Golem's New Writeups

Chesapeake Bay (place)

2001-05-30T14:53:20Z

The bay for me, has become a monument to perpetual vacation, to ritual barefoot bliss. Every week there is an endless relaxation. Seven days without shoes, without anything in my pockets, I walk the sandy, rocky dirt roads wearing old, frayed shorts and a dirty t-shirt. Wandering down to the beach, my feet chunk-chunk on the wooden bridge across the reeds that stand behind the short, misshapen dunes. I step out onto the simple, empty white sand, and listen to the waves, the gulls, the wind, and the sweet silence of myself, alone on the beach. Balancing out on slimy wooden seawalls, I crouch for half an hour, the salty green water washing over my feet with the waves, watching the blue crabs cling to the pylons and forage from their surface. I begin to move like the animals, my body slowly falling out of step with the twenty-four-segmented worm of the human day. Back at the cottage, the clocks are all wrong or broken, and my day falls in with the rhythm of the tides, with the arc…

Emergency Brain-Dump System (thing)

2001-03-19T05:41:30Z

This is what I need, I think. Something to stem the incessant character stream which has found its way into my head.

A few weeks ago, I had it. I swear I did. I'm not sure when it started, I only noticed it after it had arrived. For two days, I was - silent. Never in my life have I felt so calm, so soft, so fluid. Aikdo that Monday was perfect, dead on. I took ukemi like a pro, dropping, turning, landing like a feather. Every movement effortless, thoughtless, and it felt Soooo good. Oh, if you only knew. Centered. Moving without thinking. Thinking without thinking. In lab on Tuesday - the circuits fell together all on their own. I just moved the mouse for them, bringing them to the light. So easy, so simple. And nothing bothered me. Nothing phased me. Everything was just fine the way it was, and I wish I knew how I got there. I will not call this zen. I will not call it mushin. I will not call it thousands of things that you might want me…

Nostalgia in a box (thing)

2001-02-23T04:05:11Z

I am helping my mother prepare to move. We are cleaning out the shop behind the house.

Mom pulls out the first of the boxes, and hands it to me. The flaps pull apart with a dull popping sound as I open it. I look inside and find, of all things, the foundations of myself. A simple stacked structure of mildewed paper bricks; I pull the first one out, and it has a name.
The Hobbit.
Here, behind it, sit the chronicles of Narnia, and there, A Wrinkle in Time. I lift them out, one after another, turning their damp, wrinkled surfaces over in my hands. A few tear apart as I pull them free from the box, and I say silent prayers over their ancient remains. But the best ones - Oh, the best ones all survived. They have waited for me.

This is only the first box. We continue into the stack, tearing into box after box of nostaligia. We find more books, and my old legos. I knew they were here somewhere; knew they were in this box before we opened it. I could never…

Neuromorphic Analog VLSI (thing)

2001-02-13T05:54:52Z

Okay, this is just ripped off of the hompage that my advisor semi-insisted that I create. It's interesting stuff, and it perhaps deserves more of a writeup than this, but for now I guess this is okay. Hope you enjoy.

So, my research interests, in the broad sense are related to neural modeling. More specifically, I work in the medium of Neuromorphic Analog VLSI. It's a big fancy term, I know, but what it amounts to is the modeling of neural systems in silicon hardware. We used a mixed analog-digital system, much like real neurons. The basic idea is to design circuits which function in a manner as analagous as possible (or neccessary, depending on your point of view) to real neurons. So, the big question, of course, is "Why analog VLSI?" Why not computer simulations of neurons, why not use DSP to do these computations? (we get questioned by the biologists and the engineers). So, I'll try my best to explain what I think about neuromorphic engineering, and why I'm interested in it.
…

retina (thing)

2001-02-04T06:04:25Z

Okay, so I've been too long from this, too long from noding in general, but here you go, the first of the second set of updates in How your brain works.

The Retina

Okay, first I want to mention here, that by discussing the retina, I'm again stuck in the world of vertebrates. Such is the nature of the neuroscientific community, unfortunately. I want to point out that invertebrate eyes, and visual systems in general differ greatly from vertebrate systems. For example, we cannot directly observe the polarization of light, while most invertebrates with enough complexity of sight to have a visual system can. I think, perhaps that some fish can detect light polarization, but I'm not entirely sure. Regardless, it's a cool feature that we lack, probably for a multitude of reasons. But I want you to think about this for a second. We are missing out on a whole other component of light that the rest of the world is in on. We think of light as having wavelength (color), and…

PETA (thing)

2001-01-24T23:01:05Z

Well, I wasn't sure where exactly to put this, but this seems like the best place, as there are several subjects I want to touch on....

First of all, I think PETA has the right ideas at heart. But, I also think that some people need to think a bit harder about what it means to treat animals ethically. Cause, when you think about it, a lot of the policies advocated by PETA and similar groups, if enacted on a large scale would bring more harm to animals than good.

So, I'll start with my ideas on eating domestic farm animals: Cows, pigs, chickens and the like. I understand making a personal moral decision not to eat animals. If that suits you, then that's a good thing. Advocating that everyone become vegan is dangerous though. This is something to consider:

If we stop eating cows, what do we then do with them?

Let's face it. Cows are domestic animals. They've been selectively bred by humans to be big and stupid. They are NOT wild animals. If there…