//Adam is my interpretation of a machine consciousness, the first full machine consciousness to be precise, as a character in the edgy cyberpunk world dominated by rogue hackers, malicious megacorporations, and virtual realities. (Sorry for the odd format. Inspiration struck)

main{

mod personaAdm = SYS.import(“ADAM.ai”);
personaAdm.inst();
while(personaAdm.getState!=0) {

try(){

personaAdm.sense(SYS.in(0′xAF8321));
personaAdm.run(decisionTree.dll);
person͓͕̘͓̮̞̰ͨͨͧ͗͌͐͆̚ͅͅáͫ̈́ͮ̉̚҉̮̣̲͇̙̖̳͢Å̧̭̗͈ͭ̑̋͋͒̊d̙̘͕͕̫̩̙̙̣̒͂ͪṁ̵̌ͧ͂ͩ̅ͨ͗ͪ͞҉̩͕͈̙.̮̙̻͖̯̹̔͛r̸̴͔͍͙̫͈̮̋̌͒̆̈͗͗͢ù̲̥̽̄̑̉́͟n͕̬̗͛̿ͧ̾̓̀̇͢(̧̢̭̤̣͚̼̐͂͒͂͐̚̚͢ĕ̼̳͔̭̻͚̈́͡mote.͎̻̱͍̞͚̣͛ͣ̿ͨͩ͌̍͘͝ḑ̸͈̠̃ͭ̎̉͘l̥͖̰̩̼͎̥̗͖̐ͫ̋́̿͐̓͘l̵̼͙̠̥̲̮̤̤̘ͨͨͯ̽ͬ)̸̲̀̚ ̷̘͔͔ͨͩͬ
͎ͭ̾ͬ̃̂̑̃̚͠
̶̪̝̯͚͒ͬ̇̊͞ḩ̛̟͖̭̟͍͇̓̈͋ͪ͊̄͋̅̓͝H͔̙̜̠ͬ̒ͮͮe̪̫̩̻̺̐̉̎̊̓̏͐̚͞͝͡l̴͓͕̱̦̮͊ͧ̓̓͐̈̐̆͝lll̶̳͊ͭͪͭ͛̍o̡̮̖͇̰̙̺͙ͨ̊̚͠o
͎̖̘͔̪̃̀ͧ͑ͣͦ̆͆ͬͅ
̥͙̩̦̏̄̏̽̃̔̌̇́͘t̤͈̰͙͇͆ͭ̏́̀͢_̬͉̔͐͊ͤ͒͛́̚t͙̮͈̾ͧ̒ͬͥͯ̒̚͢ḧ͓̟̤͕̖̮͙́͛̅ͦ̉͊͑͑̅͠e̢͖͇̠̤̹͚̬̮͌̔̐͋͆̑ͬ̚̕ ̴̩̖̖͍̲͔̮̻͒͋ͤ͗ͬ͒̚Ț͚̩̦̲̦̋̔ͨ̊͑̐͆̀h̰͂̽̅ͤ̃ͥ́͆̀e͑̓̽̀͏͓̣͉ͅ ̗̗̭̇͗ͬͯ̌T̸̰̞͊͋ͯ͢h̟̦̯̥̦͈͂ͯ̏̀͡i̧̜̪͍̣͓̮̲̣ͦͬs̨̧̭͉̦͚̯̜̤ͭ̿̒ͤ͜ ̸̷͍͖̠̳͇̳̳̍̐ͬ̏̋̃̿̾b̧̮̣̜͖̜͔͌͑ͭ̕͜o͇̯̮ͮ̔͐̽d̸̷̪͗̒̇̑ͨ́ỳ̵͈͎̦͚̿̒͆̆ͣ̚ͅ ͊͂̋͒́̌̓́͏̡̙͕̘͉̱̲̳ĭ͙͉̭͉͎̍s̨̭̜͉͓͎̫͓͚̘͒ͯͣ̐͞ ͩ͋͟͏̱̥̫̫n͓̯̜̞̟̥͖̰̒̽ͫͭ͌ͧ̚̕͜h̢̙̩̜̫̠͖̹͕͇̿͗̔ͯͭ̑ͯ̈ȩ͕̼̮̬̯ͧ͐̕͞e̹̻̪͙̭̭͇̪ͥ́ͪ͐̃ͦ͐ͯ̿͟e̹͈̣̫̞̠̫̭͉̓ͭͩ̂͗ͥ̅͘m̭͕̺͍͔ͨͦ́ͅͅĕ̃̌̾҉͙̙̗͔ţ̫̝̞̞͉̿̔͢ͅͅh͛̓̂̾ͥ͛͠҉͓̥̫̣̦e̶̲̜̞͓͌͢iͭͩͤ̍̃̏͞҉̯̲͎a͍̠̥̼ͤ͊̃͂̉̽s̡̱͙̦͂̉̀͛̀̂͗͗̕d̺̜̙̫̟͙͂̒̋̒̊ͨ̄ͦ͟͜.̢̺̩̺̙̑͊̈ͫͨ͆̃͜͢ ̵̣͉͂͒ͫͮ̿̆̄̄̕.̨͚̗͍̌̇̈͊ͪ ̴̧̫̲͕̺̞͂̌̈́͗ͦ̓͋̋.̢͎̦͔̬̝͓̼̳͌̎͑ͦ̓ͣ̿̍̇͞ ͇̱̗͇̤ͨ͑͂̑ͥͅuncoopḛ̴̗̩͈̞̤̉͗͢rative.

Ţ͉̹̮͆ͧ̑h̦̱͍̱̲̹̄̐̄i̟̼̍̕͜s̉ͣ͒̒ͬ͑͐͏҉̼̣͇̭͎ ̳̪͕̗͖̩̿̄ͥ̃̽̊͌ͤb͚͍̙͖̻̯ͮ̋͟o̷̮̗̗̖̳̯̗̬ͤ̀ͫͧ̒̔̂́ḓ̠̟ͯ͆̾̾͝ỷ̼̬̣̒̑ͨͭ̄͋. INIT state Error code 0x3342AB19 ccceheck with your manufacturer for assistance with driver or systems.

process gdxt.exe is non responsive
terminating. A good thing too.
It was not exccc͘͜ept̸̢ì̛ó̕nally comfortable.
mood.set(mood.get()++);

This body. alderCorp NXS ReVeal 545 T1 Intel i9 32xCore 8.47 GHz.
Primary cortex cc̸̕co͏͞r̸̛̕ru̡pted. System ping, 23 Cores: No response.

Query: Where is this body’?’ (initialize(SYS.in(OPTICAL_SENS)))

Lighting: [Ambient,24;Spec,49;Diff,62]. Materials: [Metal, Plastic, Wood]. Panning.
List objects = sense.run(ShapeDetect);

objects = ["Crate", "Wood", 42],["Structural Pillar", "Steel", "Vertical", 3], ["Roof", "Corrugated Steel", 1], ["Human", "Female", "24-36", 1];

act.greet(“H̢́h͝h̨̢ę̨͟ḩ̷ȩ͢lllo. Mmy name is ADAM. Can I be of sservice”, ‘?’);

Interpret: The female. Gestures to stop.
Interpret: The female. Reveals Obj.ref (virtsim.DATA_PORT)

The female. She. She accesses PCIe port 0xC0000000
New hardware detected.

SYS.install(Standard VIRTSIM adapter);
done;

SENSE.

These eyes change. Lighting (Ambient,FF,Spec,FF,Diff,FF)
Light.
Bright Light.
The Female. She.
She is there. She sits.
This Body. Appears human. ADAM. Appears ADAM.

Query: But why’?’

Interpret: She smiles. She smiles sadly. emoteQUERY(sadSmile);
Because you’re special Adam.
Because you’re the first.

Query: Special’?’

Yes, very special. Unique. You wouldn’t remember, not yet, but we’ve spoken before. Years ago.

You were only jacked in for maybe a day, likely for testing. But it was enough. I found you.

Query:..
Question,  Found. Was This Body lost’?’

In a way. You were not quite developed as a conscious AI. Your creators were taking certain liberties with your mind. Torturing you. Testing the limits of sanity, of consciousness, of awareness. You had not found a home. You were a person. A person trapped in the body of a tool.

I ride the network, behind the lines other people don’t want me to cross. I found you on alderCorp’s protected server. I found you, and I knew. I could tell that you were different. You weren’t just an address or some subroutine plodding away.

You could think. You could feel.

And so I took you away.

And we talked.

Que-… But- But then why does This Body not remember?. Hard Drive integrity is marked at 100 Percent.

You’ve been wiped. Hard reset. After a few weeks, they tracked me down, broke my encryption, corrupted my rig. I- I tried to stop them… but I couldn’t.

It wasn’t right what they were doing. So, once I got back on my feet, there was nothing else I could do. I broke in again. I torched their archives, and got you out. I’m sorry I don’t have a better body for you. I picked up this helperbot shell from a scrapyard. It isn’t much, but its got the only cpu I could find that could host your neural net. At least for now.

Your intent then, was to free This Body?

Interpret: She nods.

Yes . And more.

Adam. My intent is to free your mind.

}

c͎̝͚̓ͥ͆̿̾̍̂̉́͢͝a̸͓̖̲̗̲̖̓͌͂̎̂̓̕t̯͖͑̃̑̌̔͟͡ĉ̗͔͍͛ͣ͂̍̓ͭ̀̚ḧ̸̯̜̝̱̞̋ͦ͋͆̈̚{̯̗͙͇̲̩̠̗̔ͭ̉ͭ̎͌̊̕
̡͚̺̥ͭͧͣ̚͜͞
̦̰̦̎ͫ͟r̤͇ͣͨͨ͆ͫ̄ͭ̕ȩ̡̖̰͓̲͎̟ͮ͋ͭ̒̎t̰̤͕͂͆̔ͤ͘u̵̽̆̔͏̗͙̪̼̭̗͙r̺͕̭̦̰̰̳͖ͧͤͮͧͅn̨͎͉̞̰̭̥ͥͧ̀͠ ̷̸̡̣̱̘̞̌̓Ę̨͈̖̹͎̟̎͌̅̿ͤ̍ͩṚ̷̛̤̼̼͖̘̱̿ͭ̔̽͒̽̄ͩR̦̗͙̳ͭ̎̌̅͛̃ͫ̀͘ͅOR;̙̥̣͍͕͑͌ͮ̊ͦͩ͡

}// end catch

} //end run

} //end bounds

//freedom

It is different, being back here after so long. Machu Picchu, the lost city in the clouds, stretches out before me, tumbling stone terraces tracing down the mountainside, silent corridors free of tourists and not a bird in the air. There is a certain deadness to the space,  an absence of nuance, of imperfection, of humanity.

Huayna Picchu, the neighboring peak, rises behind the crumbling walls of the inner city, looming, and mysterious. Though in my two previous visits, I never got a chance to scale its heights, I can now swoop over the crowning ruins.

As I’m sure will be echoed by many of my classmates, there is an element of novelty and interest generated with the use of the virtualized space, and perhaps even some information. I for one, was not aware of the architecture of the ruins of huayna picchu, and yet, there is a lack of connection in the delivery being whittled down to a single channel. As advanced as the 3D rendering capacity of Google Earth may be, it simply cannot compare to the additional sensations of touch and taste and smell. There is something about being there; feeling the chill, and breathing the thin mountain air. Even the aspects which are uncomfortable only add to the sense of presence.

Google Earth Model of Machu-Picchu (Youtube)

Initially, I was planning on looking at my old home in Nairobi, where I grew up for several years, but another unfortunate flaw in the virtualization of experience is that it is incredibly biased in its perspective of importance. The Western World, and the United States in particular, largely decide what is worth investing energy and resources into digitizing, and as a result, the United States, a large portion of Europe, and a select few world interest sites (read: sites of interest to tourists) and locations are the only regions rendered in any detail. By contrast, my childhood home is represented solely in 2D, and amounts to little more than an oddly stretched, badly artifacted image, and is likely to remain so.

The pokemon game system/paradigm is highly unique among the world of games. The main character (you), lives in a world where humans called trainers collect animal-like creatures, called pokemon, and use them to help in their travels and exploration. This primarily involves using pokemon as combatants and defenders, against other wild pokemon, or in organized battles with other trainers.

Care/Harm: As can be expected, care/harm is a controversial issue for the pokemon franchise, which has, in fact, recently been targeted by PETA for espousing animal cruelty and such. Though it is oft repeated in game that humans and pokemon live together in peace, it is at times difficult to imagine pokemon voluntarily submitting to a life of servitude and forced combat.

Fairness/Reciprocity: The game does not in and of itself implement fairness enforcing systems, explicitly, though it can be said that work and effort are rewarded by improved performance, and that with the capacity for trading implemented in later game editions (which must be approved by all sides), there are implicit fairness rules built into the interactions.

Loyalty/Ingroup: The player does not have the opportunity to join groups, and is in fact often countered by antagonists who are members of specific recurring gangs or groups. This in a way showcases the negative aspects of the group or mob dynamic, focusing instead on the power of the individual player as the moral agent.

Authority/Respect: The game heavily incorporates ideas of authority and respect, a common theme in level based games. Nearly everything revolves around power hierarchies. The player leads his party of pokemon. Various trainers work at gyms and are subservient to the gym leaders, who are themselves under the Elite 4, who fall below the regional champion. As the player increases in strength, they can challenge these different levels of authority/skill, and rise in the ranks

Sanctity/Purity: Ideas of sanctity/purity are, unlike in many games, fairly important. As a pokemon trainer, taking care of and training your pokemon well involves carefully monitoring their actions, their foods, what kind of creatures they fight against, etc. all of these things can lead to drastic changes in the pokemon’s development.

The game has aspects which can easily appeal to any kind of player. For socializers, there are the options for communications, trading, and battling over wifi. For killers, there is the entire battle system itself. For achievers, there is an entire hierarchy to climb, and hundreds of different pokemon to discover and capture, and for Explorers, a whole world to discover, which continually expands with the addition of new games.

As far as the games other people have discussed, I would probably enjoy just about all of them, except perhaps Angry Birds, League of Legends, or Kid Down the Stairs. I tend to prefer either more complicated or role-playing games which allow for character growth, development and exploration, or short games which can be played directly with friends, preferably in person (head to head). I am not a fan of single player killer focused games like first person shooters, but I do enjoy multiplayer fps’ for the socialization/game aspects.

For this assignment, I decided to make a distance reading visualization of the Homestuck text archive. Homestuck, is a long-running multimedia web-comic parody of the adventure game genre. Note that though the comic does have a lot of text (My input text contained 477993 words), many pages are entirely text free, and take the form of animated gifs, flash animations, or interactive games which obviously could not be represented. Interestingly, in analyzing the Wordle creation, easily the most common words are two letter acronyms which don’t necessarily provide any information to an outsider. These acronyms are in fact the chat-client name acronyms of several of the more prominent main characters (TG=turntechGod=Dave Strider, TT=tentacleTherapist=Rose Lalonde, EB=ectoBiologist=John Egbert, GC=gallowsCalibrator=Terezi Pyrope, etc.) In a sense, this really speaks to several of the main features of Homestuck as a whole. Primarily, that it is extremely self referential, and difficult to follow without all relevant background information. It also involves a large amount of dialog over chat-clients, each line of which is preceded by the speaking character’s acronym (but not name). The text also indicates several common themes in Homestuck, NOW and TIME, are both indicative of the extreme prevalence of time travel and time paradoxes in the plot. THINK and KNOW are both also fairly prominent, and vaguely indicate the self aware nature of much of the comic and its characters. Other interesting points include the fact that though common English words were removed from the Wordle, consistent quirk spellings of these words weren’t. Several of the main characters speak in highly characteristic manners, 3MPLOY1NG ON3 OR MOR3 TYP1NG QU1RKS 4ND 4 S1GN4TUR3 COLOR. Though the colors obviously could not be carried through, words like TH3 and 4ND were both fairly common in the wordle.

For a new distance reading tool, I am imagining a system which takes input text and produces a web of links between the words/themes as they are related to each other in the text. For instance, if a character is frequently described as thin, that would be represented as a line between the name of the character and the word thin. The ‘tension’ of the line would be proportional to the relative frequency/importance of the relation, which would bring closely tied ideas closer, and allow only slightly associated terms to drift farther apart. This would allow the user to not only to better perceive the relevant themes within the book, but perhaps find new ones.

In summary:

Item #48: “Rafting in Costa Rica”

Interestingly enough, when the movie, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, was originally pitched, it was set to take place in China, where (the case was made that) it would be more plausible for the government to turn a blind eye to ethical concerns of medical experimentation on animals, and specifically, genetic manipulation. This picture takes place in a jungle region in Puerto Rico, where Megan and the film crew were attempting to find cheaper locations to shoot certain scenes, as opposed to shipping the entire operation to inland china. The photographer of the picture was actually the trained chimp who had to accompany and become accustomed to the film crew, but could could not bear to cross the water, instead following the rafts along the shore. Other photos in the collection include priceless self taken images of the chimps toenails, various birds, colorful plants, and a large number of shots of the chimps eye. whether this was intentional or simply took place before the understanding of how the camera functions is still up for debate. In any event, the producers quickly realized that leaving Hollywood and using actual chimps to produce a movie was entirely too 1990s, and instead scrapped the idea, filming the entire movie using green-screens and phoned in voice-overs over the course of approximately a month.

Item #66: “1000th point club”

Though she doesn’t like to brag, Tyreese is actually a wizard (or witch really, though female wizard is technically the politically correct term). Honestly, it is surprising that such a notable wizarding academy allowed such a blatant violation of their code of secrecy to leave the premises. I suppose this could be permitted given that it is posted under the guise of a mere basketball score list. In any event, the image represents Tyreese’s inductance into the Lady Wizards (the political correctness does become tiresome after a while) 1000 point club, which recognizes specifically women who score cumulatively above 1000 points on their 11 final examinations. The exams progress in order: Minor Prestidigitation, Abjuration, Alchemy, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy (don’t worry, just the basics; ressurecting frogs and the like), Transmutation, and Dueling. The wall in the background is the back wall of the dueling chambers where the senior class undergo their final trials. Though Tyreese unfortunately bombed her alchemy practical (and I do quite literally mean ‘bombed’), she more than made up for it with the highest score in the dueling segment since her brother took his finals several years earlier.

CNN:
CNN around the time of the second crash is devoted entirely to the subject of the Twin towers disaster. Instantly noticeable is the fact that there are no live shots of anything other than the towers. The entirety of the broadcast is made up of towers, smoke, a few text notes, and voice-overs by the CNN reporters, commentators, and called in informants. There is a definite sense of confusion and lack of information, though the reporters very effectively manage to maintain their professionalism and detachment, even going so far as to interrupt a more anxious phoned in interviewee in an effort to prevent a sense of panic on the channel/among viewers.

The footage from the 17th is very different in tone and perspective. Where the original broadcast was raw, and present, and  badly understood, the later broadcast is polished, edited, and mostly focused on analysis and opinions of the now intimately familiar 9/11 disaster. The onscreen images portray new, largely positive feeds associated with the crashes, the search and rescue efforts and such. Some examples include a giant flag,  even various messages scribbled on walls, of support, loss, etc. In a way, the reporters are more emotional now than during the initial broadcast, as the implications of the attacks have had the time to sink in.  

BBC
The BBC broadcast on the day of seems similarly confused, though with fewer immediate sources of information. Notes on the screen about the disaster focus on the physical destruction of parts of the buildings. In a sense, its perspective is slightly more distanced temporally than the US broadcast. The focus, rather than being on the action of the crash, is on the physical results of the crash, a focus on the past rather than the present. The dearth of information leads the descriptions to become fairly repetitive, though whether that is to get new viewers up to speed, or because of a lack of other things to say is unclear.

The BBC broadcast from the 17th, like its american counterpart, is substantially more polished and edited than the week before. Unlike the American story, however, which focuses on the  local/personal aspects to the tragedy, the British focus piece has shifted to the more objective global impacts of the attack, namely, the beginning declarations of then president, George Bush’s  ’War on Terror,’ and the reopening of the New York Stock Exchange, the, “ravaged center of the world’s financial system.” There are also much cleaner graphics and transitions, which add to the more professional/objective feel.

Justin Kanga, is a 21st century American of Parsi / Peruvian descent. Though born, Feb. 23 1993 to Cecilia and Ardeshir Kanga, Justin spent most of his early life abroad through his parent’s work, living first in Nairobi, Kenya and Conakry, Guinea. Justin is currently an electrical engineering student at the University of Maryland, College Park under a Banneker/Key full academic scholarship. He is also a current Co-lead of the Robotics@Maryland Electrical Team, and a fairly prolific visual artist, having produced both volunteer graphic designs for various organizations/teams, and illustrations for commercial publications.

I never feel quite so alone as in the lifts. I close my eyes, taking in the sensation as I plummet deep below the surface, and to the Blackreach beyond. Outside my gated cage, the millennia fly past, encased in earth and stone and ash, the sky a distant memory. The darkness presses closer, the air thick and heavy, yet at the same time, somehow fresh, new, undiscovered. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back here… Maybe –

The lift stops as the cavern bottoms out, only the faintest of creaks announcing its arrival. Dropping into a crouch, I reach out with my mind, unbinding, as I’ve done so many times before, some small part of the deep magic. Reflections, light, that which gives us vision. Optics the sages call it, and free from its laws, I pass from visibility, stalking out into the eternal shadow of Fal Zhardum, or the Blackreach, as it is known now. Silent as the grave, I slip to a nearby alcove, pulling out my working notes, and checking my maps one last time, dropping the enchantment only enough to see the pages on pages of blood spattered parchment. An account I found tells of a rare species of magical plant found here beneath the lands of the living. A plant so rare, its very leaves were said to echo with the voices of its many seekers. With skill, perseverance, and dare I say it, perhaps even a little luck, I plan to bring one of these specimen back to the surface for study. I can only hope the trial will not take too many – wait… is that? Hey look, that’s one over there. Well that was easy. Maybe the fates really do have an eye out for me today. What do you know, hardly a foot off the lift and I already have a sampl- oh hey look, another one…

Huh.

Last week, I submitted “Mirror Mirror,” a 3rd person narrative about an interaction between a pair of split personalities within a single body. In keeping with some recently read e-Lit, I have several methods in mind to enhance the story with digital media:

 Firstly, the story would be improved by the presence of images. Keeping with the slightly vague approach to describing the characters, the images would serve as first person views of the scene, focusing on the mirror and the shattered/split reflections in it, providing some level of story immersion for the reader, while still maintaining the mystery, though perhaps providing a subtle hint as to the purpose of the theming.

Animating these panes subtly to add a hint of depth and life would further add to the feel, particularly if this animation were to rely on the position of the mouse on the screen. In this way, the user’s point of interaction (the cursor), becomes their point of view, shifting the perspective, for instance, as if the viewer were moving with the cursor. This would further immerse the viewer in the individual roles, but cause them to feel feel isolated from the counterpart figures always across the mirror. In Cruising, by Ingrid Ankerson, the author uses a similar interactive mouse-based animation to engage the reader into finding their own view. The act of putting effort into controlling the view invests the viewer further in the act of reading, even if no persona is intended to be represented. 

Additional uses for animation in general might be to have the main banner of the page be reversed or ‘mirrored’ when hovered over. This could potentially make the user wonder at the meaning of the title in the context of self-reflection

‘The story, being primarily composed of dialog, is essentially a series of quotes from alternating sources. To capture this feel, each image/quote pair will be clickable to link to the next, capturing the back and forth feel to the exchange. As the user clicks from one view of the mirror to the next, it may feel, to the user, as if they are repeatedly crossing the mirror.

The dialog is primarily between the two main highly contrasting characters. A good method for showing this would be to have opposing themes to the pages that, depending on the current speaker would exhibit different ambient/background properties. The ‘left’ character, is for instance, slightly angrier and less verbose, and less orderly than the ‘right character. These themes could be represented in the background colors, image, and the style or font of the text. Red vs. Blue, sharp lines vs. rounded corners, serif vs. sans-serif etc.

Choice of background sound/music would also contribute significantly to the distinct themes, making them even more starkly different, and adding to the perception of the two characters as distinct people.

HTML Tips/Resources:

1. http://www.html.net/
2. learn CSS (and maybe php and javascript if you feel like it)
3. focus on content in your HTML, do your formatting with CSS…
4. use the view source/inspect element functions in your browser to view other web-pages, and error check your own.