of my life (figuratively speaking), I'm just not there yet, but when I will be (like everyone else), all the time behind me will have contracted so much that it wont matter what piece I can still remember. More to the point, I have many new memories to make.

Why did I keep so much stuff? Perhaps as proof of past events. I just don't feel these proofs are so important anymore. Everything fits in a box now. Well, a box and a half anyway!

jaramin @ 2008-03-09T18:11:00

2008-03-09T22:09:24Z

La ruelle est remplie. Oui oui, c'est bien ça, on a rempli la ruelle de neige. Faut le faire.

Just Homo will do

2007-08-09T09:22:34Z

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A grandmother taking a leisurely swim in a Swedish river ended up in the hospital after a beaver attacked her with its tail, regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda reported Wednesday.

Police sources said it was the second time a beaver had attacked humans at the beach on the banks of the Bottenaa River, around 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Stockholm, the newspaper reported.

"The beaver attacked the grandmother. She was seriously hit by the animal's tail and received a number of bites and scratches," an officer told the newspaper.

The authorities have decided to kill the dozen or so beavers living near the beach to eliminate any further risk to local bathers.

--

Typical, arrogant human behavior. Beaver families live there, and some people choose to have a leisure activity there also. Beaver's idea of accomodation? Go have your leisure elsewhere. Human's idea of accomodation? Kill the beavers. A fine display of creativity and care on behalf of Homo sapiens sapiens. Really, just Homo will do.

Thartalion

2007-07-15T06:48:22Z

One of my friends is a painter, so I just thought I'd drop a shameless plug to his gallery :

http://thartalion.deviantart.com/gallery/

jaramin @ 2007-06-12T22:23:00

2007-06-13T03:23:13Z

So I spent the weekend au Parc National de la Mauricie. Of course, nobody told me it was black fly season. The horror. Did you know you can go into anaphylactic shock from too many bites?

The heat is making the wounds bubbly. If you're going to suck blood for a living, get a life and develop anesthetic saliva, y'know?

jaramin @ 2007-06-03T01:38:00

2007-06-03T06:38:53Z

I'm working on producing french documentation for Zotero right now for my university department. It's a Firefox extension for managing bibliographic references. It's great already and only in Beta, can't wait for their official release. Very useful for academic and personal research, give it a try : http://www.zotero.org/

The sister site of Silent PC Review, Eco PC Review went live yesterday. It's still rough around the edges, but there's already some interesting content. I've been waiting for a site like this for years.

Looking forward

2007-06-02T04:38:10Z

Well, it's been a long time...

I figured taking a break for a year (ok, I cheated two or three times) would do me some good. And it did!

Since last summer I :

Got some perspective by spending said summer backpacking to BC.

Realized university is more about social darwinism than learning.

Became increasingly interested in anarchy and parecon.

Managed to get decent contracts for this summer.

And much more.

Mon meilleur moment de la journée? Lorsque je vais m'occuper de mon jardin (communautaire).

jaramin @ 2007-03-26T18:27:00

2007-03-26T23:27:02Z

jaramin @ 2006-06-27T17:24:00

2006-06-27T21:24:52Z

The road from Banff to Revelstoke is so incredible!!!

jaramin @ 2006-06-22T18:48:00

2006-06-22T22:48:41Z

Just a little post to say that I'm in Regina right now, hopefuly catching a ride to Calgary if we get lucky. But frankly, I don't mind over here, it's nice. Northern Ontario though, ugh, the biggest mosquito swamp in Canada, a whole lot of nothing there. Doing good :)

jaramin @ 2006-05-22T23:17:00

2006-05-23T04:17:00Z

If by any chance someone is in need of a washing machine, I have this sort of deal on hand :

A fully working washing machine except for an annoying quirk : it won't stop spinning after the last cycle until the door is opened. If you're low on cash and tired of the laundromat, it's all yours for 25$ (for free only if you're damn poor, I'm damn poor too). If someone is interested, let me know quickly, the thing has to go thursday.

You can shove your navy sonars up your...

2006-04-30T19:17:34Z

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania - Scientists tried to discover Saturday why hundreds of dolphins washed up dead on a beach popular with tourists on the northern coast of Zanzibar.

Among other possibilities, marine biologists were examining whether U.S. Navy sonar threw the animals off course.

Villagers and fishermen were burying the remains of the roughly 400 bottlenose dolphins, which normally live in deep offshore waters but washed up Friday along a 2 1/2-mile stretch of coast in Tanzania's Indian Ocean archipelago.

--

The picture was horrific.

jaramin @ 2006-04-11T08:12:00

2006-04-11T13:12:25Z

Eh bien, finalement, ça fait pas mal pantoute se faire arracher une dent.

jaramin @ 2006-04-05T10:30:00

2006-04-05T15:30:42Z

One of my wisdom tooth split in half. It's been two days I haven't been able to sleep properly because of that. The pain goes on to my ear and eye now. Off to the dentist. This looks like a tooth extraction to me *cringe*.

jaramin @ 2006-03-21T02:17:00

2006-03-21T07:17:27Z

Sequel to yesterday's nonsensical headlines : Bush asks U.S. to look past Iraq bloodshed. See, there's the bloodshed. Now if you'll just turn your head to the right slightly...there, much better!

Un travail à la fois, je vais peut-être en venir à bout. J'ai fait ma présentation en philo du cinéma aujourd'hui, j'achève (et me fait achever) par un examen maison sur Kant. Qu'est-ce que ça mange en hiver? Ça :

1 - Dans l’exposition métaphysique du concept d’espace (B37/A22 - B40/A25), Kant donne quatre arguments pour soutenir que l’espace a) est une représentation a priori et b) qu’il n’est pas un concept mais une intuition. Présentez-les et expliquez.

2 - Pourquoi Kant soutient qu’une déduction transcendantale des concepts purs de l’entendement est « incontournablement nécessaire » (B119/A87 - B120/A88) ? Expliquez en quoi consiste une déduction transcendantale, par opposition à une déduction empirique, pourquoi est-elle nécessaire à l’égard des catégories et en quoi cet argument constitue une objection contre l’empirisme.

jaramin @ 2006-03-20T03:02:00

2006-03-20T08:02:50Z

Quelle belle soirée, je ne regrette pas de m'être extirpé de mon travail, malgré les ennuis que cela va assurément m'occasionner. Tant pis. Il y a des choses plus importantes que de me conformer à des attentes institutionnelles illégitimes.

The most insane news title I've ever read on Yahoo!, 1 minute ago : Bush urges U.S. to see progress in Iraq . One has to realize that it means just what it says. Don't look at the progress, just see it! Amen!

jaramin @ 2006-03-19T01:34:00

2006-03-19T06:34:06Z

What I like about tea is that it fills a certain ritualization need, like that of cigarettes, or drugs (ever realized how people get absorbed in the act of rolling a joint? I find it disgusting) without any side effects (cafeine alters my mood and makes my heart skip beats), actually green tea and a couple of others are good anti-oxidants if I'm not mistaken.

I have 15 pages to write between tonight and the afternoon (critical analysis on John Mackie's "A Refutation of Morals"). I usually prefer doing essays or dissertations, but that format is the only way I can output that quantity in that amount of time. Still, I'm really kidding myself if I think I can make it. And there's no negociating with the teacher : this *is* the arrangement, I'm already late.

Truth is, I read and write awfully slow. In fact, aside specific exceptions, I do everything slow. Can't help it, tried and tried, failed and failed (drove me nuts too, so I let go). I also have a lot of time dedicated to social implication, and there's no letting go of that, it's the meaningful glue between everything.

Oh, I have to give half a course in film philosophy monday too. That's gonna be half improvisation at best (I do kick ass in those situations however).

Stressed much ? You bet. Then why the f*ck am I writing here instead of doing my work ? White page syndrome : it's not coming out. Oh god of plumbers, help me.

jaramin @ 2006-03-17T02:12:00

2006-03-17T07:12:38Z

A couple of weeks ago, I took out the trash and recyclable stuff one day ahead by mistake (going through a lot of stress lately). The municipal police or whatever took my trash away, checked it out and saw one of my roommate's name and address on some bill. We got a 141$ ticket. Of course, I filed non guilty.

Guess what? I did it again yesterday, and my trash has disappeared.

I won't get away with it two times.

But there's still no way I'll pay for this, I can barely make both ends meet. What happens if you never pay? Can they seize stuff? Prison? This is nuts.

jaramin @ 2006-03-06T23:24:00

2006-03-07T04:24:45Z

If you haven't seen Darwin's Nightmare, you should.

Nuit Blanche

2006-02-27T08:34:42Z

La Nuit Blanche de Montréal était complètement géniale! (ça se passait dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche)

On a commencé par les expositions aux galeries Belgo : celle avec les bulles était magnifique. Ensuite, petit tour au vieux port où on a raté le feu d'artifice (les navettes étaient plutôt lentes), mangé de la tire sur la neige (c'était d'ailleurs ma première fois : je n'ai pas aimé, trop collant) et regardé les installations tout autour. Puis on est allé prendre une soupe à l'oignon et des nachos dans un petit resto histoire de se réchauffer. Retour à la Place des Arts pour voir la boîte à Matéo (bon, pas génial) puis la dance improvisée avec musique électronique improvisée et projection visuelle...improvisée. C'était chouette! Ensuite, exposition bizarre sur le corps humain, ils donnaient un peu de cidre chaud à l'entrée, mmm! Et après, un tour au salon de thé Camellia Sinensis pour deux thé chaï, re-mmm. Direction ONF pour voir les Documenteurs, vraiment comique (c'était pas du tout ce que je pensais). Stop final à la Biblitohèque Nationale pour écouter la fin du cabaret littéraire (wow!) et aller voir les courts métrage vitesse lumière (gore + sci-fi + fantastique québécois, Bagman était le meilleur!).

Et hop, une nuit envolée. Mais quelle nuit :)

jaramin @ 2006-02-05T01:22:00

2006-02-05T06:22:33Z

Il pleut en février. Le mercure est plus souvent qu'autrement en haut de zéro. This is it, not any doubts left.

Le congrès de fusion OC-UFP, ou plutôt Québec Solidaire devrais-je dire maintenant, est un peu pénible, on n'a pas assez de temps et ça génère une pression qui gâche quelque peu l'harmonie habituelle si particulière au parti. Je suis bien content malgré tout, mais j'ai hâte que ce soit terminé, je n'ai pas assez de temps pour tout faire...

L'espèce de folie furieuse déclenchée par les caricatures de Muhammad me sidère. Je ne vois pas comment on peut se réconcilier avec ça.

jaramin @ 2006-01-15T01:32:00

2006-01-15T06:32:32Z

Online papers on consciousness, part II : 1071 entries.
Focusing just on the Free Will issue (as if the problem could be tackled in such a way) racks up a healthy 60 something entries. And that's just for the online stuff. And it's a partial list.
*Bangs head repeatedly against wall*
How the fuck can I expect to write something that has any bit of originality? Damn, when doing a paper like this, there should be a requirement of NOT using any secondary litterature.

jaramin @ 2006-01-06T19:47:00

2006-01-07T00:47:08Z

Tandis que j'ai la chose à l'esprit, parlons de Sharon. Évoluant près des cercles de politique à l'université, j'ai tendance à entendre des explications de nature structurelles sur les décisions politiques qui ont lieu, une description très matérialiste de l'histoire si on veut. Par exemple, lorsque tel "move" politique se fait, on regarde la conjoncture, on pèse les avantages pour le parti, on examine la situation économique, etc.

Pour ma part, sans ôter le mérite et la justesse de ces interprétations, il me semble qu'elles ont toujours eu le défaut de refuser que certains changements étaient irréductiblement dûs à des personnes, que des individus au pouvoir *peuvent* changer d'avis, peuvent faire des cas de conscience, tout autant que cela arrive au commun des mortels.

À mon avis, Sharon en est tout à fait l'exemple. Loin de moi l'idée d'en faire un saint, oh que non! Mais du moment où il tenait une ligne dure au Likud, jusqu'à ce qu'il procède lui-même à la dissolution du parti pour tenir une position ferme beaucoup plus centriste, il me semble que j'ai vu quelqu'un changer. Quelqu'un dont les motifs ne se réduisent pas à des intérêts politiques. Tout au long, il me semble qu'il a eu des moments d'indécision, de réflexion, de reconsidération : ça se voyait dans son visage, dans ses déclarations, dans ses actions. Tu peux te réveiller un matin et te remettre en question. Et c'est ce que je crois avoir vu chez Sharon.

Et là, peu de doutes, il va mourir. Pourquoi ces merdes là n'arrivent pas aux leader pourris qui ne manifestent aucun signe de changement, genre Bush?

jaramin @ 2005-12-25T12:27:00

2005-12-25T17:27:18Z

Joyeux Noël à vous tous!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

(As a gift, I'm draining the area out of badluck. As proof, my microwave broke yesterday and I and lost my digital camera in the evening!)

jaramin @ 2005-12-18T13:01:00

2005-12-18T18:01:37Z

Oh non, Sol est mort :(