A little while ago I comment on how I had yet to edit the photos I had taken before Christmas when visiting my father in Cornwall - Photos that I still haven’t edited.
Enjoying my first full day in Cornwall I have added about another 700 photos to the queue, but despite being at the back of the queue. I have already given them a quick edit down to about 100 photos which I will try and get put up on here shortly.
All the photos were taken down at Widemouth Bay whilst I helped my father take the dogs for a walk and whilst one of the dogs wasn’t particularly obliging, the other was a right poser as you can see above.
I’ll put a link up to the gallery just as soon as I can get the photos up - Due to the vagaries of the Internet at my Dad’s I can’t get access to my website and so I am having to type this up elsewhere and so can’t upload them all at the moment.
It’s just gone half eleven at night and I’ve just realised that it’s not Monday. I’m not completely stupid though, I do have a kind of reason for not realising that it has indeed been Thursday all day today.
I’ve only just come back from a holiday, as I have been enjoying using up my annual holiday left over from last year and so my working week, which usually starts on a Monday has only just commenced today and caused the confusion.
As to how I’ve spent my time off most of it has been spent doing not very much and enduring a 4 day headache over the New Year period. The last few days however have been a little bit more enjoyable and productive as I have been playing tourist with a friend of mine (pictured above). Richard and I were friends at uni and whilst he left Bristol for London, he returned for a few days to visit me this week.
Having him around was like having a pet historian and I cannot recommend having one enough - It makes going to museums and churches a whole lot more interesting, as the significance of lots of minor things gets pointed out and explained. Plus having a pet historian means you have someone on hand to translate Latin inscriptions.
Unfortunately he’s had to go back to London, but on the plus side I finally got around to seeing the inside of a few places that I have been meaning to see for a few years - Bath Abbey and Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery. A particular bonus was getting to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition 2008 which it turns out is due to close this weekend.
My opinions about the best photos may have differed from the judges, but it has to be said that either way there is some pretty amazing photography on show. They are even kind enough to have it online for people who can’t get to the exhibition.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008
All of the photos I took whilst I were in Bude were taken whilst I was out dog walking with my dad and so here’s a photo of them all ignoring the camera.
Originally this post was supposed to be an explanation of something called the Monty Hall problem and how people aren’t very good with probabilities, which I was explaining to a friend at 6 in the morning. It has turned into a monster. However, I have sidetracked myself discussing other aspects of the problem and after 2,000+ words into my explanation I have not touched upon my original topic. On the plus side, I have proved some things that I suspected and so now actually know them to be true. I’ll put the rest of this essay up in manageable pieces rather than put it all up at once.
If after reading this part you want to read more here are the links to parts 2 and 3 of this ramble.
Part 2 - To Deal or Not To Deal?
Part 3 - Sticking or Swapping?
The other morning I wound up discussing Mathematics, or more precisely I was engaged in conversation about probability at 6am. Now there is never a right time of day to talk about statistics and probability as far as I am concerned, but this goes double when you’ve been up all night beforehand.*
The conversation started when my friend make a comment for reasons I cannot remember about the ‘Schrödinger Cat Game’, or Deal or No Deal as most people would know it. The analogy is actually quite good to be fair, as both involve randomness and indeterminate states.
For the uninitiated, Schrödinger’s cat is the subject of a thought experiment, a cat that can be both dead and alive at the same time. The idea is such that you put a cat in a sealed box. The interior of the box is unobservable from outside, but has everything a cat needs to survive – The catch is the food, there are two sources of food that can be given to the cat, one of which is poisoned. Which the cat is given is decided by chance and it’s 50/50 which food the cat will be given.
The process of determining which bowl of food is given to the cat is random and decided by the half-life decay of a radioactive substance, something which is completely random. So after given a bowl of food the cat is either dead or alive and quantum mechanics suggests that the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. Yet when the box is opened the cat is either dead or alive, as although quantum physics may permit something to be both dead and alive, biology doesn’t.
Deal or No Deal is somewhat akin to this, in that the 25 boxes each contain 25 differing amounts and up until the point of opening, the contents could be any one of the amounts. Now as it is a real life scenario someone has to place the amounts in the boxes and the states are known, but for the purposes of this model I shall assume that the contents of the boxes is determined randomly and nobody is privy to the contents.
During the course of the game the 25 boxes are whittled down to just 2 and we are effectively down to the same scenario as with Schrödinger’s cat. We have two boxes with differing contents, however under quantum mechanics, until one box is opened and it’s contents revealed both boxes contain both prizes. The revealing of the other 23 boxes is irrelevant, except to tell you what states are not possible for the last two boxes. Of course the possible states are important, after all you are not choosing between two unknowns you also have the guaranteed bankers offer as well.
Look at the following two idealised examples to see what I mean.
One box has 1p in it and the other has £250,000. The bankers offer is for £125,000.**
One box has £10,000 and the other has £20,000. The bankers offer is for £15,000.**
In the above examples, polarised as there are three solutions; keep the box you had at the start, swap the box for the other box whose contents you also don’t know or take the bankers offer. In the first example the solution for anyone who isn’t foolish or greedy is to take the money offered by the banker. Even in a non idealised example where the offer might only be £100,000 it still makes sense to take the money offered as it is guaranteed, after all if you don’t take it you could walk away with nothing.
The second case is a little less cut and dried and depends upon the individual after all not as much is riding on it after all in this case the worst result still sees you £10,000 richer and whilst the reward is less, the risk is less and you can afford to be greedy and gamble on the potential contents of the box.
Assuming that the person gambles there is a final question, should you swap your box? Or rather does it make any difference if you swap your box?
As I’ve gone on for quite a bit already, I’ll leave that for you to think about for the moment and put my answer and explanation for it later.
*I make be a bit of a maths freak, but I wouldn’t get up at 5am just so I could discuss it with someone.
**These are idealised offers based on the statistical winnings over time, the bank never offers these as the house always wins. Usually the bankers offer would be 10-20% lower than the statistical winnings. After all guaranteed money is better than the chance of getting more money (or it is if you take it anyway). Remember a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
A couple of days ago I asked what song title this pictogram could possibly represent:
Before I give it away completely the band who performed this song were the Beach Boys…
Still not got it, the track has the same title as the album it’s on…
That’s right it’s Pet Sounds from the album Pet sounds. Now for a word of warning I drew about 30 of these pictograms at the time and I have added a few more since so tere may well be some more of these soon.
For the moment however here is a riddle inspired by a piece of graffiti I saw on the way to work the other day that is tenuously connected to music. In 1959 in the song the Coasters had a top 10 hit with the song Charlie Brown, where Charlie Brown asked the question, “Why’s everybody always picking on me?”
Now although that Charlie Brown has no connection to Charlie Brown of Peanuts’ fame, I ask you what happens if you pick on Charlie Brown?
In a surprising turn of events, despite going out with a camera last nigh I only took one photo (and even that was on my cameraphone whilst amusing myself waiting for the train). - Still for a photo of me it doesn’t look to bad.
I have to admit that I felt somewhat naked with out my camera*, but I have to admit I actually had a great time out. Normally because of the camera I have to stay clear of the foam at a foam party, but stripped of my camera and after a couple of drinks I had no such worries.
*And even more naked on the repeated occasions I was forced to take my shirt off.