100 things

Yes, it's actually a meme! I got this one from mendel. The rules are, take the list, bold the things you agree with and replace those you don't with things about yourself.

( 100 things )

Prisoners dilemma

There are 100 prisoners in solitary cells. There’s a central living room with one light bulb; this bulb is initially off. No prisoner can see the light bulb from his or her own cell. Everyday, the warden picks a prisoner equally at random, and that prisoner visits the living room. While there, the prisoner can toggle the bulb if he or she wishes. Also, the prisoner has the option of asserting that all 100 prisoners have been to the living room by now. If this assertion is false, all 100 prisoners are shot. However, if it is indeed true, all prisoners are set free and inducted into MENSA, since the world could always use more smart people. Thus, the assertion should only be made if the prisoner is 100% certain of its validity.

The prisoners are allowed to get together one night in the courtyard, to discuss a plan. What plan should they agree on, so that eventually, someone will make a correct assertion?

You can find some solutions here in a draft paper. Found in brads journal.

West Wing

I'm watching Season II now (thanks, Niall) and I thought that there was one line in the 2nd episode (I think) which really summed up the series. It's a flashback to the campaign to become president. Jeb's not sure about it but Leo is and he says "You know that they say that a good man can't become president. I don't think that's true." And that's what the show is in a nutshell. It's the fantasy where Leo is right and a good man and a bunch of idealists can make it to the White House. It's sweet, and I'm still loving it.

Light and magic

Slowly working through the backlog of the events in my life that I want to write about, I come to the Alabama 3 gig that Alex and I went to in the Zodiac a couple of weeks ago. I sometimes think that where Alabama 3 are is in some ways the best that you can get as a band. Big enough to get a bit of recognition and a fair bit of money from the whole thing, but not too big to play a venue like the Zodiac where you can still see the gig-goers and have a bit of fun. Big enough to make a living, but not big enough to bother the paparazzi about.

There was a slight delay getting everyone into the main upstairs room and when we arrived we saw that they'd set up a barrier keeping us yobbos a metre or so away from the stage, which was something I'd never seen before and I did rather wonder about. There wasn't really any evidence during the gig that it was needed and they've never had it before but perhaps they'd had a bad experience somewhere and become paranoid. The first support band was a guy with a guitar mostly and was pretty unremarkable, so I shan't remark upon him. The second was called something like "Larry Love singers" or something and was a few of the band members playing cut down kind of acoustic versions of A3 tracks. There were some quite nice mixes and we did go ahead and buy the album of that stuff (released under the A3 name) later. So that was kind of charming.

At last it was time for the main event and they did not disappoint. I've never been to a duff A3 gig and this was no exception. One thing I did notice, as Dwayne was silhouetted against the swirlling white light surrounded by twisting smoke was how good the light show was. It fitted to the music really well, with nice dramatic touches like going almost completely to black with one bright white spinning light behind them for the classroom part of Mao Tse Tung Said. I'm bad at describing things like this, and I think that even if I had thought to bring my camera, it wouldn't have been able to capture the moment, kodak to the contrary. You just have to be there sometimes, it's just not reproducible. The set was great - a nice combo of old favourites and newer stuff (although not anything brand new) and if they did milk the pre-encore applause, perhaps it was no more than their due.