Acetio | Blogma

December 31, 2003

Conspiracy Laid to Rest

I did something today.
I made coffee from previously-used grounds.
Experts say this would yield sour, bitter, terrible coffee.
In fact it was fine. It was weak, but not bad.
The idea came to me from having used a French press for my coffee for a long time. Often I leave the grounds swimming in water for up to 15 minutes before I depress the plunger.
Drip-coffee is based on the premise that coffee should have as little contact with water as possible.
Many flavors are filtered out of the coffee using the drip method, some bad and some good.
I think drip coffee may be better for lighter roasts, but I prefer to give the gruonds a good soaking when it's a dark roast.

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December 30, 2003

Finding your Ditch Digger Name

"Boogie Nights" included dialog that gave instruction on how to find your 'porn star name': "It's common knowledge that to get your porn star name you combine the name of your first pet with your mother's maiden name..."

The 'soap opera name' formula is: "pornstar names are supposedly your middle name, and the street you grew up on..."

The 'barfly name' is: the last snack food you ate and your favorite drink (Pirate Booty Ovaltine)

The 'drag queen name' is some combination of the above, say your favorite pet's name with your mother's middle name, or something. Who knows. These are probably all wrong.

This is all old. About as old as the concept of 'Internet Time' (remember that? man, that never took off). But the amazing thing is that each formula above generates the exact same name for me: Crackers Franklin

Voynich

Sometime in the late 1400s a document was written and sold repeatedly from one collector to aother over the next few hundred years.

The appeal of the book is that it is written in a language found nowhere else on Earth, and all 200 or so pages are thus believed to be entirely in code.

The codex also contains many illustrations of fantastic plants and people engaged in strange activities.

The question then is whether the book was a hoax or prank where the text is mererly gibberish, or the book conceals encrypted information and is just waiting to be cracked.

There are lots of examples of written hoaxes, such as the Salamander Papers and Beale Papers, but those stories don't involve Edward Kelley or Francis Bacon.

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Macadamia Miso

Much of invention involves combining two or more existing ideas.

I took a packet of instant miso soup, added hot water, and dropped in a bunch of macadamia nut halves. Sir MacAdam might protest, but at least I saved the whole ones for normal standard regular munching.

The result of this was an odd admixture of textures, one that in fact I doubt I'll care to repeat.

Last week's food invention was 'pan-fried fish sticks served with liberal amounts of Japanese mayonnaise (saltier and more pudding-like in consistency than Hellmann's).

It was a success.

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December 28, 2003

Stalker Creature Guilt Comforts Syndrome

Stalker Guilt Syndrome is a short film on AtomFilms.com.

Most of the stuff on that site is crud, but this is really good.

It's Funny Because it's True

Creature Comforts is also on AtomFilms and it's really good claymation by the people who made Chicken Run. The audio track comes from real recordings, to which the animation was designed.

But the funniest stuff Aardman has ever done (funnier than Wallace and Grommit but not as polished) is Rex the Runt. You owe it to yourself to spend an hour or so watching all the episodes.

Non-sequiter:
Have you ever brushed your teeth while chewing gum? I didn't intend to, but I wanted to brush and had a fresh piece in my mouth that I didn't want to get rid of.

It worked out pretty well - I didn't get the gum mashed into the bristles, which was my biggest obstacle.

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Poker vs Football

There are two basic metaphors for attempts at acheivement: the football metaphor and the poker metaphor.

The football metaphor requires one to give one's all: 100% + whatever additional percentage the coach feels is appropriately motivating. The idea is to never quit.
The poker metaphor was best enumerated by The Gambler himself, Kenny Rogers:

1. You gotta know when to hold 'em
2. Know when to fold 'em
3. Know when to walk away
4. Know when to run.
5. You don't count your money when you're sittin' at the table; There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Basically, if you approach most real-life situations with the football metaphor in mind, you will experience ignominious defeat.

Whereas, if you come in with the poker metaphor, you will know, as stated in premise #2, that you should turn your cards face down and wait for the next hand, which may include something like pneumatic pistons.

Gamma Wow

An idea for P-Comp, even though that class is over - maybe I can use it in another.

Say Ah.

Now hold the note while widening your mouth, then puckering. You make a 'wow' sound that is an aspect of phase, independent of pitch, amplitude, or timbre.

Human language makes use of this in the differentiation of vowel sounds.

You sometimes hear the effect used in music via flangers or phasers.

At ITP, and elsewhere, people seem to like finding parallels between sound and vision - maybe tying pitch to color, or phonemes to color, etc. So how about tying phase to gamma?

Gamma is the point of middle gray in a display system. A high gamma means the image appears light. The point of brightest white and darkest black stay the same, only the midpoint shifts, emphasizing all the midtones in-between.

The movie 'Se7en' took advantage of this, as have many music videos, by lowering the gamma in the picture, making everything seem darker, while not actually darkening anything. The result is that shadows are deeper, while highlights remain the same.

So the idea is to have a knob that, when playing a video, changes both the gamma of the image and the phase of the audio at the same time.

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LotR III

Saw The Return of the King. Have to say that I liked the 2nd one more. The third one had too many bits where I felt like I was watching a cartoon - just because the computer graphics weren't realistic enough.

The 2nd Matrix had the same problems which is why I never even cared to watch the third one.

When The Two Towers ended I was really into the whole story (although I didn't care about any of the characters), but halfway into 'King' I started to get bored.

Oh well.

But what am I saying? Of course it was awesome. It's just disappointing to so quickly get accustomed to incredibly good special effects.

It underscores the worn-out lesson that it's the story that matters. And I just didn't care that much. There's another siege and there's some guy I've never seen before acting crazy and trying to set his son on fire. The bit with the ring was the best, because I could actually believe the relationship between those three.

The other stuff was too fantasy.

And I wanted more ents.

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December 24, 2003

Things Go in a Way

"The Way Things Go," is an awesome movie, and it inspired a guy to make a toy called Cat-A-Pults that is like dominoes cascading onto each other, but is a series of catapults.

He calls his work 'gestural engineering' and is a 'specialist' in chain reactions. I like all that Rube Goldberg stuff.

The article, like the recent one in the New Yorker, describe how difficult it is to market original toys when the industry is dominated by packaging and instant gratification.

Suppose I took a career as toymaker? Suppose the only outlet for my work was the little plastic gew-gaws in McDonald's Happy Meals? Would I be satisfied?

Lye

I've begun using lye to clean my dishes.
Soap takes too long, and requires scrubbing.
There a rather nasty rash on my hands, but boy do those pots and pans sparkle!

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December 23, 2003

Hound of Chow

Cooking can be fun, but I'm wary whenever I see recipes that include steps such as "pat dry" or "mince finely" or "let sit for 45 minutes".

I don't mind stirring until well-mixed or chop into large chunks - coarse violence is fine, I just don't like steps that require precision.

My favorite recipes include the word 'dump', as in, "Open can. Dump contents into bowl."
Or better yet, "Dump contents into mouth."
'Pouring' suggests some amount of care, while 'dump' means it doesn't matter if some falls on the floor, if you leave some in the can to eat later with a spatula.

Honda Cog

Honda UK made a great commercial, based on the movie 'The Way Things Work', a Rube Goldberg type of thing.

Here's a link to the ad in ASF format. And here's one in QuickTime.

Or click here to see it on Honda's site along with an explanation of how it was done.

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Comparitive Review of Synthetic Creatures

Let us examine fictional characters from antiquity through today based on the following:
Material, Personality, Nature of Birth, and Date of idea conception.
What can we learn?

From these data we can conclude that creating synthetic creatures from organic materials result in more interesting personalities than we would get from inorganic ones. Stone in particular yields sexy yet uninteresting girlfriends.

Synthetic creatures made from wood or plants tend to be spunky, while those made of rock or metal are true literalists, in that they adhere to Literalism.

Based on this theory, we can posit that an artificial man made of twine would be witty and urbane, at least in comparison to his metallic brethren.

We can also conclude that Science-generated creatures are in general scarier (or at least more powerful) than God-generated ones, especially when portrayed by Lee Majors.

Thirdly, female robots are boring.

It was really in the 20th century when the line between robotics and medicine began to blur, when it was possible to imagine a human being with mostly mechanical organs and limbs. But, if you include Voodoo dolls in this list,
well then...
I'm not sure, but it's related.

* The first use of the word 'robot' is from this play: R.U.R. (ROSSUM'S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS)

December 21, 2003

Robot Manager

Game idea: first-person perspective in 3D-environment. You and a few other people are on some planet - you're competing with them.

There are lots of resources, but you alone can't do much. However, there are loads of robots hanging around, and you can walk up to them and program them to gather wood or food or whatever. So, pretty soon, you can lie back and watch your minions serve you. But, you can also hunt down the other players' robots and either destroy them, or better yet, hack into them so that they carry the goods back to your house instead.

CattleCar Hysterica

I don't get the Sci-Fi channel, so I won't be able to see the new Battlestar Galactica. (The word 'galaxy' and 'galactic' [and thus 'galactica'] come from the same root as 'lactose' and 'lactate', because the ancients called the visible part of our galaxy the 'milky way' - so, 'Milky Way Galaxy' is redundant, and the show I'm talking about translates to 'Milky Battlestar', whatever a battlestar is...)

And hey, do you remember Buck Rogers from around that time? Starring Gil Gerard, with Erin Gray as Wilma Deering, and Mel Blanc as the voice of Twiki, the wise-cracking robotic side-kick?

I loved the old Battlestar Galactica, from the 70s, when I was a kid, but I have no interest in stoking nostalgia. Still, I saw some promos for the new show, and the cylons now look like people, which surely saves lots of money on costumes.

BUT, in the promo, it seemed that there were two kinds of evil robots: Vampy Temptress and Warrior.

And when looking at the list above, it seems that the synthetic creatures fall into three categories: sex slave, war slave, or fluke. The Maker either wanted to screw the thing, have the thing fight on his behalf, or there was some comical error.
If you haven't guessed, most robot-makers are men, both in the fictions and in real life. There are women doing this stuff, but their work is entirely unrelated to everything covered on this Web page. For example, what the hell is Kismet? You can't screw it and it can't fight, but it wasn't a mistake either.
We may have to wait a few generations before the trend is evident.

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Robolympics

After watching Beyond Human - Living Machines I have a prediction: Within 20 years we will see a robot olympics where countries such as the US, Japan, China, Japan, Germany, Japan, Italy, Japan, and India submit robotic teams to compete in traditional athletic events. We'll call it 'Robolympics', we'll get sponsors, sell TV broadcast rights, it'll be great.

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December 19, 2003

Qrio

The latest humanoid robot (from Japan, of course) is named Qrio (pronounced 'queerio'? 'curio'?).

It's dancing isn't too good, and although the makers claim it can run, it runs as slowly as it walks, so no big advance there. It can through a ball pretty well, and that's amazing.
But - all of this kind of work is the same as the mechanical automata from a few hundred years ago in Germany and Switzerland - it's all mimicry and while it helps to understand movement, it doesn't seem to bring us any closer to a real intelligence.

Werewolves

2 teams, humans and werewolves. Equipment: 1 ball (kickball, playing the role of silver bullet)

Version 1

If a werewolf touches a human, the human turns into a werewolf, joining the other side If the ball touches a werewolf, the werewolf turns into a human, joining the other side Game ends when all players are on same side.

Version 2

Instead of switching, players die. Game ends when only one player left

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December 18, 2003

Meteorological Secularization and the Modern Elevator

The modern elevator can be an awkward place, until you've discovered the secret to conscience-free riding: talking about the weather.

In the Midwest, most social interactions are seen to be as awkward as an urban elevator ride, and thus, weather again saves the moment.

But in antiquity, such conversation was impossible. Consider the dialogue recorded by the Greek scholar Puerilius in 347 B.C.E.:

Gluteus, a Roman is standing near the bow of a ferry in the Adriatic Sea. The ferry is crowded, with many people returning to their villagers for the Saturnalia. Gluteus is forced to rub shoulders with a number of Egyptians, enslaved after the most recent Roman victory in North Africa. One Egyptian, Bob is in fact standing less than an eighth of a cubit from Gluteus, and they have no choice but to face each other, and while away the minutes as they wait for the ferry to disembark on the far shore.

Bob knows some Latin, as all slaves are required to speak in the imperial tongue. He feels obligated to make idle chit-chat, as Egyptians are known for, and proud of their reputation as being socially adroit. He decides to be friendly. "So, the Titans really took a thrashing at the Colosseum last night, eh?"

Gluteus smiles wanly. He is in fact a fan of the Titans, and is offended by this remark. He is about to grunt in affirmation, but notices a few other Titan fans look irritated that the subject of their team's loss has been broached.

Bob can see that this is not the best topic, although he is confused. He had always thought sports was the subject de rigeur for men.

Sports having been spent, he considers bringing up the political situation in Rome, but then decides against it. He then considers the subject of race relations between the Africans and Europeans, but knows that won't make him any friends.

And then it hits him. Bob wipes his brow and complains, "By Jove. Could it be any colder? I mean, I know this is the tenth month, but Hephestus!"

Gluteus smiles politely and remarks, "Have you been to Gaul lately? That place is colder'n a witch's tit in a bronze bra."

Weather saves the day.

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December 17, 2003

Finger Punctuation

You know how people use their fingers to indicate quotes?
What if we started using our fingers to indicate other punctuation?

Parenthesis - hands cupped, palms toward each other

Elipsis - three fingers pointing forward, palm down

Colon - two fingers pointing forward, palm facing sideways

Semi-colon could be awkward. try it!

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December 16, 2003

Modern Times

Just saw Charlie Chaplin's 1936 "Modern Times" at the Film Forum, and it made me think I needed a new category of 'movie profiles'. I should watch 'Metropolis' and 'Blade Runner' and other movies that deal with society dealing with technology.

All I remembered of "Modern Times" was the scene where Chaplin gets stuck in the gears of the big machine - a pretty obvious metaphor - but most of the movie was a set of vignettes that could have been used in many of his other movies. His character, the little tramp, is always on the run from the law.

Some aspects of the movie were surprising though. There were more references to nipple-tweaking than I thought would have been allowed in 1936. Also, there was a scene where people's stomach's were gurgling in an embarrassing way. It was quite an achievement to express that in a movie that was clearly filmed silent, with all the sound added post-production. The dialog still relied on the interstitial cards like I would expect of a movie of that era.

It didn't deal much with technology, but "Modern Times" should still be on a list of movies to watch if you're interested in humanity's relationship to industrialization, mechanization, and the ideas of efficiency being embraced at the expense of humanity.

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December 15, 2003

Axis of Flavor

Flavor combinations, just like human relationships, require a 'top' and a 'bottom' or a 'sail' and an 'anchor' or a 'dominant' and a 'submissive'.

For example, when chocolate is paired with mint, chocolate is the base. Whereas when chocolate is paired with peanut butter, chocolate becomes the accent.

But not all flavors, just like not all human pairings, go together well. For example, while mint and peanut butter both play well with chocolate, they do not play together at all well.

And, some flavors, such as chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and to a degree, apple, seem to play well with most other flavors, while other flavors, such as pineapple or coconut, are much more discriminating.

To demonstrate this, I put together a java applet to demonstrate the relationships between and among flavors. I limited it to sweets, since savories is a much more complex set.

Click and drag the yellow boxes.




You can see how the 'fundamental' flavors are in the middle, while the 'specialized' flavors are in the periphery.

The java code comes from one of Sun's tutorials from the mid-1990s. It's simple but allows a pretty good representation of relationships among many objects.

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December 14, 2003

Sea Monkey Diary

Ah.
Sea Monkeys

I bought the kit for $8 or so at one of those gag shops that sell wigs and x-ray specs and other stuff that I remember being sold on the back page of the comic books I read as a kid.

The instruction booklet is copyright 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1985, and 1987. There was clearly an early, biannual rush in perfecting the methodology of raising sea monkeys up until the fall of of the Soviet Union. The book contains lots of phrases that are intended to sell related products.

However, in their defense, they usually explain how to make due with objects found around the home - in a quaint way not often seen anymore.

A testament to the New York entrpeneurial spirit, with several patents, including the Sea Monkey Baseball Game

But if they're shrimp, can I eat them? I like shrimp. Do I have my hands on a popcorn shrimp factory?



Quotes from the instructions:

- Parthenogenesis: self-conception - The production of new individuals from virgin females by means of ova which have the power of developing without the intervention of the male element

- If for any reason your pets do not mate, first make sure that there are MALES present.

- If not, you'll have to wait until you grow some.

- If the temperature is O.K. and both mature sexes are present but are not "interested" in one another, you can induce them to breed by adding a something that seems to have an almost immediate stimulating effect on them.

- It's called "Cupid's Arrow™ Sea Monkey Mating Power (Item 84).



The kit came with a pack of "Growth Food" (pack #3), for sale only from the parent company. I didn't want to fall into that trap so I started experimenting with other foods. The first experiment was brewers' yeast. The sea monkeys all died and the experiment ended.



Overall it could be a fun kit for kids to learn about biology and stuff.

December 13, 2003

Spy Gadgets

Lipsticks concealing pistols, pigeons carrying spy-cameras, troop motion detectors disguised as tiger poop...

CIA Museum Showcases Exotic Spy Gadgets (James Bond-y type stuff, including robotic fish)
The CIA Museum
CIA Directorate of Science and Technology (nice Flash intro)

NSA's National Cryptologic Museum
Including a manual radio-triangulation device from 1918

International Spy Museum also cool flash intro
Espionage Exhibit

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December 12, 2003

Modern Nutcracker

The original "The Nutcracker and the King of Mice" was written in 1816, the same year that Mary Shelley wrote 'Frankenstein', and there are some, not exactly parallels, but related themes of anthropomorphization (that's a long word) and combining technology and humanity.

It's probably a stretch, but there could be a modern version of the story, where magic is replaced with science. Hans could turn not into a toy soldier, but is injured and then forced to become a cyborg-style bionic dude.

Then, the mice wouldn't be just magic, but would be Dr. Moreau-type super-mice that have been genetically cloned and modified into real-life monsters.

Finally, the toys that Hans recruits would be the household robots that he now resembles, for just as he becomes more machine-like, they have been becoming more human-like.

Then the cyborgs and the robots unite to battle the genetically-modified animals.

Man, that would be cool.

Although, now that I think about it, both the original and the update relish in the triumph of technology over nature. While all three parties are technologically-enhanced, the robots and cyborgs are certainly even more-so.

Back in 1816 the Industrial Revolution was still cool, I guess, but now we know it's a mixed blessing, don't we?

So maybe the modern version, in order to show the ambiguity of the situation, we should tell the story from the Mouse King's perspective - but in order to be gender-sensitive we should actually focus on the Queen - but in order to be class-sensitive we should have the protagonist be some kind of rodent vassal.

And then the mice actually kick butt, and Hans gets electrocuted, while Clara remains unharmed, and then the mice royalty kill themselves because they would rather die than be GM-creatures.

An action-tragedy!

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December 11, 2003

Drosselmeyer

Pyotr Tchaikovsky's 'The Nutcracker' (which apparently he discarded after writing, thinking it too sentimental and simple - only to be retrieved by an assistant) includes the character of Drosselmeyer, Clara's godfather.

Different versions of the story exist, all based on the book, “The Nutcracker and the King of Mice” by E.T.A. Hoffman.

But the basic idea is that Drosselmeyer was a magician and toymaker.

Clara receives the toy soldier from Drosselmeyer, loves it, her little brother Fritz breaks it.

Drosselmeyer had built a special mousetrap that killed off half of all the mice, thus enraging the Mouse Queen, who then turned Drosselmeyer's nephew, Hans-Peter, into a wooden soldier.

Hans leads the other toys into battle with the remaining mice, for only once he has killed the Mouse King will the spell be lifted.

The story has love and fighting, so appeals to both boys and non-boys.

But as far as the themes of mechanical life are concerned, we see both toy soldiers who come to life as well as a human being turned into a mechanical being.

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December 10, 2003

Cooking Oil Smoke Points

I've burned cooking oil too often before the food itself is finished.
Cooking oil smoke points

December 09, 2003

I'm sorry if I'm not very funny tonight, but I'm not a comedian, I'm Lenny Bruce

Governor Pataki pardoned Lenny Bruce.

It's about time.

Lenny Bruce lead the way in terms of swearing on TV.

I guess there are worse legacies.

December 08, 2003

Good Battery Info

Good Battery Info: (pdf)
Here are some conservative power ratings for good quality alkaline-manganese dioxide batteries available at the local grocery store.

The battery capacity will be better with lower drain currents. To determine the battery life, divide the capacity by the actual load current to get the hours of life. A circuit that draws 10 ma powered by a 9 volt rectangular battery will operate about 50 hours:

500 mAh /10 mA = 50 hours

And this test suggests that Duracell and EverReady are basically the same, but that store-brands can be much weaker.

I wish I had known this when I was trying to power 2,000 mA motors with 9-volt batteries!

December 07, 2003

Superlatives

Someone who isn't American told me that a trait of Americans is the excessive use of hyperbole and superlatives ("The funniest thing happened to me today!" or "This is the worst day of my life!")
This is not true for all Americans, but is certainly true for those described as 'bubbly', and may be the trait that makes people find Americans obnoxious. For by claiming experience that is the 'most' or 'best' or whatever denies all other experiences that others have had that in fact may be more or better.

December 06, 2003

Booberry

Funny, in that Gen-X (1965 to 1985) way.

December 05, 2003

Chow-Down Period

Regarding the question of how to combine diet and exercise I suggest we look at our ancient ancestors, as their habits, developed over tens of thousands, nay, millions of years were based on the evolutionary constraints that we now are happy to do without.

Imagine a bunch of proto-humans, hungry, on the hunt. They find and chase down an antelope/mastodon/ungulate of your choosing and finally take it down.

Now, out of breat and sweating, what's the first thing they do? Chow Down!

We are told to 'cool-down' after strenuous exercise, but I posit that we should alter our regiment with a 'chow-down' period instead. Just as you get off the treadmill, try to have an 18oz steak ready.

December 04, 2003

I, Robot

The movie version of Asimov's "I, Robot" is coming out sometime. The website doesn't have much, but it's worth looking at. The fake interviews give some insight into the attitudes of what is important in terms of HRI (human robot interactions). The aesthetic is somewhere between that one Bj?rk video, "All Is Full of Love" by Chris Cunningham and iMacs. I like how they made the pupils square - just one of those nice, subtle touches.

I wonder if this kind of slick design will seem really outdated in 20 years. It seems less fad-dy and more pure, so maybe it will last. Who knows.