For the past few weeks, I've been trying Freemind and Evernote. Freemind is a mind-mapping program useful for taking notes and brainstorming. I've also been using this to handle a to-do list using the 4 quadrant approach (Sort tasks by importance AND due date) + 5 minute rule (if it takes less than 5 minutes, do it now) although it's not specifically meant for that purpose. I'm trying out Remember The Milk to see if it works better (A possible review later on).
Evernote is a notetaking application. It comes with a handy visual recognition system and automatic online-backup of the notes. I did find it annoying that I had to register (free!) to user the program. It has a wide variety of features and it's certainly better than my notepad approach to taking notes!
I do certainly wish that the good features of both of these programs could be combined into something better. I've been taking notes on this idea in evernote and brainstorming about it in freemind, so you might see a possible program (Definetly free and most likely under an open source license) for this task comming out in the near future.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Why
As of right now there are 1,010,000,000 search results for Why on google. Maybey there's hope for humanity after all...
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Perception
The solution to any problem, the answer to any question, the meaning of life, universe and everything depends solely on our perception.
1+1=?
11 to a writer
2 to a mathematician
10 to a programmer
0 to a scientist
1 to a lover
pointless to a philosopher
profit to a businessman
symbols to a baby
3-1 to a teacher
the root of the whole problem to a politician
Frisbee time to a dog
waste of time, electricity, graphite, paper and human innovation to an environmentalist
whatever you say it means to the ignorant
2-14-2009
1+1=?
11 to a writer
2 to a mathematician
10 to a programmer
0 to a scientist
1 to a lover
pointless to a philosopher
profit to a businessman
symbols to a baby
3-1 to a teacher
the root of the whole problem to a politician
Frisbee time to a dog
waste of time, electricity, graphite, paper and human innovation to an environmentalist
whatever you say it means to the ignorant
2-14-2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
Controlling Chaos
The Butterfly effect, one aspect of Chaos Theory, says "a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect)
The effect of small details on the resulting answer causes a huge problem of uncertanity and a huge margin of error that limit the prediction capabilities of anys simulation to just a few iterations. Take for example, the equation n = n^2 with a starting n value of 2
2, 4,16,256,65536,4294967296...
If the starting value was to n = 1.99, the sequence would be like...
1.99, 3.9601, 15.68239201, 245.9374192, 60485.21414, 3658461130....
See how that small change resulted in a very large difference??
Suppose that this calculation was conducted as an experiment. We knew the initial value to be something close to 2. After a few "turns" the value was measured to be 60485. I picked a number a bit far from the initial turn so that the change was measurable. Using these 3 pieces of information, 60485, n = n^2, turn = 5, we can find the initial value by simply changing the equation to n = squareroot(n). Using this, we get the sequence
60485, 245.9369838, 15.68237813, 3.960098247, 1.98999956
Ofcourse, there is the problem of loosing data while backtrackign (more chaos....). I'd suggest finding the midpoint between the measured initial value and the calculated initial value to find a better estimation of the initial value.
(2+1.98999956)/2 = 1.99499978.
If we were to use this newly computed value as the starting point, the sequence would look like:
1.99499978, 3.980024122, 15.84059201, 250.9243552, 62963.03202, 3964343401....
Looking back at all three of the sequences and the benefit of this method:
Actual Values: 1.99, 3.9601, 15.68239201, 245.9374192, 60485.21414, 3658461130
Rounded Values: 2, 4, 16, 256, 65536, 4294967296
Re-Adjusted Calculations: 1.99499978, 3.980024122, 15.84059201, 250.9243552, 62963.03202, 3964343401
The difference: (Calculated - Actual value)
Rounded Value: 4294967296 - 3658461130 = 636506166
Re-Adjusted Calculations: 3964343401 - 3658461130= 305882271
The result that readjusted and recalculated for the initial value was 2X as close to the actual value as the one that didn't. Continually readjusting the initial value and re-calculating will, yes, be very process intensive for large sequences. It'd actually make more sense to simply re-start the calculation with the current point in time as the initial value, but tracking back like this will allow you to adjust the measurements to account for the measurement error. In the above example, it was possible to calculate that the difference was +/- 0.01 by subtracting 1.99499978 from 2. This error can then be plugged into the calculations to adjust for the measurement error.
The effect of small details on the resulting answer causes a huge problem of uncertanity and a huge margin of error that limit the prediction capabilities of anys simulation to just a few iterations. Take for example, the equation n = n^2 with a starting n value of 2
2, 4,16,256,65536,4294967296...
If the starting value was to n = 1.99, the sequence would be like...
1.99, 3.9601, 15.68239201, 245.9374192, 60485.21414, 3658461130....
See how that small change resulted in a very large difference??
Suppose that this calculation was conducted as an experiment. We knew the initial value to be something close to 2. After a few "turns" the value was measured to be 60485. I picked a number a bit far from the initial turn so that the change was measurable. Using these 3 pieces of information, 60485, n = n^2, turn = 5, we can find the initial value by simply changing the equation to n = squareroot(n). Using this, we get the sequence
60485, 245.9369838, 15.68237813, 3.960098247, 1.98999956
Ofcourse, there is the problem of loosing data while backtrackign (more chaos....). I'd suggest finding the midpoint between the measured initial value and the calculated initial value to find a better estimation of the initial value.
(2+1.98999956)/2 = 1.99499978.
If we were to use this newly computed value as the starting point, the sequence would look like:
1.99499978, 3.980024122, 15.84059201, 250.9243552, 62963.03202, 3964343401....
Looking back at all three of the sequences and the benefit of this method:
Actual Values: 1.99, 3.9601, 15.68239201, 245.9374192, 60485.21414, 3658461130
Rounded Values: 2, 4, 16, 256, 65536, 4294967296
Re-Adjusted Calculations: 1.99499978, 3.980024122, 15.84059201, 250.9243552, 62963.03202, 3964343401
The difference: (Calculated - Actual value)
Rounded Value: 4294967296 - 3658461130 = 636506166
Re-Adjusted Calculations: 3964343401 - 3658461130= 305882271
The result that readjusted and recalculated for the initial value was 2X as close to the actual value as the one that didn't. Continually readjusting the initial value and re-calculating will, yes, be very process intensive for large sequences. It'd actually make more sense to simply re-start the calculation with the current point in time as the initial value, but tracking back like this will allow you to adjust the measurements to account for the measurement error. In the above example, it was possible to calculate that the difference was +/- 0.01 by subtracting 1.99499978 from 2. This error can then be plugged into the calculations to adjust for the measurement error.
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