Virtual Thought

My favorite site for movie reviews is Rotten Tomatoes. The site aggregates movie reviews for a movie and, based on the reviews, rates the movie fresh or rotten. They’re mostly right… When Rotten Tomatoes gives something, say, a 6% rating they are usually right on the money.

X-Men: The Last Stand has earned a 52% rating. That means that this one ain’t gonna be so good. Dammit.

So, hopefully Superman is good… I’m not a huge fan of the Superman series… but it’ll tide me over whilst I wait with bated breath for a little movie about a certain web-slinger. Sweet.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I over-intellectualize things.

Finally, an AI project to get excited about: A fully computer-generated society with its own culture.

I think this is exciting because, as I was discussing with a friend of mine, I don’t think “brain-in-a-jar”-type research comes close to simulating intelligence. I think dismissing the factor that embodiment, both physically and socially, can have on intelligence is the Wrong Way to Go.

The article doesn’t go into a lot of detail about the startup conditions: has a language been provided? Obviously something like geography already exists… but how much of this artificial physical world is simulated? Are there other animals besides these proto-intelligences? Considering that we multi-cellulars used to be single-cellualrs, and, we think, pieces of our cells used to be other single-cellular creatures (e.g. the mitochondria, power-house of the cell) then it’d be neat to see this artificial society evolve in the face of disease and other physical pressures.

How cool!

GameSpy has a neat article called Will Wright Presents Spore that documents a super-fantastic approach to game creation and gameplay.

Using deterministic, procedural algorithms in response to user-supplied data the game grows the creature and determines behavior based on its form. Awesome! I especially love the “massively single-player” aspect of downloading specifications for other players’ structures and creatures and populating the world with these buildings and beings. I cannot believe that I have to wait a year for this game to come out.

I’m also already thinking about ways I want to do this in my own as-yet-unnamed project… stay tuned. ( =

EDIT: Google video has a fantastic Spore gameplay video. 35 minutes long but so worth it.

It seems that recently I’ve only been putting funny stuff online. This time, I’m talking about something more serious… a little something called network neutrality.

Prior to a few days ago, the physical infrastructure of the internet was just a bunch of wires that transmitted everyone’s data equally. However, the big telecom companies want to skew this level playing field based on which companies pay them the most. This is where Save the Internet comes in.

Do you like visiting my blog? I probably couldn’t afford to compete with Blogger, or Yahoo, or any other blogging service… and what would happen when I don’t pay? Would my voice be marginalized due to some external market force introduced to pay for a resource that has already been developed and is easily maintained with the current schedule of fees that nearly everyone pays?

I don’t want that to happen. If you don’t either, check out Save the Internet and see what you can do, too.

[tags] Save_The_Internet [/tags]

So my brother and I are chilling in the parking lot after aikido, trying to catch our breath and discuss what we’ve just learned (or think we’ve just learned), when this large truck pulls up next to us bearing the leged, “Ed’s Meat Delivery” (names have been changed to protect the innocent). The passenger leans out and signals me over. I think to myself, “Hey, this guy must be lost. Maybe he needs directions.” I saunter over closer to the truck.

“Hey, man… Want some meat?”

If the guy had said, “Hey man… Want some speakers?” my response would have been immediate and near-instinctive: No, I don’t want your broken, stolen speakers for, like, only a hundred bucks thanks. I don’t care how good of a deal this is.

But this meat offer brought me up short for a bit as the cognitive dissonance rippled around inside my head for a fraction of a second. Did he say meat? is all my brain can come up with. “Excuse me?” I reply. I certainly heard him correctly, but this is one of those conversational tricks I employ to give me more time to be clever.

“Y’know, steaks, sausages… I got some nice t-bones, some rib-eyes.. how ‘bout a hundred bucks?”

No clever reply, sorry. Sometimes I wish I was just a tad wittier so in these situations I could say something funny, scathing, dismissive—whatever the situation demands. As it is, I only have enough brain power for a lightning-fast polite response: “No thanks, man.”

The guy looks like I’ve turned down the winning lottery ticket and offended his lineage all at one go. “Whaddya mean? These are great deals! I got it right here!” He gestures helpfully towards the trailer. Yes, that’s where the meat is.

For the record, I’ve never understood this I’m going to be incredulous about what an idiot you are sales techniques employed by street dealers of every stripe. You’re not convincing me, you’re just offending me. This is what saves me now.

“Thanks, whatever,” I toss back to him as I turn and walk back to Carlos’ car. The guy then looks hopefully at Carlos. “What about you?”

“I’m a vegetarian,” my brother calls out. No he’s not. He’s just a tad wittier than I am.

The guy hisses in disapproval. What heathens I must deal with in my quest to bring cheap, back-alley meat to the populace. The driver, hidden in the shadows afforded by the dimly lit parking lot, guns the motor a bit and they accelerate away.

It comes to me later, the funny, scathing, dismissive response: “Is that a come on? No thanks, man,” and then I walk away. But my life doesn’t quite work that way. Oh well.