Cyberphunk

Kelley School: It's Not Easy

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:48:55 GMT

Meaning: Mentorship is a lifetime commitment that can span generations of students, and no matter how detached you are supposed to be, it's only human to feel the weight of that responsibility.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Kelley School: Professionals

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:06:25 GMT

Meaning: Whether it's soldiers, scientists, or programmers, always bring more professionals than the competition.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Kelley School: Experience and Youth

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:42:18 GMT

Meaning: As the old master said, experience should fear the strength of youth, but so should it temper it. Also, in research, there comes a time when instinct is your best guide.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Poll: Computer Shopping

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:59:11 GMT

View Poll: Computer Equipment Shopping Poll

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Banazir

Kelley School: Patience and Serenity

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:32:51 GMT

Meaning: The recalcitrant student must be dealt with firmly, but always fairly and with calm and patience.

Also, as triestine's mother noted, all Chinese people can fly.

Edit, 23:15 CST Thu 04 Dec 2008 - The above is the English-dubbed version, featuring voice actors that aren't quite the equals of Chow Yun-Fat and Zhang Ziyi. I've used it mainly for comprehensibility. The English-subbed Chinese original is better, IMO, but it omits the "three moves" part of the scene.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Kelley School: Sword

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:25:13 GMT

Meaning: Sometimes your best writing is done when people are trying to interfere with you.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Kelley School: The Weirding Way

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:53:55 GMT

Meaning: A good educator opens his students' minds to new ideas and pushes them to do things they haven't done before.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Data Sciences Summer Institute: Multimodal Information Access and Synthesis (DSSI-MIAS)

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:49:26 GMT

The Multimodal Information Access and Synthesis Center (MIAS) is concerned with researching technologies for extracting and tracking interesting events and entities from multimodal information sources. A further goal is to support intelligence analysis by facilitating the formulation and evaluation of hypotheses regarding these events and entities. Research directions include:

Developing fundamental theories, computational models, algorithms, and tools for information access and synthesis

Enabling intelligence analysts to access a variety of data formats, transforming raw data into useful and understandable information

Integrating these technologies with existing resources

Another mission of the MIAS Center is to develop diverse human resources for the scientific research, educational, and governmental workforce communities through education and outreach. This goal is exemplified by the Data Science Summer Institute which develops lecture materials, tutorials, and research projects for information sciences.

The dssi_mias program is hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Computer Science.

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Banazir

Kelley School: The Art of Negotiation

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:27:25 GMT

Meaning: When representing your group, it's important to be firm, but leave room for that win-win situation.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Kelley School: All Right, Let's Get Ready

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:18:13 GMT

Meaning: This is how semesters and academic years often begin. As long as this is not how they end, I'm happy.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Malthusian Musings: Linear vs. Exponential Deathmatch

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:11:35 GMT

"The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world."
- Thomas Robert Malthus

Wikipedia relates that:

The English political economist and demographer Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 – 23 December 1834) analyzed population growth and noted the potential for populations to increase rapidly, often faster than the food supply available to them. Commentators may refer to such a runaway scenario, as outlined in Malthus's treatise An Essay on the Principle of Population, as a "Malthusian catastrophe"...

To give a mathematical perspective to his observations, Malthus proposed the idea that population, if unchecked, increases at a geometric rate (i.e. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.), whereas the food-supply grows at an arithmetic rate (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.).

It's been suggested to me that much of the economic mismanagement, and even some opposition to population control measures that some people hold to be misguided in those they disagree with, stem from a fundamental lack of understanding of Malthusian theory. I find this a little oversimplistic, but I could be wrong. What's your take?

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Banazir

I Really Gotta Use My Bad Application

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:57:56 GMT

Greetings! In addition to trying to rid myself of browser woes, I seek solutions and/or commiseration for the following problems (in Windows):

Thunderbird hogging the CPU or hanging. Have you ever had Mozilla Thunderbird just become unresponsive for no apparent reason, until you have to go into Task Manager and kill it? This doesn't seem to happen much in Linux, although I have had it happen once or twice (where I had to kill it from the command line).

Trillian Pro spontaneously losing window dockings. I always attach all of my IM windows to a single container called "Multi-IM", but sometimes, when people send me messages, their window re-docks to "Away". I have Trillian Preferences set to Default Appearance -> Contact Windows -> Container: Multi-IM, so this shouldn't happen.

Flash making Firefox unresponsive. Sometimes I will be watching something in YouTube, or just loading a Flash site, when suddenly I get an hourglass or spinning circle, and Firefox just locks up for a few seconds to a minute. There's nothing loading; it just becomes unresponsive. Occasionally the application will ask me if I want to disable scripts on that page (which I take to mean "in that tab for that page", but maybe it persists across tabs?

Anyway, has anyone ever encountered one of the above problems, or heard of them, and if so, do you know of any solutions? Thanks!

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Banazir

Looking for a Configurable Content Management System (CMS)

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:57:20 GMT

What is your favorite CMS, any why?

triestine and martinsamuel have suggested Joomla, and we have one of those, but currently, I'm still mainly using TikiWiki. I also had a MediaWiki installation, but at the moment, I don't even know where it resides.

Suggestions are welcome!

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Banazir

Kelley School: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:56:29 GMT

Meaning: It's important not to let your weaknesses define you.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

The Time Traveller's Blog

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:53:57 GMT

What is your favorite time travel story?

I had planned my first time travel-related love story, The Stream of Memory, for Nanowrimo 2007 when I first watched the Doctor Who episode "The Girl in the Fireplace" and heard figgylicious talk about The Time Traveller's Wife, both of which deal with the same subject matter: a man who travels through time in love with a woman who cannot accompany him. The premise of my story is still a bit different: if you have read Orson Scott Card's Homecoming series, the woman is quasi-immortal due to an artifact that she carries. I think it makes for a somewhat interesting combination.

ETA, 10:00 CDT Fri 28 Nov 2008 - Never satisfied with my titles, I'm thinking about changing back to Memory and Time. The original inspiration for the story was a line out of Annie Lennox's "Into The West" from the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
I wonder if anyone has ever set time travel in Middle-earth. It wouldn't surprise me, as people have set space travel in Middle-earth before, and I read a fairly good fanfic once where Finrod started raving about dragons being biomechanoids. (If you read the text of The Silmarillion closely, there is some question of whether dragons are living creatures or animated constructs, like the golem of Jewish mythology.

So, how does time travel work in your favorite universe? Is it deterministic? One-way forward? One-way backward? Why do you like it that way?

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Banazir

Uncool Word of the Month

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:53:32 GMT

No, I'm not really going to start an "Uncool Word of the Month". While we're on the subject, though: what's yours?

Mine is "webinar".

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Banazir

Kelley School: Code Red!

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:52:52 GMT

Meaning: OK, I admit, this is me sometimes.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

The Art of War: Death Ground

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:52:28 GMT

XI. The Nine Situations

1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war recognizes nine varieties of ground: (1) Dispersive ground; (2) facile ground; (3) contentious ground; (4) open ground; (5) ground of intersecting highways; (6) serious ground; (7) difficult ground; (8) hemmed-in ground; (9) desperate ground.

Types of terrain, or ground, defined:

2. When a chieftain is fighting in his own territory, it is dispersive ground.

3. When he has penetrated into hostile territory, but to no great distance, it is facile ground.

4. Ground the possession of which imports great advantage to either side, is contentious ground.

5. Ground on which each side has liberty of movement is open ground.

6. Ground which forms the key to three contiguous states, so that he who occupies it first has most of the Empire at his command, is a ground of intersecting highways.

7. When an army has penetrated into the heart of a hostile country, leaving a number of fortified cities in its rear, it is serious ground.

8. Mountain forests, rugged steeps, marshes and fens--all country that is hard to traverse: this is difficult ground.

9. Ground which is reached through narrow gorges, and from which we can only retire by tortuous paths, so that a small number of the enemy would suffice to crush a large body of our men: this is hemmed in ground.

10. Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay, is desperate ground.

Responses to different types of terrain:

11. On dispersive ground, therefore, fight not. On facile ground, halt not. On contentious ground, attack not.

12. On open ground, do not try to block the enemy's way. On the ground of intersecting highways, join hands with your allies.

13. On serious ground, gather in plunder. In difficult ground, keep steadily on the march.

14. On hemmed-in ground, resort to stratagem. On desperate ground, fight.
- The Art of War, Sun Zi (孫子兵法)

What is death ground to you?

This is part of a series on The Art of War (孫子兵法) by Sun Zi (孫子).

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Banazir

TV Commercial Premiere Dates

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:01:05 GMT

Does anyone know where I can look up the premiere dates of various television commercials? Is there an online directory of them that might have this sort of information? Ideally, I'd like links to YouTube videos.

ETA, 11:05 CDT Wed 26 Nov 2008 - I found SplendAd, which even has a vertical search feature, but it doesn't seem complete.

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Banazir

Kelley School: Doomed!

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:50:15 GMT

Meaning: Sometimes students... dramatize.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

The Art of War: Living from The Bounty of the Foe

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:43:55 GMT

Therefore, a wise general will strive to feed off the enemy. One bushel of the enemy's provisions is worth twenty of our own, one picul of fodder is worth twenty of our own.
- The Art of War, Sun Zi (孫子兵法)

A commentator in this forum thread explains:

Sun Tzu means that any captured resource is pure sundry and also makes the enemy weaker for having had it plundered from them. The bushel earned negates having to pay a farmer to raise a bushel, then a merchant to handle it. Also to pay for the merchant's horse's share of the grain and the depreciatin to the merchant's waggon. Once it was delivered to the general the bushel must then be carried by someone with another horse and another waggon. It is much better for an army to travel light and take what is needed. The soldiers of Sparta subscribed to similar ideals and were quite sucessfull.

Do you apply this principle in your life? Whether it's the competitive world of business (to which it has been argued, by businesspeople and educators in Japan, The Art of War is relevant) or some other endeavor: do you live off the bounty of your opponent?

This is part of a series on The Art of War (孫子兵法) by Sun Zi (孫子).

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Banazir

The Good Villain

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:43:31 GMT

Who is your favorite villain from a television series?

I ask because there's been a perceptible trend in TV towards rehabilitating villains, recycling them after a mindwipe, or making them partly sympathetic.

The formulaic long-term villain

Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation was one example of a villain who is following this "villain arc" of "nemesis to mentor". Benjamin Linus on Lost is another. This evolution involves some kind of fall that causes the villain some humbling loss, whether this derives from a lack of conscience, literal intrinsic or supernatural power, or the loyalty of henchmen. The loss takes them within the circle of the good guys - sometimes resulting in defections, sometimes with a relapse and double-cross. On occasion, this defection is part of the main story arc: Athena from Battlestar Galactica (BSG) and Ming's daughter Aurra on Flash Gordon fit this description. Sometimes, in TV series that belong to the "Fugitive genre", you have the "hunter" character being ousted and eventually turned to good. Alien visitor series such as Starman and The Visitor exemplify this. You can also have the opposite effect, where former allies turn coat (24 is infamous for this).

Occasionally you have situations where the villains and good guys join forces against a common adversary out of necessity. Sylar of Heroes is such an example, as are several of BSG's Cylon models (especially the Sixes and Eights) and several of the Wraith from Stargate: Atlantis.

Sometimes they aren't pure villains, of course. They could be unwitting or naive traitors who didn't realize the possible consequences of their betrayal, such as BSG's Gaius Baltar.

The antivillain: redemption, sacrifice, and rehabilitation

Generally, the weak-willed villains don't generate as much sympathy. A really interesting villain, like an interesting tragic antihero, needs a hook: strength of character, a past shared with one of the heroes, or some heroic potential. The best villains, IMO, are those that hold the potential for redemption yet are always hovering on the edge of darkness. There are a few television shows, such as Xena: Warrior Princess and Angel, for which this is the original premise.

Of course, to make the show watchable, there must have already been some repentance of change of motive on the villain's part - or so conventional wisdom says. For one thing, it's hard to cheer for someone still going around killing and oppressing people. For another, the show must go one, and if cost of redemption is sacrifice, the villain's transformation often carries with it the seeds of his death. Whether immediate or eventual, the past has to catch up with him - and that means that most redemption becomes part of the hero's background. Think of all the conversions that happened in a prequel, or pilot, or somewhere in the distant past. Besides Angel (and Spike, insofar as his character in the final seasons of Buffy and Angel was heroic), there are several Highlander mentors such as Darius and Methos that fit this description.

The Death Dealer: Epic Prowess Harnessed

Another great quality of the villain that is sometimes more of a plot element than one of character development, is his prowess and his ability to inflict great harm on his enemies. This, too, is something we love in antiheroes such as or Buffy's Willow. (It's also a characteristic of so many antiheroes from film and literature, from Homer's Achilles to Underworld's Selene.)

We watch the assassin deal death, enthralled by his epic prowess, but we stay to see him unleash his wrath on the common enemy, or have his powers harnessed thus. Why do we love the "divide and conquer" plot? Perhaps it's just the feeling of satisfaction at such providence. There was a crossover episode of Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis ("The Pegasus Project") where the heroes cleverly used the technology and force of two archenemies (Ori and Wraith) to destroy one another. In other media, the Alien vs. Predator series of movies, games, books, and toys are highly popular, its products hotly anticipated among fans.

In conclusion, I think the ultimate villain needs to have some redeemable qualities, but we also enjoy watching him be a "badass", literally bad. We need the two in equal measure, and we revel in the tension, the conflict, and its cathartic release. There's a good reason why villains such as Darth Vader resonate with us, why antivillains such as Celia Friedman's Gerald Tarrant and Julian May's Marc Remillard generate more interest than goody-two-shoes heroes, or even consummate bad guys such as Mercedes Lackey's recurring villain, Kiyamvir Ma'ar aka Leareth aka Mornelithe.

So, who is my own favorite villain? Stay tuned...

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Banazir

Software Engineering: Padding the Estimate

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:43:02 GMT

What do you consider a reasonable percentage to pad a delivery time estimate by, for software engineering projects? How about a budget estimate?

If your answer is "it depends", what does it depend on, in your view?

I used to tell my students to pad a time estimate by at least 30% when giving me an estimate, and I regularly tolerate padding by 50%. When it gets close to 100%, though, I find that the expectations become unreasonably lowered.

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Banazir

Technological Singularity: Artificial Intelligence, Educate Thyself

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:41:53 GMT

The Wikipedia article about the technological singularity attributes the seminal idea to Irving John Good (b. 1916), a renowned statistician who taught at Virginia Tech:

Statistician I. J. Good first wrote of an "intelligence explosion", suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unforeseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far greater intelligences. The first such improvements might be small, but as the machine became more intelligent it would become better at becoming more intelligent, which could lead to an exponential and quite sudden growth in intelligence.

The truly self-teaching system, capable of metalearning, active learning, self-organization, example selection (aka instance selection), feature discovery (as opposed to just feature construction and extraction), competitive co-evolution (assuming a society of them), and reflexive metareasoning, could well be described as the holy grail of artificial intelligence (AI).

I think it's reasonable to posit that if the architecture of such a learning machine were both expressive and flexible enough, it could not only test the Church-Turing Hypothesis but realize our potential as a sentient species. The latter idea is the origin of Hans Moravec's term mind children, coined in the hope that intelligent systems can have a place alongside and perhaps eventually in place of their human creators. If this makes you think of "Cylon scenario A", wherein AI rebels and overthrows its progenitors, that's certainly one possible, if improbably, dystopian outcome. (It's also why I suggested loving_the_ai when someone made lovingthealiens, and they went ahead and created it.)

How would we get there? That's the question thus far.

Opinions, ideas, and other comments are welcome, as always.

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Banazir

Cool Word of the Month

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:41:14 GMT

тройка [transliterated troika] (Russian, noun) - trio

Wikipedia says:

A general meaning of the Russian word troika (Cyrillic alphabet: тройка) is threesome, a collection of three of any kind (except the Holy Trinity). The following particular meanings entered into other languages:

A three-horse drawn sled or carriage

Troika (dance), a folk dance

Troika (triumvirate) of judges or political leaders

Eugene Grois used to refer to my developer team - Nathan D. Gettings, Tori E. Lease, and Misha Voloshin - as "the troika".

There is a three! I decided to use my teunc icon to cement my threesy.

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Banazir