Archives: September 2006
Thu Sep 28, 2006
Mashup activity
Rebang spotted a comic-strip style advert, featuring an avatar, for virtual boots, and remarks "I suspect there is going to be a lot of mashup activity rippling through our lives." He's right, but rippling is not the word I would have chosen. More...
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Wed Sep 27, 2006
Modelling terrains: how far do you need to go?
MSIAC kindly send me their online Journal. The current issue has an interesting article on the simulation of terrain, which shows the extent to which modelling is taken and the (self-defeating?) complexity that is developing. More...
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Top 200 US government contractors.
Government Executive magazine has a feature listing the top 200 US government contractors. Total contracts awarded in Fiscal 2005 came to $388,017,686,748. More...
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Tangram: massive dataset analysis using Bayesian simulation
Cryptome reprints a US government contract document for the Tangram intelligence analysis programme. This is an interesting approach to analysing large amounts of data. More...
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Mon Sep 25, 2006
Passively Multiplayer Games
O'Reilly Radar has a piece about passively multiplayer games: an idea for using the 'data trails' we create to make video games. (I thought that's what the Police already do...) Why not combine it with GPS devices as well? More...
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Sun Sep 24, 2006
Simulation vs representation: two quotations
Just some quotations from recent reading, and some thoughts. Busy week! More...
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Sun Sep 17, 2006
Recent US military simulation contracts
A local US news item reminds me just how much money there is in simulation. More...
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Hockney again.
I went to see the Hockney 'A Year in Yorkshire' exhibition yesterday at Annely Juda. Further thoughts about "representational' painting and the 2D simulation of reality. More...
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Sat Sep 16, 2006
Noll's Mondrian Machine/ Shaw's Golden Calf.
I'm reading about digital art, and looking at some of the early examples. Michael Noll's picture Computer Composition with Lines"
was a computer generated picture resembling Mondrian's 1917 painting, "Composition with Lines". Jeffrey Shaw's virtual sculpture "The Golden Calf", 1994, was a virtual calf mounted on a real pedestal.
More...
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Sun Sep 10, 2006
David Hockney on photography vs painting.
Several David Hockney shows on in London at the moment, so I've been reading an article about his views on the difference betwen painting and photography: how well does each simulate 'reality'? More...
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Sat Sep 09, 2006
How the US Army handles intelligence information
The US Army has published on the internet a manual called "FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52) HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTOR OPERATIONS". This contains some techniques useful in analysing large databases. More...
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Fri Sep 08, 2006
The Petaflop is (nearly) here.
According to the BBC, IBM are building a supercomputer for the Los Alamos National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy (DOE). When ready 'Roadrunner' is expected to achieve 1.6 petaflops. More...
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Lessons from the 'video deficit'.
John Hawks weblog has a posting on the 'video deficit'. Youn children can understand a task when it is demonstrated to them, but not as easily when the same task is shown on a screen. More...
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Fri Sep 01, 2006
A historical perspective on simulation.
I've just been reading the powerpoint of a paper given at the Winter Simulation Conference 05 by C Dennis Pegden. It makes several interesting points very concisely about the recent history of simulation. More...
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John Battelle's face lotion
They took John Battelle's face lotion away at SFO. They took away my toothpaste at Venice (that's the real Venice, not the one in California). Never mind how many people it takes to throw these things away. What about all those people who have to read the confiscated data? More...
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