Staticfree Blog

I think I'm starting to feel the pulse. The Internet is a vast web of information exchange. It's far too large, even if one could manage to monitor everything, to really get a high-level overview of all the new data that's added to the web. Almost.

On that web there are many nodes that will digest and summarize the information flowing around/through them. There are also nodes that look for patterns, and extract meaning: a news site that is regularly updated, a blogger's site which has interesting links and ideas posted on it. Let's call each of these nodes "neurons". These neurons act as sensors for their environment: a blogger who complains about the weather, a news station that reports on a local crime. If they could be monitored, say via a standard protocol, one get a high-level view of the union of all the neurons monitored.

These neurons are not isolated. In fact, most of them will monitor other neurons, other information feeds, other events and generate output based on their observations. These information feeds, connecting neuron to neuron, could be paralleled with the brain's inter-neuron connective structures: "dendrites". Dendrites function by passing signals from neuron to neuron, creating a network of information flow.

What's the point of this metaphor? Well, it's nowhere near the density of a human brain, but each person on the web functions as a neuron. Information flows through the Internet, regulated and filtered by each of these neurons. I've started adding RSS feeds to a centralized aggregator. I have this insatiable urge to keep adding more feeds, to become more tied in, and monitor more neurons. With what goal? Well, to find the Nodal Points, as another blogger called them. The interesting things being passed around; the things that "matter" to the Internet as a collective.

One type of these nodal points are the ever-popular memes. I often consider memes to be information viruses, but now I'm starting to think of them more as signals that happen to pass particularly well from neuron to neuron.

One such example of this is the site, Friendster. I was very amused to learn of its existence one day, chat about it on IRC that evening, be IM'd by two friends from RIT (within an hour of each other) the next day, and then participating in it, passing it on, the day after that.

The last step is to create a technical system for automatically digesting the feeds and sorting out the most relevant bits of information. Think of it as a Google page-ranking system for "real-time" data feeds. The more automated the system becomes, the larger it can scale and the more dendrites can form between the neurons.

What results from this ever-interlinking collective network of minds? That's a question on par with "What is the meaning of life?". The more I ponder the significance of the Internet the more I hope that the answer to both questions is the same.

"Somebody had to put all this Confusion here!"

I had found it before, but here is a Discordian Coloring book. It's remarkably well-illustrated, for such an eccentric thing. I only wish someone would publish it on cheap paper so I could discretely leave them in Dr.'s offices around the country. The thought of a little kid scribbling over an apple with ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΙ inscribed in it is just.. awesome. "Mommy, what's she doing to him?"

After poking away at a network client written in pure malloc'd C, I was remound of the most excellent and geeky song, "Write in C". (there seem to be some revised versions of it out there, mentioning Java instead of ).

In remembering that song, I recalled that I hadn't heard anyone sing it besides myself, acapella. I thought it's bound to exist in a recorded fashion somewhere out there in the vast and glorious Interweb. Well, look no further junior rangers! There's a whole flock of geeky songs in an old album by called Spammer's Paradise. You must check it out. MIDI + [bad] singing + awesome lyrics == geeky like nothing you've heard before.

I have a new home. Well, I've had it for awhile, but I'm actually living in it recently. Thanks to the nocturnal habits of my new cuddly friend, Brigitte, I've been spending more nights than I care to admit hanging out on the various couches of Java's.

In fact, with Brigitte comes another group of people to add to my collection: goth/metal John, Shelley, and Leighton. All are permanent residents of Java's and tend to be clad in black and metal pricklies. More often than not, a subset of them will be hanging out in Java's either hiding behind a glowing lap-warmer or curled up in a ball in a corner, rejuvenating.

I've shyly been flirting with MovableType as a possible replacement for my hand-coded blog engine. As much as I like the concepts behind my engine, there are aspects of the implementation that I don't have finished or don't desire to finish. Parsing user comments for HTML, for one, is something I'd rather not have to code. In addition, the constant re-parsing of the XML is slow (yes, I'll change it so it generates static pages soon enough) and prone to corruption with a malicious text editor.

My younger sibling, David, already has his blog up using the MT engine I installed. It's a good piece of software, but unfortunately not open source. I may leave philosophy behind on this one though, as it's still free to use (for non-commercial use) and modify, just not free to distribute modifications. The bling may overcome the licensing.

You know computers are running too much of your life when you accidentally sleep-in and skip class due to a programming error. You also know that you program too much when you can diagnose that error, fix it, check it into CVS, and then can fall back asleep. Finally, you know you're a 'net junkie when you are amused by that chain of events and then blog it, knowing the blog will be syndicated to at least 3 other websites.

Oh, and you can get the updated versions of the code here: classalarm. Other necessities for it can be found here: scripts.

I was just given a link to Tugboat - music done by my friend Jesse from middleschool. He and I would often hang out, making fun of the computer network admin and generally being geeky boys. *reminisce* Check out Tugboat, it's videogameish music done Right™. He even goes as far as to make sure the polyphony was done in the way classic system would do it. Awesome.