We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five: she can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye. It’s interesting when people die - give us dirty laundry.
Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet? You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet. Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry.
Pax
Pax
Pax
The next generation - our children - learn by social conditioning and increasingly by “mass media”. No single advert or Disney film can be blamed for inadvertently or intentionally instilling subconscious stereotypes in us and colouring our lives.
However, anyone who becomes high profile has a sort of responsibility to think about how they might be affecting the lives of others in ways that we usually don’t care about. It’s important to be honest sometimes.
People will go to amazing lengths to protect their dream world. Why not just stop generating it?
Pax
This was originally a 600-word post but I think I’ve narrowed it down.
1. Life is pointless, but because of this we can create meaning and define ourselves in some (non-psychological) sense.
2. Even if God existed, you wouldn’t have to do what he told you anyway. He’s just another level up - no matter how powerful he is, HIS life is just as freeform and pointless too.
Lulz.
Pax
People raised on it think pop-rock is rock. Give them a flat degree chord and they’ll vomit.
It’s characterised by the dehumanisation of music. Looping. De-emphasis of progression. Melody as an afterthought. It always goes rhythm => chords => melody - not necessarily bad in itself, but there is no thought put in at any of these steps. It attempts to slavishy obey key, save for clumsy shifts up a tone or a semitone or accidentally setting all chords major on its computer. When catchiness is achieved, and it rarely is, it’s regarded as the ultimate end of the music’s existence.
Instead artificial catchiness is created by repetition of stupid but simple hooks until they get “stuck in your head”. Good pop writers are forced to also write terrible music in order to stay ahead in a chart dominated by machines.
Pax
I was contemplating making a long post about gypsy jazz and another about computer science (and all my uni shiz) and my trip to Japan. Later, maybe.
HOWEVER…
Using http://www.deanjackson.dj/nameanagram/index.php, @Vivan and I found some pretty amazing stuff.
Just have a quick look. There are others but I selected out ones which I thought were particularly badass - I may add some back in at Vivan’s recommendation.
Adolf Hitler = rill of death = death for ill
Michael Jackson’s = manacle his jock = he’s jail cock man
Richard Feynman = ah, canny, Dr Fermi! = charm fine randy
Christopher Poole = leprotic, posh hero = poor trophies lech
Ted Nelson = stolen end = lent node
Edward Morgan Blake = goddamn lawbreaker = large, mad breakdown
Richard Dawkins = dishrack Darwin = raw, candid shirk
Charles Robert Darwin = a wild terror branches = red-hot brain scrawler
Alexander the Great = extra-hated general = axed the rare tangle
Jesus Christ = such jest, sir
Stephen Gary Wozniak = wheezing, porky Satan
Bill Gates = legal bits = glib, stale
William Henry Gates = the marginally wise = really win this game (read that without the second “=”)
Alan Mathison Turing = I am a stunning harlot = an original maths nut
Mohandas Gandhi = ha ha! goddamn sin = sad and high moan
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi = ha ha! shock and daring madman = handshaking and macho drama
George Washington = war on: he gets going = engaging to whores
Albert Einstein = sent elite brain = ten elite brains
William Shakespeare = I am a weakish speller = I’ll make a wise phrase
William Jefferson Clinton = jilts nice women - in for fall = female joins clown in flirt
Alan Moore = amoral one = anal Romeo
Captain Douglas Jay Falcon = joy and pan-galactic as foul = joy! fanatical, gonadal cups
Rick Astley = take lyrics = real sticky
Saddam Hussein = UN’s said he’s mad
Chairman Mao = I am on a march = I am a monarch
Cassius Clay = casual cissy
Tony Blair = Tory in lab = Libyan rot (???)
Walter Disney = drew in a style
Tim Berners-Lee = tremble? I sneer = terrible semen
Jimbo Wales = I jam bowels
Virginia Bottomley = I’m an evil Tory bigot
George Bush = o, he buggers= he bugs Gore
Stephen Fry = ferny thesp
Pax
You may remember Approval and Optimisation, in which I minimised the error between a function and a candidate function, linearly parameterised in one variable.
By linearly parameterised, I mean the function would be something like y = mx^n or mx + sinx or something with m the parameter. If it were non-linearly done, like y = nx^m or x + sin(mx), then my quadratics ‘n’ completing the square approach wouldn’t work (although you could just use derivative = zero stuff).
I’ll just summarise the general process before writing up the obvious extension which Bryant and I both considered. The parameter in your candidate function is m.
For a candidate function that is a polynomial, remember that it must approach some kind of infinity as x goes to ±infinity, so there is no maximum error, so dE/dm can be rigorously shown to give the minimum.
Ok, now the important stuff. As I understand it, partial differentiation is just treating everything except the thing you’re differentiating with respect to as a constant. To illustrate, consider z = x^2 + xy + y^2
Implicit differentiation: dz/dx = 2x + (x dy/dx + y) + 2y dy/dx (having y as a function of x and chaining/producting it as necessary - the bracket in the middle is just the product rule)
Partial differentiation: delz/delx = 2x + y (as if y were a constant)
A quick scout online showed that this business of finding “critical points” i.e. maxima and minima of multivariable functions simply involves setting all the partial derivatives to zero.
The extended method is pretty similar, but here’s an example. I can’t be bothered to type up all the working - it won’t look nice anyway - so I’ve skipped all the simplification/algebra. Note to self: use The Integrator more often…
Candidate function: ax + b
Target function: x^2 on [0, t]
E = integral from 0 to t of ( (ax+b) - x^2 )^2 dx
= (a^2)/3t^3 + abt^2 + tb^2 - (at^4/2) - (2bt^3)/3 + (t^5)/5
Thus delE/dela = (2/3)at^3 + bt^2 - (t^4)/2
Setting this equal to zero leads to 4at + 6b = 3t^2 (EQ 1)
and delE/delb = at^2 + 2bt - (2/3)t^3
Setting this equal to zero leads to 3at + 6b = 2t^2 (EQ 2)
Solving EQs 1 and 2 simultaneously gives a = t, b = -(t^2)/6, so y = t(x - t/6). Oddish but niceish result I guess. Someone please confirm.
I sanity checked this with ax + b and mx + c and thankfully a = m and b = c dropped out fairly easily despite some difficult-looking but actually tolerable multiplying-out.
Infinitely more promising is the fact that your function doesn’t have to be linearly parameterised or just a straight line or any of that batshit insane stuff. You can do an arbitrarily high-order polynomial approximation… or something. Cool. Going to do that for some badass functions and see how they compare with Taylor/Maclaurin expansions.
Pax
I have come up with a number of heuristics that have helped me become happy and appreciate good things and act on challenges while being unreactive to meaningless things that I would previously have interpreted as “negative”. The net effect of these (which I am about to explain) is to cut out the type of self-talk that needlessly slows down (or even ruins) social interactions and problem-solving while maintaining the level of introspection necessary for looking beyond the superficial. The principles I started with - or, in some cases, later reconciled the heuristics with - were “belief in oneself” and “not caring what other people think of you”. More on this later.
Directly inspired by the “YES!” that Captain Falcon shouts while performing his (amazing) Falcon Dive, YES! is an expression of active rather than passive compliance. Before, if someone asked me to play Tank Trouble (a great game), I offered similar weird token resistance/inertia as if they’d asked me to copulate with their toilet and then eat one of my own eyes. YES! forced me to acknowledge my own intent and break free from the complete passivity I was in before. It builds a sense of identity and each YES! sums towards having a better day. I take responsibility for my actions now.
oh hellz yeah is a funny one, but it’s not quite as concise or snappy as YES!. However, it remains a good method for keeping such positivity varied and the pace controlled.
Originally met with some resistance, nah dude is similar to saying “chill” and “no thanks” at the same time. Bad news is an acknowledgement of something dumb happening without getting all “OH MAN MY DAY IS SO BAD AND THEN EVERY DAY IS RUBBISH LIFE IS HARD”. They unambiguously asserting your rejection of whatever it is, but both of these WAY better with a smile than “no” or “not too good” or whatever other buzzkillers I could think of.
A contraction of “let’s go”, for moving people. Reduces subconscious token resistance and interestingly effective for eliminating personal procrastination for me.
I think I read somewhere that physically smiling actually makes you happier (i.e. the link between “being happy” and “smiling” isn’t one way). I’m constantly smiling and/or pulling ridiculous faces (even in lessons, although sometimes teachers try to stop me… guitar lessons are the best).
When in danger of jumping onto something and smashing it or throwing my brother out of a window, I just remember this and the others follow.
What more can I say on this? It’s just… epic win.
This doesn’t mean anything… raw.
A multi-tool. If something is literally a good plan, say it. If something is a funny, insane plan, say it (and maybe do it unless it would incur extreme carnage of the bad news variety).
Either say them in your head or say them out loud. Self-amusement and a sense of humour is necessary. By taking these things so mock-seriously, I give myself permission to make them 100% effective. A lot of this kind of stuff seems to be “giving yourself permission” to do stuff, which requires humour when you’re starting out.
I read that some studies indicate that the mania aspect of bipolar disorder could be caused by phases of deep denial of depression, and other sources concur that blanket repressing “negativity” can be just as disastrous as wallowing in self-pity. This is why a chill aspect is definitely necessary, to sort of “ground” lulz. In fact, I saw a brilliant infomercial which I will now show you so you don’t do cannabis:
The different aspects of his personality are “exploded” (yes, like an Excel pie chart) and we can see that while some of the individual components aren’t “bad” by themselves, some are (and note Dr Chill sitting there… amazing).
What was I saying? Oh yeah: don’t go for extremes. Just chill out. Allow yourself to experience the full range of your conscious existence, but train yourself to be controlled. Always feel yourself pulling back to state of serenity. Some people advocate a total lack of emotion, and while this is theoretically viable, I find that in practice as I get to know these people they seem to reach a maximum of being “in the moment” and then slowly disown all their human aspects and become deeply conflicted. They feel guilty about being human. It’s better to accept your humanity - even your mortality - and then just chill with it. In my experience, this works. Literally, you can just start doing it right now and it will work. TRIED AND TESTED!
If you think other people are mean, it’s one of a few things:
Try to take steps to do what you want. Try not to derive your self-esteem from others - this is bad. Sometimes people are socially successful with a particular group or by some particular merit (a talent or physical attractiveness etc.) … this leads to addiction to validation, which can work but is UNSUSTAINABLE. You will not have people to derive comfort from all the time. Sometimes you will have to take responsibility for this. The sooner you honestly come to terms with this, the better.
Here is a list of experiences that have helped me be happier despite no significant change in external life:
That last one is worth remembering. Sometimes people feel guilty about consciously trying to make themselves happier… they feel like life shouldn’t require these hokey self-helpish tricks. Eventually they become subconscious so you don’t have to worry about them, but people who think they should naturally be happy stay in denial. If you’re unhappy, just accept that by random chance you didn’t integrate into society. Civilisation lays down a lot of well-defined and easy-to-access rules - it’s the norm for procedures in human life to be well-defined. After all, people have been there before, right? Well, maybe so, but I promise you, to truly enjoy life and do what you want, you do have to accept that not everything will come naturally to you. There’s nothing “natural” about a lot of life, and a lot of what we consider “science” like lightning bolts and stars is NNNNNature. So chill and take responsibility. Don’t expect it to be handed to you. This approach definitely worked for me.
Remember the difference between choosing to be a lulzorific parody of humanity and becoming a dark, twisted mofo.
If you get these aspects of your life handled, the rest seems to fall into place - sometimes in a way you didn’t imagine possible. Performance anxiety, schoolwork, proficiency at your hobbies, relationships of all kinds… they flow if you’re more confident. You allocate time to doing what you want to do. You don’t feel resentment for no reason. But you’re still human, you’re happy without being insane, but it wouldn’t even matter if you are, and wait, maybe you are, but you know, CHILL!
Belief in yourself and not caring what other people think, when combined with the intellectual base you have probably already cultivated (while letting your emotional/mental [same thing] health go without realising it). It’s just the best way to be. It’s YES!
A last thing. This concept seems so universal that it must have already been defined somewhere, but here I go anyway - macro and micro stuff.
Macro: I want to be great at … roundhouse kicks.
Micro: I want to eat. I want to watch TV. I’ll do my homework… oh, she’s hot… I want to ja–go to the toilet. I want to eat. BLAH BLAH BLAH
It’s easy to sabotage yourself. You’re not automagically equipped to learn skills over a long time period, with indistinct and sometimes abstract results. You have to really believe in what you want and commit to it. It’s possible… and necessary.
Beware: don’t develop an ego about this. Chill out. It’s ridiculous but I have felt this - and people I know have independently documented this. You can actually become arrogant about being happy. You can get a self-righteous sense of pity. This indicates that you are still a bit of a social chameleon, getting your identity from others. Everyone is adaptive to some extent, but it can become stupid… you don’t want to let your values slosh around. You’re not a zombie who can be turned directed by anyone who acts like they know what they’re doing … are you? You can lose direction in your life by not being in the moment - you don’t really participate in life, you let it “slide”. You have your reality dictated to you; you do not dictate reality. You are like a cloud of reflective particles… you are defined by who you are and what you are doing. This is not correct. You want to be dynamic but stable. Controlled but flexible. It is not an oxymoron. Think of a great martial artist. It is cool. The ego can sneak back in. You have to really let it go. Do things for yourself, not to “please” people you don’t know (and don’t break your back to please your friends - you’re a human, not a tool [well...]) - this ends up annoying the people you should care about and the randomers you’re trying to impress will only notice that you’re a CHODE. Being too ego-centred promotes deriving your self-esteem from comparing yourself to others, which is unsustainable (and there are moral problems with this as well, but this is a practical post, not a theory one) - you might one day acquire a flaw that you have learned to hate, thanks to your ego, and that will mess you up. You can have healthy self-esteem without being an egomaniac. It just takes time to learn control, as with all these things.
Now, it’s time for lulz, so I will report back later.
Pax
My A2 computing project involves downloading stock prices and related news and showing it in a VB6-made executable. Most of the work is actually getting VB to co-operate with filetypes and graphing modules and whatnot, but it does raise some questions (or maybe I just randomly raised them). Mr Barker explained that Charlie Paterson’s algorithm for predicting trends involved inspecting the last five (or some similar number) changes in price and then looking back for a bunch of five similarly-sized consecutive changes and seeing what the sixth change was and then predicting that that sixth change would happen this time around. It sounded quite interesting to me but apparently it was rather unsuccessful. My dad mentioned “trend-following” ones that predict the price will go down if it’s gone down the last n times. The smaller n is, the more “sensitive” the thing is - obviously if n is 1, it’ll just predict the last change which is probably around 50% useful… but the larger n is, the more “behind the trend” you’ll be when you pick it up.
I kind of dream of fitting polynomials to the last 100 data points or something - maybe this would help predict minima and maxima as well? I think someone once mentioned Fourier analysis of the stock market to me, years and years ago… … … I don’t know. Sounds very interesting.
Then I started thinking in very general terms - think about the deterministic universe idea that if you know its initial state, you can predict its whole future. Obviously you wouldn’t expect to be able to predict the entire progress of the stock market from its initial state (!) because not only is it externally-influenced, it’s completely controlled by external forces. Now, if we could model the behaviour of lots and lots of investors… 
:)
I’m going to try to have a look at some stats/compsci mashups when I have the change.
The second part of this high-variance post is about some probably useless things that I’ve been thinking about. In a culture of mass consumption (blah blah) perhaps we slide towards defining ourselves through what we buy etc. … perhaps this is unavoidable, but I hope it’s understandable (in some sense). What I’ve been worrying about is the idea of being not just emotionally invested in endeavours and inanimate items (or even other people) but really, really relying on external things for validation. Maybe it’s insane to think you can fuel yourself - maybe that’s a microneurosis of my own, the belief that someone can function alone - but sometimes it seems insane to think that your environment totally controls you and you are just living “in reaction” to the world. I chanced upon the print version of this article, possibly exaggeratedly (I’m not very good at reading between lines etc.) mocking Twitter users’ need for constant attention/validation… its criticisms seem to ring true in some sense… … I suppose everyone who tries to maximise their “connectability” (*cough, shuffle*) is guilty of trying to “feel alive” by connecting to stuff. Is that bad? Possibly.
I think there must be an optimum point between being {selfish, obstinate, unreactive} and {personalityless, fickle, reactive}. Some particularly cool people seem to just settle near this optimum while others like myself flounder in a state of extreme self-consciousness, spewing a narrative of the slightly odd journey as they (I…) go. I’d like to think I’m slowly migrating towards a healthy emotional state - I’m definitely very happy but it feels a little bit fragile, like if I hit my head and was paralysed and couldn’t do any maths or guitar or exercise anymore I would become depressed. I don’t want that kind of mental breakdown to be possible ever.
What of the idea that one’s ego and one’s self-esteem aren’t the same, and that one’s ego is a big rationalisation (”I’m Farhan, I go to a good school, I have {some skills}, I’m a sexy beast” and one’s self-esteem is one’s natural will to survive? In that case, some people will be successful in maintaining their ego and have that at their core and let their self-esteem wither and with good luck will remain happy for their lives and be so confident that they can be happy that they will always somehow manufacture the situation necessary to reinforce their ego and assure them that they are a functioning life-form. I suspect that these people, if confronted by a terrible accident, would “lose it”, so to speak. Because their ego generally works for them and the world has tricked them into believing that “that is the way happiness works”, they never confront the strange damage that has taken place to their self-esteem as a result of the way modern human civilisation plays itself out.
On the other hand, cool mofos who have worked to genuinely improve themselves as people (I don’t mean in a “LOL LERN NEW SKILLZ” but in a “understand what it means to be human and not a robot or an animal or a brick”) and have avoided or got wise to the hidden and never-discussed subtle, indirect and psychological pitfalls of consumerism have their bodies compeltely crippled by fate and respond amazingly well.
I suspect/hope that for the majority of people, this works itself out - as they “mature” they somehow “find themselves”, some later than others. Fun.
So much/many lulz! countable(lulz)?
Pax
EDIT:
The obvious thing of taking the mean change for the last five and extrapolating is probably ill-fated, so I asked my dad about weighting the means so the ones closer are much more important. I thought that was quite nifty. He laughed in my face and suggested that I read up about the tremendous amount of stuff that’s been done and about how complex and, occasionally, effective it was. Interesting…
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