Monthly Archives: January 2007

"Computers are sequential, brains are associative" …

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In Alan’s latest blog posting he’s been discussing his thoughts around the power of sequential thinking. It was one of the topics we discussed when he came to visit me before Christmas., I’m glad he’s written his thoughts down, I remember struggling with some of the finer points when we were talking about it that evening. This entire debate originally began from the deliberately provocative suggestion Alan made to a collegue that the computational power of the complete internet is now roughly similar to that of a single human brain, something I mentioned in a previous posting.

His colleague like many people dismissed the hypothesis as impossible because computers are indeed sequential and brains are associative, yet as Alan describes in his posting the very nature of how the brain deals with sequentiality that is in itself amazing. Although our brains are massively parallel few of us can actually consciously think about more than one thing at a time. We think about one thing and then another but as our attention shifts so too do all the mental associations that we make and all of this happens incredibly quickly but the point is it’s still sequential.

I can’t help but think Alan might be onto something when he says:

… slower timescales that allow fuller webs of association to build and decay, but maybe there are other intermediate timescales of attention switching as well.
If this is right then the rapid sequential shifts of attention could be essential for maintaining the individual identity of percepts and concepts.

MMA: Quinton "Rampage" Jackson signs with UFC

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Don’t know how I managed to miss this … probably because I’ve spent most of the weekend in bed 😉 Anyhow it’s official Quinton Jackson has signed with UFC, and debut’s against Marvin Eastman on Feb 3rd. Jackson has spent much of his career competing in the Pride tournaments in Japan. What’s interesting about this move is that Jackson is one of only 3 men to ever have beaten the reigning UFC Light Heavyweight champion Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell. Liddell has already avenged his other two losses at the hands of Jeremy Horn and the iconic Randy Couture. I have no doubt that Chuck will want to settle old scores, and that the UFC will try to get this fight on for around September.

I haven’t seen Jackson fight in a while, but I remember watching their last encounter, it was an ugly fight, but Jackson TKO’d Liddell and the only other man to have ever TKO Liddell was Couture. As I recall Jackson slammed Liddell to the matt a few times where he ended the fight. Jackson is freakishly strong, an extremely good wrestler and like Liddell a vicious striker. I don’t believe Ortiz had the strength to force Liddell to the ground, but Jackson does, in fact he’s built his career around working opponents in the clinch and slamming them to matt with sort of high impact throws one expects to see in a wrestling ring and not in the Octagon. I’ll never forget watching him reverse a triangle choke by lifting his opponent into the air and throwing him out of the ring.

For those of you have not seen Jackson fight, or don’t follow Pride – I found this highlight reel on YouTube … it’s probably not for the feint hearted! In fact while I was looking for a highlight reel I found the footage of the first fight between Jackson and Liddell, you’ll need to sign into YouTube to watch it, to say it was a one sided contest is understating things.
2007 is going to an interesting year in the world of Mixed Martial Arts.

God, Inc.

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What if all the problems on earth weren’t caused by a spiteful deity, or karma, or even fate, but just office politics and the Peter Principle? That’s the idea behind this six part series on YouTube, which is set in the corporate offices of God. The series is the brain child of Francis Stokes a writer, film maker and evironmental guru. Only the first two episodes are currently available but after watching them I thought they were hilarious, if you get a chance do watch episode 1, and episode 2. Each episode is around 6 minutes long so it doesn’t take very long and they make for an interesting diversion.

U.S. Government to encrypt all data on laptops

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Was catching up on Bruce Schneier’s blog when I came across this posting. Immediately made me think of a conversation me and several members of our skywalk team were having on Friday over lunch at one of the local pubs. We were talking about the inadequacies of various types of security measures being considered by the UK Government, in particular the laughable ID Card Scheme. Rob made some interesting points about the government push of ID Cards in the UK and the relationship or lobbying for them by PKI vendors, im hoping he’ll blog about soon….anyway…

I remember rather anecdotaly mentioning during the conversation that whilst at aQtive Justin, Alan and myself briefly worked with a company called topsoft, who almost a decade ago had developed a full disk encryption system, which they were selling to other companies and the UK DoD. FDE systems have often been considered overkill, but encrypting every bit of information on a machine does mean that you dont need to rely on the user consciously choosing what to encrypt and what not to.

It is interesting that the US Government has decided to open up this selection of a product in the form of a competition … I find myself agreeing with Schneier’s assessment that:

It’s certainly a high-stakes competition among the vendors, but one that is likely to improve the security of all products. I’ve long said that one of the best things the government can do to improve computer security is to use its vast purchasing power to pressure vendors to improve their security.

But I’ve always been really wary of the whole idea of Key Escrow, the system just seems far too easy to abuse, and some of the worse violations of privacy, encroachment of civil liberties and indeed human rights have been perpetrated by so called patriots under the banner of “national security“.

Why software sucks

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Over on slashdot theres an excellent little article and debate around the issue of why software sucks. The slashdot article points to this news story on the Fox News Network. that discusses the book by David Platt entitled “Why software sucks …. and what you can do about it“. I haven’t read the book yet but I’ve added it to my things to read list. The debate on slashdot though is actually quite interesting and worth reading in its own right. What interests me is how some of the sentiments echoed in the articles and discussions resonate around my earlier views that programmers arent usability experts, and until we start developing software centred around the user … software will continue to suck.

Union of Concerned Scientists report on the tactics employed by ExxonMobil – spent $16 million to spread disinformation about gobal warming.

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Just came across this article over at the Union of Concerned Scientists. The UCS was an organisation that started off in the late 60’s comprised of students and faculty members at MIT. It’s since grown into an alliance of over 200,000 citizens and scientists, who are working towards a healthy environment and safer world.

I’ve been visiting their site from time to time my interest in it really began after 9/11 where scientists were discussing the plethora of security measures being proposed by governments as well the threats posed by different forms of terrorism. Their analysis was often more rationalised than the often hysterical or sensationalist reports that were fed through politicians and main stream media. However the topics they cover range from scientific integrity and ethics all the way through to specific scientific issues such as global warming or the debate on GM foods. If you have views on these issues, and others, then its definitely worth visting their site.

Anyway, this particular article relates to how ExxonMobil has not only adopted the same disinformation tactics used by the tobacco industry but also some of the same individuals and organisations, in an attempt to cloud the scientific understanding of global warming, delaying any action on the issue. They document how ExxonMobil has funneled almost $16 million to a network of 43 advocacy organisations to confuse the public on the issue of climate change.

The idealist in me hopes that the revelations in the report as well as the money trail it documents shows all the idiots who have blindly fallen for Exxon’s so called scientific arguments about how global warming isn’t happening, why and how they’ve all been played for chumps.

The cynic in me doubts that these revelations will change anything the reality is that its greed that drives politicians and big businesses to resort to these underhanded tricks because ultimately its their pockets that are being lined and for some reason they are either unable or unwilling to look beyond their quarterly profits and dividends.

I remember back when I was working at aQtive with Alan, on a hot summers day it started raining heavily, and the area around Edgbaston was flooded really badly. I commented on how freakish it was to have weather like that in the middle of summer, and I recall we had a short chat about global warming in which he stated the paradox around governments unwillingness to act on the issue was akin to watching some bloke saw through the tree limb he’s sitting on. I might be putting words in his mouth, but im pretty sure thats how he put it. It’s incomprehensible that governments are not doing more about the problem, or indeed as in the case of the US, wanting to completely ignore the issue. I often wonder if these politicians, particularly in the US, would be so closed minded on the issue if they weren’t so reliant on political contributions from the large oil companies.

Forgive my ignorance but can someone please explain to me what the difference is between a political contribution and a bribe?

Movie Review: Black

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It’s no secret that I rarely watch indian movies. I came to see my parents this evening, and whilst I was here my sisters put on the rather enigmatically titled Black. Normally that’s the point at which I go and find something else to do, but this time they convinced me to stick it out. The film stars Amitabh Bachan, Ayesha Kapur and Rani Mukherjee. What struck me was the raw emotion in this film. It isn’t one of those normal bollywood films, there are no dance sequences, no comic acts, and none of those badly choreographed, laughable, fight scenes.

It’s the story of darkness in the life of a a young woman, Michelle McNelly, who is portrayed as a child in the first half of the film by Ayesha Kapur, and the second half of the film by Rani Mukharjee. Michelle is blind and deaf and unable to speak, her world totally dark. Until she meets her teacher and mentor Debraj Sahai, played by Amitabh Bachan. Sahai has dedicated his entire life to teaching blind and deaf children to communicate. He takes it upon himself to remove the blackness from her life, the entire film is a journey between these two people as Sahai obsessively teaches Michelle how to sign, and how to live a dignified life, unaware that his own life will take an unfortunate turn in which Michelle will play an important part – when he becomes blind himself and finally looses his mind and its left to her to prevent him from harming himself.

It’s an incredibly moving film .. the kind twists your heart all the way through yet leaves you bathed in rapturous contentment as one critic put it. I can’t help but think it captures the same feeling of human triumph over incredible adversity and tragedy that films like The Shawshank Redemption have.

I never thought I’d ever recommend an indian movie to anyone but I do recommend this one. Much of the dialogue is in english, interspersed with hindi, whilst that might be offputting for some the movie is easy to follow and I think the emotions and acting transcend any language barriers. You dont just watch this movie you actually feel it.

… to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield?

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Decided I was going to spend a quiet evening in, am still knackered from my exertions over the holidays and was sitting here leafing through a book of poems, Tennyson’s Selected Poems. For me Tennyson has often been a source of inspiration, perhaps its something to do with the exquisiteness of the atmosphere he creates … his works invoke an illusion of loveliness … and its altogether too easy to loose yourself amongst those words. It doesn’t seem to matter how often I read them, the words never seem to loose their mystique, in fact I’m convinced that they seem to resonate more as I time passes … or as I get older as one of my friends suggested not too long ago.

A long time ago I committed this verse to memory, its the final stanza of Tennyson’s poem Ulysses:

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

I always find this verse inspiring, it always serves to remind me that my world is what I choose to make it even though life occasionally throws me the odd curve ball. But that when it invariably does I need to remind myself and believe that the answers I’m looking for are out there but that I have to strive to find them … they wont just fall into my lap.

I guess its that struggle that we all contend with, but its only through that struggle within ourselves that we discover who we are. Or at least that’s what I believe. For me this verse has always been about hope, which can be a wonderful thing. Ironically it wasn’t too along ago I read or heard somewhere that (forgive me I’m paraphrasing here because I cant remember where) hope is the quintessential human delusion – paradoxical in that it is both the source of our greatest strength and our greatness weakness.

I find that at some level I agree with the sentiment, albeit a little reluctantly. We all have hopes, which we often translate into dreams – these dreams or aspirations drive us onwards, or indeed downwards. In attempting to realise them we sometimes choose to draw inspiration from our friends, sometimes we draw it from those we love, at other times we find solace in our own thoughts, or in the cryptical words of others written in, for example, poetry … or even prose ;-). Yet all these sources of inspiration unequivocally force us to look within ourselves and confront who we are, and what is it we think we have achieved or have not. Have our lives had meaning, have we made a difference, have we made anything?

We often decide to pursue these hopes and these dreams, believing that we’ll find what were looking for in attaining them … but when you do you come to the realisation that you have attained but one goal, but where do you go from here? What’s next? and so the journey begins again. Of course its never that clean cut is it? hell, sometimes I wish it was.

” may all your dreams but one come true”

When I was younger I couldn’t understand the significance of this saying. I mean why would you tell someone you wished that all their dreams didn’t come true. The answer is so simple but so easily lost. It’s because without dreams, and the challenges they present us with, and new goals we want to attain, what else is there left to live for, right?

But for all the strength they can give us, there’s an inherent danger, or the great weakness. That we spend all our time dreaming and hoping, and never actually doing. There’s a simple way to address this though as Paul Valery so eloquently put it …

“The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up”

… and … to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield!

Google removes its Tips feature

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Google has removed its tips feature. In the past when you searched for “photo sharing” for example it would have presented you with the tip “Want to share pictures? Try Google’s Picasa Web Albums”.

This feature got some bad press recently, most notably Blake Ross blog entry entitled: Tip:Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose, in which Blake argued that this feature which points users to Google only services that arent necessarily the best of breed. It bumps to the top of the page an advert for a Google product that would not have appeared as a top entry in a search result.

Google haven’t offered a reason for removing this controversial feature, im hoping that they chose to do so because of the negative feedback they have received from advertisers as well as bloggers like Blake, and for me thats a good sign … that they’re still an organisation that is willing to listen to others.