Cobwebs

As usual, I have left this web page to decay. I promise I will update it soon - in the meantime, know that I am now studying at the University of Alberta.

Who Am I?

My full name is Marc Gendron-Bellemare. I consider myself half-writer, half-graduate student - this means that I write fictious journal papers and conference articles. I aim to either become an academician, gain success through my writing or all failing, get married.

Over the last few years, I have done research on Reinforcement Learning and Function Approximation, more precisely on cascade-correlation networks. I have also worked on learning to predict sequences of observations. My main topic of interest is currently predictive state information and subjective representations.

I am a first year PhD candidate at the University of Alberta in Computing Science, under Richard Sutton. I graduated from McGill University with a Master's degree and a Honours BSc. in Computer Science, both under Doina Precup.

Contact Information

Email: My username (the part after the /~ in this page's URL) @ cs.mcgill.ca

About g. bellemarius marcus

Published by the Zoological Society Of Montreal

Recently, the g. bellemarius marcus was lured from its natural habitat in the Quebec City zone into the Great Montreal reserve. The Zoological Society of Montreal (The Society) has consequently decided to publish a fact sheet concerning this strange animal.

Habitat

The bellemarius marcus dwells, in its natural state, in semi-inhabited or uninhabited regions of the province of Quebec. It has been known to migrate during the summer to colder climes, namely the Lac St-Jean zone. Those migrations seem to stop past a certain age, which professor Luton in his book Beyond the Vastness of Pine Forests sets to 16 years old. After this age, the migrations still occur, but on a much more punctual basis.

No data exists as to whether the bellemarius marcus can survive past 18 years old in its original inhabitat, or whether it voluntarily moves to more densely populated regions (such as the Great Montreal reserve). In this reserve, it takes residence with a group of similar-aged animals, attempting to find animals that most closely ressemble it. Our marcus, which we have affectuously named 'Gopher', currently resides in the Pointe St-Charles area, away from the bustle of the main hunting grounds yet close enough for it to be convenient. (Editor's note, November 2006: As of January 2006, Gopher has made its nest in the Rosemont country, and is suspected of living there with another animal.)

Diet

The g. bellemarius marcus is essentially omnivorous, and self-sufficient.It has been observed making and consuming what most other animals eat, whether they come from the province of Quebec, the European natural park, the African savannahs or the Indian lands. Prof. Luton suggests that this capacity to produce various exotic foodstuffs was developed through sexual selection, as a mean of impressing the lower female species.

We have noted that Gopher does not take any pleasure in eating the food pellets that other species usually gain through an exchange of green papers with members of the ownerus restaurantus species. We believe that this could be due to its ability to produce food of similar quality. As the time of writing, there is a debate going on concerning whether the g. bellemarius marcus might spend some time during their teenage learning from the restaurantus species.

The bellemarius marcus seems to require black water (which it calls coffee, without respect for our much superior blue kafey) in order to survive. It consumes between 1.4Mq and 6.6Mq of such a beverage every day, with mean 3.13 and standard deviation 0.59.

Like other species, the g. bellemarius marcus is known to feel the effects of ethyl alcohol. As such, it sometimes indulges in the social ritual of imbibing itself with such a liquid. Dr. Zwax has noted a tendency to brooding and loss of verbal coherence when it is fed ethyl alcohol. We have noted that Gopher is easily lured by the smell of the Glenlivet 12 years brew.

Habits

Gopher spends most of its awake time in the McGill pastures, happily grazing away and listening to other animals snort, moo and bark. At night time, before sleeping, it often produces melodies by contorting its fingers around a primitive instrument it calls 'guitar'. It has been known to do similar hand-dancing over black and white keyboards, generating a different set of audible waves. Professor Xwt, in the second chapter of her Guide to Plastic, lists the following other activities as reported of interest to the g. bellemarius marcus (we have, for simplicity, given the names proposed by Gopher, as some do not have equivalent in our tongue): chess, old books and writing short stories. It often takes relatively long walks, covering roughly 15 znqs every hour at top walking speed.

Mating habits

The Zxlu Youth Foundation has petitioned for the removal of this section of our report. Due to sufficient pressure from the public, we have decided to comply. Those interested in the topic should refer to Prof. Luton's impressive amount of papers on the subject.

Final notes

Only one instance of this species has ever been observed, namely the Gopher mentioned. As such, most biologists and humanologists agree on the fact that Gopher is, in fact, a unique specimen, that cannot be classified in any way. Attempts at taming it have notoriously failed - we can all remember the day when Tliz, the janitor, lost his mind from talking to it. As such, we consider it extremely dangerous, and to be approached with caution.