Autism - what lies beneath

I first heard about autism in a computer science class, Computer Processing of Pictorial Information, that I took at UMD. It's true that the professor, Yiannis Aloimonos, was quite unconventional and was telling us lots of stories about human and computer vision, and left us to decipher the equations used there by ourselves. One of his main ideas was that in order to make progress in computer vision was to understand as much as possible how the human brain processes the visual stimulus that results in human vision. But apart from recommending us books on human vision research he told us about a book of a different kind: clinical tales of a neurologist (The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat). In this book Oliver Sacks describes various cases of conditions or accidents that lead to an abnormal functioning of the brain and how people cope in these situations. One of the chapters in this book is about autism. This is a born condition that affects some children and which impairs social interaction and communication (a less severe form is the Asperger syndrome). But a good number of these people show some remarkable abilities: superior skills in perception (e.g. the ability to draw very accurate texture details), attention and computing (e.g. the ability to tell in an instant is a fairly big number is prime or not). This lead to a theory that somehow there is a trade-off in our brain: the computing power there is sufficient to be able to do instant computation of prime numbers but most of the time is shut down and the brain is wired for things much more useful to us like the ability to communicate and interact socially with other people.
Now I'm sure you'll have a different view on some piece of news like this one: A twelve year old rewrites Einstein's theory of relativity.

More than radio: semantic radio

Semantic web is basically the idea of adding some meta-information (usually tags) to the information presented on the web in order to facilitate automatic processing by hinting the computers about what that information is about. For example, the labels that I try to put to my posts that you can see of the left hand side of this blog. The big problem with this approach is the effort needed to tag all the information on the web, that's why there is also a big interest in processing unstructured data, which recently lead to a spectacular Jeopardy show won by a machine build by IBM.
Comming back to radio, this principle of meta data first occured a few years ago when appart from the audio signal the broadcasters added a station id meta data that was used by the radios in the cars to automatically discover the local frequency of an FM radio. This was a nice feature cause once you have your presets in your car then anywhere you would go the radio player will automatically identify the local frequency of that radio based on the radio id metadata.
But a few weeks ago one of my favourite radios (Radio Guerrilla) introduced an even more spectacular feature. They added metadata for the song currently played on the radio, so on the tiny screen in my car I could see the name of the song and singer while playing. I wouldn't care much about this feature on a classic rock radio, cause there I know most of the songs they play, but Gurrilla plays many new songs, especially British and some Romanians ones so before this metadata I was always trying to memorize some lyrics from the songs I liked in order to search for them and identify the song. Now I have right in front of me on the radio display. This will mean I will probably not know the lyrics of the songs anymore :)

Java programming nowadays

A colleague hit a problem yesterday while testing in isolation a SCA (Service Component Architecture) component. He was trying to call WSDL method from a Java SCA component using a SCA reference. In this case you actually obtain an implementation of a generic interface com.ibm.websphere.sca.Service, and on this interface you have to use a generic invoke that looks like this:
java.lang.Object invoke(java.lang.String operationName, java.lang.Object input);

In the case the WSDL method you try to invoke has one parameter then you just pass an object (SDO - Service Data Object in fact) of that type to the invoke method, we had such a case and it worked. But what do you in case the WSDL method has 2 or more parameters? Initially we guessed that the input would be an array of objects, but it didn't work (wrong number of arguments exception) and if you think carefully it would be ambiguous to have an array of objects because one cannot distinguish if the invoke should have as many parameters as the number of objects from the array, or just one parameter (array of objects). At this point we were stuck.

So what do you do when you get stuck? You search on Google: for the exception, or a part of the stack trace, add a few keywords that you think are relevant like the application server you are using (WebSphere Process Server 7.0), framework and technology names (SCA, SDO, WSDL, Java, invocation) and the like. Sometimes you get the answer immediately if someone else hit earlier the same problem and posted the solution on a blog or a forum, but this time it was not that easy. I had to search for about 45 minutes, try all kind of keywords, read forums, blogs and help pages until I finally found the solution in a sample in some documentation manual from IBM. You basically have to use the SCA API and create a special wrapper SDO that contains all the input parameters as properties and then pass this object to the invoke method. You can read the full solution here if you are interested :)

The tennis connection

I'm watching the men's final at Indian Wells masters series tournament between Nadal and Djokovic. After a disputed point the TV camera turned to a cheering spectator, Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, who happens to be the owner of the tournament since a few years ago. Is this some business intelligence in a relational database or something? :)

P.S. Vamos Rafa!

Some fine Romanian music

First it's the song of a band heard by chance on TV tonight. I looked them up on the net and here they are, TiPtiL (the case is strange even for a Java programmer :), I use camel case usually, so I would write tipTil for a variable) with a jazzy alternative rock that in a song ("Spune-mi!") reminds me even of Alexandru Andries. And two female voices that complement each other very nice in some parts. I found only on Trilulilu their song that I liked most:

TiPtiL - Hai!

Asculta mai multe audio punk


The other band it's Toulouse Lautrec. I heard it before on the radio (they are qualified as Romanian indie rock), but this song I found tonight is infectious:

AI-MAS Winter Olympics

On last Sunday I went to the second day of AI-MAS Winter Olympics conference that took place at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. The main event on this day was a presentation of the machine learning algorithm that it used for implementing Priority Inbox feature in GMail. They basically use a neural network standard algorithm, but the challenge is keeping a separate model (which might have additional user specific features which are instantiated dynamically from some templates) for each particular user and training it as you also manually sort your email. The other issue is of course scalability and processing in real time of data (for example the algorithm takes into account even the time spent reading a particular message to determine if the user really read it, or just opened it to be marked as read). Apart from the presentations there were on display projects done by students. The one I liked most was the Swim Green project done by a team from Babes-Bolyai University. It was a boat-robot which could navigate based on visual input and also pick-up plastic pieces floating on the water. The goal was to propose an automatic clean-up mechanism that could be used on lakes for example. Overall it was a very nice experience and of course I'm glad these kind of things start happening in Romanian universities.

Constantin Brâncuşi

During my years in the DC suburbs at University of Maryland I went one day with another Romanian fellow to the National Galery of Art. We knew they have some pieces of Brâncuşi there, but after a tour of the galery we didn't see them, so we went to the information desk and asked where to find the sculptures of Brâncuşi. The guy was puzzled, he told us he never heard about this sculptor. Now it was our turn to be puzzled. Wasn't Brâncuşi a famous sculptor in the whole world, or were we brain-washed by yet another Romanian propaganda story? We took the catalog, went to the index of artists, found Brancusi and pointed it to the guy behind the desk. He exclaimed "oh, \bran-ˈkü-sē\", sure we have his sculptures, go to that room. We got our pride back, the guy was confused because we asked about [brɨnˈkuʃʲ], the Romanian pronunciation with "â" and "ş".

Since that time I also went to Philadelphia Museum of Art which has one of the largest collections of Brâncuşi sculptures and also to the reconstruction of the artist's studio in Paris, which is part of the Pompidou Centre.

Today I opened Firefox and I saw a nice logo on Google, celebrating 135 years from the birth of Brâncuşi. I rest my case :)

Viata domnului Cartarescu

Ultima carte a lui Mircea Cartarescu, "Frumoasele Straine (sau cum am fost un autor de duzina)" e un colaj de povestiri din viata de scriitor roman a domnului Cartarescu. Nu are formatul unui jurnal, ci mai degraba a rememorarii unor evenimente (calatorii in special) cu largi divagatii pe cele mai traznite teme. Ceva a la Creanga, dar centrat pe aventurile scriitorului care este pus fata in fata cu cititorii si pe relatiile lui cu alti scriitori, cu mult umor, dar si usor oniric. Desi nu e "scris adanc" stilul e fermecator si "face diferenta" (na, ca tot barbarisme am ajuns sa folosesc; si doar am zis sa scriu in romana tocmai ca sa cinstesc un mare scriitor roman) ca sa zic asa :)

Desi e doar a treia carte de Cartarescu pe care o citesc (alaturi de "Enciclopedia zmeilor" si "De ce iubim femeile"), iar celebrele orbitoare sunt inca pe lista de asteptare, e altceva ce m-a legat recent de acest scriitor: un editorial publicat acum cateva luni in Evenimentul Zilei, un text in care am simtit ca ma regasesc, nu ca scriitor :), ci ca fiinta curioasa fata de toate aspectele functionarii acestei lumi. Nu stiu pentru ce imi trag seva (eventual pentru ceva scrieri de duzina in Java), dar si pe mine ma intereseaza si topologia, si teoriile fizicii, si economia, si filosofia, si biologia, si toate celelalte.

Deunazi mi-a povestit mama cum la o sedinta cu parintii din clasa a unspea a intrebat-o profesoara de biologie daca am intentia sa dau la medicina. I se parea ei ca sunt foarte interesat la orele de anatomie, pun intrebari si invat. Nu am avut niciodata nici cel mai mic gand de a ma face medic, ma intreb cum m-as descurca la un laborator de anatomie cand eu ma oripilez si cand trebuie sa tai o bucata de piept de pui crud (de altfel un coleg de facultate m-a intrebat prin anul trei daca nu vreau sa merg cu el la un laborator de anatomie, aranjase el sa intre pe sestache la o grupa de medicina din anul intai, dar l-am trimis urgent la plimbare; apoi mi-a si povestit ce misto a fost sa scoata ficatul dintr-un cadavru, ce consistenta avea si altele asemenea), dar asta nu ma impiedica sa ma intereseze din ce este facut corpul uman si cum circula sangele.

P.S. Retractez: as considera o cariera in medicina doar daca s-ar face practica la anatomie pe goolge body si m-as specializa in imagistica :)

Book of the year

Since I didn't blog about it when I read it during my summer vacation I introduce this book in the special section book of the year: "Plato and Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes" by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. This is a hilarious book that present the most important philosophic concepts and schools and illustrates them using jokes. It also makes one think of the anatomy of a joke which stretches common concepts and assumptions to their limit.
In case I didn't convince you to read it, here are the authors presenting their book:



P.S.
A guy goes to his doctor and asks: "What do I have to do to live 100 years?". And the doctor tells him: "Well, you have to eat a banana each morning for 36500 days".

Happy new year 2011!

Another communist secret service (aka securitatea) story unfolds

It's 1974, the year when Ceausescu grabbed all the executive powers in Romania by proclaiming himself ("being elected") chief of the state (until then he was just the chief of the communist party). A high-school student (Stelian Mihalas) wanted to protest against this and distributed a questionnaire among his classmates asking who would they choose for president and about how the country was run. Stelian and his classmates were immediately investigated by the secret police and he was expelled from school although he a was a brilliant student in mathematics. Meanwhile a young student (William Totok - who was in the same circle of friends with Hertha Muller) heard about this story and tried to gather some more details in order to pass the information outside the country. He asked a colleague of Stelian for information, but this guy (Ovidiu Tender) went to the secret police (via his father who was the chief of border police) to tell them about the people interested in this story. William got arrested eventually, spent some time in prison and later on emigrated in Germany (like Herthe Muller he belonged to the German minority living in Romania). Stelian finished his studies in another school, graduated in mathematics, got a Ph.D. in US after the revolution and returned to teach mathematics at Faculty of Mathematics from Timisoara. And, of course, Ovidiu Tender became one of the most wealthy people in Romania, very well connected in ex-communist political circles. (see the full story here and here)

Those were the days of our lives...

Of cats and water

You may know that most of the cats do not like very much water, except when they drink it. So they developed an original way of drinking water, much different for the one of dogs for example, in order to minimize the splash that might land on their fur. This involves the use of superficial tension force on the liquid surfaces. As the researcher (Roman Stocker from MIT) that produced this study put it: "I would say cats know more about fluid mechanics than dogs" :) The full story can be found here.
On the other hand, cats sometimes enjoy water (or snow in fact), as can be seen in the following movie:

Re-build this city

Bucharest was badly damaged during the communist era. Entire neighbourhoods were demolished to make room for working class apartment buildings and the likes of "House of the People". Unfortunately this trend continued after the revolution, so high office buildings were built in house areas, next to beautiful churches. Houses classified as monuments (and thus forbidden to be demolished) are left to crumble and fall by their "nouveau riche" owners who just want to build another apartment or office building. When I found out (see the full story here) about this building

... I thought that maybe there is a hope to re-build this city. Since I went to Barcelona to see Gaudi's work and I also saw an exhibition about Hundertwasser in Budapest a few years ago, I will definitely go to Siriu street to see this beautiful building.

Orange did it again

After Paloma Faith and Mika, Orange produced a new advertisement having a very nice background song, from The Ting Tings this time:



Since I have very low expectations from a mobile operator at this point (just a phone with long battery life, a universal charger (sic!) and a reasonable candy-bar design + some national minutes) I would switch from Vodafone to Orange if they promise me (in writing) that they would provide me a very nice song every 3-4 months.

Llosa

It all started somewhere in high-school. I didn't read much at that time: I remember the Romanian language teacher asked us in the first class in ninth grade who is our favourite writer and most of us were completely puzzled, choosing in the end between Jules Vernes and Alexandre Dumas. Then a colleague passed me the Sven Hassle series and then I discovered the SF series of Asimov and Dune. But another group of my colleagues had some higher standards and were reading serious literature. And someday (in the tenth grade I guess) a "cult" novel started to circulate in this group of friends and they urged me to read it (remember everybody reading The Alchemist in 2001 or The Da Vinvi Code in 2004?). This was "The Storyteller" of Llosa. The style was new to me, I had to focus to follow the story line, but I liked the magical sensation created by the book and its message. Then "Conversation at the Cathedral" followed and I was already hooked. "Lituma in the Andes", "The War of the End of the World" (the revolution book), "In Praise of the Stepmother" (the wicked book), "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" (the hilarious book), "The Feast of the Goat", I would read these books time and again. So do I have a favourite writer nowadays? Yes, it is Mario Vargas Llosa, with or without the Nobel prize.

P.S. I sometimes regret I didn't attend his lectures at George Washington University in the fall of 2003. It was after all only a couple of metro stations away from College Park...

Mika - Orange Summer Party

Last week I saw Mika live at Orange Summer Party 2010 on a beach in Mamaia. Mika has a very good voice and I actually bought his first LP after liking the first three released songs, but I didn't imagine he is also such a show man. The concert was great, he connected all the time with the public and he also spoke a lot in Romanian. See below Rain live in Mamaia 2010:

What to tax and how to spend the public funds

Since the crisis is still here (now with the sovereign debt flavor) and nobody declared it unconstitutional yet, Romanians discovered a new domain where everybody has an opinion after football and politics: the tax system and budget deficit. So here are my two cents on this issue.

The budget deficit can be reduced in two ways: by increasing the income, or by decreasing the spending. In order to have more income the state can either improve the collection rate of the existing taxes by simplifying the forms and cracking down on tax evasion (that could be hard given the corruption levels of the tax authorities)
or by increasing some taxes. Regarding taxes my preference is for a system that tax rather consumption then work. Since the whole human race's consumption levels is unsustainable on the long term, any measure that discourages this consumption is welcomed from my point of view. From taxation point of view this would be higher VAT, excises on energy products and other goods, property taxes (which are very low in Romania), road taxes, CO2 tax. It's true that I don't feel very affected by these types of taxes since I always enjoy starring at the ceiling and thinking of a math problem :) On the other hand, the taxes on work should be lowered so that people are encouraged to work (legally). Note that in Romania currently there are 4-4.5 millions of employees out of a working age (18-62) population of 10 millions people. Even if you take out maybe 2 millions migrant workers there are still 3.5 millions who are not formally working in this country!

Now, there are some opinions that whatever mix of taxes the government will choose the state will not be able to get more than 32% of GDP as budget income. In this case the only real option for getting a balanced budget is to cut the spending to 32% of GDP (currently they are at around 40%). That should lead to lay-offs in the public sector. Another source of economy would a more efficient public spending and procurement, but this is hard to do quickly given the level of corruption in this area.

As you can see the fight against corruption should always be a high priority because it affects both tax collection and public money spending. That is what is corruption all about in the end.

P.S. Enough economics, I'll end this post with a good Spanish restaurant where I ate a couple of nights ago: Alioli: paella, creme catalane and sangria were all good.

More live music

I remember I was in the eight grade when I was asked by an older friend: are you a rapper, a rocker or a depecher (yes, Depeche Mode was a distinct category at that time). I didn't know what to answer at that time, but only a couple of months later (I was already in high school) a colleague gave me the tape with the brand new Metallica LP, Metallica 91. This was the start of my "rocker career". Metallica and Megadeth are on the harder part of the rock I listen, I usually don't listen the likes of Slayer and Sepultura. The big 4 concert from last week-end was nice, Metallica were really good and also the public was really engaged, singing along on most of their songs.
Here is a sample of live Metallica - Fade To Black:


But, that was not all, the week-end was closed with a performance at Bucharest National Opera, Turandot by Giacomo Puccini. The scenography was surprising, with rows of chairs like those of a stadium and the choir sitting all the time on those chairs, but I liked it. The performance was very good and I especially liked Irina Iordachescu, who was very expressive in Liu's role. Again, a sample, but with a different tenor :)

Music and commercials

Commercial always try to draw your attention, to make you remember them and it's often the music from a commercial that accomplishes that. Sometimes the song is so good, that it can reach the radio's play-lists. This is what happened with Supergirl from Reamon in 2004 after a commercial for Connex (Vodafone). Or it can become a ring tone on my mobile like Brother Lee from this commercial for ClickNet:


Or it can lead you to discover a new artist like Koop (Coca Cola) or Paloma Faith (Orange):





I can't wait to turn on the TV and watch some more commercials, you never know what new song will hit me... :)

Do you think you're clever?

Under this title there is a very entertaining book about the questions for undergraduate admission at Oxford and Cambridge universities. They are much more than simply reproducing facts and formulas from a manual. They test your combined imagination, logic and knowledge. Not to mention that you have to improvise an answer on the spot. As Pablo Picasso's quote: "Computers are useless,they can only give you answers", the real gem of this book is the collection of those challenging questions, although the author offers also his own sample answers.

The question I liked the most is: how would you describe a man to a Martian?

For Those About To Rock

I must admit my relative ignorance about AC/DC until now. I knew just a few of their songs and I never listen an entire album of them. But the AC/DC concert in Bucharest really rocked. Great songs, great show, a wonderful performance. Get a taste of it here:



P.S. My rock culture is centered around Led Zeppelin, so I couldn't help to notice that Back in Black somehow resembles The Ocean.