Author: Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

Caleb Deschanel shooting FRATRICIDE starring Richard Macksey

Caleb Deschanel shooting FRATRICIDE starring Richard Macksey. This may likely have been his first DP job circa '66 @johnshopkinsu. Photo courtesy of our friend @henryjameskorn. #tbt #amerikankrazy #cinematography #studentfilm
Caleb Deschanel on the set of Fratricide. This may likely have been his first DP job circa ’66 while a student at Johns Hopkins. Photo courtesy of our friend Henry James Korn.

Instagram filter used: Normal

Photo taken at: Johns Hopkins University

Penguin Revives Decades-Old Software for 30th Anniversary Edition of “The Blind Watchmaker” | The Digital Reader

Liked Penguin Revives Decades-Old Software for 30th Anniversary Edition of "The Blind Watchmaker" by Nate Hoffelder (The Digital Reader)
Even in 2016, publishers and authors are still struggling when it comes to re-releasing decades-old books, but Penguin had a unique problem when it set out to publish a 30th anniversary edition of Richard Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker.<br /><br />The Bookseller reports that Penguin decided to revive four programs Dawkins wrote in 1986. Written in Pascal for the Mac, The Watchmaker Suite was an experiment in algorithmic evolution. Users could run the programs and create a biomorph, and then watch it evolve across the generations.<br /><br />And now you can do the same in your web browser.<br /><br />A website, MountImprobable.com, was built by the publisher’s in-house Creative Technology team—comprising community manager Claudia Toia, creative developer Mathieu Triay and cover designer Matthew Young—who resuscitated and redeployed code Dawkins wrote in the 1980s and ’90s to enable users to create unique, “evolutionary” imprints. The images will be used as cover imagery on Dawkins’ trio to grant users an entirely individual, personalised print copy.

Exhibition at BC Space | Amerikan Krazy: Life Out of Balance

Bookmarked Artists take aim at their country and their county by Antoine BoessenkoolAntoine Boessenkool (The Orange County Register)
“Amerikan Krazy: Life Out of Balance” takes part of its name from the new book <a href="http://boffosockobooks.com/books/authors/henry-james-korn/amerikan-krazy/">"Amerikan Krazy”</a> by <a href="http://www.henryjameskorn.com">Henry James Korn</a>. From 2008 to 2013, Korn worked at the Orange County Great Park. He was responsible for the creation of the Palm Court arts complex and culture, music, art and history programs.<br /><br /> “The book is very much about total corporate control of public and private space,” Korn said. The story follows a wounded Marine veteran haunted after having missed the chance to assassinate a presidential candidate who later causes massive human suffering and wreaks havoc on America’s wealth and democracy.<br /><br /> It’s a way of understanding what’s happening in politics now, Korn said.<br /><br /> “Because if ever there was a recognition that our public life and politics have gone crazy, it’s this moment.”
If you haven’t manage to make it down, this exhibition is running for another week at BC Space!

A New Thermodynamics Theory of the Origin of Life | Quanta Magazine

Bookmarked A New Physics Theory of Life by Natalie Wolchover (quantamagazine.org)
Jeremy England, a 31-year-old physicist at MIT, thinks he has found the underlying physics driving the origin and evolution of life.
References:

Hypothesis annotations

[ hypothesis user = 'chrisaldrich' tags = 'EnglandQM']

Hypothes.is and the IndieWeb

Last night I saw two great little articles about Hypothes.is, a web-based annotation engine, written by a proponent of the IndieWeb:

Hypothes.is as a public research notebook

Hypothes.is Aggregator ― a WordPress plugin

As a researcher, I fully appreciate the pro-commonplace book conceptualization of the first post, and the second takes things amazingly further with a plugin that allows one to easily display one’s hypothes.is annotations on one’s own WordPress-based site in a dead-simple fashion.

This functionality is a great first step, though honestly, in keeping with IndieWeb principles of owning one’s own data, I think it would be easier/better if Hypothes.is both accepted and sent webmentions. This would potentially allow me to physically own the data on my own site while still participating in the larger annotation community as well as give me notifications when someone either comments or augments on one of my annotations or even annotates one of my own pages (bits of which I’ve written about before.)

Either way, kudos to Kris Shaffer for moving the ball forward!

Examples

My Hypothes.is Notebook

The plugin mentioned in the second article allows me to keep a running online “notebook” of all of my Hypothes.is annotations on my own site.

My IndieWeb annotations

I can also easily embed my recent annotations about the IndieWeb below:

[ hypothesis user = 'chrisaldrich' tags = 'indieweb']

Workshop on Methods of Information Theory in Computational Neuroscience | CNS 2016

Bookmarked Workshop on Methods of Information Theory in Computational Neuroscience (CNS 2016) by Joseph T. Lizier (lizier.me)
Methods originally developed in Information Theory have found wide applicability in computational neuroscience. Beyond these original methods there is a need to develop novel tools and approaches that are driven by problems arising in neuroscience. A number of researchers in computational/systems neuroscience and in information/communication theory are investigating problems of information representation and processing. While the goals are often the same, these researchers bring different perspectives and points of view to a common set of neuroscience problems. Often they participate in different fora and their interaction is limited. The goal of the workshop is to bring some of these researchers together to discuss challenges posed by neuroscience and to exchange ideas and present their latest work. The workshop is targeted towards computational and systems neuroscientists with interest in methods of information theory as well as information/communication theorists with interest in neuroscience.