Links: 2008-01-04

• Canadian Digital Music Sales Outperform the U.S. – Again – I love we can argue based on solid stats
• A Little ‘Intel’ on Apple’s Next Move – some guesses, will know if BW got it right on Jan 15th
• Public Domain Day 2008 – when millions of work entered the public domain!
• Commons Misunderstandings: ASCAP on Creative Commons – a bit technical but worth a read.
• Kevin Kelly’s True Films book, now a free ad-supported PDF
• First Fox Business Network Ratings Data – about 6,300 people
• My best wishes to the tech blogger Om Malik who has a heart attack on Dec 28, 2007 – A Heart-to-Heart with GigaOM Readers [via Paul]
• Mitsubishi’s elevator-testing tower – a rather funny looking thing. (smile)
• Fractal art contest winners – fascinating stuff. reminded me of my math prof suggesting to me (when he saw me holding a book on fractal) that I should read the papers from the masters themselves. I have tried to do that since. Here are three really cool winning entries – Air, Bubbling Growth, and The Last of the Butterflies.

Research Vampires and Early morning eye tests

I have been trying to track down this quote by my friend Kevin Roberts for over a week now and I finally found it,

“I am not a big fan of statistics and statisticians. They seem to drain the life out of ideas and creativity and focus on what has been, rather than what could be. I have even been known to call number crunchers ‘research vampires’ to their faces!“

I love the term ‘research vampires’ so very much that I waited until I found the quote before I share this story and my advice with you here.

I recently attended a breakfast report/meeting given by an online metrics guru that made me want to hit my head on the table (repeatedly and often). Yeap, it was that bad!

You see, the sad part is that I love stats and data, if the figures are cooked up and presented well. Showing charts and figures that are way way too small for anyone to read slides after slides for the whole presentation are just asking for trouble.

I am definitely not asking the presenter to be as good as Tom Peters (who can? except may be Tom himself? (smile)) but at least may be we can learn something about good readable font size from Tom’s free presentation slides?

To me, there were no love nor passion in that presentation of the stats and figures. I am sure this guru is insightful at other times but without showing the deeper connections and gaining our emotional buy-in for audiences that morning, the term ‘research vampires’ is what the “guru” appeared to be for that presentation. Sad.

Let me end this posting on a positive note like Kevin did in ‘research vampires’ (emphasis mine),

Give your brains a rest. Nothing wrong with thinking – but thinking demands action to make any sense. You can’t think your way into relationships, insights, great ideas. You have got to create them, have them, do them. Love them.

Put consumers up-front and centre. Don’t set them as the default and move on. Value them. Listen to them. Remember them. They light the path to your future.

Trust your judgment. It is a great gift. But remember you need the head and the heart. No point in going out the window with the figures if your gut instinct is telling you to stay.

Get intimate with Lovemarks. Not just comfortable. Intimate. Play with the ideas, don’t polish them. Talk back to us. Start new conversations.

Finally, be an Inspirational Player. Step up. Be a force for good. Make a difference. Touch someone!

Readings: 2007-05-04

• FCC Chairman Martin to Telcos: No Blocking Iowa Calls
• Sex sells (souls)
• God save us from the Queen’s censor
• Don’t break my heart, my AACS heart – Love the video
• YouTube Starts Paying Star Users
• USPTO Issues Preliminary Obviousness Examination Instructions – neat patent stuff.

King of Infinite Space – the man who saved geometry

I attended a great lecture at U. of Toronto with the passionate and insightful Donald Coxeter when he was merely 83 years young years ago. By some people, Prof. Coxeter was known as the man who saved geometry. Here are excerpts from the Boston Globe article (K: emphasis, comments and links mine),

We owe a lot to geometry, however. Geometric algorithms generate the aerodynamic curves of Mercedes-Benz sedans and Boeing aircraft, make possible computer-animated films such as Pixar’s “The Incredibles,” and power the data-mining technology used by Amazon.com to find patterns in massive amounts of raw information. Geometry governs in things small (the molecular structure of pharmaceuticals [and proteins]) and large (the shape of our universe). […]

[Coxeter ] was muse to artist M.C. Escher, famous for works like “Ascending and Descending,” [K: I love Reltivity] a seemingly precarious building of stairs winding in an infinite loop. Coxeter and Escher became friends in the 1950s, and the mathematician’s work assisted the artist in his quest to convincingly capture the concept of infinity. (Escher was known to say, “I’m Coxetering today!”) It was a unique collaboration, since Escher, who had no mathematical background, drew entirely from Coxeter’s geometric diagrams for inspiration, referring to the accompanying equations as Coxeter’s “hocus-pocus math.”

Deep down to my core, I am a romantic man. I believe there are things that are beautiful for their own sakes and should be pursued. Sometimes, if by chance and imagination, we may even find some great use of them. But lets not short chain ourselves and stop learning if we don’t see immediate use on things (in math and fundamental sciences).

Below is an article (click to zoom) in the Spring 2007 issue of University of Toronto Magazine for your enjoyment. (I hope no copyright lawyer will be talking to me about this. (smile))

Geeks: 2007-03-21

• 248-dimension maths puzzle solved – With this kind of complexity, what if they had a bug in their software or hardware? Don’t even want to go there.
• Exuberance Is Rational – “… although he mowed his own lawn to save $10, he would never agree to cut the lawn next door in return for the same $10 or even more …” Interesting stuff on behavioral economics. [via Freakonomics]
• DARPA Urban Challenge – vehicles without drivers
• AnyTrack GPS-100 “discrete” tracking
• Forget weather-proof memory cards, let’s try “nuke-able”
• Computer chip we can’t have – “Raytheon claims world’s first “polymorphic” computer“
• Economics of “Per hour parking“

Readings: 2007-03-16

• The Penny Gap (getting someone to pay you anything) – [via Paul Kedrosky]
• Zooomr Will Sell Stock Photography – insightful comment by Patrick on Zooomr’s potentially unsustainable 10% commission (paying 90% to the photographer)
• Supreme Court of Canada upholds blackout on early election night results – I usually have the highest respect for SCC, but I am deeply disappointed at this close 5-4 decision. The SCC judgment is worth a scan for sure.
• Lottery ticket sellers are 10 times luckier than expected, Atlantic Lotto says. “There are no evidences of wrong doings.” Hmmm, I don’t think so. Looks like the Lottery scandal in Canada deepens. Here is an update of the lottery scandal/mess in Ontario. note: CBC has reports in videos. Also see a previous blog entry.
• Judge drops charges against HP’s former Chairwoman Patricia Dunn – All my sometimes harsh opinion of Ms. Dunn aside, I wish Ms. Dunn the best in her ongoing treatment for advanced cancer.
• Who Comments on Blogs, and Why? – Not surprisingly, this post gets 110 comments and more.
• If Crack Dealers Took Lessons From Walgreens, They Really Would Be Rich – So glad I live in Canada.
• Viacom v. YouTube – Interesting Wall Street Journal article by Paul Kedrosky

New U.K. Wireless Spectrum Auction and Look back on 2000 £22.5 billion auction

In anticipation of the recently announced UK wireless auction, Forbes published a pair of article “Classic Game: U.K. Wireless Spectrum Auction” and “A Beautiful Theory” that talk about the power of game theory in the 2000 UK wireless auction. Thanks to Katie Fehrenbacher’s blog for the Forbes link.

Oxford Statistician, Wired Founding Editor, GrameenPhone co-founder on TEDTalks

Here is a great TED talk by Oxford Statistics Professor Peter Donnelly exploring common mistakes humans make.

And Wired Magazine founding executive editor Kevin Kelly traces the remarkable similarities between the evolution of biology and technology on this interesting TED talk.

Iqbal Quadir is co-founder of GrameenPhone, an innovative wireless company offering services to poor rural villages in Bangladesh. He speaks in this eye-opening and insightful TED talk.

Richard Feynman – Great minds of our time

Richard Feynman (1918-1988) is truly one of the “Great minds of our time”. I have been reading many books by him and books about him for years now. I probably have 10 books written by him or about him on my shelf and borrowed a few others from libraries.

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” and “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” have been two of my first loves. The stories Feynman told were so much fun and yet so insightful at the same time. Some simple Google searches on the book titles will sure bring out many favourite passages by many people.

“No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman” by Christopher Sykes has a large collections of photos, some drawings by Dick, and stories from a long list of people that knew Dick really well. It is a book that I love and treasure. Christopher also produced the documentary I included at the end of this post.

“Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman” and “Richard Feynman: A Life in Science” are two books for general audiences that talk about Dick’s life. I love “Genius” and think “A Life in Science” is just a so-so book. Quoting Genius describes how Dick passed away still put tears into my eyes,

“He drifted toward unconsciousness. His eyes dimmed. Speech became an exertion. Gweneth [Dick’s wife] watched as he drew himself together, prepared a phrase, and released it: “I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” After that, he tried to communicate by shifting his head or squeezing the hand that clasped his. Shortly before midnight on February 15, 1988, his body gasped for air that the oxygen tube could not provide, and his space in the world closed. An imprint remained: what he knew, how he knew.”

I love “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter” because it is a book that is “a straighforward, honest explanation of … the theory of quantum electron-dynamics — for a nontechnical audience. It is designed to give the interested reader an appreciation for the kind of thinking that physicists have resorted to in order to explain how Nature behaves.“ [K: quantum electron-dynamics was the theory which Feynman later won his Nobel Prize on.] [Mar 6, 2012 update: Here is a link to a series of four QED lectures by Feynman in New Zealand, possibly quite close to what were transcribed into the book QED based on the Alix G. Mautner Memorial Lectures. [HT Peta Foster]]

“Most of the Good Stuff:” Memories of Richard Feynman is a great book of stories as told by many of Dick’s great friends and his little sister Dr. Joan Feynman (who was a Senior Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab before she retired in 2003). I finished this book in only two days at the end of 1996. Here is an excerpt from Joan’s chapter,

‘I was Richard Feynman’s first student and he was my first teacher. We were brother and sister, the only children in our family. When I was a baby, Richard would bundle me into my carriage and take me over to his friend Bernie’s house. There he would prop me up so I could watch the two boys work with the batteries, wires, rheostats, switches, and radio tubes they had collected for their “laboratory”. He was nine.

I soon graduated to larger tasks. We had a dog, a fox terrier (more or less), the kind you could see in circuses back then. The family taught him tricks, like sitting and begging, by patiently getting him to understand what was expected and then giving him a treat when he was successful. The dog worked hard for the dog biscuits and amazed the neighborhood children. Observing this, Richard decided that I was probably trainable too, and the most amazing trick he could think of to teach me was to do arithmetic. The problem was, what to give me for a treat? Our mother was very careful with our diet and I certainly couldn’t have candy between meals. But he was always resourceful. When I got a problem correct I was allowed to pull his hair until it hurt or, to be more exact, until he grimaced as if in pain. I remember standing in my crib, maybe three years old, yanking on his hair with great delight while he excitedly planned to surprise Bernie with my new trick. I had just learned to add two and three. I have always believed that the reason Richard had a full head of hair all his life was because I had done such a good job of strengthening the roots.’

Will he take that million dollars?

In a world where fame and money (I used “money” because I don’t see it as “fortune”) seems to be the only things matter these days, the Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman is a totally different breed.

Before we talk about that one-million US dollars, let me say, what Grigory has achieved may take years to understand and apply in the academic world and our society. My standard example is that no one, mathematicians included, had thought of the study of prime numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, …) will have such a profound impact on the world. All of our e-commerce relies on encryption and the most popular encryption system today relies on the difficulty to factoring really large numbers into their prime components, known as RSA for the public or Clifford Cocks for those that had the Top Secret clearance and the need to know. (smile, see J. H. Ellis’ “The history of Non-Secret Encryption” PKC for more) Well, I digress. Shall we get back to that million dollars ?

As reported in my previous blog and to no one in the math community’s surprises, Grigory has won a Fields Medal, mathematics’ equivalent of the Nobel Prize. And the International Mathematical Union has also indirectly confirmed/suggested in Grigory’s Fields Medal citation that he should also win that one-million US dollars prize as promised by the Clay Mathematics Institute.

Well, as speculated correctly by me and many others, Grigory has refused to accept his Fields Medal as he “does not want to be seen as its [International Mathematical Union] figurehead.” And it may not be surprising to anyone that Grigory will likely also refuse the one-million US dollars prize that he deserves. (May be Grigory can donate his one-million US dollars to Grameen Bank, my favourite bank for the poor, to create more “tiny loans” or microloan. At the end, the decision is for Grigory to make.)

Years ago, one of my hero Richard Feynman (check out his happy drumming pix) thought of refusing his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, but he “chickened out” as he realized a refusal might have caused him more headaches. Now, 41 years later, Grigory Perelman has made history by refusing his Fields Medal. I wish Grigory all the best and hope he will finish off a few more nagging open problems for us.

Note: The irony has not been lost on me that my hero Dick Feynman thought of refusing his Nobel Prize. Whereas I had an acceptance speech for getting a t-shirt !!!! Sean, that t-shirt better be made of gold or something. (smile)

“What do you care what other people think?” – Richard P. Feynman

Live motion 3D camera

(Originally posted on August 18, 2006)

Thanks to Tim O’Reilly, I found and watched this hour long and very interesting Google Tech Talk video mentioned below. Here is what Tim said in his blog entry,

“The other day, Noel Gorelick of Arizona State University and Google Mars fame gave me an amazing demo of images taken with a very cool new 3D live motion video camera that uses LIDAR [K: link updated] technology to get a range-finding for every pixel. Advanced Scientific Concepts, the company that built the camera, is so young that they don’t have a website up, but here’s one of the images:

[Kempton’s note: this is a large 9.2MB gif file. But really worthwhile to download to see with your own eyes.]

Imagine how a camera like this could be used to populate Second Life or Google Earth!

The creators of the technology did a Google Tech Talk about the 3D camera. I haven’t watched it yet, but someone who was there said that the last 30-40 minutes are better than the beginning, so if it doesn’t catch your attention, skip ahead.”

Kempton: We need to be careful with this see through wall technology as it can easily lead to invasion of privacy. A few years ago I saw a Time Domain demo that showcased its Ultra Wideband prototype that lets one see through wall. Looking at their website today, looks like their second generation RadarVision 2 is being sold to US Law Enforcement and Federal Government Agencies. I am not against the advancement of science but it has to be balanced with our individual privacy rights. For example, I thinak a court order should be obtained before this kind of “search” should be allowed.

Math and a million dollars

(picture source: New York Times)
(Originally posted on August 16, 2006)

Any self-respecting math geek can tell you, one way to become a millionaire is to solve one of the seven millennium problems named by Clay Mathematics Institute. Well, looks like one of them has been solved. Poincaré Conjecture, an open problem for over 100 years, may have been solved by Grigory Perelman, a Russian mathematician. But he doesn’t seem to want that million dollars nor the Fields Medal, mathematics’ equivalent of the Nobel Prize, which he is almost surely going to win at an international conference next week.

Here is a New York Times Science article (where I saw the above neat looking rabbit) on his wonderful achievement and an editorial on it.

Now, the millennium problem I am most keen on seeing solved is the P vs NP Problem in computer science. May be it was because I was fortunate to have been taught by Stephen Cook twice (in an intro course and then in his famous Computability and Complexity course). More importantly, if P=NP, than the world of computer science will be changed forever as so many “hard” problem will become “easier”.