Skycons is a set of ten animated weather glyphs, procedurally generated by JavaScript using the HTML5 canvas tag.

I personally am worried by the dependency on Evernote, but it seems like a great way to get a web presence if you’re a heavy user already.

John Frusciante releases a song in memory of his friend.

I’ve finally come to terms with the movie Sourcecode. But at first, I hated it.

The premise is that scientists have built a machine that can:

1. extract remnants of memory from a person’s brain and
2. allow a 2nd person’s consciousness to then enter those memories and experience them firsthand.

They then use this machine to have someone enter the memory of a person present at a train bombing, so that he can find the culprit and stop the next crime.

The ridiculous premise bothered me more than it probably should have, because it seemed like the movie had tried to come up with a reasonable scientific explanation but had failed miserably.

If the main character were entering a person’s extracted memory, then once he deviated even slightly from the original experience, the memory should have turned hazy, become broken, or disappeared entirely. The fact that he was able to change the outcome within the memory suggests either that he was projecting his own self-conscious upon the memory, in which case the outcome is fabricated and therefore useless, or that the experience was not actually a memory but was in fact a separate world/timeline.

They actually touch upon the latter possibility and show scientists wondering if maybe that is what’s happening, but the idea that scientists had tried to create a memory playback machine and had accidentally made a parallel dimension generator is ludicrous. The movie’s presentation of this alternate explanation made me reject the possibility immediately.

But that is actually the far more interesting explanation. Consider that the scientists had intended to create a parallel dimension generator, and had succeeded. They needed memory remnants taken from someone’s brain to specify the junction point in our dimension’s timeline, and the machine can then branch off space-time at that point to create a separate timeline. Further, they are able to inject a person’s consciousness into the new timeline, and when he dies in that other timeline, his consciousness jumps back (the last point is iffy, but I’m willing to let that slide).

Now, the movie becomes a rich philosophical discussion about the value of life, and what you can consider to be a soul.

The scientists are aware that they are creating a new branch of space-time every time they use the machine. Every time a train blows up, that train’s passengers die. We now have the moral dilemma of how much value to place on those lives. They might merely be reflections of persons in our timeline, but they act, think, and feel individually and thus may very well have their own souls.

The main character, then, would need to be fed a false explanation about how this is a “memory-entering machine” and that nothing he does in the memory matters. Each time the subject enters the “memory” he is actually creating a new branch in space-time and is killing another train’s worth of passengers, but he must not find out about this. Only by doing this can they have him achieve results without regard for the consequences of his actions.

Perhaps the movie intended to present this idea all along, but I think they did a poor job if that is the case. Everybody in the movie knows that the machine is just playing back a memory, and so the main characters actions, however heroic and emotionally rich as they may be, are just the result of him not being able to think rationally and understand their explanation of what the machine actually does.

What the movie needed was a single scene, wherein it is revealed to the viewer that the scientists are aware they are branching off new dimensions, and that are outright lying to the main character.

Each time the scientists reassure the main character and convince him to try again, we see the moral dilemma that they are facing. They know that they are creating lives only to kill them repeatedly. Yet they must hide this knowledge and show a calm face because success of the mission is paramount. Each time they see the main character’s efforts to connect to people in the alternate timeline, they understand the meaning that this has but must discourage him and tell him that his actions are unproductive.

However, it seems the main character has some intuition that something’s not right with their explanation. He shows an irrational care for the people in the scene he enters, and treats each as an actual person rather than as a shadow of one. The scientists try all they can to remind him that they are just memories of people who have already died, but he is not convinced.

Perhaps instinctively, he shows a strong need to leave some trace of himself from within the timeline he enters. He tries to reach out to his father and improve his relationship with him, and he attempts to contact the government agency to say that the experiment was a success, leaving some trace of his efforts behind. If what he is entering is fact a separate timeline, then his actions have meaning, and shows his innate human need to have some trace of his life remain.

The addition of that single scene would add so much to the movie’s scope of philosophical exploration, and turn the movie into much more than a simple action thriller.

Oh well.

The New York Times crossword puzzle the day before the 1996 presidential election.

The relevant clues:

Across

1. Forecast
2. Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper (!), with 43-Across
3. Title for 39-Across next year

Down

1. Sewing shop purchase
2. Short writings
3. Trumpet
4. Black Halloween animal
5. French 101 word
6. Provider of support, for short
7. Much-debated polital inits.

These mostly-still images with subtle animations add a great new depth to photographs.

See more at Jamie Beck’s Tumblr

After the 3/11 earthquake, #prayforjapan was a hashtag used for people around the world to send messages of encouragement to Japan. prayforjapan.jp is a site that is collecting heartwarming tweets from Japanese users, as well as messages from outside the country.

I got emotional after reading just a few of these messages. The earthquake was a terrible tragedy, but amidst all of that I feel admiration for the spirit of the Japanese people. Messages like this show that people have really come together to help one another, and it give me great hope for the country’s recovery.

I was sitting at the train station exhausted, when some of the homeless people came to me gave me some of their cardboard to keep warm. Even though we always ignore them as we walk by. It’s so warm.

During my 4 hour walk back home, there was a woman with a sketchbook that said “Please use our bathroom!” who had made it available for public use. Japan is truly the warmest country in the world. I started crying after seeing that.

I saw a group of children saying to a train station worker, “Thank you for working hard to keep the trains running yesterday.” The worker was crying. I was sobbing.

Chrono Trigger basically began as a jam session — a couple of star designers and a manga artist getting together to brainstorm and seeing what they might produce. No pressure. No cynicism.

[ . . . ]

Ultimately, the best thing about Chrono Trigger is something that can’t quite be quantified in terms of mechanics, aesthetics, or plot. It’s impossible to play without getting the sense that that its designers really had a lot of fun in conceiving it (barring a stomach ulcer or two) and were wholly dedicated to making sure they got it right. Chrono Trigger is a labor of love effected by a group of very talented game designers, and their enthusiasm for the project permeates every aspect of the experience.

Talk about nostalgia. I still consider Chrono Trigger to be the best game of all time, and this article expresses its appeal perfectly. If you haven’t played it before, fire up the emulator. If you have played it before, reading this will make you want to play again.

I might even say that I didn’t grow up in any meaningful way before I started high school.

I’ve always felt like I have very limited memories of middle school and elementary school. The problem, as I realized recently, isn’t that I have few memories. Rather, it is that my memories don’t seem to include my thoughts – what I wondered, what I thought about, and how I felt about certain things. When probing my memories I get plenty of clear images, but I can’t help but feel like an observer; I can see my past-self doing things and reacting to events, but I have no idea what that child was thinking. I mean, I can guess. I’m sure I’d be pretty good at guessing, since I know the kid well, but it’s strange that this isn’t part of the memory.

This isn’t the case for high school though. I can definitely see parts of my personality in that past self. My emotions come back vividly, and they are as much a part of my memories as the actual events. For me, high school is when everything happened. I had my first romantic relationship. I solidified precious long-term friendships. I opened up to people and brought them into my life. I discovered my passions, and followed them with all of my might. I became closer to my friends than I believed possible. I began to seriously think about the future. I kept dark secrets, and shared them with a trusted few. I cried as many tears of happiness as I did tears of pain. I was confused about the world, and sought to understand it. I struggled to understand myself.

All of these invaluable experiences are what allowed me to grow up. And I believe that it was made possible by those around me, who shared my experiences and allowed me to join theirs. By no means do I claim to be grown-up now, but my point is this – in high school, I took my first steps towards adulthood.

When we were kids, we didn’t use online forums, message boards, or FAQs. Yet somehow, every single child knew that if your videogame wasn’t working, you just needed to blow in the cartridge. And it’s not like anybody documented Red Rover or Wall Ball or Groundies/Lava Monster. Kids just talked to each other and figured it out.