📺 Watched PBS NewsHour full episode Dec. 1, 2016

Watched PBS NewsHour full episode Dec. 1, 2016 from PBS NewsHour
Thursday on the NewsHour, President-elect Trump travels to Indiana in celebration of a jobs deal with Carrier. Also, recovery efforts mount as the Tennessee wildfires wane, the future of American manufacturing jobs, volunteer medics struggle to save lives in Mosul, advances in the battle against AIDS, how failing infrastructure is limiting U.S. productivity, a new book on Iran and the war on weed.
The segment on crumbling infrastructure was very interesting and I’ll have to get a copy of American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson (Simon & Schuster, March 29, 2016)

The short snippet on the history of cannabis was also relatively interesting, particularly the discussion of how it’s perception was changed by the government.

📺 Watched S2 E1-6 of The Closer with Keith Olbermann

Watched The Closer with Keith Olbermann from GQ Videos
The Closer with Keith Olbermann - One of the most provocative voices in American politics is back! As GQ's Special Correspondent, Keith Olbermann turns his eye to the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election in “The Closer,” a series of political commentary and special interviews that's unlike anything else on the internet or on television.
This series is awesome! It’s almost as if Will McAvoy from the HBO series The News Room has come to life with even more vim and vigor! I see it as a far more serious version of The Daily Show with facts and reasoning that keep it relatively close to news while still working in the realm of punditry. I want to call it entertainment or even satire, but sadly the underlying facts are all too true.

In particular, it’s hilarious to see him subtly referencing Trump as “Donald John Trump”, a verbal trope that’s often used in the news to directly identify serial and other murderers, social deviants, and psychopathic sociopaths: John Wayne Gacy, Jared Lee Loughner, Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, John Wilkes Booth, Paul John Knowles, Mark David Chapman, and Gary Leon Ridgway.

I also find it fascinating that there’s now finally someone who can rail against the right as well as any of the loud pundits on the right who’ve been lambasting the left for the past 20 years.

🎞 Watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros., 2007)

Watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) from imdb.com
Directed by David Yates. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Brendan Gleeson. With their warning about Lord Voldemort's return scoffed at, Harry and Dumbledore are targeted by the Wizard authorities as an authoritarian bureaucrat slowly seizes power at Hogwarts.

🎞 Watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros., 2005)

Watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) from imdb.com
Directed by Mike Newell. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Eric Sykes. Harry finds himself mysteriously selected as an under-aged competitor in a dangerous tournament between three schools of magic.

Reading Katumuwa

Watched Reading Katumuwa from YouTube
Video published on Apr 18, 2014.

This video by Travis Saul features a digital rendering of the Stele of Katumuwa. The ancient stele was discovered by University of Chicago archaeologists at Zincirli, Turkey in 2008. The inscription on the stele, written in a local dialect of Aramaic, is dated to around 735 BC. In word and image, Katumuwa asks his descendants to remember and honor him in his mortuary chapel at an annual sacrificial feast for his soul, which inhabited not his bodily remains, but the stone itself.

This reading of the Aramaic inscription and its English translation is kindly provided by Dennis Pardee, Henry Crown Professor of Hebrew Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. For more detailed information about the inscription, read his chapter featured in this Oriental Institute Museum Publication:

Pardee, Dennis. “The Katumuwa Inscription” in, In Remembrance of Me: Feasting with the Dead in the Ancient Middle East, edited by V.R. Hermann and J.D. Schloen, pp.45-48. Oriental Institute Museum Publication 37. 2014. Chicago: The Oriental Institute.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/oimp/oimp37.html

The reading is also featured in the video “Remembering Katumuwa” featured in the Special Exhibit “In Remembrance of Me: Feasting with the Dead in the Ancient Middle East” at the Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago, April 8 2014–January 4 2015.
https://oi.uchicago.edu/museum/special/remembrance/

In Remembrance of Me: Feasting with the Dead in the Ancient Middle East.

Virginia Rimmer Herrmann and J. David Schloen, eds., In Remembrance of Me: Feasting with the Dead in the Ancient Middle East. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2014.
Download the free e-book: http://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/oimp37.pdf

Remembering Katumuwa

Additional context for the stele

h/t to my friend Dave Harris for sending this along to me.

🎞 My review of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (United Artists, 1974)

Watched The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (United Artists, 1974) from imdb.com
Directed by Joseph Sargent. With Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo. In New York, armed men hijack a subway car and demand a ransom for the passengers. Even if it's paid, how could they get away?
A great classic film starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo, and Jerry Stiller. The plot and story (as well as some great 70’s cinematography) holds up incredibly well and far better than most of its contemporaries. The score of the film does have the definite tone of the 70’s, but isn’t so overbearingly stereotypical as movies which came later in the decade.

While headed by Walter Matthau, this film is far more serious in tone and there are few, if any, bits of humor stemming from his Lt. Garber character (or they just don’t play as well now). The final freeze frame of Matthau’s which closes the film (in an early American studio feature nod to the French New Wave) does have a fantastic feel of sardonic comedy though. Matthau’s function in the film reminded me more of his turn in Charade (1963) than his extensive body of comedic work.

Robert Shaw in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (United Artists, 1974)
Robert Shaw in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (United Artists, 1974)

The film does fit well into the crime/drama/thriller progression of the modern blockbuster which includes its classic predecessors: Bonnie and Clyde (Warner Bros., 1967), Bullitt (Warner Bros., 1968), The Italian Job (Paramount, 1969), The French Connection (20th Century Fox, 1971), Shaft (MGM, 1971), Dirty Harry (Warner Bros., 1971), and Magnum Force (Warner Bros., 1973).

The movie is set in a time period after the prison riot at Attica which is mentioned in passing by the mayor’s staff, but before the film Dog Day Afternoon (Warner Bros., 1975). It’s also obviously set in a time period when people expect airplane hijacks, but think it’s laughable that anyone would consider a subway hijack. (This likely played into the high-concept idea of the studio consider making it originally). However, none of the train passengers takes the hijacking very seriously or seems very scared by the four rough looking characters carrying high powered and automatic weapons. This may be because the terrorism of the late 70’s, early 80’s, or even early 2000s had not yet happened; it was also set prior to John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday (Paramount, 1979). I find it interesting that the hijackers in the piece actually verbally explain the capacity and killing power of their weapons as if none of the everyday people on the train would understand their automatic capabilities. (This assuredly wouldn’t happen in a modern-day version.) I have to imagine that more modern actor portrayals would have been much more fearful early on. Here no one seems very upset until Mr. Blue shoots the subway car driver in the back. Until then they just seem like they’re a bit “put out”. As an aside, the perpetrators’ going by the names Blue, Green, Grey, and Brown was most assuredly the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s use of similar names for the characters in Resevoir Dogs (Miramax, 1992) which also included the quote “let’s do it by the books”.

pelham-123-subway The film includes a fantastic (though possibly stereotypical) portrayal of 70’s culture through the characters of multiple ethnicities and cultural types. These are borne out in the credit sequence with character “names” which actually include: The Maid, The Mother, The Homosexual, The Secretary, The Delivery Boy, The Salesman, The Hooker, The Old Man, The Older Son, The Spanish Woman, The Alcoholic, The Pimp, Coed , The Younger Son, Coed , The Hippie, and The W.A.S.P. One of my favorite stereotypes (which the film may have first immortalized) was the hippie woman calmly chanting “Om” and then later “Om stop” on the runaway subway hoping it wouldn’t crash.

As an indicator of racial change, there’s an odd exchange (that may have been funny at the time), but to a more modern viewer is now just awkward:

Lt. Garber: [looking for the inspector] Inspector Daniels?
Inspector Daniels: [identifying himself] Daniels.
Lt. Garber: [realizing DCI Daniels is African-American] Oh, I, uh, thought you were, uh, like a shorter guy or – I don’t know what I thought.

There’s also a nice indicator of the growth of stature in women in society as the lead character posits (several times) that a plain clothes police officer might in fact be a woman, a fact that one of Garber’s colleagues failed to contemplate. This is offset by a zany statement by an old, gruff (and somewhat marginalized) subway supervisor (following a prior litany of profanity, by almost everyone in the room):

Caz Dolowicz, subway supervisor played by Tom Pedi
in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (United Artists, 1974)

 

I’ll have to go back and rewatch the remake again to further compare the portrayal of the two time periods. I will note that the mayor’s deputy comes in at one point in this incarnation and says to him, “Pull your pants up Al, we’re going downtown.” I can’t help but sadly imagine that in a remake, the mayor wouldn’t be laying sick in bed getting a shot in the ass, but would more likely be sitting behind his desk with a woman in a compromising position to get the cheap laugh.

The film also includes some great, but short character actor turns by Tony Roberts as the Mayor’s assistant, Doris Roberts (almost unrecognizable to modern day Everybody Loves Raymond fans) as the mayor’s wife, Kenneth McMillan, and a middle-aged Joe Seneca.

I also noticed an obscure, early production office coordinator credit for Barbara DaFina, better known as Barbara De Fina, much later a well-known and prolific producer and production manager, known for Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995) and Hugo (2011). She was married to Martin Scorsese from 1985 – 1991, though she had a nice body of work even prior to that.

Another quote that I can’t help but mention not only for its sheer joy but because it’s also one of the first lines of spoken dialogue of the film:

The Pimp played by George Lee Miles, referring to his clothing, confidence, and swagger on the dark, dank subway platform
in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (United Artists, 1974)

 

In the pantheon of first lines of poetry, this captures the tone of its time incredibly well.

Hector Zenil

I’ve run across some of his work before, but I ran into some new material by Hector Zenil that will likely interest those following information theory, complexity, and computer science here. I hadn’t previously noticed that he refers to himself on his website as an “information theoretic biologist” — everyone should have that as a title, shouldn’t they? As a result, I’ve also added him to the growing list of ITBio Researchers.

If you’re not following him everywhere (?) yet, start with some of the sites below (or let me know if I’ve missed anything).

Hector Zenil:

His most recent paper on arXiv:
Low Algorithmic Complexity Entropy-deceiving Graphs | .pdf

A common practice in the estimation of the complexity of objects, in particular of graphs, is to rely on graph- and information-theoretic measures. Here, using integer sequences with properties such as Borel normality, we explain how these measures are not independent of the way in which a single object, such a graph, can be described. From descriptions that can reconstruct the same graph and are therefore essentially translations of the same description, we will see that not only is it necessary to pre-select a feature of interest where there is one when applying a computable measure such as Shannon Entropy, and to make an arbitrary selection where there is not, but that more general properties, such as the causal likeliness of a graph as a measure (opposed to randomness), can be largely misrepresented by computable measures such as Entropy and Entropy rate. We introduce recursive and non-recursive (uncomputable) graphs and graph constructions based on integer sequences, whose different lossless descriptions have disparate Entropy values, thereby enabling the study and exploration of a measure’s range of applications and demonstrating the weaknesses of computable measures of complexity.

Subjects: Information Theory (cs.IT); Computational Complexity (cs.CC); Combinatorics (math.CO)
Cite as: arXiv:1608.05972 [cs.IT] (or arXiv:1608.05972v4 [cs.IT]

YouTube

Yesterday he also posted two new introductory videos to his YouTube channel. There’s nothing overly technical here, but they’re nice short productions that introduce some of his work. (I wish more scientists did communication like this.) I’m hoping he’ll post them to his blog and write a bit more there in the future as well.

Universal Measures of Complexity

Relevant literature:

Reprogrammable World

Relevant literature:

Cross-boundary Behavioural Reprogrammability Reveals Evidence of Pervasive Turing Universality by Jürgen Riedel, Hector Zenil
Preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.01671

Ed.: 9/7/16: Updated videos with links to relevant literature

Mike Morell interview by Charlie Rose on World Politics relating to the Presidential Election 2016

Watched Mike Morell interview on Charlie Rose by Charlie Rose from Charlie Rose
Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, on Donald Trump and his recent op-ed endorsing Hillary Clinton.
First let’s start with the fact that I’m a big Mike Morell fan! If you want to know about world politics and know more about not only the big picture but the minutiae, and learn it from someone who can not only lay out an argument succinctly but with great depth, there is no better tutor than Morell. A former deputy director and a former acting director of the CIA, Mike Morell is about as good as it gets in understanding foreign policy. Morell is great at laying out simple facts and figures relating to incredibly complex and nuanced events and exploring a range of potential options, and then, only if asked, will provide any personal opinion on a subject. I love the fact that he appears frequently on Charlie Rose which is about as good as it gets in the interview game. Listening to their discussions will make you a better citizen, not only of America, but of the world.

Last week I was floored that Morell, a lifelong non-partisan due in great part to his decades long government service, broke ranks to endorse Hillary Clinton in an influential op-ed piece in the New York Times. I suspect (completely a gut reaction on my part) that despite not having registered with a political party, Morell leans more to the right and would generally vote Republican. Despite this, he laid out a scathing argument why Donald Trump should not be the next president. He was my foreign policy hero to begin with, but now I’ve got to build the pedestal even higher. I’m glad that despite the sacrifices he had to make to present such an argument, that he stood up firmly for what he believes is right for the country.

If you haven’t read his piece from Friday, I highly recommend it. If you prefer a video version with more discussion and elaboration, then last night’s Charlie Rose was fantastic.

Even better, if you want a scintillating and engaging primer on world politics, jump back into Rose’s extensive archives and watch all of Charlie Rose’s past interviews with Morell.

Andrew Solomon Interview on Charlie Rose

Watched Andrew Solomon interview by Charlie Rose by Charlie RoseCharlie Rose from Charlie Rose.com
Author Andrew Solomon introduces his new book, "Far and Away."
A great interview with Andrew Solomon relating to his new book Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change, travel, and the world in which we live. Though it’s not discussed directly, there’s a feel of Big History philosophy in the discussion.

Christoph Adami: Finding Life We Can’t Imagine | TEDx

Watched Finding life we can't imagine by Christoph Adami from ted.com
How do we search for alien life if it's nothing like the life that we know? Christoph Adami shows how he uses his research into artificial life -- self-replicating computer programs -- to find a signature, a "biomarker," that is free of our preconceptions of what life is.
Adami’s work is along similar lines to some of my own research. This short video gives an intriguing look into some of the basics of how to define life so that one can recognize it when one sees it.

Bob Frankston on Communications

Watched Triangulation 4: Bob Frankston by Leo Laporte and Tom Merritt from TWiT Network
Computer pioneer who helped create the first spreadsheet, Bob Frankston, is this week's guest.
On a recent episode of Leo Laporte and Tom Merrit’s show Triangulation, they interviewed Bob Frankston of VisiCalc fame. They gave a great discussion of the current state of broadband in the U.S. and how it might be much better.  They get just a bit technical in places, but it’s a fantastic and very accessible discussion of the topic of communications that every American should be aware of.

Matt Ridley’s Thesis: When Ideas Have Sex

Watched When ideas have sex by Matt Ridley from ted.com
At TEDGlobal 2010, author Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It's not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.
When extrapolated a bit, this thesis is one of the best arguments for why Twitter and other methods of social media are so useful.  There really is a great idea at the core of this presentation.
Watched Stephen Hawking: The Origins of the Universe from California Institute of Technology

In a talk aimed at the general public, Professor Hawking discusses theories on the origin of the universe. He explains how time can have a beginning, and addresses the progress made by cosmologists in an area which has traditionally belonged to theologists and philosophers.

Stephen Hawking holds the prestigious Lucasian chair at Cambridge University, once held by Sir Isaac Newton. He is one of the early developers of the theory of black holes and author of the international best-selling book A Brief History of Time.

PLEASE NOTE: This event is free, but tickets will be required. General admission tickets will be distributed on the morning of the lecture only. Please carefully review the complete ticketing procedures, available in a PDF file here.

Tuesday, April 4, 2006
8:00pm to 10:00pm
Beckman Auditorium

Arrived around 7:15 to get in line and ended up with a nice seat about 10 rows back from the stage. He was entertaining and even a tad inspirational, but it was definitely a “public” lecture and disappointingly had absolutely no technical content in the least.