Got a flat tire on the new car at the weekend. When taking it off for repair, I found this inside. It had carved out a nice big hole in the tire, and I was pretty lucky it didn’t blow…
But, it was too damaged to repair so one brand new tire is written off. 302GBP for a replacement!
I washed the car yesterday for the first time. I don’t think I’ve washed a car in over 5 years … so I didn’t do too good a job of it.
Today, I got the camera out for the first time since getting back from Malaysia. Then when unpacking my gear, found that one of my speed lights doesn’t work, so I’m down to just two lights.
Here’s what I did, even Smeagol got in on the action….
My latest acquisition:
3.7 litre V6, 328 BHP…
I would write about it more, but I’m going to hit the road and have some fun!
I used to like the idea of the Singularity, but not any more. To call it the Rapture of the Geeks is very apt, as it is more a desire for salvation than a serious theory, and IMHO it is more like a religious dream.
SImply put, the Singularity occurs when the first true AI becomes conscious. This AI is able to think faster than humans and self improves itself rapidly. The process escalates exponentially and the AI surpasses human abilities in ways unthinkable. The term singularity comes a singularity in physics where the laws of physics are no longer capable of predicting what will happen.
Singularity worshippers constantly use Moore’s Law as some kind of proof of this happening. However I think there is one glaring mistake in their argument: Us.
The human brain is an AI machine. It isn’t capable of self improving, or of working very fast.
With that example (which is 100% of all cases of AI so far) we can see that making an AI doesn’t necessarily lead to this super aware self improving entity. It *might*, but probably not. Once we admit the brain is just a machine the singularity argument sort of fades away, a bit like threats of the LHC making black holes that consume the Earth….
There are other types of singularity as well. My favourite is an economic singularity, and one I think more likely. This might happen when a new technology (for example nano-replicators) becomes available that mean our limited-resource dependent economy simply breaks down. We can’t predict with current economic theories what would happen.
This week I got around to watching the BBC Horizon episode The Hunt For AI. It was an interesting episode, but ultimately a little light on the details. This isn’t a full review or analysis, but more of a note as to my thoughts.
All through the programme the focus was on creating a “human like” AI. Only right at the end (in fact the last sentence) did Marcus du Sautoy refer to the idea that an AI might no be anything like us.
That’s the really interesting bit for me. A human-like AI would be a bit limited IMHO, I think we can do much better.
The whole concept boils down to something I have talked about before – the big difference between a virtual, or emulated, human mind, or a real artificial mind.
I’ve been very big on ‘Agile’ software engineering in the past. In the early days of Agile (2001/2002 ish) I was pure Extreme Programming (XP), and later covered other, softer agile methods, finally settling on Scrum (note it is not SCRUM) in later years.
I’m now moving into academic research, and looking at how to do research. I was recently asked to provide a project plan for some research I am about embark on and looking around all I could see were Gant charts. Each one said “I will do A, which will take X weeks, then I’ll do B which will take Y weeks” and so on. Very nice and waterfall…
So I’ve been thinking about “agiling” it all up. How could I do this?
(note that this is all my first thoughts, and I’ll post more when I actually have done some)
The following is for my project ‘A Domain Specific Language for Artificial Neural Networks’
What are the constraints of the project?
Luckily I have already thought about a series of deliverable based on what can be accomplished, so in priority order:
Each of these could then be split into partial deliverables, each of some use.
An initial plan for the project looks something like
So the development phase is nice and agile, but can I make it “more agile”?
What if the background research only covers what is needed for the next iteration? Sticking to agile principles (especially XP here) I’m thinking that it is purely focussed on the next deliverable. We entrust the “extreme” methods to provide us with a base that can adapt (hence “agile”) as new iterations bring in new deliverables. Here I’m thinking about both software development and research methods:
In software development, our normal extreme practices (merciless refactoring, low coupling, high cohesion etc) will establish an agile product, while in research methods I’m currently thinking of tools use: Mendeley or Papers2 to organise research & papers, mind maps to organise thoughts & ideas etc.
Similarly can we write the thesis (or paper) as we go? Again relying on tool use to keep the deliverables agile. If we do this then the thesis as a whole would not be a separate deliverable, maybe just the abstract & conclusions.
A process like this might look like:
Looks like an agile process to me, sounds like an agile process.
The real test is if it works.
That’s some initial thoughts about doing that project “agile style”. More later…
Just had some good new: I’ve secured an interview for a PhD.
After waiting for nearly 3 months, the interview is next week so let’s see if I can get all the way through and get the position.
So to celebrate here’s something else that makes me happy, Roo:
Honour killings are truly revolting. And those who in any way support them deserve little sympathy:
However one side of the reporting is starting to annoy me. That side is the constant referral to it as an “Asian” problem. Well it isn’t.
It’s a Muslim problem. It only happens in that religion. Yet the liberal idiots who court Islamic favour, those who refer to it a religion of peace”, use the euphemism of “Asian” to in fact mean “Muslim”.
They even go on to classify the Middle East in with “Asia”.
Please don’t tarnish the rest of Asia with the brand of this evil from Islam. Yes, Asia has other problems, don’t we all, but lets not forget that this problem is born of Islam.
But what do you expect when the prophet of your religion raped a 9 year old child?
The original headings were from Richard Dawkins in a letter to his ten year old daughter, origin of the rest of text is unknown.