I winced when I read some of them, and others are just plain irrelevant. Here are the not too-wincey ones.
020060124: Critical Mass (Phillip Ball)
Well, this was a good book, but not a great book, and so I thought I'd spiel about it here rather than formally add it to my list of recommended books (a list which could probably do with some pruning). The central thesis of Critical Mass is that we can apply the kinds of statistical models seen in physics to social situations. This is because many of the population-level properties we see in large groups of people are emergent and primarily the result of interactions amongst the “particles”.
Right up to here I agreed with everything the book claims. Unfortunately I just don't buy the physics fetish quite as much as the author wants me to. Phillip Ball seems to be arguing that in the future we should be able to predict the behaviour of societies as reliably as we can predict the behaviour of large quantities of gas and that we can do this via an approach very much like that of statistical physics. This argument does not hold for two very closely related reasons. Firstly, a key assumption of statistical physics is that the particles are all identical, except for a few key easily measured properties such as velocity. This is clearly not the case for humans. In almost every respect, every human is different from every other. Furthermore, even assuming we know which properties we need to measure and which we can ignore, the properties themselves are not trivially measurable, especially for the large populations which we need to model events accurately. Any suggestions as to how we might measure how quickly each individual in a population of 10,000 will panic if a few others around them are? Thus the statistical approach starts to break down. The second problem is largely a consequence of the first. In such a varying population of “particles” stochastic randomness will take over. Chaos theory slips in and all of a sudden we can't make reliable long term predictions. A couple of the infinitely many little things we didn't model because they seemed irrelevant turn out not to be. Because we didn't take them into account our model now can't predict past its nose. In chaotic situations every butterfly is relevant.
The end result of all this is unfortunately very simple: the statistical sociologists are left with a devil's choice. They can accept that their models can only be rough generalisations, which means that they will typically only allow weak predictions to be made. This is no worse than the current approach, and is really more scientific and better, but it is not what the book aims for. Alternatively the “fundamental particles” modelled by the system must be made heterogeneous and just as complex as the models developed by standard sociology and psychology.
If we choose the former than statistical sociology is really something of a dead end, adding mathematical rigour for little benefit. And if we choose the latter than it becomes meaningless, claiming only that “If we have an accurate model of the human mind, then we can accurately model how humans will behave.” This letdown is unfortunate because the idea put forward by the book is a good one, and can hopefully be modified into something more general and useful. If that can be achieved it will revolutionise the social subjects, turning them from arts into sciences. If it can't - well, we'll still be able to do the odd useful thing with it, but it will hardly be groundshaking.
20050731: Missing - One Alien
Loosely paraphrased from Calculating God:
It's always a little eerie when jokes turn out to be true, especially when it makes them funnier.
020050715: Defining Strategy
While coaching at New Zealand Business Week earlier this week one of the presenters made a rather curious statement: pricing decisions are not strategic decisions. At first I dismissed this idea, as I could think of numerous situations where a pricing decision is strategic, but because not all pricing decisions are he prompted a question which I think is important. Simply put, what is it that makes a decision strategic, rather than tactical?
After thinking about it for a while I came to a conclusion, far from set in stone and only one way of looking at the issue. Nonetheless I think it is a useful way of drawing the distinction when the distinction needs to be drawn. Analogising strategy and tactics to cause and effect I would say that a strategic decision is a causal one. Tactical decisions are (in some sense of the word) far simpler and can be loosely inferred from the strategic ones. In other words strategic decisions are akin to free variables, tactical ones to dependent variables.
Keeping this brief, what guidance can we draw from this definition? To me it highlights the importance of not only making the strategic decisions, but deciding what they will be about.
020050715: French Military Victories
french military victories is a beautiful google bomb. To see it in action just go to google, type “french military victories” in the search box, without the quotes, and hit “I'm feeling lucky”. It's pretty obvious, but the website you end up on isn't Google…
020051126: C++ Returns
nextGen.push_back((this->*o.GetRandomElement())());
C++ - because no language has clearer syntax. And for those to whom it's not blindingly obvious, and surely it should be to all of you, the above code passes to push_back the result of calling the member function pointer to this returned by calling GetRandomElement on the object o. Phew.
020050809: While on the topic of aliens, new planets and so forth…
The answer to life, the universe and everything (in percentage points, naturally).
020040925: Accurate and concise
This site is not a link blog, but I will break my rules on the odd occasion, and The God FAQ is simply too accurate and too concise not to link to.
020040606: Why Kiyosaki Is So Popular (and Rich)
An interesting thought occurred to me recently - namely, the reason why Kiyosaki has been so successful. After all, the subject on which he's writing (how to get rich) is not exactly an uncrowded market, and hasn't been for some decades. So why have his books and seminars and tapes taken such a prominent position so quickly? Why him, and not one of the others scattered out there, writing exactly the same (and often more complete) advice? It's certainly not luck - but it is simple. You see, Robert Kiyosaki never gives advice. Ever. If you read his books carefully - and I have reread them to check, having had this thought - you'll find Kiyosaki never actually gives you advice. Which is not to say that his books are empty of advice - but it's not advice given by Kiyosaki. It's advice given by Rich Dad, an amorphous, never-named character who may not even exist. And the advice is given to Kiyosaki, and it's only on following this advice that he has success. This distinction as to who gives the advice is a subtle one, but it makes Kiyosaki attractice to his target reader - because every other writer on this topic that I've heard of gives advice themselves. And this style of Kiyosaki's has some significant advantages, the most important of which is in how people perceive him and react to him. He is never “above” them or better than them - he is simply passing on to his reader knowledge that he was lucky enough to be taught earlier. Because of this, readers identify with him, and sympathise with him - and support him. And they don't feel insulted or tutored or advised. Hence, even though his readers are being taught by him, they never feel that way. And so it becomes very difficult to actively dislike Kiyosaki - after all, he hasn't said that what you are doing is wrong. You might dislike his writing style or topic or any of a number of things, but you can never feel he has criticised something you have done. Sure, Rich Dad might have criticised, but if he has, then Kiyosaki will always have made the same mistake. And so, with him (apparently) having made this mistake, you are even more likely to support and empathise with Kiyosaki. Which brings us to the point: Kiyosaki's style is simple, smart business. No matter, what you think of his books, you have to admit he's good at marketing, because it is the word of mouth that counts here, and Kiyosaki has succeeded in having a significant and very positive influence on it.
020040315: A Future Predicted
“I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot.” Thomas Macaulay, British Parliament, 1841
An accurate prediction, no? (Yet those who create such things as DeCSS would almost certainly also agree with Spur1).
020030915: Challenger II
Is this prophetic or what? (Look at the date at the bottom of the article)
020030702: Sometimes C++ Sucks
stock.cpp:35: conversion from `_Rb_tree_iterator<pair<const basic_string<char,string_char_traits<char>,__default_alloc_template<true,0> >,map<SageCommon::Date,double,less<SageCommon::Date>,allocator<double> > >,const pair<const basic_string<char,string_char_traits<char>,__default_alloc_template<true,0> >,map<SageCommon::Date,double,less<SageCommon::Date>,allocator<double> > > &,const pair<const basic_string<char,string_char_traits<char>,__default_alloc_template<true,0> >,map<SageCommon::Date,double,less<SageCommon::Date>,allocator<double> > > *>' to non-scalar type `_Rb_tree_iterator<pair<const basic_string<char,string_char_traits<char>,__default_alloc_template<true,0> >,map<SageCommon::Date,double,less<SageCommon::Date>,allocator<double> > >,pair<const basic_string<char,string_char_traits<char>,__default_alloc_template<true,0> >,map<SageCommon::Date,double,less<SageCommon::Date>,allocator<double> > > &,pair<const basic_string<char,string_char_traits<char>,__default_alloc_template<true,0> >,map<SageCommon::Date,double,less<SageCommon::Date>,allocator<double> > > *>' requested
020030411: Mediasense
I would like to introduce a new word to the English language:
In unrelated news: “So far the World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported 2,722 suspected Sars cases in 16 countries, and 106 deaths. In contrast, there is a minimum of 250,000 deaths every year from flu and its complications.” (Source: TimesOnline)
Well at least there's ONE sensible media outlet…
20020819: An interesting UI problem
Here's a fascinating user interface problem… In the New Mexico desert sits a nuclear waste isolation plant. The radioactive material buried there will be dangerous till ~12,000 AD. What warning messages can we build that will last 10,000 years of wind, rain, vandalism - and still be understandable to our furtherest descendants, 400 generations hence? This study outlines the conclusions of one of the teams involved in the brainstorming phase of the project.