The Fly and Machine Learning

I watched 1986 version of the 'The Fly' last week and realised that the core of the film was about machine learning and it was a good demonstration of how it works and how some limitations. I shan't explain the plot but at one point Jeff Goldblum (playing his familiar role of maverick scientist) realises that the reason his telepods are not teleporting animate objects properly is that they do not understand what organic material is so they create their approximation of it. He proves this by teleporting a piece of steak and cooking it for Geena Davis, his co-star. The steak looks OK but tastes wrong. After he realises this problem he trains the computer by teleporting steak until comes through the other side at a quality that is edible. He then has a workable teleportation machine that successfully transmits live animals and he tests it and it works. 1- 0 to machine learning v human overconfidence.

Alas, when he transmits himself there is a fly in the telepod and the machine hasn't been taught how to deal with two entities and has a guess and decides to fuse them at the DNA level with unfortunate results. The machine could have been taught how to deal with multiple entities but Jeff Goldblum did seem to be a scientist in a hurry with a taste for shortcuts. 1- 1 machine learning v human overconfidence.

Another subtle warning in the film is that the Goldblum character is a scientist/inventor but he does create any of the components. He designs them, other people build them and then send them to him. He puts them together to get the effect he wants without anyone being aware of the objective but he really doesn't know how they are built.

If he had been able to write a few lines of code he could have written something along the lines of:

If NumOf Entities >1 Then

Print "Clean Out The Telepod"

Exit

Endif

Then he would've avoided all the unpleasantness of being turned into a human fly and picked up his Nobel Prize and we would not have overcrowded trains on the way into work.

Alice, James Bond, Poirot Sequels

I've just finished reading 'The BeeKeeper's Apprentice' by Laurie King. It is a tale of Sherlock Holmes in retirement working with a young lady who is as independent as himself and they solve a number of crimes some of which are linked. It's worth reading and I will read a few more of them as it has an interesting dynamic between the two people and still has the old-fashioned feel of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writing during a period when the old ways were being replaced by the new.

There are characters such as Alice, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot who attract sequels and re-imagining. I have read some and it's hard for newer writers as the temptation can be to update them for modern tastes and this reduces their impact and freshness because you can't have the behaviours and language of these eras on the stage in London for sensitive ears. The titles of some Agatha Christie books had to be changed to avoid offence.  Sherlock Holmes and James Bond comment on racial stereotypes that are now unacceptable so it is hard to find baddies unless they are English.

Another problem is that you can't put your mind into the mind of the original writer to see how they were going to develop the character. Raymond Chandler left notes with ideas for Phillip Marlowe to be married to a society type and living in Palm Springs. I read that book 'Poodle Springs' and thought that Robert B Parker did a great job. Both Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle were conflicted about the characters they had created and the James Bond stories are very little representative of the films as he was a colder and tougher character than displayed on the screen.

There are so many versions and permutations of the Alice stories but I do wonder what Lewis Carroll would have written if he could've been persuaded or inspired to create a third world for Alice to visit and what it would have been like. If he was reborn today I think his writing would be darker and more like J G Ballard than J K Rowling. Maybe Alice would be trapped in a discount supermarket that had been abandoned and forgotten in a failed business takeover so she would have to fashion a life out of what she found there.

Vietnam National University - Lewis Carroll

I enjoyed giving the talk and it has given me a structure so I can write it up. The people I met were receptive and had good questions even though I suspected them of googling them during the talk.

One lady asked me a question about the White Queen and it led to a conversation about female mentors, time travel and why modern women aren't as supportive as the two Queens were to help Alice.

The response has been very positive and I may go to Vietnam and Singapore next year.

The Building where the Lewis Carroll Society Committee Meet.

There is an article in the London Evening Standard about the building where we hold our Committee meetings. I avoid the 'Homes and Property' section of newspapers and magazines so it was a friend who spotted it.


"Playing cards are painted on to the ceiling of the Queen of Hearts meeting room and there are White Rabbit-shaped chairs for the boss in the smaller White Queen rooms, which open up into a bright 40-seat conference suite."

A remarkable space to hold a meeting.

Lewis Carroll Reference - David Starkey 'Henry VIII - Peronalities and Politics'

I'm reading the David Starkey book at the moment and saw him speak on the weekend about Henry VIII as 'the first Brexiteer'. I got a signed copy of one of his early books and it is great. I love intelligent, gossipy and analytical writing. There is a Lewis Carroll reference early on one page 7.

"Henry could not simply say, like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, 'off with his head'. Instead, the accused had to be condemned by due process of law. Trials, of course, were rigged. But rigging took much effort and could go embarrassingly wrong."

A great view of History.

Lewis Carroll Goes to Vietnam!

Event: The Influence of Lewis Carroll on Management Thinking

24 November, Faculty of Education, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University- Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

A talk by Stephen Folan on the influences on Lewis Carroll that formed his world-view, the influence of the ‘Alice’ books on people today and how we can see examples of behaviour from these stories in modern corporate life today.

Evolving Communication - Emoji Wonderland!

 It is incredible that old stories can be restored through modern technology and techniques. Even though we know 'Alice in Wonderland' when you see a different set of pictures attached to it because it is set in a different time it will give you a new perspective. A man called Joe Hale has translated some well-known stories using emojis.

An emoji is a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication such as the smiley faces that you use in instant messaging.  Emojis are almost like modern-day hieroglyphics, An enterprising individual, Joe Hale, has created special emojis and used them to make a four-foot-tall Wonderland Emoji Poster that tells the story of ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

The tale begins with a combination of "backhand pointing down," "rabbit," and "heavy large circle," to depict Alice's journey down the rabbit hole. Alice, represented by the princess emoji, encounters a Cheshire "smiling cat face with open mouth emoji," a mad "top hat emoji," and frightening "crown emoji" of hearts. Hale painstakingly translated these images, along with dozens more, from Carroll's original text, layering over 25,000 separate symbols until "the emoji text was sufficiently dense that [he] could transliterate the emoji back into a crude version of the original."

Joe believes the idea, ‘"Alice in Wonderland translated into emoji," is powerful enough to create images in the reader's mind's eye, and anybody curious enough can develop these images into their own personal Wonderland in their head and escape to that place. People should just use my poster as a visual aid to think about Wonderland, trip out and explore their imagination. Or: be inspired to read some Lewis Carroll!’

Here is a couple of examples of his translation of the ‘Alice’ text to a set of images. The emojis below translates as:

We're all mad here

The Hatter was the first to break the silence

Other Alice quotes as emojis can be seen on twitter account @emojiwonderland

Joe says “this project has taken inspiration from the intensely visual atmosphere of the Disney Alice in Wonderland film, William Burroughs' writings on hieroglyphics and the Buddhist concept of visualisation.”

'He described the creative process. 'When I was translating I put the emojis on in layers—almost more like painting than writing—until the emoji text was sufficiently dense that I could transliterate the emoji back into a crude version of the original. I think I put about five of these layers on, then countless read-throughs, cross-checks, etc. until I was reading through the text and not changing anything. It was a dreamy, dizzying endeavour.'

I wonder if this use of emojis might be a step in the direction of a new form of cryptography. 

The poster is available online for $29.95 at http://joehale.bigcartel.com/product/wonderland-emoji-poster. I will confess that I bought a copy as an appreciation of his quixotic, creative idea.