Finding my three year old HP Pavilion laptop a little slow, I was casting around for something new, when the outfit at reference 1 was drawn to my attention, people who sell recycled & cleaned up corporate machinery.
So I settled for an HP Elitebook laptop, no longer listed by HP and maybe five years old, but a much more substantial affair than the Pavilion laptop. With this secondhand Elitebook being about the same price as a new Pavilion.
Delivered right on schedule within a couple of working days.
It came with Windows 10 Home Edition loaded and it took me maybe half a day to apply Windows 10 updates, Defender updates and to install Office - this last being at no extra charge, with my being an Office 365 subscriber.
Having initially thought to stick with Chrome, decided to give MS Edge a go.
Not doing this sort of thing very often, a certain amount of pain along the way and I was tired when I had finished for the day. But three days later, entirely happy with the new-to-me machine, with Edge, with Bing and with Bing maps (these last seeming to come with the full OS kit). Sound much better than that on the Pavilion.
Only two complaints. First, rather a lot of MS advertising. I don't mind this in the form of email, but I do mind it when it is in the form of pop-ups. Maybe I will get around to finding out how to stop it. And second, I would like to get hold of a one or two page guide to how OneDrive synchronisation works, a guide which would hopefully make the various warning messages a little less scary.
Reference 1: http://www.tier1online.com/.
Friday 30 June 2017
Thursday 29 June 2017
Manufacturing
Also that the corner site between what was Epsom Coaches (now Quality Line, a subsidiary of a French bus company, the family of the founder of Epsom Coaches having sold out shortly after he died) and the dump, previously used as a distribution centre by Target then City Link (or the other way around), has now been redeveloped and reoccupied by Southern Gas Networks. Rather grandly called the 'Epsom Park/Surrey Depot/London West Replacement Depot'. The curious are invited to phone Freephone 0800 111 999.
Redevelopment included refurbished shed, new concrete standing around the shed, fancy gates and a smart new fence. Plenty of security. All in all a great improvement on what we had had before, at least for the last few years.
PS: the web site of the French bus company concerned looks to feature, today anyway, the very bit of Paris we stayed in when we were last there, near ten years ago, complete with overground tube line. See references 1 and 2. While Bing suggests that the little farm obscurely mentioned at the end of reference 2 is probably 'La Petite Ferme', 32, rue de Frémicourt, Paris, 75015. Looks about right in both position and picture.
Reference 1: https://www.ratp.fr/en.
Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=paris+15e+concluded.
Trolleys 81a and 81b
Quite difficult to push in this condition, so I contented myself with just pushing them back, one at a time, to just inside the Sainsbury's car park, from where the Sainsbury's trolley jockeys can take over. Do they carry a natty little tool to unlock them, or do the trolleys have to be returned to their shed?
See reference 1, for my first encounter with an activated security device.
I decided against scoring two further trolleys, the smaller variety, as they were only inches over the boundary, and clearly visible to a trolley jockey inside the boundary.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/trolley-77b.html.
Litter
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/trolley-68.html.
Trolley 80
Trolley 79
Trolley marched through town to Kiln Lane and deposited in the large collection gathered outside the main entrance to big Sainsbury's. No trouble with the security device on this trolley, unlike that on trolley 77, despite coming in through the side entrance, by Wickes, where there looked to be enough electrical gadgetry to fire it up. Some trouble with kerbs, with my misjudging several of the angled approaches needed to get a trolley up one.
A rather bumpy ride, with the bump stones for the blind being particularly bumpy. Best to have a very light grip on the trolley when pushing it over them - or one does bad things to the wrists.
Snap marred by finger trouble, possibly because of the drink taken during the day and on which I will report further in due course.
Lourdes
A handsome church, which I would have guessed to have been built in the 1950's but which reference 2 suggests was actually built in 1965. A site which is more interested in the day to day religious affairs of the church, in what is called a fair trade parish, whatever that might mean, rather than in matters heritage. A church which seemed oddly plain and severe compared with the Catholic revival churches of the 19th century with which I am more familiar. Say those at West Croydon or Ramsgate - for which last see reference 3.
I have also read somewhere - perhaps in Visser's book noticed at reference 4 - that all Catholic churches have a perpetually burning sanctuary lamp in the Lady Chapel and a stone altar slab, this last being a throw back to the sacrificial slabs of Old Testament times. This church had both, with the altar being a nicely carved block of off-white stone, approximately cubic. The body of the church was circular, with a gently domed concrete roof.
I associate this morning to the church near Leicester Square, noticed at reference 5, but checking, while it is domed and circular, it does have not much else in common with the present church. Nor does my memory of it once having been a cinema check out.
A slightly awkward shape from the point of view of the choir and I worried about whether the sound would be lost, with this church being much larger than that they usually use at Weston Green.
The choir dealt with the shape by lining up in front of and facing the altar stone, with the audience being directed to the two wings. A rather thin audience as it happened, rather thinner than the numbers on our etickets suggested. Perhaps some got lost in the transfer from Weston Green. While the size did not seem to be a problem: I thought that the choir sounded better in this church, with its high domed ceiling, than they did there.
BH opted for the follow the words option, while I opted for gazing vaguely at the choir. I thought the music was very good, but I must have been missing quite a lot, without having given the words much more than a glance beforehand. For example, from Monteverdi's 'Lasciate mi morire'. I had not known that Catholics were into dignity in dying; I had not thought that it was their thing at all. See references 6 and 7.
PS: sound on new laptop very good. More on that in due course.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/jacobean-secrets.html.
Reference 2: http://www.olchurch.org.uk/.
Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/ramsgate-5.html.
Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=modern+marvels.
Reference 5: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=plinth+life+notre.
Reference 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfFkUmYbbuE.
Reference 7: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/putting-down.html.
Wednesday 28 June 2017
Trim
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/late-convert.html.
Group search key: wcb.
Balls
Three of the smaller balls are equipped with loudspeakers, emanating interesting and not particularly loud or irritating noises, mostly fragments of speech.
A work in which Otobong Nkanga of Nigeria 'integrates voice and sculpture to reflect on contemporary anxieties'.
I was interested in the way in which the slender concrete pillars had been strengthened by their steel cladding. Or was it just to stop them being damaged by large, wheeled cleaning equipment when the tanks had one of their periodic cleans?
Group search key: wcb.
Speaker
Group search key: wcb.
Flower
Group search key: wcb.
Cube
Off to a good start, with a splendid display of pink hollyhocks and pink roses in a garden in Meadway, on the way to Epsom Station. At the station, two ladies with silly hats for Ascot.
Alighted at Waterloo, pulled a Bullingdon from the ramp and pedalled off to Tyers Gate in Bermondsey, a journey, including getting slightly lost, of some 22 minutes and 9 seconds. Heading south from London Bridge I missed my turning and took in the Roebuck and the Bricklayer's Arms roundabout, places last visited five years ago and noticed at reference 3. Why was there just the one bricklayer? It seems a bit unlikely.
But then I found my way into Bermondsey Street, a regular hive of activity, with lots of gentrification, lots of converted commercial & industrial buildings and lots of what, at least, had been affordable accommodation. Lots of dinky little eateries and drinkeries. A fine rose garden, snapped above, off Leathermarket Street. I found the cube but, sadly, found that I had missed my day and it was closed while they put up the next exhibition.
So back to Tyers Gate and pulled another Bullingdon, or quite possibly the same one, and pedalled off down Snowfields Street, past Guy's Hospital and onto the Blue Fin Building next to the Tate Modern.
Called in Gail's Bakery for a spot of lunch, with a rather chewy sour dough roll for main course, full of salad, green goo and mozzarella. Rather good, much better than the sultana scone (served with butter and jam) which followed, which was fresh enough, but rather heavy. For some reason scones, easy enough to cook at home, always seem to be difficult in a commercial setting.
Interesting clientèle, including a lady who showed no embarrassment at all at the huge amount of mess being made on the floor by her baby. No attempt to clear it up when she left. Another lady with a splendid pleated skirt down to her ankles, decorated with wide vertical stripes in pastel shades. A splendid skirt, but she was, perhaps, a little too large to show it off at its best. The music was rather too loud, but it took some young city gent type to have the wit to ask them to turn it down. Wetly, I had just put up with it.
Onto the turbine hall in Tate Modern, very nearly empty, in which state I always find it very impressive. On this occasion, complete with some elaborate, arty noise, the product of what must have been dozens of loud speakers hung up at intervals along the walls. Rather interesting. There can't be many spaces as good as this one for a sound installation. Although that said, we have heard some good things in what used to be the Duveen sculture hall at Tate Britain.
Followed by what I think must have been a first visit to the tank rooms since they had been refurbished, with an interesting mixture of old and new concrete and a strong smell of concrete. A range of modern art installations, including rather a good one in the largest tank, consisting mainly of concrete balls, rope and more arty sounds. I associated to the time when I had puzzled about the best way to make a concrete ball - with grinding the thing down from a cube counting as cheating. Sadly I seem to use the words 'concrete' and 'ball' rather a lot, so it is going to take a while to track the relevant entry in the blog. Maybe I will get around to checking after breakfast.
Altogether a good visit, my first visit to the Tate since I allowed my membership to lapse, getting on for a year ago, but with the blog revealing a visit to Tate Britain in October 2016. Something else to check after breakfast.
A third Bullingdon from Bankside and so back to Waterloo, managing on this occasion to take the pole position on the ramp.
Tube to Tooting Broadway and into Wetherspoons for a spot of Villa Maria, Sauvignon Blanc, this being the place where a cheerful barmaid introduced me to the stuff, now bought in dozens, most recently from Sainsbury's, having found them to be cheaper than Majestic Wine, rather to my surprise. And you get the Nectar points, with, as they say at Tesco's, every little bit helping. Talk of potatoes, of computer power supplies and of a singer by the name of Nellie Mackay. Some friendly dispute about how exactly she spelled (spelt?) her family name.
Outside, at the bus stop and on the bus, perhaps the wine was talking, but I had the comforting sense of everyone pulling together. Everyone determined to put a good face on things, to be nice to each other, without regard to colour or divine affiliation, and to somehow pull through our current difficulties.
A spot of nostalgia as the train pulled into Wimbledon for the independent café which used to be where the stand-up Starbucks now is on platform 8. A place which sold weak tea and shrink wrapped rolls, all very cheap and entirely adequate. A place which used to be very handy when one needed a spot of something to soak up some of the drink taken.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/barrowboy-banker.html.
Reference 2: http://whitecube.com/.
Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=scotted.
Reference 4: http://www.nelliemckay.com/.
Group search key: wcb.
Tuesday 27 June 2017
The Moonstone
A couple of weeks ago I noticed my reading of Wilie Collins' 'The Woman in White'. I now notice my reading of 'The Moonstone', so closing my excursion into mid 19th century pot boilers. And, as it happens, the third book that I have read on my kindle in as many weeks, having hardly touched the thing for months.
Once again, the story is organised as a series of narratives, telling various parts of the story from various different points of view. Maybe the whole of the Collins oeuvre is like this. On the other hand there is no doubt that this is a proper detective story, featuring the redoubtable Mr. Cuff, sergeant of the detective branch of Scotland Yard, grand enough to make a mere superintendent of the periphery (that is to say, Yorkshire) quail. But human enough to be passionate about roses, flowers he would dispute with any gardener who would take him on.
Not a bad yarn, but far too long. I got through it, but it was a bit of a struggle. Perhaps, as with the other book, presentation in serial form, at a time when there was no television, meant that prolixity was less of a problem than it is now.
A love story, of love between a beautiful heiress and a once careless young man, with various trials and torments but ending in happily ever after.
A damaged servant girl, reformed thief, with a hopeless, undeclared love for the once careless young man. Suicide in the local quicksands, the shivering sand.
A bright young boy who helps out in London, very much the same sort of bright young Cockney boy which Sherlock Holmes was to make occasional use of, 25 years later. A boy with the bulging eyes which I had thought was once common in the east end of London, the result of bad diet, but google fails to confirm.
A spinster with a fondness for tracts, good works and committees. Winds up in reduced circumstances, in a cheap hotel in northern France. Demonstrating a sense of humour on the part of the author, albeit if at rather greater length than this reader thought desirable. A rather heavy sense of humour which popped out in various other places.
Money matters, with settlements, loans, pawns and solid, reliable family lawyers.
Druggy matters, with laudanum playing an important, if rather improbable role.
Morality matters, with one of the villains keeping an expensive woman, not his wife, in considerable style in a suburban villa. Accounting in large part for his urgent need for money and his role in the story. All very Simenon. The first time I have come across a fancy woman in 19th century English fiction, albeit in a very cameo role.
With the Moonstone being a large diamond, the property of a Hindu deity, stolen from India at some point, causing much grief wherever it went, but eventually ending up back with its deity in India.
In sum, a tale which did well enough, but the tale of the stone did not grip in the way that the tale of the woman had.
And so back to Maigret, refreshed and ready for more.
PS: having now consulted BH on the matter, I remember that there was a fancy woman of a sort in 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles', with Tess living with her villain in furnished rooms in some spa town. And murdering him there. Unlike Becky Sharpe, whose misdemeanours were off-stage. But I think the substantive point stands: such things are much commoner in foreign works, say Balzac's 'Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes'. Commonplace even.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/the-woman-in-white.html.
Once again, the story is organised as a series of narratives, telling various parts of the story from various different points of view. Maybe the whole of the Collins oeuvre is like this. On the other hand there is no doubt that this is a proper detective story, featuring the redoubtable Mr. Cuff, sergeant of the detective branch of Scotland Yard, grand enough to make a mere superintendent of the periphery (that is to say, Yorkshire) quail. But human enough to be passionate about roses, flowers he would dispute with any gardener who would take him on.
Not a bad yarn, but far too long. I got through it, but it was a bit of a struggle. Perhaps, as with the other book, presentation in serial form, at a time when there was no television, meant that prolixity was less of a problem than it is now.
A love story, of love between a beautiful heiress and a once careless young man, with various trials and torments but ending in happily ever after.
A damaged servant girl, reformed thief, with a hopeless, undeclared love for the once careless young man. Suicide in the local quicksands, the shivering sand.
A bright young boy who helps out in London, very much the same sort of bright young Cockney boy which Sherlock Holmes was to make occasional use of, 25 years later. A boy with the bulging eyes which I had thought was once common in the east end of London, the result of bad diet, but google fails to confirm.
A spinster with a fondness for tracts, good works and committees. Winds up in reduced circumstances, in a cheap hotel in northern France. Demonstrating a sense of humour on the part of the author, albeit if at rather greater length than this reader thought desirable. A rather heavy sense of humour which popped out in various other places.
Money matters, with settlements, loans, pawns and solid, reliable family lawyers.
Druggy matters, with laudanum playing an important, if rather improbable role.
Morality matters, with one of the villains keeping an expensive woman, not his wife, in considerable style in a suburban villa. Accounting in large part for his urgent need for money and his role in the story. All very Simenon. The first time I have come across a fancy woman in 19th century English fiction, albeit in a very cameo role.
With the Moonstone being a large diamond, the property of a Hindu deity, stolen from India at some point, causing much grief wherever it went, but eventually ending up back with its deity in India.
In sum, a tale which did well enough, but the tale of the stone did not grip in the way that the tale of the woman had.
And so back to Maigret, refreshed and ready for more.
PS: having now consulted BH on the matter, I remember that there was a fancy woman of a sort in 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles', with Tess living with her villain in furnished rooms in some spa town. And murdering him there. Unlike Becky Sharpe, whose misdemeanours were off-stage. But I think the substantive point stands: such things are much commoner in foreign works, say Balzac's 'Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes'. Commonplace even.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/the-woman-in-white.html.
Monday 26 June 2017
Tweet, tweet
Let us suppose that A is a PLC providing health services of some sort, perhaps geriatric or mental health services, not very young or sexy at all. A has a CEO who owns a good slice and who also has a fancy life style. Yachts at Monaco and islands in the Caribbean. Something goes wrong and a thousand cross customers are invited to take A to court. Court awards punitive damages of many millions. Lawyers trouser one seventh, as is their due. Shareholders of A lose a bit of dividend. Prices of the services provided by A go up a bit - maybe A has taken out some expensive insurance, just in case whatever it is happens again. A few middle managers in A get the sack. A few more such managers are tasked with writing the red tape which makes it less likely that whatever went wrong goes wrong again. CEO gets over his temper tantrum and goes back to cruising in the Caribbean.
Let us suppose now that B is a public service providing health services of the same sort. B has a CEO, a superior civil servant. He does not own a good slice, indeed he does not own a slice at all, but he does have a fancy salary, a fancy pension and a nice house in Oxshott, in Surrey. Some of his neighbours are footballers. Something goes wrong, mainly because times are hard and B has been starved of the necessary resources for years, and a thousand cross customers are invited to take B to court. Court awards punitive damages of many millions. Lawyers trouser one sixth, as is their due. Only fair that they should get a bit extra: this is a public service after all. B now has even less resources, with which it is supposed to deliver those same health services. A few middle managers in B get retired early. A few expensive contractors are dismissed. Rather more, brand new contractors, with special expertise in the subject matter, are hired to write the red tape which makes it less likely that whatever went wrong goes wrong again. CEO goes back to processing the elaborate memoranda he gets from Whitehall. And thinking about his prize roses back in Oxshott.
In both cases, that national treasure, our media services industry, has a feeding frenzy and people take to actually buying newspapers for a few days. Bankruptcy staved off once again.
Readers are invited to play spot the difference and to suggest better ways forward.
Let us suppose now that B is a public service providing health services of the same sort. B has a CEO, a superior civil servant. He does not own a good slice, indeed he does not own a slice at all, but he does have a fancy salary, a fancy pension and a nice house in Oxshott, in Surrey. Some of his neighbours are footballers. Something goes wrong, mainly because times are hard and B has been starved of the necessary resources for years, and a thousand cross customers are invited to take B to court. Court awards punitive damages of many millions. Lawyers trouser one sixth, as is their due. Only fair that they should get a bit extra: this is a public service after all. B now has even less resources, with which it is supposed to deliver those same health services. A few middle managers in B get retired early. A few expensive contractors are dismissed. Rather more, brand new contractors, with special expertise in the subject matter, are hired to write the red tape which makes it less likely that whatever went wrong goes wrong again. CEO goes back to processing the elaborate memoranda he gets from Whitehall. And thinking about his prize roses back in Oxshott.
In both cases, that national treasure, our media services industry, has a feeding frenzy and people take to actually buying newspapers for a few days. Bankruptcy staved off once again.
Readers are invited to play spot the difference and to suggest better ways forward.
On elements
The last post in this series is to be found at reference 4. An introduction of sorts to the series as a whole is to be found at reference 5.
The LWS, our local workspace, first so named at reference 4, has plenty of data capacity. But that data has to be self-contained, it has to hold meaning of itself, not by reference to anything else. We have to draw meaning out of the void, in the words of Genesis via Robert Alter, out of the welter and waste and darkness. With the deity starting with a division of lightness from darkness.
While we had defined parts and layer objects on the layers of the LWS in terms of rectangular elements which were linked together by contiguity and by having the same perimeter. See, for example, reference 1. This does provide a vehicle for the representation of all kinds of data, for all kinds of conscious content, but we are no longer sure that it maps very well onto its neural substrate.
In this paper we look at alternatives.
Inter alia, we aim to define:
At reference 1, we defined parts as assemblies of contiguous rectangles of cells, rectangles all having the same shape and the same perimeter. And layer objects as assemblies of contiguous parts – including the case when there was just one part, otherwise when the layer object had no distinct parts. The bit that we are changing here is the foundation, the rectangles. But we hold to the idea that all the data in the LWS is expressed spatially, leveraging the sophisticated machinery developed by vertebrates for processing the data arriving on two dimensional retinas.
Initially, set out our ideas in a reasonably informal way. A more formal version, tidying up the various loose ends will follow.
We first consider all those cells taking the high value.
We suppose the snap above shows all the high valued cells on our layer. We have there, according to rules to be set down in due course, defined one layer object with three parts (left) and one with one part (right). Each part has an interior. In the absence of a foreground, the whole of the region outside the two layer objects is the background.
There is a certain amount of redundancy in the definition of these parts, including the two appendages to the right of the left hand object. And there are any number of ways to define any given interior, subject only to the need for space for other objects. Note also that we have more flexibility here in the shape of parts and objects than we had in the rectangular days of reference 1.
Rule: where two high valued cells are adjacent, vertically or horizontally but not diagonally, they are said to be neighbours. A high valued cell with no neighbours is called an isolated cell and for the moment we exclude any such from consideration.
We have now slid the right hand object under the left hand object. The yellow low valued cells mark the fact that the right object is not a fourth part of the left hand object, rather a second object behind or underneath (from the point of view of the host of the LWS) the first.
We have now marked in various patterns of green the interiors of the three parts of the left hand object and in a plain green that of the right hand object.
Holes and layers
In the snap above, not terribly clear given the constraints of Excel on the screen of a laptop, we apparently have a stack of three objects defined by the blue high values. What we actually have is a red object in two parts, a left hand part and a right hand part, on top of a much larger green object, this last with a rather ragged right hand edge. With the difference that the red object has a hole in it, allowing an otherwise occluded part of the green object to show through. Perhaps a tree with a patch of sky showing through it. Still remembering that defining objects by colour may be convenient here, but is not an option available to the compiler.
Given the rules so far, the snap would contain three objects, two green and one red, with the bands of yellow low values telling us that the red object was in front of both the green objects.
We deal with this by making use of an additional, adjacent layer to give us another view, to link the two green layer objects together. There will be other circumstances when it is convenient to make use of such an additional layer, but we do not explore the issue further here. See reference 3 for more thoughts on the use of layers.
Texture in space
Having defined parts and objects in space, as shapes in space, the interiors of those parts can be null, taking little more than low values everywhere, but will usually be given what we will call texture, perhaps colour, texture being something that persists, repeats in space. The extent to which the values of the cells of a part contain signal, are not just white noise. We associate here to Kolmogorov complexity, which touches on this very point. Can the object be completely described in some smaller compass than that of the object itself? Maybe it is the fact of repetition which makes it accessible to the subject, makes it conscious.
Parts and their textures are the basic unit of consciousness, brought out by the activation processes. And while textures may vary across a part, a part remains a whole, with the variation smoothed out, to some extent, by the integrative action of the activation processes. But if that variation goes far enough, a high value line may emerge to split that part into two.
There are various ways in which one might provide such texture. For example:
But such wheezes, while perhaps intuitive, are wasteful in that one is using up a property of a point to tell one about a property of a space, be that a part, an object or a layer. Are there properties of layers which could conveniently be used to define its mode? The mean or median of the values of its cells? The variance of those values? Some variation of auto-correlation to suit the present circumstances? Some special part of the layer which contained data about the layer as a whole?
However, while perhaps space efficient, it is less clear how the proposed activation processes might combine a property of a layer with the properties of groups of cells to deliver the consciousness of green over a part or an object. Having that greenness totally reside in each and every green part is more plausible.
High value cells
Here we build texture on the isolated high value cells that a part contains, isolated points for short, hereby reinstated and shown in brown in the snap which follows.
Rule: we define the value of an isolated point in the interior of a part and call it an isolated value. That value is the sum of the values of surrounding cells of the interior, excluding other high value cells and weighted by the inverse of the distance, perhaps the square of the distance from the isolated point. Note that an interior cell which is not itself an isolated point can participate in more than one isolated value.
This definition can easily be extended to an isolated point in the background or foreground, perhaps limiting the sum to cells within at most some constant defined distance. Something which might turn out to be a good idea in an interior.
But how do we know what sort of a part it is? Whether that isolated value relates to sight, sound, smell or whatever? Before, we had the perimeters which could carry that sort of information, so what do we use now?
Rule: on this option, all the isolated values of a part are about the same sort of thing. They all take values in the same range, be that range of sight, sound, smell or whatever. One might well go further, and say that all the isolated values of a layer are about the same sort of thing. With few isolated points meaning little information. With the breakdown of this rule perhaps being mixed up with synaesthesia.
With part of the attraction being that using isolated points in this sort of way seems well able to cope with a certain amount of noise. The conscious experience is not going to be that sensitive to their precise positions or indeed to their presence or absence, just so long as most of them are there, in roughly the right place.
There are then various wheezes which one might use to qualify the simple numeric value. One might have regard to the size or shapes of the parts. One might have regard to the pattern, rather than the sum, of values of neighbouring cells, along the lines of the snap above, with green for higher values and yellow for lower values. In sum, in one way or another it seems that we could code up plenty of data on our isolated points.
Options not taken forward
The values of the cells of layers are going to very in time as well as space, variations which could also be used to deliver texture. However, we have, for other reasons, opted for relatively static frames – see, for example, reference 2 – and we do not pursue texture in time, at least not for the time being.
We thought about defining objects using high value and parts using penultimate value, that is to say the largest value less than high value. This had the attraction of making parts like, but different to objects. Nevertheless, we decided against.
We thought about allowing dotted lines, to allow parts that were almost connected to each other, with a number of wheezes coming to mind, for example softening a high value border line with some low values. We decided against, mainly on the grounds that, first, what the compiler presents to consciousness is not reality, but a calculated, computed compromise between a nice tidy diagram and reality, with part of tidiness being that something is either a boundary between two parts or not. And second, where the two sides of a part differ, that difference can be expressed in differences of texture.
Another sort of compromise is illustrated above, where what was originally two parts to the right have become one part, with things so arranged that there is a sense of the activation processes squeezing through the gap as they scan the part.
Given that many of the scenes that we will want to express in the LWS will involve gravity, with objects either floating in the air, flying through the air, sitting on the ground or sitting on each other, and that which of these is intended is not always clear from layers of the sort illustrated at the beginning of this paper, we might like to mark such sitting in some way, probably at the cost of some complication to the borders between objects, possibly needing another special value.
In the snap above we have marked the bottoms of objects actually resting directly on that visible below with narrow objects with textured interiors – a bit messy – and possibly not very true – in the case of objects which do not have flat bottoms. And, it might work better to mark objects which do not rest despite being contiguous, being rather fewer in number than those which do so rest. In any event, we have illustrated what can be done with a bit of ingenuity.
While always remembering that what we actually have in one of our parts is an oddly shaped two dimensional array of small non negative integers. With no colour, possibly a lot more messy than that shown above and with the assumption that various sorts of small repeating patterns can be used as a proxy for the likes of colour and textures in colour.
Another idea which is not taken further forward at this time.
Other odds and ends
Suppose the brain decides on some way of coding for green in the layers of the LWS. Perhaps our familiarity with green is reflected in the ease with which the compiler makes the necessary connections. The compiler has to learn to do this, and as we become familiar with green it gets good at it. It gets so that it can make something green in a twinkling – and sometimes it is right so to do, sometimes wrong.
We also suppose that all brains decide on roughly the same way of coding for green, or anything else of an everyday variety. Maybe this results from, for example, coding constraints arising from the nature of colour and the way that information about colour is delivered to the brain. Maybe this is something with which we are born, a product of genes rather than learning.
Conclusions
There are clearly other ways to include data on our layers; we are not stuck with the soft centred patterns. But a lot more work is needed before one can make a reasoned choice between them – rather than a guess.
References
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/soft-centred-patterns.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/on-scenes.html.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/a-ship-of-line.html.
Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/on-scenes.html.
Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/its-chips-life.html.
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The LWS, our local workspace, first so named at reference 4, has plenty of data capacity. But that data has to be self-contained, it has to hold meaning of itself, not by reference to anything else. We have to draw meaning out of the void, in the words of Genesis via Robert Alter, out of the welter and waste and darkness. With the deity starting with a division of lightness from darkness.
While we had defined parts and layer objects on the layers of the LWS in terms of rectangular elements which were linked together by contiguity and by having the same perimeter. See, for example, reference 1. This does provide a vehicle for the representation of all kinds of data, for all kinds of conscious content, but we are no longer sure that it maps very well onto its neural substrate.
In this paper we look at alternatives.
Inter alia, we aim to define:
- Background – the blue above. In this example, the background has colour, but it may be something more complicated, just noise, or null. Sometimes, the sky.
- Foreground – the brown below. To use a theatrical metaphor, we might call it the stage and the background the backdrop. The horizon is the line, the boundary between foreground and background. But the foreground may be absent and the horizon may be obscured by other objects.
- Layer objects – or just objects for short, for example, the pink object in the middle. Where there is a foreground, most objects will appear to be resting on it, while some objects, for example the red object, seen against the sky, will clearly not be.
- Parts of objects – an object does not have to be divided into parts, but the green object, for example, is made up of three contiguous parts. Note: coloured in shades of green for presentation here. But the LWS does not use colour to delineate either objects or parts. There is no colour in there, any more than there is in the brain. In both places some kind of proxy is needed – with exactly what kind of a proxy being very much a present interest.
- The order of objects – the pink object, for example, is in front of the grey object.
- The texture of objects and the parts of objects – coded for by the values of the cells of their interiors. Typically at least hundreds of them, in the case of larger parts, thousands of them. Notes: 1) are the cells of an interior talking about sight, sound or what? Which of the many coding schemes are we going to use? 2) remembering here that the object may have no such texture; it may have no more than its shape; and 3) most of the objects above have been coloured for presentation here. But the yellow object has been given some Powerpoint texture.
At reference 1, we defined parts as assemblies of contiguous rectangles of cells, rectangles all having the same shape and the same perimeter. And layer objects as assemblies of contiguous parts – including the case when there was just one part, otherwise when the layer object had no distinct parts. The bit that we are changing here is the foundation, the rectangles. But we hold to the idea that all the data in the LWS is expressed spatially, leveraging the sophisticated machinery developed by vertebrates for processing the data arriving on two dimensional retinas.
Initially, set out our ideas in a reasonably informal way. A more formal version, tidying up the various loose ends will follow.
We first consider all those cells taking the high value.
We suppose the snap above shows all the high valued cells on our layer. We have there, according to rules to be set down in due course, defined one layer object with three parts (left) and one with one part (right). Each part has an interior. In the absence of a foreground, the whole of the region outside the two layer objects is the background.
There is a certain amount of redundancy in the definition of these parts, including the two appendages to the right of the left hand object. And there are any number of ways to define any given interior, subject only to the need for space for other objects. Note also that we have more flexibility here in the shape of parts and objects than we had in the rectangular days of reference 1.
Rule: where two high valued cells are adjacent, vertically or horizontally but not diagonally, they are said to be neighbours. A high valued cell with no neighbours is called an isolated cell and for the moment we exclude any such from consideration.
We have now slid the right hand object under the left hand object. The yellow low valued cells mark the fact that the right object is not a fourth part of the left hand object, rather a second object behind or underneath (from the point of view of the host of the LWS) the first.
We have now marked in various patterns of green the interiors of the three parts of the left hand object and in a plain green that of the right hand object.
Holes and layers
In the snap above, not terribly clear given the constraints of Excel on the screen of a laptop, we apparently have a stack of three objects defined by the blue high values. What we actually have is a red object in two parts, a left hand part and a right hand part, on top of a much larger green object, this last with a rather ragged right hand edge. With the difference that the red object has a hole in it, allowing an otherwise occluded part of the green object to show through. Perhaps a tree with a patch of sky showing through it. Still remembering that defining objects by colour may be convenient here, but is not an option available to the compiler.
Given the rules so far, the snap would contain three objects, two green and one red, with the bands of yellow low values telling us that the red object was in front of both the green objects.
We deal with this by making use of an additional, adjacent layer to give us another view, to link the two green layer objects together. There will be other circumstances when it is convenient to make use of such an additional layer, but we do not explore the issue further here. See reference 3 for more thoughts on the use of layers.
Texture in space
Having defined parts and objects in space, as shapes in space, the interiors of those parts can be null, taking little more than low values everywhere, but will usually be given what we will call texture, perhaps colour, texture being something that persists, repeats in space. The extent to which the values of the cells of a part contain signal, are not just white noise. We associate here to Kolmogorov complexity, which touches on this very point. Can the object be completely described in some smaller compass than that of the object itself? Maybe it is the fact of repetition which makes it accessible to the subject, makes it conscious.
Parts and their textures are the basic unit of consciousness, brought out by the activation processes. And while textures may vary across a part, a part remains a whole, with the variation smoothed out, to some extent, by the integrative action of the activation processes. But if that variation goes far enough, a high value line may emerge to split that part into two.
There are various ways in which one might provide such texture. For example:
- Patterns, such as horizontal or vertical stripes over the part in question. Of varying widths and values. Note: uniform vertical stripes cells taking the value 5, with low values in between. In this case the pattern has the value 5, then we have a value for the width of the stripes and a value for the separation of the stripes. Each pattern of regular stripes thus codes for an integer triple
- More varied patterns, perhaps just a collection of lines drawn out in the values of cells across the part. But would the sort of random collection of lines inside a blue part and snapped below count as information? Note: are we to allow an interest in the parts of the parts?
- Value densities. Varying mixtures of cells according to their value, along the lines of red, green blue stimulation of the retina in the case of coloured light. Notes: 1) all the cells might take the value 1 (for red), 2 (for green), 3 (for blue) or low value (for black or absence of colour). Then we suppose the perceived colour at any particular cell to be the product of the amount of red, green and blue in its neighbourhood, appropriately weighted; 2) replacing here a numeric value for red, as can be used, for example, in Powerpoint, by the number of cells which are coded for red; 3) all the cells might take the value 7 or the low value. The texture is the varying density of 7’s across the part. There may be no variation. There may be a gradient across the part; 4) or one might look at the densities of all the possible values of cells; and 5) other things being equal, one needs more space the more complicated one gets. So with lots of complication one can have less variation in space, variation which is not usually needed with something like smell, for which we do not have a strong sense of either position or variation in space
- Patterns built on a scattering of high value cells. This option is described in more detail below.
But such wheezes, while perhaps intuitive, are wasteful in that one is using up a property of a point to tell one about a property of a space, be that a part, an object or a layer. Are there properties of layers which could conveniently be used to define its mode? The mean or median of the values of its cells? The variance of those values? Some variation of auto-correlation to suit the present circumstances? Some special part of the layer which contained data about the layer as a whole?
However, while perhaps space efficient, it is less clear how the proposed activation processes might combine a property of a layer with the properties of groups of cells to deliver the consciousness of green over a part or an object. Having that greenness totally reside in each and every green part is more plausible.
High value cells
Here we build texture on the isolated high value cells that a part contains, isolated points for short, hereby reinstated and shown in brown in the snap which follows.
Rule: we define the value of an isolated point in the interior of a part and call it an isolated value. That value is the sum of the values of surrounding cells of the interior, excluding other high value cells and weighted by the inverse of the distance, perhaps the square of the distance from the isolated point. Note that an interior cell which is not itself an isolated point can participate in more than one isolated value.
This definition can easily be extended to an isolated point in the background or foreground, perhaps limiting the sum to cells within at most some constant defined distance. Something which might turn out to be a good idea in an interior.
But how do we know what sort of a part it is? Whether that isolated value relates to sight, sound, smell or whatever? Before, we had the perimeters which could carry that sort of information, so what do we use now?
Rule: on this option, all the isolated values of a part are about the same sort of thing. They all take values in the same range, be that range of sight, sound, smell or whatever. One might well go further, and say that all the isolated values of a layer are about the same sort of thing. With few isolated points meaning little information. With the breakdown of this rule perhaps being mixed up with synaesthesia.
With part of the attraction being that using isolated points in this sort of way seems well able to cope with a certain amount of noise. The conscious experience is not going to be that sensitive to their precise positions or indeed to their presence or absence, just so long as most of them are there, in roughly the right place.
There are then various wheezes which one might use to qualify the simple numeric value. One might have regard to the size or shapes of the parts. One might have regard to the pattern, rather than the sum, of values of neighbouring cells, along the lines of the snap above, with green for higher values and yellow for lower values. In sum, in one way or another it seems that we could code up plenty of data on our isolated points.
Options not taken forward
The values of the cells of layers are going to very in time as well as space, variations which could also be used to deliver texture. However, we have, for other reasons, opted for relatively static frames – see, for example, reference 2 – and we do not pursue texture in time, at least not for the time being.
We thought about defining objects using high value and parts using penultimate value, that is to say the largest value less than high value. This had the attraction of making parts like, but different to objects. Nevertheless, we decided against.
We thought about allowing dotted lines, to allow parts that were almost connected to each other, with a number of wheezes coming to mind, for example softening a high value border line with some low values. We decided against, mainly on the grounds that, first, what the compiler presents to consciousness is not reality, but a calculated, computed compromise between a nice tidy diagram and reality, with part of tidiness being that something is either a boundary between two parts or not. And second, where the two sides of a part differ, that difference can be expressed in differences of texture.
Another sort of compromise is illustrated above, where what was originally two parts to the right have become one part, with things so arranged that there is a sense of the activation processes squeezing through the gap as they scan the part.
Given that many of the scenes that we will want to express in the LWS will involve gravity, with objects either floating in the air, flying through the air, sitting on the ground or sitting on each other, and that which of these is intended is not always clear from layers of the sort illustrated at the beginning of this paper, we might like to mark such sitting in some way, probably at the cost of some complication to the borders between objects, possibly needing another special value.
In the snap above we have marked the bottoms of objects actually resting directly on that visible below with narrow objects with textured interiors – a bit messy – and possibly not very true – in the case of objects which do not have flat bottoms. And, it might work better to mark objects which do not rest despite being contiguous, being rather fewer in number than those which do so rest. In any event, we have illustrated what can be done with a bit of ingenuity.
While always remembering that what we actually have in one of our parts is an oddly shaped two dimensional array of small non negative integers. With no colour, possibly a lot more messy than that shown above and with the assumption that various sorts of small repeating patterns can be used as a proxy for the likes of colour and textures in colour.
Another idea which is not taken further forward at this time.
Other odds and ends
Suppose the brain decides on some way of coding for green in the layers of the LWS. Perhaps our familiarity with green is reflected in the ease with which the compiler makes the necessary connections. The compiler has to learn to do this, and as we become familiar with green it gets good at it. It gets so that it can make something green in a twinkling – and sometimes it is right so to do, sometimes wrong.
We also suppose that all brains decide on roughly the same way of coding for green, or anything else of an everyday variety. Maybe this results from, for example, coding constraints arising from the nature of colour and the way that information about colour is delivered to the brain. Maybe this is something with which we are born, a product of genes rather than learning.
Conclusions
There are clearly other ways to include data on our layers; we are not stuck with the soft centred patterns. But a lot more work is needed before one can make a reasoned choice between them – rather than a guess.
References
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/soft-centred-patterns.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/on-scenes.html.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/a-ship-of-line.html.
Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/on-scenes.html.
Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/its-chips-life.html.
Group search key: src.
Putting down
From time to time I notice our progress in this country, or more precisely our lack of progress, towards allowing a civilised and dignified death to those humans with terminally unpleasant diseases. See, for example, references 1 and 2.
Of which I was reminded by a piece in today's Guardian about a roughly human sized blue shark visiting Mallorca. We read that 'specialists from the Palma aquarium said the shark appeared to be dying and they were assessing whether it needed to be put down'. I don't suppose Chris Grayling would have any problem with this: it's nice to be nice to dumb animals, but humans just have to grit their teeth and put up with it. Supposing, that is, that they have any grit or teeth left.
Given the heat here in Epsom this afternoon, I resist the temptation to wax philosophical about the differing rights of humans and their non-human friends.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/a-possibility.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/a-bad-result.html.
Reference 3: https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/. The people who are doing their best for us.
Of which I was reminded by a piece in today's Guardian about a roughly human sized blue shark visiting Mallorca. We read that 'specialists from the Palma aquarium said the shark appeared to be dying and they were assessing whether it needed to be put down'. I don't suppose Chris Grayling would have any problem with this: it's nice to be nice to dumb animals, but humans just have to grit their teeth and put up with it. Supposing, that is, that they have any grit or teeth left.
Given the heat here in Epsom this afternoon, I resist the temptation to wax philosophical about the differing rights of humans and their non-human friends.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/a-possibility.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/a-bad-result.html.
Reference 3: https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/. The people who are doing their best for us.
Not lots of ants
The base of the knapweed can be seen left.
A snap taken just over a year ago can be seen at reference 1. The nest has spread out a bit since then. Rain must contribute, washing earth down from the top to the bottom, with the ants doing what they can to regain height.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/ants.html.
Group search key: kwa.
Lots of floral
The black flies do not seem to be making much progress at all. Maybe they can't cope with the heat, despite the shade in this part of the garden for quite large parts of the day.
While I learn from wikipedia at reference 1, that the knapweeds are part of the aster family and are related to the cornflowers which are the stars of the episode of Miss. Marple called 'Sleeping Murder'. The penultimate Marple story in order of writing, the last Marple story in order of publication. At the time of writing, the manuscript was gifted to her husband and placed in a bank vault for safe keeping, this being London during the blitz phase of the second world war.
Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurea.
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Sunday 25 June 2017
Barrowboy & Banker
Caught the 1649 from Epsom to Waterloo, more or less full by the time I got there, to pull a Bullingdon from Waterloo 2 to pedal off to the Hop Exchange, a trip which the recently refurbished TFL site tells me took 9 minutes and 4 seconds. A refurbishment which no doubt does all kinds of other good things, but also means that I have to take time out to find my way around - something which people who like to fiddle with their systems do not always take proper account of.
Got to London Bridge to find the plinth of the spire on the south eastern corner doing service as a makeshift memorial, with what looked like lots of little messages of condolence and support stuck onto it. Otherwise, normal life had resumed.
Barrowboy & Banker perhaps not quite as busy as usual, but busy enough and the staff as efficient as ever. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc as good as ever. Two bouncers on the door.
I was able to admire the wooden boxes which were part of the decoration, once the property of a fruit or vegetable farm near Oxford. Rather larger than the ones noticed at reference 1.
I learn that one of the many things that the great British public does not want to pay a proper price for, along with public services, is third party motor insurance. Or at least the current administration has promised on their behalf that there will be no price rise, despite the escalating costs of serious claims. Also that third party motor insurance is not something that market forces are going to manage by themselves; one of the many things which we need in the modern world and with which we need our government to meddle. Maybe, even, to chip in some regulation and red-tape.
The return journey, maybe with a following wind, took a touch less than the outward journey at 8 minutes and 54 seconds. I had to settle for return to Waterloo 2, the pole position at the top of the ramp being taken. On the way, I noticed that the Stamford Street branch of Konditur & Cook, their cake school, was still up and running at 2100 or so, with some class or other in progress. Twenty somethings of both sexes by the look of them from the other side of the road. One assumes some silent hours cuddles course paid for by some corporate with offices in the area. Probably healthier than the pub.
Before jumping on the Epsom train, I stopped long enough to snap the once proud buffers at Platform 1, made by Ransomes of Ipswich, presumably the same people that my parents, having been Ipswich people for a while, used to buy their lawn mowers from. Or were lawn mowers the junior branch of the family, with the senior branch doing the serious engineering?
Sadly not so serious now, as the pistons have been wrapped in something black and the buffers are protected by a red steel frame, visible top right. Sadly also, I am slightly too young to have ever seen a steam locomotive gently running into such buffers, quietly pushing them to their half shut position amid great clouds of steam and the hissing of the hydraulic fluid.
Some racing detritus from Ascot to be seen milling around the station.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/collecting.html.
Saturday 24 June 2017
Poverty in the western world
However, there was some interest, including this piece built around a couple of books about poverty.
It seems that most western statisticians define poverty as a proportion of median disposable income, commonly a third or less in the US and two thirds or less in the more egalitarian Europe. The first point in interest is that this is a relative measure: it is not about how many refrigerators you can buy, or about how much stuff you can afford to put in your refrigerator, more about how many more or less refrigerators you can buy than your average neighbour.
But a measure which fluctuates over time, which wanes and waxes. Presently waxing with between 10% and 15% of people in the US being below the poverty line, with the exact number depending on the details.
The second point of interest was that income has become increasingly variable over time. So while there are a lot of people who are poor all the time, there are maybe twice as many people who are poor some of the time. And generally speaking, for a given level of average income, people on a varying income find it harder to manage than those on a steady income.
Part of this story is a transfer of risk from capitalists to workers. Fifty years ago, most workers - and workers accounted for a large proportion of the working population, guessing, say more than 75% - and the income of workers was reasonably steady. There were lay-offs and there was short-time, but, in the round the capitalists absorbed a lot of the costs and risks of business cycles, of the day-to-day fluctuations in the level of business. There was a pooling of risks. While now, an increasing proportion of the working population is self-employed and an increasing proportion of those who are employed are on variable hours. Costs and risks have been transferred from the capitalists to the workers, from society at large to individuals.
Which is fine for those of us who have the money. The stuff we buy is cheaper than it might otherwise be. There is, as it were, no insurance premium included in the price. But the people who make the stuff don't have the money.
PS: another villain in this story is ICT. Without modern information and communications technology, all this flexi-working would not be on at all.
Friday 23 June 2017
Pomegranate
Then there is the other one in Battersea Park, last seen in June 2015, just about exactly two years ago, and noticed at reference 2.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/pomegranate.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/aeroplanes-1.html.
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Veg and herb
Nets for carrots and onions in the middle distance. Against the flies which afflict both, but not something I ever bothered with. Perhaps nets have got cheaper since my allotment days.
Broad bean picker in the distance, bent over, top left.
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Fish
Also a pair of swans and several coots, two of them sitting on piles of sticks. Is it the swans who are eating the duckweed down? There was some around, in the margins of the patches of water lilies, but not much, and left to itself would no doubt have covered the whole canal.
And on the far side of the canal, beyond the boundary fence, among the various booths, the extravaganza people had put up a small dome, the triangulated sort, full of what looked like palm trees. Clearly a must-have feature for any self-respecting extravaganza.
Seeking advice.
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The court
Royal Cabbage Patch looking very well, with lots of stuff coming on. And we were lucky enough to catch a broad bean picking in progress, by an older chap who said he put in a day's volunteering a week. Rather a pleasant form of volunteering, I should imagine, although I would need to live a lot nearer, say easy walking, before I would be tempted.
From there to the roses, a little past their best with all the hot weather, but still pretty good.
To the Tilt Yard for a 'Maids of Honour' tart. Good enough, but I am fairly sure they were not made with the puff pasty used by the people at reference 2, also claiming to be the one and only original recipe. Maybe I need to collar a cook on my next visit, against the unlikely chance that the people holding the catering franchise at the Palace actually make the things on the spot.
To the wilderness to find the gate into the formal gardens unmanned and firmly shut, so we had to walk back around to the front door. Or rather the side door, as the base court was full of the furniture for some summer music event.
Through the Palace and into the gardens to find a fair amount of furniture against the upcoming garden show, mainly an extravaganza for garden equipment suppliers, but I think there are a few flowers as well. Not my sort of thing at all, although I dare say BH would cope well enough.
Inspected the round pond and the southern wing of the canal, the southern wing of the herbaceous border, which last was a bit betwixt and between, with the spring stuff done and the high summer stuff to come. But there was still plenty to look at. Took a left into the privy garden, looking as well as ever. Truly, an all year round garden. One gardener who looked as if he was in imminent danger of getting sun stroke.
Just the weather to appreciate the well-shaded beech walk running up the western side of the garden. And it was provided with a bench, with our only beef being that the view from the bench was rather blocked by one of the heritage boards scattered about the place, just visible lower right in the snap above.
The two sunken gardens were in very fine form, well up to jigsaw standard. Or even chocolate box, to go with the chocolate attraction back inside the Palace. One bright with summer flowers, one more subdued. The jigsaw being noticed at reference 4, although I seem to have misdirected myself, with that jigsaw appearing to be the flashy sunken garden rather than the subtle green one next door. Beggars can't be choosers I suppose.
Through the Mantegna gallery, not to find a way back into the Palace proper, so out and through Fountain Court again to the café in the kitchen wing to take pie, mash and pease. The gallery was being looked after by a lone lady trustee, ensconced behind her desk. We discussed the chances of falling asleep on such a duty and the probability that Mantegna had never seen an elephant in the life, relying instead on hearsay, illustrated and otherwise.
Almost packed up at that point, but actually settled for a quick visit to the Cumberland Gallery, where we were not best pleased to find that the series of views of the Grand Canal had been taken away, in favour of a series of views of Daphne with Cupid, or some such. Not without interest, but we would have preferred the Canaletto's. On the other hand, I did spend some time with a couple of small Rembrandt portraits. Losing my taste for the Gainsborough cartoon, which I had found so striking on first acquaintance. Noticed on various occasions, from the time the gallery first opened, but illustrated at reference 3.
PS: any connection between ensconced and the stone of scone? The OED makes none such in its treatments of ensconce, sconce and scone, while wikipedia talks of the obscure origin of the name of the place concerned, possibly on the Gaelic outer fringes of the Aryan language system.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/hampton-court.html.
Reference 2: https://theoriginalmaidsofhonour.co.uk/.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/diana.html.
Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=hunt+green+hampton.
Group search key: hcg.
Cherries
But yesterday I was moved to try again, this time 2kg for £6, from a stall in the middle of Epsom Market which I use reasonably regularly and which offers good value if not always good quality. With one of the ladies behind the stall reminding me very much of the lady who runs Sandie's flower shop in Pound Lane. I don't think I have asked her if she is related, so maybe I will get around to that one day.
These cherries were a full red but had lost the bloom of freshness. Home, I found them to be very cool, so presumably they still had the chill of the cooled lorry which brought them from Spain. They turned out to be very good, with about one of the two kilos done by bed time. Most of the balance plated up next door and so not in this shot.
I am fairly sure that Xeralba is a brand name from the people at reference 2, also responsible for nature's choice from Tesco. Strong links with Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, hence the Arabic decorating parts of the web site. Also plenty of cherries as can be seen by cursory inspection of the agroindustrial tab.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/trolley-78.html.
Reference 2: http://grupoalba.es/.
Thursday 22 June 2017
On scenes
So we start with scenes. These are broken down into a sequence of one or more takes, and takes are broken down into a sequence of one or more frames. Moving from time to space, each frame is made up of a number of layers, perhaps of the order of 10, say seven, seven being an ever popular magic number in all kinds of contexts. A number which may be fixed and does have quite a low upper bound. Layers is a very finite resource.
Layers are considered to be arranged in a stack with a top and a bottom, with the top layer – or perhaps layers – reflecting the state of activation processes – proxies for the electrical field which we propose to be consciousness, while the remaining layers contain the data, are the contents of consciousness. There will often be links between the contents of adjacent data layers. Layers might be present but inactive, in which case they will have no part in the conscious experience. Just convenient, for some computing reason or other, for them to be there.
We also have objects, objects which persist in memory, which are not any part of the LWS, but which are represented there as structures in layers. For convenience, we assign objects to scenes. So this or that object may or may not participate in this or that scene.
All this is modelled in time in the top half of the illustration above and in entities in the bottom half – this last being the soft box modelling introduced at reference 4, and with the present diagram being a slightly different take on the world to that offered there. But there is little of substance between them.
We have already talked of the compiler which builds the successive versions, the successive frames of the LWS. We now introduce the handler which has a rather less complicated role, being the process which just does the updates which have been prepared by the compiler. Perhaps comparable to the BIOS – the basic input-output system – of a PC.
We allow some update to existing layers within frames. Update which may include changing the activity of a layer, provided that such change does not change their ranking. Update which may, at the limit, disturb the links between structures on adjacent layers.
If we make a significant change to the activity of a layer, delete a layer, add a layer or replace a layer, we need a new frame, with a short gap in time between the old fame and the new frame, rather as there is in the cinema, as the compiler needs a bit of time to adjust the data and the activation processes that go with it. It is possible that the compilation, in going for the small compile associated with a new frame, will get into a muddle, will need to back out and go for the big compile associated with a new take. The compiler, as it were, is only human; it is neither all-powerful, always right nor the deity.
If we change all the layers, we need a new take, with a slightly longer gap between the last frame of the old take and the first frame of the new.
If we change the scene completely, perhaps with a change of activity, position or place, with a whole new set of objects, we need a new scene, with an even longer gap. In some circumstances, for example when waking up, the subject may be conscious of layers coming online over a period of some seconds, perhaps even as long as minutes. So, for example, when I have had toothache, I have sometimes been conscious of the pain taking some seconds to kick back in after I wake up.
As candidate changes appear in UCS (the great mass of unconscious processing, the invisible, underwater part of the iceberg), the compiler will need to make a judgement about whether those changes require a new frame, a new take or a new scene – and deploy processes and resources accordingly. It is this deployment which is important, so we do not need to be pedantic about the definitions, the indications given above.
Nevertheless, we might formalise the business of a new frame along the following lines. The frame has an age, a duration in time since it was compiled (a positive real, T). Each layer has an activity (a non-negative real A) and a content (a non-negative real C), this last being some measure of the information held in that layer, a measure which might be very small (Tononi & Koch’s IIT & PHI notwithstanding) or very large, subject only to the space constraint on a layer, supposed to be of the order of some tens of megabytes, about that of a photograph that I might take on my telephone. Not only are the C bounded, the sum of the products, A*C, is bounded too, as we can only attend to so much stuff at any one time; so even if we have a spare layer, there may not be the capacity to bring on a new one unless we turn something off. There is only so much processing capacity, although limits of this sort are apt to vary from person to person. That apart, the layer with the largest value of A is the focus, the subject of attention. Then we have an algorithm which says that if there is a lot of change in a layer, or if we want to add a new layer, usually by overwriting an existing layer, or if we want to change the focus, or if the frame has been going on for a long time, then we need a new frame.
Scene being a word that is used in drama, in films, and in a looser way, in everyday life. I offer a short narrative below, broken into the sort of quite short scenes I have in mind here.
We suppose that I am in the sort of employment in the City which allows me to get my hair cut during working hours.
Scene: working away at my hot desk. My own personal pot plant looking a bit the worse for wear for all its travels.
Take: closing down my hot desk.
Scene: going down to the street in the lift.
Scene: Gutter Lane. A quiet, narrow street, with various doors leading into place of office employment of various shapes and sizes.
Scene: Cheapside. A wider, much busier street, with lots of retail action, directed at the people who work in the area.
Scene: in the barber’s shop.
Scene: Cheapside.
And so on, back to my hot desk.
Change of take
Something of an abuse of term here as, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take, we have it that ‘in cinematography, a take refers to each filmed version of a particular shot or setup. Takes of each shot are generally numbered starting with ‘take one’ and the number of each successive take is increased (with the director calling for ‘take two’ or ‘take eighteen’) until the filming of the shot is completed. Film takes are often designated with the aid of a clapperboard. It is also referred to as the slate. The number of each take is written or attached to the clapboard, which is filmed briefly prior to or at the beginning of the actual take. Only those takes which are vetted by the continuity person and/or script supervisor are printed and are sent to the film editor’.
While according to http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms17.html, we have it that ‘[a shot is] the basic building block or unit of film narrative; refers to a single, constant take made by a motion picture camera uninterrupted by editing, interruptions or cuts, in which a length of film is exposed by turning the camera on, recording, and then turning the camera off; it can also refer to a single film frame (such as a still image); a follow-shot is when the camera moves to follow the action; a pull-back shot refers to a tracking shot or zoom that moves back from the subject to reveal the context of the scene; see also scene and sequence; shot analysis refers to the examination of individual shots; a one-shot, a two-shot, and a three-shot refers to common names for shooting just one, two, or three people in a shot’.
So what I have been calling a take is more properly a shot. But I stick with take and I continue with the barber shop scene, broken into the sort of takes I have in mind. A scene which might, if the barber and his doings were important, be broken into two or more scenes, but I stick with just the one here.
Scene: in the barber’s shop. Maybe half a dozen chairs and about the same number of barbers. A long narrow shop with chairs along one wall an benches on which to wait along the other. A scattering of magazines and newspapers. This being a costume drama on BBC, ashtrays, fags and clouds of smoke. Maybe personal items tucked away in drawers, BBC sometimes getting quite precious about their dressing of scenes. In front of the chairs, mirrors and shelves, these last cluttered with the paraphernalia of the trade. Including strops and razors.
Take: going into the shop.
Take: sitting on the bench, waiting my turn. Idling turning the pages of a certain tabloid newspaper which I would not usually buy.
Take: my turn in the chair, watching the goings on in the big mirror. Scissor action.
Take: clipper action.
Take: sprayer action.
Take: the end of the cut, peering at the result in the small mirror being held up behind me.
Take: standing up, thanking the barber and starting to head for the desk.
Take: paying at the desk.
Take: leaving the shop, back into Cheapside.
Change of frame
Slightly adapted from http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms17.html, we have it that a take ‘refers to a single image, the smallest compositional unit of a film's structure, captured by the camera on a strip of motion picture film - similar to an individual slide in still photography; a series of frames juxtaposed and shown in rapid succession make up a motion (or moving) picture; also refers to the rectangular area within which the film image is composed by the film-maker ... While frame rate refers to the rate at which film stock passes in front of the camera's aperture while filming; present-day films are usually run through a camera or projector at a frame rate (running speed or camera speed) of 24 fps (frames per second); older films, made at 18 fps, appear jerky and sped-up when played back at 24 fps - this technique is referred to as undercranking; over-cranking refers to [speeding up] the frame rate (i.e., shooting at 48 or 96 fps), thereby producing slow-motion action when viewed at 24 fps’.
So again, a slight abuse of language in that our frames are much longer in duration and are not static in the way that the frames of a film are static. We allow a certain amount of change, of action during a frame, quite possibly in both the sight and sound departments. Although, that said, too much change and the integrity of LWS is lost and the subject will probably become confused or disorientated.
Scene: still in the barber’s shop.
Take: sitting on the bench, waiting my turn.
Frame: just sitting, idling glancing about. A small shift in the object of attention, a small saccade, can be accommodated within frame. A big shift, a big saccade, needs the recompilation of the visual field that comes with a new frame. In this, the shift in the object of attention is more important than the more easily verified facts of a saccade; perhaps more accurately just the shift in attention, the object, at a gross level, say the mirror in front of me, might be the same, but with the focus of attention moving around it, around its parts. Perhaps, alighting on a prismatic effect arising from an edge bevel.
Frame: pick up the newspaper and start to look at it. The mirror and the barber’s shop recede into the unattended background. The motor and sensory action involved in this picking up need at least one new layer. Maybe one of the old layers has to go.
Frame: gazing at page 14 of the newspaper, fairly absorbed in it. The layer holding page 14, and perhaps another layer holding something of interest within that, perhaps a picture of a man biting a dog, are what are important now.
Frame: turn a few more pages. Attention now more spread about, both on the action of turning the pages, perhaps looking about a bit, probably glancing down at each new page. Put another way and using the jargon introduced earlier, there is a flattening of the values of A, from having been very skewed, across the layers of the LWS.
Frame: gazing at page 23 of the newspaper, fairly absorbed in it.
Frame: put the newspaper down.
Frame: just sitting, idling glancing about.
Not change of frame
The sort of things that can be encompassed within a single frame.
Frame: back with looking at the edge of the mirror in front of me more closely. Quite small shifts of attention, just millimetres on the mirror. According to wikipedia, ‘… If one looks at a one-centimetre object at a distance of one metre and a two-centimetre object at a distance of two meters, both subtend the same visual angle of about 0.01 rad or 0.57°. Thus they have the same retinal image size of around 0.17mm…’. I am perhaps talking of a one centimetre object at two metres. See reference 5.
Frame: still with the mirror, but my attention has been caught by the image (in the mirror) of a van going slowly along the road outside, in the heavy traffic of Cheapside. I am trying to make out what it says on the side of the van. The frame can allow the movement of the van. I have to do the best I can, looking at the one place in the mirror. Tracking the van as it moves not an option in this context.
Walking along East Street in Epsom the other day, towards Ewell, I noticed a baby’s plastic rattle lying on the pavement in front of me. An attractive, brightly coloured plastic rattle, the shape of a small dumbbell, with bits inside that rattled. I picked it up thinking it might do for a young grandchild. Turned it over a bit. About to start moving forward again. But at that point I became conscious of someone shouting behind me. I turned around, and gradually a young woman with a baby in a buggy came into focus. I connected the shouting with the young woman. A few seconds later she had got back to me, a little hot and bothered, and I returned her baby’s rattle.
Part of the interest of this anecdote being that its core developed over several seconds, from the time when I heard the shouting, until the young women came into focus. Which might expand as follows.
Scene: East Street in Epsom.
Take: ‘walking along East Street in Epsom the other day, towards Ewell’. Not thinking of anything in particular, but attention flickering around me, eyes darting from place to place.
Take: new take for all the rattle, mother and baby stuff. Triggered by my attention shifting to the rattle – which is now being attended to, rather than just being something vaguely in the scene in front of me.
Frame: ‘I noticed a baby’s plastic rattle lying on the pavement in front of me. An attractive, brightly coloured plastic rattle, the shape of a small dumbbell, with bits inside that rattled’. A new object and new layer for the rattle – new stuff which, by definition of the LWS, has to be created and put in place before we become conscious of it. Walking layer updated for standing, probably deactivated, possibly recycled
Frame: ‘I picked it up thinking it might do for a young grandchild’. New object for the new granddaughter.
Frame: ‘turned it over a bit’. New layer or layers for the sensations involve in turning the rattle, so arranged that the new layer objects involved more or less coincided in position with that of the rattle itself.
Frame: ‘about to start moving forward again’. New layer for the change of focus. Rattle layers downgraded, probably not yet recycled.
Frame: ‘but at that point I became conscious of someone shouting behind me’. New layer for the shouting.
Frame: ‘I turned around’. New frame for the new action.
Take: new take for the entirely new scene in front of me.
Frame: replace visual scene layer(s) carrying what was in front with the new ones carrying what was behind.
Frame: ‘and gradually a young woman with a baby in a buggy came into focus. I connected the shouting with the young woman’. New object and new layer for the young woman.
Frame: ‘a few seconds later she had got back to me, a little hot and bothered’. A mainly visual frame.
Take: new take for the interchange with the mother.
Frame: make contact. Eye contact between me and the mother.
Frame: ‘and I returned her baby’s rattle’. A frame both visual and active.
Frame: close contact.
Scene: new scene for resumption of walk. With the rattle incident not having a scene to itself, rather just being tacked onto the end of the East Street scene already in place. The close of contact makes a good end of scene, but there was no clear start of scene at the beginning, just a rising to a climax with the return of the rattle. It does not make much sense in this context to impose a beginning after the event. In the barber shop example, the scene structure was more predictable.
Take: new take for resumption of walk.
Frame: turn around again.
Frame: I resumed walking along East Street.
Conclusions
We have illustrated by two examples the way that we see scenes, takes and frames developing in the LWS. Showing, inter alia, that while the breakdown in scenes, takes and frames fits the way that we experience the world well enough, the timing and duration of successive frames is a balance, a compromise between the flow of sensory data into the brain and the needs arising from the compiler trying to make some sense of it all.
A compiler which is not perfect, which will often get things wrong and which can easily be tricked by things which it is not used to, which it was not designed for. Such as the trickery of Brigit Riley, on view in miniature at reference 6.
And, generally speaking, while we experience the scenes, takes and frames as they develop in the LWS, we are not ticking them off in the way in the way that a film director might. Not that there is any particular bar to such self-consciousness, such self-regard in the LWS, just no need for it. Most of the time it would not add much.
References
Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Workspace_Theory.
Reference 2: Global workspace dynamics: cortical binding and propagation enables conscious contents - Bernard J. Baars, Stan Franklin and Thomas Zoega Ramsoy – 2013. Open access.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/in-praise-of-homunculus.html.
Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/recap-on-our-data-structure.html.
Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade.
Reference 6: http://www.op-art.co.uk/bridget-riley/.
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