Author: admin

In my computer graphics research, a lot of the effort just goes into figuring out math. The math is the hard (and interesting) part. Once you get the math right, programming the computer to do what you want is fairly straightforward.

I find that airplane rides are just about the best place to figure out those math problems. You can’t really do anything else, you’re basically stuck for a few hours in a place where you don’t want to be, and the best thing you can do is to mentally be elsewhere.

Math is perfect for that. When I’m trying to figure out the mathematics behind some computer graphics thing, I completely tune out everything else.

And that includes all of the annoyances that go along with being stuck in an airplane seat. Before I know it, I’m at my destination, and I’ve solved the math problem.

I guess the moral is this: Wherever you are, math is a great place to visit.

Yesterday, during a conversation with an old friend, talking about all the reasons we like the current Dune movie (and recounting the ways it has brought back fond memories of reading the book):

He: When […] tells […] that he knows she’s pregnant and she realizes that it’s kind of impossible for him to know this.

Me: And yet, in a lesser derivative work, Yoda doesn’t know that Padme is bearing twins. Sad.

He: That was really a screw up for Yoda.

Me: I would have said for Lucas.

He: Oh yes, that’s right.

Yesterday’s post was a sort of puzzle. You were given the names of actors who appeared in the current movie Dune, and quotes of things that they didn’t say in the movie.

In each case, the actor was playing a character strongly reminiscent of a different character played by a different actor in a different movie. So here’s today’s puzzle:

In each case, can you name the other movie, the other actor, and the other character (the one who actually said the quote)?

See how many correct answers you can get without cheating. That is, without looking up the answer or searching on-line. I will post the correct answers later this week.

Oscar Isaac didn’t say “Winter is coming.”

Stellan Skarsgård didn’t say “The horror, the horror.”

Zendaya didn’t say “Sky People cannot learn, they do not see.”

Javier Bardem didn’t say “We go outside where God can see us better.”

Timothée Chalamet didn’t say “It’s not that I like the Empire; I hate it, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.”

Josh Brolin didn’t say “Give my regards to King Tut, asshole.”

Perfection!!!

If you read a book about entropy and it leaves you more confused than you were before you read the book, is that an example of entropy?

Today, for the first time, I found that I could get phone coverage while flying in an airplane. It wasn’t for the entire flight, just for the few minutes that we were still in the air but getting ready to land.

Still, it was a startling experience. I never expect cell coverage to reach any significant altitude. When it does, it is kind of awesome.

I wonder whether anyone has ever mapped out how high cell coverage goes. It probably varies greatly by geography. The resulting 3D shape would make a really cool visual, wouldn’t it?

Two interesting things happened in the United States on December 2.

On this date in 1823, the United States adopted the Monroe Doctrine. Among other things, the doctrine stated that Europe should not interfere in American affairs.

Then on this date in 1845, America adopted the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. That doctrine basically stated that it is America’s God-given right to expand Westward, even if it means wiping out the people who were already been living there for thousands of years.

It’s sort of amazing that America can simultaneously embrace two such opposing philosophies. It basically boils down to this: “Nobody can mess with us, but we have a divine right to mess with others.”

I wonder whether anybody in our young nation realized, back in 1845, that somewhere down the road this attitude would lead to a whole heap of trouble.

A robot become newly sentient
Found itself most discontentient
    It tasted religion
    But after a smidgeon
It is now atheist unrepentient

I am concerned by the fact that some major companies are proposing that in on-line meetings we should all appear to each other as computer graphic avatars. It’s not just a philosophical issue — it’s also about the devil in the details.

One of the key elements of such an initiative is solving the latency problem. If I am going to appear to you as a synthetic avatar, then your computer needs to know what to do if there is any delay in network transmission.

For video-based interactions (like what you see over Zoom), this is not such a big issue. We understand that networks can be unreliable and that sometimes a video feed can stutter.

But you can’t quite do that with synthetic avatars. Instead you need to fill in the gaps with machine learning. You need to fake it.

In particular, you need to synthesize body movements and facial micro-expressions to fill in the gaps. And those movements and expressions don’t necessarily fully correspond to reality.

So that direction sends us down a slippery slope to a make believe reality in which the subtleties of people’s emotions are represented not faithfully, but rather as third party constructs.

That might not be such a good idea.