Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taken

Fun, entertaining, and actionable. 5/5 stars.

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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936

new advances in understanding superpermutations

If a television series has three episodes, there are six possible orders in which to view them: 123, 132, 213, 231, 312 and 321. You could put these sequences together to give a list of 18 episodes for every ordering, but there’s a much more efficient way to do it: 123121321.  If you want to watch all possible rearrangement of sequences of a 7-part tv series, how many total episode viewings are required?  What if the tv show has an infinite number of episodes? A sequence that contains every possible rearrangement (or permutation) of a collection of n symbols is a “superpermutation.”

Progress on this interesting, and easily-understandable 25-year-old combinatorial problem in mathematics has upper- and lower-bound proofs discovered recently by a pair of unexpected authors: an anonymous contributor to 4chan and a science fiction author in Perth Australia.

Some University of Florida math professors, citing "unknown 4chan poster" have verified, clarified, and reformulated a proof for the lower bound to the length of any superpattern.  And Greg Egan, the famous SF author, has published a proof for the upper-bound along with C and JavaScript source code implementations of his algorithm.

Click here to kill everybody by Bruce Schneier

I enjoyed this one.  It was simple, quick, to the point, and insightful.  None of the concepts was complex and the summaries were not too simple to obscure the underlying crypto.  4/5 stars.

A mind at play, Claude Shannon by Jim Soni & Rob Goodman

Too long and rambling but interesting life and times, not enough rigor. 2/5 stars, meh.

Our Transparent Society

https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146e3922310f  Is very encouraging.

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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936

City on the Edge forever by Harlan Ellison (original script and essays)

The original Star Trek series from 1964 has always been near and dear to me.  I was also a fan of Harlan Ellison's writings.  Harlan died last June and this new collection of essays about the controversy of his original award-winning script vs the episode that aired on TV was reissued. It was fun to read points of view from my favorite celebrities of the 1960s again, very nostalgic. 3/5 stars.

Proteus in the underworld by Charles Sheffield

Unwinding the mysteries at the end was great and it's fun to experience "Silver Age" plots sometimes.  Not Sheffield's best, but relaxing & fun, 3/5 stars.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

Having read two separate books that try to end the story Dickens was writing at the time of his death, I decided to read the original.  It was disappointing because there is no ending and I didn't really like any of the characters. 1/5 stars.

Drood by Dan Simmons

Very long, slightly convoluted horror story with interesting historical information about the life and times of Charles Dickens.  I like Dan Simmons but don't enjoy horror, 2/5 stars.

neck pillow, sleep mask, and ear protection on long flights

This type of machine washable "scarf" with a removable neck support frame is, for me, more comfortable than standard airplane neck pillows.  They cost $10 on eBay with free shipping.

Another $10 deal on eBay is a blackout sleep mask that does not touch your eyes so you can REM sleep (or keep your eye makeup from smearing).  The standard airline sleep masks are not opaque and put pressure on my eyelids.

Standard soft ear plugs work ok for me but I also travel with the best active noise canceling headphones and they work much better.  When I sleep on the plane, I wear the headphones but don't play any sound.