Vanishing Diseconomies

TO recently had occasion to make a targeted venture to a shopping mall, in order to obtain a specific item. While not one of TO's regular recreational activities, such a visit offered an opportunity to sample the state of retail affairs. At lunchtime on a workday, the complex was notably quiet. It seemed that many stores, and perhaps even some of the shorter corridors, were empty except for staff hoping that customers might enter. At least one store's contents were being packed up, its decorative merchandise apparently having failed to elicit sufficient sales in the face of current economic circumstances and perceptions. In the Madoff scandal, it appears that participants were misled into investing in purported assets that didn't actually exist and hence lacked underlying value; in retrospect, this has generally been considered to be bad. Loan revaluations have disrupted financial institutions and systems. In a consumer-driven economy, participants have sometimes been encouraged and motivated to buy as an end in itself, or to obtain some form of perceived status, independent of the value that the goods confer after purchase. It seems likely that at least some items would fail a "after I buy this item, will my overall satisfaction increase?" test if applied, and that more consumers are applying such a test by choice or necessity in the current recession than had been the case before. To the extent that an economy embodies investments and purchases whose worth may not withstand critical assessment, does it necessarily become unsustainable? Can stability and economic progress be achieved in a post-trinket society, or must we hope that this situation is temporary?

Absence due to Measured Exorcise

Having not recently posted here, TO is pleased now to return. In part, this absence has a seasonally-related cause. TO tends to find early weekend mornings perhaps the most blog-congenial time within a week; in warm weather, however, these slots collide with opportunities for cool outdoor activity. While not generally athletic in nature, TO enjoys bicycling, typically propelling wheels at a rate that passes some trail participants and is passed by others in approximately equal measure. In addition to offering health benefits, this also affords the opportunity to exorcise the cares and concerns of the day while narrowing one's focus to passing the next mailbox, bridge, or other landmark enroute to an outing's end. There's a satisfaction to successful physical activity, which at least TO finds is complemented by the ability to quantify it. The knowledge that one is 75% of the way to a destination, at a known speed, is somehow comforting and motivating. Earlier this year, TO's cycle odometer failed, leaving a curious sense of loss even on familiar routes. Upon battery replacement, the numeric brain was satisfied again, being able to savor descriptive digits to complement the legs' pedaling cadence. TO would prefer to consider this as an example of synergistic mind/body integration than as notably indicative of geekiness, but perhaps both are true. It's good to achieve something measurable and to be able to measure it.

Excuse me, your supporting layer is showing

TO had a recent air travel experience. Most of this passed as per usual, but for a curious twist. On a couple of occasions, the seatback video system was restarted. TO observed and laughed at the appearance of a Linux penguin on the upper left corner of each seat's screen, with a boot sequence scrolling below it. TO's seatmate commented that TO was perhaps the flight's only passenger to find the occurrence of such a display amusing, even though it had presumably not been presented to the captive audience with this intent. Perhaps so.

Semantically Qualified Owls

The technologies of the Semantic Web offer significant technical promise, but have so far found selective rather than pervasive application. TO was interested to see what commentators might have written about the uptake of the W3C's Web Ontology Language (OWL, by way of transposed acronym), and asked a Prominent Search Engine about "OWL adoption". A comprehensive set of hits concerning topics such as wildlife rescue and rehabilitative care for members of the order Strigiformes was received; while informative, these did not appear closely salient to the intended question. They did serve, however, as a concise and ironic example of the value of semantic qualification in information searches.

Homage to Computus

For those observing per the Gregorian calendar, today is Easter Sunday. The method (Computus) used to determine that fact is complex, and has been cited as a primary motivation for keeping arithmetic alive through the Western Middle Ages. In acknowledgment of the importance of arithmetic's persistence today, and given the convenient availability of an algorithmic description, TO chose to undertake the simple programming exercise of implementing the method, and attaches the C code as a comment.

When Models Diverge

TO is interested in weather. Like time, another topic already encountered here, weather represents an example of something pervasive and ever-changing in our environment, and is something that people have long sought to measure and interpret quantitatively. It differs, though, in the level of interest and effort that's applied to predict its future. Occasional insertion of leap seconds into the calendar doesn't affect as many daily lives. Extensive computer models (as at Model Analyses and Forecasts) have been developed to project atmospheric trends based on observed data. At least today, however, they haven't replaced the need for human judgment. The problem arises when the models predict different results. Then, forecasters draw on experience to decide which choice (or hybrid) appears most likely to be accurate in the physical world (or, in the field, "to verify"). In the US, these judgments are often visible to interested readers in regional Technical Forecast Discussion pages, such as this example. Will models continue to improve, to the point where it will be vanishingly rare for human experts to need to arbitrate among conflicts? Or, will different algorithmic processes necessarily continue to yield different results in some cases, to be resolved above an algorithmic level as with discussions among a group of specialists in a topic? TO (though only an interested layperson in the field) suspects that the divergences will become rarer over time, but won't soon disappear.

Context for Special Rats

TO recalled observing a motel sign that announced a "Special Weekly Rat", an unusual offer to be presented as part of an accommodation package. Had it been a pet store's sign, it might have been advertising an intentional and recurrent rodent promotion. In context, however, it was perhaps more likely to have been a missing terminal "E".