Science vs Common Sense
http://www.itvnews.tv/Sci-Tech/Science/a-chimpanzee-planned-hundreds-of-stone-throwing-attacks-on-zoo-visitors.html
I get this one a lot - science is either derided as conflicting with common sense, or being just common sense.
This article however does seem to put the point very well for me.
A chimpanzee Santino at Stockholm Zoo has been stockpiling stones in the morning, then later on he gets agitated about all the shaved chimps (zoo visitors) coming round to steal his women, and starts throwing stones at the visitors to drive them off.
The visitors all used common sense - The chimp stores the stones so that he can throw them later on.
THus the chimp must be able to work out how he will feel in the future and plan for it.
The scientists say "we can't trust common sense". Ever. Even when it is obvious. So all those assumptions humans make about chimps, that frankly they are intelligent, need proof. Aha look a chimp that is planning for the future - this is a milestone observation.
SO the visitors for years have known what the scientists can only now prove - Chimps are intelligent enough to plan.
Makes bush meat seem a lot worse. Actually no, common sense has always told me bush meat is a vile practise.
understanding a ... world
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/04/14/Disneys-Evolving-Business-Model?TID=advert/wired/disney&print=true
OK, basically, there is a Disney film, made on a shoestring budget (well 4m USD, which is shoestring for these things.) called *High School Musical*, and it basically follows the 'lets put on the play right here' plot of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland fame.
It is worth maybe half a billion dollars to Disney Corp. Half a billion.
I have never heard of any of its stars, could not recognise them if they mugged me, and barely registered such a film exits.
Welcome to the disintermediated / segregated /re-internmediated world
I worship the ground you moon-walk on
A few months ago these spray-on pavement aphorisms, started appearing in London near Brick Lane. My favourite was
I worship the ground you moon-walk on.It had a lyrical romantic quality that appealed to me.
I was going to post the above into a comment on
JWZ's blog, but I try to never read comments, and anyway I could not justify the effort to sign up.
Most comments that are not outright abuse, always seem like that throw away line at a party, where one person has held the floor for two minutes, and then everyone else can jump in, but you get in first and it tails off towards the final syllable as you realise it was not really worth saying in the first place, and now everyone else is looking at you, hoping that there is a punch line, because what they had to say was a lot better, but they can't say it now because there is a big gap yawning under foot and nothing can fill it.
Anyway, blog comments seem to say, "if this was a real conversation, I could be forgiven for saying something with so little content. But I have had time to reflect, and I am still going to say it. Now what does that say about me?"
Oh, yes, my first link from this blog to another. They call it link love.
I call it selling out...
This is what an IT Manager is all about
http://random.noflashlight.com/scripts/dominos.py
This is a simple script that visits dominos web site and lets you know when the pizza is ordered, when it is in the oven, when it is on its way etc
The script is simple, the web site behind the script is also simple.
The amount of work involved in making it possible to write that web site is immense - and that is the defintion of a IT managers job - change the business, the processes, the infrastructure so we can tell our customers when their pizza has gone into the oven.
The things that would need to change are unified ordering system (or number at least), terminals at the point of oven entrance, ordering system that displays in oven and in call centre miles away.
A distributed messaging system based on a single unique order number sounds feasible, but there is a lot of 'legacy' to deal with there.
SO yes, hats off to dominos IT manager. Make the business improvement look simple.
Future Problems
THis is notes for a longer post
For IT managers there are 4 paradigm shifts coming
Disks are becoming tapes
Parallel programming
Information security is as busted as DRM
Disks are becoming tapes
http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=43
We need to recognise that for a randomly fragmented hard disk of 20TB (the theorectical limit with current technology) the time to access and output the whole disk is nearly a year.
A Year.
Parallel programming
Erlang my friends. Learn Erlang.
8 cores is pretty much standard for a server now, even buying less than two is hard.
But most code runs on just 1 core, and anything I write certainly does.
WHen 32 cores comes on line, is there going to be a benefit in running your apps 32 times faster or cheaper than mine. Probably.
Both the above lead to the much heralded Grid computing - we will treat computing like we treat electricity - ubiquitous and commoditised.
I just do not beleive it.
I can see how already commoditised services will be gridified - but lets face it the reason organisations use IT is two-fold: to not lose cost advantages from not doing what everyone else does (the move from letters and memos to email) and to gain competitive advantage by doing something better than others.
The first one will be gridified - if your email system works like everyone elses, you do not lose out. But most of the driving force for new IT is to gain a competitive advantage - to be able to do what others cannot. And that can, by defintion, not be commodity.
Information security is as busted as DRM
I have a database of important IP stuff. Lots of data. I can let it out of the firewall enclosure if I encrypt it. But the only way it is of value is if someone can work on it - in the same way that a DRM protected song is only of value if it eventually is played through earphones.
No matter what I do, unless excel and word and every other possible end client program uses the same DRM to protect my data, I am as busted as EMI.
I cannot concieve of this happening. Excel to prevent cutting and pasting?
Hunting Wabbits
http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/Games/StagHunt.html
The basics behind the stag hunt are simple - but they underlie the institutions of trust that make our economy feasible. THe northern rock queues are shown as an example of people preferring to hunt rabbits on their own (invest seperately from other investors) thus leading to the collapse of the stag hunt (bank).
Now presumably the way to build institutions is to ensure the profit from hunting rabbits alone is less than the profit from hunting rabbits together
Hunting stags is a high risk venture, and has two hurdles - trust of the other hunter, and success.
Building the first can be done through hunting rabbits together.
I am struggling for an example...but mutal savings and loans seem a good idea. As does the grameen bank
SO the first step in building rich countries seems to be building institutions that everyone trusts.
I guess that means the government too.
So it seems we can mathematically prove the bleeding obvious
Religion as an explanation
As an atheist, I often see God (actually there is a sentence portion that seems contradictory).
...ok...
As an atheist, I often
imagine God as a poor explanation for the origin of life - if God was so complex that He could design life in all its glory, how did God get to be so complex - if complexity requires a designer then God needs to be designed too.
It is also a very complicated explanation - lots for God to do, nothing simple really.
Evolution is a better, more subtle explanation for life than God, although many religious people reject the need for a better explanation.
Which is weird, as it seems apparent that monotheism was in itself a better, more simple explanation for religion.
Humans are apparently hard wired to posit intentionality to other thinking beings, (that Tiger intends to eat me) and this intentionality becomes teleogistic (that tiger is designed for eating me). This hard wiring trips in cases where intentionality is not realistic (that coconut is designed for me to eat, and that coconut tree intends for me to eat its fruit). This leads quite neatly on to animism - I shall worship that life giving tree that intends for me to have a nice coconut eating life.
Of course worshipping trees is ridiculous, and Abraham probably knew that deep down. So he wanted a better explanation than every tree or bush intends us some good or ill. And hey presto, why not use Occams Razor - the simplest explanation is correct. It is much simpler if there was one being who intended us good or ill, and that being made the coconut tree and the tiger. No more ridiculous animistic polytheism for me - its up-to-the-minute modern monotheism all the way for this boyo now.
Atheism seems a cleaner explanation all round.
monotheism as an better explanation of r intentionality
