crazy ivan

Wow...first photo i've posted in my blog...haha this stuff was taken in between crowds of visitors to our booth showcasing the not-so-big 'big guns'. After you've played with them for a while, they don't seem so huge after all...though most people who have served NS aren't quite accustomed to seeing anything larger than a 5.56mm round. 40mm launchable grenades can blow most people off their feet. Though i've never admired big guns...and i think such hardware is pretty crude anyway...light sabres are more elegant and civilised.


Not quite a "Knight of Valour" eh?

You can see above that i'm trying to look like a Crazy Ivan, but the facial expression didn't turn out to be as loony as i hoped it would be...shucks... = (
Nevertheless i'm still crazy enough for many people haha

The reason i'm blogging so late is due to my bondage with the television. They were showing two documentries on WWII in a row, and the second one was about sunken barrels of heavy water in a lake in Norway...which were suspected by British intelligence to be meant for construction of a heavy water nuclear reactor, as part of Nazi efforts to create the nuclear bomb...

the advent of electronics in the 20th century, especially its involvement in the second world war, is particularly intriguing to me. It must have been exhilarating to work on those electronics-related projects, such as in the invention of radar (even till this day, electromagnetics and radar projects invoke a sense of mysticism in me). In those days, radar must have seemed so magical; to realise the immense capability and potential of a brave new nascent technology whose birth you play a part in...it must feel great. Also, the creation of computers, and the promise of intelligent machines that would follow with the inexorable increase of computing power until human intellect would be triumphed by the very machines they borne through their engineering pursuits. And those large instrument panels with huge dials and meters, big warning lights, all mounted on a light grey or pale beige metal frame...and monochrome cathode-ray tube displays with either displayed an eerie green or a sobering orange. Before the days of LEDs and LCD displays...these panels in their seemingly complex and cryptic and inaccessible appearance were an icon of cutting edge technology at that time. They also give me a strong feeling of mystery and an abundance of enigma. Human-machine interfaces of the present will never ignite such strong feelings in me. They're pretty bland by comparison. Maybe its just a passing period of lull, before another leap occurs.

And artificial intelligence was so young then, cybernetics was just created by Wiener...then they moved in the direction of greater processing power and symbolic AI, and gave everybody lots of promises and cautioned and braced the public on the supposed impending arrival of really intelligent robots.

And now that failed and we're at a bland period...or maybe i'm wrong...because i'm not in touch with the latest developments in AI. But i think its either GOFAI researchers presenting yet another solution to a very narrow problem, or other people asking for or practising a more holistic approach, and yet aren't making much concrete developments. This is solely my personal impression, which is entirely unreliable because it arose from my own biased, unevidenced judgement from an incomplete perception.

yikes that was a lot of rambling and yada yada...

working on some issues on artificial intelligence. will take some time to work out. involves lots of humanities, zero math (yay! pretty ironic? we'll talk abt this some other time. suffice to say that i'm not an "i grew up doing really well at math and engineering was just a natural progression" person.) Hope to publish the essay soon, but the questions are really broad and difficult and it would be horrible if i were to give solely my own narrow, most-certainly-biased opinion. Note 'opinion'...because there is no 'answer', for the word implies an absolute truth to the question i'm addressing, and that question can only invite opinions...no assertions, no answers. Just opinions, which i will compile and list and seek further insight from. Like a survey.

getting too long-aired for my own good...