Letters Remain

  • Love–It or Hate–It Films, and the Miss Congeniality Problem

    An addendum to my previous post on the Netflix Prize:

    When someone noticed that the top five most frequently rated movies on Netflix were neither particularly popular nor critically acclaimed (Miss Congeniality, Independence Day, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow and Pirates of the Caribbean), another competitor mused:

    Seeing Miss Congeniality on the list of top-five most-rated movies was a bit surprising to me, so I started working on a hypothesis. I figured that, although it might be rented often, it is universally hated by everyone with a clue.

    From this the competitor ran some analysis and discovered a number of intriguing results. One of which was a list of the most polarising films: those films that are either loved or hated.

    It’s an interesting list and if you head over to Kottke’s original post detailing these findings, you can see the list and his hypothesis on what makes these films so contentious (a hypothesis that I agree with).

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Genetic Programming and the Evolution of Mona Lisa

    The Final Evolution of Mona LisaRoger Alsing used a genetic algorithm to create a brilliant approximation of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa using only 50 semi-transparent polygons, evolving over approximately a million generations.

    You can see the end result, after 904,314 generations here, but even after roughly 100,000 generations the image is impressive. I loved scrolling through the pictures, slowly seeing the finished article appearing.

    Tags:
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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Miscellaneous Transport Maps

    After seeing this map of the US Interstate system (via Link Banana), I wanted to find an equivalent for the motorway system here in the UK.

    The closest I came wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but very impressive nonetheless: Harry Beck’s London Underground-inspired UK motorway map.

    After a bit more searching I came across this collection of maps, inspired by the London Underground’s iconic design. Some useful, some humourous.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • MIND08 Talks

    Videos of talks from MIND08; the Design and the Elastic Mind Symposium.

    Collaboration between science and design is yielding a radical new way of visualizing, understanding, and manipulating the natural world. MIND08 is a conference […] which aims to catalyze this convergence. Bringing together an eclectic group of speakers and participants, including leading scientists, designers, and architects, the conference will explore topics such as the personal genome, brain visualization, generative architecture, and collective design. MIND08 is an opportunity to interact with the ideas and thinkers transforming our visual and intellectual landscape.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Advice for Potential Graduate Students (and Employees)

    Poignant advice for potential graduate students (originally by the Johnsen Lab, Duke University).

    Finally, have your fun now. Five years is a long time when you are 23 years old. By the end of graduate school, you will be older, slower, and possibly married and/or a parent. So if you always wanted to walk across Nepal, do it now. Also, do not go to a high-powered lab that you hate assuming that this will promise you long-term happiness. Deferred gratification has its limits. Do something that you have passion for, work in a lab you like, in a place you like, before life starts throwing its many curve balls. Your career will mostly take care of itself, but you can’t get your youth back.

    Even though the advice is written with the lab student in mind, I believe that the advice can easily be applied to everyone’s life.

    via Seed

    Lloyd Morgan

  • The Myth of Urban Loneliness

    Urban loneliness is the idea that people in densely–populated urban areas are lonelier than people in disperse areas such as the countryside. However, a fascinating article in New York Magazine looks at the ‘science of loneliness’ and suggests that urban loneliness is a myth.

    I found this comment, on an evolutionary psychology theory of loneliness, intruiging:

    Cacioppo, co-author of W.W. Norton’s recently published Loneliness, is part of the school of evolutionary psychologists—and certain biologists too—that believes our species wouldn’t have survived without a cooperative social instinct. In their book, Cacioppo and his co-author, the science writer William Patrick, argue that loneliness, like hunger, is an alarm signal that evolved in hominids hundreds of thousands of years ago, when group cohesion was essential to fight off abrupt attacks from stampeding wildebeests. It’s nature’s way of telling us to rejoin the group or pay the price. “Nature,” they simply write at one point, “is connection.”

    via Mind Hacks

    Edit: Ben Casnocha has a nice overview of the article.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • A Modern Depression

    An excellent look at what a modern economic depression would look like.

    We are separated from the 1930s by decades of profound economic, technological, and political change, and a modern landscape of scarcity would reflect that.

    What, then, would we see instead? And how would we even know a depression had started? It’s not a topic that professional observers of the economy study much. And there’s no single answer, because there’s no one way a depression might unfold. But it’s nonetheless an important question to consider – there’s no way to make informed decisions about the present without understanding, in some detail, the worst-case scenario about the future.

    via Overcoming Bias

    Lloyd Morgan

  • How to Take Notes Like an Alpha-Geek

    It’s been a year since Tim Ferriss pressed ‘Publish’ on an article that I find myself going back to whenever I feel disorganised and overcome by endless pieces of paper: how to take notes like an alpha-geek.

    I trust the weakest pen more than the strongest memory, and note taking is—in my experience—one of the most important skills for converting excessive information into precise action and follow-up.

    Simple but effective note taking enables me to:

    -Review book highlights in less than 10 minutes

    -Impose structure on information for increased retention and recall

    -Connect scattered notes on a single theme in 10 minutes that would otherwise require dozens of hours

    -Contact and connect mentors with relevant questions and help I can offer

    This Christmas I’ll be buying myself some appropriate notepads and a box of Bics. I’m determined to make this work.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • What’s the Difference: Shia vs. Sunni

    What’s the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims? An article reprinted from the mental_floss book, What’s the Difference?

    Like Christianity, Islam is home to a spectrum of sects espousing different beliefs and practices. And just as Christianity can be divided into two large groups – Catholic and Protestant – from which other subsects have emerged, so too with Islam: Shia and Sunni.

    Unlike Christianity, whose major split wouldn’t occur for nearly sixteen centuries, Islam split almost immediately after the death of its founder, the Prophet Muhammad (circa 570 – 632 CE). The rift stems from a disagreement among Muslims over who was the rightful successor to Muhammad.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Remarketing the Bible

    Some modernised versions of the Bible for a contemporary audience: The Jesus Loves Porn Stars Bible, The Manga Bible, The Bible in Cockney, The (Lego) Brick Testament, and the all-star Bible podcast (featuring Forest Whitaker, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Samuel L Jackson, no less).

    The person behind this remarketing of holy writings is Dag Soederberg, a Swedish businessman. And contrary to expectations, he is not a Christian hoping to convert anyone. “I’m not on a mission from God,” he explains. “I’m not particularly religious. I’m not telling anyone they should believe.”

    What he sees in the Bible is a profitable chance for people to look again at their world. “We are all affected by it,” he says. “Morals are based on it, rightly or wrongly, government, laws. I’m saying to people: this is your history, read it.

    “It’s the most sold book in the world, but the least known. I want to take it off the shelves and put it on the coffee table.”

    My personal favourite, found in the comments: the LOLCat Bible. Behold, Genesis 1.1:

    Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

    Lloyd Morgan