My Blog

“In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid cities…” – Arthur Rimbaud.

I have always enjoyed endings. Because of this…

I am a book flipper. I will read the end before the middle most of the time.

My favorite movie is Polanski’s “Chinatown”. Not because of the wonderful acting or beautiful scenery. No, it is because of the last line of the last scene, “forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.” With that line the whole damn ugly affair is encapsulated.

I love airports. Where every minute of every day all over this huge crazy world someone is saying good-bye.

Endings have the ability to tear us apart and bind us together. Endings are never mundane and because of this they are remembered. I do not recall what I had for dinner 155 days ago, it is lost in murky haze, but I can still see my fathers face come into focus out of a throng of soldiers as he looked back at me while walking onto a bus, heading to war. I was 12, I had on a blue T-shirt and the next day my mother took me for a haircut. I remember. And in the end when faced with the inevitable oblivion, I firmly believe, it is these poignant moments of clarity that have burned themselves into the very fabric of our ego’s that we will recall and revisit. That will be compiled and ran in a blazing instant before waiting to be reloaded.

Ending’s and beginnings. Flags tied around tree’s that will lead us back.

This class has made me consider that humanity, as we know it, is ending. The question of if it’s a dawn or sunset still to be decided. With our quick integration to computers and technology and the fact that now, under no uncertain terms, we rely upon them for basically everything in life, I cannot see it as anything else. Computers are expanding our horizons further than we ever dreamed we could go, yet, paradoxically, they are boxing us in. I can turn on my computer and pull up pictures of black holes within a minute while concurrently most freshman in high school can not run a mile in less than fifteen minutes. We can listen to Bach, the Beatles, or Bob Dylan from a little inch by half inch box at our waist but are having a harder and harder time listening to people we claim to love right in front of us. No doubt it is a tangled web we weave.

This class has put idea’s and concepts I once thought out of reach( the creation of web-pages, database interaction, programming, putting together hardware etc.) within reach. It has broken down lofty words and symbols into understandable language that I can feel comfortable with and attempt to learn more about. I am excited to spend part of my Christmas break learning more about writing HTML and building webpages. It is a tool I always wanted to have and now to be able to go forward is great.

After taking this class I have more questions than answers and that is a good thing. I want to know more about Alan Turning, I cannot wait to read Ray Kurzweil, I want to know if there is a way to intertwine natural living with computers. I want to know where technology is taking us for I do not think we are taking technology anywhere. We are now latched upon it’s back for the ride.

I learned that this is a field I can be excited to be apart of and cannot wait to join.

Thank you for teaching it.

Onward to splendid cities.

Christopher Tupps

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My father had a classic Atari. The joystick( that is a good name for a band) with the red button on top, Pong, Donkey-Kong, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, these are pieces of my earliest memories. Playing them is just a hazy blur in my memory, a road I drove past years ago, but the fact remains that video games and myself have had a long a storied history. One that spans from those early days to now, where me and modern warfare 3 are are very good friends.

I grew up with two brothers. The fact was that it was imperative for me to play and be successful at video games if I was going to have normal social interactions with them. It was how we rode out rainy days and snow in’s. Through the heat of summer afternoons we would pour through cheat guides, draw maps of various dungeons( try to beat the first Ultima on NES without doing so and see how far you will get), and talk smack about who could create the best crash on Hard Driving. These experiences shaped me and for a large part helped lay the ground work for the person that I am today( I like to think that I am pretty cool so this is a good thing).

Yet at the same time, while we loved video games, this is not all that we absorbed. We were outside with our bikes, baseballs, and hide and seek. We were not closeted away in some dark room allowing our muscles to melt constantly staring at a screen that was the only social interaction that we were involved in. And now as the technology that powers these virtual worlds grows and creates more realistic experiences I am afraid that this is for a large part becoming more and more the truth for some gamers. They are sucked into worlds so realistic and comforting that it is easy to ignore the one they breath in. It is a growing problem that is just going to grow( here is a website on stumbled upon, sort of a AA for WOW players).

Not that I am trying to take away from how amazing and awe-aspiring these games can be. Pac-Man could not move you or get you thinking the way the current generation of video games can. I swear some of these games are works of art and one day will be appreciated as such. I remember playing Final Fantasy III in high school with my mouth constantly dropped in disbelief at how great a game it was. Playing the first Zelda, the gold one, on NES, was a defining moment in my life. This past weekend, with both my brothers in town for Thanksgiving, we played Modern Warfare for hours.

We played because that is what we do. These are apart of who we are.

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Roxxy The Sex Robot

Human sexuality is to say the least a complicated force. Under various disguises this force has ripped apart empires, written hundreds of thousands of (mostly) terrible poetry, and has had a hand in most of civilizations advancements. From the phallic shape of a monolith to the porn industry becoming a major driving force into the shaping of what the internet will be in the future, all facets of technology have felt the push and pull of sex drives. It is branded into all of our creations unavoidably. It is, no matter if we like it or not, just a fact of of who we are, it is a piece of the jigsaw of human nature.

Thus when I stumbled upon the robot Roxxy I was not surprised.

It was just a matter of when honestly. In the age we live in as technology rushes ever faster forward and we become more integrated with our various machines it seems that adversely we are distancing ourselves from each other physically. We meet less for coffee in a random cafe’s now that we can Skype. I do not need to talk to you now that I can just creep onto your Facebook page and see your comings and goings. It is ironic that we live in a world of billions, a world where I can be in China tomorrow if I needed too, yet never in the history of man have there been so many hermits. So many people that shun the light of the day and the people that reside in it. A world where World of Warcraft breaks up marriages alongside infidelity. Where people’s first sexual encounter no longer is with the girl next door but with the girl who lives three states away and charges $8.95 an hour.

It is a technological knot indeed.

Douglas Hines, the gentleman caressing Roxxy’s shoulders in the photo above, is the creator of Roxxy. He founded the company, True Companion, after leaving Bell labs where he worked as a engineer in the field of artificial intelligence.

The genius of Douglas Hines is that when he created Roxxy he was not just creating a sex doll. Because there already were a plethora of sex dolls on the market. No, Douglas Hines, he decided imbue Roxxy with a personality, and that is where Roxxy differs from every other sex robot. She can talk to you, listen to you, be bitchy to you, nice to you, sexy for you. On the true companion website she is called a girlfriend and her personalities can be changed to your liking. They even have the suggestion that you can visit their forum and “swap” personalities with other sex doll users for a swinging experience. And soon for all those that prefer men there will be a sex robot named Rocky.

Roxxy’s has a articulated skeleton that allows her to be moved dynamically. She also has a liquid cooling system that is powered by the pump. From what I understand this gives her synthetic skin warmth and also powers her “inputs” as they like to call them on their website. Her movements are also what you would expect from a sex robot here is a demonstration. (Go to 2:20 to skip Douglas Hines if you want)

Roxxy

When Douglas Hines introduced Roxxy at the Adult Video Expo he was met with disdain and laughter. At $8000 dollars a pop many people just did not see how this robot would turn a profit. But then most people are just not aware of how many lonely people there are in this world and that the value of money is a dwarf in the shadow of companionship’s value. And according to Douglas Hines interest in his robots hit right away.

When I look at Roxxy I see the future. For all the scoff’s and jokes thrown around on late night talk shows the fact of the matter is that as technology advances so will Roxxy or others like her. While now her face looks like a dummy’s and her eyes are lifeless holes of black despair soon her face will be responsive and emotional. In the depths of her eyes there will be intelligence. While now you have to plug her in, soon she will be able to do it herself. While now you have to program her behavior, eventually she will be able to develop one on her own.

It reminds me of something…

But I forget…

Yes, I do not understand the jigsaw. I do not know what it is in us that wishes to create and destroy to ravage and love. I honestly do not believe that we being players in the game can ever hold a perch high enough to understand. We are just passengers on a train lonely not knowing our destination.

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I remember, on the last laptop I had, having this bs malware somehow showing up. The damn thing, it’s funny I still can not think about it without cursing, would create a beep every two minutes. I was not aware at the time that a machine could inspire such anger in me. Now at the time I was quite a bit less computer savy and I just could not get the thing off of my computer, I guess having an old beat up laptop did not help either. Finally I just lost it and went online and googled like I have never googled before. I had to get rid of this beep or I was going to have to get rid of the computer. It had come down go a showdown. Me vs malware. Winner take all.
I won in 8 ( by eight I mean around eight hours of installing and program removing). I swear to this day I still have flashbacks and nightmares about that day. It changed me.
During this time I developed a hatred of someone I have never met. The creator of the malware. The dirty son of a gun who woke up one day and said to himself that ” hey, today I am going to write the most annoying program that has ever been written.” I mean c’mon why write this crap? I can understand the motives behind writing programs that steal money or information( not that I agree with that either, I am just saying that I can see the reason behind there motives) but to create a program that destroys a expensive machine of a complete stranger I just do not get. It would be like me walking into some random house with a bat swinging, breaking everything I could. It would be pointless and stupid.
I was actually in Vegas during the hacker convention this last August and sat down at a table with a man who had some hacker t- shirt on. As we played blackjack we talked a little bit and he seemed like a nice enough man but I must say in the back of my mind that damn beeping keep coming up every two minutes. I knew it was irrational but I started thinking that maybe this man was it’s creator, or if not him then someone just like him. Needless to say when he busted out and walked away I wasn’t feeling that sorry for him.

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When I first began delving into the world of computers, by delving I mean choosing to become more then simply computer literate, I did not see it as a world of creation. That was for the painters, the musicians, the authors, and the builders. Programmers simply crunched numbers and stared at a screen working on their blue tans. It was impressive surely, after all it takes quite a bit of mental agility in order to become a programmer, but it did not enter into the world of art.

However, once entrenched, my eyes opened. I stood transfixed, with a little awe, at what some of these programmers have created. The time, the effort, the frustrations endured, and all for the sake of completing something that had never been created. Much like a composer squinting over his written music, trying to put that which is in his head on paper, a programmer composes methods and classes to allow his creation to move and function as he first conceived it. It really was quite a moment for me when I realized this that a computer screen can have the same impact and beauty, if not more, as a painting or book.

Currently I am also in a beginning Java class. Learning in depth of methods and loops, strings and int’s, if and else’s. And to tell the truth at first I was a little hesitant when I choose to take these computer classes. I honestly did not think that I would enjoy them. But I find that not only am I enjoying them I am really loving them. I can not wait to learn more. I am very impatient to get further along in my education and instead of wondering if I ever will learn Java I am thinking of what I will do when I learn Java. Or what I will do when I become better at html. Because I will learn it, even if I fail these classes, I will learn it.( Not to say I am going to fail, because I wou’t)

I have been to the Scratch website and have checked out tons of programs done by other users and I have a few thoughts I the direction I will go. I want the program to incorporate lot’s of different sounds and I even have this new recording software that I recently placed onto my computer that I can utilize. I also, maybe, want the program to be educational in nature, something that a third grader can play around with and enjoy while learning at the same time.

We will soon see.

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<p>So the last two weeks have been about building a webpage and build a webpage I have. I have spent hours and hours going over the tutorials learning about tags, attributes, and classes, width’s, alignments.</p

<p>It has been interesting and also a little daunting. Comparing the website that I have made to others I have visited and seen shows how inexperienced I am at to building these things. My site looks kindergarten compared to the big boys. Of course now that I have started this I can see how well one can improve possibly use Dreamweaver and Photoshop which I will be getting soon courtesy of my older brother.</P>

<p>If I am going to get better at coding in HTML I am going to have learn more. I bet becoming a master requires a year or two. I am going to have to learn css, it would make writing the code so much easier and quicker</P>

<p>Overall I really enjoyed learning the basics of what makes HTML click and I am looking forward to learning more</p>

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I recently stumbled upon a little fact in one of my recent surf sessions on the web. Apparently there are around ( and this is by no means for sure, the information could be totally wrong) 270,000,000 websites on the internet. Pretty amazing number considering that the world wide web as we know it has just recently been born.

Born. I use that word with purpose. For what else can you call this internet but a birth. In my mind it is the spawn of humanity’s and technology’s marriage. A new, singulary unique creation whose future is uncertain. Whose shape and character is influenced by the direction that we, and technology for that matter point it. Browsing through it you will find the best and the worst that we offer. You will find depravity and holiness, you will the ugly and the beautiful, the funny and the sad. The internet has become a mirror for who we are and what we want to become as a whole.

Finding out how this baby works is pretty cool.

I have never worked with html but in truth learning it is a huge reason for why I decided to return to school at the age of 30. I am convinced that knowing it well is a must in today’s business environment. That the creation of websites and webpages can make or break a business and that the opportunity’s created by the birth of the internet are just now fully being realized. There is so much more that can be created and explored. Whole worlds out there that have yet been realized or seen. We have just landed.

A little quark about me is that I am always coming up with ideas for websites. Most stupid but some in my opinion not too bad. I will tell my wife or brother my idea see there reaction and often hear them say something along the line of ” yea, chris, that is a good idea.” This can be two things at the same time. It can be gratifying and stifling. Gratifying because other people see that the idea is good. Stifling because I have no way of creating that idea. I do not have the know how.

That is why I am in school. That is why I am taking this class. To gain a firm grasp on the concept behind networking and the internet. To be able to take these fanciful ideas and make them a reality.

As of now the website that I am currently building has a shape and a overall structure. I am still undecided upon what exactly I am going let the body contain, what pictures I am going to post, what interest’s I am going to expand upon etc. Yet even now as I write this post the idea’s come and I should have these questions figured out soon.

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Four weeks of school have come and gone threw a haze of letters, equations and coffee. The first exams are underway, not just in this class but in all my classes, and in preparing for them while working at my current job I am finding it rather hard to reflect at the moment. In these past weeks so much has been rammed into my head that it is somewhat difficult to find what sticks. But I will try and try and try.

We began the class learning of the early days of computers. Where they came from and where they are going. We learned of the pioneers and inventors who took the idea of a computer and shaped it into what it is today, a almost fundamental part of society. It was here that my interest was most peaked. The stories of some of these great minds really got to me. So much to the point that I recently just purchased off of amazon the biography of Alan Turing. That man has a fantastic story and the more I researched him the more fantastic it became. From the fact that he was gay to his school days in Britain to his work for England during the war. The man lived a life. I am looking forward to his bio.

From there we looked at the basics of what a computer is from it’s hardware to it’s software. The language portion of this gelled well considering at the moment I am also trying to learn and understand Java. Learning about where these language’s spawned from has helped me understand exactly what these programming languages are and why they are created. It still boggles my mind when I consider exactly what it took to make the computers of old work and the patience required to work with them. Even the machine language that we worked with last week seems clunky but when I think of what came before…

I have enjoyed the flow of the course. Starting from the basics while branching slowly out to encompass exactly what a computer is and how it ticks. It has not been easy by any means there is quite a bit of information to go over but it has been presented in such a way that it seems to flow very well.

Again it is rather difficult for me to reflect at the moment so enmeshed into the machine that I am. I am optimistic about the coming weeks test however and also excited to see what the weeks ahead bring. I really did not think that this subject would as interesting as it has been.

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Around 5 years ago my brother and myself purchased a 12 track mixer, a couple of mics, two mic stands, like 25 wires that went everywhere, and an expensive music program. We were pretty pumped the day it all arrived at our apartment (our neighbors were not)the boxes laid everywhere, wires were soon taped to walls and door-frames, the guitars were brought out, and we were on our way to beginning our music recording careers. And we did, kinda.
It soon became apparent that our computer was not up to par. Dou’t get me wrong, I loved that computer, it did exactly what it was suppose to do. Surf the net, store music, operate windows, play solitaire, send email. It might not have been the Carl Lewis of the PC world, more of a John Goodman in comparable speed, but it taught the invaluable lesson of patience while you waited. Still to this day I look back fondly thinking of all the important household chores I would accomplish while a song downloaded, I would vacuum the carpet, do the dishes, water the plants on our balcony, cook a grill cheese, pretty much the whole list for the day would be done when I returned to the computer to see that 85% had been downloaded. I would smile fondly at the computer, of course I was never mad after all I was learning, and go make another grill cheese, for one is never enough.

Thinking back on those days, and considering what type of computer I would want if money was no object, I would take one that could handle the heavy music programs such as pro-tools or quick edit. One with excellent speakers and over the top sound card. A computer with a monitor that used every available pixel to it’s utmost potential. A video card that would allow this.The CPU would have to be an Intel I7. The keyboard would have to be wireless.

After taking this course putting this beauty together would be a simple proposition. It starts with the motherboard. It is there that I click into place my cpu and my memory cards. My video and sound cards also are placed in replacing the factory one’s that came with the motherboard. I must handle all these materials carefully due to damage that can be caused by static. The motherboard is then placed inside the case. After this comes the hard drives and cd roms. Then the power supply. After this I begin to start wiring and bam. A working computer(at least I hope).

Case
Corsair Special Edition Graphite Series 600T Computer Case Price $169.99

I liked the look of this case. Honestly choose it just because of that.

Motherboard
Asus P8Z68-V PRO LGA 1155 268 HDMI SATA Intel Motherboard

This motherboard seemed to be the badass of motherboards due to me reading some reviews upon it. I am a sucker for reviews.

CPU
Intel Core I7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz LGA9 3.8Hz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 Quad-Core

I just bought a laptop with an I5 intel cpu. It is pretty fast. I can only imagine the potential that the I7 has.

Memory
CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model HX3X12G1600C9 G

There is some serious RAM available in these cards. The reviews that I glanced told me that they would handle anything thing I threw at them.

Video Card
EVGA SuperClocked 015-P3-1582-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Speakers
Logitech Z906 500W 5.1 Speakers

These were the best speakers, and most expensive, that I could find that were not custom made. These will compete with a Bose sound system.

Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card powered by THX TruStudio Pro

Crisp clear and expensive, I need this to fully utilize the greatness of the speakers.
Hard-Drive
HP SimpleSave 2TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive HPBAAD0020HBK-NHSN

Keyboard
Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 100 Black 102 Normal Keys USB RF Wireless Standard Keyboard and Mouse

Monitor
PLANAR PX2710MW Black 27″ 2ms Full HD HDMI WideScreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers 300 cd/m2 1200:1

This monitor seemed to be the one with the most definition.

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It dawns on me that a certain humbleness is useful when learning. That a barrier in the act of inquiring knowledge is our preconceived notions on the matter in which we are studying. Genius does not always describe the man who knows the most but the man who truly realizes the depth of his ignorance.

This week as I was learning binary my ignorance was very apparent to myself. (I am not calling myself a genius however)

A year ago if I was to meet someone new and they were to ask me of my knowledge of computers I would have responded that I was, say on a scale of 1-10, a 6. After all, I typed fast, I could start up windows with the best, I could attach speakers, troubleshoot a wireless connection, clean your computer of viruses( although often I would just put new one’s on, many of which were subtler and meaner then those they replaced), and speak of ram with the best of them. It was only when it came to the dirty little nuances that my knowledge dwindled. Nuances like binary.

I had heard of it. I knew it was 1′s and 0′s. Somehow computers used it to run. That was it.

Now after going over it in this class, further more after going over all the material that we have went through in just the last two weeks, I have to drop my number to a 3.

This is not to say that the material we have been going over is by any means to much or that we are moving too fast, it has just been humbling to see and explore it all. Those men that developed those early machines, who had to write in machine language, were pioneers. I can not fathom how difficult it must of been to just make an early computer add 2 to 2, much less take the technology to where it is, and where it is going, today. And at the speed that it is going. When I think of it I like to imagine a caveman learning to draw on the wall one day, the next being deposited into a BMW.

Humbling. AND cool.

I enjoyed the binary problems. When I was young I used to love to encode and break code. Doing the problems I was reminded of this.100=4. 101=5. 111=7. on and on. The comic book also is a great way to learn the subject, it injects humor and perspective on a subject that many would find boring. I print out your lecture notes and go through them while reading it. I find that if I have a question in one the other will have the answer.

In my youth my parents bought me a Einstein poster, it had him standing in front of a chalkboard holding a piece of chalk, next to this was one of his quotes. ” Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you that mine are greater.” I remember for years looking at this poster and thinking to myself ” What a arrogant sob” who is he to put down my difficulties in math( as a child I had huge problems with the subject). I did not get the greatness of the quote until, honestly, like five years ago, when a random internet search brought that quote to me again. It was not arrogance that made him speak that but a total humbleness. Here is a link.

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