There is an experienced chess grandmaster who laments that he has lost many ELO points, which are the rating by which Grandmasters are measured.
He says his record in tournaments is: 54 wins and 86 draws - and here is the important thing - no losses! He lost many ELO points because he is drawing against, and not beating, chess players with low ELO.
It's quite fascinating that a man's downfall is so well correlated by his *not* losing ANY games. I've never seen anything so strongly scientific in support of the notion that one must take risks or one will, by not losing, lose!
Obviously, the grandmaster needs to take more risks and win more games. Though he will lose more games, his score will go up. It's an uplifting story because no one likes losing but by not losing you can be a greater failure yet!
And as Kasparov says, you learn more from your failures than your successes so a failure can be an investment in the future.
Blimey what a preachy post I've created :-)
Monday, 29 August 2011
Monday, 22 August 2011
Tourettes Phone
My (iphone) phone has Tourettes. It changed "xox" (short hand for, kiss hug kiss) into "Cox" and "Awwww" into "Sewers". Naturally I vomited at this filth belted out by my sweary phone. The "auto-corrects" happen at the very last moment just as one hits "send".
Oh, and the iPhone never learned - sometimes I sign my name as Jim and every single freaking time the damned iPhone wanted to correct "Jim" to "Him" or "Kim" aaargh! And the little x to get rid of the retarded suggestion is so tiny - why can't they make that X bigger so it's easier to get rid of the mental auto-correct? I know why, because trendy designers prefer form over function - a big X might be ugly - the Gods forbid. Designers/marketroids - the b*st8rds! Well here's some news marketroids, that was my last iPhone - little things mean a lot to me!
Actually the main reason for dumping iPhone is that Apple are control freaks and their ecosystem is closed, I prefer freedom - open systems, and Android is free-er. But kudos to Apple for single handedly making Microsoft irrelevant.
Oh, and the iPhone never learned - sometimes I sign my name as Jim and every single freaking time the damned iPhone wanted to correct "Jim" to "Him" or "Kim" aaargh! And the little x to get rid of the retarded suggestion is so tiny - why can't they make that X bigger so it's easier to get rid of the mental auto-correct? I know why, because trendy designers prefer form over function - a big X might be ugly - the Gods forbid. Designers/marketroids - the b*st8rds! Well here's some news marketroids, that was my last iPhone - little things mean a lot to me!
Actually the main reason for dumping iPhone is that Apple are control freaks and their ecosystem is closed, I prefer freedom - open systems, and Android is free-er. But kudos to Apple for single handedly making Microsoft irrelevant.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Trapped in a ghastly Search Engine bubble
Google and other search engines analyse what we do. And based on that, they hide stuff from us! Everybody only sees a little bubble of what search engines think we will like. It's like having eyesight, but the gods only allowing us to see south east and being oblivious to the rest of the world out there.
I'm a Zumba monkey
Went to my first Zumba dance class. It's a mashup of salsa and other foreign dance styles in a kind of keep-fit dance session, it's enormous fun, especially for a fitness class. Well it's fun unless you're unfortunate enough to see my comically bad imitations of zumba. I just jump about having fun and hope for the best
I'm also the scruffiest dressed in the room. Everyone (everyone else there were chicks) apart from me were wearing all this alien, extravagant multi-layered gym clothing that looks like they're equipped to go rock climbing on the moon, and here's me, shorts and t-shirt. Unreconstructed, unfashionable and unreformed.
I was the only bloke but it's not a gay thing to do. At least I hope not ha ha, well it makes a change from my occasional visit to the chess club which is 100% blokes.
I'm also the scruffiest dressed in the room. Everyone (everyone else there were chicks) apart from me were wearing all this alien, extravagant multi-layered gym clothing that looks like they're equipped to go rock climbing on the moon, and here's me, shorts and t-shirt. Unreconstructed, unfashionable and unreformed.
I was the only bloke but it's not a gay thing to do. At least I hope not ha ha, well it makes a change from my occasional visit to the chess club which is 100% blokes.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Can a god really create an Adam?
As a software engineer, I'm amazed about the human body and brain. Non-software developers think that software works like magic, like a word processor or operating system or web or phones, somehow software is this spongy stuff that is soft and it works. They have no idea of the complexity, of the difficulty of creating it. Likewise they have no idea how miraculous the brain works or the body works, it just works.
Every year I work on software, my absolute astonishment at the working of a single biological cell, let alone a whole animal, gets deeper. To me software is not magic, I know roughly how it works, at least on certain levels of the stack. But biology???
Now I think about it, this is a powerful argument about god - a god or a committee of gods cannot possibly be smart enough to program an Adam from scratch.
Evolution over billions of years is somehow necessary to arrive at such a solution.
Every year I work on software, my absolute astonishment at the working of a single biological cell, let alone a whole animal, gets deeper. To me software is not magic, I know roughly how it works, at least on certain levels of the stack. But biology???
Now I think about it, this is a powerful argument about god - a god or a committee of gods cannot possibly be smart enough to program an Adam from scratch.
Evolution over billions of years is somehow necessary to arrive at such a solution.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Thoughts on iphone spell checking and on web frameworks
A couple of random geeky thoughts.
I've noticed that apple iPhone autocomplete works best when you make an early mistake. Then it suggests correct long word much sooner. My phone is rewarding me for bad spelling by being helpful and punishing me if I'm accurate by making me type every f*****g letter.
Probably there is a patent violation avoidance reason for it.
Programming: web frameworks
Web frameworks need to be cat (templates) and dog (OO code) and "Ajax" event driven (goose) and media (elephant) all at the same time. It's actually probably mathematically impossible to do more than one of those brilliantly. Two or more breaks the others.
By a blind evolution we have created a system, the web, that is impossible to develop efficiently for.
They try to make it intelligent with semantic web technology which will mean that as well as a cat, Dog, goose and elephant it will also need to be a monkey at same time.
I've noticed that apple iPhone autocomplete works best when you make an early mistake. Then it suggests correct long word much sooner. My phone is rewarding me for bad spelling by being helpful and punishing me if I'm accurate by making me type every f*****g letter.
Probably there is a patent violation avoidance reason for it.
Programming: web frameworks
Web frameworks need to be cat (templates) and dog (OO code) and "Ajax" event driven (goose) and media (elephant) all at the same time. It's actually probably mathematically impossible to do more than one of those brilliantly. Two or more breaks the others.
By a blind evolution we have created a system, the web, that is impossible to develop efficiently for.
They try to make it intelligent with semantic web technology which will mean that as well as a cat, Dog, goose and elephant it will also need to be a monkey at same time.
Friday, 27 May 2011
Physics discussion of the Electron
This post is about the shape of the electron. Here I wish to show some remarkable physics as told by John Duffield to me and some friends in an email correspondence.
From James
See Electron Shape
From John
Interesting, thanks James.
But it's a strange article this. It talks about the electric field and the
magnetic field as if they're two different things, rather than two aspects
of the electromagnetic field, depending on relative motion.
If you're at rest in an electron's electromagnetic field, you'd say you were
an electric field. If however this electron was at rest close up to a
proton, the electromagnetic fields of the electron and the proton would mask
one another, and you'd say you were in no field at all. If however the
electron was going round the proton, you'd say you were in a magnetic field.
If you've got a whole array of electrons and protons, and the electrons are
all going round in the same orientation, what you've got is a magnet.
Going back to a single electron, the electron has spin angular momentum, and
its magnetic dipole moment tells you that even though you've only got a
single electron, you've got something going round, because a loop of current
has magnetic moment. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_moment#Magnetic_moment_of_an_electron
But the electric dipole moment "is a measure of the separation of positive
and negative electrical charges in a system of charges". Looking for this in
an electron doesn't make sense to me. It's like looking for a bit of the
electron where the chirality goes the other way.
Another guy pointed out this other report on the same thing:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028145.100
I didn't know this:
"The result is a challenge to supersymmetry: while the standard model
suggests the electron is egg-shaped by only one part in 10^28, supersymmetry
sets the range at between one part in 10^14 and one part in 10^19.
'We cannot rule out supersymmetry but we're certainly putting pressure on
the theory,' says Hudson.
An improvement of one order of magnitude could either confirm supersymmetry
or rule it out, something the Imperial team now aims to achieve".
From James
Fascinating! Isn't your model of the electron non Circular? A photon in an orbit? Or is the orbit spherical?
From John
It isn't my model. The orbiting photon is toroidal, which means it's
circular, but not entirely spherical. Think of a spherical onion and peel
off layers. As you get down towards the middle it starts looking apple
shaped. But you've got to get down to the scale of the Compton wavelength
before you see this.
From James
Fascinating about the electron but wouldn't the torroidal geometry be detected? Thanks for insights but surely the torroid is not experimentally discovered if spherical to one part in 100000000000000. Not a hint of internal onion?
From John
The lack of electric dipole moment doesn't actually say the electron is
spherical. Looking for it is like asking which part of the electron is
positively charged. None of it is, just as no part of a screw thread goes
the wrong way. Magnetic dipole moment is different. Read about it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment and note the
bit that says the electron "indeed behaves like a tiny bar magnet". A bar
magnet is where the electrons have a common orbital spin orientation. They
aren't totally randomised, pointing in all directions that might cover a
sphere. So the electron "intrinsic" spin isn't either.
-----
And that concluded this discussion of the electron shape, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this physics :-)
John's book, the superb Relativity+ is available on Amazon.
See the Physics Discussion Forum that John hosts.
From James
See Electron Shape
From John
Interesting, thanks James.
But it's a strange article this. It talks about the electric field and the
magnetic field as if they're two different things, rather than two aspects
of the electromagnetic field, depending on relative motion.
If you're at rest in an electron's electromagnetic field, you'd say you were
an electric field. If however this electron was at rest close up to a
proton, the electromagnetic fields of the electron and the proton would mask
one another, and you'd say you were in no field at all. If however the
electron was going round the proton, you'd say you were in a magnetic field.
If you've got a whole array of electrons and protons, and the electrons are
all going round in the same orientation, what you've got is a magnet.
Going back to a single electron, the electron has spin angular momentum, and
its magnetic dipole moment tells you that even though you've only got a
single electron, you've got something going round, because a loop of current
has magnetic moment. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_moment#Magnetic_moment_of_an_electron
But the electric dipole moment "is a measure of the separation of positive
and negative electrical charges in a system of charges". Looking for this in
an electron doesn't make sense to me. It's like looking for a bit of the
electron where the chirality goes the other way.
Another guy pointed out this other report on the same thing:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028145.100
I didn't know this:
"The result is a challenge to supersymmetry: while the standard model
suggests the electron is egg-shaped by only one part in 10^28, supersymmetry
sets the range at between one part in 10^14 and one part in 10^19.
'We cannot rule out supersymmetry but we're certainly putting pressure on
the theory,' says Hudson.
An improvement of one order of magnitude could either confirm supersymmetry
or rule it out, something the Imperial team now aims to achieve".
From James
Fascinating! Isn't your model of the electron non Circular? A photon in an orbit? Or is the orbit spherical?
From John
It isn't my model. The orbiting photon is toroidal, which means it's
circular, but not entirely spherical. Think of a spherical onion and peel
off layers. As you get down towards the middle it starts looking apple
shaped. But you've got to get down to the scale of the Compton wavelength
before you see this.
From James
Fascinating about the electron but wouldn't the torroidal geometry be detected? Thanks for insights but surely the torroid is not experimentally discovered if spherical to one part in 100000000000000. Not a hint of internal onion?
From John
The lack of electric dipole moment doesn't actually say the electron is
spherical. Looking for it is like asking which part of the electron is
positively charged. None of it is, just as no part of a screw thread goes
the wrong way. Magnetic dipole moment is different. Read about it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment and note the
bit that says the electron "indeed behaves like a tiny bar magnet". A bar
magnet is where the electrons have a common orbital spin orientation. They
aren't totally randomised, pointing in all directions that might cover a
sphere. So the electron "intrinsic" spin isn't either.
-----
And that concluded this discussion of the electron shape, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this physics :-)
John's book, the superb Relativity+ is available on Amazon.
See the Physics Discussion Forum that John hosts.
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