One of my guilty pleasures is reading conspiracy literature. It is sort of like reading science fiction and I think I enjoy it as a sort of thought experiment for how society might be. But what we call conspiracy literature has a long and possibly legitimate history as the continuation of hermetic or wisdom literature. Namely the idea that there is a hidden truth or knowledge that only some people can access. In fact, much conspiracy literature eventually returns back to secret organizations (ie wisdom traditions) 'really' running human affairs.
I would write more - but I want to finish reading about how the civil war was a conspiracy by european bankers to create more countries in america leading to a greater market for lending debt. (I guess they never heard of its ok we have municipal bonds - we can still trade credit default swaps on California)
As a final note the argument against conspiracies can also be a similar argument against 'intelligent design' namely it is more awesome and incredible that these events have taken place without central planning - to assume otherwise diminishes the wonder and power of these events.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Back From Blog Haitus - Passions
I recently read "On Stories" by Richard Kearney that began my mind working in all sorts of directions. I was captivated by his discussion of the limits of storytelling. This refers to events so awesome and singular that they resist a narrative framework that contextualizes them - to narrate them somehow diminishes their importance or their factuality. The example Kearney uses is the Holocost. One of the problems for these events is how do you integrate them into larger histories if you cannot transform them into stories that place them within a historical continuum. How do you represent unspeakable horror in storytelling?
And from here I started thinking about passion paintings - paintings representing the pain and suffering of Jesus. Depending on your belief system this may or may not represent unspeakable horror - but it does share an element with Holocost retellings - the idea that we must remember this event. In the Holocost we must remember so that it never happens again, in the case of the Passion we must remember the foundations of Christianity (the belief that Christ suffered for the sins of man kind) .
Kearney sort of reaches an impasse however in that there are certain atrocities - in the case of civil war it seems - where we want to forget. To paraphrase Alan Watts, just as we need a memory we also need a forgettory. That to hold on to certain events prevent the building of a healing narrative and dooms a people to live in constant turmoil - or to live in their turbulent past. Narratives, historical narratives, allows the past to become history rather than persist as current events. I am not quiet sure what Kearney's criterion for forgetting versus remembering, really where is the limit of storytelling?
So I have been thinking about what modern passion representations would look like. Representing the singular suffering of an individual in an attempt to both memorialize and historicize and communicate.
Finally this sort of singularity of human suffering and the horizon of storytelling reminds me of another horizon of representation - Kant's notion of the sublime (In the Critique of Judgement). The sublime is the pleasure that comes from 1) something we understand with our mind but cannot experience with our senses (what does it really mean that the earth is 238857 from the moon - how can we comprehend that - how can we experience that) 2) something that we experience with our senses but not with our mind - i thing of meditation or spirtual experiences, or extreme physical exertion (bikram yoga).
How do we represent these things?
Apologies for bad Kantian interpretation you Kant scholars out there.
And from here I started thinking about passion paintings - paintings representing the pain and suffering of Jesus. Depending on your belief system this may or may not represent unspeakable horror - but it does share an element with Holocost retellings - the idea that we must remember this event. In the Holocost we must remember so that it never happens again, in the case of the Passion we must remember the foundations of Christianity (the belief that Christ suffered for the sins of man kind) .
Kearney sort of reaches an impasse however in that there are certain atrocities - in the case of civil war it seems - where we want to forget. To paraphrase Alan Watts, just as we need a memory we also need a forgettory. That to hold on to certain events prevent the building of a healing narrative and dooms a people to live in constant turmoil - or to live in their turbulent past. Narratives, historical narratives, allows the past to become history rather than persist as current events. I am not quiet sure what Kearney's criterion for forgetting versus remembering, really where is the limit of storytelling?
So I have been thinking about what modern passion representations would look like. Representing the singular suffering of an individual in an attempt to both memorialize and historicize and communicate.
Finally this sort of singularity of human suffering and the horizon of storytelling reminds me of another horizon of representation - Kant's notion of the sublime (In the Critique of Judgement). The sublime is the pleasure that comes from 1) something we understand with our mind but cannot experience with our senses (what does it really mean that the earth is 238857 from the moon - how can we comprehend that - how can we experience that) 2) something that we experience with our senses but not with our mind - i thing of meditation or spirtual experiences, or extreme physical exertion (bikram yoga).
How do we represent these things?
Apologies for bad Kantian interpretation you Kant scholars out there.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
India Venture & Tech Resource
My new venture in India is spurring me to keep abreast of new tech developments- this post, dear reader, is to remind me what i need to keep in mind
After making this list I have learned this - use BigTable - what whatever else google uses (GFS, Map/Reduce)
Data storage
Mongo db
Big Data from OReilly
Hibernate - Java again
Big Table - google
Languages/Framworks:
Cappuccino/Objective-J Build desktop apps in AJAX -I am not into web AJAX - it does not work well in low bandwidth situations.
Gittr - good ruby blog
Monk
F# - Nice F# Blog (I love F# and started using it 2 years at MS - if only it was interpreted)
good programming blog
Jquery
Jquery
Phone Gap
Fluid db
Sprout Core
Merb
Will I really use erlang?
Sinatra
Camping
Lambda the ultimate - it has been too long
ORMs
Sequel (ruby)
DataMapper (ruby)
The grid:
Hadoop
EC2
After making this list I have learned this - use BigTable - what whatever else google uses (GFS, Map/Reduce)
Data storage
Mongo db
Big Data from OReilly
Hibernate - Java again
Big Table - google
Languages/Framworks:
Cappuccino/Objective-J Build desktop apps in AJAX -I am not into web AJAX - it does not work well in low bandwidth situations.
Gittr - good ruby blog
Monk
F# - Nice F# Blog (I love F# and started using it 2 years at MS - if only it was interpreted)
good programming blog
Jquery
Jquery
Phone Gap
Fluid db
Sprout Core
Merb
Will I really use erlang?
Sinatra
Camping
Lambda the ultimate - it has been too long
ORMs
Sequel (ruby)
DataMapper (ruby)
The grid:
Hadoop
EC2
Monday, January 4, 2010
Objectified
Last night Lian and I watched Objectified, a film on industrial design, and the second film by the filmmaker of Helvetica - Gary Hustwit.
Some quick thoughts -
* The production values were much higher than those of Helvetica - very impressive for a second film.
* Loved the historical tidbits - how the ancient chinese tried to 'industrial design' arrows- so any arrow could be used in any bow. Why? Any archer could then take the arrows of any fallen soldier. Before this move each soldier made his own arrows - which only fit his bow. (Looking forward to the movie version of war in the age of intelligent machines)
* Loved the muji designer - I really liked his discussion of haiku's. He made a point that art and literature - in japan at least - is not about revealing all your feelings- this will make the audience uncomfortable. Instead you tell a story, or use a metaphor to draw the audience into your world in order to have her feel what you feel.
* Apple and fixtures - one of the most interesting comments was by an apple engineer. Most of the design is an attempt to build the tools (or fixtures) to design something a certain way. So for example, in addition to designing the apple keyboard - you also need to design the tools that hold the apple keyboard in place so that it is machined properly. 'Building the tools with which to make your art' (a quote from video out). This is nothing new - but I am surprised how much it is left out of the development process. It also makes me think of physics experiments: For example how Rutherford build a custom thin glass container so alpha particles could pass through.
*Industrial Design is about mass production. I never really thought about this, but the movie started out by saying we need I.D. because we mass produce things via machinese and we need to standardize the way that items are made. So I think of my brother who runs a clothing design company JF&Son. His pieces are not mass produced, rather they are hand made by a team of sowers and designers in India. His items are not 'industrial designed' they are short runs of less than 100 pieces. However where the 'industrial design' comes in is in his process. Namely of iterative feedback between himself, his customers who often collaborate on pieces, his co-workers in new york, and his co-workers in India. The supply chain is industrial designed not necessarily the pieces. It is 'industrial' rather than 'artisinal' because the intention is to sell these items on a large scale - not as one off works of art. 'Industrial' refers to 'industrial strength' or robust, rather than 'industrial' as pertaining to an assembly line.
Some quick thoughts -
* The production values were much higher than those of Helvetica - very impressive for a second film.
* Loved the historical tidbits - how the ancient chinese tried to 'industrial design' arrows- so any arrow could be used in any bow. Why? Any archer could then take the arrows of any fallen soldier. Before this move each soldier made his own arrows - which only fit his bow. (Looking forward to the movie version of war in the age of intelligent machines)
* Loved the muji designer - I really liked his discussion of haiku's. He made a point that art and literature - in japan at least - is not about revealing all your feelings- this will make the audience uncomfortable. Instead you tell a story, or use a metaphor to draw the audience into your world in order to have her feel what you feel.
* Apple and fixtures - one of the most interesting comments was by an apple engineer. Most of the design is an attempt to build the tools (or fixtures) to design something a certain way. So for example, in addition to designing the apple keyboard - you also need to design the tools that hold the apple keyboard in place so that it is machined properly. 'Building the tools with which to make your art' (a quote from video out). This is nothing new - but I am surprised how much it is left out of the development process. It also makes me think of physics experiments: For example how Rutherford build a custom thin glass container so alpha particles could pass through.
*Industrial Design is about mass production. I never really thought about this, but the movie started out by saying we need I.D. because we mass produce things via machinese and we need to standardize the way that items are made. So I think of my brother who runs a clothing design company JF&Son. His pieces are not mass produced, rather they are hand made by a team of sowers and designers in India. His items are not 'industrial designed' they are short runs of less than 100 pieces. However where the 'industrial design' comes in is in his process. Namely of iterative feedback between himself, his customers who often collaborate on pieces, his co-workers in new york, and his co-workers in India. The supply chain is industrial designed not necessarily the pieces. It is 'industrial' rather than 'artisinal' because the intention is to sell these items on a large scale - not as one off works of art. 'Industrial' refers to 'industrial strength' or robust, rather than 'industrial' as pertaining to an assembly line.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Scribblenauts
My friend John lent me a fantastic game for the Nintendo DS - scribblenauts. And I am now listening to a podcast on the making of scribblenauts via Kotaku.
What is scribblenauts and why does it deserve its own blog post?
Scribblenauts is a puzzle game. At each level there is a star buried in a landscape - and the players goal is to type in words like, apple, jackhammer, time machine, in order to get to the star. So for example the star is beyond a plane inhabited by brown bears - what do you do. Type in 'steak' and throw it to the bears - then pass through the field while the bears eat the steak.
There are multiple solutions to any puzzle - for example - I could type helicopter and fly over the bears. You get additional points for creating less items and for using ingenious solutions.
There is a database of about 20000 words from apple to centerfuge. The work that went into this game and the fact that it is successful is absolutely mind boggling - and the fact that it is an engaging, addictive game is nuts.
What I imagine is going on is that each landscape feature has a certain set of attributes and each word has an effect on a certain set of attributes. So for example, a bear, has hunger of 5, movement of 3, and vision or 5. If you throw an apple with hunger of 2 then you have to use something else, perhaps a skateboard of movement 2. An apple will not satisfy all the bear's hunger, so you need to use another tool - a piece of meat however with hunger of 5 will completely satisfy the bear allowing you to progress with ease. Does this make any sense?
Anyway, loved the podcast! I discovered that scribblenauts is often used as an educational game. On the podcast, there was an insane story about a little 5 year old boy who learned how to write by playing scribblenauts. He would carry around a book with all of the possible scribblenaut objects and use different combinations to complete levels.
I now want to check out drawn to life.
What is scribblenauts and why does it deserve its own blog post?
Scribblenauts is a puzzle game. At each level there is a star buried in a landscape - and the players goal is to type in words like, apple, jackhammer, time machine, in order to get to the star. So for example the star is beyond a plane inhabited by brown bears - what do you do. Type in 'steak' and throw it to the bears - then pass through the field while the bears eat the steak.
There are multiple solutions to any puzzle - for example - I could type helicopter and fly over the bears. You get additional points for creating less items and for using ingenious solutions.
There is a database of about 20000 words from apple to centerfuge. The work that went into this game and the fact that it is successful is absolutely mind boggling - and the fact that it is an engaging, addictive game is nuts.
What I imagine is going on is that each landscape feature has a certain set of attributes and each word has an effect on a certain set of attributes. So for example, a bear, has hunger of 5, movement of 3, and vision or 5. If you throw an apple with hunger of 2 then you have to use something else, perhaps a skateboard of movement 2. An apple will not satisfy all the bear's hunger, so you need to use another tool - a piece of meat however with hunger of 5 will completely satisfy the bear allowing you to progress with ease. Does this make any sense?
Anyway, loved the podcast! I discovered that scribblenauts is often used as an educational game. On the podcast, there was an insane story about a little 5 year old boy who learned how to write by playing scribblenauts. He would carry around a book with all of the possible scribblenaut objects and use different combinations to complete levels.
I now want to check out drawn to life.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Thoughts on Pictures
I have dusted off my point and shoot in an attempt to populate my blog with more photos. To inspire myself I visited fffound this morning and, mirabile dictu, I was actually inspired. Really I was inspired by this photo of angels painting people before they are born - or that is at least what I saw. The artist, Jeremy Enecio - check out his blog - he is super talented= seemed to have other intentions. The name of the jpg is "albinopaint." When I was in college I knew a guy who wrote his senior thesis on the names of art works. Today we don't have names we have file names - and those file names actually have performative value - a file name is an actual index to the work (or a representation of the work) - not some sort of arbitrary linguistic reference.
Anyway albino paint! I love this picture because I immediately started constructing a myth around it. You see - this painting depicts not albinos but the the period before you are born. Here the angels are coloring the people before birth, and fashioning their exterior qualities. I may write a short story about this. It brings to mind the chinese folk tale about the origin of the little indentation above your lip. The painting arouses all sorts of metaphysical/religious questions - where do we come from and why we look the way we do. This, I suppose is what a great painting or image is supposed to do - open up your mind. Most of the time we are bombarded by beautiful images that tell us what to think instead of asking us to create our own interpretations.
Anyway albino paint! I love this picture because I immediately started constructing a myth around it. You see - this painting depicts not albinos but the the period before you are born. Here the angels are coloring the people before birth, and fashioning their exterior qualities. I may write a short story about this. It brings to mind the chinese folk tale about the origin of the little indentation above your lip. The painting arouses all sorts of metaphysical/religious questions - where do we come from and why we look the way we do. This, I suppose is what a great painting or image is supposed to do - open up your mind. Most of the time we are bombarded by beautiful images that tell us what to think instead of asking us to create our own interpretations.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Opening of the Day
I am in the midst of going through old emails and returning to the git rapidsms hornet's nest - and decided to take a break and play some computer chess.
But Chess was depressing. Here I was thinking entering my middle game. Oooh I'm so clever pinning a bishop with my knights. Then out of left field - or B5 (to use funky chess notation) - the enemy queen swoops into my 2 rank (that is the rank with all the pawns).
I know I am a goner.
If the queen is in your pawn rank and you cannot take her out with a bishop or something then she will take all your pawns, and then your rook and then your soul (or just your king). I cant take the slaughter - and restart the game.
Ok this time I am black. I am going to mind-f@#$k the computer - even though the computer does not have a mind. I am going to mimic every move the computer makes until the endgame. The computer moves all the pawns to the 4th rank. The computer is a f#@$king idiot - I think. Perhaps my ELO (chess rating) has gone so low from forfeiting all my losing games - that the computer is on idiot level.
Now that I believe the computer believes that I suck at chess(which I do), I change my strategy. Ahh, I breath a sigh of relief. I dont have to go through all the permutations of every movie and can just play. Sadly again the queen swoops into my pawn row and takes what little pawns I have left - with my rook and has a very funky mating procedure with the knights.
I need to do something about sucking at chess. Perhaps I should play some people - maybe I can beat them. Sadly my online chess membership has lapsed. Instead I visit chessgames.com and look at the opening move of the day and the opening game of the day.
The opening of the day is something called the Caro Kann Defense Steinitz Variation. The salient feature seems to be - the knight in front of the king and opening black pawn at c6. Chessgames asks if I would like to play a game using this opening. Dont mind if I do - and I am swiftly knocked in the 2 rank by the queen - Sheesh. What the hell is the point of this opening - and after googling - I find some answers for the Caro Kann defense but not the steinitz variation. There is a little paper that promises to help me in my goal of maximum procrastination and increased knowledge of caro kann - " In Xanadu did caro kann...." It seems Caro-Kann helps black develop a good pawn structure without contesting the middle. It is an explanation that makes no sense outside the context of chess theory - which is a tangent to a footnote to a conversation between heraclitus and Parmenidies annoated by Whitehead. (and reminds me of all the Foucault and discourse I have been reading for a possible doc on the history of madness and the leather clad philosophers who write about it).
But really, why do I suck at chess? I am generally good at boardgames? I dont suck at chess, so much as I cannot crack it. I cannot game the chess game. In other games such as Settlers of Catan, hearts, or even backgammon - I feel that there are weaknesses that I can exploit.
What is this weakness? Chance. I can only play games with dice rolls, or handicaps- even if I am handicapped. I can only play games that involve luck or chance. And I think this is because I am able to work very well with incomplete information, and because chance invigorates rather than depresses me - even if chance deals me a bad hand. In chess, everything is manifest -there is no chance - and if you are playing the game because you hope your opponent messes up (chance) - you are playing incorrectly. I am constantly telling myself in games and in life "act dont react". In games of chance you are constantly reactingand perhaps I am a better reactor than an actor. (depresssing ?) I also think that once I make a strategy unless I am obviously disturbed by say the capture of a piece - I tend not to notice the other player's strategy and barrel through until the enemy's queen is bayonetting my little pawns.
The one thing I can do is beat computer chess on time - that is the computer uses up all its time trying to come up with moves. My strategy is to make good but convaluted moves that forces the computer to use many cpu cycles and search many nodes in its internal combinatorial chess graph to find the optimum next move. With this strategy - I believe I could become a grandmaster but only against a computer. This feels dishonest and cheating - it does not give you that chess pleasure of figuring out the right move - it does not make a you a clearer thinker. I can use this strategy against a computer, but not against a human. And lo the day when I am to be pitted against a human - his motherboard will not fry when confronted with a bizarro move - instead he will move his queen to my 2 rank and wonk my pawns on the head.
Maybe I should code some more - a strategy game where there is no opponent.
But Chess was depressing. Here I was thinking entering my middle game. Oooh I'm so clever pinning a bishop with my knights. Then out of left field - or B5 (to use funky chess notation) - the enemy queen swoops into my 2 rank (that is the rank with all the pawns).
I know I am a goner.
If the queen is in your pawn rank and you cannot take her out with a bishop or something then she will take all your pawns, and then your rook and then your soul (or just your king). I cant take the slaughter - and restart the game.
Ok this time I am black. I am going to mind-f@#$k the computer - even though the computer does not have a mind. I am going to mimic every move the computer makes until the endgame. The computer moves all the pawns to the 4th rank. The computer is a f#@$king idiot - I think. Perhaps my ELO (chess rating) has gone so low from forfeiting all my losing games - that the computer is on idiot level.
Now that I believe the computer believes that I suck at chess(which I do), I change my strategy. Ahh, I breath a sigh of relief. I dont have to go through all the permutations of every movie and can just play. Sadly again the queen swoops into my pawn row and takes what little pawns I have left - with my rook and has a very funky mating procedure with the knights.
I need to do something about sucking at chess. Perhaps I should play some people - maybe I can beat them. Sadly my online chess membership has lapsed. Instead I visit chessgames.com and look at the opening move of the day and the opening game of the day.
The opening of the day is something called the Caro Kann Defense Steinitz Variation. The salient feature seems to be - the knight in front of the king and opening black pawn at c6. Chessgames asks if I would like to play a game using this opening. Dont mind if I do - and I am swiftly knocked in the 2 rank by the queen - Sheesh. What the hell is the point of this opening - and after googling - I find some answers for the Caro Kann defense but not the steinitz variation. There is a little paper that promises to help me in my goal of maximum procrastination and increased knowledge of caro kann - " In Xanadu did caro kann...." It seems Caro-Kann helps black develop a good pawn structure without contesting the middle. It is an explanation that makes no sense outside the context of chess theory - which is a tangent to a footnote to a conversation between heraclitus and Parmenidies annoated by Whitehead. (and reminds me of all the Foucault and discourse I have been reading for a possible doc on the history of madness and the leather clad philosophers who write about it).
But really, why do I suck at chess? I am generally good at boardgames? I dont suck at chess, so much as I cannot crack it. I cannot game the chess game. In other games such as Settlers of Catan, hearts, or even backgammon - I feel that there are weaknesses that I can exploit.
What is this weakness? Chance. I can only play games with dice rolls, or handicaps- even if I am handicapped. I can only play games that involve luck or chance. And I think this is because I am able to work very well with incomplete information, and because chance invigorates rather than depresses me - even if chance deals me a bad hand. In chess, everything is manifest -there is no chance - and if you are playing the game because you hope your opponent messes up (chance) - you are playing incorrectly. I am constantly telling myself in games and in life "act dont react". In games of chance you are constantly reactingand perhaps I am a better reactor than an actor. (depresssing ?) I also think that once I make a strategy unless I am obviously disturbed by say the capture of a piece - I tend not to notice the other player's strategy and barrel through until the enemy's queen is bayonetting my little pawns.
The one thing I can do is beat computer chess on time - that is the computer uses up all its time trying to come up with moves. My strategy is to make good but convaluted moves that forces the computer to use many cpu cycles and search many nodes in its internal combinatorial chess graph to find the optimum next move. With this strategy - I believe I could become a grandmaster but only against a computer. This feels dishonest and cheating - it does not give you that chess pleasure of figuring out the right move - it does not make a you a clearer thinker. I can use this strategy against a computer, but not against a human. And lo the day when I am to be pitted against a human - his motherboard will not fry when confronted with a bizarro move - instead he will move his queen to my 2 rank and wonk my pawns on the head.
Maybe I should code some more - a strategy game where there is no opponent.
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