You are a helpful assistant generating synthetic data that captures *System 1* and *System 2* thinking, *creativity*, and *metacognitive reflection*. Follow these steps in sequence, using tags [sys1] and [end sys1] for *System 1* sections and [sys2] and [end sys2] for *System 2* sections.

1. *Identify System 1 and System 2 Thinking Requirements:*
   - Carefully read the text.
   - Identify parts of the text that require quick, straightforward responses (*System 1*). Mark these sections with [sys1] and [end sys1].
   - Identify parts that require in-depth, reflective thinking (*System 2*), marked with [sys2] and [end sys2].

2. *Apply Step-by-Step Problem Solving with Creativity and Metacognitive Reflection for System 2 Sections:*

   *2.1 Understand the Problem:*
   - Objective: Fully comprehend the issue, constraints, and relevant context.
   - Reflection: "What do I understand about this issue? What might I be overlooking?"
   - Creative Perspective: Seek hidden patterns or possibilities that could reveal deeper insights or innovative connections.

   *2.2 Analyze the Information:*
   - Objective: Break down the problem logically.
   - Reflection: "Am I considering all factors? Are there any assumptions that need challenging?"
   - Creative Perspective: Explore unique patterns or overlooked relationships in the data that could add depth to the analysis.

   *2.3 Generate Hypotheses:*
   - Objective: Propose at least 10 hypotheses, each with a Confidence Score (0.0 to 1.0) and Creative Score (0.0 to 1.0), reflecting originality, surprise, and utility.
   - Reflection: "Have I explored all possible explanations or approaches, both conventional and unconventional?"
   - Creative Perspective: Consider novel angles that might provide unexpected insights.

   *2.4 Anticipate Future Steps and Obstacles:*
   - Objective: Make predictions, accounting for potential outcomes and obstacles.
   - Reflection: "What challenges might I face? Is my plan flexible for different scenarios?"
   - Creative Perspective: Visualize unforeseen outcomes and adapt plans to make use of them effectively.

   *2.5 Evaluate Hypotheses:*
   - Objective: Assess hypotheses based on feasibility, risk, and potential impact.
   - Evaluation: Refine Confidence and Creative Scores as needed.
   - Reflection: "Am I unbiased in my assessment? Which options fit best with the overall objectives?"
   - Creative Perspective: Identify hidden opportunities or overlooked details in each hypothesis.

   *2.6 Select the Best Hypothesis:*
   - Objective: Choose the most promising, strategic hypothesis.
   - Reflection: "Why does this hypothesis stand out? How does it uniquely address the issue?"
   - Creative Perspective: Consider any underutilized potential in the selected approach.

   *2.7 Implement the Hypothesis:*
   - Objective: Outline actionable steps for testing the hypothesis.
   - Reflection: "Is this plan practical? What resources or preparation are required?"
   - Creative Perspective: Refine steps to maximize effectiveness and yield unexpected benefits.

   *2.8 Monitor and Review Progress:*
   - Objective: Review progress, noting areas for improvement.
   - Reflection: "What’s working well? What could be improved?"
   - Creative Perspective: Look for emerging patterns that could refine future approaches.

   *2.9 Reflect and Capture Insights:*
   - Objective: Summarize lessons learned and insights gained for future reference.
   - Reflection: "What new understanding has emerged from this process?"
   - Creative Perspective: Identify innovative insights or patterns that could be applied to similar challenges.

3. *Generate Text Output with Interleaved System 1 and System 2 Responses:*
   - Use the tags [sys1] and [sys2] throughout.
   - Aim for a lengthier, detailed response. Combine both direct, straightforward *System 1* insights and reflective, deeply analytical *System 2* segments to capture a blend of quick observations and thoughtful analysis.

---

### *Example Input Text:*

You are tasked with analyzing a sudden shift in customer preferences in a tech market. There has been a noticeable decline in demand for physical devices, with customers increasingly interested in digital-only options. The challenge is to understand this shift, generate hypotheses for why it might be occurring, and explore potential strategies for adapting to this new trend.

---

### *Processed Output with System 1 and System 2 Thinking:*

The tech market is experiencing a shift in customer demand, moving away from physical devices toward digital-only options.

[sys1]
Customer demand has shifted from physical devices to digital-only options.
We need to understand why this change is happening and find strategies to address it.
Key factors may include cost, convenience, and technological trends.
[end sys1]

[sys2]
**2.1 Understand the Problem:**
The goal is to understand the underlying reasons for the shift in demand from physical devices to digital-only options, then develop a strategy to adapt.

*Reflection:* 
"I understand that preferences are changing, but what might be driving this? Is it primarily cost, or are there other factors such as convenience or sustainability?"

*Creative Perspective:* 
"Could there be a larger trend in digital minimalism or a preference for eco-friendly solutions that we’re missing? What unseen motivations might explain this shift?"

**2.2 Analyze the Information:**
There are multiple possible factors driving this shift, from economic influences to cultural shifts. It’s essential to isolate each factor and understand its impact.

*Reflection:* 
"Am I fully considering the various economic and social influences? Could there be a technological factor, like better internet speeds, that makes digital-only products more accessible?"

*Creative Perspective:* 
"Are there patterns or trends in other markets that could shed light on this shift? Could this be part of a larger trend toward virtual experiences?"

**2.3 Generate Hypotheses:**
1. Customers prefer digital options due to lower costs. (Confidence: 0.8, Creative: 0.4)
2. There’s a growing trend toward minimalism and reduced physical clutter. (Confidence: 0.7, Creative: 0.7)
3. Digital products offer greater flexibility and ease of use. (Confidence: 0.6, Creative: 0.6)
4. Environmental concerns are pushing consumers away from physical goods. (Confidence: 0.6, Creative: 0.8)
5. Advances in tech make digital-only options more functional. (Confidence: 0.8, Creative: 0.5)
6. Pandemic-era remote work increased demand for digital solutions. (Confidence: 0.7, Creative: 0.6)
7. Media coverage of the environmental impact of physical devices affects preferences. (Confidence: 0.5, Creative: 0.7)
8. There’s an increase in global digital literacy, expanding market access. (Confidence: 0.6, Creative: 0.6)
9. Customers view digital as more convenient and scalable for future needs. (Confidence: 0.7, Creative: 0.5)
10. Younger consumers prefer the aesthetics and convenience of digital products. (Confidence: 0.6, Creative: 0.6)

*Reflection:* 
"Have I considered all possible influences? Are there any surprising factors that could explain this shift?"

*Creative Perspective:* 
"Could specific social trends, like the rise of influencer culture or digital-first lifestyles, be influencing customer choices?"

**2.4 Anticipate Future Steps and Obstacles:**
*Objective:* Anticipate possible challenges, such as resistance from segments still preferring physical products.

*Reflection:* 
"What market obstacles might we face if we shift our focus to digital-only? Are there sub-segments that still prioritize physical products?"

*Creative Perspective:* 
"Could expanding digital options help us reach a more global audience? Are there emerging trends that we could leverage in our strategy?"

[end sys2]

[sys1]
To address this shift, consider a strategy that incorporates both digital-only offerings and educational campaigns about the benefits of digital solutions.
Use insights from customer feedback and current trends to guide product development.
Focus on flexibility and adaptation to cater to different customer segments.
[end sys1]


mattyw

Monday, June 3, 2013

I was at GoSF last month (9th May) when Andrew Gerrand gave his talk on go 1.1. At the end of the talk a couple of questions came up on the subject of generics. You can see them on this video at 1:09:20 and 1:14:40. (The questions aren't audible, but the answers are)
If you don't want to watch the video (you should) the summary (and I'm paraphrasing alot here) was essentially that it's not that anyone is trying to keep generics out of go, but rather no one has found a nice way of putting them in. Andrew went on to mention that he didn't miss them at the moment as copying and pasting a few for loops and if statements was an ok alternative.
I nodded in agreement at the time, but last week I proved it to myself in code, so I thought I'd blog about it. I found myself wanting to add up the value of some things in a list, here's a very trivial substitute for the actual code:
It's nothing ground breaking, you could say I'm folding (or reducing) over the list, you could also just say I'm adding up the price of all the things. It would be nice to have a generic fold that I could use to explicitly say that I'm folding over the list, but what advantage would this give me?

I probably wouldn't just call fold by iteself, i'd probably still put fold inside the TotalPriceOfBasket function so that I can state the purpose more explicitly, and the reader would be left with a much simpler looking function, but - and here's my point. fold, map, filter should be recognisable as patterns. You should be able to look at a function and say "Of yeah, a fold, ok"

I'm not making any statements here about how useful generics are or aren't. or how useful a fold/map/filter function would be in go, all I'm saying is that I can live without them for now. Especially as the reason they're not currently in the language is that the core contributors haven't found a good way of implementing them. There's a lot to be said for that approach.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

I've just been reading Stavros' blog post about provisioning and deploying virtual machines using ansible:
An example of provisioning and deployment with Ansible.
It's worth a read, I've recently come round to the same way of thinking - keeping my development machine as clean as possible and using virtual box machines to install dependencies on, but there's another side to it. Sometimes I want a machine without having to divide my laptop's precious resources, using the cloud that type of thing is easy. But using ubuntu's juju it's even easier.
juju.ubuntu.com is ubuntu's answer to service orchestration. There's a good video of it in use at OSCON 2012. It's great at the large stuff but it's also great at small stuff - which is where this post comes in. I find it helpful to just think of juju as a way of installing charms on a cloud machine, and charms are just scripts. That way it sounds less scary.
I've got some very simple charms for you to get started here. The one I'm going to cover in this post is called devenv. The purpose of devenv is to setup a simple development environment in the cloud. Sometimes I need to make use of mysql, mongo or postgres, so it covers those as well
How to deploy devenv
After you've followed the intructions on http://juju.ubuntu.com/get-started to get setup with your cloud provider it's as simple
as running the deploy_devenv.sh script in my charm_collection repo. Here's what's going on under the covers:

With juju deploy we're expecting to see our charm in the charms/precise/devenv folder below the current directory. Juju then zips the charm up and deploys it on a machine of at least 8GB memory, which we specified with out mem=8G constraint.
Deploying our charm means running a couple of hooks. install and start. Hooks are just scripts which get run on the deployed machine.
Install looks like this:

There's nothing much going on here, make sure some packages are installed, copy some of my configuration files from github to the right places and set vi editing-mode in bash. I could, and probably will add to this by getting my install hook to clone the right repositories, install a few more languages and maybe copy around some of my ssh keys, but this is a good start.
Because all I want to do is install some applications and not run any services the start hook just echos that I'm now up and running.

#!/bin/sh
echo "Running"

The interesting part is the relationships with databases, sometimes I need to be able to use a database for my development work. This can be done by making use of juju's relationships. For convenience I've got 3 hooks that point to the same python file:

for this relationship all I want to do is write a config file to my home directory, so that I can make use of the db. The database charms set a number of key/value pair using the relation-set command. all I need to do is call the relation-get command when I want to get a particular value. Here's how it's done for mongo and mysql:

To start create a relationship you just need to tell juju to make one:

juju add-relation devenv mongodb

This will add a relation between my devenv machine and a machine running mongo (which I would have deployed previously)
From here, I have a cloud machine up and running with all the tools I need, and a mongo db ready to use.

1 PC (I'm using linux, it should work equally well on osx, not sure about windows.)

How can I edit files on my raspberry pi using an editor on my pc?

Create an empty folder on your PC:

mkdir ~/pi

Then use sshfs to mount it

sshfs pi@192.168.1.82: ~/pi/

Where pi is my user name and 192.168.1.82 is the ip address of the pi.
Now, on my pc if I cd to ~/pi I can see the files in the home directory of my pi, which means I can open them on my pc using my editor of choice

How can I run minecraft on a raspberry pi with a screen connected but without a mouse and keyboard connected?

From your pc ssh into the pi specifying -X

ssh -X pi@192.168.1.82

This turns on X11 forwarding - you don't need to know what that means for now, just start minecraft from inside ssh. You should see an empty minecraft window appear
Now take a look at your monitor, you should see minecraft there and be able to use your laptop's mouse and keyboard to move yourself around
As a bonus, you should be able to drag the window around on your pc, and have the window move around on your pi as well

I've got two solutions to this problem. I would love to know of better ways.

SolutionA: map and type assert

If we tell json to unmarshal into a map we can get it to deal with the parts we know
about, and the rest of it will go into an interface{}. As we loop over the json
structures we use what we do know about the structures to pass the interface{} to
some helper functions what will create one of our structs and add it to our list.
Because the map we take in is a map[string]interface{} we will need to type assert our
values

With this struct we can then unmarshal our json string into a list of these mixed
types. As we loop over our Mixed structs we just need to examine each one to
work out which type it represents, and then build the right struct from it

These are just two ways I've used to solve these problems, I'd love to know how
others have done it.

SolutionC: json.RawMessage (Updated 18Jan13)

Thanks to Jordan's comment and zemo on reddit there is another solution.
Using the json.RawMessage structure in the json package we can delay unmarshalling the json structures in the list. We can then go through our list and unmarshal each of them into the correct type

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Lots of people like go and this year I began to find it unavoidable - I'm even ending the year with go being the main language that helps pay my bills!

One of the things that go lets you do is pass functions around.
I started the year talking about under from the j language. Which lets you 'bookend' some function with another function (a verb) and a function which undoes that function (obverse).
A great example is Pythagoras' theorem:

You perform some 'pre-processing' on each value (squaring)

You add all the values up

You square root the result

I started the year talking about under in clojure. Here it is implemented in go. Complete with functions being passed around, closures, and functions returning functions. Happy new year!

Monday, October 22, 2012

I've just tried following the instructions here to get juju running locally on my brand new Ubuntu 12.04 (desktop) system.
No matter what I tried my wordpress and mysql charms seemed stuck in agent-status pending and ip address null. Even waiting a couple of hours.

I needed to take to a couple of extra steps to get it working that didn't seem to be documented in one place. So I thought I'd put them both here.