When I was doing my PhD I was there right at the cusp of the shift towards heavy computing.

I was doing both theory and modelling work in physical chemistry and I had the benefit of being properly trained in both the new and old methods.

In the old ways, when a complex system was to be studied the first action was to develop a ‘model’ system. This was simple and well behaved experimental system – hopefully the simplest that was still within the set of behaviours of the complex system of true interest.

Then lots of experiments were performed to see how the model system behaved under different experimental conditions.

Thereafter, hypotheses were developed and translated to mathematical equations. Because easy-to-use and powerful computers didn’t exist the maths had to be solved analytically and hence the need for the simplest ‘model’ systems.

The analytical equations were used to predict how a new version of the complex system would behave. This was the goal – understanding and predictability within a wide set of pseudo-extrapolated experimental conditions.

In developing these analytical solutions, sometimes simplification were allowed, solely to allow analytical solutions to be achieved at all. This is called relaxing the requirements for an exact solution. Care was taken to keep track of these simplifications just to make sure they didn’t blow up into large errors.

Once the analytical models were developed they were tested over and over, for both improvements and errors, with further experimental data. This process would only stop when everyone decided that the models were a good enough approximation of what was really going on and moved on to more interesting things.

In the newer methods of scientific discovery the whole experiment, no matter how complex, is simply simulated numerically (usually with lots of differential equations) in a very complex software package that no one truly understands.

Having done both, in respect to modelling and understanding of the same complex experimental system, I can say that without a doubt that the old school approach provides us (the custodians of the human brain) far more learning. But the new approach is far quicker if you just want to show two lines, the experimental and the modelled, that match.

In fact the best way to get learning out of the numerical modelling approach is to drive it into unreal limiting cases hoping that something approximating a simple limiting case is observed. By aggregating limiting cases and looking at the difference between them, ‘understanding’ can be achieved.

Many of the scientists looking into how the brain works focus on the fact that there is massive neural network that represent an advanced computer of sorts. I have read articles comparing artificial intelligence to our brains, focusing on the number of processors and the interconnectivity between these.

The assumption by many is that we simply have an amazing Intel processor in our skull and the question is how do we solve all those equations so quickly. This puzzles most.

But the real question for me is, no matter how the brain-computer works, what problems are being solved and how?

I wonder if in fact our brain contains a large library of compiled ‘analytical’ solutions to ‘model’ systems, and also a simple solution solver that can apply any combination of these analytical solutions to a pertinent problem.

This would be consistent with the fact that a scientist working with analytical solutions learns so much more than the modern simulator.

An analytical solution can be a one liner in software and a handful of lines of code for inputting the data and exporting the results, just like the stuff we used to write in Basic on the Apple IIe when all this started.

I also don’t think the brain has ‘maths code’ floating around. So the analytical solutions I am talking about must be some analog of maths written in a chemical code. That is, the structure of the ‘maths’ and also the memory of the brain is stored in rules that are governed by chemical interactions.

Being a chemist I like that. Not binary, not quantum, not maths at all, but chemical. Chemistry has all sorts of rules about reaction, symmetry, interaction and transport of molecules; enough defined complexity to build a computing system capable of being us.

We humans can solve what look like intractable problems (e.g. NP problems) very quickly because we are using a collection of pre-solved and probably approximate ‘analytical’ solutions and one or more simple equation solvers. Possibly there are layers and layers of these all built on top of each other.

The brain must also have a large simulator chugging slowly away in the background looking for new analytical solutions. When found these are parsed into chemical code and then also passed down through DNA memory that encodes the chemical memory. This must be a ‘numerical’ simulator computer that looks for limiting cases that are ‘good enough’ and can be stored as analytical equations in the molecular system.

[p.s. this post is a draft; it will change]

I am not sure if this is a good story or a bad story. And whether I can consider myself lucky or not.

About an hour ago I ducked out of my office to get a Schnitzel sandwich at the mad Swiss guy’s cafe near my old office. These sangas are so good I would travel to Melbourne for one.

Rather unlike me I waited at the red lights, on my pushie, at the corner of Young St and Cleveland St (a very busy street).

There were simply too many cars to make it worth attempting a crossing against the lights especially since I was on the ‘pub special’ which could not be considered a gazelle amongst bikes.

Some dude in an old Falcon wagon then attempted to turn right into my street, squeezing into a gap of oncoming cars that simply wasn’t there.

A cabbie, another Falcon wagon, coming the other way T-boned him at about 60 k’s. He hardly had time to hit the anchors.

The cab drove the first Falcon straight at this gaping pigeon who was root and stocked to the ground in horror. The multi-Falcon ensemble stopped about a foot short of my presence.

And then I fell over sideways, away from the mangled Falcons. After the fact!

And no bloody photo – I had left the phone on the charger to recover from an interstate trip.

The only upside from the story is that the world has been further de-Falconed. Ford has announced that they will stop making them soon, so its only a matter of time before the world is rid of these things for good. And I will never have to step into a Falcon taxi again – lucky days.

I do believe that I am most motivated when influencing people with new ideas.

The postman problem, as posted by a friend, relates to the most efficient route for a postman to take for deliveries of mail. ‘Efficient’ in this context means the least time to achieve the delivery of mail to say 40 or 50 houses.

In the modern era we might solve this problem with a computer. A simple algorithm would be developed to calculate the shortest distance amongst all the options of routes; the variance between the routes being due to doubling back and the like as required to get to all the houses. I refer you to ‘The Bridges of Königsberg’ problem, solved analytically by Euler, if you are confused by this.

But a normal non-Eulerian human would solve this problem very differently. Maybe glancing at a map the postman would guess a route in a few seconds and then try it out. Over a few days with real experience on the ground he might re-calculate the route and improve on it.

It is possible that the human approach never quite achieves the computer-generated perfect solution. But then the postman knows that he gets paid by the hour and not by the inverse of the kilometre. So he doesn’t really care if he has the most efficient route.

Australia Post might employ some tech gurus to provide an internal service for route mapping using computers. But even so you would find that 9 times out of 10 the postie would find a reason not to use the most efficient route. There might be a great to spot for a smoko that is passed at the wrong time on the efficient route. Or it might entail going up a steep hill instead of down it. The people that own the computers would not recognise these factors as legitimate input into their software.

A human solves these problems very quickly by relaxing the requirements of the solution to reduce the complexity of the problem. And then feedback from trial and error is used in successive efforts to improve on the first guess. Humans sort of instinctively know where the Pareto rule is – that is, where the effort required to get a ‘better’ solution doesn’t deliver demonstrable extra ‘value’.

Or at least we used to. I have this suspicion that this type of common sense is being lost.

The description above skimmed over one critical point – the fact that a human can look at a map and guess a good (if not perfect) route in an instant. Whereas a computer would take much longer even if we relaxed the constraints of what a good solution is. How is this? Unlike a computer we can ‘see’ the whole map and visualise various routes superimposed on it and even estimate their differential length, all in a flash and in our heads.

The latest on the subject from some academics (which could be 100% wrong – it is still early days) assumes we are running algorithms in our brains, i.e. we are bio-computers, but they haven’t a clue what these algorithms are – all they know is which parts of the brains light up:

“Mounting evidence suggests that core object recognition, the ability to rapidly recognize objects despite substantial appearance variation, is solved in the brain via a cascade of reflexive, largely feed-forward computations that culminate in a powerful neuronal representation in the inferior temporal cortex. However, the algorithm that produces this solution remains poorly understood. Here we review evidence ranging from individual neurons and neuronal populations to behaviour and computational models. We propose that understanding this algorithm will require using neuronal and psychophysical data to sift through many computational models, each based on building blocks of small, canonical sub-networks with a common functional goal.”

This guy on the internet blogged about the (questionable) conundrum as to how humans can sometimes efficiently compute ridiculously difficult (i.e. NP) problems with ease, where computers struggle.

What followed was a torrid debate with comments at ten paces.

One thing missed by the anal retentive introverts that are interested in this shit is that computers are programmed to find exact answers.

Humans, on the other hand, go for ‘near enough is good enough’.

What we do is relax the requirement for exactness of a solution to accommodate for the complexity of the problem.

I just did it then.

Here’s a new tech business idea:

An escrow service for social media.

For example all contracted NRL or ARU players would have to sign up to this service as part of their contract.

All their social media feeds would go to the escrow service and at some fixed period afterwards (say an hour or a day) both the player and the organisation would both be required to authorise the release of a feed. If either one does not approve then the feed doesn’t go out.

So Paul Gallen, drunk on an island, tweets “Steve Noice [sic] actually cared about players from cronulla’s feelings. Couldn’t say that about any other cunt from Nrl.”

The tweet is escrowed for a period until sometime later when both Paul and the NRL have both approved it’s release. Or not approved it’s release – all it needs is one party to swipe left and it’s a goner.

For sure the NRL might have said ‘no’ to this one, and even Paul himself when he woke up the next day might have had second thoughts.

I am sure he still believes this is true, and the NRL might feel the same about him.

I am sure everyone knows this but we can’t say these things in public in case anyone thinks it’s true.

How does the brain computer work? Why can we easily solve problems that computers really struggle with?

For example, problems that when reduced to mathematical algorithms, run in exponential or even logarithmic time.

I think the answer is that we don’t use algorithms in our head. The brain isn’t a binary or a quantum computer, at least not entirely.

What it is, I don’t know for sure

The Turing test for artificial intelligence suggests that this is achieved when a computer can fool a human into thinking that it, the computer, is a human.

That’s arse about; it’s much harder for a human to convince another human that it, the human, is in fact a computer.

Which tells us more about humans than it does about computers. And when we can crack this we will know how the brain works.

As an example, was the article below (found in the silly rag this morning) written by a computer or a person?

Actually my guess is that it was a person (say, a gen Y journo) that was accidentally imitating a bad algorithm designed to automatically write news pieces from police bulletins.

There’s no algorithm involved, of this I am sure, in either the writing of the article or of this blog.

The ‘Equal Odds Rule’ says that the average publication of any particular scientist does not have any statistically different chance of having more of an impact than any other scientist’s average publication.

In other words your garden-variety scientist is subject to the same rules as a spinner in two-up. Each toss of the two coins has equal chance of landing heads-up and, similarly, each scientific effort has an equal chance of being ‘remembered’ or being heavily-cited as another. So any scientist wishing to enter into the hall of fame would be well placed to publish as much as they can.

This broad rule has merit but having worked with many scientists I would say that some, a very small fraction, have an active intent of wading out into ‘white space’ where innovation is more likely to be achieved, thus improving their odds of success. And others have a greater skill at recognising the accidental discovery; they have trained themselves not to ignore the unexpected results. And yet others have bigger budgets to play with which is critical to purposeful invention or discovery.

If we step over into technology entrepreneurship in start-ups, the Equal Odds Rule is almost not applicable. Most start-ups fail because of poor risk management. That is, they fail because of the inexperience of the team, which leads them to carry risks that others would recognise and avoid. This of course can extend to the choice of the original product idea.

But having said that, the required experience can only be learned by trying and failing, repeatedly. So in this odd way the ‘learning’ of the  Equal Odds Rule does apply to the start-up game; you need to doggedly keep going until you can manage all the risks.

So long as you have enough energy, by the stage of life where you can manage all the myriad of risks, your odds of success are far improved over the average punter – let’s call this the ‘Improving Odds Rule’.

The smart young entrepreneur reading this would realise that there is a short-cut and it’s called surrounding yourself with grey-hairs that already have the experience; investors, CEO’s, COO’s and board members. You have to sell them all on your energy and willingness to learn, be flexible, be not as mad as a cut snake, and be reasonable as to your expectations of the share in the upside.

So here is another start-up rule – the ‘Long Road Rule’. The successful entrepreneurs are either stupidly lucky and learn nothing from their one and only success, or they are great sales people with their ego in control and of possession of the ‘right stuff’ in the eyes of the grey-hairs looking for a young energetic person to back. Somehow I don’t think you can fabricate this ‘right stuff’ – its something that you are born with. And if you don’t have it then its the long road to grey-hairdom for you.

New word for the day – apression.

A state of apathetic mood and aversion to activity which does not affect a person’s thoughts, behavior, feelings or sense of well-being.

I was once used as a slave labour by the Scouts. Really.

At a Jamboree in Melbourne we were forced into making concrete bricks for days on end. When we should have been climbing ropes and swimming through mud.

I think they were putting up a building and saw the opportunity to save some costs on building materials.

I really didn’t like making bricks in the forty degree heat and now I wonder if shouldn’t ask them for back pay plus interest.

And this was after spending over 24 hours on a train getting there – our scout-filled special had the lowest priority on the track.

Actually there was very little about the Scout movement I liked – all knots, uniforms, chanting and other madness of the punishing super-egos.

Fortunately my local troop used the movement as an excuse to have some very un-Scout like fun. Even so, the mad hand of Baden-Powell lurked in every corner, urging us to excel at all things military, short of actual killing.

I got into the thing by the usual nefarious means of my parents – attempting to get rid of me.

How I got out of it, I cannot remember. I think I just forgot to turn up one year.

As Mark Viduka memorably said ‘I didn’t announce the start of my career so why should I announce the end of it?’

[Scene] convenience store

The guy in front of me is wheel chair bound. He can’t reach up to give his paper and chips to the cage bound sub-continental for scanning.

Without a comment I grabbed the goods and passed them up.

He says to the cashier:

“Ya see, not all able-bodies are cunts.”

There I was, standing in line, waiting for anything to happen.

Fascinated as usual by the random array of cheap Chinese goods for sale.

Without due consideration, in my distracted state, I did.

Just a little one, a bit of pressure release, quietly expelled in a controlled fashion.

Sociopath.

And it turned out to be a toxic bomb.

I ended up doing a good imitation of Basil Fawlty, looking around for the culprit.

Flying through the ether came this:

‘Ian, when was the last time you ate fruit?’

My mum.

‘Dunno. Christmas?’

Upon further reflection.

‘Tomato’s a fruit right?’

If you want a good laugh have a read of this from the silly morning herald today:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/commercial-returns-to-fore-in-proposed-university-research-overhaul-20141028-11d44d.html

It is a summary of (a) a pre-release of some white paper from the Chief Scientist, an academic who happens to be Australia’s Chief Scientist (sic), and (b) a media release by the Minister for Industry (they mean ‘service sector’).

They have clearly been colluding – this should be stopped for a start.

The basic gist of the article is that the shrinking amount of funds that go to university and CSIRO researchers will be even further constrained by the need to show ‘commercial relevance’.

All this will do is create more angst for our academics in their efforts to get funds. But not to worry these buggers now have a primary skill at gaming the grant systems, so they will adjust quick-smart.

Of course there will no useful outcomes since:

(1) Academic research follows global trends where high citation counts can be achieved (e.g. in nanotech and other dubious buzz topics) whereas, since deregulation in the 1980’s, Australia’s economy has gone all ‘services’ with a little mining and farming thrown in for exports. The areas of cross-interest between current areas of global scientific activity and Australia’s economy would fit in a smurf’s pocket. Basically Australia’s scientists will struggle to find any Australian commercial partners interested in their research skills.

(2) Australian ‘Industry’ hates innovation unless it’s in marketing or tax reform. Our large oligarchies are quite happy with their share of the protected local services sector (which represents over 70% of our GDP) and have no interest in wasting dollars on developing technology. If they ever need new technology they just buy it off the shelf from overseas. See my paper on the subject – http://issuu.com/ianmax/docs/how_australia_can_invent_a_thriving

Until our large corporation are dragged into the world of technology development nowt will emerge from these efforts.

The sad thing is that the major players, although well intentioned, do not seem to know this. This is because they have a monolithic work experience in either academia or government; they simply don’t know what they don’t know.

I have written a couple of articles for ‘The Conversation’ – this is an online news website. This is what they say about themselves:

“The Conversation is a collaboration between editors and academics to provide informed news analysis and commentary that’s free to read and republish.”

In short, you need to be an academic to contribute, which I am through an adjunct professorship at RMIT, and you don’t get paid for your efforts.

The editors feel that mainstream news channels are continuing to slide in the quality of their content. This is because they simply can’t afford to pay for content anymore; the advertising dollars are getting sucked up by Google and their mates.

By corralling academics to write for free, a supposedly quality news outlet is created which solves this problem.

However I have noticed one thing about academics; they have this in-built belief that all problems should be solved by government. In fact over 80% of the articles are either (a) imploring a government to do something or other to fix this or that problem, or (b) analysing government actions.

It sort of makes sense that the institutionalised academics that are totally dependent upon the government tit would not be aware that there are other ways to address issues, or more interesting subjects to write about.

I think I just oxymoroned myself.

I couldn’t make this shit up.

On my morning cycling commute to work, whilst going around the Bay Run, I was pulled over by two cycle police.

This is a path shared with joggers, cyclists, dogs off leashes, fat women with prams, three fat women with prams abreast, the odd fisherperson, pedestrians, drunks coming out of the rowing club, etc.

The conversation with the cycling police went as follows:

“Do you know why we’ve pulled you over?”

“Not a clue mate”

“Well there is a 10 km/h speed limit on this shared path and you were well exceeding that”

“A speed limit?”

“Yes, there a new signs up everywhere”

“Mate the idea of riding a bike is so that you don’t have to read signs”

“Well it’s your responsibility to read every sign and follow the rules. Exceeding the speed limit is dangerous and we are taking this very seriously”

“I have just started riding – it’s all new to me”

They looked at my shaky red fixie and clearly chose to disbelieve this fabrication.

“You have to learn the rules. No one can speed here”

“What do you do when there is an emergency and you have to speed? Put on your siren so everyone gets out of the way?”

At this point they couldn’t help but laugh and I was let off with a stern warning.

I wanted to tell them that I haven’t got a speedo, but I couldn’t be arsed arguing further.

I know what’s coming. Compulsory speedos, indicators, bike helmets with airbags, ABS, bicycle licenses and even bikes that won’t let you engage gears unless you have your brake on.

Yikes.

How about a quantum computing algorithm that writes quantum computing algorithms?

That sounds like it conforms to an uncertainty principle. I would invest in that!

From the New Scientist, also known as ‘Godstrewth Mate’.

“Quantum computers should be much faster than ordinary ones, but only at tasks for which there is a quantum algorithm – software that takes advantage of the computer’s quantum nature. Without these algorithms, quantum computers are just regular computers that are much harder to build.”

And “Designing an algorithm that takes advantage of a quantum computer is tricky, so there aren’t many around.”

Fifteen to be exact.

The two most important are:

Shor’s algorithm – Given an integer N, find its prime factors. This is exponentially faster on a quantum computer. But a quantum computer is exponentially more expensive to build, so it’s ‘evens’ on a practical level for now.

Grover’s algorithm – searching an unsorted database with N entries in O(N1/2) time and using O(log N) storage space (see big O notation). This is only quadratically faster on a quantum computer.

The rest are curios:

Deutsch–Jozsa algorithm
Simon’s algorithm
Quantum phase estimation algorithm
Hidden subgroup problem
Estimating Gauss sums
Fourier fishing and Fourier checking
Quantum counting
Element distinctness problem
Triangle-finding problem
Formula evaluation
Group commutativity
Computing knot invariants
Quantum simulation

Let’s hope people come up with some more useful algorithms. Without these, the incentive to invest in scaling the hardware will be financially diminished and it simply won’t happen.

And it is important to note that the development of algorithms does not require a computer – it is all old-school pen, paper and the mad mathematician.

Worryingly, the rate of development of new quantum computing algorithms is not increasing. Just like successful new drug releases it seems to be slowing, suggesting that the easy algorithms were those first developed.

If I was a betting man I would bet that this technology will probably not get the massive private sector investment it will need to become anything other than a university curiosity.

Secreted away in Rocco’s little piece of Barcelona with my heart-starter double mac, I have been watching the ABC’s version of a morning show.

As per usual, it’s a couple – a man and a woman – doing a talkathon. But unlike the commercial channels she is not blonde. And they both look sort of odd for the role; the ABC marketing department’s attempt to promote the appearance of substance over appearances.

I can’t hear it (usefully, Rocco has ABBA’s greatest hits playing) but the closed captions are on, in all their wonderful mistake ridden glory.

This morning I have learnt that:

In any year 1 in 25 Australians will have a mental illness and 2 in 25 will suffer anxiety.

1 in 3 victims of family violence is male. Someone got the Victorian Australian (sic) of the year award for this. I disliked her on the spot – I can spot a self-deluded self-server a long way off; it’s in the smile.

1 in 4 Australians feel negative about a Muslim poll.

I get anxiety after my fourth double mac – so I am one of the 2 in 25. My daughter, when she is really mad, is happy to hit me (she always has). The habit is waning with age, but it does make me one of the 1 in 3. I don’t know what the Muslim poll is but there’s probably the dead hand of Alan Jones in there somewhere, so I feel negative about it without even knowing. So count me in the 1 in 4.

Ya see? Lies and damn statistics. Who would have guessed we would waste all our excess wealth and time on fear and anxiety instead of wine and women?

Here’s another stat that you can’t argue with. 1 in 1 Australians is a fucking Wally for buying this shit.

Brewers are getting ahead of the ‘plain packaging’ curve.

Years back, when rejecting the opportunity to use the technology of my first start-up (optical touch screens), Steve Jobs told me (very nicely I might add) that ‘we don’t do new hardware; we let others take that risk and we follow quickly’.

It seems that this wisdom has been lost at Apple. They were planning on using sapphire top glass on the iPhone 6 due to its improved hardness and scratch resistance. They would have been the first to do this.

The supplier of the sapphire manufacturing technology, GTAT and partners, had also lined themselves as the operating partner and they managed to screw it up.

They built a plant but couldn’t get the yields up in time and Apple eventually pulled the plug on the project. GTAT is now in Chapter 11. Apple is looking for a new operator and the reborn GTAT will be just an equipment supplier.

There is another bit of common wisdom lost in this story; never let a manufacturing equipment supplier become a BOO/BOOT partner. They generally suck at operations and their core skill is technology and manufacturing tool development which, culturally, is orthogonal to that of an high yield operating/manufacturing company.

The twain should only ever meet at the bar at trade shows where they can swap lies and dream that they can do each other’s jobs better than the other; which they cannot.

Footnote – I should have tried harder at Apple but this was before they released the iPhone and we didn’t have a crystal ball big enough to see the opportunity in front of us. We could have ‘given’ them the technology and retained the patents or 1% equity share and still done well out of the deal. Live and learn.

Anyone see the problem here?

This British data is interesting.

Cycling of about as dangerous as being a pedestrian

Our mob doesn’t even measure this stuff. They just count overall numbers of deaths and accidents but do not normalise it to distances travelled, or anything else for that matter.

Actually thinking about it, it isn’t the distance travelled that matters – its the time spent exposed to danger. Assuming that cars and motorbikes travel at an average of 50 km/h, bicycles at say 15 km/h and pedestrians at 5 km/h then in the UK:

Deaths in cars are at a rate of 70 per billion hours travelled.

Deaths in motorbikes are at a rate of 3610 per billion hours travelled.

Deaths for bicycles are at a rate of 326 per billion hours travelled, and

Deaths for pedestrians are at a rate of 130 per billion hours travelled.

That is, cycling is only 4.65 more dangerous than driving a car in a period of time.

Which is interesting because my cycle daily commute saves me about two thirds of the time because I can avoid a lot of traffic. Which means I am only increasing my risk of death by a factor of 1.55 using this UK data – which probably isn’t that different to Sydney.

Has anyone out there ever eaten a good party pie? Nuh.

Product opportunity beckons.

Data shows that riding a motorbike is 51 times more likely to end in death compared to driving a car, based on mortality rates per mile driven.

The obvious way to deal with this is with the so-called ‘plain packaging’ approach; enforce the painting of nasty deathly decals all over motorbikes to warn off the owners of these otherwise legal instruments of transport.

Oh, and tax the fuck out of them too.

On second thoughts, the decals idea might not work…

Human systems generally develop in an “evolutionary learning” approach.

For example capitalism evolved as technology and associated business skills became available for wealth creation. All our current western societal systems evolved to accommodate these new skill sets.

This evolution involved introducing new ideas into society one at time, and only keeping the ones that worked.

Occasionally some clown attempted to introduce an entirely new system, like communism, to replace the ones that evolved naturally.

This will never work because there are far too many variables to be considered for a synthetic system to be successful. And some of these variables are irrational, related to how people behave.

Even in much smaller systems we can see this, e.g. venture capital where the financing and deal structuring was developed over decades by trial and error. The bits that worked were kept and the bits that failed were discarded until we got a system that ‘worked’.

Recently people have been trying to invent new systems in venture capital such as incubators and crowd-sourcing. These will fail but the aspects that do work will be kept and merged into the existing system.

And so it is with all of society. A new system that fails simply delivers a few ideas of value which are quietly merged into the greater system. And a bunch of unhappy people wishing they had never been so duped.

Query: why are the skills required to de-risk technology implementations that drive processitivity/productivity gains (mostly) not hereditary?

My guess is that the skills required are:

1. Access to capital which can be hereditary

2. Intelligence which is sometimes hereditary

3. Education which also has an hereditary link through wealth

4. Risk taking – which is not linked to hereditary factors for some reasons

5. Successful risk management  – which is also not linked to hereditary factors it seems

6. Motivation – which might be counter-correlated to wealth inheritance

Points 4 and 5 are so important that they sometimes outweigh 1-3.

This then suggests that our education system in no way teaches risk taking or successful risk management. Because if it was, the hereditary link to wealth creation would be much stronger.

This proffers an opportunity to re-engineer our education system to focus on risk-taking and risk-management. But this would be counter-productive to society as a whole, in the context of driving consumption, because it would act to further concentrate wealth and hence reduce overall consumption.

Maybe this is what is happening at a high level since wealth disparities do seem to be stretching.

One of the blogs in the Sunday rag that I sometimes enjoy is called ‘all men are liars’.

In truth, all people are liars.

We lie to fit in. To some degree or another we are all chameleons – we sprout mushy half-truths that vary according to the social situation, and these ease the burden of co-existence.

I have a sort of built-in dislike of hypocrisy, which means that over time I have became more and more aware of the inconsistencies in my own half-truths. I was a great chameleon in my day, but I became more and more aware of the lies I was telling myself.

So I started merging my truths which creates another set of problems. It means that it is harder to fit into every aspect of the external environment. You get labelled as different or odd or difficult, or even as HFA by the unkind.

Also, some things break; you can’t fit into every situation if you are a monocoque personality.

The alternatives are to (A) perfect ‘project chameleon’ and go to your grave a happy hypocrite, or (B) invent a bunch of personalities and become socially multipolar; this only works if you can firewall all your personalities within your skull.

The latter approach has its risks too – sometimes the personalities clash or the external environment won’t allow you to have them all. And at some deep level the self-lies might be catalogued and start weighing on your conscience.

There is no perfect solution – it is the human condition.

Productivity is a misnomer – it should have been called processivity.

Products get cheaper when the processes to make them get more efficient.

The base raw materials don’t cost any more or less – they are just there.

The processes of extracting them, refining and transporting them have over time got much cheaper.

And so it flows, up the supply chain, to you and me, with our plastic entertainment.

Since the industrial revolution, processivity has continued to improve and in this process resources have been moved around the planet and they have mostly changed state along the way. Also the enthalpic value of a lot of stored energy has been converted to planet surface heat.

Wealth is a actually a measure of an implied ‘right’ to consume resources and energy

Until recently neither the quantity of resources nor the resultant enthalpic energy release of consuming them has been wealth limiting. In fact, the sharing of, and overall degree of wealth creation has been limited by something a lot more complex.

Processivity is driven by technology gains and the risks associated with the development and deployment of these – these technology efforts fail more often than they succeed. And there are more technology concepts than there ever is capital to deploy them. That is, technology is cheap and only the small fraction, the good ones, are worth more than their development costs.

The risks of failure of technology efforts in processivity gains has thus resulted in the requirement for risk management, patent systems, capital resources to cover risks, pooling of interests, disinterest by the risk adverse, and efforts to control the external world by legal and political structuring to buffer against these risks. A.k.a. Capitalism.

The risks in the development of processivity gains has been mirrored in society with a few people benefiting more from processivity gains through access to the means to reduce the risks of deploying technology for processivity gains.

Communism tried to socialise this access to the means of reducing technology risk only to find that they were disincentivising or not training the small fraction of the population that had the skills and talent to reduce risks. Comparatively they fell behind capitalism and failed due to that contrast. They might have failed anyway if the rate of processivity gains did not create enough wealth to underpin the required technology efforts.

The fascinating aspect of Capitalism is that the system was forced to drag along the masses, via tax systems and redistributions, in order to give them the means to consume the proceeds of increasing processivity. Concentrating all that wealth and consumption for the few was simply too constraining on the system – they would have hit the Pareto limit and run out of motivation (customers) unless the masses were included in the party.

And then it was discovered that the few, the potentially wealthy, the successful risk takers, were distributed across society. So there was a double benefit in including everyone in the processivity party, namely access to an increased fraction of people that could successfully manage the risks of processivity gains.

And therein lies the main differentiator between Capitalism and every other political system – the diminution of hereditary rights. Monitoring these would be a means of monitoring the ‘health’ of the planet (in a negative way) and capitalism itself (in a positive way).

The Chinese care so little about the designs that they have stolen that their products come with a ‘copy me’ blueprint.

Sometimes I feel that living in Sydney is like being addicted to porn.

A hippy with a smartphone ain’t a hippy.

If I was a cabbie for ten years, listening to Alan Jones, I wonder if I too would end up driving as if I had Tourretes?

A new phrase for the day:

‘Skull-fuckery’

A dissembling term used by women to describe what men supposedly and sometimes do to them.

Unfortunately we got Tier 1 Silicon Valley VC funding and things got out of hand.

Ok I admit defeat.

When, sometime back, I got myself a replica Aeron office chair I was hoping for better things.

It’s going.

The primary issue? I keep sliding down in it. Can’t stop it.

One minute I am perched in the Stepford position.

The next, my head is level with the desktop, visibility to the monitor obscured by a slab of Ikea.

I do plan to video myself because there is some sort of extra dimensional other-universe thing going down where I do not perceive the Euclidian transition.

I tried adjusting the thing and decided it was designed by a designer without consultation with either an engineer or an ergonomics expert or anyone with a shred of honesty (‘seriously Herman, it’s shit’). Or me.

Who let the dogs out of the Bauhaus?

Online I discover that I am not alone. Many hate the Aeron for a variety of reasons.

There is even a collective of fat American men that wear Chinos and have fat wallets in their back pockets that have found that the Pellicle material rips their pants. And, in their disgust, they have found each other! Thank Christ for the internet.

And then I was thinking – this problem represents a Gen Y product opportunity. The Y’s can overthrow this darling of the baby-boomer’s office obsessions.

Take a first world problem that few have noticed (particularly the sufferers), and then solve it with existing technology and a smartphone app, and then slap it on Kickstarter.

Here we go:

An office chair.

A bunch of electric motors in the seat for adjustment, borrowed from a car seat.

A battery to drive the motors.

An inductive charger receiver in the base of the chair to power the battery.

An inductive charger transmitter in a floor mat, plugged into mains power, to drive the inductive charger receiver in the base of the chair.

A smartphone app, connected via bluetooth 4.0 (low power) to the chair, for adjustment of the chair settings.

Sensors in the chair to monitor heart rate, body temperature, posture and the like. The app will then suggest improvements to the user such as ‘time for a break’, ‘time for some exercise’ and ‘straighten your back’.

The app can also be setup to measure daily calorie usage and then integrate with the user’s favourite exercise app and wrist-band monitor to measure and report on, and help control, a large fraction of the user’s daily activities. This technology can be extended to the user’s bed for 24 hour coverage.

A customizable feedback mechanism, vibration most likely, in the chair that the user can set up for alerts such as ‘get your hand off it’ or ‘your girlfriend is calling’.

Possibly also the user will be able to get, via the internet, alarms when an intruder has used the chair in an unauthorised manner. The sensors will detect use by a non-owner and alert the user wherever they are on the planet, so they can then phone or message back to the office for corrective action.

It’s a winner!

Cheap arse cafe table. Yes.

My daughter, the aesthete, likes all of me except my clubbed little fingers.

She demanded an explanation off her grandparents.

Mum said she asked when I was born and everyone shrugged.

Dad said he had never noticed. Sounds about right.

Suspiciously, both of their answers drifted a little upon being pressed.

Google says the 5% of the clubs that are congenital are of unknown origin although one group has looked for a genetic link.

The mystery remains. And I am in a club against my will.

Genius has a use-by date, a moment in the sun. Don’t miss it.

I just saw a cycling hipster on a fixie with a Ned Kelly beard and Elvis Costello glasses, cycling along while smoking a pipe.

I couldn’t get the camera working quickly enough. No image. Fucker.

Currently I am half way through Borgen – a Danish political drama.

Denmark has 5.6m people and a land mass 3.5x that of greater Sydney. It’s GDP is equivalent to the State of Victoria and less than 1/3 of Australia’s. There aren’t any states so their government runs everything – there is even a minster of traffic.

Politically, the Danes have an MPP style system, similar to the one New Zealand has recently adopted.

Which means there is always a coalition of parties in ‘power’ that pretty much hate each other. By skullduggery, after election they negotiate coalitions between themselves, and then appoint a PM and other ministers from the coalition with the most seats. It looks horrible.

The PM spends most of her time in dramas associated with keeping the coalition together. She has one ‘spin doctor’ and one ‘Humphrey’ to advise her, and one colleague from her own party that she vaguely trusts but who just got invalided out of the show.

Contrast this to the Hollowmen where our PM has a head adviser, another one, a private press office, and a spin team of about 10 people. All this despite the fact that we are only three times the economy of Denmark but minus all the state-run issues. And there are no coalition issues to keep them distracted.

I know which system costs its citizens more.

The Danes also have the lowest income disparity in the world. As dodgy as their MMP systems looks on television it might be worth considering – possibly the MMP system is less susceptible to the power of corrupt lobbying and media control than is our preferential two party system.

The enemy of art is bubbles.

With an old mate in Shanghai, a month back or so, we started plotting the world’s first racquet and bat sports pentathlon to be held in his elite gym in Shanghai.

We had tennis, squash, racquet ball, table tennis and badminton.

There are other wildcard options such as royal tennis, totem tennis, various beach bat sports with balls, and half court tennis.

Today I learn that there is another one called padel which is very popular in the Hispanic countries.

This might become a decathlon.

What I say to  conspiracy theorists is that we humans always have hidden agendas and we often take advantage of a situation. Collusion doesn’t seem that big a step does it? So why the outrage and surprise?

The Skunkworks says it will have a “working” fusion reactor within three years.

It’ll probably “work” for a femptosecond before consuming half of California.

Over the last couple of years I have noticed a decline in my interest in the development of new technology and related business activities.

While pondering this on my bike this morning I drifted off into a daydream of a new form of smart carbon fiber manufacturing. Roughly, I developed a whole new business with automated carbon fiber bike frame manufacturing using bespoke carbon fiber mesh types. I had a whole algorithm team working on using evolutionary algorithms and finite element analysis technologies to continually improve bike frame technology using the constraints of in-house fiber webs made with mixed media with novel properties. I had a fully automated clean-room factory with 200 R&D engineers off to the side. I even started putting distributed sensors through the carbon fiber with wireless transceivers in all products so that the design could be continuously improved by the use of real time date for strain, stress, temperature and other measurements. And on it went.

Just out of curiosity, when I got to work I Googled ‘smart carbon fiber’ and went straight through to a Kickstarter project called ‘Vanhawks Valour’. They plan to have sensors and lights in the handlebar and seat of a carbon fiber bike and a smartphone app to tell cyclists the best routes, do all the usual time and calorie measurements, warn them of dangers on route, and so on. And then I realised why the Gen Y tech industry makes me so depressed (apart from the beards and the accents) – they are focused entirely on first world problems and they only re-deploy existing engineering. The risks they face are in financing and marketing and yet they believe they are true pioneers.

It has now crystallised for me; I do not truly respect these uninventive innovators.

“Project Update #74: INFINITY SEAT – Revolutionizing the bicycle seat by Dr. Vincent Marcel, D.C.”

Can you see the problem?

Many people, not riders, proffer free advise on the dangers of cycling in Sydney.

‘Cars’ they say well be the end of me.

Truthfully, the  most dangerous element to cycling is perving. It almost got me this morning.

A hypothesis, some conjecture, just for the likes of me laddy, for you:

Joyce – “a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose they’re just getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus they’ve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or two for his night office or the alarmlock next door at cockshout clattering the brain out of itself let me see if I can doze off 1 2 3 4 5 what kind of flowers are those they invented like the stars the wallpaper in Lombard street was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that something only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and try again so that I can get up early”

This is a closer-than-me facsimile of how we truly think. But we have been taught, from before the moment that we can talk, to structure our communications into a code that reduces the risks of misunderstanding. Bentham trumps Siddhartha.

We actually communicate in a artificial language which is akin to computer code. No, it is a computer code. Google has shown this – they have coded our languages so that computers can construct, write, read, listen, speak and understand our languages. What more do we need to know?

Learning the code is akin to teaching a 5 year old to only use his left foot at football training to ensure that he ends up being truly unweighted.

By the time we are five my guess is that we all start thinking more or less as we communicate, at least during daylight hours. We may even ‘talk’ to ourselves in our heads, or out loud, as we think.

But we don’t really. When we are drunk or in a dream the ‘code’ drops off and we hear, or don’t hear, how we really think.

I believe that some people are very conflicted about this, subconsciously. And some people actually suffer mental harm from the process of thinking ‘logically’.

One good thing though; the whole construct keeps artists employed. They are supposed to provide a snippet of the stream of consciousness, through to the other side; a glimpse of the pre-constructed view of the world, as if we were never taught the code. These scraps, desired more or less by some, are like antihistamines for those suffering consciousness fever.

“We don’t know if God exists, but we should keep asking” suggests the headline of a recent article in The Conversation by some academic who is paid to ask this question. Over and over and over.

There are some people that do know that God exists and they could collectively, amongst themselves, debunk this statement.

So the problem with this statement is the ‘we’. Who is ‘we’?

If the ‘we’ was everyone on the planet then no matter what evidence we came up with I am pretty sure that ‘we’ wouldn’t all agree that God does exist, even if God came to morning tea.

As I have said before, all truths are just beliefs because you can always find some clown willing to disbelieve a truth, which then automatically turns the ‘truth’ into a ‘belief’ for the rest of us.

So this is a truth/belief that can stop us asking the question over and over: ‘We(a) do know that God exists and we(b) do not know that God exists, and we(a) and we(b) disagree with each other on this matter’.

And we(c) don’t give a fuck.

Every time our government instigates a terrorist scare a security guard is placed in the middle of the Anzac bridge.

He stands there all day talking on his phone. It must be one of the most boring jobs known to mankind.

You would think that a few CCTV cameras would be more efficient. With 8 lanes of traffic, a km or so of walkway and a water way underneath, there are just so many ways to debridge the inner west.

However I think they like the idea of a visible threat.

If a bridge was removed in Sydney can you imagine the impact on our traffic? We are right on the edge of an immovable feast.

Just the other day I was talking to an algorithm developer that does traffic management software. He said that by lowering the maximum traffic speed that we can improve overall trip times.

I asked if there was a low maximum speed at which no car would ever have to stop.

He laughed and said zero.

I really don’t understand Brazilians or their music. Sometimes I think there is nothing to understand.

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

President Kennedy could not foresee the impact of ever-increasing productivity, wealth and complexity; especially not the resulting collective confusion and implied dependence upon our governments.

Governments once ‘represented’ but now they ‘lead’ or ‘rule’ with the actors behaving accordingly.

Pity them – they are infinitely replaceable. Their carcasses litter the landscape like dessicated cicada shells, crumbling slowly into dust once their time is done.

But still the only question that we seem to ask is what our country can do for us. Over and over and over again.

Today I completely surprised myself by caring so much about something that after due deliberation and soul searching on the L39 marooned halfway up George street I decided I would not give up in the face of moral adversity and fear and loathing which would normally send me scuttling back into my quangoish scaffold of complete and utter bullshit and therefore this fish remains hooked and sinkered and certainly none the wiser for reading way too much Joyce as a child unworthy of such content and dreaming of Venice and paparazzi. So there.

When you are sick of “doing” then one exit strategy is to become an “expert”.

Consider this; our economy is at least 70% services of which a good fraction is information management of one sort or another.

That is, the majority of Australians are in the middle-muddle providing services that are “critical” to business but not to life.

Providing non-critical advice to non-critical people has a nice symmetry to it, no?

“Man Booker prize winner says he is saddened by the Australian government’s environmental policies and prime minister Tony Abbott’s statement that ‘coal is good for humanity'”.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Nobel prize in medicine or a Booker prize for literature, our idiot-savants seem to instantly turn into outspoken generalists once armed with a license to thrill.

This one is good for a laugh:

“Liberal country MPs want pressure groups held legally responsible for falsely accusing businesses of poor environmental or unethical practices, a change that could cause big headaches for prominent environmental groups.”

Me thinks the Liberal party country MP’s haven’t fully understood the antithetical impact of the anti-national internet upon their 19th century world view.

In a second step they will have to introduce a national firewall to prevent Australians from accessing the plethora of international social responsibility rating agencies that are fighting for ascendency in this domain.

A limited edition ice cream. Now that’s taken the concept of artificial scarcity to the extremes of ridiculousness. Keep it in your freezer for 25 years and it will be worth a fortune at Sotheby’s.

Ah the ANU – for some reason, instead of just quietly selling off stock in resources companies, they had to put out a press release claiming the move was based on an ethical stance – actually a mixed bag of Environmental, Social and Governance Ratings. 10 points for stupidity there unless they actually wanted this stoush to draw attention to the issue.

And then you get into the situation where it is very clear that different people and groups have different ethics.

The clowns on the hill have to be seen to doing something about the ANU’s position on behalf of their corporate donors from the resources sector – and by such efforts they just make things worse by drawing more attention to the situation. They definitely get 10 points for stupidity.

In the old days someone would have, over a beer at the Park Hyatt, quietly threatened to withdraw unrelated government funding to the ANU and the whole thing would have softly disappeared down a plughole. It seems that our current apparatchik need to go back to the Machiavellian school of getting things done.

Unrelated, as resources are depleted you would think they would get commensurately more valuable. But then the cost of extracting them will get higher as they target the harder-to-get resources. And also the cost of using these resources may go up as greenhouse gas taxes are implemented. Also alternative renewable energy sources are starting to compete at lower prices. All up, I would say that there is enough uncertainty in these stocks to warrant off-loading them, solely for risk reasons.

Apparently the last words of the captain of the 2009 Air France flight that went into the ocean were “fuck, we’re dead”.

For once I just believe something in the Daily Telegraph.

After a day paving the backyard in 32 degree heat I cycled 20 minutes to the pub in order to sink 5 schooners while an old mate explained his forthcoming plans for divorce.

As we were leaving, 2 old school mates wandered in so I had to have another 2 catch up schooners

Wisely, I then rejected overtures from 5 old mates to join them on their ‘soiree’ on a Potts Point verandah. Goods knows where that would have gone.

But I did cycle the 30 minutes back home with just 2 stops for a piss.

Lola has decided to invent some short cuts for self beautification.

Invention 1 is a finger nail dip. She spread the polish on top of water and then did a careful dip.

I got in trouble last night for being a little derisive about the trauma of living it ‘rough’ in Newtown. I used to do that as a student and loved it. Ah well, I had a couple of beers and it is what it is. My bads.

The thing about Australia is that most people believe that if you take away any one of the creature comforts that we have adopted over the last 130 years then life must be hell.

Think hot water, flushing toilets, LCD TV’s, motor cars, mobile phones, dishwashers, clothes washers, cleaners, a bedroom per person or two, anything electrical or electronic in fact, space and cleanliness. They are all designed to make our life easier (trully), even if it is environmentally unsustainable.

But then you have to subtract certain ’emotional’ freedoms – we have more ‘signs’ per square inch than anywhere on the planet. And more laws per head of population than any country in existence. All telling us what we can’t do – for our own good of course. Safe but constrained.

And then you also have to subtract the emotional strain associated with the weight of expectations. For example, our kiddies have to get great HSC marks, be all round great people (with a CV to match), work for the odd charity, get to uni and get a good job, travel, party, stay fit, be beautiful – all required just to fit in and not be a social outcast with depression and suicidal tendencies.

I suppose that, if you were so inclined, you would have to add back our political and social ‘freedoms’. That is, direct physical harm is rarely associated with your social or political views, at least compared to many other countries. The result? The most uncooked and uncared-for social and political views on the planet. I am not sure that this isn’t a negative after a certain point.

Life is very prescriptive and comes with massive expectations, but it is bloody safe from unexpected physical injury.

It sort of reminds me of the bantam chook my daughter has out in the backyard – the thing has been bred for it’s cuddliness and quietness – it has no real function other than as a real live fluffy toy and has absolutely no defenses against even the smallest of predators. In an apocalypse situation this thing and it’s brethren would be a good bet as the first animal to become extinct.

We Australians might be second against the wall.

In the meantime we will cuddle the hell out of bantam chooks and worry ourselves silly about the physical well-being of asylum seekers to our bedlam.

The best content is considered such by everyone that consumes it.

For example, at any conference, on any subject, only a very small fraction of the content would be considered useful by all.

There is content that is genuinely new. And content that is just new to the consumer that is consuming it.

There is content that is derivative and content that is not.

Another coefficient coming up.

Some algorithm at Ebay thinks I am interested in Tigers. 

It’s not that smart an algo because, for one, I am not, and, two, it doesn’t know what sort of tiger.

It might be easier just asking me.

Or giving me a image based survey to complete for future credits.

Or anything other than this rubbish.

You know you’re getting old when an old mate is made CEO of CSIRO.

If I have more than three double macs in a day, I risk rising anxiety.

This may seem like a problem, but.

If I ever get rising anxiety, I just drink more double macs.

And blame the caffeine!

Last night I had dinner at one of Sydney’s three hat restaurants.

What an ordeal.

They had me trapped for three hours. Three hours! One for each hat.

They served up 5x my intake requirements, by volume, with their degustation menu.

Everything was super rich. I could hear the indigestion coming a mile away.

Calorie intake was sufficient for a family of five for a week.

Service was over diligent, ever present and nowhere near egalitarian.

The drinks menu was longer than the bible.

And I kept sliding down in my seat, quite inexplicably. This was probably not their fault, but I am adding it for completion.

Plus, I paid.

Never again, not on my life. I am done with this shit. Give me a schnitzel at Una’s.

What is a Horace Engdahl? Nitta – it’s a Swedish literary historian and critic that has far more coverage than it should because it helps judge the Nobel Prize for literature.

He (it’s a he) wrote (but did not say) of US literature that “everything is focused around their writers and their language, like a hall of mirrors which reflects a perpetual, infinite image of America.”

There is a theory that this statement has raised the bar for any US hopefuls. He probably has a CIA file now.

His musing could be applied to Australia … let me try … ‘”everything is focused around our politicians, sport stars and celebrities, like a hall of mirrors which reflects a perpetual, infinite cartoon-like image of Australia.”

Yes, that works. I can’t see any Nobel Prizes for literature coming our way. Or for Chemistry, Physics or Peace. Unless the indigenous folk manage to get an anti-establishment peace prize somehow.

But having said all that, let me add that the Nobel Prize for Physics was just awarded to the Japanese that “invented” the blue LED. Interesting choice – LED’s already existed and it wasn’t that much of a stretch to fiddle with the materials used in LEDs to get a blue one. Indeed the more creative part of this work was the Chemistry. In either field, though, you would have to say this was a workmanlike effort and the award is solely due to the commercial value of the eventuating technology.

A Nobel Prize for return on investment in literature would almost universally go to American authors.

Me thinks there should be a Nobel Prize for Hypocrisy which would go to certain Swedes.

If we could travel back in time we might follow resolutions back to the complications which were preceded by situations. And discover that people really are queens of drama.

When we have stopped caring about exclusivity it’s because we have stopped caring.

“That’s sin-binnable”

“Why do you only read the sports pages?”

“Because these lies don’t matter”

Once everyone has been image identified through their selfies we can enforce personal copyright.

If you, for example, pop up in a Japanese tourist’s snapshot and they go to post it on Facebook, then your face will be automatically blurred and you will be notified, whereupon you will have the option to approve its release.

That would work for video too. And CCTV.

And it would mess up the paparazzi.

© Ian Maxwell

Fred, my 92 year old neighbour, has one fault – racism.

It’s not going away until he does I am afraid.

It makes me cranky that good people can be so stupid. Or can they?

Does an opinion on this matter actually define a person?

Yes, racism can’t be offset by any number of good deeds.

The only thing worse is made-up racism, enacted for a cause.

Say for example, banning the burqa in parliament house in order to achieve a jump in the polls.

Enough on that subject.

For what’s it’s worth, I have been to Winslow Arizona.

And I entirely forgot to stand on the corner or get my photo taken.

Mostly I was lying on my back nursing the mother of all hangovers, thanks to my brother, the CIA, bourbon and coke, and some monster cigars.

I haven’t seen the front page of an Australian newspaper for 3 weeks now, due to travel.

Admittedly I did sneak a look at the back pages, it being the pointy end of the footy season and all.

Anyway a quick perv today and I see that facial expressions are now compulsory in and around parliament house.

We live in an odd society.

The trouble with googling ‘candida sugar’ is that you immediately end up in the fruit-loop end of the diet and nutrition websites.

These guys are at the pointy end of the google search results because their efforts are easy to digest.

Sugar for the mind, so to speak.

What we need is an algorithm that classifies web information based on both syntax and references.

‘Syntax’ because the fruit loops talk in a peculiar language. For example;

“You are in the right place and asking the right questions, because I have some answers for you!”

And “references” because they are very big on making unsubstantiated claims. For example;

“I’m here to tell you that you can and should eat natural sugars, even if you have candida issues.”

We could assign a ‘fruit loop’ coefficient to all web info, where;

0 – is for useless, opinionated, self-serving drivel, and

1 – is for well referenced and holistic advice from people with credentials that allow them to pontificate. But I would subtract points for information that is hard to digest – after all, the art of communication is to make it accessible for all.

This early morning I need to write something and yet my (hopefully temporary) blandness prevents me from executing any idea because they (the thoughts) don’t seem to exist in my head. And yet, and again, the very idea that I want the (any, really) thought to exist gives me hope.

When in doubt, there’s always the Herald, which today provides this nugget; “Australian universities climb Times world rankings, while US and UK lose ground”

Which just goes to show that our academics and their management (sic) are smart enough to game a system. It is their primary skill after all.

It is possible that Facebook Messenger is Facebook’s self replacement effort. Option b just in case. Maybe they’re dreaming of expanding it into an smartphone OS in its own right. Buckley’s.