Hey that’s me.. right?

Every now and again you read an article that hits home. Every section is a gem.

http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2009/01/25/a_disclosure.html

The Singularity Is Near

My co-workers know that whenever I hear of some amazing new technological achievement, I like to announce “The Singularity is Near”. I stole this phrase, of course, from Ray Kurzweil’s book of the same name.

The phrase “the Singularity” is based on a science fiction concept having to do with our perception of innovation and technological growth. The Wikipedia article on the book does a really good job of summarizing the basic concepts. The Theory of Accelerating Returns basically states something that is pretty obvious to software engineers, that the current technology of the day helps to make possible the technology of the future. This leads to an ever increasing velocity of innovation as technological possibilities become unlocked by ever newer technology. This is essentially exponential growth. As innovations fly by faster and faster, they begin to blur. Eventually, generations of technology will fly by so fast that we cannot perceive them. A big key to this is advanced artificial intelligence. Once this happens, and the rate of change becomes closer and closer to a vertical line, it becomes impossible for the current human being to perceive technological growth. It simply happens too fast. At this point, you’ve reached the Singularity. Everything past this point is unlike any other point in human history. Its beyond our current abilities to imagine such a sea change.

Many regard Kurzweil as a little off, perhaps even crazy. I’m not sure that I agree that this Singularity is only about 40 years away, but I grant him the premise. So much has changed in my lifetime already. Sometimes I feel like my life is really just about information sifting and managing. It all flies by so fast now. This is a big part of my job.

If you’re not tired of TED talks yet, take a look at this one. Its about 18 minutes long, quite humorous, and I think another signpost that my child’s life is going to be very different from my own. Interestingly, I hope that I’m there for the ride

If you’ve been following my posts lately, you’ll appreciate the first half of the talk about the state of the economy. The latter half starts to touch on advanced technology. I really appreciate the presenter’s dry wit and willingness to put a naked fat Santa picture onscreen (thought that would get your attention).

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/juan_enriquez_shares_mindboggling_new_science.html

A little glimmer of 2019 today

A few days ago I posted a link to the Microsoft Vision demo for 2019, with Minority Report-like capabilities. A new video came out today from the TED conference, where a very talented researcher unveiled Sixth Sense, a MIT Media Labs device. This device, made from off-the-shelf components retailing around $400, allows users to project a display on any surface and interact with the display.

I’m not really doing it justice here in describing it, take a look yourself :
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

It is obviously still pretty rough, but there are some really nifty nuances already present. The “drawing a clock” to see the clock feature is pretty neat as well as the Amazon book review from the title.

What they didn’t show, which is what I imagine is the “trick” is that each of the applets involved are likely specially coded for the context. The Timekeeper application is specifically waiting on the user to draw a circle to display the time. The Airline ticket application is specifically waiting for an image matching its notion of an airline ticket to show up. Likely it only works for a single airline’s ticket. I expect these sorts of things from a show and tell. Of course, there could be a front-end app that lets you choose the context you are in, sort of like the iPhone’s launcher.

I’d be interested to see where the processing load is occurring. I imagine that it isn’t happening on the phone, but is instead being relayed to a networked machine.

In any event, the future creeps ever closer.

[edit] Another interesting TED link: Siftables

Planet Money on NPR

When driving back and forth to work, I really enjoy listening to podcasts. One that I’ve found to be really educational given the current economy is NPR’s Planet Money. Adam, David, Laura, Caitlin, and Alex do a great job of reporting on the current economy in plain English. Its not particularly biased and really seems focused on giving the listener the information they need to form their own opinions about the state of the economy.
The podcast spun out of a series of really great episodes of this American Life that I’ve already talked about. Last weekend, another one was released called Bad Banks. I highly recommend checking it out on their website.

Microsoft’s Vision of 2019

I saw this video earlier in the week and have been chatting about it to my colleagues at work.
Video: Future Vision Montage

I think that this was a great idea to put out this vision of the future. Given the doom and gloom of most discussions about the next year or so, I find excitement of thinking about the coming years refreshing. There are some pretty straightforward extrapolations from existing or near-term technology here. E-ink, multi-touch displays, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, image-based searching and pattern-matching are all on display. The most interesting thing about the video is that it points to a world where computing is more ubiquitous than it is today. As our world gets more and more complex, we’ll need technology to be there to augment our wetware. From their latest Techfest results, its clear that some R&D is going into making this a reality. A powerpoint of a related presentation is available here.

Being a graphics and tools guy, I’m looking forward to being a software engineer in the coming years.

As an aside, I’ll have to take a look at the ORCs framework for transactional memory.

It’s been a long time, shouldn’t have left you without a dope beat to step to

Its been quite some time since my last post. To say that things have been hectic would be an understatement. Since my last post I’ve:

Turned 30. Seems like it should be more of a milestone, but it pales into comparison that…

Found out that my wife is pregnant. It came as quite a surprise. We are ecstatic about it and I’m already starting to see things differently. I don’t know if I’m starting to take the longer view on life, but a lot of things pale in comparison to the monumental fact that I’m about to be a father. We’re going to wait to find out the sex, which surprises a lot of people that know me and my wife. Renee felt really strongly that she wanted to wait and find out. Since she hates surprises, it really means a lot for her to want to wait.

Since we’re about to have a child and my wife and I put off our honeymoon earlier this year, it all of a sudden became important to go. So this February we took a week long vacation in Aruba.

Been working on the latest release of our product, Gamebryo Lightspeed. More will be available on our website soon. I’m really excited to show the world what we’ve been working on for over a year now.

I’ve been using my CPAP machine for several months now. It is starting to become less of a pain, although I can’t say that I’m enamoured with it. It cures the snoring, much to my wife’s happiness. However, I don’t get that blissful “out like a light” immediate descent into sleep that I used to have. It can be really frustrating some nights. Others, I barely notice it.

To sleep, perchance to dream, part deux

I received my sleep test results today. I can’t say that I’m particularly happy with them, but they were as I expected. I’d been playing phone tag with the nurse for a few days now and I must say that the neurology group that I was interacting with has a very poor methodology for delivering this information. I was told in about a minute by a nurse that the first part of the night, I had severe sleep apnea to the tune of stopping breathing 41 times an hour, the CPAP test for the latter half was successful in stopping the apnea, and that I needed to do an 8 week trial of CPAP after which I’ll need to talk to the doctor to see how I’m doing. Is it an idealized fantasy that I might be able to talk to a doctor before readjusting my life? Am I expected to be able to process this news effectively in a minute’s time? Not even a, “do you have any questions?” Very disappointing customer service. I managed to gather my wits enough to call back and get an appointment in early September with the neurologist and the end of the week for the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist that referred me to him.

Clear immediate questions for the doctors:

• Will losing weight make a substantial difference in my diagnosis? I’m about 20-30 lbs away from the weight my primary care physician suggested, but not so much so that I think it really factors into the diagnosis, but maybe I’m wrong.
• Is this a chronic issue or can it be mitigated to the point that CPAP isn’t as necessary?
• Are there factors in the sleep study that could artificially inflate the problem? I’m guessing not as the metric isn’t how long I was in REM sleep, but how often I stopped breathing.
• Is this a hereditary condition and how concerned should relatives be about having the same problems? Several members of my family are heavy snorers and are older than I am. They may be at even more risk of adverse effects.
• What are the best ways to adjust to the CPAP machine?
• What are likely side-effects or improvements that I can expect to see to validate that it is working?

We’ll see what comes of this….

So you think you can dance season finale

Renee and I watched the season finale for So You Think You Can Dance and I had to write about it. What a fantastic 2 hours of entertainment. Many of the best dances from this season were shown as well as a great group routine by one of my favorite choreographers Wade Robson. Twitch and Katee’s troubled romance with the door, choreographed by Mia Michaels was by far my favorite routine of the season. The Katee and Joshua dance to No Air with the shirt exchange at the end always makes me smile. Really just amazing stuff. I’m also really happy that Joshua won, as he consistently delivered as a partner. He held up some amazing lifts and some hair-raising jumps and flips. I thought that Katee would win, as she was my favorite female. Twitch always put a smile on my face with his obvious love for dance and sense of humor.

I’m just sad that I have to wait half a year for more.

Here are some of my favorites from the season (while they last)

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-lU968h_06dM/katee_and_joshuas_contemporary_top_6/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-XZoOOoubePQ/sytycd_top_6_katee_and_joshua_paso_doble/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-v-PaTu-4JCw/katee_and_twitch_contemporary/

To sleep, perchance to dream

So if you’ve ever had to sleep near me, you’d realize that I’m a snorer. According to my wife Renee, a really loud snorer. Before we got married, I promised her that I’d look into finding a way to reduce the snoring. I tried all the throat sprays, nasal passageway strips, etc. Nothing really worked better than a placebo. I went to see my family physician about it and he sent me to an Ear, Nose & Throat specialist. I don’t ever really feel tired or feel like I stop breathing through the night, but the ENT doc suggested that I have a sleep study done. Insurance will pay for the study and if necessary a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine. If it is “just cosmetic” snoring then they could remove tissue in the back of my throat but insurance won’t cover it. So I went to the sleep study last night.

I have to say that I had preconceived notions of what the study would be like. It was a sci-fi movie with a pretty spartan room, one-way glass, and sensors all over my body. One out of three ain’t bad for reality. I’m still wearing the glue for the 10 or so sensors they put on my scalp. There are a few hairless places on my legs and chest after those sensors were removed. All-in-all there were about 20 wires coming from various locations into a 2″x4″ box that then ran into a computer. The room was nicely decorated with private bath, sort of like a nice hotel. There was no TV in the room, which prompted me to try and get to sleep earlier than usual.  A camera was mounted by the doorway aimed at the bed.

Once I was wired up and in bed, the sleep technician had me do a series of movements. Look up and down, left and right, wiggle my toes, blink repeatedly, breathe in and out, etc.  Then, with a bunch of wires and tubes, I had to go to sleep. I found this pretty much impossible. I could sleep on my side in one direction and changing sides was difficult due to the different cords and their tension. I was acutely aware of being in a strange place and being watched. It was pretty disconcerting. I think I got about an hour of sleep during this first half. From that, I guess I matched the protocols for sleep apnea, because they then had me wear a CPAP machine. My boss had told me how it worked wonders for his brother, so I had an open mind about it. The technician warned me that my brain was going to lie to me and make me want to rip it off immediately, but in about 10 minutes I’d adjust. He was pretty much right. Initially, I hated it. The device essentially creates a seal around your nose and is blowing slightly above room pressure into it. You are supposed to breathe normally in and out, but throught your nose only. Alas, I’m a mouth breather. When you open your mouth, you change the airflow pattern and it feels like you are sucking down water. You aren’t, of course, but that’s the closest feeling I can think of, a sheer panic attack sets in. It only lasts a second and dissipates when you close your mouth and the pathway resumes normalcy. Once I put it on, it took about 2-3 hours to get back to sleep. I’d feel like I’d gotten the hang of it, then I’d open my mouth and have to start all over again. At around 5:45 am I woke up and the technician ended the study.

I’m not sure what to think of my experience. Obviously, I’m at risk for sleep apnea as it was stated before that they only do the CPAP test if you meet certain criteria. I have to wait 7-10 days to get the results from the study back. Almost certainly, they’re going to recommend that I get a CPAP machine. It’ll be something that takes some getting used to, but I did make a promise and apnea can have some pretty serious long-term consequences. I’m running on about 3 hours of fits-and-starts sleep right now, so I’m sure that this posting is pretty incoherent.

The Last Lecture

If you’ve been living under a rock, you may have missed the news than Randy Pausch died last week. Randy was a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He helped start the Entertainment Technology Center. Both Dan and I talked about going there when we graduated from NCSU. My first class introducing me to game development, the Design and Development of Virtual Worlds with Dr. Michael Young, used Alice. So Randy’s work has intersected my career a couple of times already. Most recently, I watched his Last Lecture and read the book. To say that it moved myself and Renee is an understatement. His love for his wife and kids, passion for his work, and positivity are all things that I personally aspire to. The fact that Randy is unabashedly a geek makes the connection even stronger.

It amazes me that his message is making its way out into popular culture. Renee’s friends were calling us telling us to watch the TV special tonight. They’ve watched the lecture. I can use it as a touchpoint to talk about what I do for a living and it connects better than usual. Crossing the geek to mass cultural divide is really hard. Millions of dollars are spent by big companies to make brands like Iron Man and Batman popular. They get their 15 minutes of fame and then flitter away. To touch the lives of millions is amazing. To do it with a positive message is even more amazing.

Even though I never really interacted with him, I think that I wouldn’t be far off in saying that Randy Pausch is one of my mentors.

Last Lecture on Google:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5700431505846055184

CMU’s website:

http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/index.shtml