Is Your Learning Laminar or Turbulent?

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I recently spotted something that was a real light-bulb moment for me. I get a lot of those, so I guess I'm easily impressed.

It was while I was assessing my disappointing results from last semester. I was disappointed but not surprised. It was one of those semesters where my confidence was higher than my competence, and I failed to notice things were slipping a little.

That's when I considered the idea that my studying had been laminar when perhaps it should have been turbulent.

Laminar flow occurs when a fluid moves slowly down a smooth pipe. Particles in the fluid run in straight parallel paths, and the fluid maintains all of its original consistency.

Turbulent flow occurs when the input pressure applied to the fluid is increased. It results in random sideways particle movements, which mixes up the particles and breaks the fluid up, shearing through the fluid to create a new consistency. Overall, the flow rate is higher than laminar flow, but by a smaller than expected amount, because of all the particles colliding with each other.

So could learning be seen this way?

Laminar learning would be slowly working through each part, without applying much effort. In the end, you would know the facts individually, but not thoroughly.

Turbulent Learning would be more aggressive - a high degree of effort (pressure) and doing small pieces of work (particles) across the whole syllabus would lead to ideas coming together and a deeper understanding (mixing). Progress would be slower than expected but still outpace the rate of laminar learning.

This isn't purely about working harder, but rather working on the whole syllabus and constantly pushing.

In practical terms, laminar learning equates to just watching the lectures, whereas turbulent learning equates to immersing oneself in the tutorials, assignments and feedback, deliberately emulsifying all the course material together.

I'm going to go mix it up with my current courses right now...

Beanie's latest animations...

What makes this even more impressive is they are done like the old 1930's cartoons - bitmaps are hand drawn for every frame - no vector graphics or morphing between key frames.

Adopt an “I Can’t Do” Attitude

When something seems impossible to achieve, we often say “It can’t be done”. What we should be saying is “I can’t do it”.

When you say “I can’t do it”, you’re giving yourself two options that aren’t available for “It can’t be done”:

1. I can learn how to do it
2. I can get someone else to do it

This means saying “I can’t do it” gives you room to grow either your own skills or your relationships with others. Everybody wins.

Saying “It can’t be done” stops everything in its tracks.

There are things we can’t do, and admitting this is not a failure, it’s a tool to help improve ourselves.

Charm It Crazy

Heard Sam Hunt on the radio this morning. He's a New Zealand powet, for those of you who don't Knowet.

Very clever dude, laid back poetry, and one very cool story he told this morning: When he used to lecture at high schools, kids asked him for advice for exams. He told them that if the first question is "Here's a poem. Write what the poet is saying..." then they should write "The poet is saying..." and then copy the poem word for word, because nobody can paraphrase what exactly the poet is saying!

Sage advice, pity it will get you an F!

The whole "Charm it crazy" thang is quite a cool motto, though...it's not just what poets do: Salesmen and leaders do it too. Make the idea hip and hook people in. hence the "Doughnut model" in an earlier post. Sort of "The truth, the whole truth, and the best adjectives to go with the truth"

Just saying Sam is a really cunning linguist. Just saying, man.

Constructive Pessimism is Like Being a Platoon Sergeant...

Bear with me on this analogy, it will all hopefully make sense in the end...

So one of my fellow Constructive Pessimists wrote a brilliant article, which sadly has elapsed from the net, so you'll just have to take my word on this. He proposed that team members could be plotted on a cartesian graph with a horizontal axis representing the pessimism-to-optimism continuum and the vertical axis representing the destructive-to-constructive continuum.

From this, he identified some stereotypes in the team and suggested that the best performance occurs when the team is using at least one constructive pessimist for decision making.

Well, nothing beats a cartesian graph like a tasty doughnut!!!!

In the doughnut model, we have four types - obviously, any real person will vary along this continuum and behave either optimistically or pessimistically depending on mood, circumstance, involvement in the project and such.

The four types are Destructive Pessimist (DP), Constructive Pessimist (CP), Constructive Optimist (CO) and Destructive Optimist (DO).

The trick,

 for the manager

or anyone in the team needing to influence the team,

is to shift attitudes from

Destructive Doughnut to

Constructive Hole.

This is a far cry from what most of us are taught: That attitudes need to shift from Pessimism to Optimism.

In fact, I suspect it's easier to do the former than the latter anyway.

What you do is:

1. Get the COs to set the targets - it pays to dream big.

2. Get CPs to brainstorm the solutions - they will identify the potholes and work out how to get past them

3. Give DOs difficult new projects outside their expertise so they can't wing it. They will either become COs, or they will fail to change - and ask any T-Rex what happens when you can't change!

4. Give the DPs easy stuff to get some quick wins under their belts - they will either become more CP, or again, they will fail and you really don't need their negativity!

So how does this fit with the platoon model?

The most successful organisations are military - partly because shoot people who try to leave, partly because they blow up the competition, but mostly because they have had a lot of practice!

In  a platoon, the Platoon Commander decides what they will do strategically - he is a CO. The Platoon Sergeant is the guy who maintains discipline - that is, he ensures that what the CO wants is feasible, because he makes sure everyone is prepared - that is surely the perfect use for a CP!

And the soldiers? Any type, but I can tell you from experience, the army does not tolerate destructive personalities, and they have a knack for changing people!

Viva la Philosophie!

A Novel Concept - CPU with a one gate ALU

This was something I wrote a few years ago, and I found it again just the other day . Y'know, like your cloud drive becomes the bottom of the closet kinda thing? A Novel Concept…

Here's an idea for a logic controller that uses only one mnemonic! It's based on the fact that any sequential logic can be expressed as compound logic, and any compound logic can be expressed in "NAND" gates. Each instruction is in fact 3 register addresses:

A

B

X

So the function of each and every instruction is X=A.B. The architecture is similar to a PLC: Registers are 1 bit memories, and the scan cycle is:

1. Read Inputs into Registers

2. Execute Logic

3. Write Outputs from Registers

4. Check for Programming Device Interrupt

5. Goto Step 1

The Program memory is a printer buffer, with each read instruction generating a write to put a copy back in. A counter keeps track of where execution must stop and I/O servicing start.

The format used for notation is A-B-X - an instruction such as "start OR latch" becoming a sequence:

start-start-nstart

invert start

latch-latch-nlatch

invert latch

nstart-nlatch-nresult

NOR= NAND of the inverses

Some basic logic:

Dummy:

A dummy register, whose contents is considered irrelevant is used instead of a "NOP" instruction, as in D-D-D

Invert:

Not-A can be done 2 ways: A-A-X or 1-A-X, where 1 is achieved by always having a register with a 1 in it, called "SET"

NAND:

A-B-X

X=A.B

AND:

A-B-NX

NX-NX-X

X=A.B

OR:

A-A-NA

B-B-NB

NA-NB-X

X=A+B

NOR:

A-A-NA

B-B-NB

NA-NB-NX

NX-NX-X

X=A+B

XOR:

A-A-NA

B-B-NB

A-NB-C

NA-B-D

C-D-X

X=A(+)B

XNOR:

A-A-NA

B-B-NB

A-B-C

NA-NB-D

C-D-X

X=A(+)B

R-S Latch:

NRESET-Q-NQ

NOTE THAT NRESET & NSET ARE

NSET-NQ-Q

ACTIVE LOW, AND ALSO, IF NSET

GOES LOW, FOR 1 CYCLE OF THE

PROGRAM, BOTH Q AND NQ ARE HIGH.

Q-Q-NQ

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TO AVOID THIS, USE THIS LINE

AFTER THE LAST.

To the Lady I Had an Argument with Yesterday at Sylvia Park:

I'm sorry I raised my voice, and I'm sorry I lapsed into the vernacular, but I have already been inconvenienced by a do-gooder such as yourself who had preconceived ideas about disabled people.

My wife has one leg - I showed that to you yesterday. My wife also has a disability parking permit - specifically BECAUSE she has one leg.

We bought our beautiful Toyata Hilux in 2009 (which we nicknamed "Big Red") BECAUSE my wife has one leg. We tried the Hiace van, but it was too high for her to be able to hoist herself into. We had previously owned a Camry station wagon, but when transferring from the car to the wheelchair, she has to slide uphill, as it is too low.

Big Red has smaller wheels than the standard Hilux. This makes the seat hight about 5 cm higher than the wheelchair, and turns out to be a workable compromise for transfering.

The large load tray at the back means I can easily fold the wheelchair and store it in the back.

Unfortunately, in 2009, there was no automatic model available with the smaller wheels, so my wife does not drive Big Red.

She also doesn't drive a taxi, her work van or my father-in-law's Honda CRV. She is often a passenger in all of them, and they all park in disabled bays, BECAUSE she has one leg.

Disabled bays are wider than normal bays to allow wheelchair access, and have ramps to easily get onto the pavement.

About 10 years ago, somebody reported me to the Botany Downs parking attendant for parking in a disabled bay. I was fetching my wife from the hairdressers, and had been seen walking away from the empty car. When I fetched my wife, we went for lunch, and so when we returned to car park, enough time had elapsed for the parking attendant to clamp our car.

Since I had rather foolishly forgotten to put the parking permit in the window, I was technically in violation DESPITE my wife having only one leg. I had to pay $50 on the spot to get the clamp removed.

What if a do-gooder reported me, and as a result my car was towed? How would I get my wife home - it would be difficult, BECAUSE she has one leg.

I appreciate that there are people who use their relatives' parking permits illegally, but I do it BECAUSE she has one leg.

Disabled people may drive, or be driven in, any vehicle they wish - a Ferrari, a Rolls Royce, and yes, even a Toyota Hilux.

Particularly a wheelchair-friendly, low slung, comfortable, dependable Toyata Hilux.

Finally, for anyone who wants to question how a disabled lady can afford such an "inappropriate" vehicle, I would like to point out that there was no taxpayer's money spent, and she's not a leech on society. My wife is a qualified Accountant. My wife earns good money, for hard work, as do I, AND she has only one leg.

The Philosophy of Negative Expectations

As previously mentioned, I had some notes on my take on Constructive Pessimism floating about. I fished out this lot - basically just a lot of headings, but a good starting point.

I wrote this list about 3 or 4 years ago, and they are admittedly a bit disjointed, but I'm happy to defend them for the sake of a heathly debate!

Negative Expectations basically can be summarised as the first rule:

1. "Give much, expect nothing, take only what you need"

-That is, treat people the way you wish they would treat you, but don't assume it will be reciprocated. Expect to be treated indifferently or with hostility, and when someone surprises you, it will be a pleasant surprise!

2. "Expect the worst, then every surprise is a pleasant one"

-This is the central theme of Constructive Pessimism

3. "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail"

-The optimist is likely to ignore unlikely sources of failure, because he thinks unlikely is a risk worth ignoring.

4. "Work smarter, not harder"

-Give a new task to a lazy man, and he'll find an efficient way to do it. Be motivated by greed, laziness and selfishness, and you're bound to make something useful.

5. "Do not suffer positive fools"

- Positive is a result, not a magic potion. Being positive does not make positive things happen. Positive is your additive in the fuel, but the fuel itself is the work you're putting in.

6. "Live every day like tomorrow is a foregone conclusion"

- Facing consequences is harder than facing death,so assume that tomorrow you will have to explain your actions.

7. "Dance like the camera's off and the room is empty...except you know there's someone behind the mirror"

- Many introverts behave as if they were extroverts...it's a defense mechanism. Want to get others to be enthusiastic? Then act enthusiastic!

8. "Be habitually honest"

- If you frequently speak openly and honestly about things, people will trust your integrity. If you admit your mistakes, it makes your position stronger...and no-one will suspect when you do lie!!!

9. "Imagine outside the box, Solve inside the box"

The box represents conventional thinking, which is the result of ages of other's experience.

10. "Common Sense is a double negative"

-It is neither common, nor is it sensible. Therefore, assume everyone could be misinformed - including yourself.

11. "Stupidity is not a binary variable"

- Nor is cleverness, ingenuity, beauty, etc. Your relative degree of any attribute depends on what you're trying to achieve, so you can be a rocket scientist, yet still not make a better mousetrap, because mousetraps aren't rocket science!

12. "The natural state of humans is that of servants"

_Think about parents, teachers, salesman, repairmen...we all get satisfaction from serving someone...

In the words of Cheryl Crow - "It's nor having what you want, it's wanting what you've got."

13. "ENJOY THE NOISE"

Vent your rage, laugh until you ache, breathe deep. The only person you can be 100% certain will stand by is yourself, so do stand by yourself!

We Are Legion...Well, 2 of us are out there...

I was trying to find my blog from a phone the other day, so I googled "Constructive Pessimist". I was surprised to find there's more than one.

It would seem my theory is wider spread than I thought.

To save time, let me just put in the link - it is WELL WORTH a read!

http://techbrew.net/7h4r012rh1d0-923h23d/

I would like to point out that as far as I'm aware, I coined the term "Constructive Pessimist" conversationally sometime around 2006, and started this blog in 2011, so I imagine that at least one other person has coined the phrase independently.

I have some hand written notes on my take on the idea, so I may dig them up and publish them as I'm on break between semesters for a couple of weeks.

I imagine no-one's reading this, but game theory would describe this as a win / break even scenario.

If a tree screams as it falls, it doesn't matter if no-one hears it.

"The Scrabble for Africa..."

So mi old pal reminded me about a variation of Scrabble we used to play. Apparently some stand-up comic has thought of the same game. The rules are you have to create new words, then come up with a plausible definition for them. The words must be phonetically plausible, and the other players have to agree on the word being allowed - which has all kinds of Game Theory ramifications about non-communicative cooperation...

But this all has me thinking up new Scrabble based games.

Hasbro say they won't mess with a successful formula - with the exception of Scrabble Trickster - which is well worth a go.

But I can theorize, hey?

So here are 5 other scrabble games...

1. Yorkshire Dialect Scrabble

Same a Scrabble, except there are 10 extra tiles called T' - the Yorkshire contraction for the definite article. This tile is worth 1 point, and MUST precede all nouns. What makes this weird is that you can't change a noun to a verb, for example, in the pic below, I can't add "ER" to "T'CAT", because CATER is a verb, not a noun.

2. Parts Of Speech Scrabble

Extending the idea, some of the 1-point tiles have been replaced by 1-point tiles marked "NOUN", "VERB", "ADJ", "ADV", "PRON" and "PREP". These must precede the word, and again they limit the things you can append to a previous word. Some words become less flexible than they would be in normal Scrabble - for example "RUN" is both noun and verb, but if I played it as a NOUN, I couldn't then add "NING" to the end.

3. Sequential Scrabble

Ultimately, Scrabble is not just about vocabulary and spelling, but also about being able to interlock patterns to get close to a defined ideal - how you place your word to maximise the score. Removing the vocab element, we could have numerical tiles and make up new rules about how they have to interlock

The rule is that moving left to right or top to bottom, the numbers must run in ascending unbroken sequence. The sequence rotates, so after 9 you can continue with 0, 1, 2, etc. It sounds easy, but remember, you only have the 7 tiles on your rack, so you might not be able to make a good sequence in a given move, and all players are equally disadvantaged. Scores are based on tile values.

4. Equation Scrabble

Crossing the ideas a bit, tiles are the numbers 0-9, the equals-sign, remainder ("R") and the basic operators +, -, x and ÷. Numbers are worth numerical value, and everything else is worth 1 point. Equations must be true in non-modulating base-10 integer bracketless arithmetic, with multiplication and division having precedence over addition and subtraction. Equations can have any number of terms on each side, for example, I could change "1+5=6" to 2x1+5=6+1". Division may include a remainder, for example "8÷3=2R2"

5. Tricoleur Scrabble

Slightly more randomised version of sequential scrabble. Tiles are various colours - Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, White and Black. Each line must be made of a repeating pattern of exactly 3 colours, and be at least 3 tiles long. The random part is that for each colour, there are several different point values - so the set of red tiles would have one 6, 5 and 4 point, two 3 and 2 point and eight 1 point tiles.

This is why people call me a nerd...

Polymath or Hobbyist with Commitment Issues?

I play guitar, I play mandolin, I draw cartoons, I write poetry, I build robots, I write simulators, I read novels, I walk up hills, I take photos of gnarled tree roots...

I think about the vortex model of the solar system, the complexity of the physics of bouncing hair, the nature of implied pain, the mental graphics of quadratics rotated through the t-axis

I keep promising myself that I will finish a letter, complete a painting, make the robot I just built from junk do something useful...

Yet I suffer from procrastination as if it were an arthritis of the mind...

Am I so diverse that I am physically unable to focus, or am I....as my mother always told me...as my wife still tells me...as my boss has often said....

Just a lazy freaking a-hole!!!????

I'd like to argue my nature, but I can't be bothered today.

The Agrodynamics of Pockets

And Other Annoying Stuff About Garments, Car Seats and Dollar Store Glasses*

Long Story - I'm currently driving a rental car.*

It's a V6.

It's old, but a luxury model (Yes, it has a tapedeck...)

It's a smooth, fast drive.

But it has upholstery from Hell!!!!

The fabric is full of what would now be called "microfibres" - under a large lens, the strands would look like ineverted fishing hooks.

What initially feels like a cross between velveteen and corduroy soon proves to be a devious mechanism to pull down pants: When you slide down the seat, nothing happens, but when you slide up, your legs are losing a battle with the velcroid fabric to gain ownership of your trousers.

As I fidget a lot when I drive, I end up with hipsters by the time I need to alight...

Which has reminded me of an age old gripe of mine about cars seats and pockets. Since I normally drive a ute (Bakkie to a South African, Pickup Truck to everyone else), my seats are upright, and the bum part is horizontal.

But in a passenger car, the seats are angled back. You may think this is for safety, but I think not.

It's for annoyance.

Like the trolls who fill the net with drivel, knowing it will wreak havoc, every time you sit in your vehicle, it tries to mug you...your wallet and phone slide down the inverse hill, and somehow always end up in that slot between the seat belt clip and the seat where by an immutable law of lossodynamics, you can only find stuff when you've already looked there 6 times!

Anyone else hate this stuff????

*Editor's note...I thought I'd lost this blog (Possibly down by the seatbelt clip) - I originally wrote it around July or August last year and so, no, I'm no longer driving a rental, but yes, I still hate bloody pocket designers who clearly don't use pockets!

Thinking INSIDE the Square

By now you've probably seen this image... 

...and like me and millions of others you've felt nostaligic about using a pen to rewind a tape when it got tangled up...

Proof we're all impressionable.

Surely the connections between these two items are manifold? numerous? plentiful?

But we ALL see the same connection.

Not, for example:

 - they're both made from plastic...
 - they both record data
 - they were both invented in the 20th century
 - they're both portable
 - neither one can be used for its intended use on its own

etc...etc...

This is because we are all conditioned to think a certain way - we excel at spotting facial patterns (Even on Mars!), but we suck at spotting smelling mistakes (OK, I bet you BOTH saw that one!)

Here's one more example...what is the next number in this sequence?

9  8  7  6  5  4 ...

It could be anything! For example, a phone number: 987-6549...

So if you remember spinning tapes on pens, or doing online IQ tests, and you feel chuffed - you should be, you are proving yourself superior at thinking INSIDE a square (Well, maybe a hypercube?)

All else would be Anarchy (And All Else Is Entropy)

Like Life, This Is A Work In Progress...

And always subject to change, critique and presumably, abusive emails?

Nice pointless laugh for your day, I hope?

§ That's a Cool Idea! §

You know what the biggest problem with email is? It's the fact that the recipient misses out on the tone...

"Hi" - the quotes means I'm actually talking to you

(Hi) - it's an afterthought

Hi! - I'm excited to see you

Hi? - I can't hear you

Hi - I'm thinking of saying hello

Hi - I'm emphasising it

HI - I'm shouting at you

Yep - almost all the old-school metadata is there...

Except sarcasm.

You have to hope that your recipient knows when you mean it, and when you're ripping on them: Therefore, I propose the introducion of...

§ Sarcasm marks - they're a great idea!!! §

Simply place your text between two squiggly "S" things - §, (or maybe $?), and you're telling the reader that it is sarcasm, and they don't really have to § Ask for a raise for that good suggestion §, or believe you when you say, § I would never call you fat! § or when they reply,  § Yes, you do have a big readership of your §§ riveting §§ blog... §

You can even "Air-Sarc":

And yes, I know it looks like a Diana Ross & the Supremes dance move - § That's Not Gay At All! §

Set a Thief to Catch a Thief - or Just Vote For One

We have an election in NZ soon...and I don't mean at the Chinese brothel (Do you know someone with "electile dysfunction"?).

This blog could get long and political, or I could just say what all human beings have known at all times in history, and yet always been powerless to change:

Politicians are liars.

"The only time Phil Goff & John Key agreed on something...and also told the truth."

Unfortunately, it's hard to vote for a liar, wish I could help, but in the principle of Constructive Pessimism..."You can't Win, You Will Lose, You Can't Get Out Of The Game".

Knowing is half the battle, folks!

Let's talk PORN...

Pertinant Old Radio Nonsense, that is...

I think there's too much "Thinking outside the box" these days, instead of good old fashioned thinking inside the box. Basic "common sense" is being replaced with lunacy by whatever the 21st century folk describe as Yuppies (Yes, I am from THAT generation...) think will get them ahead by being bold and daring to split infinitives where no man has split infinitives before.

The funny (Well, peculiar, I suppose) thing is, that the places where this lunacy is highlighted for us all to see it in it's Y-fronted glory is in the world of satire.

Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, Douglas Adams...

Or for those who don't have time to read, Monty Python, or my old favourites - The Goons.

These good folk show us how common sense makes sense, by making it seem ludicrous. They also make the ludicrous apparent by making it seem sensible.

I recently heard "Bridge Over The River Wye", and this snippet really gets to thecore of what I'm saying here:  

For all the Gen-Y Yuppies (Genies? Jennies?) out there - let's build bridges across the river, instead of trying to be the first to think outside the cludge by building a pontoon along the length of the Kwai.

On a separate note, I have once again shrunk my head to 72 dpi...