News from the Western Front

Half a virtual mousebrain has been run on BlueGene L. - BBC News
IBM has made 3D memory techniques feasible for factory production of 45nm chips with a 3D layout, for example as processor-on-processor or memory-on-processor matrices. BlueGene L is ready to soar. Best case scenario: Moores Law in 3D.

Once you have such a new dynamic to play with, a cats brain can run simulated and develop new strategies for problem solving. There will be a whole new set of predatory and possibly semi-sentient analytical tools available. Probably a bit like having a USB-plug calling for a beefed up Medulla oblongata.

Continued

AI software, or semi-intelligent multiagent software is of course quite common. Community web-sites and the whole idea of www2 implies interconnection. The typical multiplayer gameworld also rely heavily upon adaptive foes and physics simulation.

This theme will come into coherent form soon enough, when I get an insight into what an agent actually is. Compared to real life: name, adress, abilities, tools, means of communication, avoidance of sub-looped agents communication only with themselves and never reaching out. What seems to lack is real learning and extreme bandwith. We have yet to come into an age that makes use of AI compilers, error handling and tolerance. A bit to go in other words.

Notice this breadcrumb here.

Oslo

There is a company called Oslo Software. The legal note on their pages prohibit anyone from linking to their site without their prior express authorization. They also refuse any liability if they themselves link to other sites present on the Internet.

This is a company that developes multi agent systems, or adaptive business solutions to be more precise. One should think they saw the use of interconnection.

They have the name of my capital, so I dare mention them without infringing any copyright acts that I can possibly know about - which often is the norm in copyright infringement.

Notice the link in the lower left corner.

Golden Shield AI

Today, China is in the focus. Regarding what I wrote yesterday on AI, the actual use as of today of software agents is larger than I would think. One such example is the MAGE - Multi-Agent Environment. Datamining systems built through the MAGE methology and GUI software tools have amongst other things helped in the "analysis of VIP (very important person) for telecom corporation".

MAGE has facilities to support agent mental state representation, reasoning, negotiation, planning, cooperation and communication.

Want to know more? There is an IEEE organisation by the name of The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents, or FIPA for short, founded as far back as 1996. The MAGE Agent platform is connected to the agentcities network services.

The ultimate aim is to enable the dynamic, intelligent and autonomous composition of services to achieve user and business goals, thereby creating compound services to address changing needs. - MAGE

Of course, going to agentcities.net, you see a stark warning as to the health hazard of the web-resource. No wonder, since it seems to have gone down in 2004 and overtaken by opennet. That too seems to be dead. Must find out more.

Near-term science fiction

I am a science fiction buff. I admit. It is probably time to go into rehabilitation. That aside, what is fascinating for me is often the missing links between what can be and what is. In the void often being huge, some manage to portray a convincing picture of what comes over the top of todays scientific reaches. Then again, what's in it for me? I mean, in what way do I even want to participate or reject? The future becomes such an impersonal proposition. So, let me be impersonal on this subject alone.

We are the first generation of users of internet and the last not to have had it when born. It is still possible to imagine with some conviction how it is to live comfortable without electricity. Even without a single written word. Without memories, no. It is so uncool not to at least being able to act on more than instinct. Try being hungry for five days, that will help you remember that particular frame of mind. It is also quite painful to carry needless traumas around, not being able to edit out something.

So the a start must be a complete logging of ones life with a damned good search interface to it. This is already being done by a Microsoft research project, MyLifeBits. Such a pity they don't know to get it on net, available to public tryout. It is not too soon, even if their software probably is full of faults or not. The public has been ready for it a long time. Witness all blogs, even like this one just raving on. There are amazing possibilities and a whole new set of social models for interaction. It adds new meaning to the feeling of control and choice. The danger is of course of forgetting even your instincts. A good model for total capture must be open to control.

I would like to have wetware with agent nanoware - pattern recognition, semiotic indexing, autonomy help agent, deep grammar bablefish, game-theory engine and so forth. Layer upon layer of reality managed by a complete AI. A genuine von Neumann article of subversive handicraft. Money will have no value, reputation rating will.
This whole package is hard to come by in any affordable or even realistic manner today. Software agents are being developed though, e.g. by the CTU Department of Cybernetics. Nanotechnology is advancing to a new level, so wetware is conceivable. Computational power is in high demand - the estimated need for running a medium density weather system is about 1 petaFLOPS sustained.

IBM have gone hard down on the supercomputer market with their quad-core POWER4 chip, optimized for high throughput multitasking and scalability. A supercomputer running at 7000 megaFLOPS is as affordable today as 1000 was just a couple of years ago and substantially smaller. Blue Gene L was the most powerful supercomputer at the end of 2006 with a staggering 280 teraFLOPS sustained. It consists of 131.072 POWER3-II processors. My computer does around 1500 megaFLOPS. I don't even know if those sizes are comparable. Mine fits under the desk though. Having a petaFLOPS machine attached to your skull is still way off.

What you can do in the meantime is to glue a camera to your glasses, a microfone on your breast, a wrist watch monitoring vital signs and at least record your life from just outside your skull.

etternavn.no

Det er noen som har skodd seg på frigjøringen av domenenavn under rot .no for utlodning fra Post- og teletilsynet. Det er flere som har lagt merke til dette på en mer personlig måte enn å høre at det og det domenenavnet har blitt kjøpt for så så mange hundre tusen, eller endog millioner. Jeg fant ut litt om hvilket spill noen ønsker å spille.

navn.no tilhører invest-IT AS, med mannen Dag Øyvind Rolfsen bak, ser det ut til i offisielle opplysninger. Det blir vanskelig å gjøre en beskrivelse av hva jeg syns om det så kalte "kuppet" - å sikre seg 1500 domenenavn på dot no. Vi var bare litt tidlig ute, sier styreleder i Registrar AS.

Først satser en på næringskode 64230 operatørvirksomhet på internett, gjennom firmaet Nettopp. Porteføljeinvesteringer ved Invest-it AS og deretter oppretter en Registrar AS som er registrert registrar i Norid.

Så legger en krav på en del domenenavn - f.eks. navn.no, oppretter etternavnforening-## med sitt helt eget organisasjonsnummer med næringskode 770 - Private konsumentorienterte organisasjoner uten profittformål. Foreningen har postadresse Invest-IT AS. Invest-AS er styremedlem og Registrar AS er underleverandør. For å bli medlem må en betale til Registrar AS for utgifter til NORID bl.a. Det er et krav om å holde domenet ved Registrar, ved manglende betaling tilfaller domenet styreformannen i navneforeningen.

Hvis etternavnforening slik og slik ikke har formål om profitt, hva slags formål har da egentlig denne foreningen? Å være en juridisk person, intet annet. Røøøøtent.

Trolig derfor

Det ser ut til at et "uformelt utenriksministermøte i NATO" er bakgrunnen for at den amerikanske ambassade har hatt så mye politi rundt seg den siste uken. Det kalles midlertidige sperringer ved transport. Politiet har fått 42 millioner for å gjennomføre sikkerhetstiltak for å sikre et viktig møte. En av sakene på agendaen er at USA gjerne vil plassere ut et rakettskjold i tidligere østblokkland for å sikre mot angrep fra Iran.

En ganske kinkig sak, men jeg tror neppe politiet eller noen andre involvert i sikkerhetsopplegget tenker så mye på den politiske dynamikken som er i gang. De skal holde oversikten over kjente trusler, oppdage nye og sikre vernet rundt besøkende sjakkbrikker. En vil ikke legge så mye merke til det, med mindre man oppsøker disse områdene.

For eksempel ved å besøke Kazakhstan, hvor det også er et artig politisk spill blant stormaktene på gang. Med sine enorme oljefelt som tiltrekker oppmerksomhet fra svært store spillere, finnes det der også nedrustningsprosjekter under overvåkning av USA, verdens største kosmodrom Baikonur og masse forskere til overs fra det tidligere Sovjet. Et problem er deres diktator Nursultat Nazarbayev og hans klasse. Landets utenrikspolitikk sies å være multidimensjonell.

Om Kazakhstan sender noen observatør eller ikke vet jeg ikke, og ikke er det så nøye. Landet er bare et eksempel fra sjakkverdenen. Det eruansett ubehagelig å gå i byen med så mye styr rundt om - disse sikkerhetstiltakene som later som de bare ser på været. Neida, det er ikke noe farlig, vi er bevæpnet for å skyte syke duer.

Kibbutzing

A quarter of the tourism to Israel is made up by evangelical Americans. The kibbutzes have had to made the inevitable transition to privatisation. - BBC World 17:42 GMT +1

So, rather than the kibbutzes being maintained as an utopian oasis where all food, healthcare entertainment is catered for by the workers themselves and discussion being free - kibbutzes run day-care centers, produces military grade saftety products, rent out convention centre and accomodation for bible schools. Echa!

I was just thinking it would be nice to travel the world, contribute to strengthen what parts of a society which are actually worth keeping. Working on a kibbutz in the sunshine, having discussions that broaden the horizon. It is a thought frought with dilemmas. Much like Holidays in the Axis of Evil. It could be called Holidays of a Socialist. Standing crooked but proud under a basket of harvested grapes, having a soar throath from all the chit-chat, infiltrating bible schools. Getting the state of Israel back on a collective effort to do some good and be peaceful.

There is nothing more secure than a totalitarian society, unless you are a dissident. There is nothing more unsettling than a totally transparent society, especially if you are a dissident. Every dissident strives to make his surroundings change through not being part of a common view. Having an own virtual national state that is excempt from the power of any factual national state must be good. A bit vain, but still a means to an end. The national state is a silly thing when it is not respected for its moral imperative. Equally it has outplayed its role if it imposes nothing but local jurisdiction of a universal moral, however minimalistic that might be. At some point the national state becomes redundant.

Give the land back to those who need it. Eat, relax a bit dude, talk to people about how to solve those problems that are becoming too large to by physical aggression. When a bomb goes off in a crowded market in Baghdad, it is pretty hard to comprehend the world. Yet another day in the Iraq War, yet another Lebanon, yet another Gaza. Sunni and Shia Muslims lies on either side of the visible carnage, while a trapped US army can do no sensible action in the clear. Diplomacy in the hidden, mass recruitment of language students to the army intelligence service, financial intelligence being a new publicized branch of counter-terrorism. Come on! It is senseless.

Words of the day: proliferation finance activities

USD all-time low. Prediction of 2,5 USD to one GPB. Not necessarily a promising sign in the short term. It is too early to hope for a collapse of evangelical capitalism.

Kinesisk ordspråk?

Den som er i villrede hva angår kjærlighet vil også være i villrede i livet.
Det begynte slik, på Disney Channel. Det og kinesiske ordtak. Etter et minutt eller to ble det ikke lenger så veldig fengende lenger. Ordtak derimot, ser ut til å si en hel del. Om hva ble jeg mer og mer forvirret over, for et par nettsteder eller to er fullstendig utroverdige. Her er noen små utdrag fra nummer to på goglingen etter noe med "chinese proverb":

Creative Proverbs search results
# Love is sometimes difficult but death even more so. - Albania. Source NA
# Fate loves a rebel. Arabian Proverb ( - ) denotes a proverb from a 'culture' (or ethnic group) within a country or that spans several countries. Source NA
# The child who loves freedom is the first victim of it. Bambara Proverb ( - ) denotes a proverb from a 'culture' (or ethnic group) within a country or that spans several countries. Source NA

Nettreffet er mildt sagt skuffende. Alle kildehenvisninger bringer en videre til ikke-eksisterende kilder og et nytt nettsted. Et klikk vil sende informasjon om din deg til et litt småtvilsomt utvalg annonsører som kan eller kan ikke være reelle. Innholdet holder bare ikke. Bemorecreative.com my ass. Baertracks. Ikke for at jeg vil nedvurdere arbeidet den gode lege har gjort, for det er ikke lite. Ser ut som en bra mann. Uansett. I mellomtiden har jeg lært at det var meglinger mellom Cameroon og Nigeria i 1996, at det kan sås tvil om enkelte undersøkelser omkring AIDS i Sør-Afrika.

Ordtak er mye enklere å forholde seg til. Derfor går jeg heller til wikiquote.org.
# If the wind comes from an empty cave, it's not without a reason (empty+cave+come+wind+not+surely+not+cause)
# a person needs a face; a tree needs bark
# If you have money you can make the devil push your grind stone

Nå har jeg også lært at det å oversette kinesisk må bli litt enklere hvis man snakker som Yoda i Star Wars. Det siste ordtaket må dog bli albansk, et troverdig, albansk ordtak.
# Vure vezën more pulën - hvis du legger et egg får du en kylling

Det virker som det har vært mangel på mat i Albania over lengre tid. Muligens bare øyet som ser.

USAs ambassade

For andre dag på rad har politiet kommet kjørende med sine kommandobiler og sperret Drammensveien. Det har vært et oppbud uten like begge dager av politi i fullt terrorutstyr, hunder, hester, lastebiler med digre stålnett foran og komplett kaos foran ambassaden. Likevel finner jeg ingenting i noen som helst nyhetskanaler, på politiets nettsider eller ved søk. Jeg ville trodd at så mye brudulje har en eller annen tilforlaterlig årsak, men hva det dreier seg om har jeg ikke fått svar på.

Det er statsbesøk fra Østerrike i Oslo om dagen, men hvis disse tingene har sammenheng, hvorfor blir det ikke nevnt noe sted?

Stirling meets von Neumann

As physics processor units (PPU) come of age, new possibilities and old trends reemerge. The single goal of the computer industry have so far been in making the most powerful central processing unit (CPU). A need to have a sensibly fast graphics processing unit (GPU) has become more pronounced. The need of the gamers, as one call those stretching the power of accessible computing power, is always a bit beyond the limit.

As Microsoft and Apple fought it out to hold a monopoly on rules of engagement, hackers, nerds of all ages, dolts and your every-day joe hunted for cool games. Before the rigid frame of Windows, you could well do just everything with a PC. It is no effort to put in a disk, hit power, and just play a game. The greatest reward in a game is in the confirmation of the self, doing away with doubt. I am good at this, I did manage to overcome that challenge and so forth. Incidentally, that is just what science is about as well - to test hypotheses and theories to model an objective reality. Never mind the discussion on objectivity.

The movie industry and science has gone a long way to serve believable renditions of reality. Now, both the scientists at CERN and the average gamer wants more, much more. The home computer has become prolific, mandatory and relatively cheap. Everything delivered in one package. Not good enough, as the ever increasing computational power also means an accelerating cycle of development possibilities. You buy a graphic card today and in one year it is the stoneage compared to the edge of development.

Now comes the AGEIA PhysX, the first PPU on the consumer market. About effin time. At last a new avenue of development. The separation of the PPU is like a news strip cartoon gets its own magazine. It is the first meeting of theoretical physics and modelling, if but a scant one. Marketed right, becoming "necessary" enough, a lot of research is going to go into getting faster and more powerful PPUs. Reality will be more recognizable on a screen near you.

What I want is something I can have for a long time and which I in a real way can upgrade and expand. I want to be able to feed my computer with more raw power. I want it to become sentient. I want it to become just as full of personality as a beautiful car. It is a thing, not a being, but it can still be intelligent, in a way. It will know how to handle my demands, to organise and present a coherent reality.

Inflation

Bradesco has found that while Brasil during the last 45 years has had an inflation of around 14.210.480.006.034.800 percent, compared to Norways 916 percent. Pretty impressive, but hey, going through a military dictatorship accounts for something.

The currency history of Brasil is pretty impressive. Of course, exchanging a million Cruzeiro to get one Cruzeiro Real, and then multiplying that 2.750 times to get the current Real is kind of bitter. The inflation number is so ridiculously high, partly due to numerous trasitions to new currencies and locked to the USD and then freed to normal exchange rate. Overnight an imported product became twice as expensive.

Thannkfully Brasil is an immense country, who can swallow a whole lot of pain before it collapses. Natural resources abound, it is theoretically self sustained. The land of the future and all that. It has had a damned hard time reducing its traumatized relationship with different more or less subtle colonial demands. Invaded by Dutch navy or American big corporations, first and foremost its natural resources has been the target. Brasil is bred with foreign influence to an extent few others have come out of alive. Independent since 1822, and long before that restless.

Of course you must apply some tricks throughout the time to distribute real values where they are wanted. That also include slush funds, and lots of them. If all you have is your manual labour, you are not far from being a slave. My impression is that the great academic class in Brasil has learnt a whole deal from living through a military dictatorship. But certainly, it must do something to you if you are used to imminent threaths of betrayal and bodily harm. I may be harsh, and I overdo it, but the inflation rate quoted does not say much about the real value in a persons life. If you own the means to make exchanges of goods or ideas, you will manage through any hardship that is not aimed at you personally. It would be a different thing altogether if the redistribution of real value was specifically meant to hurt you or your social frame. So you watch your ideas or your sugar plantation. Each can be a threat or a weapon.

There is nothing useful in thinking Brasilians victims or anything of the sort. They are handling life and there are great ideas abounding. It's just the little detail of actually getting it done. It is even one of the more environmentally conscious countries in the world. A great deal of the cars run on methanol and recycling projects exist on a grand scale. Oh, I know forest is being chopped, crime is rising and corruption exist. That is part of a difficult game of capitalism meets feudal society. Many scary monsters in that closet.

On another note, Mono has been away for one and a half day. I was getting worried, little cat alone. He came trotting happy and content. Time to trust him. He's an almost adult cat now.

Umulighetens pris

Ingenting du kan forestille deg er umulig. Ingen fantasi du måtte ha er uvirkelig. Hva som er virkelig er nettopp din forestillng, dine fantasier, en vei å foreta de neste valgene på. Forestillingen står i forbindelse med virkeligheten som et uffravikelig prinsipp.

En kan streve eller leke seg så mye en vil gjennom livet. Er det av valg? Å ja, av alle typer, i alle sine former, på alle skalaer, i alle dimensjoner. Dog ikke sammenlignbare. Jeg lurer på om det er en eller annen sånn statistikkgreie. Det gjør det i hvertfall ikke lettere. Livet, mener jeg. Det å være. Å handle, å velge, å miste all kontroll og måtte la din omverden velge hvor du blir bragt.

Det å tro at en kan kontrollere alt og at alt samtidig har en mening... Det blir plutselig et uendelig antall faktorer, krefter og interaksjoner å ta i betraktning. Like mye kan en si at det finnes en uendelig kompleksitet i det å si hva uskyld er. Noen ganger er det rett og slett enklere å handle etter regler som er satt for et visst sett av formål. Gjerne litt egennytte hvis det betyr at et sett av regler i seg selv er en oppfatning av hvem loven er ment å belønne.

Troverdighet utfordrer min lille voffehjerne. Hva snakker jeg om? Snakker jeg om meg selv? Noen ganger er det pokker ikke lett å skille mellom det som gir mening og det som oppstår av det tomme intet. Det er ikke slik at en må lete seg i hjel for å finne snåle ting som antas å være sanne. En blir stadig stilt overfor de mikroskopiske valgene, blåst til stor skala på en TV-skjerm eller utspilt i et tilfeldig møte. Sånn sett er et liv ikke veldig ulikt kvantemekanikernes vanvittig rørete kaos av fullstendig orden. I noen grad er jeg uskyldig, i noen grad skyldig. Men i hva pokker da, når det til syvende og sist er høyst usikkert hva som er hva.

Javel, men er ikke det utrolig uinteressant å dvele ved? Mer og mer finner jeg ut at det overhodet ikke er snakk om å definere hverken det ene eller andre. Det eksisterer noe enkelt, må jeg tro. Jeg tror det på den måten at jeg vet. Den måten å tro på. En uforklarelig kompleksitet som virker ganske enkel. Det var uansett ikke det jeg hadde lyst til å snakke om, eller ikke. Det spiller ingen rolle, det faller ned. Det gjør det i det minste enklere for meg å forestille meg hva jeg mener.

Det motsatte syn er at det ikke finnes noen valg. Det er ikke engang motsatt, det er bare selvsagt. Det blir drøyt å si at jeg valgte meg skyfri himmel over Oslo i dag. Tross alt.