mind over matter

Another Wired article that sparked off a few thoughts - quite literarely as well this time: "Mind Control" - by Richard Martin, appeared in issue 13.03 (and soon .04 will be in the mail!)

BrainGate Neural Interface, from Cyberkinetics. The company currently doing the clinical trial, hoping to get FDA approval. Demo (video) and in-depth information on their site. They were founded by John Donoghue, who is also at Brown University. The key test i the ability to draw a circle - since that requires continual control and adjustment of direction (as opposed to a square; draw line. turn. draw line)

"Messages are passed back and forth as fine and complex spatio-temporal patterns between the 1010 neurons that make up the highly interconnected neocortex." - How Do We Crack the Neural Code? [1] - mind boggeling... to many bad puns in this subject...

Miguel Nicolelis is working on the same general field at Duke - brain plasticity - monkey with(out) joystick (linked image from his site) He also has his own lab with related website and there is more info from Duke on the monkey control

Anthony Tether, director of Darpa gave a boost in 2002 (according to Wired), and some 25 million dollars are finding their way into the field. Human Assisted Neural Devices being the uniformed way of discussing it, got to love the military machine and their way with words. On another note, the automated car race is still going strong - the 2005 is all set. Good job!

[filling my head with the beats of: Superburst Mixtape 09 - History Of Guns ]

your brain: 3 pound. 100 billion neurons. Uses 20% of the energy use in the body.

BCI or "direct interface" [29 - goes right to the core of cyberpunk and fables like the Matrix. Jack in and everything you think is what "happens". Is it real or a program running somewhere giving you the impulses? And they concept that we can think of (and belive in) both God and the Matrix is either a major glitch or safety valve in the underlying system - to keep us from rejecting singnals and control mechanisms that would otherwise be to unplausible to escape attention? In depth tech articles are online from Brown on their subjects, such as cursor control issues.

neuroscience - learn a bit more about how we learn? Try to avoid going to meta on the subjects. Or just narrow it down wiki-style; "field of study which deals with the structure, function, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology and pathology of the nervous system. The study of behavior and learning is also a division of neuroscience." (Oh yes, the subject I touched on earlier - dopamines - is also a subset of neuroscience)

Current (as of 2003) work MIT gives a quick run-down of the scope and bredth of neuroscience. Huge link list in the "Related", among them the Society for N. - "Advancing the Understanding of the Brain and Nervous System". Bring out the good stories - as pdf

Work going on in Berlin - they even run an "open" competition on the subject, third verison going on - two more months if you want to contribute and help move the field forward (or just get a new problem to grapple with for a short time)


Bayes
Is it true or is it chance? "the use of Bayes factors has been put forward as justifications for Occam's Razor." And it works pretty well for many spam filters as well....
More on Bayesian? Get a intro text - i'm planning to... always good fun to skim a related subject to get another view of the world (and the tools we use to simulate and estimate it)

looking at new set of colors

#335588 - blue for the main tone

with these three as accenting
#005544 - dark green
#337755 - medium green
#668877 - grey-green

for the softer bits
#334444 - grey
#775522 - tan

and highlighting with this
#882222 - soft dark red

Text Here	Text Here	Text Here
Text Here	Text Here	Text Here
Text Here	Text Here	Text Here

Getting the kick

Glorious days of Easter - or at least days (mostly) off work. So that makes for some time to read and blog.
"consumption activates the neurotransmitters dopamine which rewards us with pleasure, traveling along the same brain pathways as do drogs like caffeine and cocaine" (NY Times article, "The Pleasure of Greed Haunts the US")

So good old (C6H3(OH)2-CH2-CH2-NH2) gets us pumped up when we shop - or when we get a good shot of espresso - or something a bit stronger. Or is it when we think about it - desire rather than actual pleasure. No mention of shopping on the Wikipedia as of yet - or rather consumption in general. As the actual buying is sometimes only the first step. But for certain items it is the most rewarding.

Which links nicely to the bankrupcy issue; 1.1 million "fresh-start" (personal) bankruptcy filings in the US in 2004. Doubled since 1994. With credit crads on every corner - and some people getting up to 20 different ones, it is (sadly) understandable. All to easy to run up the debt, cover parts of it with another card and so on.

[filling my head with the beats of: DSC-2005-03-18 - Adam Curry ] this time at the BBC, and running around London recording everything

Work work work
Read an interesting essay by Francis Fukuyama [personal or Wikipedia] on Weber and globalization. 100 years have passed since the Protestant Ethic, using culture as one variable to explain economic growth and development. Today there is a lot of religious drive - both from Islam and various Evangelical movements (still Protestants, but maybe not quite like the ones Weber discussed?) How does that reflect in the world of commerce and trade?

A lot of previously Christian values have "evolved" into "humanitarian" values - such as human rights and dignity - but we don't want to acknowledge the link (or the constraints) of mixing religion and democray... or do we? Was religion in the "old days" a fixed set of rules, an explanation to everything - literally - or mainly a set of tales to help remember and guide us? Parables that reminded you to prepare for winter, sow your seeds and tend the land in spring?

[filling my head with the beats of: Alley Cuts - 2 - PodcastNYC.net ] cool mix of unknow/small acts, but with a lot of four-letter words to describe them. Bastardo was hot and hard

Nice day for it?
Today, some 86 years ago an unassuming italian named Benito set up a party. Three years later he ruled Italy and Fascism was off on a rocky path that led to a rather nasty relationship with Germany and being on the loosing side in the big-one (WWII). And on this day - this year - a Swedish "right winger" named Klas Lund was arrested in southern Norway.

Just updated to v4 of my local editor - , check it out if you blog, it supports a wide variety of systemts/API (but currently only on the PC)

...and the sun is back behind a soft layer of clouds - melting the snow bit by bit

Sound and text combined

Starting off with some game comments, and the a bit (or a lot) on writing - ending off with some 'casting stuff (yup, I think the term podcasting is to Mac-oriented - it is about on demand targeted distribution, not about the iPod player)

"It is an entirely new perspective on tv - where programs exist more in the form of Talmudic (Wp as fourth hit on Google for the word) commentary - perspectives on perspectives on perspectives" (D. Rushkoff, Renaissance Now! The Gamers Perspective) - talking about shows like the Simpsons, leading on from a talk about going beyond the game (with cheatcodes etc - or for NWN new modules and content...)

So basically it means that you transcend the game when you expand on the basic story (or the rules). Interesting perspective.

[filling my head with the beats of: Adam Curry ] catching up on the Daily Source Code - at the computer now, maybe a bit later on my Zen Micro. Good fun talk-radio and general ranting on recording equipment right now. Now it is guitar-solo-hit-test ... good good good fun

On Creative Writing;
- from a 7 part intro or primer or just plain inspiration (by Cyrus Martin, Author of Deceit and Conquest - dead link? Info here). Even with a nice disclaimer upfront.

"The most important step to completing anything is to start it" - because by the time it is finished (at least if it is in a more "strict" publishing channel than a blog) it will have been re-written and edited quite a few times. So just jump to it. Get a rough idea out the door. Put down some names and places. An emotion and a lingering feeling. The you can flesh it out and build and tune and adjust. And somewhere down the line you'll be finished. If you start

"Make note cards. Draw pictures. Write poems" - now there's an idea (or three if we're going to be overly literal...) Use different formats and methods to spark creativity, and to see things differently. Must give that a shot - maybe I should finally get around to typing in some of my old stuff (both the published poems and the larger assorted sets)

Patience or hesitant?
Second part on c-writing, nice distinction, let the story take it's time and don't rush it. Respect the development, the characters and the drive. That way it will make a lot more sense, both for you and the reader. And it will (hopefully) not feel as if half of the material is just filler since you really wanted to write about something else. Now the only thing to do is let time pass at the right pace. Both in real life (where the basis of the story develops in the back of your mind) and in the story.

And who is my target? Well, maybe Adam Curry! Or at least a man, age probably around 35-ish, dabbles in computers and has read quite a few books (among them most likely Snow Crash, Pattern Recognition and/ or Diamond Age) So in other words I think my reader- let's call him AC for now - has a pretty good frame of reference, as well as a clear goal with reading (since his time is already filled with fun options online and in his social life) - to be entertained and get some thoughts kicked off. AC might be English - or at least has read (and worked?) a lot in English, making it second nature to read a story in it. He probably lives in a medium or large city (depending again on scale of reference - large for Norway is pretty small for China)

When is the story? Now or in the past? (Ie what tense is the most common in the story, past or present) Who tells it? Me or the main characters? (Is it from their perspective, or from an (almost) all-knowing narrator, does it switch between various perspectives or stick with one or two)

"The audience only knows what you tell them, so it's up to you to tell them enough." - so give the details needed, and give them at the right time. No point in telling all the details of Ewok daily life in Star Wars Ep IV... give the details to draw the reader into the story, the world and most importantly the characters. If they connect then everything else is so much easier. So, you might know the world be heart, and a lot of the details - and then the reader will "create" his own version of it as he reads it. Which ties back to my assumption (or goal?) that the reader - Mr AC - has already read something similar to the cyber'ish stuff. And that links on to the tone of the piece - generally it should be "intriguing" or make the reader inspired. Time to return to Lee Sheldons book once again - just finish off reading the last installment I have from Cyrus M.

And another good source for writing tips is Poynter - the 50 tools series is good, mixing journalistic and more prose-oriented material. And it even has assignment, so get typing!

[filling my head with the beats of: DSC-2005-03-14 - Adam Curry ]

Way - I got the plugin working again
{some nice mash-ups on DSC, such as Green Day vs Oasis - in addition to the weird close/far-off effect of his detailed discussion of running late for dinner with his wife, hence actually "cutting" the show short by some 5-10 minutes! Spaced.}

"tra-ansmitters - we don't need no stinking tra-ansmitters" (cool sound byte used in various pod-cast "ads" - "No Stinkin' Transmitters" official show note title)

Ron Bloom and Mr Curry doing a lot to make podcasting into an industry, for both advertisers, listeners and "casters" - latest (at least last week) was PodShow. Not much there yet, but you can sign up - looks like it will (among other things) be a blogger for podcasting, helping people set up their own personal casts (presumably ad supported to cover the slightly higher bandwidth)

Looking into another cast, podcastnyc.net - new bands... ad with real attitude aired on DSC. And have to check out the heineken podcast dj stuff? Now to find an url (got it)

...and the sun has set some time ago...

A new letter?

Typisk norsk is a great program from NRK - the Norwegian public broadcaster - all about language, the Norwegian one that is. And for this one segment, they decided it was time to introduce a new letter.
Why? Becuase more and more people (especially youth) are unable/unwilling to say the "kje" sound - replacing it with the "sje" sound. To understand it better, check out the streaming edition of the show (first episode of season two, at 030305).

On another note - Brad Bird got the Wired Rave Award for ... the Incredibles of course ... and who gave him a boost? The incredible "old man" Milt Kahl - who joined Disney back in 1934. History in the making.


Fun thing with typos - tried to search for the upcoming Rem Koolhaas book on Rome, at Amazon. But since I wrote "Kolhaas" it didn't find any matches... well, the good thing was that the A9 web search did find it ... on Amazon.com !!! No news on the Rome book though, but I did find the NY one. Time to order some more good stuff to read. :D

So bad it's real good fun

Kim Possible (flasj-heavy site) is a riot... we recently got Disney Channel (on cable) and it makes a good change from the regular channels... right now we are both hooked on the kick-a** superstar teen Kim Possible, with the help (?) or Ron and Rufus she mostly saves the day.

Best part so far? Definitely today when they had even localized the geek-comments; her cousin Larry talked about getting some secret scenes from a movie at the Gathering (or TG as it is known in uber-geekish) - a huge lan/computer party held in Norway every year. Last year they had 5200 people in attendance - of which some 20+ flew in from the US according to the official backgrounder (I'm guessing they brought their kit with them... LanBoy case (test in Norwegian) as carry-on perhaps?)

Apperently there is a GBA game for it (well, not really surprising that Kingdom Mickey does spin-offs and merchandise now is it?) Christy Romano who does the US v/o also did a part in Kingdom Hearts! Cool. Can hardly wait for the big sequel - a sure hit for my girlfriend the coming xmas!

More Info - but not the right one

Missing info - a Wired first; either a typo in the mag or simply a mess up... the link was supposed to go to info on the Lessing podcast, but it only contains an old story on Asimov (and a link to Bruce Sterlings blog)

shame shame... on the article page there is a direct link to the mp3, but that is hardly podcasting - that is just plain old downloading. Oh well... sometimes hype overcrowds reason and understanding.

(well, on his own blog it was posted "inline" about a month ago - and yes, it is basically just him reading the column for you, a very very basic experiment of the tech rather than the oppourtunity)

For some real podcasting - grab the program from Mr Curry (open source - feel free to help improve it), and grad some recommended RSS feeds


speaking of soundbytes, the most animated band around - the Gorillaz are coming out with their second album in May. Looks like a good funmix of guest. Looking forward to it. (video previewed at SXSW

the stories we tell

Integrating Narrative into Play: "Barwood implied that, as games grow in complexity, story does not necessarily need to follow the same course"

Which makes a lot of sense - complexity in several dimensions will compund the overall effect by a much larger factor. So keep a balance in overall complexity and the enjoyment will be all the greater.

In addition to his own Indiana Jones game, he also mentions GTA and Beyond Good and Evil - more on that a few posts ago.

(Sidenote: Barwood also has a sidebar in Lee Sheldons book on character design)



and I finally got to see the Incredibles this week as the double DVD edition arrived in the mail. Great fun, really "laugh out loud" stuff! Probably watch it again with comments over the weekend. Get it. Now.

All stories are true

Cerebus is something else. Self published by the creator Dave Sim (a bit in he got some help on the backgrounds).
Just finished Volume 9 of the collected edition - 16 books in all, covering the 300 issue span of the comic. At it's peek it sold some 30 000 copies of each issue. "Reads" is weird. And full of ideas. And unlike most comics - more than half the pages (at least it feels that way when you read it and want to return to the "main" story) is filled with thoughts and musings from Mr Sim. Too bad he didn't have a blog or three to went through? The next volume is back to comic format all the way, so on we go - the big 3 0 0 is already out there. Will I make it all the way or will it weird me out? Stay tuned!

Some of the subjects include Alan Moore, To the moon and beyond..., together vs... "creation" (passionate and unique), Hourglass - time flowing away - our glass - tying us in, together.

Alone not the same as lonely, even if it seems to be the message in a lot of brands/products/services. Is it bad to be alone? Should we only find comfort in unions? Are we social animals or intellectual creatures? Mind over matter?

Emotion and reason - "and never the twain shall meet"? Who said it? About what? East and West? Ah yes, Mr Kipling it was

"Women inspire men to do great works
And then distract us from carrying them out"
Oscar Wilde
- from the online ed of the Reads text - sort of sets the stage for Sims main message; there are two forces (good-evil, male-female, create-nuture, ...) and they have differing goals, which in his book makes it all "bad". But Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde always had a bit of an ironic twist to his messages - I'm not too sure he would be all that distracted by your average woman for instance. Is it better to write a book or build a house?

Who is Colleen Doran? What did she do? A rebel? A visionary? A creator? A cartooninst. My, my - a broad view of the world the adorable mr Sim had at the time. Either Oscar Wilde or cartoonist. Sure makes a great base for drawing up (no pun intended - or maybe a Freudain slip?) the bigger picture?


(this post could probably need some more tuning - but i'll leave it open as it is for now)

Lot number 134

Nylon
On the last day last month - we passed the 70 year mark (or birthday if you will) of nylon. So give it up for DuPont (who have passed 200 themselves!)- for that one at least. And no, it wasn't all about pantyhose... the first industrial use was a bit more everyday; the toothbrush. Nothing like a soft bristle to clean away all the excesses of modern living?

Speaking of blast from the past; Hasbro has relaunched the Millennium Falcon - or the plastic model of it anyway, for a mere $60 you can swing the turret and hide action figures (not included.... but i'm sure you have some in the basement from last time round) in the smugglers bay. With Star Wars KOTOR II: Sith Lords just out for PC and the last/third (????????) movie just around the corner, it looks like a new spring for the Force. Be sure to grab som Tie Fighters as well, for those epic battles, whcih brings us to:

Evil?
Xenosaga has a sequel out - called Xenosaga II - Jenseits von Gut und Bose, which translates into Beyond Good & Evil - which is also the name of an (underrated) adventure game from UbiSoft, where you play the reporter Jade trying to figure out just what is going on. But, more "importantly" it is also the name of one of F. Nietzsches central works - along with "Also Sprach Zarathustra". So, is there a minor revival of the old grumpy going on, or is it just a cool phrase to tack onto a game to imply that it isn't straight forward "kill everyone"?



On the "consider list" is the double DVD edition of "Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind" (or Kaze no Tani no Naushika) - as featured in Wired (where else... too many good ideas in there!) So - what to do with all our stuff?

Abundance and then some
According to an article (yes, yes, yes - in WIred this time as well), self-storage is a $ 17 billion industry. That is almost twice the Hollywood boxoffice take - or some odd $ 60 per American ! Or higher than the estimated GDP of 100 countries (not combined, but still!) No wonder design objects are flowing into every nook and cranny in the market: most of us already have everything we can claim to "need" - so now it is all about getting the right stuff and stuffing all our old memories and leftovers into giant warehouses by the highway. (more facts on self storage)

...and the sun shines a bit more each day...

1 - 3 - 5

Today is another "magic" day 05-03-01 or 1.3.5 depending on your locale.
Are we counting it up or down? Is it a split, an odd day out, or a step on the way - to 6-6-6, 3-4-5 or 7-6-5 coming ut this summer after a hundred years of only Norway?

Is there such a thing as a coincidence? Or do things happen for a reason, and we sometimes fail to see the connection? Life, the universe and evertyhing... 42. The age of Elvis when he died? 42. The date? Same as his mother died.


Do we have to understand to appreciate that there might be more "to it" than meets the eye?


...and the sun is bright today, and was up early, spring is on the way...