No Messi’n

Lucky enough to see FC Barcelona with 91,000 others under the stars at the Nou Camp on Saturday evening. With Barca clear of Real’s galacticos and both well clear of the rest we weren’t sure if they would field their star team against lowly Getafe, but we needn’t have feared. Starting line-up included Messi, Iniesta, Villa, Xavi, Alves, Macherano. Iniesta had an off-day – so many incomplete passes – David Villa showed how frustratingly one-footed he is for a winger, but the rest did not disappoint. Xavi and Macherano ran the show, Alves and the other full-back-winger ran miles (with the ball); Alves and Bojan scored, but Barca should have had 5 or 6 if they’d bothered to shoot and a couple of pens before Getafe’s consolation made for an unexpectedly exciting final ten minutes. Mostly felt like an exhibition match, despite the 2:1 result.

The great thing about seeing a game like that live is the venue and event itself, choosing what to watch – unlike the editorial “action” as seen on TV – or the thick of the competitive action watching the team you actively support – and it was hard not to watch Messi. Plenty of other “tourists” taking photos, wearing the No.10 shirt and doing the same.

Messi is one of a kind. There were periods of many minutes at a time where he barely plodded three paces in any direction, others when you’d notice he’d apparently sprinted / ghosted into another position. Always receiving passes from team-mates already surrounded by three or more opponents, and always stumbling effortlessly free to find three more to beat before getting bored and either passing or returning to take on the first three again if no opportunity presented. Childlike, almost comedic bright orange feet and baggy shorts on the little man. Deceptive.

(As well as minute’s silence for the Japan earthquake fall-out, a full three minutes pre-match applause for Abidal undergoing three-hour surgery on a liver tumour in the same week.)

Weird, after being mesmerized by Messi, I don’t have a single shot of him in the 20-odd pics I took. Still, a good weekend to lose yourself at the Nou Camp instead of the Stadium of Light ? Coincidentally, lots of Liverpool fans on the A19 driving south from Sunderland on our way home from NCL airport.

Interestingly last time I mentioned Messi was a reference to this piece by Robbo. Worth a read.

Information on Trust

Trust and information go hand in hand. There is no information without trust. Limited data maybe, information of real value; no.

Interesting to read this piece on Three Mile Island in the light of the current Japanese problems:

“The understated equivocations of their spokesmen – and their genuine uncertainty about the situation – engendered mistrust, particularly among those in the vicinity. Media coverage citing concerned nuclear experts served to heighten fears.

Soon, misinformation about a hydrogen bubble, which had formed in the containment vessel after zirconium fuel rods were exposed, turned into full-blown and mostly unfounded anxiety about an atomic explosion.”

Mostly Unfounded, yet, despite a massive (but contained) meltdown seen with hindsight only, a monumental event historically, created by Media Coverage.

Perversely and counter-intuitively yet again, less is more – less communication is better – yes, free communication makes things worse. Is that a political statement ? If I were a conservative-techno-phobe that would not be an interesting statement, but I’m a web-savvy-liberal. Must I post the W3C Fig 7 picture again for the techies ? Trust at the top – clearly trust and information feed off each other, but it’s the trust that’s paramount.

Working thesis: Current information value depends on a current stock of trust, current trust depends on previous experience (of information, and action, and … ) not on current information. No amount of “data communication” now, can fix a pre-existing lack of trust. Something like that 🙂

Japan Nuclear Situation

BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin explains what has happened at the Fukushima plant:

“The power plant is supposed to be earthquake-proof and shut down automatically in response to the quake,” he says. “But this starved power from the stations’ cooling systems. Then the back-up diesel cooling system also failed. Reactor number 1 overheated, and it is said that hydrogen released exploded, causing the concrete roof of the plant to blow off. Now that’s been repeated at Number 3 reactor, Numbers 2 and 4 have problems with cooling.”

Repeated ? I think not.

Need some clarification on specific Daichi and Daini plants now. Fukushima 1 has reactors 1 to 4 in the one block and two further reactors (5&6 ?) in a second block immediately north. Fukushima 2 has four further reactors 12/15 km south of Fukushima 1. (Update F1 is Daichi, F2 is Daini)

Anyway, key point whatever the existing and ongoing difficulties with cooling water systems, and whether all the plants were actually shut down successfully (control rods fully home) before these cooling water difficuties …. the two explosions so far were quite different.

F1-Daichi-R1 was a very clean and fast explosion initially – Hydrogen ? – with all the smoke appearing to be concrete dust, with lighter weight panels flying away from the building. (See the initial shock wave rising vertically above the building, before the smoke, and no fire or subsequent visible emissions.)

F1-Daichi-R3 was not. There was a hydrocarbon yellow flash and a plume of black smoke, with large heavy pieces falling quickly back to earth around the building. And the live footage seems to show steam and ongoing fire escaping from that building ?

F1-Daichi-R2 (and R4 ?) now seems to be having cooling difficulties.

[Update: 4, 5 & 6 were already shutdown before the quake / tsunami, with fuels rods in the holding ponds as the reactors underwent work. The other good news is that Daini  / Fukushima 2 do not appear to have had the post-shut-down cooling failures (cooling pump electric power and water supply failures), so in principle the design is earthquake safe. This one will run and run.

So, the real problem now is that Daichi-R2 explosion seems to have cracked primary containment – how did that happen ?!? The pressures involved however seem miniscule, so the residual heating energy in the shutdown state must be small – don’t panic and maintain ad-hoc cooling seems the order of the day ?]

Blair on Battle of Ideas

Higher education is the front-line
in the arms race of values and cultures.

He’s not wrong.

Success = Redundancy

I have an adage that no-one ever seems to buy, that aiming to make oneself redundant is a primary driver (for me and quite a few people I know, at least). If something takes effort to explain and sell, implement and extract value, then there is work for consultants, sure, but boy it becomes boring very fast, if that thing doesn’t get easier for people to pick-up and use. The object really is to put yourself out of a job, and move onto more interesting (rewarding) work, rather than giving the same presentations to the same conferences year after year.

I was struck by the same motive in laying quantum theory(ies) to rest in this paper by Christopher Fuchs of Bell Labs.

The issue is, when will we ever stop burdening the taxpayer with conferences devoted to the quantum foundations? The suspicion is expressed that no end will be in sight until a means is found to reduce quantum theory to two or three statements of crisp physical (rather than abstract, axiomatic) significance. In this regard, no tool appears better calibrated for a direct assault than quantum information theory. Far from a strained application of the latest fad to a time-honored problem, this method holds promise precisely because a large part – but not all – of the structure of quantum theory has always concerned information. It is just that the physics community needs reminding.

For me the quality of information is a root topic, and whilst being a David Deutsch fan, I’m not an Everettic – the multi-verse flavour of many worlds is usually a kludge IMHO.

Fuchs is the keynote speaker at Quantum Interaction 2011 in Aberdeen, 27 to 29 June.

Is it possible to imagine that any mind – even Einstein’s – could have made the leap to general relativity directly from the original, abstract structure of the Lorentz transformations? A structure that was only empirically adequate? I would say no.

…

The quantum system represents something real and independent of us; the quantum state represents a collection of subjective degrees of belief about something to do with that system … The structure called quantum mechanics is about the interplayof these two things – the subjective and the objective.

My emphases. Wow, that’s a scientist talking. And the obligatory apology to avoid the new-agey jibes.

I should point out, however, that in contrast to the picture of general relativity, where reintroducing the coordinate system – i.e. reintroducing the observer – changes nothing about the manifold … I do not suspect the same for the quantum world. …

Observers, scientific agents, a necessary part of reality? No.
But do they tend to change things once they are on the scene? Yes.
[space-time with and without mass present]
If quantum mechanics can tell us something deep about nature, I think it is this.

Previously, I have not emphasized so much the radical Bayesian idea that the probability one ascribes to a phenomenon amounts to nothing other than the gambling commitments one is willing to make on it. To the radical Bayesian, probabilities are subjective all the way to the bone. … Believe me … if the reader … fears that I will become a crystal-toting New Age practitioner of homeopathic medicine – I hope he will keep in mind that this attempt to be absolutely frank about the subjectivity of some of the terms in quantum theory is part of a larger programme to delimit the terms that can be interpreted as objective in a fruitful way.

And nearing conclusions:

Quantum states – whatever they be – cannot be objective entities.
A quantum state is as a state of belief about what would happen if one were to approach a standard measurement device.
Quantum entanglement is a secondary and subjective effect.
A measurement is is just an arbitrary application of Bayes’ rule – an arbitrary refinement of one’s beliefs – along with some account that measurements are invasive interventions into nature.

Subjective. Subjective! Subjective!!

It is a word that will not go away.
The last thing we need is a bloodbath of deconstruction.
At the end of the day, there had better be element in quantum theory that stands for the objective, or we might as well melt away and call the whole world a dream.

So finally:

A grain of sand falls into the shell of an oyster and the result is a pearl. The oyster’s sensitivity to the touch is the source of a beautiful gem.

A’s attempt to surreptitiously come into alignment with the B’s predictability is always shunted away from its goal. This shunting of various observer’s predictability is the subtle manner in which the quantum world is sensitive to our experimental interventions. Maybe this is our crucial hint! The wedge that drives a distinction between Bayesian probability theory in general and quantum mechanics in particular is perhaps nothing more than this ‘Zing!’ of a quantum system that is manifested when an agent interacts with it.

It is this wild sensitivity to the touch that keeps our information and beliefs from ever coming into too great an alignment.

Can’t help seeing the macro-level, non-linear “game theory” view in this final statement.

BTW in a nutshell.

Measurement (interaction / participation)
disturbs information about a physical system,
NOT the real physical system itself.

Life in the Old Dog

“If I ruled the world, I would downgrade rulebooks and replace them, wherever possible, with humane, intelligent discretion.”
Richard Dawkins

Blimey, maybe the scientist is losing his scientism and sees the wisdom in judgement and discretion. Actually the piece is just a single example of the ancient “rules are for the guidance of wise men, and the enslavement of fools” adage. I had Dawkins for a fool, so maybe there is hope.

In No Particular Order

Three links I need to capture:

(1) Interesting piece from Prospect on the portrayal of stammering in The Kings Speech:

“This is also why it’s helpful for non-stammerers to maintain steady eye contact, and to send vibes that convey, “No hurry, we’ve got all the time in the world.” (While we’re on the subject, please don’t finish off our sentences: it makes us feel like doomed contenders in a hellish, eternal game of Countdown.)”

Don’t take it personally, but I finish off everyone’s sentences.

(2) The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. Like Plato’s charioteer controlling two horses, Ovid wrote:

I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.

That good old management hypocrisy. Lots more on hypocrisy and the real truth in ancient metaphorical adages.

(3) Finally , thanks to Clive on FB for this Grauniad quiz on Gaddafi vs Sheen. Magic.

Macondo “Permitorium”

Listening to a presentation from the International Association of Drilling Contractors on the Macondo fall-out.

Demands for containment resources x00% x max spill potential available on site or within x hours are being used to reject permits to deep water drill since the moratorium ended in October. A little bit “no spill ever again” level of safety demand before permits will be granted. At least a year of deepwater drilling industry shutdown in the US gulf, which is a major regional industrial depression well beyond the O&G companies.

(Incidentally – innovative capping containments also being developed internationally. Ixtoc 1979 was bigger and flowed for a whole year. See previous Macondo threads and comment threads.)

Great Wall Drilling / Hashwe(?) / Repsol / Saipem / Gazprom / Statoil / Pertamina / ONGC / PetroVietnam / Petrobras and other partners, drilling in deep water (1 mile deep) in loop current between Cuba and Florida, with flows at 14 knots towards Florida and Carolina Atlantic coasts, and/or Cuban coast, not of course regulated by US permitting. Worse still …

People have already been prosecuted heavily for US content of technology (see partners) delivered indirectly to Cuban drilling industry. US (politically) cannot provide BOP or containment technology for a drilling operation that threatens the US coastline. People are trying to “do the right thing” without getting fired for legal infringements, amongst the political regulation. Interesting angle.

What did they ever do for us ?

The Romans and Greeks that is. The title of the 2011 Voltaire Lecture organized by the British Humanist Association 20th April, London.

Sadly as my diary stands, I can’t be there. Rats.

Philosophy is not new and yet it really should be part of an enlightened modern curriculum, and what better location than Red Lion Square ?! Come the revolution, …

Sense May Yet Prevail

It seems the West Ham proposal for the Olympic stadium does now include Man City style retractable seating. Still not sure how this can be retrofitted to a design that didn’t originally allow for it, but great news if true. Give them the benefit of the doubt on that “misleading” artists impression.