Sensory augmentation experiment log website, request for comments

selfmodifier.org shall be a website designed to support the aims and development of the "scrapyard transhumanism movement". It will:

• Document what exactly is happening, in a neutral manner. This will help explain the situation to outsiders.



• Improve safety, for anyone who may be interesting in trying out some of the ideas, by being clear on all methods used.



• Carry a disclaimer to show that this isn't medical science; that it's more like a mix of piercing and computer science; even then it isn't recognized by piercers. "Don't be an idiot."



• Make it easier for users to find information



• Make things easier for lepht, who is the only moderator of a blog which is the centre of a growing movement.



• Encourage community development.

It shall attempt to fulfill these aims, by meeting these specific requirements in software:

• selfmodifier.org shall be a collection of experiment logs on low-cost sensory augmentation.



• The site shall have three classes of user who are capable of modifying the site:


• registered users


• moderators


• site administrators



• Experiment logs shall only be submitted by registered members and moderators.



• On each log's page, it shall be clearly stated that it is not a safe piercing, or medical procedure. It shall also state that the work has not been peer reviewed by researchers. It shall state that it is the log of an experiment by a private individual, and that it is not an instruction manual on how to perform home surgery.



• Experiments will be structured as the most plain and simple scientific reports. Each may have:
  
  
  • Title
  
  
  • Abstract
  
  
  • Introduction
  
  
  • Method
  
  
  • Results
  
  
  • Discussion
  
  
  • Reference list
  
  
  • Appendices
  
  
  
• This format shall not be enforced by site design, but it shall be encouraged by the moderators.



• The moderations shall be able to ban users, and edit all experiment logs.



• Users may be promoted to moderators, and moderators may be demoted to users, or banned, by the administrators.



• There shall be a comment system, to allow users to encourage good work and discourage poor work.



• There shall be a search engine, and tagging scheme, to enable users to find experiment logs



• Registered members retain copyright of their experiment logs. They shall license them to the users themselves, using the GNU Free Documentation License.



• The site reserves the right to remove content and suspend services at any time.



• The site shall respect, and only respect, the legal authorities of the United Kingdom. I.E. the only people whom the administrators are obliged to obey, are the U.K. police.



• Since this is a fairly harmless site about implanting things into your skin, anything that is obviously illegal is also irrelevant content, and shall be deleted.



• All source code shall be made available under the GNU GPL.

gory website

EDIT: I have decided these ideas are not great - it just sounds so unscientific, which is exactly what people are complaining about. See the next entry for new ideas.

So I've decided to go ahead and make a website to host instructions for sensory augmentation. It will have several caveats, designed to minimize the site's involvement with Her Majesty's servants:

• It shall be clearly stated that the instructions on the site are not safe, and are not condoned by medical professionals nor anyone else. Readers should not attempt to execute the instructions. The instructions are only intended to provoke thought about the limits of human sensory perception or abilities.



• Users shall not be able to comment nor vote upon the instructions. Allowing this would imply that the site approves of some instructions.



• Articles shall only be submitted by registered members.



• Registered members retain copyright of the instructions. They shall license them to the users themselves: no instructions shall be the intellectual property of the site.



• The site reserves the right to remove content and suspend services at any time.

EDIT: this all looks a bit strict. Perhaps I better revise my ideas? After all, some people just post pictures of themselves chopping their own balls off online.

websites with gory content

Extreme body modification would benefit from an website where people can share their recipes. However, it's a thing generally frowned upon, and perhaps illegal in some contexts.

It's not alone in this. As certain people found out, publishing instructions to hack into the Bank of America is also going to get you into trouble.

This puts the publisher in a strange position. I don't do these things. I don't condone all (most?) of these things! But some things that are generally frowned upon are great, and it would be brilliant to see them progress!

I'm not sure what it needs, but a one-owner, one-responsibility website seems a tad inappropriate.

Cybernetics for the masses repair stream on linux

The wmas coming out of the ccc are fucked atm, so here's a command for GNU/Linux users which simultaneously:
downloads
repairs (though transcribing to mp4)
sensibly renames the video

wget -qO- http://c3.ex23.de/saal2-2010-12-30_11-21-43.wmv | ffmpeg -i pipe: cybernetics_for_the_masses1.mp4

For the questions and answers:

wget -qO- http://c3.ex23.de/saal2-2010-12-30_13-37-07.wmv | ffmpeg -i pipe: cybernetics_for_the_masses2.mp4

Obviously you need ffmpeg installed for that.

Positive About Negative Aberdonian Crusty

NOTE: I edited this a couple of times around 22:16, on 21 December 2010, and the morning of the 22nd.

I wrote a song. Give it a listen!

It's a happy blues song about crust music in Aberdeen.

For the benefit of a couple of friends, here are the tabs:

Positive About Negative Aberdonian Crusty
By John Morrice 2010

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. 

To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to 
Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Hi guys!

Tuning is a half step down, Eb Bb Db Gb Bb Eb
Time signature is 6/8 for most of the song, but 4/4 at the end.

Notation:

Next bar: |
Hammer on: h
Pull off: p
Don't play this string: x

Notes:
* I skimp on some work by just saying what chord to play for that part.
* The chords used are given at the end of this file.
* Always listen to the song for the rhythm.  
* This tab file does not describe the songs structure, only its riffs.
* I know I wrote the bloody song but these tabs may still not be perfect.

Verse:

Eb|-------------0---------|-------------0-----0-
Bb|---------0h2---2p0-----|---------0h2---2p0---
Gb|-------0---------------|-------0-------------
Db|---0h2-------------2p0-|---0h2---------------
Ab|-0---------------------|-0-------------------
Eb|-----------------------|---------------------

Eb|-------------0---------|-------------------------
Bb|---------0h1---1p0-----|-1p0h1p0h1p0h1p0h1p0h1p0-
Gb|-------0---------------|-------------------------
Db|---0h2-------------2p0-|-------------------------
Ab|-3---------------------|-------------------------
Eb|-----------------------|-------------------------

Eb|-------------0---------|--------------0-----0-
Bb|---------0h2---2p0-----|----------0h2---2p0---
Gb|-------0---------------|--------0-------------
Db|---0h2-------------2p0-|---0h2----------------
Ab|-0---------------------|-0--------------------
Eb|-----------------------|----------------------

For the last two bars, strum Gb6 (see the end of this file)

Chorus rhythm part:

Strum

Ab7
Ab7
Gb6
Cb7

Chorus lead part:

Eb|-9p7---9p7---9p7---9p7---9p7---9p7---9p7---9p7---
Bb|-----8-----8-----8-----8-----8-----8-----8-----8-
Gb|-------------------------------------------------
Db|-------------------------------------------------
Ab|-------------------------------------------------
Eb|-------------------------------------------------

Eb|-----3------3------3------3-
Bb|-3h5----3h5----3h5----3h5---
Gb|----------------------------
Db|----------------------------
Ab|----------------------------
Eb|----------------------------

                             Back into verse, let ring
Eb|-------------------------|--
Bb|-------------------------|--
Gb|-3p0h3p0h3p0h3p0h3p0h3p0-|-0
Db|-------------------------|--
Ab|-------------------------|--
Eb|-------------------------|--

"Solo", on top of the chorus, goes something a little like:

Eb|-------------------------------------------------
Bb|-------------------------5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-
Gb|-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-------------------------
Db|-------------------------------------------------
Ab|-------------------------------------------------
Eb|-------------------------------------------------

Eb|-------------------------------------------------
Bb|-------------------------------------------------
Gb|-------------------------5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-
Db|-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-------------------------
Ab|-------------------------------------------------
Eb|-------------------------------------------------

Eb|-------------------------------------------------
Bb|-------------------------------------------------
Gb|-------------------------------------------------
Db|-------------------------5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-
Ab|-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-------------------------
Eb|-------------------------------------------------

Eb|-------------------------------------------------
Bb|-------------------------------------------------
Gb|-------------------------------------------------
Db|-------------------------------------------------
Ab|-5-5-5-5-5-5-3-3-3-3-3-3-------------------------
Eb|-------------------------5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-

End part is in 4/4 and goes:

Ab5
Gb5
Cb5
Db5

That's it!

The chords:

Ab7
Eb 0
Bb 2
Gb 0
Db 2
Ab 0
Eb x

Gb6
Eb 0
Bb 3
Gb 0
Db 0
Ab x
Eb 3

(Weird) Cb7
Eb x
Bb x
Gb 3
Db 5
Ab 3
Eb x

Powerchords (Fifths)

Ab5
Eb x
Bb x
Gb x
Db 2
Ab 0
Eb x

Gb5
Eb x
Bb x
Gb x
Db x
Ab 5
Eb 3

Cb5
Eb x
Bb x
Gb x
Db 5
Ab 3
Eb x

Db5

Eb x
Bb x
Gb x
Db 7
Ab 5
Eb x

Have a lot of fun :)

Wireworld

On my quest for enlightenment, I have completed the Wireworld cellular automaton task on Rosetta code. Smalltalk wasn't on the list, so I gave learning GNU Smalltalk a try, and I experienced some success in this!

I find cellular automata fascinating. It's just the biological nature of it - that it can grow, and where there was previously no life, something suddenly exists! I digress, but there are interesting applications for more traditional mathematics (like finding the contour of the graph).

However, my solution is a bit big - in fact, it's written in both Smalltalk and C, and generates animated GIFs.



Also I wanted to write a nice flexible bit of software in Smalltalk, to learn it properly and to find why those in my books rate it so highly, so aye, it grew a bit.

Anyway, here is the README so you can find out about it, with an additional link to the source added there.

NAME 
   jwgif - Johnny's Wireworld GIF creator.

ABOUT

   jwgif is a simulator for the Wireworld cellular automaton.  It renders to an animated GIF,
   which it sends to stdout.

REQUIREMENTS

   gcc
   GNU Plotutils
   GNU Smalltalk

COMPILATION

   ./compile.sh

USAGE
   
   jwgif FILENAME GENERATIONS WIDTH HEIGHT SQUARESIZE

OPTIONS

   FILENAME is a path to a Wireworld file - see WIREWORLD FILE FORMAT below.

   The following must be positive integers:

   GENERATIONS determines the number of frames produced.
   WIDTH the width of the output GIF, in pixels.
   HEIGHT the height of the output GIF, in pixels.
   SQUARESIZE the size of the square cells, in pixels.

EXAMPLE

   ./jwgif arena/cyc3inhib.ww 200 110 50 10 > 3cycle.gif

WIREWORLD FILE FORMAT

   Wireworld is a cellular automaton with some similarities to Conway's Game of Life. It is 
   capable of doing sophisticated computations (e.g., calculating primeness!) with appropriate
   programs, and is much simpler to program for.

   A wireworld arena consists of a cartesian grid of cells, each of which can be in one of 
   four states. All cell transitions happen simultaneously. The cell transition rules are this:

   Input State       Output State      Condition
   empty             empty  
   electron head     electron tail   
   electron tail     conductor  
   conductor         electron head     if 1 or 2 cells in the neighborhood of the cell are in the state “electron head”
   conductor         conductor         otherwise

   A Wireworld program can be stored in a file using the following notation:
   
   "H" for an electron head
   "t" for a tail
   "." for a conductor
   space for empty.
   
   Here is an example program, which demonstrates two cycle-3 generators and an inhibit gate:

   tH.........
   .   .
      ...
   .   .
   Ht.. ......

   The output for this program is included with the jwgif distribution, with the file name 3cycle.gif

   jwgif uses the following convention for colouring cells in the output GIF:

   An electron head is red.
   A tail is blue.
   A conductor is green.
   Empty cells are black.

   This section was ripped off from http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Wireworld on 6th December 2010.  Thanks guys!

LICENSE

   jwgif is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
   the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
   (at your option) any later version.

   jwgif is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
   GNU General Public License for more details.

   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
   along with jwgif.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/

Studying

So I got CARPS text mode stable, and I have plans to create a graphical version.

At 10ksloc and with client, server, superserver, use of maths and support for modding, it is the largest and most complex project I've forced to stagger into some sort of fruition. And I faced so many problems, encountered so many things, and I learned this:

I suck! Oh god, I suck. There are so many reasons why I suck, and thankfully I have learned some of them.

So I had a bit of a think, and decided that before I do any more development on this, I really need to improve. I really like the Rosetta Code website! It challenges you to solve tasks in a language of your choice. So I'm going to spend my time learning some new languages, and solving some interesting problems.