Caveat: Aillucinations (Pseudosystematic significance)

When an AI (artificial intelligence) hallucinates, what shall we call it? I suggest aillucinations.

These AIs are not really that smart, though. Useful, yes, and intriguing, in a science-fictiony sort of way. But they have a long ways to go.

Case-in-point: google translate, which I use quite often, does some strange things, when you give it long strings of garbage. Its neural nets try to make sense of things, and the result is hallucinatory. This has been written about extensively at the Language Log blog – here is the most recent discussion (which includes links to earlier discussions).

I was curious about instances specific to the Korean-English domain (because I'd like to show some of my students, who overly trust online translators). So I set about finding some of my own examples. 


With google translate, I can get some pretty weird stuff in the English -> Korean direction, with the following string:

ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
eieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei
ieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieieiei

These give:

상상력
신상품
상상력
도미니카 공화국
상상해 보아라.
신상품
상상해 보지 못하다.
도미니카 공화국 인민 공화국
상상해 보지 못하다.
신상품
상상력
도미니카 공화국 인민 공화국 의회
상상해 보지 못하다.
신상품
상상력
신상품
상상력이 풍부한 사람
신상품
상상해 보아라.
신상품
상상력이 풍부한 사람

Which, translated, in turn, back to English, gives:

imagination
new product
imagination
Dominican Republic
Imagine it.
new product
I can not imagine it.
Dominican Republic
I can not imagine it.
new product
imagination
Dominican Republic People's Congress
I can not imagine it.
new product
imagination
new product
Imaginative person
new product
Imagine it.
new product
Imaginative person

Can you imagine that? The google translate "imagined" it.

Going the reverse direction, Korean -> English, I got a nice result with:

유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유유

Which gives:

It is the oil that is used in the oil industry and the oil is the oil. The oil is the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil and the oil. In addition to the above, the term "oil" is used to refer to the oil as the oil and the oil as well as the oil and the lubricant. In addition to the above, the term "oil" is used to refer to the oil as the oil and the oil as well as the oil and the lubricant. It is a good idea to have a good night's sleep. It is the oil that is used in the oil industry and the oil is the oil. The oil is the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil and the oil. It is the oil that is used in the oil industry and the oil is the oil. The oil is the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil, the oil and the oil. You can not go wrong.


As a matter of curiosity, I decided to experiment with papago, a clone of google translate being created by the Korean web portal Naver. So, English -> Korean, I got a result with:

u oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oeu oee ieoe iou u oe

Which gives:

넌 너의 아내를 보고 있어

Which returned to English is:

You are watching your wife.

I like that. Such a succinct translation! I found papago was easier to "trick" into hallucinating – it will begin getting creative with much shorter strings of nonsense. But it's clear the underlying technology is similar and has the same weaknesses.

Finally, I put in the following in the Korean -> English direction:

의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유의유

And I got:

CAUTION of a Pseudosystem of Pseudosystematic significance of significance of significance of significance of significance of freedom of consciousness of libertarian of liberate of liberality of freedom of libertarise of freedom of freedom of proceedings of freedom of proceedings of proceedings of freedom of will of proceedings

Which is awesome. Pseudosystematic significance, indeed!

Do note that finding strings that produce these kinds of aillucinations is a bit of a hit-or-miss proposition – there are many strings which "don't work" – i.e., they return simple nonsense in return for nonsense. But it can be rather addictively entertaining to keep trying various combinations and seeing what pops out.


Happy aillucinating! I, for one, seem to have found a new, useless hobby.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

 

Caveat: Sending a Sportscar into Space

Occasionally, I have the thought that I have arrived in the future. Most of the time, I don't feel this. Inevitably, the future arrives more slowly than I expected when I was younger, but it does sometimes nevertheless put in an appearance.

SpaceX corporation's test of their new Falcon Heavy rocket today is one such example. The real innovation is their recovery of the the booster stages for re-use. The recycling of these rocket parts, instead of just dropping them in the Atlantic, in old-school NASA style, will make space flight much, much cheaper over the long run. And the video of the simultaneous landing of two side booster rockets back at Kennedy is a pure science fiction moment, circa 1950s.

That said, Elon Musk, the visionary leader of SpaceX, is also a megalomaniacal plutocrat and basically a living incarnation of a classic James Bond movie villain. Perhaps this is the kind of person who advances humanity – I don't know. Is that just what it takes?

Musk's new rocket test needed a "dummy payload," so, in finest egotistical form, he launched his own sports car (a Tesla Roadster, manufactured by one of his other companies), with a mannequin in a space suit at the wheel. So now, humanity has launched a space-suited dummy at the wheel of a sports car, out into space, and eventually, past the orbit of Mars. Furthermore, he placed a towel and a copy of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide in the glove box. Can you imagine the aliens finding that?

Maybe Elon Musk will move to Mars. Somebody should move to Mars, right? Why not him?

[daily log: walking, 8km]

 

Caveat: scrambling over the wall to the other side

Apparently Ursula Le Guin has died. 

I thought she might not. She seemed a forever type of person. But actually everyone dies.

She was a great writer. And a philosopher, though not in the conventional sense. I don't need to review her life or work – others can do that better than I can. But her writing has influenced me profoundly.

I was 12 years old when I first read the Earthsea series of fantasy books. And I really doubt that I have spent a single day in my life since then when that imagined world hasn't crossed my mind in some way or another. It's a visceral thing – I don't know that the philosophical and psychological ideas there were so impactful – though they're undeniably present in the books. I only mean that I imagined that world quite vividly, in reading those books. and so picturenow I think of it, much as one remembers a memorable trip, perhaps. For example, I think every day of the years I lived in Mexico, or the two months I spent in South America, or my one month studying in Paris, or my six months in Chicago. They were profound and memorable experiences, which shaped who I am. Likewise, the reading of those books, at that time in my life, left a similar type of indelible impression.

Her novel The Dispossessed had a more philosophical impact on me. I consider it a great philosophical novel. The "sci-fi" aspect is nearly irrelevant, except as a way to set the scene – the same story could have been written in a different way, set on Earth in some slightly altered historical context. I would put this book in my Universal Recommended books list.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

 

Caveat: Aesthetica in vivo

What I’m listening to right now.

A Capella Science, “Evo-Devo (Despacito Biology Parody).” This song is truly awesome. It’s evolutionary biology. It’s poetry. It’s music. It’s all in a package, like the miracle of life, itself. For the prototype of which this song is a “parody,” see here.
Lyrics.

EVO-DEVO
Huxley
B. Mac.
Oh Carroll, Carroll
Gould, Stephen Jay yeah
D-D-D-D-Davidson and Peter

See
One cell divide and decide on a thousand fates
Did you ever figure how they know?
B. Mac.
We
Are built of modules combined in a planned out way
Each new piece must be told where to go
Oh

Now there’s a science helping us to understand
How our cells encode this architectural plan
Signalling each other with genetic tools oh
Oh yeah

Wow
Phenotype the interface for mouse and man
Genotype the files and the subprograms
What then are the switches, circuit boards and boot code?

Evo-Devo
Looking at the logic in the ways that we grow
Every gene directed by a signal key code
Proteins that can activate, enhance or veto
Evo-Devo
Signals are controlled by other genes that signal
Calculating in a network labyrinthal
Where the heart and liver and the hands and feet go

Signal mapping tells each region what it ought to be yo
With circuits so deeply built upon
They’re older than the Paleo
The Paleozoic Era baby
In a crucial pathway changes tend to get torpedoed
Where they go calamity goes
As this cyclopic sheep knows..

See down they cascade like a domino
Like you and I drosophila
The path that makes us optical
Was laid a long long time ago
Back before we blew up the cambrian like a bomb bomb
Now my eye protein can make you see out of your bom bom
And Hedgehog and its relatives like Indian and Sonic
Set up set up in a gradient on segments embryonic
Split forebrains and asymmetric parts depend upon it
Flipping on genetic switches and logic
From devo to evo
Adult and embryo
Mostly don’t evolve in the genes of the genome
Safer the mutation aimed at regulation
Keep the building blocks and swap their activation
From devo to evo
Parts have alter egos
Homologs evolved from repeats in the schema
Switch a couple bases in the proper places
You’ll be watching flies grow legs out of their faces oh yeah

Evo-Devo
Stick around for Modern Synthesis the sequel
Only by combining can a new theory grow
Evolution and development amigos
Evo-Devo
Signals trigger patterns of complexity so
Switching up the switches of a signalling node
Gives a modular and simple way to evolve

Look at how our spinal segments generate a neat row
Built on a molecular clock
One cycle, one vertebra
One vertebra one vertebra baby
Speeding up its rate is snakes’ developmental cheat code
That and where a lizard’s feet grow
They turn off distal aminos

Evo-Devo
This is how we go from single cells to people
Every generation and in life primeval
Life in variations endless and beautiful

Badaboom

From devo to evo
Larva to mosquito
Patterns are resolved as the signals proceed yo
Map out a gene with a glow tag
Kill it with a morpholino
Short oligo morpholino baby

From devo to evo
Voyage of the Beagle
Body plans evolve when proteins steer the genome
In this manner life’s beauty grows
Aesthetica in vivo

Evo-Devo

picture[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Paperclips

I did something yesterday that I haven't done in a long time: I became immersed in a rather mind-numbingly stupid game. 

In fact, I was led to this game from a philosophical discussion of the AI Paperclip Maximizer problem, in a blog I often read. I suggest you read that, first (it's short).

picture

The game is called, naturally, "Universal Paperclips." It's in the genre of what are called "clicker" games – basically, just webpages with a few clickable controls that allow one to manipulate a kind of limited universe.

The object of the game is to fill the universe with paperclips. You start making one paperclip at a time. Click. Click. Click.

After some time, you develop automation, and then an artificial intelligence to do work for you. And then space exploring-drones, matter-to-paperclip conversion technology, paperclip-to-drone conversion technology. Etcetera. It's entirely text-based. And I spent 10 hours yesterday, filling the universe with paperclips. I believe the specific number of paperclips I produced was on the order of 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (30 septendecillion = 3 x 10^54). Perhaps that's current best guess as to the mass of the universe, in grams (and maybe each paperclip weighs about a gram, right?).

But then the game told me I had run out of matter. So I had to stop. Fortunately, it was bedtime.

It was addictive, but it was mostly a one-shot experience, I think – once you've filled the universe with paperclips, you feel satisfied but there is little incentive to keep repeating the experience. That means I don't feel bad recommending the experience to others.

[daily log: paperclips, 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000]

 

Caveat: sic a principiis ascendit motus

Hoc etiam magis haec animum te advertere par est
corpora quae in solis radiis turbare videntur,
quod tales turbae motus quoque materiai
significant clandestinos caecosque subesse.
multa videbis enim plagis ibi percita caecis
commutare viam retroque repulsa reverti
nunc huc nunc illuc in cunctas undique partis.
scilicet hic a principiis est omnibus error.
prima moventur enim per se primordia rerum,
inde ea quae parvo sunt corpora conciliatu
et quasi proxima sunt ad viris principiorum,
ictibus illorum caecis inpulsa cientur,
ipsaque proporro paulo maiora lacessunt.
sic a principiis ascendit motus et exit
paulatim nostros ad sensus, ut moveantur
illa quoque, in solis quae lumine cernere quimus
nec quibus id faciant plagis apparet aperte.

– Titus Lucretius Carus (Roman poet, 99BC-55BC),

The above are lines from Book II, lines 125-141, in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.

Here is a prose translation to English, by John Selby Watson, 1851.

For you will see there, among those atoms in the sun-beam, many, struck with imperceptible forces, change their course, and turn back, being repelled sometimes this way, and sometimes that, every where, and in all directions. And doubtless this errant-motion in all these atoms proceeds from the primary elements of matter; for the first primordial-atoms of things are moved of themselves; and then those bodies which are of light texture, and are, as it were, nearest to the nature of the primary elements, are put into motion, and these latter themselves, moreover, agitate others which are somewhat larger. Thus motion ascends from the first principles, and spreads forth by degrees, so as to be apparent to our senses, and so that those atoms are moved before us, which we can see in the light of the sun; though it is not clearly evident by what impulses they are thus moved.

This is about Brownian motion. It was written a bit less than 2100 years ago.

[daily log: walking, 1km]

Caveat: 17776

I ran across a very weird bit of avant-garde science fiction that has been created on a sports news website (SBNation), of all places. This seems unexpected. Anyway, it's a very strange thing – it's not a straightforward sci-fi story, but rather a kind of multimedia "text" in the postmodern sense. Nevertheless, it has a narrative, and the genre is definitely sci-fi.

If you don't like unexpected animations and fiddling with your mouse to make things happen, I don't recommend it, but if you don't mind those things, give it a try: link.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Jumping Out of the Sky

In 1960, a guy name Joe Kittinger jumped out of a high altitude balloon and fell to Earth. I don't think I could ever have the nerve to skydive, but this activity has always fascinated me. I suppose this is the ultimate in skydiving.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: Smashie O’Smasherson Jr is possibly the most powerful goldfish in all of history

A conceptual artist named Neil Mendoza has created a combination of gadgetry and software that allows his pet goldfish, named Smashie O'Smasherson Jr, to interact with his surroundings with a robotic hammer. I'm not sure the fish is really in on the joke, but some stuff definitely gets smashed. Here is a link. I've embedded the video below.

Perhaps if several generations of goldfish were allowed to grow up in this environment, they'd evolve some interesting behaviors – I could imagine fish going on smashing rampages when hungry, for example.

Surely with technology like this, our future is bright.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Exploring the Sky of Stone

Sometimes some strange new germ of a story idea occurs to me, and I feel fairly certain I won't actually write that story. In such events, I think maybe the best thing to do is to publish the idea on this here blog thingy and maybe someday, someone else might decide it's an interesting idea.

I was thinking about the interior of the Earth. The Earth's core has a solid inner part, and liquid outer part. The boundary is a kind of surface of crystallization, expanding gradually outward at a rate of a millimeter a year or some such tiny amount, as the Earth's core cools. Not that it's cool, in there. The liquid is mostly iron and nickel, with dissolved lighter elements: sulfur, calcium, oxygen. The idea that oxygen is included got me to wondering: could some type of chemo/thermophilic lifeform emerge in such an environment?

It wouldn't be carbon-based, or even silicon-based. Iron-based, maybe? Is that chemically plausible? I don't know enough about it. But I also thought back to a book, Dragon's Egg, by physicist Robert L. Forward. It's science fiction, but it's quite "hard" science fiction, in that he's worked out the physics of the emergence of intelligent life on the surface of neutron star. It's a rather interesting book.

Anyway, couldn't a similar treatment be applied to some core-dwelling lifeform, evolving intelligence over a billion years or so down there in the deeps, in a soup of liquid metal. And maybe their main sensory systems are based on magnetism (which makes sense in an iron-based environment, maybe). And these creatures start exploring upwards… building rivers of "breathable" molten iron upwards through their sky of stone. Until they arrive on our surface and meet us – dwellers of the outermost atmosphere, frozen beings made of puffs of something less than air, from their perspective.

What kind of close encounter might that be? 

[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

Caveat: Oklo-Boom!

I'd always wondered about this idea, which I recently ran across: a natural nuclear reactor.

Of course, if you understand the principle for how uranium fission works, you know that if enough uranium gets together in one spot, you get what's called 'critical mass' and you will get a fission reaction. So there's no reason, in principle, why it couldn't happen entirely by accident, in the natural world – some uranium deposit getting too dense, by natural geological forces, and, bingo, fission! I just assumed, based on my quite limited understanding, that the odds were too low for it ever actually happen. Yet apparently, it has, and it has been scientifically confirmed. I found some links that led me to this article, at an architecture-related blog I read sometimes. It all seems quite remarkable.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Where to go from here?

"Self-driving cars" are all the rage in certain Silicon Valley circles as an up-and-coming technology.

A conceptual artist explores the shortcomings of relying on not-so-smart robot-minds to try to drive a car. He has actually engineered his own self-driving car, using bits and pieces of existing technology. Then he proceeded to "trap" the car by exploiting its reliance on highway markings to decide where it is OK to drive.

picture

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: The Karma Professor Explains the Mpemba Effect

I had a class last night with my highest-level students, the TOEFL 8th graders, that was close to an ideal type of class, in my opinion.

Nominally, we were working on the TOEFL speaking questions. But before class, one of the students, Sumin, had asked me if I knew anything about the "Mpemba Effect" (see wikipedia – I'll not try to replicate the explanation found there). She had to make a speech about it, in Korean, for her Korean-language class. In researching it online, she'd found more materials in English than Korean, and, being an ambitious and motivated English student, she decided these were legitimate sources for putting together her speech. She was checking with me mostly to make sure she understood some of the technical aspects and the fairly specialized vocabulary of chemistry and physics involved. 

So we carried on our conversation about it into the start of class. The other students overheard and were curious, and so I started explaining. And then I said, "Actually, this is exactly the kind of topic that they put into a Type 6 TOEFL speaking question." You listen to some complicated lecture on a difficult topic, and then you have to summarize.

Somewhat jokingly, I asked them if they wanted to do a speaking question practice on the Mpemba Effect. To my surprise, they were enthusiastic about this idea. So I pulled up the wikipedia article, scanned through it to make sure I understood it, and then proceeded to give a 10 minute lecture, more or less, on the Mpemba Effect. This included digressions to explain concepts such as convection, insulation, dissolved gases, crystallization and "seeding" crystals (i.e. catalysts), and several other things that occurred to me. Then their job was to give a one minute summary, in the TOEFL style, of my lecture.

In his summary, David even included the expression, "The Karma professor explains…," a joking reference to my sometimes being identified by both students and coworkers as a "professor." It's a moniker that seems to follow me regardless of career. 

The class was ideal. We covered what we needed to cover – which is to say, we did TOEFL speaking practice on a particular instance of what are always essentially random topics. Yet the students themselves selected the topic, out of interest, and they more or less led the class in terms of what was expected of them. I was just a kind of resource, an on-call "professor" that they could hit "play" on for various aspects of the topic in question.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: What, Exactly, Is Cuteness?

I don't know what cuteness is, exactly. But it seems like a real – if subjective - perception that is shared by most humans. Probably, the perception of cuteness is linked to the evolution of the parent-child bond.

Regardless, I think many would agree that this robot is cute.

Others might feel it's creepy – I guess it might be creepy, too. But the creepiness is something that dawns on you slowly, only as you think more deeply about what this little robot represents: human capacity to create a wholly autonomous, life-like being.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Zoomable

Last September, I posted on this here blog about my fictional city-state of Tárrases, and the online mapping I’ve been doing for it. Recently, that website’s owner has been experimenting with a “3D viewer” of the topographic data. If you were interested in that map, before, then you might be interested to play with this viewer, too. Note that it is a bit glitchy, with some performance hitches, and also that the data (which are my creation and responsibility to maintain) might have some issues too. Also note that the initial view you see has the vertical scale exaggerated. The controls at the lower left of the window can change the degree of exaggeration, as well as manipulate for “pan,” “rotation,” and “zoom.”
So at least my hobby is interesting to me.
picture[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: one light-year per year

"One light-year per year" is the speed of light. This is not an entirely reductive definition, because of how the units are officially defined by the physicists. This was the insight I drew from physicist and blogger Sean Carroll's blog entry today, which gives thanks, for Thanksgiving, for the speed of light.

I'm all for giving thanks for unusual things. Giving thanks for the speed of light seems like an awesome idea.

c – ya.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: A Mysterious Gadget

What follows is essentially a "guest post" – although the guest writer doesn't exactly know he's a guest on this blog. When visiting my uncle in Alaska, he asked me if I could help identify the "mystery gadget" described by a "friend of a friend" of his, Doug Clyde. So I offered to post Doug's original email on my blog, which might give some additional web-visibility to the object and help identify it – I have a fairly eclectic collection of blogreaders, so I thought it might be useful. Below is Doug's original email. My uncle also forwarded the same email to some other acquaintances. 

I try to send my brother  a unique Christmas gift each year – something useless but too nice to throw away.  This year I think I have outdone myself.  It’s so unique I can’t figure out what it is.  An internet search was no help.  I’m hopeful that one of you can enlighten me.

It is very well made – the base is cast brass with a black wrinkle finish that is common on old lab instruments like microscopes.

The brass balls are fixed to their rods, but the rods are free to go up and down.  The height of the lower bar can be adjusted by loosening the brass knob in the center of the bar. 

picture

The knurled fitting on the top of the balls can be unscrewed.  Under this fitting (inside the ball) are small lead beads which I assume are used to trim the weight of the brass ball. 

picture

Lead beads w/ball point pen shown for comparison.  Those beads would not weigh much.

picture

Note the bottom of each rod is machined to different diameters.

picture

The pin on the bottom of the big ball measures 0.0500  of an inch,  The pin on the small ball measures 0.1000 of an inch.  

The diameter of the big ball is 1.8250,  the small ball 1.1250

I’m thinking it might be one part of a display or lab instrument.   I don’t have a clue.  Thanks for looking and let me know if you  figure it out. 

Happy  Holidays  - Doug

If you have an idea what this gadget is, you can send me an email (gadget 🐌 jaredway ⬤ com), and I'll forward it back to my uncle.

Perhaps you noticed, I'm posting this at 4 am, Korea time. Jetlag, anyone? Well, it's not too bad – I wake up this early sometimes even when not jetlagged. Let's just called it "jaredlag." 

 

Caveat: the commute is the computation

As I've mentioned before, I enjoy trying to understand neuroscience and cognition-related topics, although I'm not really very well equipped, intellectually.

I recently was led to a very dense bit of reading on the topic of just how the brain's structural components lead to its computational abilities, and the author was advocating the apparently radical idea that one aspect of brain-structure that deserves greater study is that of the role of neuronal mitochondria. Of course I don't get it all, but I was fascinated.

I was particularly struck by two interrelated conceptual bits:

  1. the syncytic aspect of neuron structure, a concept that had never registered with me before
  2. the mitochondria-as-ants-in-a-colony metaphor: "the commute is the computation." (this seems to rely on (a) because the only if the neurons are joined syncytically can the mitochondria "migrate" around in the manner suggested)

I had one thought (I hesitate to call it an epiphanic moment), which I'm not sure better reflects understanding or lack of understanding: Is it possible that the electrical aspect of the brain's activity reflects not the computations taking place but rather the "clock", on the computer metaphor? That is to say, the electrical pulses are the clock, while the chemical activity taking place in mitochondria and at synapses are the actual computational work.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: a new rain of unfortunate ants

Here's a very different angle on several old topics, including immigration to Poland and death camps in Poland (but not what you're thinking, at all).

There are ants living in a kind dystopian ant-colony in an old Soviet nuclear bunker in Poland. The population is supplemented by ants falling down a broken ventilation shaft (immigration), and the mortality rate is quite high (death camps). Scientists speculate the ants may be cannibalistic, too.

I think this needs to be turned into a novel, with lots of layers of allegory. 

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: get to work, then

This is a humanoid "robot." Actually, I'm not sure just how autonomous it is, but it clearly has a lot of potential.

It's just a matter of time. It seems like robots are going to be doing interesting things, soon.

[daily log: walking, ]

Caveat: 90 Year Old Prophesy

"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket." — Nikola Tesla, in 1926.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: The Burrito Gravity Train

I recently ran across a very entertaining bit of fiction. It's a little bit borgesian, I guess, in that the story's protagonist is an idea rather than a person.

It's about a "chord tunnel" (an ancient concept orginally developed in the 18th century, also called a "gravity train," that pops up sometimes in science fiction) used for delivering burritos from San Francisco to New York City: 

The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: 혁신도시

Korea’s “New Cities” have always fascinated me, given my own proclivities as an unfulfilled urban planner as well as my current long-standing residence in one of Korea’s largest and most successful New Cities, Ilsan. There are many aspects of the the New City concept and process that are interesting to me, but perhaps what I’m most curious about is why some can be so successful, while others fail. What are the factors which cause this? What decisions are made that influence the success or failure, and what sociological factors beyond the control of planners influences the success or failure?
Ilsan is quite successful. If you came to this city of half a million residents, you might be surprised to learn it was less than 30 years old, and that nothing existed but a small village when when I first visited the area in 1991, while in the US Army stationed in Korea.
On the other hand, there are large New Cities which feel like ghost towns. They are not empty, but they have not managed to coalesce into a city-type place. They have atmospherics which resemble those of some US suburbs (or exurbs), contrasting only in being much higher density.
I was thinking about this recently, having watched on the TV a fairly in-depth report on a New City being built down near Gwangju, the other Korean metropolitan area that I have called home. The report first caught my attention because the name of the city is 빛가람 [bitgaram], which struck me as a weird name for a New City – it means “Bright Monastery” or “Bright Cathedral” and so what struck me as odd was the apparent religious aspect of the name. I suppose it could be seen as a “Cathedral of Capitalism.”
It is being called “혁신도시” [hyeoksindosi = “Innovation New City”] – the term “innovation” in the name seems to be… an innovation. What are they trying to build? Gwangju has a history of trying to reinvent itself as a high tech city, from its old character as agricultural center and “car town” (it is the original home to KIA motors in that company’s pre-Hyundai merger days, as well as home to the Kumho chaebol, maker of car parts and tires and buses). I have described it as Korea’s Detroit. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I think there is a reputational aspect that matches up, too.
Bitgaram Innovation New City is being built in the city of Naju, which is Gwangju’s older but much smaller neighbor to the south, but which is now absorbed into the Gwangju metropolis. Naju was one of two capitals of the pre-modern Jeolla province, and dates back to the Baekje kingdom era, I think.
Toponymically (and to digress), the name of the other capital, Jeonju, along with the name Naju, are the origins of the name of Jeolla province, since Naju was originally La-ju (a natural sound change from medieval to modern Korean), and thus Jeon+La = Jeonla->Jeolla. Originally, there were two provinces, Jeonju and Laju (“ju” just means place or province, after all).  I have always wondered why, when the modern Korean government decided to split Jeolla, they named them North Jeolla and South Jeolla. Why not just return to Jeon and La (Na)? It would be as if, say, Iowa and Minnesota merged, to form Minnesotiowa, and then split again to form North Minnesotiowa and South Minnesotiowa.
This blog post is rambling a bit.
My real question is, will this New City if Bitgaram be successful, like Ilsan, or less successful, like e.g. Ilsan’s western neighbor, Unjeong? I have been to Unjeong many times, and even have had coworkers and students who live there. But despite the ambitions attached to it, it has so far never evolved into anything more than a bedroom suburb, unlike Ilsan. It’s a bit younger than Ilsan, but that doesn’t explain its failure to develop its own city character – Ilsan had its own city character well-established even 15 years ago, which is Unjeong’s age now. Unjeongians always commute to Ilsan for their city-type activities. I wonder why.
The one trend that I find disturbing is that the newer New Cities seem to lack the commitment to diverse public transit that the older New Cities seemed pretty good at. Thus Unjeong is not built along a subway line (as is the case with Ilsan, really along two lines) but rather off to the side of one. Gwangju’s subway (which is, anyway, a joke) will not connect to Bitgaram, as far as I can tell.
Here is an image of Bitgaram, fished off the internet. It is a “rendering” – not an actual view – the city is still under construction.
picture
[daily log: walking, ]

Caveat: a more fulfilled and self-actualized indoor kitty existence

I have fallen victim to a cat video.

This one has a gadgeteer angle to it, however. 

This guy built a food dispenser for his cat that is activated by plastic toys that the cat has to find in a kind of hide-and-seek game. 

He writes on his blog: "So what if my cat, while out on patrol, actually found its prey? Surely this would bring him one step closer towards a more fulfilled and self-actualized indoor kitty existence."

He wanted his indoor cat to have the experience of the hunt, so he created an artificial hunt. This takes "playing with your cat" to a whole new level. Maybe, in the future, our pets will enjoy time in the holodeck, too? 

 [daily log: walking, sorta]

Caveat: Buy an Electric Car, Save the Environment!

Actually, no. Let's think this through. Where does electricity come from? Solar or hydro? Great, buy a Nissan Leaf. But most electricity comes from coal. So, in that case… burning gasoline is better for the environment. 

Here's the article that led me to think about this.

[UPDATE (a few hours later): I had written "Prius" but it occurred to me that this is ambiguous, since a Prius is technically a hybrid, not an electric car, and thus is just a new model for burning gasoline. I have altered the title and post to reflect this – but there's no majorly iconic electric vehicle, yet. I chose the Nissan Leaf because it's one I happened to have seen recently here in Korea.]

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Buying a bike while sitting in class

Yesterday, my student Yeongu kept pulling out his smartphone and doing something on it. I know some teachers take the phones away from students, but I have never been a fan of that style. I prefer to try to motivate in the direction of moderating their own impulsive behavior. 

I commented to him, "I think you're addicted. What are you doing? Chatting?"

He just smiled and put the phone away, but minutes later it was out again. This went on for a while, and twice more I said, "can you please not pull out your phone like that during class, unless you're using the dictionary" – I allow students to use the dictionaries on their smartphones given my own poor ability to provide clear definitions for difficult vocabulary sometimes, given we are often trying to prepare debates about complex topics. Ironically, today's topic was "self-esteem" and "self-control."

I asked him again what he was doing. 

Finally he relented and said, "Teacher, this is important."

"Why, what's important?" I asked.

"I'm buying a new bike," he said – he held up his phone showing the screen of a popular Korean online shopping site (like amazon), with an image of a bike.

Oddly, suddenly, I didn't feel upset at all.

"That's cool," I marvelled, quite sincerely. I guess it hit me, in that moment, that that was a very "futuristic" thing, this idea that a student could be sitting in class and shopping at the same time. "I never could shop while sitting in some boring class, when I was young. You're very lucky." 

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: holographic principle

"The holographic principle states that the entropy of ordinary mass (not just black holes) is also proportional to surface area and not volume; that volume itself is illusory and the universe is really a hologram which is isomorphic to the information "inscribed" on the surface of its boundary." – from wikipedia.

This blew my mind – my layman's brain can't understand all the mathematics or physics, but I sort of understand the principles involved, and this is really amazing to think about. 

My stepmother Wendy and sister Brenda with her two kids James and Sarah have come out to Ilsan today. I'll post about it tomorrow.

[daily log: walking, 5 km]

 

Caveat: Barking? No, the other end

Ha. The "surveillance state" is going to the dogs, now. 

The well-named municipality of Barking and Dagenham, in the UK, is going to be genetically testing dog poo and requiring pet owners to register their pets' DNA – this will allow unambiguous attribution of guilt to owners who don't clean up after their pets.

How far we've come. This seems like one of those fake news snippets from a 1960s-era Heinlein novel.

Really, though… could George Orwell have foreseen this?


What I'm listening to right now.

Informatik, "My True Love." The lyrics are stunningly banal – not what I would hope for from goth-rock. But whatever… I guess I like the sound of it. 

Lyrics.

My true love – the only one for me
And the other there will never be
My true love – always there for me
When I'm feeling so lonely
My true love calls my name
That's when I go running
My true love will never let me down
Please don't let me down

The more that I see you
The more that I need you
This feeling just won't go away

I can't live without you
I won't ever doubt you
I'm begging you – don't go away

My true love whispers to me
Tells me all the things that I want to hear
My true love takes over me
Will never let me go, never set me free
My true love is my everything
Everything I am, all I'll ever be
My true love will never let me down
Please don't let me down

The more that I see you
The more that I need you
This feeling just won't go away
(Won't go, won't go away)

I can't live without you
I won't ever doubt you
I'm begging you – don't go away
(Don't go, don't go away)

You have left your mark on me
I will never be the same
Even if I walk away

Your heavenly embrace
Not so easy to erase
Will I ever have the strength
To say goodbye to you

The more that I see you
The more that I need you
This feeling just won't go away

I can't live without you
I won't ever doubt you
I'm begging you – don't go away

[daily log: walking, ]

 

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