Ken's Blog

I am one of those people who from time to time writes a “note to self.” The note could be on any topic at all — sometimes it’s just good to write these things down.

I’ve been doing this for decades. So it’s not surprising that as I am cleaning the apartment, today I came across a note to self from a very long time ago. From the looks of it, it looks as though I was in my early twenties as the time.

The note is on a little piece of lined paper on hotel stationery. This was probably during one of my very first professional conference trips.

The note just says:

Destiny is easy to define in the past tense.

I have no recollection of writing it, but now that decades have elapsed, I can testify that it is absolutely true. I wish I had as much foresight now as I did then.

I’ve been throwing out a lot of old stuff that I don’t need. Looking into drawers that I haven’t opened in years, tossing out old clothes and papers that I know I will never use or need.

It’s a wonderful feeling, a feeling of air and lightness. Too much stuff can weigh you down, even stuff that you don’t even look at.

In the immortal words of Billy Idol: Start again.

Sometimes when you get stuck trying to solve a problem, the best thing to do is to put it aside and come back to it later. After a while, you often find that the answer just comes to you.

But what is actually going on here? Is a part of your mind continuing to work on the problem?

And if so, how come you’re not aware of it? Are there entire regions of your brain which are working away on things that you care about, without bothering to tell you?

Think about it. While you are reading this, do you really know what your brain is actually up to? What sorts of things might it be doing that it’s not telling you about?

The first time I ever implemented a Monte Carlo method was at the very start of my career in computer graphics. The company I was working for, MAGI, needed a star field for a TV commercial.

So I generated lots and lots of points inside a cube, using a random number generator to produce (x,y,z) coordinates. Then I discarded all of the points that were outside of a sphere that fit snugly inside the cube.

I then pushed all of the remaining points out to the surface of the sphere. Voila, stars.

But then the head of CGI told me that he needed more stars in the sky. So I just made lots of copies of my star field.

Everywhere I had put a star, I placed a copy of the entire star field in miniature, centered on that location. By making those clusters bigger or smaller, I could tune how “clumpy” the star field looked.

Then he was happy. The spot aired on TV with my beautiful star field. And then I was happy.

I have been doing the NY Times crossword puzzle for many years. And this weekend, for the only the second time ever, I managed to finish the Saturday NY Times crossword puzzle in 11 minutes flat.

I know that in the scheme of things, with the terrible state the world is in, that this is not a very big thing.

But it makes me happy.

Oscar Isaac didn’t say “Winter is coming.”
Sean Bean said it as Ned Stark in “Game of Thrones”.

Stellan Skarsgård didn’t say “The horror, the horror.”
Marlon Brandon said it as Colonel Walter Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now”.

Zendaya didn’t say “Sky People cannot learn, they do not see.”
Zoe Saldana said it as Neytiri in “Avatar”.

Javier Bardem didn’t say “We go outside where God can see us better.”
Anthony Quinn said it as Alexis Zorba in “Zorba the Greek”.

Timothée Chalamet didn’t say “It’s not that I like the Empire; I hate it, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.”
Mark Hamill said it as Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars”.

Josh Brolin didn’t say “Give my regards to King Tut, asshole.”
Kurt Russell said it as Colonel Jack O’Neil in “Stargate”.

I am too sad to say any more right now.

In my computer graphics research, a lot of the effort just goes into figuring out math. The math is the hard (and interesting) part. Once you get the math right, programming the computer to do what you want is fairly straightforward.

I find that airplane rides are just about the best place to figure out those math problems. You can’t really do anything else, you’re basically stuck for a few hours in a place where you don’t want to be, and the best thing you can do is to mentally be elsewhere.

Math is perfect for that. When I’m trying to figure out the mathematics behind some computer graphics thing, I completely tune out everything else.

And that includes all of the annoyances that go along with being stuck in an airplane seat. Before I know it, I’m at my destination, and I’ve solved the math problem.

I guess the moral is this: Wherever you are, math is a great place to visit.

Yesterday, during a conversation with an old friend, talking about all the reasons we like the current Dune movie (and recounting the ways it has brought back fond memories of reading the book):

He: When […] tells […] that he knows she’s pregnant and she realizes that it’s kind of impossible for him to know this.

Me: And yet, in a lesser derivative work, Yoda doesn’t know that Padme is bearing twins. Sad.

He: That was really a screw up for Yoda.

Me: I would have said for Lucas.

He: Oh yes, that’s right.

Yesterday’s post was a sort of puzzle. You were given the names of actors who appeared in the current movie Dune, and quotes of things that they didn’t say in the movie.

In each case, the actor was playing a character strongly reminiscent of a different character played by a different actor in a different movie. So here’s today’s puzzle:

In each case, can you name the other movie, the other actor, and the other character (the one who actually said the quote)?

See how many correct answers you can get without cheating. That is, without looking up the answer or searching on-line. I will post the correct answers later this week.