My name

I found more information on the origin of my name and surprisingly learned of a related form of manga called "Haida manga".

Rocking Raven

 

Yawn

I've returned to the office world -- which means my ability to think is decreasing exponentially with time.

So only a few links that have been sent to me and my thoughts on them.

Clayton Littlejohn's blog - Epistemology - does thinking about knowledge produce more knowledge?

A counterpoint, Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking - That's more where I'm at these days -- I don't have the power to think whilst thinking.

Finally, the power of doing can earn you $125,000 from Microsoft

 

Why ask Why?

j/k: A Dutchman and Frenchman walk into a bar...

A Dutch and a French friend have each scolded me for asking "Why?" too much. "American's always ask 'Why?' -- like a child." they say.

I think I finally understand Why.

Why only leads to more questions, ad infinitum. The nature of the question is to create another question.

Which is great for introspection, but not conversation.

So... 'Because.' is still the best answer when asked, I think.

j/k: And he says -- "That's what SHE said!" hahahaha... wait -- were you listening to me?

 

what i'm doing...

Title sequences
I love title sequences
Send me many please.

 

Hello, Good Morning!

Thank you, please -- in kind
this is why I love England
so polite, they are

 

Broken leg? Try Charm school...

BBC Breakfast reports that traffic wardens are going to Charm school in Soho to learn how to 'resolve conflict issues with drivers'.

Seems like it might be difficult to charm someone who wants to break your leg, but I've never been to charm school.

j/k: But I watch 'Charmed' -- and if it's anything like that -- drivers better watch out!

Seriously tho -- isn't the real problem that wardens get a commission for penalties? Maybe it's the council representative that should go to Charm school.

j/k: then maybe they can teach us some spells to ride giant flying eagles!

 

Please don't call me lucky!

I recently took offense to someone saying I was 'lucky' after I described a string of fortunate events in my life.

It's not luck -- it's the probabilistic reduction of negative outcomes.

I spend a lot of hard work talking to people and sharing ideas -- that's my job! So when an idea takes root, it's the fruit of that labour.

I liken it to a craps table. The more numbers you put your chips on, the better the odds are. That's not luck -- that's math.

 

Defeat confusion

Three notes to self:

1. There are 64 words in the I Ching. Which are excluded and why?
2. Who is Tathagata? And what is a 'gatha' of four lines?
3. The Self is not in fact The Self. That is why it is called "The Self."

Research links:

Wikipedia

 

Visual AIML

More on that last point -- specifically, I think it would be good to have a visual language for the ALICE scripting language, AIML.

Something my Granddad could use.

It should be a long series of questionnaires. As you continue to fill them out, the bot becomes more 'knowledgeable'.

Almost like that old program, Animals -- Does it have feathers? Yes. Is it a chicken? No. What is it? An eagle.

 

The future is A.L.I.C.E. ?

I discovered ALICE some time ago.

Programmed by Dr. Richard S. Wallace, the chat impresses at first, but looking at the code, I was disappointed that there is very little intelligence at all.

ALICE consists of a series of programmed responses. Her 'intelligence' is due to the sheer volume of responses programmed by her 'botmaster', Dr. Wallace.

It makes me think of Max Headroom, where people created digital self-simulations -- limited to a number of responses. Or, more recently, I Robot, where the dead scientist replies "I'm limited to a number of set responses."

Perhaps their is a future in this, although I hesistate to call it 'artificial intelligence' because the bot will not exceed the limitations of its programming in this manner of coding. It cannot self-evolve, or learn autonomously.

However, I'd like a digital Kai that could react to all questions as I would (at least at this point in time) -- too bad it's not easier to program at the moment.

Lazyweb, anyone?

 

997 ideas

Character sketches, originally uploaded by kaioshin.

Ok, so currently here's the list of projects I'm working on...

- DESIGN on DVD continued series
- Information Architecture workshops
- 3 Design book concepts
- Lampen's Bubblegum Machine Book/CD
- An online graphic novel, to become a manga and hopefully anime in the future
(see picture)

- Oh yeah, and freelance consulting to pay the bills.

 

My CV

My CV, originally uploaded by kaioshin.

I flickr'd my CV just to see if any consulting work might come out of it.

As an information designer, I enjoyed the challenge of presenting my CV as a piece of info design.

Here is the PDF version (23KB)

 

Cryptic comment

I awoke to find this cryptic comment

Considering it's attached to my plea for consulting work, definitely not funny.

It's strange though, because lately I've been obsessed with creating my own personal encryption language.

So... to that person i say:

a:ま|め.::え|すま.:す. ::め|すv.:え|め.:す.

 

Recover post? Yes thank you.

In an example of good UI -- that reveals its complexity gradually -- I discovered the 'recover post' feature for Blogger.

A past frustration had been when Blogger fails to post and I'd hit the browser 'back' button only to find that my post was deleted.

Luckily, they've remedied this. Just when I thought I'd lost the post, i found the 'recover post' link, which neatly placed my message back into the entry field.

 

A comforting cosmic thought.

I've been thinking about n-dimensional space (again!) -- and realised something, although it may be obvious to some.

The universe might not be expanding infinitely.

I've always had a problem with the idea of the universe expanding infinitely. First of all, there are no local examples of infinity in nature. Second, I don't like the idea of everything winding up as bits of cosmic dust.

So it occurred to me that the universe might simply be rotating on the surface of an n-dimensional sphere.

We know it's not a 3D-sphere because we'd detect it, but in the same way that someone sitting on Pangea -- thinking the Earth is flat -- would think that the continental drift meant that the land was expanding in infinite sea (this would be a very old person). So might we perceive the universe expanding into infinite space when, really we can't see over the n-dimensional horizon.

I find that a comforting thought.

 

An approach to Artificial Intelligence

It seems to me that there are numerous efforts to solve specific problems, but no one is applying the lessons of AI to integrating those efforts.

For example, genetic algorithms create a better satellite orbit.

Why not take that code and re-compile it into a core (or brain, if you will) that serves as an 'intelligent' repository.

This respository should self-organise and still be able to solve the same problems -- from satellite orbits to character recognition.

 

Music Composition for Dummies

I've been looking for some simple, yet lovely, music composition software -- to feed my need for ... what rhymes with 'eed' but means 'expressing myself with music'?

Anyhow, I found a piece of software called MusiGenesis

It creates patterns in rhythm or instrumental tracks and then allows you to 'evolve' the tracks through 'mutation'.

Pretty cool -- best suited for creating mind-altering trance tracks.

 

The Queen's Parliament

Yet another quirky reminder that the monarchy still exists. Tony Blair had to ask the Queen's permission to 'dissolve parliament' and thereby allow a general election.

I guess she had to put aside the rescheduling of her son's marriage to make time for the Prime Minister.

In related news-- Not to be outdone, Bush is expected to declare himself "Empireror of America" -- and will accept any request to dissolve Congress and the Senate, so long as it comes from the Republican party.