I have to admit to being a bit pissed at Michael Jackson. His death is certainly a tragedy, as is any death. Death is not to be admired. However, there is something distinctly perverse in the cult of celebrity death, a phenomenon I trace at least as far back as Lady Di, in '97. A more recent example of what I consider the near-fetishistic response to death would be the two weeks of solid coverage of the passing of one Anna Nicole Smith. Again, I am not disparaging that woman, or her family, or the sadness of her life, nor am I making fun of her in death. I just think the outpouring of interest was strangely disproportionate to her accomplishments, and to the degree that she should be considered someone whose passing is somehow supposed to touch every man, woman, and child in a deep, profound way.
There is also the issue of 'fairness' when it comes to death. Death is never fair, but it is true that some of us take risks that others would not. It's probably deeply unfair to compare how lives end, and yet I can't shake the feeling that Anna Nicole was not the most responsible person in the world when it came to her own health. Likewise (good thing this blog is never read by anyone or I'd be in for a veritable s**tstorm), Diana was letting herself be driven around by a drunk wanna-be racecar driver, parapazzi in hot pursuit. Lennon, on the other hand, was gunned down by a crazy fan for the audacity to say that the world might be better off without religion. Sorry, but I have to admit that I see one case as having more moral gravitas than the other.
Which brings me to Michael Jackson. What he did, by dying today, is step on the news of the death of Farrah Fawcett, another (albeit apparently much lesser) pop icon of my and many other's youth. We don't know exactly how or why a relatively young 50 year old would die of cardiac arrest, but even his family has hinted that prescription medications may be involved. Certainly his hypochondria and other idiosyncrasies are well-known, and it's hard to imagine that there won't be some more information coming soon, and the 4th estate is guaranteed to be right on top of that story.
In contrast, Farrah Fawcett died after a long, grueling bout with cancer. In what can only be described as a pretty amazing act of selfless, almost artistic bravery, she decided to document her fight with the disease in video. I haven't seen the resulting work, but I am awed by the willpower and gumption it would take for someone who to a large degree made her public mark as a beauty icon, to choose to chronicle something so private, so full of fear and dread, so -- ugly -- for the world to see. That had to take some courage.
And yet, as luck would have it, she had the terrible market timing to meet her end on the same day as that of a lonely, dissipated, mentally ill, probable pederast -- who nonetheless did bring quite a bit of joy to people in his prime. And the press decided which event really mattered.
Sad, all around.
~~~Artiphys~~~
Friday, June 26, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
VHF, we hardly knew ye
I was surfing TV today and I accidentally hit the "Channel Up" button, which normally goes to analog TV (you know, channels 2, 4, 5 etc). Instead of a fuzzy, snowy image with no sound, which I usually get, there was just -- blackness.
Strange, to think that for the first time in my life, waves of frequency-modulated analog NTSC are not coursing through my veins at frequencies of 50 to 150 megaherz, filled to the brim with the one-way media firehose we used to call the 'boob tube'.
At least I still have youtube.
Strange, to think that for the first time in my life, waves of frequency-modulated analog NTSC are not coursing through my veins at frequencies of 50 to 150 megaherz, filled to the brim with the one-way media firehose we used to call the 'boob tube'.
At least I still have youtube.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Beyond Prayer
Lately, things haven't been going so well.
So I was biking down North California, and I passed the big Methodist church on the corner. There was a sign, something to the effect of "come on in, it's nice in here". For just a moment, a fleeting one, I thought how easy it would be to go in, sit down, and ask for my sins to be forgiven, and my problems fixed. If it happens, wow! If not, I am absolved -- it must be God's will. But there is no God, so there is no one to ask. Sad but true.
It might still feel nice to take my place and sit quietly, in a solemn pew, in a big room, with a bit of gravitas, and a feeling of community.
So I was biking down North California, and I passed the big Methodist church on the corner. There was a sign, something to the effect of "come on in, it's nice in here". For just a moment, a fleeting one, I thought how easy it would be to go in, sit down, and ask for my sins to be forgiven, and my problems fixed. If it happens, wow! If not, I am absolved -- it must be God's will. But there is no God, so there is no one to ask. Sad but true.
It might still feel nice to take my place and sit quietly, in a solemn pew, in a big room, with a bit of gravitas, and a feeling of community.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
It Doesn't Take A Rocket Scientist
To know when you're being screwed:
"When it comes to your money, nothing about the future is certain. But for over 85 years, people have secured their financial futures with the AIG companies. Whether planning for college, protecting your family or saving for retirement, our strength and experience mean we'll be there for you, for generations to come."
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Atheists need to lighten up
this is a great post from Mormon author Orson Scott Card:
link
He hits the nail on the head wrt this new brand of atheistic Jihadism. Here's a choice quote:
"Let zealous atheists behave as we do. Send out your missionaries to teach any who are willing to listen. But don't deliberately seek occasions to offend others when nothing is at stake; and willingly admit whatever good things others believe in and do."
Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris would be wise to heed this motto. They come off as unbearably strident, intolerant, and arrogant in their beliefs and attitudes. 'Smarter-than-thou' is no better than Holier-than-thou. As Card says, it's faith (in Science) without charity.
What atheists need to do is understand that while they may have a good grasp of modern science, they have no particular advantage when it comes to answering the need people have for meaning, and they offer excruciatingly cold comfort for those in need of solace in the face of suffering.
We (atheists and agnostics) will not convince the rest of the world that they no longer need the crutch of blind faith unless we address these deep issues somehow. I've argued before that the main reason some intellectual types who one might expect to "know better" than to believe patently mythical tracts, often have an unacknowledged agenda. Orson Scott Card alludes to it in this passage:
"Even if every word they said happened to be true, why do they assume that society or individuals would somehow be better, or better off, if their favorite doctrines were universally held? Why shouldn't atheists assume that people ignorant enough to believe in gods, devils, angels, heaven and hell are actually happier and should be left alone?"
Think about what he's saying here. The fundamental argument is that the truth of the matter is not what is most important. He's explicitly acknowledging that even if there was incontrovertible evidence that religion was wrong, we might still be better off believing it. That's a pretty interesting comment from someone who professes to believe in a religion that many people find quite incredible. I don't mean to question Card's faith: I'm simply pointing out that by his own admission, objective truth is not as important as the overall impact on society that religion brings.
If you dig deeper into the writings of religious intellectuals, you see many comments of this nature. Their main thrust usually comes down to this: lack of religion leads to moral degeneration. They point to the eugenic practices of the Nazis (Card erroneously calls them atheist; they were nominally Christian, though it's pretty clear that was a cynical sop to the populace. Their driving ideology was of course Nietzschian, "God is Dead", we are our own gods, etc)
The real fear I think these people have about atheism is a legitimate one. If we throw off the shackles of religion and tradition, where will we find our 'moral compass'? What will keep us from 'playing God', in the worst way -- ala Nazi racism and eugenics, or the indiscriminate disregard of life shown by non-religious leaders such as Stalin or Pol Pot?
I've written before about how I think these issues need to be addressed. Despite claims to the contrary, science *does*, I believe, have something to say about these issues. It's a complex argument, and not nearly as satisfying as simply saying "it has been written". Maybe it could be reduced to a 10-commandments-style set of soundbytes. Or, more likely, Youtube clips.
Merry, merry, quite contrary!
link
He hits the nail on the head wrt this new brand of atheistic Jihadism. Here's a choice quote:
"Let zealous atheists behave as we do. Send out your missionaries to teach any who are willing to listen. But don't deliberately seek occasions to offend others when nothing is at stake; and willingly admit whatever good things others believe in and do."
Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris would be wise to heed this motto. They come off as unbearably strident, intolerant, and arrogant in their beliefs and attitudes. 'Smarter-than-thou' is no better than Holier-than-thou. As Card says, it's faith (in Science) without charity.
What atheists need to do is understand that while they may have a good grasp of modern science, they have no particular advantage when it comes to answering the need people have for meaning, and they offer excruciatingly cold comfort for those in need of solace in the face of suffering.
We (atheists and agnostics) will not convince the rest of the world that they no longer need the crutch of blind faith unless we address these deep issues somehow. I've argued before that the main reason some intellectual types who one might expect to "know better" than to believe patently mythical tracts, often have an unacknowledged agenda. Orson Scott Card alludes to it in this passage:
"Even if every word they said happened to be true, why do they assume that society or individuals would somehow be better, or better off, if their favorite doctrines were universally held? Why shouldn't atheists assume that people ignorant enough to believe in gods, devils, angels, heaven and hell are actually happier and should be left alone?"
Think about what he's saying here. The fundamental argument is that the truth of the matter is not what is most important. He's explicitly acknowledging that even if there was incontrovertible evidence that religion was wrong, we might still be better off believing it. That's a pretty interesting comment from someone who professes to believe in a religion that many people find quite incredible. I don't mean to question Card's faith: I'm simply pointing out that by his own admission, objective truth is not as important as the overall impact on society that religion brings.
If you dig deeper into the writings of religious intellectuals, you see many comments of this nature. Their main thrust usually comes down to this: lack of religion leads to moral degeneration. They point to the eugenic practices of the Nazis (Card erroneously calls them atheist; they were nominally Christian, though it's pretty clear that was a cynical sop to the populace. Their driving ideology was of course Nietzschian, "God is Dead", we are our own gods, etc)
The real fear I think these people have about atheism is a legitimate one. If we throw off the shackles of religion and tradition, where will we find our 'moral compass'? What will keep us from 'playing God', in the worst way -- ala Nazi racism and eugenics, or the indiscriminate disregard of life shown by non-religious leaders such as Stalin or Pol Pot?
I've written before about how I think these issues need to be addressed. Despite claims to the contrary, science *does*, I believe, have something to say about these issues. It's a complex argument, and not nearly as satisfying as simply saying "it has been written". Maybe it could be reduced to a 10-commandments-style set of soundbytes. Or, more likely, Youtube clips.
Merry, merry, quite contrary!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
virtual world rant# 29
Some thoughts about virtual worlds, avatars, prims, mesh, and maybe a little politics.
Lately I've been spending some time working on openviewer (www.openviewer.org), a project underway to build a BSD licensed virtual world client. Initially, the target server platform is SL/opensim. My goal for the project was just to have a sandbox to learn about the client side of things, without 'tainting' myself with the GPL code from Linden (their viewer is licensed under GPL, which is incompatible with opensim's less restrictive BSD license).
Anyway, what this has allowed me to do is get deeper into the technical underpinnings of physics, animation, and client/server relationship in this architecture. That in turn has led me to refine and focus my ideas about 'existents' and such, and the general issue of making virtual worlds safe for AI-controlled v-bots.
The upshot is that modern game engine front-ends (the graphics library part; we're using Ogre, but I suspect this applies generally) -- have a set of features that has evolved over the last 20+ years to include all the tools necessary to visually represent a world that looks something like the 'real' world, or at least looks pretty damn cool, and appeals to human perceptual sensibilities. Starting with the basic atomic 3D building block, the triangle, these engines have built up a vast set of capabilities, such as texture mapping, shading, deformable meshes, 'skeleton' animation, and other gizmos, which collectively form the palette that designers can access.
The kinds of things you can simulate with this bunch of tools runs the gamut of things we experience in real life. Assuming we're outdoors, we start with terrain, sky, and sea. Then we add fixed forms, both natural (plants, vegetation), and artificial (buildings, roads, etc). On top of that, we have inanimate objects that move about -- vehicles mostly, but they could be anything, like a ball, a door, or a (mechanical-looking) robot.
Finally, we move on to living things -- animals and humans (not to quibble; obviously humans are animals, but they get pretty special treatment because of their status within most applications). Humans (and human-like creatures, ie trolls, monsters, aliens etc) have been the recepients of a massive amount of design and implementation refinement. 'Skin' (deformable mesh) is stretched over 'bones' (linked sets of rigid sticks), with complex mathematical relationships so that animation (generally derived from motion capture) will look natural. Then you have clothes (algorithmic mesh), hair (various approaches), and finally additional inanimate accessories (attachments, in SL parlance) such as jetpacks, earpieces, glasses, etc and so on.
The point of going over all this is to focus on the fact that these graphics engines are not really general-purpose reality simulators. They have some pretty specific features that are for the most part tweaked to perform functions that relate to specific elements that we might want to visualize in the context of virtual reality. Actually, the game engines themselves are usually quite flexible; you don't have to have a humanoid skeleton -- you can put the bones together in any strange way you choose. You can utilize the various tools in ways not envisioned by the designers of the engine, as long as you have the resources to code and test it.
On top of these grahics engines, we have (in the case I'm analyzing) one more layer -- the client/server foundational architecture, starting with Linden's Second Life protocol, and presently being extended by folks like RealXtend. Obviously there are other platforms (multiverse, wonderland, Qwaq...) but this is the one I'm familiar with, and frankly it looks like the one free and open source platform that is getting enough traction to have a good shot at becoming some sort of defacto standard. Anyway that's a different discussion; for now, it's the case I'm familiar with, and I'm willing to bet the others have a similar set of features and limitations.
What Linden did with Second Life is to make some pretty deep assumptions about what kinds of entities can exist in their virtual worldscape. At the top of the heirarchy is the 'avatar' -- a nominally human form, customized to varying degrees by users. These entities have a special status, and (shades of the old nobility) sometimes their status includes restrictions on what they can do (kind of a karmic quid-pro-quo maybe).
On the other side of the tracks, we have what Second Life calls 'prims' -- primitive shapes with varying adornments; potentially linked together in complex ways, and possibly scripted with computer code.
It might be helpful to spell out in list form what the various capabilities and limitations of these two entity types are:
Avatars:
controlled by: human users or 'bots' (pseudo-users running a program that acts like a client)
Motion and behavior: animations (.bvh), simple physics (capsule-based)
basic form: skeleton + deformable mesh, human-based
visual enhancements: clothes, hair,
special status: name, groups, friends, ownership (inventory)
Prims:
controlled by: server-side scripting (could be plug-in for opensim)
motion and behavior: scripting and more realistic physics (all parts can be physical)
basic form: sets of geometric shapes with algorithmic modifiers (cuts, shear, rotation, taper etc)
visual enhancements: custom textures, particle systems, special lighting (?)
special status: owned by regions &/or avatars
In general terms, when you see something that looks vaguely human, and it talks to you, and buys stuff, it's almost definitely an avatar. If it looks like a vehicle, or a machine, it's almost definitely prim-based.
The problem I have with this state of affairs is this. My interest in virtual worlds revolves around the idea that, eventually, we might be able to make major advances in AI, by leveraging the co-existence of human and computer-controlled entities in the same world. However, platforms like Second Life have been developed with the animate/artificial distinction so deeply baked in, that this goal becomes somewhat difficult, if not impossible.
Getting concrete, what I want in a virtual world system is as follows:
* Whether you are controlled by a human or a computer should not have a major impact on your capabilities (modulo issues of privacy and transparency -- social issues are real, but the technology should not dictate them).
* Computer-controlled entities should be able to look like humans, animals, aliens, robots, or anything else the graphic engine could conceivably generate
* Human-controlled entities should be able to look non-human, be fully physical, and use low-level control within the parameters of a realistic simulation (as opposed to relying solely on pre-cooked animation sequences)
* There shouldn't be a-priori distinctions between clients and servers. Issues of trust and access should be generalized, and dealt with in a rigorous and flexible manner. Any process that can possibly be distributed should be able to be distributed among an arbitrary number of machines with arbitrary network topologies
* Animation and physical simulation need to be seamlessly integrated. There are techniques for doing this at the bleeding edge of game design and movie-making. The hooks for these capabilities need to be in the protocol.
* All of this has to be done in such a way that today's model of entertainment-based games and worlds is not negatively impacted (otherwise no one will care, and my ideas will go nowhere)
Sometimes I feel as if I'm pissing into the wind here. Who really cares about this stuff? Very few people, from what I can tell. There are a few more who vaguely understand what I'm getting at, but have their own work and agenda, so can't really be bothered to help beyond just saying "yeah, that sounds nice". I have so far failed to really make the case that this stuff matters, and so it's falling on deaf ears. Perhaps a tree needs to fall down and get itself back up multiple times, before anyone in the forest happens to notice.
-dan
Lately I've been spending some time working on openviewer (www.openviewer.org), a project underway to build a BSD licensed virtual world client. Initially, the target server platform is SL/opensim. My goal for the project was just to have a sandbox to learn about the client side of things, without 'tainting' myself with the GPL code from Linden (their viewer is licensed under GPL, which is incompatible with opensim's less restrictive BSD license).
Anyway, what this has allowed me to do is get deeper into the technical underpinnings of physics, animation, and client/server relationship in this architecture. That in turn has led me to refine and focus my ideas about 'existents' and such, and the general issue of making virtual worlds safe for AI-controlled v-bots.
The upshot is that modern game engine front-ends (the graphics library part; we're using Ogre, but I suspect this applies generally) -- have a set of features that has evolved over the last 20+ years to include all the tools necessary to visually represent a world that looks something like the 'real' world, or at least looks pretty damn cool, and appeals to human perceptual sensibilities. Starting with the basic atomic 3D building block, the triangle, these engines have built up a vast set of capabilities, such as texture mapping, shading, deformable meshes, 'skeleton' animation, and other gizmos, which collectively form the palette that designers can access.
The kinds of things you can simulate with this bunch of tools runs the gamut of things we experience in real life. Assuming we're outdoors, we start with terrain, sky, and sea. Then we add fixed forms, both natural (plants, vegetation), and artificial (buildings, roads, etc). On top of that, we have inanimate objects that move about -- vehicles mostly, but they could be anything, like a ball, a door, or a (mechanical-looking) robot.
Finally, we move on to living things -- animals and humans (not to quibble; obviously humans are animals, but they get pretty special treatment because of their status within most applications). Humans (and human-like creatures, ie trolls, monsters, aliens etc) have been the recepients of a massive amount of design and implementation refinement. 'Skin' (deformable mesh) is stretched over 'bones' (linked sets of rigid sticks), with complex mathematical relationships so that animation (generally derived from motion capture) will look natural. Then you have clothes (algorithmic mesh), hair (various approaches), and finally additional inanimate accessories (attachments, in SL parlance) such as jetpacks, earpieces, glasses, etc and so on.
The point of going over all this is to focus on the fact that these graphics engines are not really general-purpose reality simulators. They have some pretty specific features that are for the most part tweaked to perform functions that relate to specific elements that we might want to visualize in the context of virtual reality. Actually, the game engines themselves are usually quite flexible; you don't have to have a humanoid skeleton -- you can put the bones together in any strange way you choose. You can utilize the various tools in ways not envisioned by the designers of the engine, as long as you have the resources to code and test it.
On top of these grahics engines, we have (in the case I'm analyzing) one more layer -- the client/server foundational architecture, starting with Linden's Second Life protocol, and presently being extended by folks like RealXtend. Obviously there are other platforms (multiverse, wonderland, Qwaq...) but this is the one I'm familiar with, and frankly it looks like the one free and open source platform that is getting enough traction to have a good shot at becoming some sort of defacto standard. Anyway that's a different discussion; for now, it's the case I'm familiar with, and I'm willing to bet the others have a similar set of features and limitations.
What Linden did with Second Life is to make some pretty deep assumptions about what kinds of entities can exist in their virtual worldscape. At the top of the heirarchy is the 'avatar' -- a nominally human form, customized to varying degrees by users. These entities have a special status, and (shades of the old nobility) sometimes their status includes restrictions on what they can do (kind of a karmic quid-pro-quo maybe).
On the other side of the tracks, we have what Second Life calls 'prims' -- primitive shapes with varying adornments; potentially linked together in complex ways, and possibly scripted with computer code.
It might be helpful to spell out in list form what the various capabilities and limitations of these two entity types are:
Avatars:
controlled by: human users or 'bots' (pseudo-users running a program that acts like a client)
Motion and behavior: animations (.bvh), simple physics (capsule-based)
basic form: skeleton + deformable mesh, human-based
visual enhancements: clothes, hair,
special status: name, groups, friends, ownership (inventory)
Prims:
controlled by: server-side scripting (could be plug-in for opensim)
motion and behavior: scripting and more realistic physics (all parts can be physical)
basic form: sets of geometric shapes with algorithmic modifiers (cuts, shear, rotation, taper etc)
visual enhancements: custom textures, particle systems, special lighting (?)
special status: owned by regions &/or avatars
In general terms, when you see something that looks vaguely human, and it talks to you, and buys stuff, it's almost definitely an avatar. If it looks like a vehicle, or a machine, it's almost definitely prim-based.
The problem I have with this state of affairs is this. My interest in virtual worlds revolves around the idea that, eventually, we might be able to make major advances in AI, by leveraging the co-existence of human and computer-controlled entities in the same world. However, platforms like Second Life have been developed with the animate/artificial distinction so deeply baked in, that this goal becomes somewhat difficult, if not impossible.
Getting concrete, what I want in a virtual world system is as follows:
* Whether you are controlled by a human or a computer should not have a major impact on your capabilities (modulo issues of privacy and transparency -- social issues are real, but the technology should not dictate them).
* Computer-controlled entities should be able to look like humans, animals, aliens, robots, or anything else the graphic engine could conceivably generate
* Human-controlled entities should be able to look non-human, be fully physical, and use low-level control within the parameters of a realistic simulation (as opposed to relying solely on pre-cooked animation sequences)
* There shouldn't be a-priori distinctions between clients and servers. Issues of trust and access should be generalized, and dealt with in a rigorous and flexible manner. Any process that can possibly be distributed should be able to be distributed among an arbitrary number of machines with arbitrary network topologies
* Animation and physical simulation need to be seamlessly integrated. There are techniques for doing this at the bleeding edge of game design and movie-making. The hooks for these capabilities need to be in the protocol.
* All of this has to be done in such a way that today's model of entertainment-based games and worlds is not negatively impacted (otherwise no one will care, and my ideas will go nowhere)
Sometimes I feel as if I'm pissing into the wind here. Who really cares about this stuff? Very few people, from what I can tell. There are a few more who vaguely understand what I'm getting at, but have their own work and agenda, so can't really be bothered to help beyond just saying "yeah, that sounds nice". I have so far failed to really make the case that this stuff matters, and so it's falling on deaf ears. Perhaps a tree needs to fall down and get itself back up multiple times, before anyone in the forest happens to notice.
-dan
Friday, November 14, 2008
Collaboration Is Social
this needed saying. Credit where due: the phrase came up at an Intel-sponsored meeting about the state of the Metaverse. I think I was the originator, though it's often hard to know for sure at these sorts of events. But it's a good meme nonetheless.
The point is, working on something together is a social phenomenon. This points up the genius of Second Life. Why did it succeed (if only for the requisite 15 minutes) where so many other virtual worlds failed to catch on, either with a dedicated user base or the imagination of the public? It took me a while to figure this out, because it's not immediately obvious (at least it wasn't to me). The key is the fact that the development tool is the world itself. It's not just that it was free (there are free tools like Blender for typical 3D work); it's not that it was particularly good (it wasn't). It's not even just the fact that users were encouraged to create content, and the learning curve was not so steep. I think it's the fact that you actually build things right there *in* the actual world, and other people can see you do it. You can collaborate right there, in real time -- by moving an object, changing its properties, etc. Or just by commenting. It's the difference between playing a recording and lip-syncing, versus a live performance (whether or not you are a direct participant).
This is I think what makes this technology so potentially powerful, and why big companies are showing an interest. It's something of an evolution from the 'mods' of gamers -- but the right-there aspect of tweaking your avatar, wearing different clothes, building a house or terraforming -- this is a new element.
(ps yes, I know there was a financial collapse and an historic election. Life goes on)
The point is, working on something together is a social phenomenon. This points up the genius of Second Life. Why did it succeed (if only for the requisite 15 minutes) where so many other virtual worlds failed to catch on, either with a dedicated user base or the imagination of the public? It took me a while to figure this out, because it's not immediately obvious (at least it wasn't to me). The key is the fact that the development tool is the world itself. It's not just that it was free (there are free tools like Blender for typical 3D work); it's not that it was particularly good (it wasn't). It's not even just the fact that users were encouraged to create content, and the learning curve was not so steep. I think it's the fact that you actually build things right there *in* the actual world, and other people can see you do it. You can collaborate right there, in real time -- by moving an object, changing its properties, etc. Or just by commenting. It's the difference between playing a recording and lip-syncing, versus a live performance (whether or not you are a direct participant).
This is I think what makes this technology so potentially powerful, and why big companies are showing an interest. It's something of an evolution from the 'mods' of gamers -- but the right-there aspect of tweaking your avatar, wearing different clothes, building a house or terraforming -- this is a new element.
(ps yes, I know there was a financial collapse and an historic election. Life goes on)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)