Of utmost concern to any computer science student at one point or another is the concept of the sorting algorithm. The sort is the builidng block of conceptual computer science much as the color wheel is for the visual artist. Once the student becomes familiar with manipulating the medium (such as the code syntax or the canvas), she or he must then be led through the process of understanding the deeper skills of the trade.
For the uninitiated, the sorting algorithm is like it sounds. I could hand you a stack of twenty-six cards, each with a unique letter of the alphabet written on them, and ask you to sort them in order. There are any number of ways to accomplish this task. You could parse through the cards one at a time to find A, then parse through it again to find B and so on until you’ve ordered all the cards into one big pile. Or, you could break the cards into piles, sort each pile, and merge the sorted decks back together again. Computer scientists, over the years, have devised a number of these algorithms of varying complexity and efficiency (a quick Google search returned this page with some excellent examples of sorting–complete with source code and animations). Sort algorithm studies are so pervasive in the field that they’ve become a sort of running joke. Check out the Zen sort and the random sort at everything2.
Another interesting, but unintended, truth that comes to light when studying sort algorithms is that whole idealism/realism dichotemy. Or, perhaps a better name would be the elegant/pragmatic tension. You know what I’m talking about. It’s that difference between getting something done, and getting it done right. Our lives are often frought with the compromise of doing something to get it finished, or taking the extra time to make sure it’s correct and complete. The sort algorithm exposes this problem in computer science very well. For, if you had enough time and enough power, you could throw the dumbest sorting algorithm you could recall from your CS 101 class and get the job done. It would be messy and ugly, but it would work.
You could think of this in terms of Shakespeare. Here, you have one brilliant (elegant) individual who as single-handedly written some of the greatest literature ever written in the history of Western culture. Imagine, though, putting 1,000 monkeys in a room, all working on typewriters for an unspecified (possibly infinite) amount of time. Arguably, the random collection of letters on millions of pages would begin to form into grammer, syntax, and story. Now, monkeys are stupid, making the second solution arduous at best. But if you could get enough monkeys and enough time, it’d get the job done. This imagery is called the “brute force” algorithm.
Which leads me to why I started writing all of this in the first place.
The Internet, over the last few of years, has really become a means of mass collaboration and discussion. HTML and its related technologies have finally gotten to the point that they’re easy enough to use for just about anyone who wants to converse about one thing or another. Take cloudmakers.org for example. This community of people started up because they all wanted to solve the online puzzle spawned by the movie AI. Blogs are a further extent of this thought in that they allow us to converse at length in a public forum about things that are meaningful to us. Ideas can be explored in depth by anyone and everyone.
Last night, I saw the Matrix again for the second time. Between this viewing and my last viewing, I was bent on not reading reviews or discussions on the movie in the hopes that I could come up with some “pure” observations–elegant observations. It was my hope that I could sit down and spend some time writing some relevant, insightful discourse on the movie that would shed light on the various levels of meaning woven into the film by the Wachowski brothers.
Contrary to the overwhelming evidence, I still like to think of myself as a clever, insightful, at times brilliant individual. As such, I thought it crucial to present new ideas into the Matrix discussion that is rapidly unfolding around the world. This required my views to be untainted from conversations such that I could construct my own thoughts, my own ideas, my own great insights. All of it to position my thoughts outside of the machinery of the “brute force” algorithm that is the Internet. To keep from being seen as a cog in the machine. I mean, that the Internet community is going to deconstruct the Matrix Reloaded at some point is inevitable. The majority of us, though, will only be repeating the observations and insights of a certain few individuals.
By now you’re probably rolling your eyes, having discovered that this isn’t about the Matrix, or the bubble sort, or monkeys at all–it’s another one of Ken’s tirades on identity. Nevertheless, the discovery is unique–at least to me–that maybe bringing insight to a discussion doesn’t mean hiding myself away up on a mountaintop, waiting for some big epiphany to come. Maybe it means talking things over with friends and getting involved with the discussion because the content is more important than what everyone thinks of the participants.
Maybe brilliant insight means ugly, messy, brute force anonymity every now and again.
Wow. Ok, first off, movable type has an “extended entry” area for a reason. ;P
Ken.. I wasn’t going to reply to this, because what I have to say may sound harsh. But I know you value honesty, and I think I am a good enough friend that you can take this in the positive way that I intend it. (at least, I hope I am)
First off, all that stuff about sorting and brute force was the most extensive explanation of a simple concept I have ever seen. Why not just say “There are two ways of solving a problem… just hacking away at it until its done (brute force) or continually planning it until you come up with a method or algorithm that does it the ‘right way.’ ” You could even get into the shades of gray in the middle regarding a “good enough” sort that is better that brute force, but with a few iffy bits. But all that stuff about shakespeare and monkeys was over the top. It was pretentious, insulting, and actually upsets me that you considered it to be worth writing. I have seen your off the cuff comments on this site, and in general, and they are of higher quality than these “I wanna be mark pilgrim” type of posts.
Secondly, I take issue with your statement that HTML and such is easy enough for most people I strongly disagree. That illusion creates a very very limited pool of discussion, pretty much limiting it to technically inclined people. There are services built for others to create blogs (such as TypePad, blogger, etc) – but even they require people who use a computer somewhat regularly and have that inclination. Which is a smaller subset than most will realize. This is of course a digression, and as such will end now.
Anyway, all of that stuff left a bad taste in my mouth, for the very reason you identify at the end: You are trying too hard to be a unique voice within the self proclaimed net intelligencia who run blogs like dive into mark (which you seemingly worship), boingboing, lessig, etc., not to mention the next tier.
There is a certain satisfaction to being recognized in any community, blogging included. If you buy into the hype about blogging being the next phase of human communications, I suppose I can see the motivation as well. But all that hype is generated by people posting on blogs about how great they are. I mean, the people posting that are also running sites that track who is the most popular blog, what their “blog index” is, how to skew the google rank of their name, etc. It’s a big popularity contest, and it isnt about being yourself, or finding an identity. Its a waste of time. Blogging is not the next form of human communications. It’s a blip. If you ask most people, they dont even know what a blog is. And they won’t, because most people still prefer to talk to each other in person or on the phone. Human communication is direct. Mass media creates a cacaphony of noises.. some useful, some not.. but the real concensus comes from the direct discussion afterwords. Blogging removes that, and essentially has a whole lot of people shouting into the void, hoping someone else notices. Which is not communication.. it’s self aggrandizement. I am not claiming I am immune. I tend to blog things as well. But I don’t really work for recognition. I just do it to maintain a space seperate from my “themed” sites.
I guess my not-stated-to-this-point point is this Ken: You are already a unique individual. You already have a unique identity. Everyone I know that knows you (myself included) has nothing but great respect for you, and values just about everything about you. You aren’t just well liked, you are LOVED. You are witty, funny, strong in your faith (even though i dont subscribe to your faith, I find your strength in it inspiring) and have essentially grabbed control of your life since we were kids and turned it around in one of the most amazing ways I have ever seen. You do not need to isolate yourself from people to try and have “original thoughts” about the current pop topic of the week, just to gain credibility. Your thoughts are already valued, and are often already original. You do not need to worry about who you are or what people think of you. Honestly. I suspect you have been worrying about it trying to get where you are going for so long that you haven’t yet realized that you are already there.
I am not claiming you are “done” by a long shot. Keep dreaming and growing – thats the point of life. But you don’t have to worry about what others think of you on the way, partially because it doesnt matter, and partially because there really isnt much more room for improvement in that area.
Like they say in adaptation, a great movie about these issues, and life in general: “You are what you love, not what loves you.”
Look around at everything you have. Realize exactly how amazing you and your life is. Step back and take a deep breath, and realize that you don’t have to try to be liked – you just are liked. And if all those self proclaimed geniuses like Mark Pilgrim and brad choate and all those other people out there in the void who you may never meet, and probably wouldn’t like if you did meet dont come flocking to your site and proclaiming you the expert on this that or the other, you aren’t the one that is missing out. Because you can just be yourself and have great success, and you can turn from the fake world of the net into the real world, hug your wife, and know that you are already whole.
Ken – You are already loved. So stop worrying about it so much.
Hi Ryan. Quite right, you are a good friend. I also encourage constructive criticism.
re: my long-windedness. I was attempting to draw people who don’t necessarily have a technical background into the same thought process I had when I wrote this entry, which, incidentally, roughly followed a conversation I had with a friend of mine who similarly didn’t have any concept of sort algorithms, etc. It may have come off haughty to those “in the know,” but people outside of that circle might have been interested in learning by analogy what a “brute force” algorithm is. Hence, the monkey thing. If you found it boring, I apologize. If you found it personally insulting, you may find our new Content Policy helpful, particularly the All Too Seriously® clause.
re: HTML and its related technologies. In the 80′s, email was relgated to the technocracy. Now it’s mainstream. Non-technically-inclined people are becoming increasingly capable of using forums, message boards, and blogs. While I probably shouldn’t have gone so far as to say, “just about anyone,” that’s really all I meant.
re: blogging & identity. I know that blogging is a passing fad, but it’s become a remarkably capable mirror for me to explore the struggles with identity that lurk in the back of my mind. I’ve actually had this conversation with a few people in the blogging community who can identify–as you have–and who have appreciated my honesty on the subject.
By the way, thanks very much for the kind and encouraging words. I’m aware of the fact that my identity is not staked on what some would call the “praise of men,” (cf. Psalm 49), but I’ve noticed a bit of a gap between understanding this truth and getting it, existentially. Sometimes what I write is an expression of that gap.
Ken,
I obviously (well, maybe not obviously, but i hope it was obvious ;P) was not personally insulted by your long-winded monkey clause. (the expression “long winded monkey clause” is, as they say, pure comedy gold btw) – I understand you were trying to draw people in… but I guess I think you may have aimed too low. I don’t consider the difference between brute force and an elegant algorithm to be something that requires several paragraphs to express… but maybe I am giving the average reader too much credit in the technical areas.
In any case, I am guilty of long-windedness in my reply as well. My main points were:
1) It pains me to see you working so hard at things like page rank and acceptance by the main blogs. It seems beneath you, and things like this article seem to be trying to hard.
2) If you try really hard to establish an identity, the people who don’t know you buy into whatever identity you want to market until they get to know you. The people that do know you think your identity is that of the guy who tries to hard to market an identity. And the people who love you can’t understand why you think you need to create a new identity in the first place.
That said, I am sorry if I came out too hard against this. I was not trying to be mean or insensitive to it. I guess that this one area strikes me as something I assumed should be obvious, just like other areas I struggle with come naturally to you. Each of us has our own path. Maybe it ties back into the whole “how much does it take to explain brute force” thing above, but on a whole different level.
Hmmm.
” If you try really hard to establish an identity, the people who dont know you buy into whatever identity you want to market until they get to know you. The people that do know you think your identity is that of the guy who tries to hard to market an identity. And the people who love you cant understand why you think you need to create a new identity in the first place.”…
I was blown away by some of Ryan’s insights here. Wow… I wish there were some people with his kind of convictions running the church… I mean, heck, you’d never have to wonder the motives of stuff… I can’t really explain what”s in my head… I hope you can read my inference…
But that thing I quoted that he wrote… dude… that’s just a beautiful epiphony for anybody… not just Ken…
Thanks Ryan