valerdev

String bending and visual navigation on the guitar Just realized that I want to try to think about the “destination” note of the string bend when playing it, rather than the starting note, which I usually do. What do I mean about “visualizing the destination” of the bend? Well, pretty much what I mean by visualizing any fret on the neck. But because I bend to the destination note and not fret it directly, I tend to focus on where my finger is at, instead of where the note is at.

A few highlights from reading All models are wrong: reflections on becoming a systems scientist; John D. Sterman. This is the paper form of a lecture held in 2002 by John D. Sterman, upon receiving the Jay Forrester award. What is System Dynamics? It can be seen through multiple lens, as: Science: the modeling process assumes hypothesizing, building a model, running an experiment - the simulation of the system through that model, and potentially invalidating the model.

I stumbled upon this paper while contemplating whether it’s possible (and valuable) to build a network representation of technology - eg. which tech requires which lower-level tech, which tech depends on which natural phenomena, how tech shifts over time, what feedback loops are present, … An ill-defined task that remains just a draft, a fun thought experiment; but let’s switch to the paper now. Link: DeepDive: declarative knowledge base construction

This is absolute Misc stuff, just a bucket of paragraphs. Digital Fabrication A few days ago I listened to the Neil Gershenfeld episode of Lex’s podcast. It’s extremely inspiring! Highly recommend. A few highlights (please excuse the lack of details): Digital Fabrication, where “digital” is understood not as “binary” computer stuff, but by it’s deeper meaning. The concept is rooted in Vannevar Bush/Claude Shannon/Von Neumann Analog computer age and the transition to Digital as a way to get a grip on accumulated error.

A Chronology of Interpolation: From Ancient Astronomy to Modern Signal and Image Processing. Printed this paper a few weeks ago while I was reading about KZG1, 2, 3 and left it aside. It’s aged enough, time to actually read it. The problem of constructing a continuously defined function from given discrete data is unavoidable whenever one wishes to manipulate the data in a way that requires information not included explicitly in the data.