Skippy Records

In Stuart Kauffman's book Reinventing the Sacred, he describes the concept of the Adjacent Possible. This refers to the idea that there are states of a system the follow immediately from the Current Actual state. And there are others, that do not. You sometimes here people say “You can't get there from here.” To get to states of the system that don't immediately follow from the Current Actual it may be necessary to follow successions of Adjacent Possibles.

Two problems face problem solvers:

Apprehending the Current Actual, and

Perceiving the Adjacent Possible.

Action becomes clear and easy to motivate (a choice rather than a struggle) given that a leader can accomplish both of these. The problem is that we don't have as direct a connection to apprehending the current actual (epistemology) nor as complete an understanding of the the adjacent states that are actually possible (science) as we sometime assume. That means particulars have to be worked out and that it is sometimes very difficult.

Fundamentalism ignores the problem completely. Instead of worrying about apprehending the Current Actual or perceiving the Adjacent Possible, fundamentalism both assumes the current state is an illusion and the final state will result from fiat transformation, in some cases no matter what we do (e.g. many Christian's contempt for stewardship of the Earth is based on a vague mix of a belief in the insignificance of human actions and conviction of an ultimate apocalyptic outcome).

When the end point is “known” to be inevitable, why worry about denial or realism? Why struggle against either? You don't need to hear the rest of the question when you know the answer. This may be a useful or even necessary state of mind for some (personal!) spiritual pursuits, but it is a bad way to make decisions about systems like the economy, the environment, the judiciary branch of government, foreign relations or the military. We've had 8 years of “principled” (read: willfully uninformed regarding the Current Actual and the Adjacent Possible) action from our executive leadership. Let's move ahead with something more hopeful.

Posted by DrSkippy27 at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by DrSkippy27 at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't post much about politics here because I don't like the requirement of rediculous, overly simplistic side taking.  But I have to give in on this one...

I am a big fan of Lessig.  He is a key force in the creation of the Creative Commons and presistently in favor of smart thinking on intellectual property.  He has created a nice presentation on Palin's Experience claims.  First, I really love the preamble--enough with binary, loyalty-at-the-cost-of-reality thinking and speech.  And, second, thanks for taking the time to present some verifiable facts.

Is there a bias? Yes. Lessig's thoughts are organized to tell a story.  But the the thinking is considered, deep and informed by history and context.  Thanks for that.  It is a welcome addition to useful political discourse.

Posted by DrSkippy27 at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I wanted to be able to add an embedded Web server to my projects.

I chose the MatchPort AR because, with the same experience, hardware, and nearly the same software configuration, I would be able to move to a wireless solution with the MatchPort b/g Pro. (The MatchPort b/g uses a different OS.)

I wanted to get up to speed quickly, so I purchased the demo kit, thinking that would include all the software and hardware I would need to understand and learn how to use the MAR in a project of my own. This was more or less the case, but getting up to speed was much slower than expected.

I thought I would be up and running demo apps in an afternoon and off to my first project early the next morning. Instead, I spent hours understanding the paradigm assumed for the MAR, hunting down example code, working out details and trying to understand the MAR's somewhat convoluted documentation.

I hope this tutorial gives the first-time embedded TCP/IP/HTTP server users a fast and straightforward introduction to the MAR. And maybe I can save more experienced users the hassle of tracking down the details of how the MAR can be coaxed into becoming a working embedded network component.

Download The MatchPort AR Missing Tutorial (PDF).

Posted by DrSkippy27 at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the 4th post on the statistics of URL exploration. In the previous three (The Long Tail of URL Exploration, What does the Nth Explorer of the Web Find? and The Tall Head of URL Exploration) I looked at how adding users grows the long tail and tall head of URLs for a single day.  Today, the data covers 20 days with a relatively constant population.

To get some idea how the tall head evolves, compare the tall head on day 0 with 19 successive days. The plot below shows the Top 10, Top 50, Top 100, Top 500 and Top 1000 URLs for day zero and the fraction of the top URLs on day zero appearing in the tall head on the nth day.

While the Top 10 and Top 50 URLs show stability day after day, the Top 500 and Top 1000 roll over at a fairly constant rate after day one.  The plot can be used to estimate the size of the persistent tall head of URLs for this population and the rate at which the tall head evolves.

First, look for a change in behavior from maintaining a constant fraction of the day-0 URLs to a steady decline from day to day. By this heuristic, estimate the persistent tall head to be between 50 and 100 URLs.

Secondly, to estimate the turnover of the tall head, choose the approximate desired tall head, e.g., the Top 500 URLs (cyan), and look at the slope of the line for days 1-19. (Alternately, choose a timescale for which the tall head should turn over to a given fraction remaining, say, 75%, giving a timescale of approximately 15 days.)

Posted by DrSkippy27 at 07:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really enjoyed My Name is Red. It is a complicated mystery set in Istanbul and covers a lot of background on the history art in the Muslim world. It is very well done. Leinad Zeraus' book is a fun ride, a mystery novel written especially for geeks.

Energize Your Heart: In 4 di... Bair, Puran and Susanna
My Name Is Red... Pamuk, Orhan
Open Road, The: The global j... Iyer, Pico
Daemon... Zeraus, Leinad
History of Last Night's Drea... Kamenetz, Rodger
End of Certainty, The: Time,... Prigogine, Ilya
Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be ... Keret, Etgar
Gnostic Gospels, The... Pagels, Elaine
Difference, The: How the pow... Page, Scott E.

Posted by DrSkippy27 at 06:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)