Hunger

Chandler Burr The Emperor of Scent: a story of perfume, obsession, and the last mystery of the senses — on the nature of algorithms (a wee bit of anthropomorphizing)


Unlike other mathematical formulas, algorithms need to be fed data to make them grow strong, just as a newborn child's brain needs to be fed massive amounts of stimuli for its neural organization and development. The baby algorithm's food [...]


Implied in this figure is the notion that someone has "fathered" this thing. Forgotten is the important factor that the growing child also needs periods of diminished stimulation. A continual state of excitation is lethal. Starved by overdose.

And so for day 468
25.03.2008