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palfrey at 01:47am on 17/05/2004
palfrey at 01:47am on 17/05/2004Ok, admittedly, 95% of what I write here is the random shit in my head, but here's a few that's just from today (interspersed with wikipedia links, 'cause I spent some time there). This is roughly in the order that I was thinking about stuff, but they're fairly interconnected, and plus I make some non-intuitive jumps, so don't expect every little detail.
Was re-reading Halo, realised the version I had was now the full version, not the previously shortened one, grinned lots, read interesting things in it regarding a smart (as in self-modifying and written partially in Lisp, and partially in Arabic) legal contract that regards a complicated thing that could be considered parental duties (in the sense of responsibility and caring for), but by making one of the characters a slave to a shell company that obeys her orders (autonomy is kinda nice when you've got a form of metacortex between your meat brain and a bunch of slaved distributed agents).
Anyways. This got me onto reading about Bose-Einstein Condensates, as they're part of the basis of the replicator tech in Halo, got distracted into MOSFETs. Alternatively, I also got onto B-EC's via "Schild's Ladder" (which I'd just re-read the first 2 chapters of), and specifically a section in which one of the main characters, Cass, is considering the question of whether she should temporarily surrender to a non-corporeal existence (as opposed to her current 2-millimetre high "physical" body, reasons for the size being the amount of Helium in a B-EC being used to do really weird experiments in Quantum Gravity). Got me onto re-reading bits of the "Cassini Division", specifically a bit near the end (tho not really a spoiler), where Ellen May realises that the Jovians (descendants of uploads) aren't actually flatlines, and are in fact living thinking beings (which she's just helped commit genocide against) - I always found her hard to grasp, given her viewpoint for most of the book is distinctly opposite to mine. The opening lines of the last chapter ("Move or copy?" referring to a decision regarding what should be done with the electronic copy of her mind currently in her suit, and what should be done regarding its transferral back to her physical body) is particularly haunting in a way. Somehow I got onto Information theoretical death somewhere along that path.
Update on the news proggie: having a few problems deciding some structural things regarding the classes, heavy inter-dependancies, and so needs a bit of re-structuring, but otherwise ok... getting there. Python lets me think about stuff like that, and spend less time on small things. To quote various attempts at this idea "it just works".
Something Positive appears to have jumped the shark. Someone loves Davan for who he is?? Blasphemy!! (I'd be more worried, but I'm betting there are other ways for Davan to still get stabbed in the back). This does also remove the possibility of a relationship between him and Kestrel
Almost wrote a post today on the importance of music in my life (my linking of various songs to particular events - these may also link a song to a person, but it's always about an particular event/point in time), but decided against it. Spent lots of time procrastinating, reading LJ, walking around my table, etc
</brain dump>
Was re-reading Halo, realised the version I had was now the full version, not the previously shortened one, grinned lots, read interesting things in it regarding a smart (as in self-modifying and written partially in Lisp, and partially in Arabic) legal contract that regards a complicated thing that could be considered parental duties (in the sense of responsibility and caring for), but by making one of the characters a slave to a shell company that obeys her orders (autonomy is kinda nice when you've got a form of metacortex between your meat brain and a bunch of slaved distributed agents).
Anyways. This got me onto reading about Bose-Einstein Condensates, as they're part of the basis of the replicator tech in Halo, got distracted into MOSFETs. Alternatively, I also got onto B-EC's via "Schild's Ladder" (which I'd just re-read the first 2 chapters of), and specifically a section in which one of the main characters, Cass, is considering the question of whether she should temporarily surrender to a non-corporeal existence (as opposed to her current 2-millimetre high "physical" body, reasons for the size being the amount of Helium in a B-EC being used to do really weird experiments in Quantum Gravity). Got me onto re-reading bits of the "Cassini Division", specifically a bit near the end (tho not really a spoiler), where Ellen May realises that the Jovians (descendants of uploads) aren't actually flatlines, and are in fact living thinking beings (which she's just helped commit genocide against) - I always found her hard to grasp, given her viewpoint for most of the book is distinctly opposite to mine. The opening lines of the last chapter ("Move or copy?" referring to a decision regarding what should be done with the electronic copy of her mind currently in her suit, and what should be done regarding its transferral back to her physical body) is particularly haunting in a way. Somehow I got onto Information theoretical death somewhere along that path.
Update on the news proggie: having a few problems deciding some structural things regarding the classes, heavy inter-dependancies, and so needs a bit of re-structuring, but otherwise ok... getting there. Python lets me think about stuff like that, and spend less time on small things. To quote various attempts at this idea "it just works".
Something Positive appears to have jumped the shark. Someone loves Davan for who he is?? Blasphemy!! (I'd be more worried, but I'm betting there are other ways for Davan to still get stabbed in the back). This does also remove the possibility of a relationship between him and Kestrel
Almost wrote a post today on the importance of music in my life (my linking of various songs to particular events - these may also link a song to a person, but it's always about an particular event/point in time), but decided against it. Spent lots of time procrastinating, reading LJ, walking around my table, etc
</brain dump>