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Random musings of a random nature

Aug13

So sitting up here in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
I haven’t been here in around 14 years, a lot longer since I actually had a relaxed holiday (The D Generation were still on ABC backthen.)

Here I am with no broadband, and my wireless hotspot is simply my phone, I have a limited amount of data, and no games.

And you know what, it’s given me some time to think and muse about things with no distractions.

It’s so easy to get lost in gamer culture, games constantly being released, daily log in rewards or challenges, new dlc, ranking up and so on.
There’s no time to actually stop and think with things becoming based on reflex and repetition.

Yet here I am, no games, no real ability to log in, and the only challenge is getting back to basics.
Sadly with basic browsing it’s alarming to see how quickly I’m using data, and I’m not even watching funny cat videos.

However I get a chance at gaining and maintaining a form of clarity due to sitting back.

For example, capitalism. Much like communism, it works in theory.
Everything we do, everywhere we go, everything around us, all driven by capitalism, or rather in it’s current form, consumerism.
Products and services are created to consume, profit is derived, and the profit accumulates in the hands of the few.
Such a thing should naturally be cyclical, you earn, you accumulate, you spend, injecting the money back in to the economic ecosystem.

The problem is people are actively rewarded for accumulating wealth with interest. The more money they have sitting there, the more money gets added due to interest.
The interest has to come from somewhere, with a limited pool in circulation it has to come from other people, banks just can’t create it.
This is purely an incentive to store our money in a bank, granting them the capital with which they can offer loans.

At the same time, loans gather interest as a way so banks and such actively benefit, allowing them to add it to the piles of wealth they’re looking after.

The mechanism of interest itself is what I feel is driving society in a death spiral to the point that the accumulated wealth will gain enough mass to create singularities and the whole lot will just implode.

People will tell me I’m wrong, of course, we’ve all grown up with banks and interest, it’s simply the way things are.

And yet, we’ve seen economies crash, the mega-rich getting richer without having to do anything.

So I wonder, if banks as they are now, no longer existed, all currency was released in to circulation, would society improve due to one less greed-fueling mechanism, or would it get worse?

This is why in part I’m really excited by crypto-currency, there are no interest rates, only transaction fees (and then only if doing things such as converting from one currency to another).
The value is based purely on demand, there are limited amounts that can ever be in circulation, we’re in change of securing it, and the people involved are typically not dicks about it.

So, I’m willing to perform tricks for doge, like a good little shibe.

This has been yet another of my pointless posts, the first from tropical north Queensland.

Temporal Thought Conumdrum.

Jun10

Over the years we’ve had many movies, many tv shows, books, comics, games and so on dealing with time travel.
The most recent of note is Continuum.

So someone travels back from the future, they take technology in to the past, and then they change things.
Depending on what and how they change thing determines if the technology of the future changes or even exists.
Just by being there and used as a sample it may accelerate and enhance development, which of course by it’s nature changes the subsequent iterations leading up to the seed tech in the future.
By it’s very nature improving the technology in the past with technology from the future changes that very technology in essence.

The beginning of this has been covered in Continuum with HALO incorporating future elements.
By it’s very nature, all the technology based on HALO from then on will have different future iterations, unless you posit that the path to the end journey doesn’t change as much due to the level of science required to analyse things is insufficient to do more than provide a road-map.

This of course starts falling apart when you start including multiple alternate future timeline technologies.

Liber8 travel back to the present to prevent the corporate congress from forming and thus if they succeed they lead to a temporal paradox, their very history no longer exists.
Kiera travels back by accident (or the intention of Alec Sadler) and seeks to prevent Liber8 from accomplishing their goals.
Sadler sends information back via Kiera (unknown to her) for himself as a way to change his future.
Sadler sends Garza back again for his own goals, muddying Liber8’s purpose.

That’s just the first batch from the exact time period, it doesn’t even include Freelancers.

At the end of last season Alec traveled back two weeks to change the past and save someone from death, resulting in two Alec Sadlers, two time travel devices, and two timelines, of which one ceases to exist.
Kiera travels back as well, resulting in two Kieras, two CMRs, two suits and so on.
Things start escalating quite dramatically from there but technologies don’t change too radically.

The problem is from there a third timeline spawns leading to Brad being sent back.
His technology is completely different to the other two timelines.
His very being there invalidates all the other tech that has traveled back, possibly even the very method of traveling back.
And yet the other tech does not cease to exist.

The only way this works is if the multiple timelines co-exist, with the path taken being determined at key junctures but the potential to cross between them.

Whatever happens, Continuum is handling such things interestingly.
I look forward to seeing where they go from here with the advent of the Bradpocalypse timeline.
It’s just going to get even more messy and lead to some great character development.

AmK

Modern methods of information manipulation still fail for my needs.

Apr21

So I’m not a normal person.
I’m far from the lowest common denominator.
I’ve rated highly in standardised tests to measure intelligence.
I’m also hindered by those very same tests.

I’ve struggled throughout the years before I was identified as being on the autism spectrum.
I’m still struggling.

The issue I have is one of concept arrangement and mapping.

Most people are happy establishing things in a clear order from start to finish.
There are others who work better in as planar format utilising two axis’.

My problem is one of depth and freedom.
In at least an additional axis with which to work.
I also needed to be able to physically manipulate the conceptual elements and link them as I need.
The problem is that there is no environment or software that meets my requirements.

Anyone who’s watched the movies involving iron man has seen the system that Stark uses to interact with Jarvis for his designs in the dimensions with the freedom to manipulate individual elements of the holographic display.
This is along the lines of what I need.

However it’s still not quite right.

With the advent of the oculus rift I feel I’m one step closer to the environment organisation I envisage.
Real-time stereoscopic display with head tracking would give me the depth and ability to change perspective at will.

Combine that with something like the kinnect and you have body tracking.
Still not quite there.

I did encounter one device online that utilised lasers foot hand tracking and manipulation of a 3d environment, one step closer.

Next there’s tactile feedback.
Traditionally this has been accomplished by off-centre motors and equivalents, creating a vibration to inform you of contact.
The problem with this is one of scale, it’s useless for fine control response.
What is needed is something along the lines of a glove that squeezes the contact surfaces of the hand to apply pressure based on contact strength.

So combine these all together and you have the ability to perceive objects arrayed in a three dimensional space.
The ability to reposition yourself and your viewpoint relative to the objects.
The ability to interact with those objects, be it move them or otherwise.
And then finally a way to feel the interaction with those objects.

From there it’s simply a matter of being able to expand and contact objects to be able to interact with their constituent elements.
As well the ability to link objects to form more in depth concept structures.
Grab, drop, link, scale and so on all in a free form structure add needed.
Objects can be arrayed around the user easily enough in this state.

Some people might query why I don’t utilise a mind map.
The problem is that’s a planar structure.
This concept is something far greater.

The problem is that I have a fairly unusual way of organising things, there’s not likely to be a lot of demand for such a conceptual system.
Not to mention all the components are from different sources.
There is also no way that I could program it for the simple matter of not being able to arrange the code along the lines of my mental processes.

However at the least I’ve managed to put this down in text, hopefully in a way that will allow others to visualise the concept and understand it.
Forget words on a page, relationship objects are where we should be at.

If anyone does end up developing something along these lines I only ask to be involved so I don’t lose any more time than I need to, also a discount in the financial aspect would be appreciated.

AmK