Bug Blogger

We Are All Applications

What is a database but a resting place, however temporary, for bytes (being an arbitrary unit of measure) of data waiting to be consumed by some application.  It is useless otherwise.  But in essence, isn't the real world just a database?  Everywhere is information waiting for consumption.  Our senses are applications that consume data.  Our bodies themselves consume data (all living things do).  Evolution itself could be seen as versions of applications responding to changes in the Earth's database.  What I'm trying to say is, there must be some interesting way to make use of this fact. 

There is data everywhere. We are all applications.  Why don't we build better bridges between ourselves so that we can better share our data?  Right now, as I sit here, the application known as Peter is consuming data. Is this info of interest to anybody else?  Depending on one's knowledge, care and/or use for me personally you could probably draw concentric rings eminating from me that demonstrate levels of interest.  But that interest quickly tails off.  My data becomes interesting only insofar as it describes environmental or other sensory inputs (this may not be strictly true - my editorial input may have value - e.g. The temp is 70 but that's unusual for this time of year). What's the barometric pressure at my lat/lon, etc.  Do I see the Golden Gate bridge from where I stand? Is there a line at the Starbucks where I am sitting?  If I go out of my way to post this data, would someone be interested in it (Flickr is a great data point)?  If everyone posted random bits of data what would that truly provide?  Useful information or meaningless noise? 

Perhaps the Long Tail concept applies.  It rapidly becomes a problem of search and categorization to make sense of it all, but maybe Google could help.  Maybe it's self organizing. People are drawn to the info they're interested in and post the same.  Who would take the time to make inputs?  It's a social networking question but my bet is there could be a healthy quid pro quo.  At least from a core initial group.

There are probably good existing analogs. Spies, for instance, make it their job to constantly input data.  The unbelievably prescient book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson imagined individuals called Gargoyles whose business it was to ceasely collect any/all information in their immediate vicinity.  The latest incarnation is justin.tv.  If the value to the greater good could be easily demonstrated, who knows?  There may even be an economic model that could support it.  I become a data source, a streamer, that people can rely on, subscribe to (RSS).  I could be a specialist on parking spots at 76 and Amsterdam.

Perhaps even more interesting is what if I have hyper sensory inputs from other devices that I can assimilate into the Peter app?  For example, maybe I have a geiger counter with me that I can use to stream radioactive data.

In this model, every person becomes a node in a vast, distributed application running off the database known as real life. And like other distributed apps, all nodes become more powerful and resilient as their connectivity increases.  Through sharing, the community grows, its resources increase, its efficiency improves. Pretty cool.

 

Hyper-Awareness

How do you experience the world? Through your senses. Your senses are your interface, your inputs. From there your brain produces understanding and response. But in a world that is increasingly connected, quantitatively and qualitatively, via computer and Internet, are our five senses enough? Our sphere of potential control has exploded. But control requires i/o. In a world where inputs are local this is not an issue, your senses work fine. However, when the inputs are remote what do you do? Instant messaging is a remote sensor. It senses input (presence) and delivers it to you over a network. Once received, your brain then knows what to do with it and can consider an output. But this is a rudimentary example. Think of your world, not locally, but globally. What does it include? How much is out of your reach right now. All of it, except what is directly around you...OR to which you are remotely connected somehow. That is what's new. Think about the information that you could connect to if you could but extend your senses. Maybe you could invent new ones to boot. Here's an example. You're in a traffic jam on the highway. The other side is flying along. You want to know if you should exit right away and try an alternate route but not if the jam you're in is short. But how can you tell? The radio says nothing. You know of no online service that could tell you. The answer is the drivers in the other lanes. They just drove past the line of traffic you're in and could easily tell you if it was a long one. But how do you reach them? How do you leverage other people's senses?! Think of the collective power of that. Certainly work is being done with cell phones and SMS. But it is still peer-to-peer. There are other opportunities to leverage sensors that are not human but "machine", placed by either you and/or others. The point is you start to utilize and consume virtual "senses". Does that mean you can expand YOU? If you embed these remote sensory organs into your perception, your hyper-perception, does that create a virtual octopus out of you? If you start to think/imagine that you can get answers to remote sensory questions, the way you perceive, control and respond to your world changes radically.

 

 

Object Sentences

I love language and have always been fascinated by its mechanics - how the assembly of words in a sequence can either convey meaning or sow confusion. Given my interest in the value of splitting structure (grammar/syntax) and content (words), language has been a potent catalyst. When I was younger, one of the questions I turned over in my head all the time was - why can't there be a language in which it was impossible to speak nonsense - meaning a language where ANY combination of words made sense somehow. It's a wacky question but points, I think, to an important strength of every successful language - it's incredible flexibility. Without the ability to write nonsense, nothing new could be done. Our idea of nonsense is subjective. The poetry of e.e. cummings would have likely been viewed as complete garbage 200 years ago. Or how about a computer program?? But the other thing that fascinates (inspires) me is that even though the interface between words is formally defined as grammar, it is also totally open, meaning those rules are really only a guide. Poetry routinely flouts the rules to great effect. If I know the words of more than one language the options for sentence construction increase, as long as the reader understands the languages used and doesn't mind dealing with no formal grammatical structure. Words, like atoms, seem capable of infinite types of combinations, but gain particular value when used with a logical grammar (e.g. Shakespeare or Hemingway). All of the above, by the way, is equally true of music.

Lately I have been puzzling over creating what in essence is a grammar for the construction of not word sentences but "object sentences". Is there a formal way to define how objects should/could go together to create a useful thing or "sentence"? Sounds crazy because maybe it is. But consider electronics, which for the purposes of this argument I will equate to a language - meaning it is contained and its moving pieces defined. At a very high level every device, gadget and gizmo is identical - power supply, processor(s), i/o devices. Mix them up in lots of different ways and you get everything from a digital watch, to an iPod, to an IBM mainframe; like the words of a sentence. Take vehicles of any kind - the same high level analysis produces the same result - all vehicles are identical. So what? My point is that, at least in some cases, there is a starting baseline of components (words) for the construction of certain categories of product. If you could elegantly define the interfaces between these basic categories perhaps you could start to generalize and identify an interface "grammar", at least for that "language". Would love to see that someday.