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Archive: January 10, 2025
Archive: January 10, 2024
Archive: January 10, 2023
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When I started blogging again last December I had a backlog of "interesting stuff" to relay. Some of it was interesting at the time, but the interestingness was timeframe specific. Other things are interesting exactly because they provide a point-in-time snapshot. And some things are just interesting!
 June 2020: Facebook and PayPal invest in Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Gojek. Biggest country you never think about: Indonesia. Fourth biggest by population. An island nation where everyone has a cellphone and most everyone has Internet access. Gojek are way more than a ride-hailing service, they're on the path to be an "everything app" like WeChat. This makes sense. 
July 2020: Meet BukuWarung, the bookkeeping app built for Indonesia’s 60 million "micro-merchants". BukuWarung, meet Gojek. Imagine signing up 600,000 merchants in one year!
 July 2020: Visual Capitalist: The global inequality gap. As always from them, great data, and great to see visually.
BTW Indonesia's 280M people are near the top of the third world in most categories. Ahead of China (#1) and India (#2) in many of them.
One of those point-in-time things, Sept 2020: VDH: The news as we once knew it is dead. "Why? ... Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power … only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent."
 Nov 2020: via Digg: A Visualization Of The Largest Cities By Area Around The World. It's amazing how densely we live!
Continuing the Indonesia theme: Jakarta packs 10M people into [only] 256 sq miles.
 Dec 2020: Capturing the great conjunction. As Jupiter and Saturn crossed paths closely, the ISS crosses between them. Wow.
Talk about topical, Dec 2020: Matt Ridley: Why mRNA vaccines could revolutionise medicine. Note this article was written before all the Covid vaccines became available in Spring 2021. I remember reading it thinking, hmmm...
 Dec 2020: jwz: [the game of] Life at 50. A pretty interesting look back at a pretty interesting "game". I love the Marvin Gardner remembrance, remember Scientific American's Mathematical Games column?
timeless, Jan 2021: Matt Ridley: the folly of renewable energy. "If you judge by the images used to illustrate reports about energy, the world now runs mainly on wind and solar power. It comes as a shock to look up the numbers. In 2019 wind and solar between them supplied just 1.5 percent of the world’s energy consumption. Hydro supplied 2.6 percent, nuclear 1.7 percent, and all the rest — 94 percent — came from burning things: coal, oil, gas, wood, and biofuels."
Jan 2021: Stephen Wolfram: from Assembly Language to a Nobel Prize. On the calculations which come from Feynman diagrams...
Feb 2021: Joshua Newman: how to be lucky. "Most of us think that luck just happens (or doesn't) but everyone can learn to look for the unexpected and find serendipity." I so believe this.
 Feb 2021: Fry's Electronics closes permanently nationwide. A sad moment, but inevitable and long-expected. I spent many a pleasant hour browsing their shelves...
June 2021: Bill Gurley: Customers Love Free Stuff … But That’s Not Your Problem. I love Bill's posts, his vision is truly above the crowd. This was posted at a time of "hot" IPOs, not now, but these times will be back.
---- so yay, we made it halfway from 2020 to today ---
And to wrap up:
July 2021: The Indonesian government announced that they would deliver free telemedicine services for COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms across the country. Via Bercie Mesko, who comments: "It's only possible for them as they have startups that did the hard work."
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So I linked to an article in Salon criticizing ChatGPT for being "artificial" intelligence. (Actually, they didn't put it that cleverly.) And I noted, "I think we should ask ChatGPT to write an article, in the style of Salon, about how AI is not really intelligent."
So:
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Write an article, in the style of Salon magazine, about how ChatGPT isn't truly intelligent
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Chatbots have come a long way in recent years, with advancements in machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) allowing for increasingly human-like interactions. One of the most popular chatbot models is GPT-3, developed by OpenAI. While GPT-3 can certainly hold its own in conversations and even generate creative writing, it is important to remember that it is not truly intelligent.
It is important to note that true intelligence is a complex concept and is not fully understood. However, a key component of intelligence is the ability to understand and process new information, and make decisions based on that information. GPT-3, like other chatbots, relies heavily on a large dataset of pre-existing text to respond to prompts. It has been trained on a wide variety of texts, including books, articles, and conversations. This allows it to understand the nuances of language and respond in a way that seems human-like.
However, GPT-3 lacks the ability to truly understand the world in the way that humans do. It does not have knowledge of the world outside of the text it has been trained on. It does not have consciousness, the ability to perceive, think, and feel like a human. It does not have the ability to make decisions based on experience, or to process new information in the way that humans do.
One of the key limitations of GPT-3 and other chatbots is that they do not understand context. They can respond to a prompt with a coherent and seemingly relevant answer, but they do not understand the meaning behind the prompt or the context in which it was asked. For example, if you ask a chatbot, "What is the capital of France?" it will likely respond with "Paris." But if you ask, "I'm thinking of a city in Europe that is the capital of France," the bot may not be able to understand the context of the question and give a coherent answer.
Another limitation is that GPT-3 does not have the ability to reason, which is crucial for understanding the world. It does not have the ability to connect new information with existing knowledge, or to make deductions based on that information. This limits its ability to solve problems and understand complex concepts.
In conclusion, GPT-3 is a powerful tool for natural language processing and can hold its own in conversations and creative writing. However, it is important to remember that it is not truly intelligent. While it can simulate human-like responses, it lacks the ability to truly understand the world and make decisions based on that understanding. As we continue to make advancements in AI, it is important to keep this in mind and recognize the limitations of current technology.
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I don't know if ChatGPT truly captured Salon's style - the clickbait gotcha is missing - but that's not bad. Arguably better than what they wrote...
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Archive: January 10, 2022
Archive: January 10, 2021
Archive: January 10, 2020
Archive: January 10, 2019
Archive: January 10, 2018
Archive: January 10, 2017
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Ten years ago, today:
"we're going to make some history today"
Well that was true. Wow.
Notes on rewatching:
- Hehe, Macs running on Intel, how amazing.
- iTunes Store ... 5M songs per day. Of course, no app store yet!
- Zune, we hardly knew ya.
- Those old iPod ads were the best. Those white earbuds.
- Apple TV! Who can remember, it was introduced at the same time. Nice hobby.
- 22 min in ... every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.
- Who wants a stylus? Nobody wants a stylus.
- iPhone runs OS X. Really!?
- Sync with iTunes. Yep the first iPhones required a computer. Quaint.
- 3.5mm headphone jack. "All your iPod headphones fit right in."
- Accelerometer. Weird to think turning your phone sideways didn't used to do anything.
- "To unlock my phone I just take my finger and slide it across."
- "You had me at scrolling."
- "The killer app for a phone is making calls." Hehe not any more.
- Random access voicemail. Another breakthrough we now take for granted.
- First public call was to Jony Ive. Of course. "It's not too shabby, is it."
- SMS texting pre-iMessage. Hardly ever see green anymore :)
- Pinch to zoom - big ovation.
- Yahoo! Mail. Yay. Biggest mail service in the world. That was then.
- Realtime stock updates... APPL was up $2.40 during this keynote. Heh.
- "I want to show you something truly remarkable" ... Google Maps on iPhone!
- Calling Starbucks: "I'd like to order 4,000 lattes to go please" ... so great.
- It's my pleasure to announce ... the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt! This was before Android :)
- "You can't think of the internet without thinking of Yahoo!" Um ... yeah.
- Launch network Cingular. Remember them? Eleven days after AT&T had bought them!
- Love that anecdote about Woz and the TV scrambler at the end.
- Wayne Gretsky: "skating where the puck is going to be". Yep.
- Finally, can I just say, that version of IOS looks so much better!
- Pretty much the best tech product introduction of all time. The benchmark.
Can you remember what was in your pocket on that day? I proudly carried a Palm Centro.
I don't care what you say, that was a better time. (...more history...)
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Archive: January 10, 2016
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 I woke up this morning and said to myself, "self, this morning I'm going to blog [again]." And so I am...
It has been three months. Who can say why I stopped? I was busy, but ... I'm always busy :) Maybe I just didn't have much to say. And who can say why I'm starting again? I feel like I have a lot to say now...
Did you watch Pittsburgh survive Cincinnati last night? That my friends is what you call winning ugly. It was fun to watch though. And today we have Seattle at Minnesota, in a game which is predicted to take place below zero. Awesome.
By the way, ESPN's website is now so horrible that I can't even find the right article to link. What the heck happened over there? It was *never* a good website, and *always* a bloated mess, but now it's some weird unorganized and unnavigable collection of crap. Nobody could think it's a useful site, could they?
Sorry about Sport Illustrated's articles' video autoplay. That has to be the single thing I hate the most online, amid heavy competition. Actually if I could simply filter out all video the entire web would be better, for me.
PS do you remember why ESPN's URL is http://espn.go.com? Yep I do... it's a relic of the portal era. Try visiting http://go.com for an interesting surprise.
 Oh I have so much to blog about. Top of mind is the whole Ammon Bundy / Citizens for Constitutional Freedom thing. It pisses me off that people who don't understand the first thing about what's going on there are commenting on it anyway. Somehow it's cool if you're a SJW to claim racism here, like the only reason we don't call Bundy a terrorist is because he's white. Sigh. I don't condone the actions of Bundy et al, but clearly this sort of armed protest falls into a different category from Islamic fundamentalists. And what's happened to the Hammonds is clearly an astonishing abuse of government power.
By the way, my Bundy link is to Salon, which somehow managed to post a balanced article on this situation. Even a stopped clock...
Reading Salon has become such a chore, not because I disagree with them (I do) but because they're so stupid. I like reading the New Yorker for its intelligent discourse, and I used to like Salon for the same reason. But the average IQ of the typical post there has plummeted...
 For a good example of the stupidity of Salon, please see any one of their articles about the amazing success of Donald Trump, e.g. Trump talks at a fourth-grade level, maybe that's why the Fox News crowd loves him. Trump is clearly an interesting phenomenon that deserves a more nuanced and thoughtful take than this.
Do you follow Scott ("Dilbert") Adams? You should, he's a great blogger. His series of explanations for Trump's success, based on what he calls "the master persuader theory", have been wonderful.
In case you're wondering, I'm in the "anyone but Hillary" camp. I think I support Cruz right now - based on IQ - but I'm actually warming to Trump. Oh and I did/do like Fiorina, but I'm afraid she's peaked and could now only be chosen as a VP candidate, to balance the chromosomes on the GOP ticket.
Speaking of stupid, could our President's attack on gun ownership be any dumber? Murder is already illegal, so why would passing more laws do anything to prevent murder?
By the way, I don't own a gun and have never used one. That you know :) But I like the idea that a would-be burglar doesn't know that...
 Have you seen The Force Awakens? Or should I say, how many times have you seen it? I think it's awesome! (You knew I would.) I might have to see it once again tonight :) And I might have to tell you all the reasons why, but that would be another post. Suffice it to say, for this longtime Star Wars fan (I remember standing in line for six hours to see the first one), it was a most satisfying continuation / restart, and washed away the sour taste of the three prequels. Can't wait for the next one? (Who *is* Rey!!!!)
Related, 2015 was a great year for space movies. In addition to The Force, we had The Martian, which was wonderful. I loved the book, and I loved the way the book was brought to the screen. And as a bonus, I love the way it rekindled a public interest in space. Onward to Mars!
 My favorite space movie of 2015 wasn't fiction; it was SpaceX launching eleven satellites into orbit, and then landing the booster so it can be reused! I watched it live, absolutely on the edge of my seat, and when that rocket touched down I yelled louder than I have for anything for many years, tears in my eyes. Absolutely awesome. I think I'll be able to tell my grandchildren that yes I was there at the dawn of the commercial space era...
Do you remember the landing on the moon? (Possibly the right question would be, were you alive for the first landing on the moon :) Well I do, I heard it on the radio, and man, was that exciting! The dawn of the manned space. Unfortunately that was 1969, and we haven't gone back since... The ISS is all very exciting, but whole space shuttle thing never really got off the ground, so to speak.
PS NASA have started a blog, and it's great. For example this post: Solar System 2016 preview. Sounds like it will be a fun year, with Juno visiting Jupiter, the OSIRIS mission, Dawn doing a close flyby of Ceres, and Cassini's grand finale.
 And finally, speaking of grandchildren, I'm a grandfather! My oldest daughter Nicole now has a daughter of her own. Naturally little Orionna has captured my heart already, and has showed a healthy interest in football. More about her in the many years to come :)
That's a picture of my Mom with her great-granddaughter.
Well that's enough for a Saturday morning! I think in the coming days and weeks I'll blog in two directions, forward about new stuff, and backward about all the supremely interesting things that happened over the past three months... stay tuned!
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 You know what's cool? Making your first post in a new year, after three months off, and discovering that all your blogging tools not only still work, but seamlessly made the transition. My archive dutifully began recording a new year's set of posts, my logs rolled over, and I even have a new "this date in" link in the sidebar. Yay.
This will be my fourteenth year of blogging, if you can believe that. In that time I've made 3,193 posts, which included 9,870 images, and 22,527 links. At the moment I get about 5,000 page views per day, about half of which come from RSS feed pulls. That's so cool!
My most popular post is *still* the tyranny of email, which is still quite relevant today :), and my second is *still* IQ and populations, also still quite relevant in fact perhaps more so. Those were both posted in 2003, my first year, and I don't think it's a coincidence; over time, blogging has become more diluted, both because there's way more people doing it, and way more other stuff competing with it. And linking has become way less of a thing, so the Google juice you get from a popular post is way less. I actually think Facebook juice is probably more relevant now, but it's a lot harder to measure.
Well enough naval gazing, onward into another trip around the sun. It's going to be awesome!
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 I like blogging because I like sharing my thoughts, and the ego gratification of knowing they're being read is nice too. But in recent years another reason I like blogging is because I like re-reading my own posts, many years hence. The little Flight feature I have for my Archive is so cool for this; I can click a button and see what I was thinking about this time for each of the last fourteen years. (Try it :)
So I just clicked it, and what did I find?
- 2015: I was just settling in to watch football on a nice rainy day. Well that sounds familiar :)
- 2014: thinking about Space. I guess I do that a lot.
- 2013: checking in after ten years of blogging.
- 2012: a summary post, after a year of blogging on Facebook... and moving to Westlake Island, wow, can't believe that was five years ago!
- 2011: blogging about football. Heh.
- 2010: my first Tesla test drive (in a Roadster). The seed was clearly planted. Not to mention a trippy 0s-and-1s Matrix-like graphic, so cool, I must keep that for future reference :)
- 2009: a positive take on Obamacare, and Scott Adams on friends.
- 2008: a filter pass with comments about science and the iPhone's impact, and also celebrating the 100th ScanScope at Aperio, and analyzing the Cowboy's Dilemma.
- 2007: nothing, after a year of not-blogging :( except for an oasis of good stuff in May.
- 2006: nada. My nadir of blogging. There was some cool stuff in February, though...
- 2005: celebrating rain in San Diego (!), Vitamin D, TivoToGo, and a beach in an East German hanger...
- 2004: Ottmar Liebert on home-making, LOTR, and blogging about blogging...
- 2003: ten days after starting, a great list of notes, including Reid Hoffman, my book, Peter Thiel, a family up for auction on eBay, Carl Sagan's baloney detector, and the problem with metadata. Oh, and North Korea! Well that sounds familiar:
The more things change, the more they stay the same, and the more I like blogging about how much things have changed and how much they've stayed the same. Once in a lifetime...
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Archive: January 10, 2015
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 Settled in to a nice rainy day with lots of great football, including lots of great chili. What could be better?
Am rooting for the Ravens (over the Patriots), Colts (over the Broncos), Seahawks (over the Panthers), and of course the Packers (over the Cowboys).
Great news! L.A. stadium plans going forward. "The St. Louis Rams could be headed back to Los Angeles as early as 2016." I'm an old time Rams fan ... Roman Gabriel, Jack Snow, Lamar Lundy, Merlin Olson, Rosey Grier, Deacon Jones ... fXf!
 So, CES is finally over. Here's everything you missed. Whew. There always seems a bit of an offset; last year at CES it was "the year of wearable computing", and yet it feels like that year will be this year. This year at CES there were lots of tech/car things, and that might be next year.
SpaceX successfully launched a resupply mission to the International Space Station, but their attempt to land the booster on a drone ship at sea was unsuccessful. CEO Elon Musk tweeted "Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho." So be it.
 With the launch of Apple Pay, have they killed digital wallets? Seems like yes. Digital Wallets offered convenience to consumers but nothing to merchants and banks. Apple Pay is more convenient, and saves banks money (on fraud). Now all that remains is saving merchants money too, by bypassing the credit card exchanges. Stay tuned.
 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has written a novel about Sherlock Holmes' older, brainier brother Mycroft. Coool. Kareem continues to surprise :)
MG Siegler considers McDonalds vs ShakeShack. "The young are leaving McDonald’s and Taco Bell for burger brands such as Shake Shack and Five Guys. They prefer the food, they can afford the prices and they regard McDonald’s as unhealthy, outdated, downmarket and not a nice place to be." So be it.
Another demo shift: Brand and Retailers, if you don't get mobile right, you're screwed. Yep. Those same kids eating at Shake Shack are on their phones 24x7, that's where they live and that's where they shop...
 Too cute to be missed: Brody Brixton the French Bulldog puppy performs a bunch of tricks. Awww.
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Archive: January 10, 2014
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To infinity, and beyond! Actually, just to space. And so, where is space?
(please click to enbiggen)
This excellent poster illustrates the proportion of Jet Flight (10 miles) to "space" (60 miles or so, by convention), to low Earth orbit (500-1,000 miles), to GPS satellites (12,000 miles), to Geosynchronous orbit (22,000 miles). And the ratio of those to the Moon (230,000 miles).
 I happened upon this while reading about the latest flight by Virgin Galactic, in which they reached that 10 miles mark. Not to take anything away from them, but they have a ways to go before reaching "space", even at the most generous definition of 60 miles. Still they made it, and made it back, and they're making progress. More power to them!
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Archive: January 10, 2013
Archive: January 8, 2012
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Hi there! I'm still in my self-imposed exile from blogging, but I thought I'd poke my head out for a second and say "hi"... I haven't forgotten you. My deeply nested yak shaving as I reconfigure my blogging regime continues, and I must tell you many other things have interfered with my recovery. Not least of which, is: I'm moving! This is the last post I will ever make from my old house, in which I have lived for ten years. It's kind of sad, and kind of exciting, and kind of a lot of work.
Ah, the life at sea ... actually it's just a little lake. But I'm looking forward to living on it :)
I live in Westlake Village, and there is a Westlake Lake, and it has an island, and as of tomorrow I will be living on it. Among all the things I'm moving is my 11-year-old-PC-turned-into-a-webserver, on which this blog is hosted. So there will be a disruption in the force, and if all goes well I'll be back on the air in a day or two. Stay tuned, I will keep you posted, assuming I make it there :)
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Archive: January 9, 2011
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Wow, what a wild [card] weekend! Great football games.
 I was heavily rooting for Seattle over New Orleans, and how great was it that they won? I love it when the worse team plays better and ends up winning. The Saints are a great football team, while the Seahawks are merely good, but yesterday they rose to the occasion. (In fact, as the first 7-9 division winner you could argue they aren't even "merely good".) I am a Pete Carroll fan - yeah, I know about the USC recruiting violations, but hey the USC teams were great because of Pete, not because of recruiting - and it is nice to see him have success in the NFL. The enthusiasm and energy of the Seahawks was palpable; they actually thought they could win. And they did... Next weekend they play the Bears, and I'm telling you they could win that game. You know they will think so too!
 Next up was a thriller of a different kind, a game that went down to the wire, with dueling last minute drives and field goals; first Manning set up Vinateri to put the Colts ahead (ho hum, what's new), but then Sanchez set up Folk for the win (awesome!) I was rooting for the Jets, they were the worse team which played better, and while I respect Manning I've never been a big Colts fan. And you have to like Mark Sanchez, and Rex Ryan... next up for them are the Patriots, good luck!
Today's first game was a laugher; the Ravens steamrolled the Chiefs. The better team played better, and that's what happens. I had no rooting interest and skipped through most of the game. The Baltimore defense looked pretty tough, I imagine they're going to give Pittsburgh a tough time next week in what should be a great game.
And then tonight's game was another wild one capping the wild weekend, as Green Bay prevailed over Philadelphia. When in doubt I always root for Green Bay; I love it that a town of 100,000 people sustains an NFL team. It was an interesting game, with a lot of back and forth; I hesitate to say the better team played better, I'd say the teams were evenly matched, if different, and in the end the consistency of Aaron Rodgers and the Packers outlasted the brilliance of Michael Vick and the Eagles. I'd give Green Bay an even chance against the Falcons next weekend.
It was a wild weekend featuring a lot of nothing; too cold to ride, so I contented myself with working on the elliptical while watching football. Onward!
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Archive: January 10, 2010
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Yee haw! Today I test drove launched a Tesla Roadster.
As I mentioned I'd been invited to Tesla's Santa Monica store for a test drive, and this afternoon I rode down there and hung out for a couple of hours ogling cars. And then I drove one... whoa! So you've read the reviews, you know what everyone says, there is this incredible torque right off the line, and it goes smoothly 0-60 in 3.7s and 40-80 in no time at all. But you have no idea how that really feels until you've sat in one and done it yourself. It is amazing. There is a slight whoosh and bam! you are going 60mph, with your body flattened into the bucket seats. Amazing. I could do that all day :)
The cars are truly teeny, with just enough room for two people and a storage compartment for a golf bag. Perfect for traveling from A to B, just you and a friend, but forget anything you ever thought about carrying "stuff" along. The soft top is easily removed and replaced, and leaves considerable headroom; but you will feel like you are 8 inches off the road while driving (which you are :)
The car handles well, steering is tight, and the ride is smoother than you might think considering the size of the car; I believe because of the batteries it is heavier than you might think, too. The regenerative braking makes the car feel like it has a manual transmission; you let your foot off the gas, and it slows down immediately. You basically control how fast you're going with just the accelerator, and barely need brakes.
I have to say I am left wanting one badly, not to have an electric car, but to have a car which drives like this, which oh by the way happens to be electric. Anyway it was great fun, much more than a good excuse for an 80 mile ride...
my mighty steed
not crazy about that orange, but the carbon fibre trim is rather excellent
the cockpit is big enough for you and a friend, and nothing else
nice wheel, and the steering is tight...
gauge on the left is speedometer, on the right is volts delivered; the green range is regenerative braking
there is a spiffy touchscreen in the middle which controls all the car's settings
the powertrain
276 ft-lbs of torque, up to 12,000 rpm, and a single-speed transmission
test launch! off we go...
two thumbs up, whoa!
cool, comes in a nice blue, too... hmmm :)
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 01/10/10 at 10:01; full house, tens high :)
...and so today I coded... it was good.
 Say you're a whale. Say you're happy. Say you feel like, I don't know, jumping for joy. What do you do? You jump for joy, of course! WOW. And how amazing must it have been to be right there, watching?
So CES is over, and what did we learn this week? Android (especially the Google Nexus One), and 3D TV. Even though the former gathered more headlines, I think the latter is going to be more significant in the long run. Everyone who's seen Avatar walks out of the theater primed to buy 3D for their family room.
So did you watch the playoffs today? Did you see Kurt Warner put on a performance of the ages, leading Arizona to a 51-45 overtime win over Green Bay? Wow, how cool was that... I don't think Arizona is going all the way, and I don't think Mr. Warner is coming back next year, but what a way to exit, stage left. Go old guys!
Huh, really? TechCrunch thinks this will be the year Adobe's 2M Flash developers come to the iPhone. I don't think Apple will ever support a Flash runtime, but I do think Adobe will successfully create a Packager for iPhone to compile Flash source code into a native iPhone app. And I do think that will be big. (And since Aperio has a digital pathology viewer built with Flash, I do think I'm rooting for it to happen!)
 From the Oatmeal: printers were sent from hell to make us miserable. "Printers, unlike other technologies, are remarkable in the fact that they're just as crappy and unreliable now as they were in 1995." Amen.
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Archive: January 9, 2009
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 Wow, Healthcare could nab $100B payday in Obama stimulus package. Certainly a better investment of tax dollars than saving autoworker jobs, eh?
Scott Adams: Define friend: 1) Someone you have told a secret, 2) Someone who has accepted a favor from you. Interesting definition. I think he's right about defining it in terms of what you do, instead of what your friend does, but I think for me it is more forward-looking, something like: 1) Someone I could tell a secret, 2) Someone who would accept a favor from me.
Scott certainly has some inane posts, but then he comes back with deeply introspective and interesting ones like this. I think he could be a friend :)
Eric Raymond: My comment to the FCC on DRM. "DRM is a disaster for everyone involved with it, because it cannot do what it claims but imposes large costs in the process of failing. The people who have sold DRM technologies to Big Media are frauds playing on the ignorance of media executives, and both the media companies and the consumer have suffered greatly and unnecessarily as a result." As one of the founders of Open Source, Eric has standing to comment, and his remarks are dead on IMHO. DRM = bad, full stop. {I think of this every time I wait for my TV to validate HDMI.}
 Ann Althouse likes Gran Torino. I'm hearing that a lot, might have to go see it. Interesting that Clint Eastwood remains a favorite Hollywood heavy despite being in his 70s. He's been making people's days for a while now :)
Biographical note: as a kid, my Mom drove a Gran Torino station wagon. Probably the world's largest car. I believe you could haul aircraft with that thing. Certainly an entire little league team, as she proved on many occasions...
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Archive: January 10, 2008
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And now for a little chest beating... Just wanted to report a cool Aperio milestone, we recently completed manufacturing our 100th ScanScope XT and our 200th ScanScope CS! The picture below shows these two units in the manufacturing test area, along with a few of the many people responsible for this achievement.
Not pictured but very much "in the picture" is Marc Cohn, Aperio's Director of Manufacturing, who leads this team. Congratulations to all Aperions for their hard work and dedication which made this accomplishment possible!
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Ronald Baily: Why we should care what candidates think about biological evolution. "I don't need them to describe their faith; that's their business and not mine. But I do care about their scientific knowledge and how it will inform their leadership." Not only their knowledge, but their ability to reason. Would I vote for a candidate who didn't "believe in evolution"? No. [ via Panda's Thumb ]
Yesterday I posted about the sheep of Saint-Affrique, including the Millau Viaduct. So I Googled for "Millau", and got a hit on this site, from December of 2004! Sometimes the small world is even smaller than you thought!
 Wired: The Untold Story: How the iPhone blew up the Wireless industry. "The demo was not going well. Again. It was a late morning in the fall of 2006... It was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn't just buggy, it flat-out didn't work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable... At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, 'We don't have a product yet.'" The rest is [or will be] history...
Jason Kottke comments: "I wish this story had more direct quotes and explicit references...it's hard to read it and not take the whole thing with a huge grain of salt." Yeah, but it feels true :)
Zeldman: Everything that can be iPhonelike, will be... "It’s inevitable. The iPhone is too great a leap forward in interface design to be confined to, well, the iPhone." I predict this will seem prescient after Macworld. Stay tuned :)
Well, if you read Scott Rosenberg's excellent Dreaming in Code you knew this was coming: CNet reports Mitch Kapor bails on the Chandler Project. "Kapor--the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the founding chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, and the chairman of Linden Labs--certainly can find other things to do. OSAF wasn't a bad idea, and Chandler wasn't either. But neither was managed particularly well." So be it.
Uncov is merciless: Wikia Search: Weapons Grade Fail. "Here's the story: Wikia has set up Nutch, a mediocre open source search engine, and laid a wiki on top of it. You can write a mini wiki page for your search result if you don't like what Nutch comes up with. This is even more craptacular than Mahalo." Fire on 'em!
OMG! Halley Suitt is back!! Yay!
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 Okay, here we go; an analysis of the cowboy's dilemma.
You're a cowboy, and get involved in a three way pistol duel with two other cowboys. You are a poor shot, with an accuracy of only 33%. The other two cowboys shoot with accuracies of 50% and 100%, respectively. The rules of the duel are one shot per cowboy per round. The shooting order is from worst shooter to best shooter, so you get to shoot first, the 50% guy goes second, and the 100% guy goes third, then repeat. If a cowboy is shot he's out for good, and his turn is skipped. Where or who should you shoot first?
Yesterday we noted there are three possibilities:
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Shoot at the 100% cowboy.
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Shoot at the 50% cowboy.
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Shoot anywhere else.
So we want to determine which of these possibilities has the best probability for our survival. To do this, we take each case and determine all the outcomes, along with the probability of each outcome. The overall probability for the case is the sum of all the possible outcomes. Here we go:
n Shoot at 100% cowboy
o 33%: hit him
§ 50% cowboy shoots at you (you’re the only one left)
· 50%: he hits you (he wins – 33*50)
· 50%: he misses, your turn
o You shoot at 50% cowboy
§ 33%: hit him (you win – 33*50*33)
§ 66%: you miss, his turn
· 50%: he hits you (he wins – 33*50*66*50)
· 50%: he misses, your turn
o 33%: hit him (you win – 33*50*66*50*33)
o 66% you miss, his turn
§ 50%: he hits you (he wins – 33*50*66*50*66*50)
§ 50%: he misses, your turn (33*50*66*50*66*50)
§ Probability of winning approx .06%, ignore further…
o 66%: you miss
§ 50% cowboy shoots at 100% cowboy (best chance for him)
· 50%: he hits him (100% cowboy dead)
o You shoot at 50% cowboy
§ 33%: hit him (you win – 66*50*33)
§ 66% you miss, his turn
· 50%: he hits you (he wins – 66*50*66*50)
· 50%: he misses, your turn
o 33%: hit him (you win – 66*50*66*50*33)
o 66% you miss, his turn
§ 50%: he hits you (he wins – 66*50*66*50*66*50)
§ 50%: he misses, your turn (66*50*66*50*66*50)
§ Probability of winning approx 1.2%, ignore further…
· 50%: he misses, 100% cowboy's turn
o 100% cowboy shoots at 50% cowboy (best chance for him)
§ 100%: kills him, your turn
§ You shoot at 100% cowboy
· 33%: hit him (you win – 66*50*33)
· 66%: you miss, his turn
o 100%: he hits you (he wins – 66*50*66)
The total probability of survival is the sum of each outcome where you win, highlighted above:
(33*50*33 + 33*50*66*50*33 + .06 + 66*50*33 + 66*50*66*50*33 + 1.2 + 66*50*33 = 34.4
If we shoot at the 100% cowboy, our probability of winning is 34%.
n Shoot at 50% cowboy
o 33%: hit him
§ 100% cowboy shoots at you (you’re the only one left)
· 100%: he hits you (he wins – 33)
o 66%: you miss
§ 50% cowboy shoots at 100% cowboy (best chance for him)
· 50%: he hits him (100% cowboy dead)
o You shoot at 50% cowboy
§ 33%: hit him (you win – 66*50*33)
§ 66% you miss, his turn
· 50%: he hits you (he wins – 66*50*66*50)
· 50%: he misses, your turn
o 33%: hit him (you win – 66*50*66*50*33)
o 66% you miss, his turn
§ 50%: he hits you (he wins – 66*50*66*50*66*50)
§ 50%: he misses, your turn (66*50*66*50*66*50)
§ Probability of winning approx 1.2%, ignore further…
· 50%: he misses, 100% shooter’s turn
o 100% cowboy shoots at 50% cowboy (best chance for him)
§ 100%: kills him, your turn
§ You shoot at 100% cowboy
· 33%: hit him (you win – 66*50*33)
· 66%: you miss, his turn
o 100%: he hits you (he wins – 66*50*66)
The total probability of survival is the sum of each outcome where you win, highlighted above:
(66*50*33 + 66*50*66*50*33 + 1.2 + 66*50*33 = 26.6
If we shoot at the 50% cowboy, our probability of winning is 27%.
n Shoot at the sky
o 50% shooter’s turn, he shoots at 100% shooter (best chance for him)
§ 50%: he hits him (100% shooter dead)
· You shoot at 50% shooter
o 33%: hit him (you win – 50*33)
o 66% you miss, his turn
§ 50%: he hits you (he wins – 50*66*50)
§ 50%: he misses, your turn
· 33%: hit him (you win – 50*66*50*33)
· 66% you miss, his turn
o 50%: he hits you (he wins – 50*66*50*66*50)
o 50%: he misses, your turn (50*66*50*66*50)
o Probability of winning approx 1.8%, ignore further…
§ 50%: he misses, 100% shooter’s turn
· 100% shooter shoots at 50% shooter (best chance for him)
o 100%: kills him, your turn
o You shoot at 100% shooter
§ 33%: hit him (you win – 50*33)
§ 66%: you miss, his turn
· 100%: he hits you (he wins – 50*66)
The total probability of survival is the sum of each outcome where you win, highlighted above:
50*33 + 50*66*50*33 + 1.8 + 50*33 = 40.2
If we shoot at the sky, our probability of winning is 40%.
There you have it. The best option is door #3, shoot at the sky. We actually have a 40% chance of winning if we do so, despite the fact that both of the other cowboys are better shots than we are.
This is a pretty interesting result. By not shooting at either of the "better" cowboys, we let them shoot at each other first, doing our dirty work for us. Then later we engage and shoot at whoever's left. This same effect is responsible for the complexity of reality TV shows. Many times a "weaker" competitor can survive by being unaggressive in the early going, enabling the "stronger" competitors to take each other out. Then later the weaker competitor can become more aggresive and [possibly] win. Pretty cool!
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Archive: January 10, 2007
Archive: January 10, 2006
Archive: January 10, 2005
Archive: January 10, 2004
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A really quiet day. Is it the cold?
I must tell you, it was nice and warm and beautiful here in SoCal. I worked all day (!) except for a bike ride, which was wonderful.
Ottmar Liebert makes a remarkable prediction:
Here, folks, is the bottom line. Eventually, and I am talking in 50-100 years (if the planet has survived), most items will be made in your home. You want a hammer, you find a recipe on the net and after paying a license fee you will download the recipe and stick it in your matter compiler where you will find your hammer a while later.
This is horrible! Lego is killing Mindstorms! Anyway they're in big trouble, firing executives, and cutting back. "The company now plans to stop making the electronics and movie tie-in products and return to its core mission: producing colored plastic building blocks for children." That's really too bad.
Salon reports Professor Lives Life as Cyborg. "Mann, a 41-year-old engineering professor at the University of Toronto, spends hours every day viewing the world through a little monitor in front of his eye -- so much so that going without the apparatus often leaves him feeling nauseous, unsteady, naked." Will we all be cyborgs in the future? It wouldn't surprise me. I'd love to have my Treo built in :)
"Lord of the Rings" cleans up at L.A. film awards. "In a possible precursor to Oscar night next month, the final installment in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy has won four prizes at the ninth annual Critics' Choice Awards, an event whose picks are often echoed at Academy Awards."
Wired interviews Michael Powell: FCC Head Says Broadband Is Vital. "'We should be working to bring in technologies and policies that spin things away from large centralized institutions that determine what you see and hear and listen to, and push more power to consumers,' Powell said. 'Why I like my TiVo is I'm the programmer, instead of NBC or ABC or CBS'." And that's why I like Powell... I can't really see the FCC stifling VoIP and other new Internet services on his watch.
Just wanted to plug Blogging.la. An excellent group blog I've been checking out regularly, despite the fact that they don't have an RSS feed :(
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Archive: January 10, 2003
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Had lunch with Reid Hoffman today, he gave me a thought worth sharing: "gardening in relationships". The idea being that good partners "garden" each other... (He's a PayPal alum who has a new startup presently in stealth mode...)
There's a lot happening in web-ville:
My heros at Gene Expression are discussing my book! (And they haven't even read it, yet)
Another PayPal alum - Peter Thiel, the CEO - talks about his future plans...
Want proof that truth is stranger than fiction? Check out this family up for auction on eBay...
Here's something every nonfiction writer needs, Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit...
I love these cautionary tales about business excess, don't you? (Thanks Clay via Joel) I might have to add Clay to my blogroll, he's got some awfully good stuff.
"It's like a Best Buy, Circuit City and Fry's Smackdown organized by Siegfried and Roy. " Sounds fun...
The problem with Metadata... very funny! (Thanks Dave)
As usual, Stephen nails the North Korean situation...
And finally, now that it is Friday night, are you ready for some football?
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