Odd Nordstoga - Borga i Ur
April 2008
To elver renn gjennom landet Ur, møtest der, og høgt fra ein mur Ser du opptog med faner og vimplar i vind; der elvene møtest skrid opptoget inn.
Eit bord med safirpynta beger av gull, hyller med kunnskap, rull på rull. Salar med strengespel , song og lått, ringdans med fløyter og harpeslått.
Så snør det i landet: gløymselsnø. Borte blir borga og gløymde dei brød. Som metta dei fem tusen munnar frå korg: Andlet ber blindt på ei tusenårssorg.
Og ingen kan minnast dei linne drag i dronningas andlet den fagre dag Då landet her kvilte i heilag fred og alle hadde kjærleik å elske med.
Ei dør slår opp i den stille kveld, gjennom opningen anar du skinet av eld Og stemmer som vinden ber fram der du trør: Dette er noko du kjenner fra før.
Ei hand spelar terning i fakkelskin, ein fot trør i dans under ljost, mjukt lin; Dei er her, dine bortgløymde systrer og brør: Detter er noko du kjenner frå før.
Gløym slitet for glede og frykta for sorg; det er her, alt du treng, Det er brød i ei korg frå eit løyndomsfullt bord i så fast ei borg.
Sjå her er dagen som renn. Sjå, her stig sola for deg Sjå, her er korga med brød for alle, i borga i landet Ur.
Firefox demands a new design
February 2008
For those of you who are using Firefox 3.0b3 you may have noticed that my site has broken somewhat, unfortunately it is going to take some time for me to fix this, but when I get the time I will put up a new design. It’s not like anyone ever reads this stuff anyway :P so I don’t know why I’m making this announcement, probably just to remind myself really.
Comments: (0)
The future is nigh
February 2008
So not long ago I came across this article about a monkey controlling a robot with its mind, Its been sitting in my Firefox cache for about three weeks now and I thought I should finally put it to rest.
So what’s so big about a monkey controlling a robot with its mind? To begin with not much, but if you consider it the first step in human computer true integration. Imagine being able to sit down at a computer and recite text in your mind and have it appear on the screen, imagine being able to compose entire orchestra pieces using only your mind, imagine being able to control things with your mind. Even more so, if you were paralyzed, imagine being able to walk again. If a computer is able to interpret your neural signals to this degree of accuracy, it’s not far into the distance that we will see mind-operated cars for example. The people who might benefit the most from this are people with disabilities. For instance, if you had lost the use of your legs, an endoskeletal structure would be able to bypass the neural damage in the spine or similar by reading your neural signals from the brain and transcoding them into some computer compatible format, and then transferring electrical signals to the appropriate muscles.
This is a HUGE leap forwards, I can’t wait to see how this technology is put to use.
Recently, neuroscientists at Duke University announced that a monkey in North Carolina had managed to make a robot all the way in Japan walk using only the power of its mind.
The monkey’s brain activity made the humanoid robot walk. This marks the first time that brain activity has been used to make a robot walk, although the research team had previously shown monkeys could control grasping and reaching robotic arms using thoughts.
The team is led by Dr. Miguel A. L. Nicolelis. He believes that the research could one day allow paralyzed people to walk by controlling electronic devices with their thoughts. Theoretically, the patient’s brain activity would direct a device attached to a type of exo-skeleton worn around the legs, which would then control the legs’ movements. Other scientists have hailed the study as a major breakthrough.
The robot controlling monkey is named Idoya. Idoya was first trained to walk upright on a treadmill. She held onto the bars with her hands and got treats of raisins and cheerios for walking in various directions and speeds 3 days a week for two months.
While Idoya did all this walking, electrodes implanted in her brain recorded the activity of the neurons that became active when she walked. They measured which neurons fired when her hips moved, which fired when her feet moved, and some in anticipation of her movements. The researchers also captured her movements on video.The research team then combined the brain activity and video information into a format readable by a computer. When this information was inputted, the computer was able to predict Idoya’s movements three to four seconds before they occurred with 90% accuracy.
Idoya was then connected to a robot in Kyoto, Japan which was designed to mimic human locomotion. Idoya was then tasked with making the robot move using her brain activity. She was shown the back of the robot’s legs on a large monitor, and given treats if she could get the robot’s legs to move at the same time as hers.
Then the scientists got a little tricky. They stopped the treadmill and waited to see what Idoya would do. Lo and behold, the little monkey just kept staring at the screen. It kept concentrating, and the robot’s legs kept moving. She was able to make the robot’s legs move for a full three minutes after she had stopped moving her own legs, using only the power of her brain.
The scientists are thrilled at the discovery and plan to conduct further research using monkeys in the near future. They also plan to conduct an experiment with humans later. Dr. Nicolelis intends to prove that humans can move an exoskeleton attached to their paralyzed arm using their brainwaves.
.
Made of Meat
February 2008
THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT
by Terry Bisson
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."
"So ... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat."
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?" "Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."
"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."
"They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."
the end
Bullshit - Big brother
December 2007
For some time, Penn & Teller, the famous magicians have been producing a show called Bullshit. Some of these shows have some pretty compelling arguments, the following is on the idea of "Big Brother", that the government is watching you. All of you.
There are today more video cameras, more cellular interceptions and other monitoring procedures in place and running that can monitor anyone anywhere at any time. Although the show states that although the monitoring system is in place and probably monitoring a lot of us, the sheer volume of information makes it impossible to make sense of. However, it should be noted that something Penn & Teller forgot to mention was a process called Data mining.
Personally I believe that the threat of privacy and liberty infringement on the basis of these surveillance systems is very real, through data mining they can deduce a lot of information solely on the fact that you had a mobile phone on you.
Each mobile phone transmits a signal which is used to contact towers so that it can remain in communication, this is in the basic function of every mobile phone ever made, however, this same signal can be triangulated through the signal towers and used to locate any mobile phone as if it were a GPS system.
Last Edited: 10 December 2007
Pearls of Wisdom: The internet
November 2007
The internet is remarkably empty for being the largest repository of knowledge man has at his disposal. Everything is old news, someone has done it before, it's on Youtube, Wikipedia knows, Digg dugg it, Slashdotted... There is nothing new on the internet anymore, just rehashed, recycled old stuff. Soon you’ll see just how empty the internet really is.
Good honest blogging for once
November 2007
Yea, so I suppose I haven’t been doing a lot of “real” blogging in...ever but still, I figured I should try it out for a bit.
I can’t say I’ve really done anything interesting this weekend; it’s been mostly the usual dossing around and such really.
Friday
... was spent mostly killing time until the evening rolled around and I headed out to the beer fest at the Manchester RAG with my friend John. It was alright, the venue left something to be desired but the beer was excellent, and you really can’t go wrong with a “Drink beer for charity” event...Well unless you use Heineken.
Saturday
I once again waited for the evening to roll on by before we started playing a game of D&D. I died, horrifically...in the first encounter. I was eaten by a hill. It was awesome. Heh, so that was quite a good laugh.
Sunday
I was really out of ideas for what to do with myself, waiting for Monday to arrive...I normally run my D&D game on Sundays but some players had other things to do instead and so my game was suspended for that day, so I really had nothing to do. We decided randomly to go and buy a new TV, and what a TV it is. 37” LCD Flat screen, it’s all kinds of awesome. Though the trip back from Curry’s was less than comfortable, I was stuck in the backseat of a rather tiny car with this massive TV on my lap, it touched the roof and sides perfectly.
Just imagine me squished between two plates and you get a good idea of what it was like. I spent the 25 min ride back (traffic was murder because of football) with my arms in the air, protecting the corners of the TV. Simply put, don’t try going around for 25 minutes with your arms in the air, it hurts after a while. So yea, that’s how exciting my life really is these days, yay!
Pearls of Wisdom: Money
October 2007
This is the first in a series of mini posts concerning different subjects described in a philosophical way;
Money is only an abstract medium for goods and services and does in and of itself have no intrinsic value. It has potential value. Without action, all potential is null thus wealth for the sake of wealth is not wealth at all.
Last Edited: 19 November 2007
its been a long time no post
October 2007
Hello boys and girls,
I realise I have not been posting anything recently and it is due to many different factors, but for now let me assure you that I will be updating more often.
Let me detail how my life has been in the past month in one word; Horrific. Ok, that might have been a little over the top. I have been a little depressed because of being stuck in Norway all by myself, more depressed about being left by my (ex)girlfriend and wondering what on earth to do with myself.
I find myself left in a bit of a pickle with what to do with my time after university; it’s a funny thing really.
My entire life has been on a fixed track, from the day I was born to the age of 22, I was going through the motions. Though I didn’t realise at the time it is now blindingly obvious how safe it feels to have a plan for your life. At the moment I am reaching the level where my plans are running out, it is free sailing from here, and I’m drawing a blank as to what life is really all about. I have been oddly lonely recently, I don’t have anyone I can be really close to anymore, sure I have some great friends but there seems to be something missing. Although I want to fill the void and find someone, I don’t think I am going to be ready for a long time, I have a lot of soul searching to do.
I find it funny how one day I find myself drifting slowly through a life I apparently built for myself and I don’t recognise it anymore, I don’t know what I should really be doing with my time, I don’t know if what I am doing with my time is really what I want to do, and if it will lead me where I want to go, or in fact even know where I want to go in the first place. I feel lost in someone else’s life.
So, this summer I worked in Norway for an Oil company (more to follow in later posts if all things go well), it was an interesting experience, I worked very hard but I feel that ultimately it didn’t go as well as it should have, I don’t know if my work was really appreciated. It was an experience though, one I won’t forget. I lost a piece of who I am there.
When I got back it felt like things were different, but in reality I was different, I quickly set out to complete the destruction of myself that started when I was in Norway. I hope to change that. I don’t particularly like the new me, but I suppose I am stuck with me so I had better to the best I can. I hope the future is better than what my past has felt like.
I found this video a long time ago, but I don’t think I ever shared it. It’s a set of time laps videos cut together to make this interesting introspective view of our world. Its set to the very talented “The Album Leaf” which for the record are very talented.
Comments: (0)
The Century of the Self
August 2007
NB: For the feed viewers, you will need to view the full article to see the episodes.
This is a four part documentary made by the BBC in 2002, it shows how Freud's theories were used to turn the world into a consumerist hell. It shows how advertisement works and how these things have corrupted our minds.
Quote:
Sigmund Freud's work into the bubbling and murky world of the subconscious changed the world. By introducing a technique to probe the unconscious mind, Freud provided useful tools for understanding the secret desires of the masses. Unwittingly, his work served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal.
This is almost four hours of material, but you better watch it, it will dramatically change how you view the world. This is the documentary that shows the dirty little secrets of how the world works.
Here is the information for the individual episodes.
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
Episode Four
Please, please...Do watch these. People should be made aware of how the world really works.
Last Edited: 23 August 2007
Comments: (0)
Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason
August 2007
[UPDATE] I added the second part. Go watch
Richard Dawkins is someone I've "blogged" about before, he's a devout atheist with firm beliefs against organised religion and its detrimental effects on society. His goal is to further peoples understanding of the universe and to try and do away with old superstition that does nothing but breed hate and violence amongst opposing groups in the extreme cases and prey on the misinformed or needy in the less extreme cases.
When I grow up I want to be just like him. Heh.
In all honesty I can see the merits of religion in the sense that it gives comfort and closure, but I agree with Dawkins that religion has a lot of negative effects on society as a whole and that in this day and age is something we should try and turn away from.
Richard Dawkins wrote a book called The God Delusion (wiki) which I would recommend anyone to read. The God Delusion rocked the foundations of a lot of peoples beliefs and has brought Richard Dawkins into the lime light as the poster-boy for Atheism, thus landing him this gig with Channel4 where he is producing a multi-part show/series called "The Enemies of Reason".
This video is part 1 of the series and is well worth a watch. If you can, catch the rest on the tube, this deserves attention.
Last Edited: 23 August 2007
Comments: (0)
Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch
August 2007
I had this sort of idea a long time ago, but never really explored it to the level of this article, which is why when I read it I was totally captivated. Many of my readers will already know that I have a strange fascination with trying to make sense of the meta-physical. This is an interesting and alternative explanation to everything, following both the ideas of intelligent design and evolution, two rather opposing ideas (unless you consider the former to be the tool of the latter).
Personally I find this sort of idea to be more plausible than the idea of a genuinely omnipotent being. For all intents and purposes, a "Prime Designer" would be omnipotent to us, but that's not the point, he/she/it would still not be truly omnipotent.
Anyway, read the article. Shamelessly stolen from NY Times, all errors and omissions are property of the writer :)
By JOHN TIERNEY Published: August 14, 2007
Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.
Last Edited: 16 August 2007 Read more..
Comments: (0)
I am Jen
August 2007
I stumbled upon this video on Youtube of an up-and-coming artist who goes under the name "I am Jen", real name Jen Scaturro. Her music is incredibly good, reminds me of Imogen Heap and The Postalservice. What's more amazing is that she hand-makes each and every CD cover and CD template, that's right....and she does it by hand stamping each and every letter.....individually(!!).
To the best of my knowledge she has not been signed yet, which I think she should be so that she can spread her music more. I really want to buy one of these CDs from "The Broken EP" (Not to be confused with "The broken" diggnation podcast), they look really nice and the music is awesome.
Check out the making of the CDs and listen the the music that comes with it :)
If you want to listen to the album (or I think its the entire album, at least there are some very good songs there) check out her MySpace page, yea I know...MySpace it teh suck but its good for artists like this. Seriously though, check her out.
Last Edited: 14 August 2007
Comments: (0)
Twitterific and some news
August 2007
I've been using Twitter for a while now, thought it was kind of funky. I would recommend it to most people. Twitter is a small web application that connects people together and tells them what your doing. Think of it as a mini-mini-blog.
Stuff like "Trying to solve this maths problem! ack!!" or "Running out for groceries" etc.
Now for the most part this is very useless and you'd imagine it would be a lot of unnecessary work for browsing to the twitter page, logging in, filling in the text and hitting submit only to have it show up on your twitter page. Well, its a little bit more interesting and easier than that. For example, you can use the Yahoo Widget Engine (former:Konfabulator) with the twitter widget (quite a cool system anyhow)
OR
If you have Vista, there is a Vista Gadget for twitter (Twaget).
Both of these bring twitter straight to your desktop, but that still leaves it just on your twitter page, well that's not entirely true either. Twitter incorporates a RSS feed for each user, so it can be integrated with different systems. For example:
Facebook Application will allow you to post and publish on your page, any twitter entries.
OR
Plain RSS as has been done on this site, towards the bottom of the page you can now find my latest twitter entry. Right now I'm not using it much as I don't have my twitter app on this laptop built normally I use it, and I intend to use it more over time.
For those of you who want to use twitter, you can add me under my twitter name "Noia".
On a side note; Not feeling to great. Life is going to hell in a hand basket and I'm not best pleased about that. There are a lot of unknowns in my future and I'm a little worried about what to do. I wish life was simpler. Going back to England at the end of August, mixed feelings about that. I suppose all I have to do is get my head down and work and hope it passes quickly. So tired of it all.
Last Edited: 04 August 2007
[TUTORIAL] Regular Expressions
August 2007
This is a tutorial about regular expressions, for most of you this is gobbeltigook, so don't bother reading it :)
For those of you who are severely geeky, read on.
What are Regular Expressions?
- A mathematical representation of an abstract pattern.
- In programming used to match and manipulate data.
Last Edited: 03 August 2007 Read more..
An experiment into sound and simple harmonics
July 2007
I was bored one night so I put together this little test flick in flash. Its just an experiment into drawing techniques and sound management. Its totally useless but has some nice music. When it says "Loading" in little floating letters, its lying; its already loaded.
You can find the flash here.
The drops are done by drawing circles with increasing radius and decreasing opacity while being squished for a slowly increasing fixed size.
The letters are being moved in the Y axis following a simple harmonic motion with a time offset on each letter.
Been playing around with flash a lot recently, been quite fun. Can do a lot of cool stuff, yet not a lot of useful stuff. Might post more later.
Comments: (0)
Do you want to be a cult leader?
July 2007
This video is rather amusing and somewhat scary. Its funny how it explains and outlines the inner workings of a generic cult and what their recruitment and coercion tactics are. More amusingly, it is so very easy to see the resemblance between this generic cult and real-world cults and religious groups. I strongly recommend watching this video, I know it will make your life better, it made mine better. Before I watched this film I was living a lonely and dark life but now my life is filled with all the joy and love that the world has to offer.
Soo... * cough *
This is in essence a documentary, or mockumentary about cults and cult activities, some of the ideas are quite absurd, although not too far removed from reality because there are groups like that, other ideas are so close to the real world that they would seem normal if they weren't presented in the surroundings of all the other examples displayed in this video.
So, in conclusion, watch this video, it might change your perspective on a few things.
NB: The music gets quite annoying after a while...not my fault, honest. We had to do it to include the subliminal messages.
Last Edited: 31 July 2007
Cinema intro
July 2007
Remember those old commercials at the cinema with the dancing food trying to get you to buy stuff from the shop outside, which ironically meant leaving the theater, these were at a later date replaced with the polite notices about the smoking prohibition and politely ask you not to talk or use a phone during the viewing, and also tells you that if you video tape this you are a filthy pirate scum. Well, I think they should spruce them up a little. Perhaps something like this:
Source: Aqua teen hunger force
This video is actually shown as the intro to the Aqua teen hunger force movie.
Liiiiiinooooooooooleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuummm knnniiiiiiffffffeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
EDIT: 19 Aug - Fixed video.
Last Edited: 19 August 2007
Cancer cure
July 2007
{For those of you who know me in person, please let Vincent know about this page, I was meant to give him this info but never got around to it.}
{ Caveat: I am not and do not presume to be a doctor, if you are curious, research this for yourself. }
A potential cure for cancer has been found in a drug that was already in clinical use (yet rarely). At the University of Alberta, experiments on human cancer cells cultured outside the body has yielded surprising results with the drug Dichloroacetate also known as Dichloroacetic acid(DCA).
The drug has been used before to treat Lactic acidosis, a condition where by metabolism happens more by Glycolysis than through Oxidization, as such a lot of lactic acid is produced.
Similar conditions occur in cancer cells where the mitocondria (the "power-generators" of cells) do not function properly, this is an 'intentional' happenstance since the body has mechanisms for destroying unhealthy cells. Typically Apoptosis is used to destroy cells, which relies on active "healthy" mitocondria to complete.
In essence this drug "turns-on" the mitocondria which in turn kill the cancer cell from the inside out. Since the mitocondria should typically be on in a healthy cell they have little to no effect on healthy tissue. This is a miracle in cancer treatment, but it is not without dangers, the toxicity of the drug is still under debate.
Additional information: University of Alberta's DCA page & FAQ
{ Caveat: it should be noted that this drug is available in bulk from chemical companies but do NOT attempt to self medicate. I do not want to be responsible for someone keeling over because of this. Lets just hope it works out.}
Possibly a more realistic view of this can be found at Cancer Research UK, this video is a little over-enthusiastic. But hopefully this will be a cure eventually.
Last Edited: 20 July 2007
Comments: (0)
July 2007
This is an interesting video about the Facebook and their privacy policy and some of the history behind Facebook. Its quite scary really. Now it should be noted that this movie is from 2006, so it might not be all-that-new, but still.
This does demonstrate some rather scary links to the IAO(No other links!), DARPA, CIA, but just like Seven Degrees of Separation, it is circumstantial and proves nothing. Still, food for thought I suppose.
Last Edited: 14 August 2007
Comments: (0)
Recent topics:
» Firefox demands a new design
» The future is nigh
» Made of Meat
» Bullshit - Big brother
» Pearls of Wisdom: The internet
» Good honest blogging for once
» Pearls of Wisdom: Money
» The Century of the Self
» Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason
» Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch
» I am Jen
» Twitterific and some news
» [TUTORIAL] Regular Expressions
» An experiment into sound and simple harmonics