Oct 05

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“Sand will cover this place…Sand will cover you.”
- Paul Atreides from Frank Herbert’s Dune

So I was a month into graduate school and already the above sentiment seemed to accurately describe the prevailing scenario. Apart from the academic obligations of trying to glean new ideas from the writings of dead economists, there has been a surfeit of logistical ennui to deal with. For one, it appears that the gifted luminaries who comprise the faculty of this university still haven’t figured out how to connect a laptop to an overhead projector. Such highly specialized tasks are apparently the responsibility of qualified IT personnel at McGill. To make matters yet more appalling, said individuals then spend the first half hour of a lecture subjecting the room’s occupants to a display of unprecedented technological ineptitude.

Needless to say, I walked out.

Now, Nick is likely to criticize me for dwelling extensively on such seeming trivialities when the human race is, as he would put it, in the advanced stages of a countdown to extinction. But, bear with me, as all these presumably disparate ideas will soon fall neatly into perspective.

My first introduction to fractals came a few years ago when my then roommate, Andrew Ringler was creating some absolutely tripped out images on his computer screen using an innocuous set of mathematical formulae. Fractals, for those unfamiliar with the subject are mathematical patterns that exist on the so-called ‘edge of chaos’. Their other remarkable property is that they scale infinitely. In other words, no matter what distance you observe a fractal from, it looks just as fucked up. Take a look at a few good samples here.

So essentially, fractal dynamics applied to the social realm would tell us that the explosion of violent crime in Toronto and my aforementioned projector episode really belong to the same ‘fractal tree’ of human folly, albeit at different levels. In short, Nick and I are ranting about the same thing at different levels of magnification.

While on the topic of chaos, my roommate Ari and I (and you?) are about to create some next weekend. The inaugurating shindig at our loft-style apartment on the main promises to be, as a friend once put it, ‘ridicu-tarded’. The good Dr. Yeo will be on hand to provide outbursts of revolutionary zeal. Sethaniel D will attempt to preserve the moral fabric. Be there:

3507 St. Laurent Apt. 3
Oct. 14, 11pm
Bring your own drugs and sample some of ours