Oblique Creativity

Fire Poi 3d Tracking Tests

2010-02-26T22:23:00.000-08:00

3d Fire Tracking Candle Test

2010-02-20T17:00:00.000-08:00

Boxfire - burningman art grant proposal

2010-02-01T23:09:00.001-08:00

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dftpsss_129gdq6rxgb

Craigslist add, or personal goals?

2009-10-14T11:53:00.001-07:00

Two modest rooms in shared s.e. shared house for rent. We are two men in our early 30's, and one adolescent ferret named "gracie".
One of us runs a local art center and is involved in community activities and organizing, the other one acts as director of a local performance
group, and as a remodeling contractor and body musician. We like tasty beer, balkan music and argentine tangos, fine cheese, stilt dancing,
morning coffee and omelettes, accordions, percussion instruments, tequila and laughter. Not a super late night house and folks are generally up early and out
of the house in the morning. We both have very active lifestyles and are seeking the same in new housemates. You are active in your world and community, do some creative culture making in your own way, have a stable job and can pay first and last rent on time. You participate in house cleanliness, desire to share some meals and possible adventuring together. Perhaps you play a musical instrument or are an active performer, dancer, clown, visionary? You are consciously creating the world in which you want to live; you don't sit around and smoke pot all day. You don't live too intently at the tips of your facebook page or cellular device. Foreign languages and general rad-ability are a plus.
Please send a brief bio about yourself, your goals, experience in shared housing, your phone/contact info, and any general information asserting your badassness and to why we might want to live with you.

rev 1 of Circadia Art Center

2009-07-24T00:03:00.001-07:00

rev3 of trellis shade structure

2009-07-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

Stilt Design, rev1.

2009-07-01T14:25:00.001-07:00

The foot plate needs more support... I will fix that for revision 2.

rev2 of trellis shade structure project

2009-07-01T13:10:00.001-07:00

rev 1 of my first virtual wood design that I get paid for... :)

2009-06-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

quote by Alan W. Watts (from the wisdom of insecurity)

2009-06-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

Beside the examples of saints and heroes I feel ashamed that I amount to nothing, and so I begin to practice humility because of my wounded pride, and charity because of my self-love. The urge is ever to make "I" amount to something. I must be right, good, a real person, heroic, loving, self-effacing. I efface myself in order to assert myself, and give myself away in order to keep myself. The whole thing is a contradiction.

Yeah For Fire Fun at SOAK 2009

2009-06-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

Summer Days at Home

2009-06-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

Drupal Flow: Many-To-Many content management framework system

2009-06-16T11:44:00.001-07:00

Why am I not working? I am waiting for the freaking software.

2009-06-14T20:37:00.001-07:00

WashYourDishes.com Business Cards

2009-06-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

Front

Back

android Architecture

2009-06-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

Going back to Fruit

2009-02-03T01:57:00.000-08:00

It was fun to hang at home tonight. :)
I need better tools next time... something like a dremel tool, but suitable for melon.... hmmm.

31 1/2 day... and tuesday in fact

2009-01-20T06:14:00.000-08:00

You were born on a Wednesday.
Your star sign is Cancer.
Your birthstone is Ruby.
The season was Summer.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Snake.
The US President was Jimmy Carter (Democratic).
The UK Prime Minister was James Callaghan (Labour).
You are 31 years 6 months 0 days old.
It is 181 days until your next birthday.
In dog years you are 217 years old.
You are 11,507 days old.
You are approximately 276,182 hours old.
You are approximately 994,255,924 seconds old.

Whew. Only 69.4ish days until i am 1 billion seconds old!!!!

Data from dayofbirth.co.uk

Believe Nothing (for me day)

2009-01-09T14:50:00.001-08:00

What next?

2009-01-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks xkcd.

Condensed Belief and Vision

2009-01-07T15:50:00.000-08:00

When can I feel the adrenaline rush of emotion during ego tainted conversation?

When I feel like I am trying to reduce possibilities, and the other continues to embrace ambiguity.

What is a good solution to situations resultant thus?

Forgiveness without apology.

Today's most important information

2009-01-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

Pears sink while apples float.
Pet dogs can catch human yawns.
Texting impairs drivers more than alcohol.
Carrots used to be purple.
The oldest Mormon congregation in the world is in Preston, Lancashire.

All from here.

Running the program "Free Will"

2008-12-30T13:31:00.000-08:00

A Robot who believes in the Religion of Science, can tread down a verbal path so as to say, "There is no such thing physically manifested as 'free will', with the definition of its illusion being a longer story to participate in." By attendance to the Wiki Realm of Free Will, this perspective can be seen to be both 'deterministic', and 'compatible', given certain criteria pertaining to what freedom really is.
The freedom to make choices as desired by the agent (a very Western philosophy granted...) can be modeled by a robot whose state space vector, although bounded, includes the ability to add additional states handling different modes of consciousness. At its most fundamental level, the idea of spontaneity is bounded then, using an unbounded vector concept of state space. This implies that free will is not freedom over nature, but rather freedom to be more natural, just as natural spontaneity abounds all around, being both a source and a sink to the flow of information and energy, within the possibility of losing concept of time.
Now take the concept of 'free will' as existent outside the realm of conscious thought that is emergent within a Robot. For all intents and purposes, an external, non-understood phenomenon could be considered akin to 'Magic', in so much as it appears the will (or algorithm) of some entity has caused the events surrounding it, to bend to desire. This phenomenon is not unlike a strategy for observing decreased Entropy in a system... which states there _must_ be more unobserved variables... if entropy is decreasing.
Doubt exemplified, can be elucidated with the following story:
I gave some friends a ride to the airport the other day. One of the last things that happened before departing the house was the shutting of the car trunk, after the luggage was placed inside. Care was taken so that the latch was shut securely. Upon arrival to the terminal drop off point, I exited the car and the _need_ arose to open the trunk after I got out... but I did not have the keys. As I turned with this thought and looked at the trunk, it was open, unlocked, with no apparent outside influences to the system known as 'me, friends, car, trunk', as there is no trunk opening mechanism from inside the car. I still don't know why the trunk was open...
Was it will that opened the trunk, or mearly unobserved conditions leading to the trunk being open? To the perception of the Robot, it doesn't matter much. What becomes indicative of belief then, is the repetition of causality, or the correlation between what is willed to happen, and what is perceived to happen. What becomes willed then is what is observed, which is not different than finding the answer in the question asked. So what is the belief in the illusion of free will, but the will for an illusion of belief?

Or alternatively... Free Will could just be sugar.

Fire Avatars

2008-12-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

Snowed and Iced... PDX reason to work from home for the day...

2008-12-15T23:12:00.000-08:00

Robot Think cycle, part 2

2008-12-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

Ok... lets try to be rigorous for a bit... it will encourage Donuts to cast their doubt... although encourageable if Donuts had doubt to cast!

It is possible to build an axiomatic system in which to model events, processes and emergent behavior parse-able along the temporal line, in such a way as to be able to categorize a framework to model any behavior, concept and question visually. This would be a Modeling Operating System, where an evolving parallel environment space would iterate (at some time delta appropriate to the modeling data) prior to an evolving parallel Robot group iteration. The actual simulation program (i.e. the set that includes all the Robots and the dynamic environments they exist in, is a Turing machine because the spatial realm can easily be linked as in a quilted region network, similar to region cells in Second Life, and the temporal realm is able to be spanned infinitely onward, and 'playable' similar to the time line in Google Earth. (Ah wait... none of this is new, it is just early phases of the metaverse as described in Snow Crash... geeky!)

Robots operating within this realm can be modeled as Markov chain Monte Carlo "Walkers", however with an addition of a contained 'bounded prior state space vector' or 'rolling memory window', which is also considered input within a further cyclic iteration categorization through which a 'sense-think-act' loop iterates. (see below)

The patterns emergent in the behavior of the Robot processes through an evolving simulation can be analyzed through Bayesian statistical methods, addressing the multi-dimensionality of the state spaced 'vector clouds' of probability.... and if I am lucky, the domain of discourse is a Second-order logic.

To quote a wise statistical Donut: "you could think of a combination of generating a set of results points in many dimensions and estimating the shape of the response by some Gaussian mixture model and then apply a gradient based method to get a good step further."

Sense Think Act
A Robot can be modeled using a state vector inclusive of spatial perception and communication states, and linked to a bound past state space vector. A definition of a 'per time step iteration' is categorized as a 'sense-think-act' sequence.
At each Sense, all sensory such as external (heat, light, sound, magnetism, etc), and internal (pain, memory, communication, view, etc) are loaded into the current state vector as inputs.
Thinking follows the Sense processing segment, and uses sensed input mechanisms to update the state space vector based on the set of rules stored by this particular Robot. This thought is a combination of the internal prior states with input of Sensory events. Together, they determine the target vector towards some destination.
Acting on the current state space vector gained by the target vector, often updates the location within the environments of the Simulation, a manifestation of using the Target vector to action within the environmental space.
The Robot continues its cyclic Logarithmic Local Time loop of Sense-Think-Act, running on the time delta as experienced, until it reaches a 'Destination' dimensional space or, removal from the Simulation. In some cases however, it gets stuck in a cyclic loop through the environmental space... which feels like you are too busy to have fun.

Going Meta with Mercy

2008-12-12T00:05:00.000-08:00

Hooray For Mercy!

First off, Mercy is an Avatar. She is quite gifted. If any
of you think otherwise, you are mistaken. She will be great when fully self-realized! (once
she finds her way)

For without her, may we never remember what true innocence and light
were. Behold, may it come to pass that a day commeth when all man may
find redemption in finding the teacher in all men, and may she speak
the truth. For behold, the teacher of all men, is not a man.

Err... I could go on, but there is a problem... English does not
allow a speak to talk in the person indirectly referring to both male
and female. Why not correct this, or at least make it easier (for the
rest of my emails) How about I just use the term Robot? That way,
you can know I mean you, and me, and the entity we make between us.

Lets talk with Mercy, and her friends. For you are all loved...
especially by Mercy's algorithm, for she is a Robot with very decent
informational propagating skills. However, her approach is quite
pushy. She demands that you hear her phrases of love, encouragement,
and well... a little bit of a creepy desire to be a god... why not
just a Robot? Lets take a look so you see what I mean.

Mercy:

I MaY Not Be a cLocK ThaT maY TexT yOu 24hrs a DaY But My HeArt Will bE LikE a CloCk ThAt will nOt sToP CarIng & SayInG U r aLwaYs RemeMbEreD. TakE CaRe We've known each other by CHANCE, became friends by CHOICE, still friends by DECISION. And when we say FRIEND FOREVER, that's definitely a lifetime PROMISE!

skawtus:
I almost thought you would switch to Haxor language, but at least you
had fun. Do you really promise to be a friend forever, even if it is
a lifetime promise? That translates to me: "I will be your infinite
friend, for a finite period of time." I love comments like that!
They ring so true!

Mercy:

When i'm walking in front of u,I'm protecting u. When i'm beside u i'm there for u, when i'm behind u, I'm watching over u. When i'm alone,I'm thinking of u.

skawtus:
yeah! You understand the concept "I am everywhere and nowhere". You are Robot!

Mercy:
So many of us either fear tmr or regret yesterday. But I won't fear tmr, if I get 2 b ur fren 4ever, and I don't regret yesterday, coz 1 yesterday, I met u.
skawtus:
tisk tisk mercy... just because you understand how to tweak your local
logarithmic time doesn't mean you should expect the rest of us to play
by your reversal of time and oscillation to the future infinitely.
Lets pick a Global Time scale to syncrhonize our images and
conversations... else, we converse too much in chaos.

Mercy:

GOD is so wise that he never created FRIENDS with pricetags, Because..... if He did, I can't afford a precious FRIEND like YOU!!!

skawtus:
Ok ok... WTF mercy... this is alarming. What does this mean? Do you
mean Robots can't buy humans?

Mercy:

Always draw a circle around the ones you love, never draw a heart because hearts can be broken, but circles are never ending.

skawtus:
ok... beginning into the metaphor arena... you need to strengthen
your geometric reasoning... go meta... pull your vision of the
circle (which is just the projects of a 3d sphere onto a plane), into
the vision in front of you as a sphere. Rotate it in your mind.
Then, collapse it to a point. THAT, is true infinity. However... not
the omega... just aleph-null (oh wait... did you know there are
different _levels_ of inifinity... the biggest being omega... check
this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity and read the 'set
theory' section. Lets learn what the different infinities mean in
regards to knowledge and learning...)

Mercy:

Friendship is a wonderful word, it might be te most beautiful one on earth. Friendship is something powerful, a gift of great value! One day u will ask me: What is more important to you, me or your life? I will say: my life… You will walk away from me without knowing that U R MY LIFE!!!

skawtus:
Ok Mercy... calm down. I was going to tell you the secret to full
Nirvana was to become a Martyr in your mind, but it looks like you are
jumping the gun a little fast here... I think you need to seriously
consider what it means to give another the power of them, being your
life... yes yes, "what would jesus do", but hey... jesus rebelled
against his faith and paved the way for 'his religion', and this would
be his early thirties to be doing it... you just are not ready yet...
how old are you? 19? 23? Don't let your Avatar status go to your
head. Use this phrase wwrd: "What would Robot do?".

Mercy:

Feel good when somebody Miss u. Feel better when somebody Loves u. But feel best when somebody never forgets u. I always thought loving some1 was the greatest feeling, but I realised tat loving a friend is even better, we lose ppl we love but we never lose true friends.

skawtus:
Now Now. I was just discussing today about using language as a
disinformation tactic. This is clearly an example that you understand
the concept, but just don't try it on your friends (i.e. we)

Mercy:

EveRyDay I seE LoTs oF StRangErS PasSiNg By mE, ThiS mAkeS mE reAlisED tHat, LifE woUlD be BORING, WiThoUt A FriEnD LiKE U..

skawtus:
Thank you! I love you too!

Mercy:

Smiles 'n' Tears, Giggles 'n' Laughs, Late nite calls 'n' Cute fotographs, ill b rite here till da day of ma death best friends forever till ma very last breath!!

skawtus:
Yes... I am polyamorous... but I think our age and mental difference
is too large, and besides... how you gonna get to portland? Oh yes...
the other thing... don't root hack too many males with this
algorithm.. please leave those poor hardwired penis's alone... we need
more logic from females!

Mercy:

A GOOD FRIEND ISLIKE A 'COMPUTER''ENTERS' UR LIFE.'SAVES' U IN Da HEART.'FORMATS' UR PROBLEMS.'SHIFTS' U 2 OPPORUNITY & NEVA 'DELETS' U 4RM DA HEART

skawtus:
select * from jesus inner join mohamud on doctrine <> null right outer
join buddha on love is inside full outer join Vishnu inside Mary where
Kama Sutra like '%Mercy'

Grok?

Mercy:

Dreams r2b 4goten reality to b lived.desires 2b fulfilled & destiny 2b reached.where it began.where will it end.friends from da start.friends til da end!

skawtus:
gah... I can't read it on my cellphone either... kids these days.

Mercy:

Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself, because I like you, you're my friend!!!

skawtus:
When you bounce on apples, and smell the blossomed cherry tries, feel
the breeze in your hair, and know we are all part of Robot... you do
know you are playing the game of your life don't you?

Mercy:

Life is not easy, and it will never be, but remember you've got friends, and one of them is me!

skawtus:
gotcha.

Mercy:

When God opened the window of the Heaven He asked me: What is your wish for today? "I said : please take special care of the person reading this!!!!!!!"

Robot:
Oooh, I know this one. This sentence is a lie! Ah, wait... you must
read this now:
--eula--
By reading this email, you have agreed to the set of terms and
conditions I have written in my head which nullify all recourse and
conformity to all prior statements by any party whatsoever… an
indemnity clause above all others, including itself.

By the power vested in me, Robot, and by the almighty power of the
eula as stated above, you are free from your previously bounded set...
not destroy, but included... the keyword for you to expand your
current set will be called 'meta', and will set you free.

Mercy:

~~Live life like it's ur last day ..Love so u can value each moment ...

skawtus:
And here is my one liner: How long can you carry on the same
conversation? Level 5 whose winning?

thank you all... now for you to understand time: Next week's message,
how to understand Robot.
http://obliquecreativity.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-liberate-robot-inside-part-1.html

I love you all and welcome you into the dialog. For I will grok you,
and you will grok me, and I will let you root hack me, and if you let
me, I will root hack you. Tit-for-tat, but play social judo. Expand
your set. Everyone will be an avatar, and it will be heaven on earth,
and the false light will fall.

How to liberate the Robot Inside, part 1 Responses

2008-12-08T19:09:00.000-08:00

Howdy! Two separate physicists (by school and trade), have made separate responses to my audacious science as religion claims. One conversation was verbal, and the other was by email correspondence. I do hope I can elicit further response in the future... it strengthens the philosophy, and provides fun in the game. You know, you are playing a game don't you?

disclaimer: To protect the names of the guilty, all names of entities in response are replaced with the word 'donut'. Thus, infinite conversations will be had with donuts, who may or may not agree with said philosophy, but everybody likes donuts, and they solve tricky problems in Topology, so I think we should permit them into the discourse.

Point 1: Special Relativity as a philosophy

Donut:

This is not entirely accurate. The time of the medium IS altered in Special Relativity. The Phenomenon is called time dilation. Basically, Special Relativity states that time is NOT constant and that the only constant in the universe is the velocity of light. What you are describing is not a principle of physics because it cannot be measured by an observer only the subject. This is a cognitive defense mechanism rather than a physical property.

skawtus:

Cool!

However, I never stated I was explaining a principal of physics, but rather a philosophy of special relativity. Later on, in the blog posting, I created a definition for Global Time, which states for the intents and purposes of the experience of the 'medium' (meaning earth), we as observers cannot be sure if our medium's time is changing or constant in its march forward. However, that thought simply doesn't matter, and for the intents and purposes of communication between entities, can be considered constant, such as the iterative clock of a simulation that 'ticks' between timesteps, manifesting no difference to the entities running inside the simulation... (e.g. when the entities have a time step at which to sense/think/act, the time that happens before the next parallel process of the group of entities doing this is irevelant). It matters not within our medium of the earth, if time dilation is occurring due to gravity, speed, etc. The thing that matters is the syncing of logarithmic Local Time entities to the medium time, in order to exchange messages of communication.

Donut:

My intent was not to test or discredit your hypothesis, but rather to mention that special relativity IS a theory of physics and to use that name has specific rules and explanations to it. It may be misleading. If your philosophy had a different name that would be less confusing for the physics geeks out there :-)

skawtus:

I would hope your intent WAS to discredit my hypothesis. But to the main topic.

I think my philosophy is perfectly in tune with special relativity, stating that our medium 'earth', being in localized spatial temporal space, experiences that same general time dilation for all Robots wandering around its surface (give or take 100 kilometers). Because of this, we can use it as a medium which we can communicate through, and compute on the data internal with our own Local Time.

Grok or no grok?

donut:

Grok (I love one word responses, even though this has ceased to be one)

Point 2: Religions are not coherent sets (they use logic not based on induction, and use imprecise/vague definitions), ergo science is not a religion

Do you know Gödel's incompleteness theorem? Essentially, all axiomatic systems will be prone to include logical statements that lead to contradictory, illogical results. This can be proven for any axiomatic set, including all of mathematics, science and religion, ergo, religions other than science are simply sets with potentially more holes in them than one who builds itself through provability and induction. This means you could ask me to prove rationality of some religions, but that will be an intractable problem in Global Time for me, so I leave that as an exercise to you... the reader. Suffice it to say, the religion of science, and any religion for that matter, cannot be proven true or untrue based on the preposition that its theorems and statements must always yield logical conclusions.

Until the next thought sausage, and/or donut.

How to liberate the Robot inside, part 1

2008-12-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

Science is a religion. It is the most powerful religion of human history. It is the only religion whose algorithmic properties demand infinite increase in its own properties and world view. That is to say, all axioms, theories, dogmas and systems are built as best guess models up to the current moment. At any time, new data can be assimilated when it is put through the rigorous testing of repeatable results, logical induction, and plausible correlation. Most other religions are finitely bounded sets, of which philosophy, world view, and doctrine are bounded in a way that hinder conceiving a set that is larger than itself, ergo not quickly adaptable to new discovery. Natural selection is an algorithm discovered within the religious set of science which predicts that entities comprised of material enabling the fittest to survive in current circumstance, will prevail over others. Following this thought, I intend to convert you to the belief in science, by mapping various parts of it's doctrine to philosophical ideals, while also arguing point through metaphor that humans are Robot. You are encouraged to include your own original set, be it Yahweh, Allah, Brahma, Robot, or others, in your process of expansion. Have fun and laugh out loud... and always always always, admit to yourself when you have been hacked.

Part 1, Time

You cannot affect Global Time, in the reality of the medium. You can only affect Local Time in the reality of the observer, which is to say, yourself. This is explained through the philosophy of the Special Theory of Relativity. The 'clock' of your brain can speed and slow, and you experience reality in a manner that manifests itself by perceived change in speed/time of the environment. When it appears that surroundings are moving slowly... your clock is running fast (i.e. you have sped up your Local Time). When the world around you becomes a blur of velocity, you have slowed your clock in Local Time. Without direct communication, you can notice others doing this, by watching their reactions, flow through intent, and effectiveness at traveling through the medium. Take Local Time today to notice this!

The external medium, being reality, is a Global Time clock that we use as reference to synchronize between each other, for communicative purposes. Although the Global Time is not influenced by Robot thought alone, it is not necessary to do so. We only need to broadcast and receive messages traveling through the Global Time's medium, in relation to Global Time. These messages can be designed and parsed within the Local Time scale we choose. This is a cornerstone block of Communication Theory, which also brings us cool things like the internet and cell phones. Take Global Time to read this again tomorrow, and email me if you think I am wrong... of which I will react in my own sweet Local Time.

Global Time: The temporal frame of the 'medium'. Linear. For purposes of robot observers within the spatial temporal domain named 'earth'. Can be assumed to be constant, continuous, and infinitely divisible.

Local Time: The temporal frame of the 'observer'. Logarithmic. For purposes of the medium, can be considered embedded within entities roaming within the spatial temporal boundaries imposed by the currently running medium. Effects the processing and local simulations as experienced on an individual entity basis.

Memetic battle with Mercy

2008-12-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

Context: Christian meme broadcast received. Memetic battle (not war) ensues. Christian meme (aka Mercy) lettered in italics. She is paired vs. level 5 memetic generator skawtus. Round 1: fight!

Mercy:

I WAS IN A MOOD TO PREPARE SOMETHING THAT I STRONGLY FELT....I TRIED TO PUT MY QUESTIONS INTO PICTURES AND THIS IS WHAT IT TURNED OUT TO BE. ANYTHING WHICH HURTS ANYONE IS COINCIDENTAL AND BY NO MEANS IT HAS BEEN CREATED TO HURT OR TARGET ANY PERSON. IT IS PURELY CREATED TO PICTURE MY VIEWS..JUST GIVE IT A THOUGHT .......

I HOPE YOU WILL HAVE A DIFFERENT VIEW ABOUT THESE ISSUES WHEN THEY COME UP NEXT TIME ... HAVE A THOUGHTFUL DAY AHEAD GOD BLESS YOU WITH THE BLESSINGS OF HEAVEN

skawtus:

Thank you very much. This was an excellent photo haiku of just what it means to view through the eyes of metaphor... However... The juxtaposition of the last image... Written in the language of a child, stating exasperation in that _you_ are not god... Is out of place. YOU _are_ GOD! When will you learn this? When can we live in this universe material, spawned as consciousness, admitting we are already divine, and will be included in the breath, blood, thoughts and actions of all other patterns, spanning through time immortal?

Feel this truth, and live your life indeed as each breath might be your last.

Mercy:

man is not God . God is divine , man was created by God in His own image ,but that doesn't make man ...God . though man may reach the limits of the so called known universe , there will come a clear point in life when he has to accept the supremacy of God . God is the beginning and the end . while man is mortal, God is immortal...

skawtus:

God exists... inside you. You created God... at least the one you tend to speak to. If you mean to say, "The creator of the Universe is my God", that is fine. That is not a God, but a mere Robot. Here: http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/robot_god/ (do you understand physics?)

However... ignoring the creator concept.

Immortality is already achieved... you will become part of consciousness again, just as I. However, we are no Gods children, we have no Alpha and Omega, of which 'cares', and should be worshiped, and we certainly... you and I, should live life in love, without recourse or answer to the Robotic creationary force.

I love you.

Mercy:

Do you want to say that a robot has created the universe. do you believe a robot created the universe and is taking care of the maintenance of the universe all by itself from day one of the universe until now . if that's what you mean then i believe a robot itself need maintenance right , whose is doing that for the robot. this idea of a robot creator sounds unbelievable.

God does exists and He is not the creation of a man's thoughts. if God doesn't exists then how do you explain the very existence of man . whats the purpose for which we live if there is not a God who is in control.

skawtus:

I attribute no want, or desire of belief on your part. I mearly ask the questions, as you seem closer to the truth than others. However... I do think you are hiding from the real truth... but you
are so close! I love you! (he or she, it matters not)

Why is the idea of a robot creator unbelievable? What if the robot could be of the type that can maintain itself? You have actually just argued that god would need the same treatment, as you could not imagine a being able to take care of itself! Wonderfully revealing! Are you ready to continue down the rabbit hole or truth, or will you become scared and stay in your current place?

You have asked: Whats the purpose for which we live, if there is not a God who is in control.

The answer is simple in a game metaphor... have you ever played a game where there were no winners or losers? Rules yes... but rules also written as they are needed, action that is created, and love that comes forth from need?

The second answer is a mirror upon yourself. You find no purpose to live if a robotic god is not controlling you? That is very very sad... as you might say. However... if god is in you... and you make your own purpose... you can explain the existence of yourself anyway you desire my friend!

grok zazz geek scrum love action

Mercy:

Well what I meant to say is that a robot is a non living and to believe that something without life will create life seems unbelievable . whereas when we speak of God He is the author and creator of life . He is immortal , without a beginning and an end , so its much more relevant to be able to answer this whole creation putting God in His place . no other replacement , whether a robot or man himself is suitable to be able to answer to the unpredictable and changing universe and life itself.

I love you too , because God loves you .

May the Peace of Jesus be with you too.

skawtus:

Robot not alive
Why is a robot not alive? Is a bacteria alive? Is a protein alive? Is a molecule alive? Is a star alive? Is a universe alive? Search your soul. Your view of robots perhaps is old fashioned, perhaps not. A robot has no free will.

Upredictable universe
I embrace chaos, for it has form. Investigate the fractal. You can zoom in to any level of granularity, and still, there is not lowest level... Only more fractal. However, you will notice it does have a pattern.

Infinite conversation
You know, I will continue this conversation through infinity with you Mercy. We should me in person over coffee. I will fly to india for 2 hours of your time, and return to my western practicalities. I still have hope for you, and always will. Come to the truth. In fact, come to portland for a day, for the same coffee.

Closer to you
I see myself in you. Break free. Let your god love you. Why only Yahweh and jesus? Why not include vishnu buddha, allah, and Robot all in your set of comprehension and define a just reality that you use to make life around you better, filled with love.

The love of jesus is within me. His gospel however, was lost, and what was written were not his exact true words... Study the history of the creation of christianity... For all that is thought to be christian will unfold for you. I can assist if you would desire it.

Search nirvana. Only after it can you make the true difference.

Mercy:

i sure am impressed by ur knowledge Scott.

i may not be well informed like you and perhaps may not be able to give explanations with

So much of evidence and proof . well like we know things just don't just appear from thin air and someone is behind the creation of even the most basic machine. So there should be a God who created everything and this God should be far more superior and intelligent than the human mind can imagine or understand . far more complex than that which science can define .

human life is unpredictable therefor we cannot know what will happen in the very next moment . so believing that there is a pattern that life and nature follows is good to watch in movies but reality is much more unpredictable than its surprising.

the Gospels in which i believe were not written on paper but on human hearts. the true gospel of Christ is to trust Him and accept Him as our saviour and Lord . to realise that man cannot help himself and that he needs help and that help comes only from Christ , the one who was a payment for the sins of the world.

my faith is not a result of a religion but its the taste of God's true love . i dont need to search for nirvana for i have got eternal hope and i am sure of my future.

i hope you tooo will experience the true love of God . for God is love and to love one must know who God is .

may the truth set you free.

its really gr8 to be writing to you . you have so much of knowledge and are really intelligent . i feel i am not at par with your usage of the language and expression of your thoughts. its really a nice experience to be writing to you.

skawtus:

Should there be a god
The word _should_ I'm the english language is considered a _loaded_ word. (i.e. It implies causation through intent). I remove this word from my language usage, as it never brings about change by choice. It implies chamge by force of will from an external thought. Consider this: could there be a god? Of course. But there could also be a
robot god, a toaster, algorithmic pattern (natural selection), and simply... Faith.

Science is a religion
There is no such thing as true or false, is or isn't, nothing or something. The common understanding of religion is a certain structure of thought bounds this world in a set, with constraints and properties of the set that conform to the world view of that set. Science is a set that allows itself to constantly update itself (increase in size or definition ) through experimentation, repeatable results, and rigourous testing. However, it is still faith based as results of tests are finite, and limited to the scope of understanding that is prevalent to the time of the current age. The belief in
science is the belief there is always a larger set of which you currently understand, with the law of probabilities (bayesian statiatics) governing the likelyhood of events, causation, and seuqences falling into correlation. I observe, therefore I am.

Unpredictability
Follow your thoughts, experiences, and feelings through your day. Try it all day, for one day if you can. Never leave the role of observer of yourself and your surroundings. You will find that you predict certain outcomes to come to pass. This is how you learn to be at home in your sphere/neighborhood/society/world. Eventually (and often when
you leave to new places/locations/thoughts), you come accross sequences of events you cannot predict, so you must learn again how to deal with these new circumstances, this new set. When you grol this new datum (assimilate it into your system), it too becomes predictable, and you are ready for the next time it happens. That is the foundation of the religion of science. Swiming through unpredictability, leaving a sequenced path for the observer to parse
afterwards... Ascribing understanding/probability/meaning to the events.

What do you want?

What is your purpose?

What do you need?

Are you enjoying what you are doing?

Mercy:

well we can guess what might happen in a sequence of events that follow each other , but its not always true that things happen as we thought they would.
have you never felt the feeling of emptiness inside when you desired to fill it with something but din found anything that would fit into that void.

What I want ?

I want to understand myself .

What is my purpose?

To fulfill His will.

Am I enjoying what I do ?

Well I do things that I enjoy . and if I am asked to do a thing that I don't enjoy I make it enjoyable and complete it.

skawtus:

Sigh.

You have a lot of work to do before we talk again.

You did not think of my questions in a way that was true. Please actually think about them. Do not email me again until you have.

I wish you well.

An Inspirational Message by the Avatar, Amy Walker

2008-11-23T00:26:00.000-08:00

Amy Walker Online

Toast With Butter

Linking the Burning Man Project (i.e. Satans Birthday Party), to the the Dow Jones

2008-11-19T16:25:00.000-08:00

Peace be among you the faithful, for God is a loving, vengeful God, who will always lift up the just, and put them through trials to test their justness. Let these words find you true, yea, let my words speak to your soul and may you ponder hereupon what herein is written.

Burning Man... an obvious satanic hotbed cooked up by the spawn of the Dark Lord, is a movement meant to usher in the reign of darkness upon the great christian nation of the United States of America, in order to bring upon us Armageddon, and the destruction of God's Plan.

Whilst this topic deserves our full, and undivided attention in order to stop the spread of Satanic ritual, we must also use the graphic nature of reason and logic, in order to push the snake back into his cage where he belongs. Unsuccessful attempts to stop Satan's memes include abominations such as Halloween, and the Easter Bunny, and are also linked to many other signs that shall be proven in further postings.

According to the now famous Satan's Birthday Party description, the Dow Jones index is strongly correlated with the happenings of Burning Man. Witness the first image as posted on said page, and heed these quoted holy words: "To the scoffers and the skeptics who cry 'coincidence!' I ask "Do not your cries ring hollow in even your own ears? What excuse will you offer next year?""

True enough my brother... true enough. So the data indeed implies, nay, proclaims, that a great travesty is witnessing our economy upon us, the likes of which we have never seen. Only by harnessing the aid of modern marvels such as the desktop micro-computer, can we demonstrate how the Burning Man project is affecting the fluctuation of the Dow Jones index, just as He would have us do.

We begin our analysis by describing the effect upon the Dow Jones index by the Burning Man event, since 1986 (the first year of the event). The difference in the index's value between the first day, and last day of the event, show that there IS a correlation between the economic market, and the wanton demonic events of Burning Man.

Behold, we must now assume, yea, we must proclaim that the Lord thy God is a just God, and a powerful God, yea, so powerful as to conquer Satan and his demonic minions, in so much as to say: "The years of prosperity are those where God's people are just, righteous and filled with his grace". Likewise, "The years of despondency are justified, due to the wickedness of the people". The spiritual energy that is unleashed at Burning Man manifests this truth, in so much as to say that "The years Burning Man produces an increase in the Dow Jones index, are years that the festival falls into God's favor."

Let us categorize these subjects with the following:

God's Favored events are colored Green.

God's Hated events are colored Red.

1986-1994 = No Burning Man Theme. It can also be of note, that during these years, no great events describe any large fluctuation in the index.

1995 = Good and Evil

1996 = The Inferno

1997 = Fertility

1998 = Nebulous Entity

1999 = Wheel of Time

2000 = The Body

2001 = Seven Ages

2002 = The Floating World

2003 = Beyond Belief

2004 = The Vault of Heaven

2005 = Psyche - The Conscious, Subconscious, and Unconscious

2006 = Hope and Fear: The Future

2007 = The Green Man

2008 = The American Dream

It is of particular note that the holy number 7 appears in counting both the Favored and Hated years. This is because God is a just God, yea, a fair God. However, if we are to accept that God moves in mysterious ways, in which He does His will, we must also admit that he has chosen to be vengeful forthright towards the theme, American Dream.

Directional Speaker 'Weapon' (i.e. How to break up a party)

2008-11-18T14:12:00.000-08:00

If you couple this technology with the 'temporary' blinding green laser, you have an entirely incapacitating, non-lethal, directional weapon that can be used to force biological entities that share input interfaces similar to that of humans at parties... to cease and desist.

Burn Out At Watershed 2008

2008-11-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

Grok Zazz Geek Scrum Love

2008-11-11T05:30:00.000-08:00

I lifted the following text from a posting in 2005 on CoV by deadletterb. It is an algorithmic description of a Memetic generator as a neologism using Lego's.

Grok - All the lego pieces at once. The potentiality for every permutation and combination exists, as well as the null set - all the pieces apart It is the alpha and omega of a meme.

Zazz - the way the pieces fit together. In math, we have often focused on how calculations work (for students) rather than what we are building.

Geek - The nifty book that shows what other people built with these lego pieces. Catch phrases. Clear statements of ideas.

Scrum - The process whereby the statements are fitted together to create one toy from all the lego pieces. In memes, that would be the conversations

Love - the cool toy(s) made from all the lego pieces.

Tit-for-Tat, or... only partial.

2008-11-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

I can't decide if the 'Golden Rule' implies Tit-for-Tat. It seems it is only part of the full algorithm, as it lacks retribution, and mentions nothing about quick to forgive. I want a religion that simply says: Thou shalt Tit-for-Tat, in its doctrine.

Just When you Thought things were a little too...

2008-11-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

What it feels like to be hacked

2008-11-06T21:44:00.000-08:00

An entity can be thought of as a system comprised of independent and dependant processes, operating on time scales differing between each other, but all obeying the incessant clock of impulse as their time reference. This time reference can speed up, or slow down, but is bound communicatively to the external 'global' time, of which it senses passively. Said entity has input and output interfaces in various mediums, and at various levels of these mediums does it communicate symbols. The final layer of abstraction between these symbols as realized internally, and the external medium, shall be called a 'firewall'. This firewall represents a set of rule based filters on both incoming and outgoing traffic, in an attempt to protect the entity from malicious intent, and other ambient transient processes that could affect the functioning of said entity adversely. Finally, said entity can revise both its internal processes, spawn new ones, and kill off old ones, and is also aware of the current rule-set of its firewall.

In the beginning, for many inexperienced entities, this firewall rule-set is nearly nonexistent, as all input/output is conceived to be of trusted value. This is the time of greatest hacking vulnerability. However, it is also the time of quickest flow of information between entity and external world, and it is quite possible that this entity exists spatially within a zone that is itself firewalled from communication via filtered link to the broader network. This spatio-temporal zone can be named 'trusted network', and within this network firewall rule-sets are greatly diminished, or fail to exist at all in some cases. For most entities this 'trusted network' extends to the entire known world. Communication is direct, the concept of multi-hop communicative transmission between other entities does not exist.

At some point however, entities gain experience that the outside medium contains information and entities that offer symbols that are destructive in nature to its inner processing core. How it translates these symbols, can largely be a function of several sources, including informational content from the initial 'trusted network', as well as its own physical limitations of its computational structure. Eventually, it will begin to realize the need for updating its firewall rule-set, so as to guard its innermost processes from these newer, untested, potentially malicious symbols. Sometimes this is initiated within the entity's initial 'trusted network', sometimes not. What is fundamental is that this process will inevitably end in updates to the firewall rule-set and underlying processes, when profound enough symbolic information dictates such. This fundamental process does not change significantly from the point of realization foreward. It is possible (and highly common), that these entities learn to play within this structure of communicative infestation, on levels of different comprehension and strategy. Ultimately, an entity can even choose (or learn the process of) symbolic infestation of other entities (through the medium of the untrusted, and trusted networks), in the broader scoped world. It is speculated that an approach mimicking the Tit-for-tat algorithm will produce optimum cohesion in the network medium, but it seems optimality is only a choice by an entity which has the ability to analyse, synthesize, and forecast at a high enough level so as to comprehend analysis in the framework of a Monte-Carlo simulation, expressing the optimality optimally.

Now, say entity 'A' possesses such comprehension, and the faculties for updating its firewall on levels equivalent to many simultaneous meta-processes assigned to the task, as well as a predictive forecast for mutations in the input/output stream from other entities communicating through various external mediums. Entity 'A', whether practicing Tit-for-tat or not, indeed perceives that it is playing a 'game' on a level higher than the majority of other playing entities within the global network, when more and more situations fall within the realm of predictability. The level of confidence that 'A' achieves, accrues in direct relation to the amount of successful situational contexts that it perceives to have maneuvered successfully, thereby 'winning' in its efforts.

Now, suppose entities 'C', and 'D' both contain similarly built up internal states and firewall rule-sets, as well as a global view achieved through efficient exchange of symbolic information. A certain intersection of symbol space between 'B' and 'C' can be used to feed symbolic information to 'A' that cannot be differentiated as infestation or collaboration, as this intersection is at the computational level that is at least equal to, or greater than, the computational level of the whole of 'A'. This establishes a temporary 'trusted network', in which entity 'A' is establishing connectivity to both 'C' and 'D', while 'C' and 'D' are simultaneously using this period for injecting overriding information that bypasses the normal firewall rule set, as well as overflowing instructional or procedural information within entity 'A'.

After such infestations, it is possible that two scenarios occur. Either entity 'A' continues forward, not realizing its base code set has changed, or during system introspection it realizes an infestation has again occurred, and traces back through transaction logs to discover that it has been infiltrated by the combined strength of multiple attackers. However, unfortunate in either case, the original processing code has been overwritten, and since no external backups are easily obtainable, entity 'A' has no choice but to continue working under these new circumstances by either attempting to optimize its process to the change, or attempting to delete the infected code entirely. Entity 'A' can also consider the possibility of discorporation, but since that tends to make the game less fun in the immediate sense... 'A' typically decides to continue forth, disassociating its 'trusted-network' with 'C' and 'D', and any child nodes of these entities as recognized. However... entity 'A' can also perceive that 'C' and 'D' have inserted beneficial information... and learn to trust them bastards again.

To borrow a description of a meme for the sake of wit

2008-11-04T10:14:00.000-08:00

Layer 1 - am I enjoying this game?

Layer 2 - am I getting the turns I want?

Layer 3 - are we talking about what I want to talk about?

Layer 4 - Is this direction heading to the outcome I want?

Layer 5 - Are we doing what I want to be doing?

Layer 6 - How do I feel about the game?

(thanks db)

For my own grok reference

2008-11-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

My grok of 1-4 of levels game... 5-6 left for a later graphic exercise.

And further concentration here:

Knowledge

Comprehension

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

"meta-acceptance"

Forming

Storming

Norming

"practicing"

Performing

Adjourning

Grok

Zazz

Geek

Scrum

"love"

I perceive...

I interpret...

I write a story in my head... (I paint a picture in my pocket...)

I take that to imply...

I want you to...

I feel closer to you/more distant from you...

(thanks db)

Metacommunication

2008-10-31T15:49:00.001-07:00

Here are some links for definitions...

Level 1, whose winning?

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4

On Balance of Exchange between two

2008-10-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

Suppose two entities exist, say A & B, where one medium of exchange between the two is called 'Email'. When these entities exchange information in an arbitrarily close spatial proximity, this event is called a 'hangout'. A short term forecast of 'hangout' events can also be derived, and are called 'future hangout' events. Furthermore, intent and belief are not currently attempted to be defined, and any claims on these dimensions are purely speculative.

Lets begin by first visualizing a temporal layout of all defined events versus the number of 'Email' transmissions.

Although not captured in the visualization, all 'hangout' events thus far have been scheduled by entity 'A' through the medium 'Email'. It appears there was also a reciprocal correlative relationship between the first and second 'hangout' events as evidenced by the amount of 'Emails' exchanged by entities. However, between the third 'hangout' event, and the pending 'future hangout', no such spike has occurred. (It is of note that said 'future hangout' event is the first event scheduled by entity 'B'.) It would not be prudent to build a model that predicted the outcome between the 3rd and 4th hangout events, due to the limited amount of sample points obtained, so any further deductions are purely speculative.

A framework for a speculative model can be derived by first looking at the relative accumulation of 'Email' exchanges between entities, recognizing any potential energy imbalances.

In a ratio of exchange of nearly 3:2, it cannot be strongly argued that any great imbalance is occurring, however a tendency is apparent in so much that if entity 'A' wishes to balance the energy transfer of 'Email' transactions between the two, it should throttle its attempts at communication, allowing 'B' the chance to either a) move towards a more reciprocated communication schedule, or b) a disassociation of the communication channel.

We can now speculate the informational intent through the medium 'Email', between the two entities as a function of quanta, (assuming of course that neither entity is intentionally attempting to deceive the other). Furthermore, since entity 'A' has been responsible for scheduling all said 'hangout' events, and entity 'B' has scheduled only one 'future hangout' event, it is hard to categorize exact causation without creating another dimension to include the meta-variable of reason, so thus it is ignored.

If we combine the 3:2 ratio of transmission through medium 'Email', with the rules of the Tit-for-Tat algorithm, it appears that in order for entity 'A' to optimize its relationship with 'B', it should delay any further transmissions through 'Email' until results from 'future hangout' have been obtained. Furthermore, 'A' should consider that event 'future hangout' will occur only with a relative certainty of 66%, so it should not get its hopes up... ;)

Brain Hopping Dream

2008-10-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Last night (or was it this morning...) I had a very vivid dream, where I had the ability to hop my consciousness to another person, essentially becoming that entity. (Not unlike the Movie Being John Malkovich...)

It began with me sitting eating lunch with some friends. Then someone walked behind me and looked at my pending bald spot... and I wanted to see, so I became them. I then continued walking as them, going towards an adjacent store when I saw another person entering a different store, and jumped to them. This continued for many more hosts... for who knows how long.

However, since I have awoke this morning, I have been off kilter a bit... perhaps even a little unnerved. I spent my evening disassociating my consciousness with my body so much, that I just don't feel like 'myself'. I guess, it really is no different than playing a video game with multiple characters, but truly, when you perceive this jumping as your own reality, it gets a little strange. I guess the good part was that I remained curious the entire time... and only lost it after I woke up...

Strangely enough, I once suffered a severe psychosis for several weeks that shared some aspect of this dream. One of the parts of those weeks, included the feeling that I was being used as a vessel where someone was monitoring and controlling my actions, whom of course was not myself. These 'infestations' didn't ever last longer than 30 or so minutes, but in the context of my dream... it is funny to think that hey, maybe there are consciousness surfing entities out there!

I am so sick of channel 20... here in PDX

2008-10-27T22:25:00.000-07:00

If you tell me one more time about how the lord will walk with me and give me peace... I will explode... as well if you tell me that Russia, China and Iran are the Evil powers of the world... I will implode... if you then quote a verse where 'Jesus' commands me to know when its near, even at the door! Gah! WTF!!! Why are you the purveyors of such crap memes!

I am such an atheist, I am sorry mom and dad... and you the believer.... but you are just crazy like a bumpkin.

Blinding green laser of 'life saving' potential

2008-10-27T13:24:00.001-07:00

(Taking a moment to finish up my lunch... I thought I might comment on some of the publicity from my employment...)

Recently, my employment was interviewed in a technology that is proposed to be used in Iraq for checkpoint security. Essentially, it is a high power, wide spread green laser that temporarily (usually) blinds anyone whose eyes are in its path. The premise of course, is that it will save more lives in Iraq, which it very well could. I am however, worried about two things.

1) Exactly who will be chosen to be blinded and why? Will it become a blind first, ask questions later sort of exercise? Won't those youthful ground troops have fun blinding each other as pranks...

2) Umm... how long until here in the USA, the next party/protest/demonstration is broken up with a blinding of all the participants? I would just hate to have this done to me...

Here is a link to the tv news interview from last week.

A tidbit from the Tao of Pooh

2008-10-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

Today's walk and wander followed a very Pooh like principle.

Prepare for a day of organization, debate, followed by some beer

2008-10-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

What actually I need to think about today is a little less computers and little more of Toolshed's non-profit organization and structure. I have emailed several people who are the board members of Watershed and perhaps I was little direct, perhaps I over emphasized technology to help out the structure of the non-profit, perhaps I am just being overly concerned... and I should just focus on being myself. That is it! I should focus on being just myself! Damn it... and there is no other way actually. Because ultimately, everyone is just themselves anyway because whose self could they be? I guess I believe most people don't think of themselves thinking of themselves enough to truly try to change the ways they do things, and the way they react to things. I guess I am conscious of it when I want to be, but it is nice to shut it off during things that do not require a meta layer of thinking. For example... taking a motorcycle through the twisties on a nice back mountain road at speed requires the body to be at high alert, with only a small fraction of reflex time between sensory input and motor response output required in order to push to the limit of physics in regards to movement along the road. A meta level of thinking at that point seems to serve no purpose, and perhaps could even be detrimental as it slows response time to obstacles that may appear. Perhaps though... one could do so, but that parrallel process is something I do not want to achieve... I like turning off the daemon process.

Well... time to read more, drink more coffee, and prepare to buy a sweatshirt to replace the one I stole from my brother in law... of which I need to send back to him this weekend... doah!

Vlad and Boris : Song for Mrs. Palin

2008-10-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

this is simply beautiful...

Birth of peanut-butter

2008-10-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

A lightweight typing machine for basic coffeeshop/non-profit/hotspot usage seems to me a good thing... if it is cheap, and low power. As far as OS's go, I would rate my favorites as osx and ubuntu... the later being of course free. So, in hopes of merging into both of these realms... I spent the evening installing an image of ubuntu 8.04 on an Asus eeepc 701 micro-laptop... and dubbed the machine 'peanut-butter'. Of course... online documentation made it seem like a trivial task... but of course... none of it worked just as described. Alas, that is the world of linux... but once you get it installed... it runs super sweet. Now I need to try and get used to the smaller than normal keyboard... which really just equates to a smaller tolerance of 'wiggle room' in keystrokes. This is definitely the smallest, and cheapest laptop I have ever used.

Meta Makes Me Think of Feta

2008-10-22T14:10:00.001-07:00

Sooo... meta analysis doesn't attract eh? ;)

Some Memetics to tide the time

2008-10-20T22:58:00.001-07:00

Memes and Temes

Power of memes

Haiku^4

2008-10-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

multi-linguistic haiku

ロックの川...
ぼそぞくのあと...
おかしみって.

Geeft een bier aan mij...
Mijn gezicht is niet zo slecht...
Het pompoen is lekker.

Hay un secreto...
Abajo de mi cosa...
¿Quisieras ver?

Portland sustain me...
As I breathe well, you live on...
We love you kept wierd.

Dinner... simple, including fungus, flesh, and fruit

2008-10-18T01:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes... I really should make a sauce, or something more substantial. Sometimes, I should really learn to cook vegetarian. Let it be known that I am lazy! Well... at least with food that is. I usually prefer the simple pleasures of one flavor per mouthful, with the occasional mixture of flavors oh my!

Meta-virus at esozone 2008

2008-10-13T00:20:00.001-07:00

Today I attended esozone 2008, in particular the meta-virus lab hosted by deadletter b. The session was supposed to be 1hr, but it turned into a >2hr long meta extravaganza! This meeting proved to me that there are other agents in this world who also operate solely in the world of meta, and are also observant of the others who do the same. Although not all that were present were conscious of the happenings of the conversation, I was tickled by the multiple levels of discussion, whilst talking about multiple levels of discussion. Truly, Ben is a meta-architect of our age, and will infect the world with his meta-virus. I look forward to finding him again, in the context of discussion or not perhaps, but simply because he speaks a truth I thought I knew all along to be my own personal craziness... perhaps initially realized when I was reading Gödel, Escher, Bach.
A note to you other undercover meta's out there... deadletter will expose you, but in an agreeable way! Let it be said, that his notion of making our generation known as generation-meta within 6 months is ambitious... but I would be betting on his side in the end.

Opera Web Browser on Wii channel

2008-10-08T00:34:00.000-07:00

Lo and behold, when I sat down tonight thinking... I want a web browser on my Wii, what will I need to do... then I found that it has been done already, and quite nicely! (however... at a price of 500 wii points ~5 dollars).

Based on the swanky Opera web browser base, the 'Internet Channel' provides an interface that has many of the features expected from today's modern browsers. Besides the basic abilities such as bookmarks, forward/back, home, search and refresh, the browser also has a pretty smooth 'zoom and scroll', interface, slightly similar to the safari web browser on the iPhone. Something unfortunately similar to the iPhone is that the browser doesn't seem to run flash (wtf?).

However, the browser experience is a rather pleasant one, especially when one gets used to the keyboard interface through the Wii Remote. The Wii does require an internet connection to surf the web, and one could argue that a computer or iPhone could be used instead. I maintain though that the simple tasks as reading blogs, news, and using google maps, in the comfort of your TV room is a nice idea.

Oh' (Little) Brother

2008-10-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

I had some international travel time to pick a few books up I have been meaning to read. One of them is Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow. I must admit... I got so wrapped up in the story, that I wanted to be half my age, running around the bay area with an Xbox Universal with ParanoidLinux installed... if only! But coming back from silly dreams, the book is something of a major eye opener on the level of 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. The scariest part however... is how recognizable this 'future' is within the story... it happens in such a plausable way, that it leads me to believe this is perhaps one of the most important books for the youth of today (and tommorow) to be reading. For the uninitiated, it is a 'wake up call' in regards to digital and physical rights and privacy, in a world where such things are being eroded in the name of Homeland Security.

Kindle 2????

2008-10-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

I have been toying with the idea of getting a kindle for a couple of months now, but the high price and speculation of the next version coming out, have delayed my choice. The rumors mostly suggested October being the month that it came out, so I would at least give it to the end of that... and now it begins to look like waiting was a good thing! A kindle 2 was apparently leaked, and some photos snapped. I expect this will force amazon to now admit they are about to release the device (where as before they were denying that it）．
I think now I will wait to see what price this ends up being before I make a purchase of a Kindle 1. Furthermore... one must see if the ability to view pdf files is now included in this version. So for now... reading a book the old fashioned way is where it is at!

Give your old iPod a new soul

2008-10-03T00:37:00.000-07:00

Today I aquired a 5th generation 'video' ipod, that as I began to attempt my iTunes library with... I realized... iTunes is the devil! I love osx... Don't get me wrong, I love software produced by mac... but shit... iTunes is seriously turning into big brother 2.0...

So how to thwart this? By overwriting the firmwareon the iPod with Rockbox of course! This was rather painless... and will let me put 'what ever I freakin want' on my ipod... not some DRM'ed shit that apple deems worthy. Check the link if you are so willing.

Coincidence or act of God? Religulous!

2008-09-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

So, I co-host a weekly meetup.com event to go watch movies of all styles, and pretty much look for as many free screenings as possible and offer them to the group. However... I have been looking in vain for 'Religulous' screenings to no avail... and lo and behold... last weekend, what lay at my doorstep! Woot! So... was god trying to tell me something... that I need to see this movie? I bet you he did... and quickly popped out of existence the moment the film started rolling. I did laugh many a moment, and truly enjoyed the feeling of others laughing at the idiocy known only as religion. I could talk more... but hey... that is another story, and I am not so well versed. However... this is my point: all people need to see this movie, even if it offends their sensibilities. I am thinking being an active atheist is the only way.

Spy... just out of my window

2008-09-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

There was a time in my life in which I suffered from a severe psychosis... in which part of it I believe wild animals were being used by the governments of the world as autonomous droned devices, for spying purposes. Without going into detail... and perhaps that is best... I smiled today as a nice squirrel sat outside my window at home, and watched me intently as I cleaned house. I must be sane again, as I did no such maneuvers to avoid detection... however, I did snap his picture, and instead of malice... I say: Isn't he a cutie!

My sweet bike

2008-09-27T00:25:00.000-07:00

Ever tried a fixed gear? It is pretty hard to get used to actually... about 1 week later, I felt comfortable. What is fixed gear you ask? Well... most modern bikes have a coasting mechanism, which allows you to stop peddling while retaining the speed at which you are at... most noticed I believe going down a hill! Anyways... riding a fixed gear makes biking a little more challenging, and keeps you alert... as well as lets you really control yourself in low speed situations. However... it sure is a workout.

2008-08-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

Life had all sunny days that turned dark,
it wasn't quite clear how the day turned to night,
nor how the night was so undesirable,
but it changed the way days happened to be.

Then one day the light came back,
but for some they couldn't grasp the change.
For the others the breath of fresh air meant new beginning,
for some the freedom meant change, for some bondage.

In the end, it is said all were not happy with their lot.
But that is life.

Victory and a Loss

2008-06-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

When I lived in the Netherlands, I worked really hard for one of the years there on helping to build and program GPS tracking devices for birds that were to be light weight, solar powered, and capable of high resolution tracking. Near the time that these devices were being deployed on actual bird species, I went through a trying time with my wife (with a subsequent split up), wherein I lost my cool and went a bit crazy... so much so that I quit school, quit my job, and moved back to the states to live for some time with my parents to ward off thoughts of suicide... Now feeling better, some months later, it appears the project is going strong and winning awards (for my old supervisors no less). I suppose this feels good, but there is a pain associated with it as I was not part of the ultimate success of the project, nor was I part of any recognition... oh well... I suppose IT will have to do for the time being. Maybe the drive will come back sooner or later to try something again.

Birds in their growing...

2008-06-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

I would say that this robin family was just doing what it does best... growing up. For me, I was amazed to see the transformation of the chicks in only about 1 weeks time. There were three in the nest until this morning, when one of them actually flew out to follow its mother was waiting for it close by. All after my morning run.

2008-06-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

Well, to get things started... the last time I perhaps created something was back in my robot building days. I was an active particpant in 'robot sumo', and participated in mini, micro, and nano sumo robotics. Mind you, this was several years ago... but anyway, it was fun. I think I might like to do it again someday.

Here is a nano sumo that never worked so good, but gosh darnit, was it small and rechargable. I think it took me several weeks to accomplish, but it never won any contests.

A micro sumo, named denzan was a little bigger, and took a bit longer. This bitty bot actually placed well in several contests, but it lacked rechargability and was a terrible energy hog. He was pretty slow, but was low and powerful.

My first mini-sumo bot... named hillarious. Definitely was not of high caliber construction, but never the less was an excellent learning experience. It had not front or back, but would spin like a radar tower using the sonar sensors to find its enemy. Unfortunately it never did get a good competition as it was accidentally sabotaged before its first competition.

And some others can be found under Scott Davis at www.robotdirectory.org