Naming the system is easy. It's as easy as naming the person who first described it. The Markov chain, named for Andrey Markov - there, that wasn't particularly difficult. What's more difficult is describing an application.
Described simply, it is a random process, in which the next state depends only on the current state and not what came before. It is because of this memory-less quality that I am medicated: I don't remember what came before and so I am paralysed for what needs to come next.
Listen: we all want to be 久蔵. That much is self-evident. But we all can't be because some of us are merely lacking, we are just not cool enough. No, most of us are 岡本勝四郎 on our way to becoming 島田勘兵衛, only some of us are stuck at 岡本勝四郎, and stuck we stay.
What are we waiting for? Why, the curglaff, of course. But the Scots had it wrong. It's not the shock of the cold water that changes us, it's daring to take the plunge.
My toes are dangling over the edge.
Written on Monday, 29 April 2013