Enjoying nature and photography.
We are slowly approaching the end of our walk. A walk on easy terrain. The vast beach is leading to the vaster sea. The certain becomes uncertain, the walk becomes a swim. We are leaving the comfort in exchange for new experiences, for memories expected to remain. Towards new shores, one sunrise after another.
--- algorithm (noun) ---
A well-defined procedure consisting of a finite number of consecutive steps. Often confused with its realization (implementation).
--- The Algorithm (proper noun) ---
A musical project that blends electronic music with progressive metal. Often confused with random noises.
--- algorithm (example) ---
def is_alive()
return flip_coin()
def life()
while(is_alive())
go_outside();
take_pictures();
persist();
decay();
Aren’t algorithms fascinating? Well-defined procedures that solve well-defined problems – often with the goal to find the most efficient solution. It’s the single most important thing that amazes me in computer science.
My most favorite problem in algorithmics is one of the most simple ones. Suppose you have a short word, let’s call it T. Additionally, a long text S is given. The task is to determine whether the word T is contained within the text S. Thus, we want an algorithm for a simple search! Suppose the word T contains n distinct characters; for example T = “alive” has a length of n = 5. Similarly, the text S has a length of m, for example, S = “The tree is alive.” has a length of m = 18 (including the spaces and the period).
The most simplest algorithm aligns T at the first position of S and compares all n characters of T to the first n characters of S, which requires n comparisons (in other words, for our above example we answer the question whether “alive” and the first five characters of S are identical. Hint: they are not). Afterwards, the word is shifted to the next position of S and the comparison is repeated. This happens for all m starting characters of S. The problem? This will take a total of m times n comparisons which already amounts to 90 comparisons for our little toy example.
But what other solution could there be? There are many. None of them are easy to understand (at least for me), but all are fascinating. The first one I learned was the KMP algorithm, which performs mind-boggling reuses of previously obtained information about differing characters. The fascinating part: It only needs (roughly) m + n comparisons! A speed-up that determines whether we are able to browse the internet or not, whether we can perform research on molecular data or not, and whether we can advance as a technological species or not. Algorithmic design makes or brakes today’s society (at least for now, until climate change kicks in – always end on a positive note, right?).
[…]
‘What My Lips Have Kissed, And Where And Why’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay;
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
Musical interpretation: Thus in the Winter, by Christopher Tin
Trees are wise and tenacious. They endure at the most inhospitable places and cling onto earth as if their life depends on it – because it does. Trees are deeply ingrained and reach high. They depend on the light of stars and the nutrients of soil. Trees are manifold and and full of character which allows them to oppose changing climates. Trees have volition.
The other day I went out for some photography, motivated to exploit the snow that was still lingering around and covered the landscape like a gentle blanket. Just a few days earlier I had finished my thesis and, thus, I felt a freedom I hadn’t felt in a long time: Not a single appointment for the whole day, no deadlines, no waiting E-Mails, no social obligations, no time constraints. Simply a whole day for myself – is this what retirement feels like? I was standing on a hill overlooking villages, fields, and forests as far the hazy conditions allowed. And as I was pondering about my day, I simply picked a distant tree and started walking. No GPS, no directions how to get there, I simply started walking until I reached this lonely, very distant tree. And it felt good.
One season passes, the next approaches. One life phase transitions into another one. Snow covers clutter of the past, a fresh canvas onto which new ideas may be painted. Which shall remain unchanged? What must be adjusted? The past is frozen in place, but now and again color persists and defies the whiteout. Lonely figures reach high, rooted deep, yet fragile and delicate. Preparations for a period of hibernation begin, with the aspiration of a fresh awakening.
Noisy nights, deep yellow lights tint the streets, hint at outcasts that did outlast the grim cold winters of the past; splinters in society. Meanwhile, the crowd does join the Christmas fair – snow in the air – to buy cheap wine, to dine, to whine about the great decline of their homeland that is quite fine. And they move on and buy their beer at Assal's shop, shoes from Amir, on which they stumble home each year to disappear, to leave the fear beneath the starlit sky behind.
Irregularities give rise to normality. I’ll be back to English in the next post.
Im Juni 2020 ging es für uns in den Urlaub. Damals frisch verliebt, stimmte ich gerne der angestrebten Urlaubsplanung zu: Also, ab ins Gebirge. Das Richtige. Also zumindest das Richtigste was wir einfach so erreichen können, die Alpen. Quasi am Alpenrand geboren, war ich das erste Viertel meines Lebens (wobei diese Rechnung nur ohne einen voreiligen Tod aufgeht) eigentlich nie so richtig dort. Ein großer Fehler, denn auch die Berge haben anscheinend ein Plätzchen in meinem Herzen reserviert. Sobald wir dort waren, zwischen den erhabenen Gipfeln und tiefen Tälern, fühlte ich eine große Zufriedenheit. Und die Gipfel ziehen mich an. Ich sehe einen Gipfel und plötzlich will ich nur noch hinauf. Steiler Anstieg? – Egal. Wetter? – Egal. Hauptsache hoch, und zwar so hoch es geht.
Falls man mal nicht in den Alpen ist, gestaltet sich das Ganze etwas anders: Hier im flachen Norden ist das höchste der Gefühle schon bei 1141 Metern über Null erreicht und man steht mit 84 prozentiger Wahrscheinlichkeit in den Wolken. Aber wen interessiert schon Statistik – gefühlt sind es mindestens 93 Prozent. An den anderen Tagen bietet der Brocken dagegen wunderbare Ausblicke und ein echtes ‘Oben-Gefühl’, das meinen Gipfeldrang kurzfristig bändigt. Ebenfalls seit 2020 sind wir daher auch eifrig am Stempel sammeln, zumindest mit periodischer Eifrigkeit: Der Herbst und Winter hat es uns besonders zugesagt im Harz; wenn Nebel die Seen umschließt und Laubwälder der tieferen Lagen Farbspektakel bieten.
Dennoch, ich freue mich auch schon wieder auf den nächsten Urlaub in dem wieder zwei- und dreitausend Meter bewältigt werden können. Der Kopf so frei, wie die Alpendohle im Auftrieb und das Herz so voll, wie der Bauch in der Adventszeit.
Haze deprives the vibrance, as days are getting short, snow does glaze the rooftops, wood ovens blaze in homes. A lonely great white egret delays his voyage south, stays in the fading colors, sun rays are lost in clouds.
Frigid air blows through the woods, blows rigid thoughts away; and gray clouds pervade the vale, play with remaining leaves. Draining anger and despair, the trees take always care.
I promise, there will also be other topics in future posts; but not today…
Glue on streets and food on art, repeats each day, matter of heart? "Not really," says the scientists who gets the gist and is quite pissed by egoists that do insist that a cold week refutes the claim of climate change: "To blame are others anyway." The charts are clear, the problem sheer unsolvable; each year is worse, each choice adverse, the globe does not reverse its course – quite yet.
They marched on Fridays for a while, but didn't reach the other isle: Of people who don't care and stare on their small screens where it just seems as if the world is fine right now; of people who don't share the bare reality of what's to come; of people who are still concerned about their hard-earned treasuries and do revel in memories about the past as if they last apocalypse.
And now they found what upsets most: A simple frowned upon protest – where streets are used as seats – defeats the calmness of the crowd that clings to cars and is in rage about the new found stage. In galleries they do reside throw calories with pride to guide social debate where it belongs: What are the values we esteem? Why does it have to be extreme? Why do we tolerate the wrongs? And try to acclimate as if the floods would stop? As if the crop grows magically? While livestock drops quite tragically dead onto barren desert floors – necessity starts frightful wars.
Who really are the radicals? Who really are the extremists? Those who request a fair world and are obsessed with equity? Or those who halt the change, assault the poor, default to strange conventions from the past and cast a future for us all that will, at last, result in unsurpassed distress? What is allowed, what justified? This climate activism does indeed evoke more buzz than any boring chart. Apart: It has a heart, and does still act in peace.
Unfortunately, no matter how many climate change conferences are arranged, the large-scale subsidization and expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure continues to take place with each passing month. However, the immediate halt of any further investments into these sources of energy are one of the key factors to mitigate the climate emergency, according to the latest IPCC report. To the best of our knowledge, we steadily continue our path to more than 3 degrees of global warming, if we are lucky and tipping points don’t start to blow up all around us (and the likely do). If the choice is between some paintings and many many lives, I am gladly taking the latter.
Punkt im Dunkeln