Culture – Page 10 – Spinor Info

Life’s small pleasures (and my online TV guide)

Canada, Personal, Programming, Television No Responses »

Jan 072015

For years, I’ve been using the online TV guide provided by ZAP2IT to check what’s on TV. Generally speaking, I’ve been satisfied with their service.

Until last year, when they introduced a whole new layout. Which, in my considered opinion, was a significant downgrade (makes me wonder if they were perhaps inspired by Windows 8).

Today I noticed, to my considerable pleasure, that the old layout is back. I now have the option to “Switch to Classic View”. Which I promptly did, without hesitation and with no plans to change my mind.

Now I am no usability or ergonomics expert, but I do have 30-odd years of experience in IT, and I know a thing or two about user interface design. Here are two illustrations that show why, in my considered opinion, the old format is far superior to the new one. First, the new version, with some of its shortcomings highlighted:

And now here are the same shows, in the old format:

So much easier to view! So much easier to find things of interest!

When they switched to the new format, I wrote an e-mail to complain. I did not expect a meaningful response. Noticing the link today, inviting me to switch back to the old format, was a most pleasant New Year’s surprise. I wrote to them again, thanking them for making the old format available. I hope it stays that way.

I know, I know, let this be the biggest problem in my life, when people are suffering and dying in various corners of the world. For what it’s worth, I never for one moment forget how lucky I am to be able to enjoy the luxury of life in a country like Canada. But this stupid TV guide still bugged me :-)

The frustration of us all…

Art, Politics, Religion No Responses »

Jan 072015

Cartoonists are frustrated. Muslims are frustrated. A collection of fresh cartoons express the frustration of a world, hijacked today by extremism. Here are two that illustrate these feelings most profoundly.

This drawing by Sudanese political cartoonist Khalid Albaih from Doha, Quatar depicts how many Muslims must feel today:

And the anger of cartoonists (and journalists and, well free people) around the world is captured by Manjul, Chief Cartoonist at the Mumbai-headquartered Daily News and Analysis:

Thank you and all other cartoonists for not letting yourselves be intimidated by murderers. I just hope that the rest of us have the courage not to blame all Muslims for the crimes of a demented few.

Kind of funny, by the way, in the wake of the SONY/The Interview farce how there is a common theme between religious zealots and atheist despots: they both hate humor and freedom of expression.

Watching The Interview

Film, Personal, Politics No Responses »

Dec 262014

So tonight, my wife and I watched the infamous movie, The Interview, for the princely sum of 7 Canadian dollars, courtesy of YouTube.

Chances are that without the SONY hack and the subsequent decision to pull the film from theaters, we would never have seen it. To be honest, it is a rather crappy movie. And I chose that word with care, as much of the so-called humor was really lower body humor. There were perhaps a few decently funny movements (though none that would make me laugh uncontrollably, not even close.)

Still, let that be a lesson to pisspot dictators: clumsy attempts to censor the West’s entertainment industry only provide invaluable free publicity. An entirely forgettable piece of Hollywood trash this way became an instant immortal icon, mentioned along with classics like Chaplin’s The Great Dictator.

It appears though that the film found a receptive audience in China of all places. Great! Perhaps it will give Beijing’s communist government some food for thought as they consider the consequences of their continuing support for one of the world’s most totalitarian, most abusive regimes.

SONY, please don’t capitulate

Film, Politics No Responses »

Dec 172014

The news tonight is that SONY has pulled The Interview from theaters, with no plans to release the movie at this time either through theaters or digitally.

This is wrong on so many levels.

Most importantly, because that grown up crybaby, that Eric Cartman from the land of dictators, should not have his way. Simply put, Kim Jong-un is not just a murderous jackass like his pa and his grandpa, he is also a vain little bully with a bloated ego who is throwing a hissy fit because someone dared to joke at his expense.

Dear little Kim Jong-un… grow up already. Right now, even South Park’s characters seem wise and mature in comparison.

Mathematical fiction

Books, Mathematics No Responses »

Oct 132014

Science fiction has a subgenre: mathematical fiction. Stories of this nature are rare; good stories are even rarer. One memorable story that I recall from ages ago was A Subway Named Moebius, written by A. J. Deutsch in 1950. There was another story more recently: Luminous by Greg Egan, which I read in Asimov’s SF magazine shortly before I stopped reading (and eventually, stopped subscribing to) said magazine. (Nothing wrong with the magazine; it’s just that I found many of the stories unsatisfying, and I found I had less and less time to read them. The genre is just not the same as it was back in the Golden Age of Science Fiction.)

So recently, I found out that Egan wrote a sequel: Dark Integers, published in the same magazine in 2007. I now had a chance to read it and I was not disappointed.

Both stories are very good. Both stories are based on the notion that as yet unproven mathematical theorems can go either way; that the Platonic book of all math has not only not yet been written, but that there is no unique book, and multiple versions of mathematics may coexist, with an uneasy boundary.

Now imagine that you perform innocent mathematical experiments on your computer, using, say, computer algebra to probe ever more exotic theorems in a subfield few non-mathematicians ever heard about. And imagine how you would feel if you realized that by doing so, you are undermining the very foundations of another universe’s existence, literally threatening to wipe them out.

OK, if you start poking holes in that idea, there are many, but the basic notion is not completely stupid, and the questions that the stories raise are worth contemplating. And Egan writes well… the stories are fun, too!

Incidentally, this was the first decent (published) science fiction story I ever came across that contained a few lines of C++ code.

Breaking news in the newspaper

Canada, Media No Responses »

Oct 132014

Something happened to me this morning that I have not experienced in ages. Probably not in the 21st century.

I learned about a breaking news event from a newspaper.

That is to say, this morning after I woke up, I happened to glance at the cover of The Globe and Mail before checking the state of the world on any electronic device. And the cover informed me about a massive fire and power outage in downtown Calgary.

I like The Globe and Mail. It is a fine newspaper, and sometimes, it informes me about things that I would not otherwise come across. And there is something to be said about reading a physical newspaper; I am certainly reading it differently, perhaps a tad more attentively, than I read online news sources.

But I long became accustomed to the idea that whatever is in the newspaper will be old news. Stuff I already know about, saw reports about on CNN or the CBC, read about on Google News.

This is why this moment this morning was so striking: like our forefathers in the past century, I learned about a breaking news story from an old-fashioned, paper newspaper.

Dear CRTC: Hands off the Internet please

Canada, Internet, Television No Responses »

Sep 232014

Dear CRTC: Please stop trying to protect us poor Canadians from evil companies like Netflix.

Video-on-demand is not broadcasting. The Internet is not the public airwaves. You have no business trying to bully companies just because they threaten the livelihood of lumbering, decrepit behemoths like Rogers.

I am a Rogers Cable subscriber. I have been a Rogers Cable subscriber ever since they purchased Ottawa Cablevision more than two decades ago.

What am I getting from Rogers? Here are a few examples:

Inept, sometimes openly contemptuous customer service (like, what kind of a backward moron am I for still wanting to use analog cable without a settop box?);
Technically substandard service (programs interrupted by local commercials that are inserted at the wrong time, substandard signal quality on some analog channels; an analog video frame that is reduced in size by a ratio of 59/60 for no apparent reason);
Overpriced, obsolete hardware and no opportunity to use non-Rogers equipment, e.g., with a subscriber identity card;
Unnecessary encryption on all digital channels (including local channels), which makes it impossible to use a TV without a settop box.

And you wonder why I am contemplating “cutting the cord”?

Instead of blaming Netflix, perhaps you can have a conversation with Rogers about addressing issues that alienate their customers. If you are not willing to do that, fine, then let the free market do its thing. But take your dirty regulatory paws off the Canadian Internet, please.

Einstein’s field equations… in a Subway sandwich commercial?

Physics, Television No Responses »

Aug 132014

Last night, as I was watching the latest episode of Tyrant (itself an excellent show about a fictitious Middle Eastern dictatorship and its ruling family), I happened to glance at the TV during a commercial break just at the right split second to see this:

This was part of an ad, a Subway sandwich commercial, with an animated monkey handing this exam sheet back to a student (also a monkey). What caught my eye was the equation on this sheet. What??? Einstein’s field equations?

Yup, that’s exactly what I saw there, the equation $G_{\alpha\beta}=\dfrac{8\pi G}{c^4}T_{\alpha\beta}$. General relativity.

Other, easily recognizable equations on the sheet included an equation of the electrostatic Coulomb force, the definition of the quantum mechanical probability amplitude, and the continuity equation.

What struck me was that all these are legitimate equations from physics, not gibberish. And all that in a silly Subway commercial. Wow.

There is no racism in Hungary…

Film, Hungary, Politics No Responses »

Aug 052014

In the 1980s there was a joke I heard on the streets of Budapest. It was in the form of an official-sounding announcement: “In Soviet Union is no illiteracy… on written record.”

Well, there is no racism in Hungary either. At least not on the record. Everything that happens, happens for a sound, sensible reason. When Hungary’s Minister of Human Resources announces that there was no Roma Holocaust in Hungary, as Hungarian Roma were only deported from Austrian territory, he of course speaks the gospel truth. When the third largest city in Hungary begins a systematic eviction of mainly Roma residents, it is just an eminently reasonable attempt to clean up a bad, run-down part of town. And when a state-sponsored film festival in the same city declines to show films on the subject of the Roma, it is an entirely logical decision, aimed at avoiding controversy just before municipal elections.

Everything is based on sound reasoning, everything makes perfect sense. Just as it was entirely reasonable when a small town mayor in Hungary this weekend presided over a symbolic hanging of an effigy of Benjamin Netanyahu, in protest against the “Freemason Jewish terror state’s efforts to rule the world.” No, there is no racism in Hungary. How could there be?

Cloud Atlas

Cats, Film No Responses »

May 162014

So here I am, sitting in a hotel room in the 21st century city of Abu Dhabi. After a long day in front of my laptop, I spent some more time with said laptop, this time watching a movie. I bought the DVD of Cloud Atlas a few months ago, but I never had the time to watch it… until now.

All I can say is… Wow. If you give this movie the attention it deserves, it is immensely rewarding. Cinematic science fiction at its absolute best. A movie that borrows some elements from other works, e.g., Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey, or Soylent Green, or The Fifth Element… but it is an absolutely original, astounding tale or rather, six interwoven tales set in the past, present and future, forming a true cautionary tale in the best traditions of classic science-fiction.

I know I’ll watch this movie again… probably many times. For me, it’s going to be one of those movies that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Oh… and the movie should have received an award, if only there was one, for the most creative cinematic use of a cat. I laughed so hard, I almost had an unfortunate accident involving pants and other unmentionables.

Pre-high-blood-pressured in the Uncanny Valley

Computers, Film No Responses »

Apr 292014

The other day, I watched a delightful 30+ year old movie that I never saw before, The World According to Garp. In one scene, the protagonist decides to buy a house after a small airplane crashes into it, explaining that it is unlikely to ever happen again; that house has been “pre-disastered”. (Yes, it’s a logical fallacy, but the scene was still funny.) I think it was this movie that inspired me today, when I finally managed to talk to a human representative at Scotiabank, after being endlessly and needlessly frustrated by a voice recognition answering system.

450px-Sony_Qrio_Robot_2 Voice recognition systems infuriate me. I am not alone, and this should come as no surprise. The phenomenon when something that looks, feels (or in this case, sounds) almost, but not quite, human creeps out people is so well known, it even has a name: Uncanny Valley. I am perfectly comfortable with answering systems that ask me to make menu choices by pressing buttons on my phone. Yet I am filled with blind fury and rage by voice response systems that, usually in an overly friendly and syrupy-sweet voice, ask me to explain, in words, what I am calling about. “I WANT TO TALK TO A FREAKING HUMAN YOU STUPID MACHINE!”

Fortunately, my self-control prevailed this morning. When (after stabbing “0” more than a few times with my finger while shouting nonsense, finally convincing the voice recognition algorithm to give up) I was at last connected to an actual (very nice) human lady, I remained polite. However, at the end of our conversation, I could not refrain from asking her to please pass on my request to the Powers That Be at Scotiabank to get rid of this stupid voice recognition system. She agreed that indeed, many customers are annoyed like I was. I commented on the fact that it was usually people like her who become the victims of their callers’ anger… when they arrive, like I did, pre-high-blood-pressured. She laughed so hard… I think I made her day.

As I am writing this, I am thinking that there might be another way to climb out of the uncanny valley: better AI. This is, after all, 2014, the age of self-driving cars and Google Search that knows what you are about to type even before you do. I could easily imagine a voice recognition system that, instead of spoon feeding me instructions like I was mentally retarded, began a natural conversation: “Hello, this is the Scotiabank automated assistant. This call may be recorded for quality assurance. How can we help you today?” (Avoid talking like the caller was retarded. Avoid using “I” because you are not a self-aware person. Speak in a natural voice, not like you were talking to someone hard of hearing, not unless they indicate that they are, in fact, hard of hearing.) If this system could actually carry out a decent conversation instead of being a poorly thought-out replacement of a touchtone menu system, it might work a lot better… and, for that matter, may even reduce the need for human operators as I bet it could respond to many inquiries successfully without human intervention.

Adios, Gabo…

Books No Responses »

Apr 172014

If I had to move to a deserted island with only a dozen or so books for the rest of my life, one of them almost certainly would be 100 Years of Solitude, by Nobel prize winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I first read this book in the 1970s and it’s one of those books that I have re-read from cover to cover, once every decade or so, ever since. It is an absolutely remarkable, unique, wonderful story.

Alas, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is no longer with us. Less than an hour ago, a breaking news e-mail from CNN informed me that he passed away after having been hospitalized for a lung and urinary tract infection. He was 87.

I admit the news brought a tear to my eye.

May he rest in peace, perhaps joining the Buendia family in Macondo. Adios, Gabo.

In Memoriam: Karoly Grandpierre

Art, Local Ottawa, Personal No Responses »

Mar 262014

25 or so years ago, a mutual friend introduced me to Karoly (Charles) Grandpierre, a struggling Ottawa artist of Hungarian extraction. “Pierre”, as his friends knew him, finished his studies at the Ottawa School of Arts and was trying to make a living as a painter. The friend who introduced us died the following year in a tragic car accident. Although we didn’t really stay in touch, I never completely lost track of Pierre, as there were other mutual friends who from time to time told us about him. That’s how we learned, for instance, that eventually he moved back to Hungary.

Well, Pierre is no more. I just read that he passed away last week, at age 65, after a prolonged battle with cancer.

Can we just get the straight facts please about MH370?

Aviation, Television No Responses »

Mar 232014

For the past week or so, CNN has been blabbering about the presumed fact that the pilots of the vanished flight, MH370, programmed a new route into the flight computer at some time between 1:07 and 1:19 AM.

This was, even according to one of their own experts, blatant nonsense. Wherever this information came from, it did not jive with the known facts. Namely that the ACARS system in board would not transmit a yet-to-be-executed flight plan to the ground even if they subscribed to the transmission of navigational data (which they didn’t.) And that the ACARS system on board was not scheduled to make another transmission until 1:37 AM, at which time it was no longer functional.

It became kind of obvious from sporadic comments that this “fact” was nothing but speculation, based on the presumed smooth turn the aircraft executed shortly after the last voice transmission; someone must have concluded that such a smooth turn was done by the flight computer, and thus it had to be entered into the flight computer, presumably after the last (1:07 AM) ACARS transmission.

None of this made any sense to me, and today, CNN confirmed my suspicions: Malaysian authorities assert that no air-to-ground transmission indicated a route change.

In response to this, CNN quickly presented the straight facts. Or they tried, anyway:

But… exactly where did they get the idea from that the last transmission showed normal routing all the way to Beijing? According to their own words, what Malaysian authorities said was that the last transmission did not show a preprogrammed turn. From this, you cannot conclude anything as to what it did show, especially given the fact, reported earlier, that the airline’s ACARS subscription did not cover navigational data in the first place.

Exactly what would it take for CNN to present the facts correctly, just once, without adding their own bits of creative fiction?

Update (2014/03/23): It appears that CNN is blameless at this point. The piece of creative fiction (if that’s what it is) apparently comes directly from Malaysia’s transportation ministry. That does not make it more believable, though, in my opinion.

Clown crisis

Culture, Politics No Responses »

Feb 192014

Serious news on CNN: the United States is suffering from a clown crisis. Being a clown is just not cool anymore, and the number of clowns is dwindling. Some areas may soon be altogether without clowns unless these alarming trends get reversed.

CNN did mention that there may be an ample supply of qualified clowns right there in Washington, in the form of the U.S. Congress. In the same vein, when my wife saw the images from some U.S. clown convention, she wondered aloud if these might in fact be pictures from a Tea Party gathering.

Who knows. Or perhaps the clown shortage is simply due to the fact that many of them found a more lucrative profession: manufacturing telescopes with concave lenses.

Fanni Gyarmati

History, Hungary, Poetry No Responses »

Feb 152014

One of the many victims of fascism in Hungary was the poet Miklós Radnóti, murdered in November 1944 while serving in a forced labor battalion.

Radnóti’s wife, Fanni Gyarmati, survived the Holocaust and continued a quiet life in Budapest, in the couple’s old apartment, which bears the name of Dr. Miklós Radnóti on its front door to this day.

Astonishingly, Fanni Gyarmati lived for another 70 years following her husband’s tragic death. She passed away today, at the age of 101.

May she rest in peace. May those who were responsible for her husband’s death never find peace. Nor those who are busy whitewashing Hungary’s history as racism and anti-Semitism are once again on the rise in the country of my birth.

What? No Golden Globe for Tatiana Maslany?

Television No Responses »

Jan 132014

There are few things (OK, well, apart from most sports) that interest me less than Hollywood awards.

Nonetheless, tonight I was rooting for Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany, who pulled off an incredible feat in this remarkable sci-fi series, playing as many as seven (eight, by some count) totally different, fully developed characters.

At least she lost to an actress that I also like and respect, Robin Wright, known as Jenny from Forrest Gump, among other roles.

Still… I am upset.

Reading papers in Elvish (or Dwarvish)

Books, Weather and Climate No Responses »

Jan 082014

I just stumbled across some new research by climatologist Dan Lunt, who applied modern climate models to the geography and topography of Middle Earth. Yes, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, where hobbits, elves, dwarves, dragons, ents, orcs and other creatures live.

Prepared for possible interest by non-human readers, Lunt (writing under the pseudonym Radagast the Brown… or may be he *is* Radagast the Brown?) helpfully provided translations of his paper into Elvish and Dwarvish.

I couldn’t help but notice, though, that the list of references is missing from the translations.

Also, I wonder… does Google Translate know Elvish and Dwarvish?

Great White North

Canada, Media, Weather and Climate No Responses »

Dec 172013

Damn it’s cold this morning. Negative 26 Centigrade. Or 27 if I believe the local news. And it’s not even winter yet!

To be sure, I still prefer to live in the Great White North instead of any of the numerous southerly climates full of crazy people, but sometimes, it’s a bit too much. Like, when you feel like you need to put on a spacesuit just to step outside to grab your newspaper from your doorstep.

Yes, I still subscribe to a newspaper. Or rather, I again subscribe to a paper after canceling my Globe and Mail subscription more than a decade ago. I accepted their offer for a free three-month subscription back in the summer, and I became used to it. More importantly, I realized that there are things I’d never even read or hear about had they not been in the paper. Electronic media is great, but it tends to deliver the news that you actually want to hear. Especially as services like Google News or Facebook employ sophisticated algorithms that try to predict what you’re most likely to read based on your past behavior. So if you wish to step outside of your comfort zone, to have your views challenged, not simply confirmed… well, a newspaper helps.

Besides… as a last resort, you can also use a newspaper to start a fire to keep warm.

Coloring abomination

Books, Politics 2 Responses »

Dec 092013

Imagine a country in which small children are given coloring books figuring a leading politician.

Coloring books that describe the politician in “non-partisan and fact-driven” terms. A lengthy speech becomes a “magnificent feat”, during which the dear leader spoke with “clairvoyant precision”. The goals of political opponents are “worse than any war”.

This coloring book is “approved by teachers and educators”. It is “designed to be a fun, educational tool”. Parents are encouraged to “Tell the truth – Tell it often – Tell the children”.

If you thought I was describing a North Korean coloring book featuring the “Great Successor” King Jong-un or his daddy or granddaddy, think again.

That is because the abomination that I just described was in fact published in the great United States of America. Its title: “Ted Cruz to the Future™ – Comic Coloring Activity Book“, published by Really Big Coloring Books®, Inc.

And it is available at Amazon for the bargain price of $5.69. Or it was, anyway; presently, it is shown as “Temporarily out of stock.”

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