I'd like one of these

While I was looking around on notcot.org, I found a link that pointed me to this. The company is called perceptive pixel. I love the video. The demo folks are doing interesting-looking tasks in a very business like way, but it is sort of obvious that it is all about the look and little about the tasks themselves. He is dragging photos around on a screen and he sort of lets go of them as their inertia propels them a little further off to the side.

I was impressed by a few key factors. One was the dimensions of the screens themselves. How nice it would be to have that sort of real estate to do your daily work. The other thing that impressed me was raw computing power. The demo several streaming movies all dynamically being repositioned at various angles - with no lag!

I am reminded of retinal projection displays. I still love that idea, but if screen burn-in was a problem before, it would be much worse if it could happen to your real eyes. Imagine seeing little phantom images of title bars or game scores on the lower left and right of your eyes as you try to get to sleep at night.

nice vantage point

I wish I could claim this photo, but I'll definitely try to imitate it some day.

I had a casualty at work today. A chickadee was happily picking at my feeder when suddenly, a sharp shinned hawk flew in and grabbed it right out of the air. The chickadee had a split second to avoid being nabbed, but was fielded easily by the larger bird.

I was on the phone with a teacher from my son's school at the moment. I think she noticed that she lost my attention for a second while I asked the person in the next cube over if she had seen what I had.

The hawk was small as birds of prey go, but compared to its kill, it was in a completely different class. I was very impressed by the finesse it used on the more maneuverable little bird. I have seen chickadees flit around effortlessly from limb to limb hanging upside-down at times - their jerky motions always seemed like they would make difficult targets. This is apparently not the case.

The hawk picked up the bird and landed about 10 feet away in a grassy area. It stood long enough to get a better grip, then it flew off with the tiny bird in its claws. I was impressed, stunned, and saddened all at the same time.

What factors made the attack successful? The bird didn't seem to realize it was being stalked; There were no other birds around (the others must have been wise to the hawk's presence); finally, the execution of the attack was perfectly timed for a moment when the chickadee was not just unaware, but preoccupied.

A beautiful lesson is there somewhere.

reactable

I have always had a soft spot for analog synths. The tinny sound of my old FM synth never had the same fatness and richness I used to love. The digital synthesizers represented a major price breakthrough, but at some cost. They could do some things pretty well, like bells and some string sounds were pretty good. On the other hand, I always thought a big analog Moog or a maybe a nice Prophet 5 wasn't really made for making sounds that other instruments could produce.

Computers are getting to the point now where the simulation is nearly as good as the original. In some ways they are better because there are user interface elements that are possible now that weren't available to budding synth programmers in the 80's.

So when I saw the demo of the reactable, I thought it was pretty cool. The idea is that you have these icons you can hold in your hands and move about a table surface. These items represent wave generators, samplers, triggers and other widgets that can be used to create a sound or even a sequence. Because it can be so visually interesting, it turns into a sort of performance art.

The best part is that it is free. Of course, you have to supply all the hardware, but it has a lot of potential.

the way to get things done

ahhh tea time. This is the good stuff.

I just spoke to a friend of mine who is working on her PhD Dissertation. She is one of the busiest people I know. She teaches twice a week at Portland State and three times a week at Louis and Clark. She also spends Saturdays teaching Chinese at the Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association's language school. So it seemed odd that she would confess to being lazy. She said she hadn't done anything on her paper recently and was feeling really stressed out.

So my friend is doing all this work and it is important, but she is feeling out of sorts because she isn't able to focus on the one thing she knows she has to do. This is one of those cases where advice is easy to dispense. It is even obvious, but I probably wouldn't listen to it any more than she would. Seeing her example though, was illustrative.

While she was talking, a faint lightbulb went on in my head. I wondered if many very busy people are really closet procrastinators. Sure, we seem to get a lot done, but we really have a very oblique angle of attack on our main goals. Did I just include myself in that group of busy people?

Where I work we have these on-line training activities to do. I deplore them. It always seems as if there are better things to work on. Before I gave up on them, they were a sort of perverse form of motivation. They fed on my desire to find something else to do and I calculated that I was ultimately more productive in the area of meaningful work. A while back, I simply stopped doing them. So far, no manager has said a word to me. I am aware that there is a chance I may have to go back and do that training. However, it is looking pretty good so far. I have items on my list from 2003. I even wondered if they are only there to goose people like me into doing their normal duties more efficiently.

I do tend to let short term committments get in the way of broader goals. I probably need to regroup now.

memories of the mouse

Originally uploaded by _vanitY_.

I remember once going to southern California to visit my uncle. I wanted to go to the ocean and maybe find water that wouldn't cause instant hypothermia like the water of the Oregon Coast. I also wanted to go to a place like Disneyland.

My love for roller coasters took root at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm and 6 Flags. Of course, I had access to a roller coaster in town too. Except riding our local coaster - The Mouse - never made me want to go looking for other roller coasters. Some rides are scary, some make you want to throw up because of excessive twirling, some are exhilarating. The Mouse is ingeniously engineered for fear.

The premise, I eventually surmised, was that fear is fear. The source of the fear is really secondary to the experience. For example, being locked in a cage with poisonous snakes might give you the a similar sensation. I'm sure it feels good to survive that, but I might not build a ride around it.

The designer of The Mouse created an elevated metal track that resembles scaffolding in a lot of ways. One difference may be that The Mouse doesn't feel as stable as a typical scaffold or even a flimsy ladder. The rickety track sways a little as the cars make their way up and around the path. The cars were also designed to extend out over the edge of the track when making turns. The fear of falling from this ride is ever present. The fact that it isn't very tall as roller coasters go isn't comforting.

The home of this unique experience is Oaks Park in Southeast Portland, Oregon. I don't know if the ride is one-of-a-kind, but I have often wondered if it was originally conceptualized by a kid with an erector set who had a dream to build a coaster. Later, as an adult, this former kid decided to use the parts of ten thousand erector sets to construct that dream... and my nightmare.

Of course I rode it every time I went to Oaks Park. I didn't know any better. I thought roller coasters were supposed to make you feel that your life was in danger and this did the trick. It was only later, when I experienced some big budget alternatives that I understood the semantic difference between fear and thrill. I guess this is where I part company with whoever built The Mouse.

pomeranian of cars

pomeranian of cars
Originally uploaded by Tygh.

What fun. My friend's wife got a new Smart Car. This is pretty tiny for a street-legal vehicle. He took me for a ride in it. It has a surprising amount of interior space, but also a surprising lack of personal space between you and the cars in front or behind. Feels like riding in a go-kart =)

Cute though.

the memorial

Surimono Album - 2001 (Print #6)

This print is by a Canadian artist named David Bull. His work is amazing. David attributes the original to Ogata Korin, a Japanese painter who died in 1716.

Ben's memorial was a nice event. I had forgotten how much I loved the Reed College campus. It was nearly deserted except for the mourners. The place was very peaceful among the mature trees and the dignified buildings both old and new.

I have been to very few funerals or memorials that I can remember anything about. There were a good number of people there including several from the Reed community. I was struck by the very few I knew personally. Of those that I had met before, there were only a handful I could name. And so within a short time, it occurred to me just how alienated I had kept myself from Ben's life. It was a distance far greater than a few visits to a sick man could bridge and I became acutely aware that I had never really made that journey.

The ceremony started with Karen, Ben's widow, saying a few words. She is such a strong person and I was proud of the way she could speak about him despite her grief. Two of Ben's friends then said a few words. I had been backpacking with Ben and one of these men maybe 13 years ago. I had not known the other person at all despite his being obviously very close to Ben.

To describe the way I felt, I might use the word "over-represented." I am thinking of the printed program for the memorial. Karen had asked if she could use the pencil photo from an earlier posting here and for me to prepare it to be used as the cover art. The pencil had come from Ben's shop and it resonated with her. So I did that gladly. It wasn't until I was at the ceremony that I understood what a gift it had been for her to ask this of me. It gave me an opportunity to participate and allowed me to forget for a time that I was something of an outsider.

Of course, I could merely supply the image. The interpretation was far beyond me.

charged

Bottle Tops
Originally uploaded by febpanda.

Today, a friend of mine told me about her uncle who keeps colored bottles of water out in the sun. Then he uses them to treat different health conditions. Use one color to take care of headaches, another to help with indigestion, the indigo if you are feeling anxious and need some calm.

She believed in the tradition and told me I could look it up on line. To my amazement, I found several references to Chromahydrology or similarly named disciplines. Google, being the know-it-all that it is, returned many such web sites espousing the benefits of this treatment methodology.

I just tried to imagine how beautiful it would be to have bottles like that in the window being charged by the sun just waiting in case of future ailments.

red for energy
green is for concentration
orange for kindness

new years eve confession

"I only do it to keep things interesting" - Jan Payette about why she cheats at scrabble with mother.

The confession was damning indeed. Her mother, Dolly, is in her 80s with rapidly deteriorating eyesight. She can barely see printed material in broad daylight without a flashlight. Jan takes advantage of the situation by throwing a few extra scrabble tiles on her tray. Maybe she spells the word "WEFKLY" for a triple word score now and then.

Despite Jan's clear lack of scruples, her mother still bests her at the game. Jan insists that her mother is some sort of superhuman scrabble player and that she needs the extra help just to stay in the game. So after the initial shock upon hearing the confession, we decided that so long as Dolly has a steady Scrabble partner, it is forgivable for her daughter to take a few unearned points now and then.

Happy New Year!