Chat and Standards [en]

Do you ever get caught up on heated discussions in chatrooms? It happens to me all the time – well, when I do chat. I don’t chat half as much as I used to.

I usually feel strongly for what I believe in, and I have the (annoying) habit of trying to dissect my opponent’s arguments into little bits and pieces, turn them around and counter-check them until I reach the lowest common premisse from which I can rebuild my point of view, dragging my discussion partner with me through each step until we finally agree. So I guess I’m a real pain in the neck to argue with ; )…

Well, yesterday I had a fiery discussion about web standards in one of my favourite chatrooms. The person I was talking with saw web standards not as a common base on which greater freedom, creativity, accessibility, and efficiency can be achieved, but as a quasi-totalitarian attempt to dumb down the web to a set of arbitrary regulations.

It was very frustrating. I don’t know if he didn’t understand me, if I didn’t understand him, if my fierceness in discussion put him off, or if I simply didn’t have the right arguments, but we ended up in a dead end.

I have a strong belief that even if it is not possible for everybody to agree on everything, two people with different opinions should be able to come to a point where the discussion allows them to understand why and how the other thinks like s/he does. And it usually comes down to diverging premisses – or “hypotheses” on the world, if you prefer.

After all this, if you understand French and would like to see how irritating I can be, view the log …awaiting comments!

Brainstorm [en]

Waferbaby is now taking user-submitted brainstorms. So of course…

Is just friendship possible between a man and a woman, or does romance always get in the way?

Class Dinner [en]

Yesterday evening, mexican dinner with my old class. It’s always astonishing to see how much people can change and nevertheless stay the same in ten years’ time.

All of a sudden, everybody has switched from student-life to working-life – well, almost everyone ; )

Two of us are still studying, and a third will join us next year.

Our class used to be exactly half-boys, half-girls. The boys would stick together and so would the girls. When the class was seated around a single table, there would be a dividing line between the sexes. Don’t ask me why.
Last night, we all mixed up; it was a pleasant change. I talked more with some of the boys of my class than I had ever done during the three years we saw each other every day.

Maybe the “boys” have grown up a bit in ten years. I, certainly, have.

Trop Cool [en]

Vous serez certainement ravis d’apprendre que je fais un pityriasis rosé de Gibert. Charmant, non?
La bonne nouvelle, c’est que ce n’est pas grave du tout, ni incommodant. La mauvaise nouvelle, c’est que je n’ai probablement pas atteint le sommet de l’éruption. Je vais donc laisser mes décolletés dans l’armoire pendant encore quelques semaines!

Déséquilibre [fr]

[en] In English: Life is Movement.

Par moments je me plains intérieurement que dans ma vie les périodes de “vide” succèdent à  celles de “trop plein”, et vice-versa. Mais en fait, c’est normal: la vie est un perpétuel déséquilibre.

Qu’est-ce qui distingue le vivant de la matière inerte? Sur un plan chimique, ce sont les réactions oscillantes, qui se déplacent sans cesse de part et d’autre de la position d’équilibre sans jamais s’y arrêter, qui sont responsables de nombre de fonctions physiologiques – les battements du coeur et les échanges neuronaux n’en sont pas des moindres.

Ce qui différencie un organisme vivant d’une machine, ce n’est pas la capacité de réagir à  une situation donnée. Une machine le fait très bien. C’est la capacité de réagir à  potentiellement toute situation rencontrée dans le monde. Il y a un flou, une indétermination dans le vivant qui le rend suceptible de réagir de façon imprévisible aux stimuli extérieurs. Et une chose et sûre: dans cette indétermination se trouve peut-être notre liberté.

Lorsque je place une bille sur le dos de ma main, il n’y a pas moyen de prévoir sa trajectoire exacte – ni même de quel côté elle tombera, si je la place au milieu. On touche aux théories du chaos, dont je ne parlerai pas, faute de connaissances suffisantes à  leur sujet.

Alors quand ma vie se remplit d’un coup, que je me trouve soudain avec mille choses à  dire alors que quelques semaines auparavant je me désolais du vide de mon existance, je me dis que c’est ainsi que va la vie. Ma vie n’est pas en équilibre et ne le sera jamais.

Nous savons d’ailleurs tous qu’à  la longue, la routine tue non seulement les couples, mais aussi les gens.

Spring-Cleaning [en]

Spring-cleaning is a very satisfying activity. I haven’t quite finished moving in yet (understand: everything isn’t organized as I would like it, and there are still a couple of boxes to unpack) but my flat definately looks better. I mean, it’s presentable enough for me to receive.

And there’s nothing like a spring-cleaned flat to make me feel up to attacking my university work. Ricoeur, Changeux, Agrippa, Quine and Barnes and Ducrot, here I come!

Liberté [en]

A lire chez Karl un beau texte de Michel Bakounine sur la liberté.

La question de la liberté est épineuse. Chacun a sans doute au cours de sa vie à  la fois ressenti à  quel point nous sommes libres, mais aussi à  quel point nous ne le sommes pas. Pour ma part, je crois qu’il faut faire coexister ces deux réalités: ma liberté est infinie, mais elle est dans un cadre donné.

J’aime personnellement beaucoup l’expression “la liberté des uns s’arrête là  où commence celle des autres” – même si elle a été remâchée et ressassée au point d’en devenir un lieu commun, et utilisée à  tort et à  travers pour entraver la liberté d’autrui. Je l’entends comme une responsabilisation face à  sa propre liberté, qui comme le dit bien Bakounine (mais certes dans un autre sens) n’est pas indépendante de celle des autres.

Spring Luck [en]

For the second day in a row, the field at the end of my usual Cali-walk has given me a four-leaved clover.

Yesterday, I stooped down into a patch of clover. In less than a minute, I had found one. I had in mind that childhood summer afternoon when I had put into press a good score of these little green lucky charms. Today I looked into the clover again – and believe it or not, in no time a very pretty one had sprung up to meet me. Nice and regular, with heart-shaped leaves.

Now, don’t read too much into this. I’m really not superstitious. It’s just that it’s spring and sunny and that finding four-leaved clovers reminds me that I’m a lucky person. There aren’t that many of them around – at least compared to the lowly three-leaved ones.

In some way or other, things usually seem to turn out right for me. Never mind if it is only because of my confidence that they will, or because I make them so. Well, of course they don’t always. I’ve had my share of bad times too, and there are certainly more ahead. But it’s nice to feel focused on this aspect of my life – a pleasant change from a month or so back.