Author: admin

The specter pondered this for a long while. “Time flows well here, where you live. But that is not so everywhere.”

Jenny was starting to see the immensity of the gulf between them. She racked her brains trying to think of a way to bridge the gap. “Don’t you have time where you come from? Hasn’t anything ever happened to you that you wish you could undo?”

The specter seemed to think for a moment. “It is different,” he said. “the past and future flow together here, like a river, washing away all in its path. For us, time is a landscape, a place where memories are real — not merely illusions, as they are here.”

“‘Us’?” Jenny asked quietly. “Who is ‘us’?’

A 2007 study by Stacey Wood and colleagues at Scripps College showed that people tend to get sunnier and more optimistic in their outlook as they get older (Kisley, M. Wood, S. & Burrows, C. *(2007) Looking at the sunny side of life: The negativity bias is eliminated in older adults. Psychological Science, 18 (9) 838-843).

As I have been wandering around the ACM/SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference here in downtown L.A. this week, I am starting to see a connection. People here range from young researchers in their early twenties, just starting out, to old timers who have been in the field since the 1970s or even longer.

To many young folks it is clear that the future has arrived. We have iPhones, iPads, realtime 3D graphics in home computers, and cutting edge films like Avatar. Much of the graphics technology that was mere fantasy a few decades ago is now widely available at consumer prices. Faced with so much well packaged magic, it might be hard for a young person today, just starting out in the field, to conceive of a future that will make our current level of technology look quaint.

But the old timers have already been there. They’ve seen vast sweeping changes over the several decades of their career. They’ve seen — first hand — an approximately million-fold increase in computer power in the last forty years, and they see no reason why there should not be another million-fold increase in the next forty.

They’ve gone from bulky punched paper tape holding no more than a few kilobytes to 256 gigabyte flash drives you can hold in the palm of your hand. They’ve seen the rise of the internet and the Web. They’ve seen low resolution CRT displays gradually evolve to four megapixel LCD screens. They’ve seen digital projectors and high resolution color printers go from rare treasures to every day consumer items.

The list of wonders goes on. And on.

Anyone who has been in the field of computer graphics for several decades knows that the graphics in Avatar will, in time, come to appear hopelessly primitive, and that the iPhone will all too soon seem as quaint as an old fashioned calculator, a relic of a bygone age.

Experience is a hill that you climb, year by year. The higher you have climbed, the farther you can see into the future, and the easier it becomes to glimpse the far off worlds of tomorrow.

And once you can see those worlds well enough to know they are out there, you can build them.

Mr. Symarian spoke softly to Jenny. “None of us can speak to him but you. This part of the journey must be yours alone.”

Jenny felt more than a little intimidated, but she knew she must face the spectral creature. “Who are you?” she asked, not really sure whether she wanted to know the response.

“That is a very difficult question to answer. I am not sure the concepts would make sense to you. But know that I am not from your time, not from time itself. It is quite difficult for me to cross this bridge, to … speak with you.”

Jenny forged ahead. “What do you want with my grandmother?”

“I am drawn to her beauty, for beauty — not just outer beauty, but the inner light itself — is a thing outside of time. I was drawn to this light within Amelia. I do not know, even now, whether she was aware of it herself. But I was drawn to it as a moth is drawn to a flame. And in my way, I have tried to preserve this light.”

“By keeping her asleep?”

“By keeping her out of time. For time is the destroyer.”

“Time,” Jenny said, “is where we live.”

Yesterday I went sailing on a friend’s boat. And realized once again what a unique experience is sailing.

Being in a small sailboat is an experience quite unlike being in a car or a bus or a train, for you must always be consciously engaged. You don’t just ride in a boat. There is continual work to be done, winches to be wound and released, adjustments to be made to the rigging to get the sail catching the breeze just right. The entire experience reminds you that you are at the mercy of the wind — the source of both all your power and all your troubles.

This very awareness of being a mere visitor upon the sea, of the need to pay conscious attention, to stay attuned to the natural world around you, pulls you in emotionally and invests you in the moment, makes you feel more alive, and wins your love.

It took only a few moments for Sid, with sure movements of his long taloned fingers, to pick the lock. And then the door sprung open.

The other travelers walked hesitantly to the door. Inside, the room was bathed in an eerie green light. There was a bed in the middle of the room, over which the light was brightest.

“C’mon,” Josh whispered. “We’re supposed to go over to the bed.” He held out his hand to Jenny.

Jenny had her doubts, but if Josh said it was the right thing to do, then she was sure it would be ok. She took his hand, and followed him over to the bed.

Lying there, apparently asleep, was her grandmother Amelia. She knew it had to be her grandmother, because she had seen pictures, but the strange thing was that woman lying on the bed was young — impossibly young.

“It’s my grandmother,” Jenny said, “but she she’s supposed to be a lot older than this.”

“But of course she cannot be older than this,” came a voice from behind them.

Jenny whirled around, and found herself staring at a spectral figure. She wasn’t sure what she was looking at. It was like he was there and not there at the same time. Indistinctly, she could make out a sad face over a shimmering body. She realized the face was talking.

“I have known that this day would come, and that you would try to take away my precious Amelia.”

The friend at whose house I am staying out in the woods has no coffee grinder. But he does have an anvil out back. So rather than going all the way into town I decided to get a bit creative.

This morning I put fresh whole coffee into a tall glass, put a clean white sock over the glass, and turned the glass upside down, so all the coffee beans ended up in the toe of the sock. Below is what it looked like just before I dumped the coffee beans from the glass to the sock:

Then I went out back with my coffee bean laden footwear, and forged myself some coffee grounds:

Then I put the sock back over the glass and shook out the freshly ground coffee:

Which I then brewed in my friend’s coffee pot, resulting in a mug of fresh hot yummy coffee:

It tasted delicious. And as you can see, there are even enough grounds left for tomorrow morning’s cup of coffee.

Yay!

“Sid,” Charlie said, “are you sure you want Jenny to carry you over to the door?”

Sid looked puzzled. “How the hell else am I supposed to get there?”

“Think about it,” said Charlie. “As soon as we passed through the tower walls, I got my powers back.”

Sid just stared at him a moment, and then turned to look at Mr. Symarian. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You never asked,” Mr. Symarian said. “And I thought it best to not to encourage you. You may recall what happened the last time…”

“Sheesh, you gotta be kiddin’ me.” the little demon said, rolling his eyes. “All this time…” He spread his wings and gave them an experimental little flap. And rose several inches into the air. Then several more.

“That’s wonderful!” Jenny said, and clapped her hands. Sid was now flying around the room with a big grin on his face, happily trying out his now functional wings. He was still beaming like the cat that ate the canary when he flew straight into a wall and dropped like a rock.

“Ouch, that must hurt,” said Josh.

“Only my pride,” the little demon said, brushing himself off. “Us demons, we’re a hardy bunch. Now, lemme at that lock.” And with a cheerful wink at Jenny, he lifted straight into the air and flew toward the locked door.

Today the package arrived from MakerBot Industries — a new CupCake CNC Deluxe Kit — just $950 plus shipping. The MakerBot business model is very simple: Why ask people to spend $20K on a 3D printer when they can buy a kit for less than $1000 and assemble it on a day or two?

So on a whim I went on-line, clicked two day delivery, and this evening a friend and I started putting it together. We got most of the way through, but then decided to get a good night’s sleep and finish the job in the morning. When it’s done, it will look something like this:

And it will let me make 3D things quite similar to the ones I showed and talked about last week — but at far lower cost.

The cool thing about using one of these — as opposed to the 3D printer I wrote about last week — is that a MakerBot is not just one 3D printer in one place, it’s something far more powerful. Because the price is so low, everyone you are collaborating with can have one of their own.

I can be in NY, a friend can be in California, another can be in London, and each of us can independently print out objects we’re designing together. One of us could run through ten iterations or more in the course of a day, without holding up anyone else or monopolizing resources.

We are already used to this concept when our shared creations are stories, images, songs, movies, computer games, and anything else that can be described (and therefore transmitted) as a sequence of bits.

Now at last this level of creative and collaborative freedom is coming to the last frontier — our physical world itself.

The first thing they noticed when they got to the top of the stairs was the strange green glow. At first it was hard to tell where it came from. Then Charlie pointed. “Look, under that door.” There was indeed an eerie green glow coming from under the door of one bedroom.

Without hesitating Josh walked up to the door. “Wait!” said Jenny in alarm, but Josh was already reaching out to turn the knob. “It’s locked”, he said.

“Clearly we are nearing our goal,” said Mr. Symarian. “I suspect we will find the answers we seek from whatever is in the room behind that door.”

“That’s my room,” Jenny said. “I mean, it was my room back in the real world.”

The others looked at her. “Any chance,” Josh said, “that it used to be your grandmother’s room?”

“Yes, of course it was!” Jenny said. “Josh, you’re a genius! You know, it’s funny — I used to find her old stuff sometimes tucked away in the back of the drawers and closets. It was really strange because I was sure my mom had gotten rid of it all, but somehow it would come back. I never really knew what was going on. It doesn’t seem so strange now.”

“Nothing seems so strange now,” Josh said, grinning. “But how are we going to get through that door?”

“I think Sid can help with that,” said Mr. Symarian.

“Hey,” said Sid, “you told me I wasn’t supposed to do that kind of stuff.”

Mr. Symarian smiled. “I believe that we can make an exception in this particular case.”

“What kind of stuff?” Jenny asked.

The little demon grinned at her, looking very happy for once. “Carry me over to the lock on that door and I’ll show you.”

A friend was telling me today that she had seen a well meaning but somewhat mismatched attempt to compare two artists — an exhibit of sculptures of Michelangelo together with photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. While the photographs were breathtaking, they were bound by the literal nature of photography.

Where photography can only show us the reality of the human condition, sculpture can show us the ideas in our own heads. The space of expression in a constructive medium is vastly larger than can be achieved by a recording medium.

Which leads me to the question of animation. The history of animation has been rather odd, in that this medium of practically limitless expression has for most of its history been relegated to children’s genres. Some of this characterization was due to the enormous success and entrepreneurial abilities of Walt Disney, and some was just the result of historical accident.

The recent experiments of such high powered directors as Robert Zemeckis, Peter Jackson and now James Cameron in combining live action with computer graphics has changed the equation. Suddenly audiences are starting to see the connection between the virtual and the real. And the infinite possibilities of constructed reality, as opposed to captured reality, are beginning to attract wider consideration.

I am looking forward to a day when our most highly talented film actors, such as Meryl Streep or Tom Wilkinson, are regularly appearing in constructed realities, and given a chance to lend their vast talents to these emerging media.

At that point, synthetic worlds on screen may come to bear the same relation to old fashioned movies as, say, sculpture bears to photography.