Sodium Dreams

Fireworks in Your Eyes

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:29:46 -0500

Writing about a coronal mass ejection in Popular Mechanics, Lee Billings describes the International Space Station crew’s experience of a solar storm:

Even [in the ISS’s shielded core], the astronauts received elevated doses of radiation, and occasionally saw brief flashes of brilliant white and blue—bursts of secondary radiation caused when a stray particle passed directly through the vitreous humor of the astronauts’ eyes at nearly light-speed.

What a terrifying, beautiful thought! Our eyes, themselves organic particle detectors, betray invisible apparitions when high-energy particles ionize the clear jelly between the cornea and the lens. Perhaps we are nothing more than cloud chambers made out of meat.

Photo

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:00:59 -0500

Where can I buy this shirt?

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:47:00 -0500

Where can I buy this shirt?

Prophesy

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:35:31 -0500

Is it gauche to quote myself? To immortalize my own words that would ordinarily dissipate, unnoticed, into the vacuous expanse of human triviality? Fuck it; this is important.

Descartes was a fraud. If being required thought, the majority of humanity would be deprived of their status as conscious entities. But just because we have some idea of how we think, doesn’t mean we would recognize consciousness in alien form.

The dawn of AI will be like that—while we mistakenly search for algorithms that simulate consciousness, dismissing emotion as a pipe dream, we will be confronted by a barely self-aware bundle of tempestuous code:

We’ll have a hungry, angry, wailing Google bot with no way to learn what new inputs satiate its animal need to crawl the web…

—@brendn, in conversation with Mills Baker

Psychologists frequently refer to our “reptilian cortex”—the raw, animal place buried beneath bicameral sociability and post-enlightenment reason—as the pre-historic origin of fear, rage and libido. It’s all too easy to confuse these things with what makes us human; we mistakenly believe that emotions are the essence of our consciousness.

We look for intelligence in all the wrong places, and as we yearn to create an entity that can understand and converse with us, we run the risk of simply failing to notice the emergent behavior of intelligence.

After all, isn’t consciousness just memory? We try so hard to simulate reason and thought and creativity that we overlook the possibility that our dogs likely exhibit emotional responses¹; we refuse to believe a chimpanzee could share that same spark that makes us human.

So here we are. The approaching equinox promises to thaw the AI winter, and we’re presented with the possibility that the next nonhuman intelligence has already been left at our threshold. My fear is that in our boundless desire to create an intelligence in our own image, we will unwittingly create one that transcends it.

I’m hedging here because I’m a scientist and a hypothesis needs data and analysis to back it up. But ask any dog owner and there is no room for doubt. ↩

The Celestial Emporium of Genetic Variation

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:04:00 -0500

The animal taxonomy Borges made famous in his essay, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” has long been an obsession of mine. He claims that instead of the thirty-five phyla familiar to any contemporary student of biology, a certain Chinese encyclopedia classifies Animalia into

those that belong to the Emperor,
embalmed ones,
those that are trained,
suckling pigs,
mermaids,
fabulous ones,
stray dogs,
those included in the present classification,
those that tremble as if they were mad,
innumerable ones,
those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
others,
those that have just broken a flower vase,
those that from a long way off look like flies.

I remain unconvinced that such an absurd classification system could be little more than the quasifictional imagining of a professional yarn spinner—the truth, so they say, is stranger than fiction. I have my doubts too that the modern mind could even conceive of such a tangled menagerie. Is it instead the lure that draws you into the chaotic mind of an unhinged genius?

Those questions remain unanswered, mainly because my research led me elsewhere. The numerous citations of the passage, whether found in dusty library stacks or obscure Internet posts, all exhibited slight variations. Eco and other prominent scholars of Borges usually credit a translator, but many reproductions of the list do not. And curiously, it appeared no two instances were perfectly identical.

The following table illustrates the differences between the original Spanish and three selected English translations. The substance of each entry remains mainly the same between renditions, but there is remarkable diversity in the inessential bits—the pluralizations, possessives, capitalizations, and extraneous modifiers—which mark the individual whims of the translator.

Lilia Graciela Vázquez	Eliot Weinberger	Jorge Luis Borges¹
belonging to the emperor	those that belong to the emperor	belonging to the Emperor
embalmed	embalmed ones	embalmed
tame	those that are trained	trained
sucking pigs	suckling pigs	piglets
sirens	mermaids	sirens
fabulous	fabulous ones	fabulous
stray dogs	stray dogs	stray dogs
included in the present classification	those that are included in this classification	included in this classification
frenzied	those that tremble as if they were mad	trembling like crazy
innumerable	innumerable ones	innumerables
drawn with a very fine camelhair brush	those drawn with a very fine camel’s-hair brush	drawn with a very fine camelhair brush
et cetera	etcetera	et cetera
having just broken the water pitcher	those that have just broken the flower vase	just broke the vase
that from a long way off look like flies	those that at a distance resemble flies	from a distance look like flies

Here we have the words of Vázquez, Weinberger, and Borges, all neatly compartmentalized, like insects in a entomologist’s specimen case. Now consider, for example, that none of the credited translations exactly match the passage reproduced at top (which I also found on at least three blog posts.)

It is as if the words can mutate only so much before triggering mechanisms for detecting and repairing the damage. If we assume the mystery translation was not arrived at independently, these differences serve as useful clues to identifying its translator.

When we compare the text with known translations, we notice that one column matches much more closely than the other two. From that uncanny similarity (given the larger variation in each of the other candidates) between the mystery translations and Weinberger’s, we can infer that the unattributed translations were cribbed from the same. And further, we learn that leaving a passage uncredited can invoke a deranged crusade on the part of a certain individual. On that note, I must admit that it will be a great struggle to find something to write about yet more esoteric than this. But, as always, I will try my hardest.

Crockford does not attribute the translation presented alongside the original, but merely the entire document, so my W.A.G. is that this is Borges speaking.

Brian Vu (via stellavista)

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:35:30 -0500

Brian Vu (via stellavista)

Sometimes data models really are complex, and pretending that...

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:33:00 -0500

Sometimes data models really are complex, and pretending that complexity doesn’t exist only makes your life more difficult. Like (but unrelated to) my earlier drawing, this diagram clarifies weeks of struggling to understand.

Lapse

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:01:00 -0500

The outrage has blown over, the thunderhead safely recedes towards the horizon, and the sparrows are chirping and tweeting away in the rain-drenched foliage. But for the brief span of the storm’s darkest moments, we hunkered down knowing full well what was in danger of being taken away.

The HTML 5 element, that precious jewel of markup, that essential semantic mot was poised at the precipice, prepared for its fate. It meant so much to so many, and yet we were too quick to forgive its shortcomings:

Formal protocols are nice, except when they aren’t.

If you’ve ever written software to deal with dates and times, you know how much of a pain it is. The rigid logic of ISO 8601 is a refreshing comfort in a world of locale-dependent date formats, but it’s not without its flaws. The most obvious of which is the impossibility of representing dates prior to the beginning of the Gregorian calendar. Dates of important events in Hellenistic Greece are therefore woefully unable to assume a machine readable form. In my opinion, the element is under-spec’d in this regard, and QuirksMode generally agrees.
Ad-hoc protocols are better than no protocols.

I love the idea of and philosophy behind microformats. Before we had semantic markup, we were able to construct logical, sane, machine readable structures in HTML, and they could be adopted or not by a site’s developers. Sharing these ad-hoc formats freely online propelled their adoption without the need for endless committee meetings in a standards body.

To this end, we could have explored alternatives to the element. Some suggested we use instead, only to be admonished by fearful developers. Ultimately, we did not explore our remaining options for annotating documents with date and time information.
Trust no one, but share your secrets openly.

This is a variation on Postel’s Law. Ultimately, we have no way of ensuring everyone would microformats, , or elements correctly, if at all. We can only enforce sanity on systems under our own control. Smoothly exchanging structured data requires you to choose a format that works for the particular case you’re concerned with and document the hell out of it. And we all know that developers always adhere to the spec. (I’m looking at you, Facebook.)

[Update: as of 7 November, the element is still missing from the HTML 5 Editor’s Draft, but the W3C HTML 5 Working Group mailing list has a revert request for r6783, which implies imminent restoration of the abducted tag.]

Berkeley RISC I Processor

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 12:51:48 -0400

Berkeley RISC I Processor

The Future Will Be Stranger Than Anything We Can Imagine

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:35:00 -0400

Maybe it was walking through Chinatown in a misty drizzle, neon aglow, empty restaurants next to storefront print shops inexplicably full of creaking machinery. Or maybe it was the dot com launch party I had just left, buzzwords and business cards flowing like cheap booze, another humming machine in a storefront. But I became acutely aware of a sensation that can only be described as melting into a William Gibson novel. It was unreal—the physical world resembling fiction—but everything about that walk home from the bar seemed like it had already been written on a dusty page. And because of that feeling, anything seemed possible in this world. We are limited only by the imagination of a writer behind a keyboard, except instead of prose, we write code.

1955 - 2011

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:34:00 -0400

When a visionary is alive, it’s easy to think of him as a constant presence, an entity that came into existence at some well-defined point with an open-ended trajectory, forging ever onward. Steve Jobs was, without a doubt, one of those presences. One forgets that even a hero’s time here is finite, and we will always struggle with the cruel finality of the trajectory’s end. Seeing that pair of dates under his name was one of the most heart-wrenching moments in my life. I have never cried so hard for someone I never knew.

Yet in a way we all knew him. There’s a reflection of him in every product he shaped. We interact with devices we love because one man had the guts and the creative vision to build a “computer for the rest of us.” His legacy lives on in the lives he has touched and the stories those people tell.

I remember a moment years ago when I grew frustrated with a bit of technology. I don’t recall what, exactly, I was working with, but some clumsy interface drove me into a rage. Once the frustration eased, however, I realized that part of what made me so angry with the gadget was the thought that whoever built it just didn’t care. I was crushed to think that someone could go through the world with enough apathy to put out junk. I got the sense that this must be what Steve felt all the time. I’m not sure I’ll ever know for certain whether this is a trait we shared, but what I saw—the sense of perfectionism and unrelenting need for improvement—gave me a role model and has driven me to where I am today. I never imagined it could hurt so much to lose a hero.

If anything, Steve’s death is a reminder to make the most of our short time here. A reminder that we must do our own part to make a dent in the universe. Great men and women have led us this far and it’s up to us to pick up where they left off. All of this brings to mind something Philippe Starck once said: “nobody is obliged to be a genius, but everybody is obliged to participate.” Our participation is required now more than ever.

What it’s like in my head.

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:26:04 -0400

What it’s like in my head.

The Triumph of Destruction

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:04:30 -0400

The architect had won all kinds of awards for the house. The critic for the Times had called it “the most important architectural work to date.” In a masterpiece of fractal elegance, each feature related to a coherent whole. Every corner, every window, every door and every step was placed with careful consideration. It was a striking work of geometric beauty; not a single feature out of place. The architect’s reputation for obsessive-compulsive attention to detail had previously only exasperated even the most patient of his clients. Now, he had finally won the attention of the critical press. There was talk of a Pritzker.

Just after construction completed, the client suffered a boating accident. For an hour or so in the I.C.U. his survival was touch-and-go. He left the hospital in a wheelchair. For the client robbed of his ability to walk, the house became an obstacle. Suddenly each step was insurmountable. The carefully proportioned doors were too tall and narrow. The windows that perfectly framed the view of the ocean below were now far above eye level. The night the final photograph for the architecture journals was taken the bulldozers returned.

Customer Inconvenience

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:08:02 -0400

I purchase tickets on Amtrak’s web site about once a month, so they’ve got a bunch of my information on file. They gave me a Guest Rewards number and everything. Yet every single time I buy a ticket, I see this form¹—pre-populated with the phone number and email address they have on record for me—and for some reason I am required to confirm the email that they already know and have already sent numerous confirmations and ticket receipts to.

Identifying information has been changed for obvious reasons. ↩

How to Build Anything, or Three Simple Pieces That Form a Whole

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:15:00 -0400

Collect. Take notes. Search for patterns. Identify trends. Name things.

Find outliers. Analyze and refine your theories.

Experiment. Start building. Let mistakes happen. Keep going.

Working on something secret.

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:55:53 -0400

Working on something secret.

Spies

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:05:00 -0400

Secretly, secretly,
Microphotography
Carries a curious
Message for you.

Covert authority’s
Secret instructions are
Steganographically
Hiding from view.

Marginalia

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:05:00 -0400

I suppose it’s fitting that my thoughts on the subject of e-books—books, really, because what isn’t e- these days—right now aren’t much more than a few fleeting thoughts themselves.

James Gleick’s pragmatic take on electronic text is refreshing. There’s no good reason to sentimentalize the feeling of a manuscript in one’s hands, especially when the content is what we’re after. That is, with one caveat: we cannot ignore the connective tissue between texts. A single book—whether tablet, scroll, hardcover, or PDF—has no value without those that come before and after it. The writer’s cited works and readers’ wandering thoughts are the buttresses that support either side of a text. Why else would we care about preserving Donald Judd’s personal library (complete with the unexpected serendipities of his particular cataloging system) or documenting the marginalia scribbled in David Foster Wallace’s copy of Borges: A Life? Context is king.

All of this is what I love about used book stores. Each copy of a certain text is a specimen of a particular species, exhibiting minute variations in wear or the residual marks of a reader’s interest and attention. Even the provenance of a particular volume is a fascinating rabbit hole of exploration. No book on my Kindle includes an almost decade-old credit card impression from the previous owner. (At least, presumably, not available to anyone outside of Amazon.)

Evidence of a previous owner (and assigned location in a taxonomy).

A fascinating casualty of search, hypertext, and metadata may turn out to be the canonical indexing and cataloguing systems employed by libraries today. Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal are the dinosaurs of information organization methods. After all, is there any reason we place all of our botany books in one pile when a computer can search every pile in the world virtually instantaneously? (One could even question whether we should support an ethnocentric taxonomy that devotes two classes to “History of the Americas” but only one to “World History and History of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.” I’d hate to be lumped into that et cetera.) I predict that many, domain-specific catalogs and taxonomies will emerge, implemented as metadata over collections of texts. This is a fairly safe assumption given that private libraries (often with small collections) employ any number of organizational schemes, some more esoteric than others.

Chris Cobb. There is Nothing Wrong in This Whole Wide World. Installation view, Adobe Bookshop, San Francisco.

While exploring various private organization schemes is an intriguing diversion, physical proximity is no longer a meaningful organizational tool for text. Which brings me to Vannevar Bush’s original concept of the Memex. Arguably the first hypertext, the conceptual framework was far ahead of the technology available in 1945. Ultimately though, the Memex is a extraordinarily prescient description of an electronic library: one that allows authors and readers alike to organize, annotate, cite, discuss, and study books. I get the feeling that we’re on the cusp of a very big change.

Very important research.

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:39:00 -0400

Very important research.

Clockwork

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:04:00 -0400

It’s easy to be frustrated with the City. Sirens, jackhammers, bedbugs, garbage trucks, drunk financial analysts, stray cats, long hours, crowded sidewalks, and Donald Trump all work tirelessly for the title of Biggest Scourge of City Life. But every once in a while, everything just works. You wake up in time to cook breakfast, walk to the subway to find a train waiting on the platform, and stroll towards the office with the crosswalk signals timed perfectly to your gait. Little moments like that make everything else worth it.