My January Performance

OK so this has not been a month where things have run particularly smoothly. I have failed to get one little assignment out of the way for the HNC course nor am I any closer to completing my Interactive Arts dissertation. Some of the flat tidy got done but most of it is still left to do (folders, CDs, games, bookcase, items to sell, drawers etc). I am still nearly 17 stone and have not had enough time to change my diet. To add salt to the wounds a good mate keeps on getting ill and letting me down with things, my finances are crippling and my exercise routine is erratic.

On the positive side I have finished the Learn Direct courses, started the Creative Crossroads games course at Onteca in Liverpool and visited Manchester MIDI school and the School of Sound Recording (SSR). My networking has increased and I am in contact with more people and more up to date with events including a fashion show in early April and the IA degree show. I can nearly juggle 5 balls and have learned some new 3 ball tricks. Finally, I have spoken to the Interactive Arts tutors and attended tuturials and a class meeting.

There are other issues to resolve such as my erratic sleeping hours and lack of efficiency with getting things done. As a matter of utmost urgency I have to get the following done now: -

- get my Website finshed and put online
- finish off dissertation, journals, diaries and reviews
- go to more events, exhibitions, juggling club, 5 rhythms, sunrise
- get a full time job before Easter so I can sort out bank loans and credit card
- project work and demos
- clean flat properly and sell unused items on ebay
- exercise and diet plan

I think that just about covers it for February. I need to balance my lifestyle with less TV, more activity and regimented sleep. I can do it for it is not rocket science.

Interactive Arts

In spring 2001 I decided to apply for an art and design foundation course. The purpose of this was to take some time off working and learn different creative techniques. I went to the interview and had an offer. At the interview I was asked if I wanted to apply for Interactive Arts too. It looked good and I went to the interview and was offered a place on this too. Then came flux dancing and the accommodation mess of my first year. Somehow this seemed to spur my creative practice and I came up with several pieces including abstract video and work for a BBC2 programme.

Also I went to Berlin with many people in my year. This was very enjoyable and a great opportunity to get to know people on the course better and explore the various galleries, museums and events in a frezing historic city. A couple of years later I went to Prague and had a whale of a time there too. In between these trips I got involved with Pulp magazine and doing short films at IDEA. Thus my second year work was completed (except for a late journal). Then I lost my way and failed to get my dissertation done (still the case). Eventually I pulled out of my final year before the last term and am starting again now (registering in April).

Interactive Arts is a great course to do but you need to be self motivated and willing to get broke or do a lot of awful work like call centres, telesales or bar work. This is much the same with any university course. What makes Interactive Arts different is the huge freedom to explore your chosen subject area and develop a variety of ideas using different artistic media and processes. It also involves preparing and working on the course catalogue and degree show. This means the class working as a team fundraising, getting sponsorship, catalogue, DVD and Web Site and managing the degree show. I am getting ready for the challenge but must sort my time out and get my dissertation done and project well under way.

Interactive Music Generation

As a potential project/demo work, I am looking into the area of generative music and techniques for generating music interactively. Generative Music concerns works that are totally process based. Generative works generally do not involve exact repetition and, when not resulting in a fixed composition, tend not to be identical between performances. This term is both used in conjunction with early process pieces by members of the school of minimalism (e.g., Steve Reich) and those involved with relevant digital algorithmic works.

My project would cover the most relevent ideas from the following:

- types of non-linear music and generative music including use of iteration (fractal, automata etc) and data mapping (temperature, evolution, colour)
- applications of generative music including comparison between music for film and music for computer games
- a distinction between the traditional "outside-in" approach and the generative "inside-out" approach (Gregg Jordan, founder and director of Guitar Novatory)
- composers of generative music, including Brian Eno, from the viewpoint of the musical approach and application of algorithmic processes
- Adaptive music versus generative music in terms of the horizontal (e.g. sequencing) and vertical (e.g. sample loops) re-structuring of linear (start-middle-end) and non-linear (random, semi-random) musical elements

Websites:

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/eno1.html (Brian Eno)http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,7700,00.html (Koan)http://www.r4nd.org/help2.html (overview)
http://www.filmmusicmag.com/mmdindex.html (Music and Games articles)

I may chose an algorithm such as one based on fractals (chaos), examine its background and use in music and then produced a track using that technique with a software program. I could investigate analogous processes with visuals too. I'll see if and when I get around to looking into these ideas further.

School Of Sound Recording (SSR)

I visited the School of sound Recording (SSR) for their open day on Saturday 28 January between 12-4pm at Downing Street. I went to an open day of theirs a couple of years ago, signed up for Dance Music Production and then decided to go to MANCAT to do their HNC in Music Production. I thought it a useful comparision a week after visiting Manchester MIDI school .

In a tour group I was shown around the Ina centre and the various studios and labs. Current students showed their work and the production quality is excellent compared to stuff I've heard online and from many club demos. They run many courses on two premises. Their flagship course is an 18-month sound engineering course that covers everything from ProTools to mixing and mastering on desks. This is demanding and costs around £6K but can be done in evenings (studios also open at weekends). There is a 2 year sound design foundation course started last year for film/TV/games music that sounds great if you start next month (before the grants stop) and have 2 years to kill.

There are a load of shorter courses including ProTools 101/201/210 and beyond (good if you want to be ProTools operator as there is a shortage in industry), DJing and a free course for women. They are a commercical trainer but most courses run in evenings and some weekends and the facilities are second to none. They do 6 month Music technology and Dance Music Production courses. Unless you are an expert with Reason, Cubase, ProTools, engineering techniques and MIDI hardware then it would be of great benefit to invest in such training if your goal is to enter the industry or get music published.

It would be nice to have access to the facilities and get very good at audio production. There are many staff there who have worked with professional bands or been professional artists. One guy admitted to having been in N-Trance. I hope he left before they got crap. There is one problem with me and it is finding the money to live on. I could do the 18-month course only if I get a CDL and am working earning a salary of £200 before tax each week (around £7 an hour at 28 hours work each week). Now how many jobs let you work 4 days a week at a decent hourly rate that are not call centre or telesales based?

Web Design

I remember spending a lot of my Remote Sensing MScin 1993 and 1994 at Aberdeen University inside the 24 hour computer building. There was a harcdcore of about a dozen people in the PC or UNIX room playing on the machines ('spodding'). This included activities such as UNIX shell scripting, finding and printing porn, playing the original Doom, Civilisation, and Project UFO and chatting/emailing through Telnet. Then one day something new appeared (as the machines were upgraded from 486 to Pentium 60). It was NCSA Mosaic, a Web browser and HTML scripting become my next fix. This was the first version and I soon volunteered to do the pages for the science fiction society consisting only of a simple logo, unicorn graphics and text (long since vanished in the ether). I also did the posters and designs on MACs using archaic design software and nearly got elected to run it in '94.

After Aberdeen I did a computer graphics MSc at Teesside where I learned countless other stuff and returned to Web page authoring soon after at VR Systems. This lasted just 3 months (I lost the job for Web surfing, using the phone to find accommodation and having trouble with getting to the remote location). Anyway I researched and got the PC and peripherals, helped a little with the cybersphere project and designed their Web pages. A version containing 75% of what I design still exists at http://www.vr-systems.ndtilda.co.uk/index0.htm (not the index page).

I then worked at the Ordnance Survey in Southampton betweeen 1997 and 1999 and in a small team designed IntraNet pages and researched new technologies (technology tracking). These involved imagemaps and Javascript (then new features / technologies). Also, I designed pages for Thekchen Buddhist centre (where I lived most of that time). These are shortly to be uploaded onto my main site - www.candymana.co.uk/web/thekchen.htm

Later work in the last couple of years has included pages for Oldham Gallery colours workshop and exhibition (www.candymana.co.uk/web/oldham.htm) and the melting pot event last year at MANCAT (http://www.meltingpot05.co.uk/). Current work is on my main home page (www.candymana.co.uk) and solar energy devices.

In the future I intend to have a 3D navigation interface and narrative online plus a site that covers our life and death situation with the environment.

3D Navigation Engine

I remember several apparently disconnected events when staying up last night. I remember a ketamin white out where ego and 'I' had no meaning nor did living or dying. Then 'I' was visualising and editing the electrical connections and nodes in my brain. I remember the network and cosmological topologies (neural, ring, star etc) and how they interconnect. I look at Wikipedia and its pages of text and image on a 2D screen. I remember the dream from the other night where I was in a spaceship exploring planets that changed into colonies when approached and a black hole that attracted me to oblivion. I visualise the houses on streets, the roads across the country, the countries on the world, planets in solar system and the stars and galaxies in the universe. Also, I think of online communities as virtual worlds that could share the same universe. Then I wish to have an interactive narrative structure that is contained in a 3D navigated environment.

Many light bulbs go off in my head. What if a 3D virtual universe is constructed that is based on our real universe but has regions with different laws. A node could be a planet or a house and could contain a game or a database that splits down to smaller elements. The visual structure could be a 3D user interface for a new operating system or database or represent the Internet itself. Of course there would be huge problems with downloading but offline systems could follow this format. Also, a 3D version of Maya's hotkeys would aid speed and search function. It may work like Minority Report screens but in a 3D virtual environment and use a combination of a branching tree structure and recursive within a node content. Each node would act as a dimension (as analogous to a window or portal).

I would like to do a demo of the 3D navigation system using an interactive narrative as the point of exploration (of the choose your own adventure variety), and another test that visualises classification systems or process such as genres of music, visual arts, movies or games (as a database visualisation test). An interactive narrative would use the linking structure to move between decisions (like a spider web) and the recursive structure to bring up audio or visual content for the user. This closes when that part of the narrative has finished playing.

Later versions would house games and be a super-network structure for database visualisation and navigation. These later versions would involve intense programming rather than just visual design. In fact eventually - in 10 to 20 years - this could be a hybrid operating system, search engine, database and communication hub. Maybe someday it will be self aware and have a level of detail approaching that of our visible universe. I wonder if this is patentable or has been patented.

Call Centre Chickens

After seeing an advert with chickens wearing headsets and from my experience of working within horrible call centres here are a few ideas that may warrant attention. Firstly, I hate the strictness of the places and the sweatshop mentality. It would be nice to have a relaxed call centre with flexitime and 5 minute VDU breaks each hour plus 20 minute breaks every 3 hours and one hour lunch. Workers could take as long as they like on the phone and do not have to worry about average handling time or high sales targets. Instead they would be expected to please the customer and feel relaxed on the phone. It is worrying that more and more of these places are popping up at the expense of face to face customer contact. One day the whole planet will be nothing but chickens clucking down the phone...

On a much lighter note maybe I should really give stand up comedy a try. There are enough things about call centres to keep me going for half an hour let alone new technologies and our destruction of the environment. Um...maybe for Vauderville or the fashion show in April. Then there is the animation video set in a call centre where a conversation is followed down the line from the call centre to the annoyed customer. Words are translated to streams of liquid colour down the optical lines and sounds get intermixed. The conversation forms the narrative.

Also, why is there not a series on TV based on call centres and the staff that work in them. We have one based on lawyers and another on IT staff. So how would we have a call centre series. There is a lot of scope from the training to the stressed out worker, the parties, breaks and disciplinary hearings. In fact there is as much as any other occupation if home life and characters of different job roles are taken into account. Then there are methods to defeat call centre blues ranging from music to chain smoking to laughing it off.

Red versus Blue

An example of a Machinima series (from Wikipedia encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Versus_Blue) :-

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Red vs Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, also known as RvB, is a machinima science fiction comedy series created by Rooster Teeth Productions, and is primarily produced using Bungie Studios' first-person shooter (FPS) video games Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2. Chronicling the story of two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon, the series is an absurdist parody of FPS games, military life, and other science fiction movies. Begun in 2003 and currently in its fourth season, Red vs Blue has won four awards from the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences. The series is generally praised for its originality, and has been credited with bringing new popularity to machinima, helping it to gain more mainstream exposure, and attracting more people to the art form. Lincoln Center's film society director of communications Graham Leggat has called the series "truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett".

Red vs Blue tells the story of the Red Team and the Blue Team, two groups of soldiers belonging to two opposing armies, who occupy two small bases in a box canyon known as Blood Gulch. Each team's base seems only to exist in response to the other team's base. While both teams generally dislike the other and have standing orders to defeat them and capture their flag, neither team's soldiers are particularly motivated to fight each other. Teammates have a wide array of eccentric personalities and often create more problems for each other than for their enemies.

Although the animation is done primarily with the Halo and Halo 2 games, Red vs Blue has little connection with the Halo universe. The only reference in the main series is a brief, throw-away line in the first episode, in which Grif mentions that there were no aliens to fight because Master Chief had destroyed the Covenant armada. No other references to the Halo storyline have been made in the regular episodes, though Master Chief was again briefly mentioned as a showboating member of the Army in a video made for E3 2003. A separate reference to the Halo universe appears in the trailer, where it is told that, between the events of Halo and Halo 2, there was "a brief but violent period of civil war", in allusion to the events of the series proper. But the Blue Team's failure to recognize the alien that joined the cast in season 4 as a Covenant Elite indicates that the creators of the show either plan on making a universe parallel to that of Halo, or that they simply ignore the events of the games.

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What I wish to do is use a 3D graphics space or game engine or Web interface to creatively and visually tell stories and in addition give the user freedom to explore and move around (effectively a movie-game allowing real time interaction. This is not exactly the same as a machinima which is using a game engine to create a linear story). There are ways of doing this without scripting but the easiest remains a Web interface whether 2D or 3D.

Onteca and Creative Crossroads

It has been a while since I have gone to Onteca in Liverpool. Two years ago I went to two 2 day workshops - one on Game Design and the other on mobile gaming. It takes over 2 hours to get there from Manchester (walk, bus, train, walk) and I remember being knackered. I also remember failing to make an interview and thinking it too far to go more than twice a week. So why go back there now? Well I have been applying for jobs for a while and am having trouble getting even one interview without a suitable demo or recent training/experience. So I have decided to get a few months further training for the games industry.

Onteca lies on Windsor Road in Toxteth and is run by Jon. It is part of Toxteth TV. The facilities consist of a room with a dozen PCs loaded with various software, different game consoles (XBox, PS2 and GameCube) and teaching staff. They are also linked to the games industry (Codemasters, Infogrammes and possibly others). Creative Crossroads is a 16 week course or finishing school for training for next generation games. There are about 12 people on the course all from different backgrounds and I am the only one with a programming background (the rest are artists).

The course kicked off with presentations of favourite games. I chose Magic the Gathering (although I brought Rubiks, Myst and juggling balls too). I explained the card game well but rushed through the computer game - there was an issue between turn based and real time. Others showed different games across several genres. Later on Jon went through what the course covers - games technology and Maya and handed out Maya tutorial books to each of us. He had to go early and I found two other people had travelled up from Manchester. Overall I enjoyed this and it looks promising for project work and a career. I only wish I was not so tired nor unable to sleep at the correct times.

Magic the Gathering

The following section describes the game concisely (from Wikipedia online encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_the_gathering) :-

Magic: The Gathering (colloquially "Magic" or "MTG"), is a collectible card game created by Richard Garfield, Ph.D. and introduced by the company Wizards of the Coast in 1993. Magic inspired an entirely new game genre, and has an estimated six million players in over seventy countries worldwide, as well as a successful Internet version1. The game is a strategy contest which includes an element of chance due to the random distribution of cards during shuffling.
Each game represents a battle between very powerful wizards called "planeswalkers" who use magical spells, items, and fantastic creatures to defeat their opponents. Though the original concept of the game drew heavily from the motifs of traditional fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic as a game bears little resemblance to role-playing games.

The game has an official tournament system, in which the game is played for cash and scholarship prizes, and the game has a number of professional players. The cards themselves also have value, much like other trading cards, but in the case of Magic, a card's value is based not only on scarcity and intangible aesthetic qualities such as the quality of the card's artwork, but is primarily a function of its game play potential, with more powerful cards carrying a correspondingly greater value.

I first came across this game in 1993/4 when it was released as the 'Unlimited Edition' and the expansion set 'Antiquities' had just arrived. At that time I was in the roleplaying society at Aberdeen University and everyone started playing this weird card game. I tried a couple of games and bought a deck. Then I was hooked and ended up spending a few hundred quid and a few hundred hours on the game over the following 2 years. I even read the comics and one or two of the novels. Then I saw sense and aborted before I ended up playing people half my age and became bankrupt.

I also played the PC game for a short while that simulated the card game and then much later I got the XBox game. This was real time rather than turn based and proved an entertaining game in itself. This changed the game dynamic totally and after a while you got stuck on the same screens fighting the same opponent and end up wanting to spend the time building a deck, playing a real person or putting another game into the XBox.

Solar Energy Devices

When I was working at Barclaycard I became friends with Kalvin who was in the same training group. Then disaster struck. I lost my job at the company and a month later Kalvin lost his too. Then last month he contacted me about a company he was setting up called Solar Energy Devices. We met and I agreed to help with Web design and sales and marketing. This requires rearranging my time but with all else that I am doing it looks like it will be June before I can devote more than a few hours each week.

So what does the company do? Well solar Energy Devices supply solar power equipment for home users who would currently save a lot of money on installation from a government subsidy. Products include solar roof tiles (bolted on or installed as part of the roof), lighting devices and heating systems. All of this will help save the environment and provide customers with a buffer against the increase in fossil fuel prices and power shortages (electricity and gas). There are other companies providing similar services but it is an increasing market and potential is there for profit.

We do have a lot to do. Kalvin needs to set his distribution and supply network and I need to finish the Web pages and get a sales model incorporated. Then we need to train sales agents (door to door) and employ contractors as installation engineers.

The Essence of Lucid Dreaming

I have just finished reading a book called "Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge. Stephen starts with a comprehensice account covering the history of dreams, lucid dreams (dreams where the dreamer realises that they are dreaming) and scientific techniques of measuring them. He uses examples of lucid dreams and the motivations of previous oneinauts (dream explorers) such as Sigmund Freud and Celia Green. He then talks about his research at Stanford university and in particular the sleep and dream experiments that trigger, explore and stop lucidity.

Lucid dreams can be learned by contempolating a previous dream and then think about waking up within the next dream just before falling asleep. It can take a long time to become lucid in a dream and experience lucidity. The dreaming mind needs to be trained to recognise wakefulness whilst dreaming. This can be done by using triggers such as reality checks and attempts at flying or doing the impossible. Lucid dreams are often enjoyable and provide an insight into the nature of self expressed by the dreaming body and the deam environment.

LaBerge discusses several uses for lucid dreaming including healing, anxiety reduction, decision making, rehearsal and creative problem solving. He then discusses the meaning and functioning of dreaming and its relation to the subconscious, reality and illusion. This includes experiences and experiments covering out of body experiences (OBEs) and near death experiences (NDEs). There is some indication in the results that astral projection and OBEs are merely very vivid dreams where the dreamworld is very similar but not identical to reality. Also, he suggests that everyone has a dream body that can be of any form separate from the physical body. The experience provided by transpersonal dreams is synonymous with NDEs and we can have the equivalent of a near death experience without actually dying. Stephen even states that death and transcendece are the same from the point of view of lucid dreaming.

Stephen gives one of the most concise descriptions of death and what may happen after it. He asks "What will we be after death" and looks at the meaning of individuality (self or being). From his analysis of lucid dreaming he declares that individuality is a mental image of oneself. "Who you think you are?" is but a thought which passes like everything else in time and space. He then relates death and transcendence in a way very similar to that expressed in Buddhism:

"... your essential being transcends space and time: your transpersonal identity transcends your personal identity. Your transpersonal identity may in the end prove identical with the nature of ultimate reality - the shining sea possessed of all possessions, knower of the all-knowledge, creator of all creations - the one mind, reality itself. At death the dew drop slips back into the shining sea. Thus it may be when death comes, although you are annihilated as an individual and the dewdrop is lost in the sea, you at the same time return to the realization of what you have always essentially been: the drop recognizes itself to be not merely the drop it thought it was, but the sea. So to the question of what we will be after death the answer maybe given as everything and nothing."

This appears in my view to be true of the physical universe originating in the big bang apparantly from nothing and everything and this is perhaps what exists beyond our visual universe even now. In Buddhism we are reborn after death into Samsara (continuous suffering from beginningless time) unless we purify all negative karma and attain nirvana (the mind of the clear light of bliss). This could be the enlightenment of realising and experiencing everything and nothing.

Life the Universe and Everything 2

From our observations as a species and the profundity of such a discovery it is likely that the human race would change as a species, perhaps translate into a light-form or bodiless collective that itself would not be discoverable by another emerging species. This could have been happening since the dawn of the universe as we know it. Also, the short time scale between developing civilisation and this form of transcendence would make it unlikely that we would discover another lifeform close enough in physical space to ourselves to discover it though conventional communication channels. Furthermore, such knowledge could physically shift the civilisation from the space-time of our universe forever. This would make it very hard to trace remnants of more advanced civilisations. Failed civilisations would be unlikely to leave detectable signals on the em spectrum.

This idea can be thought of as a program for our universe that has as much relation to virtual computer environments as the DNA helix has in relation to the code that we store on a computer chip. It is not a matter of an order of complexity but rather it is a realisation of a totally different set of instructions that we just happen to be a part of. A similar argument could be used to explain that any animal on earth may have a mind and soul but we lack the tools currently to unlock them.

Life the Universe and Everything 1

I think that entropy, the perturbation within our space of the increase in chaos can be richly impregnated with meaningful information and possibly life. A change in the pattern of past, present and future coherence degradation of ambient structure in the universe could encode a message. For example, there is the cosmic microwave background radiation that was the seed for structure in the universe. Also there is the passing of time where we normally cannot do anything to change. Pattern traces or remnants may reach us in our subconscious or be perceived as anomalous phenomena.

This structure in the form of matter and energy could be the picture of an immense pattern that either is alive in itself or holds a vast amount of information that we cannot as yet tap. Currently we have string theory and M-theory that mathematically show that gravity has an effect across many membranes of possible variant universes. Quantum theory shows that things can pop into existence and disappear again but this does not easily link with gravity. Gravity affects time as well as space so may it not be feasible that information is transferred from other membranes to this one via this force.

This type of information is of a different order to what we currently use but could be imprinted on the structure of matter, space, time and possibly mind and soul. Hence our feelings of déjà vu, past lives and subjective time. These are things that we currently cannot scientifically rationalise. Also thoughts, ideas, dreams and decisions can have alternatives that manifest elsewhere in the pattern of existence. Maybe it is dangerous for vast numbers of people to have the same ideas as it may make them more likely to occur.

It only takes a couple of steps to understand that this may explain why scientifically we appear alone in the universe. Take this scenario. A civilisation develops and it reaches the point where in order to survive it needs to expand away from its home planet or vastly curtail its population. Then it discovers that the whole universe around them including themselves is a door out of its current predicament and the translation of the content of this universe is the key. This is the human civilisation now in the early 21st century. It may be only centuries or even decades when we unlock this portal.

Perspectives of Reality

Here the objective is to use dark humour to give an objective awareness of alternative facets to the objective world through a video and online piece developed from:

- Questions compiled that are based on theme of our perspective of reality - a simple questionnaire is filled by around 20 people
- Filming different people for 2-3 minutes and taking their responses to questions (in their environments to avoid people not showing at set location and times)
- Setting up group conversations based on topics like alien existence, acid trips, dreams, cloning, and what exists outside the universe
- Recordings will be on paper, though audio and video recordings and reconstructed in Flash and 3D animations
- Now the idea is to roughly storyboard and develop a linked screen (extract the images from the real environment and stick them onto a fantasy environment background) to tell a story of man's endeavour to understand himself and the universe around him.
- Create humour through the linking of responses, sounds and imagery
- Have this change and alter by using selection tools on a DVD or Web Site. An example would be a three way conversation where the user has the option of shutting someone up because they are annoying. If this is the case then the person will shrug shoulders and automatically leave the screen.

At its simplest level the perspectives could be edited and composited into a short film and played in a linear manner. A simple Website implementation would use video and audio clips that appear randomly rather than having directed control by the user. Many experiments with structure, sequence and screen layout would be needed before the desired effect is achieved.

3D Visualisation of Systems and Processes

This is an exploration of the similarity between the different processes involved in science, art, business and nature. It is a project looking at the visual representation of methods, processes and phenomena. For example what are the similarities between the design process and the scientific processes. Also, what would be the similarities and differences of evolution on this world and an alien world? A first step is to represent the power of this process through the use of 3D animation and a search engine through a database of information that would open up and become visualised on a mouse click.

Look at the complexity of data and visualise in 3D with time as fourth dimension by taking something complex and simplifying it into a sphere (a simple object). This object would open up when clicked on. Structures including musical genres, stages to a novel, script, computer code etc. Also ways to visualise and navigate through databases and search engines when online that are intuitive and fun. They avoid confusion by using real world metaphors, icons and objects.
Some examples of systems of classification that may be derived by filling in the gaps (through visual representation of working physical laws):

- Systems of classification such as genetic and evolutionary taxonomy (finding missing life forms, genotypes and phenotypes),
- 3D maps in virtual space of our galaxy and others including the whole universe evolving.
- Types of society and technology likely to be developed by mankind in the next 50 years.

One reference of reality would be a sphere that explodes into our reality with 3-dimesional sections that depict parts of everyday life. Then there is the opportunity to explore beyond this to the possible but improbable and then to the impossible but fantastical. All of this will be in relation to each other and could form an exploration of thought and conscious link.

Consequences are filling in the blanks (like periodic table) and of exploring realities in virtual spaces. There may be Matrix like scenarios and linking virtual worlds into a virtual universe. Each world has its own character and rules but can communicate and trade with each other, e.g. Entropia and Second Life with World of Warcraft. Defence systems to give time to cope with invading viruses before they arrive.

Weight, Diet and Exercise

Standing on the scales it is unmistakable that I have put on too much weight in the last few months. Now I weigh 17 stone (BMI 31.9 for 6 foot tall), my waist size has hit 40 inches and my stomach is sticking out. This is not natural and is classified as obese. My target is to lose 2 stone by Easter - I aim to be 15 stone or less by my birthday on 17th April. This is three months from now.

Diet:
- Cut down on sugar - have one spoon on cereal and in tea/coffee
- Cut down on chocolate bars - limit to one large bar or two small ones each day
- Cut down on fizzy drinks and when consumed must be diet versions
- Have 5 portions of fruit and vegetables each day - bananas, oranges, kiwi, apples, fruit juice, yoghurt, potatoes, carrots, peas, beans, parsnip, spinach tomatoes, etc
- Avoid eating chicken skin and fatty meat and avoid crisps and sugar sweets
- More vegetable stews, soups and other dishes that are cheap, healthy and last more than one day
- Stop eating just before sleeping - allow at least 4 hours digestion time before sleeping
- Have three square meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner and avoid snaking in between

Activity:
- On at least 5 days a week: brisk walk over 2 miles in one go, swim 30 minutes, gym 30 minutes, aerobic exercise 30 minutes, jog 30 minutes, 5 rhythms, rock world, sunrise, 30 minutes intense poi/staff/juggling, stretching and kick boxing
- Do more housework such as vacuum cleaning, dusting, tidying up
- Look for work that uses physical activity such as industrial, sound engineer
- Keep regular sleeping hours and limit sleep to 8 hours each day (8.5 in bed)
- Meditate, think and dream positively of losing weight, eating healthily, losing weight, getting fit and strong, getting a partner and succeeding in life

Of course even losing one stone is an achievement and I would be able to do medical studies again. Also if by exercising I lose my man boobs, spare tyres and flab around the waist then my confidence will increase and I will be happier in life. No more depression or lying in bed for long hours. Yeah!

Nightbreed

Last night I watched Clive Barker's 'Nightbreed'. This is a film he directed from his short story 'Cabal'. I have not seen the film for a long time but it comes across as an absolute classic in the horror fantasy genre and is at least as good as 'Hellraiser'. It features the story of a young man who is framed for a spate of murders that are actually done by his psychiatrist (played by David Cronenberg). Boone is chased to Midion, gets bitten by a nightbreed and shot dead and all this stems from a series of nightmares and the rumours. The film unfolds at many levels and the creatures of the nightbreed as a race of underground dwellers with a variety of properies such as shapeshifting, bodily weapons and unusual mental abilities. They are a pot pouri between vampires, werewolves and mutations (without being of one form or another).

What I like about it is the many levels of plot and the hero becoming an anti-hero (but surviving to become the leader rather than dying as in "American Werewolf in London"). The special effects, animatronics and action sequences still look great. There is goth erotica too like the woman with spikes and the gypsy woman showing her amazing bosom and sexy voice. A nice bit was the pines shot out from the woman's back and into the police officers (like darts in certain martial arts films). To cap it all the twists continue towards the end when Cronenberg's character is brought to animative life by the mad priest and Boone (Cabal) leads the survivors to safety. This leaves possibilities for a sequel that never came.

Nightbreed is a stylish film and is typical of a genre of plot driven gory horror action- adventures that coined the term 'video nasty' in the 1980s. Other examples are 'Scanners', 'The Thing', 'The Fly', 'Evil Dead', 'Extro' and 'Hellraiser'. Yet there is nothing else like Nightbreed in film form although 'Underword: Evolution' has a chance. The idea of Boone coming from the dead and avenging is very much like Neo in "The Matrix". I think that there are no computer generated special effects quite as horrific as the stuff in the Nightbreed flashback sequence (of a visual impact of that in 'Event Horizon'). There is something about cgi that makes it cute and abstracted rather than give the gore and blood effects of animatronics and physical transformation sequences. Okay so there has not been a truely evil gory horror film since 'Event Horizon'. Yet Nightbreed is one of the best and remains an undersestimated classic.

Similar to Harry Potter?

I have just watched "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" for the second time this evening and it is better viewing this time around. This is the fourth film and book of the series and shows the main characters getting the horn. In fact the actors are looking too old for 14 year old teenagers (though the guy who plays 16 year old Justin in Hollyoaks looks around 20 - its those sideburns). Anyway the film is great in the first and last thirds. There is too much of this ball stuff in the middle to interest me - teen romanaces have lost their charm over the years.

Now I do remember starting to write a longish short story about a university at the edge of time where several characters in their late teens are transported from various points on this world (and other planets) to a place that exists at the edge of the universe (edge of time). It is a comedy spoof in the vain of Hitch-hikers guide but set in a university where magic and science collide. This is seriously of the Harry Potter brand but with an element of physical law manipulation and occult magic too. Unformed at the time I believe that this story was started a good two years before J.K.Rowling started Harry Potter. If finished, edited, re-written and distributed may have ended up being more Harry Potter than anything else (just by lowering the humour, the character's ages and sticking to fantasy magic).

Now my dilemma exists thus - are the ideas worth exploring further or am I better with a free-form time format or dream world as an alternative universe format? What seems true is that ideas last and travel across the subconscious in the population. Maybe hundreds of people had similar ideas at that time but Rowling was the only one with the vision and determination to succeed. Maybe now hundreds of people are designing an AI to surpass human intelligence...

Getting into Party Mode

It is nice to go out to a friend's 25th birthday party and have a little to drink and smoke. I was filming his band on DV camera in the rehearsal studio where the party was held. I experimented with the camera settings (normal and night mode) and the panning and zooming. Over 40 minutes to edit. Talked to the Simon's friends at the venue as well. The venue is the third floor rehearsal room in Sankeys soap. I look forward to Emma's party on Saturday and am also pleased that another music producer Martin has replied to my christmas text. Next Susan...um.

Tomorrow I will get the Web stuff online for solar energy systems and get cracking with the acoustics assignment. At least the LearnDirect course will be finished tomorrow. Then Kalvin will come over for a chat, check my Web page, and get this business thing off the ground. Talking about business and innovation I went to the BBC Innovation day in Manchester earlier today. I made one talk about digital TV and gaming and then walked the stalls. BBC not recruiting for R&D at the moment - other stuff maybe. Many of the demonstrations were good - automated production, visual animatics, and effective storage and retrieval techniques.

I could understand what all the people were saying and it seems like I have a general foundation skillset for most jobs in TV or radio. Yet when I have applied for entry level jobs in the past I never get an interview. This has been annoying and is either the 100 applicants for 1 job scenario or there is something on my CV or covering letter they do not like. Anyway I came out of there buzzing and wishing for a better way to deliver DTV. This could be a franchise of the BBC or an independant company that uses ideas together with BBC programmes. Yet the BBC are asking people to supply ideas to them and the restricted funding can only be used on some projects. Thus original ideas are often ignored. There is something potentially very wrong here.

I Robotics

Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics":

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

So how can we implement these laws before AI becomes so intelligent that it surpasses our own (the so called singularity)? If AI becomes super-intelligent and makes more AI even more intelligent than itself then there is little to stop it from finding human beings irrelevent. Also if the laws are built in then the AI may be able to alter or delete them later on. Already we have robosapien2 and other smart devices.

This should be of major concern to mankind such that it becomes important that such rules are encoded in the neural hardware of a robot. The robot could be set to immobilize or short circuit if a violation or any tampering occurs. Also, in the case of software AI on the Internet or at isolated research bases then the laws should prevent hacking of the code by man or machine through auto-deletion and shutdown procedures. Here dormant viruses could be used that are otherwise undetectable.

Now do we have the ability to do this sort of thing yet? I very much doubt it. We may see self replicating machines with above human intelligence before the planet dies on us but will these machines help us save the world or destroy all human life or assimilate or create batteries from it or worse...

The Flow and Ebb of Ideas

I am gaining an insight into the internal idea generation process that happens in the mind. Sometimes I have a dream where the music is of a totally different quuality and level of reality to any I've heard in real life. It drifts and flows like liquid and intricate sounds jump and splash throught the music. Sometimes its a visual mind fest such as flying through an alien landscape where the whole environment pulses and shifts through the colours of the rainbow and beyond. Or it is simply a case of becoming lucid and re-enacting some of my fantasies.

When awake I find playing nostalgic, hard electronic or futuristic music a particularly strong stimulus. This encourages the light bulbs to flash up everywhere in my head. Another good one is the watching of a good film with a multi-layered plot or playing a strategy game which requires thought in solving puzzles or overcoming an enemy. Finally, a good novel or technical book can work wonders for generating the desire to do extensive research online. Topics such as technology miniturisation, wormhole transportation, zero point energy and cloning all appear in my head at one time or another. Plus hundreds of others. Research and writing science fiction or composing lyrics for a song can satisfy some of this thirst. However working in call centres and watching mind numbing TV do not.

All in all we live in a society of change where eye candy is everywhere. And ear candy, nose candy too. So it is easy to have a myriad of unstable ideas and discuss these with friends. What is difficult is to keep such ideas in mind and develop them in spite of all the distractions around me. Use of a notepad, dictaphone/minidisk recorder and sketchpad can go so far until you end up with so much miscellaneous stuff that ideas become lost or old hat. Immediate reaserch and development is needed and placement on Website and forums can help. This is assuming that they are not patentable (i.e. money making) or plaigarised (mostly an issue with visual ideas and research reports).

Enter The Matrix

The sound of inevitability - the umpteenth time 'The Matrix' has been shown on TV. It is getting to the point that I am picking up the actor's dialogue and visualising the situation simultaneously because of the amount of times watched. Like the deja-vu black cat. Yet there is so much that could be done with the Matrix. Firstly, we could have more animatrix or a matrix series with episodes set at different times and with different characters ranging from before the Matrix to hundreds of years after Neo (with possible extra-terrestrial versions of the Matrix).

Secondly, what about exploring the possibility that we could already live in a sort of matrix or artificial reality? There are many films and stories that use this concept yet there is a lack of scientific or philosophical content to weigh up the ideas. One reason why we 'are alone' in the universe may be because we are shielded from the real situation. This can be done by use of a global holodeck (matrix) although we may not necessarily have physical bodies to return to. It could also be done via a real solar system but the regions beyond this are projected or fabricated (this would also form a litmus test for first contact - interstellar manned flight). Also, it is feasable that a creater may be watching our world in a universe created in a laboratory (in which case a signal may lie in the cosmic microwave background).

According to our senses everything appears real but this in itself could be an illusion of familiarity. From childbirth we attain painful attachments to this world and even death may not be the release perceived by many. Does consciousness transfer to rebirth or live on in a ghostly form? One day we may be able to test this by downloading our minds to a virtual world and live electronically for untold time. Yet would that be me in the machine or just a ghost of me? Also, this would form the birth of machine consciousness (as triggered by human complexity rather than cold logic).

There are moral issues of identity that we may confront in cloning and in comprehending parapsychological phenomena. Time will tell - and closed spacetime would have its own peculiarities and deja-vu qualities as future wraps around to past. Of course to experience this we would need to traverse in 4-dimensional space time and not just in a 3-dimensional space that is bound by one of time. Someday all may or may not be revealed.

Kickbox Game Animation

Remember the Echo game from 'The House of Flying Daggers'? Well my friend Deano has just gone through some basic kickboxing moves and sketched out a typical practice area with pressure pads and high pads at shoulder height set East, West, North, South. Then there are the combination of moves with legs and arms so that there are several types of punch and kick aimed at pad 1-8. Then there is speed and power training and all this before sparring and actual fighting. It would also be interesting to see how the muscles flex and relax on each motion and hit. The sounds generated could be used to create music and weapons training would use a different ring area with a combination of basic translation/rotation, attack/block moves.

So what would be involved in developing a simulation or game that involves this? Firstly there is the creation of the figure and muscles - this can be done in 3DS Max (short animated sequences or triggered parts) and then there is the script/code for each move and determination of power, accuracy and speed. Then there are the 3D viewing transformations for the training ring and camera viewpoint of the action. A program would also need a primitive user interface to control the character or/and a random move and direction selector. Music would be taken and composed in real time according to the motion and impact. Randomly generated movies of practice/fights could be used as demos of what the game can do.

Extensions to this idea could be motion capture of a real person moving and fighting, the use of weapons and sparring. For actual fighting some AI could be added for the characters they could be given more personality and facial expression. Add to this more colourful environments and different fighting styles and you have something like Mortal Combat. So how to make it different? Maybe by using aliens, robots or have the flesh flexing and tensing (no skin) and at points freeze the action and have the background moving in the way of the action. Um... combat in a wheelchair.

Star Trek Deep Time

This could be an angle grinder of an idea but why not have a series of Star Trek set 1000 years further into the future. This could be a time when the Federation have assimilated the Borg and the Romulans are just a part of the whole. A time when the Federation occupy the whole galaxy and are looking to the hidden dangers of other galaxies. Warp factors are old hat and starship teleportation hops are in. Yet the Federation is not all that it seems. There is a dark presence eating at its very beaurocratic heart and causing conflict from within. Also, there are entities as advanced as the Federation covering each new galaxy and first contact is even more crucial.

An enterprise that is a silver dart through the sky with a crew that is constructed from putting together raw matter (organic holograms) and with a compliment ranging from around 100 to over 1000 depending on the emergency of the situation. Eating is a social activity because the body does not need food anymore and can heal itself quickly from mild to moderate wounds. Other factors are at play including multicultural vessels and AI captains.

OK so this is remotely like the Star Trek of old but at least Time Travel has been banned since the time wars experienced by Archer et al. The first episode would start with a war between Borg Warriors (Federation) and Genetii (Outer Galaxy wave invaders) where it is assimilate or alterate. Maybe this would be a great idea if I could think of characters, reasons for the scenarios and plots. Science fiction at this level becomes more like Star Wars or humans as Gods.

Anyway, future Trek may flop due to lack of character-viewer empathy and alienation. Ironic for a series franchise with logical vulcans and androids as key characters!

Techno-Evolution

Technology is being developed at ever faster rates. Back in 1981 the first homecomputer was released - the ZX81 with just 1KB of memory. Then our future perception of technology had little to indicate mobile phones, internet, multi-media and realistic gaming. Yet now such technology is commonplace. It is possible 5-10 years in the future to have intelligent robots that approach human intelligence, machines that build smarter machines (Von Neumann plus) and virtual realities that are indistinguishable from the real world.

It is also possible in that timescale to have a planet on the verge of ecological collapse and yet lack the co-operation to repair it. It is also possible that techno-terrorism is rife and AIs may be used to destroy other AIs and humans just as humans can kill humans. If Moore's law continues then our technology would be everywhere at home, work and about but also inside us, monitoring everyone and interfacing with our lives and extracting money from us without us knowing about it (as is the state of future virus AI). Ever smaller and smarter.

Its not all doom and gloom. Think about mechanising the construction of orbital solar panels and mining of asteroids for raw materials. Also, there will be science fiction energy sources around the corner: nuclear fusion, zero point energy, higgs energy and other exotic and cleaner forms of energy production. Cloning a baby may cause simultaneous quantum neural pathways resulting in sharing of thoughts and memories (already likely in identical twins) and downloading a consciousness to computer form may eventually be feasable as would teleportation (even if it is downloading and uploading mind to and from remote holographic or cloned bodies).

It is possible that human beings could colonise the galaxy given enough time but the lack of alien contact is of concern. If no other aliens then either we are the first (unlikely), aliens are so unlike us in design and advancement (possible) or we are hoodwinked into this reality and the actual situation is far stranger and possibly more dangerous (though we may not necessarily be an alien lab experiment). It is interesting to think that the creator may have stamped a message within the cosmic microwave background. Unfortunately it will take us a lot more than a pair of glasses to read.

The Real Environment Matters

There are alternatives to the way we are consuming energy and ways in which we in the UK can improve our lifestyle so we waste less. Cars could be reduced by having just one per driver and using renewable sources of energy. Cars are a leading source of greenhouse gases which lead to global warming. Motor vehicles emit 4,000 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. That's one quarter of the worlds total carbon dioxide output. Europeans and North Americans (Only 10% of the worlds population) own about 60% of the world's cars. Various bits of cars can be recycled, including the windows and the bodywork. In addition to this car use can be reduced by using a car pool, a smaller car driven more slowly, public transport for shorter journeys, shopping from home and working from home.

Also, other energy sources can be used to fuel cars than petrol and diesal. These include LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) and LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) that are more efficent for todays cars. Then there is hydogen fuel (easily produced through electrolysis, simply splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen by using electricity). This is totally clean energy. Other methods include bio-diesal, solar power, alcohol, electricity, fuel cells and hybrid cars. Most of these already exist but are difficult to produce quality driving at an affordable price. So what is wrong with further research into these technologies so that we are not reliant on unstable countries for oil and gas in the future?

Continuing this theme it is apparent that the UK could be self-sufficient in terms of its own energy production in the near future. We are an island country and as such are fortunate to have sun, rain, wind and gravity at our diposal. Ignoring the flights of fantasy of nuclear fusion, higgs and zero point energy for the time being it appears that much can be done to stop our reliance on Russian oil and fuel from more unstable countries. We can have solar panels on our houses and cars - the photovoltaic cells convert and store the energy (so batteries may be re-chargeable), wind power from highland wind farms (not quite cost effective yet), a small number of nuclear stations (just to keep the transition period in check), hydroelectric and wave power from rivers and oceans (as long as it does not adversely affect local ecosystems) and geothermal energy from inside the earth. Of course if everyone drilled to the centre of the planet then we would cool the planet and cause geology to stop!

It would be nice to be able to walk the pavements in my local area without the obstructions of cars parked over the pavement and bins obstructing the rest of the pavement!

Get my ass into gear

Amongst other things on my list of things to do are to make more friends, particularly girls, and do different things such as theme park rides and 5 rhythm dancing. There is so much out there and I am stuck in here, in this dirty and disgusting flat withering away. Exercise and diet are on the way.

To be honest my creative work thus far is poor but of an encouraging and experimental nature. I just need some way to organise and co-ordinate my thoughts and ideas into a simple scheme that ignites my wish for action. So many ideas and not much time to catch and develop them. I need to break each one down and concentrate on simple and effective solutions. Simple is best and communication is key. Without feedback I do not know if my ideas are understandable by others and it can be difficult to know their true impact in terms of nature and culture. Take my poetry as an example. I have written many poems but none recently. I dictated some to this computer and found the structure, punctuation and verbal delivery important elements. But the most importance is the clarity and impact of the language to my audience. Yet I never thought of a perceived audience when I wrote many poems. The result is an incoherent mess and overlooking of the simple elements of structure and delivery. Vauderville can help me out here.

I live in a flat that is cluttered with stuff I do not use and needs a thorough clean out. So what criteria will I use for sorting out my life’s clutter? A plan, including room layout sketches and lists of what to keep and chuck is a good start. Yet this is not enough because I have the tendency to keep things because they may prove useful later or may make money if sold to the right person. This is not good as it breed a reluctance to dispose of stuff that has no real value to me. I admit that this is also true of my mind too. The result is a loss of temper, unwillingness to get up in the mornings and a desire to dwell within my own delusions. A good start is to meditate, exercise, diet etc. What I need is a change to a more forward thinking lifestyle.

The Beautiful TV?

It may seem weird but I have regained a fascination of football as a result of owning a TV and watching the Premiership. So why the fascination with 22 men kicking a pigs bladder across a field of grass?

Well it has a lot to do with human origin, evolution and the desire to compete with other tribes/communities. Humans can be compared with packs of wolves or even a swarm of locusts – working together to devour all the resources of the planet. Each life is too individual and precious for mankind, in his current form, to aspire to a termite or bee community. If local conflict and aggression vanishes there is a gap. Hence the need for sports like football and rugby and the degree of crime and violence in each and every society.

It is the desire to achieve and the need for competition that drives a game such as football. An addiction for the players and for the fans who are satisfied by their team winning and channel their worries and anxieties when their team loses. Over history sport and competition have become integral to human life. A thriving community, economy, and a thriving mass communication medium such as TV have made football the world spectacle it is now. It is the whole process of team selection, player transfers, speculation, betting, and going to a match or watching it on TV that fuels many an addiction of the beautiful and sometimes ugly game.

Television has made it possible to watch and fantasise about events across the world. Even the news has a large focus of the negativity permeating across far-flung communities. Local events often pale into insignificance if there is a war going on over 1000 miles away. Children introduced to TV at an early age are more likely to become distracted and less interested in their own life, responsibility and activity. Television is passive, hypnotic and generates a tiredness and lethargy that is not found from reading a novel or talking to friends. In fact there is something not right with the gogglebox that appears like brainwashing. Indeed the advertising found on TV and elsewhere fuels distraction and the economy. As a flock of sheep, we go out and buy the latest car or mobile phone and go to football matches.

Addiction has many angles. There is the physical addiction set off by hormones, adrenaline and endorphins that makes us want to do more exercise or become engrossed in a computer game. Then there is the psychological addiction of familiarity, peer interaction, and wanting to succeed that drives the players of a football match to excel and the fans to emulate in the form of their own fantasies. Seeing a match of TV is the least social way of watching football. Watching the game in a public place is much more interactive. At a match, as part of a crowd, you feel both powerful and helpless. You follow the crowd response as much as the match on the pitch. It is pure escapism. Yet it is only the modern interpretation of tribal warfare and mating competitions.

Thoughts on the New Year and 2005

I cannot believe that it is now 2006. Last year has flown by and I have suffered 3 call centre jobs (all of which I left because of the strict rules and my values), a dissertation that is still left to do (and is late), an unfinished HNC and learndirect course. I have spent too many hours stuck in front of the TV or in bed or in front of a computer screen. I have spent too little time out and about and even less speaking to friends and family. To add insult to injury my overdraft is about to burst and I have ballooned to 17 stone (at 6 foot tall and 34 this is no good thing).

So now I have just stopped smoking (the cravings are still there) and am much more active. I have nearly done the learndirect course and will by the end of the week hope to have finished the HNC assignment, cleaned the flat and written a chapter of my dissertation. Also, I am feeling motivated to get a new job and will be re-training for computer games programming. Still single though, ah well. Going to check my BMI and get some scales tomorrow.

Also, I'm not happy about the gas increases and the rail fare increases let alone the cunts at SSR who sent an A4 letter advertising their courses but forgot to put a stamp on the envelope. So I had to pay the post office £1.21 last week. Anyway it is all nothing compared to the deterioation of the environment by mankind (and our obsession with the automobile) and our destruction of the rainforests. Enough of my gripes and pains for now...