Category Archives: Robert K Merton

the path towards randomness [pt 3]

By admin | Published: February 20, 2010
And so no we go back to mr. perlin’s work, and I always seem to have come here, in my travels backwards: http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/noise/ ( I would also add as a note, that any visits here are good backwards, or downhill climbs ) This is ImprovedNoise.java, which is, well, an improvement of his earlier version ( improvements [...]
Posted in Robert K Merton | Leave a comment

the path towards randomness [pt 2]

By admin | Published: February 13, 2010
I’ve been meaning to get a good 3d Perlin noise function ( a method used to create a ‘natural’ kind of randomness, very useful in graphical programming ) into the processing.js library for the past few months, and I must admit to being rather slow at doing so. The task, originally scheduled for [...]
Also posted in investigation, method, reflection | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The paths toward randomness [pt 1]

By admin | Published: February 8, 2010
In the preface to the Vicennial edition of his work, On The Shoulders of Giants: a Shandean Postscript, Mr. Merton shares with us a graphical description of the paths of investigation described by Laurence Sterne in the fourth volume of his work– the paths of the first four volumes of The Life and Opinions of [...]
Posted in Robert K Merton | 1 Comment

a glance toward audio

By thomas | Published: January 10, 2010
I’ve been wanting to work on this stuff for a long time, and finally found some hours to play with it. mozAudioEvent an initial examination of the question here: http://philosophy.modern-carpentry.com/2009/12/a-bug-report-for-mozilla-or-the-importance-of-randomness-and-sound/ and we are called to its first answer: http://vocamus.net/dave/?p=914 and Mr. F1LT3R. chimes in: http://weblog.bocoup.com/javascript-fft-audio-sampling-in-firefox The current patch for Firefox, developed by humphd, does much more than what this video demonstrates. F1LT3R has [...]
Posted in Robert K Merton | 2 Comments

Where is the bleeding edge of the internet?

By thomas | Published: December 12, 2009
An interesting question by Metafilter[1] user Pastabagel [2], “Where do you people find the things you post to the “blue”, and how do you consistently find them before the rest of us? I should note that Metafilter’s main goal is to be a log of the best of the internet; the main site ( [...]
Also posted in investigation, reflection | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

a bug report for mozilla, or the importance of randomness and sound

By thomas | Published: December 5, 2009
Because I have found sound data so interesting, and also useful in my attempts to create natural motion and shapes, I have filed a bug with the Mozilla Firefox browser in regards to their audio tag. The current HTML5 audio tag does not give us the capability to analyze sound on the fly. I am confident that, if this feature is regarded as important enough, it will be implemented, and I look forward to the day when I can begin using Javascript rather than Actionscript in my efforts to build instruments.
Also posted in investigation, reflection | 6 Comments

notes on methodology

By thomas | Published: November 15, 2009
Before beginning any serious efforts as to the questions of Who was Socrates?, and, further, What is Philosophy?, I think it may be necessary to share a few thoughts I’ve recently had about how we share information online. I think it prudent to consider the aims of writing for online consumption, and also the [...]
Also posted in investigation, method | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

in defense of a new blog, or, hello world!

By thomas | Published: October 28, 2009
It is estimated as of February 2008 that there are over 112 million blogs on the internet (and I will admit to creating at least 8 or 9 of them). With this consideration in mind, we might wonder this: when you have created 8 or 9 blogs and only one of them has received [...]
Also posted in investigation, reflection | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment