William Paley’s Watchmaker and Evolution

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The watchmaker analogy as it is known, made by William Paley states that a complex design, such as an eye, implies a designer…. For whatever reason, this thought popped into my head one day while in the shower*. The role of ‘feature level’ in discussing how a machine is naturally selected and evolves is critical. … Read more

Zuckerberg Speaks at SF Disrupt 2012

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Some Photos of Disrupt 2012, SF – where Zuckerberg made an appearance to speak. It was interesting, I learned a lot, most notably about the media news cycle but also (i think) about some of the in-the-room vibe of one M. Zuckerberg. Here is a person who could of cashed out many years ago. Empirically, … Read more

Ravel’s Pavane – (Lead Sheet) arr. Alwin

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Dear World, Here is a version of Ravel’s Tune in lead sheet format. Useful for improvisation. Wasn’t able to find one and just ended up writing it out. Jpeg Version http://www.alwinian.net/sheetmusic/Ravel_Pavane_(Lead_Sheet)_arr.alwin.jpg PDF Version http://www.alwinian.net/sheetmusic/Ravel_Pavane_(Lead_Sheet)_arr.alwin.pdf No restrictions on use. Can be copied + modified, rearranged, deranged freely. Enjoy! A    

America’s Founding Fathers and Silicon Valley

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Don’t have this figured out.. but what is the relationship between america’s first founders and silicon valley, when it comes to self-governance. There seems to be one, but it is across so many different ‘dimensions’ that its tough to describe. Successful self-governance between many parties is almost landing a bowling ball on a pin. The … Read more

Mac Anti-trust Safari?

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Macs OS, iphone, ipad etc all come with Safari pre-installed and bundled. Question: how is this different than what Microsoft did bundling IE with Windows, that lead to an anti-trust suit? Same situation no?

Perestroika Band – Plays this Sunday

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Hi All, my jazz group (think Miles in Moscow) – Perestroika will perform this Sunday at the Path Cafe. Details below. If you are able to join, please Do. – A

Spray on Shakira

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Don’t usually post these things, as Joni Mitchell put it ‘being part of the star-making machinery’. I had a chance to sit in on Shakira filming a video. It was a fun.

La vie des Autres..

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…If you had a parent living in a house, who locked their children up in the basement, provided no school, no health, no care, no nursing, allowing a dank basement as the only place to be, living in derelict conditions. Almost all of society would condemn this as unfit parenting and yet it is what … Read more

One of my heroes – John Kenneth Galbraith

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Obscure in almost all circles, yet he was one of the most popular influential economists of his day. John Kenneth Galbraith, the Canadian-born American economist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith

The Adele Experience

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About 2 1/2 years ago, Adele came by work.. Work was VEVO and she sat down to play through her new album. My first impressions of the girl was that she was stout with an extreme cockney accent. She sat down to play some tracks of her new unreleased album. This was ’21’, which became … Read more

Early 20th Century Innovators

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We are just entering a time period, whereby people’s lives, songs, videos photos, documents (classified or declassified) are entering into the public record. History is much more real, when you can see and hear in film what things were like. Recently I’ve been immersed daily in both reading and watching of early 20th century american … Read more

Kelly Growth Criterion – WSS

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An old article written for Wall Street Survivor reposted here. J.L. Kelly Jr. was a very interesting member of the famed Bell Labs. There is a new book published this year, 2012 about Bell Labs incidentally called: The Idea Factory, by John Gertner. Peguin 2012 | http://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-American-Innovation/dp/1594203288 Enjoy! By Alwin Tong, for Wall Street Survivor … Read more

Captcha Hack with Voice to Text

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I’ve been using Siri and Text Recognition Programs such as Dragon Dictation. Great Programs. Today, i dictated the telephone number and text message with my phone. 100 other programs exist as stand alone applications. Does this technology make captcha irrelevant now (at least with the listen features). a. hook up voice recognition to any audio … Read more

Van Gogh’s Variations

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For anyone that knows me, they know that I am a huge van gogh fan. I learned something about van gogh today which was very moving. His variations seem never to be shown together, ever, one beside the other. Just like all his series: the sunflowers, potato eaters, violets, fields, shoes, etc. all seem to … Read more

Law of Usability

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If any technology is to be used by the general population. It can’t be more complex than an ATM.

Picnic Rhythm Poem

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Poem by yours truly – appears as part of Helena Zhang’s A Similar But Different Quality collection of poems. PICNIC RHYTHM public class picnic_rhythm extends c#rhythm { static void Main(string[] args) { danger danger danger danger cup! danger cup! danger danger danger cup! danger cup! danger (>) danger (>) danger (>) danger (>) cup (mf) … Read more

Art and Sport: The Transcendental Problem Solving State

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Quick Thought. Art and Sport. (wondering this while watching Australian Open) The fascination people have with both art and sport, at a higher level may be really the same thing (for instance how in physics, light and radio waves, or the weak and the strong nuclear force unite etc etc). It can be said, they … Read more