Christmas was nice. We were fortunate enough to have generous gifts on all sides, however was marred by family fall-outs (isn't this the norm?!).
I was struck on Christmas Day evening by an interesting contraction of aeons. Whilst listening to a double CD of Mountain recorded live in 1971 I was skimming through Dionysius of Halicarnassus's Roman Antiquities (both of which I had asked for). It seemed interesting to me to be reading and listening to two very different media which were created nearly two thousand years apart.
I also received some money from Granny's estate just before Xmas. It feels strange accepting someone else's money (I have never inherited directly anything before). I am going to find a nice photograph of Granny from the slide archives I have and print a large one to frame and mount somewhere. I think it's the least I can do as a thankyou. Max will not remember her unfortantely, but having a good photo will help. With the money I have purchased some computer parts and have built a decent computer (i.e. spent a bit more and got some good components rather than scrimping as usual). I'm still figuring out the best configuration though. Do I go for a 1.5 Gb/s RAID 0 array or buy the external SATA converter cable and go for the 3 Gb/s RAID 0 array? Alternatively I could just do a simple JBOD? Decisions... decisions...
(by the way: aeons or eons? My linguistic pedantry is vast, however I also love the way languages evolve. In this case I prefer aeons, simply because it's more interesting)
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Solipsistic Hypereality
There is an idea that our consciousnesses are figments of our imaginations or in some way not "real". This is certainly not a new idea (see Solipsism), but the variation that describes a world which is solely for the purposes of the particular mind is newer. It's an idea made famous recently in the film The Truman Show (which I have not seen) involving a character who's life is the subject of a TV show. It's also a similar idea to the central theme of The Matrix movie.
I shared this idea when I was a boy, perhaps more out of paranoia than any philosophical bent. It intrigued me then and still does. It's something I can't believe in, but occasionally I feel that I am the subject of an experiment.
I occasionally play with this idea to amuse myself, for example travelling in a taxi today from The City Inn Glasgow to the office I caught sight of a chap on the pavement who, just as my taxi passed him, scratched his ear. Now, of course, he was only scratching his ear, but it made me smile to imagine that it was some sort of signal to his fellow conspirator, with whom he was monitoring my every move.
I shared this idea when I was a boy, perhaps more out of paranoia than any philosophical bent. It intrigued me then and still does. It's something I can't believe in, but occasionally I feel that I am the subject of an experiment.
I occasionally play with this idea to amuse myself, for example travelling in a taxi today from The City Inn Glasgow to the office I caught sight of a chap on the pavement who, just as my taxi passed him, scratched his ear. Now, of course, he was only scratching his ear, but it made me smile to imagine that it was some sort of signal to his fellow conspirator, with whom he was monitoring my every move.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
We want information...
The way I see it there isn't enough information available to make informed choices.
I know that Scott Adams frequently says that he doesn't have enough information to make the choice of who to vote for, but that is more of a comment about modern politics that anything else. What I'm talking about is the idea that people do not share information enough. There ought to be an independent body for gathering information and publishing the analysed and grouped data.
The most obvious occurrence of not having enough information is related to our household recycling. We recycle as much as possible, both because we both believe that it's much better for the environment, but also because we hoard stuff and are loath to throw anything into the earth (i.e. Landfill). The main issue I have is whether to wash off the labels from tin cans etc before putting the metal into the local recycling depot's bins. Ignoring the fact that I drive a car to the depot (but I do save everything up into a big trip every couple of months) is it worth the energy expended by heating hot water and washing off the labels or would it be better overall to leave the labels on and let them be washed off in bulk?
Of course, I could try to find this out for myself, however I suspect that the exact recycling procedure is closed information and would take me a long time to calculate whether it's better to do this myself or not.
What we need is a body to gather all this kind of information and then trawl through it and publish the results. Under this scheme there would be a legal requirement on companies and individuals to provide information when asked, but also to publish their processing details, company procedures etc (there would be safeguards for company information and only general information need be supplied at first).
I suppose people might think it a bit Orwellian to have such an organisation, but with proper controls it could only be used for good.
I think this needs further investigation… who's with me?
I know that Scott Adams frequently says that he doesn't have enough information to make the choice of who to vote for, but that is more of a comment about modern politics that anything else. What I'm talking about is the idea that people do not share information enough. There ought to be an independent body for gathering information and publishing the analysed and grouped data.
The most obvious occurrence of not having enough information is related to our household recycling. We recycle as much as possible, both because we both believe that it's much better for the environment, but also because we hoard stuff and are loath to throw anything into the earth (i.e. Landfill). The main issue I have is whether to wash off the labels from tin cans etc before putting the metal into the local recycling depot's bins. Ignoring the fact that I drive a car to the depot (but I do save everything up into a big trip every couple of months) is it worth the energy expended by heating hot water and washing off the labels or would it be better overall to leave the labels on and let them be washed off in bulk?
Of course, I could try to find this out for myself, however I suspect that the exact recycling procedure is closed information and would take me a long time to calculate whether it's better to do this myself or not.
What we need is a body to gather all this kind of information and then trawl through it and publish the results. Under this scheme there would be a legal requirement on companies and individuals to provide information when asked, but also to publish their processing details, company procedures etc (there would be safeguards for company information and only general information need be supplied at first).
I suppose people might think it a bit Orwellian to have such an organisation, but with proper controls it could only be used for good.
I think this needs further investigation… who's with me?
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