March 31, 2004
March 30, 2004
Tripp
So Tripp is still pretty sick. He's currently in room 322 of University Hospital... but visiting may be a little sketchy right now. There are a lot of friends and family that have been offering their support, but because of the constant calls, he's not getting the rest that he needs. Yesterday, I went by his room but only stayed for about 10 minutes before he needed to fall asleep. I don't know if getting visitors is different/better than getting phone calls... I suppose both may be exhausting in their own way. If you do decide to visit him, try to go sometime in the afternoon and don't plan on staying very long.
I keep having this worry that visiting/calling is somehow a selfish activity. It would be a lot easier if I knew exactly what he wanted/needed to get healthy. Then obviously I would just do that. I don't have any need to hear him tell me the details of his diagnosis, I'm sure he has plenty of people to talk to about that. What I really feel like doing when I visit is trying to take his mind off it all by talking about something else. I wish I was an entertaining speaker...
IMSC has collected some money for a gift which is great idea. Perhaps we can do the same thing. If you feel like contributing send me an email. I'll post a message to the main page as well.
March 23, 2004
Mina Loy
"LOVE of others is the appreciation of one's self. MAY your egotism be so gigantic that you comprise mankind in your self-sympathy."
-Aphorisms on Futurism
Mina Loy, writer/poet (1882-1966)
quote via Sandeep Parmar
March 22, 2004
Alexander Pope
"how happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
the world forgetting, by the world forgot.
eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;"
-Eloisa to Abelard
Alexander Pope, poet (1688-1744)
Morning Mirroring
While watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind on Saturday, a movie I had been anticipating, a scene describing the method by which the doctor (Tom Wilkinson) would map the memories of a person in the brain of the patient (Jim Carrey), by scanning the brain while he concentrated on objects associated with the person to be erased, connected so tightly to the ideas I have about my thesis, that I had a moment of panic. Had I unconsciously and telepresently plagiarized, or at least been remotely influenced by, an unreleased movie I hadn't yet seen?
I know I had seen the trailer, but on reflection I realized that it had none of the overlapping elements that had caused my anxiety. Certainly the knowledge of the film's general plot, a man tries to erase the painful memories of a woman and his relationship with her, had influence, undetectable/untraceable perhaps, on my mode of thought. And when I try to track back the links that led to my current interest in brain mapping, I arrive inevitably at my friendship with Maital Neta and our conversations regarding her work in neuroscience at UCLA. Then there is the connection to space/place/location that I believe comes directly from work in the mobile media project with Scott Fisher (and from additional input by Mark Bolas and Peggy Weil). Also, the issue of object memory and history evolved for me during conversations with Scott for a directed research class last Spring.
So I'm trying to map my own mind right now...
I've often had the experience where, after acquiring an object/thought, I "suddenly" notice multiple instantiations of that object/thought all around me. Like getting a new car: when I first started driving a Camry (a highly generic token of car), my awareness of other cars like it on the road with me was heightened. It's an artificial perception of course, the sampling rate is heavily distorted, all other cars are lumped into one group and compared to the particular one that I'm identifying.
This morning, 2 days after the movie triggered an association with my thesis, I noticed a /. post about a video game in which the player must balance the character by concentrating on blocks on either the left or the right side. Controlling events on the screen with thought is not too near my research to cause much more than calm introspection about the field with which my work may share some technology. Really, upon reading the article, I was unimpressed with the scope of the project. The research is centered on visual focus, something that has very little interest to me. Of course the work is core to building a platform that allows for more complex thought patterns to be used as input... but really, mapping visual focus only informs us about the physical rather than the mental, something that we can do much more easily by observing the subject optically. My interest lies in the mapping of the mind activity that we cannot externally observe, a sort of refutation of logical positivism.
Mind, place, object, memory and the nonlinear mappings between them.
btw... I highly recommend Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
thesis_r
Some links:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Focus Features.
Trailer.
Mind Balance
Rob Burke's Home Page.
BBC article.
/. article.
Monkey/Robot @ Duke University
Nicolelis Lab.
Washington Post article.
Brain Control of Mouse Pointer @ Brown University
Mijail Serruya.
Infosatellite article.
March 19, 2004
March 15, 2004
Setpixel
Without even trying, I have accumulated an array of "pixel" links in the last week. What does it all mean? I can't say, but I imagine it must have something to do with the universe being made out of discreet elements that can be formed into an infinite number of configurations to create a massive number of parallel realities, converging and diverging throughout time!
Or not.
I like this site.
Isometric rules.
Pixelblocks
Best Lego-nostalgia inducing building/stacking toy that simultaneously encourages 2d and 3d structures.
Images of my own creations coming soon...
March 14, 2004
thesis_r
Neuroscan EEG
Brainmapping @ UCLA
PET
CT
fMRI
EEG
my friend's lab @ UCLA
March 9, 2004
Midterm Morgue
File name of video now displayed beneath videoplanes.
Focus &
mind to map or map to mind?
space, place and location exist where exactly?
mnemonic geography puts memory on the map...
March 6, 2004
March 5, 2004
Sketch for Mobile/IMSC
Rough visualization of PDA interface.
POV Image Recorder @ Microsoft Research
via /.
sorry Tripp...
"SenseCam is a badge-sized wearable camera that captures up to 2000 VGA images per day. In addition, sensor data such as movement, light level and temperature is recorded. This is similar to an aircraft “Black Box” accident recorder but miniaturised for the human body. It could help with memory recall, e.g. where did I leave my spectacles or keys? who did I meet last week? by doing a “rewind” of the days events. If a person has an accident, the events and images leading up to this will be recorded, and these could be useful to health workers. It could also be used for automatic blog generation."
Hmm... "automatic blog generation"? This is just far enough away from Patholog that I don't feel it threatens the project... but this research field is starting to seem overcrowded.
March 3, 2004
Midterm Merengue
Some additional functionality with a frame number output while playing the movie in the pop up window thanks to Perry.