Thinking About CMM

Some things learned in the academia can have practical significance. One thing I learned in a dry, theory-laden unit was the concept of Capability Maturity Model (CMM). It is summed in the following diagram.

[caption id="attachment_804" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Capability Maturity Model"][/caption]

The CMM can help locate where an organization or a unit within an organization is in relation to a particular process or functional capability.

In a sense, CMM does for organizations what Maslow's hierarchy of needs does for human beings. The latter claims that lofty human needs cannot be fulfilled before satisfying baser needs.

By helping organizations assess their capabilities or lack thereof, CMM can point out where an organisation or a team needs to pour its resources before planning grand but doomed schemes.

Thus Spake HAL

Dissociated press is a computer program that generates text based on another text. Here is an example of dissociated press based on the US presidential inaugural addresses:

Fellow - Citizens of the world. Abroad and at the same mistake. In a great river system, purified and made self. And there is a privilege which he has shown that our Government together and laugh together and save the lives of our civilization secure. In our time, a pleasing guaranty that the actual equality of rewards or possessions so long bled and suffered, we have fought not for themselves. Mindful of these States, was out of the Ohio or of rank have been distinguished by some from a fever of words

A computer would have apparently written The Book of Genesis thus:

In the day when they were both the daughters of Lot with him, at the first born; I bare the loss of it; for a possession of flocks, and she called his name Onan. And Hamor communed with him for righteousness. And her brother and her damsels, and possession of herds, and at night he shall be fruitful and multiply thee, then the other end thereof. And Terah took Abram his son with the sword? Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and where thou art yet alive,

I was curious how Gandhi would come out. The following text is based on a collection of Gandhi's writings at Project Gutenberg. I did not remove the Project Gutenberg copyright notice before feeding it to the computer, and the effects are pleasing:

Project Gutenberg is a grand doctrine of life. With them it is to weld India into one, he instanced Scotland's poverty of the Government whenever it needed their help. Their resistance consisted of disobedience of the copyright holder, your use and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of them fellow cranks--if in similar circumstances I acted towards them differently from my own family. It were better to concentrate my effort upon the subject before us. I was hard put to it that the co-operative movement. " In his opinion

 

Bruce Lee Comes To Town

Move over, Mundine! The real Man has come to town. The Man who could stop bullets with a nunchaku. The Man who could move faster than electricity!

[caption id="attachment_768" align="alignright" width="350" caption="Bruce Lee's statue at the Kogarah Town Square."][/caption]

A statue of Bruce Lee in his familiar martial arts pose was unveiled at the Kogarah Town Square yesterday. The statue was presented by the City of Shunde, China, to the City of Kogarah to mark the first anniversary of their Friendship City Agreement.

Among the boys of a certain generation to which I myself belonged, Bruce Lee was bigger than the Beatles. Before we learnt to dream of becoming engineers and doctors, we aspired to become a Bruce Lee and kick ass.

And the legend of Bruce Lee! He could fell a bull by a single punch on its forehead thrown from an inch away. He could block machinegun bullets with his trademark weapon, nunchaku. In fact, it was de riguer to have a nunchaku, and learning to wield it was a rite of passage for many.

Bruce Lee was believed to be so quick that he could flick the switch off, dash to his bed and lie on it before the light went out.

Many an afternoon would be spent discussing the endlessly fascinating question of what would have happened if Bruce Lee and Mohammed Ali had met in a fight. The consensus was either a win for Bruce Lee or a draw as Ali also belonged to our pantheon of superheroes.

Bruce Lee's death at a young age only served to enhance his mystique.

Later on, as we grew older, we, or at least I, came to view Bruce Lee as an embodiment of the wisdom of the East.

The unveiling of Bruce Lee’s statue at the Kogarah Town Square tells  me that the man who used to break bones is now helping build bridges between peoples and cultures.

My Friend, Chopin

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1QM6YZC45g&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_323647

The rest is silence.

And the Grass Grows by Itself

The movie Eat Pray Love, which I finally watched on DVD, reminded me of an old Buddhist poem:

Sitting silently
Doing nothing
The Spring comes
And the grass grows by itself

So, as the protagonist of Eat Pray Love learns, the Italians have distilled the aesthetic of doing nothing in an even more exquisite phrase: il dolce far niente or the sweetness of doing nothing.

The idea of rejuvenating the spirit and body through inaction is nothing new. The Abrahamic religions bestowed the idea of sabbath. Buddhist masters set aside time for doing nothing, except perhaps brewing tea and watching the cassia flowers fall.

Time for me to do nothing!

Musings

That archetypal American inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, reportedly said genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

When the Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate (1844 – 1908) was hailed as a genius, he quipped, “A genius! For 37 years, I’ve practised fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!”

The Irish writer James Joyce meets a friend in a bar. The friend asks how he is doing.

“I’m exhausted,” Joyce says.

“Why?” the friend enquires. “What did you do today?”

“I wrote a sentence,” Joyce says.

The Jury is Still Out

Recently, I served on jury duty in a trial involving alleged assault, malicious wounding and intent to rob. After almost two and a half day of intense deliberations, the outcome was a hung jury. In reality, the outcome was always going to be either a guilty verdict or a hung jury as at least one juror never wavered from his initial position in favor of a guilty verdict.

Although the jury experience has reinforced my faith in the judicial system, I came away with mixed feelings about the jury system itself. What happened was that a couple of jurors basically made the decision for the vast majority of the jurors. These dominant jurors were vocal, confrontational and forceful, at one point reducing a dissenting gentle old lady to tears.

One of the vocal jurors had recently finished law school but not been admitted to bar yet. The juror clearly thought the law degree gave a license to ride roughshod over the rest of the jurors, often playing what I considered to be vain intellectual games. The juror would support one side of the argument and suddenly switch to the other as if to dazzle the jury with the rhetorical skills picked up at the law school.

For most of the deliberations, the jury was split almost 50-50. Towards the end of the day two of the deliberations, there was a dramatic shift to 11-1 in favor of a guilty verdict but still not a unanimous decision as required by law. When informed of the deadlock, the Judge instructed the jurors to spend some more time to try to reach a unanimous verdict.

Next morning, after another intense session of deliberations during which the law graduate argued for a not-guilty verdict, a snap poll was taken. By this time, nothing should have surprised me but I was still surprised when the law graduate voted for a guilty verdict after arguing for a not-guilty verdict throughout the morning session. The snap poll result was 8-4 in favor of a guilty verdict.

Clearly, the deadlock had worsened. When informed again, the Judge instructed the jury to try to see if an 11-1 verdict was possible. Another session of deliberations began, and, of the four who had voted in favor of a not-guilty verdict, two quickly fell in line. When it became clear that the remaining two would not budge from their position, something startling happened.

Throughout the deliberations, there was this feeling that returning a hung jury was somehow a betrayal of the trust the Crown Prosecutor and the Judge had placed in the jury. So, when it became clear that a guilty verdict was not possible, the law graduate asked everyone how many could vote for a not-guilty verdict without feeling ‘morally compromised’. Ten hands went up. This meant the accused was just one vote shy of acquittal.

If so many jurors felt that they could vote for a not-guilty verdict without feeling morally compromised, perhaps the Crown had not done enough to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was guilty. In fact, many jurors would complain that the Crown Prosecutor could have done a better job and then go on to vote in favor of a guilty verdict.

In the end, the Judge decided that the impasse was beyond resolution and dismissed the jury. Before dismissal, the jury was informed that the Crown would try the accused again at an unspecified date.

At various times, I felt that some jury members struggled with the fundamental concept of the presumption of innocence. They gave the impression that the mere fact of being charged is a sufficient reason for conviction.

One jury member - the same one who from the start never once wavered in his belief in the guilt of the accused - at one point argued that the accused had proven his guilt by exercising the right to silence when interviewed by the police. This was despite the Judge's instruction not to hold this fact against the accused.

The defense case largely rested on an alibi, which was shown to be very shaky by the Crown Prosecutor. However, the demolition of the alibi did not automatically establish the guilt of the accused, another fact reminded by the Judge to the jury members a few times. However, some jury members did not seem to grasp this fact either.

The trial by jury may be one of the crown jewels of the human civilization but it clearly has its flaws. But, then, what does not?