Aku Aku

a proposed story

So this year at Burning Man I had been planning on proposing to Mie. I had written a simple children's story based on our relationship and commissioned illustrations from a woman in Shanghai whom I met on Flickr. The idea was that this could be a book for our own children to enjoy one day. This was something I'd been planning for well over a year, but I am a world-class procrastinator. Seriously, I'd be a contender if procrastination were an Olympic sport.

Well naturally I managed to miss the deadline because the payment for the illustrations didn't arrive in China as quickly as I hoped so I didn't have all the illustrations by the time we left for Black Rock City. Of course, as you may know, Mie took me by surprise and proposed to me at Burning Man. Since the pressure was off I got to procrastinate even more, but I finally managed to get it all put together and presented it to Mie today.

The story recounts how we met at Burning Man and how I convinced her to leave Japan to live with me. The last page ends with me asking her an unspecified question. The plan was to ask The Question directly when she got to that page. Hopefully now Mie (who is much more creative than I) can help me wrap the story up and we can have the final few illustrations done. I'm still trying to come up with a title too.

The entire thing, story and illustrations, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. You can download it here: A Story For Mie.pdf (warning: 66 megabytes in size).

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.

Penrose's Guide to the Universe

A just noticed Roger Penrose's new book The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe is out and weighing in at over 1100 pages. I'm half tempted to order it, but I already brought the equally long book Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science down to Brazil in hopes I could finally make my way through that tome. I haven't cracked that one open since I got here, but thanks to three days of flat ocean I finally was compelled to sit down and work on one of the hacking projects on my agenda: learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I'm impressed with this language, but especially the Rails framework. It's just ridiculously simple to set up a basic database-backed web application. In just one line of code and changing a couple of params in a config file you can create a web frontend to a database table. The rails tutorial was well written. The language has a few things that are weird to a long-in-the-tooth Java coder like me. Here's the notes I jotted into Notational Velocity as I was running through the Ruby tutorial:

• redo: start at top of loop with same values
• iterators ( str.each_char{ |ch| printf "<%c>", ch}
• retry: start back at beginning of iteration
• for var in var2 is equivalent to vars.each{|var| ....}
• yield: moves control to a block of code passed to the iterator function
• methods defined in the "top level" of code are private methods to Object (mother of all objects)
• an object of a Class may have new methods added or altered dynamically, thus specific to that object (called singleton method)
• Module (like a class but no instances or subclasses)
• mixin: mixes in the methods of a module in a class,imitating multiple inheritance. Sort of like "implements" in java
• proc {} object and proc.call, can be passed as arguments
• begin/rescue/ensure/end (like try/catch/finally) and raise (like throw)
• inspect and to_s (like java toString())
• attr_reader :v, attr_writer :v, and attr_accessor :v (shortcuts for accessor method creation)
• initialize is the constructor

I'm especially looking forward to wrapping my mind around passing code blocks as arguments. This isn't new to the world of programming languages but it is something I've never played with before and seems to open up a lot of possibilities.

Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms

Hacking Matter by Wil McCarthy
This is a book I picked up from the author when he spoke at the 2004 Emerging Technology conference.

Global Brain: The Evolution of the Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century by Howard Bloom

Non-Fiction:

Global Brain: The Evolution of the Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century by Howard Bloom. The prequel book, The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, irrevocably changed my view on life.

The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History

The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History
Bloom, Howard

This is a book I picked up at the Accelerating Change Conference 2003 back in September. It employs logical deductions derived from scientific and historic findings to explain the nature of mankind, and in particular Man's more evil nature. It begins with the first self-replicating molecules floating in our primordial oceans and continues on to the superorganisms that make up our global societies.

It was a fascinating and eye opening journey, and I now count it among my favorite books. I deeply respect a book which has made such solid challenges to my instinctual and intellectual beliefs. It goes beyond simple theories such as self-preservation and self-propagation, looking deeper into the more complex yet common themes running through all organic life.

Additionally I found myself absorbed in the numerous historical anecdotes, both in the main text and in the footnotes (roughly a third of the book is devoted to footnotes). The book was a pleasure to read, I highly recommend it.

a pile of books

I like to read. Unfortunately I have not had much time to read in the past six months or so. Actually I haven't had much time to read since joining a startup 2 years ago because I must be averaging 60+ working hours a week since then, but that's a bitch session for another time.

What I'd like to discuss now is how tall my stack of books in the to-read queue has grown. That measure is twenty four and one half inches, surely the highest it has ever been. Many of these I picked up at a county book sale on my last trip to North Carolina, where they were going for $0.50 for a paperback and $2 for a hardback. Some I picked up on impulse at various independent booksellers around San Francisco, knowing full well that I had no time to read them, because I am an addict and can't control myself.

Here they are.

• The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into the Land of the Chemical Elements by Atkins, P. W.. I'm actually a third of the way through this one. It's pretty good.
• A New Kind of Science byStephen Wolfram. This book has 848 pages plus an additional 349 pages of appendix. It weighs more than a duck. I got a couple hundred pages into this and realized I needed to put it off until I had more time to give it the proper concentration required.
• Israel/Palestine: How to End the 1948 War by Tanya Reinhart. I'm about a third through this one. It's small and fits in my motorcycle jacket so I can carry it around easily. It mostly covers the past couple of decades in the region. I find the tone a little too biased against Israel, which is a shame because I think very convincing arguments can be made against Israel without any bias whatsoever.
• Jiu Jitsu Complete by Kiyose Nakae.
• An Introduction to Logic by Morris R. Cohen and Ernest Nagel.
• The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. This is considered to be the first cyberpunk novel. It was published in 1975.
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I've been meaning to read this for decades.
• Fraud by David Rakoff. This is a loaner from Mie.
• Karma Cola : Marketing the Mystic East by Gita Mehta.
• Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold. I bought this from the author when he did a reading at The Mechanics Institute.
• The teachings of Don Juan :a Yaqui way of knowledge by Carlos Castaneda.
• The Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This was published in 1925, but the cover seems to have a more modern flavor (one in a long line of similar covers, apparently).
• Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku by William S. Higginson.
• Let's Get Lost: Adventures in the Great Wide Open by Craig Nelson. This was a gift from my housemate Cheu.
• Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. This predates (1968) The Shockwave Rider and it is recommended to read it first.
• Adolf Hitler by John Toland.
• Aku Aku: The Secret of Easter Island by Thor Heyerdahl. That's right, I haven't actually read this yet.
• Mathematical Snapshots by Hugo Steinhaus.
• You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers. I bought this from the author at a book reading at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina. Which is odd only because Eggers and I both live in San Francisco.
• Water Wars : Privatization, Pollution, and Profit by Vandana Shiva. I hear future wars are going to be fought over water, not oil. And the future is fast approaching.
• The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1913
• Economics by Walter Wessels.
• The Coming Biotech Age: The Business of Bio-Materials by Richard W. Oliver. I bought this one two years ago! The damn Biotech Age is going to be over by the time I actually get to reading about it.

bush in wonderland

This is funny, an expat American has written a Japanese book on Bush-isms that purports to be a useful way to learn English. Excerpt:

"I’m Terri MacMillan. If I'm not mistaken, I may be the first middle-aged black woman, who's a native New York expat entrepreneur living in Tokyo to write a book of commentary on GW Bush's quotes on a variety of subjects, from an everyday American person's perspective.
[...]
Bush in Wonderland” includes a lot of background to help people who did not grow up in America see with a pair of American eyes. It also includes explanations of what is wrong, and better ways to say whatever Bush meant to say in each quote, so it's a good way to learn modern everyday American English that goes beyond “this is a pen”. And, the commentary gives you some of the background behind each quote, so that you can easily understand the context."

high stakes crisis diplomacy

Tonight I went to the San Francisco Commonwealth Club where John Boykin was speaking on high stakes crisis diplomacy and promoting his book Cursed is the Peacemaker (I think the Bush administration could use some pointers in this subject). The book details the amazing efforts of a true american hero, Philip Habib of the U.S. Foreign Service, to avert a disastorous war in Beirut in the summer of 1982.

Boykin is an articulate and compelling speaker, who obviously has dedicated a significant (over a decade) amount of time into researching his subject. Of course, Ariel Sharon is the anatgonist in the book. History has shown him to be a "one trick pony," basically a warmonger eager to destroy the Palestinian Liberation Organization no matter the cost. Boykin points out that in the recent media attention of Sharon's statement that he should have killed Arafat when he had the chance in 1982, that the chance he refers to is when Arafat and the rest of the P.L.O. were evacuated out of Israeli seige of Beirut under the protection of Italian, French and U.S. soldiers. Sharon's contempt for the United States during this war is outlined clearly in the book. At one point during the seige when Israeli tanks had surrounded the presidential palace in Beirut and Habib protested such treatment of a legal soverign government, within hours Sharon instead moved the tanks to surround the American consulate several miles east.

In the end, Habib succeeds in preventing a massive bloodbath in the streets of Beirut, despite being forbidden from speaking directly to the P.L.O., being constantly undermined by Ariel Sharon's defiant trickery, and lacking proper support from the U.S. government (who fired his boss Alexander Haig in the midst of the negotiations creating political turmoil back home). Unfortunately as soon as the international peace keeping troops were pulled out of the region, Sharon went though with his planned massacre at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon where over 2000 palestinian refugees were killed. Many of this number were women and children, who were utterly helpless since any P.L.O. militia members had been escorted out of the country under the negotiated terms of the end of conflict. In fact none of the number killed that night could be confirmed as members of the P.L.O..

Sharon's actions in 1982 are widely considered by Isarelis to be the worst blunder in the nation's history, and his subsequent rise to being elected Prime Minister is the best political comeback in recent international history. The rise was fueled by the current Israeli population's desire for military solutions as opposed to diplomatic solutions as championed by american hero Philip Habib.

You can read more about the Summer of '82 at this link: RAND
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august sander

I stopped at SF MOMA today on a whim (my membership runs out at the end of the year and I'mnot sure I'll renew) and saw a fantastic photo exhibit: August Sander: People of the Twentieth Century. It was an incredible piece of work. I don't think I've ever been so fascinated with a photo exhibit before. My favorites were a series about political prisoners and persecution victims. The eyes of the subjects in those shots told a story. Anyhow, it's there until February 23rd, check it out.