JAN 08
Was Patrick McGoohan wrong ?
. . . when he shouted, in almost every episode of the cult 60's TV series The Prisoner “ I am not a number ! – I am a free man ! “
Doubt - or at the very least a little sideways illumination - may have been cast over his declaration by the publication of the latest edition of the journal Cybernetics and Human Knowing.
In which Dr. Louis Kauffman presents an article which looks at the concept of the Human Self - from a purely mathematical point of view.
The doctor, who specialises in the mathematics of knots and combinatorics at the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science University of Illinois at Chicago, points out that :
“ Some have said that the human self, the I, is
a hallucination hallucinating
itself. “
And his essay is based on the no less enigmatic observation ( by the
late cybernetic architect Heinz
von Foerster ) that :
“ I am the observed link between myself and observing
myself. “
To
clarify, the doctor has applied a from of Linguistic Algebra to the statement – and
found that the answer to the ' I ' question is indeed based around a number
- or rather a series of numbers. A very specific series of numbers : The
Fibonacci Sequence.
( for readers who haven’t come across the Fibonacci Sequence, Wikipedia has a good overview )
To sum up :
“ . . . to see mathematical beauty in the I is to see the essence of the I. “
Link to the full paper ‘ I Am a Fibonacci Form ‘ here
31 JAN 08
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War fairer – with robots ?
Last weekend, the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) group held their Technology in Wartime Conference at Stanford University. [ a video of the conference will be posted online soon ]
They asked : “ What should socially-responsible computer professionals do in a time of high tech warfare ? “
Nowadays, all but the lowest-tech grunt weapon has some element of computer control – and ( so far at least ) a human has to do the programming that drives it.
The debate has widened considerably with the possibility of autonomous robotic weapons – especially ones without the so-called man-in-the-loop. [ that should be 'person-in-the-loop' surely ? Ed.]
There are currently four robotic weapons systems in use across the world, and at least three more under development ( source )
And some proponents of such systems argue that “ robotic soldiers could be more humane than human soldiers “ ( source )
Perhaps :
If they are designed ( by humans ) to be that way.
If they never malfunction.
If they never think they know better.
Editor’s comment. I know what you’re wondering. . . Are Stanford involved in developing robotic weapons systems ? Not surprisingly, the answer is not easily found – but they are hooked up with these guys and DARPA is paying the bills . . . Maybe Little Dog will have an advanced grasp of ethics.
30 JAN 08
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Quotatives under the microscope again
• First a definition :
A Quotative [ Embarrassingly, Really Magazine has been unable to find an exact definition – possibly a word to use whilst thinking of something to say – a filler – sort of, ummmm, lexical putty ]
• An example : 'Like '
• Usage : " And I'm, like, totally, like, whatever ! "
The use of the word ‘ like ‘ as a conversational quotative has seen a dramatic expansion in the past decade or so, and is now often seen in Instant Messaging (IM) texts too. Its use :
“ . . . gives a quotative format once thought exclusively oral new purchase in written language and heralds new strategies of voice representation within a typewritten medium ostensibly limited in its expressive potential. “
A forthcoming paper in the journal Language & Communication will reveal all.
This is not the first time that ‘ like ‘ has come in for linguistic
scrutiny. See, for example, ‘ He
goes and I’m like: ‘ from
the Linguistics dept. at Edinburgh University, 2002.
Which found ( amongst much more ) that ‘ like ‘ can also be thought
of as a ‘ Pragmatic Hedge ‘.
29 JAN 08
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The Quest for Authentic Leadership.
A G**gle search for the phrase “ Authentic Leadership ” brings up an impressive range of results.
Books, Academies, University study programmes etc – 80,300 in all.
But it’s not so easy to find an exact definition – what does the phrase ' Authentic Leadership ' really mean ?
Perhaps what is needed is an empirical test, a benchmark, a true measure of what ' Authentic Leadership ' actually is - and, according to the latest issue of the Journal of Management, it may have finally been pinned down.
A team from three US universities + Gallup Leadership Institute have developed what they’re calling the
Authentic Leadership Questionnaire [ALQ]
“ - a theory-driven leadership survey instrument designed to measure the components that have been conceptualized as comprising authentic leadership. “
The ALQ takes in four scales - which quantify the Self Awareness, Transparency, Ethics, and ‘ Balanced Processing ’ skills of our Leaders.
Perhaps use of the new questionnaire will help to alleviate the all-too-familiar preponderance of what could perhaps be called ' Unauthentic Leadership ' – a phrase which ( oddly considering its apparent ubiquitousness across business, political and even academic worlds ) as yet only brings up one G**gle hit.
؟ ؟ ؟
The authors are making available their questionnaire to (valid ) research groups via this site
which also publishes a number of other ‘ instruments’ – such as :
• The Barron Welsh Art Scale “ A non-verbal and remarkably valid measure of creativity “
And the
• Non-Verbal
Measure of Stress ( click the 'look-at-this-image' link to compare
the two dolphins in the photo and measure your current stress levels )
28 JAN 08
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Classifieds !
Really Magazine is beta-testing a new classified ad facility, and, for a limited period, will be accepting reeaders' ads completely free of charge. [ subject to acceptance ] Go here.
26 JAN 08
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Deep notions.
Back in 2005, the Centre for Communication & Cognition, at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, published a research paper outlining the possible relationship between human males’ body size and how deep their voices are.
In general, their experimental measurements found that - the bigger the man, the deeper the voice.
With the implication :
“ A deep male voice may play a role in courtship and competitive behaviours in humans by attracting female mates and indicating body size to male competitors. “
However, the fact that two factors tend to be found together doesn’t necessarily imply ( or explain ) the existence of fundamental underlying 'glue' behind a statistical link.
As an example, ‘ Birds ’ and ‘ Flying ’ are often associated - but as we know, not all flying things are birds, and not all birds fly.
So, further refinement of the big-body/deep-voice effect was required, has been undertaken, and is about to be published in the journal Biological Psychology.
The newly extended enquiry hypothesised that there might also be a link between mens’ deep-voiced-ness and their levels of testosterone.
The hunch proved correct. Low Voice =[often]= High Testosterone.
“ Findings confirm that vocal frequencies may provide an honest signal of the speaker's hormonal quality. “
suggesting that :
“ . . . male voices may have deepened over the course of evolution in order to signal dominance and/or to increase the speaker's attractiveness. “
Possible Implications [ according to Really Magazine ]
Avoid speaking in a high voice if you want to imply to someone that you might have a high level of testosterone.
A smell by any other name.
New research from Canada, just published in the Journal of Neurophysiology has investigated the implications of the ‘ name ‘ given to a smell - and its perceived level of ‘ pleasantness ‘.
The investigators gave experimental subjects the chance to sniff carefully prepared samples of odours – juniper berries, Parmesan cheese, almond extract etc – but the names which were given to the smell were either positive ( e.g. Curry-Spice-Mix ) neutral ( e.g. Number Fifty Four ) or negative ( e.g. Dry Vomit ).
It was determined that not only were the negatively named odours perceived as less pleasant – but the Sniff Volume (SV) tended to be lower.
“ Taken together, these experiments show that there is a lot to a name, at least when it comes to olfactory perception. “
Possible Implications [ according to Really Magazine ]
Perfume manufacturers might well be better off avoiding names like Glue Stick, Old Socks, and Dentists’s Office etc etc.
Down the tube.
From the current edition of Social Studies of Science.
“ This paper explores the effects of iconic, abstract representations of complex objects on our interactions with those objects through an ethnographic study of the use of the London Underground Map to tame and enframe the city of London “
Instead of regarding ( as so many do ) the London Underground map simply as a ‘ map of the underground ‘ - why not think of it instead in terms of “ approaching the individual as a `user' of a city and its graphical interface. “ ?
The analysis explores :
“ . . . the public understanding of an inscription in the world beyond the laboratory bench, the indexicality of the immutable mobile's visual language, and the relationship between representing and intervening. “
Possible Implications [ according to Really Magazine ]
Perhaps the tube map could be renamed The Urban Indexicality Enframement Interface ( London ) version 01.08 ?
25 JAN 08 ( late edition )
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Bytes of Strings
You’re probably looking at one right now. But have you ever asked yourself ‘ What, exactly, is a computer ? ‘
Defining one is considerably more difficult than might appear at first glance. . .
For example, is an ocean a computer ? Some ( especially enthusiasts of Cellular Automata ) might say ‘ maybe ‘. After all, the sea very effectively sorts inanimate objects of different kinds - depositing them in semi-permanent geographical locations according to their size and density etc etc. In a sense, the uniformly graded sand grains on a beach have been through an extremely efficient sorting algorithm.
A no less intriguing an example is discussed in an article published in the latest issue of the journal Philosophy of Science.
Here, the assistant professor of the philosophy department at the University of Missouri examines in some depth possible comparisons between a computer and an animal's digestive system.
That’s bearing in mind that a computer is normally thought-of as a system which takes an input, processes it, and subsequently delivers an output :
“ The most obvious place to start for the role of input seems to be bites of food, and the most obvious candidate for the role of output seems to be the nutrients absorbed by the body plus the feces. “
However :
“ Upon being ingested, food is chewed, mixed with saliva, swallowed, and mixed with digestive fluid. The result, far from being responsive to any obvious differences between bites of food or their order, is a relatively uniform bolus. “
Thus :
“ . . . treating the digestive system as a computing mechanism faces considerable challenges. “
؟ ؟ ؟
Despite the obvious comparisons with bites/bytes, bugs, and even the inputting/outputting
of ‘ strings ‘ Really
Magazine agrees.
؟ ؟ ؟
Absorb the full paper here :
24 JAN 08
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I can’t believe it’s not sham pain.
Really Magazine has been waiting patiently for the publication
of ‘ Effects
of sham intoxication on cognitive functioning and performance ‘ in
the journal Appetite. Sadly, it’s still filed under ‘Articles
in Press’
But our investigators have managed to track down some info on the research, which was carried out two years ago by the Wheeling Jesuit University, in Virginia, US.
Copious previous research projects have clearly demonstrated that alcohol
consumption can negatively influence some human performance measures -
particularly in terms of increased aggression and impaired cognition.
“ However, little research has been performed regarding whether sham intoxication produces similar effects. “
The experimenters encouraged participants ( students ? ) to drink 48 ounces of beer* – and then fill-in a questionnaire regarding their mood and perceived workload, in addition to performing the neurocognitive function tests.
Sure enough, the subjects in the study consistenly showed an increase in pain tolerance, anger, confusion and fatigue.
*They were not aware, however, that the beer they were drinking was in fact non-alcoholic.
" It's a marvel of the human mind and how our attention tends to wander based on suggestibility. “
Further info here :
23 JAN 08
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Pig-tailed Langurs
( Simias concolor ) live only on the Mentawai Islands.
They have no natural predators ( apart from humans.)
In stark contrast to their close relatives on mainland Sumatra, which are the prey of large felines such as tigers and leopards.
Due to the Mentawi's isolation from the mainland, the Pig-tailed Langurs have been separated from the big cats for at least half a million years.
Would the Langurs retain a ‘ race memory ‘ of the sound of tiger growls ? ( even after 500,000 years ).
Researchers from the University of California Davis tested the idea by playing the monkeys recordings of leopard calls and growls.
The monkeys were not alarmed.
They were also played bird and pig noises ( which are non-predators ) – but were unperturbed.
When played human noises they fled within 1 second. ( humans hunt the monkeys )
See :
Island Monkeys Do Not Recognize Big Cat Calls
22 JAN 08
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Philosophy : Facial : Follicles
If you are interested in Phenomenology, - ‘ a philosophy aimed at understanding structures of lived experience and modes of human existence ’ - and happen to be in London on the afternoon/evening of 29th Jan, then why not head down to the Institute of Contemporary Arts ( ICA ).
Where you can find out “ What can be learned from other people's experience of things we rarely think about ? “
In this case “ The Philosophy of the Overlooked: Facial Hair “
A talk on the subject from Billy Childish, artist, writer and musician and Gustav Temple, editor of The Chap will be followed by a live demonstration from a barber.
؟ ؟ ؟
Further research here :
21 JAN 08
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Cone of Silence - an update
The American Institute of Physics has a nice summary of a recent paper just published in Phys. Rev. Lett. ( which is subscribers only )
subject : Acoustic Cloaking.
Really Magazine welcomes readers' suggestions as to what it could be used for.
[ Note : Before any wrong-end-of-the-stick media flurry hits, it's worth bearing in mind that, like Optical Cloaking, Acoustical Cloaking is still at the theory stage : no practical device has yet been built. ]
Here’s a link to a previous paper from the same team, same subject
19 JAN 08
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The Tinkerbell Solution
Really Magazine's exclusive interview with Stuart Macdonald , Professor of Information and Organisation at the University of Sheffield.
" Consider what might be the public benefit of radical, critical thinking in Management Studies. How would management gurus earn a crust ? What would airport bookshops sell ? How would fat cat managers justify their bonuses ? . . . "
Read the full interview here :
18 JAN 08
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The future of P03Ms
The current issue of The Futurist ( a magazine of forecasts, trends, and ideas about the future ) looks at the possible future involvements of poets with computers – and asks ‘ Can electronics charm the elusive muse of poetry ? ‘
“ The computer enables the artist (poet) to communicate with more than text, adding images, movement, and sound “
And consequently :
" Reading becomes one way to use the poem . . . and the reader becomes an active do-player. But the poems can also eliminate that possibility, leaving the reader to be a viewer looking at the digital poem."
As an example, the piece links to this html-based ' interactive poem ' ‘ City of Bits ‘ by Thomas Swiss, professor of English and Rhetoric of Inquiry at the University of Iowa.
؟ ؟ ؟
Also see : RoboPoem
17 JAN 08
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Competititions #6 & #7. . .
No one guessed it. It was of course Risset's Continuous Scale ( link here courtsey of the Acoustical Society of America )
We've posted a new sample . . .
Sweet Fat Links
“ Rats and humans avidly consume flavored foods
that contain sucrose and fat, presumably due to their rewarding qualities. “
But why exactly ? Research just published in the journal Appetite provides an answer.
“
These data suggest that, calorie-for-calorie, sucrose is the dominant reinforcing
component of novel foods that contain a mixture of fat, sucrose, and flavor. “ [
our emphasis ]
By coincidence, another current research article, this time from Obesity journal, has investigated the possible benefits of avoiding Sweetened Caloric Beverages (SCBs) altogether.
“ . . . replacing SCBs with drinking water was associated with significant decreases in total energy intake that were sustained over time. “
16 JAN 08
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Searching for the Frisson centre
Could it be that consumers ( sometimes mistakenly ) up-rate their perceptions of products simply because the price is higher ? Oddly, until now there have not been any scientific studies which have directly looked for the neurological proof.
Experimenters at Caltech hypothised that the larger the Experienced Pleasantness ( EP ) induced by a product, the more neurological activity could be detected in the medial OrbitoFrontal Cortex (mOFC) [ a brain area ‘ widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks. ‘ ]
In a series of complex experiments, 21 volunteers ( students ? ) were offered glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon, which ranged in price from $5 to $90 a bottle – except they weren’t told which was which – only the ‘ price ‘ ( which was sometimes correct, sometimes fake ).
As expected, during fMRI brain-scans, the subjects consistently showed greater mOFC brain-activity when tasting ( what they thought to be ) the most expensive wines.
The team draw various conclusions from the research. For example :
“ . . . EP depends on nonintrinsic properties of products, such as the price at which they are sold. “
[ But that's something wine / perfume / fashion / art dealers have exploited for quite some time surely ? Ed. ]
The paper was published yesterday in PNAS. Read it here ( click the 'full text' link for a .pdf )
15 JAN 08
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Position, position, position.
As we all know, a few words can sometimes communicate more than that which is explicitly stated – the scientific examination of this phenomenon is called Linguistic Pragmatics – and the study-area even has its own specialist publication, the Journal of Pragmatics
As an example of the kind of item which might come under scientific scrutiny, turn to an article in the latest issue.
Where the School of Language Studies at Massey University, N.Z. examines the word ' please ' - and points out that its meaning can differ considerably depending on its position in a sentence.
The study examined three positions of ' please ' – the beginning, the middle, and at the end of sentences – and found significant differences in politeness levels.
' Please ' at the beginning tended to be associated with requests – or even demands.
In the middle,' Please ' was associated with ‘ conventional polite requests ‘ as well as with commands.
And the “ Final position is reserved for task-based requests in which the speaker's restricted behaviour as a social individual is exhibited. “ *
؟ ؟ ؟
Of course there are exceptions to these rules. And Really Magazine has identified a number of sentences where the logic seems to be less firm.
So, for example ' A kilo of bananas ' sits well with ' please ' at the end, could be used with ' please ' in the middle, but struggles considerably with ' please ' at the front.
' Stop smoking that pipe ' has very similar meanings with ' please ' at the beginning or the end, but despite our best efforts, we have failed to find any other position where the ' please ' would comfortably fit.
Lastly, the rules seem to break down entirely when ' please ' is inserted anywhere into the ‘ The crowd ‘
؟ ؟ ؟
[ * Could I suggest another possible linguistic study-area ? ‘ Inverse Pragmatics ’ (IP) – where a lot of words can sometimes seem to communicate less than that which is explicitly stated. Ed. ]
14 JAN 08
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Illuminating* the Blind Spot ( of Leadership )
A casual-glance-around at society-as-a-whole starkly illustrates the way reliance on conventional ' leadership ' has led us into “ mass institutional failure “ .
According to a new research article from MIT that is only to be expected - because business leaders, political leaders and academic leaders all tend to suffer from a leadership ‘ blind spot ‘.
To be specific : “ They are blind to the source dimension from which effective leadership and social action come into being. “
But, there may be a way out of the quagmire.
“ When leaders develop the capacity to come near to that source, they experience the future as if it were 'wanting to be born' - an experience called ‘presencing' .“
• Theory-U - developed over the past ten years or so at MIT’s Sloan Leadership Center shows how to develop Presencing ( “ the capacity to connect to the deepest source of self and will allows the future to emerge from the whole rather than from a smaller part or special interest group “.) – in journey of five movements.
These five steps – the journey through the U – in turn develop Seven Essential Leadership Capacities.
As author prof. Otto Scharmer explains in his book ‘ Theory - U ‘
“ The U process can be thought of as a social breathing process. The left-hand side of the U is the inhaling part of the cycle: total immersion in the current field, taking everything in. The right-hand side of the U is the exhaling part of the cycle: bringing the field of the future into reality as it desires. Between these two movements, breathing in and breathing out, there is a small crack of nothingness. That silent pause is the mystery or source at the bottom of the U. “
• For more details on ‘ Learning from the future '‘ start here
• An interview with the author.
• Book extracts here
[ * shouldn’t that be, say, ‘outlining ‘ ? Ed. ]
11 JAN 08
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Mysteries of the Organization
The Journal of Organization Studies
‘ . . . aims to promote the understanding of organizations, organizing, and the organized in and between societies . . . ‘
To this end, the latest issue, just published, carries an article exploring the boundaries of organizational ' know-ability '.
To do so, it calls on
“ metaphoric understanding of methodological differences in organizational and other social science scholarship “
– by comparing organizations to paintings.
Specifically Rembrandts and Pollocks.
“ Much as artists look at the world around them and render things on canvas using a range of techniques, so researchers use methods reflecting ontological and epistemological presuppositions about their research worlds. “
Also see : an earlier paper, from the same author, which used another metaphoric vehicle to investigate the enigmatic " Empty Spaces of Organizing "
This time using jazz.
10 JAN 08
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Soft targets
If you’re after inflatable T-80 tanks,
or even SA-8 missile launchers,
Shape is the place to shop. They’ve been making blow-up military
equipment since 1992.
Bear in mind though :
" Our inflatable dummy decoys are light and requires much small space to store. "
08 JAN 08
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Lifting the Singing LID
As anyone who has tried to memorize a long list of sixteen digit binary numbers will know, even the humblest of computer systems definitely has the edge on us for some tasks - in others though, humans are still streets ahead.
Imagine, for example, trying to devise a software suite which would be able to accurately determine whether a pop-song was being sung in English or Mandarin Chinese . . . A native-speaker of either language - with no previous training - would be able to tell which was which in a matter of seconds ( or less ).
For a computer though ( or rather for the human-designed software which runs on it ) that would be a far from trivial task.
In a bold step towards redressing the balance, the Department of Electronic Engineering & Graduate Institute of Computer and Communication Engineering, at National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, has been developing software - which they're calling Singing Language IDentification ( singing-LID ) - to do just that.
And results to date have just been published in the Journal of New Music Research.
Using a combination of spectral analysis, vector clustering and bigram language models, the new software has been able to make considerable progress - though it’s still some way from competing with a human listener on sung-language tasks.
The full paper is ‘ subscribers only ', but lead researcher Dr.
Wei-Ho Tsai has kindly made available a previous paper on the same
subject.
See :
' Towards automatic identification of singing language in popular music recordings ' in Proc. International Conference on Music Information Retrieval, Barcelona, Spain, 2004.
Further research :
Test you own singing-LID skills here . . .
07 JAN 08
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You ate it here first
By an amazing co-incidence, both the EU and the US are expected to make announcements next week on whether meat and milk from cloned animals should be sold to the public.
Really Magazine’s money is on the bet they will both say ‘ yes ‘.
We can also confidently predict a flurry of media articles debating whether food from cloned animals is a good idea or not. They will be missing the point.
The farm industry is very unlikely be enthusiastic while the average cost of a cloned cow is around $15K, and when majority of cloned offspring die young from a raft of different systemic problems.
The pharma industry though will be keenly watching the results.
They already manufacture nutraceuticals ( medicines with nutritional value ), and now opportunities are on the horizon for the reverse concept - meat and milk with artificially introduced medicinal compounds ‘ naturally ‘ present.
A whole smorgasbord of opportunities to create and market new forms of ' medical-food ' - which can be sold at far higher prices than the ordinary products.
PharmaMilk ?
Mediburgers ?
04 JAN 08
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" Hey ! You can't a fool a me - there ain't no Sanity Clause ! . . . "
Our discovery yesterday, that the US government once paid Groucho Marx to inform the American public that :
“ . . . your chances of surviving an atom bomb attack are excellent . . . “
has temporarily overwhelmed the Really Magazine Irony Detection Subroutine to such an extent that no posts were possible today.
Our apologies, and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
In the meantime :
“ . . . be sure you have a good fire extinguisher
. . .“
03 JAN 08
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Be informed, very informed.
It’s more or less 5 years since the launch of Ready.gov – the US taxpayer-funded website which provides guidance on “ things you can do to prepare for the unexpected “ ( natural or man-made. )
The site advises on such diverse threats as Tsunamis, Floods, Chemical attacks, etc etc.
Oddly though, despite the site’s extensive revamp in 2006, there are still one or two peculiarities bothering Really Magazine . . .
For example ; “ If you become aware of an unusual and suspicious substance nearby: “ you should :
“ Cover your mouth and nose with layers of fabric that can filter the air but still allow breathing. “
or, in the case of Winter Storms and Extreme Cold :
“ If you have a wood burning fire place, consider storing wood to keep you warm if winter weather knocks out your heat. “
More puzzling still is the Nuclear Threat page - perhaps Really Mag has got it wrong, but the header picture looks very much like . . . a power station ?
Until things are fully cleared up, Really Mag is sticking with this advice, from the Nuclear Energy Institute , and this .mp3 excerpt of the govt. sponsored ' Excellent Chances ' radio spot from 1953.
[ narrator : Groucho Marx ]
[ no, really, it is Groucho, Ed. ]
02 JAN 08
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2Xlation of the day
Satisficing in Palo Alto
Are www users ( perhaps unknowingly ) following ‘ Information Scent Clues ‘ whilst browsing the internet ?
The world renowned Palo Alto Research Center ( PARC ) believes that's a serious possibility, and has taken a prominent part in developing :
SNIF-ACT ( Scent-based Navigation and Information Foraging in the ACT cognitive architecture )
- a computational cognitive model developed to simulate web-users' Scent-based Navigation behaviours.
SNIF-ACT ( which is now in version 2.0 ) combines Information Foraging Theory ( IFT ) with the Bayesian Satisficing Model ( BSM ) , and :
“ . . . could serve as the basis for helping people to learn how to find, make sense of, and use information to improve solutions to significant everyday problems involving health, finance, career, and so on. “
For more information, and perhaps even a flavour of the web-to-come, see the SNIF-ACT homepage from the User Interface Research dept. at PARC.
( be sure to follow the Information Scent via the menus on the left hand side . . . )
01 JAN 08
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