Author: admin

I was very sad to read of the passing of Jean-Luc Godard. Reading the unhappy news made me flash back on the first time I saw Breathless.

It was a moment that changed my life. I had never seen a film that was anything like this before.

I realized that I was seeing something different, something that wasn’t like what had come before. After that experience, I started to see films differently.

And I realize that I have had that experience in other media as well. The first time I ever heard Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone, I knew that the very idea of a song had been redefined for me.

It’s not so much that these radical acts in their respective media were right and more traditional approaches were wrong. It was more that they opened up new doors of possibility.

They got people asking questions about what a movie or a song could be, in ways that people had simply not been thinking about before. And isn’t that one of the best and purest functions of art?

It was weird having something I posted here showing up on Slashdot yesterday. I only knew about it because a friend emailed me.

I never really think about who might be reading this blog. I mostly write it for myself and whatever friends happen to be reading. So it’s always a little jarring when something I wrote here shows up in a more public forum.

I read through the ensuing conversation on Slashdot, and it was very lively, with strong opinions expressed all around. Just as expected, and wonderful — free speech in all its messy glory.

At some point I will probably write a follow-up post, based on what I read there. But first I need time to digest it all and think about it.

Meanwhile, one unfortunate but not unpredictable side effect is that I am suddenly getting lots of “comments” from spambots. I guess the takeaway here is: Support free speech, but use good filters.

How strange to think that it has been twenty one years to the day since our collective trauma. It still feels so vivid to me, as though it had just happened.

When I think about the odd twists and turns that my own life took in the several years that followed the attacks, I suspect that I was, in my own way, dealing with my own personal reaction to those events. I made decisions that puzzle me today, as though part of me was sleep walking through each day, as though part of me was afraid to be fully awake.

When a person experiences a severe trauma to the body or the mind, it can take many years to fully heal. And if the wound is not properly tended to, healing can be incomplete. The mind or body may not heal well.

When an entire nation of several hundred million people experiences a severe trauma to its body and its mind, very bad things can happen. Large numbers of people can lose track of reality, and can retreat into paranoia and conspiracy theories.

When people are in need of healing, they will turn to whatever eases their pain. And then they can be talked into pretty much anything by the right smooth talking con man.

We are still far from healed. And we may not end up healing well.

each of us like you
has died once,
each of us like you
stands apart, like you
fit to be worshipped.
-HD

I was at a Zoom meeting today, which was being recorded. In the middle of somebody’s screen-shared presentation, I got a phone call.

I didn’t pick up the call, but I needed to take a minute to send the caller a note telling them that I’d call them back after my meeting. In the meantime, I had completely missed whatever was said in that portion of the presentation.

What I really wanted to do in that moment was scroll back to look at the previous slide or two. But Zoom doesn’t let me do that.

Since the meeting was being recorded, there was clearly a record of what had transpired up to that moment in the meeting. But there was no way for me to see it.

Eventually, when the Zoom recording comes out, I will be able to review the presentation. And then I will know what I missed.

But by that point it will be far too late for me to ask useful questions in the meeting itself. Which makes me sad.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have the option during a Zoom meeting of scrolling back through whatever was previously on screen? On the list of “useful features I would like added to Zoom” this is definitely one.

Continuing the thread from the other day…

Given that a photograph now suffices to officially identify you, all sorts of thoughts occur to me. Here is one.

When the current semester started, our department put my class in a room that was too small for the number of students who wanted to take the class. The number of students who can enroll is limited by the number of chairs in the classroom.

Which means a lot of students ended up on the wait list. Since there were not enough chairs to go around, the wait listed students needed to stand.

That is, I think those were the students who were standing — there was no way to be sure. Looking out at that first class, I realized that some of the waitlisted students may have taken a seat, and some the students who were actually registered were forced to stand.

In that moment, I wished I had a pair of glasses that could immediately identify who was who. I would then know right away whether the right people were sitting and the right people were standing.

I would also, incidentally, know everyone’s name, what their interests were, the date of their birth, and whether they played a musical instrument. In other words, I would be able to know far too much about them.

This is, in my opinion, not a good thing. And yet it might be the future we are about to go into headlong.

I think we should be giving this a lot of thought. We take for granted now that when people look at us, they don’t immediately know everything about us.

I’m not sure that particular right to privacy is something we should be willing to give up. No matter how convenient it may seem.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the department managed to find us a larger classroom. Now everybody who wanted to take my class is registered, and they all have a chair to sit in.

This week we go off in a new direction — an exploration of the classic 15 puzzle. Rather than do the entire thing in one week, I thought it might be fun to break it down, and add a little functionality each week.

Here, to begin, is a barebones minimal version, without even any labels on the squares. As usual, you can click on the word on the bottom to bring up the editable code.

In the weeks to come, I will continue adding to this in various ways.

Recently I was traveling internationally. I have the Global Traveller option, so I could just to a machine, put in my passport, put my face in front of a camera, and get a piece of paper to hand to the immigration officer.

But I was really tired from the flight. So I forgot to put my passport into the slot — I just posed for the camera.

And it worked anyway. The paper came out saying that I was me, I handed it to the immigration officer, and I was done. It seems that just my photo was enough to identify me.

Apparently sticking your passport into the slot is essentially theater. Your government can already tell who you are just from analyzing a photo of you, and they will let you into the country on that basis.

Needless to say, this is very thought provoking, and there are implications here. More soon.

I hadn’t used a 3D printer for more than a decade. Then just recently I bought another one. The general principle is the same, but there have been a lot of improvements since 2010!

The particular model I purchased is a LulzBot Mini 2. It costs about $1500 and it is worth every penny. Also, the customer service is spectacular.

After more than a decade of having retreated to making purely virtual creations, I am now once again thinking about bringing purely imaginary objects out into the physical world. I noticed that it’ also changing the way I think.

When I am making something in software, things can go wrong out in the physical world (like my computer runs out of power, or my disk space fills up). At such times, I tend to think “Oh, that’s a hardware problem.”

But now the shoe is on the other foot. When my 3D print doesn’t turn out the way I wanted, I look at the physical part and I tell myself “Oh, that’s a software problem.”

A friend was complaining to me today about someone in their life who has narcissistic tendencies. “I keep forgetting,” they said, “that I’m dealing with a narcissist.”

It seemed like my friend was looking for advice. So I told them that they should be careful not to tussle with somebody who is a narcissist.

“Remember,” I said, “you are dealing with somebody who is in love. And you should never get between anyone and the person they love.”