Archive for June, 2008

New (super-easy) app for DIY animation

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Animation-ishDon’t know Flash? Don’t want to buy it? Can’t even draw? But you can picture it in your mind – your own squiggly cartoon running across the page. Then try Animation-ish.

Okay, it’s geared toward kids, but don’t fool yourself that you’re any better at learning new software.

Besides, if you want/need more advanced features, this app includes vector-based lines, pressure-sensitive drawing and tweening, and projects can be exported to a number of formats (e.g., swf, mov, avi). Best of all: compared to Flash, which will hammer your budget for a hefty $350, Animation-ish will only slap it for $59.95.

Link:
- Animation-ish

“Singularity, unraveled”

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Are you waiting for the Singularity (i.e., the Rapture for geeks)? If you haven’t heard of it, the Singularity is the rise of the machine, kind of like Terminator: one day machines will achieve consciousness and be exponentially smarter than human beings. At which point, the best option for us meat sacks will be to upload our minds into the machine, thus achieving immortality (except we saw how this turned out in The Matrix). In case you think this is all silly, there are some very intelligent people, such as Ray Kurzweil, who ardently believe in the Singularity.

Alas, I am not a believer. So as IEEE’s Spectrum magazine devoted an entire issue to the Singularity (pro and con), I was chuckling at this letter by a clever Wired reader:

My IQ is probably lower than Ray Kurzweil’s (“Stayin’ Alive,” issue 16.04). Maybe that’s why I can’t follow his reasoning on achieving immortality. He seems to be saying that once a computer can cycle quickly enough, it will stop being an adding machine and become a sentient being. Does Kurzweil also believe that once a knitting machine makes enough mittens , it will turn into his grandmother? [Peter K. Sampson, Portland, Maine]

Hope I won’t be eating my yarn, uh, words, in 2025.

LINKS:
- IEEE Spectrum: Special Report: The Singularity
- Ray Kurzweil: The Singularity Is Near
- Wired Magazine: Issue 16.06

Note: The beautiful woman above is my grandmother, Barbara, on her 95th birthday.

2008 BEA pulls weekender in LA

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

The 2008 BookExpo America (BEA) was held in Los Angeles this year from May 29 through June 1. For those who aren’t familiar with BEA, it’s a gigantic industry show for books in English. To get an idea of what the conference was like, you can listen to a variety of podcasts. Unfortunately, the event podcasts are being published “at the rate of one per day after the show is over.” Slooooow. While you wait, check out the 2008 Authors Studio or watch John Matthew Fox’s interview with author Kelly Link:

LINKS:
- BEA: 2008 Authors Studio
- Book Expo Podcast
- Kelly Link

Literature, art, music – and science – give life meaning

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

Illustration by Guy BilloutDo you think of science as boring? Too complicated? In a New York Times op-ed piece, bestselling author and physicist Brian Greene describes why science is just as important to life as literature or any other of the arts (and just as understandable).

Yes, science is important in the obvious ways – it helps us with remedies when we’re sick, enables us to communicate when we’re far from each other – but it also feeds our deep-rooted hunger for understanding. As the World Science Festival in NYC winds down tonight, read Greene’s essay about the joy and thrill of science, which is often left out of the equation:

It’s striking that science is still widely viewed as merely a subject one studies in the classroom or an isolated body of largely esoteric knowledge. … In reality, science is a language of hope and inspiration, providing discoveries that fire the imagination and instill a sense of connection to our lives and our world.

Links:
- “Put a Little Science in Your Life” by Brian Greene
- World Science Festival