By setting the microwave timer I’m watching two minutes pass. That’s insufficient time for me to make my bed. That takes about three minutes: to pull up the covers, to turn the sheet down over the blankets, to smooth the sheets and blankets, to fluff the pillows and arrange them over the sheets. I’m not taking into consideration fixing the bedspread under the pillows.

Assuming I make the bed six days a week (changing the linens on the seventh), that’s 18 minutes a week: three hours in 10 weeks; in a year (with two weeks’ vacation), 15 hours — almost two days of work. In 10 years, that’s 150 hours. I figure I’ve spent 900 hours making my bed so far. If I’m awake 16 hours in an average day, that’s equivalent to at least 56 days of my conscious life.

{ Life is like a microwave… | M.N. Kotzin /The Smart Set | Continue reading }

photo { Sandy Kim }

One of the most interesting things we learned in Artificial Intelligence is that what we consider hard, like chess and multiplication, is easy for a computer. What we consider easy–like recognizing emotions on faces, or visually distinguishing between a dog and a cat–a computer finds quite difficult. What is hard for us, is only because we know the right answer, and know how difficult it is to do the logic in our head. Most thoughts we take for granted are really quite complex, yet because we can’t even begin to write down how we do it, we do not realize it.

{ Falken Blog | Continue reading }

photo { Robert Whitman, 80s my livingroom }

Dignity is apparently big in parts of ethics, particularly as a reason to stop others doing anything ‘unnatural’ regarding their bodies, such as selling their organs, modifying themselves or reproducing in unusual ways. Dignity apparently belongs to you except that you aren’t allowed to sell it or renounce it. Nobody who finds it important seems keen to give it a precise meaning. So I wondered if there was some definition floating around that would sensibly warrant the claims that dignity is important and is imperiled by futuristic behaviours.

{ Meteuphoric | Continue reading }

photo { Manolo Campion }

I used to think feminists had  a lot of things to worry about, such as the fact that even the most educated and capable of women still make 78 cents on a man’s dollar, that women are still subject to many more crimes of physical and domestic violence than men, and that hard-won reproductive rights are in danger of being systematically withdrawn without our consent. (…)

Who knew? Facial hair is, apparently, a feminist issue.

{ The Chronicle of Higher Education | Continue reading }

What’s your permanent age?

I’ve observed that everyone has a permanent age that appears to be set at birth. For example, I’ve always been 42-years old. I was ill-suited for being a little kid, and didn’t enjoy most kid activities. By first grade I knew I wanted to be an adult, with an established career, car, house and a decent tennis game. I didn’t care for my awkward and unsettled twenties. And I’m not looking forward to the rocking chair. If I could be one age forever, it would be 42.

When I ask people about their permanent age, they usually beg it off by saying they don’t have one. But if you press, you always get an answer. And the age they pick won’t surprise you. Some people are kids all their lives. They will admit they are 12-years old. Other people have always had senior citizen interests and perspectives. If you’re 30-years old in nominal terms, but you love bingo and you think kids should stop wearing those big baggy pants and listening to hip-hop music, your permanent age might be 60.

Another way to divide people is by asking if they live in the present or the future. I live in the future. I don’t dwell on the past. I’m always thinking about what’s next. (….) Some people are locked in the past; it sneaks into all of their conversations and colors their perceptions more than it should. They spend their lives either consciously or unconsciously trying to turn the future into the past. They tend to be unhappy.

{ Scott Adams | Continue reading }

photo { Steve Buscemi by Abbey Drucker }

Is there life after death? Theologians can debate all they want, but radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long says if you look at the scientific evidence, the answer is unequivocally yes. Drawing on a decade’s worth of research on near-death experiences — work that includes cataloguing the stories of some 1,600 people who have gone through them — he makes the case for that controversial conclusion in a new book, Evidence of the Afterlife. (…)

Medically speaking, what is a near-death experience?
A near-death experience has two components. The person has to be near death, which means physically compromised so severely that permanent death would occur if they did not improve: they’re unconscious, or often clinically dead, with an absence of heartbeat and breathing. The second component [is that] at the time they’re having a close brush with death, they have an experience. [It is] generally lucid [and] highly organized.

{ Time | Continue reading }

illustration { Jong Myung Hwang }

I once tried setting my watch ahead a few minutes to help me make it to appointments on time. At first it worked, but not because I was fooled. I would glance at the watch, get worried that I was late, then remember that the watch is fast. But that brief flash acted as a sort of preview of how it feels to be late. And the feeling is a better motivator than the thought in the abstract.

But that didn’t last very long. The surprise wore off. I wonder if there are ways to maintain the surprise. For example, instead of setting the watch a fixed time ahead, I could set it to run too fast so that it gained an extra minute every week or month. Then if I have adaptive expectations I could consistently fool myself.

{ Cheap Talk | Continue reading }

In November 2002, an obscure Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman caused a sensation in the mathematical community when he posted the first in a series of papers proving the most famous unsolved problem in topology: the Poincaré conjecture. He caused another sensation four years later when he was awarded the Fields medal - the “mathematics Nobel” - for his work, declined to accept it, and then left mathematics altogether. When last heard of, he was living a reclusive existence at his mother’s home in St Petersburg.

{ NewScientist | Continue reading }

Russian math prodigy Grigory Perelman should be a celebrated millionaire. Instead, he is a poor recluse who lives with his mother.

In 2006, Sir John Ball, the president of the International Mathematical Union, travelled to St. Petersburg hoping to convince Grigory Perelman to accept his place as the most celebrated mathematician alive.

Ball spent two days there, locked in an increasingly desperate argument with Perelman, a haughty, dishevelled 39-year-old. Ball asked Perelman to accept a Fields Medal, the highest award for achievement in mathematics. The Fields is given out every four years, to as few as two recipients. Perelman, the man who had solved the insoluble Poincaré Conjecture, refused the award. Four years earlier, he had turned down a $1 million prize for the same solution.

Ball first tried to convince Perelman to travel to Spain for the ceremony. Since Perelman rarely left the dilapidated flat he shared with his mother, that went nowhere. Ball suggested Perelman skip the ceremony, but accept the award. He declined again. Eventually, Ball left, baffled and frustrated. The prize was awarded to Perelman anyway.

{ The Star | Continue reading | Perelman in a Subway [pics] }

related { It may be no accident that, while some of the best American mathematical minds worked to solve one of the century’s hardest problems—the Poincaré Conjecture—it was a Russian mathematician working in Russia who, early in this decade, finally triumphed. | Wall Street Journal }

A year ago, we planned to do the entire construction of our new home in 12 months. Everyone told us it was an impossible deadline. Well, almost everyone: Our builder told us from day one that we would be hosting our family in the new home on Christmas day. We didn’t know if he was the last optimist in the world or the best builder in the universe. But we liked his
style.

There have been complications along the way. Man, have there been complications. Every step has been like planning a walk on Mars. For example, the power company wouldn’t give us electricity until the city’s
building inspector approved the home for occupancy. And the building inspector wouldn’t approve the home until the power was on. (Huh?) Now multiply that problem times the 400-or-so people who worked on the project, either directly or indirectly. And imagine Shelly and me trying to pick everything from the color of the outlets to the curvy shape on the top of the baseboards.

For the past month, dust was literally rising from the construction zone. Workers were on top of each other. Our builder, who is the most gifted project manager I have ever witnessed, was solving a seemingly unsolvable problem every ten minutes. All knowledgeable observers told us we wouldn’t be in by Christmas. It simply wasn’t possible. It wasn’t even close to possible.

We scheduled the movers for the weekend before Christmas, and e-mailed party invitations to family members for Christmas eve. We didn’t want our builder to be the last optimist in the world.

Ten days ago, we didn’t have a driveway. Rain was forecast. Lots of it. The sky turned grey. Neighbors saw worker’s trucks lined around the block. They knew we were serious about getting in by Christmas. They also knew it was impossible. The rain alone would be enough to stop us. You can’t move
furniture over mud. You need a driveway.

We started packing our boxes.

The rain came. The driveway guys had huge plastic tarps. They worked between wet spells. The sound of drilling, sawing, and some of the most creative cussing you have ever heard emanated from the property. I guess no one told the crew working on the project that finishing by Christmas was impossible.

About a week ago, in the evening, I got a voice mail from our builder, Dave. He said, in construction lingo, that the panel was hot. We had power. It was the last major obstacle to occupancy. Inspections and approvals would follow quickly.

I can’t fully describe how the news made me feel. It was powerful. When the house became part of the electrical grid, it was if it became alive. The HVAC units rumbled and the structure breathed. Warm water circulated throughout the floors of the home to keep it at the perfect temperature. Soon after, the equipment rack in the wiring closet lit up, and the house had a brain. The brain connected to the Internet and became part of the world. It was a stucco baby delivered by 400 doctors. (…)

The movers estimated that we had 17,000 pounds of furniture and boxes to move from our old home and my old office. We thought we might have time to unpack some of them before our 35 relatives arrived and wondered what they were going to eat for Christmas Eve. We would need to lift and push and pull that 17,000 pounds ourselves about three more times after it got inside the house, and we needed to do it over a weekend. It was clearly an impossible task. Then Shelly told me that we were going to get a Christmas tree and decorate that too. That’s how we roll. If it doesn’t seem at least a little bit impossible, we’re not interested.

{ Scott Adams | Continue reading }

Tonight I walked into the Fedex Kinkos store on Calhoun Street here in Charleston, SC to print our Christmas cards, only to have the clerk, Tammy Johnson, reject my order as obscene.

We Cringelys are known for our Christmas cards, I admit, because we make them ourselves and we’re naked.

The tradition began by accident and now our cards are so popular friends remind us to send them.  Making naked Christmas cards that are tasteful isn’t easy, either, but we do it.

{ Robert Cringely | Continue reading }

It’s five years today since the world’s most famous computer game, World of Warcraft, began. And I’m both proud and slightly embarrassed to say that I’ve been there since the beginning. (…)

I believe that World of Warcraft matters. Exactly how and why it matters, though, can be hard to get at from the outside; much of what reaches the mainstream media is a muddle of scandals, statistics and pseudo-scientific scraps. So I’d like to take a few moments to recall just what it was like to play this game for the first time five years ago, in the company of an old friend who had managed to wheedle both of our ways onto the game’s American servers in time for launch—and why, five years on, the character I created then is still soldiering on through the northern reaches of the world’s most famous unreal destination.

What struck us, first of all, was just how much it felt like a world: huge, organic, inviting exploration. There were lakes, mountains, rivers, forests, cliffs, towns, cities, and lots of things to squash, splatter, maim and generally exterminate for the sake of various rewards. What struck us shortly after this was that, although there was a game here to be played, there was also an awful lot more to it than simply playing and trying to win. My friend had chosen to play a dwarf warrior as his first character but, unlike any other game we’d encountered before, there was no sense in which he was that character. As far as World of Warcraft was concerned, he was himself, and just happened to be strolling around a vast cartoon world in the guise of an aggressive dwarf. And that was much more interesting, because it meant that—for the first time any of us had known—you could actually be yourself while playing. In fact, you could be all sorts of things that your self didn’t normally manage.

{ Prospect | Continue reading }

image { Denis Zilber }

I would estimate that I spend a good two hours per day reading, writing and commenting on internet content, with absolutely no tangible, material benefit to my life at all.

{ 2Blowhards | Continue reading }

…Beryl Schlossman’s suggestion that in Joyce’s works language is the “hero” and is “at once center and decentering.”

{ Male and Female Creativity in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake | PDF }

It is language which speaks, not the author.

{ Stéphane Mallarmé quoted by Roland Barthes }

When Thomas Mann was a child his father contrived an experiment to teach him and his siblings a lesson about appetite. “Our father assured us,” Mann writes, “that once in our lives we could eat as many cream puffs … and cream rolls at the pastry shop as we wanted. He led us into a sweet smelling Paradise, and let the dream become reality - and we were amazed how quickly we reached the limit of our desire, which we believed to be infinite.” Here the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. We need only to experiment with our greed to discover that it is only in our fantasies that we are excessive; in reality our appetite is sensible; is, as we like to say, self-regulating - we know when we have had enough. (…)

When we are greedy, the psychoanalyst Harold Boris writes, we are in a state of mind in which we “wish and hope to have everything all the time”; greed “wants everything, nothing less will do”, and so “it cannot be satisfied”. Appetite, he writes in a useful distinction, is inherently satisfiable. So the excess of appetite we call greed is actually a form of despair. Greed turns up when we lose faith in our appetites, when what we need is not available. In this view it is not that appetite is excessive; it is that our fear of frustration is excessive. Excess is a sign of frustration; we are only excessive wherever there is a frustration we are unaware of, and a fear we cannot bear.

{ Adam Phillips/The Guardian | Continue reading }

photo { Peter Sutherland }

Alan Turing (1912 – 1954) was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist, who also wrote papers over a whole spectrum of subjects, from philosophy and psychology through to physics, chemistry and biology. He was influential in the development of computer science and providing a formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine (1934-1936).

In 1999, Time Magazine named Turing as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century for his role in the creation of the modern computer, and stated: “The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.”

During the Second World War, Turing was recruited to serve in the Government Code and Cypher School, located in a Victorian mansion called Bletchley Park. The task of all those so assembled — mathematicians, chess champions, Egyptologists, whoever might have something to contribute about the possible permutations of formal systems — was to break the Enigma codes used by the Nazis in communications between headquarters and troops.

Because of secrecy restrictions, Turing’s role in this enterprise was not acknowledged until long after his death. And like the invention of the computer, the work done by the Bletchley Park crew was very much a team effort. But it is now known that Turing played a crucial role in designing a primitive, computer-like machine that could decipher at high speed Nazi codes to U-boats in the North Atlantic.

In 1948, Turing, working with his former undergraduate colleague, D. G. Champernowne, began writing a chess program for a computer that did not yet exist. In 1952, lacking a computer powerful enough to execute the program, Turing played a game in which he simulated the computer, taking about half an hour per move. The game was recorded.

In 1950, his Turing test was a significant and characteristically provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial intelligence.

After 1952, Turing became interested in chemistry and worked on mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and predicted oscillating chemical reactions, which were first observed in the 1960s.

Turing’s homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952.

In January 1952 Turing picked up 19-year-old Arnold Murray outside a cinema in Manchester. After Murray helped an accomplice to break into his house, Turing reported the crime to the police. During the investigation, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray. Homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that time, and so both were charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, the same crime that Oscar Wilde had been convicted of more than fifty years earlier.

Turing was given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. He accepted chemical castration via female hormone injections, one of the side effects of which was that he grew breasts.

On 8 June 1954, Turing’s cleaner found him dead; he had died the previous day. A post-mortem examination established that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning. When his body was discovered an apple lay half-eaten beside his bed, and although the apple was not tested for cyanide, it is speculated that this was the means by which a fatal dose was delivered. An inquest determined that he had committed suicide.

On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war.

{ Wikipedia | Time }

A suburban high school student finds love (sort of) when his sleepy Louisiana town—and his plans to rob the grave of Adolf Hitler’s horse—gets rained on by Hurricane Katrina. A true story. (…)

The typical day consisted of us playing Super Smash Bros. on Nintendo 64 then walking to the gas station to get Icees. We’d sit sweating in front of the glass storefront, spinning the wise words only teenagers can.

“Man, this place sucks.”

“I know, dude.”

{ Guernica | Continue reading }

photo { Arnaud Pyvka }

Don Boudreaux had an oped in Saturday’s WSJ, on “Learning to Love Insider Trading.” The economic case against banning insider trading seems strong, yet the public overwhelmingly wants bans. (…)

Even with laws against insider trading, the speculation game is and must remain ridiculously uneven. Today most inside info gets into prices before official announcements, and well-connected well-organized investment groups are vastly better equipped to find and exploit pricing errors than almost all amateurs.

{ Overcoming Bias | Continue reading }

One of the nice aspects of trying to solve investment puzzles is recognizing that even though I am not always going to be right, I don’t have to be. Decent portfolio management allows for some bad luck and some bad decisions. When something does go wrong, I like to think about the bad decisions and learn from them so that hopefully I don’t repeat the same mistakes. This leaves me plenty of room to make fresh mistakes going forward. I’d like to start today by reviewing a bad decision I made and share with you what I’ve learned from that error and how I am attempting to apply the lessons to improve our funds’ prospects.

At the May 2005 Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference in New York, I recommended MDC Holdings, a homebuilder, at $67 per share. Two months later MDC reached $89 a share, a nice quick return if you timed your sale perfectly. Then the stock collapsed with the rest of the sector. Some of my MDC analysis was correct: it was less risky than its peers and would hold-up better in a down cycle because it had less leverage and held less land. But this just meant that almost half a decade later, anyone who listened to me would have lost about forty percent of his investment, instead of the seventy percent that the homebuilding sector lost.

I want to revisit this because the loss was not bad luck; it was bad analysis.

{ David Einhorn | Continue reading }

related { Glossary of Trading Terms and Phrases. }

{ The Barbarian Group and McLeod, Biomimetic Butterflies, 2007 }

related:

By the time I reached my senior year in 1997, my experience with the internet was limited to poking around on AOL while I was home for Christmas. (…)

Seven and a half years ago, Benjamin Palmer (CEO of The Barbarian Group) approached me and asked if I would be interested in starting a company with him. (…)

Our first job was for Nike (through Wieden + Kennedy). Our second, Volkswagen (through Arnold Worldwide). Not too shabby for a start-up working out of Benjamin’s apartment. Ever since then, its been success after success. We received a ton of press, a ton of awards, and never had to go searching for clients.

{ Robert Hodgin | Continue reading | Related: Flint C++ framework }