SMC
I'm no longer blogging on this blog. Please find me here.
Break out the Lederhosen and the funny hats. It's that time of year again. If you live in Milwaukee, the odds are that you have some German heritage. This weekend is German Fest at the Summerfest Grounds. Unlike TechEd, "I'll be There" for German Fest.
For all of the out-of-towners, the Summerfest Grounds are host to Summerfest, a massive music festival with about 350-400 bands playing over an 11-day period in late June, early July. The rest of the summer months at the Summerfest Grounds are allocated to different ethnicities and their appropriate festivals:
- Festa Italiana
- Irish Fest
- Asian Moon Festival
- German Fest
- Polish Fest
- African World Festival
- Mexican Fiesta
- Indian Summer
- Arab World Fest
- Pride Fest (not exactly an ethnicity, but its a festival)
- And many others . . .
Pretty much, these festivals are an excuse to drink significant quantities of beer (with the Miller Brewing guys headquarters in town; yeah that's right, we have the beer and Harley headquarters here), listen to lots of music, dress up in ethnic garb (if that's your thing) and have a good time on the shores of Lake Michigan. Rumor has it that the lower cased one has been to most of these. His favorite, and you can quote him on this: Pride Fest. He especially liked the parade where everyone noticed his "cop" outfit (he's on the far left, but don't let the makeup fool you). I think he even tried to arrest a few people at the end of the parade route when the TS wasn't looking. Luckily, most of these leather-clad men caught on when he flashed his "cop tool belt" (man, I'm gonna get it for that comment).
Seriously, I'm Welsh, Polish and a bit German, so I fit in at most of the festivals. But my favorite is German Fest. The food is a bit expensive, but outstanding German cuisine. My average German Fest weekend for cards, cigars (2-3 per day), beer (very little), soda (lots), food, souvenirs, parking, tickets, etc. is about $350. The main reason that I go this shindig is Sheepshead. For those of you that play this card game, the German Fest tournament is one of the biggest events on any national Sheepshead calendar.
The tournament is split into 29 one-hour sessions played 10-10-9 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Each one-hour session (last year was $2/hour) consists of 15 games of Sheepshead where it is Called Ace-Leasters rules (yup, that is 435 hands of cards over three days for those of you that can multiply). Standard 1-2-3 double on the bump scoring is used. The top player of all tables by points for the hour wins the hourly prize, a trophy and gets their picture on the high scores board. The hourly winners names are entered into the grand prize drawing on Sunday night. TVs and other big prizes have been given away at this event. So, yes, I do have a few hourly trophies from past years. Bragging rights for tournament hourly high score are always on the line . . .
If you are within a few hundred miles of Milwaukee this weekend, stop by for this festival. If cards are your thing, hit the Sheepshead tent just inside of the main gate. You can spot me on Saturday and Sunday (alas, this is the first year in eight that I'll miss my Friday session due to heavy deadlines at work). I'll be the guy stinking up the joint with cigars and wearing a dark heather grey Loden Hüte (or Loden Huete; traditional Bavarian Alpine hat) with forest green piping and a brown feather. Trust me, I'm likely to be one of the only ones foolish stupid idiotic fashionable enough to wear one of these things on a hot summer day.
-------
As usual, feel free to contact me here if you are Welsh, German or a big old Pollock (I'm part Polish) or are a Sheepshead player that doesn't mauer. If you require more pictures of the lower cased one in his Pride Fest "gear", I can't help you.
I like to read and Summer is one of my favorite reading seasons. Like the lower cased one, I try and keep the queue full (those are my copies of Goldberg, Holland and Koza in the foreground), i.e. have at my disposal materials that I need to read. I mentioned earlier here that I have a few books to read.
I've completed Aspects on the Theory of Syntax by Chomsky. I'll not be doing a review of this as I believe that I need at least two more thorough re-reads of this book to understand this material. David mentioned here that my posts loosen the brain muscles (his posts are verbose and loosen my brain as well). Chomsky, among others, loosens my brain muscles in many disciplines.
I've completed my read of Brameier's On Linear Genetic Programming (abstract here). While this is a considerable piece of work, if you are in the field of AI and specifically interested in GP (and have a reasonable level of competence in these disciplines), I'd recommend a read of this paper.
I still have my head wrapped around the proverbial pole with Experimentation in Mathematics by Borwein, Bailey and Girgensohn. I've decided that I have two choices on this book: either read and become engulfed, or read at a quicker pace and expect to do a re-read in the future. I'll likely choose the latter as this book covers a great deal.
So for those that are interested in what I'm thinking, here's a partial view of my Summer Reading List:
Full Re-reads (books that require that I re-read them cover-to-cover)
- Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems - John Holland. My recent correspondence with Dr. Goldberg has made this re-read a must. Given recent publications, I need to refine my understanding of the building-block hypothesis and review the mathematics. I am and have always been a true believer of the BBH, but it never hurts to do the math .
- Introduction to Mathematical Logic - Alonzo Church. I'm getting my butt kicked in this subject all of the time. I must improve myself in this discipline. The best place is a full re-read of the foundations here. Church students included Martin Davis, Leon Henkin, John Kemeny, Stephen Kleene, Michael Rabin, Hartley Rogers, Jr., John Rosser, Dana Scott, Raymond Smullyan and Alan Turing. The only other guy in modern times who has had a list of such public and well respected students in fields that I study is Manuel Blum.
- First-Order Logic - Raymond Smullyan. This book cost $7.95 and is worth every penny. This book is one of those "best things in life" that are almost free. My copy has held up well over the years.
- Secrets and Lies - Bruce Schneier. This book requires a re-read every 18 months so that anything on my security compass that is "out of whack" can be properly aligned.
- Gödel's Proof - Nagel and Newman. This really belongs on my Leisure Reading list because I always enjoy this one. There are few better ways to spend a quiet summer afternoon outside or at the park than with this one. I can think of others, but discretion prohibits my discussion here.
- On Intelligence - Jeff Hawkins (with Sandra Blakeslee). For my first read of this book last year, I had a very closed mind on the topic and did not really give benefit to what the author discussed in the material. I promise to be better on this topic and have a more open mind this time around.
Partial Re-reads (books that have content that requires that I re-read selected chapters or sections)
- Active Portfolio Management - Grinold & Kahn. Chapters 5, 10-15. I'm reviewing second-order instruments (derivatives) and the insufficiencies of the G&K model.
- Theory of Games and Economic Behavior - Von Neumann and Morgenstern. Chapter 1 section 4, chapter 3, chapter 9, chapter 11.
- The World's Major Languages - Edited by Bernard Comrie. Chapters 1, 9, 11, 12, 14,15, 16, 24, 26, 30, 32, 33, 34. My understanding of this re-read will dictate my views on a number of topics in Linguistics in the coming years.
- Valuation - Copeland, Koller, Murrin. Chapters 8, 9, 13, 14, 15. One of the seminal books on valuation in capital markets. This book doesn't have my desired "quant-ness" (it is quantitative in nature, but is simple in the mathematics and approach), but it is has comprehensive viewpoints on many topics.
- Physics for Game Developers - Bourg. Chapters 3-6, 11, 13. Chapter 11 has a reference to Euler's Method. Anyone who writes about Big Leo always gets some of my time.
- Doyle Brunson's Super System - Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson. Poker. 'nuf said. By the way, his (and his co-authors') math is horrid, but they still make serious cabbage.
- Options, Futures and Other Derivative Securities (2nd edition) - John Hull. Chapters 2, 3, 6, 8, 14, 15, 17. I know that I need to get the latest edition of this book, but this is my first copy and I'm sentimental. Math + Finance = Fun.
New Books
- The Design of Innovation - David E. Goldberg. I have high expectations for this book. I am a Goldberg fan for the simple reason that Dr. Goldberg has extraordinary depth in topics that he discusses. Somehow he distills his message, makes the topic comprehensible and makes his point without losing any information. As a side note, my daughter "The Liz" and I were out the other day for a bite to eat. I had mentioned that I had emailed Dr. Goldberg and had received a response. Her reply was "Isn't there a wrestler named Goldberg?" You have got to love the kid.
- MDA Distilled - Mellor, Scott, Uhl, Weise. I'm pro-Software Factories, but I'm not anti-MDA. I've read some of this book so it isn't new to me, but I haven't given it the proper reading it deserves. I'll be getting the Software Factories book shortly.
- Software Factories - Jack Greenfield, et.al. The seminal book on how to make software in today's environments.
- About Face 2.0 - Cooper and Reimann. The user experience is essential to the acceptance of any software application. I'm not a UI/UE guy, but it is still essential to have a proper foundation.
- Reversing - Eilam. A book that has been sitting idle in my house for awhile now. It keeps calling out to me. I know that the dark-side in me cannot resist.
- Induction - Holland, Holyoake, Nisbett and Thagard. This book is my Achille's Heel. Try as I may, I cannot manage to consume this book. This will be my third retry (not re-read). The material is dense and not pleasing. Maybe I should pull this from the Summer List, because I only want fun books.
- Emergence - Steven Johnson. Since this is how I spend much of my time, i.e. studying emergence, I suppose that I should get another point of view.
- A Semantic Web Primer - Antoniou and van Harmelen. See below.
- The Semantic Web - Daconta, Obrst and Smith. See below.
- Explorer's Guide to the Semantic Web - Thomas B. Passin. I am a believer in the principles of The Semantic Web. As a practitioner of EC, I'm concerned that this current design iteration will be insufficient to meet the goals. I hope to get a more comprehensive understanding from these three books. Note: As I don't normally blow my own scratch on books of this nature, the lower cased one was kind enough to lend me his copies.
Leisure Reading (the math books are re-reads; wait, they are all math books)
- Men of Mathematics - Eric Temple Bell.
- History of Mathematics Volume II - D.E. Smith
- The Man Who Loved Only Numbers By Paul Hoffman
- Crypto - Steven Levy. I have never read this book and will now finally take the time to do so.
There are other books that I must read as well. I need some non-math stuff for my leisure list. I'm light on Number Theory and Statistics this summer. I'll be picking up selected readings in these topics. I'm also light in compsci this summer. I'm of the opinion that I'll not likely have time to chase some Theory of Computation, Computational Complexity and Automata stuff that I've been meaning to read. I haven't had a chance to prepare a comprehensive list, but I'll be studying pi-calculus, stochastic pi-calculus and join-calculus and looking for other process calculi as well. Petri nets and other systems such as Linda are also on topic. These are necessary for the foundations of Web Services and SO, whether it be SOA or SOD or any service orientation and beyond.
Dr. Goldberg mentions here that computer science and computer engineering are lumped under the same term "science". I think about the science and I apply the science and I think about how I build software. But he has given me a spark on this issue. While I espouse software engineering in a number of forms, I tend to patronize the engineering aspect in favor of the science. I'm saving time for readings in my discovery (re-discovery) on this issue. Dr. Goldberg's thoughts are always insightful and he is careful with his use of the terms descriptive and prescriptive. This is another reason to continue to be a good student of those that lead. My only books that come close on this topic are MDA Distilled and Software Factories.
In closing, I have to say "look ma, no physics (ok physics, but not the real kind and it involves games)".
I love the metabloggers. These are the people that blog about blogging. I'm going to purposely abuse the terms blogs, blogosphere and metablogging in this post because I otherwise don't find it useful to reference the medium of the communications. Scoble appears to be near or at the top of the metablogger blogosphere, so I must be a proper link goblin and link him for the first time (I don't kiss on the first blog link). For the record, I'm not anti-metablog; I just don't participate in the activity, i.e. I'm not an originator of metablog collateral. I just blog about topics that are of interest to me and will help my readership in learning the topics that I find useful and interesting. I entered the blogosphere with the finance attitude never let them see you coming. In other words, like the spooks at the NSA and other secretive parties, don't allow unaware parties to become closed and determined adversaries. But here in the blogosphere where I now find myself blogging (and metablogging for the moment ), I post blog entries like a madman (20 days, 55+ posts, check the density of posts; weather reports we're in a blizzard).
SMC (what's an SMC?)
Bertrand Russell was a first rate logician and mathematician who lived from 1872 - 1970 (yup, he's an older math guy than I, and more dead, too). While Russell is noted for a great body of work in these disciplines, he is often quoted for the Barber's Paradox. While I'll skip the mathematics, I'll state the most common layman's form of the paradox:
A man of Seville is shaved by the Barber of Seville, if and only if (iff), the man does not shave himself. Does the barber shave himself?
So for all of the logic and mathematics folks out there ready to give me a good smack, I'll state the obvious distinction: The Barber's Paradox is not a paradox, but rather a pseudoparadox (there exists no contradiction). But it illustrates this point:
A man of Seville is blogged by the Blogger of Seville, if and only if (iff), the man does not blog himself. Does the blogger blog himself?
Actually, now that I perform the substitutions, I can see a great many other terms that I could use in place of blog. In fact, many of these terms have exactly four letters just as "blog" has four letters. Nice.
Metabloggers are a waste of time and space. They make it difficult to find useful information. They clog the channels of useful information by blogging about themselves or by blogging about blogging.
SMC Fallacy
Metabloggers are not a waste of time and space. Let's take three separate disciplines and determine what services the metabloggers perform.
EC and the collector agent
In ACO-SW and Artificial Life (sister disciplines to EC in some form), there is a notion of resource and in particular renewable resource. Resources on swarm-style grids of any topology are placed under some conditions and some constraints. Emergence of OEEs and OEBs, and other higher order OE only occurs if there is some flexibility (translated: removal of bias), in the resources. Resources are part of the environment, i.e. they are not genotypic or phenotypic. In proper EC (or Exparative), they affect the phylogeny and enable niche and speciation in populations. It is common in many EC environments to find agents (or particles or ants, or termites (not this kind)) whose role (niche or species) becomes the collector of information, in resources or other intelligence. They then distribute this information, typically in an economy, to agents that require the resources. Metabloggers are the collector agents and perform a service for others.
Graph Theory and Clique
In graph theory, a clique is a "maximal complete subgraph" of a graph. In a graph G = (V, E), the maximal clique number can be calculated by the formula "omega(G) is greater or equal to the sum for i equals 1 to n of the reciprocal of the quantity n minus d sub i" where d is the degree of the vertex (I still obviously can't do math in HTML; when will I learn?). If it is not obvious from this inequality, the calculation of omega(G) is NP-Complete (see the zoo). If the metablogger is motivated to improve the readership of their blog on the internet, then they are effectively searching for clique. Since clique is NP-Complete, the study of the metablogger is the study in the methods of the solution for problems that are NP-Complete. (I'm now selling bridges if you are not a constructivist)
By the way, if you are a "finance guy", metabloggers and arbitrageurs have a great deal in common. I suspect the arbs make more jack than the metabloggers. I guess that they can afford more shampoo . . .
So ALL of my friends (yup, all one of them) that have an online presence or care to read these ugly ramblings have asked the same question: JJBResearch? And .org? What’s up with that scalper?
For the record, JJB Research is not:
- Ju-Ju Bean Research
- Jar Jar Binks Research
Other comments had included why do a .org instead of a .com? I can honestly say that jjbresearch.org and jjbr.org both represent what they intend to represent: An organization that does research. JJB is significant; it’s just not ATB .
(warning: needless tripe from an inside joke in this post)
Microsoft Web Services MVP E.B. Smith ee cummings casey has called me out. Dang it, I'm innocent. casey (notice the lower case out of respect) mentioned here that I do a little math, .Net, crypto, genetic programming, BizTalk (this is not my resume). I might add that you forgot finance and EC. Anyways, on to the charges . . .
In my first SMC post, I mention the movie "As Good as It Gets". So according to the lower cased one I must explain my ability to quote from this movie:
explanation 1
Mark Andrus was my college roommate my junior year. We would hang out and do a lot of stuff together. Mark was a writer and had aspirations to become a screenwriter in Hollywood. The Thanksgiving weekend of my junior year, Mark invited me over to his parent's house for the weekend. On the long drive (eight hours), he explained that he had an idea for a script that he called "While the Getting was Good". He said that the storyline was about a writer who liked his privacy. He actually worked out a few scenes right there in the car as he was driving. Later that weekend, he showed me the pages from the script he had typed up and I read the page with the line "People that speak in metaphors should trim my sideburns". Needless to say, it wasn't very funny. I suggested that he rewrite that section and pretend he was a tough guy actor like Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino or even maybe Jack Nicholson. I later saw the script and the rest is history. I suppose that I might even see the film before I die out of respect for my college roommate.
explanation 2
I was in the action section at my local Blockbuster. I had just picked up Terminator and Terminator 2. As I had never seen either of these movies, I put the DVD in my DVD player. Someone had switched the DVDs and had given me "As Good as It Gets" by mistake. But since I hadn't seen Terminator, I thought that was what I was watching. In fact, it took almost two full hours to realize that in a movie that featured Arnold Schwarzenegger, I hadn't yet seen him. I watched until the credits rolled, just in case I might have missed something. It turns out that the Terminator 2 DVD had actually been switched with "Terms of Endearment" and I proceeded to spend another two hours watching this instead of Terminator 2 waiting for Arnold.
explanation 3
I was just walking down the street one Saturday afternoon. As I turned the corner to head up the street where I live, a nondescriptive, black van with government plates pulled up, slid open the side door and hoisted me into the cargo area. I was gagged, blindfolded and given some sedative that knocked me out cold. When I awoke, I was face down in a carpeted living room, naked from the waist up. My blindfold had been removed and to my left was what appeared to be an empty bottle of antifreeze and three or four empty packs of cigarettes. To my right I noticed that there was a big funnel with a rubber hose, some lighter fluid and a book of matches. As the sedative wore off, I began to realize that my butt really, really hurt. I was then put on a steel folding chair and was restrained by what seemed like three rolls of duct tape. As I tried to figure out what would happen next, a large screen TV was rolled into the room. My eyelids were taped open and my head fixed in the direction of the TV. The two men with ski masks then put in the DVD of "As Good as It Gets", hit the repeat movie button and left for what seemed like 24 hours. I saw the movie 7 times in a row. I can't remember how I made it home the next day, but I remember having to stand when I rode the bus because there were at least two more empty bottles of antifreeze that I can recall . . .
explanation 4
So I'm straight-up chillin' and bassin' and a mackin in my Benz and I sees these two fine honies leavin the video store. So I puts my swerve on and jes like as smooth as silk say, "Hey ladies, you been in a Benz today?" I didn't even notice what movie these fine looking ladies were renting as they answered "no sugar". As they is gettin in my fly Benz two more fine ladies notice me. It turns out that they haven't been in a Benz today either. Now I could goes on and on about wut happenz next, but we's gots to keep some decorum.
explanation 5
I own the DVD.
HINT: The answer might be none of the above.
JJBR researchers Boris, ivan and bigH all are up. Most of the research at JJBR is NONPUBLIC, but these guys should talk a bit in PUBLIC about some of the stuff that we address daily. I've got other team members that don't want exposure, so we'll refer to them as the termites and try to coax them out into the open eventually.
FYI, Boris hangs out in Crypto theoryland usually in the midst of extremely loud music (good thing you don't live in town). Ivan's the disorganization specialist. Ivan's work in GP goes hand in hand with mine. Add entropy, mix and model. More degrees, more dimensions, etc. bigH is one of the LINGO boys. He fancies Foundation Ontology, where I constantly remind him to skip that silliness and move to real ontology in natural language synthesis and computer science. (Look ma, no physicists on the team).
The group is .Net everything, everywhere. Why mess with anything else?
I'm guessing the JJBR guys will be shy for a while (yeah right).
BTW, Ivan and I are KPS guys, bigH and Boris are CPS guys. One JJBR requirement is that you must take a stance on the KPS/CPS controversy. Rodentuals are taboo.