Ming the Mechanic
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
Friday, June 13, 2003day link 
 Metrics
picture I'm so looking forward to go back on the metric system. The world just fits so much better together when its measures actually make sense and have something to do with each other. In America the measures are arbitrary and have very little to do with each other. How many feet in a mile? How many ounces in a pound? I have no clue. It makes the world kind of disjointed to still use those mideaval measures. I notice how my perception of the measurability of the world has deteriorated while living here. Compared with how beautifully I perceived everything as fitting together when I was in high school. You know ...
An hour is the time it takes for a liter of boiling water to move one kilometer
OK, that's a joke, but that kind of thing. Interrelatedness. Here's a history of the metric system in the U.S., or rather the failure of it. There have been attempts of converting to metrics, but they were never enforced, so, together with Burma and Liberia, the U.S. remains in the middle ages in that regard.
[ | 2003-06-13 23:59 | 5 comments | PermaLink ]  More >

 Genetic computing
At this evening's L.A. Futurist meeting the speaker was Mike Korns. He runs a company that develops artificial intelligence applications, particularly for automatic stock market investing. What is interesting is that we're talking about programs that more or less developed themselves, according to evolutionary computing models. Borrowing approaches from genetics. Natural selection, mutations and even sexual exchange of genomes. Basically, what nature does works very well, and has been found to work very well, also when modelled by computer programs. In this case, many gigabytes of program agents have been evolved, which demonstrate remarkable results in what they do. The Deep Green automated investment system has had an average of 23% gains per year over the past 10 years, which is better than any mutual fund out there.
[ | 2003-06-13 23:59 | 1 comment | PermaLink ]  More >

Main Page: ming.tv