By Chewxy, on September 2nd, 2010
Have you been in a no-win situation? I have. While they are not life-or-death type of no-win situations, I’ve managed to Kirk my way out from my Kobayashi Marus, mostly through luck, occasionally through some funny cheating of the system. Increasingly, I adhere more and more to the “I don’t believe in no-win situations” mantra.
Today, after a small tiff with the missus (she was the one mainly doing the tiffing while I was sitting and listening – not that I’m blameless – in fact I’m far from it), I considered a few no-win situations. Without lucking out, those situations would be seriously no-win. Of course, a Spock can die – i.e. a sacrifice can be made – to solve the problem, but that is a loss.
As I turned to the showers, I started thinking – no win situations at a particular point in time can be represented easily. But a no-win situation now could lead a potential win in the future. But of course, when talking about potentials and what not, best use probability.
And so I thought and thought and thought. Now it is your turn. How would you represent a game that can manifest itself differently based on the outcome of the previous period? The obvious answer is a tree, but what if you cannot use a tree?
By Chewxy, on July 6th, 2010
tech·no·gasm /tɛkˈnɒgæzəm/. n., pl. -gasm·s. 1. a form of ‘orgasm’ or intense pleasure that is derived from technological gadgets and gizmos galore; this pleasure is mostly experienced by nerds, geeks or other related stereotypes: I am having a technogasm over device X.
Okay, so the definition was mostly copied from Urban Dictionary. Feh. But I do indeed have technogasms over technological devices, the latest being my HTC Desire. I had an experience earlier, which could also qualify as a technogasm. Or a realisation.
re·al·i·sa·tion /ˌriələˈzeɪʃən/. n., pl. -tion·s. 1. the act of realising or the condition of being realised: His dream project had became a realisation. 2. the result of realising: I had a realisation.
And that definition is copied from dictionary.com. Feh.
But, on to the story. So, it was a normal day at work, I worked, I analysed some data, gave some criticisms, and I came home. Typically after I come home from work, I devote the rest of the evening to working on Pressyo, my pet project. And for today, working on Pressyo included a call to a totally different state in Australia, and a couple of phone calls to different people in different countries.
So, first up, I had a call with Ben, who’s deep in collaboration with Pressyo on a project – your standard Skype call, nothing too fancy. However, today he had his webcam on. Now, Macbook webcams are fairly high in resolution (not HD, but still high), and I was quite able to clearly see him and his office.
After that, I had to place a couple of phone calls to developers in Malaysia, and then disturb some poor sod in America who’s enjoying his 4th of July holiday. Both were called on VOIP phones. Then I went to make myself tea. While doing that I used my phone to SSH into my server to check the progress of some processes.
After that, I had some quiet time to myself. That was when I realized this:
Holy shit, I’m living in the future. I can literally have face-to-face conversations with someone who otherwise would have been at least 12 hours drive away, and I can arrange for things to be done over the phone, across continents. Not 20 years ago, people wouldn’t have imagined this. I’m literally living in the The Road Ahead videos by Microsoft way back in 1995.
Of course Ol’ Bill didn’t think that the devices in use would actually not be Windows-based, but rather Linux based.  But yeah, basically, just this. A sudden realisation that I’m living in the future as visualized by people of generations past. And that this achievement is only acquired through standing on the shoulders of giants, on the past achievements of other people who have even longer preceded us. It was awesome.
awe·some /ˈɔ səm/. adj., n. -some·ness. 1. inspiring awe: an awesome sight. 2. showing or characterized by awe: Ted Mosby is not as awesome as Barney Stinson.
The word ‘awesome’ couldn’t be used more aptly. Just thinking about the chain of cause and effect that led to today fills me with awe. And thinking about what the future can hold excites me. I want more. The future is definitely going to be exciting, and I want it.
And lest you think I am high, no I am not. I make calls across continents at least twice a week for work, but today was the first time I took a step back and realised it in its entirety.
Update: Relevant xkcd is relevant.
By Chewxy, on July 1st, 2010
In this world, there are 2 kinds (I’m lying, but for simplicity’s sake) of people – thinkers and doers. I fancy myself as a Thinker, with a capital T (you know, to make a difference between normal people who think, and people who think professionally). I like to think of myself as a Figure-Outer, the guy who sits and think, and figure out solutions to a problem, whether real world or theoretical. Well, this would put me in a category people usually associate with dusty old tweed-wearing professors – a theorist.
This puts me at odds with people who consider themselves realist, who upon hearing a reasoning with a theoretical framework (typically a model of some sort) immediately cries “reality is much more complex than that!”. Ah, that is where I suppose I am different. Although I consider myself a Thinker, I don’t consider myself Platonic.
You see, once upon a time, there was this guy, he was called Plato. He used to think that just by thinking alone, one can solve the mysteries of the world, and he’d stay away from the real world as much as possible. While that is true, and it is in fact, the power of human imagination that came up with E = mc², that equation would be absolutely useless without any evidence that it works in the real world (and yes, it did work, with 2 very shocking and horrifying displays of power known as Hiroshima and Nagasaki). It is for this reason, I heartily support efforts like evidence based medicine. Continue reading I, Thinker; I Tinker
By Chewxy, on June 27th, 2010
And a new theme too! Tell me if you have any issues
Edit 1/7/2010 (yes, it’s Commonwealth date system, dear American readers. Deal with it): LaTeX installed. Now I can do things like:
which you should know is the formula for the p.d.f of a normal distribution
By Chewxy, on June 23rd, 2010
Telstra sucks. Don’t get me wrong. I’m on Telstra (I was on 3, but I churned to Telstra because they had the HTC Desire, which I had desired for some time already). I spent the last long weekend in the cold collecting data, and here’s why.
So my girlfriend got on Telstra too, seeing that I had just switched to Telstra, and Telstra-to-Telstra phone calls are cheaper. She had wanted a Blackberry for quite sometime now, her previous phone being a Nokia E71. So, the decision was to get on Telstra’s Blackberry plan – the $49 cap to be exact. Now, she’s not a stupid girl (I mean, how could she be, she’s my girlfriend), and she knows a fair bit about Blackberries. So 2 Mondays ago, she went to get her phone – the Blackberry Bold 9700.
When she came back, she found none of her apps were working. Why? Because she had no BBpin. And after 2 days of troubleshooting, she discovered that Telstra sold BB data plans separately from a cap plan – a fact that she wasn’t told before hand. So she went back to the Telstra shop that sold her the phone plan. She clearly wasn’t informed about that, and guess what, neither were the people in the shop. The people from the shop didn’t know that in order to run Blackberry apps, you need a connection to the Blackberry servers. And to connect to the Blackberry servers, you need a Blackberry data plan.
2 days into your new contract, and you discover that on your own accord, spending countless hours worrying and fretting and troubleshooting the phone, my girlfriend was understandably quite upset about it. So, the Telstra shop people offered to put her on a Blackberry data plan and then immediately cancel the plan once she has downloaded all the apps and activated it. Hereupon, a second mistake was made. You needed a constant connection thru the BB data plan to get your apps working. It doesn’t just activate once and works. Neither the shop people nor my girlfriend knew it at that time.
Needless to say, by the end of the night, her apps were not working again. Naturally, everyone was upset. So, the very next day I went to the store with her, and tried to get things working. Here’s basically the summary of what happened in conversation (the Too Long; Didn’t Read edition is here):
Continue reading Telstra Sucks
By Chewxy, on May 19th, 2010
Has it really been two months since I’ve written anything here? Hard to believe. The truth of the matter is that life, as always, has been hectic these days – hang on, I’m not Metrodad, why am I writing the same exact sentence as he did?
Most readers know I don’t like the concept of countries. It’s an outmoded concept of sovereignty over a piece of land. Anyway, before I get derailed into explaining why the very idea of countries are dumb; the thing about countries is that they have stupid little “permission to travel” documents, known as passports. It’s with these little pieces of papers that countries protect their sovereignty. And passports expire. Mine did a couple of days ago, and so I had to renew my passport.
Now, for most countries, one can renew one’s passport online, or via mail – you know, like civilized people in the 21st century do. But in my case, I had to go all the way to the High Commission in Canberra to renew my passport (because the Malaysian government doesn’t allow online renewal).
As soon as I realized I was scheduled to physically be in Canberra, I rubbed my hands with glee – because Honeysuckle Creek is in Canberra. And for those of you who do not know what Honeysuckle Creek is famous for – the technicians at the tracking station there were the first people to see Neil Armstrong on the moon. Of course, I then found out that Honeysuckle Creek tracking station is no more, and it’s been relocated to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex.
Continue reading NASA – CDSCC; Or Why Google Maps Suck
By Chewxy, on April 4th, 2010
First up, a little about what I’m currently doing. I moved recently after getting a new job – I’m now an economist in an online advertising company. What does an online advertising company need an economist for? Same reason why Google hired Hal Varian I guess (hint hint Google Sydney, if you’re ever looking for economists…).
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m absolutely happy with the way things are right now – I get to do the things I love, in a relaxed environment. The question of if I could start over actually stemmed from a question a fellow humanoid asked me, when I explained that I would be pursuing a PhD in the coming years (gotta earn some money and acquire currency first).
He asked – “what would you do different in terms of your education?” My answer is this – If I could start over, I’d have went for a Computer Science-Economics dual degree, as opposed to just reading Economics. You see, when I was younger, I had this very arrogant thought: “I’m good with computers, I write complex algorithms all the time, doing a CompSci degree would be boring – let’s try something different”. And so I read Economics in uni.
To some extent, that is true. I still DO write complex algorithms that were self-taught. Stuff like data mining are things that were never taught in Uni level economics, but I had gleamed knowledge off the internets, so I am able to use them to my benefit. No problems there. So why would I still do that?
I’ve been following Drew Conway’s blog for some time now, and though some of his topics are distasteful (terrorism, armed conflict), he writes excellently on other things with regards to social networks. His interests, other than terrorism and conflict, resonates with my own interests. Of course, he too, writes lucidly, which is always good.
Drew has a computer science background and is a general math geek, and is using his old background on political issues in his PhD. Co-incidentally, I too met another guy (same train home almost everyday – same guy who asked if I would do anything different), who has a CompSci background and has a PhD in Economics. And with a grand sample size of 2, I came to the conclusion that if you have a computer science background in your undergrad years, your thought process is slightly different than have you had not.
Right now, my thought process is a mess. In the absence of data, my brain jumps about everywhere, making little conjectures here and there (notice that this sentence rhymes fair). It used to be worse – at one time I could see almost everything I thought about at the same time – i.e. the way I think isn’t really linear. Now there are benefits to linear, step-by-step thinking, namely SCIENCE
. I know quite a few CompSci people, and they all have fairly streamlined thinking process. Maybe it’s the discipline you learn from having to consistently program a turing machine and think in terms of turing machines over a period of time that causes this streamlined thinking process.
Currently I am involved in a couple of interesting projects (one of which is the reworking of Pressyo and an associated project), and I find, for most of the time, my non-linear thinking to be a hazardous waste of time. So, when asked, I’d say I would have done a double degree of CompSci and Economics. I’m not regretting my choices I made. I love economics to death, and I can go on and talk for hours about it. I just find that my current thought process to be very messy and could have done with some tweaking. But then again, the next 2 months or so should be fairly interesting. We’ll see what happens.
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and jotting notes down on a train, and started thinking aloud, when he asked if I was interested in these kinds of things (the answer is yes, verily) [