Tensorflow ImportError When Using Screen

When trying to use Tensorflow in a remote setting using screen, I ran into the following error:

ImportError: libcublas.so.8.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I forget where I found the fix, but the issue had to do with how screen preserves the environment variables of the system (It doesn't). Here's the fix:

screen env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH bash

This opens a new screen instance running bash with the appropriate shared libraries.

Tweaking Keyboard from the Command Line

I love swapping my CAPS and CTRL keys, and I never found the tweak tool solution to be very elegant. I found this quick solution, which didn't require me to install anything. I've included it below for reference. Great fix!

Open the following for editing:
sudo nano /etc/default/keyboard

And edit
XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:swapcaps"

Then, reconfigure:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

And just go through the prompts as they are.

For more options you can change, check here.

Gentoo Commands

Below is a list of commands that I found I was often using during setup of the Gentoo Linux distro with brief descriptions of what they do. I will not always explain all the flags nor will the commands be in their most generic form. However, I will link to the full help files where appropriate. This list is largely for me, but I thought that the community might also find it helpful.

The backslash is used to indicate a multiline command as per Linux syntax.

Basic but useful for editing text without linewraps:
nano -w <file>

Obvious ping syntax for 3 calls.
ping -c 3 <website>

Checking out networks and taking them up/down
ifconfig <wifi name> [up/down]

Remove a package (lots of other emerge hints here).
emerge -aC <package>

Check status of package: R is it exists. U is update. N means new.
emerge -p <package>

Update system with new USE flags:
emerge --update --deep --newuse @world

Remove obsolete dependencies (good to check with -p flag first):
emerge --depclean

Reverse check dependencies:
revdep-rebuild

This is also good (and more powerful) for package status as described here.
equery --quiet l <package>

List of USE flags for package.
equery uses <package>

Start up wpa_supplicant in the background based on .conf file
wpa_supplicant -B -i<wifi name> \
-c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Basic .conf file should read:
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
network={
    ssid="<SSID>"
    psk="<passkey>"
}

But make sure that dhcpcd is up:
dhcpcd

Alternative wifi setup with dhclient and NetworkManager (nmcli website):
systemctl start NetworkManager
nmcli dev wifi connect <ssid> password <password>

A set of <type> actions (first is enable at boot):
systemctl enable <service>
systemctl stop <service>
systemctl start <service>
systemctl restart <service>
systemctl reload <service>
systemctl status <service>
systemctl disable <service>
systemctl is-active <service>
systemctl list-units --type service --all

Where the main types I'm interested in are devices, mounts, paths, and services. The rest are listed here.

Quick kernel update of the available sources.
genkernel --no-clean --menuconfig all

Useful folders and files:

USE, VIDEO_CARDS, DEVICE_INPUTS, etc.
/etc/portage/make.conf

Name of computer.
/etc/hostname

Grub file for boot parameters
/etc/default/grub

Steam on Gentoo

Following my last post where I set up the Gentoo kernel on my laptop, one of the next things to do was get the Steam client running on the system. I used this wiki page for the base setup and followed the manual approach after failing an attempt to use overlays (USE flag chaos ensued and I just restarted). Honestly, I thought the overlay was going to save me from having to copy over the dependency lists and it did not.

To save you, my fellow reader, from having to deal with that nonsense, I have added both updated files to my website. If you cd to each of the desired locations then call wget, you will scoop those files for free. The full code is:

mkdir /etc/portage/sets/
cd /etc/portage/sets/
wget http://www.theworldmatrix.ca/steam_set -O steam

cd /etc/portage/package.use/
wget http://www.theworldmatrix.ca/steam

I did both of these before emerge'ing using this call:

emerge -a @steam

Then update check:

emerge -a --changed-use --deep @world

Fetch the steam installer while logged into a user rather than root and then open it (this way it goes into /home I believe; keep in mind that the \ is a line continuation mark):

wget http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/ \
archive/precise/steam_latest.tar.gz
tar -xvzpf steam_latest.tar.gz

Now, when I followed the instructions from here I got all kinds of weird errors that varied depending on whether I was in root or in a user account. The first one had to do with the other tar file that was downloaded (bootstraplinux_ubuntu12_32.tar.xz). I fixed this by running make install from root in the steam directory. The user account then started to get errors stemming from /share/Steam/steam.sh (e.g., VERSION_ID: unbound variable) while the root account first complained about xterm (I updated the portage files that you downloaded to accommodate this change), then complained about a missing $DISPLAY variable. After scouring the docs, I realized that there seemed to be a conflict when xterm tried to boot the Xorg display server. So, knowing that Gnome booted the display server, I booted up Gnome and tried to run the steam code in an xterm window. It worked! The final command from within the steam folder in your home directory is:

./steam

And that is it. Enjoy!

A New Linux Distro for 2016 (Compiling...)

I'm getting back into more technical projects than the many research topics I have been working on of late and I am going to turn this blog into a publishing ground for these projects. A streamlined version of what is here will probably end up on my Github for those who are interested.

The first project is to do another Linux setup with one of the more complicated distros: Gentoo. I had machines running earlier versions of Ubuntu (over 5 years ago) and CrunchBang (2 years ago). In what follows, I will discuss some of the challenges I ran into during the initial installation. Subsequent posts will discuss other details.

System Specs:

Acer V3-571-6447 (refurbished)

Intel Core i3-2328M

Intel HD Graphics 3000

Atheros 9k Wifi Card

I mainly followed the handbook for amd64. If you are using something else, the approach might be different.

Using Gentoo amd64 minimal installation CD (date stamped 2016-02-18).

I burned it to a DVD ROM rather than a CD. No problem.

Challenge 1: UEFI

The system was set up with native Windows 8 support so you can't boot to the UEFI menu from startup. I found out how to get there from this site.

Following these instructions, I then turned off UEFI, rebooted, hit F2 for bios, and then swapped the boot order so the disc drive was highest priority.
Easy enough.

Challenge 2: Wifi Setup

Setup for Atheros 9k Card driver went well (modprobe ath9k).

My network was running WPA encryption so I had to switch to WEP-ASCII in order to get the network working properly. I intend to switch it back once I have the system up.
ifconfig gave me the network names and net-setup <wifi name> provided the initial setup with dhcpcd <wifi name> providing the means to get the network off the ground (i.e., successful ping of google.com).

Challenge 3: Wifi Hell
After I booted into the new kernel, I found that I didn't have access to iwconfig, so I had to boot back into the livecd and emerge --ask net-wireless/wireless-tools. My suggestion is that you do this before this point.

After that was fixed, I couldn't seem to get the wifi up. But ,there seems to be an extremely strict order to the setup. First you modprobe ath9k then you take down the network with ifconfig <wifi name> down. The next step is to set the ESSID and key with iwconfig as follows:
iwconfig <wifi name> essid "<name of network>"
iwconfig <wifi name> key s:"<ASCII-password>"
After that, ifconfig <wifi name> up has to be called before dhcpcd <wifi name> is called. That got the wifi up and running for me when no other combination or order could.

Challenge 4: Adding wpa_supplicant
This was surprisingly easy. Just follow the instructions here. Honestly, I would suggest emerging this to the new kernel from the livecd rather than dealing with iwconfig.

Note: you have to /etc/init.d/dhcpcd restart before trying to run anything. A fresh reboot always works, too.

(as one line)
wpa_supplicant -B -i<wifi name> 
-c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
is also a good command to get things rolling.

Challenge 5: Xorg
Turns out you can modify the kernel directly from within the kernel easily enough as shown here. I followed instructions for Xorg's kernel setup from here. I also built-in synaptic's touchpad source files as follows:

Device Drivers --->
  I2C support --->
    -*- I2C support
  Input device support --->
    Mice --->
      <*> Synaptics I2C Touchpad support
      <*> Synaptics USB device support

Challenge 6: systemd Nightmare
I got it up and running but I am not even confident what I did. I used these three websites (1, 2, 3).

Steps that I am confident happened:

Update USE:
nano -w /etc/portage/make.conf
add systemd dbus -consolekit to USE=

Using genkernel-next:
emerge -aC sys-kernel/genkernel
emerge -a sys-kernel/genkernel-next

To begin source set and installation (I did not use lvm or udev for initramfs though both sources were available in the kernel):
genkernel --menuconfig --install all

This source parameter was set:
Gentoo Linux --->
  Support for init systems, system and service managers --->
    [*] systemd

Symlink for mtab:
ln -sf /proc/self/mounts /etc/mtab

Install systemd (I tried setting the USE before installing and it failed):
emerge -av systemd

Updated the system:
emerge -avuND @world

Update grub (real_init worked in the final attempt... did not care to try if init would work):
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="real_init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd"

And rebooted.

Challenge 7: NetworkManager
Had to recompile the source for a couple options listed here. In emerge'd dhclient first then set dhclient and networkmanager into the USE of make.conf. Then I emerge'd networkmanager.
emerge -a net-misc/dhcp
emerge -a net-misc/networkmanager

I then shut off dhcpcd with:
/etc/init.d/dhcpcd stop

Then booted up NetworkManager through systemd:
systemctl start NetworkManager

This initialized the network but it needed to be connected. I looked up dhclient and found the command line call here.
nmcli dev wifi connect <ssid> password <password>

This got me up and running. But, as a final cleanup I removed dhcpcd and enabled NetworkManager on boot.
emerge -cav dhcpcd
systemctl enable NetworkManager

Challenge 8: Gnome
I just followed the instructions for gnome-base/gnome-light, which can be found here.

Ingress: Part Game | Part Reality

Pseudo-Abstract:

A new Google game, Ingress, is discussed along with some of its implications for the narrowing divide between various domains of human experience.

Key Links:

Rachel Metz's post on Ingress.

A recent post by Rachel Metz of MIT Technology Review discusses a fascinating new Google app: Ingress. Ingress puts the player in an epic battle for a newly discovered resource, exotic matter, which is distributed throughout the world. Naturally, the nodes that spill this matter into the world, key tactical positions for either team in the game, are conveniently placed on landmarks and other useful locations. Thus, by playing the game, people flood Google with an endless wealth of location-based information. Genius.

By integrating game and application, Google successfully takes an excellent step into the realm of augmented reality. As I have mentioned previously (1, 2), this domain is ripe for exploration and Ingress is certainly at the forefront of this work.

What is central to this exploration is a fusion in the divide between domains we normally consider separate like game and application. This fusion is possible because the divide, though once very real, is becoming increasingly illusory. The human-machine distinction is becoming all but absurd. 'Real life' is so artificial that most people 'play' themselves while living in fictional realities that they find more meaningful. The result is a convergence of sorts towards something like a singularity: a world in which humanity 'plays' the game of life, the good and the bad, purely for the sake of enjoyment and the base needs of all are met merely as a byproduct of this game.

Pictures courtesy of:

http://www.t3.com/news/google-ingress-app-uses-augmented-reality

http://www.district78.com/tag/game-on/

The Battle of OSes: Valve vs Windows (Round 1)

Pseudo-Abstract:

The post discusses the changing technological landscape. Using a fake claim that Half-Life 3 will be exclusive to Linux as a leaping point, it seeks to imagine what the industry might look like in the not so distant future.

Key Links:

Any recent post describing Gabe Newell's critique of Windows 8.

Some time ago I read a post in which Gabe Newell, director of Valve (Half-Life 2, Portal, Left 4 Dead), scathingly stated:

I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.

And, this got me thinking... With the current changing digital market, the technological world may be on the threshold of a radical differentiation. Hardware is becoming increasingly cheap to make and thereby offers new frontiers of exploration (see my previous post, this post [overview], and this post [example]). Portable devices (e.g., smartphones) are ever increasing their power and potential, thereby radically displacing various markets. Google has exploded into the portable device scene (e.g., Nexus 7), is setting the stage for new technologies (e.g., Google Glasses), and may even break into the OS market. Microsoft is shifting its emphasis to portable devices with Windows 8 and following in Mac's footsteps with the 'Windows Store.' In a nutshell, the world is bound for a big collision as these monster companies begin to tread on each other's domains.

When I saw a post that suggested Half-Life 3 might only be released for Linux, I jumped entirely on the bandwagon. It turns out that the post is a fake, but it did inspire some additional thoughts.

If one were to imagine the future tech scene, one might see something like the following:

Casual users will slowly migrate entirely to portable devices as the current problem of peripherals (e.g., keyboard, mouse) and screen size basically disappear (see Google Glasses and Leap). Businesses will transition to integrated peripherals (i.e., scaled up versions of the portable tech) with cloud based operating systems offering both a distributed and centralized solution. The only remaining market for the nostalgic personal computer the world has come to know and love will be power users and tech junkies. Capitalizing upon ever newer and more powerful open source and underground hardwares, these folks will emerge from the overclocking scenes. They will remain with the tried and true PC simply because it can push more, harder, and for cheaper than any portable device.

What this story illustrates is an inevitable 'heightening' of an already present divide in the digital community between the 'casual' and the 'knowledgeable'--those that breathe tech being immersed in it; and, those through which the tech breathes being indifferentiable from it. That is, in the future, tech will be so central to the world as it functions (see my previous post and Kevin Slavin's TED Talk) that one's proximity in their understanding produces a difference in socio-cultural kind. And, this should play out in the gaming industry.

In the context of games, a move like Half-Life 3's exclusive distribution on Linux will make sense. The mainstream power gaming industry will have vanished with the transition to portable tech, and Windows/Mac will be all but non-existent. Their continued perpetuation in PCs will be propagated by the few remaining stragglers operating outmoded technologies (i.e., those who are still using Windows XP/Power PC or earlier, today, without explicit justification).  Linux will be the only thing that makes sense on the hardware monstrosities that persist at such a time. And, it will hold the entire share of the remaining 'gamers,' a species that is rapidly disappearing in the mobile/casual gaming of the contemporary scene (1, 2, 3, 4).

Images courtesy of:
http://www.kosovo.net/kosbitka.html
http://www.technologytell.com/gadgets/43948/intel-shows-off-minority-report-like-glass-touch-screen-at-ces/
http://shelf3d.com/Search/Uploaded%20by%20Sidekicks912

A Reply to Lewitzky

Pseudo-Abstract:

The work uses Jozef Lewitzky's clever comments as a leaping point to engage with the in between spaces suggested by the previous work on the problem of free will in a machinic world. It is suggested that network-centrism is not a deified human-centrism but, rather, a foreign territory with a full gamut of its own complexities. And, these complexities are largely incommensurable with current human perspectives.

Important Links:

The original work, which contains Lewitzky's comment.

I would like to start by saying that Jozef Lewitzky's comment to Deepening the Narcissistic Wound is an excellent series of thoughts in its own right. I will address each in turn.

Disregarding the Individual:

Lewitzky's observation that emerging network-centric intelligences necessitate the deconstruction of humanity, individualism, and intelligence is a case in point. Yet, one must question whether or not these intelligences are in fact "higher." It seems, rather, more suitable to argue that these intelligences are just 'different.' And, that this difference is unsuitable for the human-centric mentalities of the passing era.

Progress to Obsolescence:

There are many layers to Lewitzky's point here. First, the "I" is an elegant indication of the past age. And, though "I" am all for its annihilation (a contradiction in itself), this annihilation can only ever be partial. Much as the child decentrates from their personal, concrete perspective on the world to the logico-mathematical frame of abstractions, the new perspective never fully disregards the old. And, in various contexts, the child may return to this prior age in order to better frame a new problem. Similarly, the "I" is here to stay. Yet, the containers of that "I" must learn that it is not the only way and it is not even the best way in certain contexts of being. Though "I" will always be "I," the inability to imagine a world without "I" can only lead to a permanent ignorance of the new era.

On augmentation, humanity has already succeeded and continues to do so. The degree to which the flesh has become such a pervasive obsession seems to indicate the degree of this success: the body cannot be a fetish to those that necessitate it for subsistence. Like water to a fish, as 'they' say. The argument is that this fetishism is not necessary for persistence. Rather, the body will last as long as it is necessary with or without the over-attachment that is rampant today. And, one would expect that there is a very real possibility it will never completely be obsolete. As plants and animals 'feed' the life forms of more complex systems, humans may be necessary for the subsistence of machinic lifeforms. What is a computer virus without the largely human-centric relations that maintain it.

Praising Limitation:

Lewitzky's positive valuation of limitation is already a sophisticated position. The intent is not to challenge it here. Nor should one expect it ever to end. Networks have limitations just as humans have limitations but they are incredibly different. To cast them in humanity's light, to anthropomorphize, would be a major failing.

Self-reflexivity, however, is not of this form. The distribution of a peer-to-peer network as the members converge upon their identity and action as a network may be indicative of such reflexivity; though, the system really rides the cusp of the sapiens machina. To stray further into the alien, the convergence of the algorithms that trade stocks at speeds well beyond human capability may act and interact within their own system of relations in ways that warrant a description as 'reflexive.' Yet, to describe either network as an individual redefines the term so far outside its normal boundaries that any classical associations are incoherent. To 'localize' some portion of a broader network, in contrast, may well be a worthy endeavor that is devoid of the connotations and associations of the human-centric 'individual.'

Though the valuation of these things to a network is completely incomprehensible to me, the assumption that this valuation does not exist is the epitome of human-centrism. It is the human way to 'Other' all that it is foreign and unfamiliar. What needs to be done instead is find a way in which to communicate, much as one might when meeting a foreign 'human' culture.

Doomed from the Start:
Lewitzky is absolutely right: there is something 'human' that cannot be extracted from a network. And, it was a failing of the previous work to suggest otherwise. It is incredibly challenging to critique the old framework without setting oneself in opposition to it. This is why the annihilation, or perhaps abandonment, of the very distinction between humanity and machine was proposed; though, this probably just seemed contradictory when compared to the original, apparent opposition.

Accountability, on the other hand, is of the utmost importance in this new framing. It also offers an interesting insight into the problem of individuality. As an example, take the PirateBay and all similar facets of the industry of digital piracy. Acts of centralized justice on this force have been largely impotent. And, the imposition of contemporary propaganda on the individual fares similarly. Personal accountability distributed through a decentralized framework has no efficacy. Any solution, if it is to come about, must operate on a different level of organization that is entirely contrary to current, individualistic thinking. For better or for worse, such decentralized 'organizations' will continue to persist along with contemporary human biases.

It is unclear whether all of this means the prototypical human is "doomed." Was the plant doomed when animals emerged? Are animals really 'higher' life forms? Or, perhaps, the hierarchy is misconstrued. For, in death, all animals, including humans, are but the food that enriches the soil of our ancestors.

Images Courtesy of:
http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.ca/2011/10/marxism-as-spiritual-bypassing.html
http://www.imagineeringcounselling.com/professional-services/
http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/17/ibms-watson-takes-on-jeopardy-you-can-challenge-the-computer-to-a-trivia-duel-video/
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/07/military-researchers-develop-corpse-eating-robots/
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Mysterious_Algorithm_Was_4%25_of_Trading_Activity_Last_Week/21915/0/38/38/Y/M.html
http://screenrant.com/movie-piracy-zombieland-video-on-demand-digital-download-solutions-kofi-35289/

Deepening the Narcissistic Wound: A Critique Through Steven Johnson's "Peer Progressive"

Pseudo-Abstract:

The work seeks to prevent a wide-spread misconception of the changing contemporary landscape: the belief that personal free will is the saving grace of a world run by machines. This idea speaks to a failure of the organism as it represses the utterly foreign nature of the emerging world. Steven Johnson's idea of the 'peer progressive' is examined as a better explanation of the new scene. This leads to the proposal that outmoded concepts like individual, humanity, and intelligence are best discarded. Only then will people make their place in the new world.

Important Links:

Greg Satell's piece.

Steven Johnson's piece. 

The stimulus for this post comes from Greg Satell's piece on the Evolution of Intelligence. The work starts off quite nicely by posing critical questions about intelligence and then extending it into the machinic domain. Admirably, it does not shy back from some of the harder implications:

Nevertheless, intelligence is something we admire, both in ourselves and in others.  It has been considered for most of history, to be a uniquely human virtue.  So it is unnerving, even terrifying, when we encounter other types of intelligence.  From crowdsourcing to computers performing human tasks, we’re going to have to learn to make our peace.

The terror that the author describes has been of particular interest to me along with any ideas that point to the decentration of the human position (1, 2, 3, 4). Thus, it was all the more disheartening when the author acquiesced to the popular human tendency to flee such tension with his closing remark:

In the future, our world will driven by machine intelligence, but our choices will remain our own.

This suggests a problem of some significance: the re-appropriation of extra-human phenomena in human-centric terms. In the history of science, this type of ad hoc appeal is an indication of a dying discipline. Yet, the pseudo-resolution it offers to those faced with the terror of an emerging systemic re-organization is so incredibly tempting that the idea is best classified as incredibly dangerous. Thus, this post will hopefully serve as an ideological inoculation of sorts to the inherent problems of such ad hoc commitments.

Interestingly, Satell's defense of his position through the use of Steven Johnson is all the more confusing when one examines the latter's claims. Johnson, a brilliant thinker and writer on a vast array of technologically related topics, has recently released a new book, Future Perfect, that seems to demonstrate the exact opposite of 'free personal choice.' In its place, one achieves the "peer progressive." To quote Johnson:

Inspired in many cases by the decentralization of the Internet, the movement uses the peer network as its organizing principle, with no single individual or group "in charge."

Thus, it is unclear how--to use Satell's words--these "faceless masses" of decentralized networks propagating themselves with the very hardware that embodies the terrifying foreign intelligences could possibly uphold the individual wills of its constituents. The etymological parallels between decentration and decentralization should speak to the absurdity of this perspective.

Satell's claim that human intent may still exists in these networks seems more coherent. Yet, the folk conceptions of 'humanity' or any conception that can even marginally suggest the possibility of primitivism is certainly not a part of this coherence. Human without machine is a fantastical concept that, at best, belies mankind's over-attachment to their own personal meat puppets. Thus, when taken with a more sophisticated conception of the human-machine system, Satell's observation about intent is almost entirely devoid of content. Human intent is machine intent as there is no distinction of kind.

What it takes to "make our peace" with this budding new era of the 'peer progressive' is not an appeal to such time honoured ideas as "choice," but rather the annihilation of obsolete ideas like individuality, humanity, and even intelligence. There has never been an individual apart from the group, a human apart from their technologies, or an intellect apart from the vast collection of systems (e.g., emotion) that support and motivate it. These false dichotomies, though real and relevant in past characterizations of the world, hinder the current development of the species, if not its progress. It is not my goal to oppose them for that would simply perpetuate the dichotomy. Instead, I hope to indicate that we already know what they lead to and where they lead is not useful in a network-centric world.

Images courtesy of:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2012/10/08/comrades-join-the-peer-progressive-movement/
http://epicprgroup.com/2011/09/the-persuasion-vaccine/
http://blogs.softchoice.com/itgrok/2011/07/13/optimize-the-management-of-network-resources/
http://ommmmmnomnomnomnom.blogspot.ca/2011/02/doughnuts-its-easy-and-takes-only-about.html

Absolute, Bloody, Terror: A 'Poem' for 'The New Aesthetic'

Pseudo-Abstract: 

There is no abstract for this piece as I consider it to be a poem of sorts.

Important Links:

Will Wiles' piece The machine gaze or a working familiarity with The New Aesthetic is crucial.

After skimming through GetPrismatic, an elegant filter-by-content for blogs, and finding Will Wiles' piece on 'The New Aesthetic,' I came to the not so odd conclusion that I had something to contribute to this behemoth of a topic, now well rampant in the sewers of the digital sphere. How and why I came to that conclusion--given the utter absence of research I have done on the topic--is perhaps simply indicative of what Wiles' and James Bridle are describing: a growing 21st century condition or sense of self. Or, perhaps more poignantly, a self that is 'awakening,' within the implicit neon glow, to its complete and utter lack of identity. Thus, when Bridle describes his search for the "edges" of this amorphous, budding entity that is 'The New Aesthetic,' what becomes apparent is not a thing or some thing. Rather, what becomes apparent is the utter absence of a thing--the Void.

If this sounds implicitly religious, let us make it explicit. It is religious. As the French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux beautifully argued in After Finitude, "by forbidding reason any claim to the absolute, the end of metaphysics has taken the form of an exacerbated return of the religious." Again, from the same text:

Contrary to the familiar view according to which Occidental modernity consists in a vast enterprise of the secularization of thought, we consider the most striking feature of modernity to be the following: the modern man is he who has been re-ligionized precisely to the extent that he has been de-Christianized. The modern man is he who, even as he stripped Christianity of the ideological (metaphysical) pretension that its belief system was superior to all others, has delivered himself body and soul to the idea that all belief systems are equally legitimate in matters of veracity.

And, the positive and negative hype that has swirled around 'The New Aesthetic' does speak to a particular religious tinge. And, the fact that the monstrosity that graces the top of this 'page,' so many wasted polymers, might be considered art is indicative of the lack of reference for evaluation. Whether this is Good or Bad is for someone else to decide. What is of interest to me here is the human tendency to grasp for... something... What is evident in this grasping is the lack that inspired it. And, I am not speaking to a mere Existentialism resurfaced. No. I am speaking to a state in which Existentialism is so pervasive that it has become the ground on which we walk. We assume Existentialism in the process of forgetting that assumption. Then we drown ourselves in powerful technologies that we build but cannot understand.

In the sea of ever-increasing Ghz, amidst the glow of smartphone screens, beneath the whir of digitized spectacles, within the warmth of humming server farms, [while worldCanStillSupportPopulation == True: population = population + 1] people are beginning to notice their mediated experience. And they grasp for 'The New Aesthetic' or similar totems in the hopes that their behaviour might be justified. That it might all make sense is the dire need of untold billions, sucker-punched by the banality of the seething, techno-organic stew.

But the hope is wrong, founded on good intentions. The bliss that is felt in the fleeting glimpses of this 'new thing,' is actually much more terrible than anyone could ever imagine: traumatic. It is the realization that the system, our system, is broken. When planes glitch through Google maps, stock trading algorithms crash the market, and people create 8-bit graphics in the 'real world,' that's a breakdown. It's a gap or hole in the system. It's the Void: absolute, bloody, terror.

Welcome to insanity.

But, insanity compared to what or whom. Is an insane person insane lacking a point of reference for sanity, as the proverb goes. Perhaps that's the point.

I think I will close with a long quote from Reza Negarestani's On the Revolutionary Earth, which will probably be more confusing than enlightening as Reza is wont to be.

The obligation of the revolutionary subject with regard to exporting the revolution is not to shun [the] traumas of capitalism and fundamentalism, since this refusal... contributes to the strategy of capitalism and fundamentalism in isolating traumas, forces and resources in order to govern and monopolize them within this or that world.

Translation:
Opposing the system supports its use of isolation.

On the contrary, the obligation of the revolutionary subject is to absorb and interiorize traumas so as to expose ‘isolated traumas’ (this or that regional world), interconnect them to its regional horizon and widen them across the geocosmic continuum and deep into the cosmic exteriority [i.e., the Void].

Translation:
Revolution embraces the pain (trauma) of the human condition of techno-insanity and unites all in its ubiquity.

Modern man is a surgeon who does not amputate himself from the worlds of capitalism and religion. Instead, he transplants himself and these worlds inside each other in order to reconnect his actual regional horizon (cohabited with capitalism and fundamentalism) once again to the freedom of absolute depths.

Translation:
To share with the 'enemy' brings freedom through terror.

To this end, the revolution on the geocosmic continuum that is the revolution rekindled out of the Copernican commune should not be paved on the politicophilosophical corpus of those who impose on us wanton discrepancies and excesses of the earthly life but those who delude us with the axiomatic verity of ourselves and reform the ground of the terrestrial thought in one way or another.

Translation:
In order to continue the decentration humanity experienced in discovering that they were not the center of the universe, it is not those who embellish our faults that we should critique. It is those who convinced us that our 'Truth' removed those faults to banality and made us feel 'Special:' the center of the universe.

Pictures courtesy of:
http://kalligraphy-kalligraphy.blogspot.ca/2011/07/to-stare-10.html
http://new-aesthetic.tumblr.com/post/9991203934/paintings-by-katharine-harvey-triangulation-blog
http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/what-new-aesthetic/Content?oid=2231343

Softwired: Extending VR to Sensation Post Oculus Rift

Pseudo-Abstract:
I discuss how the new virtual reality headset, Oculus Rift, is indicative of a growing shift away from materiality: the 'real,' 'physical' world we all supposedly know and love (1, 2). By highlighting three other phenomena that are similarly indicative--unboxing, phantom limbs, and lucid dreams--I attempt to forecast a method to extend this visual work in VR into the realm of 'physical' sensation. This new method, however, attempts to push the boundaries of our technological conceptions by abandoning the contemporary bias of physicality. That is, we no longer live in a world where you need wires and cables to be 'plugged in.' This is what it means to be 'Softwired.'

The solution, then, is to harness this state and use it to trick the mind into 'feeling' VR. That is, with the powerful symbolic gratification demonstrated by the unboxing phenomena; the easy plasticity and extension of the mind outside of itself indicated in Ramachandran's work with mirrors and phantom limbs; and, the interface provided through the body's natural associations with dream states and awakening, one gets an interesting 'softwire' implementation. It may be possible to displace one's sense of self onto the virtual representation, and hence trick the mind to feel what the representation is feeling, by imitating the 'waking up' experience upon entering VR. Sensory deprivation tank not included.

Important Links:
Oculus Rift
Ramachandran and phantom limbs
Unboxing

Given that the Oculus Rift is only a few days old, a marvel in itself considering the endorsement it has already received, it is probably strange to be hearing "post" already. However, this is the case. The ever accelerating expansion in tech and VR can only forecast future states, almost by definition. And, immediately after reading about this incredible technology, it was inevitable to start thinking about how one could extend this to physical sensation (i.e., touch). With technology like Microsoft's Kinect 2 and Leap fast approaching, this may be the last piece to a nearly unlimited virtual experience. Yet, the traditional way to work with and think about technology may be the wrong way to approach this problem. By binding theory to physicality, one limits many potential innovative solutions. Unfortunately, this seems to be the 'natural' way of thinking.

When one pictures 'technology,' the inclination is to think of wires or some form of hardware. A Google images search for "technology" corroborates this to a certain degree. Even the dystopian anticipations of 'possible futures' are often trapped in this kind of view, as Neo's awakening out of the Matrix--a giant, material machine--illustrates. But, this vision is no longer indicative of the current or probable future state of affairs. Humanity's predictive capacity in the West is backlogged circa 1950. Hence, it is not surprising that the contemporary technological space has largely passed us by. We are still waiting for the wires. In the mean time, the entire world has been swallowed by a diffuse matrix of invisible information and it is already so pervasive that its identification is extremely difficult. Like a fish in water, humanity breathes technology without even realizing it.

An excellent illustration of this was performed by Timo Arnall, Jorn Knutsen, and Einar Sneve Martinussen in a brilliant art-slash-data-visualization piece entitled Light painting WiFi. The authors basically created an abstract 'measuring stick' for WiFi signal strength and then marched around urban areas with some artistic stuff thrown in (e.g., camera tricks, etc.). What was created as a result is a pseudo-materialization of an "immaterial" as Matt Jones likes to call it. That is, the piece offers a very simple material conceptualization qua visualization of the digital immersion of the Western world. Yet, the fact that this visualization is not an intimate part of the global awareness, hence its relevance at this time, is only a further indicator of the degree of the problem. WiFi is, realistically, a 'low hanging fruit.'  It rides the cusp of our technological immersion: the signals are diffuse and invisible but still very intimately related to hardware. The "filter bubble," in contrast, is much more subtle and far more indirectly related to materiality. The fact that the entire world is currently driven by a stock market, 70% of which is run by machines (1, 2) whose actions are incomprehensible, is of a similar caliber (see Kevin Slavin's Ted talk or my previous post for a more detailed discussion of this topic).

In fact, it is the opposite of Jones' description: immateriality is shaping materiality. The high frequency trading that is running the stock market right now is already terraforming the planet (1, 2, 3). The effort to make this 'immaterial' reality more material a la Jones is outdated. What is needed is an entirely new way of framing humanity's relation to the 'world,' a world that is increasingly incomprehensible in older forms of knowing. Without this, the uncritical assimilation of fascinating tools like the Oculus Rift is likely to cause serious downstream problems. At minimum, the characterization of phenomena like unboxing is very challenging in common frameworks.

Unboxing is a fascinating phenomena where marketing, capitalism, or perhaps Christmas is taken to pornographic proportions. People film themselves opening new, usually technological, items so that others might participate in the pleasure of that first moment. Despite the apparent absurdity of indulging in another individual's new toy, unboxing has gone viral. Youtube, by way of example, has some unboxing videos with over a million hits and there are websites dedicated specifically to the topic. Yet, to frame this assemblage of behaviours as pornography or some form of ritualized, symbolic gratification does not lend itself to an explanation of the phenomena. At best it just describes what is currently happening: a non-material 'thing' invokes a similar response to the thing itself due to some previous association. At worst it misses the point entirely: it requires reference to the previous material relation in order to have any effect or comprehension of the situation; it lacks a direct means of approach. And, let us be honest, pornography, of any kind, does not require an initial experience of the phenomena in question in order to be utilized. Hence, this material dependency is not useful. Instead, what is needed is various methods to approach a variety of experiences directly. Ramachandran's work with mirrors is one such method for this highly 'symbolic' space.

Ramachandran either discovered or popularized the idea of using mirrors to treat the symptoms many people experience after amputation, the phantom limb. In essence, these individuals still feel various sensations, often unpleasant, where their arm, leg, or other body part was once present. Upon exposure to a mirror in such a way that the mind can mistakenly perceive the remaining limb as the one that is missing, and then 'moving' both the phantom and 'real' limb in sync, these symptoms rapidly disappear. That is, the patient stops feeling a pain with no physical basis through a method with no physical basis.

Now, many people will challenge this last claim as untenable given the current evidence. They will make claims for a physical basis in the arm that was amputated, the brain, or the light particles that make up the image. I agree, but that is not the point. The existence of materialism as a tenable philosophical or conceptual position is evidence enough that any set of circumstances can be described materially. Idealism, pragmatism, and any number of other positions might just as well be argued; though, materialism is certainly dominant in Western Science--reification intentional. The question is whether or not any or all of these differentiations are conducive to discovering direct methods that lead to solutions like the mirror for phantom limbs. What I was trying to illustrate, to put into question, was the materiality of the solutions used by Ramachandran. The idea of "opening your missing hand" is very strange if viewed materially and far less direct (e.g., when using the brain). More importantly, the very idea of using a mirror in this fashion seems highly unlikely in many of these contexts. The fact that Ramachandran's culture of origin does not have the same material biases that are prominent in the West cannot be ignored. Thus, I propose we abandon all such limiting factors. In their place, I propose unadulterated, conceptual expansion. The new motto: try everything. By definition, you will only keep the 'things' and follow the paths that work. Success is inevitable until humanity is extinct. Accepting this, even tentatively, it is possible to follow the greater implications of both unboxing and the mirror.

The implication of both of these phenomena is a new characterization of the world. I choose to illustrate this world through the idea of lucid dreaming: the experience of being 'awake' while maintaining the dreaming state. It is not lucid dreaming nor is it just a dream. Lucid dreaming merely characterizes some of the aspects of this new world that are relevant to the current discussion. Specifically, it has a quality of concreteness and experiential validity while simultaneously having an extreme degree of flexibility. Most importantly, it is very close to a simulated world like VR and I can feel in it. Thus, for these reasons it offers an elegant approximation or metaphor whose implications are likely worth exploring. I say "likely" because ultimate success is unknowable and absurd, while local success is guaranteed given that I was motivated enough to put 'pen to paper.'

The implication I want to emphasize is the experience of waking up. When one is lucid dreaming, or dreaming more generally, what will often occur is a "false awakening," where the individual feels as though they have resumed a regular, waking state when they are in fact still dreaming. What is fascinating about this occurrence is that the process of 'waking up' is powerful enough to annihilate the flexibility of a dreaming state and resume a vivid sense of concreteness: the person truly believes they have awoken. Oddly, this is a sort of half-way point between lucid dreaming and dreaming proper. Thus, the implication is as follows. If, by some means, one could emulate this experience--perhaps by actually falling asleep and arising in VR--it may be possible to trick the mind as Ramachandran did and extend one's perception of sensation into the virtual form. In fact, it is possible that, given the circumstances of this shift, the mind might even enhance the virtual image in order to accommodate the increase in concreteness and validity. That is, if I believe its 'real,' it must be more 'real.'

Welcome to the softwire. Please enjoy your stay.

Pictures courtesy of:
http://www.youcanluciddream.com/learn/lucid-dreams
http://boyo1989.blogspot.ca/2009/11/thre-return-to-union.html
http://www.nearfield.org/2011/02/wifi-light-painting
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/31/macbook-air-gets-the-unboxing-treatment/
http://endthepainproject.org/donations.html
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bf68b53ef0154323b315e970c-popup
http://www.in5d.com/how-to-have-lucid-dreams.html
http://www.lifeevolver.com/inception-turning-false-awakenings-dreams-dreams-lucid-dreams/

A Python Deep Copy Nested List Auto-Generator

An improvement on this notion is listed here.

I was trying to find a way to auto-generate a nested list with filler data that does not result in shallow copying problems (i.e., when I change one value, a whole bunch of values change). This is what I figured out using list comprehensions. Hence, it should be quite efficient. Error checking could be built-in but I didn't feel the need.


#builds a nested list from the inner-most list to the outer-most 
#listRangeTuples: must be a list or tuple of tuples to fill the 
#                 range values 
#degree: number of degrees or levels of nesting 
#theList: this is the variable that passes the lower nest at 
#         each point; it also sets the default value

import copy

def nestedListBuilder(listRangeTuples, degree=3, theList=None): 
    if degree == 0: 
        return theList 
    x = [copy.deepcopy(theList) for i in range    \
            (listRangeTuples[0][0], listRangeTuples[0][1])]
    return nestedListBuilder(listRangeTuples[1:], degree-1, x)

Contextualizing the digital: Qualcomm, Gimbal, and human devolution

A recent post by Scoble discusses a budding new age of mobile development that will bring our cyber realities back down to Earth. I had originally mentioned this idea in reference to Y!kes here. In this context, Qualcomm, through the Gimbal SDK, is bringing a method to track everything about a user at a hardware level. No longer will the developer just know general data like your longitude and latitude. They will know when you are in the kitchen, living room, car. They will know who you are with and what you are doing. They will be able to anticipate your every behaviour. Especially given the current spin in AI (1 2).

Those of you who have been following my posts will recognize this as a theme I have talked about before: the death of privacy. No matter that Qualcomm is 'protecting your information' by some means (never letting it leave your phone, if Scoble is correct). Ultimately, it is accessible and there will be a growing pressure to release it to advertisers. Beyond that, you will want to release it as the features that you will get in the process will be worth it. Finally, your privacy will be less valuable and the loss of treasured secrets will probably slip right by the average person (e.g., Scoble's favourites). I think this is a good thing. Our contemporary context requires that we get better acclimatized to machinic forms of organization as I described here.

There is, however, a concern outside of such reified concepts as 'Privacy.' Initially the contextual augmentation provided by frameworks like Gimbal will be incredibly beneficial. It can expand our capacity to include related and relevant information in a particular context. However, this kind of augmentation simultaneously has the ability to restrict information by accentuating people's current frailties. Let us take an example: global positioning systems (GPS).

For someone who is familiar with maps, the cardinal directions (N E S W), the general layout of a city, etc., GPS is an excellent augmentation of the skills you already have. It offers constant updates to the maps; it can mark exact positions on the map; it can offer routes, modifications of those routes, and approximate times for those routes, among other things (traffic density, etc.). In a reversed sense, it can even describe the routes that other people who have the same GPS are most likely to take; though, I would be surprised if anyone has ever used it in this way (I have not). All of these things are beneficial and they do not detract from your skills nor reduce or restrict your informational intake. 

On the other hand, if you lack these skills then the GPS accentuates this fact. You can function that much longer without learning the skills and you could even come to the not entirely unreasonable conclusion that they are unnecessary. In your world, this is 'True.' That is, until something untoward happens and a lake is where it should not be, a road just ends where it should continue, or (heaven forbid!) your GPS breaks. Then suddenly you are at a huge deficit. The Road God has failed to answer your prayers. You had forgotten, or never knew, that the system has its limitations. Your faith was mistaken and something like this happens. However, to blame this occurrence on technology is absurd.

I have often heard such arguments as "the evolution of technology results in the devolution of man" and there is certainly legitimacy in the claim. This post is a brilliant examination of the problem. Amusingly, it took the GPS as an example much as I did. However, I believe that the overall claim of the author is mistaken. To be brief, I will restrict myself to a few points or rebuttals.

ONE:

The soul, when retroactively revolutionized through the contemporary, hyper-individualistic framework of the West, is obviously individualistic (here is a counter example to what follows and a case in point to what preceded). Interestingly, philosophical claims like Socrates', "Do your own work" are better approximated in the "collectivistic" frameworks that technology requires of us (not to be confused with "communistic" ideologies that may sound equivalent):

"And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxillaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them." (1, italics mine)

Thus, and to re-frame what I said about GPSs, it is not technology that makes humanity face all of the challenges described by Jorund and Junger, it is the very soul that these authors choose to defend. The mistake, as is often the case, stems from the presentist interpretation of the philosophical works in question. Though, I will restrict this claim purely to the individualism of the arguments of the aforementioned individuals. Their theories in general I cannot speak to. Regardless, this idea is best illustrated by my next point:

TWO:

Jorund goes on to critique technology with reference to Grasse's stigmergy: spontaneous, indirect responses to the historical remains of other members of a society's previous actions. And, with disdain, humanity is immediately compared to Grasse's topic of investigation: termites. However, in rebuttal I would indicate a similar, stigmergic insect: ants.

Ants, despite Jorund's disdain, are one of the most successful species that live on land (terrestrial metazoa) both for themselves and the ecosystems in which they participate. In a nutshell:

"Today ants occupy keystone positions in most terrestrial environments, serving as major conduits of energy and organic material. They are, for example, important turners of the soil, matching or exceeding the activity of earthworms in this role. They are among the leading predators of invertebrates in most ecosystems, and in the Neotropics they are the leading herbivores as well, with leaf-cutter ants taking more than 15% of the fresh vegetation (feeding it to a symbiotic fungus, which they in turn eat). Interactions with ants have shaped the evolution of diverse organisms to an astonishing degree."

Once more in contrast to Jorund, it is not the case that the success story of ants is driven by their "well-rounded, educated individuals." Ants tend to be rather specialized in their behaviour, and, even though this cannot be directly tied to their success, its abundance in the species must be indicative of some evolutionary use. This article discusses the topic and mentions an alternative explanation: specialization is beneficial simply because it prevents having to consider which task to do. Again, interestingly, this fits right into a machinic conception of organization. Neither the individual's skill nor the sub-population's specialization is key. It is merely the continued functional role that they provide in sum and this role can easily be filled by another, no matter the skill or genetic design.

THREE:

Jorund also notices the "convergence between the real and virtual world." However, it is viewed in a negative light with reference to The Matrix and something like E. M. Forester's The Machine Stops. The emphasis is naturally on our use of technology to forward our indulgences while humanity gets further lost in its fantasies-made-real in VR. Naturally, it is the very use of the term 'real' that irks me.

It is not that video games, synthetic pleasures, or virtual reality are more real. It is that real is no longer relevant. The term is obsolete as is the task of approximating and/or representing 'reality' (again, see my previous post). Both are artifacts of the past. And the search for capital 'T' truth is just as much so.

For those of you interested in this topic, I highly suggest the book Objectivity by Daston and Galison. It provides an excellent historical description of the search for this kind of 'Truth.' Thus contextualized, it is much easier to understand the usefulness of the methods we developed in search for truth while abandoning the unnecessary ideologies that are currently attached to them.

FOUR:

If the The Matrix is at all telling, humanity will not be able to survive without the suffering Jorund seems to enjoy--a suffering of thought projected.

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization." (1)

And, I might add, that the privileged Western position being critiqued is also being enjoyed by the author, if I am not mistaken. I, too, am privileged and believe suffering is productive, but I do not believe it is the only way: it would be hubris to think that the way things are now or the way things have been is the way they should or have to be.

FIVE:

In brief, humans are less dangerous to the planet and themselves when pacified. If this comes through VR, so be it.

I will leave you with two quotes from Dostoevsky, who Jorund was so genius to quote:

And we alone shall feed them in Thy name, declaring falsely that it is in Thy name. Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man? And if for the sake of the bread of Heaven thousands shall follow Thee, what is to become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have the strength to forego the earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly? Or dost Thou care only for the tens of thousands of the great and strong, while the millions, numerous as the sands of the sea, who are weak but love Thee, must exist only for the sake of the great and strong? No, we care for the weak too. They are sinful and rebellious, but in the end they too will become obedient. They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadful and to rule over them- so awful it will seem to them to be free. But we shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in Thy name. We shall deceive them again, for we will not let Thee come to us again. That deception will be our suffering, for we shall be forced to lie.

...

And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil. Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in the other world, it certainly would not be for such as they. It is prophesied that Thou wilt come again in victory, Thou wilt come with Thy chosen, the proud and strong, but we will say that they have only saved themselves, but we have saved all. We are told that the harlot who sits upon the beast, and holds in her hands the mystery, shall be put to shame, that the weak will rise up again, and will rend her royal purple and will strip naked her loathsome body. But then I will stand up and point out to Thee the thousand millions of happy children who have known no sin. And we who have taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up before Thee and say: "Judge us if Thou canst and darest." 

From Chapter 5: The Grand Inquisitor

Pictures courtesy of:

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/

http://www.my-car-computer.com/gps-receiver.html

http://www.mostlymuppet.com/2005/10/04/lost-numbers-are-gps-coordinates/

http://www.seniorark.com/senior_tips_computers.htm

http://thebestgroupofbilingual.blogspot.ca/2012/04/timeline-notextb.html

http://www.dan-dare.org/freefun/games/matrixwallpaper1024.htm
http://firecatching.blogspot.ca/2011/09/god-of-freedom-grand-inquisitors-fear.html
http://philastockton.wordpress.com/dostoevsky-and-the-grand-inquisitor/