Alexandre R.J. Francois

So True...

2012-01-12T07:07:00.000-08:00

"People understand static relationships better than dynamic relationships because the latter requires their understanding to change constantly."

Andrew Koenig, Destructors Considered Harmful (Dr. Dobbs, 8 January 2012)

Run First, Think Later

2011-11-09T11:37:00.000-08:00

"The matter of time is especially worth raising in a biological context, since for organisms making a living in a world 'red in tooth and claw,' timing is of the essence. The organism's nervous system cannot afford the luxury of taking several days or even several minutes to decide whether and where to flee from a predator. [...] Biologically speaking, a quick and dirty solution is better than a slow and perfect one." (p.50)

Patricia s. Churchland, Christof Koch, Terence J. Sejnowski, "What Is Computational Neuroscience," in Computational Neuroscience pp. 46-55. Edited by Eric L. Schwartz. 1993. MIT Press.

Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools

2011-10-27T16:20:00.000-07:00

"[...] Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools [...]"

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

Time in Computers and Neural Networks

2011-10-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

"[...] the timing of computers and networks is rigidly coupled to regular cycles of an underlying clock; the wide variation in impulse timings in neuronal systems, often with a strong apparently random component, contrasts markedly with the temporal regimen in these computational devices." (p. 42)

Donald H. Perkel, "Computational Neuroscience: Scope and Structure," in Computational Neuroscience, pp.38-45. Edited by Eric L. Schwartz. 1993. MIT Press.

Ethics of Science

2011-07-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

"I took a required class about the ethics of science as an undergrad at UCLA, and it was all about who gets the funding."

James Franco, Wired Aug. 2011: Ethics, Shmetics, p.118

Science and Perception

2010-09-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

"It is very easy to confound what science says about the characteristics of reality and our perception of it."

Peter Gärdenfors, Conceptual Spaces, 2000, p.9.

Emily Howell

2010-02-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

“The question isn’t whether computers have a soul, but whether humans have a soul.”

David Cope discussing a computer's ability to compose music.

My First Prezi

2009-11-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

Today I gave my first Prezi.com presentation, at the Workshop for Young French Scientists organized at USC by the Office for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in the US. I was introduced to this new presentation tool at the recent ACM Creativity & Cognition Conference. The zooming presentation model seems very promising, although I still have a lot to learn to fully utilize the medium. The non-powerpointness of the presentation was refreshing and, I believe, appreciated.
Check out the presentation at: prezi.com/9gk_dql_-ife

Bien Faire et Laisser Braire

2009-11-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." -- Cyril Connolly

Or like my mother liked to say: "Bien faire et laisser braire" (Do good and let (them) bray).

New Book: New Computational Paradigms for Computer Music

2009-09-13T18:45:00.000-07:00

New Computational Paradigms for Computer Music, G. Assayag and A. Gerzso Eds., Editions Delatour France / IRCAM, 2009, ISBN 978-2-7521-0054-2.
Check out the flyer (pdf).
I authored the chapter titled "Time and Perception in Music and Computation," pp. 125-146, excerpts of which appeared in this blog earlier this year - see Brain - Time - Music - Computing.

An Ant's Life at SIGGRAPH 2009!

2009-07-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

An Ant's Life will be one of four projects presented to a panel of distinguished judges in competition for final awards in the SIGGRAPH 2009 Research Challenge competition, during the conference, on August 4, 2009, 1:45-3:00pm, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA.

The first person interactive game was collectively designed and prototyped by the 13 students in the Spring session of the course Collaborative Development of Interactive Software Systems (COMP150-CIS) at Tufts University, under the guidance of visiting assistant professor Alexandre R.J. François, who created the course.

The SIGGRAPH 2009 competition challenged participants to "choose a specific animal, or a specific animal's sense, and develop a system that will enable a person to experience the physical or social world as that animal does."

In An Ant's Life, the players experience the world as members of an ant colony, from hatching through successive life phases in and around the nest.

The game's interface maps the ant's dominant senses, namely smell, taste and touch, to a first-person interactive audiovisual display, conveying a localized and qualitative perception of the environment. Textures and colors characterize the tactile and chemical properties of world elements such as terrain, rocks, bits of food and other ants.

The game takes place in a fully accessible and interactive simulation of the colony and its environment, populated by other ants and critters. In order to progress in the game, the player must ensure her immediate well-being, interact with her sister ants, and fulfill the tasks that characterize the roles she undertakes as her life develops.

project participants

Ian Altgilbers, Jessie Berlin, Alissa Cooper, Eric Gustavson, Greg Harris, Matthew Knowles, Huy Ngu, Gregory Scott, Rashmi Singhal, Eric Stewart, Daniel Thayer, Lindsay Verola, Sonny Zhao (students)
Alexandre François (faculty)

links

Project website:
www.cs.tufts.edu/~alex/comp150cis-spring2009/AnAntsLife

Course website:
www.cs.tufts.edu/~alex/comp150cis-spring2009

Siggraph 2009:
www.siggraph.org/s2009

Research Challenge Results:
www.siggraph.org/s2009/performances_special_events/research_challenge_results

Time in Computation

2009-04-28T20:00:00.008-07:00

This is the last post in the series Brain - Time - Music - Computing.
Previous: Time and the Brain

The notion of computation was explicitly created for use outside of the ﬂow of MWT. Models of computation provide primitives for describing processes in a purely timeless context (computability), or in an artiﬁcial and abstract ﬂow of time marked by computational operations (algorithmic complexity). The resulting abstract manifestation of time in computing is enforced as a strong invariant, universally and implicitly relied upon.

This state of affairs has serious implications for the design and use of computing artifacts in MW. Music exists at the conﬂuence of creation, representation and performance, where inherent limitations of time representations in computation become evident. Music systems fall into two broad categories: online or real-time systems, and off-line system. The signiﬁcance of these categories in the context of interaction is explored in [1]. Henkjan Honing more speciﬁcally analyses and classiﬁes the issues related to the representation of time in music computing [2].

Process-oriented systems, which address real-time needs such as sound synthesis or performance (sequencing), adopt either tacit or implicit representations of time. Tacit representations restrict the notion of time to the “now,” the ﬂow of MWT. Implicit representations tie the ﬂow of time in the system to that of MWT in a direct, ﬁxed and inescapable relation. For example, the Max paradigm in its various forms, e.g. Max/MSP and Pure Data, embraces this approach. Composition and editing systems, on the other hand, manipulate static representations of music, with explicit modeling of time relationships in their mathematical abstraction, outside of any ﬂow of time. OpenMusic is a representative member of this category. The dataﬂow model of OpenMusic maps to the functional programming model, and does not provide for the creation and manipulation of a ﬂow of time in relation to MWT.

These orthogonal representations of time, and the computational models they support, serve their particular needs well. However, the dichotomy they introduce with respect to time representations seems irreversible. Puckette for example denounces the divide between processing and representation paradigms as a major obstacle to creating a comprehensive system for music making [3]. Musical improvisation requires a seamless blend of composition (representation) and real-time performance (processing), the ability to move freely in and out of ﬂows of PT and MWT. The design of a real-time interactive musical improvisation system, such as the multimodal interactive improvisation system MIMI, requires to bridge the representation/processing gap. Past efforts in this area have leveraged existing programming models to produce ad hoc solutions; MIMI beneﬁts from the use of a new computational paradigm that offers a general solution.

The Hermes/dl design language

Hermes/dl adopts an asynchronous concurrent computation model. Its data model distinguishes volatile data, in a ﬂow of time, from persistent data outside of any ﬂow of time. As a result, the language primitives afford the modeling of concurrent ﬂows of time and computation, and of processes that take information in and out of these ﬂows.

Arrangements of language primitives consistently associated with speciﬁc functionalities or behavior constitute patterns of the language; they can be used as models or guides for system design. The patterns of primitives and interactions that characterize the transfer of information from a ﬂow of time into persistent form constitute instances of the Aggregator pattern. The patterns of primitives and their interactions that characterize the transfer of information from persistent form into a speciﬁc ﬂow of time constitute instances of the Sampler pattern. The next section introduces the Hermes/dl design language in the wider context of the motivations that lead to its creation.

References
[1] Alexandre R.J. Francois and Elaine Chew. An architectural framework for interactive music systems. In Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Paris, France, June 2006.
[2] Henkjan Honing. Issues in the representation of time and structure in music. Contemporary Music Review, 9:221–239, 1993.
[3] Miller S. Puckette. A divide between ‘compositional’ and ‘performative’ aspects of Pd. In Proceedings of the First International Pd Convention, Graz, Austria, 2004.

Time and the Brain

2009-04-18T20:00:00.006-07:00

This is part 4 of 5 in the series Brain - Time - Music - Computing.
Previous: Time and Perception
Next: Time in Computation

If the ﬂow of MWT is immutable, the human brain hardly perceives it as such. Gooddy, in his book Time and the Nervous System [3], distinguishes between Personal Time (PT) and Government Time (GT). The former marks the ﬂow of time (MWT) as perceived by the individual brain; the latter refers to the passage of time as measured by a collectively recognized reference clock, from the brain’s perspective an external synchronization device to MWT. Alteration in the perception of time, of the ﬂow of one’s PT, occur within the perceiving agent’s mind.

Fraisse emphasizes the necessity to separate the perception of duration, which takes place in the psychological present, and the estimation of duration which “takes place when memory is used either to associate a moment in the past with a moment in the present or to link two past event” [2]. Memory frees the mind from the continuous, irreversible ﬂow of MWT. The mind can manipulate memories, events taken out of MWT, and place them in ﬂows of time, that extend in the past and future (including the ﬂow of MWT). Gooddy captures this ability in his observation that “the [human] brain is the place or mechanism or medium by which time is converted into space and space into time.”

Musical tasks constantly engage the ability of the brain to move information in and out of the ﬂows of times (going back and forth between time and space): memorizing a piece of music, performing it from memory, writing a piece of music as a score, performing a piece of music from a score. A musical notation system affords spatial representation of the perception of time through music; a performance is the re-creation of this perception from its spatial representation. The goal of a music notation system that effectively supports total communication between the composer and the performer remains elusive. Technology relatively recently afforded exact recording and recreation of performances. But a recording only captures one single, permanently frozen, physical manifestation of the musical material, with no place for re-creation or re-interpretation. The recording is super-naturally faithful to the performance, but does not explicitly encode, nor allows the full recovery of, the full depth of intent of the source material. Furthermore, the exactness of the reproduction is not necessarily a signiﬁcant, or desirable, feature from the listener’s point of view. The human brain is approximate; memory is event-based and selective. Each experience, each performance are different, and bring the prospect of renewed excitement to the listening brain. Successive re-experiences of a recording only remain interesting to a listener as long as she herself keeps changing from the experience.

Considerations about the nature and meaning of notation extend to the performing arts, such as dance and theater, and beyond. The thinking brain in MW ﬁnds itself in a constant struggle between the desire to stop time and the necessity to live (and experience) in the present. Bamberger has studied extensively the evolution of the spatialization (notation) of temporal patterns (rhythms) during child development. She reﬂects [1]:

We necessarily experience the world in and through time. How and why, then, do we step off these temporal action paths to selectively and purposefully interrupt, stop, and contain the natural passage of continuous actions/events?

How do we transform the elusiveness of actions that take place continuously through time, into representations that hold still to be looked at and upon which to reﬂect?

Perhaps the very notion of complexity lies in engaging the resilient paradoxes that emerge when we confront the implications of our static, discrete symbolic conventions with our immediate experience of always “going on.”

The ability to control the ﬂow of one’s PT allows the brain to take temporal experiences out of the immutable ﬂow of MWT, contemplate or otherwise manipulate these experiences outside of MWT, and later re-create them in the ﬂow of MWT. This ability enables individuals to adapt, learn, generalize, create. Without it, symbolic thought would be impossible, or at least completely detached from, and therefore irrelevant to, life in MW.

References
[1] Jeanne Bamberger. Evolving meanings: Revisiting Luria and Vygotsky. In G. O. Mazur, editor, Thirty Year Commemoration to the Life of A. R. Luria. Semenenko Foundation, New York, 2008.
[2] Paul Fraisse. Perception and estimation of time. Annual Review of Psychology, 35:1–36, 1984.
[3] William Gooddy. Time and the Nervous System. Praeger Pub, 1988.

Time and Perception

2009-04-08T20:00:00.007-07:00

This is part 3 of 5 in the series Brain - Time - Music - Computing.
Previous: The Brain in Middle World
Next: Time and the Brain

Scales of time in MW play a crucial role in the recognition and interpretation of temporal patterns, by the brain, as symbolic relationships such as causality and synchrony.

Events that are perceived as shortly following each other in time tend to be interpreted in a causality relationship. Brains learn the range of latencies that may separate an action and the perception of its effect in MW. The quantitative characterization of acceptable latencies is crucial to the understanding of interaction. Human-computer interaction researchers [4][1] categorize acceptable time delays into three orders of magnitude, which coincide with Newell’s cognitive band in his time scale of human actions [5]: the 0.1s (100ms) scale characterizes perceptual processing, perceived instantaneous reaction; the 1s scale characterizes immediate response, continuous ﬂow of thought (consistent with the notion of psychological present [3]); and, the 10s scale characterizes unit tasks, continued and sustained attention. These orders of magnitude define relatively narrow ranges of applicability for different levels of cognitive activities, especially when compared with the longer time order ranges that characterize other activities in MW: the rational band (100-10000s, i.e. minutes to hours), the social band (100000-10000000s, i.e. days to months) and the historical band (100000000-10000000000s, i.e. years to millenia).

Ensemble musical performance requires both interaction and synchronization. Synchrony, deﬁned as the exact co-occurrence of several observations, is a perceptual abstraction. The different, and ﬁnite, speeds at which light and sound travel imply that events whose percepts occur in absolute synchrony would hardly ever have occurred synchronously in MW, or would never have occurred naturally at all. For example, explosions in movies usually occur as if sound and light traveled at the same speed in the air. In MW, sound travels quite slowly, about 33cm in 1ms, whereas light travels so fast that travel times are negligible. Events that do occur simultaneously cause in an observer a variety of percepts that are not received synchronously, but that exhibit speciﬁc - and predictable - temporal patterns, which brains learn to understand as signs of a common cause, and thus synchronous origin in MWT. This is especially relevant in music making (and enjoying), due to the relatively low speed of sound travel in air.

Fraisse offers a comprehensive analysis of psychophysical experiments that aim to characterize the perceptual limits of time properties: event succession and duration [3]. Exact numbers depend on many factors, including task modality, and stimulus type, intensity, and duration. Pierce places the time resolution of the ear on the order of 1ms [6], which leads him to question whether human’s acute time resolution is actually of any use in music. Certainly the brain perceives as simultaneous auditory events that the ear detects as distinct. Pierce cites, among others, an experiment by Rasch, which revealed that synchronization in performed small ensemble music is only accurate to 30-50ms [7]. Incidentally, this range also characterizes the travel time of sound between the opposite end of an orchestral stage. Each individual musician in the orchestra experiences the performance in a necessarily speciﬁc and unique way. Yet the musicians are collectively capable, under the direction of the conductor, of producing an expert and consistent ensemble rendering of a musical piece. Recent experiments by Chew et al. [2] on sound latency in ensemble performance have shown that, under favorable conditions, professional musicians can deliver a meaningful musical performance while experiencing delays as high as 65ms. This number recalls the experimental fact, also reported by Pierce, that humans perceive no echo when a strong reﬂected sound occurs within 60-70ms after the direct sound.

These experimental results illustrate the impressive plasticity of brain processes with respect to the perception of MWT. Abstract temporal concepts, such as synchrony, bear limited relevance to the modeling of the MW perceptual and cognitive phenomena that inspired their invention.

References
[1] Stuart K. Card, George G. Robertson, and Jock D. Mackinlay. The information visualizer, an information workspace. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), pages 181–186, 1991.
[2] E. Chew, A.A. Sawchuk, R. Zimmermann, V. Stoyanova, I. Tosheff, C. Kyriakakis, C. Papadopoulos, A.R.J. Francois, and A. Volk. Distributed Immersive Performance. In Proceedings of the 2004 Annual NASM Meeting, San Diego, CA, USA, November 2004.
[3] Paul Fraisse. Perception and estimation of time. Annual Review of Psychology, 35:1–36, 1984.
[4] Robert B. Miller. Response time in man-computer conversational transactions. In Proceedings of the AFIPS Fall Joint Computer Conference, volume 33, pages 267–277, 1968.
[5] Allen Newell. Uniﬁed Theories of Cognition. Harvard University Press, 1990.
[6] John R. Pierce. The nature of musical sound. In Diana Deutsch, editor, The Psychology of Music, Second Edition (Cognition and Perception), pages 1–24. Academic Press, 1998.
[7] R. A. Rasch. Synchronization in performed ensemble music. Acustica, 43:121–131, 1979.

The Brain in Middle World

2009-03-28T20:00:00.014-07:00

This is part 2 of 5 in the series Brain - Time - Music - Computing.
Previous: Middle World
Next: Time and Perception

Even though perpetual contingency characterizes Middle World, the underlying dynamics are not random. On the contrary, their complexity thinly veils a rich variety of spatio-temporal patterns [4]. The term pattern, here, denotes “a regular and intelligible form or sequence discernible in certain actions or situations; esp. one on which the prediction of successive or future events may be based” (Oxford English Dictionary). Under such conditions, the brain has evolved into a highly effective spatio-temporal pattern detection and prediction system [2]. Moreover, the brain exhibits an “infovorous” behavior [1]: it craves for new experiences. More specifically, studies have linked sensory novelty and surprise to pleasure and reward activity in the brain. This is consistent with the continuous reﬁnement of the prediction system through acquisition of new knowledge.

Both the creation and performance of music play directly into these fundamental brain mechanisms [3], taking advantage of the pleasure systems wired in the brain. From rhythmic patterns to more intangible tonality systems, the brain naturally picks-up, processes, and responds to, spatio-temporal structures in music. If too predictable, a piece of music or a performance are simply boring; on the other hand, the listener might not be able to make sense of a piece or a performance that is "too" unexpected. The art of creating music, or any other artifact intended to stimulate human interest, hinges on striking a delicate balance between familiarity and surprise; establishing a frame of anticipation, and venturing outside of this frame in such a way that prompts the listener to adapt her own frame of reference.

These observations point to a highly dynamic notion of music making and listening. If the musical expertise, and expectations, of brains change every time they experience music, then what constitutes interesting music and interesting performance changes constantly, both at the individual and at the cultural levels. The computational modeling of such concepts as musical appreciation must therefore characterize how context, both individual and collective, plays out in the dynamics of the particular perceptual and cognitive processes involved.

References
[1] I. Biederman and E. A. Vessel. Perceptual pleasure and the brain. American Scientist, 94:249–255, 2006.
[2] Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee. On Intelligence. Times Books, 2004.
[3] David Huron. Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. MIT
Press, 2006.
[4] Ken Richardson. A Mind for Structure: Exploring the Roots of Intelligent Systems.
Brown Walker Press, 2006.

Middle World

2009-03-18T20:00:00.010-07:00

This is part 1 of 5 in the series Brain - Time - Music - Computing.
Next: The Brain in Middle World

Dawkins remarks that brains have evolved to help animals survive within the orders of magnitude of size and speed at which their bodies operate. He calls Middle World (MW) this relatively narrow range of phenomena directly and intuitively accessible to perceptual and cognitive processes [2]. Dawkins invokes the human brain’s evolutionary entanglement with MW to explain humans' difficulty in grasping, and coping with, the physical realities of the universe outside of its familiar conﬁnes, from the sub-atomic scales of quantum physics to the universe-size scales of relativity. But the fundamental properties of MW can also help characterize the nature of the tasks at which brains came to excel, in particular the fundamentally dynamic nature of these tasks.

Everything in MW is subject to what the human brain perceives and understands as time, “the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past” (Wordnet). MW time (MWT) cannot be altered in any way: in particular, its ﬂow cannot be slowed, stopped or reversed. The implications are deep. First, nothing in MW can ever happen again, every and any experience is that of an ever changing environment, by an ever changing observer. Exact reproduction of an experience, such as a musical performance, is a practical impossibility both for the performer and for the listener. Second, mathematical abstractions, such as randomness, synchrony, or inﬁnity, do not exist in MW (David Cope discusses randomness in [1]). Mathematics deﬁne an idealized world of spatio-temporal invariants, which in some respects models aspects of MW, and aspects of the universe outside of MW that are difficult for MW-evolved brains to grasp.

Mathematics provide a framework for MW brains to characterize and manipulate invariants in a way that is consistent, completely and absolutely predictable, independent of time and space; in particular, these invariants are not sub ject to, and allow the abstraction of, the ﬂow of MWT. The theory of computation came about to formalize actions and operations in the mathematical world, where they must abide by the principles of consistency, predictability, universality. This requires not only that the notion of time be abstracted, but also that the resulting abstract manifestation of time in computing be enforced as a strong invariant. The mathematical properties of computation, especially the abstraction and immutable crystallization of the ﬂow of time, constitute major obstacles to the useful computational modeling of many important MW phenomena.

References
[1] David Cope. Computer Models of Musical Creativity. MIT Press, 2005.
[2] Richard Dawkins. The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006. See also Dawkins' TED Talk: The Universe Is Queerer Than We Can Suppose

Brain - Time - Music - Computing

2009-03-08T20:00:00.005-07:00

The next 5 posts are excerpts from a chapter, titled "Time and Perception in Music and Computation," which appears in the book New Computational Paradigms for Computer Music, pp.125-146.

The Oxford English Dictionary deﬁnes music as “the art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds to produce beauty of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, expressive content, etc.” Composers and performers of music invent and produce sounds, carefully organized with the intent and purpose to trigger emotional responses from the listeners, usually humans. Creating music therefore involves deep understanding and mastery, whether intuitive of explicit, of the human auditory perceptual and cognitive apparatus.

A reﬂexion on the nature of the phenomena involved points towards the ability of the mind to move in and out of ﬂows of time, real or imaginary, as a defining feature of perceptual and cognitive activities. A comprehensive computational paradigm for computer music must afford the modeling of this ability.

Part 1: Middle World
Part 2: The Brain in Middle World
Part 3: Time and Perception
Part 4: Time and the Brain
Part 5: Time in Computation

Holiday Recipe

2008-12-23T10:55:00.004-08:00

My latest feel-good holiday recipe:

Make a bowl of oatmeal
Throw in a handful of dark cocoa-covered almonds
Let the cocoa melt a bit, and give it a swirl
Enjoy

Happy Holidays!

Time <=> Space

2008-11-14T12:11:00.005-08:00

In the preface to his book Time and the nervous system (Praeger Pub, 1988), the neurologist William Gooddy, cites an entry in an old notebook of his, dated 18 March 1959, as his first documented idea about time and the nervous system:
"The brain is the place or mechanism or medium by which time is converted into space and space into time."

"Advanced Studies"

2008-07-05T15:46:00.004-07:00

"Occasionally the patient may use a set of space-time co-ordinates that suggest to him a linkage of points which for his physician are not clearly linked. The patient may then prove to be ill with an unknown disease, to be mad, or to be a genius; and we are sometimes willing to award him some of the four-dimensional world to prove himself, by providing protected circumstances in which he may test his theories of world-line linkage. Such a person may occupy the bed of a mental hospital or be a cherished member of an institute for "advanced studies"."

William Gooddy, Time and the Nervous System, 1988, p.139.

Time In Mathematics

2008-07-01T18:56:00.003-07:00

"...but he (the mathematician) is always speaking of a given moment -- a static moment, that is -- and not of flowing time. In short, the world the mathematician deals with dies and is reborn at every instant [...] To know a living being or natural system is to get at the very interval of duration, while the knowledge of an artificial or mathematical system applies only to the extremity."

Bergson, Creative Evolution, 1914, cited by William Gooddy, Time and the Nervous System, 1988.

Two Computing Quotes

2008-07-01T07:39:00.002-07:00

"The idea that you can know everything in the design stage is a fallacy that I think started with the mathematicians, who were the world's first programmers."
George V. Neville-Neil, Kode Vicious, ACM Communications, 51(7), July 2007, p.25

"If you have programs that interact with the physical environment, time becomes very important. For these systems, verification is more complicated."
Joseph Sifakis, Talking Model-Checking Technology, ACM Communications, 51(7), July 2007, p.111

The Mind Is Not (Only) A Computer

2008-07-01T03:34:00.002-07:00

"As long as you ignore most of human life, the [mind-as-]computer metaphor is terrific. Computers are human artifacts designed to fulfill human needs, such as increasing the value of Microsoft stock. They are not autonomous entitied that evolved to survive and reproduce."

Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind, 2000, p.153.

This Is It!

2008-06-30T20:00:00.003-07:00

Turned in the keys. Thank you Radcliffe for a wonderful 10 months!
This is also the end of the One-Picture-Per-Day experiment. It was harder to keep up than I thought, but I am really glad I have this record.
Today's stair number: 2

Bench Update

2008-06-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

One last look at the bench. Today's stair number: 2

A Bunch Of Lillies

2008-06-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

The hot and rainy weather definitly makes plants happy!Today's stair number: 2

Office Cleared

2008-06-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

Major move out day: the office is now almost empty! The end is near...Today's stair number: 12+ (stopped counting)

Business Chapel

2008-06-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

With hand-polished copper hull, to look less new.Today's stair number: 1

Goose Close-Up

2008-06-25T20:00:00.001-07:00

Does the human carry food?Today's stair number: 1

Geese Along The Charles

2008-06-24T20:00:00.002-07:00

A whole flock.Today's stair number: 2

Along The Charles

2008-06-23T20:00:00.001-07:00

Looking for cooler air (found some, along with mosquitos).Toaday's stair number: 5

Museum Of Fine Arts

2008-06-22T20:00:00.002-07:00

Sunday at the museum (free!!).Today's stair number: 2

Yet Another Storm

2008-06-21T20:00:00.001-07:00

I do miss the snow...Today's stair number: 1

For Posterity

2008-06-20T20:00:00.001-07:00

The Fellowship Program will soon be in a new home, and these doors will open to something else...Today's stair number: 4

Tiger Lilly?

2008-06-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

The flowers do enjoy the rain!Today's stair number: 2

Another Storm

2008-06-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Wind, rain, thunder and lightnings!Today's stair number: 2

Stormy Weather

2008-06-17T20:00:00.001-07:00

Hot and humid... the rain is coming!Today's stair number: 2

Reunited

2008-06-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

The red rose heart was magnificent.Today's stair number: 3

Blue River

2008-06-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Boston and Longfellow Bridge from the Charles River Reservation.Today's stair number: 1

Bench Update

2008-06-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while...Today's stair number: 1

Geese Sighting

2008-06-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

A family of geese graze along the reiver (Charles River Reservation).Today's stair number: 5

Ralph Francois (5 Feb 1946 - 12 Jun 2008)

2008-06-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

Why Have A Mind?

2008-06-12T07:13:00.003-07:00

"Experiments that investigate how minds process arbitrary visual and verbal information shed very little light on the fitness costs and benefits of the human abilities that demand evolutionary explanation, such as art and humor."

Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind, p.52.

Byerly Hall

2008-06-11T20:00:00.001-07:00

Another side of Byerly.Today's stair number: 3

Why Did Humans Develop Culture?

2008-06-11T07:22:00.002-07:00

"Those brains won't invent literature or television for another hundred thousand years. They don't need to. They have one another."

Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind, p.21.

Behold Byerly

2008-06-10T20:00:00.001-07:00

The newly renovated Byerly Hall, new home of the Radcliffe Fellowship Program.Today's stair number: 1

Squirrels In The Yard

2008-06-09T20:00:00.001-07:00

The squirrels have already moved back in their newly re-decorated habitat, after almost a year of intense construction work.Today's stair number: 1

Radcliffe Yard

2008-06-08T20:00:00.001-07:00

A newly re-landscaped area in the Radcliffe Yard.Today's stair number: 1

The Red Shoes

2008-06-07T20:00:00.002-07:00

After over 18 months of loyal and faithful service, the Radcliffe Shoes (red/white/black New Balance) are calling it quits. They will be missed.Today's stair number: 3

The Mystery Deepens

2008-06-06T20:00:00.001-07:00

The bao is still here, so far undisturbed by human, squirrel, bird, or even insect...Today's stair number: 1

A Bao Mystery

2008-06-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

A lone bao on the stairs. Where did it come from?Today's stair number: 2

More Flowers!

2008-06-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

I still miss the snow a little...Today's stair number: 2

Coffee (Building 40)

2008-06-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is where the legend was born...Today's stair number: 8

Lilacs

2008-06-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

With lilacs, the olfactive almost overshadows the visual.
Today's stair number: 2

White Is Out

2008-06-01T20:00:00.001-07:00

White flowers are gone; pinks and purples now dominate the landscape.Today's stair number: 2

Sweet Anticipation(*)

2008-06-01T19:16:00.002-07:00

"Listening to Music is not a passive process but intensely active, involving a stream of inferences, hypotheses, expectations, and anticipations (as David Huron and others have explored)."

Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia, 2007, p.211.
(*) Sweet Anticipation is the title of the book by David Huron (MIT Press)

Financier

2008-05-31T20:00:00.001-07:00

Breakfast in Downtown, near Wall Street.Today's stair number: 2

Natural History

2008-05-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Walked from NYU on W. 4th Street to the American Museum of Natural History (79th and Central Park West), then walked all over the Museum, and then walked all the way back! Very happy to sit down for dinner...Today's stair number: 0

NYU

2008-05-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

New York University at Washington Square.Today's stair number: 0

Central Park

2008-05-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

Looking to the East over the lake.Today's stair number: 0

NYC!

2008-05-27T20:00:00.001-07:00

The Chrysler Building.Today's stair number: 2

Blue Skies

2008-05-26T20:00:00.002-07:00

Tree, soft cloud and plane over the quad. The composition juxtaposes three dynamic elements that operate at very different time scales.Today's stair number: 3

A Milestone

2008-05-25T20:00:00.001-07:00

A full sheet of stair number records (both sides are full!).Today's stair number: 3

MuSA.RT on Asian Focus TV

2008-05-24T20:00:00.002-07:00

Taping at the Channel 7 studios in Boston. The show will air in Boston on December 7, 2008 at 6:30am.Today's stair number: 5

Vortex

2008-05-23T20:00:00.001-07:00

Sun and clouds and lots of wind: a storm is coming!Today's stair number: 2

See Food

2008-05-22T20:00:00.002-07:00

The Media Lab food bell: when food is available in the break room, a ring of the food bell (right) prompts users who subscribe to a networked notification service to take a look at the food from the comfort of their seat thanks to a networked overhead camera (upper left) and decide what to do about it. I sense a killer app port to the One Laptop Per Child.Today's stair number: 1

Graduated!

2008-05-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Fellowship graduation today. We are now in the books for posterity.Today's stair number: 3

Field Trip!

2008-05-20T20:00:00.001-07:00

The Fellows visit the Media Lab.Today's stair number: 1

The Balanced Way

2008-05-19T20:00:00.001-07:00

Healthy eating program at MIT. Too bad the taste is often not part of the balance...Today's stair number: 1

Bunting Quad Blooming

2008-05-18T20:00:00.001-07:00

Fluffy white.Today's stair number: 2

Back Home

2008-05-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

A blooming tree in the Bunting Quad.Today's stair number: 3

Manhattan Beach

2008-05-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Last morning at the beach.Today's stair number: 1

Beach Garden

2008-05-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Rose and cactus garden on Manhattan Beach.Today's stair number: 0

After Sunset

2008-05-14T20:00:00.001-07:00

The last fiery oranges after sunset behind the Santa Monica Mountains.Today's stair number: 0

Early Morning

2008-05-13T20:00:00.001-07:00

Manhattan Beach, early in the morning.Today's stair number: 0

Late Afternoon

2008-05-12T20:00:00.001-07:00

Manhattan Beach in the late afternoon.Today's stair number: 0

Spring After

2008-05-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

A cast bronze sculpture by Nancy Helfant (1963).Today's stair number: 5

Performing Marks

2008-05-10T20:00:00.001-07:00

Radcliffe Seminar - day 2.Today's stair number: 1

Performing Marks

2008-05-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

Radcliffe Seminar - day 1.Today's stair number: 2

Putnam House

2008-05-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

Home of (most of) the Science Fellows.Today's stair number: 2

Spring Collection

2008-05-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Lilacs on the Radcliffe Yard.Today's stair number: 1

Fuller Bloom!

2008-05-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

How long will spring last?Today's stair number: 1

Spring Collection

2008-05-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

On the verge of over-blooming.Today's stair number: 1

Spring Collection

2008-05-04T20:00:00.001-07:00

More Spring blooms.Today's stair number: 4

MIT 32-G449

2008-05-03T20:00:00.002-07:00

The infamous slanted CS conference room that has been known to make people nauseous... MIT 32-G449 decodes to room 449 on the Gates (as in Bill and Melinda) side of the Stata Center (built on the site of the real building 32).Today's stair number: 2

Providence, RI

2008-05-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

Visit at Brown University.Today's stair number: 1

Maxwell Dworkin

2008-05-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Inside, a plaque reads:
"Named for Mary Maxwell Gates and Beatrice Dworkin Ballmer whose sons William H. Gates III and Steven A. Ballmer envisioned a vibrant setting for Harvard students and faculty in which to foster knowledge in computer science and electrical engineering for the benefit of all - October 12, 1999"Today's stair number: 2

Full Bloom

2008-04-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Looks like candy.Today's stair number: 1

HydroSeed

2008-04-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Paint-on grass!Today's stair number: 1

Spring Collection

2008-04-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

More Spring flowers...Today's stair number: 1

Spring Collection

2008-04-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

More Spring flowers...Today's stair number: 1

Spring Collection

2008-04-26T20:00:00.003-07:00

Rhododendrons in full bloom.Today's stair number: 5

Tufts University

2008-04-24T20:00:00.001-07:00

Visit at Tufts, just one T stop away.Today's stair number: 2

Definitely Spring

2008-04-23T20:00:00.002-07:00

The trees are starting to turn green on the Bunting Quad.Today's stair number: 1

"Throw In Your Substance"

2008-04-22T20:00:00.002-07:00

Step 3...Today's stair number: 1

Spring Collection

2008-04-21T20:00:00.001-07:00

Blooming magnolia.Today's stair number: 2

Spring Collection

2008-04-20T20:00:00.001-07:00

Weeping cherry tree?Today's stair number: 1

Spring Collection

2008-04-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

Spring flowers.Today's stair number: 0

Spring Collection

2008-04-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Blooming trees.Today's stair number: 2

Spring Collection

2008-04-17T20:00:00.001-07:00

Daffodils.Today's stair number: 1