Andrew Bedno’s Blog

Minimum genome size is a pet topic of interest to me. How few instructions are required for self replication and survival? Science has been finding that minimum genomes are the domain of the most abundant organisms, an interesting expression of Darwinian logic. Current theory holds that among the smallest genomes is the SINGLE MOST COMMON ORGANISM on the planet, with maybe 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 individuals (many orders of magnitude more than all cells of all human). Behold an overview of THE most successful code, billions of years in development, custom made for mother Earth:

Had the privilege of doing route design for the April Chicago Critical Mass. I’m very happy with it as a fine production, for the clear presentation of dense data, the vast experience it distills, and the quality of collaboration. Extensive post ride review posted on CCM website includes links to tons of photo albums and videos from the event.

http://www.trekyourself.com

Summarizing me and maximum match in under 100 words is a great writing challenge. Here’s my latest clever-as-pi minimalist ad appearing as “TheAndrew” on Reader+Chemistry. Includes new dog/STD/med exclusions likely to whittle responses down to none, but I’m worth it.

4 of 5 exes recommend

Friends call me fun, bright and unusual. Some add really into skating, tells colorful stories, and a bit famous. All true.

Important to me are joy, sciences, arts, music, animalism, ideas, luck, truth, humor, TV, dancing, good of the many, and meta more.

Grand adventures included world travels, parenting, circuses, and big software clients.

I’ve enjoyed wondrous times with women from GED to PhD, from broads to muses, so you choose. But chance are if we’re to hang, that you have no dog nor STD nor psymed, and that you are vege-ish, fit-ish, live Chicago North-ish, and somehow shine.

“Adult Swim” is the leading edge of absurdist art, and has been for more than a decade.
I was raised on art appreciation. I’ve been to some of the great galleries of Europe, and relish Chicago’s museums and achievements in urban art. I’ve seen some of the great modern dance and performance companies of our time, listened to the likes of Cage/Copland/Glass/Residents, and followed philosophy of creativity musings of Picasso/Warhol/Pollock/etc.

It is from said vantage that I must champion the point that this not so humble anymore basic cable channel’s ongoing experiment is achieving never before accomplished heights in the craft of absurdist art. And as cable TV (rather than an event at the MCA), the significance of TOON’s accomplishments may go under recognized. Given its penetration to something near a half-million viewers per nightly per show, the Adult Swim block of shows may be doing more to sophisticate the conceptual aesthetic pallet of young Americans than an infinite number of field trips.

Adult Swim has been blowing me away for more than a decade with Space Ghost, which I’ve described as free form thought jazz put to cartoon, through Aqua Teens (which TV guide lists as “fast food items solve crimes”) and the brilliance of Sealab 2021, through the raw punk of 12oz Mouse and Squidbillies, to the recent haute parodies of Saul Molemen and Garth Merengue, to the absolutely jaw-dropping newest Superjail and Xavier, which are so intense that I sometimes single frame step them and use CC.

I mention this kudo now because last night, as their annual April Fools day gag, instead of their usual comedy block, they played in it’s entirety “The Room”, a bafflingly mediocre dry freshman melodrama. It was one of the boldest examples I’ve ever seen of the highest absurdist performance art exercise of challenging breaking point of audience endurance. Go read more about this atrocious film.

I just read a newly published technical analysis of the “Conficker C worm” program. Speaking as a pro, it is MUCH more sophisticated than I expected. This program could allow it’s unknown masters to command several MILLION computers at will. Though most assume it will be / has been used for spam and identity theft, it could be argued that it now represents as potentially dangerous a force as any rogue nation’s military. I kid you not. A variant was recently found to be IN USE by China spying on sensitive documents on thousands of computers worldwide.

Exciting political ramifications aside, I jot here for the tech savy as summary and as reminder about quality of craft:
The Conficker worm is modern and maintained, and even auto-updates itself after infection. No hack job with luck, this is the structured efficient work of software pros. It is carefully designed to persist, defend, spread, and be loyal. Every typical detection and removal approach has been addressed, including multiple autonomous self-defense threads, anti-tracing logic, dynamic file names with NT delete protection, obfuscation of registry and file changes, automatic removal of rollback points and more! It even self-patches the very buffer overrun flaws which allow it to infect at first. Networking has dramatically improved over prior worms, adding massive domain skipping and P2P transfers! It also disables firewalls and redirects DNS through its own filters. When an infected computer is online, there’s not much that can be done even at ISP and router levels to stop it from reaching other drones. It spreads aggressively directly through networks (no user actions such as opening attachments required), exploiting both buffer overrun AND weak password vulnerabilities. It may also piggybacking on removable media, and be directly communicated through links to toxic websites or by poisoned files. Finally, its command channel uses state of the art encryption, so that only its masters will command it.

Wasn’t this the last Die Hard movie? Muggles, just make sure you have CURRENT top quality virus protection running full-time. Late note: 60 MINUTES just played a new piece on the subject.

Recent reminders that I’m not young:
1. The phrase “you don’t have to play blue” has apparently become completely unfamiliar, even to performers in near vaudevillian arts. I need fresher heckles than Don Rickles era.
(It refers to not needing to use dirty cheap baudy purile adolescent jokes to be funny and succeed in comedy, maybe from “blue light” being midnight shows. OMG, neither “baudy” nor “purile” are known to spellchecker?!?)
2. TWO shows are SOLD OUT out at House of Blues for “Lady GaGa w/ The White Tie Affair & Chester French” What?!?! OK, saw her later on some E talk show, seems fun, hot like young Kylie Minogue. Says she’s from the year 3000.

I just published by far the most advanced track I’ve ever produced, and it’s about (and with approval of) my friend and performance partner of several years Susan Hooper. 130bpm 7:26. Carefully produced with every aspect designed specifically for her personal history and tastes. My favorite and longest work to date, took ~20hrs. Overall structure is seven repeats of a long dark hard-core synth minor Ostinato phrase (music term, Italian for obstinate) chord progression, where last bar of each repeat perversely warps back under start (tempo corrected free-form pitch-bend). Chord movement represents (home then) two steps forward one step back. Complex forms are carefully assembled but fall to entropy, repeated with increasingly intensity over full song story. Step-wise progress then setback, and threes, are present at multiple structural, melodic and bass levels. Bassline is intended as hot electro-goth dance club playable (evolved from “Systematic Breakdown” sample). Underlying clickities represent fast brain, sinuous elements represent feminine thin physique and liquid motion. Stream of consciousness flashes of circus, carnival, freakshow, fire, typing and more reflect history and likes. Gets a bit dark sometimes, but so does she. Consciously also applies many of my current elements of interest including driving minor bass, the “Amen” pattern, percussion melodies and atonality, beatmatched absurdism, longer form and more. This track is Susan approved, none is intended sarcastically, and it may be suitable as performance background music. Best loud on excellent headphones. (Hear more Andrew tracks here)

http://bedno.com/media/andrew/Andrew_Bedno-20090303-Susansides.mp3

Apple accepted by my first iPhone WebApp. That’s Apple’s name basically for programs which run in the browser, typically written in JavaScript. They can be placed on main screens just like other apps, and run locally cached without Internet. This elegant solution meets a vast spectrum of needs, while simplifying development to a new low, resulting in a few thousand produced like mine (which is #3442). My previous handsfree talking Twister spinner for iPhone was just A/V, and so doesn’t count as an app. My usual practice with new devices is to code a useful and needed but short new app, as opposed to simply porting a textbook classic for example. So I wrote a tool I’ve been wanting, under 500 code lines, even made a custom icon. Main lesson was learning device’s JS implementation peculiarities and gathering snippets.
Weighted Attribute Balance Evaluator: A decision making assistance tool, for cases such as product comparisons, investments, and any choices worth more serious consideration than coin or hunch. This grid allows describing both the level (quality/severity/power) of an attribute instance, and the weight (importance) of that attribute, either of which can be negative. Impacts are simple products of (weight*factor)*(level*scaling), giving net as balance. Use for single go/no-go evaluation by listing/weighting/valuing pros and cons (using negatives) on a single grid. Or use multiple same attribute grids to compare options using a common parameter/criteria set. The program is pure JavaScript running on local browser for iPhone WebApp use without Internet. + adds a row (up to 30), COLUMN headings sort, UPDATE saves current work to URL for bookmarking, EMAIL sends it, CLEAR reloads blank form. Example templates such as smoking cost/benefits, personal compatibility, employment review, and grant criteria evaluation are included.
Interested iPhone/iPod users (and others) browse to: http://bedno.com/m/i/wabe.htm

It’s on Apple’s recent iPhone WebApps front page right now (but will age off), and has an Apple WebApp detail record here.

Update: Following this introductory excercise, I have now formally enrolled in the iPhone Developers Program. In a few months I expect to begin publishing small items to the app store, and can accept iPhone programming projects professionally. But I need someone’s used MacBook.

Today marked a week since my dear pet fish Jesus 2 last significantly moved.  The time had come, especially with it being the Sabbath, to help make destiny’s way merciful.  First I made peace, commending this mighty micro on his honor and service and friendship.  Then a few drops of oil of clove, and commitment to his memory.  Then as he drifted to rest on the glass pebbles, shots of scotch all around and memories of glorious times shared.

As Jesus 2 gulped his last slow breaths a rumble deep in my guts began, a roiling lava of all I felt for that fish, and as he gulped his last it burst forth as a MIGHTY YELL TO STOVOKOR “BEWARE! A TINY MIGHTY WARRIOR FISH IS ABOUT TO ARRIVE!!!”

The ritual completed, the body only an empty shell, I flushed it away.

More matter less art: Overfed again, leads to terminal constipation. While the fishfood package says 3-4 pellets 3-4 times a day (9-16 total), the better figure I’ve gleaned from many readings is more like 3 a day, once a day, and you can skip an occasional day.  Research shows such restricted feeding, plus activity, MULTIPLIES Betta life span.  Another MAJOR PROOF about the longevity value of calorically restricted dieting.

Savor hunger.

Catching an SNL rerun just now just reminded me of how intensely boring I find Kanye West. I would rather listen to cspan. Inspired by moment I’m gonna throw down some long brewed thoughts.
I’ve withheld judgement for what seems like years, but now I’ve seen maybe a dozen Kanye performances on TV and to a one he was off-key, off-balance, and seeming to forget his own lyrics. Even his anti-Bush tirade though highly sensationalized, when watched objectively looks like a drunk I’d avoid at a party. As far as I can tell, in true contemporary American style what he excels at above all (and almost solely) is self esteem. Am I wrong?
What does it say about us, that someone so lacking in their alleged art is elevated to megastardom?!? A matter of opinion? No. Decades of musical performance, composition and review experience give me the right to judge. I do not recognize the death of the value of expertise.
To legions he’s a king, yet to me he’s like TV to a cat. I sense there’s motion, but don’t quite get it because it’s missing a dimension. Does he represent more than just the music? Does he speak for a people? Am I too old? No. Emperor Kanye is wearing no clothes, but apparently America took the blue pill.

There’s a new song or two posted here. Trying to weekly produce 16-64 measures of 4/4 at 120bpm, big interesting bedrock loops, then eventually string together really long works. Similarly, I’ve long suggested that musical Exquisite Corpse could be well implemented online, given simple agreement on key, bpm, timesig and measures. Recent searches showed some major composers through history have done this, but no contemporary web service.

On conversationally describing my software dev specialty recently as communications with odd devices (PointOfSales/BarCodes/LogicControllers), I was accurately called a Protocol Droid. Super funny. Yes, I understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.  And recently seen in a programmer’s sig: “Only Chuck Norris can divide by zero.”

Many recent days were spent upgrading the ChicagoFun.com listings management system to what we’re calling version 8. ChicagoFun.com is NOT my site and I take no credit/blame for most of it, but I’ve been coding their back-end for five years. The current rev is robust and comprehensive, fully template driven with nested substitutions. Next I plan to add self maintenance, and convert more content to dynamic generation. To performers considering buying listing I’ll tell you honestly from the back-side, ChicagoFun.com gets some serious traffic. Though pricing sets the bar a bit high, for the right type of services a listing certainly pays for itself.

In other news:

The Vermont Teddy Bear commercials before Valentines Day were sickening. This formerly innocent product was promoted in continuous double-entendre with quotes like “It’s bigger than I thought” and “You’ll get it overnight, guaranteed” Also new 6 Hour Energy Shot commercials are so bad porno crass, that I may change brands. Finally anyone hear that hyper headset freak doing the food chopper infomercial, who throws in lines that make it clear he has serious issues?!? American TV ad classiness is in free-fall.

Army suicides recently reached an all time high of 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers (128 in 2008), up 25% over prior year! Exceeding the civilian rate for the first time since Vietnam. More blood on Bush’s hands. The army is literally encouraging “battle buddies” to keep an eye on each other.

The GSM (cell phone manufacturers world-wide) have finally agreed (even Apple?) to standardize future phone chargers (but not data?) to use the micro-USB type connector (already used by Motorola). About time. Now IMAGINE that happening for laptops and other tech! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm…… Standards.

FINALLY there is one more story a few weeks back, fortunately only touching me tangentially, which like only a rare few each year, is SO SORDID that only my closest will ever hear details, yet so urgent that others must learn from it. So I remind on some core bottom lines: 1. Jealousy is a monster which can turn friends into criminals. Only blind fears and obsolete expectations from dead religions give meaning to infidelity, and that way madness lies. One can own love no more than one can cage fire. Take ten deep breaths and move on. 2. NEVER write your email password anywhere ever nor ever give it to anyone no matter how seemingly trustworthy or well known, and if you ever have change it now.

Nuff said.

Today we became the FIRST generation to experience a satellite-on-satellite crash!  What a fabulously improbable century.  All human artificial satellite endeavors ever have fundamentally depended on the “big sky” principle.  Though cautious scientists speak of thousands of orbiting objects, the geometric nature of area dwarfs them to insignificance, so little international coordination (which could have averted this) has historically been needed. The greatest threats are dirt and screw sized particles, and only a few unintentional collisions even on that scale have ever occurred.  But in our generation, in a space HUNDREDS OF MILES DEEP with SURFACE AREA BIGGER THAN A PLANET, two machines the size of dumpsters crashed.  The interesting twist is that altitude, speed, and perpendicular angles almost maximized the debris clouds, VASTLY increasing the chances of subsequent collisions. Literally thousands of killer shards travelling over 5 miles a second in orbit for decades. Expect a new attitude among concerned scientists and maybe event abatement discussions. Oh and by the way, forget manned mars missions in your lifetime.

Possibly THE sickest non-imaginary non-criminal thing to reach mainstream in hundreds of years was recently brought to my attention by someone who saw one (thanx Susan!).   LobsterZone is a claw/crane type game where players try to grab a lobster, which is then cooked for them.  Hundreds of them out there, with dozens produced monthly for years now.  Incredibly their website includes videos and photos, and dismisses PETA protests that the “machine turns torture and death into a game.”

In honesty if I ran across one I’d be torn between leaving the establishment, or staring mesmerized in macabre fascination. If this is legal, neigh “the most exciting development to hit the vending machine industry in the last decade”, then Monty Python’s Mouse Organ is no longer absurd.  I blame Bush for raising the cruelty tolerance bar.

This article chronicles my Lipomectomy. I’ve had a bump gradually growing on my forehead for years. I believe, and there is some support for the theory, that it evolved from the site of an injury, a concussion from a skating fall. Bigger than a nickle, the past few months people (except for closest friends who know of it) noticed it a few times, asking if I’d bumped my head. Inspired by friends where one’s body is one’s instrument for which expenses can be rationalized, and by recent dentistry, I decided to at least check what removal would cost. Research found Liposa (benign small fat lump) removal is one of THE most common cosmetic surgeries. iPhone found a great and extremely experienced surgeon walking distance (Swedish Cov). Had it looked at, quoted just $400, any time.
Scheduled in December, then rethought it as a mark of wisdom thing like gray hair or red hat. Finally decided if choice is noticeable bump or tiny scar, that I heal well and LIKE scars! So I rebooked for Tuesday Jan 27th.
Walked in to surgical office, into huge chair like captain’s con. Dr. and I chatted about my interest in Anatomy and my amazement at what he does, and the courage and competence required. Personally I’m fascinated with the scale; as face paint is to tattoo, tattoo is to his work. And I feel there are few subjects more important than anatomy; it IS your body’s technical manual. I asked that he feel free to talk through the procedure, and that he make me handsome.
Local anaesthetic injections and pressure. Local sterilization, surgical area cover, secondary sterilization, scalpel epi, scalpel sub, common to bleed due to scalp vascularization, spread muscle, cut body from dura, restore muscle, dissolving stitches sub, nylon stitches epi, surgical tape, gauze. Cut aligns with wrinkles, bigger than planned due to sub-muscular (a common unpredictable).  Later I had crushing headaches, but only after too much strenuous activity. Stayed low and properly nourished next few days.  Began occassionally airing after few days but keep bandaged until stitches out week later.  Afterward tape as needed to relieve stretching, apply vitamin e occassionally but no anti-bio needed, wash gently.