theblackbox

also of interest,

http://www.deityproject.com/Kuipers.WMA

Ben Kuipers takes us through his investigations to date on the subject of robotic cognition - using some very adorable footage of a "research student" (actually the students 2yo son) to show just how far we have yet to go. Focusses on the "grasp" function of human object interaction. Bit slow in places as it's just audio and the slides were important, but could help someone find further information.

Sorry for WMA, it's the native format my dictaphone uses =S

There is another up there for linguists - Geoff Ketland discusses his notion of language as platonic solids... I found it VERY interesting stuff.

Note: I'll keep them up for a week or two in case anyone is interested, but I'll be using the domain for something soon, so can't provide permanent links.

And thank you PG/YC for giving me the opportunity to do so.

</Obligatory Fifth Element Quote!>

I highly recommend a hammock to anyone that is wanting to save space. I slept in one for 2+ years, and haven't found anything as comfortable since. It takes a little while to get used to, but it's great for your back - despite what you may think.

Time well spent for time well spent ;)

~OT: I once worked as a charity fundraiser and had more than a few encounters with homelessness, one of which (a few years after leaving the job) left me quite stunned. The company was a bit of a stop-gap for those that could and would handle it, with accommodation, food, and a pretty interesting lifestyle all thrown in.

I once found myself in a pub, however, and a homeless guy came up and asked me for a bit of spare change. Having built up a healthy respect for people and torn down my impulse to judge on the basis of only a very small amount of information (from my exp. in said job), I gave the guy what I could when, looking in his eyes, I saw my friend. A guy I had worked with as a fundraiser, who, after a brief spell of bad luck had fallen through the gaps of society and ended up having to constantly climb. I did what I could for the guy, but more importantly he did so much for me - I had never realised destitution was so close (or that the climb back up was so high).

Another time I met something I can only describe as otherworldly.... it was almost sacred. Take what you will from it. I was approached (this was while fundraising) by a small, fat, black guy in comfortable, though slightly disheveled clothes in his late 50s or thereabouts. As he came close it occured to me that he didn't exist... I honestly cannot understand the instantaneous clarity of that thought... maybe he was just too much of a cliche for my mind to deal with, but there was something more, an aura that came from somewhere deep within him, from somewhere I don't think I have. He took my hand and started talking to me as though it was the most ordinary things in the world, and he proceeded to tell me about his pebble. He'd been fondling it in his other hand and as I noticed it he started telling me about where he'd found it and all the things that could have been while that pebble had remained hidden. And that, he said, was his point. My pebble was currently hidden, and I was close to finding it. It could be a stone, a coin, a woman or even the world! The point was that it was mine and that it had been sitting, passive, until the day I, and I alone, would come across it and bind myself to it...

I don't even know why that's worth sharing with you. Most people I tell, I'm sure, just think I was seduced by the romantic ramblings of a mad old man... maybe so, but I think that moment, myself, the old man and what he said deserve a great deal more dignity, even divinity, than that. I choose to make that moment spiritual (and I'm not by any means "religious")....

I read The Glass Bead Games after I happened across Timothy Leary's "The Politics of Ecstasy" (a good read but not great - his ignorance/arrogance get's in the way all too often). The thing that switched me onto HH was TLs insistance that the man had achieved enlightenment: I figured that was not to be missed!

HH won the Nobel Proze for literature shortly after it's publication, and I cannot overstate the majesty of this book - it is simply awe inspiring. Easy to read, with a persuasive storyline that seduces the reader into an abominably utopian world of intellectual rule (Epistocracy?).

I won't ruin it for any readers. The basic thrust of the tale is the student becoming the master in a world where the highest grand masters (of "the game") are revered with something approaching religious zeal.

It changed me. Fundamentally. Before reading it I was naive and starry eyed about what education could achieve, now I'm more aware than ever that humanity, educated or not, is still just a many faced beast. All these trappings of wealth, power, and intellect are just reigns temporarily thrown around this rampaging behemoth.

It's not so much an epiphany of despair or futility, strangely it is somehow quite the opposite. It's a realease. I can't quite explain it. It's something that sends me into wild flights of lyrical rhetoric about the nature of humanity and my own part in it. I don't think there is anything better that you can ask from a book.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8404025.stm

Relies on a person's vocabulary and writing style more than the actual words.

[edit: disregard - I hadn't read deep enough to see that this was essentially the approach you had taken]

Just a little anecdotal evidence of my experience on this fascinating subject. Perception, attention and information are very interesting facets of psychology!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_spheres_in_popular_cultur...

I love it when reality leaks into my head from the world of imagination!

... keeping in mind that these ships are most likely shipping containers, and that all things involved are likely covered by some insurance policy that has evolved over hundreds of years of industrial experience (where rogue waves need not be known or even measured to be a factor). I don't think it's too unreasonable to carry on regardless, however misguided. I've always found it strange though.... especially since I've always wanted to do the banana boat "cruise" thing!

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hmmm, pretty high attrition rate there! It reminded me of a cross between Kings of Leon and Talking Heads, thankyou for bringing this absurdity to my attention!

isn't this an oft quoted erroneous conclusion?

I thought the correct statement was that matter could not accellerate to the speed of light. Thus something could instantaneously attain FTL/Light Speed velocity or come into existance travelling FTL/Light Speed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hug_machine http://www.grandin.com/inc/squeeze.html

You failed at that?

I'm intrigued because it always occured to me that you were a particularly fastidious person (with all due respect).

I often come accross issues that would seem for all the world to be a pointless artifact of an accepted convention. If this accepted convention is an acquired trait and one learns exclusivly from a limited meduim (irc frustrates me), I find it very curious that they persist as they sometimes act as a difficult barrier for a thorough understanding. This xargs thing, though I know almost nothing about it, seems to parallel similar problems I've encountered and I for one would be interested to hear your take on this (and HN in general).

Or just some food for thought for your next blog post maybe?

The guys who got it off the ground set up www.cybermoor.org and are encouraging similar grass roots development for other remote areas. I like that.

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