Below are the most recent 8 friends' journal entries.

Sunday, July 5th, 2009
the_s_guy	3:02p	Random multibrachial thoughts Although we have dedicated brain regions for operating limbs, it's not impossible to mentally simulate the simultaneous movement of other things - including, for example, entire additional arms. Theoretically, then, it should be possible to pick up sufficient neural chatter from someone thinking really hard about the position of something to actually animate a model of that thing, whether virtually or for real. The background/static problem is one that's always being worked on. Trying to pull out sufficient detail would be like attempting to hear a whisper under Niagra Falls. However, if you know ahead of time precisely what the whisper is going to be saying, I wonder how difficult it might be to tune a receiver, over time, to filter out the ceaseless roar and rush, and pick up the single thread of interest? Postulate: Simulate a series of movements of the virtual or real-world object. Train a subject to know the pattern. Have them mentally move through it at the same pace as the simulated object, concentrating on the form and motion. Record their brain patterns. Do this over and over. Process the data to pull out the relevant movement parameters. Cross-test every so often by linking the sensors and processing algorithm directly to the effector and seeing if the subject can make it move. Could be interesting. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
the_s_guy	3:09a	Things I have on my When I Win Lotto list I think we all have some form of this list, even if it's just vague "pay off the debts, nice house, nice car, world cruise" thoughts which occasionally drift by when we pay the bills. Some of us, though, have detailed, written lists of exactly what we'd do with half a million dollars... or ten million... or ten billion. (Mine currently goes up to just under one trillion US dollars - I have some plans for global infrastructure investment.) At assorted logarithmic levels, some of my entries are: Four figures: repair the car or get a replacement second-hand one; get some minor repairs done on the house. Five figures: superannuation; fairly new car; shed full of tools and making-stuff toys. Six figures: pay for the nephew's future education; pay off mortgage or buy moderately nice house. Seven figures: buy rather nice house or have one custom-built; cautiously invest in some minor product ideas I have; some donations to various conventions and fan works; minor philanthropy. Eight figures: send money to many artists whose work I have enjoyed for free over the years; invest a little more in some longer-term product and service ideas; medium-level philanthropy; pay for three fulltime professional music production studios - one to follow filkertom around, one to follow seanan_mcguire, and one to occasionally give the other two studios a couple of days off, because otherwise they'd be working 24/7/365 just to keep up. Nine figures (top 1000 richest people in the world): six-figure grants to various scientific, educational and medical institutions; small investments in new inventions. Ten figures (top 40 richest people in the world): establish a couple of foundations and funded think tanks for the progress of science, education, and really cool stuff; investments in bringing disruptive technologies to market; buying and distributing stuff from Dean Kamen and people like him. Eleven figures (top 200 companies in the world): attempt to tilt global policy at least a couple of percent in the direction of improved education and general access to basic resources for the majority of the world population; politically influence repairs to things like educational and IP systems. Twelve figures (top 20 companies in the world): invest in long-term high-cost projects like new energy resources; see if something can be done about boosting general interest in space again. Thirteen figures (approx GDP, top 10 countries in the world; global annual international trade): pay off all global international debt. Could also cover the cost of the Iraq invasion, but where's the fun in that? Fourteen figures (GDP China/USA/EU, global GDP is about 14.8): really only thrown in for comparison; feel free to speculate. (I can speculate assorted business plans which might end up producing eleven to twelve figures maximum; beyond that I'm not really sure. Such a project would probably be world-notable, but not necessarily world-shaking unless there were deliberate moves in that direction.) So, what things would YOU do with Lotto levels of money? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
the_s_guy	6:15p	Old "art" This is a mockup I made of a fancharacter back in 2004, done by tracing existing art of a canon character and slightly modifying one or two lines. Assume that any faults in the art are mine and my lack of art and tracing skills. What bugs me is that I still can't find the original G1 Springer art it was based on. ( Fairly large-ish image under cut. ) (Comment on this)
the_s_guy	2:02p	Movie: Terminator Salvation Saw it on discount day. Thoughts: Predictable, right through to the final method of saving the hero. Bunches of fairly nice CGI. Skynet is apparently either monumentally stupid/unimaginative in its designs, or it's stealing/using pre-existing designs from somewhere, because there's absolutely no reason that its robots and facilities should have easily accessible labs, panels, or wiring - or indeed things like chairs or viewscreens at all. Really, all of Skynet, its bases and drones, should consist of something like solid mechanics. There's no reason to have corridors and tunnels that humans can comfortably stroll down. Or motorbike drones which can't pick themselves up if they're tipped over. It bugged me enough that there was apparently some non-electronic way to control the Moto-Terminators. Or that T-800 nuclear power cells could be used in the way they were. Or that after CGI Arnie punched/splatted that particular important item (you know the one), it was apparently still in good enough working order to be used as it was in the scene which came after. Plenty of visual and directorial homages to the previous films, especially #1 and #2. I didn't like the obvious CGI on the non-Connor hero, though. The problem is the same one encountered all the way back to films like _Death Becomes Her_: When you use CGI to remove parts of a body, the remaining nearby parts should not continue to move as if the missing parts had simply become invisible. They need to sag, to flop about, to retract under skin and muscle tension that isn't counterbalanced any more. In DBH, the problem was that an undead character had a hole the size of a basketball blown through her torso, and the remaining tiny strips of flesh either side didn't immediately collapse from the weight of her upper body. The effect was Invisible Torso Chunk, not Missing Spine And All Core Trunk Muscles. The pure machine CGI is getting better, though. The robots are looking more solid. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
jblindsight	5:49p	FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful (5 Comments |Comment on this)
jblindsight	4:30p	Gov Mark Sanford Carolina parody -Parody lyric: Fred Landau (Thx to Wayman Wong for the parody idea) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
the_s_guy	2:20p	Revenge of the Fallen So I saw ROTF. In a word, it's... better. Without giving away major plot points or scenes, it felt like the Movie franchise had grown into its skin a little better. There was less stupid inappropriate humour (although still a little - someone needs to stomp on that; it just doesn't work with the rest of the film). That burden was largely shifted to the Twins, who carried it better than Sam's mother or the excess of toilet humour in 2007. There are some irritating moments, though. The G1 references were fewer and more muted, although some of them still felt a bit forced. There were fewer wispy B- and C-plots, and even though the end result still came out as unpolished in a lot of places, it was significantly better integrated overall than the first film. Fairly trope-full, nothing that wasn't telegraphed a mile off, but... better. A film that I'd be OK cautiously recommending to those looking for a summer popcorn flick, whereas the previous attempt was just a little too teeth-gratingly embarrassing. The question now is whether the third installment is going to build on its comfort and familiarity and make something really watchable, or whether it's going to backslide into complacency. I guess we'll have to wait and see. (Comment on this)
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
the_s_guy	9:55a	Note to self Lack of telekinesis does not necessarily mean you are awake. Other dream-clues include additional siblings, the neighbour's hamster run for micro-foxes, and being unable to remember when exactly you started living in a tree. (On the plus side, I've gotten better at remembering to check for TK.) (3 Comments |Comment on this)