My other blogs

• The Expired Patents Magazine - This online mag is currently a blog, until I find a better way to share it with other writers and editors.
• (Hebrew) Pshat Pashute: Simple understandings in Jewish holy texts and Jewish philosophy. 
• QuarterBakery - home to half baked halfbaked-ideas of mine. Also some patents for sale. 
• The Agile User Experience blog - why is commercial software so much better looking and easier to use than open source. It does not necessarily have to be that way. Read more...

A new science of certainty

The following are tentative thoughts I am now putting together in a "new science of certainty": A fresh look and new perspective on what we understand and why.

I promise to clarify these ideas at length in a simple to understand and comprehensive way, but currently, this is just a list of points for people who are familiar with advanced physics, biology, philosophy, ecology, and also consiousness. I wish to connect these with sociology, cognitive psychology, and yes: history and culture.

Originally, I thought I would be working on this list within a week and a half, adding and editing it daily. I changed my mind and decided to pursue other projects of mind, and continue here only occasionally. Sorry.

a. Looking from the future to the past:
Teleology - the explanation of something happening, not as "caused by something", but rather as happening "in order to reach some objective" has been avoided by science at all costs, ever since Galileo and probably a while before that. Science has choosen the "cause and effect" paradigm, against Aristotle's "final cause" . But ever since special relativity, and more so following recent discoveries in particle physics and the development of new paradigms in Chaos theory and Evolutionary Algorithms and Emergence theory, this simplified paradigm of forward-only time, as well as the simplified Darwinian evolutionary "survival of the fittest" theory is begging for an update. In the field of evolution for example, it is clear that simple environmental survival is not the complete answer. Even though un-natural selection IS the way for man (and woman) to create blue parakeets, or better wheat, still, "natural selection" is not the only way in which the kingdom of nature evolves.
As proven in recent discoveries in the field of Genetics, extra-genetic evolution exists, including new extensions to Baldwin Effect. All this is not to say that evolution does not explain how we (people and the surroundings) came to be what we are, but rather to point out that it can be useful to change the point of view on the same known phenomena of the world (commonly called science), and look at it from the other side - the future.

b. Considering future certainty (or: Tracing reality in retrospective):
The science of uncertainty - is the basis for most of science today. The field of statistics deals with the uncertain, and brings about the paradigm of "the law of large systems". Entropy, one of the first discoveries of the study of thermodynamics, is essential to understanding the universe according to science. According to research and calculations, heat - or "untapped energy" will always be lost from any system. So that within time the whole universe is cooling down. This is not just an interesting fact, it is a running assumption, on which much of "hardcore" science relies, and it has an extreme affect on today's philosophy and pessimistic mindset.

But in reality, this "paradox" - where we see organized systems of life and organized forms of physical existence everywhere we look, and in fact we ourselves are an organized type of life form, despite the fact that everything is "Going back to dirt" (I wrote that only in a way of speaking) - despite the fact that entropy must grow with every flow of energy, spreading it out further in a way that it cannot be retrieved.

In reality we see that computer designed "genetic algorithms" with no memory whatsoever create fantastic shapes and behaviors, with a much less complex source of interactivity and with much less intensive quantities of possibilities than the real world.

It seems to me that the "missing link" is the fact that within every statistic shuffle of reality - be it matter, ideas, politics or any other field, there will always be the statistics of SOME sort of order. And THAT has never been taken into consideration.

To put it another way: When you shuffle a box of sand in a random way for long enough - what are the chances that a YOUR face will emerge in the sand, with all your features perfectly put? Of course we would all agree that the chances are effectively zero.

But what are the chances that SOME sort of shape that may look to someone as SOME sort of face of someone or of some animal will occur. The answer is: Look up at the sky. Those clouds are not drawing a dog for you - unless you believe in reading clouds.

The possibility of receiving spontaneous order - from a non ordered system or receiving power and work from a dispersed energy system. ... To be continued.

c. Spontaneous order

Gmail 'weather skin' not working (stuck on cloudy)

My GMail and iGoogle use a 'weather' skin, so I enjoyed the daytime sun or clouds, the evening sunset and the night stars, all correct according to the weather. Lately its stuck on a cloudy day. Apparently (click here to read the discussion) there were too many people like me who enjoyed it.

I suppose the guys at Google could write a small server that takes the info and distributes it, so that their servers don't get hit so much, but then its probably an issue of payment for the info, and not technical.

Meanwhile its a good idea to change your Gmail skin to something more functional, so you don't get totally alienated from the outside world...

Creating Music - comparing the new software

Comparing new music creating and music editing tools: MixCraft, TrakAxPC, Majix Music Maker, Adobe Audition, Cognitone and more... See edited post below.

1st of Av, 5,769. Moshe

דף הגוגל של משה פלאם התעדכן, עם חלק מהשירים הישנים
Music from Moshe Flam is now available on his google page.
http://pashute.googlepages.com

PC Music creating software

[Edited (1st of Av)! Even newer things have come up! Comparing TrakAxPC, Majix Music Maker, Mixcraft, and Adobe Audition]
Things have been happening in the PC music industry. There have been some developments lately and I want to tell you about them.

Most important: ONLINE MUSIC CREATION

• http://www.jamstudio.com/ - Thats NOT the ancient software JamStudio, no! It's a great site with great software. It even has an alternative to Band in a Box. (On other alternatives to BIAB read on).
• http://www.indabamusic.com/ - Didn't really check it out, but sounds just as neat. I think they give you software to download, and then you can upload the output to their site.

Here's a list of some new and great music creating software: Most of the following are not free, but cost VERY LITTLE, and give you what you always wanted: A music creation studio on your PC without the need for anything else.
All intuitive, with an attractive interface and great functionality, that you never had before:

So here goes: Comparing music creation software (they all have video synch and video effects too) : TrakAxPC, MixCraft4, Adobe Audition (formerly CoolEditPro), Majix Music Maker 15

• TrakAxPC - Free (open source) and great stuff. Comes with a limited amount of loops, but you can purchase more online directly from the program (that's the business idea...) or just get loops from anywhere. Has a somewhat none-intuitive integration with the beat synchronizer, and not too many editing tools integrated inside. Also some of the UI could do with an improvement, but all functionality is there! (and its free)
  
• MixCraft - !! Top and formost - easy to understand, feature packed out of the box, allows you to create audio and MIDI, directly on the PC without anything else.
  Helps you make loops and tons of other things. Watch it being used and taught on YouTube.
  
• Reaper - !! Almost as great, BUT: Only a "framework" to launch various external tools. When working with Audacity you have a winning pair. Seems more powerful than MixCraft but less intuitive to get working.
• Majix Music Maker 15 - Some UI quirks (cant change track order and other things like that), some installation problems (all solved after a while by googeling intensively) and not everything integrated, but the $56 package has many sounds, and the $99 premium is LOADED with interesting tools which are both simple to use and powerful. A video with all the exras is shown on the site. You get these great VSTs like a drum machine, but each one is a tool to learn. On the other hand, after experimenting 5 minutes with each you get most of it. They also some interesting unique features like automatic music following and a human harmonizer. So you are almost buying one of the expensive Yamaha keyboards.
• Adobe's Audition - with the unprecedented fantastic UI from the CoolEdit guys, is a whopping $350 - with no demo download! (From the website it seems somebody forgot to notify the rest of the "Adobe Production" sales people). Also missing seem to be out of the box VSTs (as opposed to Majix MM15, no drumboxes or voice harmonizer synths or anything fancy like that). They do have VST support and even made a crappy VST synth to show off. But then again, nobody compares to these guys in the intuitive interface and integration, or in the vast amount of audio (and video) effects and tools they give for the person creating the music.
  
• Cognitone's SynFire and Harmony Navigator have a new approach for music creation user experience - with a new way of showing the notes and chords, and creating music by setting and changing the chord progressions. Take a look at these interesting PC music composing software. Make way for the next Band in a Box replacement for making music that actually sounds good (and not out of a tin can). Problem is: Its EXPENSIVE.
  
• Abelton Live - great mixing and music creation software - I never liked their default sounds - their choices always gave me a headache, but the software comes with tons of options and is real easy to make anything you wish. And you can record LIVE!!! Take a look at the videos on their site. Tons of effects you used to search for and try to get from the web or from friends. No need to use stolen and hacked components installed. It also includes various instruments and loops (like latin/afro/carribian drumming loops and sounds).

Relatively new programs that bring in new paradigms

CoolEdit Pro that started it all is now Adobe Audition discussed above.

Propellerhead Reason - last time I tried my PC's weren't up to it, but I got the idea...

Fruity Loops - Another one of the founding fathers of new music software, and still improving every day! (Or as the topmost google result says: "Create Music in Minutes".

Acid Pro - now called Sony Music Creator is getting easier and better all the time. They started the audio looping thing, and automatically getting sounds to the correct beat.

Then there's the old windows 3.11 type interface software

• Finally PowerChords and Band in a Box (BIAB) where put together with some modern sound technology to get something that sounds almost good: Its called RealBand.

eXtreme Planning - a new paradigm for eXtreme Programming Agile Management

A new paradigm - along with software - is needed for management of agile development projects. Please see http://groups.msn.com/ExtremeProgrammingIsrael .