goddesscafe

Friday, May 17, 2002 :::

doubling back to laurent's last post... the atlantic articles reminded me of infinite jest (which i'm about halfway through now). the kids have a game called Eschaton, sort of a computerized Risk on steroids. using hundreds of deflated tennis balls and a complex set of computer-crunched equations, they play in the firm belief that all world conflicts can be predicted and played out using statistics.

the novel has me reaching for my dictionary from time to time. the name "eschaton" is derived from eschatology, "a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of mankind." nuclear conflict that is occasionally the outcome of the game.

and yes, i'm obsessing a bit over d.f. wallace at the moment, but i'm relieved to see that i'm not the* only one.

So, the TV show Elimidate was mentioned recently on the blog. Now I'm two degrees of separation from it, apparently. My lush of an associate (who called late last night from a bar to wake me up and drunkenly yell at me that he'd almost gotten a blow job from a strange girl in the bathroom, but had shoved her face away from his zipper and walked out (not sure why, considering him and his crowd cultivate that sort of shady thing) (one day maybe I'll relate a recent story involving them and some Vegas call girls...but anyway...) Ignoring for a moment the inexplicable power I have as some sort of freaking confessional to everyone I know, good lord, does stuff like that actually happen outside of gay bars?) (um, except for the gay male aquaintance who went down on me in a bathroom at a party years ago while my supposed boyfriend waited outside. That's not shady at all) has a friend from childhood, Mike, who was one of the dates to be eliminated last night. Apparently this guy made it to the final two, on the strength of his alpha-maleness, making fun of all the other guys, of kissing the girl when they were all out clubbing, to "make sure she knows who she's REALLY here with," etc. She apparently picked a scary guy with lots of gold jewelry, leading Mike to exclaim "I hope she has fun with that thug tonight. She'd better hold on to her wallet!" Cripes.

Here's some half-assed friend-promo. Only half an ass because the website is only a jpg now. BUT, it is proof that my imaginary friend Tim exists (he's only been seen by Elissa, he remains a mystery to everyone else). Although he uncharacteristically looks like a total geek on the right in that pic, which fits with his self-image but not reality. Boy looks like a cleaner version of Michael Franti* yet is convinced girls aren't into him. Sheez) At any rate, I got what I thought was spam yesterday from this band I'd never heard of, but was feeling curious enough to see if it was a local band, so I followed the link and was surprised to see his face. He hadn't even told me he was in one. Apparently there'll be mp3s there soon. And apparently I can't associate with anyone who's not a musician these days.

Thursday, May 16, 2002 :::

I think I will have to read the book to see what he's really angling at, but I think you aren't far off. Although when you think about it, that may not be true because computers are already past that first stage where you need to know how to code just to run one. The central part of his thesis is that equations don't describe the way the universe works, programs do. Since an equation can be considered a very simple form of program (defining one or two small relationships in many cases) this is why equations worked well for everything that has a simple enough program but fell apart as more and more levels of complexity came in. But ever since cellular automata started coming out, people found that simple rules defining change result in fascinating large-scale patterns. (See this article for how you can use them to show patterns of ethnic cleansing and such.) So it seems a lot of things might be predictable by using a rather simple set of rules that only govern what some small piece does in relation to what is around it, and if you view the whole thing you get the pattern. (Fluid dynamics, impossible to model in equations, seems to be a strong possibility for this.) What computers do is let you set up paramaters and run them in speeded up time. I don't think he is changing a philosophy of science so much as arguing that the tool we have is so powerful that once we start using it properly by focusing it on this aspect, it will dominate many sciences. The question becomes "does a scientist need to be able to program the computer, or just pick relevant parameters?"

I am undecided on the sleek, dark thing. I just like things that I like when I like them. (I'm rather vapid.)

It seems that your article actually says that Mississippi pot sucks, but the West Coast bud is too good. Of course, here in Canada, we have a political party dedicated to decriminalization and the government has grown a mine full for medical use but grew really bad weed and offended the experienced growers by not letting them help the government out. (Instead, the feds asked the US DEA for pot, but they said no. So they grew it from whatever the RCMP had left over from police raids.)

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 10:13 PM

I'm trying to wrap my head around Wolfram's thesis -- impossible without actually reading the book, I guess -- but is the central idea that scientists will gradually become programmers? Hence performing all of their inquiries, developing their arguments, etc., through coding?

i'm so over the sleek, dark, electronic-soundtrack crap. post-over it. give me bright colors and curves any day over pseudo-nine-inch-nails music being played while the cameras dart quickly over reflective surfaces, slender parallel lines, and gunmetal grey control panels. ick.

Warning: Star Wars spoiler. Jibba Jabba the Hutt. Heh. Or, for some serious time-wasting, SW-related short films. Or you can go watch a trailer for The Matrix intead. Can I just say that I just love the aesthetics of this sort of thing (everything sleek and dark, electronic and hard-rock soundtrack) much more than any retro/vintage crap? Am I a modernist? Futurist? Am I post-something? A local scribe, in a funny piece about stoned aging ravers at a bbq, "complained about how over it we all were. Even post-over it, if you will."

The other day I was reading a survey of teens asking which technology they couldn't live without: internet, phone, TV, radio. Girls voted for the phone first (then web, then TV). Guys voted for the internet (then TV, then phone). What does this say about gender and how we use technology? Do females use it more for communication with others? Do men and women use the web differently, like e-mail vs. shopping vs. info retrieval?

Not that this will amuse anyone but me, but why didn't I think of this for my linguistics class?

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 9:58 AM

Wednesday, May 15, 2002 :::

Rule number 1: NEVER BLOG DRUNK!! (as I will now demonstrate)

OK, there's a Menthos ad on the TV. Is the entire point of those ads that no matter how much of an asshole you are, if you pop a menthos people forgive you? I'm waiting for the logical culmination of this, where the Nazi guard at Auschwitz pops a Menthos so everyone forgives him.

As for Mr Science blog, you (as always) are correct Ms. Laura. It's time I said to hell with running it off of a scavenged computer cobbled from multiple parts and just paid someone to host lightcastle.net and put a blog on. I will do so, vow of honour.

Speaking of the science blog, I'm highly curious about Wolfram's book. On one level there is the "Duh" factor. Yes, almost all of the universe is better defined by interactive relationship rules than by straight equations. Besides physicists (who have the whole "a single equation rules all" deal to live up to since Newton) and the scientists in other fields who suffer from physics envy, who doesn't realize this? Really, life is feedback loops and interaction, Evolution is stability in the face of entropy and we are by nature pattern seeking monkeys in the chaos that surrounds us. So what else is new? Still, he seems to be pitching lots of specific challenges to established laws, and all under Kuhn's rule that in order to properly do a revolution, you need to explain why the previous theory worked so well as well as explain why the new theory is better. So that might be interesting.

An interesting comment on the need for a reformation battle in Islam.
People seem to forget that the west got the Enlightenment out of Christianity only after hundreds of years of sectarian violence. We didn't separate church and state because we were wise, we learned that the hard way. For some more on that most profound of lessons, look here.

A question, if there is a freelancer temping in the workplace, and therefore not committed to the company or likely to stay, I wouldn't be fishing off the company pier if I asked her out, right?

I'm not gunning for an Attack of the Clones midnight showing since my sister already saw it and her review was less than enthusiastic.

OK, I should stop before the typos and incoherence of doing this on a bottle of wine catch up to me.

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 9:05 PM

the homosexual subtext of star wars.

good news of the week: My Son the Mummy Part 3.141592653 is up and rolling (see picture at left). the first three MStM installments were originally staged at various nightclubs around san francisco. it's a brutal, fast-paced mix of dinner theatre, splatter-gore, musical comedy, slapstick, lunatic sci-fi and existential satire, with each joke based on multi-layered, often oblique pop culture referentia.

the last time the show hit the stage, in august of '98 at the cellspace, i slipped on the mummy's intestines after the second act (it was actually a banana-tapioca compote, i think). my natural lack of balance wasn't aided by the monk's robe i was wearing.

the new version -- for which griddle is the pit orchestra, performing under the guise of the dead-again christians -- is being featured in the SF Fringe theatre festival in september. six performances in four days.

hopefully we won't fall into the same pits as romeo lightcastle...

::: posted by kevin seal at 3:16 PM

oooh, some preeeetty graffiti/photography/Flash work. Rotate the names at the bottom to pick an artist.

a blog from a science journalist...Laurent, you shoulda beaten him to it. And, predictable new advances in video technology � putting words in people's mouths.

Tuesday, May 14, 2002 :::

I would just like to report that the Montreal Canadians lost in such a demoralizing fashion last night that the city couldn't even muster up the energy to riot.

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 9:08 AM

For more eathquake info - and 'cause I have nothing else to contribute at the moment. Go Here. Or here for a more detailed shake map.

::: posted by Rogue Designer at 8:10 AM

Monday, May 13, 2002 :::

Dammit, apparently a 5.2 earthquake hit tonight and Romi and I missed it entirely, leaving bellydancing class several miles north of here. Our roommate felt it and said he was ready to bolt. Of course, the idea of our poorly-built yet fab castle being knocked from its foundations and sliding down the Oakland Hills is terrifying.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 11:18 PM

OK, I'm impressed by the face-embedding.

It reminds me of that horrible idea that's been kicking around for a while about copyrighting DNA. Not guys like these but much more subtle ones who have a great little dodge around patent law. Since patents are relatively short (20 years or so), the idea (which I saw in a now-inaccessible NYTimes article) is you take a strand of DNA, run it through something like this and create music. Then you copyright the song. Copyright law, is what, 70 years after the author's death? So you code it the DNA sequence as music, sell that and the program to re-convert it to the researchers and then they have their sequence to work on and you have ownership. Lovely, no?

I saw the Romeo Castellucci bit and was quite unimpressed. He needs an editor. It's more of an installation art piece with people, which is fine (that's where he came from, installation art) but it is too much to say too little. He could have scrapped the second act (Auschwitz) entirely, since we got the point about 6 minutes in and it goes on for 45. And since the first act (At the beginning) has all the really good nightmare imagery and then he doesn't tie the symbolism back in act 3, I would have gone in the opposite order. Still, how often do you get to see children kill each other, an aneroexic lucifer strip naked, a naked woman with a masectomy whose hair is tied into looms that pull off her scalp, and a Cain with a withered arm choke out Abel on stage?

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 10:01 PM

newfound respect for aphex twin: the guy not only superimposed his face onto those models' bodies in the "windowlicker" video, but he implanted his visage into the waveforms of the song. god-DAMN that's clever.

a quick recommendation courtesy of justin stephenson: found magazine. oh, and more promoting-one's-friends-into-at-least-minor-celebrity: thomas kuo (whom kurt will be visiting soon), who worked on the recent indie film the fluffer, now officially exists according to imdb.com.

kurt: to create a link, put a left arrow (<) then
a href="http://www.whateveritis.com" target="_new"
then right arrow (>)
then whatever text you want highlighted as the link
then left arrow again, /a, and right arrow again.

::: posted by kevin seal at 2:58 PM

Yes. Well. I have no job now. Or at least I won't in 3 wks. They won't be flexible about my video program. It's completely absurd, there's NO reason I can't get the work done by shifting my hours. So now some Deep Thinking is required. Do I temp? (hasn't worked before, nothing is available around here) Look for part-time work? (yeah, me and every other underemployed wanker around here...jobs are getting hundreds of apps) Sublet out my room for the summer and go live for free with two filthy bachelors with a spare room? (but...my castle...) Run up more on my credit card? Dammit. DAMMIT!

I SHOULD be all excited about the program. I am. But I need an income, and I just gave up the most stable job in the universe for this opportunity. Well, my high school counselor used to tell me that when one door closes, another one opens, so I guess I get to wait and see.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 1:20 PM

Sunday, May 12, 2002 :::

Dood. (as Romi would say) Rodrigo, I know you were kidding with your mockeries of my art-impatience...I was teasing too when I cited it for humor value. Kurt, what an international star you are! Two of my coworkers are going to the World Cup in Japan too. Tonight I got a t-shirt in Japanese at the Bay Area debut of my friend's band, How To Win At Life (they had their inexplicable band logo silk-screened onto random shirts from thrift stores) (and speaking of inexplicable, my friend put a red ostrich feather on the end of his bass, in order to tickle the ear of drummer Nino for their homoerotic rhythm section, causing the lead singer to introduce him as "Chris Wiebe on the feather!!!"). The multilingual Jonathan (who was there handing out singles of Col.K's The Mother Song for Mother's Day...what a hustler) told me all it says is "Francesca" repeatedly, except upside down and backwards. (they were opening up for First Circle*, a band that was all over the place musically, but had a cuuuuuute female sax player. Wasn't enough to keep the attention of me and Karen and Joel, though, who wandered outside to watch some drunken musician/groupie drama)

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 2:21 AM

It has been a while. Almost forget how to get in here. Lovely, lovely, everybody seems to be getting along fair to middlin' or better!
Feeling a bit internaitional lately.
I get to go to Arizona to see my Big Sister get married INSERT LINK TO "TIE THE KNOT" DOT COM. Then its off to L.A. to see a friend Kevin and Brad and I have known for years, Sir Thomas Kuo, son of Ping and Show Kuo.
Back for a couple of days then Detroit for the Detroit Elctoronic Music Festival (DEMF) INSERT LINK HERE ,Memorial day weekend. A free event. Anybody and everybody. Just get yo' ass there! Listening to world class music while looking over to Canada for scenery.
Then May 31st, ahh yes, 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan.
Peace.
P.S. Could somebody remind me how to create a link?

::: posted by Kurt Kistler at 12:12 AM