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wired in the city
Thinking, fancy foods, unspectacular photos - dumped from my life and brain, sometimes both. I strongly discourage taking me serious.
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There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model. It is always best to think of reality as perfectly normal. Since the beginning, not one unusual thing has ever happened.
– Eliezer Yudkowsky, Quantum Explainations -
Speed.
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We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
– Richard Dawkins -
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
– H. L. Mencken -
Ideas for free
From time to time ideas with no apparent use come to my mind. Sadly, those are always the most interesting.
Music-Mood Deductions
People listen to music all the time. What they listen to depends mostly on their mood. I’m curious to correlate the songs and artists with the mood of the listener and in the next step deduct their mood based on their music choice.
I’m thinking of mining last.fm data and Twitter/Facebook/MySpace moods and matching those. One could also ask the user for his mood.
I think there is a project at Stanford or MIT where users are played some music and asked which color and mood this song has for them. Might be related.
The use? World domination, understanding people.
As always, tbc.
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Books to read before I die
This will become a list of books I would probably regret not having read or finished when my last days come - or maybe not, and I’ll be happy the way I am.
But as someone thinking about all the possibilities, I better help my older self finding a good read:Christopher Alexander - A Pattern Language
In case I ever have the pleasure of designing a nice city
Immanuel Kant - Kritik der reinen Vernunft
Seems to be the base of modern reasoning. Won’t hurt me.
Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan
One cold night in a guest room in Switzerland I found this book and read it till I fell asleep. I think it deserves to be finished.
Richard P. Feynman - The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Driven by desire to understand the world, I want to read through all three volumes. One day, when I have time. Till that day, the physics of the world will watch over me from the top of my shelf.
tbc
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You look like the I’m a Mac guy
Yesterday we had great sushi at Sakana in San Francisco. Variety of Nigiri and Maki, and a very delicious Green Tea Ice Cream afterwards.
And as we were just about to order dessert, the Japanese waiter told me:
Has anybody told you that you look just like the I’m a Mac guy?
For the record, Marvin noticed that before. ;)
Fun last evening, I can definitely recommend the place!
For extra geek-cred: I’m writing from an airplane.
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Venus und Mond über Potsdam
17.04.2010 - ISO 100 - 1/20s - f/3.5 - 18mm
