Aku Aku

NYC2123 Tshirt

I ordered a set of iron-on printer paper in order to start making some custom t-shirts for friends and family (and myself). My first one is a remix from the first issue of NYC 2123, a graphic novel for the PSP that is released under a creative commons license. Here's the Photoshop document for it if you'd like to print and iron on yourself: NYC2123 Tshirt.

Future Commons with Rudy Rucker

Today I attended my first Future Commons event at the Institute for the Future down in Palo Alto. It was really quite fantastic!

The event began with Mark Petrakis engaging the thirty or so attendees in a short but fun game of whoosh, wow, zap, groovelicious and freak out which quite effectively loosened everyone up. In fact perhaps that's why I found myself actually participating in the conversation later instead of being my normal introverted self. It probably also helped that I had quite a few friends there (Anselm, Todd, Sean and Mike Liebhold).

The speaker for the event was Rudy Rucker. He took part on a rather weird panel discussion at the Accelerating Change Conference a couple of weekends ago that left me wanting more, so it was quite a nice surprise to see him scheduled for this little shindig. He's got a new book out called The Lifebox, the Seashell and The Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life and How to Be Happy. (A very California subtitle as he put it).

Rucker has been interested in Cellular Automata since the 80's when he was rubbing elbows with Stephen Wolfram. Wolfram, of course, has created a New Kind of Science based on the study of CA and how simple rules applied repeatedly can lead to the emergence of complex patterns. Rucker's new book seems to be a continuation of Wolfram's work with more of a philosophical bent.

A Gnarly Computation was presented as the equivalent of a Class Four pattern in Wolfram's parlance. It's that sweet spot on the edge of order and chaos where the interesting and beautiful bits live. A number of CA examples were demonstrated. One particularly appealing one was called Brian's Brain, which consisted almost entirely of gliders (a term for automata that transfer information around the automata space). Some of Rucker's own floating point CA looked quite organic.

The gist of how the CA examples apply to the universe is that all of nature is a set of computations being carried out. There are quite a number of different types of computations. There may or may not be a single underlying computation. Many computations are irreducible (or in other words, there are no shortcuts). Rucker stacked levels of reality in a slightly unusual way to reflect this. Philosophy lay upon Sociology, leading down through a few other disciplines to Biology which lay upon Physics. Normally Mathematics is placed under Physics but he actually preferred to lump that in with Philosophy and put Computer Science as the foundation of all reality.

There is something inherently compelling in these ideas Wolfram and Rucker present. After the presentation, we went into chat mode where we listed various different Theories of Everything. My favorite ToE these days is based mostly on Howard Bloom's Global Brain with a dash of Robert Wright's Nonzero thrown in. I did a quick five minute summary of the Global Brain for the group and made the point that his system is an example of a simple set of rules being carried out repeatedly throughout the history of the universe.

Other Theories of Everything presented included:

• A Brief History of Everything, by Ken Wilber
• Spiral Dynamics
• Consilience, by Edward O. Wilson
• The Great Chain of Being, by Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (1873-1962)
• The Nature of Order, by Christopher Alexander [Book one, Book two, Book three, Book four]
• The Universe in a Single Atom, by the Dalai Lama
• TRUTON (The Rational Unified Theory of Nature)

The discussion then turned towards the nature of consciousness. This got me all excited because it was yet another subject that has been on my mind a lot lately. In particular, I've been trying to understand Sir Roger Penrose's theory of Quantum Consciousness and how it could be a purely scientific explanation for consciousness that fits in well with the spiritual principles of Buddhism and other religions. I made an attempt to explain QC, but my grasp of it is still much too limiting.

As I mentioned to Rudy after we wrapped up, I feel as if my whole life I've been like a person tossed into the ocean and unable to swim. I've been thrashing about, grasping at things that float by and trying to find something to keep me afloat. Lately I've been finding some solid pieces that I think I can build a raft out of to make sense of it all. The Global Brain, Nonzero, Quantum Consciousness, ASSA, Wolfram and Rucker. It's all starting to come together. I feel quite lucky to be alive at this time in history.

By the way, more information on The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul can be found at http://www.rudyrucker.com/lifebox/, including a pdf containing chapters 1, 2 and 4.

Dance Weekend

I need another weekend to recover!

We went to a great fetish-wear party Friday night (in honor of it being Folsom Street Fair weekend). Saturday was the Love Parade, and Sunday of course was Folsom Street Fair.

Much dancing was involved. We danced in the Mission. We danced down Market Street like a victorious army (ironically melding with the anti-war protest going on at the same place, same time). We danced in Civic Center. We danced in City Hall (w00t! VIP passes!). We danced on Folsom. We danced in leather, we danced in fur. Late Sunday night, we danced at the hippest new restaurant in America, San Francisco's Supper Club, a restaurant/club so decadent one patron asked where the vomitorium might be.

I took photos on Saturday, but the latest Flickr iPhoto Plugin keeps crashing, so I'll have to upload those late and add a link. Oh, I just discovered that there's a photo of Mie and I at the Supper Club site from the pre-opening party in May.

The weather turned out to be perfect, giving me hope that October won't be as unseasonably chilly as September has been. Yay, San Francisco.

Unfortunately all the festivities destroyed any chance of getting around to responding to the dozens of nice responses we've been getting since sending out our 'we got married' announcement last week. Hopefully I can start on that tomorrow.

blank white server

Do you ever have the feeling you're being prepared for something? So many things I've been reading or observing lately seem to be converging. I don't see exactly where the convergence point lies yet, even the concept of convergence is barely liminal at this point, but I think Blank White Servers are going to be part of the process.

Blank White Server (my latest moniker, previously Stem Cell Server and Server of the Crowds) seems like the inevitable next step after the other recent advancements in edge empowerment and cooperative creativity (think Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, Greasemonkey, Blogging, etc). The system I'm envisioning will allow everyone to collaborate not only on knowledge but also functionality in a powerful way. Here's a summary on my ideas in this space:

You start with a httpd server that has a file system, a data store, a user login system and a programming API for accessing these resources. Users of the system can use the API to add functionality to server. For instance some users could produce a library of code that facilitates uploading, manipulating and displaying photos. They could use this code to build a photo sharing application that lives on the server. Other users might build a nice tag API and use it to produce a del.i.cio.us-like URL tagging system. Other coders could create an API for building social networks within the user system. These new user-produced APIs could (and should) be made available to other users. So people who enjoy the photo sharing application could add in tagging and social network features easily, and now they have a Flickr clone.

So look at what just happened. The owners of the server merely hosted the service and created a skeleton of a web site and suddenly they are hosting the equivalent of one of the most popular sites on the Internet. They didn't do any of the application-specific development, they just allowed the Wisdom of the Crowds to push the innovation where the crowd deemed fit. The popularity of the website is practically guaranteed, and this is just the beginning. As time goes on the innovations will head in directions impossible to predict, but what can be predicted is that the feature-set will always be exactly what the world desires and sites that aren't tapped into this creative energy won't keep up.

Of course, not all users of the system will have the skill or inclination to create applications. Most of them will just be users. This is fine. It hasn't slowed down the spread of Greasemonkey. In fact the users of the BWS will find it easier to use than Greasemonkey since it requires no additional software other than their favorite web browser.

There can also be different levels of application building. Some hackers will enjoy working with the lower-level API coding, providing basic services that are performance-optimized. Others will use this code to build application-level components that can be dropped into place at a higher level. For instance take a look at netvibes.com. This website allows you to very easily customize a homepage (w00t, web 0.5b!) with various components like localized weather, rss feeds, and gmail (with a nice AJAX interface). Now imagine something like this except the components you could add include modules for calendar functions, audio and video players, your photo library. You as the user can design your killer web site out of components created by other users. If there's something you want that isn't available you have the power to create it or at least make requests for others to create it for you.

An important aspect of this concept is that all of the disparate components can be tied together on various levels, from the back end to the individual personal page. For example sophisticated filters (running on the server) can alert you to upcoming events that match your musical tastes, and automatically add them to your calendar. This will be enabled because you use the server for all of these functions (or include it in the loop of external apps like iTunes via web services created by module owners). Recommendations will be based on your personal habits and those of your social network. You'll have complete control of everything. If you don't like some functionality, you can use a version of the server application that omits it. It's all completely malleable. The responsibility of the server hosts is to enable this collaboration as much as possible, and stay out of the way. They can generate revenue in a variety of ways: from advertising, from the application builders who may charge users for application or component access, or from users themselves in exchange for more resource usage or more powerful API access.

So what is the next step after this? Multiple Blank White Servers in a massive peer-to-peer network of course. All sharing a common user system, with interoperable code and functionality. I've long ranted about how Friendster blew an incredible opportunity to become the social network maintainers of the entire globe. Despite being a crappy application, they were in a position to become the center of everything if they opened up their database of connections to external application developers. Countless applications (both desktop and web-based) would have been tapped into that system and presumably sharing profits with the Friendster corporation. Having a Friendster account would have been as basic as having an email account. Blank White Servers have the capability of stepping into that position, but the mantra to focus on is "let go."

I am convinced that this scenario I've been describing is assured and it will have a large impact in the near future. I'm considering building a prototype system myself, either in Java or Ruby on Rails. Other options are looking into ways to allow existing sites to get in on the action. Building Blank White Server functionality that can be incorporated into a legacy J2EE web app would be a great product in the coming years. I'm interested in building a community to explore the possibilities, if you have an opinion, please comment here or perhaps join the discussion group.

Most importantly Blank White Servers will represent a step forward in what author Robert Wright describes as the inevitable direction of human progress: towards greater cooperation and interconnectivity via nonzero-sum relationships. This is the trend that took societies from small bands to chiefdoms to city-states to nations to the World Bank. Awareness of this trend seems to be popping up all over. James Surowiecki, Mark Pesce, and Dan Gillmor are describing it. Howard Rheingold is organizing interdisciplinary study in the "literacy of cooperation."

Wright points out a problem faced by those in power. They must adopt new methods and technologies in order to compete with other powers. However these new technologies often redistribute power because they raise the non-zero-sumness of the societies involved, "and if there is one opinion common to ruling classes everywhere it is that power is not in urgent need of redistributing." Further applying Wright's writing to the matter at hand, closed sites that give you what they deem appropriate are in power today, but they are confronting near-term extinction because they face a Hobson's choice: if the trend towards an empowered, cooperating, non-zero-sum engaged user-base is ignored they'll find themselves without a user-base at all.

accelerating change

This weekend I attended my third Accelerating Change Conference. The past two were great (the first one is still one of my favorite conferences ever). This one was perhaps a little less so fantastic, but it was worth it nonetheless. THe topic this time around was Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Amplification. Speakers included Ray Kurzweil, Esther Dyson, Joi Ito, Rudy Rucker, Vernor Vinge and the perennial Steve Jurvetson.

Audio and video recordings will be available soon, and podcast recordings of the sessions will be available (one per week for the rest of the year) at IT Conversations. There's some photos under the Flickr tag ac2005, but not from me since I forgot my camera both days.

I got a copy of Kurzweil's new book The Singularity is Near for registering early. Looking forward to reading that. I even got a chance to ask him about his supplement scheduling (I'm following the diet he created in Fantastic Voyage).

Saturday's schedule was focused on Artificial Intelligence and Sunday was Intelligence Amplification. Squeezed in between I made it back up to San Francisco for Ben and Mena's 28th birthday party where I finally got to try out the new suit I had made in Thailand. Unfortunately, I have lost nearly 20 pounds since then so it's a little loose on me now, and, the horror, Anil was wearing the same outfit!

I took notes sporadically. I'll post them in the extended section below since they might not make much sense if you aren't me :P Click the More link if you're curious. There were some good sessions and I'll throw in what appropriate links I can find.

dorkbot #21

The first presentation was on the new developments in Electric Sheep, an innovative collaborative evolving screen saver. I used this screensaver for a year or so, but I started getting bored with the same sorts of sheep. I might have to give it another try for awhile. The new graphics are HDTV resolution and looked great.

After that Mark Pesce gave a brief talk on knowledge swarms which exist now. Some examples are Wikipedia and Bittorrent. Everyone has a little bit of knowledge and Wikipedia is the swarm of that knowledge. Next he defines understanding as:

• information = data + meaning
• knowledge = information + context
• understanding = knowledge + experience

He believes that understanding swarms are coming next. He threw out Flock as a coming example. Flock is a new Mozilla-based web browser I saw demoed at barcamp. It adds better memory search, blogging and collaborative capabilities to the browser. I can't wait to get my hands on it!

Pesce's talk made me think about my belief graph system I wrote about once here. I'd like to have him and Howard Rheingold on a panel together.

Erik Davis did a nice introduction for the next speaker(s): The Make Magazine team. You can believe these guys go over well at dorkbot! The talk went into a lot of details about how amazingly well they are doing as a magazine. They tripled subscriber projections (10k became 35k), they have only a 30% return rate from the newsstand (compared to 80% on most titles). In bookstores, old issues are reshelved as books. They're doing well in Australia even though the cost is something like $100/year there. Subscribers get access to an online version with more content (I didn't know that, and I'm a subscriber). They only have something like 10% pages of advertising, and it's all in the front or the back. One nice moment was a comparison of the magazine format of a 1950's Popular Science, which looked exactly the same in shape and size as Make (which is a small format magazine and looks more like a book).

A guy from Radio Free Berkeley showed off a cool little 100 watt FM radio station, as recently seen in New Orleans.

Another guy showed off some surface mount projects he'd worked on. He also said he found a cheap place in Malaysia that creates the printed SM circuit boards for him.

At the end of the night Rich Gibson (geowanker of Mapping Hacks fame) brought in his air-compressor powered semi automatic marshmallow gun. Rich is the man.

literacy of cooperation

Wednesday was a good geek day.

It started with a the new Distinguished Lecture Series at Berkeley's School of Information Management (or SIMS, home of such luminaries as danah boyd and Sean "cheesebikini" Savage). Howard Rheingold gave an hour long presentation on his cooperation project. He believes that new capabilities in cooperation abetted by modern communications technologies will foster great advances in human civilization. The beginning of the talk brought to mind Robert Wright's book on the direction of cultural evoloution, Nonzero. It spoke of the role cooperation and trust play in increasing competitive capabilities. Cooperation historically has been driven by competition; Wright's thesis is that greater complexity in terms of nonzero sum games involving greater numbers of people is an inevitable occurrence in any society. Rheingold tied together studies in a number of disciplines, and his grand finale was a vision for an interactive map in the shape of a dart board which could be used as a tool to further interdisciplinary cooperation in cooperation studies. The radials represent various disciplines: biology, economics, cultural evolution, history, psychology sociology, mathematics and political science. The concentric circles representing levels of cooperation, ranging from little/no cooperation to large scale organized societies. He'd like to be able to allow people to plot various artifacts of research or data (websites, publications, media) onto this map in order to allow researchers to better study the phenomenon of cooperation. For instance Elinor Ostrom's Governing the Commons which challenged the tragedy of the commons assertion that humans always overuse commons to the point of destruction might go on the intersection of sociology and and the second ring. The lecture ended with a plea for hackers to implement a web version of this map. I'm considering trying to make a nice AJAX version of it. Rheingold taught a course titled HUM 202: Toward a literacy of cooperation at Berkeley last semester, the videos of it are now online.

It just occurred to me that the Cooperation Map would be a perfect theme for Black Rock City!

Some other choice thoughts from the talk:

• "altruistic punishment may be the glue that holds society together"
• in the brain, the same area is active when a person receives an award and when the person is punishing a cheater
• new forms of wealth will spring from cooperation

After the lecture, I shot back across the bridge to RxGallery for Dorkbot #21, which will be the subject of my next post.

sailing the bay

Had two great days of sailing on Sunday and Monday. On both days we sailed from Pier 40 in San Francisco over to Tiburon for lunch at Sam's Anchor Cafe (which has a guest dock). Sunday was especially gorgeous and the waters were replete with colorful boats. One large boat had some guy climbing halfway up the mast, looked fun!

On Monday I took out a slightly larger boat, a 27 foot Santa Cruz model. It was a nice boat except for the mainsail which had a separated bolt rope below the first reefing tack and no battens in the batten pockets. I had four inexperienced crew members that day (it was my first day out without Briony who took the Basic Coastal Cruising class with me!) so I had to stay on the tiller while they were raising the mainsail. They were having problems raising the main which they determined to be caused by the separated bolt rope. I decided to have them set the first reef to compensate, but in the process the aft reef rope was torn out of the sail because I wasn't paying enough attention to everything they were doing. My first serious mistake as skipper, yikes! We were still able to sail but I'm still waiting to see what that's going to cost me. Live and learn.

Btw, I've finally broken down and installed Ecto. This is my first test post with it.

Meet my wife

Last night Mie and I returned home from 10 days in the desert. We descended into the Bay Area tired, dusty and married. We got married Wednesday night at Burning Man, where we met three years ago. I'm not positive, but I think Wednesday night of BM 2002 might have been our first evening out together too. Some things to note:

• We've decided to make "Wednesday night of Burning Man" our anniversary, instead of August 31st.
• Since I'm not attached to my last name (I was adopted into the Coleman name and no longer have any relationship with my adoptive father) and I always thought it was unfair for women to have to change their names upon marriage and not men, Mie and I have decided to both change our names. We've chosen her mother's maiden name, Yaginuma, as that name was going to disappear one day since her uncle is the last male of that line and has no heirs. Yaginuma means "willow tree pond" in Japanese.
• We're planning on doing wedding band tattoos instead of rings. We still need to come up with a design though. It'll be the first tattoo for each of us.
• I had been working on an fancy proposal scheme that fell through at the last minute due to missed deadlines and a held up wire transfer to china (long story, more details to come). In the end I was unable to propose to Mie at Burning Man as planned, so she took me completely by surprise by proposing to me. I'm still going to finish the thing I was working on. More details on that will be forthcoming.
• I love my wife!

So may I present Mr. and Mrs. Yaginuma: