Selective Congressional Powers

JC of The Brooklyn Go Club sent this blog entry by Glenn Greenwald out with his regular Go club mailings. I had simply assumed that Congress really could only control funding for the war, and not deployment of troops. Apparently the same Republicans who are advertising this understanding now had quite a different interpretation of their own powers when a Democrat was in the White House.

Rank Test

Karen had a link on her blog to Alexander Dinerchtein's test to determine your rank. So of course I went to check it out. Maybe I shouldn't ruin the ending, but my favourite part is the disclaimer when they give you your rank:

Please don't be disappointed if this mark is lower than your real grade.
We were mainly trying to test your understanding of the game.

Your actual rank depends on your reading skill, your ability to make decisions under time pressure, your state of health and many other factors.

The whole time I was taking it, I was thinking "Huh. This is kinda hard. He's going to say I'm 10k. Oh, well." and "I should be working, not doing Go problems right now". In the end, he said I was European 3-dan, but I think my "ability to make decisions under time pressure" (or lack thereof) tends to bring my rank down 3 or 4 stones.

Exploring

I finally got up to Camden this weekend. Camden has a slew of markets; it's probably comparable to shopping in the Village. If you want to get your Goth on, Camden is the place to go. The historic lock and the inevitable Starbucks provide a strange juxtaposition with the club-like stalls. The monstrous signs for the more permanent shops were the best part but, unfortunately, I failed to take any pictures. Maybe next time.

I was amused by the "Imported from America" items: mostly Salvation Army old little league t-shirts (and some which looked to me to be fake old kids' team shirts). It made me feel like I was back at home to run across a navy blue beat up old t-shirt with "Montauk, New York" circling the white outline of a sailboat. I was so tempted to buy it, but nostalgia was not strong enough to get me to fork over £18 for a mishapen t-shirt worn out enough to already sport a couple of holes.

Room with a View

I gave my talk yesterday, and it actually went pretty well--I even received compliments! I was pretty nervous about it, because there are some intimidatingly big names of number theory who attend the study group. It seems a bit absurd for me to talk to them about this stuff, but it means that I actually learn at least some of it.

Being the speaker meant standing at the front of the room, with a view out the window, instead of sitting at a cramped desk, staring at the board. On the fourth floor in the centre of the city, it's a really nice view. It's always better to look from the math building than at it.

So now, after two weeks of preparation for and stress over this talk, it's back to my work.

On a completely different note, my brother informs me that the Tour de France starts in London this year! My friend Severine (who is French--I know her from my Chinese class) said that there's a town near hers in France that is advertising itself as the departure city for the Tour. I guess London doesn't count.