February 2012
1 post
3 tags
Conjecture about K-complexity
Conjecture: for any finite set of bit strings S and a chosen ordering of S, it is possible to define (or there exists) a machine M where sorting S by the Kolmogorov complexity of its members with respect to M constructs the chosen ordering.
Answers on a postcard.
December 2011
1 post
“He has an honorary position as official Shoutsperson of the University of York’s...”
– Brian Blessed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
November 2011
4 posts
The Social Graph is Neither →
Lazyweb writes the article that explains what I think yet again.
October 2011
1 post
5 tags
The Mensch Hypothesis
You may have seen Louise Mensch being needled on HIGNFY recently; if you haven’t, take a look, it’s awful and funny at once.
Mensch suggests that there’s something wrong about the Occupy LSX protestors drinking coffee from the nearby Starbucks, something which renders their position invalid. Merton & Hislop both mock this view, and get some good laughs in the process; fair enough...
November 2010
1 post
2 tags
Watchcat helping with work
September 2010
1 post
6 tags
Time Tree: phylogenetic common-ancestor lookup →
August 2010
1 post
2 tags
The Acceleration of Addictiveness →
An interesting note by Paul Graham
(via dihard, via jakelodwick via Ronen Reblogs)
July 2010
1 post
3 tags
Ergonomics
Been typing a lot recently and I have just noticed something blindingly obvious: the num pad is on the wrong side of the keyboard for right handers. Either the mouse ends up off to the right, or your left arm has to be in the wrong place. Why is this considered a good idea?
May 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Conway's Free Will Theorem →
3 tags
Electoral Reform
We need to reform the electoral system in the UK; I know it’s a topic which sounds utterly dry and tedious, but the lack of fair representation is at the heart of many of the problems in our politics at the moment. If you are already convinced of the need for reform, please take a moment to sign this petition at 38degrees. If not, read on for an explanation of the faults in the system and...
March 2010
3 posts
3 tags
Emacs & Dictionary.app
How to integrate Mac OS X’s Dictionary.app with Emacs
You will need: a function to send the word at point to the dictionary
(defun mac-open-dictionary (the-word)
"Open Dictionary.app for the-word"
(interactive "sDictionary Lookup: ")
(shell-command (concat "open\"dict:///" (replace-regexp-in-string "\"" "\\\\\"" the-word) "\"")))
And to make it even better integrated, a...
5 tags
Odds Are, It's Wrong →
An interesting article from “Science News” about the pitfalls of ill-informed use of statistical techniques to decide on the significance of observed correlations. The subject is very complex and fraught with difficulties, and the reduction to Frequentists vs. Bayesians at the article’s end seems to misunderstand the issue in a way which is (ironically) similar to the...
5 tags
Fixes to python.sty
I use python.sty, which provides a python environment to TeX whose contents are evaluated when the TeX is compiled. For example the following:
\begin{python}
x = 'hello'
print r'\section{', x, '}'
\end{python}
will effectively compile as \section{hello} in your TeX. I’ve made a small patch to the file which makes the following changes
Allows the % sign to be used within the python...
January 2010
1 post
Check Out This Maths →
December 2009
2 posts
1 tag
September 2009
1 post
7 tags
Virgin Media Break the Internet
A new feature introduced by Virgin Media for their broadband connections is the “Advanced Network Error Search”. This responds to DNS queries for nonexistent domains with a false result which redirects the browser to a Virgin/Yahoo search page, instead of producing an RFC-compliant no-such-domain result.
Although the intention here is to help the end user [1], the service is opt-out...
August 2009
1 post
4 tags
On induction
Bayesian inference is often used in machine learning when there’s a need to refine a model of the world in response to some new observations. The bayesian approach has the nice properties of parsimoniousness and mathematical rigour, which can mislead users into thinking it is scientific. The ultimate test of science is pragmatic rather than aesthetic, and without some experimental...
July 1971
1 post
Blogging is a massive waste of time