Saturday, January 28, 2006
Finished the sucker
The last piece went in on Thursday night. I stayed up a little too late doing it, but I was on a roll and there's a certain finishing-the-puzzle momentum that must be heeded.Now, of course, my life is largely devoid of meaning.
The last pieces were transitional ones, containing a little of this image and a little of that, too complex to look at and immediately see their place in the grand scheme. Along with the puzzle, I've been slogging through Murray Gell-Mann's The Quark and the Jaguar, which is in part about complexity and simplicity, and how you define them. Turns out the puzzle and the book are not unrelated.
It is not simple to say what makes a thing complex. A lot of wicked smaht people (as we say in Boston) spend a lot of time thinking about this.
One concept that Gell-Mann talks about is "algorithmic information content" (AIC), known in some circles as Kolmogorov complexity." AIC is, roughly, the least possible amount of information it takes to describe something unambiguously. A jigsaw puzzle piece that shows just one more section of picture frame of a certain regular dark brown wood grain has relatively low AIC; one of my transitional pieces has a lot higher AIC, since it has a lot of different things going on in it.
See, and you thought it was just a jigsaw puzzle.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Not really piling on, but...
I doubt that the blogosphere really needs one more James Frey commentary, but given the recent Oprah hoo-ha what's a few more words? Anyway, one of the main issues is real reality and the representation thereof, which is kind of my point with this blog.
Non-fiction fundamentally means you're not making the stuff up - as best you know from research and/or memory, it really happened. Clearly, that still leaves a lot of lattitude. Evidence can be missing or contradictory. Memories can be false. But Frey's, it seems, were sins of commission, not omission. He said things that were not so, and that he knew not to be so. I'm going to drop the religious image now, because I don't think he should burn for eternity, Oprah's hurt feelings to the contrary notwithstanding.
But what he did is wrong, because in a world where "reality TV" doesn't show us anything more fundamentally real than General Hospital we need all the authenticity that we can get. And we don't need people passing off fiction as non-fiction, thank you very much.
Non-fiction fundamentally means you're not making the stuff up - as best you know from research and/or memory, it really happened. Clearly, that still leaves a lot of lattitude. Evidence can be missing or contradictory. Memories can be false. But Frey's, it seems, were sins of commission, not omission. He said things that were not so, and that he knew not to be so. I'm going to drop the religious image now, because I don't think he should burn for eternity, Oprah's hurt feelings to the contrary notwithstanding.
But what he did is wrong, because in a world where "reality TV" doesn't show us anything more fundamentally real than General Hospital we need all the authenticity that we can get. And we don't need people passing off fiction as non-fiction, thank you very much.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Actually, we are in Kansas
I don't know if S.P. Dinsmoor's Garden of Eden, by itself, is a sufficient reason to make a trip to Kansas, but I'd definitely put it in the "Plus" column on the decision sheet. The history of the world since the Garden of Eden, depicted in concrete statues - I mean, c'mon, when's the next time you're going to see that?
If no one has already taken it as a topic, the sculpture gardens of rich wackos would make an entertaining read. Having said that, the only other ones I can think of are the Tiger Balm Gardens built by Aw Boon Haw in Hong Kong and Singapore, and I think most of the one in Hong Kong has been torn down for yet another high rise. But I'm sure these are just the tip of a very strange iceberg.
If no one has already taken it as a topic, the sculpture gardens of rich wackos would make an entertaining read. Having said that, the only other ones I can think of are the Tiger Balm Gardens built by Aw Boon Haw in Hong Kong and Singapore, and I think most of the one in Hong Kong has been torn down for yet another high rise. But I'm sure these are just the tip of a very strange iceberg.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Puzzling
We were given a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas. I haven’t done one of those in years, and it may be years before I do another one. Not because it’s not absorbing. Au contraire, it’s too absorbing. It’s worse than the little “problem” I seem to have with Yahoo! Rocketmania.
What’s fascinating to me about the jigsaw is the way it focuses the attention on image details that are very arbitrarily pres
ented – things that the eye sees as a unit in the picture only rarely correspond to units that the cutting of the puzzle presents on the pieces. The information needed to solve the puzzle is presented in two ways - the two-dimensional shape of the piece and the pictorial content on the face of it. I think the fact that it is coming through these two very different modes makes it very difficult for me. I do better when I try to match by picture content or by shape, but not by both simultaneously – looking for “a large right hand knob with a little bit of gold bezel on it.”
The puzzle picture is a painting of clocks and watches (more on clocks some time – I used to collect, still have one or two around the house). This picture has become so much a part of my current reality that I actually caught myself looking at a colleague’s watch at work, thinking that might be the piece I was looking for earlier.
What’s fascinating to me about the jigsaw is the way it focuses the attention on image details that are very arbitrarily pres
ented – things that the eye sees as a unit in the picture only rarely correspond to units that the cutting of the puzzle presents on the pieces. The information needed to solve the puzzle is presented in two ways - the two-dimensional shape of the piece and the pictorial content on the face of it. I think the fact that it is coming through these two very different modes makes it very difficult for me. I do better when I try to match by picture content or by shape, but not by both simultaneously – looking for “a large right hand knob with a little bit of gold bezel on it.”The puzzle picture is a painting of clocks and watches (more on clocks some time – I used to collect, still have one or two around the house). This picture has become so much a part of my current reality that I actually caught myself looking at a colleague’s watch at work, thinking that might be the piece I was looking for earlier.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
It's not all ones and zeros - some of it is plastic
I spent most of the last week pulling together my thoughts on the Consumer Electronics Show for a client. I wrote about all kinds of stuff – cellphones you can watch TV on, movies you can start watching in the living room and finish in the car on the way to work, amazing and alarming things.
One that I didn’t write about was a one not terribly prominent booth that had materials on consumer electronics recycling and energy efficiency. There was nobody at the booth, but a flyer on the counter was from something called the Electronic Manufacturers Coalition for Responsible Recycling. There was no URL, and I haven't been able to find any Web presence for the EMCRR, despite the fact that the membership list includes thelikes of Canon, Hitachi, Samsung and IBM, all of which manage to get online somehow. The EMCRR mailing address is c/o a lawyer in Washington.
The Consumer Electronics Association, the founder of the feast, also had a brochure there proclaiming their commitment to "public policy solutions that protect innovation and consumer choice while promoting energy efficiency and environmental stewardship." Yeah, OK.
They are also opposed to energy efficiency standards "which stifle innovation by limiting manufacturers' ability to provide quality products that meet consumer performance demands." They refer you to their Public Policy page, which seems way more concerned combatting Hollywood's rapacious attitude toward content than with stewardship of the environment.
All the stuff shown on the 68 football fields worth of show floor (statistic courtesy of the canned voice on the Las Vegas monorail), took energy and materials to manufacture, fuel to ship from China or wherever, energy to run, and it’s going to take up space in a landfill when we’re through with it, because mostly you can’t fix it when it breaks and it will be hopelessly out of date after another two or three CES shows anyway.
But, God forbid we shouldn’t be able to watch classic Brady Bunch episodes on the bus to work on "quality products that meet our performance demands."
Who died and made us king?
One that I didn’t write about was a one not terribly prominent booth that had materials on consumer electronics recycling and energy efficiency. There was nobody at the booth, but a flyer on the counter was from something called the Electronic Manufacturers Coalition for Responsible Recycling. There was no URL, and I haven't been able to find any Web presence for the EMCRR, despite the fact that the membership list includes thelikes of Canon, Hitachi, Samsung and IBM, all of which manage to get online somehow. The EMCRR mailing address is c/o a lawyer in Washington.
The Consumer Electronics Association, the founder of the feast, also had a brochure there proclaiming their commitment to "public policy solutions that protect innovation and consumer choice while promoting energy efficiency and environmental stewardship." Yeah, OK.
They are also opposed to energy efficiency standards "which stifle innovation by limiting manufacturers' ability to provide quality products that meet consumer performance demands." They refer you to their Public Policy page, which seems way more concerned combatting Hollywood's rapacious attitude toward content than with stewardship of the environment.
All the stuff shown on the 68 football fields worth of show floor (statistic courtesy of the canned voice on the Las Vegas monorail), took energy and materials to manufacture, fuel to ship from China or wherever, energy to run, and it’s going to take up space in a landfill when we’re through with it, because mostly you can’t fix it when it breaks and it will be hopelessly out of date after another two or three CES shows anyway.
But, God forbid we shouldn’t be able to watch classic Brady Bunch episodes on the bus to work on "quality products that meet our performance demands."
Who died and made us king?
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Leaving Las Vegas
On the other hand, they do have free Wi-Fi at the airport, which is more than I can say for Boston, the hub of the universe.
I'm sitting near the end of a moving walkway, and I have been hearing "watch out, moving walkway ending" and "stand to the right, walk to the left" announcements by the likes of Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon, Rich Little (impersonating, variously, Jackie Gleason, Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau), somebody whose name I didn't catch (impersonating Cheech Marin, who isn't even dead or retired, as far as I know, and is perfectly capable of recording his own "stand to the right" announcement). Also Carrot Top, but I'm not in a million years going to link to that blight on humanity.
I'm sitting near the end of a moving walkway, and I have been hearing "watch out, moving walkway ending" and "stand to the right, walk to the left" announcements by the likes of Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon, Rich Little (impersonating, variously, Jackie Gleason, Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau), somebody whose name I didn't catch (impersonating Cheech Marin, who isn't even dead or retired, as far as I know, and is perfectly capable of recording his own "stand to the right" announcement). Also Carrot Top, but I'm not in a million years going to link to that blight on humanity.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Sin city
I am in Las Vegas for the second time in my life, and if there isn't a third I could still die happy. It's an interesting concept, but I'm clearly missing something. Try Jan Morris on the subject.
Here's the view from my window at the Sahara Hotel, where every third object is a camel. I'm here for the Consumer Electronics Show, along with 140,000 or so of my closest friends. I just returned from the Bill Gates keynote address, which like so many Microsoft things was about half again as long as it needed to be.
Two questions, as it turned out, really interested me:
1) Why did I stand in a very long line to attend, when I could read everything I need to know in the papers?
2) What is the deal with the Xbox 360 demo with which it ended?
Turns out the two may be related, and it all has to do with virtual and real reality. Re question 1, it occurred to me midway through that there really is something special about physical presence, even in this digital world, and even at a Microsoft shindig, a company built almost entirely on 1s and 0s. That was the actual real, physical Bill Gates, along with the actual real, physical Justin Timberlake. (A long story, I assure you.)
Re question 2, they ended it with Gates and Microsoft President Steve Ballmer playing a boxing game on duelling Xboxes. Gates got to be Muhammed Ali, Ballmer was Joe Frazier. They slugged it out for a while, Gates and Ballmer in real reality dancing around on the stage with their game consoles, propelling Ali and Frazier on the big screen. Ali/Gates won in a knockout (Gates is the boss, after all). There was a repeated close-up shot of Ali's fist striking and distorting Frazier's face, droplets of blood and sweat realistically flying.
I find that while I don't have a position on boxing per se, the sight of two rich white men making two (admittedly digital) black men beat each other up for the purpose of selling more toys struck me as offensive.
Here's the view from my window at the Sahara Hotel, where every third object is a camel. I'm here for the Consumer Electronics Show, along with 140,000 or so of my closest friends. I just returned from the Bill Gates keynote address, which like so many Microsoft things was about half again as long as it needed to be.
Two questions, as it turned out, really interested me:
1) Why did I stand in a very long line to attend, when I could read everything I need to know in the papers?
2) What is the deal with the Xbox 360 demo with which it ended?
Turns out the two may be related, and it all has to do with virtual and real reality. Re question 1, it occurred to me midway through that there really is something special about physical presence, even in this digital world, and even at a Microsoft shindig, a company built almost entirely on 1s and 0s. That was the actual real, physical Bill Gates, along with the actual real, physical Justin Timberlake. (A long story, I assure you.)
Re question 2, they ended it with Gates and Microsoft President Steve Ballmer playing a boxing game on duelling Xboxes. Gates got to be Muhammed Ali, Ballmer was Joe Frazier. They slugged it out for a while, Gates and Ballmer in real reality dancing around on the stage with their game consoles, propelling Ali and Frazier on the big screen. Ali/Gates won in a knockout (Gates is the boss, after all). There was a repeated close-up shot of Ali's fist striking and distorting Frazier's face, droplets of blood and sweat realistically flying.
I find that while I don't have a position on boxing per se, the sight of two rich white men making two (admittedly digital) black men beat each other up for the purpose of selling more toys struck me as offensive.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Satellite orbits
I came across this site quite honestly in the course of what I get paid to do, so I don't want you to think I'm sitting here screwing around on company time. Well, screwing around excessively on company time.
It takes a little while to load, but it’s worth it. I don’t know if it has absolutely every non-secret satellite that is in orbit, but it’s got a bunch of them.
The view from space (in the Java app window that should open) makes us look like sort of a poor man’s Saturn, with the ring of geosynchronous satellites at the equator. (Including “Rock” and “Roll” the two XM radio satellites.)
I was impressed with what a lot of stuff there is up there, especially in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). In addition to working satellites, there is four million pounds of space junk, by one estimate. Bits and pieces that fall off - the celestial equivalent of tire tread by the side of the highway.
It takes a little while to load, but it’s worth it. I don’t know if it has absolutely every non-secret satellite that is in orbit, but it’s got a bunch of them.
The view from space (in the Java app window that should open) makes us look like sort of a poor man’s Saturn, with the ring of geosynchronous satellites at the equator. (Including “Rock” and “Roll” the two XM radio satellites.)
I was impressed with what a lot of stuff there is up there, especially in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). In addition to working satellites, there is four million pounds of space junk, by one estimate. Bits and pieces that fall off - the celestial equivalent of tire tread by the side of the highway.
