Ken's Blog

I am currently working on some 3D modeling software, and I want to export what I am doing in the simplest way possible. As I look at different options, I see, not surprisingly, that the simpler formats are less expressive, and the more complex formats are more expressive.

For example, if you just want to output a shape, everything is easy. But if you also want to be able to animate that shape, with joints that bend, then it gets more complicated.

None of this is surprising. But it gets me to wondering whether there is some sort of principle that could be written down mathematically, which expresses the tradeoff between simplicity and power.

For example, maybe there is a way to write each the two terms down as a number, and then multiply them. The basic idea would be that the result would be some constant, which would capture the idea of minimum “simplest possible yet expressive enough”.

In any case, it’s worth thinking about.

There are things that you can never know
Because they didn’t happen, so

It’s just as well you cannot see
What was never meant to be

It is getting difficult for me to ignore the fact that weather is becoming stranger than it used to be. Storms are more intense, hurricanes more frequent, and surprisingly unseasonal days are growing ever less surprising.

All of this is happening gradually, and that might make it a little harder to notice. To use an analogy: If you are suddenly plunged into hot water, you tend to notice. But if somebody gradually turns up the temperature in your bath, it can take a while for you you to catch on to what is happening.

I have a feeling that we are in hot water.

Am just watching the first few episodes of Sweet Tooth. Started out great, and getting better and better by the moment.

First WandaVision and Loki, and now this. I’m starting to think there is hope after all for television as a medium for creating good art.

One odd thing about the experience of developing software is the crazy nature of progress. You can spend days stuck on one tiny feature.

But you can also, in a burst of inspiration and good fortune, jump ahead in a single day by what feels like months of progress. It’s a very strange sort of journey
I think that what’s really going on is this: During those difficult times, when you feel that you are barely inching forward, you are actually doing the real work.

You’re essentially fueling the turbo-thrusters that you will be using in those wonderful bursts of progress.

Nothing comes for free. But everything can be beneficial.

I am extremely happy about the new Marvel series Loki, having just seen the first episode. It feels like the fulfillment of the promise of WandaVision.

Rather than the same old boring superhero narrative, we are being treated to something truly original and imaginative. Unlike nearly everything we have seen in the Marvel universe, Loki is actually very good science fiction.

And on top of that, it’s funny as hell. Can’t wait to see how this plays out.

I am in the middle of a rapid software development project. There is a first demo in a few weeks, and I need to add a lot more capability between now and then.

Every day I add new features, or replace old ones. Which means that every day there are opportunities for massive failure.

I keep backups at each step, so failure is never catastrophic. Still, I don’t really want to lose the bulk of a day’s work by introducing some bug that will force me to go back to a previous version.

So I’m adopting a kind of variation of the physician’s motto “First do no harm.” Whenever I add a new feature that will replace an older one, I keep the older feature in for a while.

The idea is that everything should continue to operate exactly the way it did before I added the new code. Except now there are new things you can also do if you know how.

I keep it that way until I am confident that I haven’t broken anything. Only then do I get rid of the old version of the feature.

I realize that the stakes here are a lot lower than what doctors deal with every day. Still, it’s good to have a way to work that doesn’t keep breaking anything.

I find it fascinating that both Frank Lloyd-Wright and Tim Berners-Lee were born on this day of the year. The former was born in 1867, the latter in 1955.

Both are our most famous architects in two very different domains: The former is the most famous of all architects in the traditional sense. The latter is the most famous of all architects of the World Wide Web.

Right now we think of those two domains as disparate. But that distinction might one day come to seem less significant, depending on how things go.

I wonder whether there will come a time when we will just think of both as famous architects.

I love tall ceilings. Just give me a good ten or twelve foot tall ceiling in a room and I am happy.

But as we know, You can’t always get what You want. There are practical reasons that ceilings need to be lower than we would desire.

I am wondering whether, when we all have those future mixed reality glasses, we will be able to have virtual tall ceilings wherever we want them. It might be expensive, but I imagine it would be a lot cheaper than actual twelve foot high ceilings for every room in a house or apartment in a building.

Gollum and Smeagol go to couples counseling.