psyche

I was recently assessed by some counsellor-type people who decided that they “didn’t want me on their books” - I’m not mentally ill; success!

They were quite flattering overall, telling me my interpersonal skills were “highly developed, if in the wrong direction” (highly developed? Hmm…) and I think I realised during the course of the thing just how much psychology, psychiatry and philosophy I actually knew from reading, despite not reading enough. I felt a pang of bitterness that most of my insights (which have recently turned out to be true in many cases but I shan’t go into this for ego-inflating reasons) are ignored by peers who believe they know better*, I think I am beginning to realise that things are going to fall into place, although they may take a long, long time.

This should be interesting.

From the Wikipedia article on psychosis:

Thomas Szasz focused on the social implications of labelling people as psychotic; a label he argues unjustly medicalises different views of reality so such unorthodox people can be controlled by society. Psychoanalysis has a detailed account of psychosis which differs markedly from Psychiatry. Freud and Lacan outlined their perspective on the structure of psychosis in a number of works.

Pax

* There is definitely such a thing as a mixed state in bipolar disorder, Will, and I’m sure Stephen Fry knows it…

Thinking of the metaphorical meaning of The Enigma of Amigara Fault, suicide and such jump to mind. I couldn’t help thinking of Lain being my “hole” - it was perfectly tailored to bring out all my psychological insecurities and quirks, and it did. Interestingly, teachers like Mr Barker, Mr Rokison and Mr Smith have only known me since my shift into mediocrity and insanity, and I think Mr Motion is beginning to understand that my mental arithmetic is sluggish at best. Rambling, rambling, rambling. I think my theme of happy/sad is linked to bipolar disorder or at least mania.

I was thinking about trying to speed up my mental maths: if you know your squares up to 20, you could do something like this:

Input: multiply a and b.

Check whether a mod 2 = b mod 2 (i.e. are they both odd or both even? This isn’t necessary but is a vestige of this retardation’s origin in my mental maths crazy stuff - I know a bunch of n²s for ns up to 20 and then some randomers like 25 and some powers of two because of computing jigga.)

If so, use the thing. Using some (like going backward to difference of two squares).

ab = ((a+b)/2-(a+b)/2+a)((a+b)/2+(a+b)/2-a) = ((a+b)/2)² - (a - (a+b)/2)²

So ab = (mean - distanceToMean)(mean + distanceToMean) = mean² - distanceToMean². Yeah.

Hmm. So like: 12 x 14?

1. 12 + 14 = 26
2. 26/2 = 13
3. 13² (lookup, so only one operation, not the fat O(n²) number that multiplication usually takes) = 169
4. 12-13 = -1
5. (-1)² = 1
6. 169 - 1 = 168

Looks retarded but I actually find that easier than going 14 x 10 + 14 x 2 = 140 + 28 = 168. I’m not joking.

Maybe it becomes useful later?

17 x 23 = 20² - 3² = 391

As it pivots on square values and I only want to go up to 20, you can make other stuff:

11 x 29 = 20² - 9² = 319

So it’s “If both numbers are odd or both numbers are even*, their product is the mean squared minus half the distance between them (or the distance to the mean) squared.”

This is fun.

23 x 27 = 625 - 4 = 621. Pimping.

And stuff. Actually, maybe the reason I like this is not to do with number of operations but merely type of operation: I find multiplication difficult; I am an idiot. Addition and subtraction I also dislike but not as much as I dislike multiplication.

*I think I added this constraint so you only get whole numbers. Remember, I’m an idiot!

Having a lookup table of squares and doing this - any good for computational optimisation? MAYBE.

I ordered some of Nakaido Reichi’s music from OCS Books. When I went in there, they started talking Japanese at me - possibly because I was having a bad hair day. Thus, today I got my hair cut. That’s all.

I’m watching this in the hope of properly understanding quantum computing.

Notions of the “observer’s mind” remind me of Lain and obviously Plato’s allegory of the cave reminds me of The Matrix.

These tech talks are awesome. Google aren’t as bad as their (generally) fbugly [functional but ugly] UI design suggests: this is the real deal!

UPDATE: Seriously.

Pax

Well, would you look at that?

Pax

When I first listened to Biffy Clyro’s Puzzle, I thought it was just crap for people who get excited by loud guitar music. It’s actually totally amazing. The 4 + 2 + 9 = 15 thing and the way each song subtly references others within the album and the quirkiness and ability to play the guitar without showing off is actually amazing. In fact, it’s so amazing that I literally do not care whether other people like it because I could just sit here listening to it.

Thus, new awesome list: David Gray, Warren Zevon, bôa, The Wallflowers, Biffy Clyro, Badly Drawn Boy.

Awesome.

Pax

Today, Elliot, Hugh Emerson, Oliver Jones and I went to the “Camden International Cadet Sabre Competition 2008″ (snappy name). The free t-shirt was similar to last year’s but with an “8″ in place of the “7″ and an exaggerated, hammer-and-sickle-esque sabre guard taking up more space than last time.

We met Mathieu there again (he left for France after a while) and Jim refereed some fights. Last time I came 64th out of 71 and this time I came 57th out of 85.

My poule went fairly badly - at the beginning I feel I fenced quite well and kept distance nicely but unfortunately after my first two fights, I fenced someone much better than me, lost the match and my concentration and lost all subsequent fights in the poule. I was seeded 58 and then beat Niall Dowse (seed 71) 15-11. I then lost to Stanislav Konopatskiy (seed 7) 15-2. That’s a slightly better result than last year.

The full results are here.

I’ve been jumping through hoops for so long now. Hmm.

Pax

Yes, I’m finally doing what people have been telling me to do since the 4th form: learning Python! …that’s all.

We had the senior club sabre today - the winner was Adam, who fenced really, really well (obviously) and trumped the top sabre-only fencers (Adam fences all three weapons). Unfortunately for ME, my first fight was against him and so the final score was 15-11. I’m sure I didn’t deserve most of the points I got. Now I have to think about how to explain a first round exit to my club when I won the junior sabre last year… oh well. There’s always club computing!

Just while discussing fencing, I’ll reiterate that the Camden International Cadet Sabre is on Saturday the 9th. Last time Elliot and I did it - we washed out completely (both came sixtysomethingth, Elliot a few places above me [yeah, yeah… laugh it up, fatboy!]). I don’t think we’d ever been in such an intense situation (although the BYC 2007 was pretty close). We’ll try to do better this time.

I love counterattacks so much. You have no idea.

Pax

Ted Nelson gave a talk at school today. It reminded me of two things:

1. The Matrix (lots of prisons and systems to control us and adapting to the machines’ way of life…)
2. The God Delusion *(a densely-packed refutation of something that you’ve suspected was fundamentally flawed all along)

Prof. Nelson handed out some copies of ZigZag and Xanadu and demoed XanaduSpace. Having heard about it for ages and seeing demonstrations in other videos scattered across the web, it was great to see it right there. I think a combination of seeing it materialise despite the rather long-lived smear campaign against it (it was like a Googlebomb of “Xanadu” for “vaporware”, but in print) and hearing Prof. Nelson talk about the concrete concepts behind it (C++, OpenGl and Python backend, next platform will be iPhone, Flash version soon) really solidified the concept in my mind. I think I’m ready to believe that with fine-tuning, the computer world can be turned on its head (in a good way).

The basic premise of the talk was that technology was really just “packaging and conventions” and that we had learned to use kludgy solutions rather than good solutions being engineered (this was blamed on techies). Nelson believes that the web’s infrastructure (one-way links, unsourced quotations etc.) is severely lacking, and that 1984, when Xerox PARC gave us the desktop metaphor, was when “it all went wrong”.

Another thing that struck me was the sense of activity and understanding. Age 70, having been ridiculously ahead of the curve for so long but never really achieving the maximal recognition he deserves, Nelson continues to pursue his original projects with zeal and an apparently very perceptive mind. Listening to his anecdotes and analogies reminded me strongly of interviews with Richard Feynman.

The subject of Lain remained fairly suppressed, although people now frequently tell me how often I mention it even when I don’t (…).

Of course, the best thing about Xanadu would be sourced or transcluded quotations - as people may know, I have a thing about blockquotes [1, 2]. With Xanadu I will finally get my wish! FINALLY! OH YEAH!!

On a rather insane note, I think I read somewhere (probably New Scientist or Wired but I really can’t remember - I should really find the source and, y’know, transclude it) that the Google generation is actually very bad at processing and finding information in most scenarios because of their (no, not me - it’s them!) ridiculously short attention spans and inattention to detail.

I think this is the other extreme that I’ve been waiting for; people generally have this rather idealised view of internet-savvy folks being greatly intelligent data processing machines, churning through some huge number of articles on RSS feeds, tagging hundreds of links every week etc. while the minority believe that people are now just dumb keyword filters. I think both of these views are inaccurate. Yes, there’s a danger that people may deactivate their higher thought and just sift through pages of Google results but intelligent reading and data processing is not dead.

When I did our first Module 1 past paper last week (unashamed boast: 95%), I applied the rules that I generally apply to webpages (not consciously, mind you. I had to really think hard about what I do) :

1. Keyword search - what is the general feel of this page? Large text? What does it say?
2. Specific subheadings? (Mark allocation?)
3. Start forming fuzzy answers
4. “Oh, crap! That doesn’t make sense… wait - let me read this in detail.”
5. “Oh. Oh. Right, wait.”
6. Answer questions on this page.

Repeat for every page.

Then finally, check every page in detail.

It’s kind of like modular programming or drawing something starting with a basic sketch and refining it (but not both at once. I should have said “xor” instead of “or”). You can either choose random bits and focus down on them or get a general outline and keep refreshing your knowledge with slightly higher information resolution. Eventually the answer crystallises in your mind, like an infinite function tending to root 2 or a sign becoming readable as your camera desperately focuses and refocuses.

Yeah. It’s all good, basically. It’s crazy about Taniyama, isn’t it? Man.

Mr Smith covered the talk in a slightly less haphazard way…

Pax

* Mr Smith has told me that there are in fact better alternatives.

Camden Sabre is coming up soon, as is the Public Schools and the Club Sabre. The latter two will both be interesting in that I did well in both last time but this time I’m going to be in a higher age bracket - and close the bottom of it. Oh well. Such is life. I enjoy fencing. I dislike most people. Thus fencing most people is a compromise. Semantics! OH YEAH!!

I’ve randomly done this - take a look at the source to see what I did. It’s not terribly exciting, useful or even technically awesome. Oh well.

Ted Nelson on Tuesday. Awesome. I regret not tracking Baudrillard down before he died.

Pax