Category Archives: Personal

keeping track of history

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Alan’s written an interesting piece on keeping track of history. It’s a thought provoking read and I think he raises some valid points around how hard it is, even in the information age, to find out background information about news items, in part to due to the fact that they are often written before an event actually takes place – particularly with reference to political statements. I find myself agreeing with Alan’s observation that

If journalists do not see it as their job to give such background and it is still so hard to find elsewhere, then politicians can go on deceiving themselves and their people.

The pursuit of happyness

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Had a really wonderful afternoon/evening yesterday. My friend Richard and his wife Paula came to visit me. I’ve known Rich since I was around 11 years old, and we’ve been getting in and out of trouble together for almost twenty years. We spent the late afternoon at my place catching up since we havent seen each other in almost a year, we spent a long time talking, reminiscing and generally having a laugh ( mostly at my expense! 😉 – oh well some things never change :p ).

Later in the evening we decided to go out and grab a bite to eat and then catch a movie. Paula wanted to watch the new Will Smith movie, The pursuit of happyness:


Image source: Wikipedia

It’s an incredibly moving story and Smith’s performance as Chris Gardner is absolutely brilliant. I dont really want to talk about what happens in the movie so all I’ll say is its definitly definitly worth watching.

How technical writing sucks: The five sins

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I was commenting to my friend Rob recently that I think one of the things I need to really improve at is my technical writing. It’s something I think Rob is quite good at as are Ian and Justin and it really is kind of cool having those guys around to learn from. I do find myself reading a lot of their work … not surprising given that we work together…

It does frustrate me when I read something they’ve written, or others outside of work like Alan, and I wonder whether I could have made the same point as succinctly or eloquently or even as effectively. Now, rather mischievously, I could just say that those guys are way older than me and have had far more practice and experience at it … but I think that would be … disingenuous at best … a lame excuse for not trying harder myself … but hey I’m definitely younger and better looking than them 😉 I just know that I’m not as a good at writing. I think it’s because, just with any skill, you have to work at it, you have to practise at it in order to get better, and I haven’t really been doing that.

I’ve been having a relaxed weekend so far and have been catching on some reading. Came across this wonderful little article by Amy Hoy, whose blog I’ve been following for a while. Amy very succinctly describes herself as a designer-turned-interface-developer, which rather belies how good I think she is at it. Amy has a wonderfully engaging style of writing and whilst I don’t always agree with what she says (sorry!) whatever she writes is almost always great food for thought! 😉 She often makes me laugh, for example when I read here blog entry entitled “Are writers better women?”

Her article about the five sins, is a fun read but I think what she identifies as the sins [losing the reader, making the reader feel stupid, failing to stick , being a total bore and not providing much needed context] are all indicative of some of the kinds of problems my own technical writing often suffers from. Anyway I think it provides a useful set of criteria for me to try to assess my work with, I think I’m going to try and use it like that to see if it begins to help me evolve my own style … one that I feel more comfortable with. If its an area you think you need to improve at then do read her article, who knows you might find it useful too.

Five Things

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My fellow Talisian Ian Davis tagged me over on his blog, so here’s five things you might not already know about me.

  1. I’ve been playing Chess since I was around 5 years old. Even won a few competitions when I was younger. Although I don’t play as much as I would like I do often play online on ChessBase or try to solve those irritating Chess problems you see in newspapers, and I think I spend too much time playing and loosing against Fritz!
  2. Mixed Martial Arts takes up a lot of my time. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and some people have strong views against it as a sport but I love it, and it’s provided me with an outlet as well as inspiration at various stages of my life.
  3. I love reading. Anything from technical works, blogs to the classics and even comics. I’m a huge Sci-Fi fan and whilst I enjoy reading contemporary sci-fi I’m going through a phase where I’m reading many older works, I currently have a particular affinity with the works of Theodore Sturgeon as well as Isaac Asimov’s earlier writings. I even started writing my own story, it’s something I keep revisiting from time to time.
  4. Of all the places on earth I’ve visited I think Cape Town is still the most beautiful, it always feels as though I’ve left a part of me there … but that’s a whole different story 😉
  5. I struggle within myself to constantly evaluate and challenge the things I think I believe in … possibly in a futile attempt to try and better understand who I am, who I want to be and my place in this world … not sure how good I am at it but it doesn’t half complicate things.

I don’t really have five friends who blog, and since all the other Talisian’s have either been tagged by Ian or Rob, I’m going to tag the following friends:

  1. Alan
  2. Russell
  3. AndyP
  4. Dave Errington

"…you dumbass…" … dreams within dreams … and Descartes

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Had a terrible evening last night all started when I got on the wrong train at New Street and ended up in the middle of no-where. took me four hours to get home in the pouring rain. It was cold, windy and wet! I must admit I was a tad pissed off had all sorts of thoughts going through my head … stupid rain, stupid trains, stupid universe, … god must hate me well I’ll hate him back see how he likes that! blah blah blah.

Anyway as I neared my place I was actually pretty wound up and shivering, then suddenly this cat jumps out in front of me (makes me jump out of my skin!) and runs under this parked car to shelter from the rain I guess. Anyway I remember standing there momentarily looking up at the sky and laughing and saying out loud “oh well it, at least I’m not naked!” … ridiculous I know but it made me laugh, it’s a good job no-one was around I’d have sounded like a nutter!

Anyway I must have got home around 9:15, and figured I was way too tired to cook, and I was too tired to order anything in so I chucked a load of fruit, ice and milk into my really cool blender, 60 seconds later instant smoothie! Had that, thought about watching TV but decided I was too tired for that too so I trundled off to be around 9:45.

Anyway I had the strangest night. I had one of those really weird dreams where your actually having a dream within a dream within a dream. Not sure how or why that happens but its a bit bizarre. I don’t actually remember too much about the dreams, in terms of the details but its just the weird idea that I woke up from a dream to realise I was still in another dream, and then when I woke up in that dream I was still in another one! Finally when I did wake up I just lay there wondering whether I was going to wake up again … is it me or is that just freaky?

Curiously it got me thinking about something Descartes wrote in his Meditations on First Philosophy( which I still think is heavily influenced by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, I know many who disagree with me on that but I think theres definitely strong parallels ). Descartes attempts to find a way undermine all of his own beliefs. He does this by considering whether he is mad, dreaming or being influenced by a powerful demon, the idea being that if any of these scenarios were the case then many of his beliefs would be false. Descartes writings are often fairly inaccessible probably because of the way his works have been translated .. however in modern philosophy Descartes little experiment is the basis for the brain in a vat thought experiment, which most people find far easier to relate to.


Image source:Wikipedia

The brain in the vat experiment, in simple terms, asks us to consider the questions a) how do we know that what we are experiencing is actually real. b) if what we believe is a result of what we experience, and we cant be sure if what we experience is real, then can our beliefs be true? The experiment asks us to imagine the scenario that a brain in a vat is connected to a computer that provides all the identical electrical impulses the brain normally receives. The computer would then be simulating a kind of virtual reality but the disembodied brain would never realise this. One of the better dramatisations of this relatively recently was the Matrix movie which I’g guessing most people have seen.

Anyway I think its interesting food for thought.

Oh yeah … as for the dumbass bit … well on the way to work this morning, as with most mornings, I tend to get on the same bus with one of my colleagues, Amanda. She asked me if I’d had a good evening and I told her about my 4.5 hour trip home last night to which she replied … “oh Nad … your such a dumbass” …gee thanks Mandy! I’ll remember that!

Emotion-aware teaching software tracks students

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Came across this interesting little article over at NewScientist.com. The basic idea is that students wear rings fitted with sensors that monitor heart rate, blood pressure and changes in electrical resistance caused by perspiration, which it then transmits to a computer that assesses the wearer’s emotional state – and judges whether they are interested and keeping up or bored and struggling.

I’m not too sure about this, whilst there is commonality in terms of the biological responses the body generates in all of us the extent to which these manifest vary from individual to individual so I’m not sure how accurate the system is going to be in widespread use. Reciprocally if it was accurate then what would the social implications be of a technology that could assess our emotional state and take remedial action?

"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.