psyche

This is awesome: image resizing by seam carving…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcIJXTlugc]

Pax

I went to a talk by Thomas Vander Wal at school today (it was organised, I believe, by Mr Smith. It was very interesting. Social software, to use the phrase of the day, is continuously evolving and binding us to the network, wherein we are all connected. As Mr Vander Wal noted, communication is the key to our success - even as a species. Collaboration and massive data retention ability are what defines us as a civilisation. We are continuously getting better at it.

I dream of this. Then, this.

Pax

Of course, of course I have considered that my demented obsession with things like The Matrix and SEL - that is, things which say that there is something odd about the world, lurking around, totally invisible or totally forgotten - is similar to a search for God. The thing is, I never really connected with God. I have never prayed believing anything would come of it and in extreme situations in my youth I tended not to pray so that I would have fewer invisible people to credit were I to survive. Neither, then, is this search borne out of the general religiosity factor. I need evidence. In fact, this is part of my search. I could have a knowing smile and talk about how I just know the world is askew, but it’s impossible as I would need some reason.

I’m definitely looking for something. Although The Matrix and SEL and every other piece of fiction I love all present eternity and sorrow and hidden conspiracy in different ways (some stylised and shallow, some deep and disturbing, changing type even internally) they have one thing in common: there is a long search of some sort that has to be done.

Some of the dialogue in SEL which initially went over my head as technobabble is beginning to crystallise in my mind. The conjecture that Lain’s mother apparently makes during a hallucination in DISTORTION (LAYER:05) that the balance between the real and the Wired may have shifted to the point where the Wired no longer represents goings on in the real world, but in fact dictates what happens in the real world, is shocking. The idea that we could one day exist only to do things on the basis of what the data in the wires tells us to disturbs me despite it being a rather mundane metamorphosis. Sometimes I think “So what?” and sometimes I simply think “No!”

Pax

I’ve just realised that the multiple personality thing in Requiem is in Lain. Argh, worlds converging… I think I’m becoming slightly demented. The sounds of computers humming or random chatter or the sight of anything electronic reminds me of SEL, or of Lain herself.

Pax

Apart from the obvious thematic connections, there are some things in Lain that I’ve seen in The Matrix, like the techno-punk raves, the men-in-black idea and the idea of a teenager killing themselves to escape this reality and enter another (Kid’s Story in the Animatrix).

Similarly, the idea of scouring the internet to find the answer to a nagging, slightly ethereal question. “What is The Matrix?” wasn’t, I think, as well executed as “Who is Lain?”, which, while not a theme in itself, was very well put in at the end (the feelings that everyone had of recognising Lain or recognising her absence but not quite knowing who she was. let alone that she was a goddess). I think I’m going to find the ending to this thing quite sad, actually.

Omnipresence in the Wired
I named Psyche Psyche and put a glider on it a long time ago. Now, SEL and Conway’s Game of Life cross my path again but this time I understand them better. It’s a little bit frightening but not unwelcome.

Pax

I just watched the first volume (first four episodes) of Serial Experiments Lain. It’s pretty awesome. I named Psyche for the Psyche chip and I think I made the right choice, despite knowing very little about it all that time ago!

I wonder if consciousness is simply an artefact of our fundamental decision-making being quite slow? I mean, our brains are very fast indeed, able to process an astounding number of sensory data, but our core algorithms seem simple - if fuzzy - and slow. I wonder if the reason we feel like we choose things according to some “will” as opposed to a slightly-chemically-fudged algorithm is simply that we can “feel” the decision being made and thus feel as if “we”, the “chooser” are in fact in control of the choice, when we are in fact following ingrained instructions?

Is my computer conscious? Is it in a perpetual state of sensory-deprivation? Will computers be accidentally made conscious? I think the distinction between thought and what computers do now is abstract and artificial. I think they think already but aren’t conscious. They have arisen from our poking around, not from probability as life did. We just happen to work remarkably close to perfectly (perfect as we see it, I mean). I mean, somewhere in the universe, it had to happen. Computers are our creation, and we don’t have nearly enough time or resources to keep experimenting randomly (like nature fluctuated randomly which created us). We don’t have the luxury of the law of averages. Stuff won’t necessarily just work out.

We have to be intelligent.

Pax

It’s not a uselessly semantic distinction, as YouTube commenters would have you believe. Even Apple, in their dumbed-down advertising campaigns borne of their selling-out (they’ve been doing it for a long time), refer to things like “surfing the internet” and making the “internet look good on your phone”. I understand that when this ridiculous error is so prevalent, even intelligent people can inherit it, so here is the truth:

• The Internet is hardware - it is the network (analogous to, say, a LAN)
• The Web is software* - it is one of the many applications** of the Internet (analogous to your company’s intranet site)

* It’s a big bunch of HTML documents. On its own, you wouldn’t be able to access web pages from anywhere unless you were directly connected to the computer or server they were stored on. However, you can connect via the Internet so you don’t require a direct connection. See?** Yeah, ever heard of e-mail? File transfers? Internet-enabled games? You don’t connect to “the web” when you plug your modem into a phone port, do you?

For clarity, Wiki strikes again.

The internet is a marvel of engineering and hardware design coupled with software transfer protocols so awesome that I believe that it is the pinnacle of not only communications design but of all electronics.The web is a dynamic and thus shifting, self-maintaining in some areas, self-destroying in others mass of files designed to be opened by web browsers over networks connections and ultimately the internet. It is a remarkable experiment in content creation and sharing and is obviously one of the most important and frequently-used applications of the internet (along with e-mail, IM and file transfer). A massive sociological wonderland, it is novice programming on steroids and in another dimension.The internet combined with the web (no, this is not called the interweb) and other apps is, I believe, humanity’s greatest achievement. While retaining our individuality, we are becoming able to function as a true collective, silenced by no-one. It is great but it is not good or evil; it is neutral, as things with extreme power often are - and thus corruptible.

However, it remains the basis for my faith in computer science. We have become more than the sum of our parts. We are both man and machine. We have transformed into something altogether more interesting than I thought possible.

Pax

Apple enthusiasm is now painful as Apple has been culturally hijacked by pretenders. I have long suffered the drawbacks of being a nerd and have always accepted it with as much humour as possible but I feel I have missed out on some of the advantages! For example, Star Trek: The Next Generation is truly excellent. We must ever live through the achievements of others? Hell yes!

My N95’s web browser makes of proud. If only it could YouTube, eh? Speaking of which, I have some more ideas for my video… A working video camera and tripod would be useful though - I currently use a not-too-old Sony MiniDV one that has curiously stopped recording or playing back its tapes, forcing me to record only when it is directly tethered to the PowerBook by the venerable but now waning FireWire 400…

You know what would have been a beautiful ending to Harry Potter? If Snape had taken his secret - the fact that he loved Lily - to his grave, I would actually love the book.

First ever phone blog post!

Pax

I forgot to make the giant post I probably should have about this, so I’ll do it now. I got a Wii with three extra controllers and an extra nunchuk (so in total four controllers and two nunchuks). It came bundled with Wii Sports and I also bought Twilight Princess (although I’m finding it hard to like that, unfortunately… I guess I’m just stupid ). Wii Tennis is really annoying, as is putting in Wii Golf (argh it’s just so annoying) but it’s perversely fun. So is browsing the web. In the true hacker spirit, I managed to work out how to get my TV to get video input from the component HD cable I ordered with Will’s advice (he was here for The Grand Unpacking of the Wii) but sound output from the scart thing. I’m just kidding about hacker spirit, it’s just lucky I tried using the TV’s software menu before giving up.Watching YouTube and using Facebook on the TV is pretty good although it’s strangely low resolution. Will and I found that we can actually type fairly quickly with the thing although obviously nowhere near as fast as with a keyboard. “Multiplayer” is a word conspicuously absent from the Metroid Prime 3 article over at Wikipedia but it better be multiplayer. It better be. Or I’ll have to get some other FPS. OTHER, damn it. OTHER!I really liked Hunters on the DS (fragging Imran wirelessly and then throwing stuff at him in real life = awesome).

Pax

Check out this interview with Rand Miller. Myst is great. The Millers are great.

Great.

Pax