It seems this one didn't make it into my latest copy of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Is it fact, fiction, or everything John warned us about? ;-)
AI Jenga
1 day ago
Monday, April 26, 2010
I changed the font and template just for fun
Don't be alarmed
FYI (as if it wasn't obvious to all by now) Greece is toast
Push up the date of the health bubble popping. We really should formulate a plan as things like this blow only once in a few lifetimes and you want to be ready when the typhoon comes.
FWIW, it truly is sad we cannot reach agreement as a society. I blame all of us, myself included.
FYI (as if it wasn't obvious to all by now) Greece is toast
Push up the date of the health bubble popping. We really should formulate a plan as things like this blow only once in a few lifetimes and you want to be ready when the typhoon comes.
FWIW, it truly is sad we cannot reach agreement as a society. I blame all of us, myself included.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Condensates II... Breaking Symmetry or Fractals as Templates or "Where does information come from?"
Everything starts with a template, or an original, from which all other "things" are derived.
Imagine a mist where everything is the same. It might be white- e.g. contains all colors- or it might be black- e.g. lacks all color.
Now imagine some random event happens which breaks this state of perfect symmetry. Such a random event might be like the following:
Notice that as a girl enters our white mist, the symmetry of pure white inherent to the original system is broken.
Further, I hope you also notice how the breaking of this symmetry creates a whole new realm of possibilities compared with the original image of pure white. Whereas before we could not say anything particular about the white mist, now we actually know something about it. Specifically we learn a relationship has formed between the mist and its broken symmetry. More specifically, information is created where none existed before.
I hope it is clear to you from this example that symmetry breaking is absolutely necessary for the formation of a template (in this example our template would be the girl in the mist), and it is this template or "difference" which creates "information" from which everything else we understand derives.
I'll let you ponder the implications of this on your own but if you think about it- as Street Dog once shared with us long ago- life is simply impossible without it.
Anyway, as another illustration concerning this point, I would also like to share another image. Note that one cannot establish which glass goes with which place setting until the symmetry is broken and a template relationship is established between one place-setting and one glass. But once the symmetry is broken, all other glass-place setting relationships immediately simultaneously form from the original symmetry break (or template).
I'll continue as it (and free time) come to me but I want to leave you with the following video lest you think this all a crock of... (fill in the blank)
Be well
Imagine a mist where everything is the same. It might be white- e.g. contains all colors- or it might be black- e.g. lacks all color.
Now imagine some random event happens which breaks this state of perfect symmetry. Such a random event might be like the following:
Notice that as a girl enters our white mist, the symmetry of pure white inherent to the original system is broken.
Further, I hope you also notice how the breaking of this symmetry creates a whole new realm of possibilities compared with the original image of pure white. Whereas before we could not say anything particular about the white mist, now we actually know something about it. Specifically we learn a relationship has formed between the mist and its broken symmetry. More specifically, information is created where none existed before.
I hope it is clear to you from this example that symmetry breaking is absolutely necessary for the formation of a template (in this example our template would be the girl in the mist), and it is this template or "difference" which creates "information" from which everything else we understand derives.
I'll let you ponder the implications of this on your own but if you think about it- as Street Dog once shared with us long ago- life is simply impossible without it.
Anyway, as another illustration concerning this point, I would also like to share another image. Note that one cannot establish which glass goes with which place setting until the symmetry is broken and a template relationship is established between one place-setting and one glass. But once the symmetry is broken, all other glass-place setting relationships immediately simultaneously form from the original symmetry break (or template).
I'll continue as it (and free time) come to me but I want to leave you with the following video lest you think this all a crock of... (fill in the blank)
Be well
Friday, April 23, 2010
There is no life west of the Chesapeake Bay
I finally got to take the kids out on the boat tonight
What did you think I would name her? ;-)
What did you think I would name her? ;-)
The Answer to Global Warming?
The is an opinion piece on CNN's website that is expressing an idea that I have been having lately: namely that nature itself is trying to correct our folly.
As the debate about Global Warming has heated up (sorry, I couldn't resist), in the back of my mind, I have wondered if the earth might not be cooling itself with volcanic eruptions.
Let me say from the outset that I do subscribe to the idea that the earth is warming up -- and that man is having an effect on it. I think the science is clear enough to make such an assumption.
However, volcanoes do cool the environment -- and a large enough volcanic event causes cooling of global temperatures. So much so, that certain volcanoes in the past have caused A Year Without a Summer.
What I fear is that if we do get a cooling event from volcanic activity, it will lead to Global Warming deniers to claim there is no harm from "business as usual."
As the debate about Global Warming has heated up (sorry, I couldn't resist), in the back of my mind, I have wondered if the earth might not be cooling itself with volcanic eruptions.
Let me say from the outset that I do subscribe to the idea that the earth is warming up -- and that man is having an effect on it. I think the science is clear enough to make such an assumption.
However, volcanoes do cool the environment -- and a large enough volcanic event causes cooling of global temperatures. So much so, that certain volcanoes in the past have caused A Year Without a Summer.
What I fear is that if we do get a cooling event from volcanic activity, it will lead to Global Warming deniers to claim there is no harm from "business as usual."
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Condensates Part I
An endless student of cooperation’s art forms, I simply love watching teamwork in action. The fractals of cooperation are truly breathtaking to behold once you latch on. As I watched my oldest play basketball the other day (he was having a great game) I was reminded yet again of this simple truth.
Dividing the whole into its respective parts is probably the ultimate rabbit hole exercise; there are simply an infinite variety of ways to slice a pie so to speak. Yet our high priests of science, our physicists, attempted just this when they created an elaborate division classification system for what they think is most atomic (the word atom derives from the Greek ἄτομος/átomos, α-τεμνω, meaning uncuttable, indivisible, or something which cannot be divided further).
They classified some of these atomic constituents as fermions, which you can think of as the “real” or “substantial” stuff of the atomic world- e.g. electrons, protons and neutrons, etc... And they have classified other atomic building blocks as Bosons, which you can think of as the “unreal” or force-like stuff that builds the atom.
My own pop physics mentality tends to imagine a macro analogy where fermions are the players on a basketball team and Bozons are the big salaries which creates the condensate or the team itself. I’m split on how to actually classify the team. Thoughts would be appreciated…
Anyway it should come as no surprise that others soon realized even fermions might have their own building blocks, e.g. quarks and Leptons. And even quarks and leptons might still have their own building blocks, etc…
And don’t get me going on the Boson building block theory physicists have proposed as I simply don’t understand it… Though I will add some have created cool songs on the subject while others still have made a fortune selling us thrillers on the mysteries of the Higgs-Boson, a.k.a ”the god particle”.
And so it will be interesting to see if physicists ever do reach ground floor of this rabbit hole in division. As far I’m aware, they are not there and I’m skeptical they will ever be- time will obviously tell. Yet I too enjoy playing their game: shifting views from one aspect of one building block to another aspect of another as I “see” the endless fractal structures inherent in “things”. And it is these fractal appellations in the cooperation of teams that circles me back to the original point of my post: fractals, teams, and cooperation.
In the interest of brevity, I'll commence this in part II
Dividing the whole into its respective parts is probably the ultimate rabbit hole exercise; there are simply an infinite variety of ways to slice a pie so to speak. Yet our high priests of science, our physicists, attempted just this when they created an elaborate division classification system for what they think is most atomic (the word atom derives from the Greek ἄτομος/átomos, α-τεμνω, meaning uncuttable, indivisible, or something which cannot be divided further).
They classified some of these atomic constituents as fermions, which you can think of as the “real” or “substantial” stuff of the atomic world- e.g. electrons, protons and neutrons, etc... And they have classified other atomic building blocks as Bosons, which you can think of as the “unreal” or force-like stuff that builds the atom.
My own pop physics mentality tends to imagine a macro analogy where fermions are the players on a basketball team and Bozons are the big salaries which creates the condensate or the team itself. I’m split on how to actually classify the team. Thoughts would be appreciated…
Anyway it should come as no surprise that others soon realized even fermions might have their own building blocks, e.g. quarks and Leptons. And even quarks and leptons might still have their own building blocks, etc…
And don’t get me going on the Boson building block theory physicists have proposed as I simply don’t understand it… Though I will add some have created cool songs on the subject while others still have made a fortune selling us thrillers on the mysteries of the Higgs-Boson, a.k.a ”the god particle”.
And so it will be interesting to see if physicists ever do reach ground floor of this rabbit hole in division. As far I’m aware, they are not there and I’m skeptical they will ever be- time will obviously tell. Yet I too enjoy playing their game: shifting views from one aspect of one building block to another aspect of another as I “see” the endless fractal structures inherent in “things”. And it is these fractal appellations in the cooperation of teams that circles me back to the original point of my post: fractals, teams, and cooperation.
In the interest of brevity, I'll commence this in part II
Do you ever feel this is the level of dialogue we have reached as a society?
(h/t... I have forgotten which math blog I lifted this image from but it was the same one I pulled the Fibonacci spiral from)
The problems of grammatical aspect in daily communication are very real and even worse in blog communication. I have no solution to this problem so any thoughts on humanity solving it would be greatly appreciated. I fear cooperation impossible without some breakthrough on this issue.
It is what it is
The Ghost Writer
Last night my husband and I went to see Roman Polanski's last opus, "The Ghost Writer".
I am not a big Polanski fan, because I'm squeamish, and outside of Hitchcock films, I don't like having my nerves played on for two hours.
But this film is a MUST SEE, in my book.
I heard (this may not be true...) that it was AFTER Polanski finished this film that the Californian judge resurrected his dossier, with the consequences that most of us know.
Polanski is now under the equivalent of house arrest in Switzerland ; who knows whether he will be extradited or not...
I am not going into the issues surrounding the person of Roman Polanski here.
The film adroitly weaves together an intrigue involving a thinly disguised Tony Blair, who has summoned a nobody ghost writer to continue work on his autobiography, after the initial ghost has met with an unfortunate "accident". While the entire film is a fiction, its context is an historical one. A film/ovni a bit like "The Queen", which I already reviewed here, in an exposé about constitutional/divine right monarchy.
In the course of his assignment, the new "ghost" uncovers troubling facts about his predecessor's death, and is caught up in the political scandal that erupts when the former Prime Minister is accused of authorizing rendition and torture, and comes up for investigation by the International Criminal Court. Our "ghost", secluded in a high security compound on Cape Cod, finds himself inextricably entwined in the passions of his hosts during a political and personal crisis.
What is really remarkable about this film is that AT NO POINT IN TIME does ANY CHARACTER become caricature.
The people who do what they do BELIEVE IN what they are doing/did. Adam Lang, accused of authorizing torture, has an EXCELLENT justification for doing what he did, authorizing torture. He is NOT a monster, not an idiot. He is a.. MAN. With his weaknesses, and his strong points.
These people are not cynically going through the motions, the way we are tempted to believe.
The people who contest him, the bloodthirsty crowd waiting outside his compound to accuse him of being a monster... contains one man who has lost his son in the Irak war.
Another man who is NOT a monster. Who.. believes in what he is doing. Who believes that he is RIGHT to be doing what he does. Bringing Lang to "justice"...
No more/no less, fanatic than some.. terrorists who also believe in what they are doing.
And THIS "fanatic" is supporting the International Criminal Court... Like the bloodthirsty crowd calling for Lang to be judged.
The U.S./U.K. governments do not come out of this film smelling like a rose, and you will see the extent of the totalitarian folly that is omnipresent in the continual obsession about security, and the high tech explosion that accompanies it.
Oddly enough, money takes a firm SECOND place here next to belief as the reason that "explains" WHY we do what we do on this earth... Polanski is an.. idealist. Me too.
This film is NOT diversion/entertainment.
But it is not "glauque" either, as we say in French. There is nothing depressing about it, even if the end is NOT Walt Disney.
It is a meat and potatoes film. Like... Desert Flower.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Too Fat to Fight?
See this news story: Are school lunches a national security threat?
In light of my previous post, we should examine our complete diet, not just school lunches; but I doubt that we can be that introspective.
As for exercise, notice how much opposition came from the Republicans in this last health care bill because it supposedly provided funds for playground equipment (and as though that would be a bad thing).
WASHINGTON - School lunches have been called many things, but a group of retired military officers is giving them a new label: national security threat.
That's not a reference to the mystery meat served up in the cafeteria line either. The retired officers are saying that school lunches have helped make the nation's young people so fat that fewer of them can meet the military's physical fitness standards, and recruitment is in jeopardy.
A new report being released Tuesday says more than 9 million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too overweight to join the military. Now, the officers are advocating for passage of a wide-ranging nutrition bill that aims to make the nation's school lunches healthier.
In light of my previous post, we should examine our complete diet, not just school lunches; but I doubt that we can be that introspective.
As for exercise, notice how much opposition came from the Republicans in this last health care bill because it supposedly provided funds for playground equipment (and as though that would be a bad thing).
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