getting to bayes

There’s an instrument of disabuse for everyday assumptions and likelihoods that I had not heard of before called Bayesian Probability, after its proponent 18th century English poly-math and minister, Thomas Bayes. Intent on rescuing providence, rationally, from chance, Bayes championed a sort of inverted inspection of odds, imploring people to look to prior arrangements and question how the deck may be stacked and weighted in favour of certain outcomes. Although modern interpretations of Bayes’ thinking maybe over-reach his original context, the notion that probability—writ large and scientish, is based in part on belief is not something merely synonymous with gullibility and naivety and magical-thinking.

Rather, how we measure the likelihood of outcomes can hinge on personal experience, and maybe to a fault, since successes and failures (surprises and dis- appointments, too) are counted by past usefulness and go unnoticed and with indifference otherwise. Sometimes it’s an over-simplification to believe that the chance is 50-50 since we are better acquainted with either something working-out or not and not something in between. Something about the way we pose the question or prime the conditions may obscure our judgment. We are also, sadly, more accustomed to failure than success. This is a bit revelatory and makes me wonder what misguided influences might be tarnishing my choices—not that perfect and logical decisions seem all that savoury either as an alternative. I am remembered to something along these lines whenever I play the lottery but also know that though a long-shot, one only needs to be right once.

put the needle on the record or ong, plong, kerplinky, plong

The imminent BLDGBLOG reports on a project that illustrates the amazing precision and focus that can be attained with laser-cutting techniques, with audio records scribed in a low-fi manner over disks of wood, and then departs into the author’s signature expansion—a flight of fanciful speculation that carries the idea to a certain and inchoate conclusion, with landscapes imprinted and the soundtracks of everyday objects amplified though an ultra-fine stylus.

I think this is pretty keen—I’ve always held a secret though unscientific conviction that every sound, from whispers and footfalls to bangs and other knalls, is preserved somewhere in an atomic memory—sort of like the growth rings of trees or the back-formations of the valleys and mountains where one can, with some causal algebra, solve for the factors that led to the present state.  

to market, to market

Though the superlatives of commerce are always a bit subjective and demands on definition, I was surprised to learn of a fully-qualified contender based in a tiny Swedish village, not far from Malmo, and with a massive caravan-park, a destination in its own right. In any case, the supermarket that offers everything under the sun is significantly larger than the traveling-mats of Star Destroyers that linger, sweeping across the screen for a few moments, is located in a place called Ullared (the Swedish term for a populated place is tätort, like the German Tatort that usual is translated as “crime-scene,” surely a false-friend) and is called Gekås, a continuity of the trend of Swedish discounters, attracting consumers from Scandinavia and beyond. Shoppers queue up in lines a hundred metres long before opening time and orchestrate holidays around this draw.

engadine-ga-doo and further

Though there’s a lot going on besides and notwithstanding my laissez-faire approach to crafting plans—although there’s barely a shade’s difference between preparation and spontaneity since both approaches aim for the same happy outcome, I always feel guilty about been thrown into a much-deserved vacation-mode—especially one long deferred.

Nonetheless, I am very excited about our up-coming adventures, south through Switzerland, transiting through the valley of Engadine—Rhaetorian, Romansch for the Garden of the River Inn, and beyond to Lake Como across the Italian border. Right now, I’m gathering facts and trivia, which has always proved a good gateway for further learning. It might put ambition and expectations off the mark a little, studying historical context and celebrity, and create toy kingdoms all stacked together, but I tend to think that our vacations deliver just that, living up even to prospects that cast away realities and contingencies of time and distance.