Gee, I saw the Matrix as definitely being our world now, today -- as was The 13th Floor, and Wag the Dog. What they are all talking about is the illusionary nature of "reality". Basic Buddhist precept, really -- and very apropos for our times. Forget the sci-fi razzmatazz. They're just trying to wake people up to the scam, the big lie. Watch Wag the Dog on DVD, and then watch the commentary that comes with it. Reality is a construct, built by our keepers. Tim May wrote:

By the way, I didn't take seriously the view that _we_ are living in a Matrix world. The film was ambivalent on the claim that _this_ world is a Matrix world: it was more plausible to buy the timeline Morpheus gives of how _our_ world becomes the "Matrix" world. That is, the events taking place are "really" a few hundred years from now, with the machines having set the "environment bit" to "late 20th century." I thought this was obvious. Maybe not. Normally I don't worry ovemuch about such subtleties, but it seemed to me some fraction of Bob Hettinga's hate-rant had something to do with the supposed conceit that _our_ world is the "Matrix" world. I didn't take it this way. Rather, I took it as a classic SF story, describing some _possible future_.

-- Harmon Seaver, MLIS Systems Librarian Arrowhead Library System Virginia, MN (218) 741-3840 hseaver@arrowhead.lib.mn.us http://harmon.arrowhead.lib.mn.us

At 7:43 PM -0400 10/24/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

Moreover, all of these Hollywood Computer Generated Image applications were designed to model *physics* to begin with, and it's just plain ignorance on Hollywood's part, or at least on their audience's part, that keeps them from being used the right way in the first place. Blame it on public schools, or at least 30 years of socialist control of same.

Nonsense, on at least a couple of accounts. I was active in the image processing field in 1980-84, and attended various SIGGRAPHs and suchlike. Fact is, "ray tracing" and various illumination models, and Gouraud and Phong shading and all the rest...were NOT motivated by a desire to model "*physics*." Physicist didn't give a dang about modelling light sources in 3D environments, and about morphing and wrapping and all that. The motivation was to produce special effects for education films (a la James Blinn at JPL), effects for movies (a la Alvy Ray Smith, eventually of Pixar), and advertisements for Hollywood and Madison Avenue. For many years, from at least the early 70s onward, the highlight of SIGGRAPH and similar conferences were the demos from leading makers of advertisements, digital paintboxes for t.v. weathermen, and so on. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.

At 12:43 PM +0300 10/25/00, Sampo A Syreeni wrote:

On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, Tim May wrote:

...

suchlike. Fact is, "ray tracing" and various illumination models, and Gouraud and Phong shading and all the rest...were NOT motivated by a desire to model "*physics*."

Yet now we have radiosity. And as you well know, illumination and rendering are just two parts of the process. We still have kinematics, which is probably the most abused part of the process, and the one designed to get plausible physics.

We had radiosity many, many years ago. And models for human motion, animal motion, and so on. The point is not that physics-constraints are good things, the point is that most advanced graphics was _not_ developed for the sake of science and physics! I was refuting Bob Hettinga's point about what advanced graphics were developed for. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.

At 08:08 PM 10/24/00 -0400, Tim May wrote:

Nonsense, on at least a couple of accounts. I was active in the image processing field in 1980-84, and attended various SIGGRAPHs and suchlike. Fact is, "ray tracing" and various illumination models, and Gouraud and Phong shading and all the rest...were NOT motivated by a desire to model "*physics*." Physicist didn't give a dang about modelling light sources in 3D environments, and about morphing and wrapping and all that.

Not *that* kind of physicist. Something more like psychophysics (ie measurement of human perception) empowered by these newfangled computer thangs. There was a desire to see what was sufficient to generate photorealism. After all, the shading models you mention are crude approximations; but they usually work[1], which talks to the limits of perception. And to a nontrivial physics of a certain scale (modelling translucent objects, objects with embedded reflectors and adsorbers, etc.) There was also a desire to understand the rendering process so that you could understand the *inverse*, ie, inferring the world from what you see. Machine vision. Rendered jello, fires, fractal cloud effects, realistic water, rocks, etc. Hollywood was for a while making entire movies around a single new model (particle systems in that terraforming star trek movie). The question that motivates was, how do you do that? Where 'that' might be rendering hair, or modelling how skin creases at elbows. I modelled wood grain with a VAX in 1985 using a 24 bit monitor that cost more than some cars. Nowadays you would just scan and texture map real wood, but the (psychophysical) question was, what did you need to model to get grain indistinguishable from real[2]? Texture mapping is cheating. Similar questions exist for modelling motion. How many harmonics do you need to render for realistic motion? How do you make a desklamp move with emotion? (Luxo Jr..) (Recording actors and mapping movement is cheating, Mr. Spielberg.)

The motivation was to produce special effects for education films (a la James Blinn at JPL), effects for movies (a la Alvy Ray Smith, eventually of Pixar), and advertisements for Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

These folks had a more academic interest than you make out.. Blinn wrote a very mathematical column.. the sci films and movies paid the bills, bought the equiptment, etc., and sometimes motivated problems, but the problems were fascinating in and of themselves. Sure, their output was often visual candy, but it was new and interesting regardless of jazz appeal. [1] The moon does not show the cos(incidence-angle) reflectance of typical matte surfaces, and thus looks flat. Its surface is powder. [2] slice vertical concentric shells with radially varying albedo (annual rings) paired with small vertical radial planes (rays). The 3D geometry yields 2D constraints on the texture that distinguish it from other striated textures. Turning the knobs generates different types of woodgrains.

On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, jim bell wrote:

----- Original Message ----- From: Tim May Subject: CDR: Re: Re: Gort in granny-shades (was Re: Al Gore goes cypherpunk?)

...

(If fantasy/horror is included, the pattern continues. "Rosemary's Baby," "The Exorcist," etc. Many great movies show their age. I recently saw the re-release of "The Exorcist" and it seemed slow-moving and tame by today's standards.)

Remember what Beetlejuice said about it: "I've seen 'The Exorcist' a dozen (?) times and it keeps getting funnier each time I see it!"

I was raised Catholic, but became a severe agnostic at age 15. I read the Exorcist at age 12 and it scared the shit out of me. As I got older it kept getting more and more humorous. My son who was raised agnostic thought it was hilarious from the start. There is a lesson there. jim -- Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural

For me the description of an ideal movie is "A series of gunshots and explosions strung together by one liners". I go to the movies for amusement, not intellectual satisfaction. That said:

By the way, I didn't take seriously the view that _we_ are living in a Matrix world. The film was ambivalent on the claim that _this_ world is a Matrix world: it was more plausible to buy the timeline Morpheus gives of how _our_ world becomes the "Matrix" world. That is, the events taking place are "really" a few hundred years from now, with the machines having set the "environment bit" to "late 20th century." I thought this was obvious. Maybe not. Normally I don't worry ovemuch about such subtleties, but it seemed to me some fraction of Bob Hettinga's hate-rant had something to do with the supposed conceit that _our_ world is the "Matrix" world. I didn't take it this way. Rather, I took it as a classic SF story, describing some _possible future_.

The *ONE* thing that beefed me big time about the "Matrix" was the excuse they gave for the computer keeping all the people alive. The claim (as I remember) was that the bodies were used to store/create energy for the computer to run. It *really* irked me.

It's fun for a few seconds to think about the implications of _this_ world being a simulation in the Matrix, but it doesn't hold up, even in the context of the film's conceits. (I mean "conceit" in the lit-crit sense, not in the common sense.)

If this world *were* a computer generated construct, it would explain a few things. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech." --Dr. Kathleen Dixon, Director of Women s Studies, Bowling Green State University

On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, petro wrote:

The claim (as I remember) was that the bodies were used to store/create energy for the computer to run.

It *really* irked me.

'Cause, you see, that's life energy. Of course you can produce *normal* energy in a plant, but anything that's alive, needs the other kind. In a word, ugly. Sampo Syreeni , aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university

"Riad S. Wahby" wrote:

Ah, but you are forgetting. It was the power from humans "combined with a form of fusion." Everything, when combined with a form of fusion, makes a good movie energy source.

"Their spaceship was powered by goat pornography combined with a form of fusion."

See? Doesn't is sound nifty and hi-tech?

Yeah, that aspect didn't irk me at all. I thought the premise was flawed Why would they need a world simulator if all they wanted was bioenergy they could just keep all the drones in a coma... :) Yes, your spaceship being powered by goat porno is far more believable. :^) -- ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\ \|/ :aren't security. A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\ <--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you \/|\/ /|\ :masked killer, but |don't email them, or put them on a web \|/ + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often. --------_sunder_@_sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------

At 15:38 -0400 10/27/00, sunder wrote:

"Riad S. Wahby" wrote:

...

Ah, but you are forgetting. It was the power from humans "combined with a form of fusion." Everything, when combined with a form of fusion, makes a good movie energy source.

That really amused me as well. After all, if you've got fusion why bother with the human- cut out the middle man as it were... Somthing along the lines of "they needed substantial neural net capacity for their to improve their RC-5 key rate" would have been more reasonable. -- "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." -- Justice William O. Douglas ____________________________________________________________________ Kevin "The Cubbie" Elliott mailto:kelliott@mac.com ICQ#23758827