Checking email with boxing gloves; this sweet computer science.

Pax

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

Others must ever live through our achievements

Pax

We must ever live through the achievements of others

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

Katy Perry = perky, arty

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.

1. Get expression (candidate function - target function)^2 in integrable form
2. Let E be the integral of that expression between whatever limits you want
3. Find m such that E is a minimum (the most robust way is to solve dE/dm = 0 but I used a completing-the-square shortcut last time as I was only using a linearly parameterised thing)

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.

YES!/oh hellz yeah

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.

nah dude/bad news

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.

’sko

A contraction of “let’s go”, for moving people. Reduces subconscious token resistance and interestingly effective for eliminating personal procrastination for me.

smile

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).

chill

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.

lulz

What more can I say on this? It’s just… epic win.

raw

This doesn’t mean anything… raw.

good plan

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).

How to use the heuristics

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:

1. Low level: they’re casually insulting you etc. in a way that is just socially acceptable. You must learn not to care. It mystifies me when I see an otherwise cool person fall to pieces when someone questions them. Really, really believe in yourself. Be happy, do things you want to, accept responsibility for your life, lose your victim complex, blah blah blah. It’s possible… and necessary, unless you want to realise at the end of your life that you could’ve done better. If you’re fun, confident etc. this problem will just disappear, or you’ll realise it was just “banter” all along.
2. Mid level: people turn away from you when you try to talk to them, people throw your pencilcase into a woodchipper etc. … you’re not presenting yourself properly, probably because you’re still internally messed up. You’re being alternately irrationally spineless and then irrationally angry/insane (this is “nice guy syndrome”… you don’t have to be nice to be a “nice guy”, one of the mediocre people that we can now easily be socially conditioned to be).
3. High level: people beat you up, attempt to wage war on you, attack you with submarines - try to bring in law enforcement or national guard. Take responsibility for your survival - this is what evolution designed you for. Learn to operate vehicles. Escape. Do not take lives. Conquer your fear. Try not to get into life-or-death situations. This may be beyond the scope of this guide.
4. Ultra-high level: you seem to suffer from personal environmental disasters. You are the last human on Earth, etc. I cannot help you. Just use the heuristics and chill, lulz. Play some games or something.

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:

• Having photosensitive sunglasses/dancing or singing badly wherever you want: I learned that whether someone thinks I look stupid or not doesn’t affect me ;-] unless I make it. It’s like The Matrix - other people’s feelings towards you only affect you when your mind makes them real
• Tank Trouble: how you can have fun without really moving
• The tuck shop: how talking with good friends about nothing while arranged in a circle is amazing
• Randomly talking to people: how friendships start from nothing
• Depression: how you control your own mind - it’s sometimes tricky, but never as hard as, say, fighting a Jedi Master or something… or like defusing a really hard-to-defuse bomb…. not that hard
• Trying to explain why I haven’t done my homework: the benefits of honesty, humour, smiling, clarity and concision in work-corrupted interpersonal relationships
• Boxing: putting stuff into immediate perspective, believing in oneself, GETTING EXERCISE (GOOD PLAN)
• Attending family functions: learning that “dancing” means “lulz” for non-professionals
• The common room: clique boundaries are in your head
• The guitar: how music can change your mood if you let it… how “technical excellence is the antecedent of … creativity”
• Insane friends: how normal interactions can wear you down if you never learn to approach them properly

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.

Cynicism

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