So, I’m publishing my first book. Not a book I wrote, mind you, but a book for which I’m the actual publisher…
We’re throwing a party at Chevalier’s in Los Angeles to celebrate it. Henry James Korn, a brilliant writer—so good that I went to the trouble of publishing it myself rather than just selling it, as I’ve done so often in the past—will be doing a reading and signing on March 2nd. I hope you can all join us!
RSVP via Facebook or directly at <a href=”http://boffosockobooks.com/books/authors/henry-james-korn/amerikan-krazy/#appearances”” target=”_blank”>Boffo Socko Books.
If you have to miss the launch, you may be able to catch one of his other <a href=”http://boffosockobooks.com/books/authors/henry-james-korn/amerikan-krazy/#appearances”” target=”_blank”>upcoming book signings.
Information is a precise concept that can be defined mathematically, but its relationship to what we call "knowledge" is not always made clear. Furthermore, the concepts "entropy" and "information", while deeply related, are distinct and must be used with care, something that is not always achieved in the literature. In this elementary introduction, the concepts of entropy and information are laid out one by one, explained intuitively, but defined rigorously. I argue that a proper understanding of information in terms of prediction is key to a number of disciplines beyond engineering, such as physics and biology.
Comments: 19 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society A
Subjects: Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems (nlin.AO); Information Theory (cs.IT); Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph); Quantitative Methods (q-bio.QM)
Cite as:arXiv:1601.06176 [nlin.AO] (or arXiv:1601.06176v1 [nlin.AO] for this version)
Labels! Labels! It’s working with the Americans that’s given you this obsession with labels and brand names.
Msr. Charles Bonnet, painter, art forger, conman
counter-scolding his daughter who has called him a fraud
in How to Steal a Million (1966)
Then, just a bit later in the film:
We live in a crass commercial world with no faith or trust!
Msr. Charles Bonnet, painter, art forger, conman
ironically speaking to his daughter after forging and selling several major artworks
in How to Steal a Million (1966)
As it was published, I had read Kevin Hartnett’s article and interview with Christoph Adami The Information Theory of Life in Quanta Magazine. I recently revisited it and read through the commentary and stumbled upon an interesting quote relating to the history of information in biology:
Polymath Adami has ‘looked at so many fields of science’ and has correctly indicated the underlying importance of information theory, to which he has made important contributions. However, perhaps because the interview was concerned with the origin of life and was edited and condensed, many readers may get the impression that IT is only a few decades old. However, information ideas in biology can be traced back to at least 19th century sources. In the 1870s Ewald Hering in Prague and Samuel Butler in London laid the foundations. Butler’s work was later taken up by Richard Semon in Munich, whose writings inspired the young Erwin Schrodinger in the early decades of the 20th century. The emergence of his text – “What is Life” – from Dublin in the 1940s, inspired those who gave us DNA structure and the associated information concepts in “the classic period” of molecular biology. For more please see: Forsdyke, D. R. (2015) History of Psychiatry 26 (3), 270-287.
For those interested in reading more on this historical tidbit, I’ve dug up a copy of the primary Forsdyke reference which first appeared on arXiv (prior to its ultimate publication in History of Psychiatry [.pdf]):
Abstract: Today’s ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) concept is rooted in the distinction of nineteenth century philosopher William Clifford between ‘objects’ that can be directly perceived, and ‘ejects,’ such as the mind of another person, which are inferred from one’s subjective knowledge of one’s own mind. A founder, with Charles Darwin, of the discipline of comparative psychology, George Romanes considered the minds of animals as ejects, an idea that could be generalized to ‘society as eject’ and, ultimately, ‘the world as an eject’ – mind in the universe. Yet, Romanes and Clifford only vaguely connected mind with the abstraction we call ‘information,’ which needs ‘a vehicle of symbols’ – a material transporting medium. However, Samuel Butler was able to address, in informational terms depleted of theological trappings, both organic evolution and mind in the universe. This view harmonizes with insights arising from modern DNA research, the relative immortality of ‘selfish’ genes, and some startling recent developments in brain research.
Comments: Accepted for publication in History of Psychiatry. 31 pages including 3 footnotes. Based on a lecture given at Santa Clara University, February 28th 2014, at a Bannan Institute Symposium on ‘Science and Seeking: Rethinking the God Question in the Lab, Cosmos, and Classroom.’
The original arXiv article also referenced two lectures which are appended below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3yNbTUCPd4
[Original Draft of this was written on December 14, 2015.]
References
[1]
D. Forsdyke R., “‘A vehicle of symbols and nothing more’. George Romanes, theory of mind, information, and Samuel Butler,” History of Psychiatry, vol. 26, no. 3, Aug. 2015 [Online]. Available: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0957154X14562755
Over the past several months, I’ve been helping to set up an affinity group for the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association to bring together alumni who work in areas related to the entertainment industry.
For the past several weeks, we’ve been making plans for our first official event to be held in conjunction with a week long Intersession course being offered by the Film and Media Studies Program at Hopkins. We’re happy to announce the details for this event on January 7th and hope everyone can join us. There will be a panel discussion as well as ample time to chat with a variety of fellow alumni, current students, and faculty.
Are you a member of the Arts, Entertainment, Media, or Entrepreneurship communities in Los Angeles?
Join us as we welcome Linda DeLibero, Director of the Hopkins Film and Media Studies Program, and current Film majors from the Film and Media Studies Intersession Course for a diverse and dynamic panel discussion featuring creative and successful Hopkins alumni working in the industry. Learn relevant information, make connections with fellow LA area alumni and talk with the current students.
A number of students from Hopkins will be in attendance at the event as part of an Intersession course being offered by the department. The listing for the course follows:
This week-long course in Los Angeles gives students inside access to the entertainment industry through daily meetings and workshops with key figures in film, television, new media, and music, many of them JHU alums: directors, producers, screenwriters, studio executives, agents, exhibitors and more. We will visit studios, major agencies and production companies, and will end the week with a JHU networking event and panel discussion with alumni who work in film and television.The course runs from January 4 -8. Open to all Film and Media Studies majors and minors, with preference given to seniors. Students outside FMS may apply if slots remain open after all FMS students have registered.
The event was a wonderful success. I wanted to share a few of the photos I took during the panel discussion:
Students, alumni, and faculty look on at the Johns Hopkins Arts, Entertainment, Media, and Entrepreneurship Panel Discussion
Johns Hopkins Arts, Entertainment, Media, and Entrepreneurship Panel Discussion featuring Dalia Ganz, Mark Swift, Jason Sommerville, and Sunny Boling.
Here’s just a few of the many alumni who came out to the LA meetup at Omelet! It was a pleasure to see so many graduates interested in helping the current students and young alumni break into the film industry. — with Amelia Voos, Lydia Youngman, Dael Norwitz, Cole Spivak, Juliana Veracka, Taylor Veracka, Errol Koenig, Elena Thompson, Chris Aldrich, Howie Mandel, Evelyn Jerome Alexander, Josh Siegel, Don Kurz, Grant Lease, Linda DeLibero, Kathryn Alsman, Mark Swift, Brian J. McConnell, Will Mason, Josh Raphaelson, Caitlin Duffy and Jess Ambrosetti at Omelet.
How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics by Eugenia Cheng
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
While most of the book is material I’ve known for a long time, it’s very well structured and presented in a clean and clear manner. Though a small portion is about category theory and gives some of the “flavor” of the subject, the majority is about how abstract mathematics works in general.
I’d recommend this to anyone who wants to have a clear picture of what mathematics really is or how it should be properly thought about and practiced (hint: it’s not the pablum you memorized in high school or even in calculus or linear algebra). Many books talk about the beauty of math, while this one actually makes steps towards actually showing the reader how to appreciate that beauty.
Like many popular books about math, this one actually has very little that goes beyond the 5th grade level, but in examples that are very helpfully illuminating given their elementary nature. The extended food metaphors and recipes throughout the book fit in wonderfully with the abstract nature of math – perhaps this is why I love cooking so much myself.
I wish I’d read this book in high school to have a better picture of the forest of mathematics.
Christoph Adami
