Garrulous Geek

So, I'm visiting my parents. I'm back on the Wirral for the weekend, mostly to fix computers at my dad's church and possibly to help my parents unpack, as they have just moved house.

So, last night I drove up from Leicester to Pensby. While driving, I listened to the original radio shows of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy on tape. A thought occurred to me... A thought that is tremendously geeky. Disturbingly, a quick search at Google suggests that while I may not be the first person to ever conceive of such a thing, I am very possibly the first person to write about them on the web. I think this probably makes it doubly geeky.

So, here goes...

Some, all or none of you will know that part of the plot of Hitch-Hikers... centres around a quest to find the ultimate question to the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything. It is necessary to discover the question after a fancy computer spends 7 1/2 million years figuring out the answer, only to come up with 42, which is unsatisfactory to say the least.

Hold up, let's go back a bit. The fancy computer spent 7 1/2 million years coming up with this answer? The thought that occurred to me was this:

What has happened to Moore's Law?

Broadly speaking, Moore's Law states that every 18 months the number of transistors in a computer chip doubles. This is a gross simplification, but it will serve for the purpose of this discussion. If we assume (inaccurately) that doubling the number of transistors in a computer doubles it's power and thereby halves the time needed to solve any given problem, then it should be obvious that to wait 7.5 million years for Deep Thought to arrive at the answer is foolish. It would be simpler to wait 18 months, from which point one would only have to wait 3.75 million years for the answer. Better still, wait for 3 years, and then you only have to wait for just under 2 million years for the answer. Better still, wait for... ah, you get the idea.

So, what is the optimum time to wait until building the computer, such that the time till the answer arrives is minimal? Well, if we let t be the time till the answer is produced and x be the number of iterations of Moore's Law, then we get this equation:

t = 1.5x + (7.5*10^6)/(2^x)

Yes, it would look better if I did it as an image or something, but I can't be bothered.

Differentiating with respect to x will allow us to find the lowest amount of time needed. This a bit hard to differentiate. I did it after midnight last night while very tired and slightly drunk after having a can of cider. As luck would have it my uni maths notes were in my room. Brilliant.

You get something like:

0 = 1.5 + (7.5*10^6)*ln(2^x)*ln2*e^(xln2)
^
EDIT: This is wrong. See Izz' comment below for correct answer.

Now, if anyone can figure out how to solve that without resorting to numerical methods then they're a better mathematician than I.

Anyway. A bit of scribbling on the back of an envelope suggests that the optimal number of iterations is somewhere around 22. In that case, you wait 33 years before building the computer, in which timeframe computing power has increased by a factor of 2^22 (=4194304) so the time taken to solve the problem is only 1.78 years. The total time to get the answer is then 34.78 years, rather than 7.5 million years.

So, they'd have been better off if they'd known about Moore's Law.

How's that for geeky
I commend anyone who has read this far. You are probably as much of a geek as me!

A few weeks ago my friend Greg pointed out the rather unpleasant lyrical content in Busted's modern classic, Air Hostess, in which Charlie alludes to defiling with the hand while admiring a member of the flight crew. Disgusting.

Anyway, with this in mind I will now discuss a glaring logical fallacy present in another recent masterpiece, Love Machine by Girls Aloud. The chorus goes thusly:

I'm just a Love Machine

Feeding my fantasy

Give me a kiss or three & I'm fine

I need a squeeze a day

Instead of this negligee

What will the neighbours say this time?

I find myself somewhat baffled by lines 4 and 5. Why does she need a squeeze instead of a negligee? Does the wearing of a negligee preclude a person from being squeezed? Are the two mutually exclusive in some way? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think it is physically, biologically, ecumenically, grammatically... possible to be squeezed while wearing a negligee, and while I'm certainly not the expert on ladies nightwear, I would venture that you may in fact be altogether more likely to be squeezed while wearing one.

Then again, the song does also feature the line "I'll breathe underwater 'cause I like the way it feels" so unless the singer has some peculiar fascination for SCUBA diving, I suspect it may in fact just all be a load of bollocks.

Two little random anecdotes...

Alison is suffering a bit with back pain. This might be from sleeping funny, or it might be due to being pregnant and some of her bones moving about. Either way, he back is quite sore. So, on Tuesday when she went to Sainsbury's to do the weekly shopping, she struggled to lift all the items, not least the bag of cat litter. She called upon the general public to assist her, and a gentleman stepped up to help her get the stuff to the car and lift it into the boot. Even he struggled to lift the cat litter, and swore while lifting it, so surprised was he at the weight. Now this would be a rather boring story if I didn't tell you that the man only had one arm. Something of a humbling experience, I imagine.

Fast forward to Wednesday... I'm attending a course at Leicester College. My phone starts vibrating in my pocket as someone tries to call me. I can't answer it, but it keeps going. About 6 times someone tries to call me. After a while a message arrives, so during the next break I take a look at it. It's a message from Alison to inform me that... the fridge door has fallen off in her hands when she was trying to open it. Good grief.

Anyway. The hinges had rotted and rusted, which is hardly a surprise as it's the same model of fridge as my parents had 20 years ago. We've got a new one, specifically this one. It has drawers instead of shelves. Fascinating stuff, I'm sure.

My course was about electronics testing. Once I pass my exams next week, I'll be qualified to test appliances and put those little stickers on them that say "Last tested in 1998, next due for testing in 2000" and such like. Fun and games. Still, the school's paying and I get another qualification on my CV so it's all good.

I've got some news for everyone...

I'd previously been asked by my good wife not to put this news on my blog just yet, but she's mentioned it in the comments of the post below, so I guess it's fair game for me to post about it now!

Alison is pregnant - we are going to have a baby! Yay, and such like. I've actually known since September, but have kept it pretty much to myself since then, but we told most people around Christmas so word is spreading through friends and so on.

We had a scan done the other week, just after Christmas. You can see one of the pictures they took below:



That scan was taken at about 15 weeks. They got the dating of the baby absolutely right, down to the day of conception, which is pretty amazing, though it does make me suspect that perhaps they have spies keeping an eye on people. The baby is due on June the 18th.

So... there you go. More news as things develop.

Last night I dreamt about being at work. I was gutted when I woke up and had to... go to work. I'll be knackered by the end of the day, I tell you.

What a stupid dream to have. Definitely lacking in imagination.