...and the AGA thinks I'm Shodan:

http://www.usgo.org/ratings/RatingsQuery.asp? -- select WA and click get ratings. I'm not too far down from the top. Heh.

Part of me thinks that this doesn't really mean much: subject to change (high sigma means one or two bad games could wreck the rating), arbitrary, questionable in an international context, etc. Perhaps more about this later.

But part of me is really excited. Ive spent a long time with a minus sign next to my name. It's good to be positive.

:]


Judan here I come!

From the Washington post (via /.), an article about humans' reactions to robots, esp. combat robots and the strong ties that people build to them.

Some highlights:

A minefield clearing robot doing it's job in a test-run:

"The colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg.

This test, he charged, was inhumane."


The guy remotely flying an unmanned air vehicle, heroically diverting it from killing school children after the machine malfunctioned:

"As he was struggling to bring the bot down without an engine, he could see "the ground coming real fast." He dropped the landing gear, flared the wings, pushed the stick forward and then started fumbling around at the bottom of his desk chair.

He had bonded so tightly with the machine hundreds of miles away that he was searching for the lever that would allow him to eject."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/05/AR2007050501009_pf.html

060709

[...]

So that's the notebook. All of it begs the question, so what exaclty is the species in question? The last phrase addresses this, in it's question. Are we keepers of the true species? That is to say, perhaps the true species, the true person, is simply an ever-changing memeplex, which is a bit more than the sum of its parts. But is that what we are? Are we collections of 'units of culture'? These shifting meme entities are what persits through time, run on the (meatbone?) bonemeat of a body substrate.

There is no self inherent in such a system. The self is an abstract (arbitrary?) metafile, but is only a name, only a depository. There is nothing inherrently there, except for the way in which these memes are processed.

And how are they processed but through the filter of remembered pattern that becomes ego, the processor, the selector, the actor of the memetic script. Who is this, and is it anyone, but an illusion of the collusion of these parts? It is perhaps a cliche to say that the self as emergent property of intracultural operation. Culture is then, also an emergent property of the interactings of Selves, but through time. Culture has an inherited aspect to it. And in recent days, perhaps less and less of that inherited aspect is intentional. Or is it perhaps that it is so diffuse. Or, more likely...

[...]

support
for sapir-whorf:


from mind-hacks:

New Scientist reports that native speakers of Russian, which lacks a single word for "blue", discriminate between light and dark blues differently from native English speakers.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11759-russian-speakers-get-the-blues.html

So I'm tentatively dipping my toes again into the pool of symbolic scribblings... Looking over old notes, brushing the sleep from slumbering ideas, exploring possible extrapolations... reliving my self-conscious love for ellipses and alliteration...

I found this, and wasn't immediately repelled, so i thought I'd post it here. Maybe get in the habit of posting regularly, to get the writerly juices going again.

It's about language. Burroughs said that "Language is a virus from outer space." So if language 'came' here, what would happen if it could then leave? Here are some musings, translated (barely) from my log-shorthand:


So there was the done idea of if language leaves. Does language come from outer space as a virus like the man said -- is it a graft, and what we know of as human beings -- the specifcaly cultural primates we are -- is a symboisis of human and language, and were language to leave, then where would 'we' be? Say that language comes along, and in its seed form it shapes the morphology of the primates, adding a selective pressure towards the physical capability towards it's uttering in the lowest order form. We can hypothesize a system where the language is a 'virus' If a meme is a unit of culture, what is a unit of mind? mneme. So we can hypothesize a system wherin the mnemeplex infects, and the hostpartner is at a level of high proficiency -- in such a situation there would be a higher order form of language.

So if language left, what would we have? Would there be vestiges, would we simply drop from the puppeteer's strings like cut marionettes? Human looking chimps, lumbering through suburban landscapes. Through the wrecked aftermath of city streets. How much would we remember? How functional would we be? Would we look at each other with pleading, mute eyes? Or playful, accepting of our fate? Would we even remember what such looks were like? [prolly, those emos are pre-verbal, it seems -ed.] What would there be, then, over coffee in chic chatsubu cafes.

Would the whole host of language leave, or the main ones that came, from so long ago. Would we be left with the newlings, who have an idea, but don't know all of the agendas of the older strains? Why would they leave?

Many waters can't quench love,
neither can floods drown it.

digg it:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

YAY!

I see very little art Online that I would actually like to own. This is a link to a sample that rare species.

Paper sculptures by Jen Stark, via http://makezine.com/blog/:


http://www.jenstark.com/sculpture_01.html

Goes to 23...

...to it's own hydraulic rhythm.

The first (afaik) dynamically balanced bipedal robot. Hypnotic:


http://paulgraham.com/anybots.html

Coming to Seattle and Portland in April '07:

http://www.crammed.be/craworld/movies/konono_promo.htm

She said we need to ask more questions about this film; and she couldn't have been more right.

Watch to see:

http://www.komotv.com/home/video/5001856.html?video=YHI&t=a

ferrofluid in magnetic fields:

http://scitation.aip.org/phf/gallery/2003-lorenz.jsp

"When I am happy, may my merit flow to others;
May its blessings fill the sky.
When I am unhappy, may the sorrows of all beings be mine;
May the ocean of suffering run dry."


-Lojong Verse

some new reading material:

The Open Door To Emptiness: A Discussion of Madhyamaka Logic

from the intro to the edition:

"A proper study of Madhyamaka can yield inconceivably great
positive results. Not only is complete intellectual comprehension of
both the conventional or relative truth of appearance and the final
truth of emptiness a distinct possibility, the diligent meditation on the
significance of the doctrine can result in the development of the
“wisdom that goes beyond” meaning, beyond the realms of suffering,
beyond dualistic ego-grasping, beyond the mind tainted with
impulses of harmful aggression, beyond compulsive insatiable
desire, and beyond the dark veil of ignorance that prevents
perception of the brilliantly expressive, blissful dharmadhatu, the
fundamental reality. "

oohhhh....yyyeeaaahhhh....



and, oh yeah...some revolutionary (?) work going on in quantum communication. whatever that is ;] ...

http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0611109

EDIT: I hear that this turned out to be bogus

There're tons of reasons why
You shouldn't even cry
When things don't seem
To go your way.

Many reasons why
You ought not too hard to try
To force things to go
Your own way.

There's much more on each side
Between you, me, and mine
To think that it't not all
Ways always

So don't get too caught up
When things they seem to stop
[something]
[All ways always]

From Mindhacks.com:

"There's a wonderful article in The New York Times about the psychology and sociology of bed sharing.

This is one of the most common of human activities, and like many everyday behaviours, has a significant impact on our lives and yet has been largely ignored by researchers."




http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2006/11/psychology_of_twoin.html

From the NYT, on the New York Film Festival:

It's really not a "Japanese Board Game", as it originated somewhere in China (Tibet?); and it's an unfortunate title, since it will forever be confused with "The Go Masters" a completely different movie; but I'm a bit too excited to care that much.




THE GO MASTER
Series: The 44th New York Film Festival [Sept 29 - Oct 2006]
Director: Tian Zhuangzhuang, Country: China/Japan, Release: 2006, Runtime: 104

Few filmmakers today make movies as visually elegant and spiritually refined as Tian Zhuangzhuang (Springtime in a Small Town NYFF ‘02). This time the renegade Fifth Generation Chinese director has surpassed himself with an exquisite feature based on the life of Wu Qingyuan, the most renowned modern master of “go”. A Chinese prodigy who became the undisputed master of this Japanese board game, Wu is torn by the increasingly bellicose relations between the two countries.

Remaining in Japan despite the outbreak of war, and later sucked into a religious cult which tries to exploit his celebrity, Wu (beautifully played by Chang Chen) is the still center of the storm, following his own inner notions of integrity and loyalty to the discipline of his chosen vocation. This perceptive portrait of a man who maintains his own spiritual counsel is as moving as the cinematography and the lighting are ravishing.

Yes kids, we had 'em before hte machines woke up (to us).

THey were huge clunky thngs about the size of snails, and worked kinds the same.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/09/24/0337212.shtml

I love this form teh slashdot blurb:

'unlike other similar robots' -- ?!?

wow

well, j&j are having a bbq tonight, which provided a good opportunity for us do to more cleaning!

All of my stuff is out of the living room now, which feels nice -- getting it out of the common space, out of their way.

Now, as far as stuff is concerned, i just need to go through my storage shed of a room, and get rid of more! this will hapen this week.

I'm loving the momentum I've taken from this move. go go go!