Thursday, May 12, 2005
a look at the distribution of posts by category
i was thinking about the balance of post types here in terms of the categories that i've assigned them to:
post category distribution
- there's more “dear diary” than i thought, which is ok; that's one of tha main purposes of journal-blogs, which this is.
- i think there's way too much “politics”, but it overlaps a number of other things, so maybe it's ok, just need to tone it down a bit ;-)
- i thought there was more “travels”, but then i'm thinking of the length of posts too.
- hmm, that would be another measure: not just count, but length of content as well. i think i'll do that one next.
- i could also consider the number of hits per item as another weighting item. content-size vs. category vs. hits. i think i know how that would work out ;-) but the hit information has various inaccuracies.
categories over time [# posts]
- trend-wise, i can see the “politics” lump around november, so maybe i'm ok there after all. but what was going on in february ?
- along with “politics” there was a lot of “humor“. figures.
- the “dear diary” stuff is on a swing upward. hmm.
- the rest is somewhat consistent, with reasonable ebbs and flows.
- of course, there's even more options in analyzing the data here than with the aggregate pie above, in addition to the weightings already mentioned. i kinda like the idea of “percent of running total to date”. that's the chart that the pie above would be a snapshot of. then again, that doesn't provide the information on rates of change that i'm after. see what i mean about options ?
i assign things to categories not merely because of overt content, but also because of my awareness of the connotations implicit in the various categories in terms of relative emotional content, subjectivity/objectivity (rant quotient), speculative vs. factual basis, audience differences, and so on. so, for example, something in “flags” or “politics” expresses my awareness of potential controversy, and that i've tried to consider such things while composing my thoughts. that seems to be a subtlety that is missed sometimes. i'm not expressing this very well here; probably worth a post or more of its own.
non-smoking as a condition for employment, and the opening of similar cans of worms
the walls are closing in:
USA Today |
Trend: You smoke? You're fired!
USA Today - 13 hours ago
... Those who smoke may be suspended or fired. About 20 employees have quit smoking under the policy, and a handful were fired after they opted out of the testing. ...
|
need i describe concerns about a “nanny state” ? the extension of such concerns into any area of our lives (skipped a workout? you're fired!) ? the problem with coporate extra-governmental fiefdoms (proxy govenrnments bypassing civil rights) ? the importance of risk pooling in fighting anti-selection ? and don't think this is separate from all the “national security” issues, and “public” bans of various sorts, and .... .
quit “protecting” me, dammit !
a rover gets stuck; arguments for alternatives to solitary missions.
ongoing dilemma, still hitting the news today:
Mars rover Opportunity has wheel trouble
New Scientist (subscription), UK - Apr 19, 2005
The Mars rover Opportunity has lost the ability to steer one of its ... The rover has six wheels aligned in two rows and ... which can still roll but is now stuck at a ...
surely, related incidents.
ok, some of the wags are joking about calling aaa, etc. but you know, that's a good point: every other risky undertaking is performed with buddies or teams, with good reason. so why are we sending out solitary missions ? for less than double the cost (the overhead of launch is shared, unless you make that redundant as well), you can more than double your probability of success.
the spirit / opportunity pair is a sort-of redundancy, being completely independent missions. but that misses the point of buddies / teams: assistance. that modifies the probabilities in a nonlinear way, improving each individual success due to interdependencies. there are also shared dangers as well, so to gain the best of both worlds, you need two or more independent teams of two or more interdependent members. three is usually seen as a good number for this, for all kinds of reasons.
nine rovers (three teams of three) ? well, say 'opportunity' was a team - a distributed robot, if you will (duh, no kidding - the “swarm” concept that's needed for so much). one member gets stuck. not a problem - options: abandon it, relying on the remaining members to continue; rescue it using various methods (hey, mountaineers rope off - why not use retractable umbilicals ?); self-rescue (multi-modal movement - no built in jack ? grapple and winch ? hop, stretch, body roll, spin, anything in addition to “roll” ?). a trio of roped robots (physical connection; may as well include power and data channels as well, wired and wreless) can use some interesting techniques for rescue.
yeah, expense. to leverage the overhead of teams even more (we've already leveraged the launch overhead), missions could be much more ambitious in terms of goals and duration, etc. and it would be worth it, because the net return vs. risk is so much better than the simple linear model we are using now. but that assumes we can cross the “pain” threshhold of the up-front investment for such things. alas, we are not there yet. false economies, eh ? and skewed values.
opportunity is knocking. but no one is there to listen.
update (2005.06.08): A Mars Rover’s Great Escape