A 2017 Dalkey Book Festival talk I attended has lingered in memory. It was ostensibly about America, Russia and the new Cold War. It awoke something else in me. I was, at that time, professionally engaged in seeking geosicence applications for algorithms and machines that could learn. What I sought was time. I saw (and see) algos and ML as labour saving devices like the clothes- and dish- washers that continue to liberate people from drudgery. Freedom from repetitive, mind numbing tasks, creates the opportunity to pursue more rewarding things. And I sought to help my colleagues find unseen correlations, derive new insights and put their time to more creative uses. There wasn’t an easy answer to be had.
[Read more…] about Networth$Anchoritism
Future Imperfect
You may have noticed the spine of Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist in a recent photo I posted. There’s a line in it that advises that ‘The best advice is not to write what you know, it’s to write what you like.’ And with such confirmation I feel encouraged to meld it with an Anne Lamott aphorism that’s infected the web: ‘Every thing that happened to you is yours; people should have behaved better.’
Are these observations deserving of reflection and expression? They certainly contributed to my rereading an older walking commentary blog to see if I’m repeating themes close to my heart and of course, create an opportunity to steal from myself. Which led me down some old paths this morning and a return to a personal favourite theme which is that one’s point of view depends on the view point. Mountain tops become islands if you are looking down from a peak above a cloud filled valley.
[Read more…] about Future ImperfectSound Thinking
Mankind has always communicated with the gods using virtual systems. Prayer and meditation have their basis in introspection. The pandemic obliges if not compels the faithful into remoter collaboration than is normal. I heard a Catholic priest on the radio this morning talking about the sermons he’s giving from his empty churches to a home based congregation. I could accuse his interviewer of trying to make it sound like something new but I know he’s smarter than that. We know that religious broadcasts were scheduled almost as soon as radio was invented and they have enabled a diaspora of sick, elderly and migrated to maintain their worships even if not in co-located flocks. Bells have long served to broadcast the time of day and the times of prayer. Loudspeakers call the faithful to prayer more frequently than to assembly. It’s nothing new to worship and receive instruction and guidance at home but perhaps some think it’s unsavoury to be using a business or entertainment device to commune with their god. Could it be that the computer isn’t as impersonal or trusted a device as a radio or a TV? Thinking between Easter and Ramadan, perhaps there’s a worry that computer is listening too?
[Read more…] about Sound ThinkingMicromort and big numbers.
I’ve decided to put my trust in the reader and dispense with long introductions and explanations. If you care what a micromort actually is, you’ll follow the links. If you don’t understand big numbers, you’ll be in good company.
Today is the day we should have reached unorthodox Canterbury after walking out from Manchester on April Fools’ Day. Instead, like so many, I’m curfewed.
[Read more…] about Micromort and big numbers.Should Could Maybe
We should have been in Milton Keynes today had we been able to walk towards Rome. We could be there this day next year assuming travel restrictions can be lifted within the coming year. Remembering that pandemic means everywhere, I wonder if it’s just a maybe that I’ll walk by Milton Keynes and visit the National Museum of Computing in nearby Bletchley in 2021. Or will it be 2022?
I opened last year’s diary earlier and found a note about homelessness from this day last year. Consequently, we’re at home wondering what happened to the homeless? I recall that Shelter estimated there were over 300,000 homeless people in the UK in 2018. A very recent BBC radio interview covered a few of the challenges faced by those housing the homeless in the pandemic. There are many reasons that people end up homeless, among them addictions, mental illness and sociopathy. All of these surface as challenges to the authorities trying to house and protect people who have become accustomed to life on our streets. I think there has been a mis-step in helping the homeless in this crisis, creating an unintended consequence. The facilitating bureaucracy in the UK seemed to adapt an off-the-shelf approach from criminal justice, an isolation as punishment rather than rehabilitation. The homeless protection plan seems focussed on reducing the spread of disease by the homeless rather than directly looking after the needs of the homeless themselves. The addicted continue to shoot-up. The sociopaths ignore social distancing. The depressed can and do defenestrate. This does not augur well for what happens after the pandemic to those homeless now rehoused. It’ll rate as an opportunity missed at a time when there is effectively unlimited money available to address the underlying issues rather than simply concentrating them into hotels and the like. This is a world wide problem.
[Read more…] about Should Could MaybeStrange Day
27 March 2020 – 21:28 GMT – 7°C Mostly Clear – Co. Dublin, Ireland
Chemo for our daughter started today. We’re the drivers because everyone else has children whose awareness of contamination has yet to develop. Only the patient can go into the hospital. The same hospital in which our neighbour is in palliative care with widely metastasised cancer. A cruel situation for her, separated from family. And cruel for her kids and grandkids. Less cruel for our daughter in absolute terms but it’s hard to consider absolutes when you’re sick