the UK needs me for one more year

-- unless the pound is weak. I have exactly 75 points, which is the minimum required to enter the UK as a "highly skilled worker" without any job lined up. I get 5 points for being 30. I'll still get 5 for being 31, but that's my last chance. However, I currently get 20 points for my income over the previous 12 months. If I earn more than £26,000 in a year (currently $41,344 or €27,870), then I can enter the UK whenever I like. Assuming they approve my application.

From the "notes" at math.berkeley.edu

Oct 2: Warning: Due to a known bug, the default Linux document viewer evince prints N*N copies of a PDF file when N copies requested. As a workaround, use Adobe Reader acroread for printing multiple copies of PDF documents, or use the fact that every natural number is a sum of at most four squares.

it all makes sense now

People will go to any lengths to hear Obama speak:

He said Oslo faced a major challenge to get ready for what will likely be among the largest civic events in Norwegian history: the award ceremony Dec. 10 at which Mr. Obama will be expected to deliver a speech.

way to look presidential

This picture looks like the evolution of man:

awful movie

When I first got to France and had watched a few of the movies my father gave me, with English subtitles, I asked him to rip some DVDs from Netflix that had French subtitles, since I thought it would make it easier to focus on the audio, while still giving me some help. As it turns out, the best way I've found to watch French movies is by using the English subtitles, but putting them on delay (pressing 'h' in VLC). With a delay of a second and a half, I get a chance to hear the French and try to understand it, but the subtitle comes up afterward in case I didn't. However, in addition to the many excellent films he gave me, I now still have a random assortment of French movies that were released in the U.S. with French subtitles available, and I watched one of them, "Crimson Rivers."

It has to rank as one of the worst films I've ever seen in my life. Spoiler alert: I feel no compunction about recounting the "plot" because it's nonsense. The dialogue, situations, etc., are abominable (there's a random fight scene with video game sound affects "A new challenger enters!"; the two main cops, both of whom "play by their own rules" have habits of randomly attacking people for no reason), but the biggest issue is that the plot makes no sense whatsoever. A prestigious university in the French Alps, which also has a hospital, has been switching the babies of professors with those of people in the village, to avoid the inbreeding problems the professors have had. When a mother delivers identical twins, they take one of them, apparently believing themselves safe because the mother lives up the mountain somewhere. However, she later moves to the village of the university, and the identical faces of her child and the stolen twin, brought up as the child of professors, is a threat to the university. They hunt her, and she fakes the death of her daughter, cutting off the daughter's finger as evidence of her death (are all children in France fingerprinted?). Later, she starts gruesomely torturing and murdering various people who were involved in this baby-switching plan. The police are dumbfounded when they learn that the killer, whom they almost catch at the scene of a murder, has the same fingerprint as the "dead" girl's finger (which was preserved, with no decay, in a plastic bag for 15 years). They are especially puzzled because the lead cop saw clearly that the killer had 10 fingers. Of course, everything is resolved when they discover that the killers are identical twins, and it was the 10-fingered one that they saw. Except that identical twins don't have identical fingerprints. And how dumb are you to steal one identical twin in your master-race breeding plan?

I watched a documentary on the DVD afterward, since the plot made no sense and I was hoping for some explanation. I learned that the director cut out all exposition, one main actor had no idea what was going on, an Arab main character in the book was replaced by a white one, and the editor said not to "over-intellectualize" the movie. But the writer of the book the movie was based on gave the nice, clear explanation above, that still doesn't make any sense. Nevertheless, "Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse" was made and is available for your viewing enjoyment.

representation

I learned at some point that Andorra was jointly ruled by France and Spain. The truth is weirder. It's been a real democracy since 1993, but the titular heads (that's right, heads) are the President of France and the Bishop of Urgell in Spain. So it has co-princes, one of whom is an elected leader of another country, and the other a religious official.

censorship

I'm listening to Lily Allen's "Fuck You" on French radio right now. I don't know how I feel about this. Guess I'm really a conservative American at heart.

hotels

I'm staying in a very nice hotel in Wrocław. They've supplied me with soap, shampoo, shower gel, shower cap, sewing kit, and vanity kit. Why no toothpaste?? A shower cap is something you can easily bring on an airplane, as is a sewing kit (I brought many needles accidentally on a few flights this summer). Toothpaste, though, requires a little travel tube to get through airport security, which I never have when I'm about to travel. I'm not even sure what's in the vanity kit, but whatever it is, it's way less useful than toothpaste.

another in the line of french medical "horror" stories

Last night, I noticed, taking a break from working (shock!), that I had triple vision in my left eye. I couldn't decide if I'd had it for long, but I went to bed with a worried feeling -- I have a pending eye appointment, but the earliest I could get was September 24th, and I didn't want to wait a month with triple vision in one eye. This morning, it was gone, but against my natural laziness, I started calling ophthalmologists. The first was gone all of August, but the second, after learning that I was going to Poland tomorrow, agreed to see me today. The secretary warned me that it would cost at least 79 euro. I saw the doctor, who guessed that I probably had had a visual migraine (migraine without a headache). The bill was 23 euro. Now the confusing part. Their machine was broken, so I got a form which I'm supposed to give to my health agency. They will then reimburse me for part of the 23 euro. So (I guess) the full bill was 23 euro, which (a) sounds insane, and (b) means I don't understand something basic about the 79. The doctor was in no hurry -- chatted with me about mathematics research, and spoke pretty good English. In total, what we have is a same-day eye appointment for what will probably turn out to be around 10 euro if I ever turn in this form, and 23 if I don't. Score one for French health care over every other health plan I've ever had, in which vision was never included.

From a NY Times article on marijuana

The people who become chronic users don’t have the same lives and the same achievements as people who don’t use chronically.

Don't you mean "people who don't use chronic"?