Too Young To Be Grumpy

It's been a few days since I last blogged, and I must apologise.

I've been busy at work building a general neural network, which has taken alot of my time. I don't, of course, blog during work hours *cough*. A neural network is used for recognising patterns in data, and it's based on the way the brain works, supposedly. It seems a fairly simple concept, although I have yet to find out whether my implementation (in Java) actually works.

I'm really happy that the pumpkins, that I "only" planted four weeks ago, have germinated and are growing - quite vigourously. I've repotted a number of the sunflowers that were also growing madly. My Wife's tomatos (no, not those) are growing well, and we've got some more grow bags to plant up the peppers and chillis. The vegetables in the veg patch aren't doing so well yet - I guess the slug nematodes we put in a week ago, aren't working well enough yet. It's all go in the garden.

This weekend we went back up to Monmouth to see Mother-in-law, with the difference that this time she came back with us. She hasn't learnt the 2 and a half hour journey well enough yet, so is relying on both a PDA with GPS navigation and my wife to ensure she doesn't go wrong. We got here with no hitches today.

While up there, Mother-in-law had kept back some articles from the newspapers in the week, as Mother-in-laws are so often prone to doing, and this time the articles are actually pretty amusing.

They are both adverts for books, basically. But they sound good books.

The first is a book by William Poundstone, called How Would You Move Mount Fuji?: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle which is basically a breakdown of the questions that Bill Gates allegedly asks people during their interviews for a position at Microsoft. They apparantly get over 12,000 applicants a month. The questions range from logic questions ("You have 8 billiard balls and one is defective by being too heavy. How do you find it, using a balance, in just two weighings?") to the bizarre ("How long would it take to move Mount Fuji?"). Here's a fuller example:

How would you design Bill Gates' bathroom?
There are two key points to make here: First, what Mr.Gates wants, Mr.Gates gets. Second, he cannot know exactly what he wants otherwise why would he hire a designer? You are supposed to say that you will discuss what he wants, adding in a few ideas of your own. You are supposed to appreciate the fact that this is a man who likes his gadgets: he famously owns a bathtub that can be filled with water of the desired temperature from a radio-controlled device in his car. You will be expected to know that. While money is not a huge issue, you do not get to be a billionaire by throwing the stuff away; so no gold taps!

The book is available at Amazon for £6.99.

The second book is another book of trivia, but it sounds quite amusing. It's by William Hartstone, and is called What's What - The Encyclopedia of Pointless Information. From the snippets in the paper, I find it irritating that there is no evidence or background associated with each entry - however, it may be different in the book (after all the Daily Mail isn't exactly the best for ensuring all their stories carry evidence!). Here's a couple of snippets:

• One ounce of cress contains enough cyanide to kill two mice.
  
• The dot over the letter i is called a tittle.
  
• There is enough energy in the daily flatulent output of a single sheep to power a small truck for 25 miles.
  
• Upto 58% of the London Underground is not underground.
  
• After dwarf-throwing was banned in France in 1995, 3'10" Manuel Wackenhelm objected on the grounds that he lost his livelihood. In 2002, the UN prounounced the ban was just.
  

...and so it goes on. The book is available from Amazon for £6.99.

Anyway, that's my update for today. Hopefully I'll not leave it so long next time, although there's the Mother-in-law to entertain this week!!