The court is in my home county and the credit-taking attorney general is running for governor (R).
Hence the guy is trying to take credit for everything from stopping the sale of Hershey (a sale that his office was reportedly pushing for until public uproar came) to the telemarketer Do Not Call list (wow, implementing a law passed by the legislature. impressive.) and now apparently stopping child porn (and beating on Worldcom! Two for one!).
Whether this will be anything more than a footnote in election politics, I don't know, but you can be sure that if it does then the problems of precedent and putting the burden on the wrong party, not to mention the whole flawed Whack-a-Mole approach, will get lost in the noise.
I guess what I'm looking for is 'visual excitement'. Or rather, output that enables a lay user to pick out patterns and clusters on his/her own, using the brain's built in visual processing mechanisms. I've seen some work on this, but nothing quite mature, and much of it not released even in binary form (one thing I took particular interest in, for example, is in academic copyright limbo).
However, there were quite a few things at that link I hadn't found before, and one or two seem somewhat useful to my purposes, though the visual design and interface are somewhat lacking. Those were probably judged as not ever relevant by those writing the programs, but I find it hard to understate the importance of those aspects for something as explicitly visual as information visualization.
What this article points to most of all, at least for me, is the need for better tools to map abitrary dynamic non-hierarchical networks. Social networks, interlinked buearocracies, realms of knowledge (that whole noosphere thing), the internet itself, the list goes on. There are specific projects about looking into one or another of these, but few share the tools they develop to do the analysis, and those that do tend to release things very specialized to whatever they're studying.
I know I for one am interested in collecting and mapping several datasets, for intellectual and practical gain, but lack the time, resources, knowledge and skill to develop full dynamic network visualization software (preferably in web-friendly form) all by my lonesome.
So, uh... Hey! You! Open source developers! Get to work, chop chop!
(to pre-emptively answer the 'why don't you start a project then?' question, I'm just an artist with geek tendencies who can write a little code, and I do mean a little)
Re:Some uninformed comments
on
Project Eden
·
· Score: 1
$150 million? Really? Knowing a thing or two about the benfits of geodesic domes (for example, the low surface area to volume ratio makes them ideal for climate control), I figured this thing would come out cheap on the construction costs, but $150 mil? Compare that to what it takes to build a major sports staduim these days, or how much it would cost to buld an enclosure of that size by traditional methods.
I'm hoping this will make people begin to realize the real benefits of computer aided design, both in practical aspects and aesthetics (well, I like the aesthetics, and they certainly work for the purpose of the site). Boxes are easy, but does that mean every single building has to be a box?
The AP story mentions it somewhere, but the/. story neglects the new transformers comic book line, which is quite literally bringing all those original favorites back to life. The artwork on it is friggin' incredible (i am an artist, i know! er, yeah.)-- the series running right now is sort of the original cartoon crossed with anime in style, while the artist on the upcoming Armada series draws incredibly detailed robotic forms (he's a technical illustrator by training, and damn does it show!)
Perhaps most importantly, the comics are what's showing in hard terms that this 'revival' isn't all hype. Their first issue topped the sales figures in April, and their second issue looks to be doing a repeat performance- mind you, it's rare for anyone besides Marvel, DC and Image to even get in the top ten.
Collaborative fiction has been going on for years on the web, in various forms. For example, this
Transformers based RPG I write on. From what I can tell (couldn't get very far into all the self-indulgent writing on The Therapist) the site Katz mentions mainly succeeds because it has a more accessable topic to the casual random websurfer than, say, a Transformers rpg. However, it seems to me very light on the "collaborative" aspect. The patients only talk directly to the therapist, which might be less confusing for the reader than having them talk to each other, but I find a lot more dull from a writer's standpoint.
As something that wakes people up to the possibilities of collaborative fiction and art, good site. As actual collaborative fiction, not as good. Perhaps, though, that people are noticing is a good sign for this kind of work in general.
Oh, and a few good points about collaborative fiction that I'm almost surprised Katz missed-
1. Breaks down the barrier between artist and audience (a key feature of "New Media", and one of those things the MPAA/RIAA are deathly afraid of)
2. A great way to improve your writing skills- you'd be surprised how much more actually writing with other writers (many who are better than you) helps than the traditional proofreading/critique/editing process.
(rantness>thought out argument, proceed with caution)
I think this discussion has been somewhat flawed, in that it has been considering the internet and its human operators as separate entities. However, the Internet is so driven by human action nd interaction that it is impossible to view it as the technology alone. Yes, it is just a communications network, but with humans at its nodes, the internet may be able to act as a brain, albeit a primitive one for the moment. Ideas of group conciousness are not new, they can be traced back through Freud and Roussaeu in the Western tradition, possibly just as far or further in the East. That humans organize their social groupings the same way as biology organizes their brains would seem to lend a bit more credence to this idea. Of course, one could argue that a group conciousness is not as intellegent, self aware or responsive as individual conciousness, but in the past, group conciousness has been limited in scope to towns, villages, and tribal groups. Cities and nations push the slowness and dumbness of group conciousness to the point that it is probably meaningless (i doubt that they are nonscaling systems). The Internet, however, allows us to form a non-scaled social network of unprecedented speed and size.
What does this mean? The possibility for conciousness is there, and perhaps the reality is, as well. But a concious Internet will not go running amok, create a body for itself, or any of that other sci-fi stuff, because it is us. Unless, of course, the whole net condenses on aol or.net.
Oh, and btw, Lain was an ai created on the net, not out of the net, at least as far as I understand Lain, which isn't very.
Heck, do a few layers of these, and couldn't you build a whole PC (minus the hard drive, power supply, and ports) into a sheet of clear plexiglass? Add some touch sensors, some photoreceptors.. and you've got the holy grail of the computer artist.
Slashdot Mirror
The court is in my home county and the credit-taking attorney general is running for governor (R).
Hence the guy is trying to take credit for everything from stopping the sale of Hershey (a sale that his office was reportedly pushing for until public uproar came) to the telemarketer Do Not Call list (wow, implementing a law passed by the legislature. impressive.) and now apparently stopping child porn (and beating on Worldcom! Two for one!).
Whether this will be anything more than a footnote in election politics, I don't know, but you can be sure that if it does then the problems of precedent and putting the burden on the wrong party, not to mention the whole flawed Whack-a-Mole approach, will get lost in the noise.
I guess what I'm looking for is 'visual excitement'. Or rather, output that enables a lay user to pick out patterns and clusters on his/her own, using the brain's built in visual processing mechanisms. I've seen some work on this, but nothing quite mature, and much of it not released even in binary form (one thing I took particular interest in, for example, is in academic copyright limbo).
However, there were quite a few things at that link I hadn't found before, and one or two seem somewhat useful to my purposes, though the visual design and interface are somewhat lacking. Those were probably judged as not ever relevant by those writing the programs, but I find it hard to understate the importance of those aspects for something as explicitly visual as information visualization.
Thanks.
What this article points to most of all, at least for me, is the need for better tools to map abitrary dynamic non-hierarchical networks. Social networks, interlinked buearocracies, realms of knowledge (that whole noosphere thing), the internet itself, the list goes on. There are specific projects about looking into one or another of these, but few share the tools they develop to do the analysis, and those that do tend to release things very specialized to whatever they're studying.
I know I for one am interested in collecting and mapping several datasets, for intellectual and practical gain, but lack the time, resources, knowledge and skill to develop full dynamic network visualization software (preferably in web-friendly form) all by my lonesome.
So, uh... Hey! You! Open source developers! Get to work, chop chop!
(to pre-emptively answer the 'why don't you start a project then?' question, I'm just an artist with geek tendencies who can write a little code, and I do mean a little)
$150 million? Really? Knowing a thing or two about the benfits of geodesic domes (for example, the low surface area to volume ratio makes them ideal for climate control), I figured this thing would come out cheap on the construction costs, but $150 mil? Compare that to what it takes to build a major sports staduim these days, or how much it would cost to buld an enclosure of that size by traditional methods.
I'm hoping this will make people begin to realize the real benefits of computer aided design, both in practical aspects and aesthetics (well, I like the aesthetics, and they certainly work for the purpose of the site). Boxes are easy, but does that mean every single building has to be a box?
The AP story mentions it somewhere, but the /. story neglects the new transformers comic book line, which is quite literally bringing all those original favorites back to life. The artwork on it is friggin' incredible (i am an artist, i know! er, yeah.)-- the series running right now is sort of the original cartoon crossed with anime in style, while the artist on the upcoming Armada series draws incredibly detailed robotic forms (he's a technical illustrator by training, and damn does it show!)
Perhaps most importantly, the comics are what's showing in hard terms that this 'revival' isn't all hype. Their first issue topped the sales figures in April, and their second issue looks to be doing a repeat performance- mind you, it's rare for anyone besides Marvel, DC and Image to even get in the top ten.
Collaborative fiction has been going on for years on the web, in various forms. For example, this
Transformers based RPG I write on. From what I can tell (couldn't get very far into all the self-indulgent writing on The Therapist) the site Katz mentions mainly succeeds because it has a more accessable topic to the casual random websurfer than, say, a Transformers rpg. However, it seems to me very light on the "collaborative" aspect. The patients only talk directly to the therapist, which might be less confusing for the reader than having them talk to each other, but I find a lot more dull from a writer's standpoint.
As something that wakes people up to the possibilities of collaborative fiction and art, good site. As actual collaborative fiction, not as good. Perhaps, though, that people are noticing is a good sign for this kind of work in general.
Oh, and a few good points about collaborative fiction that I'm almost surprised Katz missed-
1. Breaks down the barrier between artist and audience (a key feature of "New Media", and one of those things the MPAA/RIAA are deathly afraid of)
2. A great way to improve your writing skills- you'd be surprised how much more actually writing with other writers (many who are better than you) helps than the traditional proofreading/critique/editing process.
(rantness>thought out argument, proceed with caution)
.net.
I think this discussion has been somewhat flawed, in that it has been considering the internet and its human operators as separate entities. However, the Internet is so driven by human action nd interaction that it is impossible to view it as the technology alone. Yes, it is just a communications network, but with humans at its nodes, the internet may be able to act as a brain, albeit a primitive one for the moment. Ideas of group conciousness are not new, they can be traced back through Freud and Roussaeu in the Western tradition, possibly just as far or further in the East. That humans organize their social groupings the same way as biology organizes their brains would seem to lend a bit more credence to this idea. Of course, one could argue that a group conciousness is not as intellegent, self aware or responsive as individual conciousness, but in the past, group conciousness has been limited in scope to towns, villages, and tribal groups. Cities and nations push the slowness and dumbness of group conciousness to the point that it is probably meaningless (i doubt that they are nonscaling systems). The Internet, however, allows us to form a non-scaled social network of unprecedented speed and size.
What does this mean? The possibility for conciousness is there, and perhaps the reality is, as well. But a concious Internet will not go running amok, create a body for itself, or any of that other sci-fi stuff, because it is us. Unless, of course, the whole net condenses on aol or
Oh, and btw, Lain was an ai created on the net, not out of the net, at least as far as I understand Lain, which isn't very.
Heck, do a few layers of these, and couldn't you build a whole PC (minus the hard drive, power supply, and ports) into a sheet of clear plexiglass? Add some touch sensors, some photoreceptors.. and you've got the holy grail of the computer artist.
Steve Jobs must be wetting his pants.