In this article that talks about how a computer has been trained to read minds:
"A computer has been trained to "read" people's minds by looking at scans of their brains as they thought about specific words, researchers said on Thursday.
They hope their study, published in the journal Science, might lead to better understanding of how and where the brain stores information.
This might lead to better treatments for language disorders and learning disabilities, said Tom Mitchell of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who helped lead the study."
Cool. This reminded me of the subvocal interface that David Brin imagined in his novel "Earth". It's sounds better than talking to a computer.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Going off the grid
After our recent bouts with Pepco and Verizon, I've been considering trying to get off the grid. How feasible is it?
1. Solar panels on our roof (with backup batteries - I know, not very environmentally friendly) for backup power?
2. Satellite Internet for backup? Too expensive based on what I've been looking at from Hughes Net.
3. What about alternative sources of natural gas - and what can I do about water - dig a well?
4. Garbage disposal - compost everything?
Unfortunately, we are all interconnected these days and it is very hard to get off the grid. Perhaps we should be investing in infrastructure to build in some redundancies.
In any case, this thought was triggered partly by this WaPo article.
"Bethesda eighth-grader Jacob Rasch could not do his history homework assignment on the Compromise of 1877 on Thursday because, he said, he couldn't look it up on Wikipedia.
His mother could not e-mail health forms so Jacob can play baseball in high school this fall because severe thunderstorms that rolled through the Washington region this week took down the family's power and their Internet connection.
And his father couldn't fix the generator outside the house because he couldn't visit HowTo.com to find out how to clean the carburetor so that the generator would spring to life and power, among other things, the wireless router to their computer network."
1. Solar panels on our roof (with backup batteries - I know, not very environmentally friendly) for backup power?
2. Satellite Internet for backup? Too expensive based on what I've been looking at from Hughes Net.
3. What about alternative sources of natural gas - and what can I do about water - dig a well?
4. Garbage disposal - compost everything?
Unfortunately, we are all interconnected these days and it is very hard to get off the grid. Perhaps we should be investing in infrastructure to build in some redundancies.
In any case, this thought was triggered partly by this WaPo article.
"Bethesda eighth-grader Jacob Rasch could not do his history homework assignment on the Compromise of 1877 on Thursday because, he said, he couldn't look it up on Wikipedia.
His mother could not e-mail health forms so Jacob can play baseball in high school this fall because severe thunderstorms that rolled through the Washington region this week took down the family's power and their Internet connection.
And his father couldn't fix the generator outside the house because he couldn't visit HowTo.com to find out how to clean the carburetor so that the generator would spring to life and power, among other things, the wireless router to their computer network."
Different standards
It seems that I was being unfair to Pepco in this post. The Capital Weather Gang has indicated here that the storm was very unusual and extremely powerful with possible wind gusts up to 100 mph.
It turns out that I tend to hold others to higher standards than I do myself.
1. I won't have someone clean house because if I do pay them then I would expect them to do a better job than I would. I would be the one to run a finger along all the counters to check for dust for instance.
2. Our shower curtain liner is disgusting yet I tolerate it. If I saw the same thing in a bathroom of a hotel I would scream!
It turns out that I tend to hold others to higher standards than I do myself.
1. I won't have someone clean house because if I do pay them then I would expect them to do a better job than I would. I would be the one to run a finger along all the counters to check for dust for instance.
2. Our shower curtain liner is disgusting yet I tolerate it. If I saw the same thing in a bathroom of a hotel I would scream!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Can we determine causality without really determining causality?
The recent rise in the price of oil ($139 today) has been determined to be the cause of the following:
1. The fall in the number of miles driven
2. The fall in consumption of gasoline
3. The fall in the sales of light trucks
See a summary here by Jim Hamilton. Yet how has causality been determined? Certainly, not by randomized trial or by any econometric methods - except for ocular regression. Two time series are running in different directions therefore it has to be the cause. Fifty years from now, when we look at these time series again can we actually conclude that the price of oil cause the declines?
1. The fall in the number of miles driven
2. The fall in consumption of gasoline
3. The fall in the sales of light trucks
See a summary here by Jim Hamilton. Yet how has causality been determined? Certainly, not by randomized trial or by any econometric methods - except for ocular regression. Two time series are running in different directions therefore it has to be the cause. Fifty years from now, when we look at these time series again can we actually conclude that the price of oil cause the declines?
Pepco service?
We had a recent storm that knocked out power to the metro DC area. By some estimates, several hundred thousand were without power. In any case, when I was growing up in Penang, we were never out of power for more than 24 hours at a time and storms there were just as bad as they can get here. What does that say about how well Pepco responded to restoring service -- not much I'm afraid.
In all fairness there are differences between Washington DC and Penang at the time:
1. Fewer people
2. Fewer trees that can knock down power lines
In any case, Pepco still has a ways to go in communicating how long a certain area can expect to get their power back. Right now their line seems to be more like this: "We're working really hard to get power back to everyone. We know it seems strange that your neighbor behind you has power and everyone else on your block is out (which did happen to us!) but we are working behind the scenes to optimally bring as many people back on line as we can at a time. Please let us do our work peacefully. Everything may seem haphazard but there really is a method to this that only those who work in the industry can understand. So please bear with us."
In all fairness there are differences between Washington DC and Penang at the time:
1. Fewer people
2. Fewer trees that can knock down power lines
In any case, Pepco still has a ways to go in communicating how long a certain area can expect to get their power back. Right now their line seems to be more like this: "We're working really hard to get power back to everyone. We know it seems strange that your neighbor behind you has power and everyone else on your block is out (which did happen to us!) but we are working behind the scenes to optimally bring as many people back on line as we can at a time. Please let us do our work peacefully. Everything may seem haphazard but there really is a method to this that only those who work in the industry can understand. So please bear with us."
Next Day Blinds
Not quite -- let's call them the Next Week and Half Blinds -- to measure and install. This happened very efficiently for our honeycombed blinds but the installer forgot to check how well they were hung because as soon as we pulled them down we noticed that they were all crooked, like when one side of the cords is not balanced with the other side. At the three to four times the price of Home Depot blinds, I would have expected them to work better.
When NDB called to rate the blinds I told the representative I was not satisfied with them because of the above problem. She suggested that I call customer service which I eventually did -- but the point here is that no company really knows service anymore. Not Verizon, nor Comcast and now, not even NDB. As far as I'm concerned, after having heard my complaint, NDB should have had a rep call me to arrange to have the blinds fixed.
Pah!
When NDB called to rate the blinds I told the representative I was not satisfied with them because of the above problem. She suggested that I call customer service which I eventually did -- but the point here is that no company really knows service anymore. Not Verizon, nor Comcast and now, not even NDB. As far as I'm concerned, after having heard my complaint, NDB should have had a rep call me to arrange to have the blinds fixed.
Pah!
Is Comcast any better?
In this post I had complained about the bad service from Verizon in restoring our phone and hence DSL service. I received a comment from a Comcast representative to call Comcast. In the post I had mentioned that we had tried to get cable service about a year ago but when the Comcast technician came out he discovered that we did not have a cable tap. I did NOT mention that he had said not to worry and that Comcast would get in touch and discuss about installing one in a few days. Of course they did not call and certainly I did not expect them to. Service from telcos is so terrible these days that I expect nothing from them and presto, I got nothing in return.
So should I call Comcast now? Not any time soon. As far as I'm concerned I in their records as having no cable tap so they should just be able to look me up and come out and get the job done without me having to tell them to. If they can do that then that's service and they've won themselves a new customer. It's obvious to me that they have no clue that we don't have a cable tap because we get numerous mailers from them to call and get cable service.
Pah!
So should I call Comcast now? Not any time soon. As far as I'm concerned I in their records as having no cable tap so they should just be able to look me up and come out and get the job done without me having to tell them to. If they can do that then that's service and they've won themselves a new customer. It's obvious to me that they have no clue that we don't have a cable tap because we get numerous mailers from them to call and get cable service.
Pah!
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