Friday, February 19, 2010
Omnivorist is now tweeting
And if you are on twitter too there is a tweet this button at the end of every post. If you're not, then please don't lose any sleep about it.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
OCDM2
As if it isn't enough to suffer the distressing effects of horological monodigitism, I find myself plagued by a new problem - a mild form of obsessive compulsive disorder with musical manifestations (OCDM2)
I can think of no better explanation than to describe a typical episode.
I'll be enjoying the recollection of one of my favourite pieces of music - let's say Liszt's Fifth Hungarian Rhapsody - when I suddenly become aware that I have been whistling the same 4 or 5 bars under my breath for most of the morning. By the next day it has taken a firm hold and I find myself replaying the same loop in my imagination, more or less unconsciously. It's easy to put the tune aside once I become aware that I am playing it, but it has a sneaky tendency to start up again as soon as my back is turned. It's not unusual for a single tune to get lodged for 4 or 5 days, with occasional episodes lasting anything up to a month.
'Aha', I hear you clamouring to suggest: 'Why don't you just think of a different piece of music ?'.
If only it were that simple.
Certainly using one tune to drive out another is a sensible strategy. But consider this. There are only certain tunes capable of displacing one that has outstayed its welcome. The tunes you'd like to recall - the one's you're particularly fond of - they always turn out to be useless.
Just before Christmas, for example, I had a particularly persistent fixation with Happiness (by Goldfrapp). Now, on the whole, I consider this to be an intelligent and appealing piece of music but after two weeks of uninterrupted mental playback I was beginning to find it tiresome.
I tried a couple of alternatives. The Byrds: Eight Miles High - that classic from the very zenith of Californian hippy culture - never really got much of a hold. Much more promising was Friday Night and Saturday Morning (the Nouvelle Vague version featuring Daniella D'Ambrosio). I've worked with it in the past and know from experience that, while very effective as a musical purgative, it can be a devil to get rid of once it's got it's feet under the table. But - mercifully perhaps - it didn't take on this occasion.
So I was stuck with the Goldfrapp for a few days more before I did what I knew I'd be forced to do all along.
You see there's a fiendishly subtle twist to this particular neurosis that makes one suspect it to be the work of some malevolent intelligence. It's this. While there is no particular difficulty in identifying a tune to do the business - it will invariably be one that is both more banal and persistent than the tune it displaces.
So, out of desperation, I forced out the Goldfrapp with Jesus Wants me for Sunbeam which I endured for an afternoon before resorting to Puff the Magic Dragon. Beyond this point the choice suddenly becomes quite limited as there are only a handful of tunes that are sufficiently fatuous to deal with Puff the Magic Dragon. Of course, there's always The Chicken Song - but that could be regarded as overkill. No, there's really only one candidate as far as I'm concerned and that's Lily the Pink (by The Scaffold).
Some might regard the fact that this song topped the UK singles chart for 4 whole weeks in 1968 as no more than a minor cultural footnote. For my part, I consider it as clear evidence of a significant public health risk.
I can think of no better explanation than to describe a typical episode.
I'll be enjoying the recollection of one of my favourite pieces of music - let's say Liszt's Fifth Hungarian Rhapsody - when I suddenly become aware that I have been whistling the same 4 or 5 bars under my breath for most of the morning. By the next day it has taken a firm hold and I find myself replaying the same loop in my imagination, more or less unconsciously. It's easy to put the tune aside once I become aware that I am playing it, but it has a sneaky tendency to start up again as soon as my back is turned. It's not unusual for a single tune to get lodged for 4 or 5 days, with occasional episodes lasting anything up to a month.
'Aha', I hear you clamouring to suggest: 'Why don't you just think of a different piece of music ?'.
If only it were that simple.
Certainly using one tune to drive out another is a sensible strategy. But consider this. There are only certain tunes capable of displacing one that has outstayed its welcome. The tunes you'd like to recall - the one's you're particularly fond of - they always turn out to be useless.
Just before Christmas, for example, I had a particularly persistent fixation with Happiness (by Goldfrapp). Now, on the whole, I consider this to be an intelligent and appealing piece of music but after two weeks of uninterrupted mental playback I was beginning to find it tiresome.
I tried a couple of alternatives. The Byrds: Eight Miles High - that classic from the very zenith of Californian hippy culture - never really got much of a hold. Much more promising was Friday Night and Saturday Morning (the Nouvelle Vague version featuring Daniella D'Ambrosio). I've worked with it in the past and know from experience that, while very effective as a musical purgative, it can be a devil to get rid of once it's got it's feet under the table. But - mercifully perhaps - it didn't take on this occasion.
So I was stuck with the Goldfrapp for a few days more before I did what I knew I'd be forced to do all along.
You see there's a fiendishly subtle twist to this particular neurosis that makes one suspect it to be the work of some malevolent intelligence. It's this. While there is no particular difficulty in identifying a tune to do the business - it will invariably be one that is both more banal and persistent than the tune it displaces.
So, out of desperation, I forced out the Goldfrapp with Jesus Wants me for Sunbeam which I endured for an afternoon before resorting to Puff the Magic Dragon. Beyond this point the choice suddenly becomes quite limited as there are only a handful of tunes that are sufficiently fatuous to deal with Puff the Magic Dragon. Of course, there's always The Chicken Song - but that could be regarded as overkill. No, there's really only one candidate as far as I'm concerned and that's Lily the Pink (by The Scaffold).
Some might regard the fact that this song topped the UK singles chart for 4 whole weeks in 1968 as no more than a minor cultural footnote. For my part, I consider it as clear evidence of a significant public health risk.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Crocodile tears
Having picked up from somewhere that Alastair Campbell had come 'close to tears', on the Andrew Marr show, over the matter of the sexed-up Iraq dossier, I eagerly tuned in to the BBC website only to find that the tears were of the crocodillic variety and in any case didn't amount to very much. All the same, he did seem a bit upset and it seems that it's all to do with the way everyone seems to want to go on and on about the lead-up to the war.
What he doesn't seem to realise is that, while he may be tired of the whole matter of Iraq, the rest of us are just warming to the task of understanding exactly how things turned out as they did.
What he doesn't seem to realise is that, while he may be tired of the whole matter of Iraq, the rest of us are just warming to the task of understanding exactly how things turned out as they did.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Computer Chess
I have just read a wonderful article by Gary Kasparov called The Chess Master and the Computer. In it he describes how the earliest efforts to construct chess-playing machines were motivated in part from a desire to understand human learning processes, but how this ambitious goal quickly gave way to what's known as the brute force approach in which millions of possible board positions are systematically evaluated for the best possible move. The result is that there are now chess programs capable of playing at grandmaster level on a powerful PC and the question of the superiority of the human player or computer has been resolved in favour of the latter.
But Kasparov does not leave the matter there and this is where the article is so interesting. Though he was defeated in a chess match by IBM's Deep Blue in 1997, there is no resentment in his critique. While bemoaning the contemporary pragmatist approach in which 'the dreams of creating an artificial intelligence that would engage in an ancient game symbolic of human thought have been abandoned', Kasparov remains true to the conviction that research into game playing machines is as much about understanding human thought processes as it is about demonstrating the calculating power of computers. And he describes a new form of chess competition - advanced chess or freestyle chess - played between teams of human players using computers. Some of the insights gained from such competitions, in which the only constraint is the time available to each team, are fascinating - but for that you should read the article for yourself.
Reading the Kasparov article brought to mind a computer chess project of my own - mobility chess.
The way chess programs work involves the computer identifying all the possible moves available to it and, for each of those moves, all the possible responses available to the other player and so on, with the resulting board positions proliferating like the leaves on a tree. The number of moves that the computer can look ahead depends on the computer power available. In practice, the search is refined by considering only sensible moves on each side. Each of the board positions examined is given a score according to an evaluation function that assesses the value of the pieces and their positions. The computer selects the move that will lead to the board position with the highest score despite all the best efforts of its opponent.
The unique feature of mobility chess is the extreme simplicity of its evaluation function. While most evaluation functions attempt to assess the inherent strength and security of individual pieces or patterns of pieces, in mobility chess the only thing that counts is how many distinct moves there are available to choose from. For a given board position, the program simply counts the number of alternative moves available to the player whose turn it is and subtracts the moves available to the other player.
I wrote the program and played it a few times. It played an interesting game considering its sole goal was to keep as many options open as possible. It's principal weakness was an annoying tendency to develop its rooks too early but then that's something I recall doing myself when I first played chess as a child. Since the evaluation function in mobility chess is so simple the program has time to examine more positions - that is, to look further ahead. Perhaps looking a little further ahead would be sufficient to demonstrate the folly of early rook development - who knows? It would be an interesting exercise to develop a common framework within which different evaluation functions could be played off against one another. Would the winner be the function that took a very sophisticated (if computationally costly) view of a position or one - as in mobility chess - that is almost trivially simple?
There's no doubt which outcome I would favour; I'm drawn to that science (or is it art?) that concerns itself with ways in which complex behaviour emerges from very simple rules. But, of course, complexity is not guaranteed. Mobility chess might equally well turn out to be extremely boring. I haven't played it enough to guess at how things might turn out.
But Kasparov does not leave the matter there and this is where the article is so interesting. Though he was defeated in a chess match by IBM's Deep Blue in 1997, there is no resentment in his critique. While bemoaning the contemporary pragmatist approach in which 'the dreams of creating an artificial intelligence that would engage in an ancient game symbolic of human thought have been abandoned', Kasparov remains true to the conviction that research into game playing machines is as much about understanding human thought processes as it is about demonstrating the calculating power of computers. And he describes a new form of chess competition - advanced chess or freestyle chess - played between teams of human players using computers. Some of the insights gained from such competitions, in which the only constraint is the time available to each team, are fascinating - but for that you should read the article for yourself.
Reading the Kasparov article brought to mind a computer chess project of my own - mobility chess.
The way chess programs work involves the computer identifying all the possible moves available to it and, for each of those moves, all the possible responses available to the other player and so on, with the resulting board positions proliferating like the leaves on a tree. The number of moves that the computer can look ahead depends on the computer power available. In practice, the search is refined by considering only sensible moves on each side. Each of the board positions examined is given a score according to an evaluation function that assesses the value of the pieces and their positions. The computer selects the move that will lead to the board position with the highest score despite all the best efforts of its opponent.
The unique feature of mobility chess is the extreme simplicity of its evaluation function. While most evaluation functions attempt to assess the inherent strength and security of individual pieces or patterns of pieces, in mobility chess the only thing that counts is how many distinct moves there are available to choose from. For a given board position, the program simply counts the number of alternative moves available to the player whose turn it is and subtracts the moves available to the other player.
I wrote the program and played it a few times. It played an interesting game considering its sole goal was to keep as many options open as possible. It's principal weakness was an annoying tendency to develop its rooks too early but then that's something I recall doing myself when I first played chess as a child. Since the evaluation function in mobility chess is so simple the program has time to examine more positions - that is, to look further ahead. Perhaps looking a little further ahead would be sufficient to demonstrate the folly of early rook development - who knows? It would be an interesting exercise to develop a common framework within which different evaluation functions could be played off against one another. Would the winner be the function that took a very sophisticated (if computationally costly) view of a position or one - as in mobility chess - that is almost trivially simple?
There's no doubt which outcome I would favour; I'm drawn to that science (or is it art?) that concerns itself with ways in which complex behaviour emerges from very simple rules. But, of course, complexity is not guaranteed. Mobility chess might equally well turn out to be extremely boring. I haven't played it enough to guess at how things might turn out.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Iraq war enquiry
Interesting to compare and contrast a dedicated public servant like Elisabeth Wilmshurst with that slippery customer - Jack Straw.
As far as Jack Straw is concerned, I confess I couldn't be bothered listening to his evidence. There's something about his way of pleading to be understood that I find intensely irritating. For the life of me I can't understand why he's still around.
As far as Jack Straw is concerned, I confess I couldn't be bothered listening to his evidence. There's something about his way of pleading to be understood that I find intensely irritating. For the life of me I can't understand why he's still around.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Inmos
Inmos was a state-funded semiconductor company set up in 1978 and hurriedly sold-off by the conservative government under Margaret Thatcher in 1984. The company retained its identity until 1994, when it was fully assimilated into SGS-Thomson - a european multinational.
The years in between proved to be an exciting and special time - at least for those of us who were there - and earlier this week a number of people met up to celebrate the fact.
There was no cabaret, there were no smoke machines, no self-congratulatory whooping. As this was the first such reunion ever (in this country at least), most people were content to meet old friends, to share stories and to catch up on current news. I had a great time myself - as I am sure others did too. We have Claire Maudsley to thank for organising it all.
As Iann Barron - one of the three founders - said in a short welcoming speech, although Inmos is commonly considered to have failed as a profitable enterprise it fostered a microelectronics culture around Bristol whose influence is felt to this day. As the old company slowly collapsed in on itself it sent out spores that grew into new start-ups: some flowering spectacularly before withering away, others growing into significant companies in their own right.
See The Inmos Legacy by Dick Selwood to find out more, as well as the Wikipedia entry on the Transputer to see what it was that kept us at work late into the evening and - on more than one occasion - through to the next morning.
For me, one of the most remarkable facts about those years was that - not content simply to design the Transputer (a groundbreaking, microscopic, computing machine) - we decided we might as well design everything else we were going to need, while we were at it: a new computer language (occam), the software used to design the chip, the operating system, the computers on which that software ran, the communication network, text editors and so on - everything.
It's not like that anymore.
Ah ... but things were done differently in those days. Your modern silicon chip, for all its staggering power and complexity, is a cold and soulless thing. The devices we made were lovingly shaped out of the living crystal, their datapaths as beautiful as fine oriental carpets, microcode as rich as any tapestry. And we secretly carved our initials into our work (a practice long since outlawed) and emblazoned the corners with depictions of mythical beasts, peculiar to our secret guilds.
I was talking to an old friend at the reunion. He told me how his daughter, home from university, had suddenly confessed that she had no idea what he did at work and would he tell her. He explained that he had been engaged for a number of years in designing the devices used to construct wireless networks. His daughter looked puzzled. "But that stuff just works, doesn't it?" she said.
If you stop to think about it - it's a great compliment.
The years in between proved to be an exciting and special time - at least for those of us who were there - and earlier this week a number of people met up to celebrate the fact.
There was no cabaret, there were no smoke machines, no self-congratulatory whooping. As this was the first such reunion ever (in this country at least), most people were content to meet old friends, to share stories and to catch up on current news. I had a great time myself - as I am sure others did too. We have Claire Maudsley to thank for organising it all.
As Iann Barron - one of the three founders - said in a short welcoming speech, although Inmos is commonly considered to have failed as a profitable enterprise it fostered a microelectronics culture around Bristol whose influence is felt to this day. As the old company slowly collapsed in on itself it sent out spores that grew into new start-ups: some flowering spectacularly before withering away, others growing into significant companies in their own right.
See The Inmos Legacy by Dick Selwood to find out more, as well as the Wikipedia entry on the Transputer to see what it was that kept us at work late into the evening and - on more than one occasion - through to the next morning.
For me, one of the most remarkable facts about those years was that - not content simply to design the Transputer (a groundbreaking, microscopic, computing machine) - we decided we might as well design everything else we were going to need, while we were at it: a new computer language (occam), the software used to design the chip, the operating system, the computers on which that software ran, the communication network, text editors and so on - everything.
It's not like that anymore.
Ah ... but things were done differently in those days. Your modern silicon chip, for all its staggering power and complexity, is a cold and soulless thing. The devices we made were lovingly shaped out of the living crystal, their datapaths as beautiful as fine oriental carpets, microcode as rich as any tapestry. And we secretly carved our initials into our work (a practice long since outlawed) and emblazoned the corners with depictions of mythical beasts, peculiar to our secret guilds.
I was talking to an old friend at the reunion. He told me how his daughter, home from university, had suddenly confessed that she had no idea what he did at work and would he tell her. He explained that he had been engaged for a number of years in designing the devices used to construct wireless networks. His daughter looked puzzled. "But that stuff just works, doesn't it?" she said.
If you stop to think about it - it's a great compliment.
Friday, December 18, 2009
On seeing the Anish Kapoor exhibition
So I did get to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition in the end. Three of us travelled to London from our village and made a day of it.
Strangely though, it was the TV program 2 weeks earlier that gave rise to my more philosophical musings about the exhibition. The thing itself was more along the lines of a fairground - what with the funny mirrors and the firing of the meat gun every 20 minutes.
Some of the objects were so greedy for space that people had to pick their way around them. Others, like the huge mirrored surfaces, conveyed a different message. Through reflections (and reflections of reflections) of people and of architecture, they created all the space you could possibly want.
And then there was that massive wax stool, forced slowly and steadily through the graceful arched portals separating a line of galleries.
Now what was that all about, I wonder?
Strangely though, it was the TV program 2 weeks earlier that gave rise to my more philosophical musings about the exhibition. The thing itself was more along the lines of a fairground - what with the funny mirrors and the firing of the meat gun every 20 minutes.
Some of the objects were so greedy for space that people had to pick their way around them. Others, like the huge mirrored surfaces, conveyed a different message. Through reflections (and reflections of reflections) of people and of architecture, they created all the space you could possibly want.
And then there was that massive wax stool, forced slowly and steadily through the graceful arched portals separating a line of galleries.
Now what was that all about, I wonder?
Monday, December 14, 2009
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Just one more ...
The news that 29 senior managers in the UK Border Agency are to be paid bonuses averaging £10,000 each as a reward for, to quote the immigration minister Phil Woolas: 'delivering what the government is asking them to do', leads me to speculate on their baseline job description:
You will be expected to carry out your duties with no worse than mild to moderate incompetence. With respect to negligence or serious professional misconduct, there must be no more than one such episode in any 12 month period. Patronising behaviour, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and non-physical bullying will be tolerated, provided these are kept within reasonable limits and can be shown to be compatible with corporate goals.
And finally, at at time when many ordinary working families are facing unprecedented challenges to their security and standard of living, you will be expected to lead and motivate a team of 25,000 front-line staff by fostering an environment of mutual respect and shared values.
Reader: I thought you said you were going to cut down on this kind of thing?
Omnivorist: I know. It's just ... I get this sort of red mist.
Reader: For goodness sake! Try and get a grip on yourself.
You will be expected to carry out your duties with no worse than mild to moderate incompetence. With respect to negligence or serious professional misconduct, there must be no more than one such episode in any 12 month period. Patronising behaviour, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and non-physical bullying will be tolerated, provided these are kept within reasonable limits and can be shown to be compatible with corporate goals.
And finally, at at time when many ordinary working families are facing unprecedented challenges to their security and standard of living, you will be expected to lead and motivate a team of 25,000 front-line staff by fostering an environment of mutual respect and shared values.
Reader: I thought you said you were going to cut down on this kind of thing?
Omnivorist: I know. It's just ... I get this sort of red mist.
Reader: For goodness sake! Try and get a grip on yourself.
Friday, December 04, 2009
A sad day
I awoke this morning to the news that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to investigate claims of data manipulation and scientific fraud from within its own ranks.
Don't get me wrong: I don't believe for a moment that there is any substance to the accusations, but to say that the situation is serious - with the Copenhagen Climate Summit just days away - would be an understatement. To all intents and purposes the Copenhagen summit is now dead. Even if effective agreements can be reached in Copenhagen, back in the US Senate they will face something resembling an angry nest of hornets.
What is certain is that we are witnessing the successful culmination of a calculated, well-funded and professional public relations campaign. They will teach courses on it in future years (though they might have to get a move on, I guess). You can see how it was done here.
And with regard to my recent post - in which I tried to belittle the climate change sceptics - I now see that as somewhat naive. Dismissing climate change sceptics on the grounds that they lack scientific credentials is about as pointless as criticising a bunch of thugs, hired to break up a town-hall meeting, on the poor quality of their debating skills.
It seemed (to me at least) that the climate change issue could be argued in terms of science alone. After today it is clear it has to be fought politically.
See the DeSmogBlog for further background on the role of lobbying and PR in the climate change debate.
Don't get me wrong: I don't believe for a moment that there is any substance to the accusations, but to say that the situation is serious - with the Copenhagen Climate Summit just days away - would be an understatement. To all intents and purposes the Copenhagen summit is now dead. Even if effective agreements can be reached in Copenhagen, back in the US Senate they will face something resembling an angry nest of hornets.
What is certain is that we are witnessing the successful culmination of a calculated, well-funded and professional public relations campaign. They will teach courses on it in future years (though they might have to get a move on, I guess). You can see how it was done here.
And with regard to my recent post - in which I tried to belittle the climate change sceptics - I now see that as somewhat naive. Dismissing climate change sceptics on the grounds that they lack scientific credentials is about as pointless as criticising a bunch of thugs, hired to break up a town-hall meeting, on the poor quality of their debating skills.
It seemed (to me at least) that the climate change issue could be argued in terms of science alone. After today it is clear it has to be fought politically.
See the DeSmogBlog for further background on the role of lobbying and PR in the climate change debate.
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