Who’z gonna stop me?
Stand up and show yourself !
We play the graduate school game some more…. then we takez over the world…. ya man.
I started reading book by L. LeShan about a philosophical re-construction of the systems we use to do science. I think LeShan is the editor and there are a number of authors who contributed from different background. The main idea is to try to make some bridge between the domains where physics is applicable and the domain of psychology.
Chapter 1 was pretty good. It deals with the alternate realities, either altered psychological states of consciousness or different levels of physical description of the world. In both cases the underlying common principle is that different “realities” require different tools to deal with them.
I really liked this quote about individuals need to conform to the established reality.
It is immensely difficult for most of us to accept the fact that there is more than one valid way in which the world works. We are deeply conditioned to assume that we know the one truth and that everything else is, somehow, less real. To question this seems to us to be abandoning all reason and placing ourselves in a chaotic and unpredictable cosmos. It brings us to that “catastrophic anxiety” the psychiatrist Kurt Goldstein has described as the most severe of all anxieties. Goldstein has demonstrated how we, in out development, build our ego to support, and be supported by, that view of reality our culture believes to be the only correct one. If the model is no longer supported by th culture around us, or if we are faced with data that contradicts it, we feel as if we are in great danger, the danger that our unsupported ego will crumble and come apart. We feel that we can no longer remain whole. [p.19]
This makes me think of the nine eleven conspiracy theories. On the one hand we could have crazy whoacko’s who believe in non-sense, or on the other we could have ~500M people who simply cannot make the mental leap to question their government’s involvement in the operation. Even considering such an alternate reality will leave them so naked and undone that they prefer to ignore the data (agreed that we have only circumstantial evidence as to any involvement, but still there is a LOT of it).
I am also applauding the author’s frank admittance that psychology (the science of the internal states) has NOTHING to do quantum mechanics.
This was a mistake. Physics had shown that it is legitimate — and sometimes necessary — to use alternate interpretations of reality in dealing with different realms of experience. It had not devised a system that could be used to deal with meaningful behavior or with inner experience. Here, constructions of reality are needed that make the data from these realms lawful, not constructions borrowed from other realms. This mistake which some of us [social scientists] made was understandable, but it is now time we leave it behind us. Neither the metaphysical systems used in quantum mechanics, not that used in relativity theory fits the data of inner experience or those of meaningful behavior. [p.21]
This book is promising …. no quantum bullshit!
YES for once someone who knows what they are talking about ;)
ABST - Abstract
ADVS - Audiovisual material
ART - Art Work
BOOK - Whole book
CASE - Case
CHAP - Book chapter
COMP - Computer program
CONF - Conference proceeding
CTLG - Catalog
DATA - Data file
ELEC - Electronic Citation
GEN - Generic
HEAR - Hearing
ICOMM - Internet Communication
INPR - In Press
JFULL - Journal (full)
JOUR - Journal
MAP - Map
MGZN - Magazine article
MPCT - Motion picture
MUSIC - Music score
NEWS - Newspaper
PAMP - Pamphlet
PAT - Patent
PCOMM - Personal communication
RPRT - Report
SER - Serial publication
SLIDE - Slide
SOUND - Sound recording
STAT - Statute
THES - Thesis/Dissertation
UNPB - Unpublished work
VIDEO - Video recording
cool ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIS_%28file_format%29
Then there is a science pad which packages a TiddlyWiki with the HTMLarea WYSIWIG editor and some custom buttons.
Dood… this is amazing.
All I need to do now is port tiddly wiki to pyjamas and then run with it.
Kick ass ;)
I have a massive dose of caffeine waiting for me by the side of the computer. Good Arabica made into an elephant dose espresso. Seriously, every morning I keep putting more and more coffee looking for the death dose of caffeine. So far I am surviving. I am amazed at the power of caffeine. It is a completely legal drug, but the effects border on the magical. I get such a mental rush that I feel like I can take on anything.
This is why it is important to time the coffee intake with useful work being strolled about in front of me. Useful and important work. Then I drink the coffee and … bam!!… work happens I don’t even need to force myself, it just happens.
So basically what this means is that I can’t tell you about Girls and Linux right now. I must close this evil computa and take out the black notebook that has “Research” written on it. D. says I should just force myself for 20 minutes. After that I will be able to work.
Vamolos…
Sometimes you are reading an article:
“For every watt that is spent running servers,” says Dr Brad Karp, of University College London, “the best enterprises most careful about minimising the energy of cooling and maximising efficiency typically find they are spending 40-60% extra energy on just cooling them.”
and you think… wow there is some great and useful information. I am learning stuff.
As a scientist you should always check that this is the correct ballpark for this figure.
Otherwise some politician or corporate sales schmuck can try to fool you.
Go to wikipedia and lookup some figures and see that they roughly correspond with what you hear.
What you need is called a COP = coefficient of performance. How many kW of of hear are produced or absorbed per kW of electric power that is used.
Ex:
Resistive wire: COP = 1 (all the electric energy that dissapeared appeared as heat around the wire)
Typical air conditioner: COP ~= 3 (Manages to pump 3kW of heat from one place to another at a cost of 1kW of electric energy)
So check this out. You buy yourself a server room and you put some air conditioner in the building.
Now suppose you have twenty servers that total 2kW of energy consumption.
CPUs are all essentially resistive elements so you have (since COP(Elec — > heat) = 1 )
= 2kW of heat
Now this heat is not a problem because you have an airconditioner that can pump the heat out.
Its COP is 3.
Now you invest 1kW of energy into some pumps, and electic motors that move fans (all of this machinery operating inside the building) and what you obtain is 3kW of heat transfer from the inside of the building to the outside.
This is exactly what you need — you have 2kW of heat from the servers and the operation of the AC itself produced 1kW so you have a steady state of energy produced inside the building and energy pumped to the outside.
Let’s see the efficiency.
To operate 2kW of server you had to pay for 3kW of power. That is roughly ~ 50% overhead for cooling.
Are ACs generally inside the building or outside? If it is outside then we would get better ratios.
Though to do the full calculation you have to factor in all the battery power that goes in there from blackberies on all the contractors in suits and the body heat of every bearded sysadmin in there.
How many kW of sysadmin body hear does it take for 1kW of compute power?
conjecture:
For windows operations I guess COP 100.
For corporate UNIX, the COP must be around 500.
Mac servers are slightly less efficient than that at 400 because they have to power all that shininess…
And for Debian GNU/Linux or FreeBSD the COP is around 1000 …
I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can go to school so I decided to watch some TED talks. There is a whole series about the interwebs.
[ E. Morozov questions the dogma that more internet can make ]
[ for more power to the people. He suggests that it is just as easy ]
[ for the system to adapt to the use of the new technology and use it ]
http://www.ted.com/talks/evgeny_morozov_is_the_internet_what_orwell_feared.html
Comments: I think it is clear that having TCP/IP is power and the more power people have the better they can resist an oppressive regime. Now what you use the internet for will decide whether you are fighting the system or aiding it.
How could we defend against dis-information, smear campaigns and paid bloggers?
What should people be doing on the internet to fight the system?
I think the internet has an information component to it and a communication/collaboration component to it. Then there is also the transactions you can do, but that is less important for the current discussion. For the information part we would like to have the following aspects somehow built into future applications:
Above all, the main problem that the informational internet faces is quality. There are lots of good resources out there, but there is a lot more mediocre ones. The good resources get lost in the mass of shit. This is simply the nature of the medium, since it is based on 10 minute long interactions with a textarea. It is so much easier to just state what your opinion is than to thoroughly research a subject. And it doesn’t matter if you write something good, since your contribution will be lost in the mass of other comments.
How can we give incentives for people to produce quality thought, research and synthesis?
Maybe we can borrow the research journal model, where you are meant to write a well organized article with introduction, expos/e, conclusion and references? But then who will take the time to write so much?
As for the communication, it is clear that a lot of work needs to be done on privacy and robustness to infiltration. We don’t want the revolutionary effort to be compromised by the very system that is meant to organize it. Anonymous messages? Hidden group memberships?
There are numerous settings that need to be fine tuned in order to make the revolution work… if you make things too hidden then people can’t discover each other like-minded groups.
If you make things too cryptographically secure you might have criminal groups starting to use your platform for their operations, which would give the authorities an excuse to shut you down.
I am an optimist though — we will figure these things out sooner or later and we will have a united humanity avec les petits oiseaux cui cui….
After coming back from the conference and having a good dinner + nap, I felt ready to take on the Montreal party scene. The weather was warm enough for me to bike to a house party in the middle of the plateau. The girl/guy ratio was excellent — I mean EXCELLENT. When I arrived, I first went into the kitchen to take out the drinks I had brought and had a few shots of various alcohols. I really had to work on catching up with the crowd since they were fairly intoxicated.
As I am sitting in the kitchen island and spotting the women this woman starts talking to me and we share out amazement at Bulgarian culture and how immigrants learn French very fast. As we talk I am looking at this couple on the dance floor dancing Salsa. I am thinking how this could be a good occasion to go and practice my Salsa skills…. but I don’t want to interrupt them. Then the woman is like: “Don’t worry about interrupting them. J. is gay so he is no competition. Just go and grab her ass.”
At this point I realize that my friend and I are the only men at this party. And we have a few women for each of us. Unfortunately, I am was stuck with the Salsa girl for some time discussing European history and how there are underground cities, and who is the descendant of who and how the Cyrillic alphabet was invented.
I say “stuck”, because all the time we are talking I am following the amazing duo of the hostess and her little friend who are drunk to optimality and french kissing everyone and each other. The hostess is a little bijou with small figure and black hair with a fringe. Her friend is a little bit curvy, but very cute and energetic. They were having fun for sure. They were both after my friend but they were willing to kiss the ear of anyone who takes the time to sit down and roll. Lots of fun, and all this about 30 minutes after I arrived.
And so at one point I am alone with the little one on the balcony. She is sitting on my lap and we are passing around a joint. I am feeling her, kissing her on the neck and trying other erogenic acts you can do with your pants on. In this context and with absolute honesty she says something like:
“Tu n’es pas un vrai”.
“Un vrai quoi?”, je demande.
“Ben t’se… comme … “, she struggles to complete her sentence.
“Tu veux dire que parce que je te traite respectueusement, tu penses que je suis pas un vrai player. Le fait que je ne te slappe pas les fesses et que je ne parle pas à très haut volume, tu penses que je suis pas un vrai player?”
“Oui… genre…”
The roles thing again. I can deny all I want that life is essentially a role-playing-game, but the facts keep coming back in support of that theory. People you interact with don’t see you. Instead they will take 4-5 cues from your behavior and classify you as a certain type of person. I am not sure which type I am but certainly not the real kind according to this girl ;)
So what are the types? I really need to have a guest blogger woman to come in and state which types she sees, but off the top of my head I can pretty much guess the broad families.
type: rich-guy
type: player
type: geek/loser
type: gentleman
I am not sure if gentleman really exists as a classification. I have always played that role, since I feel this is my duty as a guy: to protect and support the women. So for example yesterday when I saw the little girl in a fairly advanced state of drunkenness pour a glass of red wine I went over and “defended” her against herself. I offered her some of my rhum and juice and then was passing a glass of water. A player would on the contrary let her drink the wine because the more drunk she is the better.
So in my mind I was doing the right thing, but in reality I was destroying my player image. Well, in all honesty the shirt I was wearing did say “McGill PHYSICS” on it so I guess any image of playerism was out of reach…
Am-I too real for these Montreal girls? Or are the layers of mental processing that I add onto every action simple blocking the natural flow of situations? We have reached a weird reversal in society when manners are actually bad for you. The best thing to do right now is to be direct, pogne some asses and speak loudly and obnoxiously.
I am going to figure things out eventually. Either that or I will buy an expensive shiny car and get me some superficial bitches ;)
I came to work today with the highest motivation to do work, but I before I start real work (i.e. work on my machine learning assignment) I wanted to install python and django in preparation for my upcoming talk.
Not so simple in Snow Leopard!
First off I had to get the Apple developer tools (version 3.2 NOT the older 3.1.4 which i had downloaded). Then I installed pip into the main repository and after that virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper. Now I can do “clean” python installs and not pollute my environment.
iPython is also an essential thing to have when coding, and it depends on readline which hasn’t been ported to 10.6 yet. Well that is OK because this guy explains how to you can do it yourself.
And so i have my virtualenv now with django 1.1 installed in it. Yey. I am victorious over these configuration problems. Not much work was done, but hey — rolling with the punches ;)
