Entries Tagged 'geek' ↓

Apparently Linden labs (makers of Second Life) and IBM are collaborating to let people take their online identity and avatar between virtual worlds. It’s about time, but I really hope they pay attention to things that already exist like OpenID.

Apparently Linden labs (makers of Second Life) and IBM are collaborating to let people take their online identity and avatar between virtual worlds. It's about time, but I really hope they pay attention to things that already exist like OpenID.

This is all I’m saying. I spent ages trying to work out how to change the default application a file is opened with (in Gnome, for nautilus, Ubuntu fiesty).

You’d think system->preference->”preferred applications” would be the place to go. Or failing that, you’d go “right-click on a file”->”open with…” and then when you select an application it’d have a check box saying “always use this application for this type of file”. Maybe something similar to what Windows has. But no… instead, it’s under “right click”->properties for a file. Which makes no sense because it’s a global settings, not a setting for JUST that file, which is the only kind of thing that should be in a file’s properties window. I thought that lately, Gnome was all about usability?

And after wasting time on that, it turns out selecting from the list of applications doesn’t work. Just marvelous.

I actually stuck with the default Gnome setup for Ubuntu because I thought it’d be less bug prone then if I started using obscure software like I usually do. Turns out it doesn’t make any difference. I think I’ll go back to screwing around with Enlightenment, at least then I’m wasting my time doing something interesting.

I used to be very patient with linux. But as I have much less time to waste getting things working, I’m about ready to just stick with windows.

(I also spent 2 hours trying to get audio multiplexing working through alsa with dmix. It works alright, but 1. Multimedia Systems Selector has somehow disappeared from my Preferences menu, and 2. if I run gstreamer-properties manually, it doesn’t actually save any of the changes I make, and I can’t find the config file to edit it manually. Frankly I don’t know why dmix isn’t the default alsa device in a fresh install unless you’re one of the rare people that have a hw pcm-mixing audio device.)

I think people are still doing great work with linux, but it doesn’t seem any more usable then when I started using it in 1996. However, at least then I had the time to waste days playing with it.

Debian seemed to work much better, but perhaps I just expected it to require some setup? Whereas Ubuntu is touted as being ready for desktop users…

This is all I'm saying. I spent ages trying to work out how to change the default application a file is opened with (in Gnome, for nautilus, Ubuntu fiesty). You'd think system->preference->"preferred applications" would be the place to go. Or failing that, you'd go "right-click on a file"->"open with..." and then when you select an application it'd have a check box saying "always use this application for this type of file". Maybe something similar to what Windows has. But no... instead, it's under "right click"->properties for a file. Which makes no sense because it's a global settings, not a setting for JUST that file, which is the only kind of thing that should be in a file's properties window. I thought that lately, Gnome was all about usability? And after wasting time on that, it turns out selecting from the list of applications doesn't work. Just marvelous. I actually stuck with the default Gnome setup for Ubuntu because I thought it'd be less bug prone then if I started using obscure software like I usually do. Turns out it doesn't make any difference. I think I'll go back to screwing around with Enlightenment, at least then I'm wasting my time doing something interesting. I used to be very patient with linux. But as I have much less time to waste getting things working, I'm about ready to just stick with windows. (I also spent 2 hours trying to get audio multiplexing working through alsa with dmix. It works alright, but 1. Multimedia Systems Selector has somehow disappeared from my Preferences menu, and 2. if I run gstreamer-properties manually, it doesn't actually save any of the changes I make, and I can't find the config file to edit it manually. Frankly I don't know why dmix isn't the default alsa device in a fresh install unless you're one of the rare people that have a hw pcm-mixing audio device.) I think people are still doing great work with linux, but it doesn't seem any more usable then when I started using it in 1996. However, at least then I had the time to waste days playing with it. Debian seemed to work much better, but perhaps I just expected it to require some setup? Whereas Ubuntu is touted as being ready for desktop users...

I finally got around to (mostly) finishing my portal page. I still have to write my bio, and add an up to date resume, but it’s some progress at least!

This also means I fixed the lifestream link on the menubar. For those who haven’t heard the term before, a lifestream conglomerates RSS feeds from various sources. So my flickr pictures, my blog posts, etc. are all listing chronologically.

I finally got around to (mostly) finishing my portal page. I still have to write my bio, and add an up to date resume, but it's some progress at least! This also means I fixed the lifestream link on the menubar. For those who haven't heard the term before, a lifestream conglomerates RSS feeds from various sources. So my flickr pictures, my blog posts, etc. are all listing chronologically.

I’d like to present a motivation behind why some people might take drugs. Often, when prompted for a reason why, people might say something like “To expand my consciousness” or “To discover something about myself”. Of course, this does somewhat depend on the drug and who you ask, a lot of people just like them for the thrill or the immediate sensations. I’d like to explore the former reasons however.

Optimisation techniques

Since I’m a programmer, and enthusiast about artificial intelligence, I’m going to approach it from this angle. Particularly genetic-algorithms, simulated-annealing, neural-networks, and other optimisation techniques that have a solution space that one can visualise as being a rugged fitness landscape of peaks and troughs.

The height of a point on this landscape indicates the fitness of being at that particular point. Imagine you are standing at said point. If you move slightly in one direction it may increase your fitness, decrease it, or it may stay the same. All the above machine learning methods, in some way, are moving along a multi-dimensional landscape of fitness, all are trying to reach the peak fitness value. The problem however, is that, generally these methods only move in the direction of increasing fitness (although the specifics may be different). If you find yourself at the top of a peak, you’ve reached the locally optimal solution, but you’ve no way of knowing if you’ve reached the globally optimal solution.

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I'd like to present a motivation behind why some people might take drugs. Often, when prompted for a reason why, people might say something like "To expand my consciousness" or "To discover something about myself". Of course, this does somewhat depend on the drug and who you ask, a lot of people just like them for the thrill or the immediate sensations. I'd like to explore the former reasons however. Optimisation techniques Since I'm a programmer, and enthusiast about artificial intelligence, I'm going to approach it from this angle. Particularly genetic-algorithms, simulated-annealing, neural-networks, and other optimisation techniques that have a solution space that one can visualise as being a rugged fitness landscape of peaks and troughs. The height of a point on this landscape indicates the fitness of being at that particular point. Imagine you are standing at said point. If you move slightly in one direction it may increase your fitness, decrease it, or it may stay the same. All the above machine learning methods, in some way, are moving along a multi-dimensional landscape of fitness, all are trying to reach the peak fitness value. The problem however, is that, generally these methods only move in the direction of increasing fitness (although the specifics may be different). If you find yourself at the top of a peak, you've reached the locally optimal solution, but you've no way of knowing if you've reached the globally optimal solution. The way these optimisation techniques get good results however, is by including an element of stochasticity or randomness. Either this randomness is added to the path that the solution point takes along the landscape, such that it will sometimes move down slopes, or suddenly jump onto another nearby hill. Or the optimisation is run many many times from different start points, and by chance, one of these start points is likely to be at the base of a peak that represents a pretty good solution, even if the solution isn't the best. Even including a small amount of this random behaviour can have a significant effect on the performance of these techniques. Obviously it depends on the problem you are trying to solve, and particularly how rugged it's fitness landscape is. If the landscape is just one huge peak, then it doesn't matter where you start, you'll get to the best solution eventually. Storing patterns in the mind This is where I start getting beyond my formal training, and I'm relying on various books I've read, but can't remember where or when, so this could be me just spouting mumbo jumbo. You've been warned. I read somewhere that one of the leading ideas about the purpose of dreams, and sleep in general, is to find a low energy state in which to store information. Thus, when you're asleep, your brain is trying to juggle all the data that is running around in your active, short term memory and meld it with the existing neural pathways. This is another optimisation problem, based on all your existing memories and knowledge, which are stored in intricate patterns and interleave one another, how do you include the new memories while using the least energy. Or put another way, what is the most efficient way to store the new experiences and information you've received since you last slept? This information is probably weighted by how important it is in your day and such importance may be described by either the emotional response it invokes or through sheer repetition (which is how neural pathways are strengthened). The latter explains why if you do something monotonous all day, even if it's of little consequence to your life, you'll often end up dreaming about it anyway. The long term result Since memories are being layered over our existing neural pathways, it isn't causing significant change. Unless of course something major happens in life which requires adaptation. We can easily get stuck in our ways, or in our thought routines, since the patterns that build up while storing memories are the same patterns that result in our intelligence, behaviour, and conscious existence. Often people think about intelligence and memory as separate entities, and I very much doubt they are. Memory are patterns in your mind, just like your intelligent thought. I admit however that certain areas of the brain are dedicated to the storage of particular types of knowledge, but the use of this knowledge is thought, and without the thoughts activating the knowledge it may as well not exist. Anyhow, basically what I'm trying to say is that our mind, as it consolidates knowledge, memories, and our experience, can get stuck on a hill on the fitness landscape... not only for the lowest energy state, but also for the best interpretation on the knowledge that has been integrated into our minds, and the most satisfying direction in life. It's easy to get stuck in a rut. Drugs shake it up Why I think people take certain drugs, is that it distorts the fitness landscape for whatever optimisation problem is being run by the human mind (I don't really think intelligence is as simple as an optimisation process, it's just for the purposes of this argument). It's like the stochasticity that machine learning methods use to explore hills in the fitness landscape that are nearby and possibly have better overall fitness. Many recreational drugs have had a past as an aid in psychotherapy. I think this might be why. But then again, a drug's effects could lead to a less fit peak for the brain to climb, thus for some people drugs have a negative impact. How do you know what result to expect? I guess you don't, but it's probably safe to say that some drugs are more likely to result in the net benefit to you, while others are not. I recommend Erowid if you want information about a recreational/nootropic drug. Disclaimer: I am not condoning drug use, or otherwise. These are just my musings.

So BarCampChristchurch went pretty well. Quite a few interesting talks/discussions and I think my talk on the Singularity held some interest for people:

It’s also fortuitous that the BarCamp was on the Friday before the Singularity Summit 2007 because it meant I could at least pretend I was attending! On a side note, the Summit got on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ben Kepes and Marek Kuziel live-blogged the event. There were even some rumours of video being recorded. I’ll make an update if that eventuates (and I don’t look like a daft fool).

I enjoyed going out for beer and Indian dinner afterwards. Met a bunch of interesting web types, which was cool because I’ve been somewhat isolated from the web-tech world while doing my PhD in an Ecology department. I also heard some more about The Valley In Christchurch meals, which I’d like to attend… once I’ve exumed myself from the monetary grave I am in right now!

So BarCampChristchurch went pretty well. Quite a few interesting talks/discussions and I think my talk on the Singularity held some interest for people: It's also fortuitous that the BarCamp was on the Friday before the Singularity Summit 2007 because it meant I could at least pretend I was attending! On a side note, the Summit got on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. Ben Kepes and Marek Kuziel live-blogged the event. There were even some rumours of video being recorded. I'll make an update if that eventuates (and I don't look like a daft fool). I enjoyed going out for beer and Indian dinner afterwards. Met a bunch of interesting web types, which was cool because I've been somewhat isolated from the web-tech world while doing my PhD in an Ecology department. I also heard some more about The Valley In Christchurch meals, which I'd like to attend... once I've exumed myself from the monetary grave I am in right now!

Just came across this neat video of Novamente playing fetch in AGISIM.

A few years back I started the AGISIM project (the environment in which the Novamente AI is learning) under guidance from Ben Goertzel, but my PhD quickly took over most of my time, so it’s since passed on to Ari Heljakka and others. I’m really impressed to see what they’ve done with it.

Also, the video has excellent choice of music

Just came across this neat video of Novamente playing fetch in AGISIM. A few years back I started the AGISIM project (the environment in which the Novamente AI is learning) under guidance from Ben Goertzel, but my PhD quickly took over most of my time, so it's since passed on to Ari Heljakka and others. I'm really impressed to see what they've done with it. Also, the video has excellent choice of music :)

Next week I’ll be speaking at the unconference Bar Camp Christchurch, on not one, but two things. First my PhD work and second about the Singularity. Seth, the founder of Interclue, invited me along, since he’s interested in tech/singularity stuff and thought it’d be a nice opportunity to spread the idea to those that hadn’t heard it.

Of course these’ll be smart geeks I’m talking to, so I’ll have to do my best to convey the ideas well because the singularity is often just relegated to crack pottery.

Think I’ll watch some TED talks of other presenters explaining similar concepts and peruse the SIAI website for useful info.

Next week I'll be speaking at the unconference Bar Camp Christchurch, on not one, but two things. First my PhD work and second about the Singularity. Seth, the founder of Interclue, invited me along, since he's interested in tech/singularity stuff and thought it'd be a nice opportunity to spread the idea to those that hadn't heard it. Of course these'll be smart geeks I'm talking to, so I'll have to do my best to convey the ideas well because the singularity is often just relegated to crack pottery. Think I'll watch some TED talks of other presenters explaining similar concepts and peruse the SIAI website for useful info.

This made me laugh like hell.

This made me laugh like hell.

You can ask Panda_pitt or Mundens, I had an idea about making a meme where people video themselves catching and then throwing a ball (or something) in a youtube video. It has no purpose, but it’d be fun to watch. And you could make a web-app mashup with google maps to show where the ball was travelling.

Google has decided to make one for GMail, showing a GMail envelope going around the world. Of course my idea was to automate the whole thing, and Google is going to just select the best ones and put them together manually, probably for an ad or something.

You can ask Panda_pitt or Mundens, I had an idea about making a meme where people video themselves catching and then throwing a ball (or something) in a youtube video. It has no purpose, but it'd be fun to watch. And you could make a web-app mashup with google maps to show where the ball was travelling. Google has decided to make one for GMail, showing a GMail envelope going around the world. Of course my idea was to automate the whole thing, and Google is going to just select the best ones and put them together manually, probably for an ad or something.

Fallout 3. Screenshots.

I think that’s all I need to say.

There IS location based attacks, and combat uses Action Points, but is a mixture between turn-based an real-time. Still haven’t heard anything about groin shots though, and the one targeting screenshot is only for the upper torso.

I’m excited, but I have to say that the graphics look a little, umm, how shall we say, dated? That might just be a lack of polish though, and they do have over a year to go developing it.

Fallout 3. Screenshots. I think that's all I need to say. There IS location based attacks, and combat uses Action Points, but is a mixture between turn-based an real-time. Still haven't heard anything about groin shots though, and the one targeting screenshot is only for the upper torso. I'm excited, but I have to say that the graphics look a little, umm, how shall we say, dated? That might just be a lack of polish though, and they do have over a year to go developing it.