KEN STAUFFER

Living and working in NYC

I am working for a great company in new york city. Its a wonderful place to live. The subways are very fun to travel in. They are a little warm like a free sauna. The weather here is great because I sweat a lot and the humidity is less than Austin. I am learning a lot of new software development practices at my new job. I am working at a company that has 300,000 customers around the world. Their code base spans 30 years. Its very cool to see how legacy code and new code are married. Also I like how lots of effort is spent making sure no new bugs are created.

Singularity

I have been spending a lot of my brain on the ideas of Ray Kurzweil. It is very interesting. He's a very interesting fellow.

I also spent a weekend reading "A New Kind of Science". This book is somewhat retarded. It spends 1,000 pages discussing an idea that could have been better expressed in a much smaller format. The main idea of this book is "The Principle of Computation Equivalence". I think this idea has already been expressed as the "Church - Turing Thesis". But anyway. It's an useful idea.

I am busy trying to complete Evolve 4.09 (the next version of this alife simulator). This new version allows for instruction sets to be defined. But basically the program is still the same.

Thanks to the books of Ray Kurzweil, I am more convinced than ever before that intelligent machines will be possible -- and in our life times. It hard to fathom the implications of such technology. But I would like to shift a lot of my Alife experiments into the area of pattern matching.

another answer to Fermi's paradox

Fermi's paradox is a SETI related thing. It asks the question, "If the galaxy is inhabited (even modestly) with intelligent beings, why haven't we had contact yet?

Some answers are (1) aliens are keeping us isolated for study. This is the zoo hypothesis. Or (2) we are the first intelligence in the galaxy. or (3) they all decided not to explore, or (4) they use technology that we aren't looking for because we don't know about such technology yet.

Another possibility is that our galaxy suffered a sterilization event within the last several billion years. Gamma ray bursts are prime examples of such an event. Perhaps we live in a unfortunate galaxy in which most of the life was sadly and drastically wiped out. If this galaxy-wide extinction event hadn't occured, we would be surrounded by ETI 's all over the place, and Fermi wouldn't have had to propose his paradox. But our galaxy did experience such a calamity, and so here we are, one of many intelligent civilizations trying to rebuild. Or perhaps Earth was spared, but most the other civilizations were wiped out, and perhaps are now trying to crawl their way back to dominance.

Clearly earth itself has suffered multiple near death experiences. Why not assume that the galaxy has also suffered upheaval like, two black holes colliding at the center of the galaxy, etc....

Perhaps the list of sterlization events on a galactic scale is larger and more probable than our astronomers currently know about?

Related link: http://www.faughnan.com/setifail.html

Stephen Baxter's "Manifold Time" and (especially) "Manifold Space" and are extensive explorations of two variants of the Fermi paradox. The first uses the "rarity of life" explanation, the second assumes ubiquitous life but emphasizes how vicious the universe appears to be. The second book presupposes that intelligent life cannot get substantially "smarter" than we are now (ie. no super-intelligences); this is a necessary assumption for his story telling (and an increasingly common device in science fiction). Manifold Space is much the more interesting of the two. In this story life seems to be exploding everywhere at about the same time, and the competition is vicious. Coordinated explosion is explained by pan-galactic sterilizing events (gamma bursters) that periodically wipe out all life forms in a galaxy; technologic civilizations then re-emerge in a synchronous fashion, leading to synchronous colonization. This is the most novel explanation of the Fermi Paradox that I know of. As Baxter points out in Manifold Space, the logical implication of this explanation is that we don't have much time left before the next sterilizing event. One wonders if one could find "fossil" evidence of such an intense radiation bombardment in lunar geology.

Ayn Rand "Collective" parody

Happy new year

The good thing about 2008 is that when you accidentally write '2007' on something, the trailing seven can be easily corrected into an eight.

Bias and Ayn Rand

Here's a good article that discusses how Ayn Rand, who advocated reason and individualism, could nonetheless produce a cult-like atmosphere for her fans:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/ayn-rand.html

What Intel Giveth, Microsoft Taketh Away

Another great article from the Devil Mountain OfficeBench folks. This time they chronicle the bloating that has occured in microsoft's Windows/Office stack from Windows 2000 to Vista:

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/09/wh ... -away.html

Vista versus XP benchmark, part 2

Consider the this article.

It shows the following benchmark numbers between VISTA and it's predecessor:

These benchmarks show virtually no difference between the two operating systems. Now consider the Devil Mountain benchmark results:

This shows a very large difference between VISTA and XP.

The Devil Mountain benchmark is a script that automates a series of office tasks and then computes the amount of time taken.

The Vista Team has made the argument that users won't notice the difference. This is probably true. But it reveals that vista burns twice the cpu cycles for doing essentially the same task(s) as XP. This difference has to show up somewhere; perhaps when watching a video on one monitor and editing a spreadsheet on another you'll begin to notice the difference between XP and Vista.

Notice that the Vista Teams argument, "User Won't Notice", assumes they have figured out what users will be doing now and in the near future. What if a new killer application emerges that needs those extra cpu cyclces? Vista would suck and XP would emerge superior.

Great explaination for why Vista is slower than XP

This article does a good job explaining why vista is slower than xp.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/00 ... 060344.htm

"Vista handles graphics more in the manner of video games, using a software library called DirectX designed to exploit hardware-accelerated graphics. DirectX is also used in Windows XP, but Vista uses it throughout, not just for games. Unfortunately there is a performance cost for traditional Windows applications like Microsoft Office. These generally use an older graphics library called GDI (Graphics Device Interface). In Windows XP this was hardware accelerated, but in Vista this is no longer true. Instead, they are mapped through DirectX. The new system also holds GDI windows in memory twice over, contributing to Vista's memory bloat."

Here's the devil mountain benchmarks which shows the startling differences between Vista and XP:

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/wi ... gains.html

comments disabled

Once again spam is getting into my comment system. FUCK!

Disabled. Use email etc... cheer,

DRM: A lot of effort that only prevents 1st generation copies

DRM in all its incarnations are elaborate schemes to prevent illegal copies of high quality movies and music. But any guy with a camcorder, a tripod, and microphone can copy ANY media into a degraded 2nd generation copy (no DRM scheme can ever prevent this type of copying). Because modern camcorders are all digital, this 2nd generation copy will remain "pure" in the sense it can be shared to millions of people without any further degradation of quality.

As the success of youtube.com shows, this degraded version is still good enough for most users. If I refuse to pay $30 for some hollywood blockbuster I might be willing to pay $.30 for a decent 2nd generation copy.

Let's assume that Vista's DRM architecture is more or less hack proof (a bogus assumption, IMO), it still remains vulnerable to illegal copies of 2nd generation degraded versions. I bet that a good computer setup in Thailand with top of the line monitors, speakers, sound proof room, and the best digitial camcorder could produce an excellent 2nd generation copy.

(It would be a neat research project to attempt to make the most awsome 2nd generation copy only using off the shelf components. Then publish the original along side the copy and let users know how opressive DRM really is, for no real progress in stopping piracy)

And most people in emerging economies will be perfectly happy with a pirated version of a movie that is hundreds of times cheaper than the full fledged high quality version.

DRM seems like an elaborate scheme that degrades computer performance for honest folks and makes all modern electronic devices more expensive and complicated. And for what? To protect pristine 1st generation copies. Leaving the problem of 2nd generation copies totally unaddressed.

The costs with DRM schemes don't seem worth it to me. Better to spend ones resources on legislative approaches to stop piracy.

So if you are a hollywood content producer remember this: If your movie can be shown to a human it can also be shown to a camcorder and thus a decent 2nd generation copy can be created. Once those 1's and 0' get recorded they will never degrade (and this stream of 1's and 0's will forever be DRM free). Pirates will still have a market. Perhaps DRM means they can't sell pirated copies for $3 (because the quality is less), but there will still be a market for the 2nd generation version for $0.30.

Fake aiplane accident

Letting go of Rand Part 7

(Me, discussing the comments posted to the aswome blog: http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com)

The quote displayed on this blog, "... I can't believe how profound I once thought objectivism was ..." expresses my view perfectly. I am no longer on a mission to save the world. My new mission is to save objectivists from their self imposed cult (hee hee hee) . I'm glad this blog and other like it are starting to appear. Ayn Rand had some great observations and its those ideas that ought to be remembered and encouraged. Given the current state of the world I am very optimistic about the future. All the bad trends that made me first attracted to objectivism have gone away. Those mainly were: Communism, Post Modernism and Political Correctness. These trends are gone and I see reason flowering all around me (due in large part to the Internet and men like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett). The objectivist leaders are boring and feeble by comparison. And constantly bitching about how doomed we are.

Letting go of Rand Part 6

Re: Robert Tracinski being attacked by fellow objectivists, because of his article series, "What Went Right"

It was this purge that convinced me the objectivist movement is broken somehow. He was the first semi-prominent objectivist to say something positive about the trends in the culture and then he gets purged. This is when I dumped objectivism completely from my life.

Thank god I didn't ruin my life by becoing a philosophy professor like the many peikoff drones seem to have done.

Letting go of Rand Part 5

Is anybody aware of the official Objectivist position on Daniel Dennet and his views on free will and consciousness. From my layman perspective he seems to make a lot of sense. He is 100% materialist. Yet makes a great case for the emergence of free will that is compatible with a deterministic universe. His view also allows for an indeterministic universe.

I'm curious to know if he is considered a thinker that is evil/dishonest/evader or somebody an Objectivists might consider honest and on the right track.

(Hmmm, is there any philospher around today that Objectivists can say good things about?)

update:
I found this review of Dennett's "Free Will Evolve". The review is by Eyal Mozes.

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--7 ... nnett.aspx

Letting go of Rand Part 4

"I've spent untold hours trying to convert the precise sounding CCD into a computer language for A.I. applications. I stared at her definition of CCD trying to extract every possible meaning. And really when you move beyond tables it leads nowhere. It doesn't even handle tables.

In the end it is profound sounding collection of words that can make the one think that words and concepts are now mathematically precise. But this really isn't the case. She just means "similarity" as this website points out."

Letting go of Rand Part 3

Jay said...

Ken,

What turned you off of Objectivism?

Jay,
It's related to the depth to which I treated Rand and the Objectivists as a religion. I know, i know this isn't what objectivism is supposed to be about. I gave Rand the ARI affiliated leaders a lot of undeserved genuis and greatness. So when I started seeing flaws in their ideas it resulted in a lot of anger. Of course none of these folks know who I am so its wrong to blame them for my choice of ideology.

I love computers and darwinism and materialism. I assumed Ayn Rand was a champion of materialism. But she isn't. Binswanger seems to secretly hate computers and cognitive research. So he slowly began to irritate me. I love the internet as a conduit through which a new era of rationality seems to be sweeping through our culture.

The book, "The World is Flat" captured the stuff I have been seeing myself for the last decade. And when Tracinski tried to express this he was promptly treated like shit. Well why should I idolize the ARI folks when one misstep will surely lead to my own rejection by my heros.

To hear binswanger call wikipedia, "The Encyclopedia of the Arbitrary" is a typical objectivist sneer at anything new. They bitch about everyone except themselves. Jimbo Wales is even sympathetic toward Ayn Rand. And binswanger treats his achievement like that?

In fact, have you ever seen Peikoff or Binwanger praise much of anyting in todays culture? Where is their hero worship of the good?

They hate academia, and perhaps 15 years ago they had good reason to. But now there aren't good reasons, except to rationalize to themselves why they haven't been intellectually productive for years.

There now exists thinkers that offer me a scientific and rational philosophy. So why does one need Objectivism today?

I care (about dumping on Rand) only because I invested 15 years of my life into the movement. I went to conferences, and contributed thousands of dollars to the ARI, cause I was a total fanboy. I don't regret it, only because I have matured in a way that I believe is healthy. And it was Second Renesaince books that recommended "The Blind Watchmaker" which led to years of study of darwinism, and eventually dennett, and others.

So Objectivisms isn't all bad. They encouraged me to be more interested in reading political and scientific material. Ones mind can get stale, especially with a rigid doctrine like rands. Sometimes you need to perform mental spring cleaning and that is what I am enjoying right now.

Letting go of Rand Part 2

As an Objectivist you need to have courage to have negative feelings toward Rand's ideas. Because, by Rand's whacked out logic, it means you hate reality, hate human greatness, and are a deeply flawed person.

It is actually the Objectivists that lack the courage express negative feelings about anything Rand said. How convenient for Rand.

As a newly minted ex-objectivist, I don't feel the slightest sense that courage is required to ridicule rand or her ideas. Lighting hasn't struck me. In fact, I am enjoying a nihilistic freedom to think on my own for the first time in many years. Notice my choice of words. "nihilistic" That's to scare objectivists.

Bzzzzt.. ###$$$$~~~~DISCONNECTED &&&&&&!!!###

crap....

lighting just fried my computer.

Letting go of Rand part 1

Dr. Peikoff,
Is Objectivism still relevant today? There seems to be rational thinkers all over the places on the internet. And there seems to be lots of thinkers who publish books with the layperson in mind (Dennet, Dawkins, Pinker, Hitchens). These intellectuals don't seem to be evil or "man haters", or "death worshipers". They really respect reality and want to know it. They champion the scientific method and diss the mystical elements of our culture (ESP, talking to the dead, religion, etc..)

So what does objectivism have to offer a young person that these non-objectivists don't already offer?

Funny puppet based hoff thing