Playing Hookie Online

Playing Hookie Online

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Mike Piccolo’s 8 year old niece managed to play virtual hookie for 3 weeks. What started as an apparent glitch turned out to be a clever bit of deception by the niece.

The trick? She discovered that the more times you enter the incorrect password on Zoom, the longer your account is locked. Also, the message when your account is locked is the same as if you enter a wrong password.

No word on the punishment, but she seems to have a future in data security.

My sister has three kids, all are currently in Zoom classes. Mysteriously one day, my niece’s zoom stopped working. She went and told my sister who tried for over an hour to get her logged back in but could not. She figured it was a weird glitch.

Day 5: Issue continues. After hours on the phone with Zoom tech support the techs are completely stumped. They say that the account was locked at some point but my sister knows there has been hundreds of login attempts from multiple locations so that makes sense. (or does it?)

Day 6: Again, same issue with Zoom. The teacher recreates the whole zoom classroom from scratch. All thirty students have to update their calendar invites, re-login, etc. “This has to work, right??” Nope.

Day 7: Multiple calls to the principle finally gets the schools computer teacher to come out to the house to try and debug the issue on site. No luck.

The rest of week 2: My sister has essentially given up on Zoom class for her and is now having to fully homeschool her. “At least I get to help you around the house” my niece says innocently. What a sweetheart.

Week 3: Now my sister is not even trying to have her attend school and is doing one on one homeschool. The rest of the time, my niece is helping out her siblings with their school (or playing if my sister is too busy to make sure she isn’t)

Yesterday: My sister sent my niece back to her friend’s house where the problem seems to be happening less often. They sign her in and Zoom which seems to be working well for a while. Her friend happens to walk around the corner and sees my niece log out of Zoom!

My sister’s friend is on to the con at this point. She now secretly watches from the other room where my niece cannot see her. After about an hour on Zoom, my niece can’t take it anymore and executes the con to escape the boredom.

My sister’s friend watches as my niece logs out, then repeatedly types in the wrong password to her account about 20 times. What my niece had figured out is that when you log in with an incorrect password, Zoom will lock your account for a set amount of time.

The more times you do this, the longer the wait period for you to get back into Zoom. She also noticed that the error that is presented to a user when they are locked is “Incorrect password” and not “your account has been locked”

Ramanujan Machine and AI-enhanced automated research

Ramanujan Machine and AI-enhanced automated research

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Mathematicians are a fascinating breed. They look at problems and new fields of study for discoveries and then plug away on a single problem or set of problems for amazing amounts of time. They do this by attacking the problems from every direction using every mathematical tool they have. They use intuition and experience to find patterns, similarities to other problems, and even brute force methods. The goal is to seek out patterns, make sense of those patterns by stating conjectures, and then prove those conjectures into theorems. This often takes mathematicians years or decades – if they ever solve it at all. If nothing else, mathematicians are a persistently curious lot.

The Ramanujan Machine

With all this potential tedium, is there a way to speed some of this up? Could one automate some of the work? AI algorithms are amazing at pattern matching, so what if we use machine learning to start the ball rolling? Enter the Ramanujan Machine – after the famous Indian mathematician that saw patterns where others did not (and had no less than 2 movies made about him). This kind of software may be transformative to how mathematics is done – and some are raising questions about what it means for the field.

The concern is that the Ramanujan Machine does much more than just pattern match. The machine consists of a set of algorithms that seek out conjectures, or mathematical conclusions that are likely true but have not been proved. Researchers have already used machine learning to turn conjectures into theorems on a limited basis — a process called automated theorem proving. The goal of the Ramanujan Machine is more ambitious. It tries to identify promising conjectures in the first place.

The algorithms in the Ramanujan Machine scan large numbers of potential equations in search of patterns that might indicate the existence of formulas to express them. The programs first scan a limited number of digits, perhaps five or 10, and then record any matches and expand upon those to see if the patterns repeat further. When a promising pattern appears, the conjecture is then available for an attempt at a proof.

So far, the Ramanujan Machine has generated more than 100 intriguing conjectures so far – and several dozen have been proved. 

Epistemological questions

The question for the field is now: what does this tool mean for us.

I have already written about the problem of scientific discovery and Epistomology. Machines can now pattern match and come up with equations and descriptions that can describe physical realities, but at what point can we say that we ‘know’ something?

If a machine observes a system and spits out an answer/mathematical description, we often do not know how it arrived at that answer. Can we really say we ‘know’ a thing and are accurately describing it? Without understanding the interplay of the underlying principles that got us to that answer, it might only hold for that set of inputs.

Some would argue, that’s how we’ve always done science. Despite our best efforts, science pushes ever forward and sometimes refutes past theories. We have seen this most dramatically in medical discoveries and regularly in the fields of cosmology and quantum mechanics. However, in mathematics, this is not so. Proven theorems have held for millennium.

So where does this leave us

Honestly, I think software like the Ramanujan machine is the next logical step in mathematics and pure sciences. Just like the calculator became a tool that helped transform math 100 years ago, AI enhanced pattern matching is a next logical tool in the toolbox. Instead of relying on intuition and years of grunt work, it’s unbiased and methodical approach could help us see patterns we have missed, and do it massively faster. After all, correctly formulated mathematical proofs are proofs no matter what the source was.

While it likely cannot replace a well-trained expert, it certainly could help augment their efforts. Speeding up our rate of discoveries by orders of magnitude sounds like a very solid contribution to me.

Try out the machine here: https://www.ramanujanmachine.com/

Read more here: https://www.livescience.com/ramanujan-machine-created.html

See more here: https://www.livescience.com/ramanujan-machine-created.html?jwsource=cl

Or even download the code here: https://github.com/ShaharGottlieb/MasseyRamanujan/

Pizza in a Cup and other movie foods

Pizza in a Cup and other movie foods

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Meet a man that re-creates foods from TV and movies. Angle food cake from Groundhogs Day, Bachelor Chow from Futurama, Macaroons from the Mandalorian, and many others.

Today he tackles Pizza in a Cup from the movie The Jerk.

Hypnotic snowfall

Hypnotic snowfall

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https://twitter.com/Beschizza/status/1362024594731892745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1362024594731892745%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheawesomer.com%2Fdropping-snow-like-klax%2F611710%2F

Incidentally, don’t park, walk, or hang out under slanted roofs on buildings as snow starts melting.

Playing music together – on the internet

Playing music together – on the internet

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Covid lockdown has had some surprising side effects – especially to musicians. It turns out playing music or singing together on the internet is much, much harder than you think. In some situations, it is likely impossible to overcome the lag issues due to the basic laws of physics (unless we get quantum entanglement communication systems)

Turns out, JackTrip and Jamulus (free) has been able to solve some of these issues. I’m going to have to read more about it.

Belle Epoque

Belle Epoque

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Messy Nessy Chick tells us about the Incroyables (men) and their female counterparts the Merveilleuses – a short-lived aristocratic subculture which emerged in Paris during the penultimate stage of the French Revolution, as a sort of counter-revolution. They held hundreds of balls and started fashion trends in clothing and mannerisms that today seem exaggerated and affected.

They scandalized Paris with revealing dresses and tunics modelled after the ancient Greeks and Romans, cut of light or transparent linen and gauze. For a brief period, young aristocrats who survived the Reign of Terror greeted the new regime with a defiant outbreak of luxury and daring decadence through their exaggerated clothing, silly mannerisms and indulgent behavior.

While it didn’t last, I was amazed at some of these outfits and wonder if they couldn’t be highly popular if modernized today…

Catholic teaching on end of life matters

Catholic teaching on end of life matters

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I recently have been updating my estate planning – something that I firmly believe everyone should do at some point. Not only does this make things easier on your loved ones, but more importantly, it’s an opportunity to get educated about very serious end-of-life matters.

Estate planning involves setting up documents, trusts, and systems that make your wishes clear. This is done as simply, or complex, as needed. Creating a will, appointing decisionmakers for medical and/or financial matters, evaluating your insurance coverage, setting up legal entities (trusts) to take care of your assets, and even purchasing and planning your own funeral arrangements are all matters you should address. This removes the terrible burden of your loved ones having to make those decisions and sort out the insurance and legal issues while also dealing with your possible death. It’s really a gift to your living relatives and can be a powerful tool to avoid family fights and animosity that can come up when dealing with end of life and estate issues.

Even more importantly than dealing with physical possessions is establishing a medical directive and decision maker. For that, you need to know what you want yourself. Many people, however, are often overwhelmed by these choices – and they bring up a tremendous amount of ethical questions that many people have never thought about.

Ethical questions

What are some of these situations that you should think about when writing a medical directive? Here are just some:

  • Euthanasia/Assisted suicide
  • Nutrition and hydration at end of life
  • Palliative care
  • Vegetative state
  • Resuscitation orders
  • Use of painkillers to point of sedation

This is often a moment in which many people find themselves relying on simplistic forms that many states provide. Unfortunately, as almost all lawyers will tell you, these medical directive forms are terrible. They are often written so bad they do not even do the things they claim. Long legal battles have been fought over the terrible wording in these directives.

Catholic educational resources:

So where is one to turn? Many parishes have regular legal session and legal help for parishioners to set up estate plans and directives. You could certainly contact your pastor who can likely get you materials and connected to an ethical estate planner.

Finding authentic Catholic teaching can also be hard, but one document can give you a great start: Samaritanus Bonus (The Good Samaritan) It deals with the difficult topics listed above from a pastoral, historical, and scriptural perspective.

Give it a read along with recently updated instruction on Catholic burial and cremation.

The Legend of Beavis

The Legend of Beavis

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The Legend of Zelda is a great set of games, but the 90’s era cartoon was….well…terrible. Mostly because Link was so unbelievably snotty and annoying.

Someone made the cartoon 100 times better by replacing Zelda’s voice actor with Beavis.

1950 teen tells her parents they are wack

1950 teen tells her parents they are wack

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The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Listen to this 1950’s era teen throws shade are her parents. I think she has some good points that parents and kids today probably feel.

And for teens/parents out there, least you think it is so much worse today, listen to the wisdom of the ages. But then again, all of these civilizations did collapse – so there’s that…

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”― Socrates (5th century BC)

“What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?” – Plato (4th century BC)

“We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self control” Inscription in Egyptian tomb from 4000BC