Wow. Network monitoring in 3D...

Check this out ! Just doing realtime 3D visualization for network monitoring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtC6ZM0_m8U

Where there's smoke, there's fire: a good alert metaphor

What if one could supervise an entire network using this type of
interface ? Active monitoring could be done too, as well as IPS...

I love it :)

Cute, and I feel, quite meaningful. Have you seen the first-person shooter
interfaces for Unix, where kill -9 is made much more graphic?

It's good to make information obvious without having to "decode" it. Croquet
conferencing makes it obvious who is present and who is doing what, without
having to decode a text list of attendees presented in the corner of a
low-dimensional Web-conferencing app. In social studies, my kids have to sort
through a bunch of meaningless dates and names sprinkled through pages of poorly
written 1-dimensional text that must be decoded to derive meaning. When I help
them with their homework, I find that I wish I could quickly create an animated
graphic instead.

One thing that isn't clear to me about the Netcosm video: how do you interact
with the information presented this way? Do you have to be a video game ace to
click on a flying packet in order to inspect it?  I feel it is important not
just to present information, but to be able to work with it as well. I want to
be able to explore and change and, in general, problem-solve -- not just observe.

Florent THIERY wrote:
--
Howard Stearns
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Division of Information Technology
mailto:[hidden email]
jabber:[hidden email]
office:+1-608-262-3724
mobile:+1-608-658-2419

I fiddled with hyperlinking "Course in Physics" with
my own derivations and external references.

I wondered at a portrayal of a new market
that wouldn't be competitive but working with
publishers to make collective knowledge more
useful.

I had to scan in pdf's but alerted them
that they might like to make the books
free and instead sell the networking of ideas.

How can one represent what is going on
in an individual or collective mind?
Something about a network of ideas
or something more primative and wonderful.

Hi, Paul,
        I have also had that thought.  Our minds appear in most cases to
operate like a relational database, but with many many linkages.  I
think of it like a wire and styrofoam ball construction, with millions
of styrofoam balls and wires linking them together, not just a few
connections, but perhaps thousands from some areas, like you home links
to the books in your library, your computer, its programs, tools, car,
magazines, newspapers, etc.  I once tried to generate an equivalent
structure, using linkages that could change, and also be updated, along
with a "success count" which would raise the linkage on that node's
search order, to try to optimize the access of data.  It kind of worked,
but the machine was woefully inadequate.  Based on the results I saw, it
would take about 2TB of memory to get anything useful, and about a
400Ghz processor to make it work.  But today, if you could somehow
implement it using a CAPP architecture, it might be possible given
today's processor speeds.  The linkages and the optimization would
become problematic, because speed would then be dependent on the
locality of the data being linked to some degree, and on the tasking of
the specific processor where the data was resident.  But Croquet offers
much of the required functionality.  I am not familiar with creating
arbitrary linkages with objects to visualize how the architecture could
deal with the link table, nor how the link table would be constructed to
deal with platform variances and internet protocol linking.  That
doesn't mean it couldn't be done, just that I personally don't have all
the required information to make it a reality.  

        Another requirement would be movement of information to help optimize
search paths.  I even postulated a "sleep and dream" state to help sort
out new information.  That architecture would constitute "creative
thought" resulting from linking new concepts with existing knowledge,
and postulating changes in the internal model of the environment.
Strategies that appeared successful could be retained in a "possibility
memory" and when acted upon update the linkages and the success counts
for the paths through the thought matrix.

        Strategies that proved failures would be backtraced and have the
success counts decremented, signifying that the path was less productive
than some other path.  Over time, the matrix would self organize, and
pruning could take place based upon negative values of success counts.

        What then would be the "data".  I feature it as something like 20
questions postulations.  It could be a destination (a place), an action
(put the book on the chair), a literary composition ( a poem or a book),
or perhaps a design.  In other words something either physical,
philosophical, creative, or movement.  Or could be the embodiement of a
process.  Each node would be a deconstructed portion of the final
overall "thing", whatever it might be.  The machine so proposed would
need to be able to collate and evaluate information, say over the
internet, to have input from the environment, like camera's or weather
sensors, produce actions, say product movement by robotics, and
replicate findings either physical or via media in some form.  All of
this is somewhat possible today.  If you think of a world of balls of
thought, linked to other worlds with balls of thought, with messaging
and event parsing, you are pretty close to the basic construct.  In
addition one could visit the world(s) and interact with the on-going
thought processes.  

        Any thoughts?

Regards,
Les H
On Fri, 2007-04-20 at 10:18 -0800, [hidden email] wrote:

May be of interest: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

--- [hidden email] wrote:



      ___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it
now.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ 

Les wrote:

Hi, Paul,
	I have also had that thought.  Our minds appear in most cases to
operate like a relational database, but with many many linkages.  I
think of it like a wire and styrofoam ball construction, with millions
of styrofoam balls and wires linking them together, not just a few
connections, but perhaps thousands from some areas, like you home links
to the books in your library, your computer, its programs, tools, car,
magazines, newspapers, etc.  I once tried to generate an equivalent
structure, using linkages that could change, and also be updated, along
with a "success count" which would raise the linkage on that node's
search order, to try to optimize the access of data.  It kind of worked,
but the machine was woefully inadequate.  Based on the results I saw, it
would take about 2TB of memory to get anything useful, and about a
400Ghz processor to make it work.

Sometimes I feel foolish; now that you say the machine requirements for this, my foolishness isn't replaceable.

;-)

It intrigues me that someone was able to think about such a thing . Years ago, I tried to combine understanding of brain image processing with engineering and met prejudice from both engineers and doctors . Prejudice from specialists who are offended against anybody except a devotee out to become them and perhaps replace them as they move up.

I once found the fellow's directory at Apple Computer who made the neural nets that let the newton message pad be able to do handwriting recognition .

But, looking ahead at what you wrote, I see that you came to the conclusions long ago before people improved architecture . We are experimenting with computer architecture using replicating rabbits . I had thought some French friends of mine the only ones with the nerve to experiment to find out what romance was . I now recall that NCSA was interested in croquet from some links I made .

  But today, if you could somehow
implement it using a CAPP architecture, it might be possible given
today's processor speeds.  The linkages and the optimization would
become problematic, because speed would then be dependent on the
locality of the data being linked to some degree, and on the tasking of
the specific processor where the data was resident.  But Croquet offers
much of the required functionality.  

I can't google from my mom's apartment . I could go CAPP and wikipedia and found that I get more googling connections. I can, daytimes, call on cell to friendly librarians I know far from mom's. It is now night .

I am not familiar with creating
arbitrary linkages with objects to visualize how the architecture could
deal with the link table, nor how the link table would be constructed to
deal with platform variances and internet protocol linking.  That
doesn't mean it couldn't be done, just that I personally don't have all
the required information to make it a reality.

I've been trying to write an inspirational "tome" over several days . Genetics led to neonatal neural nets knowing how to wire themselves . 30 years ago, I was very excited to visit Cal Tech and hear J.D.Pettigrew speak of these adventurous studies discovery how baby-brains can wire themselves . He's alive and kicking in Australia now !

http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/jack.html

I have these terrifying adventures of going to Cal Tech and feeling like an imposter or orphan which everyone who is there evidently feels there . I remember security being suspicious of me because I too much love my holy pool slippers and I looked somewhat like a homeless street person invading looking for wifi access to find out what was going on.

I remarked to security I didn't know which was worse to introduce myself or remain a stranger . I remember waiting in a chemistry building where someone respected my orphan feelings and waiting for a lecture from a lady professor from Harvard .

Then, when I attended the lecture, a large audience started mob behavior claiming the area of baby brain she was studying could as easily be trained to recognize a volkswagen as its mother . I stood up and introduced myself to the mob saying, without judgement, I sincerely hoped that she was studying something fundamental as I had been so inspired by Pettigrew so many years ago .

She glowed . I reported to security !

Yep, this is the stuff babies are made of or better the stuff babies make best .

  

	Another requirement would be movement of information to help optimize
search paths.  I even postulated a "sleep and dream" state to help sort
out new information.

I wonder if there is a science well beyond automata of state machines that have such states . I imagine that the air is very thin at first and it might be long exercises in English composition . I didn't used to like English, but now, every time I solve a problem I try to write about it . Being in industry, writing comment statements to help me in future endeavors, I have become more fascinated with writing than power. I've downloaded freemind dmoc told me of .

  That architecture would constitute "creative
thought" resulting from linking new concepts with existing knowledge,
and postulating changes in the internal model of the environment.
Strategies that appeared successful could be retained in a "possibility
memory" and when acted upon update the linkages and the success counts
for the paths through the thought matrix.
  

You started out thinking of the mind as a relational database and now this linkage stuff is starting to resonate with me.

There was a fellow lecturing, a bit before release of the newton message pad, perhaps from Stanford, who said computer architecture should be build upon a database notion. That stuck with me because the newton was built around a so called soup with frames in it and once I found myself staying up until 3AM to have Steve Weyer kindly illuminate I wasn't slouping into the soup because I hadn't realized data was tab delimited going in. I heard that kind of talk in a filemaker pro lecture and things just connected.

I have phobias of folks that do business not being interested in my passion , scholarship, feeling it snobbery and defending against that judgement with "real world" judgements of their own . This behavior is Abe Arkoff's "social self" or perhaps second order self. We tend to judge badly those we imagine judging us badly --- such defense mechanisms are the exact opposite of the golden rule . So, I am not a filemaker pro "devotee" or "user", I'd rather be a "supplier".

	Strategies that proved failures would be backtraced and have the
success counts decremented, signifying that the path was less productive
than some other path.  Over time, the matrix would self organize, and
pruning could take place based upon negative values of success counts.
  

I attended an AI course and there was this slicked down character of a student who oiled up to the teacher . Both were in industry and I had taken "a devorce" from it at the time and was very hurting . I got this symbolic monkey to stand on a box and grab a symbolic banana which seemed intelligent, but I refused to work in a group with the oily guy who would say lame things rebuffing my inventing data structures with "let's get organized". He had some sort of "power" that people cowered to . He defined the protocols that did not recognize attending to me.

Alone with my monkey, I couldn't finish the paper required beyond the project . I failed the course .

I was terrified. Since, I have studied all sorts of AI to amplify my mind past that shame .

	What then would be the "data".  I feature it as something like 20
questions postulations.  

I put a colon for myself here with white space and grasp where you are going :

It could be a destination (a place), an action
(put the book on the chair), a literary composition ( a poem or a book),
or perhaps a design.  In other words something either physical,
philosophical, creative, or movement.  Or could be the embodiement of a
process.  

If you read the first pages of Newton's principia, you come across ill-defined terms :
"...quantity of motion..." that sound flakey until, with the hindsight of history, you realized how they were fleshed out! Calling data an action might be rebelled against by the greatest. Ledgard tried to distinguish the two to continue his programming with style theme later in life, but he neglected lisp has everything data and I didn't want to merely be a "devotee". I had been greatly inspired by his top down stuff which led me to be so painfully curious about extended design phase as to read an 800 page book on making a jigsaw puzzle and then having the rug pulled from under me in the next to the last page ordering rewrite this book and turn it into a text editor. This is a trivial thing to do in less than 800 pages with oop. I cheated and jumped to the last page. I later read Mike Beam prescribe making a text editor in os x development kit.

I bought an apple course which preached extended design phase in a movie called "Creating a Monstor" which they only let me watch after extreme bottom up in the os 9 code warrior ide. In my thesis studies, I bored a fellow who coded all the time in chaos studies but excited a relativist telling about it in the last day of the semester . I wondered you couldn't impress people in their own field and there's a swap of excitement, theoretical physicists can relate to compiler designers to balance their worlds. Devotee's ultimately only compete and might get rancorous.

Failing miserably at 20 questions should only start to tell me that data might not be as simple as bits . Bear River Associates had some sort of introduction to programming that had you design saving it . Users just wouldn't understand. Lucasfilm saves and revises work histories in Maya; big money wants to save digital assets and work . The work of a man can be used to illuminate what might be imagined as flakey words above and flesh it out with making history!

Each node would be a deconstructed portion of the final
overall "thing", whatever it might be.  The machine so proposed would
need to be able to collate and evaluate information, say over the
internet, to have input from the environment, like camera's or weather
sensors, produce actions, say product movement by robotics, and
replicate findings either physical or via media in some form.  All of
this is somewhat possible today.  If you think of a world of balls of
thought, linked to other worlds with balls of thought, with messaging
and event parsing, you are pretty close to the basic construct.  In
addition one could visit the world(s) and interact with the on-going
thought processes.  

	Any thoughts?
  

Way back at Rockwell Space Division in 1976 they were just beginning to get away from punched cards dictated from yellow notepads to typists . I hid out on floor 7 with a scroll of mathematics I was making not wanting to give dictation to someone who didn't understand it and drive them nuts. We had Harris terminals a few rocket science places later, but then I went into a starfield simulation laboratory with a sign on my back saying "kick me off, I have low priority" so I wouldn't have to cost justify to the scheduals of beancounters and could get to play at programming.

I didn't have a great salary. I thought I had a computer budget until someone said OK you've done one pixel for a $1 do me a thousand. I hadn't anticipated where the boss was going and the guy sitting next to me reminded me of fast transforms to do convolutions and such. The central computer was eating money and we were just beginning to get the glimmering that distributed computing would also be a social model that wouldn't exempt the boss from thinking where he was going and sharing responsibility for reading his own mind.

Kurzweil, in "Age of Spiritual Machines" has certainly many references to distributed computing. Such architecture can serve as a social model for how we can be better men rather than merely judgemental devotees of what was.

Regards,
Les H
On Fri, 2007-04-20 at 10:18 -0800, [hidden email] wrote:
  

I fiddled with hyperlinking ...
I wondered at a portrayal of a new market
that wouldn't be competitive but working with
publishers to make collective knowledge more
useful.
...
How can one represent what is going on
... a network of ideas
or something more primative and wonderful.