$disanpoter

dreaming paras

i've been sitting downstairs at mcnally robinson today, ostensibly available for gift-wrapping (donations benefit housingworks), though little gift-wrapping has been requested. Garrison Keillor is upstairs singing something for a very happy crowd and the book sellers have been stopping by, chatting aimlessly, then going off on some book-sellery task through-out the evening. fortunately, they're chill enough to let me use the internet while i'm sitting here behind the counter, so i've been researching facebook applications and other information management topics for the dual purpose of fine-tuning the concept i have for a flashcard mashup application and finding some useful applications to extend the page we're putting together for the sub-basement project.

the flashcard application i have in mind would be different from most user made listing tools. it would simply provide a storing place for pairing of information; instead it would provide users with a place to store categorized transformations on public information. a user would create a list by pointing to a source url then specifying which fields/tags within the source information represented identifying information, detail information, and categorical information. These differentiations would then determine what information went on which side of the cards. cluster cards could be generated automatically from multiple identity records with the same category field values. categories would also be assimilated into a larger hierarchy that hopefully would facilitate merging of source data and sharing of lists. field values pointing to media files would automatically become identifier cards for such things as art history or music identification aids. finally, while users would always be free to point their list sets to a set of data they uploaded themselves, the hope would be that in forcing them to reference information not stored within the flashcard service, they would begin to seek out opportunities to leverage information maintained by subject authorities and the subject-matter authorities would respond by increasing the accessibility and utility of the data they manage.

M is for MHOГO

my brain is fragmented this morning. i think this is the fault of the book i've gone back to reading after a bit of a non-fiction break. i've been having trouble reading through this book because within a paragraph of starting into it, it's got me spinning off into a world of supplemental ideas. so my mind's fragmented, thinking about life as a series of statements object-action code syntax like so:

print_r $lindsay.state;
>array( 'not bored', 'fragmented')

and thinking about how best to implement specialized content in facebook platforms. it has one flaw in common with myspace that irritates me to no end: the idea that one frequently refers to one's own profile page. most of the applications i would want to create would publish stories in the newsfeed i receive not publish items on my behalf in the newsfeeds of my friends...meh. like news, friends blogs, study review (ie daily german vocab), etc. fortunately facebook has added this new 'pages' concept for businesses which could provide such a service...i'll have to explore that. i suspect the service pages won't actually permit specialized per-user content so it might not be very useful at all...

and thinking about  how i need a better pandora station, so i'm trying out intersection stations by picking two disparate artists and seeing what happens. i'm annoyed with Up Up, because it's not, actually what it purports to be. so i've put manu chao with moloko to see what craziness that stirs up.

and thinking about how i miss my friend. it's not a frequent thing, missing people...but there are some. standing in wait for the A train again at JFK saturday night, i had such an intense sensation of remembered experience it stayed with me all the way home.

it's fun thinking in layers.

a tyranny of lines

we have been duped by time. it has asserted in our minds the dominance of the sequential, the consequential, the linear. We write in lines, our speech doesn't double back on itself and our thoughts too, hamstrung by the means we have at our disposal to express them, we experience as linear. But our world is not linear. It is not cartesian; it is fully multi-dimensional, and it is frustrating to me that is a source of frustration for me that it requires such a steely grasp on our minds simply to begin to perceive it in the way it really is and to be able to contemplate that our own experiences of it are beyond our comprehension.

Perhaps all that is a load of crap I can't hope to substantiate. it seems to me that we already know that we do not think linearly, yet, we so often perceive our thought processes as such. We may perceive branches in the the thought process that takes us to a given conclusion but we don't see them occurring sequentially – or at least, if one begins with the observation that languages develop words of distinction for variations that are immediately relevant to the speakers of the language, then we certainly failed to develop sounder methods for expressing correspondence and synchronicity among events.

What's my point. I don't know what my point is. My point is linearity of expression is limiting us. My point is we would not be alive if our brains processed things linearly and we should try to tap that ability for our conscious minds as well as our autonomic systems. My point is if we try can we develop non-linear forms of communication. Can we have computers that are not strings of 0s and 1s or are we imprisoned not only in time but its aftereffect, that no matter how fast a neuron travels, it still is traveling in time across space, that no matter how sophisticated our object oriented programming languages and visual programming languages grow, they still must descend into a realm of tyrannical linearity before fulfilling their tasks.

I want to know. 

White Noise

I've hit that critical mass point again where all my thoughts and goals are piling up behind my eyes and at the outskirts of my brain like a throng of trapped and terrified creatures. the image that comes to my mind of course is that of the townsfolk locked in the burning church. it's that kind of undoing of self where the center that was meant to bind the group together in the best of ways becomes the source of their destruction instead. That's how my brain feels right now. I need to reorganize myself and my projects. I have so many ambitions - though ambitions with it's outwardly focused connotations is less the word i'd like to use than something else might be. There are so many potentials i dream of seeing fulfilled and provided for - in myself, in my life (the people, groups, and whatnot that i feel connected to), and in the world at large: or at least the world of minds represented electronically. It's not so much about me acheiving these things as these things being acheived at all. It's stressing me out...

So to start with, i'm going to more rigorously set up my space over at the disanpoter domain around projects. I'll keep this one for babbling in the hopes that one can become some kind of point of collaboration. I only wish i was smart enough and productive enough to be able to work with those minds i admire most ...

isa the isos

• isa: as in 'is a ...'
• iso: as in alike, the same

If isa(a) = TRUE and isa(z) = TRUE, what can be said about the relationship between a and z?

Well, within the context we're talking about (which you don't know yet) what can be said is that in a system of finite (n) functional relationships of the form y in {f(x)} and x in {-f(y)} . 

The idea i'm working with now is that If you can create a semantically sound statement about some x in the form x is a... then x can be defined within a series of relationships. the set thing is just saying that if you describe a relationship f(), y is a member of the resulting set of values {f(x)}, and likewise if you have -f describing the inverse relation of y to x instead of x to y, what is known is that x is a member of the result set (-f(y)}.

mathmachinations

So, I've changed the logic used to evaluate candidates for zone control. This was a strange process, far more like evolution than substitution - or to put it more bluntly, it's been messy. I'm not entirely sure what it does anymore but it pretty consistently arrives at the same judgements i would make, so I figure that's as good as i can get it.

I suppose if Whitfield Duffy can unleash the evolutionary process on program processes such that after several generations the surviving programs are completely unintelligible to even his superbrain, i shouldn't be too distress that i'm not entirely sure how what i've written manages to do what i want it too, however inexplicably it acheives that.

The part i think i most understand is the percentage value calculated for the candidate movability ratio. yeah...

This is a multipart calculation.
~First it evaluates the significance of the candidate's previous assignment as a percentage of prior subordinates remaining and that of the potential new assignment as a percentage of current subordinates that are new.
~It then takes the difference of these two assignments as a measurement of the candidates readiness/fitness to change assignments.
~negative values disqualify candidate from change in assignment (the system is skewed to favor stability)
~positive values are compared to those of other candidates, and the most ready candidate receives zone assignment. 

Before a candidate's movability comes into play, it must first satisfy at least one level of proximity conditions ('ideal','valid'), which require that the candidate's current affiliations to at least partially conform to those of the zones prior manager. This ensures zone statis in relationship to the overall object (corporate) hierarchy, basically that the zone's identity on a functional/role level is not changed by the change in leadership. If more than one candidate acheieves whatever is the closest (highest) proximity, that is when it moves on to highest movability.

Hopefully I'll be able to make this logic make sense in other hierarchies as well as this one, but that's where it is for now. It seems to be okay. I'm going to try it out at increments and see how it judges changes occuring over the last year. I need to test how volatile it is over time (think Reimann Sums). The greater the interval the more intermediary movements are lost...

so that's my mind today. i'm quite enjoying it, but i need some lunch. oh yes i do.

[Work Notes]

1 Jun 06 - because i said so.
a hierarchy (of the form $set = new Hierarchy) is a multi-dimensional dataset satisfying the following conditions:

1. Hierarchy must designate data type to be used as sturctural nodes along with both identifying and linking fields for said data type
2. Hierarchy node contents, regardless of data type, must associate with hiearchy nodes in identical, encapsulatable manner.
3. Structural Nodes may contain any of the following
   1. Other Syntacticly Identical Structural Nodes
   2. Complete Hierarchies designated by different structuring parameters
   3. Interlaced Schematic Grouping Labels affiliated with non-structural attributes of some or all content units
   4. Schematic Groups such that the Schema itself is associated with the Structural Node or the Hierarchy mode.
   5. Self-contained content units.
4. Structural Nodes may not contain any of the following:
   1. un-encapsulated elements of other Hierarchies
   2. Schematic Groupings which can not be applied universally with in the node at which they enter the hierarchy
5. Each Structural Object maps to the given hierarchy at only one place. This does not preclude the data object from being used in other hierarchies according to differing parameters

For dynamically resolved hierarchies, the hierarchy must designate the relationship linking contents to nodes, the relationship linking nodes to nodes, and the intermediary relationship which governs how contents are assigned to nodes and how other nodes are assigned to nodes.

[okay. i'm not really sure how much sense that all makes, but hopefully it'll take me somewhere in the morning]   

easy storage.

there's really just no such thing, is there. that's why it's storage and not access, because it's a way to siphon off what's not used all the time. but that just perpetuates that lack of use. like my stuff downstairs. i don't really hang out down there, so i don't end up making use of what i have down there. which just develops into a habit of repurposing (dag-on-it, i was wracking my brain for that word yesterday, and today it just pops right up on command) items lying around upstairs.

i'm thinking of either sawing off the legs of one of my tables or putting the other on boosters so i can tuck the former underneath the latter most of the time. i just want different things up here...

inevitabilities

There are certain advances that to me seem more inevitabilities than mere possibilities. Genetic engineering, for example. I was reminded of this friday night watching Numbers (yes, i was home alone friday night. i was home alone most of the weekend. i'm in a home alone kind of state lately.[this space left in observance of the jaded diatribe that previously sat here]). In the episode Charlie used genetic algorithms to estimate the appearance of 8 possible murder suspects based on DNA samples picked up at the crime scene. Of course this led to the obligatory dialog about the slippery slope of using DNA. In Numbers, this role falls to Charlie's adviser, the astrophysicist. In the last episode i watched, which might just have been the previous weekend (but i refuse to admit to such a pitiful existence, should it be the case) it fell to Charlie's adviser to remind charlie that science hasn't proven the lack of existence of a god. That's the nice thing about fiction, one can always avail oneself of the convenience of couching the logic of one side in the mouth of the other. In this one, Charlie's adviser expressed reservations about DNA as such an absolute piece of identity and the inevitability of its use for ill as well as for good. This in turn reminded me a Galatica and how much of a cliche this argument has become.

It irritates me, in fact, how almost any narrative that explores the dangers and possibilities of applied genetics, artificial intelligence, the blending of the biological and mechanical or electrical always, always devolves to a reassertion of the inviolable uniqueness of the human spirit. Believe me, I'm one of the last people to dismiss possibility of souls or unique identities, but it offends me that it's become a trope, a form to reinforce the accepted convention. It's a mock evaluation. It's like a puppet trial.

To me, there is nothing so dangerous as passing off as a sincere evaluation what has all along been a march towards a predetermined conclusion. i can't talk/write today. (hmm...i'm thinking we need a new word for electronic talking. chatting doesn't quite do it. in fact, short of explicit reference, we lack any adequate way of communicating the electronic nature of a discourse in tandem with it's semantic mode. Harlan Ellison wrote "repent harlequin." perhaps i'll write some story about the Office for the Development and Dissemination of Sanctioned Neologisms. i'd probably be the only one amused by it though.)  returning to the point...

Look:

• Alien, Space Odyssey, iRobot, the Matrix, the Sphere, Logan's Run - all resolve the conclusion that sentient technology, even well intentioned technology, lacks some essential humanness to make the right decisions - with cataclysmic results. This maybe true, but the sham of consideration these films provide goes only so far as to give enough credibility to the idea of good intentions and logic foundations that there's actually some conflict to resolve.
• Galatica, The Island, Coma, etc...all speak to the impossibility of pinning us down to our dna.(more later)

The thing is, short of the complete dismantling of society as we know it and a Handmade's Tale scenerio for the future, genetic engineering and the use of science to predetermine aptitudes and shortcomings is a going to be a reality at some point in the next few hundred years, if not my lifetime. it just is. and all this energy spent convincing ourselves and reinforcing the comfortable notion that we just shouldn't go there, is only preventing us from discussing how it should be implemented to avoid such dystopic scenerios. It's like the river in the Tao Te Ching. You can never hope to stop the river; but you can guide it's course and in doing so save the town.

I'm ashamed this is so rambly and poorly structured, but i've got to get back to work.

googlicious

on a more positive note, gregg just stopped by to inform me that he came across interview of the CEO of google in a magazine he was reading last night, and the things the CEO was saying sounds very much like what i talked about in our group meeting yesterday. that's kind of lovely. i responded, "well that could boost my credibility somewhat" to which he replied "oh i don't think anyone doubts your credibility. i know you think you're 'invisible' but that doesn't mean you're not credible." I said, "well yes..." I knew what i wanted to respond; i just couldn't find the word for it. The word was relavant. It came to me just after he left. I may have seemed credible, but i'm not convinced my focus seemed all that relavant. Being in line with the CEO of google might pull in some substantial support of the relavance of my ideas for future development. this pleases me.

it also reminds me i need to set up those networking meetings.