Category Archives: Idle Speculation

Stupid Hackathon Toronto Ideas

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Machine Learning, Puns, Words!

WARNING: SOME OF THE LINKS BELOW MAY LEAD TO NSFW OR TRIGGERING THINGS STOP YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED STOP

Some of you may be familiar with the ‘Stupid Hackathon‘, which I believe was started by Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Sam Lavigne at ITP in New York a few years ago.

(I also know of a San Francisco Stupid Hackathon, hosted by Noisebridge (of course).[1])

Setting aside the issues of privilege and the General Malaise required to make such an event work, I wanted to talk about a similar event happening in Toronto in late May:

http://stupidhacktoronto.com/

The categories (APOLOGIES FOR YELLING STOP THEY WERE ALSO YELLING ON THE SITE STOP):

MARGINALLY IMPROVED FOOD DELIVERY
– Is this the purchasing of food on margin? Speculating on food ‘Futures’? Or ‘Presents’?
– Is this finally the incarnation of AirHamAndCheese.com, the sharing economy startup[2] for fractional sandwich ownership? Only time will tell.
– Is this anything like ‘The Food Lift‘?

REDUCTIONIST BOLTZMANN MACHINES
– How many neurons are required for full reductionism?
– What happens when you only have one neuron? Does it talk to itself?
– If it can talk to itself in multiple ways, is that still turing-complete?
– Do you get one of these by taking the PCA of your Restricted Boltzmann Machine and dropping the 90% least used neurons?

EMOJIANAL INTELLIGENCE
– I think I know what they mean here, and I’m not talking about this topic here.

QUICKTIME FOR PEGASI
– Is this about a phase-cloaking video display?
– Perhaps hacking a 6502-based console to run video?
– Perhaps a squadron flying horses in a hurry?
– Thinking about it, what would you need in video for a flying horse? Some type of HUD? Probably something very light.

MILLENIAL FALCONS
– I was looking at our new condo building, and what looked like a Red-tailed Hawk was perched on top. I hope we can become friends. They can live to 25 years old in the wild, so it might have been a millenial.
– How would you feed a stooping bird? Would you put food out on a flexible holder a few feet out halfway up a very tall building? Gotta practice that stoop somehow…

MAYBE PUT SOME SENSORS ON IT I GUESS CAN I HAVE MONEY NOW
– See ‘The Internet of Thins‘

VIRTUAL FEALTY
– Cue ‘Second Life’ references.
– You could talk about player organizations within MMORPGs, but what could you build to actually (not) help them?
– This topic is a pyramid scheme.

PENTACOPTERS
– For starfish, of course.
– Or this guy.

A FUCKING FITNESS TRACKER
– I feel like this would require a considerable amount of calibration for each user
– Alternatively, this could be a hide-and-seek game

THE INTERNET OF BEES
– See my post about ‘Beenary’ logic for some ideas on this.

[1]If you’ve never heard of Noisebridge, check out their website! All of the warnings at the top of this post probably apply.

[2]S suggests ‘Sandwich Rental’ for the ultimate experience.

The Line Between Art

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Thoughts on Thoughts, Words!

Yesterday, we were talking about the line between ‘Art’ and ‘Making’.

Over lunch today, I was talking with A & D, and they raised a couple of (unrelated) questions[1].

1. Yesterday, we had talked about the line between ‘Art’ and ‘Making’. But what about the line between ‘Art’ and ‘Destruction’? Auto-destructive art a reasonably recent example[2], but think about sculpture. In general, sculptures made from stone are just very (sometimes very very) finely controlled destruction.

Is it the intentionality? You could write an essay about the meaning of it, then hit a cube of concrete once with a sledgehammer and call it art. In the right context, that could be very provocative. So, where’s the line? Is it someone trying to make ‘Art’? Is it someone trying to create an emotional response? Because I would argue there are plenty of people who have destroyed things to create an emotional response[3], but that is not art. Is it destruction with the intent to help someone by creating an emotional response? Destroying a prized but hurtful possession can be helpful, but I would argue it is not art. So where’s the line?

2. On a more minor note, they also mentioned the line between graffiti and art. I would argue that a simple tag (especially tagging a mural) is not art. Often, it is vandalism. But when you draw an entire mural of your tag, with shading and curlicues, I would argue that that is art. It may be ‘pop-art’, it is likely still vandalism, but is still art.

So, where is the line here? Is it percentage art vs. percentage vandalism? Is it intentionality? Is it the amount of time spent? In the words of the immortal Duke Nukem, ‘Where is it?’

[1]I always really enjoy hanging out with sysadmins, and people who have been sysadmins in a previous life. They are endlessly fascinated by people and their design (or lack thereof) of complex systems. Complex systems which inevitably try to fly apart at the slightest provocation.

[2]And the first thing to appear when I searched for ‘destructive art’.

[3]I will not enumerate these here. This falls under the category of ‘memes I will not spread’.

The Line Between Art and Making

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Things We've Built, Words!

Note: I am part of the Site 3 Fire Arts collective (S3FA), but I am speaking for myself, not them/us.

Some friends of mine went to FITC earlier today, ‘a three-day professional celebration of the best the world has to offer in design, web development, media and innovation in creative technologies.‘[1]

To me, reading the list of presentations, it feels like a software/design/digital/’creatives’ conference, and I’d always heard good things about it.

One of the presentations earlier today was about ‘Future Arcades‘, about how arcades and interactive installations can learn from each other. They even showed pictures of S3FA’s Riskee Ball! Yay! (Although, there was no attribution[2]. Boo!)

This naturally sparked a discussion about attribution, and how important it is. Whether people should be happy that their art/installation/etc is getting out there, or should be insisting on attribution and making sure people do so.

For S and I, this sparked a conversation about the line between ‘Making’ and ‘Art’. Is the attribution requirement different? Even if you’re copying the phone book, it feels polite to credit those whose shoulders you’re standing on.

Moving back to the title of this post, the more interesting[3] (for me) conversation was about the placement of the line between ‘Making’ and ‘Art'[4]. S mentioned that while we were designing and building Mirror Blaze, she always thought of it as a ‘Fire Installation’ more than ‘Art’. I had always referred to the group as ‘a fire art collective’, at which point most people asked if we spun poi. Some people in the group say that we build ‘Big Dumb Fire Art’.

So, how do you reconcile these views? I’ve always like the “I don’t know art, but I know what I like” statement, that like many things, you’ll know it when you see it. A common theme seems to be that there needs to be significant personal time and work invested by the artist(s) involved[5]. S suggests that intention of ‘Emotional Impact’ is what makes something ‘Art’ for her. (I’m the kind of person that takes great enjoyment in finding faces in everyday objects[6], so I guess that’s where the intentionality comes in.)

We also briefly touched on the line[7] between ‘Art’ and ‘Illustration’, but agreed that ’emotional intentionality’ also applied.

Comments? Questions? Rotten tomatoes? Comment below!

A note about ‘Art’ vs. ‘art’. I use the term ‘Art’ to refer to ‘what people generally think art is’, with all the associated baggage and politics that comes along with social pressures and millennia of history. Personally, I see art as whatever someone calls art, because at that point, they’re asking you to think and/or feel about the definition of art, if nothing else. I think there are also a number of things not described as art that qualify, but that’s another post.

[1]It always feels better to use peoples’ own ‘about’ statements.

[2]Maybe it’s my background in academia, where attribution is everything. Maybe it’s the fact that I seem to be good at Google, so it seems easy to me.

[3]Although I clearly had ‘feelings’ about attribution. Interesting the things you find in yourself while writing.

[4]I had originally had ‘Building’ here instead of ‘Making’. There’s a subtle difference, but ‘Making’ seems to be term more often used, and feels like it speaks better to what we do. (Even though there’s a *lot* of building. 😀 )

[5]I also feel like a lot of ‘Art’ presupposes one ‘Artist’, even if they have apprentices or other helpers.

[6]While researching this post, I came across this gem.

[7]Ha!

Six Seasons…

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Nostalgia

…and a movie?

So, today was the end of Community for us. For me, it was all the more poignant because I knew there would truly be no more seasons. They had been talking about the cancellation for years, preparing each season for it to be their last, but this felt much more final, with the original cast of seven whittled down to four, and two of those moving away.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that it was the last series of any note put out by Yahoo TV, but I didn’t know that until afterwards.

Perhaps it was because the endings of the last few episodes were so nihilistic so as to break five or six walls[1].

The interesting thing for me was how Jeff became the one to want to keep everyone at Greendale, having to learn to let things (and people) go. One could say that a lot of the series is about his character development, how it taught him to feel for others, to feel their pain, but that enabled him to feel his own pain, and perhaps learn to accept it[2]

It’s also clear to me that there’s a lot of pain in Dan Harmon, and perhaps the rest of the writers, to be able to so viscerally show that on screen. I feel this last season was where they really let that go. I wonder if something changed there, or if they knew this was really the end, with all of the actors growing up and having other major roles elsewhere.

Either way, I’m looking forward to what each of these people can do, and maybe even the movie. 😀

[1]Characters in a commercial discovering a script for their commercial, thereby proving that they don’t actually exist? Classic, but so so dark.

[2]Maybe I notice him more because I’m also a tall white guy. YMMV.

What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?

Idle Speculation, Nostalgia, Things We've Built, Thoughts on Thoughts

Warming spring days bring with them the scent of renewal, of life waking up again. And as it’s waking up again, it’s starting to ask questions. Like ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ and ‘Why am I here?’

For me, a substantial part of this is the desire to build things.

My thought map for this might look like the following:

“I want to build things.”
– ‘I’
– Does this need to be only me? :: No, I like working people, but I also like entering flow by myself (this is a conundrum)
– ‘want’
– Is this a want or a need? How strong is this? :: I don’t think I will ever be satisfied if I don’t build. Perhaps not even then.
– ‘to’
– I can’t think of any reasonable way to disassemble this word. :: No.
– ‘build’
– What does ‘building’ mean? How firmly am I wedded to this definition? :: Assembling might be fine. The key is that it is easily recognizable that I had substantive creative input into the process. For example, ‘Biggle’, while a copy of an established game had clear creative input because of the absurd larginess, as well as the fact that I(we) made it by hand.
– ‘things’
– How broad is ‘things’? Could this include an organization? :: In this context, I mean things, I have a separate category for organization(s).

So, what do *you* want to do with your life?

TNG: The Power of Adversaries, Season 7

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Nostalgia, Space!

Season seven is a bit of an enigma for me. I don’t remember most of it, probably because I’ve never actually watched most of it[1].

S7: 20-100 2-102-1 210-11 -12-121 -102-122

High: 9 (2 for ‘All Good Things…’)
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

Season seven continues with the themes of self-searching along with terrifically difficult adversaries which must be defeated using guile.

Jammer’s Reviews mentions in the season seven reviews that there were a number of episodes designed to tie up loose ends, specifically having to do with the families of each of the main characters. Interestingly, the writers managed to do this while keeping the same mix of adversary power as they had in previous seasons.

This season includes some of my favourites, including ‘The Pegasus‘, about regret over decisions made decades ago (and some more meaningful conflict between Riker and Picard, more meaningful than Riker just questioning everything Picard says for the sake of questioning things), Wesley going off with the Traveler, Ro Laren going off with the Maquis, spinning off into many storylines for DS9 (and not incidentally Voyager).

But the crown has to be the season finale, ‘All Good Things…’, where for one brief moment, our (and Picard’s) eyes are opened just a little bit to some of the other things which are possible, both out there, and in here.

[1]I don’t remember why specifically, I think I must have been distracted by something, because I think I stopped watching TV somewhere around then.

Sensory Fruit

Cooking, Idle Speculation, Puns, Science!, Thoughts on Thoughts

Warning: Fart Jokes and possibly worse.

If beans are the ‘musical fruit’, what is the ‘visually artistic fruit’? And are there fruits for the other senses?

The ‘Miracle Fruit’ (Synsepalum dulcificum) is known to interact with taste buds to make sour foods (such as itself) taste sweet.

‘D. Spinosa‘ is purported to induce visions, either from tea made from its leaves, or from its berries.

For fruit which will change your sense of smell, one needs look no further than horseradish[1]. If you don’t know what I mean, try eating some wasabi[2].

To change your proprioception, try drinking fermented grapes.

The plant Acmella Oleracea is known to cause numbness. Interestingly, it is used as a garnish in salads, as ‘small amounts of shredded fresh leaves are said to add a unique flavour to salads.‘

Stay tuned for next time, when we discuss plants as if we were horses looking for a snack!

[1]Cultivated by real horses!

[2]Really, don’t. Please.

TNG: The Power of Adversaries, Season 6

Idle Speculation, Nostalgia, Space!

In our previous installments, we talked about seasons 1-5 of TNG, and the relative power of the various adversaries our intrepid heroes faced.

As before, I defined ‘high-powered’ challenges as those where firing phasers would only make the problem worse, so the crew must needs turn to guile. ‘Equal-powered’ challenges are those situations where firing phasers would lead to a toss-up. ‘Low-powered’ challenges are those where phasers or transporters would solve the problem handily[3]. ‘Self-powered’ challenges are those where the conflict is inside the crew, or between crew members, or between all or part of the crew and Starfleet.

S6: 2-102220-10-12101-1-120-1-1201-122

High: 9
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

Season six continues the seasons four and five trend of adversaries being much more powerful than the crew, or being the crew themselves, culminating in the season finale of Data and Lore teaming up with the Borg. The Holodeck Moriarty also returns (‘capable of beating Data‘), and Scotty helps them escape a Dyson Sphere (!).

We also have a more in-depth introduction to the Cardassians ‘There are Four Lights!’, and a new robotic species!

In another more powerful/self combo, Q helps us tell the story of Picard’s artificial heart.

But my favourite, and one of the most moving of the series, is the message from the ‘Ancient Humanoids’.

Judging by the number of episodes I’ve mentioned here, I feel like season six was where a lot of things came together for the show, or maybe it was the last season I really watched.

Cross-Border Taxation and Money Laundering Incentives

Economics, Idle Speculation, Politics

So, there’s an interesting game being played by governments around the world.

From a purely game theory[1] perspective, to optimize tax income, it makes sense for governments to do two things:

1) Find all the people all over the world they can tax and tax them.
2) Convince people from all over the world to move to their jurisdiction for lower taxes

Now, if this is ‘tax avoidance‘, this is still legal[2]. But it seems to often veer into ‘tax evasion‘, which is not legal.

All this is leading up to say that while the United States is talking about tax avoidance and tax evasion around the world, it seems that Congress seems to be one of the largest stumbling blocks to solving the problem[3].

[1]I am informed that from a purely grammar theoretical perspective, ‘From a purely game theoretical perspective’ is incorrect.

[2]Although, when you can purchase laws…

[3]Note that this article tries to get more hits by using the word ‘Rothschild’.

Pink, and Purple, and Princesses, Oh My!

Idle Speculation, Politics, Teaching

This past weekend, I was at a ‘Saturday Night Meatballs'[1] event with some old friends. Amongst other things, I was watching how the children interacted with each other. There were a collection of children of various ages, from a few different families. Seeing them interacting with their parents, they were all well-loved, and each of the parents were practicing what I would consider modern parenting, setting down firm, well-defined, sensible rules, and encouraging their children to resolve problems themselves by thinking of solutions and implementing them[2].

At the same time, I saw the children self-segregating by gender, both in behaviour and location. One of the parents, talking about a female child mentioned that before they went to daycare, they were into a variety of non-gender-stereotypical things. Almost immediately afterwards, it was Pink and Purple and Princesses. For me, this was a huge stark reminder of the uphill parents face. One could see that even if all of the parents were giving their all to make a non-gender binary household at home, that a culture could persist in a playground or daycare, passed down from year to year by the children.

You can also see it other children’s behaviours. One of the girls wanted to go play with the boys, but was too afraid to go downstairs to the basement[3]. The group of girls sat downstairs for much of the afternoon/evening while the boys ran around and yelled upstairs. When the girls went up to join them, that lasted for a while, the yelling intensified, then they came down to complain about how they were being treated (which prompted the solution-finding conversations above).

I don’t have good answers, just a few observations. I’m sure this is better than it was decades ago, but there’s still a large amount of genderism that we still have to unpack as a society, and it needs to be unpacked early and unconsciously, for the sake of our children.

[1]It’s a great idea, in the tradition of eating together with family and friends to build community. There’s a great description of the ‘original’ Friday Night Meatballs here.

[2]I particularly liked this tactic. The first question is ‘Can I help you think of more options?’, to help the kids develop the coping and problem solving skills to deal with others.

[3]This could also have been because she was new to the group.