The Earth is doomed. Sometime in the future, a giant asteroid or comet will strike it, or a gravitational anomaly will eject it from the solar system, or the Sun will expand and engulf it, or a black hole will gobble it up, or ...
The Earth is doomed. Humanity with it, unless we conquer space; or evolve into / create a species that can do so.
I can imagine four fates for humanity:
Easter Earth
============
We bumble along, burning oil and ripping up forest and breeding uncontrollably etc., until the Earth is as barren as the once forested and prosperous Easter Island is now. Civilisation collapses as resources run out. At best, we have to start all over again, but without fossil fuels. At worst, we cease any meaningful evolution, and die out with (or more likely, before) the Earth.
Bio Earth
=========
We adjust to climate change and the current demographic challenge, and go on to bio-engineer our further evolution. It becomes possible to regrow amputated limbs, for example. Artificial wombs enable the first substantial increase in cranial capacity since Homo Sapiens. Efficient means of space travel are invented, and genetic engineering makes it tolerable for biological life forms. Homo Sapiens might be exterminated, being dangerous, or preserved on a museumed Earth.
Info Earth
=======
We adjust to climate change and the current demographic challenge, then go on to create "artificial minds"; i.e. robots. Having external reproduction, distributed consciousness, mental cloning, etc. makes them a quantum evolutionary leap. "Eating" only energy and minerals, "excreting" only heat and dust, they are ideally suited to space. As for the fate of their progenitors, we will probably be exterminated, being dangerous, and of no practical importance.
Nano Earth
========
Whether biological or infocanical, the Earth becomes a single colony of nano engineered particles. Over some (probably extensive) period of time, the atmosphere and oceans are withdrawn into an artificial interior, and a giant column begins to rise. Eventually, using just the rotation of the Earth, blobs begin flying off the tip of the column, as spores to colonise space.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
God's Debris
Scott Adams book "God's Debris" took my fancy today. An interesting read, as much for the errors therein as the ideas.
The most blatant factual error is that gravity propagates at the speed of light, not instantaneously as stated. Not that any crucial part of the argument is affected thereby, but...
The most glaring logical error is that God had at least one choice other than self-destruction; namely the creation of a universe that He cannot predict the future of. Any all-powerful all-knowing critter is, by definition, capable of such paradoxical behaviour!
Then there is the chapter titled "Evolution", which spectacularly misses the point.
Scott Adams has his Avatar character say: "The theory of evolution leads to no practical invention. It is a concept that has no application". Evolutionary medicine and psychology are obvious exceptions. More generally, the explanatory power of the concept is extraordinary. It has impacted probably every arena of human thought; especially since the recent development of chaos theory.
The Avatar goes on to argue that an alien race could validly assume that our cookware evolved, using us to achieve this. Bad analogy. An alien race might misread the fossil evidence of us and our computers, as the latter will appear more complex than our mere bones, but cookware has no internal structure worth scanning for. (That said, artefacts are evidence for our social evolution, (and thus change a myriad times for each speciation event).)
The Avatar further states, as evidence against Darwinian evolution, that there is a lack of evidence of present day mutations. Actually there are billions happening all the time. Experiments have been performed. Similar step-wise adaptation happens all over the world at every moment of every day. Punctuated equilibrium events are rarer, often in response to catastrophic environmental changes, but the evidence for them is strong. We haven't witnessed a super-volcano in historic times either - the last was about 70,000 years ago - but we know they occur.
The last error I'll point out (there are several others) is the common misconception that evolution only results in more complex life forms. Not so. Flightless birds are one contrary example, whales another. Evolution fits a species to its environment. If simpler is fitter, then simpler wins.
Despite the above, the book is an interesting read.
The most blatant factual error is that gravity propagates at the speed of light, not instantaneously as stated. Not that any crucial part of the argument is affected thereby, but...
The most glaring logical error is that God had at least one choice other than self-destruction; namely the creation of a universe that He cannot predict the future of. Any all-powerful all-knowing critter is, by definition, capable of such paradoxical behaviour!
Then there is the chapter titled "Evolution", which spectacularly misses the point.
Scott Adams has his Avatar character say: "The theory of evolution leads to no practical invention. It is a concept that has no application". Evolutionary medicine and psychology are obvious exceptions. More generally, the explanatory power of the concept is extraordinary. It has impacted probably every arena of human thought; especially since the recent development of chaos theory.
The Avatar goes on to argue that an alien race could validly assume that our cookware evolved, using us to achieve this. Bad analogy. An alien race might misread the fossil evidence of us and our computers, as the latter will appear more complex than our mere bones, but cookware has no internal structure worth scanning for. (That said, artefacts are evidence for our social evolution, (and thus change a myriad times for each speciation event).)
The Avatar further states, as evidence against Darwinian evolution, that there is a lack of evidence of present day mutations. Actually there are billions happening all the time. Experiments have been performed. Similar step-wise adaptation happens all over the world at every moment of every day. Punctuated equilibrium events are rarer, often in response to catastrophic environmental changes, but the evidence for them is strong. We haven't witnessed a super-volcano in historic times either - the last was about 70,000 years ago - but we know they occur.
The last error I'll point out (there are several others) is the common misconception that evolution only results in more complex life forms. Not so. Flightless birds are one contrary example, whales another. Evolution fits a species to its environment. If simpler is fitter, then simpler wins.
Despite the above, the book is an interesting read.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Hasta la Vista
I never thought I'd find myself pitying a mega-corporation. It's happened twice now.
First was IBM, with their Luciferine fall from the top-spot in 1991. Now it's Microsoft, who seem to be making many of the same mistakes, for similar reasons.
IBM had for some years before their fall treated their customers as serfs, believing that LNA and RPG and PL1 etc. were eternal features of the computaverse: SAA was to be the One standard, the Meta-standard, that would forever bind us to the Big Blue.
Didn't happen. The more powerful IBM became, the more of a threat they posed to the jobs and status of the (still nascent) IT management in their corporate customers. If IBM was the only game in town, then IT management was redundant: there would be no important choices for them to make, so no power for them to wield. IBM became the enemy of their own customers.
I witnessed the arrogance and disdain with which IBM treated its customers while managing the internal PC division of a multi-national food company in the late '80s. "Serves them right!" I thought, when the inevitable crash came. But tens of thousands of competent people were thrown out of work in the midst of an economic recession. I would later work with several of these people, and came to understand something of the trauma the fall had inflicted on them.
IBM, the company, survived; but its pre '91 culture was dead.
Microsoft too has outgrown its original culture. It too is becoming more of a threat than a boon to its customers. Unlike my memories of the IBM debacle, M$ do seem to have an inkling of their impending doom, and they are trying to do something about it.
For example, data and system security is a major problem. So Vista has improved features in this area. Features that can work against the best interests of the end users (e.g. as described here). IE7 is thoughtlessly rolled out as a "critical" security update, causing chaos. Meanwhile Exchange, already the blackest of black boxes, gets more complex. Zero day exploits against Office multiply, to the point where M$ themselves have to recommend not using their legacy file formats until a fix is forthcoming (but when?). Meanwhile Office XML, submitted to the ECMA as a standard, reveals just how Heath Robinson those legacy format are. As yet another example, Office 2007 has some truly innovative ideas; but it looks and works somewhat differently to the current versions. Thus it will be hated by many users, purely because these differences will disrupt their personal working practices.
Microsoft has reached a size and an age where every action it takes is sub-optimal.
Microsoft, the company, will survive. It may even thrive, in different markets. But only if they learn the lesson from the coming crash of their core business ...
First was IBM, with their Luciferine fall from the top-spot in 1991. Now it's Microsoft, who seem to be making many of the same mistakes, for similar reasons.
IBM had for some years before their fall treated their customers as serfs, believing that LNA and RPG and PL1 etc. were eternal features of the computaverse: SAA was to be the One standard, the Meta-standard, that would forever bind us to the Big Blue.
Didn't happen. The more powerful IBM became, the more of a threat they posed to the jobs and status of the (still nascent) IT management in their corporate customers. If IBM was the only game in town, then IT management was redundant: there would be no important choices for them to make, so no power for them to wield. IBM became the enemy of their own customers.
I witnessed the arrogance and disdain with which IBM treated its customers while managing the internal PC division of a multi-national food company in the late '80s. "Serves them right!" I thought, when the inevitable crash came. But tens of thousands of competent people were thrown out of work in the midst of an economic recession. I would later work with several of these people, and came to understand something of the trauma the fall had inflicted on them.
IBM, the company, survived; but its pre '91 culture was dead.
Microsoft too has outgrown its original culture. It too is becoming more of a threat than a boon to its customers. Unlike my memories of the IBM debacle, M$ do seem to have an inkling of their impending doom, and they are trying to do something about it.
For example, data and system security is a major problem. So Vista has improved features in this area. Features that can work against the best interests of the end users (e.g. as described here). IE7 is thoughtlessly rolled out as a "critical" security update, causing chaos. Meanwhile Exchange, already the blackest of black boxes, gets more complex. Zero day exploits against Office multiply, to the point where M$ themselves have to recommend not using their legacy file formats until a fix is forthcoming (but when?). Meanwhile Office XML, submitted to the ECMA as a standard, reveals just how Heath Robinson those legacy format are. As yet another example, Office 2007 has some truly innovative ideas; but it looks and works somewhat differently to the current versions. Thus it will be hated by many users, purely because these differences will disrupt their personal working practices.
Microsoft has reached a size and an age where every action it takes is sub-optimal.
Microsoft, the company, will survive. It may even thrive, in different markets. But only if they learn the lesson from the coming crash of their core business ...
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Religion harmful, says poll
From a survey reported in the Guardian, "religion" is seen as a cause of division and tension by 82% of adult Britons. (I'm one of 'em).
Interesting contrast with the Generation Next series on the BBC World Service, where teenagers from around the world were asked a similar question. (I can't find the exact link, which is annoying; and I'm not sure which of the broadcast programs included this data). If memory serves, overall 56% reckoned religion was a good thing. Yet teenagers in an area of religious strife (Somalia?) were 92% in favour.
Yet surveys like this have to be taken with salt, blocks of. The more contentious the issue, the less reliable the response.
Sun Inc sponsored a world-wide survey a few years ago (another link I can't find). One of the questions was "Do you deliberately lie on surveys?". 15% answered "yes". Which puts a lower bound on the practice, as we can only guess how many grinned and lied by saying "no".
From my own behaviour (I seem to attract clipboard-bearing middle-aged women...) I know that I often catch myself answering what I believe, or believe I should believe, rather than what I 'really' think (i.e. when not under social pressure) or have actually done.
Governments have recently taken to using focus groups as an aid to policy development. Those who choose the participants and set the agenda have gained immense power. Yet if they get too far out of kilter with what people 'really' think, they will lose the next election (or, in worst case scenario, prime a revolution).
Unless, as appears to be the case in British politics, the opposition is equally misled by its own research. I'm darned if I can tell the difference between the party's these days. Which, if other than a local phenomenon, may explain both voter apathy and the closeness of so many recent elections (US and Mexico presidentials, as an example).
For people to express what they really think, they have to be:
In our accelerating world, a ballot every few years is probably not adequate. But do we yet have an adequate alternative? ...
Interesting contrast with the Generation Next series on the BBC World Service, where teenagers from around the world were asked a similar question. (I can't find the exact link, which is annoying; and I'm not sure which of the broadcast programs included this data). If memory serves, overall 56% reckoned religion was a good thing. Yet teenagers in an area of religious strife (Somalia?) were 92% in favour.
Yet surveys like this have to be taken with salt, blocks of. The more contentious the issue, the less reliable the response.
Sun Inc sponsored a world-wide survey a few years ago (another link I can't find
From my own behaviour (I seem to attract clipboard-bearing middle-aged women...) I know that I often catch myself answering what I believe, or believe I should believe, rather than what I 'really' think (i.e. when not under social pressure) or have actually done.
Governments have recently taken to using focus groups as an aid to policy development. Those who choose the participants and set the agenda have gained immense power. Yet if they get too far out of kilter with what people 'really' think, they will lose the next election (or, in worst case scenario, prime a revolution).
Unless, as appears to be the case in British politics, the opposition is equally misled by its own research. I'm darned if I can tell the difference between the party's these days. Which, if other than a local phenomenon, may explain both voter apathy and the closeness of so many recent elections (US and Mexico presidentials, as an example).
For people to express what they really think, they have to be:
- in an environment without pressure to conform to any specific opinion
- confident that there will be no repercussions, regardless of their expressed opinion
- confident that their opinion will be accurately recorded
In our accelerating world, a ballot every few years is probably not adequate. But do we yet have an adequate alternative? ...
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Religion 3.0 - Evolutionary beginnings
Evolution is a simple idea. So simple it is frequently misunderstood. Although usually thought of in biological terms, of species and genes, the general principle has been found applicable on many scales, from entire socio-eco-politico- systems to the firing patterns of the neurons in our own brains (examples here).
Whenever there is a population of entities that tends to increase in number, in an environment that tends to decrease their number, evolution will occur.
The genius of Darwin and Wallace was to see the sine wave in the symphony. Nature is a mass of intersecting populations, of parasites and predators and preys, all mixing together in the chaotic dance of birth, living, and death. Unlike for a symphony tho', there is no score, and there is no conductor. We are having to learn and play as we go.
Proponents of intelligent design, and even more so of raw creationism, believe otherwise. Ironically, should these ideas make their proponents "fitter" in the evolutionary sense, then they will indeed prevail! [Aside: those of faith do tend to have more offspring than secularists, p'raps due to their rejection of birth control methods. Sperm Wars may yet happen...] Personally I find these ideas as absurd as any other form of determinism.
Before Newton, the standard answer to any "why?" was "God's will". As if we were children, not yet grown enough to understand. Then Newton's laws of motion etc. offered the promise of knowing how everything worked; and thus the hope of controlling everything. In the 19th century, with railways and factories and empires and all, our Promised Land seemed only a few more technological breakthroughs, and another imperialist conquest or two, away. The completion of physics was confidently predicted.
Einstein too, who destroyed that confidence, was nonetheless a Determinist, famously declaring that time is an illusion, and that God does not play dice.
Oh yes He does; at least genetically. Why else does a human male produce 3,000,000,000 sperm for every female egg? In Nature, about 1 in a million creatures born manage to survive to sexual maturity: the rest are eaten. Compassion, Mercy, Justice; these are human inventions: not "natural" at all. The "natural" way is a brutal gamble, a lottery with truly appalling odds.
Determinism is bunkum. In a few artificial circumstances, such as the surface of a billiard table, it is possible to make predictions to an apparently arbitrary accuracy. But there probably is a limit to the accuracy of real measurements. Einstein took advantage of the then recent experimental discovery that light has a maximum speed. Physicists today (e.g. Ilya Prigogine) are predicting that we will find space to be granular; in other words that there is a minimum distance between any two points: that there is a absolute physical limit to the accuracy of measurement. One effect of which is to make the Universe irreversible. Time, which is just another mathematical dimension in Newton and Einstein's equations, becomes a derivative of probability rather than of trajectory. Which implies the Future, although structured, is not determined.
We can make a difference.
In fact, we have no choice. Whether by the will of God or the gamble of Evolution, we have become junior partners in the act of Creation. We, the Human species, are now responsible for what happens next.
Whenever there is a population of entities that tends to increase in number, in an environment that tends to decrease their number, evolution will occur.
The genius of Darwin and Wallace was to see the sine wave in the symphony. Nature is a mass of intersecting populations, of parasites and predators and preys, all mixing together in the chaotic dance of birth, living, and death. Unlike for a symphony tho', there is no score, and there is no conductor. We are having to learn and play as we go.
Proponents of intelligent design, and even more so of raw creationism, believe otherwise. Ironically, should these ideas make their proponents "fitter" in the evolutionary sense, then they will indeed prevail! [Aside: those of faith do tend to have more offspring than secularists, p'raps due to their rejection of birth control methods. Sperm Wars may yet happen...] Personally I find these ideas as absurd as any other form of determinism.
Before Newton, the standard answer to any "why?" was "God's will". As if we were children, not yet grown enough to understand. Then Newton's laws of motion etc. offered the promise of knowing how everything worked; and thus the hope of controlling everything. In the 19th century, with railways and factories and empires and all, our Promised Land seemed only a few more technological breakthroughs, and another imperialist conquest or two, away. The completion of physics was confidently predicted.
Einstein too, who destroyed that confidence, was nonetheless a Determinist, famously declaring that time is an illusion, and that God does not play dice.
Oh yes He does; at least genetically. Why else does a human male produce 3,000,000,000 sperm for every female egg? In Nature, about 1 in a million creatures born manage to survive to sexual maturity: the rest are eaten. Compassion, Mercy, Justice; these are human inventions: not "natural" at all. The "natural" way is a brutal gamble, a lottery with truly appalling odds.
Determinism is bunkum. In a few artificial circumstances, such as the surface of a billiard table, it is possible to make predictions to an apparently arbitrary accuracy. But there probably is a limit to the accuracy of real measurements. Einstein took advantage of the then recent experimental discovery that light has a maximum speed. Physicists today (e.g. Ilya Prigogine) are predicting that we will find space to be granular; in other words that there is a minimum distance between any two points: that there is a absolute physical limit to the accuracy of measurement. One effect of which is to make the Universe irreversible. Time, which is just another mathematical dimension in Newton and Einstein's equations, becomes a derivative of probability rather than of trajectory. Which implies the Future, although structured, is not determined.
We can make a difference.
In fact, we have no choice. Whether by the will of God or the gamble of Evolution, we have become junior partners in the act of Creation. We, the Human species, are now responsible for what happens next.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Religion 3.0 - The Prequel : continued
Religions don't need gods . Buddhism, for example, regards super-natural life forms as subject to the Wheel of Life too. But a religion must have a satisfactory answer for the core question: Why? Why does the Universe exist? Why do we exist? Why do we suffer? Why do we die? ( and ask all these questions?)
Answers do not have to be true (i.e. conforming to an objective reality), only credible (to any particular individual).
What are the options? The Universe etc. might:
4. fails the credibility test (for me, anyway). Buddhism, in its Zen form, might un-ask the question, but (to play on words again) that misses the point. The other religions of which I'm aware either actively resist Science, or demand a kind of Orwellian act of new-faith to accommodate it. And if there are to be new scriptures and/or prophets, then they are covered by option 3.
2. and 3. both explain why we have such difficulties with these questions (unintended word-play and all!). Whether there is a single point for us to discover, or one (or more) that our search actually creates, is almost a mere semantic wiffle. The 'point' that eventually evolves almost certainly would not be understandable by us today.
So, for me, 3. is it: the point of the Universe is for the Universe to evolve. It is always what happens next that matters. We exist (or, rather, are aware of our existence) due to the
current "state-of-the-evolution". We suffer likewise: somewhat like the first lungfish, gasping its weary way across the exposed mud. We die likewise, because our flesh is organic: and we are the first species (so far as we can tell) to be capable of imagining any alternative methods of evolving.
My first post on this topic included how insignificant Science has made us seem, as a species, on the physical scale, and, as individuals, on the temporal scale. About as insignificant as that ancient lungfish, gasping its weary way across the exposed mud. It had evolved the new trick of breathing air; albeit with some difficulty: but it survived, and evolved; eventually into us.
We have evolved the new trick of language, from which has followed our social organisations and Science itself, enabling us to dominate (if not actually control, yet) this Earth, our home. Whether we will survive and evolve remains to be seen...
Answers do not have to be true (i.e. conforming to an objective reality), only credible (to any particular individual).
What are the options? The Universe etc. might:
- have no point at all
- have a point too profound for us to comprehend
- have the point that it's up to us to evolve a point (or points)
- have already been thoroughly explained by some current religion
4. fails the credibility test (for me, anyway). Buddhism, in its Zen form, might un-ask the question, but (to play on words again) that misses the point. The other religions of which I'm aware either actively resist Science, or demand a kind of Orwellian act of new-faith to accommodate it. And if there are to be new scriptures and/or prophets, then they are covered by option 3.
2. and 3. both explain why we have such difficulties with these questions (unintended word-play and all!). Whether there is a single point for us to discover, or one (or more) that our search actually creates, is almost a mere semantic wiffle. The 'point' that eventually evolves almost certainly would not be understandable by us today.
So, for me, 3. is it: the point of the Universe is for the Universe to evolve. It is always what happens next that matters. We exist (or, rather, are aware of our existence) due to the
current "state-of-the-evolution". We suffer likewise: somewhat like the first lungfish, gasping its weary way across the exposed mud. We die likewise, because our flesh is organic: and we are the first species (so far as we can tell) to be capable of imagining any alternative methods of evolving.
My first post on this topic included how insignificant Science has made us seem, as a species, on the physical scale, and, as individuals, on the temporal scale. About as insignificant as that ancient lungfish, gasping its weary way across the exposed mud. It had evolved the new trick of breathing air; albeit with some difficulty: but it survived, and evolved; eventually into us.
We have evolved the new trick of language, from which has followed our social organisations and Science itself, enabling us to dominate (if not actually control, yet) this Earth, our home. Whether we will survive and evolve remains to be seen...
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Space-species
Just an idle thought: what might a space-species be like?
Not a quadruped or biped, that's for sure. No "ped" at all. Limbed maybe, but multi-armed rather than -footed, I think. But "arms" with suckers, so as to be capable of moving across surfaces and resisting mild accelerations.
A separate head wouldn't make sense either: there's no meaningful up-n-down in zero G. A brain suspended at the centre of a spheroidal body, with eyes and ears on motile stalks, seems more suitable to the environment. Said stalks (and limbs too) would have to be opposing, otherwise the creature would spin when moving them.
Talking of movement, getting suspended in mid-air will be common. A means of controlled motion, rather than waiting for electrostatic attraction or air currents to waft you to a surface, has obvious survival value. Thus I think our creature will be capable of quite literally "farting about" in space. And, if it wants to move more quickly, ballistic excretion is an obvious (and probably solid-but-sticky) method.
The ability to survive exposure to vacuum for a period is another obvious survival thing. An external skeleton with valve-like bony flaps that automatically seal the body cavity in the event of sudden vacuum would work, albeit any extended stalks and limbs might be lost. An ability to rapidly regrow these would probably evolve. That said, the ability to see and communicate in vacuum would be handy, so maybe the stalks will be vacuum resistant instead.
Radiation would be a survival issue too. A low density body, and super-efficient cellular repair mechanisms would cope (chickens (or was it cockroaches?) can survive 50 times the lethal human dose, unless my memory deceives me).
Farty spiky balls, then. If they invade, we'll probably die laughing...
Not a quadruped or biped, that's for sure. No "ped" at all. Limbed maybe, but multi-armed rather than -footed, I think. But "arms" with suckers, so as to be capable of moving across surfaces and resisting mild accelerations.
A separate head wouldn't make sense either: there's no meaningful up-n-down in zero G. A brain suspended at the centre of a spheroidal body, with eyes and ears on motile stalks, seems more suitable to the environment. Said stalks (and limbs too) would have to be opposing, otherwise the creature would spin when moving them.
Talking of movement, getting suspended in mid-air will be common. A means of controlled motion, rather than waiting for electrostatic attraction or air currents to waft you to a surface, has obvious survival value. Thus I think our creature will be capable of quite literally "farting about" in space. And, if it wants to move more quickly, ballistic excretion is an obvious (and probably solid-but-sticky) method.
The ability to survive exposure to vacuum for a period is another obvious survival thing. An external skeleton with valve-like bony flaps that automatically seal the body cavity in the event of sudden vacuum would work, albeit any extended stalks and limbs might be lost. An ability to rapidly regrow these would probably evolve. That said, the ability to see and communicate in vacuum would be handy, so maybe the stalks will be vacuum resistant instead.
Radiation would be a survival issue too. A low density body, and super-efficient cellular repair mechanisms would cope (chickens (or was it cockroaches?) can survive 50 times the lethal human dose, unless my memory deceives me).
Farty spiky balls, then. If they invade, we'll probably die laughing...
Religion 3.0 - incidental events
Coincidences often appear intentional. I start blogging about religion, rediscover the bible given me aged 15 to commemorate my induction as a Salvation Army cadet, and just now a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses have left a copy of the Watchtower.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, I would have stood on our doorstep as if in a dock. Facing me were people who were Certain of Themselves, and of the Universe we share. I would have been Uncertain, and afraid - but quite what of I would not have dared to investigate.
Today was different. Instead of fear I was curious: how would my (not yet fully developed) Certainty measure up? Are we competing, and if so, for what? They will be back, I am promised, when we shall see :-)
Once upon a time, not so long ago, I would have stood on our doorstep as if in a dock. Facing me were people who were Certain of Themselves, and of the Universe we share. I would have been Uncertain, and afraid - but quite what of I would not have dared to investigate.
Today was different. Instead of fear I was curious: how would my (not yet fully developed) Certainty measure up? Are we competing, and if so, for what? They will be back, I am promised, when we shall see :-)
Thursday, December 07, 2006
VBA -> Python, anyone?
Nicholas Petreley makes an interesting suggestion here:
"... I urge contributors to the main branch to work on interoperability that does not include Microsoft patents, but includes means of translating things like VBA code into something native - and GPL - to OpenOffice.org."
Sounds plausible. Any language more powerful than VBA should do the job. Python is shipped with OOo. Ergo...
Not a small project tho'.
"... I urge contributors to the main branch to work on interoperability that does not include Microsoft patents, but includes means of translating things like VBA code into something native - and GPL - to OpenOffice.org."
Sounds plausible. Any language more powerful than VBA should do the job. Python is shipped with OOo. Ergo...
Not a small project tho'.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Religion 3.0 - The Prequel : continued
Religion is as old as fear, philosophy as curiosity. Both probably date from the first moments of mutual symbolic communication; i.e. language. Religion symbolically encompasses the unknown and the inexplicable, philosophy the known and knowable. Both are psychologically empowering. Both are Memes, helping us to survive
Were we inherently logical creatures, the known would steadily supplant the unknown. Instead, rationality has to battle its way against increasingly sophisticated renderings of the unknown.
There is a perverse way in which the unknown is more under our sway: a god that is prayed to can be hoped to respond, whereas gravity is implacable.
The known can be boring. E=mc**2 is a dull equation whereas the sex life of Jesus can be endlessly (and titivatingly) speculated over.
As social creatures, the imaginary antics of soap stars will inevitably attract the attention of more parts of our eco-psyches than an OU maths program will. The same applies for sensationalist documentaries and the like.
Religions and philosophies that fail to satisfy some current or anticipated need get replaced (often after a protracted fight) by creeds and theories that better satisfy those needs.
So, here we are in the early 21st century. Our major religions are millennia deep, as are our popular philosophies. That upstart Science has given both a problem. Has given us, as individuals and communities, a problem. The Known is now provably incompatible with the Unknown. Ancient scriptures are increasingly absurd to modern educated readers. And yet, the very human needs that sustained those scriptures through hundreds of generations are still our needs.
"Progress" as espoused by our Victorian forebears enabled the implications of this clash to be put off until now. The future then was expected to be more interesting than the present - and so it was. Then came the 20th century, and the pace of change accelerated. Whereas the life lived by my great-great-grandfather would have been understandable by generations stretching back for centuries, my life would have baffled them. Terrified them. I live in a world of magic lights and talking boxes, and people have walked on the moon! But "Progress" has kept my generation entranced also, despite M.A.D. etc., until Global Warming etc. became undeniable.
The end of some things is very nearly nigh. Whether of the Human species, our Civilisations, our Science, or of our Creeds: the choice is (collectively) ours.
Were we inherently logical creatures, the known would steadily supplant the unknown. Instead, rationality has to battle its way against increasingly sophisticated renderings of the unknown.
There is a perverse way in which the unknown is more under our sway: a god that is prayed to can be hoped to respond, whereas gravity is implacable.
The known can be boring. E=mc**2 is a dull equation whereas the sex life of Jesus can be endlessly (and titivatingly) speculated over.
As social creatures, the imaginary antics of soap stars will inevitably attract the attention of more parts of our eco-psyches than an OU maths program will. The same applies for sensationalist documentaries and the like.
Religions and philosophies that fail to satisfy some current or anticipated need get replaced (often after a protracted fight) by creeds and theories that better satisfy those needs.
So, here we are in the early 21st century. Our major religions are millennia deep, as are our popular philosophies. That upstart Science has given both a problem. Has given us, as individuals and communities, a problem. The Known is now provably incompatible with the Unknown. Ancient scriptures are increasingly absurd to modern educated readers. And yet, the very human needs that sustained those scriptures through hundreds of generations are still our needs.
"Progress" as espoused by our Victorian forebears enabled the implications of this clash to be put off until now. The future then was expected to be more interesting than the present - and so it was. Then came the 20th century, and the pace of change accelerated. Whereas the life lived by my great-great-grandfather would have been understandable by generations stretching back for centuries, my life would have baffled them. Terrified them. I live in a world of magic lights and talking boxes, and people have walked on the moon! But "Progress" has kept my generation entranced also, despite M.A.D. etc., until Global Warming etc. became undeniable.
The end of some things is very nearly nigh. Whether of the Human species, our Civilisations, our Science, or of our Creeds: the choice is (collectively) ours.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Religion 3.0 - The Prequel : continued
"To grow up is to shrink in importance. To learn is to gain ignorance."
Paradoxes?
No: linguistic tricks. Those sentences are true, but so are their opposites; as are an infinite number of variations thereon. What matters is what they mean, and what they mean depends on their context. And the ultimate context is the unique state of the readers' minds at the moment of comprehension (whatever that may mean).
How different to computer programming! The Machine, by definition, can always be put into a Known State: the human mind cannot. John von Neumann modelled his computing architecture on how he believed the human mind worked. And there are brief moments when it appears to be so; when we are being logical and rational, for example. But most of the time our minds are not that simple. Instead of a single CPU we have a multitude of them. Our minds are not machines, they are ecosystems; and stochastic ones at that.
Have you ever deceived or bribed yourself? Or kept one thing at the forefront of your mind to keep other things out? Or surprised yourself doing something while thinking you must not do it? There are a myriad such examples, all true: yet none are The Truth, Absolute.
There are people who will not understand what those of us who've had these experiences are talking about. Some will deny that we are making any sense at all. A few may violently demand our silence.
Human cultures are stochastic ecosystems too. (Unsurprising, really, as culture arises from human interaction).
Is there anything we can all agree on? Is there any kind of Truth that can unite the living, the dead, and the yet to be born?
Religionists believe so; and yet the evidence is against them.
Scientists believe so; and yet there is evidence against them, too.
I believe so, and not as a linguistic trick. I think what unites us, what appears to be, by all the evidence, to be an Absolute Principle of the Universe, is approximated by a simple question:
What happens next?
Paradoxes?
No: linguistic tricks. Those sentences are true, but so are their opposites; as are an infinite number of variations thereon. What matters is what they mean, and what they mean depends on their context. And the ultimate context is the unique state of the readers' minds at the moment of comprehension (whatever that may mean).
How different to computer programming! The Machine, by definition, can always be put into a Known State: the human mind cannot. John von Neumann modelled his computing architecture on how he believed the human mind worked. And there are brief moments when it appears to be so; when we are being logical and rational, for example. But most of the time our minds are not that simple. Instead of a single CPU we have a multitude of them. Our minds are not machines, they are ecosystems; and stochastic ones at that.
Have you ever deceived or bribed yourself? Or kept one thing at the forefront of your mind to keep other things out? Or surprised yourself doing something while thinking you must not do it? There are a myriad such examples, all true: yet none are The Truth, Absolute.
There are people who will not understand what those of us who've had these experiences are talking about. Some will deny that we are making any sense at all. A few may violently demand our silence.
Human cultures are stochastic ecosystems too. (Unsurprising, really, as culture arises from human interaction).
Is there anything we can all agree on? Is there any kind of Truth that can unite the living, the dead, and the yet to be born?
Religionists believe so; and yet the evidence is against them.
Scientists believe so; and yet there is evidence against them, too.
I believe so, and not as a linguistic trick. I think what unites us, what appears to be, by all the evidence, to be an Absolute Principle of the Universe, is approximated by a simple question:
What happens next?
Friday, December 01, 2006
Religion 3.0 - The Prequel
Having just read The Gripes Of Wrath (and drunk a mite too much Pusser's Rum) it's struck me that two centuries of Enlightenment thinking has given us... perversion. Instead of Superstitious Fears we have Nuclear Weapons. Instead of the Preaching of Hellfire we have evidence of Global Warming. Imaginary horrors have been replaced by real destroyers. What kind of sapient being would have intended this?
[Aside: Googling 'sentient' for this post gave this as the top link (which, of course, I've just reinforced
We were made (I was taught and once believed) in God's image. A comforting thought, invented at the time when the Earth was both flat, and the centre of the known universe. [2nd voice: for a toddler, Santa Claus is as real as gods] Then Copernicus dented our egos, putting the Sun at the centre; but we were still God's Special Creatures. [2nd voice: the child knows the present-leaver is father, but dutifully acts deceived] Then Darwin made the obvious (in hindsight) connections between us and other animals. [2nd voice: teenagers are always embarrassed by their parents'] Cosmologists went on to reveal this Earth as but a lump of wet dust circling an insignificant star in an ordinary galaxy among billions of galaxies. [2nd voice: the adult awakes, and marvels...]
How do you feel about that?
Why?
Would you prefer to have remained ignorant?
Why?
[Aside: Googling 'sentient' for this post gave this as the top link (which, of course, I've just reinforced
We were made (I was taught and once believed) in God's image. A comforting thought, invented at the time when the Earth was both flat, and the centre of the known universe. [2nd voice: for a toddler, Santa Claus is as real as gods] Then Copernicus dented our egos, putting the Sun at the centre; but we were still God's Special Creatures. [2nd voice: the child knows the present-leaver is father, but dutifully acts deceived] Then Darwin made the obvious (in hindsight) connections between us and other animals. [2nd voice: teenagers are always embarrassed by their parents'] Cosmologists went on to reveal this Earth as but a lump of wet dust circling an insignificant star in an ordinary galaxy among billions of galaxies. [2nd voice: the adult awakes, and marvels...]
How do you feel about that?
Why?
Would you prefer to have remained ignorant?
Why?
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Wordprocessors are useless
Word and OOo both behave in ways that drive me mad! Why, when I delete a line immediately preceding a heading, does that heading lose its heading style, for example?
Time to dump these paper paradigmed monstrosities for tools more relevant to the screen paradigm our kids are growing up with.
Time to dump these paper paradigmed monstrosities for tools more relevant to the screen paradigm our kids are growing up with.
Economics != happiness
Is the pursuit of economic growth (i.e. more money) isomorphic with increasing happiness? If so, why do the Japanese and Scandinavians, among the materially richest nations on Earth, have record high suicide rates?
Money appears to be a poor (ouch! :-)) measure of personal happiness, too. (Lack of it tho' is an excellent indicator of misery.) Is Bill gates really 50 times happier than Mark Shuttleworth? Are either of them happier than a mere millionaire?
What if we could quantise happiness, both personal and collective? Would we, or our government, dare to apply the logical conclusions? Whatever, it would be a very different world!
Money appears to be a poor (ouch! :-)) measure of personal happiness, too. (Lack of it tho' is an excellent indicator of misery.) Is Bill gates really 50 times happier than Mark Shuttleworth? Are either of them happier than a mere millionaire?
What if we could quantise happiness, both personal and collective? Would we, or our government, dare to apply the logical conclusions? Whatever, it would be a very different world!
DRM - I want it, now!
Digital Rights Management has so far been touted as the saviour of big media, forcing us hoi polloi to do as we're told. That's bad for us hoi polloi.
Government and corporations will increasingly digitise and consolidate the data they hold about us, as citizens and consumers etc.. That's potentially bad, too, if inaccurate or badly managed. The Data Protection Act does give me some rights to discover what stuff is collected, what for, and so on, but I'd be happier if I had the right to control that data *before* its use. Give me DRM that grants that right now, before the crackers feed the spammers my entire financial and medical history...
Government and corporations will increasingly digitise and consolidate the data they hold about us, as citizens and consumers etc.. That's potentially bad, too, if inaccurate or badly managed. The Data Protection Act does give me some rights to discover what stuff is collected, what for, and so on, but I'd be happier if I had the right to control that data *before* its use. Give me DRM that grants that right now, before the crackers feed the spammers my entire financial and medical history...
Documentation - obsolete?
Modern system software is so flexible, integrateable, mashable, and generally malleable, that it's increasingly difficult to document: there are too many contexts to consider. Then there's GUI stuff that reconfigures itself depending on how its used, making screenshots irrelevant. {Aside: getting difficult to write meaningful reviews on stuff too}
Alternatives? Maybe write interactive demonstrations rather than do static documentation. Definitely include the important stuff directly in the GUI (which no one does right yet, not even Apple) - why should I have to open a completely separate application to explain the one I'm in??? senseless. *Very* definitely allow the user(s) to add their own notes and comments to the application.
Alternatives? Maybe write interactive demonstrations rather than do static documentation. Definitely include the important stuff directly in the GUI (which no one does right yet, not even Apple) - why should I have to open a completely separate application to explain the one I'm in??? senseless. *Very* definitely allow the user(s) to add their own notes and comments to the application.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Proportional Patents
I've just been reading how the threat of US style software patents has delayed the Munich to Linux. Which set me thinking. Is it reasonable to provide the same protection for a software "feature" as for a new drug?
A new drug costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and launch. A software idea takes at most a few months, all of which (in the US) could be spent writing the patent application rather than code.
It seems to me that the drug company has too short a window to recover its costs, hence the price of new drugs is inflated. Were the patent protection time extended, lets say to 30 from the current 17 years, drug costs would be the same in the long term, fall in the short term, and encourage increased pharmaceutical investment.
On the other hand, any company and their monkeys can generate software patents for a few thousand dollars each. Do they deserve the same protection as a new drug? I think not.
What if the period of protection was made proportional to the investment needed to develop / marketise the "thing"? A mere idea could get 3 years protection, a new drug 30, with the majority of inventions falling around the 10 year mark.
[Small inventors would still have the problem of affording to defend their patents. Maybe patent violations should be made part of the criminal code, and thus protected by the state. If that was considered, then it wouls only work if a patent was implicit in the 'publication' of the thing, similar to how copyright works.]
A new drug costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and launch. A software idea takes at most a few months, all of which (in the US) could be spent writing the patent application rather than code.
It seems to me that the drug company has too short a window to recover its costs, hence the price of new drugs is inflated. Were the patent protection time extended, lets say to 30 from the current 17 years, drug costs would be the same in the long term, fall in the short term, and encourage increased pharmaceutical investment.
On the other hand, any company and their monkeys can generate software patents for a few thousand dollars each. Do they deserve the same protection as a new drug? I think not.
What if the period of protection was made proportional to the investment needed to develop / marketise the "thing"? A mere idea could get 3 years protection, a new drug 30, with the majority of inventions falling around the 10 year mark.
[Small inventors would still have the problem of affording to defend their patents. Maybe patent violations should be made part of the criminal code, and thus protected by the state. If that was considered, then it wouls only work if a patent was implicit in the 'publication' of the thing, similar to how copyright works.]
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Weirdest reason for feature competition?
This is the weirdest way I've yet seen for a feature to be written: http://duncan.mac-vicar.com/blog/archives/140
[more 3D stuff once the Rocky Horror Medical Show has ended!]
[more 3D stuff once the Rocky Horror Medical Show has ended!]
Saturday, October 14, 2006
{aside} Second Life as a business tool
The following quote from the title link caught my attention:
"The next version of Second Life will be seamlessly integrated with the Web, making it easier for real-world businesses to sell items through SL. For example, a retailer like L.L. Bean could have a “door” to an SL store on its Web site, inviting people to jump from 2-D browsing into a 3-D saunter around, where an avatar with your exact measurements could try on clothes for you. Or a consumer-electronics company could offer in-person technical support from an avatar who had a precise 3-D replica of, say, that new digital camera you couldn’t figure out, and could show you which button you needed to push. As the wall between the Web and Second Life grows thinner, having an SL account might become as common as having an e-mail address."
One thing bothers me tho'. SL is server based. Altho' they have promised to release their code as FOSS (presumably looking to emulate Apache), until they do that, all data hits their servers, in their country.
Still think it's a neat idea tho' :-)
"The next version of Second Life will be seamlessly integrated with the Web, making it easier for real-world businesses to sell items through SL. For example, a retailer like L.L. Bean could have a “door” to an SL store on its Web site, inviting people to jump from 2-D browsing into a 3-D saunter around, where an avatar with your exact measurements could try on clothes for you. Or a consumer-electronics company could offer in-person technical support from an avatar who had a precise 3-D replica of, say, that new digital camera you couldn’t figure out, and could show you which button you needed to push. As the wall between the Web and Second Life grows thinner, having an SL account might become as common as having an e-mail address."
One thing bothers me tho'. SL is server based. Altho' they have promised to release their code as FOSS (presumably looking to emulate Apache), until they do that, all data hits their servers, in their country.
Still think it's a neat idea tho' :-)
3D environment for software design
Designing anything is an activity fraught with difficulty: software design especially so. It's easy enough to check whether physical widgets fit together, but software is virtual. It has no physical presence, even once it exists. All too often people will agree on a set of documents and diagrams, yet have radically different expectations of the eventual product. The most detailed specifications and the most complete UML diagrams are about as useful as reading poetry in Morse code. (Which fact bodes ill for MDA ...).
There has to be a better way.
Our avatars sitting around the virtual table in our virtual office already have one advantage, as mentioned in my previous post: everything said and done by them will be recorded, and the content of that recording is searchable. What else can they do?
A lot of the tools will be evolutions of what we are used to. The virtual whiteboard, as an example, can be subject to version control, and the diagram thereon spontaneously self-organise. Releasing the diagram from the surface, to float in 3D above the table, is also an option. Scale can be applied; IOW one blob in this diagram can be zoomed in on, to reveal its finer structure, or out from, to show its meta relationships. Avatars can share one view of their work, or each have their unique point of view. Colour, shape, texture, even apparent movement, can all be used to indicate some attribute of the diagram. Textual content etc. can be collaboratively added and edited. Ideally the diagram can be made active, becoming a high level simulation of the software required.
Instead of a mass of text and diagrams, the engineers can be given a working model of the desired system. A model that is not only the definitive expression of the design, it is also the ultimate means of testing that design.
{a walk-through of designing the bookselling application in this environment will follow}
There has to be a better way.
Our avatars sitting around the virtual table in our virtual office already have one advantage, as mentioned in my previous post: everything said and done by them will be recorded, and the content of that recording is searchable. What else can they do?
A lot of the tools will be evolutions of what we are used to. The virtual whiteboard, as an example, can be subject to version control, and the diagram thereon spontaneously self-organise. Releasing the diagram from the surface, to float in 3D above the table, is also an option. Scale can be applied; IOW one blob in this diagram can be zoomed in on, to reveal its finer structure, or out from, to show its meta relationships. Avatars can share one view of their work, or each have their unique point of view. Colour, shape, texture, even apparent movement, can all be used to indicate some attribute of the diagram. Textual content etc. can be collaboratively added and edited. Ideally the diagram can be made active, becoming a high level simulation of the software required.
Instead of a mass of text and diagrams, the engineers can be given a working model of the desired system. A model that is not only the definitive expression of the design, it is also the ultimate means of testing that design.
{a walk-through of designing the bookselling application in this environment will follow}
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
3D demo continued
[ok, so this is my next-but-one post :-)]
Here we are (or, rather, our avatars are) gathered around a virtual table. Our task is to produce a project plan for the creation testing and deployment of a bookselling application.
Said application is to
If this was a real-world meeting, one person would be tasked with keeping minutes. Unless they are a trained stenographer, they will not be able to record each word spoken; especially if they also wish to participate. Even if they have the skill, if more than one person speaks at a time, information will be lost.
In our virtual world everything is recordable. What's more, it can be replayed from any angle, from any point of view, with only the avatars of interest 'activated'. The environment itself takes our minutes, better than a horde of humans could.
Remember our First Law of the Network Reformation: identity is the foundation of interaction; and the second: That which I produce, I control. In order for this meeting to happen, the participants had to prove who they were, and agree to allow the others, plus their bosses etc, to replay the event. Usually this will happen automatically. On logging in you have to identify yourself, even in the 2D world. The invitation to the meeting will have had T&Cs attached, which made plain what usage the recorded event can be put to. All those at the table have accepted those T&Cs (whether they read them or not!)
[The meeting etiquette of a chairperson and only one person at a time speaking might not be appropriate in this environment: further thought needed.]
Assume the meeting is drawing to a close. Action lists are being agreed. It's not uncommon for the cry "I didn't agree to do that!" to arise. At which point we have a choice: re-argue the issue, or replay the meeting.
[Ideally speech recognition will have occured, so a text search can be done on keywords. Alternatively, a Fast Fourier Transform comparison be done over the audio stream, if the participants repeat the key terms.]
There will still be a need for 'minutes', in the form of some sort of summary. As a document, perhaps, with all the usual date, time, participant list, the T&Cs (which the 'document' itself has the means of enforcing), statement of purpose, and actions etc agreed. But this is an active (and 3D) document. Touch the participant list, and mini avatars appear. Touch an avatar to get their personal details (to the extent that you have their permission to), and a transcript of their actions within the meeting. Back to the document. Below the statement of purpose is a window, entering which allows you to review (but not to partake in) the meeting. A mouse click or hand wave displays floating menus, allowing you to control the review in great detail.
We can do more. Let's add the 4th dimension, time. A structure of 'wires', perhaps, appears behind the document, showing who said what to whom in relative time. And yet more. Let's decorate the meeting structure with links to stuff referred to in the meeting, such as web sites and file formats and existing applications or components. And comments and corrections and -
But I'm getting ahead of myself. My next post on this topic will examine some of the tools that mighr be available to the people involved in this virtual meeting. Tools that mere physical reality doesn't allow.
Here we are (or, rather, our avatars are) gathered around a virtual table. Our task is to produce a project plan for the creation testing and deployment of a bookselling application.
Said application is to
- allow the import of inventory from various sources into a common 'stock'
- enable the adding, editing, and deleting of individual books, updating the stock
- produce export files in formats suitable for uploading to various sales sites
- record orders received for books from those sites
- produce cancellation lists for any other sites that an ordered book is listed on.
- do anything else the people at the 'table' insist upon
If this was a real-world meeting, one person would be tasked with keeping minutes. Unless they are a trained stenographer, they will not be able to record each word spoken; especially if they also wish to participate. Even if they have the skill, if more than one person speaks at a time, information will be lost.
In our virtual world everything is recordable. What's more, it can be replayed from any angle, from any point of view, with only the avatars of interest 'activated'. The environment itself takes our minutes, better than a horde of humans could.
Remember our First Law of the Network Reformation: identity is the foundation of interaction; and the second: That which I produce, I control. In order for this meeting to happen, the participants had to prove who they were, and agree to allow the others, plus their bosses etc, to replay the event. Usually this will happen automatically. On logging in you have to identify yourself, even in the 2D world. The invitation to the meeting will have had T&Cs attached, which made plain what usage the recorded event can be put to. All those at the table have accepted those T&Cs (whether they read them or not!)
[The meeting etiquette of a chairperson and only one person at a time speaking might not be appropriate in this environment: further thought needed.]
Assume the meeting is drawing to a close. Action lists are being agreed. It's not uncommon for the cry "I didn't agree to do that!" to arise. At which point we have a choice: re-argue the issue, or replay the meeting.
[Ideally speech recognition will have occured, so a text search can be done on keywords. Alternatively, a Fast Fourier Transform comparison be done over the audio stream, if the participants repeat the key terms.]
There will still be a need for 'minutes', in the form of some sort of summary. As a document, perhaps, with all the usual date, time, participant list, the T&Cs (which the 'document' itself has the means of enforcing), statement of purpose, and actions etc agreed. But this is an active (and 3D) document. Touch the participant list, and mini avatars appear. Touch an avatar to get their personal details (to the extent that you have their permission to), and a transcript of their actions within the meeting. Back to the document. Below the statement of purpose is a window, entering which allows you to review (but not to partake in) the meeting. A mouse click or hand wave displays floating menus, allowing you to control the review in great detail.
We can do more. Let's add the 4th dimension, time. A structure of 'wires', perhaps, appears behind the document, showing who said what to whom in relative time. And yet more. Let's decorate the meeting structure with links to stuff referred to in the meeting, such as web sites and file formats and existing applications or components. And comments and corrections and -
But I'm getting ahead of myself. My next post on this topic will examine some of the tools that mighr be available to the people involved in this virtual meeting. Tools that mere physical reality doesn't allow.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Fit to type!
Slim Geek puts a whole new meaning on the "keep fit by cycling to work" idea :-)
[But why the CRT monitor? Tut ...]
[But why the CRT monitor? Tut ...]
Monday, October 09, 2006
Paper still has its uses (monitors make bad airplanes). Terminals are still appropriate for some tasks. WIMPs are best for the personal editing of document-like material. But for socialising or other forms of shared experience, we need something better.
Current 3D interfaces are 2D windows onto a simulated world. Controlling an avatar is not totally intuitive. One day we will have true VR, so the point of consciousness can coincide with the point of action; but for the time being we are stuck with the separation: avatars we must be.
Current demos of the technology are too twee for the business opportunities to be taken seriously; which is a pity, as 3D promises to do for social interaction what 2D technology did for document production: make the process vastly more efficient and (over?) productive. So what might a "sanitised for business" demo look like?
A distinct lack of purple dinosaurs and white rabbits, for a start. Each avatar will be soberly dressed, genderised (ideally personalised with regard to clothing), but recognisably human.
The face should be a real image of the person represented. The 'spaces' in which we interact should be office-like, with chairs and tables and whiteboards etc. Each avatar has a 'home' room, into which they can retreat for privacy.
Which brings me to the First Law of the Network Reformation: identity is the foundation of interaction. Any person or service that cannot be uniquely and accurately authenticated is not able to participate. But the Second Law is of near equal importance: That which I produce, I control; IOW the data streams that my authenticated identity produces are shared and stored strictly as I wish, or have actively agreed to.
The first law ensures trust, and the second privacy. Spamming, as an example, may never be impossible, but it should become traceable. As another example, when I vote in a national election, whom I voted for should remain secret, but that I was entitled to vote must be accurately ascertained. (These are issues I'll return to.)
Back to our demo. Imagine a virtual table around which are gathered several avatars with colleagues faces. The task before us, and how it might be performed, will be the subject of my next waffle.
[footnote] Although the boss sees the sober-suited avatars, as does anyone watching on a 'public' monitor, a neat hack would be to enable the participants to customise their view of the others' avatars. One participant might decorate the boss with horns and a pitchfork, another with a glowing halo, and a third change them into a donkey (albeit one with a human face). Only the customiser sees their preferences.
Whether the above is achieved or not is moot; but one critical ability will be colour control. Colour blindness is surprisingly common. Other accessibility issues, such as how the deaf will hear and the blind see some 3D equivalent are important issues. If the personalisation of the experience is designed-in from the start, much can be achieved.
Current 3D interfaces are 2D windows onto a simulated world. Controlling an avatar is not totally intuitive. One day we will have true VR, so the point of consciousness can coincide with the point of action; but for the time being we are stuck with the separation: avatars we must be.
Current demos of the technology are too twee for the business opportunities to be taken seriously; which is a pity, as 3D promises to do for social interaction what 2D technology did for document production: make the process vastly more efficient and (over?) productive. So what might a "sanitised for business" demo look like?
A distinct lack of purple dinosaurs and white rabbits, for a start. Each avatar will be soberly dressed, genderised (ideally personalised with regard to clothing), but recognisably human.
The face should be a real image of the person represented. The 'spaces' in which we interact should be office-like, with chairs and tables and whiteboards etc. Each avatar has a 'home' room, into which they can retreat for privacy.
Which brings me to the First Law of the Network Reformation: identity is the foundation of interaction. Any person or service that cannot be uniquely and accurately authenticated is not able to participate. But the Second Law is of near equal importance: That which I produce, I control; IOW the data streams that my authenticated identity produces are shared and stored strictly as I wish, or have actively agreed to.
The first law ensures trust, and the second privacy. Spamming, as an example, may never be impossible, but it should become traceable. As another example, when I vote in a national election, whom I voted for should remain secret, but that I was entitled to vote must be accurately ascertained. (These are issues I'll return to.)
Back to our demo. Imagine a virtual table around which are gathered several avatars with colleagues faces. The task before us, and how it might be performed, will be the subject of my next waffle.
[footnote] Although the boss sees the sober-suited avatars, as does anyone watching on a 'public' monitor, a neat hack would be to enable the participants to customise their view of the others' avatars. One participant might decorate the boss with horns and a pitchfork, another with a glowing halo, and a third change them into a donkey (albeit one with a human face). Only the customiser sees their preferences.
Whether the above is achieved or not is moot; but one critical ability will be colour control. Colour blindness is surprisingly common. Other accessibility issues, such as how the deaf will hear and the blind see some 3D equivalent are important issues. If the personalisation of the experience is designed-in from the start, much can be achieved.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
UI thoughts
Being of a certain age, I have witnessed a progression of UI's: real paper, 80x24 terminals, WIMPs, and now, the web (a backward step as a UI, IMO).
At each stage, I saw resistence:
What WIMPs and the web don't do well is enable socialisation. True, there are blogs and IM and video conferencing and allsorts of other new methods of communicating; but more satisfying than them all is - well, some examples will make the case better than a bland statement:
Which is the more satisfying action:
{to be continued}
At each stage, I saw resistence:
- Paper users treated the IBM XTs with Lotus 123a that landed on their desks as just more Spawn of Management, and ignored (or sabotaged) them as long as they could get away with it.
- DOS users took perverse pleasure in running one application at a time fullscreen in early versions of Windows. The idea of doing multiple things simultaneously was just more Spawn of Management.
What WIMPs and the web don't do well is enable socialisation. True, there are blogs and IM and video conferencing and allsorts of other new methods of communicating; but more satisfying than them all is - well, some examples will make the case better than a bland statement:
Which is the more satisfying action:
- telling that annoying person spamming your IRC channel to FOAD, or
- fragging them into gory chunks?
- the barely lip-synced floating head of your boss in NetMeeting. or
- your companion avatars in a MMORPG?
{to be continued}
Amazed! No breakages
So long as JavaScript is on, anyway.
Now all I have to do is decide which of my myriad topics of interest to start with.
[Q: how do you toss a hypercoin? Or get one from ...]
Now all I have to do is decide which of my myriad topics of interest to start with.
[Q: how do you toss a hypercoin? Or get one from ...]
Fx: hops up to the podium
It's a sign of age, perhaps, that starting this blog was a fraught decision. Kind of like starting a new job, blindfolded...
Now to twist some knobs and whack some buttons to see what breaks :-)
Now to twist some knobs and whack some buttons to see what breaks :-)
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