Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/12/03

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Monkey Business??
From: "Greg J. Lorenzo" <gregj.lorenzo@shaw.ca>
Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 18:28:35 -0700
References: <DAEOKOEHIBMMGOJNOFECMEGGECAA.phong@doan-ltd.com> <0aae01c29a8f$94d568d0$7b01f812@fluxcapacitor>

Simian Shit??

With this the LUG has now achieved another low brow low!!

drb@mit.edu wrote:

>Phong-
>
>The mean time would be several orders of magnitude more than the age of the
>universe in seconds.  Look at it this way - suppose by some miracle the
>monkey succeeds in typing almost all of the complete works of Shakespeare
>and is about to hit the last character on the last page.  Given that there
>are ~100 possible choices on the keyboard, there is a 99% chance that he
>will pick the wrong one, thus nullifying the result.  That, of course, isn't
>to say that monkeys could never produce prose - just look at Congress
>(screeching and feces throwing included).
>
>To bring it back to a more related topic, my research at the MIT Media Lab
>is about photography and imagemaking in the future.  I am working with many
>of the people who have revolutionized these fields in the past (Steve
>Benton, Glorianna Davenport, etc.) and a few companies that are agressively
>researching the future (Kodak, Sony, Motorola, etc.).  If anyone is
>interested I would be happy to talk about where photography (both pro and
>consumer) may end up 20-30 years out.
>
>--Dan
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Phong" <phong@doan-ltd.com>
>To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
>Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 8:09 PM
>Subject: RE: [Leica] Monkey Business??
>
>
>>Every novel, play, digital image (hence digitized of paintings, etc.)
>>can be represented as a (very big) number (extremely long string of 1's
>>and 0's).   Said monkey is a random number generator; assuming a uniform
>>distribution of the numbers, eventually _any_ number will come up, given
>>enough time.    A very bad novel has just a good a chance to come up
>>as a very good one, each being vastly (and I mean hugely) outnumbered
>>by junk (unrecognized as a novel).
>>
>>On a practical level, though I haven't done the calculations*, I wouldn't
>>be surprised if, assuming the monkey types a character a second, the mean
>>time (50% that it has already happened) to generate the works of Mr.
>>Shakespeare is more than all seconds from the beginning of time
>>(whenever that was), to the present one.
>>
>>Put in another way: if such monkey had existed and had succeeded in
>>typing Shakespeare's works, we would have one hell of a time to find it
>>among all the trash that's generated in the process.
>>
>>Waste management is the name of the game.
>>
>>- Phong
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>>>[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Edward
>>>Caliguri
>>>Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 5:46 PM
>>>To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>>>Subject: [Leica] Monkey Business??
>>>
>>>
>>> Steve, BD, folks -
>>>    Just to chime in -- the Zen thing and al can get one thinking -- Is
>>>
>good
>
>>>writing de-valued because of the "Monkey - Shakespeare" theory? You
>>>
>know, a
>
>>>monkey in a room with a typewriter (remember those :-) ?) will
>>>
>eventually
>
>>>crank out the complete works of said Author if given enough time? Is it
>>>easier to create a truly "Great" (whatever that is!) photograph, than a
>>>truly "Great" drawing/painting, which would be infinitely easier than
>>>writing a truly "Great" novel or play? Someone needs to do a Philosophy
>>>dissertation!
>>>    EC
>>>
>>--
>>To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
>>
>
>--
>To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
>



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In reply to: Message from "Phong" <phong@doan-ltd.com> (RE: [Leica] Monkey Business??)
Message from drb@MIT.EDU (Re: [Leica] Monkey Business??)