Log24

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Mad Men and Broadway

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:31 am

See as well Morse in Log24 posts on the Go chip.

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Popular Mechanics Continues

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:23 pm

From a review of the new game Cyberpunk 2077

“Oh, you also find out the chip has meshed with
your nervous system, so you can’t take it out, and
that Silverhand’s consciousness will eventually
overtake yours, meaning your body will live on
but not your mind, soul or spirit.

Damn computers.”

— Daniel Van Boom at cnet.com,
Dec. 7, 2020 4:19 p.m. PT
(and under a different title later)

See also the similar plot of Upgrade” (2018) , a film featured in the
Log24 post Popular Mechanics: Midnight Upgrade (Oct. 26, 2019).

STEM Education —

For an earlier form of the plot,
see “Go Chip” in this  journal.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Requiescat in Pace

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 7:45 pm

The Chicago Tribune  today —

H. Wilbert Norton, college president
and Christian missionary, dies

Norton reportedly died at 102 on Feb. 20, 2017.

This evening's previous post linked the death dates of two
academics to two Log24 posts that both contained the
following image —

For some backstory, see the Log24 posts from the date
of Norton's reported death, February 20.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Signature Backdrop

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 9:00 pm

"The Bitter End’s signature stage backdrop —
a bare 150-year-old brick wall — helped distinguish it from
other popular bohemian hangouts like the Village Gate  
and the Village Vanguard. It appeared on the cover of
Peter, Paul and Mary’s first album."

The New York Times  this evening on a Sunday death

Commentary

“Looking carefully at Golay’s code is like staring into the sun.”

— Richard Evan Schwartz

See also Schwartz in "The Omega Matrix," a post of 5 PM ET Sunday:

Hackaday Story

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 12:48 pm

Cypress Spring 

according to Orphic myth

  " You will find to the left of the House of Hades
    a spring,
  And by the side thereof standing
    a white cypress.
  To this spring approach not near.
  But you shall find another,
    from the lake of Memory
  Cold water flowing forth, and there are
    guardians before it.
  Say, 'I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven;
  But my race is of Heaven alone.
    This you know yourselves.
  But I am parched with thirst and I perish.
    Give me quickly
  The cold water flowing forth
    from the lake of Memory.' "

"The supervisory read-only memory (SROM)
in question is a region of proprietary code
that runs when the chip starts up,
and in privileged mode."

— Elliot Williams at Hackaday , March 4, 2017,
     "Reading the Unreadable SROM"

From a reply to a comment on the above story —

"You are singing a very fearful and oppressive tune.
You ought to try to get it out of your head."

A perhaps less oppressive tune —

Related scene —

Richard Kiley in "Blackboard Jungle," 1955:

IMAGE- Richard Kiley in 'Blackboard Jungle,' with grids and broken records

See also the Go chip in this journal.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

The Omega Matrix

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 5:00 pm

Richard Evan Schwartz on
the mathematics of the 4×4 square

See also Priority in this journal.

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Clarifying Dyson

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 12:00 pm

The previous post quoted a passage from Turing's Cathedral ,
a 2012 book by George Dyson —

A passage in 'Turing's Cathedral' that recalls the Go chip in 'Wild Palms'

It should be noted that Dyson's remarks on "two species of
bits," space, time, "structure and sequence" and logic gates
are from his own idiosyncratic attempt to create a philosophy
based on the workings of computers.  These concepts are not,
so far as I can tell, part of anyone else's approach to the subject.

For a more standard introduction to how computers work, see
(for instance) a book by an author Dyson admires:

The Pattern on the Stone , by W. Daniel Hillis (Basic Books, 1998).

PREFACE: MAGIC IN THE STONE

I etch a pattern of geometric shapes onto a stone.
To the uninitiated, the shapes look mysterious and
complex, but I know that when arranged correctly
they will give the stone a special power, enabling it
to respond to incantations in a language no human
being has ever spoken. I will ask the stone questions
in this language, and it will answer by showing me a
vision: a world created by my spell, a world imagined
within the pattern on the stone.

A few hundred years ago in my native New England,
an accurate description of my occupation would have
gotten me burned at the stake. Yet my work involves
no witchcraft; I design and program computers. The
stone is a wafer of silicon, and the incantations are
software. The patterns etched on the chip and the
programs that instruct the computer may look
complicated and mysterious, but they are generated
according to a few basic principles that are easily
explained. . . . .

Hillis's title suggests some remarks unrelated to computers —

See Philosopher + Stone in this journal.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Techno-Shamanistic Keys

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:01 pm

From a review of the film "Wild Palms" in The New Yorker  by James Wolcott
(issue dated May 17, 1993, pages 104-106)—

"The MacGuffin that will determine the outcome is a piece of
software [sic ] called the Go chip, its name taken from the
strategy board game. (There's a nod in the script to the Japanese
novelist Yasunari Kawabata, author of 'The Master of Go.')
Whoever possesses the Go chip possesses the
'techno-shamanistic key to eternity'…."

"In tomorrow's techno-pop tyranny, reruns are the basis of order."

"As Kreutzer's mistress, Kim Cattrall has excellent posture."

From Saturday Night Live on December 10, 2011, a portrayal of Kim Cattrall—

IMAGE- Kristen Wiig as Kim Cattrall

See also "Sex and the City" fans in The Crimson Passion.

For other keys (perhaps related to the Wild Palms "image sickness"),
see "Claves Regni Caelorum (Escher)" — Images, 1.9 MB.

Sunday, December 14, 2003

Sunday December 14, 2003

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:01 am

Riddle

From Robert Stone's Damascus Gate:

"God… that Great F—ing Thing, the Lord of Sacrifices, the setter of riddles."

(See the Web site "Stone, not Wood.")

Christianity may be a religion of lies, but it sometimes has a certain charm.  If in fact there is a heaven, part of it must strongly resemble Paris in the 1890's, as suggested by the picture below.

From today's New York Times:

"The Very Rev. Sturgis Lee Riddle, dean emeritus of the American Episcopal Cathedral in Paris, died on Tuesday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 94.

His death was reported on the cathedral's Web site."

From the cathedral's Web site,
a Christmas card:

Après l'Office à l'Église de la Sainte-Trinité, Noël 1890
(After the Service at Holy Trinity Church,
Christmas 1890) Jean Béraud

"Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you."
— Ernest Hemingway,
   Death in the Afternoon, Ch. 11

"There is never any ending to Paris…."
— Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

 

See, too, my Paris-related entry for December 9, the date of Riddle's death, and recall that in Wild Palms, "the much sought-after Go chip [is] the missing link in the Senator's bid to be immortal, 'like Jesus.' "

Scene from Wild Palms

 

Tuesday, December 9, 2003

Tuesday December 9, 2003

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 11:11 am

Street of the Fathers

From Bruce Wagner’s Wild Palms —

Robert Morse sings in Kyoto
as negotiators discuss
the Go chip
:

In My Room

Coordinates for a 4×4 space:

A Small Go Board Study:


A 4×4
Go Board

From
Université René Descartes,
45 rue des Saints Pères,
Paris

Today’s birthdays:

Kirk Douglas
Buck Henry
John Malkovich

Wednesday, November 5, 2003

Wednesday November 5, 2003

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 2:23 pm

Game Over

 "Everything that has a beginning
     has an end."

— The Matrix Revolutions

Matrix, by Knots, Inc., 1979.

"Easy to master — A lifetime to enjoy!"

The object for 2 players (8-adult)
is to be the first to form a line
consisting of 4 different
colored chips.

Imagist Poem

Digital 'tears in the rain'

Image suggesting the 'Go chip' in 'Wild Palms'

(Recall the Go-chip
in Wild Palms.)

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