Mayan Apocalypse 2012

Is it true that the world will end this Friday, December 21, 2012? It seems so unreal that the end of the world should be so close by and yet people are going about their business mostly to catch the Christmas sales that came in early. Surely, the conspiracy theorists will try to find more ways to push the date forward through some strange explanation. It seems so bizarre that every time people get their dates wrong they move it forward a few more years as if people are that gullible. Even this Mayan apocalypse is based on strange new age beliefs unfolded through incorrect interpretations of the Mayan theology. How many people have gotten it wrong in past:

Mayan Apocalypse 2012
Rapture, May 21, 2011
Jehovah’s Witnesses’ prediction of the Second Coming, August 1914
The Second Big Bang, November 23, 2009
Y2K, January 1, 2000
The Great Fire of London, September 2, 1666

List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events

Public Payphones

In London, public pay phones are possibly one of the most unclean places in city. The sheer amount of germs that can be caught in the phone booths is just overwhelming. Also, the service does not seem to be very well maintained and very unreliable at times especially being susceptible to outside disturbances in phone reception. The chances of being rudely disconnected become exponentially increased as one approaches towards the centrally located pay phones. No wonder mobile phones have caught on so fast in UK. On land lines and pay phones it seems to be dominated still by BT but yet on mobiles there is still some healthy competition. Perhaps, it is why technology is moving further a field at such a fast pace on the mobile front comparatively and the land line services are lagging behind. It would be great if telecommunications was so much more flexible avoiding the need to get a land line in order to get Internet. People these days receive and make calls on the Internet which seems to be a life saver especially on the monthly bill. Perhaps, one day Internet will become free and more accessible reducing the need for people to have to communicate through such limited channels. Compared to America, UK still has a lot to catch up in all aspects of telecommunications.

Tenants, Estate Agents, and LandLords

Estate agents should be best avoided. They charge tenants for admin costs, inventory costs, credit checking costs, and whatever else including as far as lying and covering up stuff to get a fast deal. As a tenant one is best to approach the landlord directly. Estate agents care very little about tenants and more about landlords. They are more interested in tenants at time of transaction after which they literally cannot be bothered unless it involves a landlord having a dispute such as with late rent. And, even then they would rather create more problems than mediate because in fact it means a potentially new opportunity to get a new tenant transaction. Most landlords are generally fine with late rent payments as far as they are aware that one is always paying their rent with diligence. However, the more you learn about a landlord before signing an agreement the better. Tenants are often caught out by either bad landlords, bad estate agents, or both. You may find one of the typical encounters where rent is expected to be paid on time and yet perhaps, contracts or inventory checking has been delayed almost by months. If one has not received a signed copy of tenancy agreement or even an inventory report by move in date then delay the next rent payment by all means until it is received. It is surprising how little tenants rights there are in UK compared to landlords. If one looks at any tenancy agreement the tenant requirements are multiple pages long usually compared to a half page landlord requirements. Tenants also need to be able to do background checks on landlords as well. It seems like every one wants tenant personal details, at times a bit too much, and yet they all seem to protect the rights of the landlord. Especially, if a tenant undergoes a credit check through an estate agency and they use a third-party it may be deemed on the tenant to pay the costs as well as the risk of getting incorrect links against their profile. Credit checks are not very reliable sources of information. They do not work in real-time nor do they provide fully up-to-date and accurate information. It seems like tenants have a lot to lose than a landlord in many respects. Also, it is in best interest of tenants to be informed about the asking rental price as well as the valuation price so they are able to better assess whether the actual rent is worth the price. At same time, when tenants start to spend a lot of rent perhaps they may also ponder at the option of getting a mortgage instead, or even part buying. It seems as a long term living as a tenant is not a very viable option for many and soon people will almost always decide to get a place of their own. Living under the roof owned by someone else is always a very limited and restricted form of accommodation. Another factor, is when one does decide to move out, the agents are always around trying to do their viewings and all of a sudden the accommodation not only becomes frustrating but it ends up feeling like a display gallery. There really are very few rights for tenants or even for their invasion of privacy. The best option really is having your own place.

Travel Tracking

Seasonal travel is one of the busiest times of the year for transportation services. On other occasions it is rush hour management that can cause severe delays and disruptions to commuters. Tracking best routes and mapping restrictions and disruptions in real-time is a very plausible and useful level of analytics to have at hand for any commuter. This process will not only allow them precise information in real-time but could also allow them to fully comprehend their travel plans from source to destination in a very fast and conducive way. Most transportation networks can be mapped as graphs. Graphs are a generalization of representing the structure and relationships between data points or so called nodes. In a train network each station could be a node and each route to another node as a weighted link or more precisely an edge. Various algorithms can then be applied to work out specific natural language search requirements or more precisely the semantic context of search. This could be a sub-optimal or a greedy option. In a sub-optimal option aspects like global optimization ideas can be applied where a solution sample only needs to be good enough based on the defined function as the search space is so huge. Graph algorithms like dijkstra's shortest path,  uniform-cost search, minimum spanning trees, best-first search, breadth-first search, depth-first search, travelling salesman problem can be applied based on specific semantic requirements of travel. So, one could be looking for an option of finding the shortest and fastest possible route to get to destination before or at a certain time. Another semantic requirement might be to find the best route without connections, delays, or disruptions to travel.  Further, another option could be to find all possible routes that can be reached from source to destination with the cheapest possible price for travel. There is so much data about when one travels that finding and discovering the right information can be difficult. Data only becomes information based on the contextual usefulness. Various mashup applications can be applied that utilize web apis from public transport agencies utilizing their feeds for precise information sharing. Google transit has started their own standardization process towards travel data. However, in every aspect accessibility to right information, at right time, in the right possible way becomes crucial. This is where responsive user interfaces can become the stepping stone for a barrier free access to easy and quick information navigability. We live in an overload of data, almost everything can be translated to some form of information. Knowing how to obtain, deliver, and present such data so it can become useful information is paramount. 

Hybrid Logic Can Save Traffic In London

Actuated traffic lights with Boolean level controller logic can always seem malnourished of severely constrained logic. It seems the traffic lights in London always go off unexpectedly and very haphazard. I feel if they employed more hybridized approaches towards congestion and traffic control would be more effective. They could centrally control the traffic boards across the city but apply more significant real world situations. An off and on service has very limited service and an increased risk of accidents. Even the aspect of controlling traffic held up or pedestrians waiting to cross can be modified. Fuzzy Logic is all about the Fuzzy constraints of approximated reasoning being still between the limit bounds of 0 and 1 only relative constraints can be better controlled over a full specified spectrum of natural language domain. Smooth flow of traffic resulting in less frustrations can be controlled. Looking at times of day and variations can be applied. Classical reasoning of rigid constraints over multivariate changes are severely limited. I think in a city where roads are small and population growing as well as with multimodal means of transport it is only sensible, feasible, and yet workable to apply more intelligent methods in the works where interconnected traffic flows can be changed and modified based on patterns of usage and potential delays as well as more dynamic flows from specified natural language.

O2 A Dreadful Mobile Service

Possibly the worst mobile operator in UK would have to be O2. Perhaps, even beating at odds with the likes of Orange and Vodafone. I have not tried other mobile providers but it is a sure bet that most mobile provider quality of service is dismally poor. And, to top it of you are still asked to pay for line rental when they experience network outages. Customers pay for service not for when they out of service surely. O2 also have one of the worst call centers I have ever come across. I think the word dim wits is quite aptly appropriate, or perhaps a bit too refined a description of their lack of training and common sense within the call center staff. Not to mention when I search the web I noticed similar stories coming around that people are frustrated and that people don't get paid to do O2's job. After all we pay for a service and yet they expect us to do their job for them as well. Their call centers have detailed information about customer accounts and yet they still cannot be bothered to read the information that is present on their screens. Furthermore, it's droning that the time spent listening to music on the other end until one gets through to an advisor has got to be one of the most frustrating and time consuming processes of all. It is as if people are expected to wait around while some advisor decides to pick up the call. A typical aspect of getting through to a manager at one of their call center and one can expect to be waiting around for an unusually long time. It is like the manager expects you to wait while they finish their lunch break, complete their crossword or just keep one on hold as if to display how busy they are. And, when these people do pick up they are possibly the rudest bunch of patronizing people one can ever come across. And, this is from a business that is expected to offer a service to customers. Not to mention the tiresome network outages that seem to be becoming a bit of bane with O2. I have to mention that in UK the level of service for not just mobile providers but a lot of other services is also similar. It is as if lack of quality of service is almost always the bottom of every business model in UK. Prices are inflated and service is poor. And, they expect the customer to be calm and collected otherwise they hang up. Unfortunately, for so many customers in UK frustration for lack of service is almost like the British weather. What most businesses do not seem to realize is that customers are the ones with a choice. They can always switch to another provider. One of the sure ways of losing business is not providing good service and further to lack ethics. Customers nowadays are not stupid a lot do their research. And, yet the service is one factor that always seems to be lagging behind in every business model. Most customers in my view would show brand loyalty if they received reliability of product that was capped at the right price, a strong sense of business ethics, and an approachable service model. 

For All There Exists Pi

Pi has always been a very curious and enlightening number. Although, irrational by nature it can almost feel like it can transcend time. The number is never ending. The enlightenment towards possibilities where everything lives forever. It is a transcendental number where a patternless digits seem to arise over an endless space almost like a matrix. Each digit appearing in equal frequencies. If one can class Pi as a normal number then the endless space might explain some truth in our existence within. There has been an endless amount of discussions and research on the value of Pi for which circumferences of a circle are measured. Perhaps, the idea of quantum immortality and existence. Can one really prove that Pi really does repeat after a certain infinite space of non-repeating numbers where every possible sequence exists? Can the realities of human life be explained through the patterns of Pi? Perhaps, as we exist here on earth there could be an endless universe where multiple aspects of oneself arises across the galaxy. Even in the golden ratio which is another equally interesting affair uses the complex configurations of Pi to produce a perfect equation. The measure of beauty and perfection can be described by the measure of a golden ratio where embedded in it is the transduction from Pi. The title elaborates on the logical constructs. "For All There Exists Pi". This implies that for every possibility there has to exist an infinite wisdom where anything is possible.  

Life of Pi

This movie had a very impressive marketing campaign and trailer but it lacked a lot of depth. Life of Pi is about a boy who gets stranded in middle of an ocean with a tiger. The movie had a strange start and at times it seemed like never ending. And, when the movie really starts to pick up pace, which is after the storm, it leaves much to be desired. I was anticipating that it would be like a castaway sort of movie. Although, not without the quality acting of Tom Hanks. The story line takes on almost three different angles or viewpoints of introducing the viewer into the movie. First one is the early life of Pi as a childhood possibly the most boring part of the movie and showing scenes which were relatively irrelevant. The second, phase is the life of Pi during his days with the tiger in middle of an ocean where his survival instincts took over. And, the third phase is the narrator which is Pi providing the story line in the later years of his life. This makes the movie too long to watch. Also, the movie lacked emotion both in the life of Pi as well as the bond between him and the tiger. It was a rather regrettable and forgettable movie in the scene when Pi is seen crying as his tiger companion slowly disintegrates into the forest never to be seen again. It is almost as if the movie displays a total lack of comprehension of life, friendship, loyalty, and animals. The very thing that this movie was about in my view. Perhaps, if this movie had been directed by Steven Spielberg it may have taken a rather more dramatic and emotional twist. Life of Pi almost left me wanting more and yet not getting any in terms of climax. The movie shows more changing of days then the tides and plateaus in story. Also, the movie in my view seemed to lack structure. The most important part was possibly the most unendearing part. I felt a total lack of connection with the movie, it was as if the movie was playing and I was just watching. My anticipation and enjoyment in watching the movie suddenly felt overshadowed by a sense of  disappointment. They could have done so much more with the movie. It felt like watching a low budget movie with potential that was reduced by haphazard and almost meandering like editing cues not to mention being compounded by the lackluster performance from the child actor.