There was an interesting article in the Sunday paper about a proposal to effectively limit the terms of Supreme Court Justices, who are appointed for life, as outlined in the Constitution.
According to the article, the average tenure in the Court was about fifteen years, up until fairly recently. Now, the average tenure is about twenty-five years. Some people feel that this represents a great deal of drag on the relevance of the Court to current political opinion. Others feel that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the Court has to be able to, and willing to, take actions which are not always in tune with current thought.
But how to get around that Constitutional commandment? One concept is to appoint the Justices to the Federal judiciary for life, and to limit their presence on the court to eighteen years. After that point, the Justice would be considered a Senior Justice, available for consultation and for presiding on other Federal courts, but would no longer participate in the daily actions of the Supreme Court.
I think it makes a great deal of sense.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Monday, January 17, 2005
IM --> Pager ?
One of the many things I don't know is, how does Instant Messaging actually work.
Normally, I don't care, because I don't use it that much (though this article, Adoption of Instant Messaging in a Knowledge Worker Organisation, was kind of interesting, and agrees with the little bit I've read on the topic). But lately I've found myself thinking that it would be nice if I could get Lotus Sametime, which is the IM tool that my company, The Biggest Computer Company In The World, uses, to issue pages to me.
The reason is, sometimes when I am working from home, I will wander off into another room, for whatever reason, and when the ST pops up a screen, I won't always hear the chime. As ST is usually taken as an indicator of whether you truly are there, and as there is occasionally a suspicion that people working from home are actually downstairs watching the tube, taking a nap, or painting the shutters, I like to respond to it quickly. I always feel a little nettled when I come back into the room and the screen is up for, who knows how long. If ST would issue a page when its been up for, say, thirty seconds without a response, that would be nice.
ST has a companion tool called NotesBuddy that works with Lotus Notes, and which can, in its bag of tricks, be used to page you with new emails. Since I don't personally have to work out the linkage, its easy for me to think well, heck, how hard can it be to make SameTime, which after all comes from the very same company as Notes, talk to NotesBuddy (those who like groaner names can see this one coming: the new product could be called SameBuddy)?
Okay, probably not that easy. But still....
Someone starts a session to my ST client, which pops up a screen and starts a timer.
Thirty seconds later the timer pops. Gee, no response in thirty seconds.
Issues the page with the text message "Hey, get back to the screen!" and maybe even sends a message back to the original sender "NO RESPONSE; PAGING NOW"
How hard can that be? Huh?
Normally, I don't care, because I don't use it that much (though this article, Adoption of Instant Messaging in a Knowledge Worker Organisation, was kind of interesting, and agrees with the little bit I've read on the topic). But lately I've found myself thinking that it would be nice if I could get Lotus Sametime, which is the IM tool that my company, The Biggest Computer Company In The World, uses, to issue pages to me.
The reason is, sometimes when I am working from home, I will wander off into another room, for whatever reason, and when the ST pops up a screen, I won't always hear the chime. As ST is usually taken as an indicator of whether you truly are there, and as there is occasionally a suspicion that people working from home are actually downstairs watching the tube, taking a nap, or painting the shutters, I like to respond to it quickly. I always feel a little nettled when I come back into the room and the screen is up for, who knows how long. If ST would issue a page when its been up for, say, thirty seconds without a response, that would be nice.
ST has a companion tool called NotesBuddy that works with Lotus Notes, and which can, in its bag of tricks, be used to page you with new emails. Since I don't personally have to work out the linkage, its easy for me to think well, heck, how hard can it be to make SameTime, which after all comes from the very same company as Notes, talk to NotesBuddy (those who like groaner names can see this one coming: the new product could be called SameBuddy)?
Okay, probably not that easy. But still....
Someone starts a session to my ST client, which pops up a screen and starts a timer.
Thirty seconds later the timer pops. Gee, no response in thirty seconds.
Issues the page with the text message "Hey, get back to the screen!" and maybe even sends a message back to the original sender "NO RESPONSE; PAGING NOW"
How hard can that be? Huh?
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Recording Information
I was just reading an article in the Sunday New York Times about Newt Gingrich and his activities in support of health care reform (if you'd told me a year ago that I would be doing that, I'd have looked seriously askance at you), and I thought "Gee, I'd like to make some notes about this article." Because thats the thing -- I read the article, I remember a couple of key points and thats it. But how to do it, given that I'm certainly not going to fire up the laptop or the PC to do it, handwriting is so old school (nothing to do with the fact that my handwriting is virtually illegible at speed, and sometimes less than that).
So I thought Well, what I need is a headset with noise-cancelling mike that feeds into a high quality portable tape recorder (or something with a mini-hard drive); then that gets uploaded into the PC and read by a speech recognition program to produce text output that I later read through for clarity. Oh, and an artificial intelligence system to organize, classify, and correllate the information. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Take care of it.
================
Well, except for the AI part, that was easy.
So I thought Well, what I need is a headset with noise-cancelling mike that feeds into a high quality portable tape recorder (or something with a mini-hard drive); then that gets uploaded into the PC and read by a speech recognition program to produce text output that I later read through for clarity. Oh, and an artificial intelligence system to organize, classify, and correllate the information. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Take care of it.
================
Well, except for the AI part, that was easy.
Organizational Effort
My company, The Biggest Darn Computer Company In The World, is trying to implement a standard that has to do with security, one of the great icons of our current world. They are tying themselves in knots trying to keep everyone involved, aware, on board, insert-favorite-buzzword-here. I like to remind them that 'coordination breeds contempt', and they usually laugh, but weakly, as replying "No shit" is considered to be rude.
I would be fascinated to know if anyone has done a readable study of organizational complexity vis a vis speed of execution of something like this. But as I don't know any social scientists, I guess I'll have to wait till some bright young person writes about it in an accessible magazine, like the Times Sunday Magazine or similar. Too bad.
I would be fascinated to know if anyone has done a readable study of organizational complexity vis a vis speed of execution of something like this. But as I don't know any social scientists, I guess I'll have to wait till some bright young person writes about it in an accessible magazine, like the Times Sunday Magazine or similar. Too bad.
Apple Pie and Congress
Apple pie:
This morning, my daughter and I made an apple pie. She pared most of the apples, I sliced them, we both fed the slices into the food processor, she mixed the slices with the rest of the ingredients, I unrolled the two pre-made circles of dough, she put down the bottom circle, scooped in the mixture, put down the top circle, melded the edges, cut the slits, I set up the oven and slid it in. Can't wait.
Congress:
"Why stir up a political hornet's next...when there's no urgency? When does the program go belly-up? 2042. I will be dead by then." Representative Bob Simmons (D-Conn)
...and if pro is the opposite of con, what's the opposite of progress?
This morning, my daughter and I made an apple pie. She pared most of the apples, I sliced them, we both fed the slices into the food processor, she mixed the slices with the rest of the ingredients, I unrolled the two pre-made circles of dough, she put down the bottom circle, scooped in the mixture, put down the top circle, melded the edges, cut the slits, I set up the oven and slid it in. Can't wait.
Congress:
"Why stir up a political hornet's next...when there's no urgency? When does the program go belly-up? 2042. I will be dead by then." Representative Bob Simmons (D-Conn)
...and if pro is the opposite of con, what's the opposite of progress?
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Power Needs
Well, it looks like possibly I'm going to need another plug. And possibly an uninterruptible power supply. I just learned about NAS -- Network Attached Storage. NAS lets you have storage that is not tied to a single PC, but rather accessible from any PC in the network. In our case, we have the one home PC (despite minor agitation from the offspring, we still have just the one), plus each of us has a take-home lap top PC. Both laptops have wireless capability, and can talk to the Netgear router, as does the home PC and the cable modem. That's our little network.
As I understand it, the NAS box (whatever one we get, if and when) plugs into the router, and thusly becomes accessible from any PC. Our printer, which is currently hard-plugged into the home PC, and not accessible from the laptops (the files on the home pc aren't, either, despite the assurances of my network guy at work that it's really easy to do), can plug into the NAS device, and in theory become accessible to the laptops, while still being accessible to the home PC.
But the big deal is that the NAS box can give a huge amount of storage (or what counts as huge now; check again in a year). The smallest box I saw was 160 gigabytes; the largest was 1.2 terabytes. They physically range from the size of four hardcover books to about twice that. And with stuff on the NAS box rather than the individual PCs, it would be immediately accessible if we swapped to a new PC. No data swapping. (Probably just data files, though. I don't think that I want to contemplate what it would take to make Windows accept remote executable files. I'm sure its possible, I just don't want to contemplate what it would take to make it work.)
Downsides? Oh, sure, you betcha. For one, if you have something fail on the NAS box, then hey presto, you just lost a lot of storage. Not sure if they come with internally redundant backup. For another, they're not cheap -- by my standards, anyway-- starting at around $500. And of course, there's The Power Question. I wasn't kidding about the UPS concept. We already have the router, cable modem, speakers, two printers, and phone modem plugged into the surge protector. I think there is one slot left.
But it's sexy!
As I understand it, the NAS box (whatever one we get, if and when) plugs into the router, and thusly becomes accessible from any PC. Our printer, which is currently hard-plugged into the home PC, and not accessible from the laptops (the files on the home pc aren't, either, despite the assurances of my network guy at work that it's really easy to do), can plug into the NAS device, and in theory become accessible to the laptops, while still being accessible to the home PC.
But the big deal is that the NAS box can give a huge amount of storage (or what counts as huge now; check again in a year). The smallest box I saw was 160 gigabytes; the largest was 1.2 terabytes. They physically range from the size of four hardcover books to about twice that. And with stuff on the NAS box rather than the individual PCs, it would be immediately accessible if we swapped to a new PC. No data swapping. (Probably just data files, though. I don't think that I want to contemplate what it would take to make Windows accept remote executable files. I'm sure its possible, I just don't want to contemplate what it would take to make it work.)
Downsides? Oh, sure, you betcha. For one, if you have something fail on the NAS box, then hey presto, you just lost a lot of storage. Not sure if they come with internally redundant backup. For another, they're not cheap -- by my standards, anyway-- starting at around $500. And of course, there's The Power Question. I wasn't kidding about the UPS concept. We already have the router, cable modem, speakers, two printers, and phone modem plugged into the surge protector. I think there is one slot left.
But it's sexy!
Friday, January 14, 2005
Drug Recommendation
I don't normally make drug recommendations. My opinion is just mine, and not worth a hill of beans when it comes to comparisons with other people's experiences. But I've come across one that is really good at doing what it's supposed to do.
It's called Lantus, and it's a long-acting insulin.
It took me taking it for a month before I starting seeing benefit, but now I'm on day four of acceptable blood sugar readings in the morning. For me, this is virtually unprecedented. I don't know if it will continue. I don't know if Lantus will be shown to have unacceptable side-effects. But I do know this: for me, so far, it works.
I don't work for the company that makes it, and I didn't get anything for this recommendation.
It's called Lantus, and it's a long-acting insulin.
It took me taking it for a month before I starting seeing benefit, but now I'm on day four of acceptable blood sugar readings in the morning. For me, this is virtually unprecedented. I don't know if it will continue. I don't know if Lantus will be shown to have unacceptable side-effects. But I do know this: for me, so far, it works.
I don't work for the company that makes it, and I didn't get anything for this recommendation.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Product 19
About two years ago, when I started this blog, I mentioned a book, '19', which I had greatly enjoyed. This past week, I was delighted to receive an email from the author's wife, mentioning that she had seen the writeup and wanted me to know that the author, Roger Hall, was, at 85, still alert, active, and visiting book shows. I asked if he would mind autographing my copy of 19 -- and he graciously agreed. It's going off in the mail to him this weekend.
Before sending it, off, though, I spent a little bit of time last night leafing through it again, picking out some of the scenes and phrases that I had really enjoyed. The author has an eye for detail, and obviously enjoys well-turned phrases, scattering them throughout with grace and style. The chief character is thoughtful, wry, and funny; his chief is an alert, incisive veteran of OSS who resides in an elegant manor (and manner); his companions are smart and interesting people who you'd like to know. Even the bad guy is nicely sculpted.
Are there downsides? A couple. The book, set in the sixties, can be dated at times: people avoid eavesdropping by turning away from the window, or sitting in the corner; the agent admiringly refers to his boss's new suit as 'a wild set of threads'; the main antagonist disguises himself in Ashanti costume and wears a piece of bone to offset his Afro; the lissome girl secretary wears micro-minis to work. Mere details that don't detract from the delightful romp.
19 is an elegant treat, and a lot of fun.
Before sending it, off, though, I spent a little bit of time last night leafing through it again, picking out some of the scenes and phrases that I had really enjoyed. The author has an eye for detail, and obviously enjoys well-turned phrases, scattering them throughout with grace and style. The chief character is thoughtful, wry, and funny; his chief is an alert, incisive veteran of OSS who resides in an elegant manor (and manner); his companions are smart and interesting people who you'd like to know. Even the bad guy is nicely sculpted.
Are there downsides? A couple. The book, set in the sixties, can be dated at times: people avoid eavesdropping by turning away from the window, or sitting in the corner; the agent admiringly refers to his boss's new suit as 'a wild set of threads'; the main antagonist disguises himself in Ashanti costume and wears a piece of bone to offset his Afro; the lissome girl secretary wears micro-minis to work. Mere details that don't detract from the delightful romp.
19 is an elegant treat, and a lot of fun.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Google and Firearms
I was just looking over an article about Google Hacking, to which I was led by an article on SiteDigger 2.0. SiteDigger is intended to allow companies to more easily find sensitive material about them on the web, so that they can control it. Google Hacking is intended to do the same thing, though (possibly) for less noble purposes.
It occurs to me that since this wouldn't be possible -- or as possible -- without Google, this might imply that Google has a moral responsibility to control how its product is used.
If it does, would this logic follow through with guns?
It occurs to me that since this wouldn't be possible -- or as possible -- without Google, this might imply that Google has a moral responsibility to control how its product is used.
If it does, would this logic follow through with guns?
Observation
This deal with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston has gotten enough play that even I've noticed it -- and I can go for years without knowing who the current hot items are. So here's my take.
They were married for, what, seven years?
They're more well known by a factor of, what, ten times that of a normal person?
So, doesn't that equate to being effectively married for seventy years without muss or fuss?
What's so amazing shouldn't be that they split up -- it should be that they lasted that long under the glaring spotlight of gasping columnists and obsessed fan junkies.
Mathematically speaking, anyway.
They were married for, what, seven years?
They're more well known by a factor of, what, ten times that of a normal person?
So, doesn't that equate to being effectively married for seventy years without muss or fuss?
What's so amazing shouldn't be that they split up -- it should be that they lasted that long under the glaring spotlight of gasping columnists and obsessed fan junkies.
Mathematically speaking, anyway.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Helping
Quite some time ago -- on the order of decades ago -- I read an article on the question of foreign relations and foreign aid. The basic question was, why does the United States offer foreign aid? It boiled down, as I recall, to three reasons:
The general take was, no. One person said that of course the United States would give lots of aid; people expect that, people are used to that, but of course no reasonable person would expect that people who are opposed to us now would alter their opinions simply because we gave aid. That would be insulting to them.
Its fair that they not change their opinions. Narrowminded, but fair. They didn't ask us to give the money. "We can't be bought", and all that.
But that they expect that we will, of course, give money -- and not just money, but lots of money -- that isn't fair. They have no right to expect that, or indeed anything at all. The only people who can have that expectation of us is ourselves.
Fortunately for much of the world, and unlike much of the world, we do see ourselves as having the responsibility to help when we can. Even when we're slimed, even when our people are being killed, we do. We're not noble (though some of us certainly are), we're not perfect (though some of us come damn close), but we do. We help.
I like that.
- Bribery of one sort or another
- Quid pro quo
- General niceness
The general take was, no. One person said that of course the United States would give lots of aid; people expect that, people are used to that, but of course no reasonable person would expect that people who are opposed to us now would alter their opinions simply because we gave aid. That would be insulting to them.
Its fair that they not change their opinions. Narrowminded, but fair. They didn't ask us to give the money. "We can't be bought", and all that.
But that they expect that we will, of course, give money -- and not just money, but lots of money -- that isn't fair. They have no right to expect that, or indeed anything at all. The only people who can have that expectation of us is ourselves.
Fortunately for much of the world, and unlike much of the world, we do see ourselves as having the responsibility to help when we can. Even when we're slimed, even when our people are being killed, we do. We're not noble (though some of us certainly are), we're not perfect (though some of us come damn close), but we do. We help.
I like that.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Economic Foolery
We were talking at breakfast this morning about this, that, and the other, and got onto the subject of the proposal to reduce the amount of increases to Social Security through the mechanism of tying the increases to inflation rather than to salary. I had just mentioned that though I recognize the need for action, I didn't like the method, when it abruptly occurred to me that these are politicians proposing this. That means that the chances of them actually meaning exactly what they said is fairly slim. They might well be doing it to stake out an extreme position, so that when they come up with their actual plan, it'll sound moderate by comparison.
Somehow, realizing this doesn't make me feel better.
Somehow, realizing this doesn't make me feel better.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Remote Thought
How about a memory button on a TV remote, so that as you flick through channels, you can tag/untag likely viewing candidates. When you're done, you can cycle just through them, not all twelve zillion channels.
Just my little contribution to the couch potato brigade.....
Just my little contribution to the couch potato brigade.....
Friday, January 07, 2005
Ribboning the Wave
There are a lot of cars with wrapped-ribbon magnetic things showing support for various concepts, mostly having to do with the war in Iraq, but also other things ranging from breast cancer eradication to funding for homeless shelters (there's an amazing list of causes and associated 'awareness jewelry' here). ..Similarly, people in Hollywood like to wear ribbons to public gatherings for roughly the same reason. So --
How long till a ribbon comes out that looks vaguely like a wave , to be sported by people who've donated to tsunami relief?
.
.
How long till a ribbon comes out that looks vaguely like a wave , to be sported by people who've donated to tsunami relief?
.
.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Improvements
Today was a little better than the other day.
I got the yearly evaluation, and went up a quintile, which was good. It doesn't mean I got a lot better, but it was gratifying, nonetheless, especially as it makes more likely the career move that I've wanted. Not guaranteed, but not out of the question.
I started on that project that the customer wanted, and found it to be rather snarly, as they didn't really know what they wanted, just that they wanted what they had before, only newer. Yet I was pleased that I came up with a way to do it, and that when I hit roadblocks, even the guy who had done it for them for years was stumped. Again, gratifying.
I think what I could use right now is A Nice Cup of Tea -- what we referred to for a while, upon our return from London, as American Tea (ie, strong, but not road tar) -- along with one of those terrific Mrs. Fields Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers. Yum. And maybe a little bit of reading in the British Navy book. Its a little intimidating (big book), but well written.
The weather's gloomy, but I'm better.
I got the yearly evaluation, and went up a quintile, which was good. It doesn't mean I got a lot better, but it was gratifying, nonetheless, especially as it makes more likely the career move that I've wanted. Not guaranteed, but not out of the question.
I started on that project that the customer wanted, and found it to be rather snarly, as they didn't really know what they wanted, just that they wanted what they had before, only newer. Yet I was pleased that I came up with a way to do it, and that when I hit roadblocks, even the guy who had done it for them for years was stumped. Again, gratifying.
I think what I could use right now is A Nice Cup of Tea -- what we referred to for a while, upon our return from London, as American Tea (ie, strong, but not road tar) -- along with one of those terrific Mrs. Fields Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers. Yum. And maybe a little bit of reading in the British Navy book. Its a little intimidating (big book), but well written.
The weather's gloomy, but I'm better.
Gamer buys $26,500 virtual land
According to an article on the BBC site, a gamer has paid actual money to purchase the rights to a virtual island -- one that is part of a multi-player computer game. According to the article, he plans to earn the money back by leasing and selling the resources on the island to virtual settlers.
I think this is fascinating. It reminds me of the joke I heard in a macroeconomics class years ago which postulated that all of the gold in the world was shipped to an island so that it could be easily protected. The next year, when someone went back to look, the island had sunk -- but the economy chugged right on. It didn't need to see the money, it just assumed it.
Obviously, there had to be effort in the creation of the virtual island, so you could say that the price paid reflects that effort and profit on it. But more than that, this says that you can earn money for things that do not exist, but which are valued by someone else.
That really tickles me. I don't know what comes next, but I'm looking forward to seeing it.
I think this is fascinating. It reminds me of the joke I heard in a macroeconomics class years ago which postulated that all of the gold in the world was shipped to an island so that it could be easily protected. The next year, when someone went back to look, the island had sunk -- but the economy chugged right on. It didn't need to see the money, it just assumed it.
Obviously, there had to be effort in the creation of the virtual island, so you could say that the price paid reflects that effort and profit on it. But more than that, this says that you can earn money for things that do not exist, but which are valued by someone else.
That really tickles me. I don't know what comes next, but I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Observations
Today was not an overwhelmingly great day.
In no particular order, I found that my stomach rebelled at the consumption of a couple of tacos (and without anything particularly obnoxious on them!); learned that a co-worker whom I think of as 'the idiot' is going to move to a group that I've been agitating to move to; was informed that an account for whom we'd offered to provide some basic services is taking us up on it - their first request is for a custom set of files that our predecessor created -- and right now, too, please; a project which has been hanging fire for about six months is now considered urgent; and, I get to spend about two hours manually updating my ID on about 85 systems, because my employer, the Largest Computer Company In The World, hasn't seen fit to automate the process. Though we did just hold a mass conference on Improving Our Processes, how nice.
I also found myself thinking about the state of affairs in Iraq, and I learned that one proposal for 'saving' Social Security is to reduce payments. Insert bitter post-election comment here.
It is hard at times like this to be even guardedly optimistic. Not that I'm an optimistic sort, normally, but maybe -- just a little bit. Not today, though. I took advantage of the sour stomach and went home for the afternoon, sleeping for an hour on arrival, and then reading a bit about the British Navy. Tomorrow it might be icy, which translates out to Working From Home. I have to remember to be grateful for that -- I know its not all that common.
We'll see how tomorrow goes.
In no particular order, I found that my stomach rebelled at the consumption of a couple of tacos (and without anything particularly obnoxious on them!); learned that a co-worker whom I think of as 'the idiot' is going to move to a group that I've been agitating to move to; was informed that an account for whom we'd offered to provide some basic services is taking us up on it - their first request is for a custom set of files that our predecessor created -- and right now, too, please; a project which has been hanging fire for about six months is now considered urgent; and, I get to spend about two hours manually updating my ID on about 85 systems, because my employer, the Largest Computer Company In The World, hasn't seen fit to automate the process. Though we did just hold a mass conference on Improving Our Processes, how nice.
I also found myself thinking about the state of affairs in Iraq, and I learned that one proposal for 'saving' Social Security is to reduce payments. Insert bitter post-election comment here.
It is hard at times like this to be even guardedly optimistic. Not that I'm an optimistic sort, normally, but maybe -- just a little bit. Not today, though. I took advantage of the sour stomach and went home for the afternoon, sleeping for an hour on arrival, and then reading a bit about the British Navy. Tomorrow it might be icy, which translates out to Working From Home. I have to remember to be grateful for that -- I know its not all that common.
We'll see how tomorrow goes.
New Impressions
The Washington Post has changed its comics mix a bit, mostly with good results.
One of the strips shows two characters observing that it's a new year. They sit quietly for two panels, then one says 'So far, I'm not impressed'. Thats probably been true for the vast majority of New Years. We know in our hearts that there is no reason to assume anything better or worse from the world simply because a calendar has rolled over, yet somehow we always hold out that frail hope, whether it be for diets, our jobs, or the world in general. We're always hoping that next year will be better.
Here's to optimism.
One of the strips shows two characters observing that it's a new year. They sit quietly for two panels, then one says 'So far, I'm not impressed'. Thats probably been true for the vast majority of New Years. We know in our hearts that there is no reason to assume anything better or worse from the world simply because a calendar has rolled over, yet somehow we always hold out that frail hope, whether it be for diets, our jobs, or the world in general. We're always hoping that next year will be better.
Here's to optimism.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Book Review
Finished The Last Ship.
Here's a tip.
Don't read a novel about nuclear holocaust and the resulting devastation unless you're planning on having very interesting dreams, including one where you're back in the Launch Control Center. Whew. Its been decades since I did that for a living, but the memories live on -- the ever present hum of the motor generator, the flickering indicator lights, the feel of the fabric on the crew chairs...And the task itself...First time I did a keyturn in a simulation, I had nightmares. Not that bad this time, but still, not fun.
Did bring me back to how we used to think about these things, though. Mutual Assured Destruction, MRV vs MIRV, Circular Error Probable, throw weights, redundancy, and all of that. And then we look at Al Qaeda and refer to those as the good old days.
Shudder.
.
Here's a tip.
Don't read a novel about nuclear holocaust and the resulting devastation unless you're planning on having very interesting dreams, including one where you're back in the Launch Control Center. Whew. Its been decades since I did that for a living, but the memories live on -- the ever present hum of the motor generator, the flickering indicator lights, the feel of the fabric on the crew chairs...And the task itself...First time I did a keyturn in a simulation, I had nightmares. Not that bad this time, but still, not fun.
Did bring me back to how we used to think about these things, though. Mutual Assured Destruction, MRV vs MIRV, Circular Error Probable, throw weights, redundancy, and all of that. And then we look at Al Qaeda and refer to those as the good old days.
Shudder.
.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Javelin
After I replied to a comment about my earlier post regarding artificial intelligence, I promptly forgot about the topic for several hours. This morning, I picked up one of the books that I'm reading -- The Last Ship -- and, wondering if one of the tools mentioned repeatedly in there, a sighting device called Big Eyes, really did exist, I did a web search, finding that yep, it sure did. Somehow, being at the PC reminded me of my search the other day regarding the IBM Piquant system, and I thought it might be fun to look to see what else might be readily available out there on the same topic. In this manner, I came to a product known as Javelin -- Justification-based Answer Validation through Language Interpretation. Its a pretty slick concept, and puts the lie -- well, partially -- to my glib statement about AI being mostly language parsing. The article cited includes this:
Now, I have to admit that it took me five minutes to repeatedly read that before I understood it, and even then, I'm sure I didn't get it all. But what I did get was this: systems such as Piquant could be useful for answering straightforward quetions. (Not sure about the reference to factoids, which I've always taken to mean 'stuff that could be true, could be made up, but in either case is of a trivial nature'; they seem to mean 'its true, but perhaps not all provable'. Thats my guess. ).
But when you get to the requirement to evaluate information -- not just regurgitate it -- you need the ability to dynamically establish a structure where you can meld information from multiple sources, rate it based on the perceived (detected) validity of the source, and then use it to create an answer to the question. As the methodology evolves, it could become self-modifiying so that the steps it takes to answer one question might change as the next question comes along.
My first reaction is, sure this stuff will work on any but the most constrained scale -- aka 'then a miracle occurs' -- but actually, its kind of cool. Obviously, there are some pretty bright people out there.
(P)attern-based approaches don’t represent the meaning of the patterns they use, and it is not clear whether they can be generalized for more difficult, non-factoid questions....Practically useful question answering in non-factoid domains e.g., intelligence analysis) requires more sophisticated question decomposition, reasoning, and answer synthesis. For these hard questions, QA (Question Answering) architectures must define relationships among entities, gather information from multiple sources, and reason over the data to produce an effective answer. As QA functionality becomes more sophisticated, the set of decisions made by a system will not be captured by pipelined architectures or multi-pass constraint relaxation, but must be modeled as a step-by-step decision flow, where the set of processing steps is determined at run time for each question.
Now, I have to admit that it took me five minutes to repeatedly read that before I understood it, and even then, I'm sure I didn't get it all. But what I did get was this: systems such as Piquant could be useful for answering straightforward quetions. (Not sure about the reference to factoids, which I've always taken to mean 'stuff that could be true, could be made up, but in either case is of a trivial nature'; they seem to mean 'its true, but perhaps not all provable'. Thats my guess. ).
But when you get to the requirement to evaluate information -- not just regurgitate it -- you need the ability to dynamically establish a structure where you can meld information from multiple sources, rate it based on the perceived (detected) validity of the source, and then use it to create an answer to the question. As the methodology evolves, it could become self-modifiying so that the steps it takes to answer one question might change as the next question comes along.
My first reaction is, sure this stuff will work on any but the most constrained scale -- aka 'then a miracle occurs' -- but actually, its kind of cool. Obviously, there are some pretty bright people out there.
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