Passing clouds of inconsequential observations
Himself Whilst adding a new Retirement category, as if that will make any difference, I checked the dusty archives to see how old this blog was. It was started in April 2008 with the first totally unrelated post…
https://blog.duncanmoran.net/archives/date/2008/04
So belated Happy Birthday to us. As one of the planned retirement projects was to liven things up around here I shall see if I can find some of the missing media files from bygone years and reset them.
Once again, following a pronouncement by the IMF, the quote:
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
is being posted across the Internet and being attributed to John Kenneth Galbraith. Astrology sometimes being replaced with Meteorology.Â
Of course it is a simple matter to verify the source of the quote – but why bother when you can just cut and paste from the first link that pops up on Google?
It belongs to the economist Ezra Solomon.
Etc.
A test post from the iPad.
To the ever-growing list of names of people that have been so familiar (almost as if we actually knew them) but are now no more we must add John Conway. Many who dabbled with programming on old computers will have implemented a version of Conway’s Game of Life which determined if a cell should live or die by following a set of rules:
There is a version implemented within the wonderful Xynthesizr which allows for some random generative noise. We add a few cells, which live or die by the rules, and then let it evolve by itself – never quite reaching a stable state.
It uses a Messiaen scale. There was a nice tribute by XKCD too…
Most graphs mapping the spread of the coronavirus measure against time giving an exponential curve upwards.
By removing the time element the growth becomes a straight line. It is then easy to see when the spread drops away from the growth line, as in China, and where the spread is rocketing off into the unknown as can be seen in Aatish Bhatia’s graphs.
So we stay at home avoiding contact with other people to stop the virus from spreading and break away from that line of growth as quickly as possible.
Update:Â And this…